Reading

Entry tags:

If You Start Me Up I'll Never Stop

And a happy 75th Anniversary to Peanuts to all who observe.

The first thing we saw when we got to MJS's pole barn for the tournament was CST and wife coming in and parking beside us. We haven't seen them since ... not sure, really. Possibly the last time MJS ran a tournament. Always good seeing them, though, and refreshing some of the in-jokes we share.

Next thing bunnyhugger saw was some species of woolly caterpillar. A big one, trundling along at a heck of a clip, considering. She tried to pick it up and move it somewhere safe but the caterpillar wasn't having it. So, we just wish it well. We also spotted a couple perfect snowflake-globe mushrooms and some coffee-table-size toadstools, which is when I realized I didn't bring my camera and just had my phone if I wanted to photograph anything. (I would end up photographing a couple scores only, and that just because playing head-to-head on a single-player game you need some record of what everyone's scores were.)

We had maybe 45 minutes before the tournament started so, like everyone else, went to a couple games and tried them out and got the feel of them. Felt good, felt ready to play. It was to be sixteen rounds of Max Matchplay, where we don't wait for every one of the, in this case, 18 games per round to finish. Instead whenever there's enough players not playing, they draw up some new matches, picking pairs who haven't played before and putting them on games neither has played before. The people with the most wins go on to finals.

So, I started off on Iron Maiden, playing that guy I mentioned with the Gay Warming T-shirt. We both had lousy first balls. He had a killer second and third ball; I got killed my second ball. Third ball I started to rally and only ended up at about half his score, but, you know, if I'd got a multiball that was ready to go started I might have made it. Second round. Pop-A-Card against SMS (MJS's daughter and onetime top-female-Michigan-player). This is a single-player game, one from the early 60s where you can earn up to ten balls to play. I have a decent game, never collecting this earned extra balls. SMS has a lousy first and second ball, but she earns two more balls, and I figure she's sure to beat me. Yet it doesn't happen; my decent score holds up. I figure seven more wins and I'm in the playoffs.

But ... then ... a peculiar slowing-down happens. There are a lot of consultations between MJS who's running the tournament, and SMS, and JM who I guess was the tournament director? Or at least making the rulings. (There was some unintentional comedy of JM starting to make some announcement and then MJS going ahead and making sometimes the same announcement right over him. This sounds like MJS was being mean to JM, but I think it's more that waiting for JM to surrender the stage would be too long a wait.) It transpired that they had set up the tournament with the wrong format, doing it as sixteen discreet rounds where everyone had to wait for all 18 matches to finish, instead of where you make some more matches when people are available to play. There's some time spent working out whether they can change the tournament type (you can't), and then, what to do?

I assume they're going to have to call it a wash and restart the tournament from scratch. Which I'd be okay with, and bunnyhugger, who had two losses, would be great with, but I understand the people who'd have two wins being disappointed. They eventually do start a new tournament, one with the correct format but only fourteen rounds, and go to the labor of manually adjusting everyone's scores to reflect their first two rounds.

bunnyhugger pointed out, though, this meant the tournament software didn't know who played who, and could make people who'd already played play again. Like, she might have to play MSS, a top player who beat her in the first round. Indeed, probability dictates many people would get a rematch. For example, I got put up against Gay Warming guy again, although this time on FunHouse, and this time I managed a decent win. And, yeah, in the first round of the restarted tournament, bunnyhugger had to play MSS again, and took a loss again.

But we were off again, ready to play. I needed seven wins to make the playoffs and bunnyhugger needed eight. It could happen.

Back to pictures of Cedar Point from closing day 2024!

The sun's setting on Blue Streak. I like the light on the smoke effects and reflecting on the porch of the Chickie & Pete's, which did close forever sometime before this day, actually. It's now just an empty space.

Bench at the Kiddie Kingdom that's perfectly fine but we keep expecting to be renovated out of existence some day.

And peering up into the tower with the Kiddie Kingdom banners on it. I don't think it ever occurred to me before that you could just walk into it.

Looking west at the big loop of Raptor, well-framed by the Sky Ride lines.

And back to the Kiddie Carousel, loading up on rides on all the rabbits just in case the rumors of the ride's sale came true.

And here's a slightly tilted angle of the same ride. Also you can see it was finally at least chilly at the park.

Trivia: The Sigma 7 logo on Wally Schirra's Mercury capsule was designed, and painted onto the capsule, by Cece Bibby, who did the logos for two other capsules. Source: Sigma 7: The Six Mercury Orbits of Walter M Schirra, Jr, Colin Burgess. Burgess doesn't specify which of the other capsules she painted, but her obituary on collectSpace says they were John Glenn's Friendship 7 and Scott Carpenter's Aurora 7. It also has other artwork, some of it a bit risque, that she made for the space program.

Currently Reading: Some more comics.

Entry tags:

Executive Policy is by me okay

So the news, as of the close of business, is the good one that I have a job tomorrow. That is, the state legislature and governor are confident they have a budget deal in place and while they might technically be missing the constitutional deadline to have it finalized, they expect to have it by the time any checks need to be paid. So we don't get to officially see what the exact contingency plans were for a furlough.

Most likely, at least, since (a) nothing is finished until it's actually signed and (b) some of my work group's funding is federal and the federal government is right now a pile of grifters and scammers and cynics who think they can outwit the nuts. And a Democratic party that is almost ready to write a firmly-worded open letter, if that wouldn't be too divisive.

