The head of the International Flipper Pinball Association got back to ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger. And he confirmed that, yeah, it's fine to have an IFPA-sanctioned event in a bar where they kick out minors at 9 pm even if it isn't strictly what the law requires. So at least something in 2021 went the reasonable and logic-abiding way.
bunnyhugger passed the word on to the Facebonk group, restraining from posting a Willy Wonka ``You lose, sir'' meme alongside. Entitled White Pinball Guy declared he was glad to have that made official since, you know, a lot of people were worried that pinball events in bars might not be legitimate and it's nice to settle their worries. Yeah, as you say.
bunnyhugger was confident the ruling would go her way. If it didn't, it would be hard to have pinball events in bars anywhere, and possibly also at gaming conventions that might restrict ages to 12- or 18-and-up. I was fairly sure it would go this way, but I could not convince myself it was impossible that the IFPA would go the other way. After all, many pinball events are held at forums the event-runner controls (a home, a clubhouse, or such) and could limit attendance in ways that skew all decency. And the IFPA's rules are not made by lawyers or philosophers, masters of parsing parse word choice for precision and systems of words for implications. They're made by pinball nerds, which is far worse, because nerds sincerely believe themselves to be masters of parsing word choices for precision and systems of words for implications.
Our pinball friends MWS and JTK pointed out that Entitled White Pinball Guy's plans for calling the cops on our event were really weird. If he did get us shut down, what would he gain? Besides the enmity of a lot of Michigan pinball players? Shutting down a charity tournament because it wouldn't cater to your kid is a bad look, and shutting down one of the three oldest leagues in Michigan is a bad look, and devastating me and bunnyhugger, who are at least generically liked by pretty much everybody in Michigan pinball, is a bad look. (I know better than to think any significant people would rally to our defence. But it would be one more strike against a guy I'm told has been generally seen as a jerk.) So I suppose his pretending that he was just very concerned and is now relieved for other people's concern is his on-reflection best way to salvage the mess.
I still think there's some way we could have it in the code of conduct that he's not allowed at any of our tournaments, but we have to figure a way to phrase it that makes it look impartial.
I do not have the energy or the emotional reserve to write more. Here, I ask you to enjoy a couple pictures from Christmas Day.
bunnyhugger's parents' tree, which she observed doesn't just look good by night, but also looks good in the full, lit-from-three-sides day.
bunnyhugger wore her peacock kigurumi and here the big bird warms by the fire.
Quick look up the tree and into the alcove. As you can see from outside, this is about that time the Sun went nova.
Trivia: As early as 1660 English imports of sugar were larger than all other colonial imports combined. Source: To Rule The Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World, Arthur Herman.
Currently Reading: With Amusement For All: A History of American Popular Culture Since 1830, LeRoy Ashby.
PS: From my Fifth A-to-Z: Tiling (the first time), from the distant past of 2018.
