imbordisux

All this love for "Cracker Barrel" makes me think our visit was a fluke - my finace' and I went to a CB near "Six Flags: Great Adventure" last year, and both ended-up violently sick. I pooped for over six hours, and she threw-up several times. I'd never had CB before, and she's only had it a handful of times in her life, but we basically swore off of it; seeing the raves here, though, was it maybe just cuz it was in Jersey?

I apologize for all the help I am about to ask for, but I am completely clueless when it comes to cameras and related equipment. The "Helmet Camera" (and similar lipstick cams) isn't a fully-functioning camera, is it? It's basically just an easily-mounted lens, right? I mean, can I just buy the Helmet-Cam, and that would be enough to capture video, or do I have to buy a separate camcorder and plug the Helmet-Cam into it? Where does that cable from the back of the Helmet-Cam go? Cuz $300 for the Helmet-Cam sounds pretty good, but I don't want to have to buy a separate camcorder or anything in addition to it. Thanks for the help, - Stu the Idiot

Ok, we sat down with a map, and decided on which parks we're gonna hit, and in which order. From our home on LI, we're gonna go: - Dorney Park - Knoebels - Waldameer - Cedar Point (2 days, most likely) - Geauga Lake - Kennywood - Six Flags: America - Hersheypark ... and then head back home to Eastern LI. What I want to ask is, how do you think we should plan the hotels? Should we hit the parks first thing in the morning, and then drive to the hotel of our next location, hitting the next park the following morning, or should we get-up and drive to the next location first thing in the morning, do the park, and then retire to that park's nearby hotel? Sorry if the wording is confusing, let me diagram it, with each Choice one: - Tuesday, drive to Park B, do Park B, retire to Hotel B. - Wednesday, drive to Park C, do Park C, retire to Hotel C. - Thursday, drive to Park D, do Park D, retire to Hotel D. Choice two: - Tuesday, do Park A, drive to and retire to Hotel B. - Wednesday, do Park B, drive to and retire to Hotel C. - Thursday, do Park C, drive to and retire to Hotel D. We've never done a big trip like this before, so we'd like to know if most of you - on your big road-trips - drive to the hotel first and retire for the night, then get-up, do the park, and then drive to the next hotel, or if you drive to the park, do it, and then stay at the nearby hotel. I'm thinking we should do the drives in the morning, as I really don't want to spend five hours in the car at the END of the day, but what do you all think?

Just a heads-up: On the "Coaster DVDs" page, some of the links for Don's DVDs are wrong; the text-link for "Dude" takes you to the "Tools" info page, and the pic-link for "Tools, takes you to the "Dude" info page.

I first saw "Clerks" in 2000, when I was 18 and a freshman in college. I loved it. I thought it was one of the greatest things I'd ever seen in my life. I watched it over and over and over and over, and showed it to everybody I knew. I very quickly became a Kevin Smith fan, and sought-out his other works. I bought his movies and searched-out magazines that had interviews with him. I was convinced that this was the guy I wanted to pattern myself after (I was a film-student. As much as I loved "Clerks", though, I was mixed on his other films. I love "Clerks: Uncensored". "Mallrats" was a decent stupid-comedy. "Dogma" was completely overdone, attempting to say many things without actually saying anything. And "Chasing Amy" was one of the worst movies I've ever seen in my life. I know that last line will draw a lot of criticism, but it's the way I feel. The premise was very solid, but with the 1-2 combo of Joey Lauren Adam's character admitting what she admits at the end, to Affleck's COMPLETELY unrealistic and non-sensical suggestion of how they fix everything, it just left an absolutely wretched taste in my mouth. I was losing my love of Kevin Smith. I went with some friends to see "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back", and that's when it hit me: I could no longer stand KS. And it's not because JSBSB was a bad movie, cuz it wasn't (it would be a cute thing to watch when there's nothing else on), but the need to break-up the flow of a scene to insert an in-joke where it otherwise didn't logically fit was what did it for me. I now find Kevin Smith to be EXTREMELY overrated, and can't get excited about anything he does. Worse than that are his hardcore fans that trumpet him as some sort of God of film-making, like he were Steven Spielberg, Sam Mendes, and David Mamet all rolled into one. I was one of those diehard fans for about two years in college, but I was also a fan of Tom Green and "Jackass" during that time. My tastes have matured a lot in the span of three short years. I now consider "Glengarry GlenRoss" my favorite movie, and sold my KS DVDs long ago. Now when I go to "Best Buy", I look for films along the lines of "M" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", not a bunch of teens implying that life is as easy as that episode of "Star Trek" where so-and-so did whatever. Kevin Smith is very good at serving his niche-market, the 18 year-old drunken freshman film-student who likes cursing and thinks they're smarter than everyone else. He can't do much beyond that, though.

This could end-up costing the park a LOT of business - it's easy to enforce smoking-bans in small and/or indoor areas, like restaurants and mini-golf courses, but there are gonna be a lot of smokers who aren't gonna want to stroll away from their group/family (or force their group/family to wait for them) if they decide to have a smoke, and to try to go the entire day without a smoke is gonna be brutal for many of them. On a personal-level, I'm thankful, since I've never been a smoker and my fiance' is asthmatic, but the park is going to have to install/designate MANY smoking-allowed sections to keep all those smokers happy and coming back. I mean, nobody likes having to hike all the way out of the park, right?

