Saturday, the day of the open pinball tournament, we got up early enough that had we hustled we might have got to the venue in time for the official calling of the roll, just in case enough people were absent that we could have got in as ``non-dead bodies''. It would transpire that that everyone who expected to play was there; I don't think there was even a need for the official alternates. (This is not to say I wasn't startled when I saw a list of matches and that there were multiple people who had no opponent. This is because I forgot that the 24-person championship gave the top eight seeds a first-round bye.)
But we did also miss the giving out of instructions and the group photo and the start of ceremonies. I blame that it was nice and cozy in a mattress much less worn-out than ours. Also little things like ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger going off to find coffee and along the way discovering the first dozen living rooms. Also I had my first cup-of-oatmeal instant breakfast in maybe forever and that reminded me that I do like oatmeal. It doesn't just have to be just for pet rabbits who aren't taking their regular food.
We got there in the middle of the first round, and joined the good number of people hanging around the front of the building. The back room had all the pinball games up for tournament play. And, as non-competitors, we did our best not to venture in back except to use the bathroom and hope the bathroom would hold up to the strain under it. It did, which was, pardon me, a relief. The port-a-potty brought in the previous Sunday was still in the parking lot, I assume for insurance.
So I mostly stayed up front. Some of this was working on little goals of my own, like playing Creature From The Black Lagoon well enough to get Super Mode started. I failed at this, although I did get to playing the game much more reliably well than I had before. Also I gave some fresh tries to Led Zeppelin, a modern Stern pinball game that I've never had a good time on. You know what? I still don't have a good time on it. I mentioned to KEG --- formerly of Lansing, now an out-of-stater who would the next day become the first non-Michigan woman to compete in the state women's championship --- how weird it was they made a game with absolutely no fun in it. She agreed, although she did manage to put together an actually good game. Still, it's a lemon of a table.
My other pastime was watching the stream of what was going on in the next room over. If you'd like to see that stream, you can watch all nine hours of it here and if you see me in the video somewhere it's news to me. But it was fun sitting around with other pinball people and talking about the games. One guy mentioned he was surprised to learn that I was funny. Maybe I'm being too reserved in my normal play.
There were people who filled out brackets to see who did their best predicting the championship. I was not among them, although if I had, I'd have put my money on JPJ who did, in fact, go on to be the champion for the fourth time in a row. But there were many matches that I would have called wrong, if I'd been asked. AJH losing in the first round, for example, or TY losing to DLO.
Also something I didn't imagine would happen? The march of JBS all the way to finals. JBS also made history by being I think the first non-Michigander to play in the Michigan state finals. He's from Toledo, apparently, so gets to a lot of southeast Michigan events. I won't say anything against him, though, as I'm not going to rag on anyone who's still masking. JBS goes farther than that, bringing with him some kind of disinfecting light gadget that I'm not sure actually does things, but that he does wave across the buttons of the pinball machine before his every turn.
Anyway, I felt enough that a Michigander should win the state championship that I was hoping someone would knock him out. And it took until meeting JPJ --- who's currently ranked the 10th-best player in the world --- in the finals for someone to do. JPJ knocked out JBS in four straight games, which is even better than I'd imagined. Still, heck of a finish.
We stayed through to the end of the day, of course, and closed the place out. And then had to turn around and come back because FAE had forgotten their laptop. Fortunately AJH was only a minute away and was able to come back to let them in. Could have gone much worse.
Now let's share some more pictures from Cedar Point back on Juneteenth.
Now here's something we haven't seen on the Frontier Trail before: a map! They've been playing up, some, the history of the park as part of nostalgia marketing and some of it's included this guide to what you can see if you take pictures and put them through that Photoshop filter that turns it into line art. The actual trail does not curve nearly this much.
And here's the sun coming out, as seen from near Thunder Canyon, the water rapids ride.
The former location of Snake River Falls, with the track of the shoot-the-chutes now gone.
The boats across the lake were used for the short-lived revival of the river boat ride, and now they're being props again.
New this year: they renovated the Happy Friar food stand out of existence and into this new structure. Instead of a walk-up stand you now go in, but they have trays full of the cheese-on-a-stick hot-dog-on-a-stick, and fries ready to pick up and go, which is speedier. I don't dislike it, but I'm sad they reduced the happy friar art from a large three-dimensional cartoon board to a restrained little sign. Maybe it's period-appropriate to the era of we've-heard-of-the-Tudors-but-aren't-going-crazy but it's less fun.
And look at that, a train running on Top Thrill 2!
Trivia: In the final Congressional debates for what would become the 25th Amendment Senator Robert F Kennedy inquired what the proposed amendment meant by a President's ``inability'' to perform the duties; was it total inability? Physical? Mental? Senator Birch Bayh, speaking for the amendment, offered that it should be taken to be anything which presented an inability to perform the constitutional duties of President, and should not be limited to mental disability: ``It is conceivable that the President might fall into the hands of the enemy, for example''. Source: One Heartbeat Away: Presidential Disability and Succession, Birch Bayh. Kennedy also pressed on the question of how long a disability should be expected to last and Bayh offered that it should not be specified in the Constitution lest it complicate a crisis.
Currently Reading: A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II, Maury Klein.
