Rastuso

Just a simple explanation. You bashed Fox in this thread along with many others. I'm just wanting one of those bashers to give me a reason why Fox is horrible in comparison to all other news channels, especially in a non-political way. There must be some huge thing, since there is so much extreme hatred towards them. Or, as I suspect, it's simply extreme liberals saying it's not political when it absolutely is. Freedom of the press, as long as it supports the Democrat party, right? -r

Guess I'll post on topic. I rode Hellevator at the ACE media day the morning before it opened to the GP for their Halloween event at the time. I loved it, and rode it many times that morning before leaving for Cincinnati and barely getting to work on time. I also loved Dungeon Drop at SFAW. I'm amazed that this accident could even happen. Unless the cable snapped at the top, and the cable fell down and clipped her feet. Either that, or it broke off the lift buggy, and was hanging down the ride and her feet got caught in it and then she fell with the ridae and had them ripped off. Either way, it just seems so unfeasible for a failure like that. I can't see this as being anything but an unbelievable freak accident. I always looked upon these types of drop towers as being pretty much intrinsically safe. Guess I was wrong. Although this is still one freak accident in over a million drops probably. Still, not acceptable if it is from a design issue, but if it is from maintenance neglect, it is not a ride issue. -r

You mean the AP that was printing photographs of staged situations in Palestine and doctored photos from a corrupt journalist? You really think that AP stories are just the news with no bias? Did the AP report about the Hispanic guy murdered by Juneteenth celebrators ealier this week? Would they ignore a black person murdered at a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert? EVERYONE reporting news is biased. The only way to be fair about it is to present more than one person, and have them have different biases, which is exactly what Fox does. Hell, they even time each side to keep it as equal as possible. There is no sane argument that they are some evil one-sided fake news source. That's what the Daily SHow is, which is sadly where many young people get their news from. -r

^^Gee, and you're from San Francisco, what a surprise. CNN, and even the NYT do offer news. It's simply biased heavily to the liberal side. Why are things on Fox not "news". I don't understand that, and I'd love to hear you explain it. -r

Now there's a scary viewpoint. How did you come to that conclusion? Honestly, what about Fox News makes them not legally "news". And don't get political, you said it wasn't political. It scares the hell out of me how many people (who can vote) are so biased and hateful towards Republicans that they despise Fox News and think they should be taken off the air. Wake up people, this is America. Please move to China if you want speech controlled, and only one political choice, don't mess up the USA. -r

^Raptorboy CNN is the most centerist??????? That's laughable. Many of thier anchors outwardly support Democrats on air. They regularly have Begala and Carville, probably the 2 biggest lefties in the country, on spouting out talking points, and their Republicans they invite are all very middle of the road barely conservatives like Bob Dole. I guess you think Ted Turner is a centrist? CNN is less liberal now, simply because FOx News is destroying them in the ratings, which is why they actually have a few conservative voices. I still don't see how Fox can be anything but equal. I have never seen a conversation on there without both sides being represented unless no one on the left will come. I've seen CNN have MoveOn.org reps on and given many minutes to spout out thier most extreme views with not a single counterpoint presented, and the anchor agreeing to everything. But, to someone who is easily fooled by propaganda, Fox will appear very conservative, simply because they are so much less liberal than all the other stations. -r

You are all sounding like complete morons with the "yeah that's Fox News for you". First, EVERY media outlet looks for people to say parks are unsafe at certain times. Do you really think Fox News is the only one? THey were honest to Robb, which many places would not be. Second, anyone at this point, after literally hundreds of studies proving liberal bias in virtually all US TV and newspapers, and after the BBC admitted they were liberally biased, who still rags on Fox as the evil Republican controlled news source is a complete and utter loon who really needs to look up the word "propaganda" because you've fallen under its spell. You can be upset that Fox doesn't tow the Democrat line like everyone else, if that goes against your beliefs. But that sure doesn't make them biased, it simply means they are the only news channel that actually lets Republican voices be heard, and last I checked there are a lot of people who are Republicans in the this country. George Stephanopolis is anchoring the ABC nightly news for Christ's sake. Yet Fox is biased???? -r

