austin_dern

The original plan for New Year's Eve was that we might go out to the Lake Victoria Lights Show. This is this guy who's set up a bajillion lights around his house and a low-power FM radio station playing music they're synchronized to. But New Year's Eve Day started with the 412th day in a row this season of a light snow turning into a mushy, icy crud on the roads. I dealt with enough of that popping out to Meijer's for hors d'ouevres that I wasn't looking forward to doing that, only at night, and on country roads, and bunnyhugger took a look out the window and agreed.

So instead --- with no New Year's Eve tournament that we hoped to attend, nor the desire to go to our hipster bar and face that crowd on that night --- we stayed home, with the old movie-and-snacks plan. This would turn out to be our chance to watch the Alastair Sim Scrooge, which we'd missed over Christmas proper, and once again we noticed things we hadn't before, like the way Scrooge's pleading with Jacob Marley foreshadows his begging Ghost of Christmas Yet-To-Come. We keep digging out new stuff; that's part of what keeps us from getting exhausted with the movie.

Also in looking for a short to precede the movie bunnyhugger found a copy of the Betty Boop's Grampy where he brings Christmas to an orphanage, which is pleasant in that way every Grampy cartoon is. The next thing on the compilation was a baffling early-30s thing with no credits titled The Snowman, one of your generic human-and-animals-dance-until-they-accidentally-create-a-snowman-who-comes-to-life-and-is-mean-and-scary cartoons that ends when the (sigh) Eskimo runs into what looks like a power plant that turns out to be the factory controlling the Northern Lights, cranks them up to 11, and in an light show that we agreed would be really something if this were in color, melts the Snowman. bunnyhugger was able to follow all the clues, however, and discovered just where the short came from. It was Ted Eschbaugh, this indie animated movie-maker, who did work with Van Beuren studios occasionally (gratifying my hunch that it was Van Beuren, even though this short was not) and who was stumbling out of complete obscurity into mild obscurity; he's got a footnote in a much bigger cultural history as the director of the 1933 The Wizard of Oz cartoon, the first (known) cartoon and color production based on that story. She also found a decent, color print and yes, the short is much more interesting that way.

So with that happy discovery and a lot of popcorn eaten we were in good shape to eat a lot of oven-heated snacks --- they all came out of the oven and toaster oven together, for once! --- and have the wine leftover from Thanksgiving to ring in 2026.

Now to ring in, oh, like 3 pm back that June Saturday at Plopsaland De Panne:

Looking up at Heidi: The Ride --- you can see a train just crested the hill --- although admittedly it does look like most any modern wooden coaster.

The area we had our lunch in, with Heidi: The Ride in the background and track for Nacht Wacht over it.

The castle for Nacht Wacht's Draconis. Now, why would we be sitting here again if we'd already eaten?

And here's why! There was a parade and we wanted a good vantage point for it. Here's the leading edge of it.

I tried taking a movie and got interrupted partway through, but, this will do. I think the float might be representing Heidi.

And here's something pirate-based. You've seen pirates before.

Trivia: Among the requirements for manned spacecraft ground tracking developed in spring 1959 by the Space Task Group and the Tracking And Ground Instrumentation Unit was that ground station placement should ensure there would never be more than ten minutes between loss of signal at one station and picking up of voice contact at the next. (The space medicine community pushed for continuous voice contact, which proved impractical fro the time.) Source: Read You Loud and Clear: The Story of NASA's Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network, Sunny Tsiao.

Currently Reading: A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II, Maury Klein.

PS: What’s Going On In Thimble Theatre? You forgot about Thimble Theatre, right? October – November 2025 in a comic strips update I could've run anytime the last two months.

Saturday after Christmas we got to Crossroads Village. This was not quite the final night of the season for the historical-village-decorated-in-lights, but we figured to keep Sunday as a contingency in case, say, the weather were too awful to visit. It happens Sunday saw four billion inches of rain so it would have been impossible to visit, but the idea was sound.

The big question was which of the train rides to get tickets for. They run their 19th century train for a roughly 45-minute loop through holiday lights while the public address system plays music, and the last scheduled train was for 8:15. But often when the place is crowded they run an extra train, at 9:15, after everything else is closed and as it maximizes time in the Village it'd be the best train to get. So for days bunnyhugger watched the tickets for sale, and while every day up to Christmas they opened a 9:15 train, we never saw one open for the Saturday we planned to visit. Finally we decided to get tickets for 8:15 because who knew if there would be a 9:15?

