DerekRx

If you are too busy to take pictures, just grab some mass hysteria screenshots from like Independence Day or Armageddon. No one will know the difference! It may look something like this. The people have no idea what they're in line for though, could be bathroom, food, beer, ATM, pub, bottle purchase, or complaints/suggestion box.

My biggest issue with Six Flags continuing to raise parking is that the increase in no way is put back into maintaining the parking lot, or added trams, etc. Leaving Great Adventure can be a rougher ride than Great American Scream Machine ever was, and I think I saw a Smart Car get swallowed by a pothole last year

Aw, sorry I'm gonna miss you at DLD, Matt. If you end up getting some Dark Lord, I'll gladly take one off your hands for something you like from around here, I think I still have an extra Troegs Splinter Black. Take pics so we can see how "more organized and less chaotic" it will be this year (or how many people are getting arrested for trying to get in without tickets. Enjoy Flossmoor, have some pancakes and bacon for me!

This looks just amazing. I love the center stage hat thingy, the mirror, the volcano being used, the globes, and that fireworks finale just kicks donkey. Is it June yet?

Count me in for this one! And hooray for it not being in July where you can't go more than 40 feet without dying of thirst

Saturday was Extreme Beer Fest, but since I was skeptical about the weather and when I'd be able to arrive in town, we went with the evening session this time around, which gave us some time to check out other beer stuff in Boston first. I finally get to do the Samuel Adam's tour First you kinda learn how they make beer Then you walk by lots of Utopias and I mean LOTS of Utopias! and then they give you free beer and tell you how you should properly taste it, appearance, smell, taste, mouthfeel, drinkability. Hmmm, kinda sounds familiar. We got to try some special ones like the Cherry Chocolate Bock and the Maple Wood Porter which are still experimental Next up (well, after a few more beer and food stops) was Extreme Beer Fest, where the Randall from Dogfish Head was now pouring World Wide Stout mixed with Espresso beans Dogfish's founder and Discovery channel star Sam was super happy to be pouring the "Kombucha Brew" Fungus Tea'mungus brewed with the head guys from BA They call this EXTREME beer fest for a reason, and Dark Horse met the call by mixing a barleywine with baby formula via a breast pump! New England Brewing out of CT was pouring their newly relabeled Imperial Stout Trooper via cask The crack waffles are just as good as the beer, in this case some Brandy barrel Angel's Share It didn't take too long for some of the more popular places to run out of beer, luckily we got there early Firestone was out of everything by the end of the first hour of the session, which is easy to see why since it was all excellent offerings! After the fest we headed to the Union Oyster House, the oldest operating restaurant in America to go along with their Chowdah I had a Union Oyster House Colonial Ale, brewed by Sam Adams just for them Which brings us to St. Patrick's Day, which I spent part of at Taproom by Spring House, a newly opened place in Lancaster. Why drink nasty green beer when I can have this reddish pink Wet Paint Belgian Guava Ale instead! Yay for Leprechauns! The President/Brewer for Spring House brought a special firkin of his Planet Bean coffee stout that he aged in Starbuck's Breakfast Blend and vanilla beans As if the Planet Bean isn't coffee infused enough, after 2 glasses of this at 6pm I was wired. I think I managed to finally get to sleep at like 4am and fear not, East Coast people, fresh small bottles of precious Sculpin are here! (at least what I didn't manage to hoard for myself)

I still enjoy the Lost Abbey stuff, but it really angers me when I get something and it's flat (or super carbonated like the Framboise de Amorosa was, and I lose 3/4th of the bottle!) I think I'll just stick to their stuff on draught or at a beer festival and just do the Port brand for bottles. Here's a few pics since the beginning of the month, including a couple of an area bottle share we attended, some Boston, Extreme Beer Fest, and Night of the Barrels stuff, and St. Patrick's Day. Just a look at one of the tables during the bottle share Another table of bottles and growlers Probably the biggest highlight of that share was the vertical of East End's Gratitude from 05-09 Last Friday I was able to head up to Boston with Heath and Kim where we managed to get to Sunset just after their Short's beer promotion the night before, and all 25 taps were still on! Some of Short's hoppier beers, Hangin' Frank, Freedom of '78 (made with Guava), Pineapple Pils, and Raisin Apollo (a double IPA made with raisins) Flight 2 consisted of Good Humans, Mystery Stout, Hopstache, and Cup a Joe That evening was BeerAdvocate's Night of the Barrels, where every beer served has to spend some portion of it's life in a barrel. Some pretty crazy stuff was served Like this rare version of Clipper City's Loose Cannon aged in a 400 year old barrel Dogfish Head brought their Randall 3.0 and served Palo Santo Marron through it with Vermont bacon and grilled Habanero peppers

