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Turda, Romania: Deep in the Transylvanian countryside lies an ancient salt mine dating back over two millennia. Today Salina Turda has become an unlikely tourist attraction, with thousands of visitors descending its vertical shafts each year to ride ferris wheels, roller coasters, play mini-golf, go bowling and row around its underground lake. This submerged wonderland even has a healing center for people with lung conditions. Salina Turda filled the coffers of Hungarian kings and Habsburg emperors -- especially during the 13th century, when salt was more valuable than gold -- and sustained the local community for centuries. Since mining activity ceased in 1932, it has had many lives. It was used as a shelter in World War II and has even served time as a cheese storage center. Salina Turda reopened as a visitor attraction in 1992, bolstered by €6 million investment 16 years later, which cemented its adaptive reuse as a theme park.
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Ower, England: Let us transport you back in time, back 150 million years for a Jurassic adventure of a lifetime, when Dinosaurs ruled the Earth. Welcome to Lost Kingdom. A Jurassic world where, start May 17th, Dinosaurs of all shapes and sizes greet your every turn, an unbelievable prehistoric landscape where you will see, hear, and feel that you have been catapulted back to a long forgotten era. Lost Kingdom Dinosaur Theme Park at Paultons Park will be home to a whole host of Dinosaur attractions including two world class rollercoasters, life-like animatronic Dinosaurs, Jurassic themed family rides, a prehistoric Dinosaur adventure play park and an amazing opportunity to come face to face with our 'living' walking animatronic Dinosaurs!
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Staffordshire: Alton Towers has announced plans to open a rollercoaster ride on which passengers wear virtual-reality headsets. The Staffordshire-based adventure park said Galactica would open in April, following two years of planning. Several virtual-reality recordings simulate rollercoaster rides, but Alton Towers said Galactica would combine the two experiences for the first time. Over the course of the three-minute ride, the headsets will show passengers a journey across a series of different galaxies, timed to coincide with the ride's twists, turns and falls. Lying facedown, they will experience a maximum g-force of 3.5gs, which the park says is more than astronauts typically experience during rocket launches. Gill Riley, the park's marketing director, said it represented a "multi-million pound investment".
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Coney Island: The Waterboard Thrill Ride was constructed at Coney Island by an artist named Steve Powers to criticize the U.S. use of waterboarding by ... tricking children into watching robots do it. You walk up to the building and peer through the barred window, because why the fuck wouldn't you? The words "DONT WORRY IT'S ONLY A DREAM" are printed on the wall. Inside, you see a life-sized doll strapped to a table with another doll standing over it, holding a watering can. That's when your eyes come to rest on the dollar slot below the window with the huge "ONE DOLLAR" arrow pointing to it. You shrug and feed a dollar into the slot. Surely they wouldn't use your childhood love of SpongeBob to lead you astray. Suddenly the dolls spring to life, and the standing one upends the watering can on the other's face. You recoil in pure terror from what you now realize is a waterboarding simulator.
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Chertsey, England: Derren Brown, the illusionist, is launching the world's first psychological theme park experience with Thorpe Park. Brown - famous for his mind-bending shows and illusions - promises the skills that see him "predict and control human behaviour", will be showcased in his new experience. It is set to be the first "immersive psychological attraction" designed to "manipulate the human mind". Brown said: "First and foremost it's a theme park attraction, the psychological part of it is a layer to it but its ultimate reason for existing is to thrill. "So, it's a theme park attraction that I've come up with over the last three years, working with the Thorpe Park guys trying to push the boundaries of what's possible." The attraction named Ghost Train is set to open in March 2016. Brown admitted he is a lover of theme parks and roller coasters, but said he finds they are "over a little quickly" - so his attraction will be 13 minutes long.
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Orlando: In March 2015, Japanese video game company Nintendo announced plans to team with Universal Studios to bring their video game properties to life at Universal Parks & Resorts. Now insiders suggest that Universal is developing a third park for their Universal Studios Orlando Resort which would have a heavy video game focus, including rides based on Nintendo and Blizzard properties. Universal is looking to expand further as a multi-day vacation destination to rival Walt Disney World (which will soon be adding Avatar-Land to Animal Kingdom and supposedly has a significant retooling of Hollywood Studios in the works). As for what would populate this new Nintendo Parkwith attractions, that may be where Universal’s deal with Nintendo comes in. Word has it that they intend to split Nintendo into multiple parks, similar to their Harry Potter approach, which capitalizes on the fandom purchasing more days on their passes in order to get the full experience. A Mario Kart ride is certainly in the works, but I’m also hearing Pokemon and something THE LEGEND OF ZELDA would end up getting their own immersive worlds.
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Brühl, Germany: Germany's Phantasialand Theme Park's upcoming Klugheim coaster project is named Taron. It's an Intamin made coaster, but with a design that may be more of a mix of Cheetah Hunt at Busch Gardens Tampa and Thirteen at Alton Towers. Our source says that the layout they saw had the coaster leave the station and go through a short dark-ride style indoor section before hitting a launch track and going outside and into a figure-8 style element labeled the "Panorama Curve", which is said to look a lot like the elevated figure-8 element on Cheetah Hunt. From here the train will drop into a series of S-curves before entering a building for another dark ride section that looked to include a 10-meter free-fall drop track element, much like Thirteen. Leaving here, the train appeared to load into a tilt-track style element, much like the one on Escape from Gringotts, dropping the train down and into a second launch track, into an Immelman style inversion, a series of overbanked curves, an into either a corkscrew or zero-g-roll inversion before sliding back into the station one again. Our source also described the trains as looking quite a bit like Skyrush at Hersheypark, seating 4 across with the outer two seats hanging out over the edge of the track. The trains wont be very long however, featuring just 2 cars per train, and each car only having 2 rows, for a total of 16 riders per train.
