What counts towards the 250 hours required for CPL? FAR 61.129 states that "for a commercial pilot certificate with an airplane category and single-engine class rating must log at least 250 hours of flight time as a pilot that consists of at least:

  (1) 100 hours in powered aircraft, of which 50 hours must be in airplanes.

  (2) 100 hours of pilot-in-command flight time, which includes at least—

      (i) 50 hours in airplanes; and

      (ii) 50 hours in cross-country flight of which at least 10 hours must be in airplanes.

  (3) 20 hours of training on the areas of operation listed in §61.127(b)(1) of this part that includes at least—

      ..."

What counts towards the 250 hours of flight time as a pilot?  Planes? Helicopters? Gliders? Hangliders? Paragliders? Paramotors? Wingsuits? Hot air balloons? Lawn chairs with helium balloons attached to them?

I would think that the skills from flying balloons is not very transferable to planes, so what are people's views on half your hours being from "flying" a balloon, or something similar?  E.g. What do pilot examiners, employers, insurance agents, think?
It's just what the regulation says:  you must log at least 250 hours of flight time and at least 50 of those hours must be PIC time in airplanes and 10 hours of cross country PIC time in airplanes.  As for the other two hundred hours?  They can be in any other kind of aircraft you like.

It's actually a very common way to build raw hours.  A lot of fixed wing pilots get rotorcraft certificates in a fraction of the total time than if they started training from scratch in helicopters.  It also works well with gliders, hot air balloons, you name it.