JEAPUgrad

What am I doing up so late every night? Punching the clown... In all seriousness, I'm an online college student and I usually hit TPR to take a break from mundane things like sociology in third world countries. *Yawn*

I'll be staying at Quality Inn in Huntington. My crew will be wearing hawaiian lei's. If you see us, stop by and say hello. I was promised a tiara but sadly this princess is disappointed.

But to make the comparison to the Beast is a little unfair. I rode Beast today for the first time in two years and while being trimmed to death, the Beast still holds it own in the speed department. I haven't been on I305 since the trims were added but many people have said that the ride seems to have slowed down quite a bit.

I typed this out on my blog originally so some of the content is not geared towards enthusiasts. ********* As planned, I left Pasadena MD at 2 am and drove through the night. The car was packed and I was off. The drive wasn't too bad. In fact it lasted over nine and a half hours and I made a few stops. I wound up crossing the MD/WVA border around 4:45 am and pulling over at a rest stop and took a power nap. The highlite of the drive was driving through metro Pissburgh and hearing all the Steeler fans panicing about their upcoming season on local sports talk radio. Today's forecast was cloudy with a 50% of rain and thankfully the weathermen were wrong on both accounts. As I drove through Columbus OH, the rain came and it came hard. I feared that I would know how Clarke Griswald and family felt in "National Lampoons Vacation" if I drove all night to find the park to be closed due to weather. It was sunny by the time I got to King's Island and pushing 90 degrees. I arrived at the park around 11:30 am and the parking lot was starting to fill fast! There were probably more school busses in the lot than there were cars. Not ever a good sign. I've only been to KI two previous times....2000 for URC's day at the park and in the fall of '08 during one of the Haunt nights. In the fall of '08, a lot of attractions were closed and the visit was a disappointment. Well, I walked through the gates today and Invertigo was down. Diamondback had a train full of passengers stuck on the lift hill. Delirium was down. Not off to a great start. I really wanted to ride Invertigo since SFA's Two Face no longer exists. As much as I disliked that coaster, I still miss it a little bit. First ride of the day was Flight Deck. Flight Deck was a GREAT ride. This ride was closed during my visit in '08 and after four consecutive rides, I had my fill. The first was in the front row, second in the back, and the last two were somewhere in the middle. Love the speed on this coaster and the swaying from side to side. Near misses with Son of Beast has always put this higher on my list than Big Bad Wolf. I know a lot of people will disagree with that statement. I finished up my four rides knowing that Arrow Suspendends are nearing the end of their life span. Maybe today will be the last time I get to ride Flight Deck and I savored every moment of it. Next up was Adventure Express. Like Flight Deck, I hadn't been on AE since 2000. I have fond memories of coaster take overs on this with other enthusiasts and chanting "You will pay" all day. I didn't remember too much of the layout and I was pleasantly surprised how long the ride was. For those not familiar with the coaster, the trains has to go up a lift hill which is located inside a tunnel before you get back to the station to end the ride. Inside the tunnel, there are animatronic type characters pounding their fists at you chanting "You will pay". I really liked AE and just wished I could've enjoyed the coaster more. With my fat ass being crammed into that standardized mine cart, it was kind of like trying to squeeze your foot in a shoe and your foot being a half of size too short. Ouchies! After AE, I went over and did Racer. Racer is a racing woodie similar to King's Dominion's Rebel Yell. For years I've always given the nod to Racer's cousin back east but on this trip I think Racer may just have edged out Rebel Yell. One ride on each side. Blue won the race both times. Both sides had a distinct out of control feeling that I don't think Rebel Yell has. Racer, in my opinion, felt similar to KD's Grizzly with the out of controlness. I like that a lot. There were pops of air in several places but nothing that made me giggle like a school girl. Sat in the back on Red and in the front on Blue. Found both ends to be relatively the same ride experience. After Racer, I encountered my first real line of the day over at Vortex. While standing in line for Vortex, I Facebooked this little status message that I came up with on the spot. "skies cleared and i "racer"-ed into the parking lot. i got to the gate and i was told "you will pay". what an "adventure express" that turned out to be! i was so flustered i thought i'd hit the "flight deck" and found myself in a "vortex". i still have a "Beast" to tame and i gotta dodge "Diamondback's" venom." I thought that was cute and original. Vortex was equally as rough at KD's Anaconda. Unlike the Anaconda where you get knocked around like the proverbial red headed step child on the latter portion of the ride, Vortex has no problems neck chopping you as you go over the first hill. I loudly screamed an explicative as I wasn't anticipating the pain. I've never understood the "graying" out everybody complains about on Intimidator 305. I get it now. I grayed out in the first loop and don't recall going through the second loop. I was "brought back" by the wicked jolt as we hit the 180 going into the mid-course brake run. So not cool. I did like the corkscrews as high off the ground as they were and located between the two loops. And of course I'm a sucker for a