cal1br3tto

^ Now I'm really glad I didn't go on a weekend! I went last Thursday and the lines were anywhere between walk-on and no more than 45 minutes. It was much more crowded than CGA was the day before. I'm curious as to why; I think SFDK is a better park, but that wouldn't really be a plausible reason. Kong and Cobra were the only walk-ons. Is Cobra always a walk-on? It should be; it's the most boring coaster I've ever been on, and I have several similarly sized ones to compare it to. Tony Hawk's Big Spin had the longest lines, but Medusa and Boomerang were pretty bad also. Roar and V2 were reasonably quick. I'd say no coaster wait was ever longer than 45 minutes, but more than one was over 20 minutes. I don't think any coaster used one-train operation, fortunately. I didn't witness too many people using Flash Passes. No more than 10 or 20 people that I personally saw while waiting in various lines, but of course I don't know what the total number was.

On my last.fm, 13 bands is the cut-off between true favorites I absolutely love, and "bands I have listened to a lot at various times for one reason or another" that may or may not "deserve" their high ranking. So here's my top 13: 1. Sublime 2. Crashdog 3. The Clash 4. The Beatles 5. Dead Kennedys 6. Subhumans 7. Coheed & Cambria 8. Misfits 9. Leftover Crack 10. Blaster the Rocketboy 11. The Dingees 12. Cotton Mather 13. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers The rest of my top 50 are: Relient K, 2Pac, The Dead Milkmen, Ballydowse, Transplants, Blenderhead, Megadeth, Bob Marley & The Wailers, One-21, Huntingtons, Calibretto 13, Elvis Costello, Eagles, Led Zeppelin, Ramones, Operation Ivy, Public Enemy, Squad Five-O, Buzzcocks, The Adicts, David Bowie, The Who, Run-D.M.C., The Havoc, AC/DC, Choking Victim, The Doors, The Cars, Bruce Springsteen, The Velvet Underground, Black Sabbath, T.S.O.L., The Cramps, Cock Sparrer, Pink Floyd, The Deadlines, Cream

^ Speaking of smells, your post made it easy for me to think of a guilty pleasure of my own. Old book smell. Unfortunately, I'm not so into it anymore, because...I don't read so much. Shameful!

I've been back in Oregon for all of Saturday and parts of Friday and, obviously, today. A real letdown compared to California. Darkish and a bit wet, except for today when it was brighter. I'll get used to it, though, plus we're pretty much in the warm season anyway, so I have plenty of sunny days to look forward to.

Glad to hear you liked V2. I used to really, really want to go ride it because V2 at SFDK was basically my favorite coaster, and I was so psyched that the one at SFGA was taller (and different!) . Now I want to go ride it because I was terribly underwhelmed the last time I rode the SFDK version, so I need to graduate to something taller in order to have any fun. Hopefully I'll get to it sooner rather than later. I just found out about "Splash Battles" this morning in another thread I was lurking. What a disturbing concept. I "tolerate" water rides but I think I would absolutely hate a Splash Battle.

Medusa at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom on Thursday. It was my favorite coaster for a while. It's pretty good. Medusa medusing its riders. I'm in the back row on the left.

Oregon (home state) Washington California Nevada Idaho Montana Wyoming Utah Colorado Arizona New Mexico Texas Louisiana Illinois Maryland Delaware Virginia That's 17, assuming they're all correct (I could be wrong on a couple I either just visited momentarily or not at all).

I love The Music Man and I have for years. I used to watch The Sound of Music all the time, and Mary Poppins was one of my first favorite movies ever.

If you can ride a coaster more than once, consider closing your eyes. It really neutralizes the fear, but unfortunately it also takes away a lot of the excitement, so don't do so if you'll only get to ride the coaster once that day. A good compromise is to "try" to keep your eyes open, but "allow" yourself to close them if you're too scared. That way you still get pieces of the full ride experience. If you do like closing your eyes (some people don't), stop doing so as soon as you can so you can start getting the complete experience! Other than that, just do the obvious. Hold on and scream. Stop holding on as soon as you can (unless you just like to), but don't stop screaming--it doesn't mean you're scared in a "bad" way. Not only are rides short, but individual elements are even shorter. Drops, loops, etc. are completed almost instantaneously. Time didn't seem to "stretch out" for me, even when I was very frightened, so you might not have to worry about that. Fully trust the ride and the restraints, since you're extremely unlikely to become a victim. It's best if you just don't worry about safety, since you don't really need to anyway. It is almost always better to commit to a ride than it is to back out, no matter how you feel. I know the standard advice is "don't let yourself be forced", but almost nobody truly needs to skip a ride. It's fine to avoid certain rides because of fear, but realize you don't "need" to. Don't "move backwards". If you've done something successfully once, do it again, even if you're still scared. For me, overwhelmingly nerve-wracking fear became a non-issue very quickly. It didn't take long for a tipping point to occur between extreme fear and average fear, and there's a big difference between the "before" and the "after".

