We've got fun and games

Again putting the mathematics blog to the side here's pictures of the much more exciting Michigan Women's State Pinball Championship, from not quite a month ago now.

bunny_hugger stepping up to Mystic, her first pick and her first win of the day.

bunny_hugger as seen streaming live on the Internet for anyone to see, taking her first ball of a disappointing game of FunHouse.

The championship plaque which had been resting in our care for a month or so, and that we so hoped would be going back home with us.

And here's the organization table, with the plaque, bunny_hugger's notes, the (paper) brackets we printed out because it turns out the online system won't let you do this sort of elimination bracket where you play out the ties so that, like, the 9th through 16th place finishers know who was 9th and who was 16th. Also bunny_hugger's laptop, which I watched over as the enterer of results.

As the field winnowed down you go a lot of scenes like this, one player at the table (notice the streaming rig set up) and the other considering what they could learn from watching the other.

Mm, yes, thinking hard about what to learn from that last ball of Guns N Roses the other played.

Trivia: Aimé Thomé de Garmond's mid-19th-century proposal for a tunnel (he worked on it from 1833 to 1867) beneath the English Channel included twelve artificial islands containing ventilation shafts, and also ``sea valves'' so that, in case of war, the tunnel could be flooded. Source: Remaking the World: Adventures in Engineering, Henry Petroski.

Currently Reading: Suddenly, Tomorrow Came: A History of the Johnson Space Center, Henry C Dethloff. NASA SP-4307. Aw, now how's this the first time I encountered this cute Apollo kid story? Told to stop tracking dirt into the house Apollo 12 capcom James Irwin's kid said this wasn't dirt, this was Earth rocks he was gathering.