frozenflames

I've got two vekoma-related ones... I was riding a very painful SLC (Mind Eraser @SFA) and I screamed out "STUPID VEKOMA!!!" I was on Rock 'n' Roller Coaster for the first time, and I was like, "OMG this is a launched Vekoma, I'M GOING TO DIE!!!" (but it actually was really fun, go figure)

My school has two extremely talented audition-only choirs, Treble Choir (which I have been a member of for the past two years), and Chamber Choir, which has been the jewel of my school's choir department for years. Despite the fact that Trebles, being an all-female group, is very good as far as vocal talent goes, it is Chambers that have always been admired for their vocal talent, and have always been recognized as being a phenomenal group. In fact, Chamber Choir won first place in a seaboard-region competition last year, essentially making them the best high-school choir in the entire eastern shore of the United States. Auditions for both ensembles were held this week, and amazingly, there was a record number of students auditioning, well over eighty people vying for approximately twenty-five available slots between the two choirs. I had thought I had bombed my audition, due to the fact that my nerves were "getting the best of me," yet surprisingly, I managed to snag one of SIX slots for an Alto singer in Chamber Choir. I was in complete shock when I realized that I was to be aprt of this outstanding vocal ensemble, but I am also completely ecstatic and thrilled that I made it in as a member of Chambers. I was even more excited when I fully realized that I had just accomplished a goal that I had had since I was eleven, when I first heard Chambers sing. I'm still around in sheer happiness! Randi "holy c**p, I can sing!!!" Bass Hello Chamber Choir!!! ( I still can't believe I'm going to be singing with this amazing group!) Goodbye Treble Choir!! (P.S. I'm second from the left, in the back row)

I have the DVD set of volume five (Japan-A-Mania) and I've had the exact same problem with all three of the discs, but the problem has been occuring since I first got the DVDs. I've had the discs for about eight months now, and have never once been able to get through an enitre DVD before the problems occur. There are even many times where the discs "override" my remotes, and the only way I can perform any fucntions with the DVD player is if I literally pull the plug and restart the whole system! I really want to enjoy watching these videos, but I can't because all of the issues.

Well now... the world will now see the completely normal, un-hot-ness that is me!!!! I'm the one wit the ridiculous amount of flowers My eye Taken at one of those photo booths in Epcot

On here: FrozenFlames: I made up a poem a few years ago, and took from that, and was also thinking about Dueling Dragons, when it had just opened. On Westcoaster: MunkieRascal: My nickname is Munkie (becasue when I was three i treated every piece of furniture as a tree to climb all over) and one of my favorite movies is The Litte Rascals. On Gmail: dragonofblackfire: A slight ode to Draco Malfoy (yes, the Harry Potter character- Draco is Latin for dragon), and to one of my best friends, as her username for fanfiction.net is (or at least was) Chyld of Black Fire. On AIM: SilverFairy614: Silver is one of my favorite colors, I love fairies (my whole bedroom door is plastered with fairy art) and I was born on June 14, aka 6 14.

Hehe, maybe if I got through TPR, I might actually get at least SOME sort of boyfriend, seeing as how it ain't gonna happen otherwise... Randi "SIGH" Bass

Nice TR... I love how Universal is re-using signs and ads from last year's HHN, though. If you look at the bottom of the sign in the picture that advertises the "hot dogs, turkey legs, and cold beer" in front of the maze in the Studios, it mentions Hellgate Prison, which was one of last year's houses.

The first drop after the turnaround on Rebel Yell in PKD (backwards) had me FLYING out of my seat.

