jcgoble3

IIRC, Don told a few of us at one of our informal meetups that year, while we were chatting under the Eiffel Tower, that they had a special tool that could come down over a footing, grab it, and twist it to pull it straight up out of the ground in a matter of seconds. Now how they actually transported them away from that point, I have no clue. But that's how they were removed from the ground.

Before the disposable cup plan, the souvenir cups had a 5-minute cooldown period. When the disposable cups were introduced, they were set up with a 15-minute cooldown, and the souvenir cups were adjusted soon afterward to match the disposable cups.

I have no issue with the big wheels like this, but the smaller 12-seat wheels like the ones at Coney Island and Stricker's Grove make me legitimately nervous. They're the only rides left (of those I've encountered in my short travels) that do so.

You're half right. I'll let you guess which half.

Underrated? That's overrated IMHO. I could go on and on about why, but this isn't the thread for that discussion.

Only if it was under the Kings Island Discussion section and not the Kings Island Central Community section.

As I so often do, I logged in the other day and found that the podcasts now have their own forum. Interesting to see that. It certainly indicates that it's around to stay. But I have a problem with adding another forum for them. Problem, you say? Yes: for many years, I would log in, and the balance of six forums in the top section and six in the bottom section was just "right"; it was pleasing to my eye. The addition of the Coaster Crew (now Coaster Clubs) forum threw off this balance a bit, but it was still close enough, since there was no way to perfectly balance 13 forums into two categories. But now the imbalance is driving me and my OCD crazy. Really, I think we need to find a way to balance it back up. Get back to having the same number in each section. Who would benefit from such a change? Everyone, I say. I do think that such a move would be the best thing for the future of KIC. We don't want to drive away new users because our forum imbalance triggers their OCDs. In this day and age, we need to be sensitive to everyone's needs. Lately, I think KIC has been rocking. We're becoming an excellent, friendly place to hang out and make new friends. Let's fix this so those of us triggered by it can get back to doing those things. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, as Isaac Newton allegedly said. (I learned in physics class on Wednesday that the actual third law of motion is slightly more complex than that.) Well, the addition of the podcast forum was the action, and now this is the reaction. Oh, yes, I could have lived with it. Silently suffered every time I open KIC. Let myself be slowly driven insane by the imbalance. But where's the fun in that? Just fix it, please. It's for the good of all. Originally, I was just going to voice this annoyance to someone privately, maybe by private message, or in person at the park on preview night or opening day. But then I realized that there are almost certainly others sharing the same frustration, and so I decided to start this thread to gather such opinions, at the risk of some drama. Look, it doesn't take much. Just move something, and we'll all be happy. So with that, the matter is open for y'all to discuss. And as for me, having carefully chosen the first word in each paragraph, I'll wish you a Happy Easter.

I'd ride it as long as the idiot that overrode the blocking system no longer works there.

You know the offseason is nearing its end when... everybody geeks out over watching rides testing on the webcams.

Warning: rant ahead. Front line associates are not the problem. Management is the problem. Specifically, management who thinks one cashier per restaurant is sufficient on a super-busy day. If you're lucky, there's a chance they might temporarily open a second register, but I have not see more than that in years, even though several places have as many as four or more registers available. That is the bottleneck and the sole cause of the ridiculously slow service: understaffed cash registers. I don't really care that the food is not great quality, because I don't expect that from amusement park food. I just want something that I can fill myself up with, but I want it reasonably fast, and that's the part KI can't deliver on. And that falls purely on management. (end rant)

Also, many jurisdictions have the concept of "lesser included crimes", which are crimes for which all of the elements are also part of a more serious offense. In that case, the defendant can be charged with and tried on the more serious offense, but the jury has the option to convict on a lesser charge instead if they find that all of the requirements for that offense are met, but something (like intent) is missing from the offense that the defendant was actually charged with. One of the most common cases of this is murder, for which lesser degrees of murder and manslaughter are lesser included offenses. So even if the prosecution is unable to prove second-degree murder in this case, they may still get a conviction on manslaughter.

