The year 2023 concluded with two final arcade trips. The first was Friday, December 29, at Cidercade. I had a good feeling about this night the moment I got lucky and had someone leave giving me a decent parking space in a mostly full lot.

Dinner tonight was from the food truck that was on-site, Lovebird Hot Chicken. This is easily one of the better food trucks I’ve ever ordered from. I had the chicken tenders basket. I opted to go ahead and get the house sauce, which is something I don’t do often.

For better or worse, I didn’t get pictures of my food. However, I did get my usual score pictures. Among the more notable highlights of the night: 80.4M+ on Monster Bash (trying my best to do the “spam the Mosh Pit lane” strategy I saw on stream at last year’s IFPA Texas championships between Colin MacAlpine and Phil Grimaldi); 149.5M+ on Cactus Canyon, notable because the game had rather weak flippers yet I was still able to reliably make shots (and the start button bounced a lot, so it was a two-player game, and my initials were mis-entered as “SKK”); 17,650 on Zaxxon, which may well be a personal best (not one of the games I’m all that good at); 3.63M+ on Heavy Metal; and 53.5M+ on The Walking Dead.

A couple nights later, it was New Year’s Eve (December 31) at Little Dipper. I spent maybe $10 on pinball coin drop and about $5 on a beer after tip. Most of it was on Terminator 2, a game I remember fondly from my days playing pinball as a teenager (though I may have seen this game around a couple of times after I hit my twenties). At first, T2 was a drain monster. Finally, though, I hit my stride and put up a solid 127.7M+ for high score #2. Also notable (arguably the better achievement) was a 38.4M+ on Scared Stiff for high score #1, during which I made it to Monster Multiball for the very first time. What a great way to end the year!