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Today I’m heading to PAPA for this year’s World Pinball Championships. You can track the results of the tournament live on their site. I’ll be competing in the A division in the main tournament, and in both of the Classic Tournaments which are for smaller stakes and played exclusively on older machines.

It’s been many months since my last pinball trip so I’m definitely ready for this one. Aside from the pinball, the only definitive plan is dinner at Max and Erma’s one night. A 7-11 run for slurpees is highly likely, too.

Trip and I just returned from 5 days in Orlando for the Scrabble Nationals. He’ll go into plenty of detail about the tournament itself; I didn’t compete but was there for moral support and a mini-vacation. While he was playing, I had free time to do whatever I wanted. I haven’t had a vacation like this in some time, and I wasn’t sure going into it exactly what I would be doing. In the end, I didn’t do that many noteworthy things, but I sure enjoyed the time away from the office and the freedom to drive around and explore.

Friday night, before the tournament started, we hit Uno’s for classic deep dish pizza and then saw The Dark Knight. I also remembered how terrible the traffic is on International Drive. I would try to avoid it all weekend long.

On Saturday, I met up with my friends Adam and Ryan at Rocky’s Replay, a great pinball arcade just north of the city. We planned to meet at 2pm; I actually got there a few hours earlier. We played together for about three hours, then I returned to pick up Trip from the hotel. I then realized that his schedule was such that Saturday night was the only possible time he would be able to go to Rocky’s. So after five hours of it, we both drove back for another two hours. It was really the only thing I did that day. And yet, it’s still not as much pinball in a day as goes on at PAPA.

Sunday, I decided to scale back a bit and wander around downtown Orlando proper. Honestly, I didn’t see much. After a few hours of driving and making a few disappointing stops, I gave up and drove back to the hotel. I was content to enjoy the insanely cold A/C and free Internet in the room for a few hours. That evening, there was a reception for the Scrabble participants and guests, which gave me a chance to mingle and socialize a bit; that was particularly nice after so much solo time today. A few of us went out for dinner and dessert after that, before turning in.

On Monday I had an agenda again: a visit to the Kennedy Space Center. It’s only about an hour’s drive from Orlando — that despite numerous toll booths and some late afternoon traffic on the return trip. I had about 5-6 hours there, most of which was on a tour bus driving close to some of the more familiar shuttle facilities: the ginormous 525-foot VAB, the two launchpads, and the landing strip. I also watched the Tom Hanks IMAX film about the moon landings. Sadly I had forgotten to bring a camera for it all.

Tuesday, the final day of the trip, was a lot like Sunday: driving around, stopping here and there as urges struck me. On this day, the urges were coffee, a milkshake, various shopping, and watching the new X-Files movie, which I found rather boring.

We drove back late Tuesday night after the final 28th game of the tournament. Trip is off to California now for business. In a few weeks, we head to PAPA for the second World Pinball Championship of the year.

The following editorial, written by a pastor, urges us all to reach out to all those poor lefties.

For the bonus, read it again and replace lefty/left-handed with “gay”, and righty/right-handed with “straight”.

Read it here.

Not sure how it got its name, but index gymnastics sounds much more lively than it appears to be.

I’ll admit, I’m not really a tennis fan. I’ve never played it seriously, I don’t follow it, and I really don’t understand a lot of what it takes to be good at it. But in the last year, I’ve been watching the majors and I’m finding them incredibly engaging. Growing up in a small town where football is everything, I was never exposed to the game much. But now, I’m convinced that top-class tennis players are some of the most amazing athletes on the planet.

I’d been following Wimbledon since it started a few weeks ago. I was intent on getting up yesterday to see the men’s finals. I had no idea what I was in for. After watching the first two sets, I was convinced that it was as much as over — and left for lunch and to play some pinball. Many hours later, I returned, only to find the match *still* going. I only caught the last few games of the fifth set, but I was blown away by what I was seeing, and can only imagine what I had missed.

Both Federer and Nadal wanted to win — badly. I respect and totally understand their competitive nature. Not everyone has that sort of drive — I consider myself competitive, but I’m nowhere near their level. On top of that, they have incredible abilities. Those two attributes together, pitted against each other, was just a joy to watch.

There doesn’t seem to be anything noteworthy about the number 34. The first thing I could think of was Herschel Walker’s jersey number, but that’s not something we Georgia Techers like to talk about…

So I turned 34 today, without much fanfare or hurrah, but it was still a very pleasant day. I ended up staying at work a little longer than expected (the parking lot was nearly empty when I left), but once home, Trip and I had a nice dinner (steak, wine, and key lime pie), a smaller version of what we’ll have Saturday night with a few friends in attendance. Then onto the presents — a few shirts, a book, a DVD, and a new wallet. I also talked to my parents and replied to lots of well-wishing emails.

Tomorrow, I can sleep in — without setting the alarm clock. I had forgotten until today that I actually have to work on Monday, but aside from that, I’m off until July 14th. So far, off to a good start.

Maybe this is already well-known, but I hadn’t seen it before. It happened to Trip twice within a few days.

At the end of Mystery Spot multiball, there’s a brief ball saver, so if you lose all of the balls, you’ll get one back. Turns out that you don’t always get it back. If you drain your last two balls almost simultaneously, like within half a second of each other, then the software sees it as a change from 2 balls in play to 0 balls in play. And the ball saver is only turned on when there’s exactly 1 ball in play Sorry, you lose.

In thousands of games played, and probably hundreds of Mystery Spots, I’d never seen this before.

There are probably way more corner cases that are worth fixing than this one, though. You could also argue that a ball save isn’t deserved until after the multiball ends and the flippers become normal again. Still, an interesting find.