Cameron

I am too - but the Waterpark is a huge draw and is much better value for money than a new coaster would be. SFGAm already has a pretty great selection of coasters (ignoring Iron Wolf), we honestly don't need more. A $15 million waterpark expansion would be (in my opinion) a far better investment for the park. Cameron.

If this new rumor is true, then it sounds pretty great to me. Chang just seemed like such a bad fit for the park, especially in a location that is prime water-park real-estate. I do still hope to see Iron Wolf gone soon .. That poor ride is years past it's used-by date. Cameron.

That Cirqus whitewood is actually mine

^ I picked one up as well, and my experience has been pretty similar to yours. I also bought some international data (and the camera kit), and look forward to posting updates while on the bus (between parks) on the Europe trip. I honestly think that iPad-like devices have an extremely cool future - the PC industry has been stalled for like 25 years, and now we're finally going to see some changes. As a computer AND gadget nerd, I'm particularly excited Cameron.

^ World Cup Soccer is one of my all-time favorite games .. And definitely in the top-10 Williams/Bally games ever produced. I have room for another game at my place, and World Cup is at the top of my list. Cameron.

^^ The campground is very cool, highly recommended. I also suggest you rent a boat (or wave-runner) and spend some time out on the lake. There's a rental place just north of the park. In 2008 it was only running one train, last year it was mostly both trains (although I think one was having problems .. Don't quote me on that though).

Haukus can be hard But sometimes they don't make sense Refrigerator Loved it, Dan! Cameron.

For me it's the turn-around that really does me in .. If that was a simple u-turn (like Shivering Timbers), or even something slightly more interesting like the turn-around on Magnum, I would probably enjoy the ride a whole lot more. But that section of the ride now just seems like such a mess - the turns aren't banked right, and there's really no flow (all my opinion of course); but it's just brutal. Cameron.

Great report, Scott .. And really nice to finally meet you (if only briefly). Your feelings towards Holiday World are pretty much the same as mine, however I actually thought that Voyage was running better than it has the last few years (still no-where near as well as it did opening year though). Huge props to the park for taking so much care of the coasters, and (with regards to Voyage) continue to work hard to improve the ride as much as possible. I mean anyone can build a crazy, aggressive coaster - the challenge is to make it rideable. But that said, Raven is still my baby! The layout, setting, and feel of the ride is just unmatched by pretty much any other wood coaster I've ridden. We closed-out ERT with a Raven marathon on Saturday night, and it was just running so well. The crew was awesome too, and it was just a terrifically fun time. Even if Legend and Voyage didn't exist, I'd still gladly make the trek down there just for Raven. Cameron.

What a fantastic report - great photos which really capture the feel and atmosphere of the park As for Cornball, it has always been hit or miss so I can totally see how your rides might not have been OMG AWESOME! Sometimes Cornball runs like it sat on a wasp, but sometimes it runs like ... well like a wasp that's been sat on. It's never really *bad* as such, always fun and smooth. I noticed your photo of Lost Coaster (showing that it's closed) ... I'm planning a trip down there this weekend so I called the park, and Lost Coaster is not currently running. I was just chatting with a girl in the office so I couldn't really ask for details, but she said that it will not be operating this weekend. No idea what is wrong with it, but hopefully it'll be back up soon; it certainly isn't the cornerstone of the park, but it is fun and unique. For me I know I'm going to have an amazing visit regardless (always do ), but wanted to mention it for other people who might be planning a visit. Thanks again for such wonderful photos of one of my all-time favorite parks! Cameron (IB fanboy, and proud of it!) Silver.

^ I disagree that they all died at the beginning .. Only the Flash Sideways was the "dream". I do think that Hurley (as the new Jacob) set that up for Jack, though. I'm with Larry - I was pretty disappointed with the ending. I also refuse to believe that the writers planned this ending all along; I don't doubt that everything was planned up to the end of season 5, but this whole season just felt like flailing. But really, I don't care that sthe ending sucked because the entire rest of the show was simply stunning. John really summed it up well, and I'm hoping that some mega-DVD box set is released soon .. With all the specials, and a physical map of the island and such. I'd pick that up in a second. Will miss the show .. Sad to think that I'll never again get to hear "previously, on Lost".. Cameron.

