SuperMikeo

Ya know, I'm guilty of this too, but I LOVE how excited we nerds get regarding the whole "testing thing." For some, even knowing the ride tested seems to induce giddiness. So this is for you. Terminator already tested. Many times...on an AutoCAD engineering software. The good news? It works! In two weeks, many of us will have already ridden it and will be arguing about how it compares to other GCI's. As far as the LA Times guy being wrong...um, duh? It is the frickin' LA Times!!! Maybe he walked into a board room and saw "testing" written on a dry-erase board. If you want reliable coaster news, here is a link to Coasterbuzz. Shut up. I'm joking. And besides, you can't view news unless you are a due-paying member. Good deal for the 3 yearly events that you get to attend (all of which happen at King's Island.) Boy, I love TPR.

HAHAHAHA!! Off-topic, I know, but yeah, that was hilarious. Anytime someone tells me the "it is supposed to be rough" argument, I always ask them "did it open that way?" I can't think of one woodie that is rough right outta the box. Usually, a rough coaster is attributed to neglect. Unacceptable. GCI, being the woodie tycoons that they are, probably offer the best customer support around for proper woodie upkeep. Yeah, I said "woodie" too many times. So what. Be an adult. Boner.

^^^ - Just had this happen too! How many innocent, non-coaster interested friends and acquaintances are gonna be subject to: "No no no, you see, Psyclone is gone. The ride you saw is called Terminator, I know, I know, weird, right? Anyway, it will be a much better coaster, built by a company called GCI, yada yada, anyway, yeah, that ride you saw...it isn't Psyclone. Psyclone was good for like, a year, but then an Earthquake made it bad. It was based off Cyclone at Coney Island, you knew that, right? No? Oh. Anyway, yeah, Psyclone sucked...really horrible trains made by this company called B&M, they made that ride Tatsu that you like a lot. Remember Tatsu? No no, not that one, that's Viper. Anyway, yada yada, that ride you saw...it...it isn't Psyclone...hello?" I am pretty sure those words have already been spoken. Exactly like that. Maybe more, maybe less depending on the degree of nerdiness combined with the desire of having/keeping friends. I think I'm just gonna go with it and say, yes, Psyclone is back. He left. But now he's back. And he's pissed.

Whoever said steel doesn't look good on wood needs to check out Craftsman's elite next-gen hammer. Steel. On wood. Yeah, trains look great. Do I "feel" like they're going to test soon? Yes. Yes I do. Because Obi-Wan told me. Things like the anticipation of testing...they need to be felt. And oh, I feel it. One night this week, someone will post a crude camera-phone video of Terminator doin' it's thing. Given the cliched nature of this business, I wanna go ahead and reserve the "It looks so slow" comment for myself. Still available are the "It looks like it's flying over it's course" and "Wow, seems shorter than I expected" comments. Reserve your cliched Terminator testing comment NOW! And whoever takes the video will most certainly be audibly heard showing signs of nerdy giddiness as the train goes up the lift. Perhaps making over-the-top coaster comments to his less interested friend. "Can you hear the up-stops, Dylan???" Not psychic. Just been through the drill.

If Knott's was bigger than SFNE that would be Bizzare. O. Nyuck Nyuck. Seriously though, don't hate SFNE. You have the best Intamin hyper in the country. And why haven't you been to Compounce and on Boulder Dash??? Knott's is tiny man, literally one city block (as mentioned.) It's so small that they have to uncomfortably squeeze a ridiculous amount of steel coaster track into every available visual frame. After my ranting bout Knott's several days ago, I realized truly what I like most. Here is a hint: I was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich. Mmmm. Jelly. Knott's Jelly > Knott's

...Except for the only hill on Goliath. Which DOES have some nice long floater air. Oh - I almost forgot. Riddler's Revenge has a sweet pop o' air after the mid-course brakes. Awesome stand-up airtime. And can we count Viper's corkscrews as airtime?

I know. I always remember being envious of Raging Bull and wishing they would have taken a similar approach with the Giovanola layouts. BUT - as said, Goliath has one of my favorite drops AND airtime hills. Totally a solid ride. Maybe they will add another helix and and on-board audio system for it in 2010.

I really like Goliath's first drop. Always felt really "long" to me. Most of the other hypers I've ridden have more curvature in their drops that doesn't give the sustained dropping feeling that both Goliath and Titan give. And that loooong airtime hill is awesome - to me it has some of the best floater air on any coaster. Think how awesome these coasters would be with 2 or 3 more hills.

