Word Salad II

It's been cold this winter, which you could say about most anywhere in North America this winter. It's got us thinking about how the first weekend in freaking October we went to the beach and had a perfectly pleasant day. But to my point, it's been mostly hanging out between 0 and 10 Fahrenheit and if that weren't pleasant enough, we've been getting a fresh snow, a dusting to a half-inch, most every day. Usually right after I've gone out and brushed the snow off the sidewalk and as much of the driveway as still clears anymore.

So what has mildly annoyed me has been that the city never got around to plowing our street. We're a tertiary road, meaning they only get around to plowing us once every three major storms or so, and you understand them not going crazy over every little quarter-inch snow refresh. But you'd think they'd eventually have a light enough day on the main roads they can get the neighborhood streets, right?

bunnyhugger tells me no, and why not. Turns out Lansing, like a lot of northern cities, has a shortage of rock salt this winter. (Never mind that the standard formulation doesn't do a lot of good when it's this cold this long; it'd still do a little good if we could get it on a sunny day.) Apparently the southern states bought up all the rock salt this year for some reason? Like, I get MAGA states wanting to screw the sane people but that's a lot of money to put on the line for a prank that only pays off if it's a really snowy season. There's some dots here I'm not quite connecting but there's probably a confusing article about it on web site that calls their articles ``thinkpieces''.

Anyway this apparently connects to the conscious choice not to plow the side streets. There's a layer of ice down there, underneath the ever-refreshing snow, and annoying and slow as it is to drive on slush it's safer than driving on ice. Remove the slush and you remove the thing that makes people naturally drive slower, so in the absence of a clean street, this is the next-best thing. It's clever and I should admire the clever but I'm also really tired of it being this bitterly cold for this long.

Back to Kennywood. With very short lines for Exterminator we went back around a couple times and once I even photographed what was in the queue.

This may look like nothing, but that's why I photographed it: there used to be a bunch of old, 60s(?)-era industrial machinery here, part of the theming of the waiting area for the Exterminator (which has a premise that mutant rats have taken over the underside of the city or whatever). It looked likely to have been donated from Westinghouse or someone and I can't think any good reason to take it out, especially to replace it with nothing. It's not like it had to do anything besides be there.

But they did leave a couple pieces! Whatever those industrial equipments are, plus a new TV screen replacing the old tube TV that carried a local news anchor's reports about the mysterious things at the Kennywood Power Company.

See this guy? This guy's the ride operator. Do not disturb this guy. Okay? Why do you want to disturb the ride operator anyway? What's this guy doing that you want to disturb them?

Noticed that the Carousel Burger building now had a National Historic District sign on it, explaining a little something of its history. The building used to house the carousel but it's getting on a century since it last did.

Also a memorial tablet we don't remember ever noticing before, even though it apparently dates to 1928. McSwigan was one of the people that Pittsburgh Railways leased Kennywood to in 1907 when they got out of the amusement-park-operating business. McSwigan died in 1923.

bunnyhugger noticing that good-looking carousel over there and saying ``Hey there, horsies!''

Trivia: 46 BCE, when Julius Caesar reformed the calendar, ended up with 445 days: a Mercedonius of 23 days (a common intercalated month put near the end of February) and two extra months of 67 days total inserted between November and December. Source: Mapping Time: The Calendar and its History, EG Richards.

Currently Reading: Michigan History, November/December 2025. Editor Amy Wagenaar.

While driving back from the tournament bunnyhugger got a phone notification that something was going on and needed her to moderate a Facebook group. She didn't elaborate, which was all that I needed to know: someone had noticed that a nonbinary person with a traditionally male name had won the Women's tournament and was going to make themselves a problem. bunnyhugger didn't elaborate as why force FAE to confront that their victory was making the vagina-inspectors mad?

It was, I would learn after we dropped off FAE and got lunch, exactly who I expected causing trouble. Someone very talented, whose retirement from competitive pinball met no protest since they were a jerk generally, had declared well why couldn't he just start calling himself (female near-homophone of his name) and clean up in the women's division? Remarkably, nearly the whole thread turned out to be people yelling at him to go away and his MAGA douchebaggery was why nobody missed him. (Not fully true; they also didn't miss him for his cheating in tournaments.) There was a brief argument about whether the thread should be closed, or deleted, or left up as a declaration of what the community values are. The argument became moot when someone kicked the guy --- who had been one of the overly many moderators of the group --- out of the group and banished him, which it turns out wipes out the whole thread.