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Anaheim: At its earliest stages, the Tower of Terror ride wasn’t themed to ‘The Twilight Zone,’ and was instead conceived as a collaboration between Disney and Mel Brooks. Eventually Brooks dropped out of the project, and ‘The Twilight Zone’ elements were introduced, but before then ideas for Hotel Mel, as it was commonly called, involved an attraction and a working hotel housed together in the same building, and a murder mystery that could be solved with clues littered around the grounds. StudioCentral.com says Brooks lost interest right around the time Imagineers stumbled on the idea of adding haunted elevators which leap out of their shafts.
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Dubai: Construction on the Motiongate Dubai, LEGOLAND Dubai and Bollywood theme parks are now over 50% complete and on track to open by October 2016. Meanwhile 71% of the project's struture work and 50% of the resort wide infrastructure is also said to be in place, which I'm assuming is the new hotel and Riverland retail and dining zone that will connect everything together like Universal's CityWalk does in Orlando. The Deluxe Group is helping make 5 different attractions for Motiongate Dubai and lists them as being involved with: Hotel Transylvania, Ghostbuster, The Green Hornet, Underworld and Zombieland.
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Switzerland: A diabolical engineering mastermind in Europe realized a few years ago that amusement park rides are not nearly horrifying enough, and thus began the development of the Tourbillon. This gigantic nightmare machine has just been unveiled by ride maker ABC Rides. It aims to offer a simulated weightlessness experienced by twisting and turning in all directions as terrified riders struggle to tell up from down. Tourbillon is basically a giant motorized gyroscope. If you’ve ever seen footage of an astronaut in one of those spinning ring rigs (called an Aerotrim), it’s similar to that. The smaller versions are used for balance training, which can be important in microgravity. Tourbillon is about 70 feet tall and spins on three axes simultaneously. It has been in development for three years at a cost of more than €2 million.
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Mussel Shoals: Plans for a multi-billion dollar SoundScape Theme Park in Mussel Shoals Alabama were unveiled at an elaborate conference in February 2015. Three months later, it no longer had a working website. Executives announced more details were to follow, such as when and where that park would be. One later, silence. That's according to city leaders in the Shoals. "I've had no contact with them," said Mayor Ian Sanford. "Whether they're working behind the scenes or not, I have no way of knowing." We did make an effort to reach out to the investing company, Provident Global Capital, to see where the project stands, but no one returned our calls. We also reached out to our sister station in Dallas, where DreamVision announced a similar investment back in February. They confirm the company has yet to break ground on that themepark there as well.
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Branson: The Ozark Wildcatcoaster, the icon of the nearby closed Celebration City park in Branson, Missouri, was pulled down on Thursday afternoon. Check out the video below to watch as they try to pull it down with a cable over and over.
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Williamstown: A controversial Noah's Ark-themed amusement park in Kentucky will open on July 7, 2016, the park's founder said on Thursday. Currently under construction in Williamstown, northern Kentucky, Ark Encounterwill include a full-sized wooden replica of the ship from the Biblical story of Noah and the great flood. Ken Ham, president and chief executive of Answers in Genesis, the Christian organisation behind the project, announced the opening date at a press conference and said the park should attract at least 1.4 million people annually. In the summer of 2014, Kentucky officials awarded the park's developers tax incentives, potentially worth more than $18 million over 10 years. However, state officials in December pulled the credits after developers said they would only hire workers who shared their fundamentalist Christian beliefs. Ark Encounter officials then sued the state in federal court in February to get the incentives reinstated. The opening date for the park was based on a verse from the book of Genesis – the seventh verse of the seventh chapter details when Noah and his family entered the ark, Ham said. Because of the perceived high interest in the park, he said attendance will be limited for the first 40 days and nights, tying the opening again to the Noah story, Ham said.
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Paris: Parc Asterix's new 2016 attraction is Discobelix, a Zamperla Disk'O Coaster crossed with a Zamperla Windshear ride (sort of like a Top Spin) with an Egyptian theme. It will open in summer 2016.
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Orlando: This summer Universal’s Islands of Adventure is debuting a much-anticipated dark ride, Skull Island: Reign of Kong. While Kong has a long history at Universal parks, the latest ride is more technologically sophisticated, immersive and advanced in its storytelling than predecessors. The features include massive animatronics, physical scenes to create settings, and projection screens. Reign of Kong has been described by people involved with the project as massive. Everything is being done on a tremendous scale, and that scale is part of the guest experience. Guests enter a themed queue and become part of a 1930s expedition searching for prehistoric creatures. In the queue, guests proceed through a jungle environment complete with hints that a monster is coming their way. Some of the hints come from the physical environment; others through a radio broadcast playing in the area. Riders are loaded into a 25 person vehicle that seats guests in a caged canopy area, to help protect them from Skull Island’s denizens. The vehicle approaches a large stone wall, and temple doors swing open as the guests enter the attraction building. During the ride, the vehicle makes its way through a series of caves and underground areas that are filled with prehistoric creatures. One aspect that’s interesting is the transition from wide open spaces, to narrower settings that play up the tension. Kong fights off enemies to let guests make their escape. One of the particularly memorable scenes is hinted to be a battle between Kong and the ride’s ultimate bad guy at the end of the ride.