^Someone brought a growler of Kern River Citra DIPA to our bottle share last weekend and it was really freakin' fantastic! I should have taken more pictures of all the stuff, but was too busy drinking it all. Last year's Kate made an appearance too and was a lot different from what I remember from back in 2007. I'm off to Boston for the Extreme Beer Fest late tonight, maybe I'll do an update when I return.

My first ride on Big Bad Wolf was back in 1999 when Apollo's Chariot opened. It was my most anticipated coaster of the trip, but with the logistics of the park layout and opening times, it was the last coaster I got to visit. Back then in an era in which YouTube didn't exist and online streaming sounded like a fishing term, the only visuals I had of the ride were what I remember being a kid either too small to ride or too afraid back when I was like 8 and visited the park and from what I saw on those VHS copies of coaster videos like America's Greatest Thrill Rides. So as I finally got to ride it I was pretty excited, and as we left the station and slowly meandered our way to the first lift the anticipation kept building, a ride so shadowed in the woods that you couldn't really see anything from the park except for the finale. And when the train approached the first lift and then the brakes kicked in, I couldn't help but to laugh. "Holy crap! This ride has to be insane if they're making it come to a dead stop at the first lift," I thought to myself. As the train released at the top of the lift from the chain and we were dashing wildly through some little Bavarian village scene, flopping back and forth almost reaching out-of-control status I was happy...and then we reached the brakes before the second lift for yet another complete stop. (It didn't take long for me to realize it was to stop the jarring motion of the train slamming into the lift trough and realigning the spines of the passengers, even with the wonderful assistance of rollercoaster newsgroups back then). Then a few moments later, here it was, the finale I've seen before so many times in pictures and vaguely remember watching 10 years earlier and hearing the screams of all those stupid people who decided to ride this evil coaster of Satan. And as we descended towards the Rhine River...more brakes slowed us down...and we continued on, the track turning at the last second and our car swinging high to the left narrowly missing the water, and then to the right swinging between the water and the ravine, and then the left again as we climbed back up the hill, and then...that...was...it. We swayed back and forth for a few seconds from the momentum on our way back to the station, and the whole time I thought "um, that was a bit of a let-down. Hmmm, do I want to ride Alpengeist or Apollo again now?" Sure, Big Bad Wolf was fun, and one of those fantastic rides for the "little coaster conquerer" not yet tall enough for some of the bigger coasters, and it was a real treat to experience at night in darkness, but it wasn't really that thrilling anymore, and the cost to keep it running outweighed its usefulness at the park. Like many of the suspended coasters it's biggest problem was pacing, it tried to be wild and out of control, but it just couldn't happen with it's design and the technology of the time. I think it was one of the average suspended coasters out there (haven't been on Eagle Fortress, that defunct one in Japan, or The Bat) and I think the earliest success story for the style, but I much prefer Vortex, Ninja, and Flight Deck to it. If it was a maintenance nightmare, I would rather see it gracefully retire, giving enough people a chance to get one last ride than for it to unexpectedly pitch a train full of riders into the Rhine River (that would make for a good SyFy movie scene) and never operate again and cause some giant lawsuit closing down Busch Gardens forever. Sure, I got a little teary eyed when I visited this past year and all I saw were the footers in the river, but honestly I never wanted to ride it if the line was outside the station up until it's final season, even if the wait was only going to be like 15 minutes. And forget about it if it had just rained, I don't want dirty water and grease being poured in my lap while I ride!

For Christmas I got: MacBook Annual pass to Universal Orlando Cedar Fair Platinum pass Bruery Reserve Society Membership Gift cards to Wegmans Lottery scratch-off ticket for $99 American Eagle gift card 2011 Roller coaster calendar OT + PTO at work for working today (AKA, sitting around for 8 hours doing nothing)

I enjoyed seeing it (hated the cold weather though). If I had known about it sooner, I probably would have had the intelligence to get some sleep and then wake up when it was happening instead of staying awake until 2:41am to see it reach full eclipse before finally getting to bed. Duh on my part!