I'm glad, in the main, to be locally stable at least and to have income and all that. Part of me did think it would be nice to have a vacation forced on me. I could take time off whenever I wanted but it's hard to think to do that, especially if it's not in connection to an event like an amusement park trip. If I understood the plans correctly I wouldn't actually be off, as I'd be needed to maintain a particular essential project, but that essential project has almost no work to do on it so if I wanted to spend the day reading FurAffinity nobody would know or care.

And as long as I'm talking about today's developments instead of the pinball tournament last Saturday, let me share another bit of news. After the majority of a year without, we again have a coffee table in the living room. We never did find a suitable one in the thrift stores. This one was a piece of furniture being discarded by some folks down the street moving out. It's a simple wood table, its most decorative flourish being that its legs arch outward just enough that it suggests a pyramid without being one. It needs a little care, that I'm sure we will get around to providing, but it's just about the right bit of what we needed.

In pictures, let's go back to not quite eleven months ago as we made a trip to Cedar Point just the Kiddie Kingdom Carousel was being sold and we'd never see it again. (It has not sold, and we saw it plenty in 2025, and know of no particular reason to expect not to see it in 2026 as well.)

Another picture from the middle of the Kiddie Kingdom Carousel platform. They were generous about letting us dither around taking photos. Relatively small crowd day, after all.

More from the inner row, with a view of the other two rabbits, coming up just in the sunlight there.

I think I took this one by accident but I like the hint of movement you get with it. That shadow is not me holding my arm at an unearthly angle; it's the horse's leg.

Some lawn and planted areas near ValRavn, and the grease trucks located around where the Siren's Curse has grown up.

You look at a spot like this and you could almost imagine Cedar Point's this tranquil backwater. Note that the shadow is not some carousel horse's leg but just me holding my arm up.

And here's people walking into the sunlight. The foreground roller coaster on the left is ValRavn and on the right, Corkscrew.

Trivia: One of the Sanskrit words for 'Tuesday' was 'Bhaumavasara', meaning 'of Mangala'. Source: Mapping Time: The Calendar and its History, EG Richards.

Currently Reading: Some comic books.

Entry tags:

art post: soul bond, from The Monsters We Become

I apparently saved this picture earlier but never actually posted it so it could be linked elsewhere, so--here it is! ( Read more... )

Entry tags:

Little Old Lady, Welcome, and You, Shoemaker

MJS, with the pole barn full of pinball machines, scheduled one of his occasional tournaments for last Saturday. When bunnyhugger told me of the possibility I leapt at the chance; that's the sort of thing I'd love doing for my birthday, sure. MJS had capped attendance for the event at forty people, although it seems that he took even more than that. And yet some of those people didn't attend; in the end there were 37 or something folks attending. We know of at least two of the people who missed it, including MWS who texted later in the day his humiliation that he forgot about the tournament and overslept.

I know MJS accepted more than the nominal forty because one of the women who's gotten really into pinball thanks to bunnyhugger's tournaments in Lansing, chatted with me during league on Tuesday to ask what to expect. I didn't know what the tournament format was and so offered --- correctly --- that it was probably going to be like the matchplay tournaments done for Lansing women's tournaments much of the time. That is, random pairs drawn on randomly drawn games with people who win enough games going on to finals. She was glad to know that but was more interested in, you know, what are the people like?

I'm extremely flattered to be trusted as someone who can offer advice on whether a setting is safe. But --- as I pointed out to her --- my experience is as a tall white guy who looks like he belongs by default in any pinball setting. I've found MJS's tournaments good, pleasant things fun to be at, and that I haven't encountered things that seemed obviously unwelcome. But, I mean, I thought it was a kind reassurance when our local barcade put up signs saying if you thought your drink was tampered with get a bartender's attention, and it took me hours to realize you don't put up a sign like that unless you have non-ignorable reports of someone tampering with women's drinks.

Well, I offered my opinion and all the qualifications I could, and I guess she was satisfied with it. But, like, one of the people there --- and whom I played twice (there's a story to that too) --- is a guy with a T-shirt saying his politics are that he supports (reconstructing this from memory) climate's right to choose, gay warming, and bans on assault marriage. It's the kind of thing that's funny if you don't think deeply about the joke structure, which is built on this ``oh those politics they so stoopit'' premise overlooking that politics is how society chooses how to treat the vulnerable. And I've seen him wearing it multiple times. Maybe it's just a lucky shirt, maybe it reflects nothing more than yeah, it's funny in the way ``Pangean Reunification Movement'' bumper stickers are funny. But you can see why if you were suspicious of the guy, this would not put you at ease.

She attended the tournament, though, and did no worse than bunnyhugger and I did, and she seemed to be enjoying the experience. I haven't heard that she's stopped talking to me although how would I? Seriously as we have no means of contact except through bunnyhugger or at pinball events and we haven't been to another since then. A bad enough experience would get news through, of course, unless there were focus-pulling drama in the final rounds of the tournament. But how would that happen?

On that cliffhanger I leave you with more from our final visit to Cedar Point last November, here. Hope you like carousels!

National Carousel Association plaque from 1978 commemorating what was then the Kiddieland Carousel. I note the National Carousel Association Census now gives the carousel's creation date as circa 1921, although it doesn't know where the original location was. Just that it seems to have been in Memphis to about 1925, and at some point got to Hunting Park in Germantown, Philadelphia, until 1968 when Cedar Point got it.

