Ed Farmer

Should be Cheetaka.

It makes me think of that press release S&S felt compelled to put out earlier and how maybe they'd like a mulligan.

Prime. Looking forward to that. FastLane will never be agreed upon by those especially for or against it. My favorite thing to do is to go to parks on days that shouldn't be particularly crowded. I doubt it's just luck that I happen to visit on days that the crowds are conducive to reasonable wait times and the ability to ride what I want to ride. If you've been going to parks for a few years you should be able to make an educated guess and peg a few days like that. I guess it helps that brisk conditions (upper 50's - mid 60's and a breeze) are my ideal park day temps. That said, there was a time that the group I was with also happened upon a family that was heading out and had a few of those Fast Lane tickets with 2 punches left that they were giving away. It was nice. I'd do it if it's a park I haven't been to before.

Wow, I'm not sure that I've seen better shots taken within the gates of a park. Definitely a breath of fresh air.

My suggestion to anyone that will be taking Apocalypse out for a spin is to stick to the front row. Exclusively. It's like taking a time machine to the days before B&M started designing the world's most expensive merry-go-rounds. It's a bummer that the Station House didn't accompany the ride to SFA. It's design caused a good percentage of the people to unknowingly walk right past the row 1 line, resulting in 2-3 train waits for anyone paying attention.

Best new for 2012 attraction by miles.

So weird to see Iron Wolf's old stomping grounds like that. Almost as if nothing changed if you just take a quick glance. If you took the last three coasters SFGAm has gotten rid of and started a new park with them, it'd be a damn good park.

That wasn't sarcasm. The first thing that I thought of when I saw the picture was a garden hose with holes poked into it for the purpose of watering a lawn. I'll let the park's marketing department fawn over the ride- they're paid to do it. I'll end up riding this sometime over the summer and if it's good, I'll be happy to say that it blew away my expectations.

I thought this one was done for after hearing about the obstacles that stood in the way of construction and nary a peep afterwards. This is good news, hopefully the Kentucky Kingdom shuttle loop has a future of it's own.

It looks like a garden hose that people poke holes into to water their grass.

I'm not going to argue that Wildcat was something it wasn't, because it was old, not original or unique, had an incident or two, and happened to be located right on top of land being used for a new project. Not sure if you're suggesting that Wildcat is being removed because it looked shabby amongst it's surroundings, but I would imagine that would be an afterthought when it was time to make a decision about it's future.

You'd be hard pressed to find a ride that looks more promising. From a purely aesthetic standpoint, the steep angle of ascent with bulky track and minimal support lift hill is a pretty horrid look. It works well on a 300+ footer but gives this one a cartoonish appearance. Things like this are easy to look past if it gives the ride it looks like it's capable of giving.

I can at least partially sympathize with you on that. I think their rides are very good, but really underwhelming at times- most notably the first drop. After riding the first two B&M hypers, I expected the extra 100 feet and steeper angle of descent on Millennium Force to be all sorts of awesome. Biggest case of anticipointment on a roller coaster ever. I get the feeling that Intamin love is pretty much the same thing as Vekoma hate. Someone says Vekoma and a group of people stumble over themselves trying to be the loudest about how much they think Vekoma sucks.

Had no idea they were still alive, let alone employed in a market the size of Chicago by anything bigger than a Ham Radio station.

Not a big fan of how some of these newer B&M megacoasters fizzle out. Earlier designs had a legitimate second half after the MCBR. Diamondback was the last of them to do anything worth mentioning. With Leviathan, I wonder if the brakes are the way they are in order to help cool off the wheels. The last 300+ foot coaster CF installed seem to have some issues with that.

The best Artest story (and there are many) is how during his rookie year on the Bulls, he applied to Circuit City so he could get the employee discount. It really doesn't get any better than that. Speaking of the Bulls- basketball in the city of Chicago died yesterday. What an absolute nightmare for everyone involved. Rose will come back from this, but he'll never have that extra gear that separated him from everyone else. It's still sinking in. There was so much hype about this team going into Saturday, and it's entirely gone. Miami/Chicago in the Eastern Conference Finals was supposed to be legendary. The Bulls are still good enough to perhaps make it there, but it will be over before it even begins. I don't think I'll be able to stomach watching another second of basketball until next season comes around. Wow. Best case scenario is 9 months away from the game.

To create as realistic a ride as possible, the firm that designed Busch Tampa's dive machine insisted on test driving Shakira.

Many feel the fact that this is their first 300+ ft coaster that they wanted tried and true just in case, but I guess no one aside from B&M or Wonderland truly knows. Not sure where I read it, but someone offered up the possibility that the 1st generation trains weigh less and would be kinder to the lift. I'd imagine even just to distinguish it from Behemoth could be a reason. I can only imagine how 90+ mph felt on an early spring day in Canada. A while back SFGAm used to stay open for the first weekend of November. The park was dead, and to finish off the season we grabbed 4 or 5 rides on Iron Wolf. For as blissful as those rides were, it was even colder. It was either snowing or about to snow- can't recall, and windy. Iron Wolf is roughly 210 feet shorter and 40 mph slower, so I've got to hand it to those that rode this today. It's either a sign of dedication, stupidity, or both.

That might be the sweetest angle of the amphrisand to date. Looking at it, it's so obvious that I don't know why it's taken this long to materialize in one of their designs. It's an exaggerated, modernized take on Magnum's turnaround.

Not a big fan of this flavor of the month Apocalypse theme for coasters. Of course, better that than scrapping the ride, but hopefully this is the extent of it for the time being.

I will wait until they actually start rebuilding it before I get excited. To many ideas get started with lack of funds and never finish. Especially with this being in Vegas.

Sidewinder at Elitch Gardens is something I really want to try before it vanishes. 8 years later and Spinning Dragons for Orient Express is just as unfortunate as it was back then. It's a close call between that, Shockwave/Superman, and Drachen Fire/nothing for worst replacement of an Arrow looper.

That's a big advantage that she will have over most kids. Most adults too, for that matter. Very useful.

Perfect Game for Phil Humber of the White Sox. Since 2007 Mark Buehrle has thrown a no hitter*, a perfect game, and now Phil Humber looks like he'll take his spot with Buehrle down in Miami. *This no-hitter would have been a perfect game if it weren't for one walk- to Sammy Sosa. Buehrle promptly picked Sosa off at first, so he still only faced the minimum 27.

I get the impression that these covers ought to improve X-Flight's position in Mitch's poll no less than 5 spots. One of the train's on SFGAm's Batman has been operating without it's covers for what seems like years, so anyone looking at the current poll should take that into account.