On Tuesday, the fourth season of the Lansing Pinball League reached its halfway point, the fourth meeting of eight. Despite my pessimistic predictions of Getaway failure, every game chosen for this week – Getaway, Indiana Jones, The Walking Dead, and World Cup Soccer – did in fact get played. Tales of the Arabian Nights was on standby in case more than 16 people showed up, but that did not come to pass. In fact, attendance was on the low side this week, relative to the highs we have been reaching recently, though in the old days it would still have been considered quite a crowd.
Chris and Mike enjoy a well-lit pinball alcove for a split second as my flash goes off. Sadly, they were plunged back into darkness immediately afterward.
Aaron was in charge this week since Matt had to study for a midterm the next day. I reminded Aaron of my warning that being Matt would mean having to give out hugs, then teased him a bit about his belief that “touching people is disgusting.” He said that of course he didn’t mean any of us, it’s just proximity to strangers that appalls him. This got him on the subject of how he would never want to go on a cruise. I replied that I had never had any interest in going on a cruise until the other day when I read about The 80’s Cruise. I attempted to explain the appeal of this (“they have all kinds of actual 80’s bands and costume parties and stuff!”) and Aaron said, “I’m sure it’s a wonderful time for anyone who has ever wanted to have norovirus while wearing fluorescent charteuse.”
Aaron, ever the iconoclast, then sent everyone rotating counterclockwise through the games instead of the Matt-standard clockwise. I ended up in a group with Alex and Greg, which later also added Russell when he arrived late. Alex played several outstanding games, most notably a game of The Walking Dead that saw him putting initials on the high score board. I, on the other hand, was punished for bragging about my recent Walking Dead scores by barely breaking 10 million. Ouch. I made up for it later by having an excellent game of Getaway that set a personal high score for me. (I keep records of all my best scores in a little app. Yeah, I’m that kind of person.)
As I sat nearby watching Alex play The Walking Dead (I had a lot of time to sit around with the epic game he was having), he launched a crossbow shot and hit… a bunny. I gasped in dismay, which caused Chris to erupt into peals of laughter. “I always go for the left ramp,” he said, “but I’m shooting the right from now on just because of that.” Yeah, well, my rabbit Stephen has a message he wants me to give you…
Stephen disapproves. Of everything.
Chris had other reasons to be in a good mood, since according to Joseph, he put up high score entries on both Getaway and Indiana Jones. Together with Alex’s TWD score, that makes at least three high scores that got entered during league play.
After league finished, a smaller crowd than usual went over to Theio’s for a bite to eat. I think the group was just me, Joseph, Greg, Mike S., Jake, and Sam, this time. We invited the New Mike, but somehow he wasn’t sufficiently enticed by prospects of hash browns and our erudite company. We will have to try harder next time.
I did get a chance to talk with the New Mike, though, and that just leaves the New Matt as the league member I have not yet met. He didn’t come to this meeting (maybe he misunderstood and thought there was a Matt ban this week?) but I will make sure to catch him next time.
Be vewwy, vewwy quiet…
Speaking of next time, I hope to see you all then! It will be March 10, same time, same place. As usual, I have the results posted in a sortable table and have put a few photos in the gallery (not very many this time, I’m sorry to say).
Oh, I love Stephen’s big schnoz! And, hey, he doesn’t disapprove of everything–just many things.