This proved wise: there was no 9:15 train, this despite the village being extremely busy. So busy, in fact, that when we arrived the parking lot was full up and they directed us to park on the shoulder of a service road. We stayed at the village past closing, of course, and by the time we got back to the car mine was almost the only car along that road, and I observed, so many people must have thought I was a jerk parking there.

Also, mysteriously, at the entry booth they explained that the ticket we'd printed out online wasn't good for getting on the train. It had been, up until about a week before, when ``they'' changed the system on everyone and now they had to print out a ticket on the spot for us. I don't know what the system change was or why they'd implement a week before the new year but I also completely believe this string of events.

We got there in enough time we could see the holiday show which, as it's been for several years now, was a musical-comedy thing starring Santa and We Never Actually Call Him The Grinch, with numbers done by a polar bear, Rudolph, and Frosty. It's fun though we do miss the Victorian-ish Melodramas of a decade ago. We also got really distracted wondering if the performers in suit were doing their own dialogue, or if it was done by a voice actor in back, or if it was prerecorded. The case against prerecorded is there's a bit early on where We Don't Say He's The Grinch dubs one of the audience kids his new reindeer, and if the kid doesn't play along you're in trouble. The case for prerecorded is N T Grinch didn't actually ask or say the kid's name and why wouldn't you, if you could? Some year we've got to find out where they bought the script for this from and see how it compares to the published dialogue.

That small tent-based shopping village from the previous year was gone, but one of the buildings had, we were all but sure, a new store in it. The new store was selling, you know, crystals and inspirational candles and that other sort that's the modern version of patent medicines, so it has a weird authenticity-of-experience I suppose.

The most important thing, of course, is that the antique rides were running. Both the carousel and the Ferris wheel, the latter of which went a couple years without our seeing in operation. The carousel's still going at its six rotations per minute, and they were packed. Also, while we waited for one ride, a bunch of kids were doing six-seven at a kid on the carousel, so that's still a thing. And the Ferris wheel was going at good clip. We even got the lucky coincidence to be the last car loaded and the first unloaded, so we didn't sit swinging around in the cold breeze; we just got the fast spinning up and down.

Also, the carousel building still has the penny-press machine, and I brought a couple pennies for just this chance. bunnyhugger believes herself to have three of the four penny patterns they offer --- two Christmas and two Halloween --- but so far as I know has not yet verified this.

And now, a bit of Plopsaland De Panne, not including any roller coasters close-up this time.

Well, a little bit of roller coaster: you can see a bit of the Nacht Wacht coaster (Draconis) in the archway, in this passage through the building that hides its launch station. Behind the camera is the Heidi stuff; ahead of it is The Ride to Happiness.

Following this path, which also gets us closer to the front of The park. I admire the dangling flower light fixtures that look like something Roller Coaster Tycoon made up.

Now here's a silly parrot who thought we wouldn't notice them in the giant sugar bowl.

And here's a mouse who's snagged a teacup. I don't know how old any of these statues are or if they represent pre-Plopsa park features.

The turtle who's got their hat on is beside the teacup mouse.

And what the heck, have a mouse in a saucepan.

Trivia: A January 1969 planning document for the first moonwalk outlined a minute-by-minute work chart with the respective astronauts labelled A and B, without any identification of which would be the Commander and which the Lunar Module Pilot. Source: Chariots for Apollo: The NASA History of Manned Lunar Spacecraft to 1969, Courtney G Brooks, James M Grimwood, Loyd S Swnson Jr.

Currently Reading: A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II, Maury Klein.

Christmas at bunnyhugger's started with a couple of traditional exercises, like my waking bunnyhugger over and over fidgeting on the inflatable mattress we have there. Last year we brought a sleeping bag that I used on the floor, but this time we failed to remember it. Also I got up first, when something loud was going on outside, and had the idea to go to the bathroom just as bunnyhugger's brother did. We worked it out. I forgot my hairbrush once again, and I don't know where to find their hair dryer, so my hair was not doing well.

Brunch was the traditional scrambled eggs followed by waffles, with bunnyhugger's parents apologizing all the time that the waffles were only being guessed at for done-ness because the light for 'done' wasn't working. They were just fine, we have no idea what was wrong. We also finally got an answer to how bunnyhugger's father got interested enough in making scrambled eggs that he's good at it: he dunno, it just seemed fun to learn how to do.