While it definitely looks somewhat primitive and kiddy, this video might change the way you look at it: http://media.cube.ign.com/articles/651/651334/vids_1.html The thing has a sensor in it that actually allows you to move the controller around to control the game, such as swinging it like a bat in baseball games. IMO, that's f'ing awesome. As for the original question, I heart ugly green.

Oh wow, I haven't checked this thread in weeks - thank you for all your help, everyone. The only reason I was thinking of splitting-up the Dorney/Hershey/Knoebel's area is that we wanted to have parks to hit in both directions to and from Ohio; we didn't want to do all of the parks on the way TO Ohio, and then have a long, boring drive back.

If you're talking only about headbanging, I gotta go with Arrow - I love boomerangs and SLCs, but won't ride an Arrow looper. That said, Arrow definitely had the bigger (and probably biggest) impact on the industry - tubular steel, (safe) loops and corkscrews, inverts, launches, FOURTH FRICKIN' DIMENSION... they were truly the "Renaissance Men" of coasterdom.

B&M's seats are comfortable enough to sleep in, so I'd go with one of their hypers due to the lack of OTSRs.

Oops, typo. Well, it won't throw off the ratings, so no harm done. Just noticed my "Volare" vote says "no, no". I shouldn't have done the ballot while at work, I guess.

Cuz I'm a complete idiot who can't follow directions, my ballot doesn't have my name/location on it: Favorite Wood Coaster Any Park Anywhere ** y y 1 Nitro Six Flags Great Ad NJ y y 2 Batman The Ride/Clone SF & Other Parks ** y y 3 Hydra the Revenge Dorney Park PA y y 4 Storm Runner Hersheypark PA y y 5 Fav Spinning Mouse Any Park Anywhere ** y y 6 Skull Mountain Six Flags Great Ad NJ y y 7 Sooperdooperlooper Hersheypark PA y y 8 Medusa Six Flags Great Ad NJ y y 9 Superman - Ride of St SF New England MA y y 10 Talon Dorney Park PA y y 11 Kingda Ka Six Flags Great Ad NJ y y 12 The Chiller-Batman Six Flags Great Ad NJ y y 13 Laser Dorney Park PA y y 14 Fav Vek Susp Loop SLC Any Park Anywhere ** y y 15 Fav Vekoma Boomerang Any Park Anywhere ** y y 16 The Chiller-Robin Six Flags Great Ad NJ y y 17 Viper Six Flags Great Ad NJ y y 18 Great Bear Hersheypark PA y y 19 Steel Force Dorney Park PA y y 20 Batman - Dark Knight SF New England MA y y 21 Superman - Ultimate F Six Flags Great Ad NJ y y 22 Fav Wild Mouse Any Park Anywhere ** y y 23 Runaway Train Six Flags Great Ad NJ y y 24 Fav Tivoli Any Park Anywhere ** y y 25 Fav Zamperla Volare Any Park Anywhere ** n n 26 Great American Scream Six Flags Great Ad NJ y y 27 I only counted the rides I did this year or last, as I haven't been to any parks outside of those listed in about ten years, and I couldn't possibly judge them accurately. My sad, sad lack of variety is also why we're gonna be doing a big, multi-park trip next year.

I'm so absent-minded, I wouldn't have even thought of that. Thanks for all the help so far, everyone.

SFGAdv is our home park, hence why we likely won't include it on the trip; we're there often enough that we didn't want to take time away from visiting a different park.

RT is my favorite coaster. Particularly the left side, just INSANE air. The right side's ok, but it's like the "Diet" version of the left side. But, yes, it is extremely rough, too.

Just a little early planning, as my fiance' and I want to do a big trip next Summer, probably around May or so. Here are the parks we want to hit: - Hershey - Dorney - Kennywood - Knoebels - Geauga - Cedar - Probably - Waldameer - Possibly - SF America - Possibly, but not necessarily - SFGAdv Quick question first: Would "Waldameer" be worth it? I'm dying to do a Maurer-Sohne spinning-mouse, but is it worth going out there for it? We don't have a lot of money, but are willing to blow/charge for our first big trip, as long as it is really worth it. I've already charted it all out using Mapquest (how far each park is from every other park), but I was just looking for some advice, like if anybody thinks we should do certain parks on certain days, or if two of the parks could be done in one day, which saves on hotels. We'll probably have 9 days total (though we'll probably want to get home on a Saturday) and really want to enjoy each park for about a day (two, maybe three for CP); we're not interested in credits or coaster-counts, we don't want to just run from park to park and ride each ride once, we really want to have plenty of time to savor each place, and ride rides numerous times. We're also not gonna spend money for any "fast-pass" devices (other than possibly CP), so we're not planning on that as a time-saver. We live all the way out on LI, so we were thinking of doing something like this: Sat - Hershey Sun - SF America Mon - Kennywood Tues & Weds - Cedar Thurs - Geauga + Waldameer Fri - Knoebels Sat - Dorney Or some other variation of that. I didn't want to do all the "nearby" parks (Hershey, Dorney, Knoebels), since I wanted to save some for the return-trip. Any suggestions? Should we drop Waldameer and/or SF America?