Detail of one of the wooden boards lining the roof of the carousel. I must have noticed they're all numbered before but if I wasn't going to see the ride again I'd have to get a snap of unimportant details like this.

And here's two of the rabbits, the black one being the inspiration (in inverse) for bunnyhugger's main character.

Here she is getting the first of her possibly-last rides on it.

And here's a photo of the two rabbits from the inside, the traditionally less-decorated and less-interesting side.

The bunnyhugger rabbit from the non-romance side.

Trivia: The earliest versions of the game that became Q*Bert had the protagonist shooting the enemies with his nose-gun. Warren Davis, a programmer actually assigned to the game Protector, made the critical suggestion to change it from killing-enemies to saving-the-main-character, and passed along Ron Waxman's suggestion that the pyramid blocks change color, which gave the game a clear objective. Source: The Ultimate History of Video Games: The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World, Steven L Kent.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 73: Loch Mess, Clotland, or, Messy Business in the Loch! Ralph Stein, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.

Entry tags:

I'm Gonna Chow Down My Vegetables

When we called off the beach trip last weekend we thought, okay but this weekend we should be able to. Not on Saturday, because that was to be a big pinball tournament at MJS's pole barn out near Kalamazoo and those are rare and special events. But Sunday, weather holding up.

The weather did hold up, but our energy didn't. Between the early rising we had to do for the tournament, and the full day spent going around playing sixteen qualifying rounds of pinball plus side stuff, and eating way too much of the potluck dinners, and sticking around to see if JTK would ever lose, we got home late and with not enough stuff done. So with understanding reluctance we called it off again. Maybe next Sunday, which the long range forecast says will be an even warmer day somehow. But we needed today to recover and to do miscellaneous work around the home.

Among those bits: finally getting to the pet store and remembering to find a replacement vegetable bowl for our rabbit. The plastic bowl we'd been using had a plastic frame to hold it onto the cages of her pen --- giving her something to stand up and grab stuff for --- and we kept forgetting to look for replacements. (And, at the risk of sounding defensive, the pet store keeps food dishes in a weird place well away from all the other small animal stuff.) This new one is a ceramic bowl, held in place by metal wires, so it's less likely to break off and even if it does break off, the ceramic bowl has a flat base so it can be used by itself. The plastic bowl had this little hinge that was meant to secure it in the holder and that makes it rest off-level on the floor.

And then yes, there is that whole ``pinball tournament'' thing I let go with just a passing mention. Don't worry. You're going to hear all about that too.

Next in pictures ... we went to Cedar Point on Saturday, the 2nd of November last year. The final day of their operating season which means --- since we also went to Eclipse Day in April --- we got to Cedar Point as early and as late in the year as was possible for 2024. We had a couple reasons to do this and catching the latest possible day was only one of them. Getting an amusement park ride as close as we could to bunnyhugger's birthday was another. But finally ... you'll see.

Establishing shot. The park was tolerably busy which is going to happen for a Saturday with good weather even if it was finally chilly.

Also Sandusky might have been on fire? Not sure. It didn't seem to be a problem later on at least.

Frankenstein outside the Kiddie Kingdom, looking good and grabby.

And here's what we were really there for. The ride operator on the Kiddie Kingdom carousel had told us the week before that they had sold the ride to the Ohio State Fair and the ride would be gone next year. So we had to get back for a last ride just in case it turned out to be true.

The rumor was false; the carousel was still in Kiddie Kingdom this year, and apparently the Ohio State Fair has bought a carousel on its own so Cedar Point won't be losing this to there, at least. Since that knowledge lay in our future we wanted to get last rides on the rabbits particularly.

A warning. The ride will close at 10 pm ... forever? No, turns out.

Trivia: Lake Erie's sea level is only about 541 feet above the Hudson River's, but the (original) path of the Erie Canal required locks to raise and lower boats a total of 661 feet. Source: Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation, Peter L Bernstein.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 73: Loch Mess, Clotland, or, Messy Business in the Loch! Ralph Stein, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.

Entry tags:

A Cell of Awareness Imperfect and Incomplete

So earlier this summer we joined another pinball league. And it's another one in Lansing. We're not cheating on our own league. Someone who had been to a couple of bunnyhugger's events and was impressed wanted to start his own league and did so at a bowling alley on the west side of town. We joined up because we want to encourage pinball playing and it's nice to go to pinball events we have no responsibility or expectations for.

The sad thing is that for all we talked it up during Lansing Pinball League events people weren't biting. A couple of players came out, including the guy who maintains the pinball machines, but there were never more than six people attending at once, and one time there were only three of us there. It's hard to say why there wasn't much attendance. That there are only a few games certainly counts for some; when we started there were seven tables, and four of them were duplicates of games you could play at the Lansing Pinball League's regular venue. But three of them were not, and the bowling alley offered conveniences the regular venue doesn't, like air conditioning that actually cools the place. Also a nice cozy vibe without being crowded, since the games are compactly placed but with only at most two groups playing there's neither crowd nor distance.

On the other hand, it is a place you can't just walk to, not if you live downtown or on the Eastside, and I can understand feeling it's not worth it to get all that way out and just play Rush, But Not As Nice As The One At The Barcade. (It probably is as nice when you're used to how it plays.) And that the league started during the summer lull in Lansing Pinball League events can't have helped, since we had few chances to talk it up. We even had the bad fortune to miss the first two nights because we were out on road trips.

