Ball Pit, Phase II

Posted byRandall 266 Comments on Ball Pit, Phase II

I posted a while back about a ball pit I’d installed in my room. Everything in that post was true, but the pictures were a little misleading.

Looking at that, you don’t necessarily realize how cramped those people are. I framed the pictures to make it look larger than it actually was (THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID). In fact, the ball pit was only about the size of a large bathtub or small jacuzzi. In the pictures on the site, it was barely deep enough to be buried in, and when we shrunk the area to make it deeper, it was barely big enough for two people.

When people came in and saw it, they were always startled at how small it was (also what she said). There was no room for hide and seek, and barely even space for surreptitious ball-pit groping. This was a terrible state of affairs. It was nice to sit in, but really, why bother having a ball pit if we were gonna do such a half-assed job of it?

Well, as of this week, the situation has been rectified.

We all chipped in and quintupled the volume of the ball pit. It’s now set up opposite a hacked-together server-projector system (yes, that means Guitar Hero in the ball pit — that’s a controller you see on the left). It’s lined with blankets and foam padding, and is oh so comfortable. We’ve had two people fall asleep in it already.

For sanitary reasons, we of course have a few rules:

It’s still only half the size of the recently-constructed Last.fm ballpit. But it’s finally big enough to really hide in, stretch out, and grab someone’s ass without them being sure who did it.

On the other hand, it has the slightly unnerving effect that we now have no idea how many people are in the apartment at any given time.

For science, the next experiment will be “what do cats think of ball pits?”

266 replies on “Ball Pit, Phase II”

  1. I second the videotaping of the cat experiment. I think the cat would be smart enough to climb out on the makeshift metal fence, once it stopped flailing about and sank to the bottom, then found its way to the edge. On the other hand, it may just sit there and wait for you in a cold fury, in which case you would have to extract it manually. I suspect it’ll be a lot like going into a shark tank blindfolded.

    Good luck with that.

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  2. Janeane Garofalo causes great conflict within me. On the one hand she is made of hotness. Oh. Yeah. On the other hand, she smokes. Smoking is the anti-hotness as far as I’m concerned except… she’s still hot. Can it be that I actually tolerate smokers? That I actually find smoking (gulp) attractive under some circumstances? Say it ain’t so!

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  8. “i put on my robe and wizard hat”
    that’s genious, the legend of bloodninja lives on.
    wish i could have a tshirt with that sentence on it…

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  9. “Was the 1,000-2,000 ball number for the first iteration of said pit, or this new one?” I really want to know the answer to that. I checked Tinker Tots and it’s about twenty cents a ball for crush-proof. With one or two thousand balls that only runs you up about $400 tops, which I would totally be willing to pay for a good-sized ball pit. But as you’re approaching the thousand-dollar range, my willingness decreases.

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  10. If the cat gets lost in the ball pit… and Randall loses a small radioactive substance in the pit (which I’m sure he has just lying around), and he also loses a geiger counter connected to a hammer and flask of hydrocyanic acid (which he would ALSO just have lying around… does the cat both enjoy and not enjoy the ball pit at the same time?

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  11. I don’t see why one would outlaw heavy petting – although the ball marks might leave some explaining to do… when I saw the first installment, I have to admit, it was one of the first things I thought!!!

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  12. I bet you could do something very Schrödinger’s cat-esque with the ball bit. Once the people are in there — how do you prove that they’re REALLY in there without looking?

    Oh, and also — D: can i has come over now plox?

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  13. Yeah, Skippy’s had a long standing “no sex in the ball pit” rule.

    “Children Ohio” is not as cool as “Have Bedroom” I’m disappointed with you ReCaptcha.

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  14. It’s funny how you associate the ‘robe and wizard hat’-quote with Heavy Petting 😉

    Off-topic I have to admit your comics have been getting better and better lately, some really really funny ones so far (where I’ve been laughing in public and non-geeks come and look and stare at me confused) – this sort of humor is perfect 😀

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  15. Sorry to double post, but our tests have generally proven that cats hate ball pits. Probably because they are afraid of the prospects of people not knowing that they’re in there. I bet dogs would be more likely to enjoy it. But I have no test subjects for that.

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  16. “On the other hand, it may just sit there and wait for you in a cold fury, in which case you would have to extract it manually.”
    Would cats actually sink through the balls? Would they dig? If the above is true, then sending ball-pitted cats (via eBay) would be an interesting way to conduct a ball pit war. Alternatively, use the Schrodinger-cat effect to introduce uncertainty in the cat’s position, causing it to spontaneously move to another ball pit. I wonder about the aerodynamic properties of ball pit balls — would they be strong enough to shoot into low orbit and send raining down upon hapless inhabitants of other ball pits? Maybe all ball pits around the world are the same and connected to a secret ball-pit dimension.
    “My god, it’s full of guitars.”

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  18. You are well advised to enforce a no food/drinks rule. At one point I installed a ball pit in my room, and after several drunken escapades, it was no longer fit for human habitation. What a mess to clean up… yeech!

