Author: Heather

The league night of 8/25 was the fourth meeting of Season 5, putting us halfway through the season.  League Night #4 also had the most players of any meeting yet this season (and, I think, any meeting for quite a while), 19, though some of those people were absent from the actual meeting and did makeup games.  That brings us to 21 total players on the roster this season.  The games of the week were Lord of the Rings, Iron Man, Tales of the Arabian Nights, and Junk Yard.  Fortunately, no one slam tilted Junk Yard during league play this time, though I believe Mike S. did it during a practice game and then somehow acted surprised.

Some recent rearranging in The Avenue has resulted in the bumper pool table, formerly located on the mezzanine, being moved into the downstairs pinball alcove.  Conversations around the bumper pool table usually go something like this: “What’s that?” “It’s called bumper pool.” “Oh.  How do you play it?”  “I have no idea.”  This time, however, Jimmy offered to explain how to play, and started setting up a game to demonstrate.  This was quickly quashed by Matt cracking the whip and telling all of us to get to our league games already.  (The next time we came to The Avenue, Joseph printed out some instructions he got from the Internet and left them sitting on the bumper pool table.  I hope that helped someone.)

Mike G. made a surprise reappearance.  Despite being one of the original members of the League and the source of a previous tagline of this blog (“The same thing as in every game: shoot the farthest target and every ramp three times,” the all-purpose strategy advice he once gave me), Mike had not made it to a league meeting in quite some time due to his work schedule, and it was great to see him again.  For some reason he seems to have decided not to play any official league games.  I think he may have decided he’d started drinking too early, but that doesn’t make sense.  After all, it never stopped Aaron.

The other surprise appearance of the night was Evan, whom I know from The Arcade League in Brighton and the tournament he ran at Pinball Pete’s in Ann Arbor.  This was his first visit to the Lansing Pinball League; he said he was just dropping in for the night.  I hope he’ll be open to coming back sometime.

The results for the night included a surprising three-way tie between Chris, Greg, and Mike S., for ninth place.  Speaking of Chris, at the halfway mark of the season he is in fourth place after Alex, Mike S., and Joseph.  Longtime members of the league may recall the days when Chris was an unstoppable force, nearly always taking an early runaway lead and staying at the top all season.  Those days are certainly over as the reigning champ now has serious competition, both from newer members of the league and longtime members who have leveled up their games.  It’s certainly going to be exciting to see how the rest of the season plays out.  Since we now (as of last season) settle the final rankings with a tournament, the biggest battle in the second half of the season is really going to be who will make the cutoff for A division.  If the same rules used last season apply, the top eight players will play in A and everyone else will play in B.  Right now, Matt is ranked unusually low at eighth place, but has a healthy lead (17 points) over Jake in ninth.

After league play finished, Jake, Sam, Mike S., Joseph, and I had our after-party at Theio’s.  It had been quite some time since our last visit, since at the two previous meetings folks had gone once each to the two Chinese restaurants on the block.  If the Theio’s staff were offended by our infidelity, they didn’t show it.  After we ate I tried unsuccessfully to convince people to come back to The Avenue for more pinball.  I just wasn’t ready to give up my last league night before the start of school.  Now that school has begun, I will arrive later (no more pre-league games of Betrayal at House on the Hill with Mike S. and Joseph) and leave tireder.  Alas.

The next meeting is coming up very soon (Tuesday).  In the meantime, you can have a look at the results from meeting #4 and some more photos.

I was not present for the league meeting of August 11.  Instead, I was just wrapping up an amusement park tour of New England, with visits to six parks in Maine, New Hampshire, and Connecticut.  At the end of the trip we drove to New Jersey in order to visit a couple of our old familiar haunts before I flew home and Joseph stayed behind for another week to call in at his workplace in Trenton (he has worked from home since moving to Michigan).  So on the very evening league night was happening back home in Lansing, we were at the Silverball Museum in Asbury Park, New Jersey.  We even played make-believe league games on all but one of the night’s chosen games.  (We could not do a dry run on The Walking Dead, as the Silverball Museum doesn’t have that one.  In fact, they have only two Stern games: The Simpsons Pinball Party and The Sopranos.)

