This week I'm trying something I haven't done in ages on my humor blog: letting Robert Benchley write it. I like this. He's got a pretty solid comic voice. Here's what you might have missed if you weren't reading it day-by-day:

• MiSTed: The 72 Hours Saga, Part 42
• There Are Limits to What I Can Say About Notable Soups
• Statistics Saturday: Some Unsuccessful Soups
• Robert Benchley: The Lost Locomotive
• Robert Benchley: ``Take The Witness!''
• What's Going On In Mark Trail? Why is Kelly Welly pitching AI garbage? March - May 2025
• Robert Benchley: The New Strokes
• MiSTed: The 72 Hours Saga, Part 43

With that having got you moderately amused now please enjoy the end of our stop-in at Cedar Point last July, as photographed:

This is not the Space Age ride mentioned as a rotation point. This is a ride in Planet Snoopy, a completely separate kids area on the other side of the Coliseum from the Kiddie Kingdom.

And this is a small performance area in Planet Snoopy that I think we've never been around when it was in use.

Walking over to something or other (Iron Dragon) we saw a pack of musicians performing in front of the Coasters Diner. Also someone who bought a seagull backpack, that's nice.

Also you can see a mother who does not have the time for people in poodle skirts dancing.

And here's Iron Dragon, always a favorite, although in its last season before the indignity of a fast-pass line-cutting lane was installed.

Meanwhile the griffin, now gold, stands proudly there and refuses to explain why it vanished for a few years and why it's in front of Iron Dragon instead of the griffin-themed GateKeeper.

Now here is the turnstile outside the Cedar Downs racing carousel. I photograph this just because I'd never paid any attention to the manufacturer of the turnstile before, so here we go.

The afternoon light flatters the horses here.

The lights inside not being on improves the composition here. I should have centered the center area, though. If I ever get the chance I'll have to re-photograph this right.

Tilting the camera this severely emphasizes how the horses are racing, moving back and forth in those slots, so that some look like they're leaping ahead of the pack.

Cedar Downs is next to the Cadillac Cars, last remaining tracked car ride.

And that's our drop-in done. Here's a look to the front of the park from Cedar Downs on the right and in the concrete you see how much has been done to dry up the rain already.

Trivia: On the fourth flight day of Gemini 4, the astronauts found themselves unable to turn off the computer (to conserve spacecraft power). Even after switching the unit to off the computer light stayed on, with no malfunction light. Source: Gemini 4: An Astronaut Steps Into The Void, David J Shayler.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 63: The Abdominal Snowman, Ralph Stein, Bela Zaboly, Editor Stephanie Noelle. There's a lot of energy going into this story, especially after the four thousandth college football story by Sims and Zaboly.

You know what we did after that Kennywood visit and that Pinball event? If you guessed ``went to an amusement park, probably Cedar Point'' good news, you get to see pictures of exactly that event now:

Traditional establishing shot, proving that both my car and Cedar Point were in view at the same time.

The entrance, looking not as grand as it did during the eclipse but still, nice. Note the electronic sign warns that Top Thrill 2 will not open today; it could have said, all season.

Boardwalk Nights! The Cedar Point 150 sign turns out to be a good spot to put signs for all kinds of temporary events.

Blue Streak, standing firm despite the threatening clouds.

And here's Raptor, again with clouds that look like they don't want any fun going on.

Of course even a short visit to Cedar Point will see carousels, such as the Kiddy Kingdom one here.

We spent a little time looking around the Kiddie Kingdom rides, mostly out of a sense that someday they're going to renovate them otu of existence and we'll feel bad about that.

Though a lot of the Kiddie Kingdom rides are like this, a toy vehicle going in a circle with a buzzer the kid can press to make noise.

There's the carousel. The armored horse on the left is a fiberglass replica; the original is, last anyone confirmed, gathering dust in the art department for some reason.

Back to rides, like the spinning tubs one here that was closed lest the rain you see there make it unsafe to operate.

Here's two of the rabbits on the Kiddie Kingdom carousel. At the end of the season an operator claimed they had names, although we're not sure we believed the claim and I'm not sure I remember them. They were straightforward ones like you might make if you weren't trying very hard, like, Snowball and Caramel or something like that.

Kiddie Kingdom Carousel, some flat kiddie ride or other, and one of the domes of the Coliseum.

