JFrombaugh

I haven't driven around SoCal myself so I can't really comment, but I would definitely give a "dishonorable mention" to drivers down here in Texas. In my own experience driving to and from college/work here in the westside Houston area, there is almost always at least one car I encounter that has absolutely no idea what they're doing (Volkswagens, Lexus sedans, and pickup trucks tend to be the most common). Also, someone nearly always rides my bumper on the freeways, even at 5mph over the speed limit (I feel your pain Ginzo). And you have make sure you know the right-of-way rules, because at flashing red lights/4-way stops there's a 50% chance that an overzealous Ford F-150 will come darting out when he doesn't have the right of way. But I'll have to second LA traffic being really bad based on my SFMM/KBF visit, especially if you leave the parks right at the rush hour.

^I'm not arguing whether or not the Texas Giant was a prime in its early years, and it WOULD be better if it was smoother, but what I'm saying is, this is 2009, not 1990, and I just don't see it ranking as high as El Toro, Voyage, Ravine Flyer II, or Balder...even if it's as good as new after the rehab. I might be wrong though.

Keep in mind that Six Flags is in trouble and might not make it through 2009 to do this rehab (http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=49150). I'd say that in it's current state, Texas Giant is a pretty fun ride, but it certainly reminded me more of Son of Beast than any other woodie and its by no means the best coaster in America or whatever SFOT bills it as. Texas Giant has "Disney airtime". Actually, strike that - the airtime on the drop out of the mountain on EE is better than anything on Texas Giant. If Six Flags files for bankruptcy and the company that picks the parks up doesn't want to spend tons of money repairing the Texas Giant, it'll probably just get torn down like Psyclone did. I don't see it being a top ten coaster even if it was smoothed and the trim brakes were removed - a 137 foot drop at 53 degrees just doesn't cut it in this environment.

Looks pretty cool, up until the Dragon makeover of Dragon Blaster Schlitterbahn had very little theming, but this sounds like a really big theming project. And I think it's about time Texas got something new, and not a clone.

Add one more to my list: Space Mountain Disneyland Paris, the original Mission. I haven't been on it yet but looks like the best Space Mountain out there, and a lot of people I know miss the old Jules Verne theme. ROFLMAO!!!!

I completely agree with you on Journey to Atlantis - the backwards drop is surprisingly intense, but yeah, the turntable spins are kinda pointless and 10 seconds of free coasting do not make a coaster, especially one with a 45 minute wait (when I went). Something tells me you didn't get the full SFOT experience though. I didn't see anything about Runaway Mountain, the fat laden food, or the mediocrity of Judge Roy Scream which sits outside the park beckoning you to come ride it.

Awesome thread. Something that really makes you think. A coaster from the past Moonsault Scramble - One of the old rides that hardly anyone has ever been on and it sounds insane to ride Relocated existing coasters Steel Hawg - One of my most sought after coasters to get to, would be really cool to own and ride all day Maverick - A coaster that I could happily sit on all day, if I lived closer to Ohio and the lines weren't so long If all I can get is an existing stock model Intamin Ball Coaster - Another compact coaster on my must ride list, easy to fit in a small plot of land, and I could run multiple laps on mine so hopefully people wouldn't complain as much about it being "too short". SOOO hard to pick just one of those!!!

WTF??? I'd hate it if that happened when I was in a Monopoly contest, too. Though at least you had a good story to share with us all on this ever useful thread.

Technically they're both considered "Ball Coasters". But so far every park that's bought one has bought the model with the chain lift, which Intamin calls a "ZacSpin". The LSM variety doesn't have a nickname yet, but it uses the LSMs for slow propulsion around the track, like Maverick's lift hill. It'll be interesting to see who gets the first LSM Ball Coaster...hopefully it'll be a park I can get to relatively easily, because I really really want to ride one of these things! But with the economy and limited money for spending and such, I'm afraid I couldn't make the Scandi trip this year... Patience Joseph...the US will get one of these rides someday, I can just feel it...

The last few threads I've posted here recently have gotten closed. Oh well, guess it's my fault. EDIT: Whoa, that's my 100th post!

In response to this thread I posted that got closed: http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=49763 I didn't mean which element is your favorite in terms of experience (that thread I KNEW had been posted before). I meant which element do you think has the coolest name, kind of like a element counterpart to this thread: http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=47945 I searched for a thread about that and got nothing, so I thought it was okay to post.

As the title says, what coaster elements and prototypes have the coolest sounding names, in your opinion? My favorite element names would have to be "Flying Snake Dive", "Tongue", and "Wall Turn". As for coaster types, I think "Ball Coaster" and "Euro Fighter" would have to top my list.

Don't you have to be 21 to gamble? You are only 18. Or was that a series of poker games you just played with your friends for fun?