So all of that is just an explanation for the lack of a League Night Update for meeting #3.  I wasn’t there, and probably shouldn’t do another attempt at writing a recap of a meeting I didn’t attend.  It was apparently a rather small crowd.  I know that at least Alex, Sarah, Aaron, Joseph, and I were all missing.  (Joseph and I did makeup games after Joseph got home.)  And the standings show a shakeup in the upper echelon.  Chris, though the week’s highest point earner, is still wounded from his slam tilt of Junk Yard during the league season opener, and Alex was set back by the missed week.  As a result, Mike S. is number one in the overall standings for the first time ever, with a 13 point lead over Chris.  Joseph is currently third, trailing Chris by 10 points.  The season isn’t half over yet (though it will be by the end of the night), so there is still a lot of possibility for further position swapping at the top.

The selected games for the second meeting of Season 5 were Fish Tales (new at the Avenue), World Cup Soccer, Medieval Madness, and Getaway.  Chris was so excited about the prospect of playing Fish Tales’ video mode that he kept saying “I want to shoot waterskiers!” in, for some reason, a Marvin the Martian voice.  I asked him, “Why are you Marvin the Martian?” and he replied, in the same voice, “I don’t know.”  If he doesn’t know I certainly don’t.  It will have to remain one of the mysteries of League Night #2, alongside why I’ve forgotten how to shoot the castle and whether anyone has ever successfully used the Magna-Save in World Cup Soccer.  (Joseph did in fact try to use it, which is more than I have ever done.  Aaron once again asserted that he only ever uses it ironically.)

Greg was absent this week, due to having moved from the area.  Word on the street is that he will be coming to league meetings irregularly from here on out.  I ended up running into him when he made up his league games the following week.  (No, not literally, even if sabotaging his scores would have helped my awful performance.  I swear, I wasn’t even tempted.)  Mark, on the other hand, made a reappearance after missing the season opener.

After my rage-tilting during last League Night, I had pledged to show better sportsmanship henceforth.  It took exactly one ball of Getaway to break that resolution.  My group had begun with Getaway.  I stepped up as Player 3 to play my first ball, and had an amazing ball by my standards, including a multiball jackpot and several consecutive upper loops.  I thought I was on top of the world.  When I drained I turned to my group, about to remark on my good fortune… to be told, “You realize you just played the third ball of a single player game, right?”  Apparently, the first player accidentally started a single game, and no one (including the second player, and me) noticed until I was midway through my ball, at which time everyone was afraid to interrupt me to break the news.  I was so crushed by this revelation that I shouted “What?” and then turned around and began shaking Getaway.  Marrying Joseph certainly did not grant me any share of his stoicism, to my regret.

The last game of the night for my group was Medieval Madness.  We had to wait a while for the prior group to finish.  Eventually they were down to their last ball and the final player, Jake, was nowhere to be found.  Someone looked around for him and eventually found him hanging around out back with a crowd of folks whose games had finished.  It turns out he had pulled a Mike S., thinking his game was over when he actually had a ball left.

Chris had a strong first place finish this week, despite being cheated out of a ball of Fish Tales by a mechanical failure, but he still has a long way to go to make up the ground lost by slam tilting Junk Yard during the first meeting.  Aaron and Mike S. tied for second, with Mark at fourth and Alex and Joseph tying for fifth.  In the overall season standings, Alex is still on top, but with Mike S. only four points behind.  Joseph has narrowly pulled into third, one point ahead of Sarah at fourth.  The reigning league champion, Chris, has his work cut out for him at seventh.

Instead of the traditional Theio’s visit, Jake and Mike S. wanted to go to the Chinese restaurant next door to the Avenue, so that’s where they ended the night, alongside Joseph, Sam, and me.  There was some concern expressed that the Theio’s staff might have hurt feelings over our absence, but somehow I suspect they weathered any disappointment with grace.

The complete results from the meeting are up, as are some more photos.  Mark your calendars: due to the new semi-monthly format, the next league meeting isn’t until August 11.