Still, the first test of how Michigan Pinball --- which last decade acquired a reputation for Drama --- would handle a thing many people are broken about was passed with flying colors.

But this wasn't the end of it. It wouldn't become a big drama, at least as bunnyhugger relayed details to me, but it would become a steady trickle of guys being very concerned about whether women were being discriminated against, and there were several days of whack-a-mole. A pretty nice mole-whacker was bunnyhugger in her personal capacity (she would limit using her official, Women's State Representatie, account to post the rules about eligibility for sanctioned women's tournaments) noting how many guys who didn't even play competitively much were suddenly concerned about the women's championship. After a couple days of this the spouse of one of these guys finally joined the group to say how concerned she was about the ethics of gaming journalism. Tch.

Of course the women actually in the tournament haven't (so far as I've heard, a subset of how much bunnyhugger has noticed, and please remember this may be incorrect or at least out of date) said anything in places as permanent as social media. We've heard rumors of specific people being upset about FAE's come-from-nowhere win, although not whether that's because they present too masculine for their tastes or just because four months ago they weren't even on the women's rankings and suddenly they were the champion. (There are other nonbinary people, some with traditionally-masculine names, playing in women's tournament and attracting zero comment that we're aware of, although that might be a factor of these other people being mid-pack players and not being in a high-profile tournament, so, who cares if someone takes fifth place in a weekly?) I don't pass along names even in coy fashion, since bunnyhugger hasn't told me any; she's glad to protect me from knowing-with-certainty of people being horrible.

A couple days after their win, FAE announced that they would not be going to nationals, out in Boulder, Colorado, in March. They didn't say why (so far as I've heard). It may be as simple as they couldn't arrange transportation; they don't drive, for causes I've never inquired about, and while I don't quite know what they do I noticed they had a cooler bag mentioning retail excellence, which would be consistent with a tight budget. Maybe they figured it would deflate some of the Internet Angy people if they didn't represent the state. I don't imagine I can ever ask and will just have to listen in case they ever volunteer the information.

But this does mean that, if things go to plan, last year's champion of JL --- who had arranged the time off at work for this before the tournament was even held, a not-unjustified bit of confidence --- will be in Colorado representing the state at Nationals. Hope that goes well.

bunnyhugger tells me that four states had the same person win both the open and the women's championships, which speaks to several quite talented people playing. I don't know of women who won their state or province's open without winning the women's championship, but it's possible. More on this, from a great remove, as it comes to pass.

So, Kennywood. We saw Kenny Kangaroo! As he was going in for who knows how long! Of course we chased him down in a non-creepy way.

Kenny stops for us and waves! Behind is the statue of George Washington, famous in the area for that time he started the Seven Years' War.

And a last wave to bunnyhugger as the handler told us no, really, he's got to go.

It happens Kenny's walk back took him past the Kangaroo ride so who can resist that? The only weird thing is there's people in frame not looking at Kenny.

bunnyhugger fiddles with her camera while not paying particular attention to Parker. I think the guy in the fluorescent green shirt noticed me.

And then we saw something almost as astounding and rare as Kenny Kangaroo: a five-minute wait for The Exterminator! But that's not the most astounding thing. It's that ...

The sign was wrong! It was a walk-on! Or as close to a walk on as you can get for a roller coaster that seats only four people. We had to wait maybe one car, and when we got out we went around again and had to wait only five minutes or so, and then again with only a ten or so minute wait. By the time that was done Exterminator was back to its 45-minute waits but we were getting a bit dizzy anyway so that's a good time to stop.

Trivia: Explorer 1's booster fired its second stage 404 seconds after launch, at the control of a scientist on the ground, based on a (hasty) calculation of when the stack would be at the apex of its ballistic trajectory after the first stage's firing. The firing of the third and fourth stages were on timers after this. Source: Project Vanguard: The NASA History, Constance McLaughlin Green, Milton Lomask. NASA SP-4202.

