I never had limbs so I never shall die

And as expected we returned to Marvin's Marvellous Mechanical Museum on the appointed day and thus got to really participate in our third pinball league. But first the mechanism updates: the striking cobra machine was still broken, with the cobra moved back and out of position, although all the skin was on it again, mercifully. The coin slot was taped over. The roller coaster ride simulator was turned off. The Barnum(?) Fake Cardiff Giant was present and I noticed it was surrounded with publicity material about Barnum's Giant, but I'm still feeling skeptical. Also, a marionette band machine that hadn't worked when we tried it early this year was just fine now; it really sounds like they play to a vinyl record.

Since bunny_hugger and I were now loosely ranked by actual skills we weren't playing in the same pod. We had identical results, though: three last-place finishes, one second-place, and one first-place finish. I was particularly sabotaged by the game I selected, Theater of Magic, which everyone in my pod agreed just mugged me. This includes two balls it threw down the center, with no chance for me to do anything on them. I saved my pride on Tron, one of the games I happened to warm up on, where somehow I got a lot of multiballs going my first ball, and kept on having pretty decent play for the second and third balls. At that I finished just ahead of one of the really skilled players, who came within a whisker of upsetting me.

bunny_hugger had a much better time as her favorite, FunHouse --- they have one, just as Brighton has --- was kind enough to her she was able to win her pod just on the strength of the first two balls, and she could take the graceful position of kneeling on her third ball. I don't know what the standings now look like, but it seems imaginable we might be back in the same pod next time.

Meanwhile the arcade was having a Launch Party for, of course, The Walking Dead. Everyone got two free plays on it, with the top six players going on to a finals. Neither of us did well at all, but, since this as a tournament we're now being officially reported to the International Flipper Pinball Association as competing in a tournament, and if we didn't win any of the Walking Dead promotional materials they were giving away, we are going to get a handful of points for our rankings at least.

Edited to add: bunny_hugger checked and the results from Lansing league and the Walking Dead tournament were added. As a result, I am now, and surely very temporarily, the 41st-ranked player in Michigan, and ranked ... uhm. According to the IFPA right now I'm ranked 2649th in the world, while my rating is 737th, and my Eff percent ranking is 1127th. Please don't ask me to explain those.

Trivia: To deliver an address at the Michigan Agricultural College semicentennial celebration in May of 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt rode from Lansing to the college in a Reo car driven by Ransom Olds himself. Roosevelt rode back to Lansing in an Oldsmobile. Source: R E Olds: Auto Industry Pioneer, George S May.

Currently Reading: Squaring The Circle: The War Between Hobbes and Wallis, Douglas M Jesseph.

PS: Reading the Comics, December 14, 2014: Pictures Gone Again? Edition, a bunch of gocomics.com strips where I don't have to include the images. Fourth of these since the last roundup, I think.