Being a big video game fan, I have this thought that might be possible given the rate at which tehcnology is advancing. As it says in the title, do you think it would be possible for someone to make a sort of heart-monitor thing that can calclate your remaining "HP" or "stamina"? You know, you put it on like a heart monitor, calibrate it for you, and then it calculates how much energy you have left before you pass out. Calculating a number of Hit Points based on joules of energy would be weird for anyone that's not a gaming freak, but a percentage could work. This may seem like a really weird concept at first, but think about it...a stamina calculator could be really useful in something like boxing or marathon running...sports where there is a risk of fainting from fatigue. If, for example, you saw that you were only 16% away from fainting when you reached the midway point of a race, you'd know to give up the race and not endanger your health. It would probably be really hard to make this kind of thing, but I've heard of new heart monitors that do read electrical impulses in the body, and there are some computers hospitals use to alert the nurse when a patient is failing. If it ever gets invented, I'd so pay anything for one. I don't know, maybe it could work. Or maybe I'm just showing my really nerdy side and this will never happen. I need to sleep more.

In response to all of the above posts about cell phones in class, yes, I agree that it is very disruptive and inappropriate, which is why it upset me a little when it happened. I try to always keep my phone on vibrate or off for class, but on that day I accidentally forgot, and then I got the telemarketer call in class. Bad luck. I don't even use my cell phone that much, at least not in comparison to other people my age, but my parents are trying to get me to be vigilant about carrying it with me wherever I go so that I can easily contact people if an emergency happens. And yes, the Mario song is the ringtone I was using at the time. At least it was that one that went off instead of my other ringtone (Chocolate Rain by Tay Zonday) which would have been even more disruptive IMO!

I like Ramsay's yellings when they're funny. Like "Where's the lamb SAUCE?!" and "That's why they call it f**king nonSTIICK!" Makes me laugh every time. Oh and Jean-Phillippe saying "Jimmy, stop touching yourself!" Classic. But yeah, I know I could NEVER go on HK myself (say goodbye to my self confidence), and even though I liked watching Ramsay's reactions to kitchen disasters, I must admit that I find it a little sad when he makes the women cry, like Elise and Bonnie from Seasons 1 and 3 respectively. I used to be a big Hell's Kitchen fan, it had the same gimmicky appeal that Treasure Hunters once had, but as I become more of an adult and my opinions evolve, I've kinda moved on to some other big things that have hit my TV set now...

Here it is:

Yeah, I had that happen to me a couple weeks ago in Sociology at my college. I forgot to turn my phone off for class, and then some stupid telemarketer called me. Can't tell you how embarassed I was when my professor was in the middle of lecturing about culture and then everyone heard the Mario theme song emenating from inside my left pocket and started quietly giggling. Luckily, he just politely told me to turn it off. Which is really fortunate because I've known some teachers that will ask you to leave the room if yours goes off.

I saw this one today, and I thought that TPRers should see it as it's coaster related. I didn't find any topic about it when I searched it, so here's the video: http://www.nick.com/turbonick/index.jhtml?extvideoid=68718 It's really funny and has some ride op related jokes, I love the part where they go on the "Mitten" and get scared, and the part where Spongebob is hitting himself with the ice cream cone. "AAAAHHHH! AAAAAGGHHHH!"

Giratina and the Sky Warrior, the 11th Poke'mon movie featuring both forms of Giratina and Shaymin, aired on Cartoon Network a couple days ago. Folks, we have a winner...it is a really really good Poke'mon movie. The storyline is surprisingly deep, it's not TOO scary for younger kids, but it is just soooo exciting and has quite a few surprises. It's a must-see for Poke'mon fans in 2009.

Here's another YouTube Terms of Use rant... On February 13th the new for 2009 Pokemon movie aired, Giratina and the Sky Warrior (it is an amazing movie, BTW, and a must-see if you're a Poke'mon fan like I am). I decided I wanted to make a video review of it to put on YouTube, but I included a teaser slide show of still pictures from it. I wanted to give potential viewers an idea of some of the features of the movie without breaking any copyright rules. A few hours ago today, I got this in my Inbox: I mean, I could understand that if I had put in video clips from the movie, it would count as infringing the copyright, but just having a slide show of it embedded into a review of the movie...Personally, I can think of at least ten other videos I've seen on YouTube that deserved reporting before that one. At least I still have the raw video file on my computer for nostalgic purposes...

I noticed in Bradleyhart's video the car doesn't make that squeaking noise that it did in the Thorpeparkmania testing video. In the first test it looked like it was raining, so I'm guessing the squeaking was because the track was wet and cold at the time. And yes, I liked the Colossus theme song too! Adds a lot of atmosphere to that ride.

Steel 1. Millennium Force 2. Top Thrill Dragster 3. Tatsu 4. Titan 5. Maverick 6. Superman Krypton Coaster 7. Dueling Dragons (both) 8. Nemesis 9. Magnum XL-200 10. Firehawk (underated IMO) Wood (only the top 5 since I haven't ridden too many woodies, this list is likely to change later this year) 1. Boardwalk Bullet 2. Beast 3. Ghostrider 4. Texas Giant 5. Son of Beast (not saying much) Joseph "Dang, I really need to get on updating my website, which still lists SKC as #1..." Frombaugh

I've never had a black out, or even a gray out, that I know of. The worst I've had was some blurred vision my first time on Nemesis and on Titan's second helix, and on KBF's Boomerang in the back seat I felt my eyes bug out during the loop backwards.

(Episode where Marge becomes a cop) Homer: Hey, you're not really arresting me? Marge: You have the right to remain silent. Homer: I choose to waive that right. AAAAHHH!! AAAAAHHHHHH!!!