Wednesday, November 25, 2009
The Big Nap
If you are reading The Big Sleep, don't stop reading it for a bit and then pick up reading it again. It's confusing enough even if you don't forget which character is which. DO read it, though, because it is awesome.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Don't Drag Me to Hell
This is why I don't watch good horror movies. Good ones freak me out, and Drag Me to Hell is definitely one of those, even if it has the Mac guy in it. If you do like them, definitely check this one out.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
November
Is anybody writing a novel for novel writing month? Anybody growing a mustache for Movember? I've got no plans right yet, but we'll see.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Updates
I realize that I haven't updated as much here, but grad school is way less interesting than Japan, so I think that makes sense. But that last one took quite a bit of effort and no comments. ???
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Fright Fest
Happy November, everybody. I hope your Halloween was as cool as mine was. I went to Fright Fest at Six Flags (Great America?) in New Jersey somewhere. It was pretty great.
Having been to the Six Flags in/near St. Louis a bunch, I had to compare. This one is very nice and I think bigger than St. Louis's, which means more roller coasters. There are some bad sides, though. As you increase the size of the park, I guess you increase the number of people disproportionately or something, because some of the wait times are just ridiculous. We got a "Flash Pass," which lets you reserve a ride an hour in advance, basically, and when you get there, you get to use a different entrance which cuts your wait time down to maybe a couple minutes. It is basically the only way to go in a park where some of the roller coasters have wait times of 2+ hours. So I will talk about the coasters and hopefully other fans will like that.
Kingda Ka - This is their newest one, and it's insanely popular. It is really only one hill, but it is supposedly the highest hill in the world at 456 feet or so. They don't pull you up with a chain or anything like that; they basically use a slingshot at the beginning to rocket you to insane eye-watering speeds. Even then, I guess it fails some times so that the train just rolls back down (safely) to be launched again. The other insane thing about this is the wait time. The average wait-time I think is 150 minutes. I can't imagine it on a summer day, which would be even worse. That is for a ride of about 10 seconds. It is ridiculous. Also, it breaks down all the time. Even with the flash pass, we waited about two hours because it broke down three times. Everyone else was raving about it, but I think it's kind of "meh." It's just one up and down, even if it is very high and fast.
Batman - Very similar to the Batman in St. Louis, so pretty good, but I'm not going to go into more detail, assuming you have ridden that one.
Superman - We didn't ride this till last, when it was dark and raining, but I think that may have helped it. It is sort of gimmicky in that you get in the chair and then it tilts so that you are facing the ground, and the coaster simulates flying. It does sort of make you feel like superman, although fundamentally it's not that good a coaster. There is a part where you are in a loop, facing the sky that is pretty cool. The only other issue is that the restraints are in front of your chest and feet, but not anywhere else, so it is sort of an awkward position. Not bad, though.
Bizarro - Bonus points go to this one for continuing the DC theme with one of the cooler Superman villains, who are on the whole very lame. I guess it used to be called Medusa, but Bizarro is way better. The play strange music/people talking at you the whole time, which is nice, but I couldn't tell what is going on. I like the DC theme and when it is made to feel like the coaster is part of something going on (Superman flying, Batman swinging around) in the DC universe, but I didn't get what Bizarro was doing. Still good. The coaster itself is like inverted Batman, but had some very good loops and whatnot.
Skull Mountain - This was like the little kids' roller coaster that we did on a laugh. It's all inside a building, so it's dark, and there are blacklit skulls and pumpkins and whatnot. It's actually not bad, but maybe I just like rollercoasters where you can't see every drop, etc.
Nitro - Good Lord this one is fast. It's a traditional one that goes insanely high and insanely fast. It was weird for me because there's no belt or anything, just a single lap thing connected to a bar. I don't know why that feels so freaky, but it does. Anyway, lots of fun, especially when it is misty and you can't see very far ahead. Also, the first hill is a crazy steep drop, so if you are in the front, it looks like you are just falling straight down.
El Toro - Very nice wooden coaster. It's very fast, I think one of the biggest, smoothest wooden ones around. We rode it in the rain and it was stinging our faces, but it was still probably my favorite. All of them were pretty great, though.
I think that's it. I'm still waiting on a Green Lantern-themed space coaster.
Having been to the Six Flags in/near St. Louis a bunch, I had to compare. This one is very nice and I think bigger than St. Louis's, which means more roller coasters. There are some bad sides, though. As you increase the size of the park, I guess you increase the number of people disproportionately or something, because some of the wait times are just ridiculous. We got a "Flash Pass," which lets you reserve a ride an hour in advance, basically, and when you get there, you get to use a different entrance which cuts your wait time down to maybe a couple minutes. It is basically the only way to go in a park where some of the roller coasters have wait times of 2+ hours. So I will talk about the coasters and hopefully other fans will like that.
Kingda Ka - This is their newest one, and it's insanely popular. It is really only one hill, but it is supposedly the highest hill in the world at 456 feet or so. They don't pull you up with a chain or anything like that; they basically use a slingshot at the beginning to rocket you to insane eye-watering speeds. Even then, I guess it fails some times so that the train just rolls back down (safely) to be launched again. The other insane thing about this is the wait time. The average wait-time I think is 150 minutes. I can't imagine it on a summer day, which would be even worse. That is for a ride of about 10 seconds. It is ridiculous. Also, it breaks down all the time. Even with the flash pass, we waited about two hours because it broke down three times. Everyone else was raving about it, but I think it's kind of "meh." It's just one up and down, even if it is very high and fast.
Batman - Very similar to the Batman in St. Louis, so pretty good, but I'm not going to go into more detail, assuming you have ridden that one.
Superman - We didn't ride this till last, when it was dark and raining, but I think that may have helped it. It is sort of gimmicky in that you get in the chair and then it tilts so that you are facing the ground, and the coaster simulates flying. It does sort of make you feel like superman, although fundamentally it's not that good a coaster. There is a part where you are in a loop, facing the sky that is pretty cool. The only other issue is that the restraints are in front of your chest and feet, but not anywhere else, so it is sort of an awkward position. Not bad, though.
Bizarro - Bonus points go to this one for continuing the DC theme with one of the cooler Superman villains, who are on the whole very lame. I guess it used to be called Medusa, but Bizarro is way better. The play strange music/people talking at you the whole time, which is nice, but I couldn't tell what is going on. I like the DC theme and when it is made to feel like the coaster is part of something going on (Superman flying, Batman swinging around) in the DC universe, but I didn't get what Bizarro was doing. Still good. The coaster itself is like inverted Batman, but had some very good loops and whatnot.
Skull Mountain - This was like the little kids' roller coaster that we did on a laugh. It's all inside a building, so it's dark, and there are blacklit skulls and pumpkins and whatnot. It's actually not bad, but maybe I just like rollercoasters where you can't see every drop, etc.
Nitro - Good Lord this one is fast. It's a traditional one that goes insanely high and insanely fast. It was weird for me because there's no belt or anything, just a single lap thing connected to a bar. I don't know why that feels so freaky, but it does. Anyway, lots of fun, especially when it is misty and you can't see very far ahead. Also, the first hill is a crazy steep drop, so if you are in the front, it looks like you are just falling straight down.
El Toro - Very nice wooden coaster. It's very fast, I think one of the biggest, smoothest wooden ones around. We rode it in the rain and it was stinging our faces, but it was still probably my favorite. All of them were pretty great, though.
I think that's it. I'm still waiting on a Green Lantern-themed space coaster.
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