^ are there any caches hidden within the Disney parks? Or do security and the grounds crew frown on that sort of thing? Cameron.

Engineering isn't an exact science, even for something small like a simple metal bracket .. A roller coaster train is seriously complicated from a mechanical engineering stand-point, on top of that you have a bazzilion safety issues to take into consideration. Top Men are working on it right now, and it'll be ready when it's ready In the meantime, it's fantastic that Holiday World is still running Voyage with the old trains. Holiwood Nights is a stunningly good time regardless of what trains are running! Cameron.

How about this .. The final scene of the series will be Jack and Locke on the beach, playing that little game, as the new Jacob and Man In Black (recreating the scene at the end of season 5). The episode this coming Tuesday will likely be about Eloise (and Charles Widmore). I'm pretty confident that Eloise is actually on the dark side, wanting the alternate timeline to continue so that her son (Daniel) isn't dead. Just like Man In Black promised Sayid that he could see Nadia again, Eloise made the same deal. She knows so much more than she should, and she insisted that Locke's body be brought back to the island - for the Man In Black to use. She also doesn't want Desmond to meet Penny in the alternate timeline, because she knows that he'll figure it out and then try to undo it (restoring the timeline where she has killed her son Daniel). Cameron.

This is long before the Blackrock, before the Temple was built, before the Statue, etc .. This is centuries and centuries ago. I enjoyed seeing everything that happened in that episode, but I think it would have been cooler if it was spread out a bit more. This season had so many episodes where people were just walking around, they needed to split this episode up a bit. I've been talking about it with a friend of mine and we have some theories.. 1) The story actually ends when Juliette exploded the bomb, and we (the narrative) will return there at some point. 2) is Hurley related to Jacob/MIB? Their birth-mother was Spanish, and MIB can talk to dead people. Perhaps that's why Jacob brought Hurley to the Island. 3) Jack is going to sacrifice his life for the island - making a full transition to "man of faith". 4) Juliette will be back (sorry Elissa!), and she and Sawyer will be back together. 5) Everyone else will probably die, or at least be insignificant (like Ben and Richard have become). 6) It would be cool if the whole show ends with another group of people being brought to the Island as another iteration begins. MIB would say to Jacob "well, here we go again!". Personally I think that would be a great way for the show to end, however it's a commercial TV show and will thus likely end with Jacob "winning" - it only ends once, the MIB is dead or contained, and Hurley is in charge of the island. I would be very surprised if we see the origins of The Light .. Whether it's supernatural or spiritual or whatever. Cameron.

No, I loved it too. Although there's a mistake .. The mum was talking to the Man In Black in the cave, and he's telling her how he's going to install the wheel and pullies and such, and you can see the wheel leaning against the wall behind her. But then she knocks him out, kills everyone and fills in the hole .. Before he had a chance to install it! Either that's a major "oops" on the part of the writers, or someone else finds all that and installs the wheel. But yeah I thought it was great, I really liked the whole thing with the brothers, etc. I still think we might learn more about the origins of "the light". Can't believe that there's less than 3 hours remaining .. I have found this season to mostly be disappointing, but I'll still be sad once its over. Cameron.

I'm actually not a fan of LightBox ... The biggest thing for me is that if the photo is larger than the browser window, then you have to scroll the photo to find the 'close' and 'next' controls. Worse is that as you scroll the photo around, the webpage (which is hidden) scrolls too, so when you close the photo the page is in a different place - very annoying on message boards. If I were to improve IMDB I'd suggest moving all construction photos to a separate tab. Once a coaster is built the construction pics are mostly irrelevant, yet they appear at the very top of the page which forces you to have to manually scan the thumbnails for the start of the 'real' photos. Cameron.