Trivia: On the second day of its flight Gemini 4 astronauts surpassed the total duration record of all eight previous United States astronauts combined, as well as the duration record for a multi-crew spacecraft set by Pavel Belyayev and Alexei Leonov on Voskhod 2 three months earlier. Source: Gemini 4: An Astronaut Steps Into The Void, David J Shayler.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 62: WEE vs I.O.U., Tom Sims, Bela Zaboly, Editor Stephanie Noelle. Yep, that sure was another college football tale, although this one at least introduces the element that Olive Oyl eats a lot of olives, thereby justifying one element of this one Gene Deitch-made 60s Popeye cartoon.

(PS: there is no significance to the subject line, a lyric from Sparks's ``Tips for Teens''. I couldn't think of a good song to use and this was playing. Pay it no mind.)

I don't have the time to really write anything up right now, so please enjoy pictures of the Revived Women's International Pinball Tournament, 2024 edition.

bunnyhugger discovering how much of Total Nuclear Annihilation she's lost touch with.

A look across the lower level of the movie theater. It was before noon so that's why the lower level isn't busy enough to be dead. Later, the smell of movie popcorn would dominate things.

And here's the trophies for the top four finishers! bunnyhugger would not be among them, but she didn't do badly.

Waiting area and lounge set up for players in the middle of the floor, along with a projection screen that would show whatever they thought deserved it. On the side you can see a Genesis, conceivably the one of my long-departed glory days at Pinburgh.

People gather together to hear opening announcements and play the Pinball National Anthem (the high-score theme from Space Station).

And gathering for the group photo, with both real cameras and cell phones!

bunnyhugger joins in the Pledge of Pinball Allegiance (liberty and just a wee bit more margin on the ball save timer for all).

Round one! Tragically, bunnyhugger's tournament would begin with Paragon. The format was the same as the WIPT of 2019, at least.

And here she faces up to, ugh, Paragon.

Sometime later she writes down scores (probably) for one of the other games that bank. Feels like Aladdin's Castle to me, but no way to know for sure. Or she's just setting the pen down.

Meanwhile with nothing else to do I got some time in on blob-themed game Quicksilver, in the free-play area.

Not sure I'd ever seen the airbrushed side panel art on a Quicksilver before. Turns out this melty blobby game manages to find room for silhouetted nipples.

Trivia: Albrecht Dürer, after receiving one of Martin Luther's works as a gift from Duke Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony in 1520, wrote (Duke Frederick's secretary and court chaplain) that he would draw Luther's portrait and engrave it in copper, ``if God helps me to come to'' him. Dürer would never meet, nor draw, Luther. Source: Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance, Lisa Jardine.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 61: King Bee and Queen Bee, Tom Sims, Bela Zaboly, Editor Stephanie Noelle. And after an intriguing start the characters just decide to leave. It's a choice that kind of makes sense but it should have been used as a stronger punch line.

When last I reported about my lost camera and Motor City Furry Con we'd had established two important things. First, they had my camera! Second, it was in storage so who knows when they'd find the chance to recover it?

Well. I could manage going to Pinball At The Zoo without a camera and even the handful of things we got to in May without. Mostly local pinball stuff, although this might be the first time I don't have a proper ``what we compete for'' picture of the plaques at pinball night. But we are coming up on things I must have a camera for, and while yes, my iPhone is probably adequate for most purposes I want a camera that's a proper camera.

So I went looking and found a used Panasonic Lumix camera, one very close to the camera I had before my misplaced camera. And I finally have all the pieces I need for it together --- camera, memory card, battery and spare battery, charger, and the data/power cable that connects it to a computer or USB power supply! I even found that my old camera bag, the one used for the previous camera, fits this new one just fine. It lacks a strap --- I'd transferred that to my Samsung camera so that's in the Motor City Furry Con Lost And Found Storage Locker right now --- but the important thing is I can take good pictures and plenty of them. And the zoom on this doesn't --- yet --- get jammed up partway through, putting it ahead of my Samsung.

Now, of course, I just have to explain what I need to take pictures of that made me spend money on this.

We close the month now with something I bet you'd never thought you would see: the end of Kennywood pictures from our trip last year! And what comes up to follow this? Hm. There's so many possibilities ...

Oh yeah, we rented a locker for the second time ever and had to get stuff out of it. Do you see our locker number? Well, it was easy to remember since it was 1054 and I need hardly remind you what an important year that was.