The league season ends this Tuesday, and I don't know if there's going to be another. And there was, evidently, some quarrel between the venue and the pinball machine router; at the last league night three of the games had been taken out and who knows if they'll ever be replaced. I hope the organizer hasn't lost heart.

And now the end of my pictures of Marvin's from the November visit. We had at least one more to say farewell so, don't worry. You'll see the Cardiff Giant from both angles again.

Back on more Chuck E Cheese figures here.

Around the top of a little coin-op carousel ride in Marvin's is this rounding board with a Sanders Carousel Company label.

And back on bunnyhugger! So I was totally wrong when I thought that league finals were December. They were November, and here's bunnyhugger taking her first place, B Division, trophy, the same award she won our first season at Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum. But that first award was a mug; this one's a trophy. And this she got after winning that Attack From Mars game she was putting money into in yesterday's photos.

bunnyhugger in focus thanks to a flash photo, and people hanging around at the end of playoffs.

The door there's to Marvin's office. I like that you can see Pinball Row reflected in the mirror beside.

bunnyhugger enjoying the glory and the loneliness of a triumph.

Trivia: The control car on early Zeppelins was designed to land on Lake Bodensee, near Friedrichshafen. This is why the inhabited cabin is called a gondola. Source: When Giants Ruled The Sky: The Brief Reign and Tragic Demise of the American Rigid Airship, John J Geoghegan.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 73: Loch Mess, Clotland, or, Messy Business in the Loch! Ralph Stein, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.`

Entry tags:

Like a Carousel That's Turning, Running Rings Around the Moon

When last I reported on the mice they had just got a couple new toys, a bridge and a balsa-wood house. They still have them, and they're enjoying them a great deal based on how they're burying them and using them to hide from the world. They also have a couple small plastic igloo-shaped houses that they keep turning upside-down, so they're more like a bird's nest than a sheltered area. They've done this consistently enough we have to suppose it's a deliberate choice and I think bunnyhugger has given up on trying to set it right.

But they have something new as well. bunnyhugger was satisfied that they were not fighting, at least not seriously, and had settled on what they figure their social arrangements should be. And so that encouraged her to put in the sort of toy that mice might fight over. That is, of course, a wheel, which every kind of animal, not just mice, turns out to like.

The mice took to it quickly, like you'd expect, particularly with the brown mice doing a lot of running. At least one of them was taking to it, at least; we haven't figured how to tell the two apart. We might have to wait until they're grown more and hope some clear difference shows up. But at least one of them would build up a lot of speed and then stop running, letting the momentum spin them around. We don't know whether that's a deliberate choice or just a failure to understand momentum yet. But it's also easy to suppose they find that fun.

Which made it odd that after a day or two they stopped running the wheel. Investigation revealed that they'd gotten paper caught in it, keeping the wheel from spinning freely, and once that was moved mice were back on the wheel and doing well. Besides the brown mice we've spotted the grey one. We don't have a confirmed sighting of our original, white, mouse on the wheel. I know I often saw her running the wheel when I got downstairs at like 7:30 am, but since it's been only a couple days since she had the option I haven't had the chance to observe whether she is running in the morning. I'll have more on this mouse activity stuff as it comes to pass.

Now let's look at a thing that has passed, photos of Marvin's in our November visit. Don't worry, there's another to come.

One of the mechanical contraptions, the ``Michigan Anteater''. I forget whether it was actually working which leaves me wondering just how it was that it didn't hunt well.

A head of Elsie with the explanation that cows have two stomachs and use cud to aid digestion.

bunnyhugger coining up on Attack From Mars. And why was she doing this at this moment? That will be revealed shortly.

Some of those old Chuck E Cheese figures. I forget their proper name and also the name I gave them in jest like a year ago so I won't bother calling them anything.

Another of the Chuck E Cheese figures. They aren't operating at Marvin's.

And this isn't Chuck E Cheese but rather FunHouse's Rudy as the Three Stooges.

Trivia: The United States Lines shipping company was formed in 1921 by the United States Shipping Board as a government-owned corporation. It was sold in 1929 to the P W Champan Company, which soon defaulted, and the government had to foreclose. Source: Box Boats: How Container Ships Changed The World, Brian J Cudahy.

Currently Reading: Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, Daniel Okrent.

Entry tags:

I Would Like You to Dance

Thank you, dear bunnyhugger.

In the humor blog mines this week: strange noises in the neighborhood, a strange discovery over by the sink, I pick a fight with none of my readers in Gil Thorp, and Jimmy Rabbit gets a wheelbarrow shakes my concept of the whole Arthur Scott Bailey novelistic universe.

How about we look in on Marvin and the Mechanical Museum from back in Mnovember?

Stuff in the back, including a claw game and that large Mannequin Doctor who is both not electric and pleasant.

And here's someone trapped in a pillar. It happens.

Cardiff Giant beside some of Marvin's Tiny Staff. (That's the area with the grill and soda machine and such.)

This proclaims itself a replica of Thomas Edison's carbon filament lamp and I don't see any reason to doubt that, particularly. I like that because of the reflection you get to see the filament from two angles.

Never seen before! In my pictures. The men's room at Marvin's. Inside the toilet stall is a sign about John F Kennedy's record as fastest public speaker, once recorded at 327 words per minute if you believe that.