This day was always meant to be a rest between two really long days at Disneyland. It became quite necessary since my son was getting worse, and his doctor wouldn't prescribe an antibiotic over the phone. Luckily, a family friend would. At first I didn't think we'd do anything, but he really wanted to do Dino Quest after I had mentioned it to him yesterday. He did seem better after lunch at Denny's, so we headed to the science center about 2 miles South of DL. I had found online that the folks that made MagiQuest in Myrtle Beach had put in a small installation here themed to dinosaurs. There were also lots of hands on science experiments including a huge pin wall where you could get the impression of your whole body on it. They had a neat tornado too. But, we were there for what was behind the center, Dino Quest. Here, you don't have to buy wands, you get one to use after paying the $5 upcharge. It is the exact wand used at MagiQuest, they even have MQ on them. The story is that you are helping scientists find out more about dinosaurs. Each quest involves something like identification, predator/prey, or different ways animals evolve to help them survive. You pick up a sheet that lists the information for each task, showing pictures of what you're looking for and providing clues on where to find them. Most were fossils and such imbedded in the walls around the area, but some were parts of the statues, including the very large ones. When you found the items and pointed the wand at them, you'd be told you found it. Then, after collecting everything you went to the specific uplink station to send the information to the certain scientist in charge who would award you with a fossil. There were two main adventures that required 4 or 5 fossils to play. Since there were very few folks there, we easily did all 6 quests, although we did need some help on a few. One lady and her daughters were a few quests behind us and kept asking me for help. My son did a great job figuring out some of the clues that I didn't. The first adventure was training a baby triceratops animatron. Even after earning the fossils, you had to collect things to help train it. We found food, medicine, and some spare parts that we needed to repair some equipment so we could finish the training. The final adventure was capturing a T-rex. This also involved finding some tools first, including food, the biggest net we could find, and some tranquilizer darts. We found two, and the scientist said that might be enough. Well, it wasn't, and we had to find the very difficult 3rd dart that was in an obvious place that no one looked at. The first worker that was there was very helpful in giving us clues to find things we couldn't find, but one guy was pretty clueless. Just like at MagiQuest, if you had all the right things for the major encounter, the gem outside (latern in this case) would light green, not red, when you pointed your wand at it. The T-rex battle was pretty tough and we couldn't get it started at first. You really had to jab the wand toward the screen for it to register. After luring the T-rex into our trap, we shot him with 3 darts and captured him. This whole ordeal occurred down in a cave in front of a large projector screen, just like the major battles at MagiQuest. It was pretty cool, but was the only major encounter for Dino Quest. After successfully doing everything, we got wooden coins for each fossil recovered and silicon bands for dino training and dino tracking. There were very few wrist bands there, so there must not be many kids that complete everything. Even though my son was coughing quite a bit, he loved the whole experience. I can't wait for us to hit MagiQuest down at Myrtle Beach some day, maybe once Hard Rock Park opens. Proving that Californians are full of it. Thankfully, he was already sick before making a huge pin impression on the wall that was probably teeming with disease. entrance to the T-rex battle The baby triceratops you have to train.

Now that I"m thinking about it, Ghostrider has those dumbass queues for the front/back car, not row, don't they? -r