Super Kaleidoscope, the charming circular-shaped building up front with the candy shop inside. It just looks good. You can make out the Old Mill's frontage in the background.

The Goodnight heart, last thing you see before entering the tunnel to leave Kennywood.

They've painted the tunnel with all kinds of Kennywood memorabilia and items, including a replica ticket from nearly a century ago and the reminder to gentlemen after using the washroom.

Looking back at the park from the parking lot.

And here's a panoramic view at the end of the night, to match the one had at the start of the day.

Trivia: The pancreas's name reflects its label as ``pan'' (all) and ``kreas'' (flesh), an organ of all flesh. The name may reflect early lack of knowledge of what it did and was simply there. Source: The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human, Siddhartha Mukherjee.

Currently Reading: The Harvey Comics Companion, Mark Arnold.

bunnyhugger, stirred up by my post last night about the tree and the risk it might present, spent too much time worrying about what to do and turned to doing something about it this afternoon. And by remarkable stroke, found something very effective: a couple guys who could come out to the house today to give an estimate, and who're scheduled to come out tomorrow afternoon to cut the fallen branch down and chop it up into useful wood. So now we're set to be even more well-stocked for when we get the fireplace converted into something not dangerously unsafe to operate.

Also we got back the clock. As promised they had it ready Wednesday; I ventured in after work, but before going to the card store to get my father a birthday card. (This spun out into also getting father's day cards, saving me a trip sometime in two weeks.) As bunnyhugger texted to ask if I was stopping for something after work I was on my way to the art glass shop. This was all but the work of a minute. I came in and both the woman and the guy who'd been in the car on Saturday telling me she'd gone back in were there. I started to explain what my deal was when the woman pointed to the counter. I was delighted, and said so, by how lovely the new glass looks. bunnyhugger observed maybe the real difference was just that it was completely new and clean. But it does look great. And now it's on the wall and everything's in good shape in this part of this room of the house! We're making progress.

And now we return to Kennywood and to the flying saucer gift shop!

And here's the 90s t-shirt. Steel Phantom was rebuilt into Phantom's Revenge; Wipeout and Pitt Fall are gone (Wipeout to Lake Compounce). I can't find any information about Fort Kennywood and wonder if it might have been a show or event or something that wouldn't make lists of former attractions.

bunnyhugger admiring the Grand Carousel by night.

The carousel all white-lit and brilliant by night.

The inside has plenty of mirrors so you get to see the insides of the horses in this picture.

Looking out from atop a horse. bunnyhugger grabs a picture of me here.

bunnyhugger goes for a ride on the tiger this time.

Trivia: E-470, the beltway toll highway around Denver, is an incomplete loop, with the northwestern corner never built owing to plutonium-239 contamination of the soil of the former Rocky Flats Plant, which operated from 1952 to 1992. Source: Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World, Simon Winchester. In 1989 the FBI raided the plant, owned by the federal Department of Energy, over Rockwell International's shoddy management.

Currently Reading: The Harvey Comics Companion, Mark Arnold.

When I got home yesterday from getting some stuff from the pet store and the hardware store I had news for bunny_hugger. She'd wondered when the Joann Fabrics in our local mall would close. The answer: 55 minutes. We dithered a small bit about whether to go; would it be just depressing, or might we get something useful like really cheap Easter egg dye kits or bolts of fleece or stuff?

We got there to learn that they didn't have any fleece left. Or Easter egg kits. Or almost anything, really; they did well at keeping the store open until they ran out of stuff. All the remaining merchandise was on two small shelving units up front, and most of that was decoration letters. If you need a box of Z's, we could set you up, except that Joann's is now closed for good and all. Someone working the tiny remaining stock was urging people to buy boxes of toothpicks with lobster or shrimp cutouts atop them. We're not sure why anyone would get these at all, even if, as she observed, they won't spoil. I had the feeling this had turned into some minor silly retail obsession, waiting to see if anyone would ever take any of this.

We also wandered around the shelving and fixtures, where another employee was doing her best to find some piece of hardware we would take home with us. Apparently some of the thread spools are also a good configuration for storing Hot Wheels cars, in case you have a hundred-plus Hot Wheel cars that need storing. But we don't, nor anything close to that. Some of the pegbord-with-bin shelving seemed like it might be useful in our basement, if it weren't too big to fit in our basement.

