downunder

^To be fair, if the Sexual Orientation thread is anything to go by, then statistically there is a 1 in 5 chance that he may indeed like smoking blue veined cigars. Not my bag but to each his own if in the 20%. But I digress, looks like the trackwork is complete but they seem to have a phobia about updating the blog, major events like the top-off and completion of the track don't seem to warrant blog entries. Hopefully the coaster actually opening might wake the PR department from their slumber. I'm amazed at how low to the ground most of the coaster is, not that that is a bad thing, I think Maverick showed how good that can be. Will GeForce and Bizarro have a new challenger?

- Favorite new coaster Balder - Favorite new ride Ghost House at Liseberg or SCAD Tower at Tivoli Friheden - Favorite new park Liseberg (I didn't go to any parks that were created in the last decade so "new to me") - Most memorable park moment SCAD Tower at Tivoli Friheden or Halloween Horror Nights Universal 2009. - Most memorable coaster moment First ride on Dragster in Aug 2003 at 11.45pm, sitting at the lights wondering if I had bitten off more than I can chew, amazed I was actually at Cedar Point - Best ERT session Boulder Dash, but every night session was amazing and special - Least favorite coaster Roller Soaker at Hershey - Least favorite ride The Ranger at Luna Park Sydney - Least favorite park Luna Park Sydney - Most interesting ride you've seen introduced Revenge of the Mummy - Orlando - Least interesting ride you've seen intoduced Journey To Atlantis - San Diego - Your favorite TPR moment (favorite post, trip report, video, whatever!) Reverse Expedition GeForce POV with the camera mounted on the front of the train - The decade's biggest flop Hard Rock Park, so ill conceived it borders on criminal - The decade's biggest success Intamin pushing the envelope - The best meal you've had at a park Bakken buffet TPR Scandi tour - The worst meal you've had at a park LaRonde - the hamburger tasted like ham - Best park turnaround Magic Mountain (Valencia not Merimbula) - Worst park turnaround Knott's Berry Farm - What was the biggest trend of this past decade? Parks playing it safe with coaster investments, gradually moving away from prototypes of the early to mid noughties

Knott's Scary Farm Part 5 - Kitty's Back and Mo' Mazes Mazes covered in this update: Terror of London: my favourite maze at KSF, very atmospheric and great characters roaming through the place, beats hell out of what is usually there - turn Mystery Lodge into a scary walk through. Doll Factory: another fave maze of mine, it's odd and unnerving with cool sets, and a scary girl doing the robot. The Asylum: fairly chaotic, some good scares. Club Blood: some good characters in this vampire night club, very influced by Blade, though some of the animatronics were a bit ordinary. Not quite HHN standard - monkeys might not fly out of butts but apparently vampire bats fly out of vaginas (yes I said the "V" word). Asylum led straight into Club Blood, which was fun for all those people who really get scared in the mazes. "Hey dude, I really suck!" I ran for my life, more out of homophobia than fear of being bitten on the neck. I don't know what an electric chair is doing in an asylum but capital punishment fans were ecstatic. An ACER even struck out with the mannequins, they came to life and ran away. I always wondered what the fat guy from Little Britain was up to these days. Victorian era surgery was a bit more adventurous before malpractice suits became commonplace. This girl was more persistent than a time share salesman. That looks like it hurt. Who let Michael Myers into Knotts? The muggers in no-Buena Vista are much classier than Garbage Grove. Baby forgot to take it's Ritalin. "Oh yeah we think ACErs are scary too". Kitty: "Knock, knock?" Little kid; "I'm still breast feeding, and I can't find mommy". Zamora always wanted to nail assistant Kitty but she always hammered him first, sexual harrassment mediation carnie style. I got to talking coasters with Zamora after the show. Big Vekoma fan, when touring Europe he always tries to squeeze in a Goudurix marathon. Dude: "I'm the lead guitarist of Fear Factory". Kitty: "Wow, you have bigger tits than me". Kitty always treated Zamora like a doormat but this is ridiculous. The work experience girl was getting nervous. Zamora always had this feeling that people weren't paying attention to him.

I'm 6'3" but someone much taller than me got that Rye kiddie wood credit on the 2008 TPR East Coast tour, their approach was largely psychotic but also very persistent, eventually the ride ops just let them on to get rid of them was what I heard. They wouldn't even let me on the mouse at Rye gunplayland let alone that minature woodie.

T2 at Kentucky Kingdom makes Lethal Weapon feel like a B & M invert. I didn't think Lethal Weapon was too bad as long as you ride defensively albeit I haven't been to MW for a few years now. I thought superman's launch had a pretty good kick to it because it has to get to it's maximum speed in a very short distance, definitely a better launch than the other superman Escape in Los Angeles.

