ginzo

^How is it bashing if they're just reporting what happened? Isn't that the job of the press? To tell people about newsworthy events?

^Right, I'm just trying to explain where the sentiment might come from. Expectations that were perhaps set too high.

I'll take a stab at it: The skillet food was really hyped up in TRs. So, I guess I was expecting too much because I found the Philly cheese steak to be vastly inferior to what you can get at friggen' Penn Station. You know, just regular old Penn Station that you can get all over Ohio. No need to go to Philadephia for their super 31337 local heart stopping, only-available-to-awesome-East-Coast-people fare. I think the skillets put on a great spectacle. It really does look fantastic. But because of "the show" they wind up leaving the food in there too long, which causes it to get overcooked and soggy. But, yes, I don't know where to get a better Philly at a theme park.

To those who think the media are guilty of malfeasance here, what exactly did they do wrong? I can't find any problem with the story. It seems like a newsworthy event and the reporting seems basically factual. Am I missing something?

^That sounds like a pretty reasonable plan. Though you might consider doing UO/IOA first (aka the weekend) as Disney usually gets the bigger crowds. It's pretty easy to park hop at WDW when you have a car. Though, if you're really broke, you can possibly park at Downtown Disney for free and take the buses around WDW. This would take a lot of time though. Also, be sure to hit Midway Mania at MGM. It's surprisingly good.

^Hey! You know it's not cool to joke about people's deities.

I'm going with #0, the Ice Bat crucifixion scene. Most people don't realize what a nasty way to die crucifixion is. It's a very slow death. It takes hours or even days to die while you're up there naked, attached to a pole for all who walk by to see you, ridicule you, throw stuff at you, etc. Animals, like packs of wild dogs, may come along and start chewing off pieces of your body. Eventually, you die of sepsis, shock, blood loss, or even dehydration. But it's a horribly slow and agonizing demise. Notice how calmly Ice Bat accepts his fate, as if he's from another world. A better world. Ice Bat must truly be our lord and savior.

Because so many of the US parks have been run with that mentality. Bigger, faster, taller = better. To speak to the general topic, SFKK does need a nice, new addition. What would be a suitable addition for a park of this size? GCII or Gravity Group woodie? Themed custom Maurer Söhne spinner? While I'd love an Intamin Mega-Lite and think this would be perfect for the park, I doubt this is in the budget or even desired by Six Flags who seems to only want family rides these days.

You can get wet on Diamondback if you ride in the very back seat and stick your hand out to the side into the water. Other riders can potentially splash you in this way. I doubt this is going to have any affect on your iPhone, but they have bins in the station if you want to use them.

Listen to Erik. *Everyone* runs to Diamondback first. The Diamondback line dies down later on in the day because it's such a people eater. You're much better off getting Firehawk and Flight of Fear out of the way first thing.

Great memories. I remember a hot Danish chick ride operator on the kiddie coaster at Tivoli Friheden telling me, as I struggled to fit into the restraint, "This coaster; it is for children!"

Embarrassing politicians is perhaps when Mr. Cohen is at his best. It's not so much about politics as it is about making public figures look bad on camera. I suppose it might be less funny if you had never heard of, say Alan Keyes, before you saw Borat. Anyone can do staged/scripted comedy, but there is something magical, for me, about bringing in a very unwilling victim to the joke.

The argument is to reduce the impact of human errors. I think my original thoughts were a more reflection of my vehement bias against humans driving cars, a task that we just plain suck at. The car companies are working, albeit slowly, to computerize the driving of cars. But it's a long way away. And I can't wait until it gets here. The Copenhagen Metro is driverless. It's a small and relatively new system, but AFAIK it hasn't had any major problems.

Although I thought certain parts of Brüno were hilarious, I felt that overall the film didn't work as well as Borat did. In many ways it seemed he was just going for sheer shock value. This happened to be quite funny some times, but other times it bombed for me. Mr. Cohen seems to be resorting to more obviously staged stuff, which just isn't as funny as when the people aren't in on the joke. In this respect, he might be a victim of his own success because his antics are so well known it's most likely difficult to lure in victims. In fact, that's why he had to leave Britain in the first place. He was too famous. Also, having been following Mr. Cohen's comedy since his HBO show (I own both seasons on DVD), I'm starting to notice that he tends to wear out certain gags. The confusing one word for another trick is getting tiresome. Like confusing hummus for Hamas.

Yes, totally "better than Balder". Actually, Jet Star might have been my favorite coaster at Särkänniemi. Glad your rain dances worked. This ride almost killed our perfect record for the trip, which would have been a bummer. Is this the only TPR trip where basically everyone got every credit?

Just in case anyone is curious, the hideous new rolling stock on Jet Star ran quite well. I was concerned that the lap bars and more enclosed cars would kill the ride experience, but the ride seemed to be roughly as good as the Indiana Beach Jet Star. The new trains are not as open as the original Schwarzkopf ones were, but they really seemed to haul ass. Maybe it was the rain? Or maybe the new trains are heavier?

Just have a midget kick you in the head for two minutes. That's about the same experience as riding that horrible DLP Space Mountain.

Heck, didn't the rides manager tell us a story about Anton Schwarzkopf's brother personally supervising the construction of Jetline? Something about leaving Anton's brother stuck up in a cherry picker while the construction crew went on a coffee break. I think Schwarzkopf's firm did go bankrupt several times, but he then worked with other firms to get his projects completed. Something like that. Anton was apparently better at designing and building coasters than he was at being a successful businessman.

Oh dear:

^Even if you consider Kennywood to be urban, the urban park has really died out in the US compared to what we used to have. A quick trip to RCDB will confirm this. We used to have dozens of them. Now hardly any at all! But Scandinavia still has: Tivoli Gardens Liseberg Gröna Lund Linnanmäki Särkänniemi I think a few of the smaller parks were right in urban areas as well, but I won't get into that.

^Actually, only Power Park could be considered a country park. The other two Finnish parks are very much urban parks. Even though the urban park has long since died out in the US, they're still going strong in Scandinavia.

^^ http://parisbytrain.com/files/2008/06/h_a_jo_mlv.pdf According to the above time table, you can take the RER A line from Paris-Gare de Lyon in ~40 minutes. The station you'd get off on is Gare de Marne-la-Vallée - Chessy, which is almost at the front gates of the two Disney parks. But you'll possibly have to take the Paris Metro over to a station that is on the RER A line (like Paris-Gare de Lyon), which could add more time. So, realistically, you're talking at least an hour to get to DLP and possibly 1.5 hours. Paris's public transport is quite good, BTW, if you take the time to figure it out.

I think the answer really depends on how much time you have and what your sightseeing priorities are. If you only have 1-2 days and are more after culture credits, then you should probably skip DLP entirely and just see the city. Paris has endless things to do without ever taking the train out to Marne-la-Vallée. However, if you have adequate time and are into parks, then by all means go. One thing to keep in mind is that DLP is relatively newer and therefore doesn't have as many attractions as the more built up Disney resorts. Therefore, if you're just after the highlights and you go on a less busy day, you might be able to get everything you want to see covered in just one day. Some things to definitely check out are: -Big Thunder Mountain -Phantom Manor -Pirates -Tower of Terror (The CMs really put on a good show for us last year.)

Death is.

^$17.76 for 4 tickets.