Lansing Pinball League

Season 3 is in the final stretch, as Tuesday was meeting 7 of 8.  Due to snow out west, the GR crowd did not make it out and will be doing a makeup session in the coming week.  Russell also did not return (no word on whether it was due to yoga this time) and everyone is starting to wonder whatever happened to Amanda, too.  As a result of the low attendance, some of the groups ended up as pairs or trios this time.  We were scheduled to play Junk Yard, World Cup Soccer, Lord of the Rings, and The Simpsons.  As usual, events made a mockery of my League Night Preview.  I don’t think we have once managed to play all of the games that were actually on the list.

Joseph and I arrived fairly close to the start time, but most people had yet to arrive, so we decided to play a practice game.  My personal rule is that I will not warm up on a game we are going to play for league.  This is because I have had too many experiences of playing a fantastic warmup game and then an awful league game.  Somehow an awful league game, though terrible enough, is made so much worse by following a great warmup game.

We chose to warm up on Tales of the Arabian Nights, and I finished with a score in the 8 millions somewhere, which I was very happy with.  Joseph got to battle the genie, his first time doing so on a physical machine, though I was over getting a beer when it happened.  Chris tried to summon me to watch but by the time I got back Joseph had unfortunately lost.

During practice, I heard some commotion in the vicinity of Junk Yard and looked over to see that someone had slam tilted it again.  My immediate reaction was to scold Mike, but he proclaimed innocence and pointed the finger at Chris.  “If I’m King Kong Stewart,” Mike said, “then he’s Tyrannosaurus Tabaka!”  Matt came by and sternly informed everyone that we were going to play Junk Yard this time regardless, so we would all just have to be gentle with it.

Mike pushes his luck with Junk Yard while Joseph warms up on TotAN.

Then Matt held out the Sorting Hat for us to draw our starting machines.  I drew a little slip that read… “TotAN”?!  What?  Well, it turned out that as World Cup Soccer was down, Arabian Nights was to be its replacement, and worse, I was going to start my night on it.  Greg also drew TotAN, making us league buddies for the night.

I tried not to let my superstition psych me out, but it was to no avail.  I finished with something like 750K.  Greg had a miserable game too and we both went upstairs in defeat to play Addams Family.  At this point, Danny and Shila arrived and Shila joined me and Greg.  This is also the point when I learned, from listening to Shila spell her name for Greg (as he was the keeper of the scores notebook), that we have been spelling her name in the league results all along.  I mentioned this and apologized, and she replied that she and Danny figure that “Shyla” is her secret pinball identity.

Shila, alias Shyla, having a good ball of Addams Family.

Greg and I both had much better Addams Family than TotAN games.  I had a particularly thrilling game as the 62 million I earned was a personal best, and by a significant margin.  This was the second time I have set a personal best during a league game – two different leagues, but the same game!  My previous personal best on Addams Family was set during the last Marvin’s League meeting.  I was so excited by my finish that I began dancing around until I noticed that the group on Lord of the Rings were all chuckling at my antics.

Speaking of Lord of the Rings, it was clear my group would not be playing it anytime soon, as the group currently stationed there was loaded with top players.  We headed downstairs to play Junk Yard.  I’m glad to have that back in league rotation, finally; it’s not a perfect game but it’s fun.  At some point Joseph came up to me and told me Chris was destroying the Ring, so I ran back upstairs to join a crowd of people watching.  It was a success!  I was told that he was still on Ball 1 and my jaw dropped.  When he did finally lose his ball, he had to throw away the next one (I presume he had already used his one allowed extra ball) and managed to make some hay of that: he successfully shot the Tower skill shot and thereby set up Return of the King.

That spectacle brought back memories for me.  This league night was roughly the anniversary of my first ever league night back in November 2013, which is also when I started getting seriously interested in pinball.  At that first league night, I remember seeing a crowd form around a guy I now know as Chris, and hearing that he was “destroying the Ring.”  Through Joseph, I was somewhat familiar with the idea that pinball games had something like a final boss battle that amounted to “beating the game,” but I had never actually seen it happen.  It did not hurt my rapidly developing interest in competitive pinball that I saw someone achieve such an exciting feat on my first league night!

Mike thinks, “Oh good, Chris warmed it up for me.”

After a very long time (during which I went ahead and had a side game of Medieval Madness) the word came down that LotR was finally free, and Greg, Shila and I finished up our last game for the night.  Greg, Joseph, and I played several just-for-fun games afterward.

Chris stopped by on his way out to give me a good deal of grief about my decision to skip the Arcade League this month in order to go to Silver Bells, Lansing’s annual holiday event that includes an illuminated parade and the lighting of the state tree.  Among other arguments against going to Silver Bells, he offered that he had seen the state tree already and it was a “scrawny-ass tree.”  I did end up going to Silver Bells, and when I got home, Mike had posted a photo from the Arcade of an empty space where FunHouse used to be, captioned “Heather, have bad news for you.”  I wailed and gnashed my teeth on Facebook all evening about this until finally, sometime after 2 a.m., Mike confessed that he and Chris had moved FunHouse to take the picture and it was still there.  Never mind King Kong and Tyrannosaurus: their true identities have been revealed as the Left Troll and the Right Troll.  I will bide my time until an opportunity for revenge presents itself….

