September 23 was the fourth night of Season 23 which means that we finished the rotation between banks 4 and 5, known as Democritus and Heraclitus after two pre-Socratic philosophers. Their traditional epithets are “the Laughing Philosopher” and “the Weeping Philosopher” respectively, but whether the night left someone laughing or weeping didn’t seem to correlate with the bank. For my part, I had a much better time with Heraclitus than Democritus, which suits me fine, given that Heraclitus is my favorite pre-Socratic. Heraclitus is also known as the philosopher who said that fire was the fundamental principle of the universe, so that must be why I had a hot streak.
At one point I got called over to Monster Bash to resolve an issue in which the right flipper button was getting stuck. I did what I have seen other TDs that I respect do in this situation. I hit the button 100 times to see if the problem recurred. Since it didn’t, I said “play on” and left. Minutes later they fetched me to say it happened again and this time I was able to reproduce it. I expressed reluctance to bother Derik about it, and Peter said that he thought it was just gummed up with something sticky. Joseph suggested he could clean it with his hand sanitizer if he had a cleaning tool, so Peter went and got a napkin and folded it up. Peter stood there working on jamming the folded up paper in the crevice around the button, and reported that it was working. He did not notice Derik creeping up behind him and then standing there with an amused “WTF” expression on his face.
Speaking of WTF, the B division on Tuesday Night Smackdown stole the spotlight from A with a much longer game and a very dramatic finish. Joseph (as player 2) had finished the game on James Bond with 626.7M, and Jason (as player 4) looked almost certain to overtake him. When Jason drained through the left outlane, everyone watching (including, probably, Jason) thought he had won on bonus. The score display was interrupted by a prompt for player 2 to enter initials for the high score board, which I assumed would be followed by a prompt for player 4 to enter them also. Instead, after Joseph finished putting in his JFN, it went to a match screen. A couple of stunned beats followed as people registered what had happened. Jason had finished at 625.8M, less than a million short. Danny, meanwhile, had destroyed everyone with a big game of Ghostbusters in the A division.
Having completed League Night #4, we are now at the halfway mark of the season. Brian laughed off his rivals with a win in Democritus (bank 3), while Tim triumphed and left the competition crying in Heraclitus (bank 4). In the overall standings, Brian is at the top with a mere single point lead over Tim. Danny is another three points behind Tim. The cut-line for A division is currently between Joseph in eighth and Devon in ninth, with only two points between them. With half the season left, no one can feel secure. We’ll be starting the second half tonight, and this will also be the last chance for any new joiners for Season 23. After Night #5, new players can still attend but will be recorded as guest players without official standings.
