let1gre

Excellent! The DPRK is a topic that I find so fascinating but I'll probably never be able to indulge in due to being American and all that. Thanks for letting me live vicariously through these pictures!

Ah! I was in the Tucson area a couple summers ago and I did indeed wonder what I was doing there, before visiting the BioSphere! My friend and I had a good laugh about it at the time, about how interesting a project it was that was just sitting there, largely (apparently) purposeless. Great TR, I found it really interesting (architecturally and engineeringly) and I enjoyed reliving it a bit. But not reliving Tucson. Definitely don't want to do that.

Definitely interested! Glad to hear of this!!

Hey guys, I haven't been on in a while but I have a fun update. I was in Hong Kong last week and a helicopter ride took us right over Ocean Park. I didn't (unfortunately) have a chance to visit, but I did get some photos from the air of the park and specifically the new B&M, Hair Raiser. It looks to be coming along smashingly! Enjoy. Here's one. Another. Courtesy of my brother (the guy who's hogging the left half of the frame on the first two).

I was not really a fan of the trains until I saw this video - now I think they look great. I'm also waiting for a certain Mr. Alvey to get out there to shoot us some very professional video of this monster!

I think it's a cool idea - pretty much a rideable gyroscope. It's also important to note that the size of the model also gives gravity a larger impact on it, so it may be (slightly) less vomit-inducing if manufactured in actuality.

"The first time is happenstance; second time is coincidence; third time is enemy action" Of course, I don't think there's any enemy action here, I just don't think it can be truly considered a Maurer problem rather than a rider problem until either an investigation is conducted or more incidents occur. That said, it is a very sad occurrence.

^Yes, it did. For all of the development the UAE has going on, it sure doesn't have the money available to put where its mouth is... in other words, this is not an anomaly in the slightest in the Emirates, just in the theme park industry.

Funtown USA in Saco, Maine is a cool little park. Kind of like a glorified carnival with a Galaxi, S&S Tower and a woodie, but nice nonetheless.

Oh, I didn't even see that was in Taiwan. Thanks for pointing that out, I should learn to read.

I'm going to go ahead and say I like the tagline, but I don't like how it's presented. I think the font is rather plain and something just bothers me about the quotes around it... it reminds me of some local ad on TV. "Serving your area with a smile since 1955!" My inner graphic designer will shut up about the Gadzoox font, it's a classic.

Correct me if I'm wrong here but China hasn't appeared to have installed any floorless coasters yet. You're wrong here. In unrelated news, might anyone know if this beautiful piece of B&M will be open by April?

^ The best thing you can do is just write down synopses and a few lines, but somewhere like an idea journal or something, just to have them. It's not *too* much of an accomplishment, and it lets you throw all of your ideas in one place for good organization! My rant: Now that I'm into college, I would totally not mind another Snowpocalypse/Snowmaggedon/Snowmyf&%$inggod, whatever you wish to call it, to cut down on me sitting around for a few more months. So I can sit around at home.

This seems like a fun thread to resurrect. I'll start with one. A man pulls up in front of a hotel and immediately knows he's bankrupt. How?

After seeing those videos, two thoughts came into mind: 1) That's faster than I thought! 2) Still looks really boring! And that sums up my opinion. Is it launched, or just powered?

That is one hell of a coaster he's got going on there. I could see something like this going into Tokyo due to the massive space issue they have there, and the fact that Japan as a whole is into amusement parks, idiosyncrasies and bizarre architecture. They're also the guys who thought up these two things. Other than there, perhaps China. It's a good bet anything might end up in China, the way their amusement park economy is surging right now. By any means, it will now show up in the US anytime soon (or ever).

Lewis Black and Louis C.K. Definitely NSFW and NSFYC (your children), but thoroughly hilarious.

It's called the Pepsi Challenge, and it's misguiding! Read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, great book and it talks about the challenge. Anyways! I'm always up for throwback, retro packaging and labeling. Taco flavored Doritos actually sound really good, even though I'm not a Dorito fan at all really. Who's up for some throwback C3POs?

For my money, if this gets thrown into the Intamin production mix any time in the next few years, it's going to China. I would be thoroughly surprised if it didn't. That aside, I like the layout, but I imagine that the portion from after the loop to before the barrel rolls - the corkscrews - would be pretty uncomfortable and headbangy if it wasn't silky smooth. I do like the Mega-Lite-esque drop and turn and the first two inversions, though. Very different.

Happy new year, yayyyyyy. -My first season as an official coaster enthusiast, meaning maybe season passes to BGW and KD -College! That's about it at this point. Stay tuned for further updates!

Sometimes, the simplest things are the most fun.

Rather than arguing over whether more people have fond memories of Eagle's Fortress or Big Bad Wolf, or memories at all, because that's purely subjective due to popularity and size, a better group to poll here would be people who have memories of BOTH, which is much smaller. Saying people weren't upset when Eagle's Fortress was removed is ignorant and stupid - who knows, there might be a South Korean coaster enthusiast group discussing the removal of Eagle's Fortress and remarking about the lack of fondness for that "other" doomed Suspended, Big Bad Wolf.

A very merry Christmas for my family, in every sense of the word. -Canon Rebel t2i/550d -Wacom Bamboo Pen tablet -Adobe Flash CS5 -Some Japanese books -Pocky! -Gas money -Wallet, badly needed -Lost in Translation DVD and other odds and ends.

Robb, you'll be hard-pressed to change the mind of the people whose memories rule their opinions on Big Bad Wolf. I think Jay20016 and Wes summed it up nicely- That said, like I mentioned before, I am a member of the nostalgia group on this issue. Not nearly as strong as some, but one nevertheless. Why is all of this outpouring of emotion coming after the fact? Brace yourselves, I'm pulling out a cliché here: "You don't realize what you have until it's gone." I am firmly in the belief that that is exactly the phenomena we have going on here. It was important to many, a decent, rare, interesting type of ride that existed at a well-known park. Though it was upstaged by Nessie, Apollo, Alpengeist and even Griffon and Drachen Fire for much of the time it was still around, it was always hanging around (ha!) in Oktoberfest. Why do you think commercials and sweepstakes use the term "While supplies last!"? Because it implies rarity and scarcity, and if something is scarce, it must be all the more valuable. As soon as it was announced that BBW wouldn't be seeing out the decade, every ride became one while supplies lasted. Basic supply and demand. In this case, roller coasters.