downunder

It's a good ride but I like all the Intamin, and B & M (and Morgan and Arrow) hypers much better. For me it lacks airtime, and the first drop could have been steeper. On the plus side the helix is killer but I am not a big fan of helixes.

She's so adorable, and such a good traveller from what I saw on the midwest trip. I'm so happy for you that she has turned out so well. It will be interesting to see if she likes coasters when she is older, maybe she will be like a Bindi Irwin of coasters, but in a cool way.

Wonderful work Robb, looks like you are having so much fun, thanks for the update even if it makes me insanely jealous of you lucky ones over there. It's a shame you haven't got Party Boy from jackass with you to do impromptu strips in Japanese stores, maybe someone on tour can take up Party Boys mantle. If I wind up heading to Europe might have to go via Japan.

Good to see Australia pound a team of midgets 91-3, may be a different story against Wales at Cardiff this week. Lote Tuquiri looks like a very frustrated footballer not playing well at all. Props to the Argies for beating the Frogs, that win was based on pure ticker, the Pumas were just throwing themselves at Les Bleus. The garlkic eaters will pretty blue if they go down to Ireland - no quarter finals for you! All credit to minnows USA and Namibia for really taking to more fancied rivals, they both should have gone down by a 100 points and actually had reasonably tight games against England and Ireland. The All Blacks, are they peaking too early, will they choke again, only time will tell.

I much prefer Facebook, the layout is a lot better, and it has a bit of privacy, and I find it is more fun than Myspace.

I brought a 6 gb iRiver MP3 player for $90 Australian, an absolute bargain, a third of the regular price.

I haven't been on Phoenix, but out of the ones I have been on, definitely Cornball Express, that absolutely rocked in the back. Cyclops at Mt Olympus is my strong second scraping in at 75' tall with a 70' drop. Honourable mentions to Jack Rabbit and Thunderbolt (70' tall but 95' drop)at Kennywood.

Cedar Point was the only park on the midwest trip that I had already been to, and in spite of all the difficulties it was still the high point. I really loved Maverick which I wasn't expecting to do, just like a lot was my expectation. It was great to be there and enjoy other people on the tour experiencing Dragster & Millenium Force for the first time. Cedar Point doesn't have any coasters that are 10/10 for me (which is only El Toro & SFNE Ride of Steel) but it has plenty that are right up there.

I rode X for the first time since 2004 a couple of weeks ago, both times front row, 1 ride inside and 1 out & I have to say that it was much rougher than the previous times I rode it. That aside I still love the ride personally, it is just wild. X was only running one train due to maintenance being done on the other train it appears. The cycle times were slow, minimum 6 minutes but a lot of that seems to be inherent in the whole load/unload process. It was good to finally get up the sky tower for the first time, only took 10 visits over many years. The right side of Superman was running (but not the left) which I believe is rare. Gotta love Deja Vu's single rider line. SFMM seems to be improving but there's still plenty of work to do but it was the best visit in a long time.

Finally a Paramount Park gets a genuine marquee coaster (I know it could be debated) in my eyes. While I don't like the B & M Hypers as much as the Intamins, I still enjoy coasters like Nitro even though I wish it had serious ejector airtime like Ride of Steel.

Robb and Elissa work so hard with no expectation of reward except providing a bunch of people with a kick ass good time, I hate it too when people tell them what to do or make ridiculous demands. Being on the mid west trip, I was amazed at the attention to detail, and how incredibily well thought out everything was - I expected this would be the case before the trip but R & E far exceeded my expectations, and they are nicest people.

I went to Mooseburger as well with a 20% off voucher and because my friend got a silver season pass I got in free, it was a good day for discounts. And this really incredibly cool dude gave us some free flash passes and we got to meet the new director of operations for the park who was very nice, and we had dinner up the road after with some rather great company. I won't mention names because they are very humble people.

I went there last thursday (8/16), and the only real lines were for X and Tatsu. X was pretty bad but not as bad as it could be (1 to 1.25 hours around 6pm), only one train running and a dispatch around every six minutes. It sounds like they are going to fix the inefficient loading/unloading process when they get new trains and re-do the station, so I've been told. I actually had a good day there on Thursday, which was unexpected.

Cora, love the illustrations, there were so many people on the tour I'm still trying to figure out who is who on the message boards. Were you the girl who did the Arrow bus sign?

The brake on the turn after the second launch on Maverick, I guess they must have thought it would be too intense - still it was a ride I really liked.

I was wondering that too, I just sent in $255.00 just to be sure.

I just sent my deposit for the Europe Trip, hope I get in.

I didn't have any huge expectations of Maverick and I pleasantly surprised, I really enjoyed Maverick. Some people found the different elements rolled together a bit random but I liked it, it was like having the best bits of a lot of coasters rolled into one ride. The first drop was great, especially at the back, I wish the drop could have been bigger though, and the brake after the second launch was a bit of a shame.

Ghostrider at Knott's Berry Farm, damn it's rough now, I got off and I was 3 inches shorter. Derek, you certainly were an interesting sight when I was going down one of the drops on Thunderbolt at Kennywood, very nice hip and pelvis action.

I'm actually on the midwest trip and I am completely oblivious to all this stuff happening - too busy riding everything. Holidog was getting plenty of action by the looks of it, and he picked at the dinner visit - leaving arm in arm with one of his fellow workers. Beech Bend and SFKK were a great day, Kentucky Kingdom were gracious and very accomodating hosts and the park was a lot of fun.

I couldn't imagine any girl I've been with being into coasters, it's just not seen as cool. I'm just not bursting to talk about coasters anyway, so I don't mention it. In fact, coaster enthusiasm is a sure fire path to ridicule outside of coaster circles. I just sneak off overseas and get in some rides, and don't really tell anyone what I'm doing, albeit the majority of my travel in the past has been spent doing non coaster things. It will be interesting to see how I go on the midwest trip, I've never nothing but parks for so many days in a row.

Glad you had a good day at La Ronde, I didn't. I got only one side of Le Monstre, I got burned at the kiddie ride lining up only to be told I couldn't ride when I was just about to get on, I missed the Dragon credit because I didn't know it was there (my fault), and worst of all Goliath would not come until the next year. Love the location, I really liked Parc Jean Drapeau.

Is this purely for renovation/makeover or new attractions as well? State the obvious: more coasters please and good ones at that.

There is a rumoured Happy Gilmore 2 (with Sandler), maybe Drew and Adam can have a noteworthy stoush like the Bob Barker one in the original. "The price is wrong, bitch."

I second that, the number of idiot's in parks I'd love to beat the crap out of. I'll tell the police it was the practical examination for my next karate grading. Great Adventure or magic mountain should hire that woman as security, though it looks like she'll be going from Sweet Home Alabama to Sweet Home State Prison.