BarryH

The differences between CA's Mummy and FL's Mummy are (off the top of my head)... - different storyline - CA's launch is flat and FL's launch is angled - No fake unload in CA's Mummy - No real fire in CA's Mummy - No backwards roller coaster section in FL's (unless you could the 10 feet of track after the scarab section) - No trick track in CA's version (or that I could feel) - CA ride ops don't play up Imhotep's minions as FL's - FL's is way cooler I rode both CA's and FL's version of the Mummy. I only had a desire to ride CA's Mummy once. I like to ride FL's version over and over again!

Since Robb fixed the attachment problem, I might as well post a bunch of videos. We can't let Robb's hard work go to waste! Here is a video of Legoland California. Yes, the park was pretty dead, but it was a Monday. I think there were about 200 people in the whole park. I think Knott's would have shut down! As usual, the video quality is not good, but I am looking into other solutions to post a higher quality video. Enjoy! Legoland California.wmv Legoland California video

^I think Elissa looked annoyed because she was at SFMM! That is enough to annoy anyone! Many thanks to Robb for fixing the attachment problem!

I'm too fat and I think I'm too tall. I might be an expectant mother too!

Hey E, have your mom read this article I wrote for the stupid DIS Boards: The Mummy and your Christmas fruitcake may be over 3,000 years old, but the Revenge of the Mummy: The Ride at Universal Studios Florida is brand new. Over a year in the making, the ride officially opened on May 21. I had the chance to experience this thrilling attraction around its official opening. Revenge of the Mummy: The Ride is basically an attraction that begins as a dark ride (a ride where you move from scene to scene and look at interesting things) and ends as a roller coaster (we all know what these are!). The ride was designed by Premiere Rides, who are known in the amusement park industry for their Linear Induction Motors (LIMs) catapult launch systems on their roller coasters. Premiere Rides has designed such rides as Batman and Robin: The Chiller at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, NJ; Flight of Fear at Paramount’s Kings Island in Kings Island, OH; Mr. Freeze at Six Flags St. Louis in Eureka, MO; and Poltergeist at Six Flags Fiesta Texas in San Antonio, TX. Revenge of the Mummy, like its sister coasters, uses a LIM system and smaller LIMs called SLIMs to move the ride vehicles between each ride scene. A LIM system allows a roller coaster train to start out fast and to create momentum without using a traditional lift hill. The system uses motors that are laid flat. A large amount of energy is applied to the motors and they create an electromagnetic wave. The coaster train surfs this electromagnetic wave and propels the ride vehicle forwards. No moving parts physically touch the train. Revenge of the Mummy: The Ride, like most other Universal attractions, has a story behind it. As we enter the attraction building, overhead monitors inform us that we are going to be extras in an upcoming Mummy movie. We move between each queue room that have movie and behind-the-scenes photos from the previous Mummy movies. As we watch the queue video, the cast members -- the handsome Brendan Fraser, the beautiful Rachel Weisz, and the rest -- tell us the curse of the Mummy. Brendan Fraser also continuously cannot obtain a cup of coffee (this will be important to remember for a surprise at the end of the ride). As we move deeper into the queue, we enter upon an old Egyptian burial chamber. As we find out, the curse of the Mummy is true. The minons of the Mummy Imhotep force us onto our ride vehicles to encounter Imhotep. While waiting in line to ride, you can hear the familiar click-clack of the Premiere lap bars. Unlike other Premiere rides, there is no seatbelt that locks into the lap bar. Sorry, but you will not be able to see the confusion as guests try to figure out where to lock the seatbelt. The headrests are unusual since they’re four vertical soft rubber pieces instead of one large plastic piece. The first portion of the ride is a dark ride. We encounter Imhotep, who does not look like the suave Arnold Vosloo, but the rotted out walking Mummy corpse. Keith Richards has seen better days! Imhotep offers us “riches untold” if we join him or death if we refuse. Just like gazing at the Eye of Mara at the Indiana Jones Adventure at Disneyland when we’re told not to, someone in the ride vehicle must have refused Imhotep’s offer because the Mummy is infuriated and then directs us to a room where we are surrounded us with scarabs. The ride vehicle suddenly moves backwards, turns around, and heads forward right into our doom. We are now entering the roller coaster part. This is our punishment. I don’t know about you, but a roller coaster doesn’t sound like much punishment. Perhaps a more suitable punishment would be watching re-runs of “Cop Rock” or listening to William Hung sing. Before we enter the roller coaster portion, the ride vehicle does an Incredible Hulk Coaster maneuver and slowly goes up in what appears to be a lift hill. Then the LIMs kick in. You hear the familiar “waaaag” sound of LIMs and we’re shot into dark to the roller coaster! The roller coaster part begins with a pop of airtime as we spiral around and move up and down on the coaster tracks. Scenes of the Mummy attacking us fly by at a dizzying rate. We’re treated to about two more airtime moments. The roller coaster portion has a very unique coaster element called the trick track. A typical coaster track either inverts a coaster train or banks them left or right. A trick track moves a coaster train horizontally back and forth, creating a lateral motion. Trick tracks are found on Big Thunder Mountain at the Magic Kingdom; Shivering Timbers at Michigan’s Adventure in Muskegon, MI; and the Villain at Geauga Lake in Aurora, OH. The ride stops momentarily for us to catch our breath, but we’re shot again into the darkness as we spiral down coaster tracks and attacked by the Mummy again. Finally, we hit the end and disembark. Brendan Fraiser finally gets his coffee, but he gets a surprise too! We walk down a long path into the gift shop, where we can purchase an on-ride photo of our terrifying experience and other Mummy memorabilia. After riding it five times, I’d say Universal has a winner on its hands. Honestly, when I first rode it, I wasn’t too impressed by the ride. I felt it was kind of fun, but too over-hyped. I think my opinion was colored because the audio on the ride wasn’t work during my first ride. I was thinking, “The Mummy is going to do what to me? Huh, what did you say Mummy?“ On my second and consecutive rides, I found the ride to be very exciting. The roller coaster portion is no more thrilling than, say, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, but it was quite fun. The only downside to the ride was the storyline was hard to follow. Even if you pay attention to the overhead monitors, it still is a bit confusing about why we’re here and what we’re doing. We hear of a curse, but how did we get into the burial room? Why are we being loaded into these weird ride vehicles? Like Sea World Orlando’s Journey to Atlantis, you don’t need to know the storyline to enjoy the experience. For the best airtime, try to sit in the back row. As the previous occupant of the Revenge of the Mummy: The Ride’s building was Kongfrontation, look for a Kong tribute in the attraction. Hint: it’s somewhere in the treasure room. Then have her read this post on the stupid DIS: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=817537 Have her watch these POV videos: http://www.nogodforme.com/ioapovs.htm If all else fails, if she doesn't ride it, tell her my mom will beat her up! I'm sure I can find a "White" in the white pages. It should be a unique name!