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Savio, Italy: Mirabilandia theme park in Italy is adding a new Zamperla Disk'O Coaster this year that will be given a western theme and looks like it may be called Buffalo Bill according to the concept artwork. The ride will be part of a new themed area called Far West Valley which will also see new Western themeing added to the park's side-by-side tower rides.
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Copenhagen: In 2016, Tivoli Gardens will add a second generation Huss Condor ride that will be called Fatamorgana and feature some discs of outward facing individual seats, and some discs with the typical swaying Condor style seats. This installation will be the world’s first Huss Hybrid Condor ride (Huss Condor 2GH), a unique new version of the Condor that offers guests a choice of how they want to ride, either in new 2-seat Condor style swinging gondolas themed as either Flying Lions or Winged Oryx on two arms, while the other two arms will hold round outward facing 14-seat frames that will spin counter to the rotational direction of the central motion.
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Yinchuan, China: IDEATTACK, a global destination design and planning company, has unveiled plans for Eontime World Indoor Theme Park in Yinchuan City, China. The $100m family attraction is part of a larger mixed-use development and will feature three zones, each drawing inspiration from Yinchuan’s unique natural setting. Described by the designers as a fantasy/dream world, the concept for the park reflects the notion that water brought life to the desert and, as a result, a beautiful, glowing ‘Oasis – City’ appeared. The 50,000m² of indoor attraction space are spread over two levels and several mezzanines, all centred on the facility’s iconic Walk-Through Tower. The design narrative is loosely inspired by an ancient myth - a legendary Phoenix coming from the South has created the City and Palace to protect its citizens. Once visitors pass through the arches of the exterior entrance to the building, they find themselves in front of the Magic Gate, guarded by costumed guardians. The world behind the Magic Gate is a fantasy city that symbolically represents a romanticised Central Asian city themed upon the Silk Road, XiXia kingdom, local legends and myths.
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Katoomba, Australia: Orphan Rockeris quite possibly the most notorious SBNO coaster in history. Orphan Rocker is a thirty year old mess of rumors, dodgy reports, fishy promises and skepticism. Construction began in the early to mid 1980s (though no one can seem to pin whether it was 1982 or 1983). It was the creation of Harry Hammon and his son Philip, who originally conceived of it as a monorail before developing it into a roller coaster. Its initial claim to fame was that it was the first coaster designed and built entirely by Australian companies. Now, its fame derives from a far less boastful attribute: it is, without question, Australia’s most legendary roller coaster failure. Orphan Rocker never made it past the testing stage. The word is that it outright flunked its exams, running into some major problems that precluded its opening to the public. The nature of those problems, however, has never been clear. It will open, they always say, as if the whole site redevelopment thing were only temporary. As if the coaster hasn’t been an idle, rusting, derelict elephant in the room for the past three decades. Sometimes there’s a time frame in the answer—usually an ambiguous “in a few years” though I did once hear of an employee quoting a more exact “in four years”—but each time, the allotted time frame passes with no visible change. It’s as though Orphan Rocker is a sick person whose illness is downplayed and whose relatives live in denial about the true extent of its deterioration, placating themselves with false hopes that a cure is coming and things will be better someday. What I see is moss-covered rust that hasn’t a bloody hope of ever operating.
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Vernon: The LA Times has confirmed that infamous Action Park in New Jersey has indeed purchased the first Sky Caliber vertical looping waterslide from Sky Turtle. If you don't recall, they were shown off for the first time at IAAPA last November and were one of the most new and shocking creations we've seen in a long time. I'll repost our IAAPA report on them below as well, but to be brief... riders are sent down inside a capsule that will take the brunt of the sliding and banging down a vertical 90º plunge before going up and through a vertical 360º loop inversion. It's a great nod to the Action Park of old, which was also known for having the very first vertical loop waterslide... for a short time at least before the potential lawsuits started to pile up.
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Atlanta & Macau: Roller coasters and other rides based on the “Hunger Games” movies will anchor new theme parks in the United States and China, Mr. Palen said. The two parks, built by separate companies and planned for areas near Atlanta and Macau, will join an already announced “Hunger Games” stage show in London and an elaborate Lionsgate zone at a $3 billion entertainment complex under construction between Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Designs for rides are in the early stages, but Mr. Ram said he had no qualms about the harsher “Hunger Games” story lines. Bringing “The Hunger Games” to theme parks is unusual. The dystopian movie series, based on books by Suzanne Collins, is not exactly the whimsical world of “Harry Potter.” Mr. Palen conceded that some theme park operators initially approached by the studio were not overly encouraging.
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Buena Park: The great GhostRider Coaster at Knotts Berry Farm is under rehab and Knott's has confirmed that it will reopen with three all new mine-car themed Millennium Flyer trains (Gold, Silver and Copper) and with a complete re-tracking of the entire 4,533 foot coaster, all done by Great Coasters International. Knott's has also confirmed that the mid-course brake run will be REMOVED entirely from the ride, allowing riders to enjoy the new GhostRider at full relentless speed for the entire length of the run, until you speed into the all new magnetic brake run at the end. The experience will start with a new queue going past the Panning for Gold attraction, which will return to its original Ghost Town home.
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Nowhere: A YouTube video takes a look at what visiting a Roller Coaster Tycoonpark in real life would be like.
