Tonight’s the night: the fifth meeting of the fourth season of the incomparable Lansing Pinball League! Aaron is going to be running things again this time, as Matt is traveling during his Spring Break. As for me, well, the saying among professors is that Spring Break is neither in spring nor a break. In my case it is definitely not a break from pinball; instead it’s an opportunity to play pinball when I’m not utterly wrung out from a long day at work.
Aaron’s stewardship of the league in Matt’s absence last week was received with mixed reviews. Some were relieved by the paucity of hugs, others were unsettled by his unorthodox methods (such as rotating through games counterclockwise). Rumors that his broken nose was caused by a scuffle over the slam tilt rule are unfounded; I have it on good authority that it resulted from losing a fight with a sidewalk. Like any pinball player, he had the good sense to protect his hands from injury by taking the fall with his face.
We will also be down a Mike, specifically Mike S., who went early to PAPA with Todd. This should bring our Mike levels back within recommended allowances.
The games for today will (probably) be as follows:
Monster Bash
Tales of the Arabian Nights (warning: last I knew, skill shots were not working)
Junk Yard
Please not The Simpsons Pinball Party, anything but that
Attack from Mars is the contingency game, used if more than 16 people play, but that doesn’t look likely.
On Tuesday, the fourth season of the Lansing Pinball League reached its halfway point, the fourth meeting of eight. Despite my pessimistic predictions of Getaway failure, every game chosen for this week – Getaway, Indiana Jones, The Walking Dead, and World Cup Soccer – did in fact get played. Tales of the Arabian Nights was on standby in case more than 16 people showed up, but that did not come to pass. In fact, attendance was on the low side this week, relative to the highs we have been reaching recently, though in the old days it would still have been considered quite a crowd.
Chris and Mike enjoy a well-lit pinball alcove for a split second as my flash goes off. Sadly, they were plunged back into darkness immediately afterward.
Aaron was in charge this week since Matt had to study for a midterm the next day. I reminded Aaron of my warning that being Matt would mean having to give out hugs, then teased him a bit about his belief that “touching people is disgusting.” He said that of course he didn’t mean any of us, it’s just proximity to strangers that appalls him. This got him on the subject of how he would never want to go on a cruise. I replied that I had never had any interest in going on a cruise until the other day when I read about The 80’s Cruise. I attempted to explain the appeal of this (“they have all kinds of actual 80’s bands and costume parties and stuff!”) and Aaron said, “I’m sure it’s a wonderful time for anyone who has ever wanted to have norovirus while wearing fluorescent charteuse.”
Aaron, ever the iconoclast, then sent everyone rotating counterclockwise through the games instead of the Matt-standard clockwise. I ended up in a group with Alex and Greg, which later also added Russell when he arrived late. Alex played several outstanding games, most notably a game of The Walking Dead that saw him putting initials on the high score board. I, on the other hand, was punished for bragging about my recent Walking Dead scores by barely breaking 10 million. Ouch. I made up for it later by having an excellent game of Getaway that set a personal high score for me. (I keep records of all my best scores in a little app. Yeah, I’m that kind of person.)
As I sat nearby watching Alex play The Walking Dead (I had a lot of time to sit around with the epic game he was having), he launched a crossbow shot and hit… a bunny. I gasped in dismay, which caused Chris to erupt into peals of laughter. “I always go for the left ramp,” he said, “but I’m shooting the right from now on just because of that.” Yeah, well, my rabbit Stephen has a message he wants me to give you…
Stephen disapproves. Of everything.
Chris had other reasons to be in a good mood, since according to Joseph, he put up high score entries on both Getaway and Indiana Jones. Together with Alex’s TWD score, that makes at least three high scores that got entered during league play.
After league finished, a smaller crowd than usual went over to Theio’s for a bite to eat. I think the group was just me, Joseph, Greg, Mike S., Jake, and Sam, this time. We invited the New Mike, but somehow he wasn’t sufficiently enticed by prospects of hash browns and our erudite company. We will have to try harder next time.
I did get a chance to talk with the New Mike, though, and that just leaves the New Matt as the league member I have not yet met. He didn’t come to this meeting (maybe he misunderstood and thought there was a Matt ban this week?) but I will make sure to catch him next time.
Be vewwy, vewwy quiet…
Speaking of next time, I hope to see you all then! It will be March 10, same time, same place. As usual, I have the results posted in a sortable table and have put a few photos in the gallery (not very many this time, I’m sorry to say).
In just a few hours it will be time for the fourth meeting of Season 4, the halfway point of the season. Last meeting saw an unprecedented number of players which led us to play five games instead of our usual four. Matt has lined up four games for us to play with a fifth contingent on there being more than 16 players. The games are:
The Walking Dead
World Cup Soccer
Getaway
Indiana Jones
Tales of the Arabian Nights (if more than 16 players)
Joseph asked which game I thought would break this time. After some consideration (World Cup was also a contender) I decided to throw my vote to Getaway. Joseph agreed. Mike S. has threatened to use his gremlin powers against Indiana Jones, which he is not a fan of, but since that one has been treating me a little bit better recently, I asked if he couldn’t target Getaway instead.
Matt has some serious studying to do tonight due to a midterm tomorrow, so he won’t be running the meeting tonight. In all seriousness, I admire his diligence as a student. As for my academic diligence… well, I stayed home from class today. Aaron will be serving as Matt’s stand-in, which will of course require him to do a lot more hugging than usual.