Between everyone's slow start we had a scheduling problem in unwrapping presents: my family had the idea to do a group Facetime about 2:00. I'd imagined that might run 15 or 20 minutes, and it did not; everyone was really happy to talk and show off things --- one of my niblings had some Lego set for a Fortnite(?) restaurant(?) thingy that he completed live during the call; another was weirdly happy with this stretchy-foam stick of butter(?) that I don't understand, sorry --- and we got into riffing on great and embarrassingly bad gifts of our youth. Also me showing off how I was wearing the Red Cross Pac-Man socks I got for a platelet donation a couple weeks back.

Well, during all this bunnyhugger's family figured they had to start opening presents or we'd never be cleaned up in time for dinner, and I missed the first couple rounds, including the one where bunnyhugger gave her mother a new iPad. When our group phone call finally ended and I could start complaining about how Facetime's interface has gotten worse since last year, bunnyhugger's brother, as the Christmas Elf, said he was going into emergency protocols giving me two gifts to every one everyone else was opening. Spoiler: I got a lot of books, plus the Peanuts page-a-day calendar, which is just as I'd like it.

And! I managed to give everyone at least one thing that was not a book, this time. A record for bunnyhugger's brother that kind of felt right and that he was delighted by. Jigsaw puzzle for his partner. Rubber stamps for bunnyhugger's mother, as stamping's one of the hobbies she can still do. A replacement neck pillow for bunnyhugger. A couple t-shirts for bunnyhugger's father, of local Lansing institutions, which might be a mistake as he kept asking and getting wrong what FB&C --- Flat, Black and Circular, a revered used record shop --- stands for. I suppose it doesn't much matter if he gets them wrong.

And then there's the things that didn't go as traditional.

But before getting to the end of the day let's get back to Plopsaland in June, approaching the biggest-name roller coaster in the park:

The entrance to The Ride To Happiness, which gets its queue started in this building that looks vaguely steampunk-inspired.

Inside the building are a lot of displays of things rotating slowly and the suggestion of fire and water.

View of a returning train from the queue. The tower and coaster track out of it is not part of the ride. The other track is, as is the four-car train with the spinning cars.

Paddlewheel that adds to the atmosphere underneath the ride.

The last stage of the queue is ascending this sun-themed stairwell.

And you go past more rooms full of riveted tanks and stuff.

Trivia: According to a 1954 television survey Milton Berle was watched by only 1.9 percent of viewers in Charlotte, North Carolina. Source: With Amusement For All: A History of American Popular Culture since 1830, LeRoy Ashby. The networks concluded people feared he was too Jewish for small-town America; this kind of fear would help get Dick Van Dyke the leading role over Carl Reiner for what became The Dick Van Dyke Show, which had been based on Carl Reiner's own life.

Currently Reading: A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II, Maury Klein.

I think the biggest surprise this Christmas week was that I didn't get to work from home Tuesday. In previous years someone up the boss chain had told everyone that they had the option to work from home the last two weeks of the year, and I don't know whether it was forgotten this year or was a conscious choice. Since Wednesday last week (and next) was a holiday I only had to go in the one day, and a lot of people brought a lot of food, so that's some consolation.

After work, though, we had our last chance to get to the Potter Park Zoo's Wonderland of Lights, which still hasn't returned to running after Christmas. Most of the snow that we'd gotten had melted by this point so the sights weren't as dramatic or good for county fair photograph season, but we were hardly sad to go.

For whatever reason we took the zoo's trail the ``wrong'' way this year. Apart from 2020 and 2021 they haven't really had a designated path, but there's a couple natural attractions, starting with the arctic fox and the otters, and instead of leading with those we went the other way. This worked out nicely, though; the terrain of the zoo is very familiar by now, and while they change some of the decorations every year it's not like they ever make radical wholesale changes. So this did a good bit to make the trail feel new. Also unfamiliar in that we kept getting caught up on questions like didn't this path used to be open? I think some of them are paths that in years past were open but that haven't been recently. But it's easy forgetting.

