ginzo

Did they bother to clean off that seat after Robb took a dump on it?

I agree that the modified restraints help. So long as you mean "ruins the entire ride" when you say help. I haven't been on the SFNE S:ROS yet, but I've been on the other two. Having your shins fly up into rock hard bars every time you get air is not my idea of fun. If they're so worried about you flying out, why don't they just nail you to the train? That should do the trick.

This roughly translates into "because we can't enforce our rules we're going to throw away capacity on a high wait time ride". Awesome.

50 people coming in from all over the world has got to count for something, right? You'd think they'd want to impress us with what their baby can do. Is leaving the trims off for an hour really going to affect anything? Oh well, maybe Walibi World will run their Intamin at full speed for us.

Can you bribe them to turn the trims off?

Has EGF been retrofitted with those terrible new restraints are being installed on the S:ROS coasters? I'm still trying to figure out what genius thinks it's a good idea to have bars pressing against the rider's shins. B&M may win by default if all the Intamin hypers get these absurdly bad new restraints.

Diesel makes some of the coolest looking, yet least comfortable shoes out there. I've tried on several pairs in my size, and it always feels about as good as walking on pebbles barefoot.

Sure there would be. Jet lag is all about your circadian rhythm being out of whack. The circadian rhythm is regulated by the day/night cycle. Light signals you to wake up, and darkness means it's time to sleep. If you travel any significant distance, sunrise and sunset are going to be at completely different times than you're used to. Your body is going to still have that WTF reaction as it readjusts your circadian rhythm to the new situation. A good example of this is how people have trouble adjusting when the clocks are moved forward or back an hour for daylight savings.

*Shrug* Just some crap I remember reading on the Interweb, which NEVER lies. I didn't think it was entirely implausible. If you're trying to distance yourself from the seedy boardwalk parks of old, then avoiding the signature ride is certainly a good start. Also, since there are basically none of the old style parks left, they don't have to worry about differentiating in that way anymore.

If they go by Walt Disney's original philosophy, there will never be a wooden coaster at a Disney park. The old school parks that featured woodies like Coney Island also had prostitutes and freak shows, and thus weren't very family friendly. I remember reading that Walt specifically didn't want wooden coasters because they reminded him of what he was trying to avoid in Disneyland. Of course, Disney doesn't seem to give a crap about Walt's original vision these days. So, maybe it will happen. Though I dunno what Disney's relationship with Intamin is like these days. I can't imagine it's too great after the California Screamin' debacle. In case you don't know, Disney modified the ride and there was an accident.

Waldameer is awesome. Did you do Whacky Shack and Pirate's Cove?

The only problem here is that veins are the lower pressure blood vessels. Wes is right. Your feet could explode on one of those crazy inverted coasters. They're actually super dangerous, but B&M pays the government and media to keep quiet about it. OK. We're just messing with you. Inverted coasters are perfectly safe, unless you have some sort of pre-existing heart condition, which isn't likely.

I actually think that the Shedd in Chicago is a bit better than the National Aquarium in Baltimore. The Baltimore one is in a much slicker and newer building, but the Shedd has a lot more fish to look at. Both are great to visit though.

AFAIK, the family has only sued Six Flags so far. But, I imagine their lawyer will sue Intamin as well, even if to just test the waters. Intamin does have a reasonably strong position in that they installed the ride 12 years ago, did not supply the cable, are not responsible for making sure that the cable is in good shape, and this model of ride has given probably over a hundred million safe rides across the world, which points to poor maintenance. However, it could possibly be argued that not shielding the rider from the cable is a design flaw, which means that Intamin would be liable. The lawyer would need to find an expert witness to testify to this.

I can understand why he wouldn't ever install a regular woodie again. But, I think this is an example of not being able to teach an old dog new tricks. The technology has come a long way since they installed Mean Streak. All three of the current Intamin woodies are top 10 rides. Why wouldn't they want to jump in on that? At least they were willing to take a chance on Maverick. $21 million for a 100 ft. coaster in Cedar Point is certainly a departure from their previous ways.

I have a very fond memory of the rainforest room from when I was a kid. One of those birds crapped on my little brother's head.

O RLY?

Cedar Point won't get a new woodie for as long as Dick Kinzel runs the show. He told this to BeemerBoy point blank this year at their ERT. I think that an Intamin woodie would tremendously benefit the park. For a park that claims to be the "roller coaster capital of the world" they sure do blow at wood. Intamin would give them one of the best woodies in the world. Because of the CP nonsense hype machine they would EASILY become the #1 woodie on the Golden Tickets, which they just love for their marketing propaganda. And we the enthusiasts get a great woodie to ride. Everyone wins. About El Toro v. Voyage: now that I've finally ridden both I am qualified to comment on this rivalry. And the winner is: El Toro by a long shot. The Voyage just doesn't produce the absurdly intense ride that El Toro does in the back seat. There is absolutely no comparison as far as the first drops go; El Toro's is 10,000x better. The airtime on El Toro is far more potent than on the Voyage. Again there is really no comparison, except in that Voyage has more spots of airtime overall. El Toro is smoother, and feels faster overall. Some insane demonic thrust drives that train on Toro. Voyage does NOT produce this feeling of being propelled by a rocket. Toro's only weak spots are that the second half doesn't measure up to the first, and that it could use a few more airtime hills.

This is sad. Although it seems elementary to the people here, I wonder how well the dangers of rides are illustrated in the training of operators. Maybe they should go old school driver's ed style, and show lots of gruesome pictures of what happens when people jump in front of moving rides. Showing the grim reality of these accidents is always going to be more convincing than just being told "fatal accidents may occur". Most ride operators are younger, and don't have the best concept of death just yet. Recent neuroscience research indicates that the part of the brain that evaluates risk assessment isn't fully formed until about age 25.

They keep changing directors. The guy who directed this film has apparently only done TV before this project. The film is still getting a 76% and a 71 on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic respectively, which are pretty good scores from these two critical indices.

Radiohead - Knives Out

Regular sit down and floorless coasters are essentially the same thing in my mind. The sensation and experience are virtually identical, especially since I don't generally look at my feet while riding. I've stirred the CP fanboys. God help us. I'll admit that their latest installation finally lives up to the absurd hype machine behind CP.

Mantis?? I cant finish the equation as I've never ridden Medusa, but I definitely think Mantis qualifies as a good modern looper. No, that's a stand up, and possibly the worst B&M I've ever been on.

My break down: El Toro > everything at CP. Had they kept the heartline roll, Maverick might beat El Toro. Both rides currently disappoint at the end. Nitro > Wildcat > MF > Magnum. MF is really wanting for airtime, and Magnum just tracks like crap and hurts on the airtime hills. Nitro could use more powerful airtime, but I think it's easily the #1 US B&M hyper. TTD = KK. But, the stratas are both pretty worthless, at least not worth waiting an hour for. Slight edge to TTD because of the t-bars. Batman = Raptor. Slight edge to Batman because it's a lot more forceful. Medusa > ??? Nice job CP on not having a good modern looper. Skull Mountain > Disaster Transport. CP does win on flats. Though the parachute ride at Great Adventure is pretty darn awesome. Great Adventure just cannot match up to Cedar Downs, MaxAir, and Skyhawk. CP desperately needs a dark ride or something to match up to Houdini's. Bottom line for me is had they not built Maverick this year (my current #1 steel), I'd have no interest in CP on the coaster side.

British prison food. The horror.