AllenA07

Heard a little more about this planned project today and found an article from the Dallas Business Journal. http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news/2011/11/09/nebraska-furniture-mart-unveils-early.html I'm still very dubious of this project as it just sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. The park would be about 30-40 miles from SFOT (might want to look that up, I'm doing some very rough math in my head based on how far I live from SFOT). Could this area support a second major park? I think it is possible if it is done right. There has been tremendous growth from what I understand (I moved out here about a year and a half ago) in this area over the past 10 years. Regardless I am interested to see what they have planned, and am even more interested to see if the park can move from an idea to reality. For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure a theme park based around a furniture store has the best chance to have "Bench: The Ride." EDIT: So after posting I read just a little more into this. The park is not planned to happen anytime soon. I guess that a huge furniture store is coming as the first phase of the project. The other two phases include the park as well as hotel and convention center. So to boil this down to the most basic facts, Dallas is getting an Ikea on steroids with roller coasters that 8 million people per year are going to visit???

For what it's worth I've seen some conflicting information about if that group still owns the land.

Don't shoot the messenger however just saw this on the news a little while ago and read more into it. Park would be in an area of the DFW metroplex known as The Colony, which is a small suburb to the north of the city. I live pretty close to the planned park (I'm 5-10 miles from the proposed site) and can tell you all that there is plenty of land. However the numbers that are being presented (8 million visitors???) seem to be a little bit on the extreme side. The developer also apparently has 1.5 billion dollars to work with, however their name is not being disclosed. With a project as big as this one seems, I can't help but think that unless we're getting a Disney park (we're not) this just doesn't smell right. Anyway, below is a copy of the story and a link to the local news story. http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2011/11/07/theme-park-proposed-for-the-colony/

As far as what will fit where and how things can possible fit into a space that looks too small I have this to say. The people who build roller coasters for a living are very good at what they do. Sure there are rides at other parks that would not fit into the same plot of land, thankfully those rides are not at SFMM. I'm not about to make a guess at what the park is going to get where Log Jammer is, however I can tell you that if the park wants a Giga Coaster there, I bet they can find a way to make that happen. Back in the early 2000's I spent a lot of time covering SFMM, I even had a handful of sources (not the dippin dots guy, but people who actually did tell me things that ended up true) that would slip me tidbits of information. Not one of them ever mentioned that the park was looking at the top of Samurai Summit for a new ride. In fact I'm pretty sure that was the only part of the park I never heard a whisper for. Before Tatsu had you taken me up there and asked if I thought a ride could fit there my answer would have been a quick no... Turns out I was wrong. Despite the debate here, my strong hunch is that if the park wants something (and has the money for it) they will find a way to fit it into the park.

Well I gave in and finally rooted my Droid X. I've now got it running on a MIUI rom. So far I'm thrilled with the results, my phone is running much better then it has over the past 6 months. The GB update on the X has been nothing short of a nightmare, it slowed my phone down, caused it to have random reboots, loss of services, and a whole host of other problems. Since switching the phone onto MIUI I've had a much more stable device that runs a lot faster. Battery life is my only real gripe but that has been a problem since I got the phone.

Frankly I think PETA, in their own minds, have done a good achieving their own personal ends. Despite how we all feel about it they have people talking which in their minds is the first step. I can promise you that their lawyers are aware that this suit is going nowhere. The lawyers don't have standing to bring the suit, if I was the attorney for Sea World I could have the paperwork done to dismiss this case done in an hour. PETA's point here was never to win the suit, their point was to file a frivolous suit that would grab as much attention in the media as possible. They've done just that. They have people talking about this suit and among all of the "PETA is stupid" talk, there has been a small amount of discussion about whether there is any actual merit to this. Frankly I hate all suits like this because in the end it always ends up being the lawyers fault that crap like this sees the light of day.