Day 5 – Disneyland An early wake up call let us realize our son was still hacking a lot. We hoped he would make it through the day without getting worse. I made a quick bagel egg sandwich in the mini kitchen, got some Starbucks, and we were off to the Happiest Place on Earth. Nobody at the parking gates, we even parked in Pinocchio, which is used before the garage. No wait for the tram, no wait for tickets, and no wait to get in. Take THAT, Magic Mountain! First up was to be the brand new Pirate’s Lair. We get Indy Fastpasses on the way, and find out that the island doesn’t open until 9:30. So, it’s back to Indy for a standby ride which was about 25 minutes. Longer than I had hoped, but it did let my son really take in the whole queue for his first ride. He’s a big Legend of Zelda fan, and lot’s of things from those games are in the queue. He liked the spike room too. We found out that the reason for the long wait was that they only had one side of the station going. I expect more from Disney, but it is an off day I guess. My son is surprisingly not ecstatic when we get off the ride, although he did really like it. Once we were done, we head to Pirate’s Lair. They give you maps of the island that were very hard to understand, and there are NO signs. So, it is very unclear that the main cave entrance is directly to the left of the dock. We of course go right. We go through the older small caves that have a few piratey things added. The bridges are opened, and there are a few interactive pirate treasure areas. In the far back of the island is a large gold pile with Capt Jack standing there. My wife is totally in love with Johnny Depp, and loves him in pirates, so of course, she had to get pictures and flirt with him. And he flirted back. It is pretty odd that here we are in Disneyland, with an official Disney face character saying he is drunk, and that those aren’t his wenches. What would Walt think? We finally get to the main cave, Dead Man’s Grotto. It was opened up so anyone can easily get through, not like the old caves that I had to squeeze through. There are some pretty cool effects in this cave: SPOILERS************* The first thing is the actual Dead Man’s Chest that is sitting next to the path. If you grab it, it lights up and you can feel Davey Jone’s heart beating from within. There are a few points where you can see pirate loot. One of them is behind glass, and when you reach for it, either a ghost pirate head pops up, or the guy with a wooden eye drops his eye down to look at you. The next treasure disappears when you reach for it. The main effect is near the end. Our first time through we couldn’t trigger anything. A pirate lays up against the wall, apparently asleep. A skeleton is against the other wall. Nothing ever happened. So, we leave and I ask a few CMs if there is something special, and yes there is. So, we go back. Finally, my son realizes that you have to make a lot of noise by trying to open the chained door and rattling it. The pirate awakens then talks about he treasure. Moonlight comes in from above, and he turns to a skeleton. A very neat effect, done with scrim lighting, and not Pepper’s Ghost I believe. END SPOILERS************ We were about to leave the island and the pirate show was beginning on the Fantasmic stage. A short diversion with Capt Jack and 3 other characters battling over a map. It was good for the kids, and worked as an advertisement to get people to want to the come to the island, since you could see but not hear the show from mainland. We leave the island and go use our Fastpasses that we had gotten before going over. Even early in the day, Splash had a long standby wait. I just couldnt’ wait in that line watching people walk by all the time. A fun, but pretty wet ride. My son was in the front seat and got quite wet. Weather was typical LA May I guess, so it was only in the low 70s. Not exactly “let’s get wet” weather. We then hit Mansion and really missed the Nightmare overlay. But, the new effects made up for it. SPOILERS*************** The floating madame Leota head is very well done and a bit of a headscratcher. But I think the projection comes in from a fiber optic cord now. The attic is totally redone and totally changes the story of the mansion. Instead of a jilted wife and a husband that commits suicide, you now learn of a homicidal bride who beheads her husbands. The multiple wedding portraits with the groom’s heads disappearing are cool. And the new bride is top notch. The axe appearing in her hands is very cool. It looked like the whole bride was a projection. Very well done. END SPOILERS *************** Then we did pirates. I was under the impression that there were more new effects in this one than the WDW. I can’t recall if the Magic Kingdom has a Captain Barbosa figure or not, but you could hardly tell that was him. The swordfighting projection was barely seeable. The rest of the changes were the same, a Davey Jones projection on a smoke screen, and three Depp animatrons. We did some shopping, and got some new squished coins. We decided to look into having dinner at the Blue Bayou on Friday. The host said that all they had was 9 pm, which would be tough with the Light Parade starting at 8:45 at DCA. We hemmed and hawed a bit and he said he was just informed of some walkin space available, so we sat down for lunch. This was the first time we had dined here since the first Haunted Mansion Holiday even dinner. Luckily, we were deep into the restaurant away from the bright opening out into the park. I got the salmon and a cup of gumbo. The gumbo was OK, but the salmon was great. My wife had the pork chop which she said was very good. We were going to get a dessert, but decided against it. Each one had a pirate themed collectible. But they were some sort of hard candy, not a real collectible. We were finally done with this side of the park, and went to the Big Thunder. A quick wait since the FP machines weren’t on this day. Fun as usual, except for once again we had idiots girls who thinking screaming at the top of their lungs the whole ride is just SO funny. Gripe at me for racism? This is one situation where it is always white girls. It wasn’t as bad as times before (I recall turning around and screaming at a girl sitting with her dad one time after she had screamed at the top of her lungs every time we entered a cave at WDW. She wasn’t doing it because she was scared. My wife thought the father would punch me when we got off the ride, but I think it maybe made him realize that letting your kid scream at people isn’t real polite. The girls this time were one row behind me, but in the next car, so it was a bit further, and they weren’t screaming as much. However, when we got on the last lift and they started in, I turned around and bellowed out a scream for them. The rest of the ride was silent, and I heard some guys behind them laughing quite a bit. This is right up there with line jumping. What is it with BTMRR and screaming? The majority of the time there is at least one screamer on the train somewhere. And it is always obviously NOT screams of terror. We went on to Fantasyland. Surprisingly, Pinocchio had a bit of a line, but only a few minutes. Snow White is still half a ride. Next was Alice, which was under refurb the last time we were at Disneyland. We go up to the line, and two white folks get in right before us. But, they didn’t go into the queue, oh no, they stand there and wave in a parade of kids and adults that file in for a minute. Not a huge deal, but inconsiderate. So, we are about 5 minutes into the 15 minute wait and here comes about 6 asians wanting to cut up to the last bit of the queue to join some others. I of course say no way. Well, the one mother way up in line wasn’t happy. Two kids had already cut up there, but the three adults were stuck behind me. The one mother said I needed to let them by. I said no way. She said they had been to the bathroom. She was acting like they had to leave the line to go to the bathroom, which was bogus. I said they should go to the bathroom BEFORE getting in line like I did. She kept saying how it was “for the kids” so I should let them cut. Then came the greatest part of the argument. She said I was inconsiderate for not letting them through. Well, this really set me off, so I raise my voice and say “I’m being inconsiderate because I won’t let people cut in front of me????” She says yes. I quickly realize this woman is a lifelong liberal who has no concept of reality. She continues griping at me acting like I’m a villain. Of course, everyone else is silent, and I mention to my wife how no one else has the balls to say no to cutters. Well, this triggered a response from the woman in front of us who had held up the line for a parade of people earlier. She agreed that I was inconsiderate and said I was butting into other people business by not letting the kids by. This of course was also insane since I was not talking to her when she started berating me for not letting kids cut. I argue with her for quite a while and begin thinking I’m in Bizaro Disneyland. My wife did hear some people behind us saying they were glad I didn’t let them by. We noticed a lot of this going on for our two days. I must assume the average Disneyland goer believes that it is perfectly acceptable for part of the family to get in line when the rest go to the bathroom. Those stragglers are then perfectly justified in cutting into the line to rejoin the rest of the family 10 minutes later. This Asian lady was unbelievable. She was absolutely amazed that I was being so rude as to not let her kids cut. Now, what sort of signal is this giving her kids? Of course, she had like 4 kids, and no father in sight. The crowd quality has noticeably gone down quite a bit. Surprisingly, this line episode absolutely was overshadowed by a positively stunning altercation later in the week. I’m probably posting about it separately. The ride was fantastic, and vibrantly repainted, along with some upgrades to some of the effects. We all really like this ride. Now, finally, after 3 trips where it was closed, we were going to get to ride the Matterhorn again!!! I loved this the first time I rode it, quite a few years ago. The wait wasn’t too bad, and we go to the right station since it is out of view from the main queue and had a shorter line. I recall this was my favorite side last time. It just seems smoother. My son really liked it too. My son was starting to run out of gas, so we got a Mickey ice cream that was about -10 C, and took 10 minutes to thaw. We were going to do Roger Rabbit, but it had apparently ran out of fastpasses for the day already. So, we decided to put RR off until Friday and go ride the new Space Mountain, which was a new credit for me. But, it was out of FPs for the day too, and had a 40 minute standby, and also went DDM. This sorta shows the flaw of FPs, especially on a slower day. They were only using FP on about 5 rides. So, everyone was getting them, leading to these two sellouts with 4 hours left in the day. Since many people know that FPs are good for the entire day, not just the window, the rides with FP get VERY long standby lines later in the day when everyone decides to cash out for the night. Without FP, I’d guess Space would have had about a 10 minute wait. Plus, with RR, you miss the great queue with FP. So, we had really ran out of options for the night, except for Indy which we had 6 hour old FPs for. My son wasn’t up to another ride though, so I left him in TL with his mom to do some shopping and arcade gaming while I ran over for a quick Indy ride. One nice thing about DL is that you can get from TL to AL in about 1/3 the time as in the MK. The standby was huge, and the line inside was past the pole room, but really moving well with both station. It ended up only about a 15 minute wait. Some nimrod Mexican was in the row in front of me, standing up and futzing with his son’s seatbelt. The CM was repeatedly telling him to sit down and the belts would be checked at the next station. He was either deaf, didn’t speak English, or was pretending to not speak English. It held us up about a minute. I was even saying “sito downo”, but that wasn’t helping either. Great ride as usual. I got back to TL and my son was still feeling bad, so we decided to bail a few hours early. We stopped at City Hall to get some new Disney dollars. They have 3 Pirates dollars with the three main ships on the back, plus a Little Mermaid dollar. It took quite a while since they had ran out and had to get some from the safe. The parade was going on, entertaining my family. We ended up in the parade crowd leaving. We did some shopping at the WoD. I got a real nice Polo with a Mickey crest on it. My wife got a Pirates shirt, and my son got a baby Pluto plush. I don’t understand the total dearth of Matterhorn and Indy stuff. For a while they got some, but it’s dried up. I didn’t even see the newer Indy figures anywhere, are they sold out? I saw no Star Tours figs either. But they have plenty of the cool but insanely priced attraction miniature packs. We had to deal with a massive tram crowd, but got on in three trams. My son needed some major rest, and a doctor call was probably in order tomorrow. No pics, I'll have some for Dinoquest -R

