Our October 3 meeting wrapped up a rotation between the banks that I dubbed Corvus and Canis Minor. Corvus was originally set to have Elvira’s House of Horrors in it, but Elvira was misbehaving (surprise?) and Black Knight: Sword of Rage got subbed in. Canis Minor contained Guardians of the Galaxy, the game that was actually the reason for naming the bank Canis Minor. If you can figure out what that reason is and you’re not Joseph, I’ll buy your league games for a night.
Sadly, since last league night, Guardians of the Galaxy has left in order to make room for Venom. When Derik broke the news to me about what was leaving, I told him, “Oh, Joseph is going to be so sad.” He replied with exasperation that he knew someone was going to say it was their favorite game. He did say there’s a chance it will return at a later date, at which time The Beatles will leave instead. I thought he was serious – I honestly wouldn’t be that surprised if it’s not the best earner there – but then he told me he was joking with (or at) me. Anyway, it’s lucky that we did finish the bank with Guardians before it left, and Venom will be placed in the eighth bank, Coma Berenices.
Speaking of The Beatles, that was our Smackdown game for the night. I was rather frustrated by this because it’s one of my favorite games there (as Derik and everyone else knows) but I was grading student journals and therefore highly distracted. I didn’t think I would get time to put a game in on it and even if I did, it would probably be lousy, since I tend to play badly when I combine pinball and work. Ultimately, though, I was able to drop a mediocre score on it which got me into the B division finals. We had a particularly long league night with several players having very long games and also a couple of “super groups” with power players clustered together. I don’t think I managed to get out of there until almost 11 pm by the time the Smackdown was over.
There was a bit of a hitch with the Smackdown as I had discovered just prior to league that I had lost a part for my button press and could not give the usual buttons to the winners. I subsequently found the part and pressed the buttons and will give them to the winners tonight at league night. Those winners, by the way, were Joseph on The Beatles – not surprising as it is one of his strong games – and Brian on the B division game, Indiana Jones.
With the bank rotation finished, I can now report that the winner of Bank Corvus was Pat, and the winner of Canis Minor was Tim. The overall standings have Tim at the top, Pat in second just four points behind, and Danny in third with a somewhat bigger points deficit to make up.
Before signing off I want to give a reminder that the Fear and Trembling Charity Pingolf Tournament, supporting the Capital Area Humane Society, is Thursday. You can start the nine-hole course anytime before 7 pm. Cards cost $10 and players are responsible for coin drop. Each game will have two objectives to choose from. Finals will also use a pingolf format, with the top seed getting to choose either a bank of three games or which objective on each game each opponent will shoot for. Whichever isn’t chosen by the first seed will go to the second seed. We will also be raffling three large gift baskets of merchandise donated by local businesses. Let’s make this our biggest pingolf tournament ever!