^^^I actually love Disaster Transport on a hot summer day at Cedar Point, even if the ride sucks, they should rename it: Cool, Dark & Out of The Sun* *and you don't have to go into a shop or resturant.

^I rode it in 2007 on the TPR midwest tour, it was bad then. ^^Thanks for reminding me, it's a shame I didn't get a chance to give it a go on a non-wheel seat.

I would have to agree. However, I have only ridden 26 wood coasters; so, ranking the Beast at number 2 douen't really mean much. Also, many of the people who are huge fans of the Beast are not very well traveled. Fans of the Beast would have extra hassles getting on planes with their wheel chairs (1 ride almost broke my back), I can understand why they don't travel. Fortunately they don't reproduce so they are bound to die out eventually. Seriously, the Beast after the second lift hill in the back row in the morning was the most painful experience I have had on a coaster, I thought my ribcage was going to be crushed. Although it is wonderful visually at night, it was still a very very punishing ride.

I interpreted that the nominations are based on what you think is the best irrespective of whether you have ridden it or not. Mine were: Best Steel Coaster - Expedition GeForce Best Wood Coaster - T-Express Best Innovation - Intamin Pre-fabricated track (such a smooth voyage on pre-fabs) Best Water Attraction - Atlantis Adventure (aquatrax!) Best Epic Fail - Hard Rock Park Best Park Employees - Dollywood (this was a hard one because so many parks have been wonderful) Honourable mentions go to GCI's work on Boulder Dash; Balder; and many other things Intamin did in the noughties.

District 9 - finally got around to seeing it and I was pleasantly surprised, even moved. 8.5/10. Miss March - not bad for a trashy road trip movie with some original spins on familiar themes. 7/10 Avatar 3D - pretty to look at and interesting but I wasn't greatly moved, Avatar tried pushing all the sympathy and big idea buttons but it seemed forced on that level, not a very original story. 8/10

Overcast, which may not be good considering I will be on a friends boat in Sydney Harbour for NYE tonight.

The Voyage, just because I like to see fanboys cry. I'm in the Mean Streak camp too, my reasoning is more than it is just mediocre and painful in a way that cannot be fixed but that it is taking a large area in a park that has limited land space and Cedar Point would more than like put one or more coasters there that would vastly superior to Mean Streak. Son Of Beast should be burned to the ground before it kills (again?).

^Which Mindbender? I've been on the SFOG Mindbender and that was sensational, and I hear great things about the Edmonton one.

Coaster probably isn't underrated just more under the radar, it seems everyone who has actually ridden it loves Coaster. I'd love to see Vancouver again, hmmm. Though judging by the other coasters at Playland - I better make it the final destination of the trip. I think the Flight of Fear coasters at KI and KD are underrated, though if they had OTSR's I'd hate them more than using Poison Ivy for toilet paper (yes there is someone famous who I read has done that by accident). FOF throws you around but I think it's a fast, fun, wild ride.

^Ravine Flyer II is a funny one, I rode it in the afternoon and I was very disappointed but we all know what happened that night - my life flashed past my eyes at least a dozen times - ninety degrees!

^And aren't a lot of people who have ridden Balder, El Toro, T-Express, Boulder Dash and so on going to ride Prowler next year, so the mutual rider comparison might go down a bit.

Thanks almost exclusively to TPR tours I've ridden 11 out of the top 20 (my rank in brackets, excluding fave steel): 7 Balder Liseberg (My rank #1) 4 Boulder Dash Lake Compounce (#2) 8 Phoenix Knoebel's (#3) 2 El Toro SFGAd (#4) 5 Ravine Flyer II Waldameer (#5) 14 Hades Mount Olympus (#6) 11 Thunderhead Dollywood (#7) 18 Raven Holiday World (#8) 19 Rampage Alabama Adventure (#10) 1 The Voyage Holiday World (#11) 17 Thunderbird PowerPark (#15) I guess the only big difference was where I rated the Voyage, and I didn't have very good rides on it the day I rode it. On the other hand, I had a sensational back seat night ride on Hades but if I had only ridden it the next morning I would have rated it much lower. I was sceptical about Balder but once I rode it - wow. I consider my top 4 to be far and above anything else I had ridden, if I was sentenced to having to ride a coaster for eternity then any of those 4 would do.

^Knott's was a real mixed bag in terms of quality, some of the mazes were of the cardboard cutout variety and others were very nice. Zamora's gig was a straight out freak show, I was surprised to see something like that at Knott's. Maybe Walter Knott will rise from the dead next Halloween to voice his objections or take an unhealthy interest in Dick Kinzel's brain ("braaaiiins!").