I tried to upload it again, but I got an error saying "The Extension wmv is not allowed."

In the meantime, if you want to see the video, e-mail me at: barry.hom@netzero.com and I'll e-mail you the video. I'm going to look into posting the video somewhere else.

I coudn't download it until I disabled my Norton Internet Security. Even then, Windows Media Player could not play the .wmv file. I suppose if you e-mail me at barry.hom@netzero.com, I can e-mail you the file. Now let's bug Robb and Elissa to fix the problem!

With all these requirements for Universal's new Fear Factor Live show, would you participate?

POSTED: 7:34 am EDT May 18, 2005 DES MOINES, Iowa -- Some University of Iowa students may be able to get an "A" in X-rated. The school will be offering a class on porn in the fall semester. All 20 student slots have been filled and there's a waiting list. Grad student Jay Clarkson is teaching the course. But he cautioned that students looking for a cheap thrill will be disappointed. He said no films or other explicit material will be shown in class. Clarkson said the class will examine the impact of porno on mainstream culture. But Iowa House Speaker Chris Rants doesn't like the idea a bit. The lawmaker said the pornography class isn't something that should be taught with taxpayer's money.

Here's a SFMM video with video of our very own Elissa. In the video, you will see... - The dirt fountain - The Parking Lot Ride - Geese - A rough ride on Psyclone (what else is new? ) - Deja Vu running (don't faint!) - Elissa admitting that SFMM was "awesome" During the day, we saw some dude drinking lemonade on the log flume ride! Sadly, I didn't get video of that. If you are sensitive to obscene words, the video uses a song by Prodigy. It uses the b-word a lot. You know, the word that means a female dog. I don't think the song would sound as good if it was "Smack My Female Dog Up." PETA would be angry for sure! Everyone else who is not sensitive, turn it up! The video quality isn't great, so no complaining! I hope you can download the video OK. Enjoy! Six Flags Magic Mountain.wmv

Here's a video of my visit to Knott's Berry Farm last month. All the rides pretty much were a 1-2 train wait, except Xcelerator. The longest wait I had for Xcelerator was about 15 minutes! The video quality isn't great since I had to compress it down to under 5 MB, so no complaining! The video is a little rough and I need to do some final edits. It'll probably end up being hosted on www.ioacentral.com I hope you can download the video OK. Enjoy! Knott's Berry Farm.wmv Knott's Berry Farm video

I wonder if this coaster will go in where Viper sits. Great Adventure could use a good wooden coaster. Rotting Lumber sucks!

