It’s League Night tomorrow (Tuesday 11/4) and not a moment too soon. This is meeting #6 of 8 for Season 3, so we are starting to head into the home stretch. The gods of chance have decreed the following games for our friendly little competition:
Attack from Mars: AfM has been down for quite a while. It’s perennially popular and so I assume many will welcome its return. Plus, even if you have the lowest score in the league, there’s the consolation that your non-pinball friends will think it sounds impressive. “A hundred million points?! WOW!!”
Addams Family: In my last preview, I stated, “Everyone loves Addams Family!” It turns out I was wrong about that. Everyone loves the voices in Addams Family. The punishment the game deals out, not so much. I stand corrected.
Indiana Jones: Indy gets a sequel, after its unexpected appearance at the last League Night when it served as a replacement for Getaway. The endless search for the Mode Start will continue. I’m almost positive it exists, but it hides every time I try to shoot it.
Junk Yard: Oh, Junk Yard, you devil! Every time we try to include it at League Night something goes wrong. Still, the right ball recycle has finally been repaired, giving us hope that it’s been given some TLC in general. Maybe we’ll see its angelic side this time.
Be seeing you all at the Avenue tomorrow at 7!
Update: Addams Family is on the fritz. Matt has announced that the replacement will be Austin Powers. (I’m just lucky that The Simpsons is apparently still down…)
Tuesday’s league night, the fifth of Season 3, saw slightly lower attendance than the previous meeting, so we returned to playing four games. Matt had previously randomly selected Junk Yard, Getaway, Addams Family, and Monster Bash to be the night’s games. The best laid schemes of mice and Matt go oft awry, so that is not quite what happened.
During an early round of Junk Yard, Mike “The Gremlin” S. slam tilted. The usual League penalty for slam tilting is having to buy everyone a round receiving zero points for that game, but Mike was lucky, since the rest of his group believed him when he said he barely touched it. Matt decided to throw out Junk Yard due to its hypersensitive tilt and replace it with Tales of the Arabian Nights. Later, my group was up on Getaway when the launcher broke again, so that ended up substituted with Indiana Jones.
Mike had not yet broken anything when this picture was taken.
The etiquette tips I posted last week provided one of the evening’s recurring themes. Whenever someone was missing when it was his or her turn to shoot, Matt would declare the absent player “on the clock,” and at one point Matt finished a ball by packing three f-words into one outburst then turned to me and asked whether he’d broken any of the rules.
I seemed to be a popular target for guff this week. Jake had not seen my hair in its “weekend” style before (I never wear my bangs combed upward when I am at work, and often don’t have time to restyle my hair between arriving home and heading out to league) and was overly delighted by it. He called me “Jason Priestley” and then demanded that I never wear it any other way again. Later on, I heard someone on the other side of the room saying “FunHouse, FunHouse, FunHouse.” Of course, this is the equivalent of blowing a turkey caller for me so I walked over to see what was going on. When I got over to the group who had been talking, there didn’t seem to be any conversation about FunHouse so I started to leave disappointed. Chris said, “Sorry, Heather, FunHouse false alarm.” I said, “I love FunHouse!” He said “I know you do” and then added that it is “a piece of junk.” If his intention was to get a rise out of me it worked as I began defending Rudy’s honor with great ardor until he laughed at me. Someday I will have my revenge…
Jake seemed to be having issues with video modes on Tuesday. I have heard that he attempted to complete the video mode in Getaway by driving at 5 MPH. I didn’t see that myself, but I did witness his Indiana Jones fiasco. He started Mine Cart mode and immediately pulled left to crash into the very first barrier. This provoked unabashed laughter from the rest of his group. He began using etiquette-incompatible words to describe everyone present. When he turned to swear at me, I objected (I had not been one of the worst offenders, after all, though I confess I may have chuckled) and he patted me on the head, saying, “I’m just kidding, I could never hate you, Dylan.”