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Kaatsheuvel, Holland: Efteling in Holland is ready to begin work in early 2016 on a major new attraction for the park that wont open until 2017 to be called Symbolica. 2017 would also mark the park's 65th Anniversary, and the rumors report that Symbolica could be the park's most expensive expansion ever built. They mention that the new ride system is said to be a trackless dark ride system where the guests sit on a spinning and tilting motion base from ETF, that will take guests around the world of Efteling's mascot Pardoes.
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Vallejo: In Spring 2016, Six Flags Discovery Kingdom will open the most-anticipated new roller coaster in Northern California in over 10 years, The Joker. This state-of-the-art extreme coaster will be the “must ride” coaster of the season, adding to the park’s status as Northern California’s most thrilling theme park. The villainous character’s personality is evident in the coaster’s chaotic twists and turns, including a first ever “step-up under-flip inverted roll” that takes riders horizontal. The Joker ride also features the ultimate “fake-out” with a unique breaking wave turn, the only one of its kind on the West Coast. Additional highlights of The Joker ride include: 3,200 feet of dual-colored purple and green track; A wild Zero G barrel roll; 3 inversions; 15 extreme airtime moments; and Maximum speeds of 53 mph.
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Dubai: 20th Century Fox World, Dubai will boast a series of themed lands, with amusement park attractions, themed restaurants, and stores. There will also be a Fox-themed resort hotel. The partners also plan to build rides and other features based on “Ice Age,” “Rio,” “Predator,” “Night at the Museum” and “The Simpsons.” The company cannot include its most popular film franchise, “Avatar,” in the resort, since characters and material from the James Cameron epic have been licensed and will be featured in themed attractions at Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. Of all of the pictures mentioned as part of the rides and attractions at the new resort, “Titanic,” a romance that ends tragically, sounds the most unconventional. But Godsick says it’s the perfect fit. “We are working on creating an immersive experience that includes motion theater simulators and will allow you to experience what it was like to be on the Titanic in an exciting way,” he said.
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Ourimbah State Forest, Australia: Zipline-based “rollercoasters” seem to be all the rage at the moment. Here’s a new one and the longest in existence from New South Wales. Rollglider combines the excitement of hang gliding, paragliding, and proximity flying, into one safe ride. The customisable design makes it an excellent solution for both indoor and outdoor areas, where – as seen here – maximum use can be made of existing assets such as trees. Riders reach speeds of up to 44mph (77 km/h). So far, Walltopia has completed five Rollglider projects – in Ourimbah State Forest in New South Wales, at the Krushuna Falls in Bulgaria, District 21 in Malaysia, the foot of Mount Fuji in Japan and Huimala in Helsinki, Finland. In 2016, the company will makes its first installation in the US.
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Hanna, Japan: A Moomin Theme Park covering a vast lakeside area is scheduled to open in Saitama Prefecture as early as 2017. The area chosen around Lake Miyazawako in Hanno, Saitama Prefecture, is meant to resemble the popular fantasy characters’ nature-rich homeland in Finland. The theme park is expected to house facilities where visitors can interact with Moomin characters, as well as museums and restaurants offering Nordic meals, said investment company FinTech Global Inc., which is behind the project. The Tokyo-based company clinched a deal June 30 to buy a 187,000-square-meter area of land from Seibu Railway Co. for 600 million yen ($4.9 million). The land will house the theme park “Metsa,” which means “forest” in Finnish. The project will cost several billion yen, and organizers hope to attract 1 million visitors annually. Moomins are hippo-like characters created by Finnish illustrator Tove Jansson. The first Moomin book was published in 1945, and the characters are very popular in Japan.
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*
p.s. Hey. ** Tosh Berman, Hi. Ha ha, I hear you. Really good mosh pits aren't gender-specific. They do seem to have gotten more treacherous with time. I used to sidle into pits in the early punk days before they were even called mosh pits, and they could be kind of exhilarating. I think my being tall made a difference. But then they started getting trolled by assholes, and, yeah, I basically stay a layer or two of people back now and just gawk. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, D. Yes, I agree about Eco. And 'Travels in Hyper-Reality' is really great, for sure. Oh, what a shame that Morrissey didn't make that film. 'The Vatican Cellars', which had the title 'Lafcadio's Adventures' in the version I read way back when, seems like it could have been a terrific movie, in Morrissey's hands at least, at least in memory. ** Damien Ark, Hi, Damien! Awesome to see you! Never been in a Ty Segall pit or even at a TS gig. I'm going to try that. Well, the latter option at least. I hope you're a busy body for reasons that are a big boost. What's going on? ** Bill, Hi, B. Yeah, my pit experiences were mostly early-on (late 70s) when what you're saying rings totally true. This is probably before your time, but something happened, in LA at least, around the time that 'punk' started meaning, say, Black Flag rather than, oh, The Screamers or Germs or whoever, and this creepy macho thing started poisoning the pits. Yeah, that bus thing was a mindfuck. How was your weekend? ** Steevee, Hi. Ah, so it took a bit to settle. Kind of like mushrooms or something. Or mushrooms in my experiences. Flesheaters! Man, I haven't thought about them in ages. I knew that guy, the singer, pretty well back in the LA scene days. They're wonderful. I'm really, really happy to hear that you loved 'Malgre la Nuit! I loved it too, as you know, and I agree with what you wrote about it. I think it might even be my favorite Grandieux film. That's great! But not great at all about your leg pain. Are you feeling better today? ** Thom, Hi, Thom! Welcome! No, I don't know the name Timothée Chalamet. Hold on, let me try your link. Huh. He looks really different in each of those photos at the top. Yeah, he looks good. Is he an interesting actor to boot? Thanks, man. ** h, Hi, h! Really nice to see you! I'm glad to hear that this place still draws you in occasionally. I hope your secret projects are going really well. Secret projects = yum. ** Sypha, Hi, James. Yeah, you don't seem like a mosh pit-joining type, ha ha. Thank you immensely for putting aside your editing to do Là-Bas Day! I'm very honored. Your posts are always so incredible, I can only imagine the difficulty they involve. You're a saint for toughing that out. Thank you! Excited! 