I already listed some names of currently operating coasters. I'm also infatuated with some old-fashioned names. Anything along the lines of: Gravity Railway Centrifugal Railway Pleasure Railway Gravity Pleasure Switch Back Railway ! Switchback Gravity Pleasure Railway !

Six Flags Discovery Kingdom (three visits) Oaks Amusement Park Enchanted Forest Silverwood Theme Park Gilroy Gardens Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk California's Great America Wild Waves Theme Park (two visits) Remlinger Farms Fun Forest Clark County Fair (Butler Amusements carnival) Pixieland Oakland Zoo Funtown at Micke Park Funderland California State Fair (Butler Amusements carnival) Traintown Puyallup Fair Totals: 18 parks (counting fairs as parks), 21 park visits, 14 new parks 48 new credits (from 7 to 55) No coasters Cinco de Mayo Festival (Funtastic carnival)

My top favorites are punk, classic rock, and rap/hip-hop. I like most subgenres of punk I've heard (political, classic punk, street punk, Oi!, ska-punk, punk-pop, hardcore punk, UK77, etc.) but my all-time favorite category is Christian punk. Other genres I enjoy are ska, reggae, pop-punk, oldies, hard/alternative rock, "indie", power pop, post-punk, new wave, and probably some others I've forgotten.

I guess she'll have to move out of Portland then. We have plenty of "artful"/political statement nudity here as well. ^That was my guess as well. I wonder if the actual poster won was shown in the video segment to the original story (I didn't watch it). ^^Everything you described in your post is just completely disturbing. Wow. Fun stuff!

I got 117 and 193. It's just a marketing ploy.

Wow, that rat game sounds a bit...disturbing for some reason. Also, I'd rather win the rat itself as a prize! My mom's family won a duckling once, and later we found a book about a duck who could've been his brother, or cousin, or at least from the same duck farm, since he was also a prize at a fair around the same time and place.

I got curious and googled [ playboy poster "members only" ]. The second result, an Ebay listing, might be it. (Sorry, I'm too lazy to try posting a picture for the first time, if it's even allowed.) If so, then it's quite simple. White on a black background. It doesn't actually look suggestive, but I can see where the just the brand could be offensive.

Or how about winning a real bunny? I always thought that would be neat, but so unethical. I'm sure there's been a protest somewhere. I know they used to give out fish and ducklings as well. I would guess you can still win goldfish, but I'm not sure about other animals. (I'm not referring specifically to Oaks Park in my post. I'm talking more about fair/carnival prizes.)

I've researched using Amtrak to get to those parks and SCBB. It looked pretty doable to me if everything worked out. Personally, I'd be afraid of either getting lost walking from the stations to the parks, or getting confused while attempting to use public transportation to cover that distance. I might try this in the distant future, so it's great to see that similar things have been done.

I don't have a season pass because only one SF park is practical for me to visit, and not particularly practical. Therefore, I can't count on it to pay for itself.

I'm guessing this won't negatively affect my home park, especially since they completely resolved the issue. I do think it was an inappropriate prize. But isn't it possible that drawing attention to this issue and involving the kid might make Playboy more intriguing to him?

Thank you so much for posting this! I seriously wouldn't have found out about it otherwise. (Yay hardcore obsessive lurking! It paid off!) At first I was like, "If only California's Great America were a Six Flags park..." But then I bought 2 tickets for my beloved SFDK. YES!!! I'm'a get my Boomerang credit sooner than I ever would've thought! [/overexcitement]

In my head, I'm split as to whether I would do this. However, if I actually had the chance to in real life, I probably would end up refusing.

I would have to agree with you. That's just amazing. And when I looked it up I came across one called "High Frolics". What?

On the topic of being scared, I was still scared of coasters themselves on the day I rode California Screamin', so that was a factor. To me, loops were a "stereotypical" coaster feature. If people are scared of coasters, they must be scared of loops. If others are scared, why wouldn't I be scared? That sort of thing. Fortunately I'd read some advice beforehand saying that loops just feel 'funny' and are over almost immediately. Thankfully, that person was exactly right.

I've only been on the new version, and personally, I really only care about the back spike (and therefore, I love to sit near the back). The hangtime on the front spike is kinda fun, though. More on topic: For some reason I just love the views from Medusa. I love California so that brought back (fairly recent) memories.