DerekRx

I told Dave he could grab Nicole, but he just wanted to put an ax in her skull. Maybe at PPP, Dave. Of course, I also still owe you a beer. As for putting Disk-O and Evolution right next to each other, they are two totally different rides. Evolution was slow, painful, and pointless, whereas Disk-O was actually spinning nicely, somewhat comfortable, and fun. It left me able to ride again, where Evolution left me wanting off before the cycle even started. The duct tape on the restraints didn't help either, but the random pair of dirty bloomers under the ride were pretty entertaining.

Welcome to the newest participant, all the way from the UK! Adam, shame on you not having your camera handy. As for me, I've still got some Pyramid AND IPA, so that's up next. I think tomorrow I'll try the Pranqster. This beer makes me excited about going back to Cali and, for some reason, Dollywood Yeah, how do you like dem apples, Adam?

Woohoo, Credit! Glad to see the park gets another coaster, and is well on its way to seeming like a more "complete" park. All it needs is the woodie and we're good to go. Now I have another reason to go back to the park next year besides the pizza and potato salad.

Normally I do not talk to strangers in line, unless they talk to me first. (and even then, unless its a good toolless conversation will I actually continue to talk to them). I will listen in on others conversations, especially if I'm by myself (or not paying attention to the conversation my peers are having). Its always amusing to listen to what people have to say about certain parks, rides, etc.

Since its sunny out finally, I decided to start off the night with the new Troegs Sunshine Pils. Not a bad beer, just pretty average for a pilsner. Still good though! Good stuff though, nice and refreshing after a long day at work Troegs Pils, no Prima Pils though

It really can't be that hard to kidnap someone from that park, all you'd have to say is "hey little kid, you want to go some place that's actually FUN?" Guess Jimbo here couldn't come up with a clever enough line to draw the kid away. He should have fun in prison, with that purdy long hair and all.

I guess the mythology is true, if you touch the River Styx, you die. Poor kid, but they had to be standing if they ended up in the water. Its not like the boat capsized like years ago at SFOT. Someone must have gotten the kids attention and told him "Come Sail Away with me!". Well, domo arigato, Mr Roboto, the rapids ride was a Renegade who had it made, but now it looks like its just going to close down for a while, giving the rest of the guests saying "I've got Too Much Time On My Hands, can you Show Me The Way to another water ride." Hopefully they fix the Boat On A River, remove the wave section, maybe installing seatbelts too, and that they Don't Let It End this way.

^Yes, that sounds terrific! Let's put the shopping mall on the ground floor of all the condos. That's exactly what Jersey and New York people want, to be able to vacation and get the same crap they can get at their own local malls. Who the heck is going to want to buy a crappy condo ON the ocean IN New Jersey, the mafia so they can dump the bodies faster? I hope this doesn't mean the Sawmill is also going bye-bye, that pizza is the shizzle!

Forgot about this one I had last night. Guess I was too busy to share! Still pretty good stuff though! A Pyramid Hefe, with orange because I was out of lemons

^At least they aren't as bad as Gwazi. They don't want you to touch your lapbar, only do your seatbelt, but they'll do the lapbar while they check your seatbelt's secureness. Instead of the Gwazi-style where they'll check everyone's seatbelt, then go back and check everyone's lapbars. I can't imagine how terrible the operations would be on El Toro if they did it like that!

Riiiight....because El Toro is totally a cookie cutter coaster and wasn't custom designed at all. It just HAD to fit that area of land with that layout, otherwise they couldn't possibly build it. Whatever the reason for saving the station may be (maybe the Union workers removing it were taking way too long so SF just say "fahgitabaddit") a piece of Viper remains and was a really poorly designed station to begin with. The building may look cool and give the ride some theming, but its still got a really bad design. Guess SF will just have to live with it though.

I'll third that, Nemesis is still my favorite coaster in the UK, and I'm really impressed with Duel. Usually when a classic haunted house gets rethemed with shooting stuff, it takes a turn for the worse, but in this case it actually kept a lot of the old stuff and made the ride more fun and interactive. Oh, and the guns actually fired where I told them to, unlike most Sally rides.

Tonight was another new brew for me, thanks to Heath. Sierra Nevada India Pale Ale. It wasn't what I was expecting it to be, not overly hoppy, but a nice all around flavor. Also didn't have much of a finishing bite that I like in an IPA. Not what I was expecting New brew credit!

Bummer, this looks like a really great beer event. Too bad I already booked my flights to fly out the weekend before! I'd go back the following weekend just for this stuff, in fact, if I can actually get tickets to come out there, I have enough miles and that weekend is still free for me to book right now. I'll have to hope I can get a ticket for that Saturday, and I'll definitely fly out! 2 weekends in San Diego back to back drinking great beer, doesn't sound bad to me!

