Scaparri

Yeah, from what I've gathered, a year and a half to two years is the norm for major coasters. Some of the guys from GCI told me that from the drawing board to opening, it usually takes them about a year and a half, and in his recent interview, Dick Kinzel mentioned that CF is starting to order coasters for 2010. I'd guess it's pretty rare that coasters require more than 2 or 3 years of planning.

Wow, I just read the spoiler and have lost all interest in seeing the movie. Seriously, they couldn't come up with anything better? This may sound stupid, but I feel like fantasy movies these days are becoming a little too fantastic.

I had no problem with it. I absolutely loved the thing. Parking lot or not, it comes pretty close to being my favorite B&M floorless. It has a little rattle to it, but I could name five or ten B&M's that I've found to be "rougher." It's not in my top ten steel, but possibly top twenty.

To me, roughness isn't exactly the problem with Mean Streak. I mean, it's rough, but I would never call it one of the roughest coasters I've been on by any means. The big problem for me is the overall package. It's this massive, awesome looking woodie that is so severely brake-raped that all possibility for thrills have been extinguished. Then you couple this with the fact that it isn't smooth in anyway and you just have an overall crappy ride. It's the same category that the Beast is beginning to fall under. Mean Streak is by no means the worst coaster I've been on, but I just have nothing good to say about it. If they kept a steady cash flow going into its maintenance program and gave the ride the proper care it needs, they could turn it into a pretty darn good ride. Unfortunately though, it's a Cedar Fair ride, so they'll just cut as many corners as they can by way of trims. I cringe when I think about what Renegade might be like in ten years.

^I shuddered when I read your events. I don't know how you do it. I've never had the stamina to be competitive on anything longer than a 200. I loved the sprint events, especially the 50. The competition is so close. You can be a hair slower than the winner and finish last. There was nothing better than killing my body for 20 seconds in an all out racing frenzy. I miss the excitement of that. I wish I had never taken a break from swimming. I would have loved to have swam competitively in college like most of my family.

I've gotta say, I've ridden the thing well over 50 times and have never experience anything remotely near ejector air on it. There have been a few times I've got some strong floater, but there are only three real opportunities to get airtime on the ride, and two of them have little to no airtime. That's just my thoughts though. Maybe we have different definitions of "ejector" air.

This ride is starting to look pretty darn cool! I love the theming on the cars. Thanks for the updates!

Let's make babies.

Fergie... some of the worst musical diarrhea I've heard in years.

Cool TR! I have a strange, unexplainable fascination with Canada and really want to visit many of the major Canadian cities, so this was right up my alley. There is some definitely some pretty sweet architecture in Ottawa and with Parliament. I've always heard that Ottawa is one of the better cities in Canada. Thanks for the pics!

^Yes, he performed one of the worst songs I've ever heard and looked ridiculous doing it. I think my ears are bleeding. Come to think of it, who am I kidding, that probably means he'll be #1 by the end of next week.

Wow, well, Usher's career is over.

^I could be wrong Andrew, but I would be willing to bet that it's not actually lit. I wouldn't think it would last very long in the wind.

1) Why would he put a job that he "worked" for two hours down on his resume? 2) How is it fair for CP to feel they are exempt from holding true to their contracts? They are well aware of what they are doing. I've known quite a few people who have gone to work at CP in the last few years after being contracted to a 'good' ride, only to be stuck with a crappy one. I have no doubt they are doing that on purpose, because they know how badly the job blows and, given how short-staffed they were last year, they are desperate to get people in. As has been said, if that's going to be the way they work, then they need to just hire people into "ride operations" instead of creating false excitement. CP's management is very dirty and corrupt and this is just one part of it.

Did you know that, depending on the outside temperature, Millennium Force's ride cycles can vary by as much as 15 seconds? Did you know that the proper pronunciation of "Huss" does not rhyme with "bus," but with "moose"?

