Our bank for the night was Clio, themed to “cartoons” but named for the Muse of History. I pronounced the name “clee-O,” causing Mike to haughtily correct me, “It’s pronounced Clio” (with an “i” as in “eye”). Oblivious, I launched into Professor Voice and said “that’s also an accepted pronunciation, but it can be pronounced either way in English.” Mike had to tell me that he was joking and only then I realized he was referring to the city of Clio, in his neck of the woods, which is pronounced with the long I sound. “I was talking about the Muse,” I said. “That’s where the bank’s name comes from. The city is probably named for the Muse, come to think of it.” Mike said that he was just giving me some, ah, “stick.” About twenty minutes later, during a break between balls, I looked it up. The city is indeed named for the Muse. I was pleased with this discovery and eager to share it with Mike, who somehow just didn’t get as excited about it as I did.
My night got off to a less than stellar start on Iron Man as I burned through an Iron Monger multiball in record time. My first ball went like this: shot, shot, shot, here’s the Iron Monger, bam bam bam here’s multiball WOO HOO record time, like a PROOOO…. wait where did it go already? All the balls? ALL OF THEM? I was so irritated at draining out my multiball so quickly that I declared, stubbornly, that I was just going to have to get it again. This despite the fact that I am not sure I’ve ever started the same MB more than once in that game. And yet that’s what I did. I started it a second time on Ball 3 and… wait, what? C’mon. No really, c’mon. You cannot tell me that I started Monger multiball twice and still finished a game under 10 million. You cannot tell me… because I already know. C’est la vie de flipper.
On my next game, The Simpsons Pinball Party, I wasn’t quite so unfortunate, but I did have a very unlucky drain when the Itchy and Scratchy saucer ejected the ball STDM. Derik was in my group and expressed sympathy and surprise. It was a one in a million bit of bad luck, he said, that couldn’t be duplicated if you tried. Except that according to Mike, the very same thing happened to him when his group played it next.
I probably should have given Derik a hard time about that, but I was too busy giving Derik a hard time about the fact that I discovered where the Police Force I liked so much (formerly at Pete’s arcade in the Royal Scot bowling alley) had gotten to: a kids’ play area at the Meridian Mall. Derik grinned a bit sheepishly when I confronted him with this discovery. He could hardly hide it from me; I work at the mall sometimes and pass that storefront all the time. Sure, technically I can still go play it, but it’s not the kind of place where it’s very comfortable to stop and play games, as I found out yesterday when I tried playing Jack-Bot while two girls stood on the couch that’s right next to it and leaned in so close that one girl’s hair kept falling on my right flipper fingers. (Police Force seemed to be out of order on my visit yesterday, or at least the score display was out, so we didn’t bother.)
I didn’t see much of what happened outside my own group, though I heard that Danny toured the Mansion on The Addams Family, or as he calls it, “a good start.”
Afterward it was time for Tuesday Night Smackdown on Game of Thrones. Special mention should be given to Bryan, who played in the Smackdown Championship (A division) for the first time. I think this was his first time playing in any tournament’s finals. I remember how exciting that milestone was for me and he seemed pretty pleased too. Derik had put up the best qualifying game but was not able to defend his top seed. Instead, Mike became the Smackdown Champion of the night. The Undercard (B) division played off on Medieval Madness, with the win going to Tim.
See you all tomorrow (technically tonight!) at league night #3, when we will be playing the bank Thalia. Anyone who tries to correct my pronunciation of it will be kicked in the leg, just like a pinball machine.
