So said existentialist Søren Kierkegaard. It’s time for the annual Fear and Trembling Charity Pingolf Tournament, the only pingolf tournament that includes the terror of choice.
Our annual spooky-season pingolf tournament will take place this year on October 18. The course may be started anytime after 4 pm, and the last entries will be permitted at 7. The early start time is to ensure the tournament can finish at a semi-reasonable time. The fee for the first entry is $10, and subsequent cards can be bought for an additional $5 provided they are started by 7 pm. All proceeds minus IFPA fees go to the Capital Area Humane Society. In addition to trophies for the top four finishers, there will also be random prize drawings.
This will be a nine-hole, objective-based course. Competitors will choose one of two objectives on each game and have to stick with the one they chose. Players get a stroke for each ball it takes to reach the objective, up to four strokes for not completing the objective at all in three balls. The lowest four scores on the course will move on to a three-game final match (with non-pingolf 4/2/1/0 scoring).
Please come and, as Kierkegaard said, make your choices “in fear and trembling.”
The league night of 8/9 was the 7th meeting of season 16, so it started our final bank rotation. We had a vote to fill in two empty spots in Bank 8 (known as “Zeus”) and the most popular choice ended up being Getaway. In second place there was a tie between Cactus Canyon and Stranger Things, and I did a random drawing to break the tie, landing on Cactus Canyon. Stranger Things was designated to be a backup game if needed.
Tim plays Star Wars while Wolff watches and Josh ponders how his life has taken him here, exactly.
Our average league night attendance has been dwindling this season, raising the question of whether we should continue using the rotation format or return to having everyone play the same game on the same night. There are some advantages to both formats, but if we continue averaging about 12 people per night, rotating really won’t be necessary. It’s a question we are going to want to consider before the start of Season 17.
Jason finesses The Simpsons while Allen watches.
We had both a surprising absence and a surprising reappearance this time. Allen let me know that Derik wouldn’t be attending the rest of the season, as he didn’t have a chance of making A division and didn’t want to play in B. I was surprised, and said that I thought he must be wrong about not having a chance to make A. Then I went and looked at the numbers and realized he was probably right. Derik has always been a power player in the league, so he must be having an off season. The reappearance was by Wolff, who I thought might have drifted away from league after we didn’t see him for a few meetings. It was great to have him back. It was also good to be finishing the season with Allen still around. He was originally going to be returning to his home in Texas at the end of July, but it turned out he would be in Lansing a while longer and would be able to complete the league season after all.
Allen playing a league game on The Simpsons.
I ended up in a group with Allen and Jason. I had just finished a rotation in a group with Jason, so we’ve been playing together a lot lately. There was a time when being in a group with power players like them would have made me feel a little embarrassed about my B-level abilities, but these days it often has the opposite effect and ups my game. This was one of those nights. Although I didn’t always match their scores, I played games that were at least above my usual average on every game.
Dan watches Bryan as Danny gets his late league games done in the background.
Whenever Danny isn’t around during league, someone or other always asks me, “No Danny tonight?” People are always very interested in where Danny is in the league standings, for some reason. Danny often plays his games late due to his work schedule and this was one of those times, though he squeaked in right at the 10 pm deadline that I have started enforcing this season. We got done with league so fast tonight that we were starting the Smackdown finals right as Danny walked up.
Bryan, shows off his Smackdown B division medal while desperately wishing I would turn my flash on.
The Tuesday Night Smackdown random drawing chose Rush, causing me to be surprised it had not been a Smackdown game already. Usually I will make something the Smackdown game if it’s new to the venue, but I never did that with Rush. It may have been forgotten in the frenzy of new games we have gotten in the bar recently. Unfortunately, we only had six people present to play, and only seven put scores in (which means we can’t count qualifying toward IFPA points; qualifying has to halve the field to count). We had the usual four playing in A but just two people, Bryan and Dan N., played off in B. The dice chose Star Trek for the B game, which is funny considering how many times recently Junk Yard has ended up being the B game. It’s like the RNG didn’t realize Junk Yard had moved, because Star Trek is now in the former Junk Yard spot.
Joseph photobombs Allen’s victory photo for the Smackdown.
Tonight we’ll be finishing the qualifying season, and there is still a lot of possibility for people to move across the A/B cutoff line, considering that we will probably only be having a 7-person A bracket this season, our smallest ever. It should be an exciting final night. See you all soon, I hope!
Mike is apparently not taking Allen’s Smackdown victory well.