And yet as we were leaving I noticed they had boxes full of pegboard racks, like, the metal or plastic rods that stick out and you can hang stuff on. So we got a box of that, for five bucks, and have the promise of organizing more things in our basement and garage if we ever get to that. I also, maybe foolishly, bought a couple boxes of some silicone sheets that are meant to be pressed around mugs or other ceramic things. I don't know what to do with them but have the feeling there's probably something decorative we can do. bunny_hugger sees in them mostly a thing we'll have to get rid of at some point. I suppose either will do fine.

And that was our last Joann's visit.

Now to what I hope was merely the most recent Kennywood visit, drawing as you can see nearer its close.

Almost at The Phantom's Revenge's station and this gives a view of the exit queue. (Also the entrance for people with mobility needs, like the guy in a wheelchair coming up the other way.)

Lanes to get your seat for the ride. Note there isn't that automatic gate that keeps you away until the operator decides you may approach.

That gift shop again, now seen by night. Also showing off the Small Fry's, that place where you can get the same fries as at The Potato Patch but with less of a wait. And yes, per Kennywood: Behind The Screams, it is based on the entrance to Wonderland at Revere Beach, Massachusetts. (Yes, if you looked at that link, you saw an 'Infant Incubators' building inside Wonderland. Early 20th century was weird.)

Sitting at the top of the reflecting pool in Lost Kennywood, looking out over a beautifully clear sky and the Black Widow swing ride.

Over that way's the swing ride. Oops, accidentally got a tiny bit of a view of bunny_hugger in there. Sorry, won't do that again.

And here's how the pool looks by early night.

Trivia: Charles Babbage invented a mechanical time clock in 1844. Source: Time's Pendulum: The Quest to Capture Time --- From Sundials to Atomic Clocks, Jo Ellen Barnett.

Currently Reading: The Harvey Comics Companion, Mark Arnold.

Long-memoried readers may recall a couple weeks ago I broke our atomic-clock-based wall clock, the one that uses time signals from WWV to adjust to the current time. The clock itself was and is fine, but the glass plate protecting the clock face from the elements was shattered into so many pieces. More than you're thinking of. More than that.

My father recommended that if there's a place in town that sells stained glass or art glass that they'd likely be able to cut a thin, eight-inch disc of glass. It happens there's a stained-glass/art-glass store so nearby it's even closer than the nearest convenience store. But I kept failing to actually check with them to see if they could do the work.

Today I finally got to doing something about it. But because of another errand, details of which I am not yet ready to make public, I got to the shop just before it closed. They were turning off the lights and everything, and I went back to the car but a guy waiting behind the shop said she'd gone back in, go talk to her.

So, wary that I had interrupted someone's departure-for-the-long-weekend, I entered and explained my need. Without saying a word she turned the clock upside-down, dropping yet another shard of glass out of it. Then took the clock over to a work table and did some measurements, and then back behind a counter. Finally she spoke: they can do that. She gave an estimate of about $20, extremely reasonable, and while it could have been done while I waited if I had gotten there earlier, now, I would have to wait. When could I come pick it up? Tuesday, unfortunately, I'm squeezed between office and pinball league, so we have to wait for Wednesday for the clock's return. (They're closed Monday for the holiday.) But they're going to cut a fresh piece of glass and install it and that seems to be everything we could hope for. Now I just have to stop instinctively looking for the time on the kitchen wall, the one surface in the house where it will definitely not be.

You know where we definitely were, back in July last year? Kennywood. Here's photographic proof.

Jack Rabbit dispatched and making its way to the first drop, which thanks to the terrain-hugging track, is well before the lift hill.

And there's the station. They've got LEDs providing the light of the stars now but at least preserved the shape and color of the neon.

Jack Rabbit's centennial logo, with the nice long ears for the K.

The new National Historic District sign doesn't have that post-facto correction about when the coaster opened on it. For what it's worth the Roller Coaster Database does think Jack Rabbit's double-dip ``camelback loop'' is a unique feature although ... boy, it sure seems like 'two hills in a row' would be an obvious feature for any terrain coaster.

View from just outside Jack Rabbit of the Racer and, above it, the Steel Curtain scenery.

Racer's new National Historic District sign has been modified to reflect the loss of Montaña Rusa at La Feria Chapultepec. And avoids any allusion to Blackwood's Grand National.