At this juncture I feel compelled to point out that Dylan was Luke Perry, not Jason Priestley, whose fine thespian abilities were instead devoted to playing Brandon. I didn’t go to high school in the early ’90s for nothing.
Joseph just after losing a ball in Monster Bash.
There seemed to be a lot of pain going around on Tuesday. A number of upsets occurred, particularly in that several people overtook Chris. I also finished ahead of Joseph for the first time ever. This was actually a good night for me, in large part due to a great Arabian Nights game (great by my standards…), one in which I hit the replay score and, in my excitement, yelled “YEAH, THAT’S ME!” I honestly hope that I don’t annoy my league mates too badly with my noisy enthusiasm. When I like something, I really like something, and these days I really, really like pinball.
The night’s results found Aaron tied with Alex for first, just one point ahead of Danny in third. The third, fourth (Rodney), fifth (Chris), and sixth (Mike S.) places were also each one point apart. In the overall standings, though Chris is still comfortably at first and Rodney at second, third place has gotten a lot closer. Joseph’s bad week cost him his lead and then some, though he is still part of a close cluster of people battling for third: Aaron at 204, Matt at 203, and Joseph at 198. Mike (MWS) and Jake are also in range at 190 and 186, but will need to do some catching up in the remaining three meetings.
The complete results and standings are up, and some new photos have been added to the gallery. That’s it for my recap – but I will give the last word to Chris, who delivered the Quote of the Night:
Rejoice! For tomorrow (Tuesday, if you’ve lost track of the week already) is League Night. Our beloved organizer Matt has announced the games (chosen by random lottery). Assuming no mechanical troubles, our games will be:
Junk Yard: This one hasn’t been chosen as a league game for a very long time due to its frequent mechanical issues (getting stuck various places, double dispensing balls). It’s nice to see it back in the rotation… knock on wood. I expect to see a lot of people going for the fast point grab of the dog video mode. “Hey, that’s not pinball!” Don’t rely on the right ball recycle, whatever you do: it’s still not working, which is why the rat on that side looks especially shifty-eyed…
Getaway: Not a popular game with some of the players in the league. It giveth to some and taketh away from others… and it tilts if you look at it cross-eyed. Let’s just hope no one breaks the launcher again because I absolutely do not want to play any Simpsons.
Addams Family: Everyone loves Addams Family! (I’d love it even better if they turned up the sound so we could hear it…) And what an appropriate choice for the last league night before Halloween. As is…
Monster Bash: Another great choice for late October. I know this is a favorite for several of the league regulars including Matt. Get ready to stack those modes like a Dagwood sandwich. Delicious, delicious points!
We are now moving into the second half of the season and so competition is really going to heat up, especially for the third place position. Aaron suggested last season that second prize should be something amazing like an animatronic giraffe. I say this season third prize should get this tasteful statue:
Keyboardist Geoffrey Downes of the Buggles/Yes/Asia actually has this as his Twitter profile pic. Surely that is the mark of quality.
The third season of the Lansing Pinball League has reached its halfway point, as meeting 4 of 8 took place on Tuesday. It was a meeting that saw one heck of a performance from the night’s top-scorer, Danny. It was a high-scoring night in general as the increasing membership of the league led us to play five games instead of our usual four. More machines and more players mean more points are available to score. As a result, Danny managed to earn an impressive 72 points, taking the victory from Chris by a margin of 6 points.
Aaron demonstrates his two-fisted beer technique while Matt loads up the machines.
The league also saw a new player this time, Chris’s friend Jamie. Jamie is a novice but I have to imagine she won’t stay one very long with Chris as a coach. “Shoot the genie! Shoot the genie!”
Matt had previously selected our night’s games randomly and they were slated to be Indiana Jones, Junk Yard, Lord of the Rings, and World Cup Soccer. As the night began he made the decision to add Tales of the Arabian Nights because of the large turnout. Unfortunately, shortly into the night, Junk Yard decided to start double-dispensing balls again and was replaced with Simpsons Pinball Party. Then during the first game of S:PP, it also double-dispensed, so it was replaced again with Medieval Madness, to the delight of its many fans and the chagrin of certain people who think MM involves too much shooting up the middle.