Posted inRecaps|Taggedrecap, season 16|Comments Off on League Night Recap for 8/9/22
The league night of 7/26/22 was our 6th night of the season and, being an even numbered night, finished up a rotation of two banks. The banks were “Athena” and “Hades,” according to the naming scheme that only Joseph and I – mostly I – care about. Athena was originally slated to include Star Trek: The Next Generation, Avengers: Infinity Quest, Rush, Jurassic Park, and Black Knight: Sword of Rage, but ST:TNG had left the venue and was replaced by its successor, Cactus Canyon. Hades included AC/DC, Indiana Jones, Deadpool, Ghostbusters, and Stranger Things.
I didn’t take any photos of league night until after Tuesday Night Smackdown, which is probably a consequence of my working on Calculus homework during league (a common occurrence this season), so I’m sorry for the relative lack of photos in this update.
I continued in my previous night’s group with Jason and Danny. We ended up finished last of all the groups, by far. This is no credit to me; I had a very poor night, including an abysmal game of Black Knight in which I had the opportunity to start the last chance multiball and was screaming in frustration as I failed over and over to lock the last ball needed. No, it was mostly due to Danny, who blew up a few games. I mentioned this to Mike, who replied with the advice, “Always be Danny.”
Smackdown winners Mike (A Division) and Tim (B Division).
Tuesday Night Smackdown was on Metallica, with the B division playing finals (and rubbing elbows) on Stranger Things. Mike won the A division and Tim, as usual, won the B, or as he would have it, “Best” Division with another big Smackdown game. After the Smackdown, Joseph, Tim, and I played a game of Stranger Things together which I won, making me feel a little bit better after my embarrassingly bad league night. By then, almost everyone else had left except Mike, who was chatting with former league member (and founding member) Russell. Joseph and I had to leave in the morning for our short summer vacation trip so we packed up and headed home.
Jason is out for revenge after losing Tuesday Night Smackdown to Mike!
Starting tonight we will have our final bank rotation between “Ares” (The Simpsons, The Walking Dead, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Attack from Mars) and “Zeus” (Tales of the Arabian Nights, Scared Stiff, Guns N’ Roses, Cactus Canyon, and Getaway). See you soon!
Posted inRecaps|Taggedrecap, season 16|Comments Off on League Night Recap for 7/26/22
Before I start the recap for July 12, I need to recount a story I had forgotten to put in the previous recap, and that is something that happened at the very end of the night when a few of us were still hanging around playing Avengers. I was trying to do some Calculus homework at a table nearby, and suddenly I heard Mike and Allen taking turns rattling off lists of very random-seeming words that started with “A.” I got up and asked them what they heck they were doing and learned that Josh had bet Mike and Allen $500 that they could not guess his middle name. He added that even if they could guess it, they wouldn’t be able to pronounce it. Due to his pinball initials, JAB, they knew it started with an A. I made two guesses and got it on the second one. Josh got a look on his face like I had just thrown a snake on him. Unfortunately, he says that he specifically did not extend the bet to me or Joseph. The actual middle name is left as an exercise for the reader.
No doubt Allen is explaining something about G N’ R to Derik.
Now on to the current recap. It was Night 5, and we started a new rotation of the banks called Athena and Hades. We had a couple of fluke occurrences, one of them being that Derik came to me to say that his group had their game of Cactus Canyon reset when a little kid came up and hit the start button. I’m surprised that happened, since I think it would have required holding the button down for several seconds, but that’s as much as I know about the situation. The other is that Allen played out of turn at one point, forcing me to rule a DQ for him on one game. Since that got entered as a zero machine score, I told him that he was definitely “in the running” for the Worst Score Award for Season 16. He said, “In the running? You mean someone’s going to do worse than zero?” I said, “Well, someone could tie it.” His reply was, “What do we do then? A one-ball plunge off to break the tie?” Everyone loved that idea and someone else added on the idea that the plunge off should be on The Flip Side, which I use for tiebreakers in my charity tournaments.
Joseph helps me get things ready by making the slips for people to draw their group assignment from the hat.
Speaking of charity tournaments, the week following last league night (in other words, as of this writing, last week), was the summer charity tournament, Rocket Robin. Ever since the first one I have been reusing a piece of art I drew for the original poster, which I was very proud of. The art depicts a robin saluting, wearing a cap with a logo on it, standing in front of a retro-futuristic spaceship. My inspiration for this art was the 1950s TV show Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, which was a favorite of my father’s growing up. As a result I saw it on VHS a lot as a kid. The robin’s cap and the spaceship are both taken from Rocky Jones. The reason I point this out is that near the end of league night, Joseph asked if I noticed what was showing on The Avenue’s TV. I looked down from the mezzanine and to my surprise it was Rocky Jones. I thought this seemed auspicious for the success of my upcoming tournament and said so.