I found this whole list of stupid labels... (compiled entirely by user Slytherin Girl on fanfiction.net- i just thought it was funny) ~On a Sears hairdryer: Do not use while sleeping. ( and that's the only time I have to work on my hair) ~On a bag of Fritos: ..You could be a winner No purchase necessary.Details inside. (the shoplifter special?) ~On a bar of Dial soap: "Directions: Use like regular soap." (and that would be how?...) ~On some Swanson frozen dinners: "Serving suggestion: Defrost." (but, it's "just" a suggestion). ~On Tesco's Tiramisu dessert (printed on bottom): "Do not turn upside down." well...duh, a bit late, huh) ~On Marks Spencer Bread Pudding: "Product will be hot after heating." (...and you thought?...) ~On packaging for a Rowenta iron: "Do not iron clothes on body." but wouldn't this save me more time)? ~On Boot's Children Cough Medicine:"Do not drive a car or operate machinery after taking this medication." (We could do a lot to reduce the rate of construction accidents if we could just get those 5-year-olds with head-colds off those forklifts.) ~On Nytol Sleep Aid: "Warning: May cause drowsiness." (and...I'm taking this because?...) ~On most brands of Christmas lights: "For indoor or outdoor use only." (as opposed to...what)? ~On a Japanese food processor: "Not to be used for the other use." (now, somebody out there, help me on this. I'm a bit curious.) ~On Sunsbury's peanuts: "Warning: contains nuts." (talk about a news flash) ~On an American Airlines packet of nuts: "Instructions: Open packet, eat nuts." (Step 3: maybe, uh...fly Delta?) ~On a child's superman costume: "Wearing of this garment does not enable you to fly." (I don't blame the company. I blame the parents for this one.) ~On a Swedish chainsaw:"Do not attempt to stop chain with your hands or genitals." (..was there a lot of this happening somewhere?) I give total credit to Slytherin Girl, whoever she may be...

At PKD last week, there was a mom and her daughter in front of me in the line for Volcano, and while they were watching the trains go along the track, they kept asking me, "Does this ride go fast? Does it go upside-down?" Mind you, they were watching the train go through a CORKSCREW when they asked...

Dark rides are awesome! I went on every one I could when I was in Disney two weeks ago. ^As for the Great Adventure fire, my parents and a group of their friends were there the day that it happened, and if my mom hadn't gotten hungry, the death toll would have been 16 instead of 8...

