We finished up the first half of the season at our last league night. We had a couple of new players, Eric and Sarah, although Sarah has previously played in some tournaments, just not league. Eric kept being confused every time I called out “Derik” in the megaphone because between the amplification and my mask the consonants get a little imprecise. Greg, who briefly played in a past league season, also returned (not the Greg who was one of the original league members back in the 2010s, in case anyone is wondering, but Greg K.). Edit: I totally forgot to also mention Mike C.! Who is also not the Mike who used to play in the early days of the league, or the other Mike who plays off and on in the league.
We were supposed to have Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for our Smackdown game, but it started getting confused about locking balls and had to be substituted for Metallica, unfortunately after Joseph had a really big game on it. Devon commented, “Well, at least TMNT managed to last through one league rotation.” I had previously put TMNT On Notice and I think this means it’s now officially on the Dead To Me board.
This turned out to be an especially long-running league night, in part because Elvira’s House of Horrors had an issue and had to be taken out after one group had already played it, and in part because of some long-playing groups. After TMNT got switched out, I didn’t have a chance to play Metallica before league started and my group was the last to finish, so I sneaked out after my last game was over just to put a quick qualifying attempt in. Somehow – probably due to the deadline pressure phenomenon – I blew up Metallica the biggest I’ve ever done, finishing with a score around 350M. The game just kept going on and on, giving me that “can’t lose the ball” feeling. I was actually kind of mortified because I knew league was already running late and everyone was waiting for me to finish to play Smackdown finals. At one point I successfully shot the scoop for extra ball and said “Oh no, damn it.”
In the Smackdown finals, no one was doing very much including me, and I figured I was going to pull one of my typical moves of having a great qualifying game and then completely, uh, messing the bed during finals. Then I did manage to get a decent multiball going on my third ball, rallying me enough to take the lead, even if it wasn’t exactly a stellar game. Still, the night left me with the feeling that maybe Metallica is one of my strong games. I proceeded to get beaten on Metallica Remastered by a child at a tournament in Grand Rapids this past weekend. The B division played on X-Men, and I didn’t get much of a chance to watch that match, so all I can tell you is that Derik won.
With the first half of the season now behind us, Danny leads the league with a mere 3 point lead over Tim. Peter has a strong third place. The rest of the people currently above the cutline are Tim in fourth, Joseph in fifth, Devon and I tied for sixth, and Derik surprisingly down in 8th.
I’m writing this perilously close to our next meeting in a few hours so I’ll be seeing you all soon!
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