DiSab

Awesome. I won the Screamscape drawing for tickets to Dollywood, so I'll hopefully be making a trip down there at some point this season. Any more info I can get about the park will be helpful. And mt vote fors for #0, followed closely by the threesome-across-two-states.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7GEuhagS6E&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fuser%2FwwwTHORPEPARKcom&feature=player_profilepage It seems Thorpe jacked the Coaster Porn thing and took it to an... extreme. An awkward extreme.

I haven't gotten a ride on a B&M hyper yet, so i can't give a solid opinion yet. However, I can say that I don't get the forceless part of MF. Every time that I've ridden it I've felt it was quite forceful. The first drop is ridiculous, and the first overbank gives some of the highest forces I've ever experienced. Every time I've ridden I've greyed-out on that turn. The knot on the island is also crazy, and the airtime on the exiting hill is pretty strong. For me, I love the ride, but can't fairly vote until I get a ride on Diamondback.

I've never noticed any inconsistency between all my rides on Wicked Twister. Each time I've ridden the train seems to go roughly the same distance up the spikes.

That's the first Screaming Swing (or, in this case, Scream 'N' Swing) with only one arm. But still looks like its packed with S&S awesomeness. And that Miler coaster looks crazy - I didn't know Miler built coasters on that big a scale - or at least used their kiddie-coaster trains on the bigger coasters.

Thanks man. Bat Fight -- Will Farrell

Beer = Awesome. That is all.

Jay "The Boss" Bruce fractured his glove wrist in the game tonight against the Mets. Given he's easily our best right-fielder, it'll be interesting to see how we bounce back. Hopefully' he won't be out for too long. We can't really afford to fall much farther behind in the NL Central...

America, Fuck Yeah -- Team America

My apologies if its in here already, but what exactly is the problem with the ride? I know they have had some problems with the trains, and they had to rebuild a bit of the layout, but I'm not really clear as to why. Did the trains have too much speed and were over-shooting some of the turns? In all honestly (forgive my bluntness here) I don't see how the design is flawed. I mean, Intamin and Mack both have bobsled-type rides that have been operating without incident for years, and I don't see how this ride is much different (besides being built out of wood). Are there underlying problems and I'm just oversimplifying it? *I don't want to start a flame war or anything, but that's the best way I can think to put it...

Wow, that seems... interesting... Hard to believe its still in production and (apparently) popular in other countries.

^^Even though I haven't been, I have always thought that the revised spike looks a lot more fun than the normal vertical spike. The only thing that can make an Intamin Impulse better is an inversion. Quite the creative way to comply with city regulations and improve on the Impulse design.

^Little known fact, all roller coasters are invisible, and you need special red-and-blue glasses to see them. Unless you're an ACEr, in which case you just need to eat enough gravy and you gain Coaster Vision. Looks like you guys had a fun trip. One of these days (like when I graduate college) I'll take a big Credit-Whoring road trip. Dollywood is one of my top-choice parks to visit in the coming years. I've only heard good about the place. I haven't been to FMP yet, but I thought the same thing about RoundAbout when I saw a POV on YouTube. The ferris-wheel lift and first drop seem decent, but after that, it looks like a few forceless turns and that's it. And that's great they worked hard to get the Zuma credit up and running for you guys.

^That's because r!ngs has a sweet censor-replacement. I mean, how can you not love rings? Stick around here for a while and you'll see it more. One more reason why TPR rules. It's good to hear they're close to opening this thing. It took them long enough. Hopefully it just won't have any other setbacks. All we need are the onion rings to get installed and were good to go!

I'm planning on going to Atlanta for a conference the last week of 2010, and I'm looking forward to visiting both World of Coke and the Georgia Aquarium. And yes, I've heard nothing but bad about Beverly - what's it supposed to taste like?

^Absolutely amazing. Hilarious.

One Tree Hill -- U2

CP_RULES wins a cookie. That's what I was going to try to describe using words, but he did it much better with that picture. Also, it seems like a lot of you arguing for a vertical lift are operating under the assumption that all the lift pieces are there already. How do you know? I would guess that there's only about half the lift pieces there already, and some of the others that will be coming will have connections for the support structures. Also, the truss system that is attached to the lift-track pieces is much too thin to support a vertical lift. The straight pieces don't have any connections to attach to additional supports. A vertical lift that is only about 100 feet or so (like Fahrenheit) would work with that truss system, but a 300-foot system would have much too many forces for that truss to support the entire lift safely.

^Son of Beast... and... smooth?!? Careful, you might rip a hole in the space-time continuum.

It won't be a vertical lift. In the picture below, I've conveniently circled attachments on one of the actual lift segments. These attachments will end up vertical once the lift is constructed, and will attach to the lift supports. Thus, the lift looks to be approximately at a 45* angle (the same at MF). That piece that they are saying is going to be the base of the lift, won't. I would expect it to be part of the lift support structure. Why? It has the same construction of the truss underneath the lift pieces. The flanges they think will attach to track pieces will probably just attach parts of the lift system to the support structure. Furthermore, it doesn't make much sense at all for a vertical lift. If greenspandan is correct in that there's 380 feet of lift track on site at this point, that's a massive lift height. I can't imagine that they'd make a mechanical lift that tall. The forces on the train as it goes up a vertical lift that tall would be crazy. Plus, with the rest of the lift and all the other parts, the total height would likely exceed 400 feet (adding the lift crest and the height off the ground where the ride begins) - this is a gigacoaster, not a stratacoaster. The entire structure just seems too bulky to be a vertical lift. I would think that they would have less support on the track pieces themselves, and more on the structure supporting the lift and drop. Plus, the straight lift pieces have connections for a catwalk, and there are pictures of catwalk pieces in the lot (I think) - vertical lifts usually don't have catwalks. Finally, if that part that you all are thinking is that beginning of the lift is in fact going to have lift track on it, why isn't the lift track on it already? I mean, the other lift pieces came off the trucks with the coaster track already attached - why wouldn't this piece? Just seems counter-productive to me. Like I said, I would look for this piece to be one of the parts of the support of the 45* cable lift hill. Done and done.

I can't wait to see that. I might go later this weekend or sometime next week - whenever my schedule lets up a little.

isn't that the best feeling in the world? When I had mine pulled I got Vicodin - that stuff had me loopy for days.

+1 One of my new favorites is TextsFromLastNight.com. Basically a collection of texts that people send out tat probably shouldn't have been sent out. Hilarious stuff.

^Indeed she is. Just one more reason to see it.

One of the Reds broadcasters nailed it the other night - the way that they have the online voting going on right now is an absolute joke. They need to find a way in the coming years to limit the voting to one vote per IP address per day. Having people in the media room voting every 10 seconds for their team's vote-in player (like they're doing at the Phillies' ballpark) is just stupid. Give everyone on the ballot a fair chance, instead of making it a "which team can get people with no lives to sit in front of their computers for all hours of the day voting for our player" popularity contest. Or better yet, just get rid of the on-line popularity vote entirely. I really think they need figure out how they're going to run the All-Star Game, too. I think it's just dumb that the winner of the Game gets home-field advantage in the World Series. Like they're saying on ESPN's SportsNation show, the Game needs to be either competitive or fun - not both. The better way to do it would be to give the team with the better winning percentage home-field advantage. you know, like they do it in other sports. The All-Star Game should be a fun break for the players and that's it.