Lord of the Rings seemed to be the really big scorer of the night, with at least three people getting to (though not completing) “Destroy the Ring.” Needless to say, I was not one of those people.
Danny taking Lord of the Rings apart.
Clearly some people had a very good night, though my own group didn’t share very much in this bounty. I ended up in an all-female group with Christine and Jamie, leading Matt to ask, “What are the odds?” I mean literally: he asked one of our resident mathematicians, Joseph, to calculate the odds that in a minority-female league a randomly-selected group would end up with all women. (Russell is the original resident mathematician, but he’d better come back soon or he’s going to be eclipsed.) Anyway, there was a lot of pain in my group. Jamie took to guessing how many seconds she had actually managed to keep her balls in play, and Christine seemed to be in a frustrating slump.
For my part, I felt utterly betrayed by Medieval Madness. I have a rule that I won’t warm up on a game that we’re going to play that night since it so often results in having a great practice game and then a disappointing league game. I warmed up on MM this time not realizing we would be playing it – and my 30M practice game was followed by a horrendously bad 1.5M league game. And that’s supposed to be my best table! Jamie, though, had a stunning finale to our group’s night. Despite being unfamiliar with the rules and not having played at all in years, she knocked down two castles and started a multiball, netting her over 13 million. I was green with envy since I practiced the game for at least a month before ever achieving a score over 10 million. Clearly she’s something of a natural.
Terry returned this week, but wasn’t able to clean up as he did last time because the night started late and ran long, so he had to leave for work before playing his game of Lord of the Rings. Matt has suggested that Terry could be allowed to play a makeup game the next time he’s around to rectify this.
Trying to take a decent picture in the cave-like downstairs alcove is tough.
When all the groups had finally finished, the top five high-scorers for the night were Danny, Chris, Rodney, Jake, and Sarah, in that order. The biggest change there is Sarah, finishing six positions higher than at the previous league night. The top four overall positions for the season so far have remained the same since then, with Chris, Rodney, Joseph, and Matt still occupying them. Aaron, however, has dropped from 5th to 6th, with Jake moving up to take 5th, just one point behind Matt.
Despite missing out on 1st this week, Chris still has a very comfortable lead over Rodney that seems unlikely to be eroded at this point. Rodney, in turn, has a buffer nearly as large between himself and Joseph. The most competitive position right now is 3rd. Joseph leads Matt by a dozen points, which is substantial but easily surpassable. Matt, Jake, and Aaron are all clustered very closely together.
The Battle for Third will continue at the next league night on October 21. I suggest that a good strategy might be for Joseph, Matt, Jake, and Aaron to pool their money to buy Rodney a weekend trip to Vegas. Meanwhile, you can check out the complete results and standings and see more photos in the photo gallery.
Tomorrow is the night we all look forward to, League Night! The competition starts at 7 p.m. Our beloved organizer Matt has announced that the games for this time will be Lord of the Rings, World Cup Soccer, Indiana Jones and Junk Yard. This is, as always, dependent on the machines behaving. Junk Yard, particularly, has developed a bad habit of loading two balls (the reason we had to abandon playing it last time) and if this is still going on we will have to pick something else. If so, I am hoping for anything but Simpsons or Getaway, both of which are unkind to me.
My highly inexpert game selection analysis:
Lord of the Rings tends to be popular all around, so I don’t anticipate a lot of crying about that one. Well, except for the lack of a ball save on it, but we’ve all been crying about that so long that the tears have run dry. Russell needs to make his reappearance so he can show the rest of us how to make grooves in the floor with it.
World Cup Soccer is a friendly game, treating most people pretty well. I anticipate a lot of high scoring games on this one (even adjusted for pinflation).
