October 13 was the seventh meeting of eight for the season, leaving players with little time left to improve their seeding for the final playoffs. We were supposed to play Getaway, but Chris managed to break it (or, perhaps I should say, failed to talk it out of breaking) during a practice game, so Indiana Jones got moved into the rotation in its place. Then Todd managed to get a ball wedged irretrievably in Fish Tales. An attempt was made to turn Fish Tales completely on its side to get the ball loose, but Avenue staff put the kibosh on this endeavor. So it was out with FT and in with Monster Bash, joining Tales of the Arabian Nights and Lord of the Rings for the night’s lineup.
Damnit, Chris, we wanted to play that!
This was a night of homecomings, as Greg, Chris, and Todd all returned after absences. On the other hand, Alex and Sarah were both absent as the previous day was Sarah’s 21st birthday and they apparently needed some recovery time. Alex has missed (and made up) so many meetings this season (partly due to organizing tournaments elsewhere) that it led Jake to tell him, “You should try joining the league. It’s fun.”
The league also had a new player: Ally’s friend Summer. Summer had previously been a spectator and naturally anyone who watches the fun we have is going to want to join for real. She played in my group and I did my best to share my strategy tips with her. (“Shoot the castle!”)
Mmmm, fries. It’s all about the Nomad Sauce.
Aaron’s nickname for Joseph is “The Zen Master” due to Joseph’s typically stoic attitude toward pinball, but he risked losing that reputation this time. While my group played Fish Tales, I looked over just in time to see Joseph react to an unfair scoop shot in Monster Bash by running down the row of unoccupied machines and hitting all the lockdown bars like conga drums. Unfortunately, Monster Bash’s fondness for straight-down-the-middle kickouts has only risen since then and I suspect it may end up out of the rotation until that improves.
Someone else didn’t need to play the congas.
Lord of the Rings, according to reports, refused to let Todd destroy the ring. I heard that he made several shots right through it without it registering, so I think that switch might be bad. This wouldn’t be so bad — destroying the ring isn’t even worth that much — except that the mode can’t be timed out, so the only option at that point is to drain.
I had a night consisting of three bad games and one good one (on TotAN). As a result I am surely out of the running for playing in A division once again this season and that ambition will have to resume next season. Well, this way I can avoid peaking too soon.
League results aren’t in yet, presumably due to makeups still being played. (UPDATE: the results are now in, minus makeup games from Alex and Sarah.) I didn’t take quite as many photos as usual, but there are a few more in the gallery. Tomorrow is the last day of the regular season, and after that the total points for each player will be used to seed people for the final tournament. Tomorrow is also the league costume night, so wear something crazy that you don’t mind playing pinball in!
I would like to point out that it wasn’t just a bad scoop eject on Monster Bash that got me losing my cool. It was a string of Job-like games I put up. The high point for this is surely the Indiana Jones game in which, after three balls, without tilting, I failed to break eight million points. People have done worse, but by slam tilting the blasted thing. I had a similarly god-awful game of Arabian Nights. And then on Monster Bash I put up three, three rotten balls in a row, with the only mode even started a Pity Award of the Mummy Mayhem … which the scoop immediately kicked to the center of the drain. There are people who did not play who had a better night than me on these games.
I admit I did recover my pride on Lord of the Rings, on which I had a couple of good balls.
And after the Thieo’s gathering I did come back and got Monster Bash up to just shy of 200 million, with only one instrument remaining before I could start Monsters Of Rock. Chrysalis League Play. That, of course, was completing Mummy Mayhem, which the scoop kept giving me and which I kept failing to do.