Trivia: In France in 1907 Wilbur Wright --- maybe souring from the bad progress of contract talks --- wrote his sister Katherine that the Notre Dame cathedral ``was rather disappointing as most sights are to me. The nave is seemingly not much wider than a store room and the windows of the clerestory are so awfully high up that the building is very dark'', and after visiting the Louvre, judged ``the Mona Lisa is no better than the prints in black and white''. Source: First Flight: The Wright Brothers and the Invention of the Airplane, T A Heppenheimer.

Currently Reading: The Harvey Comics Companion, Mark Arnold.

My humor blog this week started with the silly, turned incomprehensible to people who don't know that I read something about Heroic Comics for a trivia item last week, went back to being So Random, and then took a turn into Peanuts news. So here's what you've been missing:

• MiSTed: The 72 Hours Saga, Part 40
• Now the Weather Is Trying to Get Us in Trouble With the Neighbors
• Statistics Saturday: Stories of Kids Saved From Drowning In _Heroic Comics_ of 1951
• Also You'd Think They Already Do Plenty of Sit-Ups
• Or That People Would Have Generally More Hair
• What's Going On In Prince Valiant? Does Prince Valiant have a sister? February - May 2025
• It Seems Another Musical Is Upon Us, Charlie Brown
• MiSTed: The 72 Hours Saga, Part 41

And now for more Kennywood, as of last July:

For this year they rethemed the Grand Prix bumper-car ride to ... the Potato Patch. I don't know why the cars are now fry baskets but there we go.

The far side of the wall is full of Kennywood materials, including a Lincoln Highway sign (the Lincoln Highway goes along a part of a British military trail used in the French and Indian War) and a jackrabbit crossing sign.

Kennywood and sister park arrows. The weight limit refers to the date of Kennywood's opening.

The Turtle gets a shout-out here, as does Potato Patch mascot Potato Man. I'm not sure the significance of the blobby traffic signal. Probably references some Kennywood thing I'm not hep to, like the Thomas the Tank Engine section (since rethemed).

Slightly better view of the fry-basket cars and somehow a more in-focus picture of the back wall.

And now the Kangaroo, last of the flying-coaster flat rides, with the car behind number five there showing why it's a flying-coaster.

It's not a big hop but it is a heck of one and you don't have other rides like it.

Picture of the car after landing back on the track.

Here's the new Kangaroo facade seen from behind.

Now over to The Whip, a ride nearly(?) a century old now, although not in this location.

The Whip is on the left, and that's the Pittsburg [sic] Plunge shoot-the-chutes to the right and above. And hey, what's the line for Exterminator like? If it's a reasonable wait we might just go in and enjoy ---

Oh, it's a 76-minute wait for the spinning wild mouse coaster. Never mind.

Trivia: 86 percent of French people [ as of about 2005 ] have never flown in an airplane. Source: The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography, Graham Robb. The book was published in 2007 so the data is likely accurate to two-to-four years before that.

Currently Reading: The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore, Evan Friss.

Saturday afternoon, after ERR's Celebration of Life, was also a women's pinball tournament, which was about three hours or so, and saw me put back in the commentator's booth to natter about pinball or whatever came into mind. But that wasn't especially burdensome apart from sometimes it'd be nice to just go play pinball for three hours uninterrupted. I have the chance to do this most every evening and never take it, though.

Sunday morning saw our other big social obligation for the weekend. PCL, the most enthusiastic member of the league --- and the one who's set up the streaming rig for pinball events --- wanted to hold an end-of-season pinball party. He suggested a couple dates which all made sense, except ... a weekend bunnyhugger and I would be out of town. Another weekend we'd be out of town. Memorial Day weekend when everyone might be out of town. Finally this past Sunday, after league finals but before the end-of-season zen (split-flipper) tournament, was the pick.

He had it at his and his wife's house, the one we visited a couple months ago. He particularly wanted to show off his pizza oven, some portable porch thing that heats up to like a billion degrees and will cook the pizza in a minute or less so don't stop turning it. Also to show off his new King Kong pinball machine, companion to the Godzilla game he got a few months ago, and got delivered just last Monday.