Currently Reading: Michigan History, November/December 2025. Editor Amy Wagenaar. It seems a little predictable for the November 2025 cover feature to be the Edmund Fitzgerald but yeah, have to admit, what else could you possibly do? </p

Over on my humor blog the attempt to give titles to the separate parts of the FX Down To Mobius MiSTing, which doesn't have such natural break points as Arthur Scott Bailey's chapters, made it to its second week before becoming ridiculous. That plus two bits drawn from real life and a weather joke that absolutely killed in the Teams chat at work. Please, enjoy!

• MiSTed: FX Down To Mobius, Part 1 - Host Sketches
• In My Defense I Did Not Leave Out the Vegetarian Hamburger Part
• Statistics Saturday: Secondary Uses for Company Logos
• Robert Benchley: Mutiny on the ``Bounty''
• Fine, I'll Clean Out My Downloads Folder
• What's Going On In Prince Valiant? Why is Prince Valiant in Italy now? November 2025 - January 2026
• While I Dislike Giving Hot Takes I'm Going to Give One
• MiSTed: FX Down To Mobius, Part 2: A Moral Argument, Part 1

Well, this is awkward: I have enough Tuscora Park photos for half a Thursday photo dump. Please enjoy that half-dozen and then the next thing we went to on the Most Extreme Mid-Atlantic Parks Tour ...

All but one panel of the carousel building was closed, but I could still poke my hand in to get a picture of what it looked like.

And, of course, I can do a panorama of the closed carousel and just a tiny bit of the outside.

Kiddie Ferris wheel that's been put to bed for the night.

Historical marker explaining the park, with the startling revelation to me that while yes, Tuscora started as a private amusement park, it was only a private amusement park for four seasons. From 1912 it was taken over by the public.

So it turns out basically all the rides that were ever there were public property. It does give us tolerably believable dates for the carousel and Ferris Wheel's arrival at the park.

The sunset was gorgeous, by the way, and while I took a couple of pictures this is maybe the most representative, at least of how it looks as a photograph. The clouds were just grand.

If you guessed the next thing after Tuscora Park would be Kennywood, you guessed right! And remember the last like five times we went right from Tuscora to Kennywood. Learning from experience counts!

Establishing shot: the hatch of my car yawns wide to take in Kennywood in the distance.

And one sweet thing about Kennywood is you get nice long approaches with pleasant views like this.

OK, not so happy about having this many people in line ahead of us especially when we weren't 100% sure about our tickets (long yet boring story, we were fine, we accidentally bought duplicates because the park's web site was not telling us when the transaction successfully completed, they refunded the duplicates).

And we're in the park! Look at the Old Mill, a ride nearly 125 years old and ... wait a minute, what's that in the center? Mascots!

No, not Parker the Kennywood Arrow, we see him plenty of times, we want to see the other one, behind --- look, just --- get out of the way, we want to see ---

Yes! It's Kenny Kangaroo, whom we saw for the first time ever outside a KennyCon event! And he was going in after spending the park opening greeting people and posing for pictures!

Trivia: In 1966, Lunar Landing Research Vehicle Number 1 was upgraded with a cockpit enclosure with styrofoam roof, and simulated Lunar Module window openings, a prototype of the enclosure that would be used on the Lunar Landing Training Vehicle. Source: Unconventional, Contrary, and Ugly: The Lunar Landing Research Vehicle, Gene J Matranga, C Wayne Ottiner, Calvin R Jarvis, with D CHristian Gelzer. NASA SP-2004-4535.

Currently Reading: Volume 82: Wreck o' th' Pegaso D'Oro, or, The Ispano-Squweezer!, Ralph Stein, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.

FAE has been quietly using they/them pronouns for years now, without getting much attention. And dressing in more feminine garb on more occasions. And, on the explicit word that nonbinary people were welcome in the women's tournaments, started playing in them in October. Which retroactively made all the pinball play they'd done in open leagues and tournaments count them towards the women's finals. FAE plays only in Lansing, plus Pinball At The Zoo this last year. This meant they were both unknown and under-rated: consider that they got into the top eight of women in the state on the strength of two league finishes and a couple not-large tournaments, plus a mid-pack finish in Pinball At The Zoo. FAE was my and bunnyhugger's pick for person most likely to win it all, and nobody but us seemed aware of them.

