darklingscribe

You are right that it would be difficult to gage a Coaster in a typical theme park setting but if we are going for just popularity I'd say one of the Disney Coasters such as Thunder Mountain. As for pay per ride type coasters I wonder how much the Giant Dipper has made? It was built in 1924 and to date had had over 50 million riders. I'm not sure what the rider statistics are for the Cyclone but I wouldn't be suprised if they were just as large, if not larger.

I've tried out some HDD camcorders and the problem is the hard drive skips and stops the recording if the camera is jerked about. I'd wait a couple of years until Flash memory camcorders become standard (flash memory has no moving parts so it won't skip). As it is MiniDV tapes are getting really cheap. I can get a pack of ten tapes for about $20.

While everyone else is giving park advice I'll offer some driving advice. Don't even think about taking 101 all the way down to LA, morning rush hour will kill you. If you are staying in the city of San Fransisco and plan on leaving at four am, take the Bay Bridge across to Oakland and take 580 east to I-5 you'll know when you are getting close to I-5 when you drive through the Altimont pass where there are a ton of windmills. Take 5 south all the way down and it will lead you to SFMM.

I hope you are now living you dream. Congrats.

I just beat Professor Layton and the Curious Village for the DS (and recommend it to anyone who loves logic puzzles and riddles). Now I'm just waiting for used copies of Lost Odyssey to start showing up at my local game store (because I refuse to pay more than $50 for any video game).

For me it would be a bearable and dare I say somewhat fun ride if they put some nice soft padding on the t-bar restraint housing. As it is the first section of the ride is fun and the most scenic roller coaster I've been on. It holds the distinction being the only rollercoaster I've been on where you can watch rabbits run away from the tracks as the train travels over rolling green hills. But once you get to the laterals after the second lift hill it is impossible to keep the sides of your kneecaps from slamming into the T-bar's hard plastic housing multiple times.

Great Interview Robb. It answered a lot of questions I had. My first reaction to Shapiro talking about getting rid of rides with with high running costs and low ridership was that Superman: the Escape might be one of the next attractions on the chopping block. I've always heard that the amount of electricity it takes to run costs the park a small fortune. I was not able to attend the DVD party, Was anything said about Superman? Also While I think a Tony Hawk coaster is a perfect addition to a smaller park like SFDK I worry that it is too low capacity for a big attendance park like SFMM.

No Problem. Is there anything else you want to know? Since the Satellite photo is not the best of quality I can't really go into more detail. Sad to see the whole place is now under water.

I should have posted this earlier in the day. Oh well. I just wanted to remind everyone who is over 18 and in one of the 24 states doing primaries/caucuses today, because personally I hate it when I forget to vote.

Looking good. I personally think the new industrial looking trains fit X(2)'s military theming much better than the original trains.

I'm not all that familiar with iMovie, I'm more used to Final Cut Pro. This could be just a glitch and there might be a patch available for it, my first instinct would be to check for software updates. Also maybe check to see if you have enough hard drive space for the new clip. <> (never mind I see you have plenty of space) If you're in desperate need for an answer now, I'd search Google. Google has solved many a software problem in the past for me. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

I've ridden both and while I enjoy the twister layout of the Belmont Giant Dipper, I prefer the ride of the SCBB Dipper. It is nice to see that they are taking care of the ride and I didn't know they had to use the Morgan trains because of weight issues.

I enjoyed the film and thought it was a different and a good example of how to deal with with a tired genre. The way to make an effective monster movie is not to focus on the monster but to focus on the people, it seems too many films have forgotten that lately. Focusing on the characters rather than the monster is what made Jaws, Alien, and other classics of the genre so timeless. The only thing that irked me about the film is that the characters constantly refer to the camera and argue about if they should be filming or not. I think it alienated a few people in the audience because of this. In films, horror films especially, you don't want to constantly remind the audience that they are watching a movie, it distances the viewers from the story. Admittedly this is kind of hard to do in a film presented in the "shot by the actors" way. From what I remember of Blair Witch, aside from the opening scenes, the characters never discussed the handling or operating of their cameras, which made the movie more effective as the tension ramped up. I'll defend the Blair Witch Project as a good film to anyone. I think the main reason why a lot of people dislike the movie was because of the out of control hype it sparked. No low budget film could ever live up to such marketing. Cloverfield's opinion is also suffering from it's marketing campaign, even though, like Blair Witch, many critics who try not to follow such campaigns think it is a good movie.