And some of the stuff on the walls, above the hand dryer that has ballyhoo about how it's an experimental jet engine. The tiles underneath this are four M's in a row, but you can't see them.

Back on the game floor. Alas, once again, the Cedar Point roller coaster simulator was down. The thing offers six rides, two of which --- Mean Streak and Mantis --- have been reconfigured into different rides (Mantis only slightly, by changing from a standing coaster to a seated one; Mean Streak by a total rebuild). Gemini, Blue Streak, Magnum, and Iron Dragon are still as they would have been when the video was recorded. Note the music's by Peter Frampton.

More stuff you see by looking up, including a pig and a railroad engine plan.

Not sure I ever photographed this before but the vestibule had a big M in the tile, partly obscured by the floor mats.

A full-on Marvin's logo mat. I don't know if they ever sold these but it would've made sense.

More stuff on walls, including for some reason a gorilla chauffeur that doesn't read even slightly racially coded in any way, and a poster from the 4th Exposition de la Locomotion Aerienne, 1912.

Humpty Dumpty dressed for Halloween and looking like Pac-Man. Also you see the slushies they had on tap.

Trivia: The 62-mile Lancaster Turnpike, completed 1794, was built by a private joint-stock corporation. Of 2,275 applicants for stock only 600, chosen by a lottery wheel, were allowed to subscribe. Source: Engineering In History, Richard Shelton Kirby, Sidney Withington, Arthur Burr Darling, Frederick Gridley Kilgour. The book says the price was $7,000 per mile, which seems like a lot if that's 1794 dollars but not enough if that's in the dollars of the book's 1956 publication. Like, I'm not sure there was $434,000 in the whole country in 1794.

Currently Reading: Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, Daniel Okrent.

Entry tags:

All My Tubes and Wires and Careful Notes and Antiquated Notions

Last Friday we got to RLM Amusements for another Grand Rapids all-night pinball tournament. We'd been thinking to get back there and see the regression to the mean from my second-place finish last month, and besides, a couple of Lansing Pinball League folks were also planning to go out. How could we not join in 517 night in Grand Rapids?

So, skipping to the results: I did not repeat my finals performance. I didn't even make it to playoffs. I started out with a loss on 300, a bowling-themed electromechanical, and that's one of the three games I consider my pocket games, the ones I can always pull out a win on. I got to play three of my pocket games this time --- 300, Fast Draw, and Genesis --- and lost on each of them. I also lost to fellow Lansing player DG on Indianapolis 500, a game that, if I may be immodest, I rule on in its Pinball Arcade virtual version. On the other hand, I did beat PCL, also from Lansing, when we played on Dune, a boutique pinball game that we're not sure actually exists. RLM Amusements has a bunch of games that seem like they can't be real (Labyrinth, Evil Dead, Baby Pac-Man) and this is just one more in the line. I had gone in figuring, we're playing fourteen rounds, if I get seven wins I'm in playoffs, and I started out losing six games of the first eight. So I had to win five of the last six and what do you know, but that last six started with me playing bunnyhugger.

We haven't had to play head-to-head much at RLM, and we prefer it that way because c'mon. The game was Total Nuclear Annihilation, a retro 80s style game with a theme of ``light up a nuclear reactor and blow it up, nine times over''. It had been one of her strengths when the game was at The Pyramid Scheme in Grand Rapids, but at RLM Amusements she hasn't got its wave. This time around, I had the groove. I so had it. My first ball I got a nuclear reactor lit and blown up, and the second ball I got a multiball going that let me blow up a second reactor. bunnyhugger tried but, demoralized, couldn't get much of anything together. I beat her horribly, and then, with ball three --- and my best game ever, in that I'd never gotten a second reactor blown up --- I kept on going. This irritated her because I ran up what was already a ridiculous win. And I ended up on the high score table, both for points and for speed in blowing up reactors two and three, which I didn't even know was a possible achievement.

This set me going on a bit of a winning streak; I was able to beat JTK --- who'd come out when he heard we were visiting --- on Uncanny X-Men next, and I'd go on to beat PCL and someone else on Buck Rogers. But I took a loss on Evil Dead, where I couldn't find the shot to get anything started, and in the last round lost on Fast Draw, somehow.

And bunnyhugger? We kept comparing notes over the night; she started with a pair of disheartening losses, and then it became four losses before she finally got to Fast Draw and won. She got another win after that, but then took three losses in a row, sinking her below where she could expect to make playoffs. But then she started winning, racking up three victories in a row before the final game, on Terminator 2, an early-90s game that's always something of a coin flip on location like this. And she lost the flip, ending up just below me. (For the curious, we've played at RLM Amusements six times this year; I've finished ahead of her four times, she's finished ahead of me twice.)

We hung around a while, particularly because both JTK and PCL did make playoffs. Both lost in the first round. DG didn't make playoffs either. But we talked some, gossiped some, played against each other some --- we did a four-player game of Dune where once again, somehow, I know how to play Dune? For some reason? I don't know.

In other pinball, before and after the tournament I did a lot of playing on Baby Pac-Man, hoping to figure out something about that cursed game in case I get called up on it, during qualifying (random draws) or during playoffs (when specific games are chosen). I can't say I'm good at it, but I did put up a couple respectable games and one really good one, getting to the third maze, which is farther than I've done playing Ms Pac-Man. Possibly a few more sessions and the game won't be an easy loss for me.

