Magenta Lizard

He looked fine moments before when he was waving at the camera. I'm a little stymied by the whole thing.

When I lived in Burbank, CA, I was approached on more than one occasion to sign a petition to put curfews on flights out of the airport. There were houses around there, the owners didn't like the noise, so they were forever trying to stop it. Never mind that the reason that the homeowners could afford those houses to begin with was that they were built next to an airport. (Housing prices in the Los Angeles suburbs are insane...) I really liked being able to fly out of Burbank rather than LAX (driving north/south through Los Angeles was never fun) so I always refused to sign the petitions. I did manage not to tell them how I felt about their self serving, though... This is one of the major reasons I am hoping against hope the proposed apartments across KI Drive never come to fruition.

I'm reminded of the time in that handicapped lot, I saw a vehicle had knocked over a sign and driven clear up on the pyramid-shaped concrete base of the sign, dragging it and gouging the asphalt a few feet before ultimately wedging the vehicle partially in the air on top of it... Thanks, I'd rather not have coaster supports particularly close to where people can drive.

Fourteen days before opening, opening day is the 15th day.

I tend to avoid the busiest days so I assumed that's why I never saw it open. But since I've had my pass the last two years, I've never seen it open either.

Whatever their reason for avoiding us flying solo, I'm thankful for it It's always funny to me when I am apparently walking close enough to another (unknown) individual that the paparazzo thinks we're together and tries to get us to scrunch together for a shot.

Well this is pretty interesting: https://instagram.com/p/BDhEX17OOJs/

I'm hoping that since my birthday is on a Thursday, and they're open to the public Wednesday through Saturday that week, it won't be terribly busy when I go.

No, that's a full size gluten-free corn dog. I had that last year. As far as corn dogs go, it's not excellent (it tastes... watery), but I would probably appreciate it more if I was gluten intolerant. I didn't get the mini corn dogs as often as the chicken at RPW, but they were very tasty.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the new salad is actually going to be like the former wraps where one can choose one's toppings, only over a bed of lettuce instead of in a tortilla. If I can still choose to put a fistful of bacon on top, I'm satisfied!

They've changed the wrap at chicken shack to a crispy chicken salad, and removed the mini corn dogs option at Rivertown potato works. At least RHoFG is back on the list now.

It's actually only about a ten minute difference in driving time if I go "directly" to Stricker's versus going by way of KI, from where I live. It will be nice to split the drive into half-hour chunks, too. Since I feel KI is close to me at only a half hour away, I'd have to agree Stricker's is "close" to KI also.

Riverhawk? Timberhawk?

Sorry Terp, and thanks I looked at the page again after asking and saw they actually did note parking prices for each of their public days (and it's free on my birthday). I just missed it the first time I looked.

Oooh, they're open for my birthday this year, which is the same day KI is having nighttime ERT on Beast. I think I'm going to treat myself with a combo trip to both parks to celebrate my 40th Morning and lunch at KI, drive to Stricker's Grove for a few hours on their coasters, etc, then back for dinner and the ERT at KI. I haven't made it to Stricker's yet, although I've been wanting to ever since I first heard of it. I like how this birthday is shaping up.

I think he had it up sooner but not permission to share it. It's only a month old. I was a little surprised to see how much they had left to go at that point.

A friend of my husband was hired to take some drone footage of the construction of Lightning Rod. This ride is going to be so good when it opens. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=93oa-XhJ1es&feature=youtu.be

Wow, that is really cool!

Heh, at least it protects the operator from wearing the sweat from hundreds (well, ok, dozens... A dozen?) of the general public. This entire thing makes me really hope that when the day comes for the merger that Terpy keeps ominously predicting, FUN buys SIX and not the other way around.

La Rosa's (saloon), the game room (general store), and The Beast station (mill) constitute as much of a town as an old mine was likely to have back then anyway. Add in Old Tyme Photos (bordello maybe?), the train station, and Diamondback Trading Post, it's quite the rockin' center of commerce To me, RHoFG's theming plopped into the middle interrupts the feel of the "town" more than any lacking elsewhere.

I like to think of WWC's course as the River of Rivertown.

I do think they will decline, yes. However, since I don't think this decision is being made to maximize game returns, but minimize game expenses (employees' pay), I don't foresee it going anywhere. Kids (or anyone, really) already don't seem to play the games anywhere near the amount that they/we did twenty or thirty years ago. There used to be, from what I remember, twice the number of arcades in the park (the one in Hanna-Barbera Land and the second Coney one are gone, the main Coney and Rivertown one remain). There also used to be much more usage of the other games (like the "competition" games, where players are racing), which I almost never see/hear played. There also used to be more standalone games in the park. The only games that still get a fair amount of traffic are the basketball ones.

No, you don't, at least not in a special step. For table games you typically can hand over cash at the table to be exchanged for chips (the parallel is handing cash directly to the guess-the-weight operator). For slot machines, you can feed cash directly into the machines. There are some small exceptions, but any casino that /forces/ gamblers to use something other than cash or leave playing, effectively giving players time to think before cash leaves their hands, is doing it unwillingly due to regulations. Casinos don't want one to think one's playing with "real" money, which is why winnings are chips or vouchers until cashing out (turning /back/ into cash is an extra step, of course). So they want to make it exceedingly easy for one to turn cash into play, in whatever way the player desires. At Kings Island, the most modern coin-op games (including the Wizard of Oz coin pushers that are my weakness) you /may/ use tokens, but you aren't forced to. They happily accept cash as well.

Wow. I think that's probably a mistake, speaking as someone who plays. They're effectively /forcing/ people to wait in a different line/perform a different step prior to spending money on games. Since playing games (gambling) is often a visceral, spur of the moment, thing, every moment spent before taking the money is a moment the customer may change their mind, and keep their money instead. Those of us who are really into playing will still do the extra step (and it will probably be very convenient for people like me, honestly) but I don't think we're the lifeblood of the games, just a small devoted subset. The individual kids in groups who want to just stop for a moment to play are likely to be deterred by friends who want to get to the next ride and certainly don't want to stand around for an extra step. Someone who "almost won" that last time may rethink playing "just one more time" (which often turns into "one more time" five times) if they have to go reload their card rather than handing over a couple bucks each time. I just don't think it's ever a good business idea to give the impression that certain forms of money are unwelcome, especially when the form is cash. Even less so when the business is, effectively, gambling, with which spontaneity is often the primary force.

Great now I have Smooth Criminal stuck in my head. And not Michael Jackson, oh no, this: Granted it's pretty awesome!