I wonder how tight security will be when it is all finished.

The enormity of it all is mind boggling. I wonder when it'll be finished... 2020? Dubai is really trying to become the vacation capital of the world isn't it.

There are a few things to do on the drive between L.A. and San Francisco. While not a park related attraction, in San Simeon (half way between L.A. and San Francisco) you can stop and take a tour of Hearst Castle (not really a castle) a huge mansion built on top of a hill on the coast by the newspaper baron William Randolf Hearst. The mansion and scenery in which it sits is beautiful. North of there you can also stop off at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, considered by many to be one of the best aquariums in the country. There is also a smaller theme park a little way from Monterey called Gilroy Gardens. It has some of the best landscaping and well tended gardens in the Theme park world and also has some fun little coasters and flat rides.

Is that a model of just the park? or is that like the planned entertainment district of all of Dubai?

Interesting article. If they go with Cedar Fair's high demands (stadium built in overflow lot, cedar fair getting all revenue from parking lot sales on stadium days, and reimbursement for lost ticket sales when the park is forced closed) it could work to Cedar Fair's advantage, and with a stadium right next to CGA they will probably never get any noise complaints ever again. But if they do end up building the stadium and parking garage in the normal parking lot, I wonder where the park goers will park during the construction? Is the overflow lot large enough to handle a full Saturday's worth of attendance in the summer all by itself?

Link to Article Apparently Sega has just signed a deal with Emaar (a Dubai company) to open up some indoor amusement parks/arcades across the Middle East and Northern Africa. I should be interesting to see how many turn out to be profitable.

I think the Macbook Air is cool, but would never buy one, they made too many compromises to make it thin, The whole point of Laptops is to a a convenient all in one computer, having to rely on other optical drives no longer makes the system an all in one. It would be nice just to use to take notes on in class, but I would be afraid of it snapping in two in my bag. This apple announcement has me more excited than anything at Mac World. Even though it is probably a couple years down the line the idea of a keyboard able to change its keys depending on the program is really interesting, and might finally help me remember all the keyboard shortcuts in Final Cut Pro. Other companies are making boards like this already but they cost about $1500 and are getting mixed reviews. I'll be waiting for apple's version which will probably be cheaper and have most of the kinks worked out.

It was closed a couple of years ago because their lease ran out and the owner of the land didn't want to renew.

No kidding, these last couple of years have been pretty dry in California as well. Here is a link covering the three incoming storms and how they might effect the whole of California: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22503465/

Thats good news at least. Here is a link talking about the storm and all of the San Francisco and other Bay Area Closures and accidents: http://www.sfgate.com/flat/archive/2008/01/04/chronicle/archive/2008/01/04/MN87U9ERT.html I was wrong about the airports, apparently only SFO is closed, both the San Jose and Oakland airports are still operating. Up to the minute traffic reports: http://www.sfgate.com/traffic/

Thought this might be a good idea. Right now in the SF Bay Area there are about 500,000+ people without power. and a number of Freeways and bridges and tunnels are closed because of landslide danger and high winds. All flights out of the airports have been delayed or canceled. The wind at my house has split a 40 year old tree down the middle and my pool is overflowing with water and deck furniture. I'm just thankful that my power outage lasted only three hours. I read that in San Rafael a 18 wheeler was just blown over. I'll try to include links for bay area TPR members on traffic conditions. But the real reason why I've started this thread is concern over the wellbeing of the LA and San Diego TPR members. The huge fires that happened a couple of months ago have significantly increased the landslide danger so I thought a thread might be useful to exchange info.

I highly doubt all of that video is real. Sync sound film cameras back then were the size of refrigerators. Remember that the first sync sound 35mm film was in 1927 (16mm didn't get sound until the late 50s). I think the sound must have been added at a much later date, or the film itself is not as old as it claims.