I also finally played some of the video games, in-between rounds, trying to soothe my disappointment at lost pocket games. That Bust-A-Move/Puzzle Bobble game? That's pretty fun, I like that.

Now, more of my antepenultimate visit to Marvin's at the former Hunters Square mall, back in November:

A sequence of Broom Hilda drawings to support someone's Academy of Music. I'm curious how the Academy came to seek Russell Myers's attention.

No Smoking sign alongside a giant cigarette.

Big Head that I can't swear was ever used in a Detroit Thanksgiving Day Parade. Probably not; it's a bit big even for the Big Heads.

King Cobra, once again not up to the challenge of striking at anyone's hands.

Some of the old magician posters, like the renowned ... Virgil, I assume with the astounding Aeneid. Plus a reprint of one of those Beatles at Shea Stadium advertisements.

And it wouldn't be a Marvin's visit without a picture of the Cardiff Giant tucked away in his box.

Trivia: In 1917 the draft bureau reported that about one-third of all the American men called to serve were physically unfit, many with diet-caused conditions like rickets or bad teeth. Source: A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression, Jane Ziegelman, Andrew Coe.

Currently Reading: Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, Daniel Okrent.

Entry tags:

marvin's marvelous mechanical museum

Take a Look and You'll See Into Your Imagination

No time to write stuff today, so please enjoy a double dose of Marvin's pictures from back in November. We're finally almost inside! Also please read up on What's Going on in Gil Thorp? Why Is Gil Thorp All Political Now? June - September 2025 as I get all the politics going.

Pinball playfields used as decorations on the vestibule. Left to right theese are F-14 Tomcat, Fire, and Ali.

These I don't know as well because they're Gameplan games and who ever sees them? The one on the right is Captain Hook, from 1985. The one in the center is a game called Agents 777, from 1984, like you'd imagine.

Sorry to spend so much time on Agents [sic] 777, but I think you'll agree the more you look the more you're mystified, starting with the three 7's in the car.

See, a gambling-theme game makes sense as it is, and a heist or gangster-themed game, sure. Cops-versus-gangsters, yeah, I get that. And then ...

You know it's pinball because there's a sexy bell.

I assume, given the slot machine theme, that's a cherry that has those cherry breasts.

Enough of that. Getting inside here, and the Pinball Row lineup ahead of league night.

The airplanes on the conveyor belt ready for someone to put a quarter in and make them go. Those darned zeppelins, always tipping over.

From over near the men's bathroom, lots of stuff, including two carousels that might or might not be for sale.

And trophies! These would be awarded the next month, as league finals, to the top three finishers in A and the top finisher in B. You know the champion of B.

League night getting organized, so much as it ever does.

More of those planes and, of course, Ghost Homer choking Pirate Bart.

Trivia: On 23 September 1948 the FCC issued ``the freeze'' of new TV channel authorizations. Source: The Forgotten Network: DuMont and the Birth of American Television, David Weinstein. 123 already-authorized stations were allowed to continue, although only a couple dozen were on the air in 1948. A bit over a hundred of them were on by the time the freeze was lifted in spring 1952.

Currently Reading: Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, Daniel Okrent.

Entry tags:

The Smell From a Grill Could Spark Up Nostalgia

I mentioned this the other day but wasn't explicit about it. Last weekend we went to bunnyhugger's parents to spend a day grilling-and-chilling, as the phrase goes. At one point her mom had asked us to go to Meijer's and get whatever vegetarian burgers or whatever we wanted cooked, but that changed by the time we actually went down there. They provided way too much to eat, several burgers each and two or three hot dogs each and so much potato salad and so many baked beans that we are still, over a week later, finishing off leftovers.

As usual the highlight of the day, for their dog, was bunnyhugger walking the dog. She takes the dog on an extra-long walk, all the way across the river (they're on the riverbank) to the park opposite it, and over to where we're in sight of downtown but not really there. She gets so many chances to smell interesting things and to pee and then scratch at the ground in completely random directions, like she knows you can use this motion to spread your scent around but not how to do it effectively. Also to meet other dogs and show every possible reaction from being really chill to being surprisingly offended that the dog is there.

Two curious things happened along the walk. One is that near the end of the walk bunnyhugger tried to turn down a different street than she always uses, and the dog wasn't having it. The dog just stayed on the correct sidewalk until we shrugged and figured if it was that important to her, fine. You wouldn't think a dog would get that particular especially about a walk she gets every couple weeks at most. The other strange thing is at one point I got ahead of bunnyhugger and the dog and turned back toward them, and the dog got very suspicious of this, growling as if she didn't know who I was or what I was doing there. She shook it off, but, wow, I've been visiting this dog every month or so for close to a decade. You'd think I'd have made some impression.

Last time we had gone over we wanted to bring a roleplaying board game, Aftermath, but couldn't find it. This time, we found it --- I thought bunnyhugger had found it while looking for something else, but she didn't, so I guess we have to suppose it was the Eternals hiding something and returning it so we would make a bad decision differently --- and didn't have anywhere near the time to play. Maybe next time, unless it goes missing again. We should get back to them in the next couple weeks.

Next up: a visit to Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum, as it stood in early November last year. Hoping its replacement stands soon.

The front door of Marvin's, promising nothing nicer anywhere and advertising the recommendation of its owner.

One of or maybe the Marvin's truck, in case you need mechanical stuff delivered somewhere.