If you blow up 2 dinosaurs, they will unite as 1, literally.

With all the effort SDC puts into the detailed theming, it's no surprise they can do a fantastic job with Christmas lights. Glad to see them get recognized for it, hopefully some year I'll head out there to see them for myself.

This movie may compete with Meteor Attack as the most confusing thing I've ever seen. Anyone know where I can pick up a motion simulator chair so I can give it a proper test?

Europa was the main reason I went on the trip, drinking with friends was a distant second. The theming at the entire resort is beyond amazing, from the little details inside the park to the hotel rooms and bar area (complete with secret room!). I definitely won't hesitate a return trip to Europa anytime, especially now with the addition of blue fire.

I use the off-season to save up for next season's trips, usually plan a weekend getaway to Florida or California, spend lots of time at brewpubs, and this year take up winter sports like snowboarding...which will probably mean I'll get at least 4-6 weeks chilling out in a body cast in a hospital bed. It'll be more fun with morphine!

I'm more excited for the Sea Turtle exhibit than I am Beaver Hunt at Busch Gardens! As for a Pizza Port run, I need no excuse to go there, and now that there are 4 of them that's even more reason!

Hey Cedar Fair, how's that knock-off Star Flyer looking for CP next year now?

El Toro at Six Flags Great Adventure on Sunday, last row of course! Stride train!

Rockstar Uproar Festival at PNC in Jersey. After some time at Great Adventure we made it to Uproar Fest in time to catch the AC/DC inspired Airbourne on the Jagermeister stage Followed by Hellyeah Pennsylvania's own Halestorm was up first on the main stage Followed by the very talented Corey Taylor and Stone Sour Avenged Sevenfold took everything to a whole new level and added fire because it's an automatic rule that fire = way better! and Disturbed kept Jersey more excited than hopes of launching Snooki into orbit without a spacesuit in the next season of Jersey Shore It's pretty easy to get people to fist pump in Jersey, even if the song doesn't call for ten thousand fists in the air

^Since riding it in it's opening season, I've often wondered why more parks didn't rush out to get S&S rides like Powder Keg. Not only is it thrilling, it's also very family friendly, comfortable, and fun! Though I haven't ridden it lately, just seeing these pictures and everyone's enjoyment of it really makes me want to get back there to ride it again soon. Plus SDC is a really fantastic park!

^^I'm SO happy to hear that! I've always liked WDWs layout better than Disneyland's, but the audio fit so well that I always gave it the slight advantage (except during that "Rockin'" session) and was pretty disappointed that the Magic Kingdom version wouldn't have audio when it returned last November. Now I'm really excited to get back to Florida next year to experience the new Space Mountain!

As Robb said, Big Thunder Mountain is a great choice, and was my first "big" coaster as a kid, only recall riding a Flitzer prior, which terrified me. A basic idea I usually have for getting someone interested in coasters is to find a coaster that is fun, not very rough, and somewhat thrilling, but also offers a nice distraction or two along the way in terms or scenery, theming, etc, which rides like Big Thunder and Whizzer do. I know there are plenty of kiddie coasters out there that may meet the height requirement, but they're pretty brutal with bad transitions, and offering up like 5 or 6 laps on it makes it not fun at all. Rollerskaters and kiddie woodies like Little Dipper and Ghoster Coaster are also good choices for first rides.

^Hey, the first rule of Philly beer drinkers is "we don't travel for beer, we make them bring it to us!" Nothing too exciting, but after being in Holmdel, NJ for a concert on Thursday night we were in dire need of food and beer that wasn't $12 for a can of Bud Light. Fortunately Uno's was nearby and brews their own beers. Nothing different from my visit here last year with Renee, but the beers were very welcoming

Carnival of Madness Tour in New Jersey on Thursday night. 10 Years was the opening act. How he sang in a winter coat during a heat wave is beyond me Surprisingly, Sevendust was up next. I figured they'd be one of the later bands and play more stuff, particularly off the new album, but they didn't They did break out some acoustic "Angel's Son" though, which was cool Puddle of Mudd was next, and they seemed to be having a good time. They randomly pulled some little girl up on stage to dance Chevelle was superb and sounded fantastic Shinedown was the headliner and was also great and very theatrical