With opening day coming up soon, I figured that now would be a good time to post about a group meet taking place. Several of us (Jo (JoJo), Griffin (B&Man), Patrick (Traincrossing) myself and I assume Nathan and Jeremie too) are planing to spend the day there. So far it looks as follows: Some will meet near the ticket windows at 9:30am. Some will stay until the park closes. More people are definitely encouraged to join us, so please don't be shy. If you're already planning to be at the park that day and want to meet for just a few rides, then please send me a PM so we can exchange cell-phone numbers - that will make it super easy to get in touch on the day. Likewise if you don't think you can make it there by 9:30am. These meets are usually extremely casual, with people coming and going all day. Cameron.

As I mentioned, a big draw for me at this show was seeing the still very much in development "Whoa Nellie" pinball project. This is being lead by Dennis Nordman and Greg Freres. Dennis was the game designer for such amazing pinball machines as Elvira (both of them), White Water (still one of my all-time favorite pinballs), Pirates Of The Caribbean, Doctor Dude, etc. Greg Freres is one of the most talented and creative artists and game-guys in pinball, including Elvira (again, both of them), Medieval Madness, Star Trek: The Next Generation, etc. Both of these guys are immensely talented, and make an incredible team (working with them on Scared Stiff was just fantastic). Being highly creative guys, these two really don't like being idle. Each had been thinking of doing stuff independently for some time, and happened to start talking about it at the Northwest Pinball And Gameroom Show last year. They penned many ideas before finally settling in on something with the look and feel of a classic 50s/60s game. Now Dennis has recently been getting into "fruit-crate art" (back in the days when fruit was delivered). This is classic, fun artwork, very much in the style of the 50s/60s games. After getting together many more times, they arrived at: Whoa Nellie! Big Juicy Melons They are working with an old Continental Cafe (CC) machine, which is an electro-mechanical game from 1957. Greg and Dennis have designed a new playfield layout, but will re-use all the CC components and rules (EM games are tough to re-program - and that's beyond the scope of point of the project). The artwork is very much in the fruit-crate style, and the whole machine actually looks like it's made from fruit-crates. The goal is "kinetic art", rather than a full-on, hard-core pinball - however it still has to play well and be fun; and they hope to offer these for sale before the end of the year. They have built up one playfield (called a "Whitewood" since there's no art), and this is primarily to test the geometry of the shots and flippers. Not all the switches are installed, but it does flip - in fact at the show we got to see it flip for the first time! Very exciting .. Greg has been maintaining a fantastic blog, which I encourage anyone to read who's even remotely interested in pinball and game design. There's also a Facebook group. Cameron. The game on display at the show - this is still very much a work in progress. A print-out of Greg's sketch for the backglass. This will eventually be screened directly onto glass using the 4-colour process. (All modern pinball machines have the art printed on material called a translight - which is durable and practical in a commercial environment, but nothing looks cooler than art directly on glass). The playfield - called a Whitewood since there's no artwork. This has been built to test the geometry of the shots, bumpers and slings. You'll notice that several switches are just drawn on, they will be installed in Whitewood 2. (At Williams we typically built 4 whitewoods during development, which is why the games shot so well). The original wiring harness is pretty much un-changed (other than being lengthened in some places in order to account for components which have been moved). Part of the brains of the game - of any electro-mechanical machine. Now I am honestly not mystified by any piece of software driven technology, and can figure out how pretty much any application, game or embedded device works ... but these EM games are total black magic to me. I love them! The "Whoa Nellie" cabinet - designed to look like fruit crates. The cantaloupe artwork on the bottom "crate" is going to be changed to water-melons since the green will pop more against the wood. All of that wood was aged by Dennis using a variety of crazy methods (including dragging it through gravel, and even setting it on fire!). It looks so awesome. They will also figure out some sort of rubber mounts between the machine and the bottom crate so that you can still nudge. No, the game will not have tradition legs Note the awesome detail around the flipper buttons. Remember that this is all new wood that Dennis really worked over to "age" it. They also spent a lot of time making sure that the buttons and lock-down bar all feel good while you're playing (even though everything is made from wood). Dennis flipping the game for the first time in public, in front of a large crowd. I got to play quite a bit too, and it really flips so well. Dennis was initially concerned that there might not be enough action in the bumpers, but it really works so well (most of the time there's a small amount of action, but around once or twice a game there's a lot of action - and it feels really good). He even has a long shot from the left flipper to the upper/right corner of the playfield, which is super fun (there was some concern that the old style flippers wouldn't be strong enough, but they work very well). And of course, I have to plug the t-shirts

