Word Salad II

Back in 2014, seeking even more pinball than we could play in Lansing, we went to the Arcade Pinball League in Brighton, not quite an hour away. It was a fun venue packed with pinball machines from the 60s through the present, and it solidified us as people taking competitive pinball way too seriously. But around 2015 the owner got tired of the venue as it was and moved or sold or both almost all the games, and the league evaporated. For a monthly pinball league about as far away we could play at Marvin's Marvellous Mechanical Museum instead.

Marvin's has been closed for a bit over a year now, far exceeding the five months or so they figured needed to move to their new location and despite their posting a proof-of-life video to Facebonk the desire for a monthly league in that area remained. And, what do you know, but the Arcade had picked up more pinball machines again. We've been there a couple times, for furry meetups, but despite thinking how nice it'd be to just go there and play all day on pay-one-price terms we haven't.

And this is how last Thursday we were at the rebirth of the Arcade Pinball League. Or the creation of a new Arcade Pinball League; identity for groups is a difficult concept to make precise. I even got out my original Arcade Pinball League shirt from twelve years ago to wear, delighting the couple people who noticed.

The format was like what Arcade League had used before, no surprise as Marvin's used the same format: you get in a group of three or four people and take turns picking five games, getting points based on your finish. The first week we were put in ``random'' order, which turns out to be how we checked in for the night, and in future weeks we should be put with players who have about the same standing. This it was by a one-in-four chance that bunnyhugger and I were not in the same group. I ended up in a group, instead, with the guy we'd seen at Pinball At The Zoo last year who was wearing a full rubber strap-on face mask, and waved ultraviolet sterilizers over the flippers before his every ball.

And how did I do? ... To use our old slang, I hit for the cycle on the first four games, getting a first, second, third, and fourth. The third place hurt as it was on the game I'd picked, Whitewater, and while the sterilizer guy had an insurmountable lead by the third ball, all I needed was a couple million points to take second, and I fumbled the ball rather than make a safe shot. I'd picked Whitewater partly for historic reasons: it was one of the games they always had at The Arcade in the old days but back then I didn't know how to play it at all. (This game is either a new instance of the table, or is a heavily refitted one, as the toys on the playfield, originally Bigfoot themed, were replaced with after-market Abominable Snowman toys.)

The first place came on the Jersey Jack game Elton John, which just in case it wasn't destiny enough for me picked as my starting song ``Pinball Wizard''. Other people had to change their song to get to it. In that case I was doing all right, chopping wood, making a lot of shots that weren't exploding in points and then on my final ball the game gave me several distinct multiballs right in a row, like it didn't want me to stop playing.

The fifth and final game of the night was my choice again and I went for Creature From The Black Lagoon, partly because I don't have many chances to play it. And it turned out to be a great choice for me because I was able to try going for Super Scoring, a mode I learned recently from playing the game in simulation. Shoot the right ramp twelve times (seventeen on some games) and then the Snack Bar and there you go. Well, dear reader, I got it, on my third ball, and I could feel my quartet staring at me as this mode they'd never heard of before came up. By the time I could see the score again I had embarrassingly overwhelmed everyone else. Two firsts, a second, a third, and a fourth totals out to a slightly better-than-average night, this format. I finished a little bit above bunnyhugger, who had a night with no first places but more seconds.

After playing we got to talking with MWS, and some of the many people who know him and chat with him. Also with the woman on the venue's staff, who had come in to oversee the place on what was otherwise a closed night for The Arcade. (This explained the mystery of why league isn't Friday night: add the general public to the fifty or sixty people there for league and the crowd would be unmanageable.) Turns out, she's also the person who runs the furry meetups, when those are held, so we got a fresh angle to talk about as well as vinyl stickers of her snow leopard. bunnyhugger offered back in trade a Lansing Lightning Flippers sticker, with her Thumper Bumpers rabbit mascot, and this got talk going about whether The Arcade could get a snow leopard mascot.

It will not surprise you at all that we closed the place out; they were shutting games off as people finished them, and we would get only one last game of Twilight Zone in at the end of the night.

And now, we come to the last pictures of our Wednesday at Six Flags America, our full day at a park that's since been closed and probably will be doomed to become a plaque in front of a condo soon. What comes next in my photo roll? Do you remember?

Looking up at Superman: Ride of Steel's lift hill (left) and return path (right) while focusing on just how dark the clouds could still make the evening sky.

On the right is the Joker's Jinx ride, and in the distance, The Wild One, over in the Mardis Gras area.

Noticed the gates to a stadium-seating performance venue open and I was curious how close I could get to it without being yelled at.

Didn't actually get this close but I did use my zoom lens and see, mm, seems like the area hasn't seen heavy use or maintenance love in a while.