'The Counterfeiters' was a real revelation to me when I read it back in the '70s. Like I said the other day, I'm a little afraid to reread it, but I think/hope it holds up. I'll be curious to learn what you think of it, obviously. ** Chris Dankland, Hey Chris! Thanks about the gif set. That's funny you mention a Melvins pit. One really bad Melvins pit experience was what made me become kind of permanently standoffish at gigs. A couple of friends and I were suitably transported by a typically incredible Melvins performance, and we thought, 'What the hell', and we slid into the pit. Then everything became a blur, literally. The next thing I remember was security guys dragging us towards the venue's exit. I guess we got attacked, knocked to the floor, punched, kicked, etc. by some guys. Our clothes were half-ripped off, and we had bruises all over the place. After that, I went wuss when it came to pits. So, yeah, that's probably my stand-out mosh pit memory. Man, I hear and feel you about Trump anxiety, but ... Facebook has become, for me, an almost unbearable hell to visit lately, due mostly to the vicious Sanders vs. Clinton stuff that occupies most of my newsfeed these days, and I've been hugely enjoying that this place is like an oasis away from that, so I decided that I don't want to talk about the election here, at least for now. You and others can, of course. There are no rules, but I'm super wary to get that battling poison in here. But, yeah, I definitely hear you on that. Man, again, I love your book! And, yeah if the blog has been any help at all, that's so amazing to hear. You being here has really helped make the blog very amazing. Truer words hath ne'er been spoke. Love, me. ** Armando, Happy birthday a little late, whether you like it or not, ha ha. Oh, well, actually, I recommend you consider starting by self-publishing. That's what I did. I self-published my first two books, and that got me some readers and name-recognition and stuff, and then it was easier to get published after that. I think self-publishing is a totally legit way to go, and there's no stigma around it anymore. I mean, d.l. Chris Dankland just self-published his first book, 'Weed Monks', and people are reading and writing about it, and I think it was a really good thing for him to do. A lot of really interesting writers self-publish their books. I read a lot of them. Heck, Michael Salerno self-publishes most of his books through Kiddiepunk, for instance. So I think you should consider it, especially if your work is risky, abject, etc. If I hadn't started out by self-publishing my stuff, I'm not sure that I would have ever gotten wherever I am today. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Me too, duh, about LBD. So sorry to hear that you waylaid with a cold. I hope it's clear of you and on its way to hell by now. Thanks a lot for starting the Day! ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! It does, right? Yeah, the bus thing, yikes. It didn't affect the dig stuff really. The thing I learned that summer is that being an archaeologist working on digs is unbelievably tedious. Like spending three days spooning tiny bits of dirt and sand out of holes. Let's just say that my archeologist dreams died about two days into my two month-long job working on the dig, and it was not the most exciting summer I ever spent, in a word. Thank you about my tall, skinny mosh pit! I hope your weekend was a very, very good one. Was it? ** Unknown/Pascal, Hi, P. Wow, a My Bloody Valentine pit must have been pretty intense and trippy. Wow. I'm a huge Noe fan, but I really didn't like 'Love'. Great week to you! ** Misanthrope, Cool, glad Quin's stuff rang your bell. That's a George I never knew and who is hard, though not impossible, to visualize. Wowzer. Autocorrect just corrected 'wowzer' to 'woozier', which works too. I just hope against all rationale and logic and hope that FB doesn't stay like this until November. I don't think I can last it out that long. ** James, Hi. Yeah, I guess it does explain my bus weirdness. Your mention of this book 'Streetwalker' is the first I've ever heard of it. I will investigate. Thanks, bud. Lucky lucky lucky you about Tokyo! It's going to blow your mind and capture your heart. Swear to God. Ha ha, nice pit story. And a Ronnie James Dio pit, no less! ** Okay. Today I am yet again indulging my fascination with amusement parks and their rides, in this case mostly re: rides and parks that are forthcoming. See if I can persuade you into sharing my excitement. See you tomorrow.
Turda, Romania: Deep in the Transylvanian countryside lies an ancient salt mine dating back over two millennia. Today Salina Turda has become an unlikely tourist attraction, with thousands of visitors descending its vertical shafts each year to ride ferris wheels, roller coasters, play mini-golf, go bowling and row around its underground lake. This submerged wonderland even has a healing center for people with lung conditions. Salina Turda filled the coffers of Hungarian kings and Habsburg emperors -- especially during the 13th century, when salt was more valuable than gold -- and sustained the local community for centuries. Since mining activity ceased in 1932, it has had many lives. It was used as a shelter in World War II and has even served time as a cheese storage center. Salina Turda reopened as a visitor attraction in 1992, bolstered by €6 million investment 16 years later, which cemented its adaptive reuse as a theme park.