How I read it was that if it was the other way around...if you didn't pay, you would have to go over and kick the donkey. I hope that's what you meant.

That burrito shot seemed so wrong, not that there's anything wrong with that!

Is Kingda Ka even open yet?

I thought SFA was an OK Six Flags park. It just had too many clones for my taste. I nicknamed the park "Attack of the Clones!" The Wild One was pretty fun, though.

R&E, if you don't mind me asking, how much was your airfare from LAX to Japan? I priced out flights from Ft. Myers to Japan for next October. Prices were at least $1,000+! Are there any discount carriers out there for Japan?

I believe there's a Hampton Inn next to the IHOP across the street from BGT. The next closest would be the ghetto Days Inn.

Source: The Ledger http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050512/NEWS/505120366/1001/BUSINESS Published Thursday, May 12, 2005 Cypress Gardens Readies For Active Summer By Merissa Green The Ledger WINTER HAVEN -- After five months of better than expected attendance, Cypress Gardens Adventure Park officials are bracing for an active summer. A new water park, a fifth roller coaster and an expanded concert series are all factors that will draw crowds, said the park's owner, Kent Buescher. "We've been very pleased from the support we've received from our guests," said Buescher, who also owns Wild Adventures in Valdosta, Ga. A year ago, Buescher said it would take 1 million visitors annually to keep the park operational. The estimate was later revised to a more conservative 750,000 guests. But then in the first 21/2 months after the park's Dec. 9 opening, 225,000 guests visited the Winter Haven attraction. The surge in visitors occurred during Christmas, New Year's Eve and spring break, said Allyson Gernert, park spokeswoman. "We had to re-project our year," she said. "That gives us hope of what the summer will look like." Now Buescher predicts 1.3 million to 1.5 million people will visit the park by the end of the year. As of Monday, the park had 800,000 visitors. Attendance is calculated each time someone enters the turnstiles, Buescher said. Being family-friendly has helped create a niche for attendance, Buescher said. "Fifty percent of our attendance has been families with children," he said. "That's where we've seen the growth." Since mid-March, 15 to 20 school groups have visited the park, making Wednesdays and Thursdays the busiest times during the week, Gernert said. In June, the park will open the Galaxy Spin, a spinning roller coaster ride that promises to be thrilling, Buescher said. The concert series also has kept visitors coming. Country singer Loretta Lynn's performance at the park Feb. 19 drew 20,000 visitors. "That was just the people who came to enjoy the show," Gernert said. "We had more people at the park that day, too." Another lure expected to keep attendance numbers steady is Splash Island, a nine-acre water park on the north side of Cypress Gardens. Splash Island is expected to open in late June or early July. The water park has an island atmosphere with a Polynesian theme featuring a variety of water rides and a wading pool. Buescher purchased Cypress Gardens in April 2004. The park, whose majority owner was developer Larry Maxwell, had closed in 2003, the result of declining attendance. Buescher paid $7 million to the Trust for Public Land, which had intervened in late 2003 to save the property from development. The state of Florida paid the Trust $11 million for the conservation rights on all 150 acres. Polk County paid $2.5 million for 30 acres of the original botanical gardens. Buescher owns the remaining 120 acres and maintains Polk County's portion of the property. Buescher has invested more than $40 million in the attraction. He changed the name from Cypress Gardens to Cypress Gardens Adventure Park. Merissa Green can be reached at merissa.green@theledger.com or 863-401-6968.

BGT has a lot more non-thrill attractions. There's a lot of excellent animal exhibits and shows. I think your mom will like looking at the animals and watching the shows while you conquer the roller coasters. The food is pretty good. I've never eaten at the sit-down restaurant, but they make some pretty good ribs. As for hotels, there are no onsite hotels at BGT. In the area, there's a Hojo, a ghetto Days Inn, Amerisuites, Red Roof Inn, and some other chain hotels. There's a few Mom and Pop hotels too.

At first, I thought "Is your spellcheck broke?" but I see now the humor. For a new ride, the Triceratops Discovery Trail is the logical place to put something. I can see the much rumored jeep ride going in there. It can have hardasaurs, donkeys, and rodents!

^The last time I was at Dollywood, there was a big sign at Thunderhead saying "No cameras on the ride." With most parks, there will be a big sign saying no cameras on ride. Other parks will make an annoucement. Most of the time, the park will make it very clear if you can or can't bring cameras on rides.

How about a video of Buzzsaw Falls? I kind of liked that one. I have video of the Starliner.

I think IOA needs a new ride. The Triceratops Encounter area is ripe for a new one. I'm hoping for a wooden coaster myself.