Friday night we went out to a pinball tournament. Not one we were organizing or anything either; this one, on the east side of the state, was one of MWS's ``Speakeasy Specials'', held at the Sparks pinball museum in a mall. This was to feature a Super Secret Santa --- those choosing to participate brought a gift, and picked a gift, and if they got a gag gift that was that, with the packages opened at random --- so we of course went to find things that might fit. ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger found some of her higher-quality stickers that people might like (she was correct; the person opening them was delighted by each and particularly by the seagull proclaiming something Salty). I got out a Donkey Kong Jenga game I'd got meaning to give someone ages ago, and never got around to giving. All going well, this would finally leave our home.
And it did. There were surprisingly few gag gifts, I suppose for people feeling unsure that it was decent to zonk someone who might be a complete stranger to them. The Donkey Kong Jenga set went to someone who seemed interested at least. As mentioned, the guy who got bunnyhugger's stickers was happy with each of them. I got a couple of scratch-off lottery tickets, including one of the Christmas Vacation scratch-offs, so you know it's correct. bunnyhugger got some candy and a glow-in-the-dark comforter blanket that might just fill that niche of ``stuff to have in the car in case of emergency''.
As to the tournament play: this was eight rounds of max matchplay, that is, pairs being drawn up on randomly-chosen games whenever there were enough players waiting around for it, until every person had played eight opponents. Yes, of course I had to play bunnyhugger, third round, on the mid-70s game Fireball. That's a particularly difficult late electromechanical game, almost all of which comes down to whether you make the skill shot. I made it once; bunnyhugger didn't even know there was one until I showed her, and she wasn't able to find it in the one ball she had left.
And this would hurt her. The top eight players would go to finals, and my four wins put me below the threshold. Her five wins, though, put her in a tiebreaker to go to finals. Had she beaten me on Fireball, all else being identical, she would have been in finals and even had a first-game bye. Her misery at being in a playoff game, which she insists she never wins, was tempered by her putting up an overwhelmingly good score on Stars --- a solid state game that seems like it should be friendly, but isn't --- and crushing all before her. Also I'm pretty sure crushing my best-ever score on any Stars ever.
Sad to say, in the playoffs --- a ladder-style tournament, starting with the fifth-through-eighth place qualifiers; the bottom two are eliminated and the top two then play another game against the third-and-fourth-place qualifiers, and so on --- she flopped badly, on the early 60s game Riverboat. She ended up taking eighth place, so this won't be changing her state ranking, at least not in any useful way. But the tournament wouldn't anyway; it was too small, too low-rated a tournament to bump bunnyhugger's position even if she had won. There are a handful of tournaments left in the season --- and only one very small women's tournament --- and at least for bunnyhugger only illness or catastrophe is going to be changing any seedings. And she and MWS and I are so far out of open contention that we won't be seeing the state championship series except as spectators. Doesn't matter; it's fun getting out and playing some. And, y'know, there's something in Grand Rapids next Friday if we have the itch.
Now to close out pictures of walking around De Panne on Friday night. We'd try to get to bed early so we could enjoy the park the next day ...
I'm sure this sign outside the sciencey museum center type building makes sense if you participate in the educational activities within.
Oh hey did we mention that De Panne, despite being in the part of Belgium adjacent to France, is Dutch-speaking so you get names like Doktersweg for a street?
And here's the place to get a cold drink and all the Funky Winkerbean merchandise you can imagine.
I believe this is the street-just-beyond-the-boardwalk we went to because the map suggested there was an Automat here. It turned out to be a couple of vending machines, some with sliced cold cuts in, not all of which were even turned on.
And here's a look west at the actual beach. It's a shore town and moments like this felt strikingly Jersey-Shore to me.
Funland, alas, did not have a pinball machine that we could find. We only looked through the windows; I think there was an admission price we weren't willing to pay if there wouldn't be any payoff. (Possibly I'm remembering wrong and it was closed by that hour.)
Trivia: Cuba's Constitution of 1940 had 286 articles in 19 sections, and included (in article 61) a national minimum wage, (in article 62) equal pay for equal work, (in article 64) a ban on paying workers intokens or scrip, (in articles 65 - 67) workers' social insurance, an eight-hour day, and paid vacations; (in article 68) paid maternity leave, and (in articles 70 - 72) right to unionize and to strike. Source: Cuba: An American History, Ada Ferrer.
Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 79: A Viper Called Le Burgoo! Ralph Stein, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.
