ahecht

Best: X Worst: X Yup, my best and worst coaster rides have both been on the same temperamental beast. I've yet to ride it as X2, but I don't count that as a new coaster anyway.

Psyclone did, and those trains are also used to run backwards on Colossus during FrightFest. EDIT: RedFoot beat me to it by seconds!

^ That article had already been posted here -- twice. As for Earthquake being closed, it's been down for a refurb since before the fire.

I seem to recall that SFMM has some B&M wooden coaster trains.

You can get a non-driver ID card from the RMV for about $20. It's a good idea to have -- it makes it easier to get through airport security or apply for a job.

Apparently investigators think that roofers with blowtorches started the fire. From http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-studiofire3-2008jun03,0,5961570.story:

As long as its better than "Santa Kong". Any guesses as to what we'll get here? I'd love to see the Battlestar Galactica part return based on the new series, but the chances of that happening are slim to none. Frankly, given that it's been two years since they've gotten the collapsing bridge to work, I'm not holding my breath for a new attraction there any time soon.

Except that one of the ride operators was on the phone with the park's emergency line trying to convince them that there was a problem during those 10 seconds. Instead of picking up the phone and trying to convince the operator that there was an emergency, she should've pressed the big red button next to the phone. From the report: The button should've been pushed as SOON as she heard the noise and saw the cable. Better safe than sorry. Frankly, if I ran the park, if the operator on any non-coaster ride picks up the phone during a ride cycle, the ride should E-Stop automatically.

No film was destroyed, only video tape masters. The film archives were elsewhere.

If they are getting 3 minute dispatches I'm impressed. Last time I was at Magic Mountain they were doing 7 minute dispatches with two trains.

^Try using google: http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=santa+barbara,+ca&daddr=Six+Flags+Discovery+Kingdom About 350 miles or 6 hours

I guess it makes sense that they put in a travelling model of the spinning coaster to replace Zonga (which was also a travelling coaster), but it still makes me wince when I see a coaster without anchored footers at a perminant park. At least it doesn't require a water pool to keep it anchored like Lazer at Dorney.

If that's how Disneyland treats their skilled talent, imagine how they treat their minimum-wage employees. No wonder retention is at an all time low.

Ahh, so that's how they get away with it! The anti-rollback dogs are on the sprocket instead of the train.

Storm runner won't run in a storm? If that's not irony, I don't know what is.

I wonder if they went with the new 24V sound system that the Hard Rock Park guys have been bragging about (California Screamin' is a 12V system).

I think it's hilarious that they glued fake beards onto the tigers to try to turn them into lions.

There is a problem with image sizing if the image is under the file size requirements but is still too wide. It also happens if the image is displayed inline (linked to from another site) and isn't an attachment. For example, see this thread. Even at 1280x1024, that page is stretched so wide by the image that I have to scroll left and right to read everything.

Most of the nice features in PHPBB3 are on the admin side: The ability to limit signature length and signature image size, limiting the maximum image width in posts (this would fix a LOT of problems here with large images breaking the forum), custom profile fields, omitting SIDs for bots to make it easier for search engines to index the board, better logging, temporary user bans, etc. There are a few nice user features as well, such as the ability to view all the files you've uploaded from the User CP, quoting multiple messages, polls that let you select more than one option, in-line attachments, automatic image thumbnails, topic and post sorting, post templates, etc. Most of these features were available as add-on modules in PHPBB2, but because they are now integrated the run much faster (another board that I'm on said that page generation times were cut in half).

The difference at Knott's is that the ride is being advertized as a family coaster, not a thrill ride.

Ideally, it would be nice to have the whole picture uploading overhauled, so that pictures uploaded to a thread go into your profile album. Then, have a tagging system to tag images with park names, ride names, and usernames, so that I could easily search for all pictures with a tag of "behemoth" or "hersheypark".

My guess is that the shaking is going to be no more than a strong rumbling caused by subwoofers attached to the floor (like they did in the preshow to the Space Shuttle Launch Experience at KSC). I'd be surprised if it even got to science-museum-earthquake-similator strength.

As vistaway said, it's a circlevision theater, but the platform is built on top of, and surrounded by, a pool of water with wave and fountain effects built into it. It looks like there is also some platform movement (think Backdraft or Twister at Universal), fog, snow, wind, lighting effects, etc. From the press release at http://www.niagarasfury.com/fury-revealed.html : The attraction opens in June.

The park signs clearly said "Glow in the Park" and had associated logos, and didn't appear to be for the pay-to-audition cheer squad.

They were advertizing this all over the park with leaflets on Saturday, probably because the park was overrun with cheerleaders for some huge cheerleading competition. The signs in the park said they were casting "Cheer/Dance teams", although the web site only says "dance". I also noticed that the in-park ads called for both "Male Singer" and "Female Singer", while the web site only calls for "singer (female only)".