Makes me feel sad for the rest

Not to lap my photo reel but this week bunny_hugger ran a pinball tournament, another strikes tournament. This was a launch party for Stern's maybe-too-new pinball, James Bond 007. The table comes in three versions, with backglasses themed to Dr No or Thunderball or ... uh ... oh, I'm guessing Goldfinger. It's all themed to the Sean Connery era of James Bond, for maximum appeal to the nostalgic aging white guys who buy pinballs for their collection the most. The game is so new that the rule set isn't fully developed; they're figuring to fix the code eventually. One strange thing about the computerization of pinball is it's now easy to ship new rules code anytime, with the side effect that games are often sent out with partly complete code.

In this case the code is so incomplete that it comes with a disclaimer. The game warns as you start it that the video clips shown are pending the approval of the licensee, James Bond Media Empires LLC To Her Majesty The --- Wait What? (The game does have a 'Her Majesty's Secret Service' light on it, sadly not referencing the George Lazenby game; I'd have loved it if the table had that much sense of humor to itself. But, of course, Jimmy is likely never again to be On Her Majesty's Secret Service.) Anyway it's fun playing a provisional game like this. Feels illicit, a bit.

Given my great showing at the Silver Balls tournament I figured I'd be in decent shape for this one. Not so. Maybe the game is too interesting: seventeen people showed up for it, the most ever for one of these launch parties, which tend to be pretty low-key affairs. There's Silver Balls tournaments that didn't draw seventeen people. Either people really like James Bond, really like Strikes tournaments (most launch parties have some other format), or something else happened.

Possibly what happened? The tournament got a very dumb controversy going. bunny_hugger posted to the Michigan pinball Facebonk group about it, welcoming all who wanted to come. Well, one guy took exception to this: the bar we're at doesn't allow anyone under 21 in after 9 pm, and it wasn't likely we would end by 9 pm. So what about his son, who is indeed quite the pinball talent and would be a plausible candidate to win? He had this fight with her for Silver Balls 2021 too, trying to argue that an age-restricted venue was not open to all comers and that it violated International Flipper Pinball Association rules to have an open tournament in a venue closed to a class of people. It's not; bunny_hugger checked with the IFPA last time it came up and they said it's fine. At least they don't protest it, maybe because of all the barcades where pinball events thrive.

Well, he wasn't content with the sorry, but we're not actually breaking any rules. He demanded that bunny_hugger get the bar to change its policy, or at least make an exception for tournament attendees, enormously overestimating the pull she has with the bar. She finally left the thread, saying correctly that this is the best place in town to play pinball; what do you want, the area to stop having tournaments, including charity tournaments, over whether a handful of kids are limited in their attendance? Yes he did, he said, scolding her for not recognizing the age discrimination in her woke-ness, and tagging the other underage pinball players of note in the area, urging them to join the fight.

They did not, although one did message her to say the guy was being a jerk and none of them mind that there's this one venue where they can't ordinarily play. Other people did join the fight, though, gratifyingly all on bunny_hugger's side. I can't say that this drove up interest in the tournament --- many of the attendees aren't on the group or didn't find out about the conflict until later --- but it can't hurt to have so much talk about the event. Or for so much of the talk to be apparently this guy picking a needless fight against someone everybody likes who runs mostly charity tournaments and cute little events at a pretty chill bar. One senses that a lot of people were upset with Other Guy but didn't have a good excuse to say anything, and now, here they did.

I got knocked out after six rounds, which sounds okay for a three-strikes head-to-head tournament (so, I lost three times), until you hear that I had a bye one round so only won twice. One of those astounded me, beating the formidable DMC, but still. I've had much better nights.

ACE, who's moving back to Texas in a couple months, was the final winner, coming from behind to win several games on James Bond in a row. His prize: a plaque and a backglass for the Dr No version of the game. (Our venue has Thunderball). Or, as I observed, he got the thing everyone who's moving cross-country in three months wants: more stuff. Well, he's happy. We're going to miss him.

And now the conclusion to Silver Balls in the City photos. Hope you like. The tournament went great for me at least.

More instructions for the tournament from bunny_hugger, wearing her reindeer garb, and stunned to have three dozen people show up for this little tournament.

bunny_hugger at play, in this case on the game that would end up knocking her out of the tournament.

The game that knocked me out. I was player two, the one with the 14,254,330 score. My only hope to stay alive was a first-place finish which, since I don't think I've ever broken 600,000,000 on this game, would have been a stretch.

The final round, already! (Most of the others looked like this, though.) Lord of the Rings is a game that either of these players could go on for an hour, although they didn't.

Awarding of the first- and second-place trophies! Also please admire bunny_hugger's tail as it is adorable, isn't it?

A happy moment, photographed in front of some of the pinball machines they never played because the light is better there.

Trivia: The Empire State Building was built in fourteen months. Source: To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design, Henry Petroski.

Currently Reading: A History of The World's Airlines, R E G Davies.