This is going nowhere and PETA knows it. There is fairly famous case law (mentioned in the article) which essentially says that animals don't have the legal right to sue in the US. As far as I know every first year law student reads that case and learns that animals don't have standing. So essentially this case is going to be nothing more than a huge waste of time. In fact if I was the attorney for sea world I would try to hit the attorneys with sanctions for bringing a frivolous suit. With that said a small part of me wishes this would get to the merits of the case. I think it would be interesting just to see what logic the lawyers would use and how the court would decide.

I believe I have a copy of that catalog some where. The tilt lift coaster was an interesting idea, I distinctly remember it getting a lot of buzz on the web after some of the pictures of it got out.

^Pretty sure the last hockey player to win a Cy Young was Tom Glavine.

I've got a Droid X running stock GB .605. Sometime when I've got some more free time I am going to root the phone and see what fun can be had.

I will admit that I'm a bit sad to see Deja Vu go. It was the first ride where I was invited to the media day, and the first ride that I had really covered from announcement to opening. I'm curious to see what becomes of that space now that Deja Vu is gone.

I love MLB: The Show 11, however what I will tell you is that the game has got a very high learning curve. As somebody who has been playing baseball video games for years (my first baseball game was Hardball III, anybody remember that one?) I find that The Show is so much more realistic that it makes it much more difficult. Unlike in previous baseball games, The Show makes hitting a lot harder by including both balls and strikes. The analog hitting makes it that much harder because now you have to consider the pitch location as well as work on the timing, assuming you have a strike to begin with. What I did when I first got the game was drop the batting back into a pure timing mode while I got used to the other new features. After I while I started playing with the analog hitting again until I had picked it up. As for me, I finished Heavy Rain for the first time the other night. I killed everybody so I'm thinking a second play through is going to be in order. Uncharted 3 will be my next game.

My wife surprised me with tickets to game 1 of the ALDS in Texas! I've been a dozens of games over the years but this will be the first playoff game I've seen.

I wonder what the income tax bill on "unlimited" income would be.

I'm guessing I'm in the minority here but if I had unlimited money the last thing I would want to do is run my own park. I have this hunch that people who actually do run parks spend very little time debating whether Intamin or B&M is better or riding the rides then they spend looking at various profit growth charts. I have little interest in trying to run a business like this if I've already got myself unlimited cash flow. If I had unlimited money I think I would likely take time to travel and enjoy life! Maybe write a few books on American history, even take a venture into the political world and try to give something back.

Terrible day for hockey!

I'm with you on seeing how they build this thing. Years ago I had asked somebody at the park about it who was farily high up the food chain (his name escapes me right now) and was flat out told that the structure just couldn't support a drop tower. End of story. Appearently either he was wrong when he told me that or the park has since figured out a way to make it work.

Welome back! Always makes me happy to see one of the older members who left come back and post again!

Many many years ago when I was running SFMMGuide.com (I don't think it's a shameless plug if the site isn't active anymore) I had heard a few rumors that the park was looking into to building on the side of Superman. What followed was a long (and painful) discussion about why the Superman tower could never support a drop ride. Apparently it can! Truth be told, I'm not sure that I would be willing to climb aboard that thing. I do have a bit of a fear of heights and 415 feet is getting up there in terms of height. I do wonder what the cost of doing this is. By that I mean, is it overall cheaper for the park to build onto the existing tower then it would be to simply build another structure. Honestly I really have no idea either way it does however make me curious.

^^Post of the year!

I saw this story and was thinking about posting it. I would love a little bit more detail about what really happened, however I seriously can't imagine that there are any damages here.

Anybody else think the above post is just a little on the creepy side?

I'm guessing you're going to be alone in those feelings on here.

It depends on what I need to room for to be honest. If I'm going anywhere with my wife I try to stick us at a Hilton or some other nicer hotel. Marriott is a good choice because they always are clean, and they're located everywhere. Oh all the places I've stayed (non-chain) the nicest was the Palms in Las Vegas. Due to a strange series of events (they got our room wrong, twice) I ended up getting moved into one of the nicer suites. The jacuzzi on the balcony really sealed the deal on that being the coolest room I've ever stayed in.

I really think B&M has changed what we consider a "rough" coaster. Even if Scream has a bit of a rattle, I've never had anything ofter then good rides on it.