Tonight is the third meeting of our fourth season. Some members of the league have barely recovered from the IFPA state championship in Grand Rapids on Saturday, but last meeting’s shakeups mean that no one can relax! Matt’s random number generator managed to choose the exact same games this time as last (one of our league mathematicians, Joseph, tells me the odds of this happening are 1 in 715); he threatened to make us all play 4 games of Simpsons instead, so we could go home early. I assume he must have changed his mind and rerolled, since this is the slate he has posted:
Austin Powers, which we were supposed to play last time but kept eating quarters.
World Cup Soccer, which we were also supposed to play last time but the right flipper was not working.
Junk Yard, which has no serious issues to the best of my knowledge.
Medieval Madness. Aw yeah, Medieval Madness! Shoot the castle! Shoot the castle! Shoot the castle!! Or be a rebel and go for multiball. It’s your funeral.
I will be mighty surprised if we actually play all those games. Remember, my streak of writing previews with games we did not actually play has been unbroken since I started this blog in the fall. But we shall see soon enough.
It’s time for another League Night, the second of Season 4. As usual, Matt has randomly chosen our games:
The Simpsons Pinball Party. Arrrrghhhhhhhh….
World Cup Soccer. This one seems likely to get switched with something else, since recently the left flipper has not been staying upright when held. That’s fine; I’d hate to break my perfect failure streak. My preview post has never once successfully listed all the games we ended up playing, and this time will probably not be the exception.
The Walking Dead. Joseph is not looking forward to this after playing a Grand Champion game of it during the off week. He says, “I am going to be completely humiliated every single time we play Walking Dead at league forevermore.”
Tales of the Arabian Nights. I’m looking forward to this one: the lamp has been spinning very well and now that there are some lights in the alcove, Lightning Lamp won’t be quite as terrifying. If I’m lucky, I’ll play it after SPP to get the bad taste out of my mouth.
See you all at 7 p.m. tomorrow (Tuesday) at the Avenue!
After a short break for the holidays, league play resumed with the first meeting of Season 4 on Tuesday. The usual suspects were joined by a couple of new members: Kristen, whom I previously met at the Arcade and Marvin’s Leagues, and Sam, a Grand Rapids League member coaxed over to Lansing by Jake. Russell, who was absent for nearly all of Season 3, and Eric, who abstained from Season 3 due to work obligations, made a return.
Kristen and Russell playing in the downstairs alcove. Note the overhead lights reflecting off the tables.
We were scheduled to play Austin Powers, Theatre of Magic, Monster Bash, and Junk Yard. Prior to the meeting I had asked Mike to please use his gremlin powers to break Austin Powers for me. While Matt was feeding Austin Powers, it stole several of his quarters, so he decided to strike it from the day’s schedule and substitute Attack from Mars. When I next ran into Mike, he greeted me with, “You’re welcome.” The streak continues unbroken: I have never yet written a League Night Preview that actually included all the games we ended up playing.
Speaking of Mike’s machine-wrecking tendencies, no one slam tilted Junk Yard tonight. To make up for this, Matt helpfully slam tilted Attack from Mars, thus sparing Chris from the burden of having to rule the universe. I was downstairs and didn’t witness this event, but Joseph did, and he reported to me that Matt just slid the table a few inches. In Joseph’s opinion, it deserved a tilt, but was not nearly aggressive enough to merit a slam tilt.
Russell explains to Matt why yoga is more important than pinball.
Joseph had a particularly good league game of Junk Yard, and got to put his initials in as the Junk Champion. He got to enjoy this for maybe as much as an hour before noticing that the Junk Champion had gone back to CST. According to Mike, this happened during Chris’s league game too.
As for my group, I ended up with James, Danny, and Alex. I edged out the narrowest victory over second place James in our group’s Theatre of Magic game, but came in a distant fourth in all other games, while my group-mates performed admirably, especially in a high-scoring game of Monster Bash. I believe this was James’s best-scoring night since he joined the league.
Since I hate league night being over for two weeks, I almost always linger until everyone else gives up and goes home. This time I was joined in the late night lingering by Jake, Sam, Joseph, Greg, and Mike. We hung around until about 11:30 – which might be the latest I have managed to drag the evening out – and then Jake said, “Let’s all go to Theio’s!” I thought this was a brilliant suggestion. We all piled into a booth at Theio’s, where we discussed, among less printable things, roller coasters. As I have been a roller coaster enthusiast since long before I discovered pinball, it does not take much to encourage me to talk about them at length and in excessive detail. The only thing better than amusement parks, in my book, is playing pinball at amusement parks, and the only thing better than pinball is amusement park themed pinball. My life may have peaked last summer when Joseph and I played Cyclone in the arcade at Rye Playland.
It was great to see everyone again, and I’m also quite happy to have Theatre of Magic added to our selection of games at the Avenue. It was my original favorite pinball machine, and though it has been surpassed in my affections as I’ve become acquainted with more games, it is still easily in my top 5. The Avenue has it turned up good and loud, too, which is a nice change from the barely-audible Addams Family it replaced. The Avenue has also turned the lights back on in the downstairs alcove and though no one would say it’s bright in there, it is certainly an improvement.
I have posted the complete results as well as added a few photos to the gallery, though I’m sorry to say most of my photos this time didn’t turn out well. See you January 27 at the next league night!
