[table id=26 /]
These are the final results for the regular season and will be used to seed the playoffs on November 10. The top eight will play in A division and everyone else will play in B. Players must have attended at least four meetings to play.
[table id=25 /]
Alex and Sarah had yet to make up two games due to machine malfunction when these results were posted, so their scores in this table are incomplete.
Tomorrow, October 27, will be the eighth meeting of Season 5, and will be the last chance to earn points for seeding for the final tournament. The game lineup for the night is to be determined. It will also be the league costume contest, and there will be trophies given for first, second, and third place costumes, determined by a vote of present league members. Hope to see you all at 7 p.m. at the Avenue!
October 13 was the seventh meeting of eight for the season, leaving players with little time left to improve their seeding for the final playoffs. We were supposed to play Getaway, but Chris managed to break it (or, perhaps I should say, failed to talk it out of breaking) during a practice game, so Indiana Jones got moved into the rotation in its place. Then Todd managed to get a ball wedged irretrievably in Fish Tales. An attempt was made to turn Fish Tales completely on its side to get the ball loose, but Avenue staff put the kibosh on this endeavor. So it was out with FT and in with Monster Bash, joining Tales of the Arabian Nights and Lord of the Rings for the night’s lineup.
This was a night of homecomings, as Greg, Chris, and Todd all returned after absences. On the other hand, Alex and Sarah were both absent as the previous day was Sarah’s 21st birthday and they apparently needed some recovery time. Alex has missed (and made up) so many meetings this season (partly due to organizing tournaments elsewhere) that it led Jake to tell him, “You should try joining the league. It’s fun.”
The league also had a new player: Ally’s friend Summer. Summer had previously been a spectator and naturally anyone who watches the fun we have is going to want to join for real. She played in my group and I did my best to share my strategy tips with her. (“Shoot the castle!”)
Aaron’s nickname for Joseph is “The Zen Master” due to Joseph’s typically stoic attitude toward pinball, but he risked losing that reputation this time. While my group played Fish Tales, I looked over just in time to see Joseph react to an unfair scoop shot in Monster Bash by running down the row of unoccupied machines and hitting all the lockdown bars like conga drums. Unfortunately, Monster Bash’s fondness for straight-down-the-middle kickouts has only risen since then and I suspect it may end up out of the rotation until that improves.
Lord of the Rings, according to reports, refused to let Todd destroy the ring. I heard that he made several shots right through it without it registering, so I think that switch might be bad. This wouldn’t be so bad — destroying the ring isn’t even worth that much — except that the mode can’t be timed out, so the only option at that point is to drain.
I had a night consisting of three bad games and one good one (on TotAN). As a result I am surely out of the running for playing in A division once again this season and that ambition will have to resume next season. Well, this way I can avoid peaking too soon.
League results aren’t in yet, presumably due to makeups still being played. (UPDATE: the results are now in, minus makeup games from Alex and Sarah.) I didn’t take quite as many photos as usual, but there are a few more in the gallery. Tomorrow is the last day of the regular season, and after that the total points for each player will be used to seed people for the final tournament. Tomorrow is also the league costume night, so wear something crazy that you don’t mind playing pinball in!
After three long weeks, it’s finally time for another meeting of the Lansing Pinball League – the seventh of this season. The list of games keeps changing as games keep breaking down. Attack from Mars has a bad flipper. Addams Family is still unpredictable in regard to swamp kickouts. Austin Powers eats quarters. The Simpsons breaks kneecaps. Well, not really, but it’s out of the rotation due to general cruelty. And World Cup Soccer’s ramp diverter is screwed up, causing balls to get rejected intermittently from the ramp. Matt held a poll regarding whether we should go ahead and play WCS as planned and the prevailing opinion was “no.” Although the usual philosophy is “we all play on the same imperfect tables,” many thought that this situation is unfair in a way that other malfunctions aren’t: one player could shoot the ramp fine, then leave the diverter in the “wrong” state for the next player. As things have currently shaken out, we are scheduled to play the following games:
See you all tomorrow at 7 p.m. at the Avenue.
Our last league night was officially held on September 22, but so many came in to pre-play makeup games or just hang around the preceding Friday that it felt like league night was split into two smaller nights. I was one of the people who showed up Friday just to gawk, along with Joseph, of course. Greg, Chris, and Alex all came to play makeup games.
At this point I must pause for somber reflection, as it was at this pre-league-night meeting that I learned the awful news. For the few who may not have already heard, I have to report that the league has sustained a great loss that has left everyone in shock. I believe I speak for the entire league when I say that we are all struggling to come to terms with the absence of such an iconic part of our group. I speak, of course, of the shocking disappearance of Matt’s beard.
Yes, Matt’s been on the job market, and he has knuckled under to the Man. His hair was trimmed and he was clean-shaven and none of us can get over it.
We were supposed to play Indiana Jones, but it had returned to intermittently refusing to give up balls from the idol no matter how many ball searches it went through. Although as far as I know everyone did manage to play through a game of IJ, Matt made everyone doing makeup games play a backup game on Iron Man in case IJ ended up getting taken out of the rotation (which, in fact, it did). We were also supposed to play Austin Powers, but it is back to eating quarters, from the other slot this time. Matt left a note for Pete’s stating that we will be removing IJ and Austin Powers and, I think, also The Simpsons Pinball Party from league rotation for the indefinite future since the first two so often cause problems on league night and the last is just set to be so brutal that no one gets more than a hot minute of playtime. I’m disappointed about IJ because over the last couple of years that game has gone from “guaranteed bad score on league night” to “fairly reliably treats me well” in my books, but I certainly understand Matt’s decision, since the problems with the lock are longstanding and never seem to go away for very long.