Dan and Donny wait their turn on a game.
Our Tuesday Night Smackdown was played on the brand new Guns N’ Roses game. Allen already knows the game inside and out and was freely offering advice. No one was surprised when Allen got the A division medal (which I drew a rose on). Tim won the B division game on Indiana Jones. Tim has a lot of good luck in the B division, or as he calls it, the Best Devision. He had a walk-off Ball 3 win, but since the tournament was over he went ahead and played the rest of his game after I took the winners’ photo, and set the Grand Champion score.
Jason plays Guns N’ Roses in the Smackdown tournament.
At the end of the night, Joseph and I played Guns N’ Roses with Jason, who also knows the game very well and was teaching it to us. To be honest, it’s so complicated I could only retain one or two things he told me. I’m not the greatest with modern rulesets. I did get to play a song, though, and of course being a Paul McCartney fan I picked “Live and Let Die.” The game puts on an impressive light show and is very fun and exciting to play, especially when you get the song multiball going.
Allen and Tim celebrating their Smackdown wins.
That’s all for last time’s recap, just in time as usual for our league night tonight at 7. We’ll be playing the rest of the Bank 5/6 rotation.
Posted inRecaps|Taggedrecap, season 16|Comments Off on League Night Recap for 7/12/22
June 28 was the end of the first half of Season 16, with groups finishing their tour of banks Poseidon and Hermes. A couple of people also still needed to play makeups on Lord of the Rings from the week that it was down: Brian because he was absent last league night, and Allen because he just plain forgot. I still had the sheet we had used to write scores down for the makeup, and left it out for Brian when we went to play. Since I arrived with plenty of time before league, I was able to watch most of Brian’s game. When I did my makeup, I had an excellent (for me) game in which I destroyed the ring for the first time ever. When Joseph wrote my score down, he also drew a little picture of a ring and put an X next to it, to indicate “destroyed the ring.” Well, as I watched, Brian also destroyed the ring, and beat my (not very good) ring champion time too, so I drew a little ring-and-X icon to match the one Joseph did.
Josh gets some time in on Avengers: Infinity Quest after league.
I’m very sorry to say that league came to the end and I realized I had not taken any photos, so all my photos of the night are of the Smackdown winners and then some hanging around and playing Avengers: Infinity Quest afterward. I don’t have too much to report; it was a pretty ordinary league night, fortunately without any games needing to be switched out this time. Biff once again dropped in to visit and play a qualifying Smackdown game, although he did not stick around for finals.
Hmmmm… you know, Allen suddenly appeared in Lansing from out of town… I think his shirt is taunting us to guess his TRUE IDENTITY. I’m onto you (as soon as I check with my brother, who once met Banksy in Bristol).
Speaking of the Smackdown, it was Elvira’s House of Horrors, which is why the Smackdown medalists can see that I drew a spooooooky ghost on the medals. The A division (won by Allen) actually finished before the B division, which got them some razzing. The B division game was on Guardians of the Galaxy. Mike won and humblebragged that it was his first B division Smackdown medal.
Allen and Mike showing off their Smackdown “medals.”
Oh yes, and Allen also played his Lord of the Rings makeup game after league. He more than doubled Brian’s and my scores (which were very close together) and, yeah, destroyed the ring. Thoroughly defeated, I drew the little picture on the score sheet one more time.
Allen, Josh, and Bryan seem interested in someone’s gameplay; Mike, on the other hand, is apparently asleep on his feet.
Posted inRecaps|Taggedrecap, season 16|Comments Off on League Night Recap for 6/28/22
We started another two-bank rotation on June 14, which was the third night of Season 16. The banks for this one are named Poseidon for the god of the sea (and, oddly, also horses) and Hermes for the messenger of the gods. Most of the game choices in Poseidon are pretty self-explanatory. Hermes’ bank is a bit more mercurial (get it?) but it helps to know that in addition to being fast, he carried the caduceus, a staff entwined with serpents. I kind of had to stretch for some of the banks because the most important thing was balancing the game locations.
