Just remember that the last laugh is on you

You may have heard about the shooter at the Michigan State University campus. We heard about it about 9 pm, when EJL --- who teaches there, but was safely home when the news broke --- called to ask if we'd heard anything. We had not; we were listening to music on the satellite radio and thinking about Sunshine.

But as the existence of this post establishes, we're fine. While we're in walking distance of the campus, we weren't ever near actual danger. We did hear one rumor, in that zone where rumors take the place of absent facts, that he'd been spotted in the woods between campus and our house, but even that's a twenty-minute walk away if you were aiming for our house. Still, I did double-check the doors and that the locks on all the first-floor windows were secure in a way I don't do normal nights.

MSU and many schools in the area called off today, or the rest of the week. I admit without pride that part of me was hoping the state would order workers to stay home today. I'd still have to be up just as early, but it's easier and more comfortable puttering around at home instead. This wish left me feeling conflicted though, since it hardly seemed equitable to stay home from work when I planned to go out to our local hipster bar for pinball league. As it happens, the state didn't tell workers to stay home. And the bar stayed closed today, postponing this week's league meeting and royally screwing up the next month's worth of planned events. As problems go this isn't a big one, but it is the one we have, about this.

And then because pet health matters are never easy: Sunshine was having a great day today. She was doing tolerably well Monday, but today --- half of which bunny_hugger spent at home, as her classes were done --- she was lively, energetic, and breathing without appreciable noise. It's pushing us to the awful thought that the new medicine is just what she needed and that we made her end-of-life decision too early. If we did decide she's too well-off it'd be a little bother, as she's coming close to running out of some medicines and we'd need a supply (one week? two? A month?) to replace it. But ... well, I suppose we have until early Thursday evening to decide she's okay for now.

Let's enjoy some more of the (open) State Pinball Championship.

Jack in The Box is another solid-state game resting in the visitors room, and I put up a game during some slow times and very nearly rolled it, which is amazing for just stepping up cold to the machine.

Close-up of Stern's banner for the Rush pinball, which has all sorts of stuff from album covers. I took this picture because of all the bunny content. Meant to ask bunny_hugger about it but it's not like she knows anything about Rush besides what you get from listening to Deep Tracks or that one I Don't Even Own A Television episode.

Lounging around Pinball players who've been knocked out, or who are waiting for their next competitor, watch the stream of one of the current games and agree how ridiculous it was the ball drained on them like that.

bunny_hugger preparing a photograph of the later rounds of the tournament, somewhere around semifinals or so.

The only non-free machines in the place. Although the redemption and crane games were turned off for the weekend --- saving power, I guess, for the tournament floor --- these are at least sometimes set up. I think they're actually in waiting for AJH and PH to find places to route them, though.

The visitors room up front; I think BK here was still in the running and in any case he's relaxing with a little Jacks To Open.

Trivia: Gustave Flaubert would stay awake all night before train journeys, so that he could sleep through the travel and avoid experiencing it. Source: The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the 19th Century, Wolfgang Schivelbusch.

Currently Reading: Suddenly, Tomorrow Came: A History of the Johnson Space Center, Henry C Dethloff. NASA SP-4307.

PS: What's Going On In Mark Trail? Why was that kid so snide toward Rusty? November 2022 - February 2023 A cryptid search, that's why.