It was a pretty good party, with a healthy number of league people attending. Including, in a surprise, SCS, one of our old pinball friends from Grand Rapids. He'd had a birthday party the day before that we couldn't make, but he said that was fine, especially as something like fifty people did. And despite that he had several boxes of leftover cupcakes to give; we had some with coffee break today.

Part of the event was actually rolling out and making your own pizzas, although even with as many people who were there there was more pizza to eat than there was time or stomach available. bunnyhugger ended up making a simple margherita-style pizza we took home. FAE and MAG were among the people who leapt at the chance to roll out their own dough and make pies as well, and they looked like pretty good ones.

As to pinball. PCL tried holding a closest-to-the-pin tournament on Godzilla, seeing who could get nearest to a given score (their house number, times a thousand) without going over. As seems to always happen at these someone (PCL) got amazingly close, within a couple tens of thousands, on a game like this so close it seems impossible to do better. And then MWS went and did better.

The most astounding thing of the day was when MAG and FAE, playing King Kong split-flipper, didn't just have a great game, but had a game so good they set the Grand Champion score. Luckily, PCL has his game set to accept up to ten-character high score entries. Unluckily, FAE made a typo while entering their team name and now it stands there, MAG AN. Happens to us all.

When we arrived we weren't sure how long the event would run or how long we should stay even given that. We ended up spending about six hours there, and don't regret it, except that it was a lot of time this weekend doing stuff out and with other people, and it's weird to have the start of the workweek be the break.

But now we get to another century-plus-old-ride at Kennywood. Know what it is?

This is not the wishing well, despite the stones much like the well was made of and the water much like you find in a well. This is an artificial waterfall that's part of the facade of the Old Mill, the tunnel-of-love ride.

Despite it being a quite hot, sunny day the line for the ride was ... not ridiculously long, really, and we went for it.

The Old Mill's National Historic District sign now reflects past names including Panama Canal, Fairyland Floats, and Garfield's Nightmare incarnations.

Thinking it over I'm not sure there's any part of the ride where you see the water wheel in full or doing work or anything. It's just an obscured prop.

Boats ready for the loading. They've got good capacity so if people didn't mind sharing boats you could get a lot of people on the ride at once.

And here we are ready to take the ride. (Which I didn't attempt to photograph; it's dark and we're always moving not-quite-smoothly.) Sky Rocket is the coaster in back; more on that to come.

Trivia: The handbill, The Vertue of the Coffee Drink, promoting the opening of London's first coffee house in 1652 explained coffee's medical benefits, claiming it to be effective against sore eyes, headache, coughs, dropsy, gout, scurvy, and to prevent ``Mis-carryings in Child-bearing Women''. It also noted that it would ``prevent Drowsiness, and make one fit for business, if one have occasion to Watch'' and warned ``you are not to Drink of it after Supper, unless you intend to be watchful, for it will hinder sleep for 3 or 4 hours''. Source: A History of the World in Six Glasses, Tom Standage.

Currently Reading: The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore, Evan Friss. It's (so far) a chapter each on the history of particularly key bookstores so there's a lot of detail about neurospicy people.

Back to finals, B Division. After the mishap on The Beatles and her 2-1 win over DJN bunnyhugger's next opponent was BJ, the last other player not to have lost a best-of-three match. Whatever happened both would take home at least the third-place trophy. bunnyhugger had pick of the first game, and chose Attack From Mars, and won. BJ had pick of the second game, and chose Stranger Things, which has pretty near the same layout and a very similar basic ruleset, to the point FAE accurately dubbed it ``Vaporwave Attack From Mars''. bunnyhugger won that game too, and came back to the scoring table --- where I, having no other pinball to play, was now routing traffic --- and misunderstood the standings online to think she had won the B Division.

Not yet. She had to beat whoever won the Second Chance bracket, and it was still possible she'd lose that round. But she could not do worse than second place, now. This involved some waiting. Lansing Pinball League has always had the Second Chance Bracket be best-of-three play; most other leagues use a single game. The result is there's always a delay for finals. Second Chance can't have a winner until the Winners Bracket has completed semifinals, and then has to play a best-of-three match.

Beating everyone else in the Second Chance Bracket was DJN, who'd been beaten by bunnyhugger earlier. DJN picked Foo Fighters, a potentially long-playing game, and won that. BJ picked Star Wars, very prone to being a long-playing game, and won that. DJN now picked Pulp Fiction, the retro-80s-style game, and won that, giving BJ a third-place B Division finish, and earning the right to take on bunnyhugger for finals.

