We got back to Pinball At The Zoo frightfully close to the opening of Saturday morning qualifying. There were already lines long enough for the Main tournament that I didn't even bother trying; the only tournament-player thing I'd do is cadge some of the doughnuts provided to competitors. FAE was in respectable shape but still spent the morning putting up more games, managing only one game that bettered anything. MWS, whom I think I'd seen from afar on Friday, worked even harder, putting up 24 games somehow, three of which helped him any. FAE would get into the A Division, just barely. MWS would get second seed in B.
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bunnyhugger would focus all her time and tickets on the Women's tournament, where she was hovering around eighth --- the last qualifying position --- or ninth. One good game with solid improvement would get her safely in, and if she were to be on the bubble time she spent on any game was time none of her competitors could use on that game. This is one of the cutthroat elements of Herb-style qualifying; it can be worth it to waste your time on a game, if you can aim your time well.
She was disheartened by all this. I maintained my confidence that she'd have the good game, or the good enough game, to land her in finals for sure, and even bet her $20 on it. And then I went off to the show, taking in the fewer-than-usual number of games people had brought to show off or trade. Sometime after 11 am, the cutoff, she appeared at my side and told me: I owed her twenty bucks.
She hadn't made it, and by a terribly narrow margin. Finishing one position higher on any of the four games that counted for her would have put her into a tie for the last position. It's not quite that one bad bounce cost her a place in finals, but it's terribly close to that, and did so much to leave her miserable.
So much of the rest of the day at the Expo Center was trying to find some consolation; between this and her flopping at the tournament the day after Women's North American Championship Series she was not up for consolation.
Still, people who didn't know how miserable she was (or didn't say so to me) did fine bits of seeing her and chatting with her. Vix, from Motor City Furry Con, was there, making good at last the convention promise to talk with us later. So was MJB, who had brought a bunch of games from Sparks Pinball Museum way out east of Detroit, where we haven't been to a match since before the pandemic began. (I was there one day, when Sunshine was getting specialist care nearby, but didn't see anyone besides staff.) It was great seeing him, and talking with him, and you know how it is when everything feels good for a while. He also gave us Sparks t-shirts; I felt awkward about taking them when he also had them for sale but I also realized he likes us and shirts he gives away are shirts he doesn't have to haul back to inventory.
I missed the hours when the people bringing out-of-state pops had bottles of Moxie.
Our big bit of fun over the show was that someone brought Jersey Jack's newest game, Elton John, in and boy is that a fun table. I mean, I always like Jersey Jack games, so maybe I'm an easy touch. But, like, as you'd expect --- for a game based mostly in 70s Elton John --- the game has a little corner for Crocodile Rock targets, and it's got this adorable toy of a crocodile with star sunglasses rocking out, and the backglass animation has --- when you lock a ball for this --- a fun cartoony crocodile catching and sometimes swallowing a giant pinball. The game is delightfully funny, besides having what, in a couple of games, felt like a good fun set of shots to make and modes to play.
Anyway, the show ended, people started packing up, FAE made it through the first round of playoffs and ended something like 13th in the overall tournament, a great finish. MWS took second place in B, the traditional spot for someone in our household (back before Pinball at the Zoo got so big it draws a lot of out-of-state ringers). MAG, whom we've owed a translite as a prize for ages now, was at the tournament all three days and all three days we forgot to bring the translite with us.
When all that was cleared away --- I'm sure main finals weren't done, but the people playing were folks we were more remote from --- we went to the afterparty at MJS's pole barn. There we met up with JTK, who hadn't been to the expo center that day but did join us and FAE and some other people for hanging out and a postmortem on the competition and then dollar games. Here, now, you'd think I would at least have a chance not to come in last on everything. I usually do pretty well at the dollar games at MJS's afterparties. Not here; not only did I never take first, I finished last all but one game, I think it was. Even as I kept getting to pick them. FAE, now they won a lot. Me, I ran out of dollars.
We wouldn't close out the afterparty, for a change. I think that reflects our post-pandemic embrace of not needing to maximize every minute of a pinball event, and letting it be, instead taking just enough to enjoy. Or that it maybe wasn't fair to keep FAE, an introverted person, out all night just so I can try to grab the high score on MJS's FunHouse. (I would never come close.) Anyway we got home and could start the wait to see how this all affected our standings.
(We are still hilariously far out of competition for Michigan open tournaments; in fact, as I write this, I'm actually higher-ranked in Indiana, where I played exactly one tournament this year, than I am in Michigan. bunnyhugger has fallen to second-seeded among women in women-only events; had she qualified for finals, she would still be first-seeded.)
Now for pictures, let's get back to the Gilmore Car Museum. Last time I left off in the diner that ended up being the first indoor restaurant we ate in since the pandemic began. We're up to like two now.
Just because they moved the whole diner here doesn't mean they had every bit of it functional. Also, little surprised there isn't a working bathroom in the diner.
They did have a phone booth, though! We had no coins so couldn't say whether it functions. Guess it depends whether they still have copper lines.
Back to cars! Here's a number 28. I wonder if it raced.
Another shiny winged person on the front of one of these cars.
I think they're mis-applying their bumper stickers here. I don't know what the Hemmings Motor News Great Race is but I assume it's not a slightly overstuffed comic take on the 1908 New York-to-Paris race.
And here we move into shiny goosery! Or something with a great long neck, at least.
Trivia: There are 49 ``Devil's Bridges'' (ponts du Diable) in France. Source: The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography, Graham Robb. Mostly medieval stone bridges, not all of them commemorating terrible fates.
Currently Reading: Sign Painters, Faythe Levine and Sam Macon. An informal, oral-style history of a profession that can fairly be said to have vanished and the sort of thing that might be a great birthday gift for my dad and probably also yours, just saying. Anyway in the intro the authors mourn how much the role has vanished (a fair complaint), mentioning along the way how schoolchildren aren't even taught to write longhand anymore and ... I'm supposing they equate longhand with cursive which probably has some foundation but it was an unexpected word to me.