Indiana Jones has its fans and its detractors in the league. You can count me among the latter. If you can’t manage to hit the mode start (which loves to just skip the ball right over the back on a dead aim shot) you get nothing. Having said that, though, I have seen people just go for the multiball before and do fine that way. That’s a harder way to get points (versus a fast grab on the video modes) but it can be done. Just, well, not by me.
Junk Yard is generally well liked, or at least I don’t hear a lot of complaining about it (but that may be because we haven’t used it for league play in a while). But beware! Beware the right ball recycle! It does not recycle your ball but whisks it to a landfill never to be seen again. (Will this ever get fixed?) Prepare for some gnashing of teeth over unjustly lost balls.
Update: Matt has announced that, should Junk Yard still be running its ball loading two-for-one special, we will be playing Tales of the Arabian Nights.
Tuesday was the third meeting (of eight) for Season 3 of the League. After the last meeting, dubbed Demolition Derby Night by Joseph, everyone was concerned about the state of the games, but they all got some TLC after that and all were working as league night began. I was hoping we would play Attack from Mars now that Pinball Pete’s has moved the outlane posts halfway back in (they had previously been as far out as they could be) and dialed back the tilt sensitivity — but Matt’s random number generator selected Junk Yard, Monster Bash, Addams Family, and Austin Powers.
Chris playing Austin Powers while Terry, Mike, and Greg watch.
Chris made a show of elaborately snubbing me tonight, greeting Joseph but passing me with a cold “excuse me, ma’am.” I suppose this might have something to do with an exchange on the Grand Rapids League Facebook. In response to Chris’s complaining about someone double-flippering in a video, I innocently suggested that he was just envious because he couldn’t handle two flippers at once. Apparently I touched a nerve.
Everything seemed to be going well until Junk Yard decided to start serving up two balls instead of one. As exciting as nonstop multiball action with single ball scoring rules would be, it was decided that we would instead play Getaway. I blame Mike (MWS) since he was in the group playing Junk Yard when it broke and his first time with the League was during the Demolition Derby Night. He has admitted that crazy malfunctions have hit him at other leagues before, so I am afraid he might in fact be some sort of pinball gremlin.
It was apparently Family Night this time as I got sorted into a group with my own dear pinball partner Joseph as well as Mark and his daughter, Samantha, who joined the League for the first time. Sam was too polite to blow her own horn but that’s what Dad is for: he told us that she previously placed highly in a youth tournament. I was not taken up on my suggestion that we should play in teams as a sort of Family Feud.
Joseph says this is a picture of him getting some bad news about his taxes. Actually he’s playing Austin Powers while Samantha and Mark watch.
The elusive Terry showed up for the first time this season just to make sure everyone knows he can still put (most of) us in our places. When the dust had settled, Terry had narrowly edged out Aaron to take second for this week, graciously leaving the top spot for Chris. Speaking of Chris, a reliable source tells me that he was seen playing his multiball on Monster Bash one-handed. I hardly need to point out that this only strengthens the claim that Chris has trouble using two flippers at once.
Poor Matt ended up tied with yours truly, a rare confluence of an especially rough night for Matt and an especially good night for me. Maybe he’s been learning some of my Useless Pinball Moves. When his League games were over, Matt said, “It’s time for me to emerge from the chrysalis of league play and become the butterfly that I am.” I can certainly sympathize with the feeling that league play too often fails to capture us at our best.
Matt offers his blessings to Greg and Rodney. He’s a Priest without a cross — but with a halo!
The next league night, meeting #4 of 8, will be on October 7. Will anyone be able to catch Chris? No, scratch that. Will anyone be able to catch Rodney? The gap between first and second (Chris and Rodney) is immense, but the gap between second and third (Joseph) is almost as big. Matt and Aaron are both within easy reach of third at this point, and others are coming up quickly. I am excited to see how the Race for Second and Third develops as we approach the season’s midpoint.
You can check out the complete results for 9/23 in a sortable table format. There are also more photos in the photo gallery.
