Lansing Pinball League

We began our 20th season with Ethan wishing everyone he saw “Happy new year!” I reminded everyone that we were now starting season “Double X.” My joke was that we were not quite bad enough yet to be “Triple X.” Joseph’s joke was that next season would be “Double Sever.” Two new players joined this season. One of them, Jack, had previously played in the Fear and Trembling Charity Pingolf Tournament, but is new to league. He recently moved to Lansing from the Cincinnati area. Devon brought along the other new player, his friend Rob.

The banks this season are roughly the same as last, with a few adjustments made due to the game lineup changing. The bank theme is still “Constellations, or, The Starry Skies Above,” although my attempt to mildly theme each night’s bank has already been mocked by fate. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles went down before the night started (at least no one had played it yet) and I chose a game from our designated bank for pulling substitutes from. I wanted to avoid something in the alcove as we were already playing several games down there, so I switched in The Simpsons Pinball Party. That means TMNT has been moved to Bank 7, “Canis Minor.”

When we arrived, we discovered that our usual practice of standing behind the upstairs bar to make announcements and sort groups had been rudely denied. The Avenue had put up a rope across the bar entrance! Surely this wasn’t targeted toward us… was it?

The first two weeks we are rotating players between Banks 1 and 2, known (to me) as “Ophiuchus (the Snake Bearer)” and “Lepus (the Hare).” I got sorted into Lepus along with new player Jack and Ethan, from an adjacent group, began telling Jack how good I was at The Beatles and how he shouldn’t feel bad because I was about to blow it up. I nervously told Ethan that he was jinxing me by saying that, but in fact I did have quite a good Beatles game. It was the best one of the half of the league that played it that night, but I’m sure I will be dethroned when the other half of the league plays tonight.

The winner for the night on bank Ophiuchus was Danny (surprise?) followed by Joseph and then Dan. The Lepus winner was a tie between me (thanks Beatles) and Derik, with Ethan coming in third.

We also played a Tuesday Night Smackdown on James Bond. Danny kicked off the Smackdown season with a win, and Ethan won the B division on Medieval Madness.

That wraps up the league report for the first night of our 20th season. The weather may keep some people away tonight but I am hoping to see most of you in a few hours!

Our last league night, the final qualifying night of the season, was just two days before Thanksgiving. Despite encroaching on the holiday, there was a good turnout, since everyone was making use of their last chance to improve or retain their seed for the final playoffs.

The final two banks, Perseus and Coma Berenices, both contained one of the league’s newest games, Foo Fighters and Venom. Coma Berenices also contained the games that had been elected by the League as wild cards. As a result of the final bank not being part of my original bank organization, we had several games all in use in the alcove, which I try hard to avoid when I set the banks at the beginning of the season. Normally we would not have five games all being played in the alcove. We had two guest players, Jamison and his son Owen, who were checking out the league, and I had to reassure them that it isn’t usually like playing inside a sardine can. Owen is normally off being a student at GVSU and was on break for Thanksgiving, but Jamison lives relatively close by and I told him he should come back when we start a new league season.

Danny C. ended up placing first for both of the banks and, unsurprisingly, will also be the top seed in playoffs, with a pretty big points margin. Brian K. in second and Tim in third are clustered a little closer together.

The Avenue’s famously eclectic vending machine often stocks bags of stick-on googly eyes. Someone had been going to work with them, resulting in Pete’s pink elephant and the Foo Bot each having one giant googly eye.

Our Tuesday Night Smackdown game for the night was Scared Stiff and the champ on that was Danny. Devon won the B division game on Foo Fighters.

Tonight is our final playoffs and that will determine who is the Season 19 champion. Will it be Danny again? Will Tim finally get his win? Or will it be relative newcomer Brian K.? We’ll find out sometime tonight… or early tomorrow morning.

On November 7, we started our final bank rotation, which will complete tonight. One of the games we were supposed to play, James Bond, had an issue so it was replaced with The Beatles (the runner-up from the vote for the wild card slots in Bank 8). Early on, it was discovered that The Beatles had a drop target issue that was causing people to get a mode selected for them at the start of the ball, and not the same mode every time, so I made the call to also pull The Beatles and it got randomly replaced by Jurassic Park. At one point there was a moment when I thought we would have to also pull Elvira’s House of Horrors again, but it seemed to straighten itself out adequately after a ball search so fortunately it stayed in.

We also had some trouble with our Smackdown game, which was supposed to be Getaway, causing Joseph to write “You’re welcome, Tim” on the rule sheet. Ethan “broke” it during an attempt to qualify, so I chose a random replacement, which was The Avengers. I scribbled out “You’re welcome” and wrote “Sorry.” During finals, however, Tim ended up blowing the game up and taking first, so Joseph pointed at his original message and said “See? See??”