My family and I decided to make the 45-minute trip along the DC beltway to go to SFA, so we left the house early (to deal with traffic) and arrived in the parking lot by 9:45. AFter some er... difficulty at the ticket window (which was beign run by a woman who did not know the meaning of the words "fast operation") we finally made it into the park. I wasn't concerned with the closed rides list, as all the rides stated were flat rides that I don't ride anyway. As soon as we entered, we headed over to the waterpark to see the new changes (and also go on the slides). After securing lockers for our belongings, we went onto the new Bahama Blast, which was very fun, and had no wait at all. The only problem was the trek up the stars with those heavy cloverleaf tubes, and the fact that the op was very incompetent, as are most SF ride ops. We had just begun climbing into our tube, and she said in this very ghetto voice "put your butt in the hole," but because of her ghetto-ness, it came out more like "put chur butt in da ho." The woman then started pushing the tube into the tunnel, while my mom and sister were still partially standing, with their feet wedged underneath. After that, we managed to have a good time on the ride. The next stop was the former Tahiti Twister, now Reef Runner and Paradise Plunge. A quick whirl on each led to the decision that Paradise Plunge (the orange side) was the better of the two. My mom and sister bugged out of trying Tornado, mainly because my sister doesn't like drops on anything, and my mom wasn't feeling well. That left my best friend and myself to fend against this massive slide. On the way up, we got stuck behind a group of small children trying to get their tube up by themselves (another "positive" about SFA-they didn't check rider heights once, and kids that were way too small were riding things that they shouldn't). The ride itself was fairly decent, except I felt like I was about to fall out of the funnel, and that my best friend said the ride "hurt so much that it smushed his butt bones." After a short wait for Hammerhead, we decided to cath our breath in the lazy river. This was the first time that it lived up to it's name, as the current in the trench was moving so slowly, it was almost at a standstill. It took nearly half an hour to make one circuit. We spent some time in the wave pool, and then got food before heading out into the main park. My best friend and I branched from my mom and sister, so we could all enjoy what we wanted. Our fist stop was ROAR, one of my favorite coasters. There was only a two-train wait, which is really decent. We then headed over to the Coyote Creek section of the park, where we laughed at oursleves for making the Tilt-a-Whirl op run the ride with only us two on it. We then proceeded to SFA's resident torture device, Mind Eraser, aka a Vekoma SLC (also known as "owch"). When we were loading the orange/teal train (the old pain was still visible underneath the new paint), the ride ops were being stupid and pressing all the restraints down very forcefully, while adding "izzle" to every thing they said. In the middle of the ride I actually let out a very loud "STUPID VEKOMA!!!" scream. I had to laugh though... my best friend and I left puddles in the seats because our shorts were wet from the rapids ride. I'd love to see the reaction of the riders after us. After another ride on ROAR, we went into Gotham City. It had begun raining when we were in line for Joker's Jinx, and right before my train launched, it began pouring. That ride is fun, but it's really painful whenyou're getting pelted by raindrops from every direction. The ops then decided to take their sweet time loading the next train, so we were stuck on the brake run in the pouring rain. Once the rain eased up a bit, we made our way over to Superman: Ride of Steel, only to find that it was on one-train operation, and stuck on the brake run, with people. We decided to bypass it, and headed over to Batwing, my first-ever flyer. After about a half-hour wait, due to stupidity of the ride ops, as usual, we finally rode, with my almost hyperventilating because I was "slightly" scared, and the ride ops' speed, or lack of it, was making my anticipation mount, as I had never ridden it before then. The ride was fun, but I decided I wasn't in a hurry to ride again. When we got off Batwing, we noticed Superman was running again, so we hopped in line, anxioous for a turn, as it was another first for me, only to see it get stucj again in the station. After about ten minutes, they began testing, and once they started letting riders on, I was on the fourth train out of the station. That was our last ride of the day, as my mom had called us and said the heat was beginning to get to my sister, so she wasn't feeling well, and wanted to go home. Overall the day wasn't too bad, but there definitely were some negatives. Good things: -fairly short wait times for all rides (except Batwing and Superman) -predominantly good weather -got two more credits, and also two firsts/fears of mine were taken care of (flyers and hypers) -the new paint on everything looked really nice from far away -the waterpark was much better than it had been in previous years Bad things: -stupid, incompetent ride ops -slow loading times for Batwing -all the new paint in thw water park was already peeling off

Wow, man I think you just had a really off-day at SFA. Since it's my homepark, I go there pretty frequently, and have done so for the last nine years. Never have I ever experienced anything like that there. Normally all operations are fairly decent, and it's one of the cleaner theme parks I've been to. The only thing that makes me not like the park is the ride selection... a lot of the rides are clones, which can be no fun.

When I first saw that show, two years ago, and they showed Mind Eraser, I immediately thought, "Out of all the inverted coasters in the world, they feature a fricking Vekoma SLC?!?! What is wrong with these people?" I just want to know why they think a pre-fabricated coaster that is at practically every park is unique, and not something like, oh I don't know, Dueling Dragons?

Phew! At least my family and I should be ok for our trip to Disney in July... that would suck if it got rained/ stormed out.

