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It's the saddest time of the year: the end of my Pairwise Brackety Contest Thing on my humor blog. Now I have to go back to having premises, like, every day that I post. Too bad. Here's the last week's worth of those matchups plus some of the postings that fit around the corners:
- MiSTed: The 72 Hours Saga, Part 34
- March Pairwise Brackety Contest Thing: Dressing for Success versus Plants
- Statistics Saturday: Some Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Mary Tyler Moore
- March Pairwise Brackety Contest Thing: The Final Four: Bonus Content versus the Rules Committee
- March Pairwise Brackety Contest Thing: The Final Four: Backyard Chickens versus Terms of Service
- What’s Going On In Gil Thorp? Is Emily Thorp back in the strip? January – April 2025
- March Pairwise Brackety Contest Thing: The Final Final: Ranch Dressing versus Oil and Vinegar Dressing
- MiSTed: The 72 Hours Saga, Part 35
Ah, but in photos, I'm still on the happiest place in Monticello, Indiana, and taking in a day at the park, and you can be there too:
Hoosier Hurricane was running only one train. (And appropriately; the line was not long at all.) There's the other on the side tracks.
I.B.Crow looks out over the train ready to depart.
Here's the operator's station, including a picture of the Hoosier Hurricane in more colors behind the operator. Also on the wall it looks kind of like an Oreo McFlurry exploded. Don't know. Note the hurricane-hazard signal flag on the left.
Peering out across the launch platform to see how much nice stuff there is above ground level at the park.
And a broader picture. The operator looking away is what makes this art. Note the Cornball Express rounding a turn in the center, and Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain on the right edge of the picture.
Hoosier Hurricane coming back in and ready for our rear-of-the-train ride.
We had learned where they kept pinball last time. This time, we learned they had way more pinball! More than we could play! Sky Kings was off, but Aladdin's Castle and World Cup (1980s, unrelated to World Cup Soccer from 1994) were on.
Space Riders is an Atari game which is why the score is in that LED matrix on the lower left corner. Black Hole is the pioneer in multi-level games.
The 90s Star Wars (one of many Star Wars games), Jurassic Park (the 90s version), Maverick (you never see Maverick, what the heck?), and Road Show. Note Sonic the Hedgehog appearing on the Maverick score screen.
Road Show, Monopoly, Roller Coaster Tycoon, the latter two games of Stern's early ``Do you have any intellectual property just lying around we can use?'' era.
Roller Coaster Tycoon, Simpsons, and Elvis; the latter two are less baffling early-Stern-era licenses.
Scooby-Doo Where Are You is not a Stern license but rather from Spooky Pinball, like you'd hope. Batman '66 is another Stern license and a really good game people should play more.
Trivia: Country banks in Britain were allowed to issue paper notes, unbacked by specie, until 1832, despite Britain officially being on the gold standard from 1819. Source: Devil Take the Hindmost, Edward Chancellor.
Currently Reading: One Heartbeat Away: Presidential Disability and Succession, Birch Bayh. I know I've been on this forever but I haven't had a lot of reading time on hand and this is a 400-page book full of the nitty gritty of getting the 25th Amendment passed so there's a lot of stuff like figuring out whether to move a resolution near the end of the evening session or first thing in the morning and stuff like that.
