Category: Recaps

It’s just about time for another league night, so of course it’s time for my customarily delinquent report of last league night.  February 23 brought us to the fourth meeting, and thus the halfway mark of the season.  There is still plenty of time left in the season for positions to change, but at this point it is safe to say that Chris has a pretty decisive lead, with 56 points over second place Joseph.  Sarah, in third place, trails Joseph by another 15 points, which is more than surmountable.  The rest of the “A division range,” the top eight, are clustered close together, from Matt’s 231-point fourth place, through a three-way tie for seventh place at 226 points.  (You can review the current standings here.)

This meeting once again saw a new participant: another Grand Rapids Pinball League regular, Adam.  Jake apparently convinced him to come by talking up Theio’s.  I asked him if he’s planning to come regularly and he said it will depend on his work schedule.  We also were graced with the return of a previous but long-absent league member, Terry.  Terry’s work schedule makes it difficult or impossible for him to attend league meetings, but the new flexible start time has allowed him to join us again.

Chris’s friend Janine returned for a second dance with the Avenue’s games.  I told her I was glad we hadn’t scared her off.  She said that she had to come back because after her first week she was last place in the league standings and her son was razzing her for it, so she needed to at least get out of last place.  This brought back memories for me… memories of how, when I was new to the league, I just hoped not to be in last place every time Matt posted standings!  (These hopes were not always fulfilled.)

Not that I’m always putting in a stellar performance these days either.  I had one of the most hot and cold days I can remember, starting the night with a 100-million-plus Addams Family (a personal record, yet one that only got me 3rd in my group, since Joseph and Sam both tore it up even more than that) and ending with a six-figure Tales of the Arabian Nights.

The night ended with Adam getting his promised trip to Theio’s, along with Jake, Sam, Joseph, and me.  As Jake told Adam before we arrived, we almost never talk about pinball at Theio’s — roller coasters are a much more frequent topic — but wouldn’t you know, the conversation this time ended up turning into a bit of a debate about the merits of a certain melon-themed game.  Don’t worry, no punches were thrown, and everyone escaped unscathed.  I hope Adam liked the eggs.

The league continues to grow this season, as last league night – the third of Season 6 – saw three new players.  Kandus brought her husband Joe, who fortunately goes by the short form of the name while my own husband Joseph never does, so I’m sure that will prevent any confusion.  Chris brought his friend Janine, who also does not go by Joseph, so all is well.  And longtime friend of the league Cattie is now an actual member of the league.  Until recently, Cattie had tended bar during league nights, and so is very familiar to the league.  She no longer works Tuesdays, which has been a tough adjustment for everyone.  The up side of this, however, is that she is now free to play in the league.

Although on the balance the league is growing, we have had a few (possibly temporary) departures from the league.  Aaron and Amanda G. had a good time at their first visit to the league, but have decided it’s just too far for them to come out on a regular basis.  Alex, a fixture of the league for a few seasons, has been too busy with running tournaments and his own league (the Blind Squirrel League out in Fremont) so he hasn’t been able to attend on a regular basis this season.

When I arrived, Chris, Sarah, Greg, and Janine were already playing their second game, as they had decided to start early.  Matt is now allowing people to start as soon as four people have arrived, supposedly to alleviate congestion now that the league has grown.  I can see the wisdom of this, but, dear reader, I hope that it does not work against the feeling of camaraderie that is the unique quality of our league.

I’m sorry to say that one of our games this time was Austin Powers, which unfortunately did not break.  I don’t get it; I keep sticking pins in my Austin Powers voodoo pinball machine.  Maybe I need to set it on fire.  I’m running out of time, since it’s one of the backup games for Tuesday so there is a nonzero chance we might have to endure it again.

On a brighter note, several people had very good games of Jack*Bot this time, including billion-plus scores for both Greg and Joseph.  At one point it did suffer a total reset during a game, a problem that has very occasionally happened in the past, but it didn’t recur.  That must be someone else’s voodoo; I like Jack*Bot.

Tuesday’s league night will bring us to the midway point of the season, and we probably will not have to play Austin Powers.  We will get to play Tales of the Arabian Nights, which has gotten its sound fixed at last!  I hope to see you all at 7 p.m. at the Avenue.

January 12 began Season 6 of the league.  Season 6!  It’s amazing to think back on the changes that have come to the league since Joseph and I first joined during the third meeting of Season 1.  At the time there were only four games (Medieval Madness, Indiana Jones, Lord of the Rings, and Johnny Mnemonic) and we usually didn’t play Johnny because of the glove not being able to lock positions 7, 8, and 9.  The next week, the Avenue added Tales of the Arabian Nights.  With only five games, and Johnny usually avoided, we ended up playing a lot of Medieval Madness.  We also played only three games per night instead of the current four (or even, on rare and sweet occasions, five).

Over the years we’ve lost Johnny (and I still miss his classic “go up the middle!”) and added a whole lot else.  We’ve kept most of the original core of players but added many more.  For my part, I’m now twice as good at pinball but still hovering around 10th or 11th in the league, because as I get better, so does the league.  Matt told me he started the league specifically to get Pete’s to put more games in the Avenue.  He probably could not have imagined how successful it would be.

Enough reminiscing; let’s talk about League Night #1.  We had several new faces including Aaron and Amanda G., who I know well from Marvin’s and other leagues and tournaments around the state, but who had never played in Lansing League before.  They had attended the Silver Balls in the City tournament and enjoyed the venue so much that they decided to make the long trek from the east side of the state to play with us again.  Aaron has already shown that he is going to be a serious threat to Chris’s undefeated record in the league, as he won the night with a massive 65 points.

We also had two brand new faces, folks who had not previously played in any league that I know of: Steve and Gabe.  Both had good nights, but Gabe had a particularly blockbuster game of Jack*Bot, a game he said he was playing for only the second time ever.  I cannot remember his score exactly but it was several billion, I think in the vicinity of 6 billion.

The league also saw the return of Christine after a season-long absence when Haley was born.  Haley was also in attendance, generally minding her own business, as was Aaron and Amanda’s daughter.

The Lansing League has come a long way and continues to grow.  I don’t expect that to change anytime soon, with pinball in Michigan and around the country booming.  As usual you can view the results of the night and more photos.

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!

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.