Awesome! There is a LOT going on in that area. The station is gonna be in the middle of quite the bustle of activity. The queue is gonna go under the structure a lot too, which is awesome. Gotta love the Jeep. Maybe during Fright Fest they could switch out Terminator's Jeep with B:TR's cop car. For the on-board audio, it would be SO awesome to have just a small snippet of Christian Bale freaking out. Maybe that is what the second pre-show building is devoted too? "You want me to trash your lights?!?! You want me to trash em?!?!?!" That's all the theming I could ask for.

^ - He knows. In fact, he poked fun at it on the second post of pics. ^^ - Yeah, to me Knott's is only so bad because it USED to be so awesome. I think that 1999 was the "year of Knott's." It still had most of it's charm, but Ghostrider was there (and brand spankin' new.) That coaster, oh God, when it opened, it just fit so perfect in the park. I used to stay on that thing during the weekdays - it never got old. I STILL think that the "original Ghostrider" is my favorite wooden coaster ever made. Hard to nail exactly when things went wrong, but I don't really seem to enjoy myself there anymore. By comparison, I LOVE SFMM, and it used to be completely opposite. If you would have told me ten years ago that I would hate Knott's and love SFMM, I would have told you that you were nuts. Turns out you weren't nuts at all! Sorry to use your TR as a vehicle to rant. I guess the dirty sky-tower windows did it for me.

Looks like you had a great time! I don't think I was bothered by the fact that you accidentally called GR a GCI...I think I'm bothered that it ISN'T a GCI! Perhaps then it would still be enjoyable. Although...I recently rode it after the "rehab" and it is MUCH better than it was. Still rough, but the two worst parts have been smoothed over. It's still an illusion though, because you can literally feel the areas with new track, and deep down we all wanna say "re-track the whole mother fu**** ride!" After myself recently being there, I have to say, Knott's has definitely become my least favorite park in the country. Scratch that, the world. It's like someone took an industrial sized vacuum and sucked all the charm out of it. Oh yeah, they also painted Monte green, painted Boomerang purple, and they have a ride called Silver Bullet that is a horrific combination of yellow and red. And those DAMN headsets that the employees wear. W.T.F. I know plenty of the CF parks use 'em now, but Knott's seems to get the most annoying employees. There was a time when all the "older and wiser enthusiasts" would talk about the 3 K's. Knoebel's, Knott's and Kennywood. These days, Knott's doesn't belong on a list ANYWHERE close to those other parks. /rant.

^ The Golden Ticket awards? They actually give awards out for finding golden tickets? I thought that going to Wonka's factory WAS the reward. Huh, I'm confused. If I listened to what main-stream polls/awards told me, I would be led to believe that the only coaster better than The Beast is Magnum XL-200. ...And the snozberries really do taste like snozberries.

EDIT: ^ Heh, you got to it first. Sorry, I'm confused. You said CP is the best park in the world...and then said it wasn't in your top five? I didn't notice a whole lotta riff raff during my times at Great Adventure, or not a whole lot more than usual at an amusement park. I hate humans too, but blame them, not the park. And Great Adventure DOES have flats. Six of them. Six Flats. More Flats, More Fun. Here is what it comes down to for me: You can have El Toro and Nitro. Or you can have Maverick and MF. Go look at some coaster porn and see which duo gives you more blood-flow. Then choose accordingly. And if your El Toro induced erection lasts for more than 4 hours, please call your doctor.

This is sorta "close to my heart" because my last 2 big coaster detours from the last year were CP and SFGADV. I liked Great Adventure more, for several reasons. I'll just go ahead and list them for you. 1. El Toro. Having never been on an Intamin pre-fab, I really had no idea how intense and amazing they are. I would fly to NJ JUST to go on this thing. El Toro is probably the most fun I consistently had on a roller-coaster, and it NEEDS TO BE EXPERIENCED. Don't just watch the POV and think you have the jist of it, cause you don't. It is an amazing experience and (I think) the most intense roller-coaster in the country. 2. A good supply of "pretty dang nice" coasters. I won't list them all, but Nitro, Medusa and Batman are great. Superman is "meh" and GASM is my least favorite Arrow mega-looper (Viper at SFMM really is the king.) So all in all, you'll have enough to do besides riding El Toro to make it worth it. 3. The area surrounding it. I was able to go to Philly, NYC as well as most of the state of NJ within a couple day period. (I HAD to go and scope out some of the Sopranos shooting locations.) The drive to the park is nice and woodsy, and all in all I think NJ is a better place to be than the rather slummy Sandusky. I really like Cedar Point, but to be fair, I really just enjoyed MF, Maverick and Raptor. MF is a "lot of fun" and has an awesome first drop. Raptor is probably one of the best inverts around (although I think Batman still wins.) And Maverick - oh Maverick. If there is a reason to go to CP, it is Maverick. Probably my favorite steel coaster ever. It's an obligatory thing to go to CP. It's like a fan of heavy metal seeing Metallica at least once. Yeah, it was "good," but I would much rather be seeing Opeth. Ya know? So go drool over Maverick and El Toro, the two stars of the show. Which would you rather ride? For me, El Toro. But God, Maverick is fun. And this post is long. Goodbye.

