Our most recent league night closed out the third quarter of the season as everyone finished playing either Bank 5 or 6. (Except for one person; more on that in a bit.) We also had a Tuesday Night Smackdown bout on one of the league’s classic games, Medieval Madness. While it’s not the same physical game as the one that the league started with, Medieval Madness was one of only four titles in the bar when the league started. The others were Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones, and Johnny Mnemonic. Tales of the Arabian Nights was the next one added soon after. All were located in the alcove. While sadly, Johnny has “gone up the middle” straight out of the venue long ago, the others have never left. Except, that is, for Medieval Madness, which was replaced by a version that has never been quite as friendly to me. That’s your league history lesson for today.
Now you’ve learned something, just like I learned something at our last league meeting: someone reads my league reports another than Joseph. Multiple someones, even. Dan N. said, “You made me Google ‘James Blish’.” I had written that May 23 “wasn’t just James Blish’s birthday,” a joke meant entirely for Joseph, as James Blish is one of his favorite science fiction writers. Ethan also declared that he was “the Johnny Appleseed of cheer,” which I had called him in last league night’s report. I was a little embarrassed and admitted I hadn’t actually realized anyone besides Joseph was actually reading my league reports. Devon responded that he had screenshotted the first league report after he joined and told his friends he made the news. I explained that since they didn’t go up until right before league most weeks I figured that made it less likely people actually looked at them. And also that Mike usually gives me guff for how late I post them. A running joke is for him to comment that they’re early if I post them the night before the next league night instead of the day of. (Once upon a time I actually tried to get them up within a week, but probably no one alive remembers that far back.) A couple of people, I think it may have been Devon and Ted, said that they think it makes it more interesting to post them right before league because then it’s fresh in your mind for league night. It’s nice of them to say so, anyway.
I learned something else at league, in an embarrassingly protracted way: I eventually figured out who the guy I didn’t recognize who waved at me when I walked in was. I kept thinking this person acted like he knew me, and looked really familiar in a frustrating way, but I could not work out who it was. Later while I was playing my Smackdown game on Medieval Madness I saw him come over and talk to Joseph, so I knew it definitely had to be someone I knew, but I still did not recognize him as a league player. I thought to myself that I had to be able to work this out without embarrassing myself. After some consideration I realized that I had seen him hanging around with Cyndi when I first rolled up, so that was a major clue. Then I realized that, oh yeah, when he was talking to Joseph I recognized his voice: it was Ethan. But why didn’t I recognize him? I’ve met him enough times now and usually have no trouble recognizing him. Why on earth did I have trouble this time? Was I starting to lose my face recognition circuit or something?
So I think it was probably about an hour later that I realized that Ethan used to have a beard.
Ethan’s really the MVP of this league report, since he also won the Undercard division of the Tuesday Night Smackdown tournament, which was played on the randomly selected Metallica (edit: no, it was what’s in the place where Metallica used to be, Guardians of the Galaxy!). Travis won the main championship on Medieval Madness. They each got a button that I drew a dragon on, although I think I did better a better job on one of them than the other. I’ll let the two of them compare buttons and decide which one. After he won his button, Ethan pinned it on himself, pointed at it and boastfully demanded that Cyndi read it. As I’ve said before, he brings a lot of energy to league nights.
Unfortunately for Mike, he missed the last league night due to illness, which has allowed Tim to pass him and take first in the league standings. Danny C. is in third place. The three of them are still clustered fairly closely, and then there’s a fairly steep drop down to fourth place Jason Magnuson. As of right now we have 26 qualified players which would make for a 13-person A division season finals, which is already bigger than we have ever done, and with three people who each only need to come to one more night to be qualified, we are very likely to have a 14-person A and it’s not impossible that it could be 15. We’re going to have to talk about what to do because we will not be able to finish a tournament in our usual format with that many people. We’ll talk more about that later.
Oh, and as for that person who didn’t finish their bank rotation? Reader, it was I. Joseph was putting the scores in for the night when suddenly he said to me, with that voice that he uses when he’s telling me something he knows is going to upset me, “Dear, I think you played the same bank twice.” I somehow hadn’t noticed, but yes, I had. Joseph keeps track of who plays what bank and he had accidentally written my name on the wrong score sheet the time before after we drew for banks, so this time he put me in a group based on what group I was supposed to be in the previous time rather than which one I had actually played in. I had to go back to the bar later (but not that night as it was already awfully late) and play the bank I was supposed to play. Some much for my exciting third ball rally on Indiana Jones.