The ghost of the Hunter's Square sign, reflecting the ancient history of this as an indoor mall that became a strip mall and now a nothing, replaced with a Meijer's or something.

I know you're thinking that's a big red-bodied spider up there.

But no, it's the Marvin's clock, which has the hours run backwards. The second hand runs backward too. It wsa nowhere near 11:00 when I took this photo; I'm not sure whether the hour and minute hands didn't work at all or if they were just so far out of time it didn't matter.

And the hours for the museum, including the note about how they intend to be open through the end of the calendar year (they got past that by a couple days) and intended to reopen in a new location.

Trivia: NASA's seal and ``meatball'' logo were principally designed by James J Modarelli, head of the Research Reports Division at the NASA Lewis Research Center (now the Glenn Research Center), with the assistance of the Heraldic Branch of the Army Office of the Quartermaster General (now the Army Institute of Heraldry). Source: Emblems of Exploration: LOgos of the NACA and NASA, Joseph R Chambers, Mark A Chambers. Monographs in Aerospace History no 56.

Currently Reading: Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, Daniel Okrent.

Entry tags:

pets,
rabbit

We're All Rocking at the House of Mouse

Small mouse update. I mean the update is small, but so are the mice. After a couple days of the mice getting to be at peace with each other it was time to start adding toys, which bunnyhugger had.

The first is this wooden bridge, a set of small logs with a stiff wire connecting them so you can give it some shape, even if (as happens in our case) neither end is held to anything. So it's more of a thin, hollow hill than a bridge, but it gives them access to some height. This was a big hit, as the mice quickly examined it and decided they quite liked going up the hill, and down the hill, and peering down from the apex of the bridge. The eldest mouse also started to build a new nest under one of its feet.

The next day came a new toy, and a practical one. It's a balsa-wood house, two levels with a bunch of 'doors' and 'windows' all of soft wood that probably feels great to chew. This, set in the corner, was also a big hit right away and we got to watch a lot of excited mouse exploration of how to get in, how to get out, and how to squirt from the second level to the roof. (There's no direct way to get from the first level to the second, yet, but they can chew it open in time.) It was also fascinating watching them pull litter that bunnyhugger had tossed into it back outside and set on the bridge.

This morning they'd rebuilt things, building up bedding material to pretty near the top of the first level, making the ramp up there redundant. Also they'd taken some craft paper and pulled it over one of the entrances, which can now be used in privacy. So they seem to have things largely figured out. The next thing to add: a running wheel. This had been held back for fear that it would give them something to fight over as they establish the pecking order. If that's gotten established and they don't have serious cause to quarrel anymore, they can get to running.

And now, early November, you know what happened? We adopted a pet rabbit is what and here's the pictures from meeting her! Which I might have already run but ask me if I have the energy to check that when I can just upload a half-dozen pictures again.

Athena in her carrier, ready to be let loose!

And here she is, getting her first view of her new living space!

And here she is, running away from her living space!

No ... no, bunny, don't go wedging yourself into the labyrinth of cables from our component stereo! Not with your cable-eating habit!

There, we've dragged her out and coaxed her into trying out her pen, now at the cleanest it will ever be.

Finally I give in and take a flash photograph so she isn't just a featureless black blob, and you can see how she has eyes and everything! Isn't that adorable?

Trivia: In 1546, two Portuguese agents stationed in Venice reported that 650,000 pounds of spice, much of it from Aceh, had landed in Cairo, bound for Venice. This would be enough to supply Europe for a month. Source: A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped The World, William J Bernstein.

Currently Reading: Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, Daniel Okrent.

Entry tags:

Dreams of Dead Stars, Part III, ch. 15: Unwelcome Revelations

Next chapter will be delayed for a week, and will be posted Sunday, October 5th.

( Read more... )

Entry tags:

I don't care if it's decadent

We'd had a tentative plan for today to go down to the beach at St Joseph, Michigan. Really we'd had the plan for it a month ago but other stuff came up with a higher priority. And then we took a serious look at the weather, finding that most likely it was going to start raining around 5 pm and only get heavier. Even getting up as early as was plausible that would give us maybe five hours at the beach and then we'd have to pack up under a raincloud and drive home through thunderstorms, so, we cancelled that. Maybe next weekend if the weather stays okay.

As it turned out the forecast for rain on the shore was right, although it looks like the storms are just hugging the coastline of Lake Michigan, so the drive home would've been okay. Meanwhile at home it's smelled like rain but looked like sun. We'll see what develops.

For pictures today, let me give you Halloween, including a little walk around the neighborhood and the costume contest at our local hipster bar. You'd enjoy that, I expect.

House up the street wrapped up in spiderwebs.

Not decorated for Halloween: building a building.

Part of the really big Michigan Avenue Reconstruction Project. They tore up the street down to the old trolley tracks and cut down every tree that was on the street as part of the redesign work and I sure hope it pays off.

For a while the street was completely shut off and you'd see things like this when you tried to walk along the way. It was rough for the businesses in the neighborhood, but it was all better when the road was finished and they discovered there was a bike lane now.

It was wild seeing how far down they dug; you don't think of the sidewalk as a thing you have to hop up to.

The end of the road on Clemens.

Meanwhile, going on at the local hipster bar? The Fear and Trembling tournament. bunnyhugger made these trophies for the winners, and people also got door prizes of the Stern Pinball glasses and the Godzilla translite and I think something else but who remembers what?