^ and ^^: Agreed. Dealing with annoying people at parks brings this whole coaster hobby into the world of reality. I guess I forget that total losers enjoy going to theme parks too. Boo! From the Six Flags site regarding language: Guests using profanity or abusive language, symbols or gestures may be ejected from the Park without refund. Has anyone ever seen them enforce this? Speaking freely among friends and being audibly offensive are two different things, and I really think it is tough to bring your family to a place where there is so much brazen foulness going on. I mean, these guys were like "F*** Bro! I'll F*** you up! Nah Bro, I F***ing got your back, Bro. F***!" Really loud. Shoving each other, talking about all the "hoes" they were gonna get. The whole bit. I would have LOVED to have seen them removed by the park. Maybe the Yosemite Sam mascot with some handcuffs? Or Bugs Bunny holding a bar of soap?

I find the smell of pot much less upsetting than the group of Flatbillers using horrific language in front of a family in line that I just endured on my last visit. Flatbillers are a sub-culture of tattooed white males that generally wear shirts related to "extreme" sports that they have no direct involvement in (most commonly dirt bike riding and lately UFC.) Oh yeah, they also wear hats with really flat bills. Often tilted to the side. Dickies shorts. Socks pulled up. Yeah, you've seen them. They are a plague in Southern California. And yeah, recently at SFMM, they seem to be breeding. I watched a frustrated family walk outta of line because a group of these clowns were saying "F***!" as many times as they were using the word "bro." We're talking hundreds of times, at the top of their lungs. Speak how you want, but at the top of your lungs with a bunch of kids around??? If you're a flatbiller and I offended you, I don't care. Take off your metal mulisha shirt and put a friggin' bend in your brim. You don't look tough. And your lifted truck sucks.

Thanks for the drawing man - makes total sense now. It seems as if the transfer area is so much higher than the bottom of the lift, so it was confusing me as to how the train was gonna get back to the station. Seems like the station will be the centerpiece to the whole ride. How many rides have the station so "in the middle?"

Awesome to see the progress. Maybe someone can help me - based on the photos, I am not quite sure how the train gets from the brake run to the station to the lift. It seems as if the train approaches the lift by turning from the fly-through area - but the brake run leads the train into the other structure (is that the transfer area or the station?) Maybe it is just an illusion created by the images, but it seems as if the train will take a small turn downward after the transfer area and before the lift. As far as them not opening on time, I have been to several "ride openings" and have been instructed not to touch the rails...because they are wet with paint. I forget which ride it was, but I remember being in the station and having carpenters still finishing up the last bits of the queue and what not. I am pretty sure that if SFMM was worried about it not opening, they would know by now. I imagine that these next several weeks will be an onslaught of progress. Can't wait!

Hmmmm, I actually think it would fit just fine. Wooden coasters surrounded by trees? Awesome. How would it not fit? If Africa gets a woodie then Europe should get one too. A big, European one. With a really steep drop. Just use the "Intamin pre-fabs aren't woodies" argument on all the neighbors that don't want one. It will be the one time that stupid argument was actually beneficial.

Ghostrider circa 1998 - 2002! Back when the most painful part about the ride was landing on your ass after "the drop." Boy do I miss that ride. -Mike

Bench: The Ride IS officially the only inverted, wooden drop ride in existence. It even features a Vekoma style flying transition. It just never leaves the station. Awesome. -Mike

^^ Upon further inspection of the trains it seems that it can't be The Grizzly. I guess it's just a coincidence that my Google image search of "the grizzly pga" produced the exact picture in question. In all of my nerdy excitement, I proclaimed it to be The Grizzly without checking out the trains. -Mike

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=the%20grizzly%20pga&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi The very last picture on the lower right is the original picture in question. Given the fact that we can't see the rest of PGA in the background probably sets it in stone as Wilde Beast (like the guy above said). EDIT: Yeah, the trains definitely aren't right. The pic reminds of Disney's Coaster (the awesome old game where you design and ride your own coasters. There was even a panel of judges.) As you were closing the game, I'm pretty sure it showed a "money shot" of a wood coaster and a sun-set. Oh, Disney's Coaster. -Mike

It is The Grizzly at PGA. Almost certain. Check it out - go google "the grizzly pga" and look at the images. Lower right hand corner. Cha Ching! -Mike

If you (ran into him) you may (kill him( ). (