1. What are your initial thoughts? I think this is great way to support the site. Also becoming a recognised club for club only events is great, even though I would not be able to go to the events. 2. Can you think of anything else we could be offering? No, I think what you are offering is more than enough. I like that guys idea of using the $15 credit to support charity, or pehaps just forgo the credit to support TPR. 3. Is this something that interests you? I would probably join. 4. Why would you NOT be interested in this? It is of minimal benefit to me, mainly because of where I live but I would like to join more on the principle of supporting the site. 5. Any additional feedback you can give us based on the information you see here. No advertising for premium members, just my opinion - I feel you deserve to benefit from your hard work on the site. In any case I have no objection to advertising, if I'm looking for a cheap hotel room, flight, or theme park tickets, or I want to get something like Firefox I would be happy to do it from a link on TPR and support the site. I stress this is just my opinion and please don't take it like I'm telling how to run things. I prefer to get any newsletters by email as an environmental consideration but I understand that would open up the newsletter to being easily forwarded to non-members.

^I've done a SCAD Tower, they are terrifying, I wonder if they would even be legal in California or if insurance premiums/potentail liabilities under law make them unviable. I'd love to see them do a big coaster that starts at the top of the mountain and goes all the way down for the first drop. I've heard talk of this before but perhaps they could use the Superman structure as part of a new coaster. If they built a lift hill up the other side and then use the tracked side as the first drop, that would be killer - probably literally.

Very nice photos, Rampage made #11 on my wood ballot , great coaster. Those potholes gave me more than a few shots on the epic TPR ERT session, I'd love to see what the potholes actually look like as well if you ever change your mind about the photo. I feel a little ashamed that I have ridden Zoomerang in all three locations it has been at, though it was more by accident than design.

Knott's Scary Farm Part 4 - Deep Throat: The World Record The quality of the 6 shows ranged from almost HHN to downright carnie: Zamora's Sideshow Of The Bizarre: Downright wince inducing like Saw without the killing. Inferno: Carnie girls in bikinis twirling fire, I only watched a bit of it, M is for Meh. Chipper Lovell: Some comedy magic thing, I had better things to do. I'll get to the other 3 shows later... Maze covered in this update: Slaughterouse: a bit on the dull side, lots of meat hanging around and the occasional scare but nothing earth moving. It tastes like chicken my ass. That's what I reassured myself with at Mrs Knott's Chicken's 3am post Haunt Buffet. I don't think the meat here was FDA approved. Slaughterhouse was more the Mediocre Chainsaw Massacre. She was actually quite hot under the mask, literally and figuratively. I don't know how they do it, I put on a Michael Myers mask for 5 minutes and I was sweating. Knott's Scary Farm, getting nerdy guys laid for 30 years. The Gauntlet rewarded all those who wear brown underpants. OMG - Kitty has talent, Knott classy but highly entertaining. Dear Lord please Kitty, please stop. No, don't stop. Kitty Karloff would make John Holmes feel like pee wee. Zamora said it well: "If you're thinking it, then I don't need to say it". Zamora was hardly family fare, unless you are the Manson family. Wolfy was still sitting on the fence about the new Wolfman movie. Though if Benedico Del Toro shows his face at Knotts Wolfy was going to tear it off - it's just what werewolves do. Lethargic SFMM employee moonlighting at Knott's? Ghost Town had atmosphere, not found at Knott's during the day.

I saw Green Day, December 11. They were great, I was right at the front in the mosh pit, only bummer was someone threw up next to me but luckily they didn't get me. It was a three hour set, with most of the classics. They pulled up a lot of people from the crowd throughout the show. They even pulled up a guy and got him to sing Longview by himself, he did a pretty good job. They were ably supported by a drunken pink bunny who moved around a lot like Tre' Cool. Jet were the support for the pink bunny and they played a set that was completely hits, and even missed a hits like Rollover DJ. Great night, even if Billy Joe got me in the eye with a super soaker.

^Better to be the armpit of Canada than the a$$hole. We've got places so scary in Sydney even the police are afraid to go there but what big city doesn't.

I live in Sydney, Australia - it's a great place to live but... Sydney Population: 4.34 million Sydney Coaster Population: 1 wild mouse Decent Coasters within a 1000km radius: 0 (just before Gold Coast) Distance to nearest coaster in my top ten: 8000 miles National Population: 21.374 million Coaster Population: 18 (Intamin - 5, Arrow 2, Mack 1, Sh!?house - 10)