Emiroo

Your photos are always so bad-ass! Keep them coming!

Best:The feeling I had walking down the exit ramp after riding Patriot at Worlds of Fun. This was my first coaster with inversions. I had a debilitating phobia of inversions for 20+ years. (Seriously, I'd had full on panic attacks waiting in quques in various other attempts to overcome this fear.) Finally beating that phobia was life changing. Now you can't keep me off them! I feel free! Worst:The closure of Opryland U.S.A. Just thinking about it makes me mad. And now having to drive past a shopping mall and knowing what used to be there is just salt in the wound.

This is great! Thanks! Incidentally, the regional Indiana PBS affiliate had a very similar documentary about Holiday World called Holiday World: The Koch’s Recipe for Success. It was excellent. Unfortunately there aren't any videos online, but you can buy it here: http://www.wnin.org/television/video-vault.html

Option 1 is probably the best place to start. It's an extremely flexible degree that will help you get your foot in the door in all kinds of places. As well, it's also good to start slow rather than ramp up with all of that "extra education" (and debt) only to find that it isn't useful/required once you hit the real world. As far as theme park management goes my advice would be to start at the bottom in the inside. Get a job at a park. Any job. Games, Ride Op, Sweep, Foodservice, Whatever. Let it be known that you are interested in working your way into management and hopefully one day upper management. To help yourself in this endevaour, give 110 percent no matter what job they give you. Be the guy who is the best at cleaning up puke if you have to. Just get noticed...and in a good way. With a little luck, you can become a lifer and make your way into management. And if you do ever wind up owning the place, send me some free tickets. Reguardless, you can take some comfort knowing that your degree is highly portable no matter what industry/business you get into. Hopefully it will be Amusement Parks, but even if that falls through you'll still have a very marketable degree. Good luck!

I worked at Blockbuster the 4 years I was in college and I lost count of the number of times I got called a Mother F-er over a $2 late fee. We had our fair share of busted shoplifters as well as the weekly drunk frat guys looking for porn (which we didn't have). There are several other amusing anticdotes I could relate, but insead I offer this advice: Trust me on this one thing: Never, ever, ever work somewhere with a children's play area that has a ball pit. That is of course unless you like using bleach to clean $hit (literally) off hundreds of plastic balls at least once or twice a week. I was never happier than the day our store got rid of that thing.

I'd really like to watch that one. Be sure to post again when you find out the exact airdate.

That place looks like a ton of fun. And I'm quite positive that when I arrive in Hell, Satan himself will hand me a wacky wire game and tell me that as soon as I beat it, I can leave.

I'd actually prefer "park-specific" in the RAW DVDs...

This is a fantastic PTR! Great pictures. In college, my wife to a school trip to Paris & London. She said she wasn't a fan of Paris, but went on and on about London. Your pics help me see why. Again, super work!

Are the sizes/fits of the TPR t-shirts a good gauge of the hoodie sizes/fits?

Amazing report as usual. It's slightly blurry, but that lady looks just like "Wendy" aka "The Snapple Lady". Can anyone confirm?

This movie was just plain fun. Definitely recommend to anyone. Don't let the zombies put you off. It's really more of an odd-couple road trip with zombies than a horror film. The only thing that could have made it better would have been to add more zombie kills of the week. From a TPR perspective, Wild Adventures was very well represented and realistically used. The "Rattler Kill" was awesome. And was it just me or did the Boomerang look much larger than usual? It looked massive in a few of the establishing shots even though it's just a standard boomerang. It actually took me a second to realize that's what it was.

You made me spill my drink! That's hilarious! Post of the week!

Currently Reading: Arcade Mania: The Turbo Charged World of Japan's Game Centers It's outstanding so far. If you ever spent a quarter in an arcade anywhere, you'll be enthralled.