Taking the contra-flow path meant we saw some things ``early'', like the rainbow wall of lights, or the Corvid Corner, a bird enclosure that someone going the other way warned us had nothing visible. We could see one bird in there, in the far distance, not particularly moving, possibly because it was well after dark and there wasn't anything they wanted. And we were there in time to see in one of the indoor enclosures one of their rhinos pacing a bit. Didn't use the huge back-scratching brush. We did have the luck to see a snow leopard in silhouette, against the lights outside a building, and while the big cat meowed a bit in a way that sounded like a whiny complaint, they hustled off before we could get decent pictures. The spider monkeys were hidden altogether, we suppose in a private home, and the lemurs were heaped up far out of sight, sleeping.

After walking around a fair bit we had some time left so popped in to the discovery center where they, alas, had no animals on display to pet. They did have a couple of pelts on display, where I was able to identify the lynx pelt as ``I don't know, a bobcat?'' And a guy had a little demonstration quiz, pictures of various animals and the gifts they give others of their type and why they give that. bunnyhugger got the five perfectly, and was only a little guided by being pretty sure we'd done this same quiz in previous years.

We did not see any otters, who may have been off celebrating their Fishmas. Anyway the light was off in their enclosure, as has been true the last couple years. In the long ago past of like 2019 we could get very blurry, badly-exposed pictures of bubbles and blurs.

In pictures, we're still at Plopsaland and are only one roller coaster in.

More wonders of the park: Frits and Frats sure offered something to eat, although we didn't get anything there. The roof line is great, though.

A bit of scenery in a giant spilled hot chocolate.

Another fine moment of parkitecture: the giants' table used as porch overhang for a dining area.

More decorations around a roller-skating-themed roller coaster. It's all giant for reasons we don't know.

But here's the coaster, naturally called K3.

Here's a fun-looking water-y ride we didn't go on, but, flying jetboats in a way. Whoever their superhero is flies over the ride, orbiting as the ride does.

Trivia: Throughout World War I the largest category of cargo unloaded at French ports for the British army was fodder for horses. Source: An Edible History of Humanity, Tom Standage. (Horse-drawn wagons being the best way available to carry supplies from train stations to the front.)

Currently Reading: A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II, Maury Klein.

Today was my department's holiday party, held again at the nature center near home where we'd gone in the summer. This time there was way more snow on the hill leading up to the building. Turns out the stairs were on the other side of the building. bunnyhugger had to work --- it's a class day --- so there wasn't any chance she'd attend.

So I got some store-bought hummus and brought that, being one of a handful of folks who didn't make something. Other people made, like, this Croatian bean soup or this pumpkin pie-based dessert. Or fried cheese-and-jalapeno balls. You know, Christmas food. The vegetarian options were a little thinner on the ground than back in summer but I could make the difference up in cheese balls.

And there were games, with the centerpiece being Holiday Jeopardy. As often happens with attempts to make a trivia game at home the questions were a bit sloppy. The date of the first known New Year's Eve celebration? Like, how do you define that? The office know-it-all asked by what calendar, and the exasperated question-writer just said ``the Gregorian calendar'' which added confusion since they were looking for ``second millennium BC, Babylon''. A little squabble erupted over ``the number of ghosts in A Christmas Carol''; I'd offered four, which was exactly what the question-writer wanted. The other team's head protested that Marley is the only ghost, as the others are spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet To Come, with the database guy trying to make a distinction that a ghost has to be someone who's deceased. I've never heard this before. So I lobbed a know-it-all grenade into things by pointing out what Marley shows Scrooge an unknowable number of ghosts wandering the Earth. Our team kept the points.

In the White Elephant gift exchange I came out of things with a white ... duck? ... nightlight thing. You switch the thing on and turn it on and it stays on until you squeeze it again. It's cute, but receiving it exhausts all the use that I would have for it. Some folks got cutting boards, which are less merry, but would have fit in my lifestyle better.

And then a bit of pure weirdness wandered through the building. So there's this local furry, name of Elyon Badger, who's mostly putting up signs around town proclaiming he's running for Congress and scaring the bejeebers out of the worthless Republican holding the office. Well, he was walking around the nature center with a photographer and some people with portable lights and his fursuit head. I assume it was taking photos and creating bundles of content for web consumers. He asked if he could cut through the building on the way to other scenic spots and, sure. They also used it as a spot to warm up some.

Will it surprise you to know that Elyon Badger was dressed in a top hat and carrying a cane, to the point the first people who saw him said that is a very dapper-dressed man out there? Or that he was wearing a purple suit, like he was Willy Wonka? We had at this point no idea who this was or why they were doing any of this. I walked over and spotted his collection of pride flag pins, and started to suspect things, before I finally saw he had an Elyon name badge for some reason. So, now I've seen the guy.