Day 4 – Knott’s Berry Farm Day four was mostly a travel day. We were moving from the LAX area to the Disney area. A wrong exit presented a good chance to use our GPS device. Instead of correcting the problem with my map, I just turned it on, put in our hotel address and let it take us there. Quite cool. My son was not feeling too well, so our plans of mini golf were cancelled. He just couldn’t get over his cough and minor fever that was coming and going. So, I had some time to go to Knott’s. I heard about a great coupon at Carl’s Jr. on the radio, so it only cost $30, and the parking kiosks were unmanned when I arrived. Of course, on the way I had the Urge, so I stopped for a double-double and fries. I really didn’t need the fries, and wasn’t going to order them, but I just couldn’t resist. I mean, what the hell, I won’t have any of these for quite a while after we leave. Crowds weren’t too bad. Sierra Sidewinder was running. Of course, it had no riders. Regardless of the heavy advertising that it was open on the radio and web, it really only opened for Memorial Day weekend, with only on train. Then it shut down for them to finish the ride and get the trains tested. It was cycling 3 trains. Had Robb not told me this was likely the case, I would have been very mad. I was still upset to miss the ride by a few days, but it was no huge deal. I still had a new credit to get in the Silver Bullet. I walked right on an outside edge ride and was off. This is a pretty tall ride. Nothing new really, the same B&M inverted stuff, although I did like the overbanked turn, and the two corkscrews in a line with a little jog between them was different. A fun ride, as are most B&Ms. But, I just hate boomerang elements. My favorite inverts are Fire Dragon and Montu, which I haven’t ridden since opening year. Since many rides were closed, I had to figure out what to do next. Log ride was closed for major repairs, and I missed its awesomeness. Perilous Plunge was closed. I still haven’t got that ride. Xcellerator was open, but had apparently been down for a while, and had a bit of a line right now. There were quite a few school groups there, but nothing horrible. So, I decided to finally do Mystery Lodge. It is never open during Haunt, so I had never done it, and rumors of it’s demise are always flowing, so I waited 20 minutes for the next showing. It took way too long to get into the building, and then we watched the pointless preshow, and finally went into the small show room. I instantly realized this was a Pepper’s Ghost show. But, I must admit, it was a GOOD one. The fire effects were neat, and I noticed that they did not overlap the kindling, I don’t know if that was just where I was sitting or not, but it was very good. The first time the Indian appeared, I thought maybe I just didn’t notice him there before, but it became evident he was popping in and out of the show. My final opinion was that the Indian himself must be a Pepper’s Ghost, but he sure didn’t look like one. He seemed to be an actual person on the main stage. But, I couldn’t see any secondary glasses in the main room for the projection to be on. Perhaps in his room, there are some, and he just deftly walks around them. The final disappearance and the cane dropping really got me, so the Indian must be a Pepper’s Ghost, but he just looked much more solid than most. I’d have to watch a second time to pay attention and try and figure it out. This show is REALLY well done, and very convincing for the first time, and I knew how the effects were being done, but still couldn’t figure it out totally. The average guest, I’m sure, is very perplexed. After getting out of the show, it was time for more coastering. I’m not much of a Ghost Rider fan, so it was off to Xcellerator, since I only had one fuzzy ride back at the Scary Farm a few years ago. The line was barely out of the station. Oh, and what a horrible station it is. Who the hell thought this was a good idea to have lines for cars, not rows. The line for the front car was enormous. It was about 12 trains worth, while the rest of the lines were for 2 or 3 trains. Yeah, the front seat is good, but you aren’t even guaranteed the front seat. How stupid is that? I’d guess many cars go out with nobody in the second row. They also still have the Draconian no glasses policy, even with a Croakie. I was wearing a contact, so that was no big deal, and the ops were very careful putting my sunglasses in a cubby. I love this ride. The launch if still one of the, if not the, best. Ultra fast and smooth. I was getting insane air over the top, even with just a bit of space. It’s short, but all thrills. I went on to get 4 or 5 rides in the last hour. Only one line jumping issue with a white girl that wanted by, even though the wait was only a few seconds to get into the station. She did not press the issue. A nice mini visit to Knott’s, even though it would have been MUCH better with 3 more rides open. But, I probably would have skipped the Lodge then, and regretted it once it was gone, which may be soon if there really are coaster markings popping up around Big Foot Rapids. I headed home, and got ready for our first Disney day. Our Homewood Suites we always stay at was under renovation, but it wasn’t a big deal, and having two rooms allowed us to get our son in a dark quiet room early so he could get plenty of rest since his cough was still lingering. No pics -R

