Lansing Pinball League

Season 21 got off to a huge start on August 14 with one of the biggest groups we’ve had in a while and possibly the most people who have ever joined at once since I became director. A total of 22 people played including a guest player. Our new players were Dana, Amy, Jessica, Donald, Erin, Orneal, Emily, and Scott, and the guest player was Lillium. I know Donald and Jessica from the Grand Rapids pinball scene. Donald and I used to frequently end up in the same group at GRPL back in the Pyramid Scheme days, and Jessica and I have played each other in GR’s Belles and Chimes. Everyone else was totally new to me and honestly I am dreading having to tell everyone I have forgotten their names already when I see them tomorrow. (I am usually pretty good at learning up to two new members’ names per night, but past that and I can’t retain them.) Of course, that’s a great problem to have and if they do all come back, we’ll know it means we did not scare them off. I did start off by telling the regulars to try not to be weird, but for some reason this instruction was not taken seriously. In addition to the new players, we also had the return of longtime, off-and-on league member Jason.

This was the first time in League history that league night has been something other than Tuesday. Our August meetings are on Wednesday due to The Avenue closing Tuesdays over the summer, a new schedule this year. We will return to Tuesday meetings in September.

Our first two banks were Ophiuchus and Lepus, named for constellations. Ophiuchus is the Serpent-Bearer, and is actually probably the most tightly-themed bank in the season. Most of the games in Ophiuchus feature a snake or serpent; the only exception is Jurassic Park, because dinosaurs would have to be good enough. Lepus, the Hare, is very loosely themed as “things that go fast” except for The Beatles, which is in there because Lepus is my favorite constellation and The Beatles is maybe my favorite game at The Avenue.

Our Tuesday Night Smackdown – still so-called despite being on Wednesday – was Jaws. Probably unsurprisingly, it was won by Ethan, who is a big fan of the game. Joseph took first in the B division “Undercard” on Elvira’s House of Horrors.

Will we break new attendance records at our next meeting tomorrow? I look forward to finding out! See you all soon!

We started our final bank rotation on 4/9 and mercifully, this time people voted for the wild card games to be stuff upstairs rather than in the alcove. The talk before league started centered on the previous day’s total solar eclipse. Joseph and I had gone to Cedar Point to watch it. Ethan wanted us to know that he was definitely not envious of this because while he had seen it in Muncie, it lasted 20 more seconds for him.

Danny wasn’t present during roll call and I felt sure he would probably show up in time, so I commented, “That’s all right, when he comes I’ll just put him in a group with Derik and Dan.” Danny did come midway through the first game and I flipped a coin to determine what bank he’d be in. Then I asked which of the three groups he wanted to be in. He said he really didn’t care, so, being the imp that I am, I sent him over to the closest group which indeed had Derik and Dan (and Curtis) in it. When I walked up, Derik was player 3 and in the middle of a multiball on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I was hoping to still put in a fourth player and saw that Derik had both balls trapped so I said “Hey Derik” and just then he started flipping again and I said “Nevermind, I was going to ask you something while you were trapped. ” He tried to trap again and lost one of the balls in the process, which I apologized profusely for, but he was nonchalant about it. I fed quarters into the game while he trapped his remaining ball so we could hit the start button and put Danny in.

Our Smackdown game was finally on Jaws! Not too many people played, so we ended up with a two-person group (Mark and Cyndi) on Scared Stiff in the B division. Tim apparently brought a big enough boat to Jaws, and Mark won on Scared Stiff.

Our next meeting (in a couple of hours) is our last qualifying meeting of the season. This will determine who makes A division and what seeds everyone gets for finals. See you shortly!

Our last league night was three weeks ago now, a longer gap than usual due to the bar unexpectedly closing Monday and Tuesday last week. Between that, the mountain of grading I’m buried under (students are going to riot soon if I don’t get some old grades back), and the fact that I’m still shaken up from seeing the total eclipse yesterday, my memories of last league night are pretty fuzzy. It was our last night with banks 5 and 6, meaning that tonight we’ll embark on the final bank rotation between 7 and 8.

One notable event I do remember is that we were joined by former league player Jake VanKempen, playing as a guest player. Jake goes back to the early days of the league, or as we like to call them, the Theio’s days (IYKYK). Jake was a little miffed to learn that the new league rules mean that anyone playing after the midseason has to play as a guest player, meaning their scores do not count. He said that if he was going to come all the way out to play for no points I should at least put him in “a good group, like one with Dan.” He also mentioned a couple of other names but I honestly don’t remember who they were. As it happens, when I drew for him (he was running late) I did draw him into a group with Dan N., AKA half of Double Dan-ger. The other half ended up in another group for a change.

Now that banks 5 and 6 are both finished, we can take a look at the standings at the end of the night. Tim won Argo Navis (Bank 5) with solid to great games on everything. Derik took honors in Bank 5 (Cetus) with a mediocre game on Medieval Madness but great games on everything else, including a huge 942 million on Godzilla. That was not, however, the biggest score on Godzilla; that distinction goes to Curtis, who did around 1.3 billion.

We were still unable to use Jaws due to its placement in Bank 5 (Argo Navis), so our Smackdown game was the random selection of Indiana Jones. For the second time in a row, Joseph won the Smackdown and I got second. The B division was on Star Trek and in that arena Dan prevailed. Unfortuantely I had no buttons to give out because my button press is out of commission. It’s not pressing correctly and I can’t figure out why, but I hope to get that fixed eventually and give everyone the back buttons they are owed.

Tonight will start our final rotation, including the wild card games that the league voted to include in Bank 8. See you all very soon!