If bunnyhugger won, the tournament was done, as DJN would have lost his second best-of-three match. If DJN won, they'd go on to a second best-of-three match. So he had to beat bunnyhugger in four games of the next six. Formidable.

bunnyhugger had pick of the first game, and finally used her chance to play Dungeons and Dragons, winning with --- I think she told me --- one of her best Town Celebration Multiballs ever. Then it was DJN's pick and he chose Deadpool, ordinarily a game bunnyhugger plays only under protest. But this time, Deadpool liked her better, and she swept DJN in this, finals for the B Division. She would be taking home yet another first-place division trophy.

This all wrapped up, of course, well before the A Division finished. I think it even wrapped up before the side tournament happened. It was about midnight when DMC finally beat RED, two games to one, to get into finals, and when FAE beat RED two games to one to win the Second Chance Bracket. At bunnyhugger's urging I went home to sleep, as I had to be up at 7 to be in to the office at 8 am. Already the bar staff was turning off games, as it was looking like a slow night and they'd want to be ready to close as soon as possible. (RED assured bunnyhugger it was fine to turn on games as they were needed, and yes, the staff was fine with that).

So here I leave behind the events that I witnessed, and move into hearsay from bunnyhugger. The event she most feared as that these two titans would play so long that the bar would close under them, foiling the entire point of restricting the A Division to eight players. They could manage it easily; if they split the wins right they could need to play six games and two hours is not really enough time for that. As it happened the first round was a 2-0 sweep, the shortest it could be. The catch is, it's FAE who won both Foo Fighters (a long-tending game) and John Wick (not generally, but a good player will spin it out a long while). If DMC had won the night would be over. Now, with FAE and DMC both having lost one best-of-three round they had to play one more, winner takes first.

And here DMC picked out the game bunnyhugger most dreaded coming into play: James Bond 007. If I can make a match on that game take 50 minutes imagine what two plausible candidates for state champion can do. But it didn't come out quite so long as that. And DMC won. FAE made a bold pick for the next game, Medieval Madness. Any good player can play this forever, but the best players never touch the game anymore because they know it inside out. And here ... again, DMC won, with some flourishes such as starting the rare four-ball Multiball Madness.

This all finished around 1:30 am, so there's a chance they missed Last Call. When I got home from the office bunnyhugger quizzed me on what I imagined happened and I was right in the main, with my biggest miss being I supposed DMC had picked Rush, a game he can play for longer than a Rush album. (In fact, DMC had picked Rush much earlier in the night, securing a win against JAB.) The important things, though, are that we got a winner and it didn't require stopping the match and picking up again sometime later.

Still, Saturday I did quip to someone that league finals just ended ``25 minutes ago'', and was believed until bunnyhugger explained I was just doing that thing again. Well, it could have happened if the bar opened early enough on Saturday.

You know what was open a much earlier Saturday, back in July? The Noah's Ark ride at Kennywood. Want to see how that developed from yesterday's pictures? Look on ...

Huh. Wonder what a silhouette of animals leaving the Ark signifies in the Noah's Ark ride.

Oh. We're done and back outside again.

The new National Historic District sign for the Noah's Ark. The previous one didn't reflect Blackpool Pleasure Beach closing their Noah's Ark ride in favor of security theatrics.

The Lucky Stand, unexplained survivor of the 1930s, did not have its National Historic District sign replaced, which I choose to believe is a sly joke on the park's part.

What do you get to if you're going from the Noah's Ark past the Lucky Stand? Why, the Turtle, of course.

The new National Historic District sign also reflects the loss of the other operating Tumble Bug. It's a little weird there isn't a modern version of the ride being made, unless the Tilt-a-Whirl is meant to take its place for rotary motion on hills.

Trivia: In the fall of 1818, the United States Treasury ordered the Bank of the United States to deliver three million dollars in gold to the French government, as payment towards the principal on the Louisiana Purchase (as specified by the 1803 purchase agreements). At the time the Bank had total specie of about two million dollars, and had to turn to the London credit markets for the remainder. Source: Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation, Peter L Bernstein. The Bank would go on to demand hard money from its creditors, resulting in, among other things, the Panic of 1819, the United States's first home-grown depression.

Currently Reading: Miscellaneous comic books.