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Ower, England: Let us transport you back in time, back 150 million years for a Jurassic adventure of a lifetime, when Dinosaurs ruled the Earth. Welcome to Lost Kingdom. A Jurassic world where, start May 17th, Dinosaurs of all shapes and sizes greet your every turn, an unbelievable prehistoric landscape where you will see, hear, and feel that you have been catapulted back to a long forgotten era. Lost Kingdom Dinosaur Theme Park at Paultons Park will be home to a whole host of Dinosaur attractions including two world class rollercoasters, life-like animatronic Dinosaurs, Jurassic themed family rides, a prehistoric Dinosaur adventure play park and an amazing opportunity to come face to face with our 'living' walking animatronic Dinosaurs!
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Staffordshire: Alton Towers has announced plans to open a rollercoaster ride on which passengers wear virtual-reality headsets. The Staffordshire-based adventure park said Galactica would open in April, following two years of planning. Several virtual-reality recordings simulate rollercoaster rides, but Alton Towers said Galactica would combine the two experiences for the first time. Over the course of the three-minute ride, the headsets will show passengers a journey across a series of different galaxies, timed to coincide with the ride's twists, turns and falls. Lying facedown, they will experience a maximum g-force of 3.5gs, which the park says is more than astronauts typically experience during rocket launches. Gill Riley, the park's marketing director, said it represented a "multi-million pound investment".
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Coney Island: The Waterboard Thrill Ride was constructed at Coney Island by an artist named Steve Powers to criticize the U.S. use of waterboarding by ... tricking children into watching robots do it. You walk up to the building and peer through the barred window, because why the fuck wouldn't you? The words "DONT WORRY IT'S ONLY A DREAM" are printed on the wall. Inside, you see a life-sized doll strapped to a table with another doll standing over it, holding a watering can. That's when your eyes come to rest on the dollar slot below the window with the huge "ONE DOLLAR" arrow pointing to it. You shrug and feed a dollar into the slot. Surely they wouldn't use your childhood love of SpongeBob to lead you astray. Suddenly the dolls spring to life, and the standing one upends the watering can on the other's face. You recoil in pure terror from what you now realize is a waterboarding simulator.
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Chertsey, England: Derren Brown, the illusionist, is launching the world's first psychological theme park experience with Thorpe Park. Brown - famous for his mind-bending shows and illusions - promises the skills that see him "predict and control human behaviour", will be showcased in his new experience. It is set to be the first "immersive psychological attraction" designed to "manipulate the human mind". Brown said: "First and foremost it's a theme park attraction, the psychological part of it is a layer to it but its ultimate reason for existing is to thrill. "So, it's a theme park attraction that I've come up with over the last three years, working with the Thorpe Park guys trying to push the boundaries of what's possible." The attraction named Ghost Train is set to open in March 2016. Brown admitted he is a lover of theme parks and roller coasters, but said he finds they are "over a little quickly" - so his attraction will be 13 minutes long.
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Orlando: In March 2015, Japanese video game company Nintendo announced plans to team with Universal Studios to bring their video game properties to life at Universal Parks & Resorts. Now insiders suggest that Universal is developing a third park for their Universal Studios Orlando Resort which would have a heavy video game focus, including rides based on Nintendo and Blizzard properties. Universal is looking to expand further as a multi-day vacation destination to rival Walt Disney World (which will soon be adding Avatar-Land to Animal Kingdom and supposedly has a significant retooling of Hollywood Studios in the works). As for what would populate this new Nintendo Parkwith attractions, that may be where Universal’s deal with Nintendo comes in. Word has it that they intend to split Nintendo into multiple parks, similar to their Harry Potter approach, which capitalizes on the fandom purchasing more days on their passes in order to get the full experience. A Mario Kart ride is certainly in the works, but I’m also hearing Pokemon and something THE LEGEND OF ZELDA would end up getting their own immersive worlds.
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Brühl, Germany: Germany's Phantasialand Theme Park's upcoming Klugheim coaster project is named Taron. It's an Intamin made coaster, but with a design that may be more of a mix of Cheetah Hunt at Busch Gardens Tampa and Thirteen at Alton Towers. Our source says that the layout they saw had the coaster leave the station and go through a short dark-ride style indoor section before hitting a launch track and going outside and into a figure-8 style element labeled the "Panorama Curve", which is said to look a lot like the elevated figure-8 element on Cheetah Hunt. From here the train will drop into a series of S-curves before entering a building for another dark ride section that looked to include a 10-meter free-fall drop track element, much like Thirteen. Leaving here, the train appeared to load into a tilt-track style element, much like the one on Escape from Gringotts, dropping the train down and into a second launch track, into an Immelman style inversion, a series of overbanked curves, an into either a corkscrew or zero-g-roll inversion before sliding back into the station one again. Our source also described the trains as looking quite a bit like Skyrush at Hersheypark, seating 4 across with the outer two seats hanging out over the edge of the track. The trains wont be very long however, featuring just 2 cars per train, and each car only having 2 rows, for a total of 16 riders per train.
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Anaheim: At its earliest stages, the Tower of Terror ride wasn’t themed to ‘The Twilight Zone,’ and was instead conceived as a collaboration between Disney and Mel Brooks. Eventually Brooks dropped out of the project, and ‘The Twilight Zone’ elements were introduced, but before then ideas for Hotel Mel, as it was commonly called, involved an attraction and a working hotel housed together in the same building, and a murder mystery that could be solved with clues littered around the grounds. StudioCentral.com says Brooks lost interest right around the time Imagineers stumbled on the idea of adding haunted elevators which leap out of their shafts.
