[Stop-motion animated snowman voice] If I live to be a hundred I'll probably never forget that year that --- you won't believe this --- the world almost missed Silver Balls In The City. You don't know the story? Well, let me tell you ...
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bunnyhugger's Silver Balls has always been one of the last pinball events of the Michigan calendar and this year planned to be no exception, with the event --- a ``fair strikes'' tournament, where you play until you lose enough times, last one standing the winner --- set for the Tuesday between Christmas and New Year's. Except that earlier this month bunnyhugger discovered that while she had created a Facebook Event for it and been publicizing it in the Lansing and the Michigan Pinball communities, she hadn't registered it with the International Flipper Pinball Association, the sanctioning body for competitive pinball. They require a thirty-day notice before an event takes place, the better to avoid shenanigans where people try to cheat their way in a close pinball standings race by opening something only the conspirators have a hope of playing.
What to do? Run it as an un-sanctioned event, kneecapping participation and --- the true point of it --- charitable donations to the Capital Area Humane Society? Run it thirty days from the date of discovery, which would put it not just into the New Year but past even Twelfth Night, the latest anyone could plausibly care about a Christmas-themed event? Ask the IFPA if they'll allow an exception because there was no attempt made to hide this event from anyone, just an absent-minded oversight?
After encouragement from me, bunnyhugger took the last course, and the IFPA, possibly just relieved any woman is still talking to them, approved the event with a bit of don't-do-it-again scolding. bunnyhugger went on to register every event --- league night, side tournament, women's tournament, and charity tournament --- for 2026, so that's covered. And we could trust that nothing would stop the tournament now.
When I got home from work --- inexplicably we had to come into the office the Tuesday between Christmas and New Year's --- bunnyhugger was distraught. Her plans for upcycling donated trophies had gone wrong, and went wrong very badly, consuming way more time and proving impossible without hardware that she wasn't sure any hardware store near us had. She spent many of the hours of the night in more aggravated improvisations of a workshop, and then --- sleeping so long she lost the time to make the cookies she had promised for the tournament --- running to hardware stores to get things that might help, and might yet help, but would not help this tournament.
She had got the trophies for the final three finishers assembled, but only just, and she was not able to find the laminate sheets and insulated jacket to run the placement finishes through the laminator and was about to give up on them. (Fortunately I knew where these were.) It would take hours for the trophy toppers to really set, and a day or more for them to be really secure. All we could do is trust that people wouldn't touch the Santa figures on top, and hope that they wouldn't fall off in loading them to my car or bringing them into the venue.
However, the important thing, is that Silver Balls '025 did happen.
And before I reveal how it happened, let me share Plopsaland De Panne pictures, like you've been enjoying since before Silver Balls:
A zone of fun in the park, where kids can pedal miniature cars around on a replica city street. If I were a kid this would have been my most favorite attration ever.
Isn't that great? Traffic lanes and curbs and confusing arrays of signs? Just fantastic stuff.
Kid giving some adults a high-five for managing a loop around the city square.
And here we are returned to the front of the park and the playful fountain. Note the shops in the distance have backdrops featuring a fake partly-cloudy sky that's a little weird to see against the actually partly-cloudy sky.
And now ... that tower ride seen earlier, SuperSplash. Wonder what that means!
And here's the station. You see one of the riders is all set to be super splashed.
Trivia: The name of Cambridge's Magdalene College is pronounced ``Maudlin''; the college was named for Saint Mary Magdalene, but founder Lord Thomas Audley insisted on spelling it ``Maudelyn'', rhyming with his own name. Source: Empire of the Sum: The Rise and Reign of the Pocket Calculator, Keith Houston. Re-founded, technically; it was a reestablishment of Buckingham College, which Audley had graduated.
Currently Reading: A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II, Maury Klein.