For lack of a better place to post this: CoasterMania tickets are sold out.

Many corners were cut on construction of Son of Beast. As a result, I'll bet that something on Son of Beast wasn't in compliance with proper standards. Paramount, or whatever company was in charge at that time (I can't keep that era straight) is to blame for that. However, the post to which I was replying was attempting to compare a poorly designed and constructed ride that was inherently dangerous (Verruckt) to a well-designed ride where the only significant risk of injury is if riders don't obey the safety instructions (Beast), which is an apples-to-oranges comparison. Son of Beast is more comparable to the former than the latter because of the cut corners and rushed construction.

The difference is that a rider will not be injured on The Beast unless they disobey posted safety instructions. Verruckt was capable of injuring, and did severely injure, riders who were following all safety instructions. I would reasonably expect that if you violate a posted safety instruction on any ride, you are putting yourself at risk of injury, hence why I keep my hands down on The Beast going into the helix. But if you obey all safety instructions, the reasonable expectation is that you are safe. Beast fulfills that expectation, Verruckt did not.

That already happened to KI's exhibit a couple of days before the original opening day in 2011.

Honest question: exactly how do criminal charges against a business entity work? I assume you would have the standard legal process, the same as for an individual defendant. But then what happens if the company pleads or is found guilty? How does sentencing work? You can't exactly throw a company in prison like you can with a person. Do they just get massive fines instead? Can the judge force the owners to shut the company down or sell it to an outsider?

Wow is right. It really drives home just how dangerous Verruckt was when they assert that it qualifies as a deadly weapon in the list of charges.

To expand on this, in '15 and '16 the preview night was restricted to passholders who renewed a previous year's pass during the previous year's fall sale. In '17 and now '18, the preview night is now open to all Gold and Platinum passholders, including new purchases and renewals after the end of the fall season. Also, in '17, you had Mystic Timbers giving its first public rides that night, whereas you only had Woodstock Gliders in '15 and nothing the next year ('16 was a waterpark expansion, which didn't open until a month later). In '18 we have basically nothing new, aside from what is apparently a new restaurant in Coney Mall. So '15 and '16 had much more limited admission and less of a draw, then in '17 you had a much larger audience and a huge new ride drawing people from everywhere. This year will be in between, with the same audience as '17 and the same draw as '16. Therefore, I would expect preview night this year to be noticeably busier than '15 and '16, but significantly less so than '17. Of course, the greatest variable is the weather, which we haven't the slightest clue on at this point.

Well said. That was my goal in starting this thread.

But they got the Steelers, so at least you can win that then set it on fire. Well, if he's looking for Colts gear, something tells me he doesn't hate the Steelers as much as us Bengals fans do.

That's the entire point of this poll. Some, notably most parks and RMC themselves, but also many enthusiasts, count Topper Track coasters as wooden coasters, but a significant number of enthusiasts reject that classification and consider them to be steel coasters. It's a gray area that the community cannot and probably never will agree on.

I created a poll to argue wood vs. steel for Topper Track. Let's take the discussion over there before we derail this thread too much.

Before the Giga Speculation Thread gets out of control with this argument, I decided to start this thread so we can vote on it and see which is in the majority. Pretty much everyone can agree (I think?) that RMC's I-Box track is steel track. But there is an endless debate over whether a coaster with Topper Track is steel or wooden. Topper Track replaces the top few layers of traditional wood between the wheels with a steel box, so many say such coasters are therefore steel. Many others say that the stacks of wood that remain under the Topper Track layer are the important part, and therefore the coaster is still wooden. People cannot agree on this, and probably will never agree. But we can vote! So cast your vote. Are RMC Topper Track coasters wooden or steel? Or are they hybrid?

RCDB contains many errors. Such as that.

Suit yourself. I consider Topper Track coasters to be steel. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