I was at Hersheypark yesterday for Music in the Pakrs, a competition for middle and high school bands and choirs. We arrived at the park at around 9:15 in the morning, and as the park was not open yet, headed into Hershey's Chocolate World for the Chocolate Factory Tour ride, which was a walk-on. After browsing around in the gift store, we headed out into the park, getting through the gate right at opening. First stop of the day was Comet. That had about a ten minute wait, so it was a good start to the day. The first half of the ride had a few good pops of airtime, but the second part was kind of dull. After my group got off of Comet, we headed over to Superduperlooper, and got on after a two-train wait. The ride was a little rough, but the track might not have been fully warmed up yet. Next, I rode the Coal Cracker, fairly decent flume ride, and I frustrated my mom (who was chaperoning the trip) by putting my hands up on the drop, which completely blocked out her face in the picture, as I had done the last time we rode it, last year. We got in the line for Great Bear at 11:00, but it was almost an hour wait for the ride. I had considered getting out of the line, but seeing as how I had never ridden that coaster before, I decided to stick it out. The coaster was incredibly smoothe, much better than the only other inverted coaster I had ever ridden (Mind Eraser at Six Flags America- Vekoma SLC-ouch), and after getting off, I immediatly classified it as one of my top coasters. We had lunch over in the Tidal Force catering area, which my group finished eating around 12:30, and then proceeded to go get on more coasters. We got in line for the Wild Mouse, which had a six-car wait, not too bad. I had only been on one other Mouse before, and that was a while ago, so I had forgotten how hard the cars go around the turns. It was still fun, even though I think my legs got bruised from the restraints. I went over to Lightning Racer, and got a walk-on to Lightning. My train beat the other side by about fifteen feet. After looking at my incredibly lame ride photo, my group immediately got back in line, this time for Thunder, which was also a walk-on, and once again, beat the other train by a long shot. This made my mom very excited, seeing as how every single time we've ever ridden Lightning Racer, the train we're on has always won. My group decided to take a little break, so we entered the line for the Ferris Wheel, waiting about twenty minutes for our gondola. When we got off the ride, it was about 2:30 (it was a very long ride cycle), and we began to head towards the front of the park to get out souvenir shopping done and out of the way. We had passed by Storm Runner, which we couldn't get on, due to there being a two-plus-hour wait all day, since they were on one-train operation, for some reason. We left the park around 2:45, and went back into Chocolate World to do shopping. After spending an hour or so inside, we headed over to the Hershey Arena for the music competition awards ceremony. The ceremony began at 4:15, and ended at 5:15. My high school actually did really well in the competition, winning second place for high school women's choir, first place for high school mixed (boy and girl) choir, and, the most exciting of them all, overall best choir. We were shocked because nearly three hundred groups had competed, and out of all of them , my school's was the smallest, consisting of fourty students, for both our Treble (women's) choir, which is the one I'm in, and Chamber choir, total. What was even more surprising was that due to other circumstances, our six strongest singers could not attent the competition. After the awards were all given out, we headed back into the park. My group at dinner at Crustano's Sandwiches in the Rhineland section of the park. Aorund 6:00, we began walking towards Pioneer Frontier to see if the Storm Runner lines were any better. Unfortunately, they were worse, so we headed back over to Great Bear, getting on our final ride of the night after a half-hour wait. We did a little bit more shopping inside the park, filled out surveys on our park experience, and received free water bottles. We got on our bus and left for home shortly before 8:00. Good things: -Most of the rides had very short wait times. -The staff was friendly and helpful. -The weather, for the most part, was great. -The food was fairly good, and moderately priced (for an amusement park). -I upped my credit count by two, on Great Bear, and the Wild Mouse. Bad things: -Storm Runner was on one-train operation, so I still have not gotten that credit. -The Hershey Arena is in desperate need of refurbishment.

There are three commercials that I really like: The Coke with Lime one that shows the people singing with cans of Coke and limes, The Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper ad that has the couple sitting in a restaurant, where the guy is talking, the girl zones out, and everyone starts singing a song from the Muppet Show, and then there's the ad for the Donkey Kong Jungle Jam (I think that's the title) video game with the bongo controllers, where the band Good Charlotte is playing the game, and then it shows the band performing, and looking at the guitar just sitting onsatge, while the guitarist is still in the dressing room playing the game. I love these commercials!

I don't know if it's just my computer or what, but I keep getting pop-ups saying that the .zip files for the videos are corrupted, so they won't downlaod.