I remember seeing Coaster ranked fairly high up, I wanna say Top 25, in the Mitch Hawker poll and was quite surprised, simply because I had never heard much of anything about it. Well, I guess this explains it! I wish Playland had Japan-style operations. I'm contemplating a trip to the 2010 Winter Olympics and it would be wicked awesome if the park was open, but I'm sure that's just a fantasy. Nice TR!

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Yeah, eating my words on that one. However, when you think about it, they actually relocated that flyer from a park that was even closer to CP than KI. Not completely trying to justify my claim, but seeing how Cedar Fair did everything they could to make sure Geauga didn't compete with CP, I just don't see them adding a massive dive machine that could potentially be called the "tallest and fastest" and "first of its kind in the Midwest" at a park other than CP. It would hurt their precious baby too much.

^Yeah, but keep in mind that the coaster is braked at a constant speed until the car reaches it's steepest point, so it's not all a free-falling drop. I'm really excited about this, but just because I have no idea how good or bad it's going to be. Like Matt, I don't have really high expectations and won't be surprised if Tig'rr is better.

Yeah Wes, I'm definitely jealous of your new ride. Once I finally graduate and pay off a little loan debt, I'm hoping to buy a Honda hybrid. I bought a Honda after I graduated high school and I don't know if I'll ever buy from another producer unless something drastic happens. I've got a '96 Prelude, which had about 103,000 miles on it when I got it in '04. It now has 190,000 miles on it and is still running great. I've had very few problems with it during that time. Of the few repairs that have been required, none have been terribly expensive. I'm convinced its going to live forever. Heck, I just took it on a 5,000 mile cross-country road trip in March and it ran perfect. My car definitely is consistent with the stereotype that Hondas last forever. So yeah, awesome buy, Wes. Welcome to the Honda family.

Did you know that the Mr. Freeze coasters actually have had two restraint changes? The first was a switch to a bulkier, more padded OTSR similar to those on Speed: The Ride, and the second was the lap bars.

I was giving him the benefit of the doubt, until I read that it was a "30-can beer case" and realized that it couldn't have been anything good.

No, not at all. You didn't dump her, you rejected her. She has to be together with you before you can dump her, you know? So yeah, just turned her down.

^I see your point, Scott, but I'm going to chime in because I am one of those who would rather not see a splashdown. First, I completely agree with everything you said. I understand and recognize that it makes perfect sense. Even though it makes sense, I still don't care for them. While they are at the end of the rides, I'm not going to consider the ride over until I hit that final brake run. That's just how my mind operates. I had the same problem with Boardwalk Bullet. The ride completely dies out before the brake run and, for that reason, it lost a few points with me. Some of my buddies mentioned that they don't care because it's towards the end, so they just consider it an eventful brake run. I can't see it that way, though. I have expectations for a ride to not let up until the very end. With that in mind, when I'm on a coaster with a splashdown, its simply a large piece of straight track in an obviously fake trench that gets close to water. As a bystander, it looks awesome! I will give it that. However, as a rider, it adds practically nothing to the ending of the ride. For those reasons, I'd much rather have forfeit the visual effect in favor of an extra bunny hill or something that actually contributes more to the ride experience. I must say though, if a ride dropped directly down into a splashdown off a bunny hill or something, and then popped right out of the splashdown and onto the brake run, I'd probably not mind at all. My basis for my disapproval comes from Sheikra, where even though there is just one large turn after the splashdown, that turn equates to practically a fourth of the ride given it's short length. For a ride standpoint, I would much rather the ride keep its momentum up, rather than burning it on a visual effect that is only noticeable to bystanders. Maybe I just sound like an enthusiast snob... I don't know!

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't see why we should be penalized for having yellow g's. That doesn't make much sense, especially when you look at the what the threshold is. A coaster without yellow g's is going to be considered "forceless" or having "floater air." It seems to me that g's shouldn't matter at all. Yellow shouldn't make a difference, and going by the rules, red should be an automatic disqualification. Just my two bits...