It was definitely loud enough to cause hearing loss. Besides that, I doubt it had much danger as far as the rocket exploding. And Boba is surely into self preservation. Although he told me he only had 3 or 4 seconds of thrust left when he landed. I don't know what's worse, a $500 Star Wars outfit, or a vest with $500 worth of patches on it Rastus

Day 2 and 3: LA and SFMM Our second day was to be spent at Celebration, but since we decided we did everything on Saturday, we had some spare time. We decided to hit the Grove and the Farmer’s Market. We once again got some awesome breakfast things made on fresh made bread in a brick oven. We also got some various items and had some shakes at the Johnny Rockets. We then headed over to the Arclight theater. I’d heard lots about this theater, and how it is a very high quality place. Definitely a nice place. Huge theaters with reserved seats, no ads, just a few previews, and there were employees helping you to your seats and making sure the sound/picture/patrons were top notch. We got some real buttered popcorn that was awesome, and sat to watch a pretty mediocre movie: Shrek 3. I loved the first 2, but this one much very dumbed down. This fit well with the absolute tool behind us that was laughing at everything. I swear, Shrek could have said “take my wife, please” and he would have fell on the floor laughing. He was some snooty white guy that was obviously a descendent of Thurston and Lovey. Just goes to show you that you can go to a great theater, paying top price, and some moron can still lessen the experience. Not by being an ass, just by being stupid. But, the theater is absolutely top notch. Rave Motion here in Houston is close to this quality, and they have the added bonus of 10 DLP theaters. We then headed to Pink’s for dinner. The line was way around the place to the back, just like it was when we drove by on the way to the movie. I asked the valet how long and he said he didn’t know. Yeah, sure. Well, it ended up being about an hour and a half. A few scary homeless folks came up to us in line. Too damn long of a wait, but the chili dog was amazing, as was the coconut cake. I was amazed how most of the folks in line seemed to be locals. I sure wouldn’t wait that long again. Maybe 30 minutes. I felt bad because I didn’t even think of having cash to give the lady who got my food a tip, and it seemed like she expected one. Oh well. We then headed back to the hotel. Monday, a holiday, and we are dumb enough to decide to go to a major theme park. We get to Valencia, surprisingly rebuilt after the nuclear bomb a few months ago, and find about a 1.5 mile long wait at the SFMM exit. I decide to go past it and double back. This got us to a much smaller line, but thanks to bad light timing, we still had a long wait to get to Magic Mountain Parkway. Luckily, Robb and Elissa were bringing Kidtums to meet us. I was shocked they went so far out of their way to meet us, I mean, they drove about 1 mile from their house. Must be nice to be that close to some great coasters. But, honestly, they went WAY out of their way TIME wise. As we made a dumb decision and got in the valet line, they got in the normal parking line with their season pass parking. Since there was an unending stream of total assholes going all the way down the drop-off line and then cutting in to the valet line, it took a while. The car in front of us was getting pissed, even yelling “this is why people are racist” as one SUV full of blacks was trying to cut in and the mouthy woman in the passenger seat couldn't believe they weren't being welcomed into the front of th line. Surprisingly, a few folks were getting denied from cutting in, but most were successful. Another reason why I hate people in general. I mean, there were almost as many people cutting into the front of the valet line as there were people in the valet line. And yep, sorry, but very few of them were cars full of white people. We head up to Revolution for a credit for my son. I must say, if you sit right, this is still a fun ride, and my son liked it. We still had a few minutes, so we headed up to Ninja and got a front seat ride right after it opened. Great ride, and tons of fun. Then we head to Tatsu where my wife was already talking to Robb and Elissa. They give my their free Flash passes for the day from their extreme season passes. WOW, that was great. After Robb used one with me to ride Tatsu, that gave me 7 free flash passes. Tatsu was pretty fun, but really missed out on the idea of a great terrain coaster going up and down the mountain. You were very high off the ground for most of it. The pretzel loop has insane g’s. Very forceful, fun ride. R&E had to leave to do stuff for their upcoming trips, so we set up a dinner date and parted ways. I went for another Tatsu ride, and on to Superman. They were running the left side, but it had a long line, so I skipped it. We went down and rode Gold Rusher. Funner than I remembered, but damn jerky. We had a quick snack at Papa John’s and went to Goliath. My son wasn’t feeling great, but was ready to ride it. We used FPs and got to the station. Well, he puked up a bit of his pizza on the floor after running up the 30 or so steps that you must climb after going down 30 or so steps from the unload side of the station where the Flashpass line ends up. I went and asked for some paper towels to clean it up, and got one. I got everything I could, and figured we were done. But, my son was still wanting to ride, so I made dang sure he was OK, and we got on his biggest coaster by far. I was very nervous and really questioning the whole thing, but we were going up the lift. The ride is still amazingly smooth and really is lots of fun up to the MCBR. I asked him how he was there, and we were still good. We go through the insane helii and hit the brakes. He’s still doing fine, and really liked the ride. We get an on-ride photo and celebrate his riding a huge coaster for the first time. We had 3 FPs left, so we all got on Log Jammer. I had never ridden this for various reasons and was glad to finally get on this excellent flume. We all got pretty wet, but had fun. We did some shopping and headed out. Even with the huge crowds, it was great having the passes. The parking in the morning was atrociously slow for some reason. The only thing I can figure out is that $15 is enough that few people pay it in cash, meaning more folks are charging parking, really slowing down the lines. At DL, they swipe your card and give you the receipt, no signature needed. I don’t know if they do that at SFMM or not. We valeted the car, which really hurt at $30, but it saved us a lot of walking that morning since I’m sure the wait for the tram was enormous with so many people coming in. After talking with R&E, I think we made the wrong choice, and wasted $15. We drove down and had dinner at the Elephant Bar with R&E. Great conversation, OK food. Again, I humbly thanked them for the free passes. I’ve GOT to go on one of their trips. They do an amazing amount of work to really make them special, and just blow away the ACE trips. They were working on it all day, and the detail of their planning is simply amazing. We head back to the hotel. I was wanting to hit the Metal Skool show that night, but simply couldn’t bring myself to going to a concert that doesn’t start until midnight, meaning I’d be driving around LA alone at 2 am. Had we had a babysitter for the boy, and my wife and I both could have gone, we might have done it, but I guess I’m getting old. I simply hate midnight concerts at bars. Two boobs on a coaster

