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austin_dern) wrote2025-05-15 12:10 am
He Knows the Meaning of Success
Three weeks ago the 22nd season of the Lansing Pinball League had its eighth and final regular-season meeting. Yesterday being the second Tuesday in May it was time for finals. This season the top, A, division was shrunk from its ``half of all eligible members'' to ``eight people'' in the hope of having finals that could wrap up by the time the bar closed at 2 am. One consequence: while I finished in A again, I was one of the two weak links. Not much hope of advancement, unless I got lucky and some of the real power players had bad nights. But that does happen, so, while I was up against FAE in the right round of the double-elimination tournament, it wasn't absurd to think I could win.
In fact, the first game --- The Addams Family --- bode well for the night. FAE put up a major lead on the second ball, managing to get the high-scoring modes of Hit Cousin Itt and The Mamushka going simultaneously, as well as getting some nice extra five-million-point shots on the Swamp and Thing and such. But my second ball I managed to get a good rhythm going of shoot the ramp, start a mode, and even collected a big points payout in Fester's Tunnel Hunt, a mode I never do anything with. In the end I caught up to FAE, on the bonus of my last ball, and took a surprise-to-me win. Good start for the night.
As loser of the first match FAE got to pick the next game, and chose The Beatles, which you'd think would be a gift to me. It's one of my favorite games and I'm one of the few who regularly plays it. I can almost anytime put up two to three million points, often enough to win a head-to-head match. Except. The Beatles was also the side tournament game that I played before finals started, in a group with FAE, and they'd seen something horrible: I didn't have it today. Sometimes you just don't have the timing right on a game, and I did not have The Beatles right, at least not soon enough, and played a lousy game in the side tournament. I would do the same here, putting up a better game but still not breaking two million, not enough to win.
So my pick of third, tiebreaking game. I'd been thinking of Cactus Canyon, but chose instead Metallica, a game that usually treats me well. Based on FAE's first two balls, I made a good choice as they were not doing very well getting a game together. Unfortunately, neither was I; it took me to the third ball to get the Sparky Multiball going, and that's usually something I can get ball one. When I finished there was still a slender hope that FAE might have a poor ball, but they didn't, and they won and knocked me into the Loser Second Chance Bracket.
After a while I got my first opponent in the Second Chance Bracket: BMK, who by the way is one of the 700 highest-ranked players worldwide, these days. BMK chose The Simpsons Pinball Party, which left me feeling pretty good; this is another game that I often do well on. I'd need luck on my side, but not outrageous fortune. BMK broke six million points on the first ball, while I didn't get more than a half-million, but that's not an insurmountable difference. No; insurmountable is the 35 million points he put up on the second ball, and topped on ball three with another twenty million. It would require the best ball I had ever had, better even than the killer game I had on The Simpsons at Pinburgh in 2017, to catch up. But I put up that killer game on The Simpsons on a Pinburgh-grade tournament and Lansing Pinball League has much more forgiving tables. Well, I managed to beat the replay score, at least, but didn't come near BMK's finish.
So my pick, and I needed something I could win on. Or at least would have fun playing on. I picked James Bond, maybe the only modern Stern Pinball game that I can seriously compete with the likes of BMK on; somehow, I just know it. Except this time around I seemed unable to even make the skill shot, putting up ten million points in two balls while BMK got to around 350 million.
And with one ball to save myself from elimination, and the need to do four things --- start a Villain mode, start Jetpack Multiball, start Bird One Multiball, and then start the James Bond 007 mini-wizard mode --- what else was there to do but not lose the ball? (The mini-wizard mode also requires starting a Henchman mode, but I had managed that, and fortunately it doesn't require finishing the mode.) And the funny thing is, I managed it. Got a Villain going, brought Jetpack Multiball into that. Got a Q Mission going, which isn't necessary but can give you a bunch of points. Got the Bird One Multiball going. Along the way sometimes I got playfield multipliers going and turned the points I was earning into double or triple what it would have been. I had a lousy James Bond 007 mini-wizard mode but, you know? That didn't matter. I put up over a half-billion points that ball, and got a 200 million point lead on BMK that he'd have to make up on one ball. Not bad.
Well, dear reader, he did it. The clutch performance that got me a half-billion points was a good one, and let me salvage some pride out of my night's performance. But I was knocked out of the tournament, first one in A Division, and would finish in the bottom of the bracket. Some seasons are like that.
Here's a different season --- last summer --- and some more Kennywood pictures, from the old owners.
As a Saturday in late July it was busy at Kennywood and here's how busy: the carousel queue ran past a full ride cycle. Those grand carousels have enormous ride capacity --- a typical one can fit something like 496 people at once --- so when you have more people than can fit on at once you've got a lot of people in the park.
Tracking shot of the tiger in motion. Despite this being a very bright noontime picture there's some effective blur.
And here we are getting ready to ride the carousel or, as you see while on the ride, views of lots of rear ends.
Or you can get side-eyed by the horse looking back at you and totally not judging you.
Nice look back at one of the horses. Note the face in the breastplate there.
And a more usual side view of the animals.
Trivia: A letter from Pope Leo X to the English court, in 1514, appealing for astronomers or theologians to advise on calendare reform, included the lamentation that ``Jews and heretics'' were laughing at the flawed Christian calendar. No reply from the English monarchy is recorded, and Leo sent three more letters on the topic which are archived. Source: The Calendar: The 5000-Year Struggle to Align the Clock with the Heavens --- And What Happened to the Missing Ten Days, David Ewing Duncan.
Currently Reading: The Greatest Invention: A History of the World in Nine Mysterious Scripts, Silvia Ferrara.
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EDIT: I think part of it, though, is that I'm a sucker for a game making really good use of music, and John Barry's Bond scores are so perfect for that--there's an orchestra sting for any purpose.