Block party also didn't show much signs of having happened, but maybe it cleans up fast.

Here's a picture creeping up on The Flying Carousel's rounding boards, my last interesting picture before leaving the park. And what could come next?

Trivia: In the months following Thomas Edison's 1891 victory in lawsuits over the light bulb patent, Edison General Electric stock dropped from $120 a share to $90. Source: Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World, Jill Jonnes. Finalizing the decision took time, and Westinghouse had held onto its money well and was actually coming out of the patent fight stronger than anyone expected.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Sundays Supplement Volume 20: 1958, Tom Sims, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.

Closing Ceremonies. We'd missed opening ceremonies because they were inexplicably early on Friday, like 10 am or something, and there was no fursuit parade, so this was the first big everyone-at-the-convention activity we were at. This is where I finally got to know anything particular about the charity --- Wolf Creek Habitat, for the second(?) year in a row --- and that the 2,525 attendees raised a total of like $35,000. We were wrapped up enough in our own problems to have missed them, wherever they were.

With the convention officially closed we had a couple hours of unscheduled time and spent some of it in Hospitality --- bunnyhugger finally got some alcohol from the free bar; I missed it altogether --- and somewhere around here we picked up the rumor that depending on just when the Renaissance Center renovations start, if they start next year, then Motor City Furry Con might be forced out into some other venue, if one fits.

bunnyhugger used the time to take her daily half-hour walk. I went back to the video game room where they were once again playing Wreck-It Ralph on an overhead projector. They were always playing that or Tron Ares I think because it didn't look like what I kind of remember from Tron Legacy. I finally got some time in on Quick And Crash, the target-shooting game with a fun exploding mug as the final target, and I managed one time even to shoot the mug. I wasn't doing very well. I also stunned bunnyhugger by playing the Crazy Taxi video game --- how often do I play arcade games? --- because it was right by the pinball and it had looked like a lot of fun. It is pretty fun, yeah, have to say.

And the pinball games? Surfers was still working, doing better than it had last year, although the flippers were sorely weakened by three days of heavy use. I'm not sure it was still possible to make the candycane shot that's the real points mine. Bow And Arrow was still going strong, though, apparently unfazed by all its attention. bunnyhugger and I got a last couple games in just before the close of the gaming room, with bunnyhugger once again putting up just over 100,000 points. She was eerily consistent on the game all weekend. I was more erratic at it, but the final game, after two bad balls, discovered just what happens if you max out the bonus, which you can collect mid-ball with the right shot: you can light an extra ball, and that let me get to enough points to collect another extra ball, so I ended up coming achingly close to properly rolling the game.

bunnyhugger got into her Cerberus kigurumi --- while she'd had some time fursuiting Saturday it was just too much to bring the suit from the car to the Headless Lounge and back again --- and got appreciative congratulations for having chosen to wear a neat three-headed outfit. And we went to the Dead Dog Dance, taking in the last hours of a convention that wasn't really our thing. The DJ brought the songs to a stop at 10:00 and then rolled out one more song to close things out that I couldn't tell from what came before. And then the guy in charge of the AV came out and did two or possibly more songs before bringing the Dead Dog Dance, and the last event of the convention, to an end. They did not play the ChipTunes version of Toto's ``Africa'' that had finished Closing Ceremonies.

We did a last check of lost-and-found and careful examination of the path back to my car --- and to the next floor up in the parking garage, where we'd parked for a few minutes before discovering the pedestrian-overpass-level was free --- without finding bunnyhugger's hat. Can not recommend losing precious gifts from family members, would not do again.

Our full day at Six Flags America got interrupted by rain, most of which I didn't photograph. We just waited stuff out in the food court. But ...

It really was raining, though, as you can see from the raindrops coming out of the trees.

The steampunk-themed midway with a fresh coat of water. Not bad, is it?

Here's Steamwinder, the ride we most wanted to get on in Steamtown besides the roller coaster. So, each of the big levers rotates, with the seats staying horizontal, and all four of the levers is in time so they always just miss the others, but keep looking like they are on the brink of contact. Meanwhile the whole base rotates around a vertical axis. It's a much more intense and fun and delightful ride than we expected.

This is just the sign for Roar, which doesn't put the A in a separate color the way the logo posters in the station do.

Did you know they had character meet-and-greets? Neither did we until it was too late.

Here's that picture of a white polka-dotted chef alligator mascot that you were asking about.

Trivia: An Ottoman Financial calendar, or Marti calendar, was in use in Islamic border countries (like Turkey) from 1676. These years began on 1 March, and had a 29-day February in Julian leap years. Source: Mapping Time: The Calendar and its History, EG Richards.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 85: Dragon or Overgrown Lizard?, Ralph Stein, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.