So, that isn't how I expected the party to go.

Back to Dolancourt, pictures that we'd have rather had at Nigloland but instead had at ...

Small river running through the hotel's grounds; this was needed for the mill, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were also used for transportation.

Looking back at the hotel grounds. We had Chambre 1, on the first floor way back near where those steps are. The towels hung on the railing are ours.

Stepping here into the slightly feral park on the grounds.

I liked the relief carving on this planter on the bridge.

There's the part of the river leading back to the mill, and the waterwheel. I could see in the breakfast room the mechanism, but without going and checking I'm going to say the photograph didn't come out at all.

More of the riverbank. On the left are steps to get down to the water level.

Trivia: Mathematical physicist John Couch Adams, one of the two men who predicted Neptune's orbit from calculation, was first educated as a child by local schoolmaster Mr Sleep, whose advertisement promised he ``challenged any man in England for Calligraphy, Stenography, or the Mathematics''. Source: In Search Of Planet Vulcan: The Ghost in Newton's Clockwork Universe, Richard Baum, William Sheehan.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 78: Irma th' 'Ermit's Youth Lotion, Ralph Stein, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.

With the trip to Bronner's and now the Nite Lites 5K kicking off the Christmas season, what did we have to look forward to but the next weekend but kicking off of the Christmas season? This one looks like it might stick, since it's been a tradition of ours since we stopped attending Midwest Fur Fest. I refer to the Silver Bells In The City winter market and electric light parade. Mostly the parade.

We did stop first in the City Hall, for a bathroom break and to get popcorn and hot chocolate. Also to have a look around City Hall for what might be the last time. They finally have not just a deal to replace City Hall with a new structure but have actually broken ground and have things rising from what used to be a dry cleaners. The existing building's supposed to be renovated into a hotel and I guess that'll be nice if it works, but it probably won't be a gathering point and cheap snacks stand for Silver Bells when that happens.

The parade seemed to start even later than usual, although it was not horribly cold or windy so the wait wasn't bad. It was short on the number of marching bands --- nine by my count --- although bunnyhugger had barely got done complaining about how they seem to have dropped the best-band contest when the announcer came on to tell us who won the best-band contest. The bands all looked pretty good, none marching badly enough that bunnyhugger said anything aloud about people being out of step. And there was apparently some coordination between the bands so that there wasn't any repeating of a particular song and I don't think even the medleys overlapped much. The piece I half-remember is the announcer said one of the bands would be playing [ some 60s tune that hasn't got anything to do with Christmas or Thanksgiving or parades or anything ] and then they went and played Margaret Cobb and Bruce Channel's ``Hey! Baby'' instead. (The one with the refrain ``I wanna know // if you'll be my girl'', if that helps narrow it down.) bunnyhugger will surely remember and tell me and I'll feel foolish I forgot. [ Edit: It was ``Twist and Shout''; thanks, love. ]

The tree lighting was done before the community sing, which was anyway two quick songs that nobody sang along to, possibly because I don't know what the second song was but it didn't sound anything like a Christmas song. After that came the drone show, which has been getting a bit more interesting every year but is still basically, y'know, a drone show. For some reason a bunch of the constellations put up were themed to Wicked: For Good. Last year had a bunch of The Wizard of Oz images, in honor of the event's ruby anniversary, so I'm looking forward to this new Wizard of Oz Universe theme they've picked up for the thing. I'm a Hungry Tiger fan.

After the fireworks we went to the shopping village, which had expanded from past years by having grease trucks farther east than it'd had before. We got some veggie falafels from a truck just moments before it closed down. bunnyhugger also got a jar of garlic-flavored cooking oil from a place that we worked out has to be operating out of the neighborhood center a couple blocks from us. We've had it in a few bowls of ramen and it does add a very nice touch.

After all that --- and by then the village was closing up, as it always seems to do just as we've gotten there --- we went back to the state tree to get some photos of it up-close. We were just admiring how they don't seem to need the sort of complex wooden tresle they used to have for these trees; it just stood straight. And then bunnyhugger overheard some kids asking what that thing was and that it was a rabbit. She was expecting a wild rabbit had somehow stuck around the capital grounds through the crowd and noise and fireworks. The truth was maybe more amazing.