For the Halloween season the bar added this inflatable two-headed dragon to their performance stage.

Halloween night I spotted this obvious trap on the sidewalk outside the bar.

Here's bunnyhugger the jackalope playing The Beatles.

And here she is on stage with a bunch of other costumed characters waiting for first-round judging from the audience. bunnyhugger didn't make it through to the next round.

Another view of the stage. I think one of the contestants went as that Olympics Breakdancing woman, remember her? That was popular and bunnyhugger was annoyed at such a costume but I pointed out there was absolutely no other time that you could possibly have done that.

Trivia: The Guernsey Lily came to that island in the mid-1650s when a Dutch East India company returning from Japan was wrecked off its shore, and a Cape [ of Africa ] Lily salvaged from it were presented was presented by grateful survivors to the Dean of Guernsey. Source: Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolution, Lisa Jardine.

Currently Reading: Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, Daniel Okrent. Today I learn Warren G Harding commuted Eugene V Debs's (bogus) Espionage Act conviction, on condition that Harding meet the socialist, and did. Okrent says Harding pardoned Debs, though Wikipedia says Debs was never pardoned, possibly because Debs viewed asking for a pardon as an admission of guilt. Which is fair; the US Supreme Court ruled that one can refuse a pardon on exactly those grounds. Still, that Harding did that raises my estimate of a guy, I'll admit, I don't think of highly. Also raising it: that in a 1921 speech in Birmingham, Alabama, Harding said that Black men should vote. He didn't do anything about it, because Harding was not a person to do things, but he did decide it was worth his saying it.

Entry tags:

This Room Won't Be Open 'Til Your Brothers or Your Sisters Come

A small thing I forgot to mention the other day, but that I don't want forgotten for good. When I was driving home --- with my car at that magical 142,500 miles --- I noticed several wild turkeys on the side of the road. They were just hanging out, and looked really good in the early-evening light, with their heads almost shiny. Nice moment. I didn't know that there even were turkeys in that area. I expect to see them farther from the Interstate.

That's all. Just didn't want that forgotten. And now ... the last pictures from our big Halloweekends visit last year! The next Cedar Point photos you see on this blog will be from this year! ... Except ...

Gemini in the evening light; we're getting close to sunset and not that long before the park closes.

Way back over near what's now the Boardwalk area is this building, where long ago Helen Keller gave an important speech. Here it's decorated for the season.

Little view of the control booth for the Atomic Scrambler.

Midway Carousel, and what seems to me like a rare focus on the mirrors in the center.

And now the park is closed; GateKeeper's lights are already off, and people are rushing to the bathroom and to leave.

A last picture of the Midway Carousel, after its last ride but before they turn off the lights.

We took a shortcut through the Breakers since that was an option now, to get back to the car. It's surprising it's this dark considering there were still some people staying there through Monday morning.

And a last walk through the lobby --- Linus is writing the Great Pumpkin --- for the weekend.

Trivia: During the Great Fear --- a stretch in July and August 1789 when the French countryside erupted in panic at rumor of what might come from the aristocracy or from foreign invaders --- gossip spread at apparently supernatural speeds: in the Languedoc hills, on a single day, the same rumor appeared in places twenty miles apart and unconnected by road. Source: The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography, Graham Robb. Wikipedia notes the abolition of the feudal regime in August 1789 was a measure the National Assembly took to appease the peasantry and quiet the fear.

Currently Reading: Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, Daniel Okrent.

Entry tags:

That's Nancy With the Laughing Face

On my humor blog this week I had Jimmy Rabbit, I shared the same news everyone has about Nancy, I summoned Rex Morgan back to his comic strip, and I complained about clickbait, so please enjoy all this:

In Cedar Point Halloweekends Sunday picture you'll recall my sharing photos of two rabbits in the petting zoo. Remember that? Because ...

Ah, but what do we have here? Is it a third rabbit, hiding off under a shelter and grooming themself.

Meanwhile the other rabbits are back to facing both directions.

House rabbit still busy grooming. Are we going to see toes? No, but it's a realistic thought.

On to a show. The theme of this was they were singing to explain the mystery of who killed the guy in the picture there. As part of the show you're encouraged to sign in to the 'funeral home'.

And here's the show, explaining the history and motives of all the potential killers through the medium of 80s rock.

More of the show, as part of the dance numbers. And you want to know who's responsible for the death? Turns out the audience gets to vote.

Back outside. Here's the pirate ship set out in Frontier Town for whatever reason, and its cannons firing.

This might be the first time I've photographed the back of the pirate ship prop. There's not much to it.

Over by Magnum here's a plush fox, face down in his egg and chips.

The Monster and Gemini seen in glorious late-afternoon light.

I take a photograph of myself! My shadow, at least. You can see how I was wearing the Angel kigurumi as it was warm enough for that to make sense.

Lake Erie Eagles, the flying scooters ride, which we rode when I realized we were just a few short of having ridden every flat ride at the park this season.

Trivia: A (1939 - 1944) CBS radio show, the Gay Nineties Revue, specialized in old-time songs and barroom ballads, and outfitted the cast in turn-of-the-century costumes. Source: The Mighty Music Box: The Golden Age of Musical Radio, Thomas A DeLong. Wikipedia notes there was also a television version on ABC in 1948-49. Also, yeah, another source (John Dunning's On The Air) also says the Gay Nineties Revue cast dressed for their radio audience.

Currently Reading: Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, Daniel Okrent.