Hey, I grew-up in arcades, turned it into a part-time (but very serious) job while in college, and then finally a career. A big part of my life has revolved around arcades, and so I really enjoy shows like this. I've done reports in the past covering Pinball Expo here in Chicago, but the Midwest Gaming Classic is not just for pinball - it's video games, consoles and PC game too. The Midwest Gaming Classic is a really fun show. Aside from the three huge halls full of games (all on free-play), I really loved the museum of old equipment (a lot of which was working). A big draw for me this weekend was seeing the presentation by two former co-workers (and current friends) who are working on custom EM (electro-mechanical) pinball machine / art piece .. but I'll get to that in the next post. First up are a bunch (and there are a lot) of photos I snapped walking around... Welcome to the Midwest Gaming Classic! Josh and Zack Sharpe, who are among the top ranked pinball players in the world, play a game of "Zen Pinball" on NBA Fastbreak. (Those two Fastbreak games were linked too, which is tremendous fun). Some old EM and early solid-state pinball. Classic video games are not forgotten either.. Centipede, Kangaroo, Berzerk, Captain America, etc.. A whole room full of vendors selling classic console accessories and used cartridges. There were some great finds in here! One vendor had these cool light-up posts available for pinball machines. (A lot of people are putting LEDs in their games, but they look awful - however these posts could be one way to make them look somewhat nice). There is even some old EM parts available (although certainly not what you'd normally find at Pinball Expo, but still fun to look through). No, I'm not a giant - this is an itty-bitty version of Dig Dug! (Fully working, it was very cute ). Classic console competition area .. people were competing at Tetris, Frogger and various Mario games. An Apple ][GS setup with Arkanoid! I sat down and played a game, and actually got goose-bumps. I played that game so much when I was a kid - really made me nostalgic and even a little misty-eyed. A Timex Sinclaire 1500 - one of many amazing old system set-up as part of the museum. For the Timex Sinclair above, check out the 16k memory upgrade! (Note that the actual jpg file is 49k ). One of two banks of networked iMacs, for Quake tournies during the day. A working Vectrex! This thing is so awesome, with a little vector monitor. Now be honest - if anyone doesn't know what a vector monitor is, I'll gladly explain it. They are super cool.. Intellivision! Several of my friends had these when I was a kid, and we spent many hours playing during summer vacations. The Adam "Family Computer". This came with a full keyboard, printer, and had duel (cassette) tape drives for storage. This hooked up to your TV, it was cool. Bally Arcade! The Osborne 1 was the first successful portable computer. (Seriously!) The Game Gear was a COLOUR hand-held game system ... loooong before Gameboy Advance. Free WiFi set up all over the hotel to encourage spontaneous hand-held competitions. The 100% home-brew Bill Paxton pinball machine, which has been Ben Heck's on-going project for many years. I've seen many home-brew games over the years, but was really blown away by this one. More info here: http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/17/ben-heck-completes-the-bill-paxton-pinball-machine-reasserts-su/ The playfield of the Paxton pinball - it was really fun to shoot. Elvira - Mistress Of The Dark, is always happy to see me Some of the trophies for the pinball tournament.