I had the worst day ever. Today was State Festival for high school choirs, and it was three counties/ two hours away from my school. -5:30 wake-up -6:30 begin Tour Bus Ride of Doom. The driver was really agressive in his driving, and I was actually getting airtime, which really should not happen on a highway, in a bus. This insanity continued for nearly two hours, ensuing in the driver yelling at my choir director for telling him the proper directions, which he refused to follow, resulting in us having to back-track for quite a while. At one point, the driver was driving so maniacally that one of the girls actually threw up. -8:30 arrive at Huntington High School, somewhere in Calvert County (I'm presuming Huntington?) and go in to auditorium to wait until Treble Choir performance. -9:00 watch my school's other choir, Chamber, perform. They do an amazing job. -10:00 my choir, Treble, performs. We don't do that great, missing cutoffs, hitting incorrect pitches, and not showing emotion. -10:10 Trebles go into sightreading, and completely fail to correctly sing even one measure of the exercise, thus humiliating my director. We walk out of the sightreading room humiliated, and upset. -11:30 we get back on to Tour Bus of Doom, and Ms. Searle breaks the news to use that we got a 5 in sightreading, which is the absolute lowest score. It is very rare that any group gets lower than a 3, so it was obvious how terrible at sightreading we are. -12:00 Ms. Searle announces to the bus full of extremely hungry kids that we can not go to the mall for food, but rather must return to school, due to the bus driver complaining that he had to drive us from Germantown to wherever Festival was, and that he "didn't feel like taking us anywhere for lunch, so we would have to suffer." The driver then begins to cuss Ms. Searle out, thus almost reducing her to tears. -1:15 we return to school, hungry, angry, and humiliated. Ms. Searle is absolutley livid and tells us to just go home and get food, instead of worrying about going to class, stating that she would take responsibility for us not being in class for eighth period. -1:45 I arrive home, after getting a ride to Burger King to get something t eat (chicken sandwich, no mayonaisse, french fries, and sweet'n'sour sauce) I have been home since then, and nothing else has happened. But considering I was furious at the bus driver for being such an idiot (did it ever occur to him that it was his job to transport people where they need to go, and that he was getting paid to do it? I guess not.), and ashamed for doing so badly in Festival, this has officially been my worst day ever.

Let's see, around here in Germantown, we have... -Cafe Mileto (really good chicken marsala) -Rainbow Sushi (self-explanitory) and even though it isn't made in a restaurant, anything my mom makes.

^ In another county.

If you want to go to SFA, you have to pay to park. The closest free parking to SFA is about three miles away from the park, in a strip mall parking lot. I wish I could say otherwise, but the entrance to the park is off a highway (not the Beltway), by a really crowded intersection, so if you try to walk that intersection, you'd most likely end up as a human pancake.

My favorite has got to be Roar at SFA. I love the curve in the middle, and it's pretty steep (for a coaster at SFA). The first time I rode that coaster, I wasn't expecting the drop to have as much force as it did. That drop is the main reason I've ridden Roar about thirty times.

Age: almost 16 Middle Name: Jaclyn Hebrew Name: Razel/Shoshana Yosefa Pet Peeve: Vain and concieted people Color of your bathroom: yellowish Best Movie of ALL time: Spaceballs Best Song of ALL time: Good Charlotte's Riot Girl Best TV Shows: LOST Favorite Band/Artist: Good Charlotte Favorite Ride at Disney Parks: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Space Mountain Yummiest Ice Cream: Breyer's Mint Chocolate Chip If you could eat lunch with one person, who would it be: Famous: hmm, probably Johnny Depp Not Famoue: my best friend Sean, who I haven't seen in well over two years Morning Person or Night Person: Night person Pets: None Favorite Color: Purple, Blue, Green, Silver Where you would go for fun (not an amusement park): Hawaii Coke or Pepsi: Coke (with lime) Opinion about Peanut Butter and Jelly: Considering I once had it everyday for lunch for nearly a year, I'd say I love it Best Vacation Spot: Orlando Cook or Go Out: Go Out Beach, Desert, or Mountains: Beach

^ The SLC at SFA is no longer painted like that. The track is now golden yellow, and the supports are an orange-red. Just thought you'd like to know.