May 23 was not just James Blish’s birthday; it was also the beginning of the back half of the league season. We started a rotation of Banks 5 and 6, known to me (and possibly only to me) as “Athena” and “Hades.” The former includes Avengers, Cactus Canyon, Rush, Jurassic Park, and Black Knight: Sword of Rage. The latter is Indiana Jones, AC/DC, Deadpool, Ghostbusters, and Stranger Things. Or, at least, it’s supposed to. AC/DC had a malfunction and had to be replaced using a designated game from Bank 7, which was The Mandalorian.
The results don’t mean much at this point in the rotation, with only half of everyone having played each bank, but so far Jason is in the lead on bank Athena and Mike has the top spot on bank Hades. Mike has held onto the top spot in the league standings, with Danny C. in second place, trailing by 11 points. The gap between second and third is even wider, with Tim 30 points behind Danny. Of course, all of that could change once the rotation finishes this week.
My main impression of the league night is how I took some guff from Derik on two distinct points. First he asked me what was wrong with my random number generator that the Tuesday Night Smackdown game is always Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I had already gotten teased about this by Joseph but there is a perfectly good explanation. Each game can only come up in the Tuesday Night Smackdown once per season before it gets scratched out of future random drawings, but the Undercard game is chosen by randomly drawing from the few games located closest to the chosen Smackdown game. There is no limit on how many times something can be an Undercard game and it just happens that we have played several games near TMNT over the past couple of seasons, causing it to be an Undercard game repeatedly. I admit that the RNG does seem to like to draw it from the available options, though.
The other thing I remember Derik saying was in response to his noticing my very small phone for the first time. I think the direct quote is, “Is that seriously your f***ing phone?” said in an almost indignant tone, as though I had violated some law of nature.
Our Tuesday Night Smackdown game was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles this time, with the Undercard randomly selected to be Deadpool. The Undercard match went on a touch longer than necessary due to my having to repeatedly fetch Ethan from wherever he’d wandered off to spread his brand of enthusiasm, like a Johnny Appleseed of cheer. Tim secured the win in the main match and got the TMNT-colored button I made. Ted got to take home the button for his Undercard win on Deadpool.
That wraps up our previous update, in time as usual for our next meeting tomorrow night, during which we will finish the rotation of Athena and Hades.