Yeah, this is a bit late, but I've finished all my TRs now, so here's the first one... TR: day 1 The first day was our main reason for going to LA when it was not Halloween. In celebration of one of the greatest movies ever, A New Hope, we went to Celebration IV at the LA Convention Center. For 5 days, every geek, nerd, or ewok was there, many of them dressed up, although I sat on my ass too long and never got around to buying a Jedi outfit. So, we get to the center an hour before the show opens on Saturday. We were told by a worker that unless we were wanting to get into a specific exclusive or autograph line, we should just wait in the plaza until the huge line makes it in, about 30 minutes after the doors open. So, we did that. There were plenty of dressed up folks, mostly Jedi and Stormtoopers, but there was a decent female Han, a Tusken Raider, Biker Scout, a few extended universe Sith Lords that my son knew, and not a single slave Leia. Anthony Daniels, who was C-3PO in all 6 movies, worked the crowd a bit as he walked into the show. There were also some weird mixup folks there. A group of Batman, Robin, and Joker as Jedi was cool, and there was a very funny cartoon group of Chewie, C-3PO, and R2 that got lots of attention. But, by far the greatest thing happened about 5 minutes until 10. Out comes Vader and 15 troopers or so, and they form a large circle in the plaza. Everyone gathers around, with me and my son right on the edge of the circle with a Biker Scout staring us down. Then a shrill comes from a distance and we see Boba Fett flying towards us with his jet pack. My God it was loud, probably close to 100 db. Fett lands right in front of Vader, about 10 feet from us, shakes his hand, and they walk into the center. Celebration had begun. We went in to see even more folks dressed up, like Darth Maul and another Fett. We headed into the vendor room first. There were a few companies set up like Topps, Hasbro, Gentle Giant, etc. I wasn’t really interested in any exclusives except Hasbro’s concept Luke figure. My son entered an Attacktix tournament and got a free silver one. We got the freebie Celebration coins and Luke card back from Hasbro. We then got some autograph coupons for my son to get General Grievous’ (Matthew Wood) autograph. There were lots of celebrities, but no huge ones besides Carrie Fisher, who I got an autograph from a few years ago. It was sad to see the low-end people with no lines. And Gen Con didn’t make it easy to get autos. I probably would have got one from the Oompa Loompa/Jawa, but I would have had to go wait in line again to get a coupon, then come back for the auto. We then went to the other areas. They had a room full of Vader helmets painted by lots of different people, a small archive room which had Vader’s helmet with Luke’s head in it from Empire, and some crispy Anakin props. We saw our first slave Leia posing in front of the real costume. We then headed to the collecting room where they were giving various collecting presentations. BUT, they were also randomly giving out pewter collector medallions at some of them. We missed one by about 30 minutes and sat in the collecting at large show. There were some SCARY collectors in there that go to Mexico just to buy ice creams to hand them out free to kids so they could keep the wrappers. One of the folks was the wife of a Lucasfilm exec, so I can see him having the cash to do it. But one guy was a chemist from Kansas who travels Europe collecting different language versions of the same kids books. Quite scary. We got no medallion. The next topic was cast and crew collectibles about various cool rare stuff including the Blue Horizon stuff when that was the fake name of Jedi while filming. I had to go to the can, so we slipped out fast, knowing if they decided to hand out medallions while we were gone, and we were not in a seat we’d miss it. We did it fast, got back and still found some seats luckily. About 10 minutes later, they handed out the Luke medallions: SCORE! A great exclusive item from the event. We decided to leave with our one coin and do some more stuff. We hit the store next. Previous celebrations were poorly ran and had 3-4 hour lines at the store. We waltzed in to an airplane hanger sized store with about 5 people in it. No real cool items, really. I did get a shirt, but skipped the concept C-3PO/R2-D2 figs. I wasn’t the only one. People attending on the last day of the show got a free fig, instead of paying $20 because they had so many left over. There were presentations about upcoming Star Wars episodes of Robot Chicken and Family Guy, and both Seths were there, but I couldn’t take my son to those. We went up and got our photo op at a cool set made to look like the opening shot of the droids coming down the hallway in A New Hope. We missed the Slave Leia gathering at the full size Jabba set that was there. I saw video of about 30 Leias there, and heard they called the Fire Marshall because of the crowding of geeks there. We did see a few others walking around. God bless ‘em. We saw some other great costumes including 3 Cylons that were VERY impressive with sound and lights. One fat drunk disco Boba Fett was stumbling around with a drink. We also finally saw a real cool General Grievous. It was a simple costume, but looked really good. He let my son have one of his sabers for the photo. There was also a totally out of place Jack Sparrow. All-in-all a fantastic time was had, and we decided to not return the next day since we pretty much did everything we wanted to do. If there is a Celebration V for Empire in a few years, I can definitely foresee us returning. Of course, I had to stop at In-N-Out Burger for dinner. This was my second day to feed the urge, and my bowels felt I had had enough for a while. But, I do still love their food. A beautiful sight that I already miss Awesome drunk disco Fett Grievous RRC's dream come true A very good slave leia Cool Empire prop Random strangeness Boba Fett jets in to meet Vader Funny Chewie, C-3PO, and R2-D2

