While driving back from the tournament ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger got a phone notification that something was going on and needed her to moderate a Facebook group. She didn't elaborate, which was all that I needed to know: someone had noticed that a nonbinary person with a traditionally male name had won the Women's tournament and was going to make themselves a problem. bunnyhugger didn't elaborate as why force FAE to confront that their victory was making the vagina-inspectors mad?
It was, I would learn after we dropped off FAE and got lunch, exactly who I expected causing trouble. Someone very talented, whose retirement from competitive pinball met no protest since they were a jerk generally, had declared well why couldn't he just start calling himself (female near-homophone of his name) and clean up in the women's division? Remarkably, nearly the whole thread turned out to be people yelling at him to go away and his MAGA douchebaggery was why nobody missed him. (Not fully true; they also didn't miss him for his cheating in tournaments.) There was a brief argument about whether the thread should be closed, or deleted, or left up as a declaration of what the community values are. The argument became moot when someone kicked the guy --- who had been one of the overly many moderators of the group --- out of the group and banished him, which it turns out wipes out the whole thread.
Still, the first test of how Michigan Pinball --- which last decade acquired a reputation for Drama --- would handle a thing many people are broken about was passed with flying colors.
But this wasn't the end of it. It wouldn't become a big drama, at least as bunnyhugger relayed details to me, but it would become a steady trickle of guys being very concerned about whether women were being discriminated against, and there were several days of whack-a-mole. A pretty nice mole-whacker was bunnyhugger in her personal capacity (she would limit using her official, Women's State Representatie, account to post the rules about eligibility for sanctioned women's tournaments) noting how many guys who didn't even play competitively much were suddenly concerned about the women's championship. After a couple days of this the spouse of one of these guys finally joined the group to say how concerned she was about the ethics of gaming journalism. Tch.
Of course the women actually in the tournament haven't (so far as I've heard, a subset of how much bunnyhugger has noticed, and please remember this may be incorrect or at least out of date) said anything in places as permanent as social media. We've heard rumors of specific people being upset about FAE's come-from-nowhere win, although not whether that's because they present too masculine for their tastes or just because four months ago they weren't even on the women's rankings and suddenly they were the champion. (There are other nonbinary people, some with traditionally-masculine names, playing in women's tournament and attracting zero comment that we're aware of, although that might be a factor of these other people being mid-pack players and not being in a high-profile tournament, so, who cares if someone takes fifth place in a weekly?) I don't pass along names even in coy fashion, since bunnyhugger hasn't told me any; she's glad to protect me from knowing-with-certainty of people being horrible.
A couple days after their win, FAE announced that they would not be going to nationals, out in Boulder, Colorado, in March. They didn't say why (so far as I've heard). It may be as simple as they couldn't arrange transportation; they don't drive, for causes I've never inquired about, and while I don't quite know what they do I noticed they had a cooler bag mentioning retail excellence, which would be consistent with a tight budget. Maybe they figured it would deflate some of the Internet Angy people if they didn't represent the state. I don't imagine I can ever ask and will just have to listen in case they ever volunteer the information.
But this does mean that, if things go to plan, last year's champion of JL --- who had arranged the time off at work for this before the tournament was even held, a not-unjustified bit of confidence --- will be in Colorado representing the state at Nationals. Hope that goes well.
bunnyhugger tells me that four states had the same person win both the open and the women's championships, which speaks to several quite talented people playing. I don't know of women who won their state or province's open without winning the women's championship, but it's possible. More on this, from a great remove, as it comes to pass.
So, Kennywood. We saw Kenny Kangaroo! As he was going in for who knows how long! Of course we chased him down in a non-creepy way.
Kenny stops for us and waves! Behind is the statue of George Washington, famous in the area for that time he started the Seven Years' War.
And a last wave to bunnyhugger as the handler told us no, really, he's got to go.
It happens Kenny's walk back took him past the Kangaroo ride so who can resist that? The only weird thing is there's people in frame not looking at Kenny.
bunnyhugger fiddles with her camera while not paying particular attention to Parker. I think the guy in the fluorescent green shirt noticed me.
And then we saw something almost as astounding and rare as Kenny Kangaroo: a five-minute wait for The Exterminator! But that's not the most astounding thing. It's that ...
The sign was wrong! It was a walk-on! Or as close to a walk on as you can get for a roller coaster that seats only four people. We had to wait maybe one car, and when we got out we went around again and had to wait only five minutes or so, and then again with only a ten or so minute wait. By the time that was done Exterminator was back to its 45-minute waits but we were getting a bit dizzy anyway so that's a good time to stop.
Trivia: Explorer 1's booster fired its second stage 404 seconds after launch, at the control of a scientist on the ground, based on a (hasty) calculation of when the stack would be at the apex of its ballistic trajectory after the first stage's firing. The firing of the third and fourth stages were on timers after this. Source: Project Vanguard: The NASA History, Constance McLaughlin Green, Milton Lomask. NASA SP-4202.
Currently Reading: Michigan History, November/December 2025. Editor Amy Wagenaar. It seems a little predictable for the November 2025 cover feature to be the Edmund Fitzgerald but yeah, have to admit, what else could you possibly do? </p