It was a domesticated rabbit, one on a leash, hopping around a little bit and sniffing around and eating the occasional leaf or blade of grass. An angora, which their owner explained was why they were so chill. Angora rabbits have to spend about fifteen hours a day being held in a lap and groomed, so they're used to contact --- and many people came up asking if it was safe to pet them --- and being restrained by things like leashes. We were amazed, and delighted, to meet a rabbit like this but also couldn't help imagining, gads, one excited dog and it's an awful day. The owner did say a quick bit about sometimes dogs are trouble but I guess she's confident in being able to gather the rabbit up fast. Oh also the rabbit is nine years old, which is outright old; they're doing very well getting around for being such a senior rabbit.

I won't be surprised if we never see that rabbit again, but it was wonderful encountering them at all. Made for a great way to send off the introduction to the Christmas season.

This time at the Musée I got pictures of nothing with a carousel in it. Yet is this entry still tagged 'carousels'? I don't know, it depends if I remember when scheduling this to post.

Some fairground-style attractions here now, including totally legitimate artwork of three of the caballeros and whoever Douce is.

The docent explains something about the ball-throwing gallery here.

Here's the figures that you would throw balls at,

Display of some of the ball-rolling tables with a scenic backgrop to give it a period appearance.

Something we did not get to see demonstrated, tragically: a fairground ride that gives you just a little push up and then slide back down. I feel like we saw something like this at Rye Playland ages ago but couldn't swear to it.

And, probably from a carousel, a pig-shaped mount to ride in.

Trivia: Five miles of beachfront in Russian-occupied Crimea was stripped down to clay foundation and the sand sold on the black market. Source: The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization, Vin Beiser.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 75: Grand Poobahr of Smoochistan, Ralph Stein, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.

Pin-golf got started before I got home from work. The format lets you start anytime and the plan was that people could start playing a course anytime between 4:30 and 7:00. By the time I got home and walked to the barcade to join bunnyhugger a few people were already playing, and she was waiting for the chance to start herself. Past experience said it was a bad idea for the two of us to play at the same time, since it leaves the main desk with nobody watching it, but it's also just ... not done ... to play on your own if you can help it. So when the next couple people came in, bunnyhugger started playing with them while I watched the desk and gave people instructions and all that.

Fear and Trembling is usually a small tournament --- people shy away from the pin-golf format, it seems --- and since you can start anytime there's never a particular reason to start at this time, so folks drift in slowly. I didn't get to start playing myself until just before 7pm, when, among other things, FAE and DMC decided to ditch the cards they had been playing and start new ones (one could restart a try for a small additional donation to the charity). DMC's choice to restart came after he had accidentally been playing toward one objective but had written down, on the scoresheet, that he was attempting the other. It was clear to everyone what he had meant to do, but we have to go by what's on the page and with that failure to meet the goal, a 4, he decided to restart. This is how he and FAE ended up in a group with me.

Since I had tested out most of the objectives in the preceding half-week and had suggested or concurred with all of them you'd expect I would be good at the course, if you had no idea how pin-golf works. Even expert players have trouble with some of them --- DMC, an expert on the game Rush, failed on his first go-round to make that objective in a single ball! --- and I'm not an expert player. I think my only hole-in-one was the Rush objective, one that we had agreed was an easy one, but also that you need some easy objectives because it is too demoralizing when everything is impossible. Despite that even expert players DMC and FAE had a couple of 4's, representing objectives never made. And even some of the more novice players, in other groups, got a couple of objectives in three or even two balls, giving them a heck of a feeling of triumph.

I did just well enough to make the four-person playoffs, which took me by such surprise that when bunnyhugger told me I said ``no I did not''. The playoffs were further pin-golf, playing a bank of three holes at the choice of top-seeded DMC, and the objectives chosen by second-seed FAE. (RED and I just got to pick our order of play.) I did not do well in the first two of the playoff objectives, even though they were the same ones as the main course. The only one I managed was on the final game, King Kong, playing the goal of climbing to 200 feet of the Empire State Building, which you do by making a specific set of game-chosen shots, one of them a right bastard, because there isn't a reliable angle to set up the shot. I ended up giving up on aiming for that and starting a multiball instead on the correct supposition that in the chaos of three balls running around something would go my way, and it did.