Batwing element, though no coaster does the Batwing better than Montu. So when put up against KD's Anaconda, where would I put Vortex? Slightly higher but not much higher. I like the layout better than Anaconda and that's the only resason why it's higher. Vortex should be renamed something to the effect of "Satan's Sadist". No a fun ride. Papa was up next. That's the Beast for you non-coaster riding people. The world's longest (and flatest) wooden rollercoaster. I griped a lot back in '08 as there was a noticable difference in the ride because Papa was trimmed to death. Thus killing the speed and making the ride a boring journey on a kiddie coaster through the woods. Not today my friends. I could feel the trims catching but we were still hauling some serious ass. Maybe I was spoiled a bit that on the URC ERT we were given unbraked rides on the Beast and the ride immediately went to the top of my wooden coaster list. Was my ride today as good as my number one wood Voyage or number two El Toro? No. Top five woodie? Probably. I'd put Stricker Grove's Teddy Bear in the number three position. Joking of course. I was satisfied with my one ride as the queue house was packed. Over to my most anticipated ride of the day...The Crypt. What? You thought I was going to say Diamondback? We'll get to that in a moment. The Crypt is an attraction similar to KD's The Crypt only the ride is located indoors. When the ride opened, there were all kinds of special effects that made the ride a neat experience. The Crypt is a Top Spin which is one of those rides where you sit down and it flips you end over end several times in short tight spins. The usually hold you upside down and point your nose directly on the ground. HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT: They only flipped us once. The rest of the ride was going around in circles in the dark. No special effects. No flippy flips. If you're not going to operate the ride as it was designed to operate, why even open it at all? Next up was Diamondback. Diamondback is the park's newest rollercoaster. For my non-coaster geek friend's, Diamondback is a B&M coaster which you all know is several screennames for me and is the url for this blog. Diamond is a B&M hyper coaster meaning it's over 200' tall and have no inversions. It's designed for speed and airtime. I've never been a fan of the B&M hyper as a product because I feel that they are over engineered providing little airtime and are forceless coasters. They are so dumbed down to the point that they do not live up to my personal expectation for B&M's that have made me fallen in love with their coasters. I've previously been on only two other B&M hypers. Nitro at Great Adventure and Apollo's Chariot at BGW. I was very happy that I fit the test seat with no problem. I jumped in the Single Rider Line and waited about fifteen minutes for my first ride. The first ride was in row 10 and I was on the far outside left seat. Did not enjoy the climb to the lift as I always prefer to be on the lift staircase side. I have a fear of heights and would quirk out big time if I ever had to evacuate on the non-staircase side of any really tall coaster. Row 10 was meh at best. No airtime and for a second year B&M the train shuffled a lot. Loved the layout but in the middle this ride sucks. I'd get back in line and received row three. Much better ride. Lots of pops of airtime but nothing substained. Of the three B&M hypers, I'd give the edge to Diamondback but I wasn't impressed. Diamondback didn't "wow" me like Montu, Alpie, Medusa East, Kumba, Dueling Dragons all did on my first rides. I've never felt secure in these seats since there is not a seatbelt. Maybe that's part of the problem for me. I just don't feel safe on the rides. They've never had a problem with the lap restraint popping open which would cause immediate death without a doubt, I just don't like that feeling. Diamondback was my 167th coaster credit and 168 came just a few minutes later on the Flying Ace coaster. This ride was also not opened in 2008. Flying Ace would go down as the ONLY Vekoma coaster that I actually have ever enjoyed. It may be designed for the kiddies but it was a smooth ride by Vekoma's standards. Next up was my final ride of the day...my first Rock-N-Tug/Disk-O type ride. I'm not sure which product this is out of Zamperla's catalog but it was a really fun ride. I've looked on the Zamperla site to trying and figure out just what the ride is. Unlike the products featured on their site, this model has a little hill between the two near vertical spikes. The ride goes back and forth along a coaster-like trough while the ride vehicle spins in a clockwise motion while the the main vehichle travels the coaster-like trough. All an all a great day at King's Island. I was only in the park for four hours before I decided to leave and head for my hotel. Holiwood Nights tomorrow. Can't frackin' wait. Posted by BnM Lover at 10:49 PM

I haven't ever been maced but I have been sprayed but once of this huge a$$ fire hoses during a peaceful protest and exercising my first admendment rights. You haven't lived your life until you've been knocked head over heels by the pressure of one of those things.

Correct. If the park were to remove the slides, and not replace that plot of land with anything else, they would be forbidden to add an attraction there in the future as a small creek that runs through the the land that the slides sit on. What sense this makes I have no idea. Many are speculating that the slides will come down in 2011 with the new for 2011 attraction being placed in the spot of the slides/ the old Around the World in 80 Days that was rehabbed and placed into TT. The fencing at Wild One has been there for years. The fencing of the slide area is to hide the foundation from ATWIED.

