When I look up to the skies

[austin_dern]

For Saturday I had one major objective: my haircut. This was my father's chance to suggest that he and I could go to Seaside Heights and look at what was there. I apologized to him that I really needed a haircut and had to do that today, but perhaps we could sometime later. Sunday morning I overheard him grumbling on the phone --- I don't know to who --- about how I was home all this time and just ignoring him, turning down things like his offer to go to Seaside Heights. He's not doing well with the stresses of cleaning the house out ahead of putting it on the market.

But I did have to get my hair cut, and got to my barber's despite the general grey raininess of the day. He was delighted to see me and asked when I was going to be moving out to wherever it was I was moving out to. That would be eight months ago. So, I conclude that he's not noticed I've had other people cut my hair since moving out, or at least he's pretended not to notice and I won't break it to him. I ended up being his last haircut of the day.

As I was near Asbury Park I dropped into the Silverball Museum for some more gameplay. The row of machines was just about what bunny_hugger and I saw back in January, although the modest rotation continues. (They've got Demolition Man in now.) This time I started out planning to play every game I chose to play at all twice, and to record my scores on both starts, to see if I really did manage to reliably screw up my game by trying to strategize based on what I'd done the first time. Without doing a careful statistical analysis on this, I would have to say, the evidence doesn't support my impression: my second-game score was higher on just about all the machines.

This ended up being a day about the electromagnetic games; the most modern machine I played was The Addams Family, on which I discovered something I'd never seen before --- I got ``Cousin Itt's Car Keys'' when I opened one of the mansion rooms. It turns out this is something from the Gold edition of the game, randomly-placed bonus squares, and I just ordinarily do so poorly on opening up mansion rooms in The Addams Family that I'd never seen it before.

Trivia: The House of Representatives asked Thomas Jefferson, as Secretary of State, on 15 January 1790 to draw up ``a proper plan or plans for establishing uniformity in the Currency, Weights, and Measures of the United States''. This had been the third priority --- after defense and the economy --- in George Washington's first address to the Congress. Source: Measuring America: How The United States Was Shaped By The Greatest Land Sale In History, Andro Linklater.

Currently Reading: The Motion Paradox: The 2,500-year-old Puzzle Behind All The Mysteries Of Time And Space, Joseph Mazur. It's really much more math-and-science oriented, not giving enough attention to the philosophical side of things where I really wanted to learn more. But I think I understand the ``Stadium'' paradox and what it's getting at with the three arrows now, which is a step up. It helps that I had bunny_hugger to discuss things with, though.

Comments

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

I was at Silverball Museum just this Tuesday, on the way home from Virginia. Demolition Man.. I rather didn't like, I'll admit. the trigger-handles I couldn't quite get used to, and I wasn't sure if I should be doing anything with the claw button and when. (The same for The Shadow and the ramp-switches.) I rather liked the Ali game that was there, and they had Medieval Madness, which after a few rounds has cemented itself ahead of Addams Family as my favorite pinball.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

The claw button on Demolition Man lets you pick, once you've shot the ball into the claw, which of the different ramps it drops into. These satisfy different modes as part of the modern pinball design of multiple modes. But it can be safely ignored until you're trying for wizard modes.

The ramp switches on The Shadow pick, first and foremost, what reward you get on the skill shot, if you make the left ramp. After that they do turn into that differing mode completion stuff, but again, that can be ignored unless you're trying to hit wizard modes.

Medieval Madness is a really good game, although I imprinted first on Attack From Mars for that style of awesome games. (Both Medieval Madness and Attack From Mars are done in pretty darned good form in the app Pinball Arcade. Alas, it doesn't have Addams Family, and isn't likely ever to because of really complicated rights issues. But Pinball Arcade is really, really satisfying, at least on the iPad.)