Feelin' like a space brain

The media --- or, well, the medium --- was a young woman with a badge on a lanyard and a hefty video camera with tripod. She had heard, somehow, that there was a charity pinball tournament here and someone had told her that I was the person to talk to. I'm tolerably happy to talk to people about pinball, but I don't ever want to upstage bunnyhugger. So I went for her, catching her just about to play her ball of Game Of Thrones. She decided to go talk to the reporter before playing her ball, extending a game that was already the longest-playing table in the tournament, although not for her efforts.

So in a few minutes bunnyhugger was answering questions to the reporter, who was asking questions from off-camera. She had to be set up in front of the corkboard backing of the dartboard, the best-lit if not the most scenic location. It's also about the spot where bunnyhugger also has to take the pictures of any tournament winners, as it is the only decent lighting in the place, something the reporter and the subject commiserated on. bunnyhugger talked a bit about what the tournament was for, and about the inspiration (charity for the animal rescue we'd adopted our most beloved rabbit from), where to find announcements of future events, all that sort of thing. And then the reporter hung around a bit, taking B-roll footage, which is a fun challenge since for pinball you can either focus on the table, which has lots of bright shiny lights doing stuff, or the people, who are (mostly) standing still pressing buttons. There are some people with great physical energy in their play, but we don't have any of the most photogenic players.

As she was leaving bunnyhugger asked the reporter when it would be on. Most likely the 11:00 news, which was a small problem as most likely the tournament wouldn't be over by then. We could hope, though. In the event, the tournament wasn't over, or even near over by then. bunnyhugger watched the stream, though, while waiting for finals to get closer to being done. No luck, though; the pinball segment was cut, possibly because apparently something very complicated happened with the high school girls' basketball teams. She also checked the mid-day news the next day, and nothing ran there. A disappointment to end the excitement.

We're left wondering how she heard about the pinball tournament, though. bunnyhugger did advertise it in a couple local-events Facebook groups, which is probably where they picked it up. Certainly worth trying the same places for the next charity tournament, which should be sometime around the 4th of July. Maybe also for the women's tournaments, which have a regular but not huge number of attendees. (On the other hand, the women's tournaments regularly draw about one-third the attendees of the charity tournament, which isn't doing bad for something drawing from an almost completely different player base.)

Speaking of new players and women players, someone new to me (at least) attended, and she seemed to have a good time despite only twice finishing not in last place. One of those was against me, though, and also somehow we ended up playing in a group four matches in a row. When I learned she was new to competitive pinball (maybe all pinball) I did offer advice if she wanted, but also made clear, I wasn't going to force any on her unless she did ask. And when she did, I tried to keep it as simple as possible, one main thing to shoot for and one side thing to shoot for. And it worked out for her getting out of last place one game, and it would have got her out of last place on another game --- except for those cards. The wild factor that makes March Hare Madness a madness. How it did that, I will reveal shortly.

Trivia: The Scientific American published for the 17th of November, 1877, contains a description of Thomas Edison's earliest plans for a ``talking machine'', which would record the human voice on a strip of paper, without electromagnet or current, and by mechanical means only. The idea was that it would record telephone messages and retransmit them again by telephone. The article claimed Edison ``will have the apparatus in practical operation within a year''. Source: Edison: A Biography, Matthew Josephson.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 20: Popeye in the Navy Part III, Tom Sims, Bela Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.