HN attendance list- 1. Nick (angryemobeaver {actually DropZone99 on every other site}) 2. Adam (spaceace12) 3. Nathan (kumba830) 4. Joel(10ryansmith) 5. Justin (RedB) 6. Brandon (saginawhxc) 7. Stefan (VGplay) 8. Dimitri (VoltageCaek) 9. Alex (WildStangAlex) 10. Joe (JEAPUgrad on TPR, Great_Ump on URC)

If I dont hear from you jizz, I'll be wearing a black Perdomo Cigars tee shirt on Thurs at KI.

Let me say this before I get to my post. I've never been to SFMM and was fully expecting eight pages of people complaining that the ride wasn't going to open...and I'm proud to say I was WRONG! Permit issues for a 28 foot tall coaster? I know you guys have legalized pot and all but that's really gotta suck. My theory is financial issues. Screamscape is reporting this morning that the new CEO pulled the plug on the project himself.

I'll give you a cigar if I see you next week Jizz.

I'll be at KI next Thurs if anyone wants to meet up! I'll be there solo.

^Agreed. I'm still pissed all these years later that they evicted Yogi out of his cave. Those bastards!

There use to be a pair of equally tall and steep waterslides on the Pier in Ocean City MD in the late 80's and early 90's...though I don't know if they were as tall as these two. I can remember standing in front of the slides as a child watching the crazies go down. You'd only see one or two riders go down in an hour or so. Not frequent. The splash pool was only about ten feet long. You'd always watch thinking you'd see someone hit the wall at the end of the pool because they were hauling ass down the slide. I tried to do a Google image search for a pic of the slides but I couldn't locate one.

Re: I305's themeing and placement Several points I'd like to make: 1. Wasn't the Congo area there back before Paramount took over from Taft? 2. Where else in the park are you going to put a 305' foot tall coaster? Unless you want to destroy the midway atmosphere (ala Great Bear's supports and footers all over Comet Hollow at HersheyPark), they didn't have much of a choice for the coaster's location. Take out more trees near Grizzly and put it on the I-95 side of the park? You think the moaning and groaning about Grizzly losing it's trees now is bad? Parking lot coaster? 3. Cedar Fair and themeing? Seriously? Do we really want to have this conversastion? 4. I'd rather see arguably the most anticipated ride on the planet be introduced at KD this year and put in it's current location than not have the ride at all. I've never been one to get bent out of shape over themeing and ride location. Just be happy that KD received the investment that was I305. There are many other parks out there that haven't received anything near what KD has over the last five years (or so).

^which positions? I know some managers there but not close enough to feel comfortable to ask if they are still employed. LOL

I'm not usually a conspiracy theorist at all BUT I have to wonder if the soft strap restraint is being added to the train now that there are trims on the first drop? With the ride being dumbed down on speed and airtime, any opinions on whether or not this would adversely affect whether or not the park went with the hard or the soft restraints?

HH opens May 22nd.

^You have to die of something...might as well enjoy it while you're here.

Am I the only person who thinks the second half of this season's storyline sucks? The first half of the season was great. There were a lot more funny moments and all the characters seemed to have their own individual storylines going. So far this season it's mostly about Rachel and her new beau, Kurt's dad getting with Fin's mom, and Mercedes and the Cheerios. There hasn't been much going on between Will and Emma, no where near as much Sue Sylvester in each episode, nothing going on with Quinn and the baby.... And overall with the exception of the Madonna episode, I haven't been too impressed with the song choices either. Your thoughts?

I think it's weird that you were able to get the seat belt buckled on Superman yet you were too big to ride JJ. SFA shortened the seat belts on Superman July of last year and I'm no longer able to ride. But I don't have any issue on JJ. I can ride JJ just fine. I don't have issues on Volcano or the standard sized B&M seats. I'm 6'1 280#, 42 waist, 48 chest. I have a big tum tum too!

So what's the deal? I mean if you took the picture and are working on the ride, you'd obviously know something about the ride that neither the park or The Gravity Group would've minded you posting a picture on the internet of?

Did I read and interprate this right? If so, that's just foul.

I don't know what's worse... Posting a pic not sure where it came from or posting the link from the original post which is on another message board site. Here's both. http://www.ultimaterollercoaster.com/forums/cgi/forum1.cgi?read=209425 I've scoured Holiday World's and TGG's Facebook page, did a google image search and looked elsewhere for this image and I can't find it anywhere. Rut-ro. Something's not right here.

^We'll talk years when the "interm" is removed from his job title.

Go figure. Weber has been on the job less than a week. Give the man some time to get settled. Good managers dont go into a new company and make sweeping changes in a week. His stamp on SF Inc will happen over many many months.