Still, that left me in fourth-place, still taking home a trophy. RED took home third place, the trophy he liked best too --- one he happened to mention earlier in the night as being awesome, assuaging bunnyhugger's fears that she had made disappointing trophies this time around --- and DMC took second. This meant FAE won the Fear and Trembling tournament for the fourth time in a row and it's kind of a shame we can't give them permanent possession of a trophy. They just have to take home this year's first-place trophy again.

Still can't believe I made the cut but there's the trophy to prove it.

Now I'm going to close out Christmas lights pictures; I promised you I was going to be more sparing in these, didn't I? Go ahead and guess what amusement park photographs come up next.

Pterodactyl light that's stationary and not animated, but the streaks in my windshield give it a little vibe of having just landed anyway.

And I'm always going to be fond of showing a sea serpent. As I recall the serpent actually has only one tail, with the end alternating, and my picture got both lit at once.

This Santa alligator looks like they've taken all the cold medicine.

From the Noah's Ark display here's two raccoons, two squirrels, and two frogs hanging out. The rest of the Ark is on the other side of the street.

Oh, bunch of people pointing at a lad in a basket, wonder what comes next.

The reindeer are so glad that I'm leaving. You can see a bit of the raceway stadium stairs behind, in the picture, that you couldn't possibly see in person.

Trivia: One of the Sanskrit words for 'Wednesday' was 'Budhuvasara', meaning 'Awakening'. Source: Mapping Time: The Calendar and its History, EG Richards.

Currently Reading: Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space, Adam Higginbotham.

All the way ago last Tuesday bunnyhugger hosted this year's Fear and Trembling pinball tournament. This is her pin-golf event, where the goal is not to score points but to complete objectives in as few balls as possible. This is a fun and frustrating format, for everyone. Us, for the challenge of figuring out what tables to use and what objectives to set on them. Everyone else, for finding that they can't manage to do something on purpose that they always do incidentally while playing. Sometimes your best approach is to ignore the goal and just play a good game, but people only resort to that in desperation.

Speaking of desperation: one extra challenge we put on ourselves is that the tournament offers a player's choice of objectives, so we need to find tables that have two clear objectives that aren't just ``get a bunch of points''. Ideally they should be objectives you can make progress on that's saved, ball-to-ball, and should make it really clear when you've made the goal so you don't have to guess what happened. The point of this is to make choosing, and knowing you might have succeeded if you'd picked the other objective, part of the game.

Ironically, we passed on the challenge of picking which tables, turning the choice over to a random number generator. Well, we feel like we always pick the same games and after long enough you run out of different goals. The random number generator picked an interesting enough course, though, including a couple games I really like, at least one that I don't but am somehow good at, and didn't repeat too many from the last couple years' of games.

Picking objectives was annoying, in part because many modern pinball games have gotten complicated to the point there are jillions of things to do and the video screens, for all the space they have, don't always persistently show you what happened. Ultimately we only had to bump one game from the main bank to backup for want of being sure we had a clean objective. And there was testing, because with stuff going on we didn't have enough time at our local barcade to try them all out. I went two days in a row in the leadup to the tournament to try out objectives I wasn't sure about, but still left a couple games --- like Medieval Madness, which I've played so many times in person and in virtual form that I doubt there's anything I don't know --- with objectives that were technically untested.

Still, what's the worst that could happen?

That teased, let's wrap up photos of our trip to Crossroads Village from the last week of last year. I'm almost up to within the past ten months!

Another intersection with a nice lighted fence and some really good reflections here.

Here's the village's central tree and the reflections in the slush around it.

Not Santa! Just one of his many statues waving around the place. Note the over-decorated tree in the background, one of the village's centerpiece items.

The opera house and the coffee shop here, near the end of the night. The gift shop has already closed and is dark.

The tree wrapped up tight in lights. I think this is the time we overheard someone asking and told them that yeah, we'd been here in the summer and the tree was still wrapped, just unlit.

And a parting view of the train station and a lot of wet planks of wood.

Trivia: When developing the first periodic table of the elements Dimitri Mendeleyev supposed that the atomic weights of either tellurium (128) or iodine (127) must be wrong because tellurium clearly preceded iodine in order. Mendeleyev was correct about the ordering, but did not know of isotopes, or that there is enough abundant tellurium-130 that an unrefined sample's average weight will be closer to 128, while iodine-127 is the only common isotope of that element. Source: Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the Elements, John Emsley.