Ordered 3 months late?! How far in advance does SFGAd usually order their coasters, since El Toro was public knowledge even before Kingda Ka opened. Seeing how when Viper closed down, they already had an idea of what they were going to put there. Maybe Six Flags finally found enough change in the couch to put a downpayment on ET so Intamin would finally send over the wood, but even that isn't much of an excuse, seeing how it was all prefab by Intamin. Voyage managed to open in time, and its a lot longer than ET. The saving of the station is really strange. I could see them saving it because of the elevator from Viper for handicap access, but they went and installed a ramp instead. So why they saved the rest of the station I have no idea. At least its not load and unload at different areas, and the station does sort of work (though they could have used more room on the exit side. All they need to do is stop cutting off the line so early to let more people into the station and fill the seats...or tell people where they are sitting. Otherwise trains will continue to go out with empty rows, which is really annoying considering how the wait times are. I'm sure there are plenty of people who really don't mind where they sit, they just want to ride it.

Yeah, gotta love the line jumping and the lack of security. Makes me wonder, exactly WHY is the security person the one who cuts off the line at El Toro? Are they the only ones who can count high enough. From what I've seen of Japan, cops and security aren't the ones counting how many people to let on the subways during rush hour, so why does SFGAd feel the need to place the security people in charge of counting the amount of guests to allow onto the ride, instead of having them do actually useful things like stop people from line jumping, smoking, etc. The war on lines was declared back in 1999, they have up on that after about 5 years and removed pretty much every ride they put in that year. I know last year they were handing out tickets to prevent line cutting on the most popular rides like Nitro, Kingda Ka, and Superman on crowded days. I guess they gave up on safety after just one season, or July 4 isn't considered a crowded day. Fight the power, Larry, I salute you!

The Medusa line is probably so short because people don't go back to that section of the park at all. Maybe if they opened the bridge between Toro and Medusa, people would go back there. On Tuesday they had forgotten to close the gate by El Toro and while I was waiting for an hour for the ride to actually open, I counted 4 couples who decided to walk on that trail to go ride Medusa and Runaway Train, about 5 minutes later, they all walked back with an aggravated look on their faces for wasting 5 minutes and a walk because the Medusa side of the bridge had the permanent wall up. Finally, the last couple shut the gate upon their return.

^Now that seems like a paradise, Larry! Oh, forgot to mention it earlier, but the new Tango Rock'n Tug was also closed on both Monday and Tuesday. If it was due to lightning or lack of staff, I don't know. And Rolling Thunder...not racing, left side not even opened.

Row 2 of El Toro, July 4th at like 11:10am.

Crap, no Speed Boarder for me then. Oh well, at this rate, by the time I finally go to Japan they'll only have like 20 coasters total.

One way to stop this at SFOG is to make the parking entrance before the actual park, not next to it. Nobody in da h00d is gonna pay $15 just so they can do a drive-by. Of course, in this incident, maybe they should also make sure there are no guns in the people's cars. How they'll do that, beats me...maybe better gun laws, or like others said, death penalty if you shoot someone. Pretty pathetic, those must have been some harsh words for the guy to have to resolve the situation with bullets...and then miss his target. Genius!

"Hell's Bells"- AC/DC

^At this point, it really doesn't matter if we have Kingda Ka and El Toro over the old "new" flats like Evolution, Jumping Jack Flash, and the Pendulum....they all spend more time closed than they do opened!

Its hot, and I wanted to cool down with a nice refreshing root beer float, but I didn't have any root beer, so I improvised! mmm, cold and foamy Beer Float Instead of a Root Beer Float, we'll just substitute Oak Barrel Stout by Old Dominion

The park is looking really nice lately. Even today while the park was opened there were landscapers out planting flowers, trimming bushes, etc. If anything at the park is still lacking, its operations (and the fact that they can't get the rides opened with the park). I'll let them slide on KK being down because it was struck by lightning (though if you think about it, wouldn't the park be smart enough to put in a lightning rod, seeing how you've got a 456 foot tall giant metal "rod" in the ride?? I know both back on opening day and again today, my friend Bret had to pretty much train the operators of the kiddie rides his son was on. The one op didn't know you had to be UNDER 54 inches to ride one of the kiddie rides, he thought you had to be OVER it. Another op never checked if Conner was buckled in before starting the ride, and a final op argued with Bret about which type of train car his son could ride in, 1 was for those under a certain height (which is where Conner falls), but she wanted him to sit elsewhere. Eventually Bret trained her properly, but she said "sorry, I don't normally operate this ride." Its rotating rides like this which ends up causing accidents (much like the Disney Parade dude who died a few years ago). Still, the security guards, exiting people, operators, etc were all telling people to have a great day, some even sounded enthused, unlike the staff at SFMM. If there is anything that will always make SFGAd seem like a rough park, its the clientelle it attracts, which is exactly what Shapiro is trying to get away from. Hopefully in the next couple of years the new management will be making some progress with the changes they desire (unlike the Premier days).