After her first-round loss, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger took four wins in a row. Then her slump began, on Dungeons and Dragons, the brand-new Stern game with a red dragon playfield prop that rumor says sometimes catches on fire, which is way too thematic. The game has only been arriving on venues the last week or two, so nobody knows how to play it yet, and even if you've touched the game the rules might have changed since last time. bunnyhugger lost this one, in part because once you qualify Dragon Multiball by hitting the dragon enough you actually start the multiball by doing something else and she didn't know what the something else was. (It's a right orbit shot, captured by a magnet to start the real chaos.) The game seems fun, though. Among other elements you get a character that, if you log in using Stern's user-tracking system, can persist and build up game to game. And the game narrates in a fun way, like, you encounter an owlbear! Or you sneak into the kobold camp. When you finish an adventure it even describes, like, you witness the freed kobolds walking out, mechanically but happily. I don't know if there's an overarching story connecting modules together but it seems plausible that there might be. This is a game to watch.
That loss started her losing streak for the night, which got to only three games before she faced me, on Flash Gordon, and whomped me down hard. RLM's Flash Gordon has been extensively renovated, given a new outer cabinet and pop bumpers and lights and all so that it looks, and has the feel, of a brand-new game with a 1980 layout. It's a lot of fun to play and I'm sorry I didn't get to. But it got bunnyhugger back in the winning ways.
Almost. Her next game, while I was losing on Baby Pac-Man, was Tales From The Crypt, against DOM, one of the state's top players and he put up an uproariously high score. bunnyhugger, to her credit, stepped up too, putting up a game that would have beaten almost anyone else, and that on a game she really doesn't know the rules to. (Tales From The Crypt is a 90s Data East game, so the scoring is all mysterious and arbitrary and a lot of the modes don't really play well. Not so bad as 90s Gottlieb games, but clearly the second tier for the decade.) And that moral victory was her last loss of the night; she enjoyed four more wins in a row, leaving her with nine wins for the night and a comfortable ranking, eighth of the 12 people going to playoffs. Last time, after just missing playoffs, she said all she wanted was to make it into the first round and she had done that with ease.
How that first round went I intend to share with you tomorrow.
But for today? Yes, it's Dollywood pictures I hope to share with you. If you don't see them, then that went wrong.
Construction fence protecting us from seeing whatever dust they might have beyond. Also a quote about inspiration from Dolly Parton. Ah, but what's behind there? Let's just look ...
Huh. It's dust. How about that?
A little hatching-birdies prop that's a natural photo site. Also something for kids to climb all over, which you need at parks.
More walkways, with one of the loops of Wild Eagle in the distance. From this, can you reconstruct the geography of Dollywood?
Returning to Wildwood Grove. This is a fountain near the front of the area that also has the vibe of being a lyre, thanks to the dribbling water. Really clever idea.
I also photographed it from this angle because I thought it'd be easier to see that there is water there and not just a tree branch or vine.
Trivia: Arlie Latham, who died in 1952 at the age of 93, was the last major league baseball player alive to have batted against pitchers who were throwing from only 45 feet away, rather than the approximately 60 feet it has used since 1893. Source: The Beer and Whiskey League: The Illustrated History of the American Association - Baseball's Renegade Major League, David Nemec. Latham played for the Saint Louis team in the American Association for several years, as well as several National League teams. The pitcher was moved to 50 feet from the batter in 1888.
Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine Volume 53: Pturkey Island, Tom Sims, Bela Zaboly, Editor Stephanie Noelle. This story has way more age regression than I expect even given that a story or two ago they spent a lot of time looking over baby photos so I know they figured out character models for everyone. You'd think Poopdeck Pappy As An Infant would be enough for a story, though.