Currently Reading: Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space, Adam Higginbotham.

Another day without time to write so you get Christmas Day photos. Please enjoy!

Our Christmas tree at home, decorated --- we went with just white lights --- and gifts to give out to everyone.

We got out like five kinds of paper and also some of the nice little mini-greeting-card style gift tags. Also you can see our Stephen laser-cut wood ornament there.

The tree and a view into the dining room. The dining room is so bright because of a grow light there keeping an aloe plant from giving up on life altogether.

And our arrangement of things on the mantle, including a bunch of cards, pinball trophies, and the scented candle thingy that I got really into last year.

Now, Christmas day and the tree at bunnyhugger's parents. Not seen: cat wondering why she has to maneuver through all of this stuff to get at the sun room.

bunnyhugger sitting up and wondering where the coffee and pancakes are.

And here's Athena, wondering why she had to be moved from home for whatever this all is going on. Her first Christmas!

bunnyhugger's parents' dog, in her sweater, wondering why I'm Stitch's Girlfriend Angel.

And here she is sitting up on the sofa and looking very serious about everything.

Back to Athena. We gave her a couple presents, one of them this board with rope loops that she could pull and chew. We figured with her interests in pulling things and chewing them she'd love it, and she did, for minutes.

Here she is standing on it and investigating why I'm holding the camera at her.

Athena guarding her board. While she's never been wild about it, she has recently got more interested in it, or at least in chewing the rope loops open. I'm not sure what her favorite toy is, really, at this point.

Trivia: The United States Post Office was given control of both telephone and telegraph communications in autumn 1918 as wartime measures, ostensibly to prevent a threatened telegraphers strike and to keep private companies from managing secret government communications in wartime. Source: The American Mail: Enlarger of the Common Life, Wayen E Fuller. Or it was the peak of the Post Office's attempts to control long-distance communications. Take your interpretation.

Currently Reading: Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space, Adam Higginbotham.

This time around, my humor blog spread out its topics and wasn't entirely about comic strips. Here's what it was:

• MiSTed: The Tale of Jimmy Rabbit, Part 10: Playing Leap-Frog
• Trusting This Is Not the Thing That Will Make You Think Worse of Me
• Statistics Saturday: Some Nursery Rhyme Characters You Can't Say From Text Are Eggs
• Robert Benchley: What --- No Budapest?
• And Yet I Post This on the Internet, How Interesting
• What's Going On In The Phantom (Weekdays)? It's nothing, right? July - October 2025.
• As the Rain Gets Just Cold and Heavy Enough to Feel Colder and Heavier Than It Is
• MiSTed: The Tale of Jimmy Rabbit, Part 11: The Tooth Puller

Next big thing we got to in December was the Potter Park Zoo and its Wonderland of Lights. Let's look at hopefully the better pictures:

First, in the gift store, some soccer ball cheetahs that I feel like I've seen in the object-transformation corners of FurAffinity.

Here, people look over the first of several portals to other worlds.

Over by the farmyard animals location they set up a little gift shop. We got hot chocolate there this time, breaking our tradition of getting hot chocolate at the snack stand.

The rare Christmas Tree not decorated by a local dentist group.

Just a nice look at the snowy ground an the bare trees and the cloud-filled sky.

And now we venture into the Big Cats house, which also has other mammals.

Like here, I want to say it's a shrew?

Lemur is disgusted that I'm being so vague about this.

The bench that's long outlasted Theio's Restaurant now. Also, here's where the penny press machine is. I don't know when's the last time we saw it working.

The nice lighting arrangements near the refreshments stand. For such a long time I assumed this was a pond because usually we saw it after some snow had melted and refrozen into an ice sheet.

Finally, back on track with a dentist-supported tree.

The footprints sure suggest people gathering for specific picture purposes here.

Trivia: At 1:30 in the afternoon, the 24th of October, 1907, J P Morgan badgered $27 million out of local bank presidents to form a relief fund for stock brokers facing the two-day-old panic, in order to keep the stock exchange open to its scheduled hour of 3 pm. Source: The Money Men: Capitalism, Democracy, and the Hundred Years' War Over the American Dollar, H W Brands. This, and a sweetheart deal to sell New York City bonds, almost certainly prevented a string of bank closures that would have set off another depression, but it was also done by one guy strongarming Finance to his will.

Currently Reading: Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space, Adam Higginbotham.