The actual league night on Tuesday felt a bit underpopulated due to the absence of a few regulars, but we were graced with a rare Terry appearance. Along with Aaron and Jake, he was in my group for the night, and they all took turns showing me how to play pinball since I apparently forgot.
Partway through the night, Chris appeared with his kids in tow. Since I was surprised to see him after he had already declared he would be absent, I pointed and said, “What the hell is that?” Jake said, “It’s a child.” I said, “I know that, I mean the other thing.” Although Chris wouldn’t stay for league play, he did stop by to say hello and introduce his son and daughter. He asked how my night was going and I said, “Well, I had a s—-y Fish Tales…” He cut in with, “You had a what Fish Tales?” I started to repeat myself then realized he was looking meaningfully at his son. Oops. “A bad Fish Tales,” is what I surely meant to say all along.
At the end of the night some of us did the usual Theio’s visit. Mike S. had to go take care of some stuff back at home, so we weren’t able to hang around playing Betrayal at House on the Hill until late like we sometimes do.
That’s all I have to say about the last league meeting, though I’m sure I’ve forgotten plenty of entertaining antics. I do have some more photos of both the pre-league night and the actual league night, and of course the results of the night (a tie for the Left and Right Trolls in first place!).
[table id=23 /]
*Terry had to leave before playing his last game of the night, so his scores are tentative, pending a makeup game.
September 8th was the fifth meeting of the fifth season of the League, and was the first meeting Chris has missed since he joined during Season 1. In response to this historic non-event, some mysterious prankster posted a Chris-themed motivational poster in the downstairs alcove. “We can’t all be Chris Tabaka,” reads the poster, “but if you can be Chris Tabaka, then by all means, be Chris Tabaka.” The poster was already present when everyone showed up to start practicing, and the accusations soon started to fly. Several people seemed to think I had done it (I didn’t, and didn’t know who did, though I did take the photo used in it). Sarah floated the idea that Chris had done it himself, since he had the opportunity to put it up when he pre-played his “makeup” games the previous evening. Chris, via texts, vociferously denied it, and most people agreed that self-aggrandizement to that degree wasn’t his style. Since everyone accepted Matt’s contention that it was much too nice to be his handiwork, popular suspicion moved to Mike S. and stayed there for quite some time. Mike, for his part, insisted that he would not be able to keep something like that a secret for long. I admitted he had a point, since during the infamous Arcade League disappearing-FunHouse stunt of 2014 he wasn’t even able to go an entire night before confessing.
Chris was the most notable absence of the week; the most notable presence was Allyson, AKA Ally, a newcomer to the league. She was put into a group with me, James, and Sarah, so I had an opportunity to get to know her a bit. She told me that her boyfriend had gotten her interested in pinball and that the two of them had both just been starting to get involved in competitive play. Her boyfriend didn’t come to the league meeting, but I heard from Mike S. that he played in the recent Pinball Pete’s tournament in Ann Arbor and did extremely well, so we’ll have to hope he stays away joins the league! I was on my best behavior and definitely didn’t do any rage tilting this time so I hope Ally had fun and will keep coming.
I confess I didn’t have much reason to rage tilt this time as it was probably the best league night I’ve ever had. I started Monster Bash during my game of… well, you know. I think that’s only the second time I’ve ever done it at all, so having it happen to me during a league game means that the pinball gods Matt often speaks of were smiling on me. I got so over-excited that I jumped up and down and did the Pete Townshend windmill strum during the starting animation. Then I managed to get 4.5 million on The Simpsons Pinball Party thanks to a frankly lucky break starting Itchy & Scratchy. Believe it or not, Matt said that my score was something like the second highest in the league; Aaron almost doubled it, but I saw a lot of scores in the one millions. That really tells you how ludicrously brutal The Avenue’s Simpsons is. Sarah had extremely unfair bad luck as two of her three balls hit the center post upon launch and then drained immediately, resulting in a 10K score on each. There should be at least a brief ball saver on that game to stop the skill shot from being instantly fatal.
Evan returned for his second league night as I thought he might, despite saying he was just going to drop by once. Once you go Lansing, you don’t go… uh, dancing? Nevermind. The point is, our league has a charm all its own and has a way of bringing people back.
After league, several of us went over to Theio’s for the traditional league night breakfast-dinner (brinner?) and then Mike, Joseph, and I went back to the Avenue to play a round of the board game Betrayal at House on the Hill. Over the summer, we had been in the habit of arriving early on league nights to play, but as of this meeting I could no longer do that. Sadly, class has started up again for me, which prevents me from getting to league meetings more than a few minutes early. So we hung around until the Avenue closed playing Betrayal interspersed with pinball.
Chris had a great week (I guess without our hijinks to distract him during his makeup games) and Alex had a not-so-great one, resulting in Chris closing some of the gap between his second place and Alex’s first, but he still has a ways to go. As for me (hey, offer to write a guest update and you can talk about yourself too), I managed to pull 1 point ahead of my frequent league rival Jake (at 9th and 10th) but am still outside the magic number 8 that will get to play in A division.
For more detail, check the full results for this week. I didn’t take so many photos this time (not ones that came out, anyway; my clearest shots were of the bumper pool table), but there are a few more in the gallery for your viewing pleasure.
[table id=22 /]
It’s time for meeting #5 of Season 5! Tonight’s games are the following:
See you tonight at 7! Don’t expect me to be bright-eyed and bushy tailed, though, because sadly the school year has begun again and I’ve spent all day lecturing people about consequentialism and nonconsequentialism.