12.08.2025 (Pinball League Finals Edition)
To get the non-pinball related stuff out of the way first...
My work contract got extended until June 30th. Yay! I like working here so I'm happy to stay and my coworkers are too. I'll start seriously looking again in the spring but it'll be nice to have a year under my belt at [LARGE CORPORATION] and it's going to make my resume look good. Ok I promise I won't write about work on here for a long time.
Last Saturday a bunch of friends and I went to MICE (aka the Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo). As many of you know I'm a big comics enjoyer and have been going to this pretty much ever since I moved to Boston. I only picked up a couple things this year, mainly a signed copy of Jesse Lonergan's Drome which I am super excited to read.
ALSO on Saturday I went to my friend Steph's birthday party. Really great vibes and food and people. Her apartment is like immaculately lit and I really need to step up my lamp game now. I had to dip early though to go home and go to bed so I can wake up early for...
My big Sunday thing was my pinball league's season finals. Despite this being my I think 4th season I still haven't gone to finals yet. I don't think I've ever really officially qualified as I've never finished in the top 32 of my division (I was 44th lol) but they have a waitlist and this time I was able to get in.
The day started bright and early at 6:45 am where I picked up a couple friends and began the trek all the way up to Funspot in New Hampshire. It was fun the more north we got and the more snow we saw accumulated as we're currently having the classic Boston experience of really cold days with flurries that last about 15 minutes at most.
To be honest, I wasn't expecting to do that well in the tournament because I haven't played most of the games at Funspot (the last time I was there was back in April and the layout was mostly the same but of course I'm sticking to the games I actually like) and I'm only really used to playing games at my regular venue. But I wanted to experience finals and hang out with my friends which was my main priority.
And I ended up playing pretty badly! I got put on 3 games that I had never played before (The Hobbit, Grand Slam, and the older X-Men game) and my last game was Xenon which I had only played once or twice before. I came in last place on all the games I didn't know and landed in third on Xenon.
It was kinda discouraging to be honest, driving up all that way and getting absolutely washed. My friends say that I got a shitty bank of games which I totally agree with. I was kind of losing my mind watching other people in my group play The Hobbit. I'm not a fan of Jersey Jack games for many reasons but the animations that were being played on the screen reminded me of those tiktok sensory overload videos where each quadrant of the screen was being covered with like family guy clips and it looked so horrendous. The game itself played slightly better but not by much. The other games (minus Xenon) were bland and boring and I didn't know the rules to any of them so it kinda sucked.
The rest of the day was much more fun because me and all my friends that also got knocked out first round got to just fuck around Funspot for the rest of the day. Funspot bills itself as the world's largest arcade (dubious) but their arcade game selection is a little questionable. It's mostly 80s cabinets but for every Donkey Kong or Double Dragon there's twice as many really bizarre lesser-known games that just aren't very fun. Many of the cabinets are in kind of dire shape too. Also the guy that runs the place doesn't want anything from the 90s besides a couple broken Mortal Kombat cabinets, Crazy Taxi and a handful of more modern driving games which really sucks.
Their pinball selection is very good though. Great variety of games spread out through the whole place. They got a lot of classics and a couple really quirky ones like Big Guns. I even got to spend some time with my beloved Black Knight and some of the newer Sterns I haven't played much.
I'll probably write about this more during my year end blog post but I'm really happy I joined my local pinball community. Despite playing pretty poorly I had a really fun day cheering on my friends and playing strange arcade games. Not sure when I'll go to another league finals but maybe the next time it's at Funspot I'll be a stronger player and make it past the first round lol.