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Dubai: Construction on the Motiongate Dubai, LEGOLAND Dubai and Bollywood theme parks are now over 50% complete and on track to open by October 2016. Meanwhile 71% of the project's struture work and 50% of the resort wide infrastructure is also said to be in place, which I'm assuming is the new hotel and Riverland retail and dining zone that will connect everything together like Universal's CityWalk does in Orlando. The Deluxe Group is helping make 5 different attractions for Motiongate Dubai and lists them as being involved with: Hotel Transylvania, Ghostbuster, The Green Hornet, Underworld and Zombieland.
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Switzerland: A diabolical engineering mastermind in Europe realized a few years ago that amusement park rides are not nearly horrifying enough, and thus began the development of the Tourbillon. This gigantic nightmare machine has just been unveiled by ride maker ABC Rides. It aims to offer a simulated weightlessness experienced by twisting and turning in all directions as terrified riders struggle to tell up from down. Tourbillon is basically a giant motorized gyroscope. If you’ve ever seen footage of an astronaut in one of those spinning ring rigs (called an Aerotrim), it’s similar to that. The smaller versions are used for balance training, which can be important in microgravity. Tourbillon is about 70 feet tall and spins on three axes simultaneously. It has been in development for three years at a cost of more than €2 million.
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Mussel Shoals: Plans for a multi-billion dollar SoundScape Theme Park in Mussel Shoals Alabama were unveiled at an elaborate conference in February 2015. Three months later, it no longer had a working website. Executives announced more details were to follow, such as when and where that park would be. One later, silence. That's according to city leaders in the Shoals. "I've had no contact with them," said Mayor Ian Sanford. "Whether they're working behind the scenes or not, I have no way of knowing." We did make an effort to reach out to the investing company, Provident Global Capital, to see where the project stands, but no one returned our calls. We also reached out to our sister station in Dallas, where DreamVision announced a similar investment back in February. They confirm the company has yet to break ground on that themepark there as well.
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Branson: The Ozark Wildcatcoaster, the icon of the nearby closed Celebration City park in Branson, Missouri, was pulled down on Thursday afternoon. Check out the video below to watch as they try to pull it down with a cable over and over.
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Williamstown: A controversial Noah's Ark-themed amusement park in Kentucky will open on July 7, 2016, the park's founder said on Thursday. Currently under construction in Williamstown, northern Kentucky, Ark Encounterwill include a full-sized wooden replica of the ship from the Biblical story of Noah and the great flood. Ken Ham, president and chief executive of Answers in Genesis, the Christian organisation behind the project, announced the opening date at a press conference and said the park should attract at least 1.4 million people annually. In the summer of 2014, Kentucky officials awarded the park's developers tax incentives, potentially worth more than $18 million over 10 years. However, state officials in December pulled the credits after developers said they would only hire workers who shared their fundamentalist Christian beliefs. Ark Encounter officials then sued the state in federal court in February to get the incentives reinstated. The opening date for the park was based on a verse from the book of Genesis – the seventh verse of the seventh chapter details when Noah and his family entered the ark, Ham said. Because of the perceived high interest in the park, he said attendance will be limited for the first 40 days and nights, tying the opening again to the Noah story, Ham said.
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Paris: Parc Asterix's new 2016 attraction is Discobelix, a Zamperla Disk'O Coaster crossed with a Zamperla Windshear ride (sort of like a Top Spin) with an Egyptian theme. It will open in summer 2016.
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Orlando: This summer Universal’s Islands of Adventure is debuting a much-anticipated dark ride, Skull Island: Reign of Kong. While Kong has a long history at Universal parks, the latest ride is more technologically sophisticated, immersive and advanced in its storytelling than predecessors. The features include massive animatronics, physical scenes to create settings, and projection screens. Reign of Kong has been described by people involved with the project as massive. Everything is being done on a tremendous scale, and that scale is part of the guest experience. Guests enter a themed queue and become part of a 1930s expedition searching for prehistoric creatures. In the queue, guests proceed through a jungle environment complete with hints that a monster is coming their way. Some of the hints come from the physical environment; others through a radio broadcast playing in the area. Riders are loaded into a 25 person vehicle that seats guests in a caged canopy area, to help protect them from Skull Island’s denizens. The vehicle approaches a large stone wall, and temple doors swing open as the guests enter the attraction building. During the ride, the vehicle makes its way through a series of caves and underground areas that are filled with prehistoric creatures. One aspect that’s interesting is the transition from wide open spaces, to narrower settings that play up the tension. Kong fights off enemies to let guests make their escape. One of the particularly memorable scenes is hinted to be a battle between Kong and the ride’s ultimate bad guy at the end of the ride.
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Savio, Italy: Mirabilandia theme park in Italy is adding a new Zamperla Disk'O Coaster this year that will be given a western theme and looks like it may be called Buffalo Bill according to the concept artwork. The ride will be part of a new themed area called Far West Valley which will also see new Western themeing added to the park's side-by-side tower rides.
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Copenhagen: In 2016, Tivoli Gardens will add a second generation Huss Condor ride that will be called Fatamorgana and feature some discs of outward facing individual seats, and some discs with the typical swaying Condor style seats. This installation will be the world’s first Huss Hybrid Condor ride (Huss Condor 2GH), a unique new version of the Condor that offers guests a choice of how they want to ride, either in new 2-seat Condor style swinging gondolas themed as either Flying Lions or Winged Oryx on two arms, while the other two arms will hold round outward facing 14-seat frames that will spin counter to the rotational direction of the central motion.
