www.oddchange.com

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.

The humidity here made it feel so several weeks ago. I’ve still been walking to lunch a few times a week, then toweling off and running my desk fan when I get back. I may have to give that up soon. Why people *choose* to come here on vacation sometimes baffles me.

I haven’t posted anything lately because there just wasn’t anything remarkable enough to mention. (My Facebook blurbs have conveyed things pretty well.) There are a number of trips on the horizon though, which should make for a fun (and busy) few months. Trip is now at a weekend Scrabble tournament. NPL is in a few weeks, then Trip and I are going to Orlando for a combo Scrabble tournament/vacation. Mid-August, I’ll have my next pinball tournament, the PAPA world championships.

While Trip is Scrabbling in Orlando, I’ll have the afternoons free to do other things. I’m certainly driving over to Cape Canaveral for a day to tour the space center. I’ll drop by Rocky’s Replay for some decent pinball selections. And beyond that… who knows? I’m interested in ideas that don’t involve theme parks for a change.

A recent story from The Courier Herald about the wonderful world of crackers.

So I finally got up the nerve to install my own software into a real pinball machine. To date, all of the testing has been in emulators and such on my PC. Eventually, I knew I wanted to see it working in an actual game.

Here’s some video of the state of things by day 2. (You can ignore the last minute, that was just some test footage that mistakenly got included.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93eiFOYWs8M

In some sense, it’s no surprise that it works since I’ve been improving it for so long. But it’s still quite cool.

I’ve already found a few things that need to be tweaked, and there’s plenty I haven’t tried yet, but in general it’s looking good.

Just wanted to say that last night’s party down in Miami was a success. Dozens of people were there to play about 30-40 games, mostly in the WPC era. The games were in great condition, fast, and tough to play.

My best games for the night were a 421M on Addams Family (one Tour), a 1.2B or so on Whitewater (nearly got the Vacation Jackpot but “accidentally” started multiball sooner than I wanted), a 13B Attack From Mars (only needed to finish Conquer Mars to light Rule the Universe), and an 80M or so on Medieval Madness (hehe, never finished off the Dragon ramp even once).

I enjoyed the Whirlwind and Banzai Run also, but didn’t do as well there. I only saw the topmost shot on Banzai (”Red Hot”) made two or three times all night.

Fantastic collection guys — thanks for all the hard work pulling it off!