darklingscribe

Gollum's Mood Swings

The Runaway Mine Train of Moria? Kidding aside. I agree with Wes on this. I just don't see how this could be done without taking a lot of liberties with the Tolkien world as non of his books really have immediate ride potential in their stories. Tolkien always tried to keep the magical elements of middle earth to a minimum.

I could see Shelob's lair being a great subject for a dark ride.

Sorry about dragging my feet on this, but I finally got my new camera to take these photos. Now to display the treasure trove that arrived in the mail from my Secret Santa. A puzzle and a platter A bunch of park maps. Some nice post cards A whole bunch of cool stuff. A Knobels Bag, King's Island Coasters (really needed some new coasters thanks!), a pin, a token, a coin, Busch Gardens playing cards, and a Mr. Six plushie keychain. A close up on the pin, coin and token And then finally a whole bucnh a photos. My Santa said they were the best they took from all the parks they visited this year. A bit of a puzzel and clue perhaps? I can tell some were probably from the east coast bash and maybe last years east coast trip. and then also some DLR pictures. And finally all the swag together for one nice group shot. Thank you to whoever you are you magnificent So-and-so!

I finally arrived at my mother's house for the holidays today and wouldn't you know there was a ChisHanKwansivus gift waiting there for me. I opened it up and was delighted to see it just packed with a plethora of Theme Park things. It seems the Secret Santa has set out some sort of puzzle for me to figure out who they are. One photo from each park they visited this year. As it is late I will document everything I received and post photos after I've had a good rest. I'd like to send out a big thank you to who ever you may be!

Mind Eraser

I am currently yelling at me TV. So much tragedy and all the damn journalists are sticking mics in front of the kids' and parents' faces who just went though all of this.

^ I find the same applies to me with buying new jackets and getting a hair cut. Both inexplicably make me happy.

If my secret Santa is wondering if I got my gift I'd like to say that the address I gave is my Mom's house because if the package were delayed in the postal service it wouldn't reach me at where I live after the 20th. So this is to my Secret Santa, I'll probably be one of the few who waits to open their gift until Christmas Day. And I can't wait.

I listen to stuff on my iPhone if I'm alone, usually podcasts like WTF and Doug Loves Movies. But if I'm with friends I tend to just have a conversation.

This really needed to be said. Both the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal park do a lot for animal conservation and research and I get the feeling that it would be a big loss for the world if either one were bought out by a for profit company. I agree it would be nice if there was a Busch Gardens on the west coast once again and San Diego would be a great location, but there really isn't a need for it to be converted from an existing park or zoo. Legoland didn't need to buy and convert an existing tourist spot to be successful.

Well, I managed to send my gift off yesterday, so it should arrive within a week. Funnily enough the other online gift exchange I'm participating in this year matched me up to a guy that lives the next town over from my ChrisHanKwansivus recipient.

Well, what do ya know. I actually got the secret gift I ordered today despite the delivery company having troubles. So tonight I'll be wrapping and tomorrow everything should be on it's way.

I'm having a similar problem that might stall my gift's departure on the 7th. The local delivery company Amazon uses in my area (OnTrac) has recently been delivering everything a week late. I do subscribe to the Amazon prime service, but this delay in delivery isn't Amazon's fault. The tracking is giving me this status: "Possible delay in delivery due to extra carrier processing," which after some googling seems to boil down to the delivery company being short on drivers to handle the extra holiday season load. I do have the other parts of the gift at my place waiting to go out, but my recipient might get his stuff in two shipments if the pièce de résistance doesn't get to my address on time.

I can't wait for the private boards. I'm really looking forward to this texas trip.

I went to Best Buy around 12:30 am friday morning, it was jam packed but I wasn't interested in any of their doorbuster stuff. I wanted to check out the blu-ray and DVD bargin bins as I am determined to get the most bang for my buck for the TPR gift exchange. There were a lot of good DVDs for $1.99 and some decent Blu-rays for $4.99. I purchased a few of them not really sure if they will be suitable for whoever I get matched with, but since I'm doing multiple gift exchanges this year I knew that they would come in useful somewhere. I also got $400 worth of iTunes gift cards since best Buy has the $100 cards going for $80 right now. Do I really purchase that much music off of iTunes? No, but the credit can be applied to all of Apple's digital content and it is the only way possible to get some sort of discount on Final Cut pro and other such programs. Then today I rode my bike to the mall to get some plain shirts I like that were on sale only today at JC Penny. 3 for 12.

This is really good move for the Sea World Sand Diego. The San Diego Soak City is I agree the best one in the chain and I can't wait to see how Sea World will improve it. I especially look forward to the new animal attractions.

I'll post my interests too because I forgot to do it before. I like a lot of the classic movies as well as horror and dark comedy. I do already own all the staples like Halloween, Beetlejuice, Nightmare on Elm Street, Tremors, but I like obscure genre movies as well. I also play plenty of video games (PC, PS3, Xbox) I collect theme park memorabilia like t-shirts and landyards. But more importantly, this is too whoever my gifter may be. If your really in to something right now and just have to share, send it I am open to anything and the best presents are the ones that can tell me a story about who you are. It makes things so much more unexpected and surprising when I receive something I would have never discovered if it hadn't been for this gift exchange.

Pleasant: Verbolten at the East Coast bash. Even though I did follow the construction log pretty closely by the time I got to ride it I had completely forgotten about it's secret surprise. So my first ride on it was as close to the "GP" as I could get and I enjoyed it a lot. Apollo's Chariot is never really discussed when B&M hypers are brought up so my first ride on it really rocked my world, considering my first two B&M hypers were Raging Bull and Silver Star. While those both barely had what I'd even call floater air time, Chariot was verging on the negative Gs on those last few bunny hops. Unpleasant first experiences: I'll be the first to say it, Maverick and Intimidator i305. It's not that I think they are bad rides, quite the contrary. It's just they go through their transitions so quickly that I was feeling bruised after my first ride. Because I am over 6ft, the quick right to left twist Intamin is so fond of now days nearly gives me whiplash and I have to be ready for it and brace myself or else the ride can be pretty painful on my back.

Yeah I'm using chrome on 2011 Macbook Pro running Mountain Lion.

The link to your IAAPA coverage video part 4 on the main page is coming up broken to me. I copied the link address if that helps: http://www.themeparkreview.com/Part%204%20of%20TPR/ Now I guess I'll do a search on youtube. Loving the coverage by the way.

I stopped by the park for a quick visit today and though there is no entrance plaza construction yet I did notice that the raft ride, Shipwreck Rapids, was down and drained with contraction walls up around the queue, station, and basically the first half of the ride. I was wondering if this just for refurbishment or is the ride going to get a small makeover?

I'd be happy to participate this year. I just picked up multiple copies of a certain favorite hard to find film that I found in a bargin bin for $3 each and been looking to distribute them as far and wide as I can. So anyone getting me will probably find a copy of this movie in the box as well some other goodies.

I'd be interested to see what mesures these parks might make to prevent future damage. Would rebuilding the boardwalks out of materials other than wood make them more resilient?