This week’s league play still isn’t over, as the Grand Rapids crew needs to come out and play their games.  This means that there aren’t any results to report yet.  A little bird told me they will probably be coming Tuesday or Wednesday.  I plan to show up for some more league fun when they do and I hope others will too.  As usual, you can find more pictures of the night in the Gallery.

To be continued…

Tuesday, November 4th, was the sixth meeting of eight for Season 3 of the League.  It was also the eve of my birthday, so I was looking forward to a celebratory night of pinball as consolation for turning a certain milestone age.  No, not 21.  Flattery will get you nowhere.

The original plan, dictated by Matt’s random selection, was to play Attack from Mars, The Addams Family, Indiana Jones, and Junk Yard.  Shortly before the league meeting, Addams went down and was slated to be replaced by Austin Powers.  By the time the meeting actually began, Addams had been repaired, so it was placed back into the schedule.  During practice games, however, Mike “the Gremlin” Stewart slam tilted Junk Yard, showing that it was still oversensitive to nudging (the trouble that knocked it out of the rotation last league night).  Chris declared that he wasn’t about to risk having his game slam tilted into oblivion by “King Kong Stewart,” so Junk Yard was removed from the roster once again and Austin Powers came back in.  It’s a shame that we haven’t been able to play Junk Yard as a league game in a very long time, since it’s a game I’ve been warming to.  I hope they will get that tilt sensor straightened out before next league night.

“Let Mike go first. Then if he breaks it, the rest of us won’t waste a game.”

Just because it was almost my birthday did not mean anyone went easy on me, and that includes the games.  I had an especially catastrophic Attack from Mars, scoring something like 240 million, which you can get just by sneezing at that game.  Maybe I should have sneezed a bit harder.

I wasn’t alone in having a dismal night.  Jake was also in my group and repeatedly had to threaten to rough the machines up to teach them a lesson for insulting him.  In the end he did beat me out this week by 1 point, which he later thanked me for letting him have, saying that it showed I was the bigger person.  He then added a complaint that I had not worn the “Luke Perry” hair.  Sadly, due to my Tuesday work schedule and having trouble getting my carpool mates out the door in a hurry (somehow I just don’t think they realize the great urgency of getting to pinball league, despite my attempts to impress this upon them) I usually don’t have time to fully transform from “professor” to “pinballer” before getting over to the Avenue.

Joseph demonstrating his “Zen Master” composure.

We had a new joiner this week, Matt’s friend James.  I had previously met James at the Avenue on Halloween, but I had to introduce myself nonetheless.  The last time he saw me I had been in a rabbit costume that completely covered my face.  I probably should have worn it again, because despite the costume giving me only a few inches of blurry visibility around the flippers, my scores were no worse and possibly slightly better than some of my league night results.  (Have I mentioned I had a bad night?)  It’s great to have another new member of the league and James seems to fit right in.

Tuesday was Election Day as well as league night, and James was frustrated that they would not let him change the channel on the bar’s TV because people wanted to watch election returns.  He really could not see the point of watching, since, as he put it, “Someone is either going to win or not.  There’s nothing to watch!”  I avoided looking at the returns myself as I figured it was not likely to improve my night.  That was almost certainly for the best.

To the best of my knowledge, besides the Junk Yard slam tilt sensitivity, no one broke any games during league play this time.  During a non-league game, however, Aaron managed to get a ball irretrievably stuck above the Bazaar scoop on Tales of the Arabian Nights.  I overheard someone spreading the news about this and adding, “I’ve already got a picture.”  Congratulations to Aaron in joining the honor roll of famous stuck balls, including Joseph’s ball on top of the castle tower in Medieval Madness and Chris’s ball stuck inside the slingshot of Indiana Jones.

“I’m already at 150,000. This should be smooth sailing.”

Despite ongoing rumors that he may reappear, Russell was still absent tonight.  When I demanded to know where he was, I was told that he had chosen to go to yoga instead as he “needed to find his center.”  Suuuuure.  I think he was afraid to find his center – the one right between the flippers!

In the current standings, Chris is still far in the lead at #1 and Rodney’s #2 position still looks secure.  The real battle continues to be for third place.  Thanks to a rough night, Aaron has dropped three places to #6, and Mike has passed him, moving up one spot to #5.  Joseph recovered a bit of lost ground, moving up from #5 to #4, and Matt moved up  from #4 into the coveted #3 position.  The distance between third and sixth is only 14 points, so with two meetings to go, anyone in this cluster could still take third.

Complete results and standings are available, as are more photos.  Our next league night will be Tuesday, November 18, at 7 p.m.  I hope to see you all there!