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  19. I am reminded of L-Space, from Discworld, the dimension that contains and is contained by all libraries everywhere, ever, including the ones that never got built.

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  22. “I second the videotaping of the cat experiment. I think the cat would be smart enough to climb out on the makeshift metal fence, once it stopped flailing about and sank to the bottom, then found its way to the edge. On the other hand, it may just sit there and wait for you in a cold fury, in which case you would have to extract it manually. I suspect it’ll be a lot like going into a shark tank blindfolded.

    Good luck with that.”

    Wearing a suit made out of fish, while pouring blood into said tank.

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  24. Dang. Now with the popularity of ball pits, the price of balls will go up. Time to find something more fun and be a head of the curb of interesting furniture. (I went from LoveSac to ball pits, the sex jokes just increased exponentially.)

    Maybe a giant trampoline in my apartment. Hmm…

    And I agree, please upload that sign.

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  25. I just want to say: when I was a kid, my dad built a little room underneath the stairs that led into the basement of our house with the express purpose of making a ball pit for my siblings and myself. It was about an 8’x4′ room and it defined my childhood. My dad is the best.

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  29. you know, if you’re worried about people hiding in the ball pit, you could use cats as a safety measure.
    “hmmm… i’m not sure if i’m the only person in my apartment. let’s check”
    *tosses kitty into ball pit*

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  30. Hey Randall, i have no idea if you personally read these comments, or if the robot now does that too. I’m a recent convert to your strip, and i’ve found even more jewels of awesomeness in your blog. These days i go to class, do homework, and wait for every other day so that a new xkcd comic will make it out. I’m seriously reconsidering the value of the weekend. My better two thirds are currently at different Boston/Cambridge colleges. I’m not in a very complicated, emotionally invested threesome, i’m one part of a set of triplets. Please don’t do any strips on making out with sharers of a womb. I’m looking into building a ball pit of my own.

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  31. For SCIENCE!, the next experiment will be “what do cats think of ball pits?”

    fixed that for you.

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  32. I’ve figured out that it would cost about $700 to fill my room from floor to ceiling (7 feet deep).
    To prevent balls from spilling out of the door when it was opened, I could have a turnstile just inside the door, with the bars spaced closely enough that the balls couldn’t fit through the gaps. Of course, one would have to reduce the density with which the balls were packed in order to keep them from getting stuck in the turnstile and completely blocking access to the room.

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  34. this thread is made of awesome, the cats did it for me, I think I teared up a bit.

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  35. Lovin’ the Bash reference. Also, how long before someone hides in the ball pit to attack unsuspecting guests, then someone enters the room and jumps straight in the ball pit, crushing them?

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  36. Lovely.

    It’d be super annoying to have to look for car keys or cell phones in that though, so maybe you want to add something to your sign about leaving small personal belongings (that excludes body parts, before anyone starts that’s-what-she-said-ing) outside the pit.

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  37. Just for calculations, how many balls are required to fill / can fit inside 1 cubic foot? I want balls so bad, but just need and idea of how many to fill my space.

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  38. I love the little olive floating in the water bottle!

    I wish I had a ball pit… or friends to fill it with.

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  39. “To prevent balls from spilling out of the door when it was opened, I could have a turnstile just inside the door, with the bars spaced closely enough that the balls couldn’t fit through the gaps. Of course, one would have to reduce the density with which the balls were packed in order to keep them from getting stuck in the turnstile and completely blocking access to the room.”
    First of all, it would probably cost more than that. Also, if you filled the room completely, with any stable packing, you wouldn’t be able to turn the turnstile or even move into the room. Even if you managed that, the balls would fall out as the turnstile turned. Sorry for poking holes in your fantasy. 🙂

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  41. When you finally sober up in a few years you’ll realize just how much of a monumental waste of money and time this was

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  43. @Greg H:

    Oh, that is so incredibly true.
    Things that are this much fun are never a waste of time and money.

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  44. Pingback: Mind Gravy » Blog Archive » xkcd

  47. after and seeing the pix readin the blogs about how awsome this is ive decided im definity getting a ball pit when i have the room nd the funds for it

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  48. “That looks awesomemazing! Make sure to get footage of the cat as it keeps itself out of the pit by hovering.”
    No, that would be a squirrel…

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  49. @Cesium:
    noooo, I think you would discover that cats too would quickly refine the ability to hover – have you ever tried to put a cat near a vacuum? In a bathtub? It’s amazing they way they can defy gravity.

    How deep is the ballpit? I’ve seen cats ploofed into snow, and they just bounce about unhappily until they find solid footing – but ball pits offer semi-footing, and the cat wouldn’t immediately hit “bottom”, depending on the depth. Hmmmm…. I am seriously intrigued by this “Ballpit part III – the Cat Dimension” experimental foray.

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  50. All that you guys are going to realize about the cat is that it will walk upon the top, kinda like a non-Newtonian fluid

    The REAL question is what would the orange bunny do with a ballpit?
    sorry Lem and all those at frozenreality.co.uk

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