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.