I had high hopes for this year’s installment of the Valentine’s Day Stoplight Party at Cidercade Houston. I have looked forward to this event with anticipation both last year and this year, especially after the unfortunate Valentine’s Day ice storms of 2021 (which does not have an official name despite the practices of one particular weather news outlet).

As usual, I mainly stuck to pinball, with the occasional video game here and there (though the picture gallery may seem to contradict this, as the number of pinball and non-pinball titles are almost evenly split, keep in mind that I often post only the highest score from each individual pinball or video game title).

The most notable scores: 46949 on Centipede (the devilish 2 lives/10k settings one which for some reason I seem to do better on), the 36k on this particular version of Skee Ball (easily a personal best, though I put up a 33k not shown in the gallery just two minutes earlier), the 705M+ on Ghostbusters, the 711,980 on Toy Story 4, and perhaps most surprisingly, the 10.1M+ on Heavy Metal, which wasn’t even enough to get on the high score list despite being my personal best score ever.

The biggest disappointment: a dearth of green wristbands on women. The few I did see were women I had no interest in dating. These type of events can be very hit or miss with regard to the romance aspect, and for me so far they have been misses. Here’s hoping that changes in 2024.