ginzo

^^^^Beautifully stated Ted. I've only been to Kennywood once, but I really loved the place despite the annoyance of going on a school day. You're 100% right. Seemingly little changes, like replacing buzz bars with ratcheting lap bars or installing gates in the coaster stations, would add up over time and detract from the overall classic feel of the park. Kennywood has free soda?

The big deal is the new owners could ruin the charm of Kennywood in an attempt to turn it into something that it never will be, a big corporate park.

^Passive voice usually sucks.

How does a Spanish company exemplify corporate America? Despite his problems with semantics, he is more or less on point. The Spaniards didn't buy Kennywood out of an appreciation for the rich, carefully preserved history behind the park. They bought Kennywood to make a buck. And, as others have said here, big corporate efforts to maximize the performance of smaller parks usually wind up ruining everything that was great about the park.

Wow, one of my favorite parks sold off to foreign investors. Ugh. I expect there to be a decline in Kennywood's quality and uniqueness, but I hope it doesn't go down like that. Both Cedar Fair and Six Flags did not pull off their over expansions well, and there is little reason to believe that this firm will. The vast majority of the really well run parks are managed by companies that manage just a few parks, if not just one park.

Once a group has crossed the line into starting a stupid jock fight on property, that group has to be removed post-haste. It's about protecting the other guests from these a$$hats, not about the convenience of the idiots messing up everyone else's vacation. This moron also has no concept of liability. If those animals attacked other guests after the first brawl Disney would have been liable for not removing obviously dangerous persons.

Try to spend at least one whole ride session there. IB is full of hidden treasures that are so easy to overlook. On my first trip there I just did the coasters and little else. This was a mistake as nearly everything at IB is really good. The Double Shot, swings, Falling Star, Air Crow, etc. Those rides may look like crappy carnie rides, but IB runs everything in super insane mode.

^That's what happens when you go for the senior citizen discount.

Slow. News. Day.

You're doing it wrong.

I'm sure you love Boardwalk Bullet, but local bias is real. Haven't you noticed that the most hardcore proponents of Boardwalk Bullet are from Houston? Nearly everyone proclaiming the superiority of Magic Mountain in the SFMM v. SFGAdv thread is from SoCal, and many of them apparently haven't even been to Great Adventure. There are many, many examples of local bias. I think local bias is merely a matter of exposure. When you go on an out-of-town coaster trip, the exposure that you get to a certain ride is very limited in comparison to what's in your home park. You could get as few as one cycle on which to judge an out-of-town coaster. If you catch the coaster on a bad day or at a bad time, your opinion of it won't be high. Whereas if a local gets a bad cycle on a ride they like, they'd shrug it off as just a bad run. If Kings Island, my crappy home park, does build a really good B&M in 2009, it will soar in my rankings. It would be refreshing to not have to drive 5 hours just to ride a decent coaster. As for "lesser intelligence", that's just hubris.

People with underactive thyroids can usually be treated quite easily with inexpensive drugs. As for the "set point theory", see Robb's thread in the Random forum for a counterexample.

^Apart from the information about bed bugs (a real, growing problem), that clip is mostly senseless fear mongering. Most hotel rooms are cleaner than my apartment. As long as you follow basic hygiene, like frequent hand washing, you should be fine. I always crack up at the paranoid guys at my work who spray everything down with Lysol every day. The hotel glasses story was of interest to me because you actually ingest stuff into your body out of glasses.

That's really funny. How is it bad that more people are getting to do international park trips? That's just leads to more data for the poll. And it's not like TPR is the only outfit offering international group trips. Balder debuted at #1 in 2003, and then took #1 again in 2005. TPR's first public trip took place in 2006. TPR must be pretty darn influential to have influenced the poll in years before they even offered trips to the public.

^TPR's Mini Europe Trip went through Toverland this year, but TPR also went through Liseberg last year on the UK Trip add-on. And it's a lot of the same folks.

I'm aware that urine is usually sterile, but I wasn't talking about that particular body function. There isn't much ammonia in urine, unless your liver is shot. Ammonia is quite toxic, so the liver converts it to urea for excretion.

Exactly. Putting glasses in the dishwasher = not a lot to ask. I'm really lazy about cleaning, but even I manage to stick my glasses in the dishwasher and run it every few days.

Yeah, and why wash your hands after you go to the bathroom or before you eat then? I'm not the type of germ-o-phobe who sprays down his desk and phone at work every day with Lysol. But, if I can find a simple way to possibly avoid getting sick when I travel like not using hotel glasses, then I'm certainly going to do it. The disturbing thing about this report was that it was pretty nice hotels like Sheraton and Embassy Suites that were doing this.

Did you watch the video?

It does come down to preference. But, keep in mind that roughness typically means something isn't right. No coaster vendor is going to tout roughness as a feature of their rides. The beef that we're bringing up is the insanely low position that some people ranked El Toro. Putting El Toro below the Williams Grove Cyclone is just crap. At least you can ride El Toro at night on most operating days. That's completely not the case with Voyage. It's hard to get a Voyage night ride.

http://www.divinecaroline.com/article/22250/39039 I'm just speechless. I had never even thought about this one.

Very poor analogy. Weight is most influenced by behavior, while accidents resulting in loss of limbs are often the product of really bad luck. People have control over their behavior. They can't control the jackass that T-bones them at an intersection. The vast majority of fatties just eat too damn much. It's cultural for us. Look at how much #$@# food you get at most restaurants.

It was very close this year, but last year it was not. Voyage is inevitably going to get rougher and possibly more trimmed, while El Toro's superior technology should keep it running well for years. It's probably just a matter of time. Balder, another Intamin woodie, has made #1 for 2 of the 5 seasons it has been open.

Short of replacing the original Beast with an Intamin woodie with a buttload of airtime, that ain't going to happen.

Yeah, but it's a disturbing trend. Throw in a few more of Mr. Sandbaggers ilk and a headstrong rookie like Ravine Flyer II, and the poll could be a real freakshow next year. Though I imagine Voyage and El Toro will solidly hold the top two places. The big question is who wins next time.