Jim was back, and greeted me with “Guess who was here on Halloween?” Unfortunately, it turns out that Jim missed the memo that we were going to meet twice in a row and then skip Halloween, so he missed a league meeting and then showed up confused on Halloween. I was also at the bar on Halloween, though I apparently showed up late enough that I didn’t run into Jim or any other league folks, and it was jammed. We would not have wanted to try to have league that night.

We ended up with a group that included both of the Dans again (who were the A and B division camps last season). Everyone started calling the group “Double Dan-ger” as a result, which I think is going to end up sticking as a name for Dan N. and Danny.

Double Dan-ger had a great night: the winner for the first half of Bank 7 (“Perseus”) (which can, of course, change as the other half of the league plays it tonight) was Dan and second place was Danny. Over in Bank 8 (“Coma Berenices”), the top scorer for the night was Brian K., followed by Pat. After the dust settles tonight, we’ll know the final seeds for the season, and who will get to make the cut for A division. Given the number of people qualified to play finals, it looks like we will have a 10-person A division.

Our last league night was actually held only one week after the one before it, due to wanting to leapfrog over Halloween. I was at the bar on Halloween myself, and I can attest that we would not want to have had league night that night. Despite it being a Tuesday, it was very crowded indeed. Plus, my costume offered only non-binocular vision and poor finger dexterity, so the games I did play that night were not exactly my finest.

Anyway, the night of 10/23 was the end of a rotation between banks 5 (Argo Navis, and if you try to tell me it’s not a constellation anymore I’m just going to put my hands over my ears and yell “I CAN’T HEAR YOU”) and 6 (Cetus). With the rotation complete, the standings on the banks are now final. Danny C., probably to no one’s surprise, took the lead on both banks. On bank 5, Brian K. and Derik tied for second place; on bank 6, Brian took second and Derik got third. Danny is still at the top of the overall standings with a comfortable lead over Tim. Brian is in third place but has only two points on Derik in fourth.

Our Tuesday Night Smackdown game was The Simpsons Pinball Party, which is a challenge since it is currently unable to start TV modes except from the mystery award. It’s hard to believe it, but somehow I managed to get a good game going and win the finals. Joseph took the B division honors. It was a late-running league night so we were definitely ready to pack up and so, it seemed, was almost everyone else since we had no one to take our picture for the Smackdown honors. Here, then, is a selfie taken with my phone’s incredibly bad camera. (If you’ve seen my phone, you’ll understand.)

Tonight starts our final bank rotation which will mostly finish all the games at The Avenue, except for James Bond which will have to be pulled for an issue and will be replaced by The Beatles. Bank 8, Coma Berenices, includes three “wild card” games previously used this season that were voted on by the league: Attack from Mars, Batman ’66, and Indiana Jones. I hope to see everyone soon!

What’s this? Heather is writing a recap of a league session that was only one week ago? Is this a sign that she has begun fighting her procrastination habit? No! It’s a sign that we’re having league night tonight because we want to avoid meeting on Halloween. While a Halloween league night at The Avenue sounds fun in the abstract, it would probably be a bit too much chaos in reality. So, we will meet tonight and then again in two weeks, skipping Halloween in between.

Our last league night was our fifth, so we started a new rotation between banks 5 and 6, “Argo Navis” and “Cetus.” Yes, the banks have names and I’m going to keep insisting on using them. These two together might be called the Ocean Rotation because they mean “the ship Argo” and “the sea monster” (some people translate it “whale”). Argo is the ship the famous Jason and the Argonauts sailed on in a quest to retrieve the golden fleece; Cetus is the monster that Perseus had to slay to save Andromeda.

I ended up in a group with Tim and Danny C. When I drew that assignment I promised that I would do my best to bring the average ball time for my group down, and I want you to know I made good on my promise. To my surprise, though, I somehow ended up tying Tim for third on Bank 5 for the night. Less surprisingly, Danny took first on the bank. Meanwhile, over in Bank 6, Derik took first for the night. We won’t know how things have shaken out on the banks as a whole until after tonight when we finish the rotation.

The big news at The Avenue is that our Venom LE has come in, so we made it the Smackdown game for the night. It complicates things for us a bit because if people log in on Insider at the start of the game it will save progress in the game. Luckily, it turns out that there is a simple workaround to have people not log in until ball 2, which still gives people credit for their games but prevents progress from carrying over. That is going to be the rule for the rest of the season for games involving Venom. Danny won with a huge game in finals. The B division played on Medieval Madness, which meant some people had a lot of Medieval that night, since it was also in one of the banks. The B division winner was Donny.

That’s it for the league report. Of course, we had something big happen since then, which was the Fear and Trembling charity pingolf tournament. That deserves its own recap when I have time, though, so I’ll conclude here.