austin_dern (austin_dern) wrote,
austin_dern
austin_dern

I'm a toy balloon that's fated soon to pop

We did get the final standings for Brighton's season and as they stand, right now, I'm ranked 16th, at the tail end of ``B'' Division. As they work out the finals, no matter how badly I do I can't be ranked below 16th, so there's absolutely no pressure on me for the finals --- all I can possibly do is improve my standing. bunny_hugger has a bit of pressure since she's at 21st, in the midst of ``C'' Division, thanks to a rather strong performance on Friday. She could drop as low as 24th, but the important thing is: she can't do any worse than 24th, which is what I managed in the Brighton league one year ago.

There's been some trash-talking/accusations of conspiracy, though, as last year's champion, KOZ --- if you've seen an Attack From Mars with factory-default high scores on it, you've seen his initials --- dropped to tenth place. This puts him in ``B'' division where he might expect an easier win, but he insists he'd never sandbag like that. (He missed several sessions, hurting his standing.) I'm not clear whether he'll show up to finals; if he doesn't, then I'll be at 15th and at risk of dropping very slightly if I play badly.

If enough people skip, bunny_hugger might even make it to ``B'' division, although I have a hard time thinking more than two or three people above her spot would miss finals, and she needs five. Still, could happen. In any case we're going to have to figure out what games to pick for our finals matches, and used a free-play day this past weekend to try out various games. I think I've finally figured out how to play Strange Science, the pinball machine I first found endlessly captivating, back in 1990 when I first had the chance to play pinball regularly. I actually managed to launch its five-ball multiball, something I'd only ever done once before, and this time I actually also loaded multiple balls into its lock, which I could never do back in the day.

Trivia: Charles B Lander's ice, from the Lake Wenham, shipped to London in the 1840s was known as ``Concentrated Wenham'', or in the Cockney accent of the day, ``concentrated venom''. This produced jokes about its poisonous nature. Source: The Frozen-Water Trade, Gavin Weightman.

Currently Reading: Looking For A Ship, John McPhee.

Tags: pinball
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