Looking at the picture, I agreed with this statement 100%. But then I saw a black 3 on the way to work this morning. With the black on black scheme, the grill blended in nicely and didn't look obnoxious. It was actually pretty sharp. If you get the 3, get it in black. Any other color and that grill goes back to being fugly. But then again, I'm a Honda man.

More like Hoosier Hairicane! *rimshot

The pie looks wonderful, though cheese in a pie does not compute for me. Can I request a Boston Cream Pie?

I've been wondering which park they were at. Thanks! I am very excited to see it, but I don't think it will be able to dethrone Shaun of the Dead as my favorite Zombie film. We'll see soon enough though.

(FYI - Here's original thread with 50% worse spelling!) It's not really that bad but here's my story: In the summer of 1998, the movie Titanic was still HUGELY popular. We're talking people were going all "beanie baby-crazy" & "hannah montana-crazy" over it. Well, seeing as how Paramount had the rights to the film, of course Kings Island was host to the Titanic Travelling Experience (or something like that). It pretty much amounted to a few rooms with costumes, props & photos from the movie. We happened to visit the park on the last day the show was going to be there. It was also Fourth of July weekend. To this day, my wife and I still agree that it was the most crowded place we have ever been...and not just amusement parks. The most crowded place period. There was actually a wait just to walk down international street. It took us over 5 minutes to make it from end to end of the international fountains. We were at the park for 9 hours and I only managed to ride 4 rides: Wave Swinger, Adventure Express, Lazy River at the Waterpark, and the Flow Rider at the Waterpark. My wife managed to add Flight of Fear to that list, but that's it. We were having to try to have fun and that's when we knew it was a bad day. Funny thing, I distinctly remember that by some miracle, even with all of those people the bathrooms were always walk-ons! Imagine that. As we were leaving, a group of management was by the gates talking. Not being a KI regular, I asked them if it was always this bad. He said it was the most crowded day he had seen in over 10 years there. Of course that's the day we picked to go. But a bad day at the park still beats a great day at work IMO.

^ I second all that. The film itself was at best a mediocre teen drama/romance. In fact, had it not been shrouded with the amusement park veil, I probably wouldn't have finished it. My non-enthusiast wife happens to really like teen drama/romance movies and she fell asleep 30 minutes in. The enthusiast part of me really wanted to like Adventureland and I do applaud the movie's concept and setup. However, there was just way too many missed opportunities for true comic gold and theme park insight. And the fact of the matter is that Kennywood itself really wasn't featured as prominently as expected. I'd say more than half the movie takes plays outside of the park. And even when in the park, rides are only shown in a handful of scenes. The vast majority of in-park scenes are at game stands or the arcade. The film was shot on location at Kennywood, but the truth is that the entire thing just as easily could have been done on a soundstage with some B-roll establishing shots and you probably wouldn't notice the difference. It's a shame they didn't use the park more to their advantage. And an on-ride scene would have been nice to have seen as well. Still, the Giant A$$ Panda, Amadeus and nutshots will keep you entertained. The main character is also very likeable and his dry wit will keep you laughing. ("That's me. I'm panty stain." ) Unfortunately, the director keeps him kind of reigned in and he's never allowed to let that wit really run free. It's a shame too because when you do get glimpses of it, it just reminds you of how great the film could have been. So for me, the final analysis is that Adventureland is a missed opportunity. Not only from an theme park enthusiast perspective but from the movie enthusiast perspective as well. Worth a viewing, but check your inner coaster nerd at the door and keep your overall expectations in line.

Big Mike is one of the more colorful characters you'll find here at TPR. He visits tons of parks and other fun places and posts reports on them. You can check out his adventures here: http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=41995 I got the chance to hang out with him at Holiday World earlier this year and it was a blast. Look for the yellow shirt. He's hard to miss.

My son and I finally beat Super Mario Galaxy the other day. Now we're into Sonic & the Secret Rings. I'm also playing Scribblenauts on DS.

Yes. X2 Backwards = Free Chocolate Factory...in your pants.