And our forecast looked likely to pay off: they beat their first-round opponent in four straight games, and their second-round in five games. KEC was next and would put FAE to the strongest test they faced all day. But KEC beat FAE on Mustang (her choice), then FAE returned the favor on Lethal Weapon 3. On The Who's Tommy and then Uncanny X-Men FAE racked up two more wins, bringing KEC to the brink of elimination. Then on Scuba --- her pick --- she came back and handed FAE a second loss that round. On to FAE's last pick, Paragon.

Paragon is a game I want to like. It's a wide-body, usually a sign of so much good pinball idea they couldn't place it all. It's got a neat bunch of art this time I don't think plagiarized from Boris Vallejo. But it is a brutal game, prone to sudden, abrupt ball drains. Even the tutorial video the IFPA has shows the skilled player teaching you how to play the game unable to keep the ball alive.

And, somehow, FAE was keeping the ball alive, accomplishing such impossible feats as spelling out the word PARAGON in the lights, a feat good for like 80,000 points on a table where 50,000 will give you a good finish most of the time. KEC went up to her last ball down something like 150,000 points and the game just does not let you get that many points.

Yet ... somehow ... she didn't lose the ball. She just kept on shooting it up into as safe a shot as Paragon has, putting up small but reliable points over and over, the wood-chopping approach that will win you games if you don't have an unlucky shot. And she kept having lucky shots, right up to the point that she too completed the PARAGON spelling, all but eliminating FAE's lead. A little bit more play and she would bring this expert player to a seventh game, that would be KEC's pick.

She didn't. The ball bounced off a something or other and drained and when the bonus counted up she was just short. One more hit on the bonus-multiplier targets would have won it. One or two more shots up into the upper playfield where bonuses build up and letters get awarded would have done it. It would have been plausible that she'd have gone on to finals, but she did not. All she had was the strange consolation that everyone in the venue was congratulating her for an incredible rally and agreeing that it sucked it wasn't enough.

And finals. FAE versus two-time women's champion JL. The match started on her game, Jungle Queen, which decided it wanted nothing to do with her and gave FAE a win. Lethal Weapon 3 was similarly not giving JL nearly enough time to play. The next game, Space Shuttle, got interrupted on JL's last ball when, down a hundred thousand points or something, the spinner that's essential to any wood-chopping play got stuck. PH was able to open the table and fix it easily, but what flow JL had started gathering was gone and she drained the next shot. Finally, playing demoralized, FAE crushed JL on The Uncanny X-Men, beating the former state champion four games to nothing.

FAE had come from obscurity to win it all, and they never faced a closer match than KEC with her outstanding-but-not-enough Paragon.

And now, back to Tuscora Park. We'll get to carousel fun soon.

Something delights me in seeing the train wriggle its way back along the track here.

Maker's plate for the Superior Wheel.

And the ride sign for the roller coaster, which --- to my surprise --- I don't think we have any photographs of from up-close. No recent photographs anyway.

Several plaques dedicating the carousel and its building.

bunnyhugger enjoying a ride on the carousel. I had a feeling this was a ride it was okay to take a careful picture or two on.

I guess bunnyhugger did not think it was all right I was taking pictures during the ride. Sorry.

Trivia: Challenger astronaut Ronald McNair hoped to bring a saxophone into space on STS-51L, to play with electronic musician Jean-Michel Jarre (on the ground) a composition Jarre had composed, ``Rendez-Vous VI''. He was blocked from bringing the instrument to space, on the grounds of objections from ``someone in the chain of command''. Commander Dick Scobee would say it was his call: ``I decided Ron could bring his sax if Judy [ Resnik ] could bring her piano.'' Source: Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space, Adam Higginbotham. McNair had played his saxophone in space before, on STS-41B (also the Challenger), but accidentally recorded over the tape of his performance before landing.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 81: Steam Rocket to Infinity, Ralph Stein, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.

PS: What's Going On In Prince Valiant? Why is Prince Valiant in Italy now? November 2025 - January 2026 in case you missed my comic strip recaps sooner.