Finals. ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger had drawn up three banks for the March Hare Madness finals, so that the top seed --- DMC --- could pick a slate of games, not just three that he could blow up that would go on forever. He picked the bank with Godzilla, which we should have expected, and other people picking what order to go in made the mistake of forcing him to go first, so that he couldn't have a walk-off last ball on that game. Meanwhile PCL and I set up in the ``booth'', the long table upstairs, with a couple laptops and camera setup to do commentary for the live stream. This time we had headphones with microphones poking out, so between that and my trying to enunciate better I could be heard nattering away, my voice sounding like a nonspecific Muppet. (Boy, remember when Nonspecific Muppet's first EP came out and it was all anyone played that summer?)
The streaming gear was inviting enough that a couple guys came over and asked if we were doing a podcast. I was content to allow it as yeah, might as well be a podcast, but PCL explained it in enthusiastic detail. They asked what our subject was and weren't satisfied that we were talking about the pinball game --- Getaway, a very short game to balance the long-playing Godzilla --- going on maybe fifteen feet away. They suggested talking about relationships or mushrooms or who would win, Godzilla or King Kong. They stuck around only a few minutes, bestowing the advice to ``stay positive'', and looked like they were having fun.
While they were visiting we were distracted trying to follow the actual game --- we were also suffering lagbursts not on the recorded stream --- and missed bunnyhugger trying to use the strategy she'd deployed well in Grand Rapids, of letting the ball save build progress on Getaway. The first deliberate drain worked perfectly, but the second one the game recorded just too late for the ball save, and she got cheated out of a second ball. Can't say for sure that if she'd gotten this ball to play she'd have done better than third place, but it can't have helped.
And as our guests were leaving a weird event happened. FAE played a card to shake the game, giving DMC a tilt warning. After FAE shook and the game warned, Getaway launched the ball, which quickly drained, and I had to leave to make a ruling on this. That DMC would receive a compensation ball was beyond question. The issue: International Flipper Pinball Association rules say that a player is disqualified if they cause another player to lose the ball. That is, literally, what happened, but the Critical Hit card specifically allowed FAE to take the action which caused the loss of ball.
Fortunately we had the stream so we could go back and check a key issue: did FAE tap the ball launch? Because that would collapse the question to a simple played-out-of-turn matter. It took a little fussing around but we could see on the captured stream that FAE's hands had never been near the ball launch.
So the closest model I could find to the published rules covering this is that accidentally causing the loss of a ball, or losing the ball because of a tournament director's instructions, doesn't disqualify a player. Following the instructions of the card seemed to waive the issue of playing out of turn objection, and as nobody had the faintest idea that Getaway would launch a ball on a tilt warning --- if it does do that consistently and this weren't just a freak event --- it fits as an accident.
DMC grumbled, as is his wont, but accepted this. But he did use his own version of the shake-the-game-to-give-a-tilt-warning against FAE, shaking hard enough that the game tilted. FAE would get a compensation ball too, and DMC had to pay a penalty (letting FAE pick one of DMC's remaining cards at random), but that settled that.
In the end, FAE lost, taking last place on a game I had confidently explained to the streamers had a special understanding where FAE would win every time. bunnyhugger as mentioned came in third, DMC second, and DG would get first place, the first time all night that DMC didn't win his group.
Two games to go.
Now let's close out that visit to Kings Island Wednesday night. We expected just to drive home the next day but, you know what? We had thought about what we might do in the area.
Here's the Eiffel Tower by night, with a small nova going off on the observation deck.
As we walked toward the front of the park the Grand Carousel stood out like a jewel.
Here's the ride set to bed for the night, though if you look you can see like six park people standing around discussing whatever it is they discuss when the carousel's been finished for 45 minutes.
And here's the Grand Carousel's sign holding the flashlight under its chin to tell a spooOOooOOooky story.
Just a nice view of the base of the Eiffel Tower with the International Midway and the exit gate in the background.
Here's the reflecting pool, with the park exit in the distance.
A last look back at the Eiffel Tower, with bunnyhugger in some weird distorted perspective as if I had a wide-angle lens or something.
And a last, postcard shot, from the front of the reflecting pool, with the spotlights on the Eiffel Tower not at all making it look like the eyes of a very tall killbot.
Trivia: The March of Time newsreel, from spring 1935 through fall 1951, published only one reel per month. Typical newsreels would be published twice weekly. Source: The American Newsreel, 1911 - 1967, Raymond Fielding.
Currently Reading: Seriously Curious: The Facts and Figures That Turn Our World Upside-Down, Editor Tom Standage.