^^^^Yeah, I regret not stopping at City Hall. But I would think all they would have done was to give me an exit pass like the CM did. I think actually writing a letter a week after it happens shows the seriousness of it. But, yeah, I should have stopped on the way to DCA. ^ That's a mighty long breakdown.

^^Wow, that's racist to say you should put them all in jail. I just think the ones that actually do bad things should be confronted and dealth with. But political correctness gets in the way of that a lot. I love it when they talk about wanted individuals now on the news and they'll say something like "a 35 year old man in a white truck". They won't even say anything about the most identifiable characteristic of that person, because that might be racist. And it makes the capture of that person damn near impossible. The last two days has been a perfect example in another way. Yesterday, William Jefferson, a Democrat, was convicted of bribery and corruption. Most news stories, including the official AP articles, didn't mention anything about his political affiliation. But today, Scooty Libby was convicted of having a bad memory, and you can be damned sure every article mentions he's a Republican. There are plenty of criminal white people. Most serial killers are white. -r

Yep, my history of always pointing out what type of people line cut in front of me. Since I rarely witness white people cutting, I'm a racist in some folks' eyes. During my 2 days at DL, I had the latino incident, a huge arguement with an Asian lady that I mentioned, and a black guy a few people in front of me that kept waving more and more black kids up with him in line for Screamin'. The one white girl that was trying to get past me was at Xcelerator, and we were literally only 6 people from the station, and the woman with her said to just wait. Some people would say that is racist. I say it is the cold hard facts. Just because some people refuse to admit that some races cause more problems than others in the US does NOT mean it's not true. Look at the prison population, look at the stream of terror suspects captured. There are very clear racial patterns. It's not racism, it's fact, backed up by reality. Ignoring it will never make it change or go away. -R

And that is what I saw most at DL. People think if they go to the can while the rest of the part gets in line, that's fine. It ISN'T fine. It's line jumping. -r

^Indy has a really bad setup for Fastpass. The standby is all outside in the dig section. You hand over your FP as you enter the temple, so the entire insde queue is post FP. This is why it is such a problem, that jump over the rail saved the kid about a 1 hour standby wait. ^^Yeah, we'll you're a empty-headed wiper of other people's bottoms. ^^^We had a similar issue at Alice. I confronted an Asian woman waving her kids and friends up past about half the line. The kids darted under the rails, the adults were stuck behind me. We got into quite an arguement where SHE said I was inconsiderate for not allowing her friends and family to cut in front of me. Then, some other woman in line started in to me because I was complaining about it, and she said she agreed that I was inconsiderate. WTF!!!!!!!!!! What sorta bizarro world am I now living in when I'm attacked for not letting people line jump. I mean, being spineless is one thing, but siding with the people cutting in front of you is simply insane. This country is spiraling out of control big time. It's a damn shame. -R

Yeah, it's tough to decide who's right. In this situation, 2 of the culprits immediately started leaving the line without saying anything, an admission of guilt, imho. The third who denied it was not tossed. It is defnitely tough to deal with. I would hope a CM would realize there was little to gain for a family of 3 to lie about 3 boys cutting in line. Sadly, even when someone makes an issue, most people are still too scared or oblivious to back them up. I mean, I can see if it was 3 20 year-old thugs, but it wasn't. Americans are being taught by political correctness to be the doormats to the trouble-makers of the world, and that's stupid and scary. The person who said these folks eventually learn their lesson is simply wrong. Each successful line cut emboldens them for more, and that was clearly leading to trouble at Disneyland. The easiest way to do it, and it was being done at SFMM of all places, is to hand out tickets. Yep, that's right, SFMM was handling line cutting better than Disney, at least on Tatsu. They were handing out tickets when you entered the line, and you had to give them up when you left the large cattle area. Indy is the main ride at DL, and a big draw to teens, and should be treated as such by Disney. And a long stretch of line in a dark cave is just waiting for trouble. -r

