The Capital Combo
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League Night Recap for 11/25/25
Our last league night was a mere two days before Thanksgiving, but the proximity to the holiday did not keep many people away. No, everyone was too eager to secure the best seed they could. For those of us scrambling for the last position in A division it made for an exciting (and some might…
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League Night Recap for 11/11/25
Last league night was meeting #7 which means that we started our final bank rotation between “Pythagoras” and “Thales.” The race is really close around the A/B cut line, so tensions are running high for the players clustered there. We needed to vote to determine which game to take up the final slot in Bank…
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League Night Recap for 10/28/25: Costume contest edition
For several years starting in 2015, the LPL had an annual Halloween costume contest. While nothing ever topped the first year in which three people came as Chris Tabaka (only one of whom was, in fact, Chris Tabaka), it had a pretty good turnout for a few years before petering out. After only a couple…
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League Night Recap for 10/14/25 (plus: Fear and Trembling!)
Our last league night was the fifth of the season and we began the Bank 5/Bank 6 rotation. Bank 5 is named for Socrates, who needs no introduction. Bank 6 takes its name from pre-Socratic philosopher Anaximander, who along with Bank 8’s Thales is a member of the Milesian School. Philosophers from this school were…
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League Night Recap for 9/23/25
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…
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Star Wars: Fall of the Empire Launch Parties
We will be hosting two launch parties for the new Stern pinball, “Star Wars: Fall of the Empire”! The open launch party will be on November 18 at 6:30 pm and will be free to enter (besides coin drop). The format will be four strikes, head-to-head, with arena priority on Star Wars. The women’s launch…
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League Night Recap for 9/9/25
When I showed up for our last league night I was looking and feeling quite scattered. Unfortunately, this year I am serving on Academic Senate at CMU, and the meeting dates all this semester coincide exactly with league meetings, including the times that additional weeks get skipped. As a result, I will only be able…
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League Night Recap for 8/26/25
It was our second league night of Season 23, so we finished the first full rotation of banks 1 and 2, which are named (for reasons best known to myself) Anaxagoras and Aristotle. We were also joined by a few new pinball seekers. The first was Brian, who was invited to join the proceedings late…
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League night recap for 8/12/25
The second Tuesday in August marked the beginning of Season 23 of the venerable Lansing Pinball League, after a two month summer break. Everyone was anxious to start again, although we did have quite a few events to tide us over during the break. First we celebrated the end of the season with a league…
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Existential terror at the Avenue
Our annual charity pingolf tournament, known as Fear and Trembling (not, as popularly believed, “Fear and Loathing”) after the classic work by 19th century existentialist Søren Kierkegaard, will be held on October 21st at The Avenue Cafe in Lansing, Michigan. This tournament supports our regular charity, the Capital Area Humane Society. In this format, you…
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