^^ The brewery isn't mine, it's being run by some good friends of mine. At the moment they're only selling within Indiana as they'd need a distributor to sell in other states. Cameron.

Indiana Beach + F8 would make for a fabulous day .. it's only about an hour north of the park too. There are also a surprising number of great places to eat in Valpo, some of which now serve F8 beer Matt, I see Tom almost every week - what size and colour t-shirt would you like? Cameron.

Actually mid-week in early June is my absolute favorite time to go. School is out, but that's actually good because it means that there will be no field-trips (going mid-week in May is a nightmare). People aren't on vacation yet either, so the park typically is pretty quiet. Weather should be amazing too Cameron.

Hey Guys, Some of my closest friends have been working their butts off for 8 months building a small brewery by hand. Other than the actual tanks, all the equipment has been put together using salvaged parts .. like the glycol chiller system and pumps, etc. Tom is a true engineer, and really put his skills to great use putting all this together. But that is probably of little interest to everyone, so I'll get to the most important part - the Brews. All of the beer is hand crafted from natural ingredients, unfiltered and unpasteurized for a healthier, fuller bodied beer rich with essential vitamins, flavonoids and antioxidants. From left to right: 1) First Ascent (A Belgian Honey Lager) - brewed with an overabundance of local light clover honey and cascade hops, this brew has a crisp citrus/clover nose with a clean malty slightly bitter finish and a hint of toast. 2) Ro Shampo (Imperial Red Ale) - brewed with four varieties of hops and a blend of 6 malts, this is well balanced with a nose that evokes thoughts of toffee, fine whisky, and cotton candy while finishing with the satisfaction of a taffy apple on a warm autumnal day. 3) Camp 4 Brown Ale - a hazy Northern England Nut Brown Ale style with notes of chocolate, coffee au lait, caramel, and perhaps a hint of a turtle sundae. 4) Rye Knot - a complex rye based brew somewhere between a baltic porter and a stout with a rich black head, hints of licorice, oak, cognac, and a light woodsy bitter finish. Here's to Figure 8 Brewing cheers! First Ascent, Ro Shampo, Camp 4, and Rye Not. All were quite delicious Tom and his wife Lynne are very much in to rock climbing, so much of the spirit and fun of brewery is rooted in that past-time. The very name and logo comes from climbing knots, and the slogan is "Harness Your F8". Inside the large chiller. The four current brews are in those tanks, which are plumbed into 4 taps on the outside, and also to nozzles for filling the growlers. A better view of the chiller - lots of kegs ready to fill for local pubs and restaurants. The fans against the back wall blast cold air in there - it was about 34 degrees in there. The retail area is jam packed with people - with more lining the corridor down the side. There was constantly a line out the door, from 1pm until well after 8pm. We had no idea it would go so well, it was fantastic! Cha-Ching! The register was running hot all day. The VIP section in the production area - which is where I hung out most of the day. Although at one point I ran out to grab some more labels and rubber bands for all the growers that were being sold. Certainly a good problem to have! Tom is rugged up, and working hard in the chiller filling growlers. Like I said, they were selling a lot more than they anticipated, so he had to fill more and more throughout the day. Filling these is non-trivial as they have to be back-filled first to remove all the air (otherwise the beer would keep fermenting in there). The only "downside" is that once opened, you have to drink the whole thing in one day Continuing with the climbing theme, the toilet paper sits on the pick-axe! Tom and Lynne plan on installing a small climbing wall - (bouldering actually) - in there. It will be for friends/family use only. Another shot of the production area - the retail section was too packed for me to get in there with a camera. When Anne wasn't busy in the register, she was helping Lynne pull beers. Those taps are on the outside of the chiller, and are plumbed directly into the large tanks inside. T-Shirts and home-made brownies Logo glasses are of course available too. Ingredients are waiting for new batches and new brews. My fridge is a very happy fridge right now - I picked up growers of Ro, First Ascent and Rye Not. There are more in there for a co-worker.

I am the Ringmaster Cameron.