Ahh, Shepp, you're so reliable. So, since I'm a Republican, it had to be my fault that a teenage girl was yelling obscenities at me in front of a CM? I don't care what I said to her, she should have been tossed, and if I had been saying similar things I should have been tossed. You immediately assume I'm lying about the situation, and then have the nerve to say I was a problem at RRC. Maybe you need to take a few deep breaths and look at yourself. And your example is ridiculously uncomparable to the situation. One trip to Knott's Scary Farm my wife noticed that some Latinos who were probably gang members thought I cut in front of them as we all approached the entry to a line. They were apparently really looking at me and saying bad things, and I noticed none of it. They even were punching the curtains in the maze once we got in. Real bad dudes. I would have never said anything to them for obvious self preservation reasons. But, hey, I probably deserved it, being a Republican and all. I hope and pray that Disneyland crowds have not fallen to the level of KSF crowds. -r

Thanks, Robb. Sorry for the thread devolving. Just as many people will ignore the people cutting, they will also ignore information about the people cutting. That doesn't make that information go away. My decades of waiting in ride queues has made some things very clear regarding line cutters in general. But as for stereotypes, I'm a living stereotype. Long haired guy in his 30s, and guess what, I AM a metalhead. But, damn near everything in Weird Al's new video is something from my life, and I'm an engineer. We're all stereotypes. There are always exceptions to stereotypes. I'm a long-haired engineer that plays Megadeth on guitar. Now THAT's busting a stereotype. But that doesn't invalidate the stereotype. So, when a young latino girl quickly gets mouthy in public and has no respect for anyone, that doesn't really shatter a stereotype now, does it? The verbal argument was simply me trying to get the girl to punch her own get-out-of-line-free pass. The CM failed to make that happen, which was the most disappointing thing in the whole situation. The CM should have made an example right there. Then, maybe that girl would learn being mouthy isn't always a good thing. Instead, her stereotypical behavior was reinforced even more. Damn, I gotta get off Pacific time and get to bed. -r

^^I usually point out things like that, really just for general info. You can call it racist if you want, I don't care. If I ever had an issue like this with white kids, I'd say it, but I haven't. You can say that's racist too, if you'd like. Of all of the line cutting we witnessed all week, none was done by white folks. If raw data shows racial issues, do you blame the data? -r

^^ I'm not sure how else you handle an issue while you're in line. When a 13 year old kid is verbally attacking you, what do you do? I couldn't punch her. I couldn't say what I wanted to say in front of my son. I followed up after exiting, and I'm sending a letter to Disney. What else is there to do? Especially when 99% of the people in line will let 1000 people in front of them without saying anything. -R

Well, we're back from a week long LA trip, TRs to follow. One overall comment that I simply must make now is about the abysmal state of Disneyland patrons and queue ettiquet. I was amazed at the amount of line jumping going on there. Not to mention, EASILY, the worst line incident ever... So, it's our last day at Disneyland, and we want to hit Indiana Jones early on. So, we get Fast Passes, then split up for a ride on Space and Pirates. We meet back with FPs ready to go and join the line. First up, they were making the always big mistake of letting the queue get back to the point where the exit passes the queue near the entrance. It's a long straight stretch where a line jumper can jump into the post Fast Pass checker area to avoid a long wait. So, of course, 3 young Latino kids jump into the line about 10 people in front of us. To make it easy, it was 3 boys joining a bunch of girls, so the culprits were easily identified. My wife, not ready for any crap this early in the day, mentioned it to a CM about 10 minutes later as we were nearing the safety spiel room. The CM, to my suprise, told the kids they had to leave. Two of them immediately start to walk, proving their guilt. The third is more sly and says he had a Fast Pass, and didn't leave. One very mouthy 13 year old starts saying they had passes, even though the 2 boys had already started walking away. Tempers flare a bit, and my wife tells her to shut up. Well, little miss latina bitch didn't like that. She said "do not tell me to shut up." Well, I had to take that intro, and I simply say "shut up". To which she replies, nay screams, "f*** you!" I say "shut up" again, and again get a "f*** you" back. This goes on a few more times, with me figuring the CM would kick this girl out of the line too, since she was yelling "f*** you" in front of not only my 8 year old son, but many other young kids around us. The CM leaves, and goes over the guy controlling the line into the speil room so I figure he's a lead or something, and he'll toss her. Nope, the girl stays in the line, and rides. She even bitched at the poor guy at jeep load for about 1 minute, and kept pointing at us, and we were of course waving, but the CM never looked at us, and said nothing when I asked him what she said. Now, let's recap. I'm at the happiest place on Earth, I'm 38 years old, and a 13 year old girl is screaming "f*** you" at me repeatedly in front of a CM, and nothing is done to her. Not only has Disney just gone to shit, but society has too. I would have never in a million years screamed that to some guy my father's age when I was waiting in line for the Beast oh so many years ago with my friends in band. I asked to talk to a lead after our ride, but the ride was having seriuos backup issues after closing one station, so I felt bad getting his attention at that time, but I noticed the girl who allowed the cussing to occur. She quickly gave me an exit pass for any ride in the park (we used it to bypass a 45 minute Matterhorn wait later). I'm still stunned, over 24 hours later, and am sending a formal complaint to Disney that I expect no answer from. I realize the CM was barely older than the girl cussing, but there were many kids around. Now I'm no prude, and my son is clearly aware of this word, and has heard it uttered by me before, but I'm shocked that at Disneyland a girl can repeatedly yell "f*** you" in front of a CM and not get booted from the ride if not the park. Hell, I've witness kids get booted from my neighborhood pool for it. We witnessed other rampant line cutting all over DL and DCA, and had another big mixup in the Alice queue on Wednesday that was huge at the time, but much smaller after the Indy episode. Has Disneyland gone to hell in general like this? SFMM seemed positively civil in comparison. Rastus