Joseph and I arrived early in order to play a makeup game of Lord of the Rings, which had unfortunately been down during League Night #2. Tim was the other early bird and he played with us. I am not normally very strong on LotR, which is evidenced by the fact that it’s been at the Avenue as long as I’ve been playing pinball there and yet I’ve never completed Destroy the Ring mode. I’ve started it a bunch of times, but I always get nervous with Frodo yelling at me and end up draining. It was the first wizard mode I ever saw, actually. My first ever league night I arrived to see a bunch of people clustered around watching a guy (it was Chris T., but I didn’t know him yet) destroy the ring. So even though it’s objectively not that hard to start and not that hard to complete, it still has this legendary status in my mind. Anyway, during my league makeup game, I somehow not only started it but actually finished it, despite getting so nervous for the last couple shots that I got the shaky hands.
Donny destroys Batman ’66.
I ended up grouped with Joseph (for the first time in quite a long time) and Donny for this week’s league games. Donny had his own moment of glory when he totally blew up Batman ’66 on ball 1. He then also blew up the first of the two extra balls he earned on ball 1, then sadly had to plunge off the second one, per league rules. The rest of his game didn’t measure up to that first ball, but who cares, when your first ball is that good?
This is the state of things after Donny’s first ball of Batman ’66. And that’s not including the one extra ball he got to play after this, which brought his score to almost 2 and a half billion before he had to plunge off a second e-ball.
Tuesday Night Smackdown was on Avengers: Infinity Quest, which actually should have been the Smackdown our first league night since it was the newest game then, but I forgot. We had a special guest appearance by Biff, who played in the league prior to the hiatus but had not returned since. He told me that he is too busy with family now. He did play in our Tuesday Night Smackdown and I finally got to tell him that I won a blue ribbon at the 2021 Calhoun County Fair with a photo of him at league that I took in 2019.
Remember Biff? He was back (for a limited time)!
The Smackdown Champion was Jason, who set up the fun pose for his winners’ photo. Tim won the Undercard on The Munsters.
Jason brandishes the Double Danger Gem.So which is cooler: Tim’s Smackdown Undercard medal/button, or his Moro shirt? OK, I know it’s the shirt, but I did color the medal in honor of it being Flag Day!
Finally, I want to extend a league welcome to our newest member, Kayl, whom I unfortunately seem not to have gotten any pictures of this time. Kayl is familiar to many due to being on the staff of The Avenue, and previously played in the March Hare Madness charity tournament.
Posted inRecaps|Taggedrecap, season 16|Comments Off on League Night Recap for 6/14/22
It’s been three weeks since our last league night on May 24 so it’s quite possible you don’t ‘member it. So here I am with the league night recap to jog your memberies, I mean memories.
Brian getting in a game of Cactus Canyon.
If you ‘member even further back, you’ll recall that during League Night #1 we had to switch out two games due to malfunctions. This is no big deal when it happens during an odd-numbered league night. But now that we use a two-bank rotation scheme, having it happen during an even-numbered night causes problems. The game can’t just be switched because half the league would have played it already. And unfortunately, that’s what happened during League Night #2. The night got off on the wrong foot with the news that Lord of the Rings was down. Joseph broke it while practicing on it over the weekend. Thaaaaaaanks, Joseph. Just kidding – actually, the slingshot rubber broke while he was playing, which would have just happened during league otherwise. It was better to go into the night already knowing the game was out. As a result, half the league only played four games, making it a short night for many people. The people who weren’t able to play LotR that night will have to make it up before or after League Night #3.
Mike’s in luck: they have ranch dressing in the vending machine!
Longtime league player and previous champion Danny C. missed League Night #1, and last season had been having more trouble getting work off for league, so I thought he might not play this season. He made a sudden late appearance as most of the league play had finished for the night (he was surprised that there were no groups for him to join in progress, but it was a fast-moving night), but well ahead of the new official cutoff for starting league play for the night. Due to several really late nights for me and Joseph last season trying to accommodate late starters, we made a new rule this season that league play can start late but must start by 10 pm, which is around when I’m normally starting the Smackdown tournament.
Allen shows off the medal he won on Cactus Canyon in the Tuesday Night Smackdown side tournament.
We had our Tuesday Night Smackdown tournament on the Avenue’s newest game, the Cactus Canyon remake. There were a lot of high scores in qualifying. One of the league’s newest players, Johnny, qualified to play in the B division, but disappeared while I was tabulating scores and missed out on playing finals. I had told him he was definitely qualified, but either he didn’t hear me or just plain needed to call it a night. In the A division, Allen took home another plastic medal/button, Joseph got second, Jason was third, and Brian was fourth. The B division played off on Star Trek. Tim dominated the field, already far in the lead when his walk-off ball three came around. I got second, Josh got third, and Dan N. got fourth.
Tim shows off his score (a walk-off) on Star Trek in the Tuesday Night Smackdown B finals.