You gotta come to NJ - come, new Intamin Plug-n-Play!

Six Flags: Mall Adventure

I apologize in advance for this post, as I know that the thread was only intended for woodies, but with three pages of posts mentioning steel, I figured I'd throw my two cents in. Now, I know everybody is gonna ask what's wrong with me, but I just don't get "Superman: Ride of Steel" at SFNE - I've ridden it several times, and it's a damn good ride, but I just don't understand all the love. I dunno, I just don't understand how it's unanimously considered the greatest coaster in all of the U.S. Call me crazy, but I much prefer "Nitro" at nearby SFGAdv; I prefer the minimalist-restraints, and, as much as I love ejector air, I much prefer the flying sensation that Nitro's floater-air provides. Somebody, somewhere, likened B&M hypers to flying-carpets, and I concur 100% - it just feels like you're soaring through the air, whisping and weaving to and fro, very naturally changing direction, and when you crest a hill, you feel as if you're levitating for a second. It's very Zen-like. Oh, and as for woodies, I don't get all the hate for "Rolling Thunder" - ok, if you don't like rough coasters, I understand, but I like my woodies to just PUMMEL me into oblivion, I *want* to feel like the entire thing could collapse at any moment, and I want to feel like the seat-belt really IS the only thing holding me in.

Lewis Black, followed closely by George Carlin.

About eight years ago, I was sitting in my spanish class, writing "I'm bored, this sucks" over and over again in my notebook; I crammed all the words in that phrase together ("Imboredthissucks"), and then proceeded to remove letters until I was left with "imbordisux". It's been my unofficial "online" name ever since then, as I wanted to have one identity for everything I did online - message-boards, e-mails, editorials, etc. - so that, if I ever wanted to draw attention to myself, I could simply direct people on other boards to my one simple screenname. As for meaning, it's just always kinda represented my general demeanor; I just always seem to bored and unimpressed by everything, like my reaction to everything is "whatever". I'm not the most emotive person. Even on coasters, even though I love them, I spend many rides just kinda sitting there, without much reaction; my fiance' - who loves coasters, but is regularly frightened by them - jokes that I lack a nervous system.

Overall, I gotta "The Voyage" just looks so absolutely unbelievably incredible - if I had the choice, I'd pick to ride that one based solely on looks and description. After that, "El Toro", since everybody comments how godly Intamin's plug-n-plays are, as well as the fact that it's at my home-park (and likely the only one I'll get to ride), and the two "Goliaths" in Georgia and Canada, since B&M hypers are my favorite steelies. I also think "Tatsu" looks awesome; THAT is what B&M's flyers should have been like all along, namely HIGH off the ground with lots of actual "flying" segments (long straight-aways high off the ground). "Speed Monster" looks great (I really think Intamin needs to stick with inversion-heavy layouts for their rocket-coasters), and I'm dying to try an X-Car coaster. Damn, 2006 just seems like it's gonna be an incredible year for the industry.

B&M's "Hyper" trains - they provide the most freedom of ANY trains ever. Being able to stretch my arms AND legs out, lean from side to side, etc., is so wonderful; they're just not confining at all.

I watch a ton of TV, so I'll try to narrow it down: My Absolute All-Time Faves: - Oz - South Park - WWF Programming (Raw, SD, etc.) Current Faves: - Prison Break - The Shield Other Likes: - Aqua Teen Hunger Force - The Critic - Grounded for Life - Curb Your Enthusiasm - Invader Zim - Newsradio - The Kids in the Hall - Mr. Show - Undergrads - Undeclared Cheesy Faves: - Full House - Saved by the Bell [i watch this every morning before work.] - Step by Step /// Well... I didn't really do a good job "narrowing it down", did I?

"South Park" by a mile. One, I *LOVE* how topical SP has become over the last few years, how they consistently do episodes about whatever is in the news, and I love their political- and social-commentaries; seriously, it's just the smartest show on TV today, right up there with "The Daily Show". Plus, they have a nice mix of comedic styles (both juvenile and intellectual), many high-concept plots, a great sense of continuity, and Trey is the master of the "catchy ditty". It just takes EVERYTHING, throws it in a blender, and puts a pretty bow on top. It does everything, and it does everything well. "Family Guy" has some great absurdist humor, but that's pretty much ALL they have - absurdist humor, and 80's-based non-sequiturs. I love the way the dialogue flows like a casual conversation, and the aesthetics of the show are top-notch, but I find the writing tedious; oh, look, Peter is wearing a dress, Sonic the Hedgehog just ran by, cue joke that tries way too hard to be offensive. I own the first two volumes (three seasons) on DVD, and, IMO, the show pretty much died halfway through the third season. If SP is George Carlin, FG is just the fart-jokes.