Our next league night is in a few short hours and Joseph and I will be coming early to supervise Smackdown games and makeups on Lord of the Rings. It’s also not too late for new members to join! I hope to see you all tonight!
Posted inRecaps|Taggedrecap, season 15|Comments Off on League Night Recap for 5/24/22
It’s time for Rocket Robin, the summer charity tournament to benefit the Capital Area Humane Society! The entry fee will be $10, with $9 going to the charity and $1 to the IFPA for sanctioning.
The format will be straight up head-to-head match play in a round robin style. Because we almost certainly won’t have the time to do a complete round robin, we will instead use “Strict Swiss” pairing to do as much of a round robin as possible. At the end of a designated time period the tournament will end and the person with the most wins (1 point per win) will be the champion. A single game on The Flip Side will break any ties for the trophy positions.
As far as I know this is the only IFPA tournament in Michigan to use this format, so it’s unique if nothing else! There will be trophies, a translite giveaway, and the satisfaction of knowing you supported a worthwhile cause.
The tournament will start at 6 pm on July 19, and the last round will start at or before 10 pm.
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on Rocket Robin Charity Pinball Tournament Returns
Season 16 kicked off on May 10 with the first two banks of our new themed season, “The Olympian Gods.” At Mike’s suggestion, I had previously announced two fake banks called “Hestia” and “Hephaestus” (the gods of the hearth and the forge) each with five games all in the alcove. This was self-parody based on the unpopular “Hydra” bank from the Labors of Hercules seasons, which had all but one game in the alcove (mostly due to bad planning by me, but partly due to games being moved after I created the banks). I figured people would realize pretty quickly that it was a gag and was planning to leave it for a day before announcing the real banks, but Josh pleaded with me so hard not to do it that I felt I had to come clean sooner. In fact, this season I have instead made it so the banks are as separated as possible. With the new bank rotation scheme it’s impossible to avoid having multiple games in the alcove, but there will be two most nights and no more than three ever.
Joseph and Tim down in the pinball mines.
For our first night, bank A was supposed to be “Apollo”: The Walking Dead, The Beatles, KISS, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Medieval Madness; and “Hera”: The Simpsons, The Munsters, The Addams Family, Elvira’s House of Horrors, and Game of Thrones. Unfortunately, each bank had a game removed for a malfunction early on. The Walking Dead got switched for The Mandalorian and The Simpsons got switched for Lord of the Rings. In case anyone is wondering, I lean toward leaving imperfect games in play, and my standard for removing a game is whether the malfunction is likely to cause ball loss or put the game into an unplayable state. The Walking Dead was an edge case; the crossbow button wasn’t working, which eventually causes the game to randomly shoot the crossbow in an unpredictable direction. This doesn’t directly cause ball loss but it has a strong tendency to brick a shot and cause a drain that way. The Simpsons was an easier call because it was having issues with ejecting balls from the couch (at least I think that’s what the deal was) which eventually puts the game into an unplayable state. The alternate games are chosen from bank Ares, which was designated prior to the season as the “backup bank.” The removed games will hopefully be played when we get to that bank at the end of the season.
Joseph, Wolff, and the pink elephant watch Brian play Guardians of the Galaxy.
Most likely he wouldn’t have been able to do anything about the games on a moment’s notice anyway, but Derik was not in attendance. It was a warm day and he was off fishing. I noted that he would not have had to decide between fishing and league if he hadn’t taken our Fish Tales away.
Brian doesn’t want to be left out of Allen’s Smackdown Champion portrait.
We had a couple of new league members attend: Wolff (who had made his debut at the Mandalorian launch party) and a friend Wolff brought named John. Wolff hasn’t played much tournament pinball yet but he does have a Star Trek: The Next Generation at home (in fact, it’s the one Mike used to own). John hadn’t played much pinball before, but was hoping to find something fun to do. That’s the position I was in when I joined the league in November 2013, so I have to assume John will eventually be the league director.
You can tell Joseph took this photo of Allen and me with our Smackdown medals. They don’t call him the Dutch Angel for nothing.
Our Tuesday Night Smackdown game was on Indiana Jones and the random draw for the B division landed on Junk Yard, which sure seems like it has happened a lot starting last season. Allen was the Smackdown Champion, earning a tulip-themed medal I made to celebrate Tulip Time, and I got to take home the B division tulip for myself.
Tonight I dearly hope we will be finishing our bank rotation of Apollo and Hera because if something else goes down we’ll have a bit of an annoying situation to deal with. Hope to see you there!