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Yinchuan, China: IDEATTACK, a global destination design and planning company, has unveiled plans for Eontime World Indoor Theme Park in Yinchuan City, China. The $100m family attraction is part of a larger mixed-use development and will feature three zones, each drawing inspiration from Yinchuan’s unique natural setting. Described by the designers as a fantasy/dream world, the concept for the park reflects the notion that water brought life to the desert and, as a result, a beautiful, glowing ‘Oasis – City’ appeared. The 50,000m² of indoor attraction space are spread over two levels and several mezzanines, all centred on the facility’s iconic Walk-Through Tower. The design narrative is loosely inspired by an ancient myth - a legendary Phoenix coming from the South has created the City and Palace to protect its citizens. Once visitors pass through the arches of the exterior entrance to the building, they find themselves in front of the Magic Gate, guarded by costumed guardians. The world behind the Magic Gate is a fantasy city that symbolically represents a romanticised Central Asian city themed upon the Silk Road, XiXia kingdom, local legends and myths.
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Katoomba, Australia: Orphan Rockeris quite possibly the most notorious SBNO coaster in history. Orphan Rocker is a thirty year old mess of rumors, dodgy reports, fishy promises and skepticism. Construction began in the early to mid 1980s (though no one can seem to pin whether it was 1982 or 1983). It was the creation of Harry Hammon and his son Philip, who originally conceived of it as a monorail before developing it into a roller coaster. Its initial claim to fame was that it was the first coaster designed and built entirely by Australian companies. Now, its fame derives from a far less boastful attribute: it is, without question, Australia’s most legendary roller coaster failure. Orphan Rocker never made it past the testing stage. The word is that it outright flunked its exams, running into some major problems that precluded its opening to the public. The nature of those problems, however, has never been clear. It will open, they always say, as if the whole site redevelopment thing were only temporary. As if the coaster hasn’t been an idle, rusting, derelict elephant in the room for the past three decades. Sometimes there’s a time frame in the answer—usually an ambiguous “in a few years” though I did once hear of an employee quoting a more exact “in four years”—but each time, the allotted time frame passes with no visible change. It’s as though Orphan Rocker is a sick person whose illness is downplayed and whose relatives live in denial about the true extent of its deterioration, placating themselves with false hopes that a cure is coming and things will be better someday. What I see is moss-covered rust that hasn’t a bloody hope of ever operating.
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Vernon: The LA Times has confirmed that infamous Action Park in New Jersey has indeed purchased the first Sky Caliber vertical looping waterslide from Sky Turtle. If you don't recall, they were shown off for the first time at IAAPA last November and were one of the most new and shocking creations we've seen in a long time. I'll repost our IAAPA report on them below as well, but to be brief... riders are sent down inside a capsule that will take the brunt of the sliding and banging down a vertical 90º plunge before going up and through a vertical 360º loop inversion. It's a great nod to the Action Park of old, which was also known for having the very first vertical loop waterslide... for a short time at least before the potential lawsuits started to pile up.
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Atlanta & Macau: Roller coasters and other rides based on the “Hunger Games” movies will anchor new theme parks in the United States and China, Mr. Palen said. The two parks, built by separate companies and planned for areas near Atlanta and Macau, will join an already announced “Hunger Games” stage show in London and an elaborate Lionsgate zone at a $3 billion entertainment complex under construction between Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Designs for rides are in the early stages, but Mr. Ram said he had no qualms about the harsher “Hunger Games” story lines. Bringing “The Hunger Games” to theme parks is unusual. The dystopian movie series, based on books by Suzanne Collins, is not exactly the whimsical world of “Harry Potter.” Mr. Palen conceded that some theme park operators initially approached by the studio were not overly encouraging.
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Buena Park: The great GhostRider Coaster at Knotts Berry Farm is under rehab and Knott's has confirmed that it will reopen with three all new mine-car themed Millennium Flyer trains (Gold, Silver and Copper) and with a complete re-tracking of the entire 4,533 foot coaster, all done by Great Coasters International. Knott's has also confirmed that the mid-course brake run will be REMOVED entirely from the ride, allowing riders to enjoy the new GhostRider at full relentless speed for the entire length of the run, until you speed into the all new magnetic brake run at the end. The experience will start with a new queue going past the Panning for Gold attraction, which will return to its original Ghost Town home.
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Nowhere: A YouTube video takes a look at what visiting a Roller Coaster Tycoonpark in real life would be like.
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Kaatsheuvel, Holland: Efteling in Holland is ready to begin work in early 2016 on a major new attraction for the park that wont open until 2017 to be called Symbolica. 2017 would also mark the park's 65th Anniversary, and the rumors report that Symbolica could be the park's most expensive expansion ever built. They mention that the new ride system is said to be a trackless dark ride system where the guests sit on a spinning and tilting motion base from ETF, that will take guests around the world of Efteling's mascot Pardoes.
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Vallejo: In Spring 2016, Six Flags Discovery Kingdom will open the most-anticipated new roller coaster in Northern California in over 10 years, The Joker. This state-of-the-art extreme coaster will be the “must ride” coaster of the season, adding to the park’s status as Northern California’s most thrilling theme park. The villainous character’s personality is evident in the coaster’s chaotic twists and turns, including a first ever “step-up under-flip inverted roll” that takes riders horizontal. The Joker ride also features the ultimate “fake-out” with a unique breaking wave turn, the only one of its kind on the West Coast. Additional highlights of The Joker ride include: 3,200 feet of dual-colored purple and green track; A wild Zero G barrel roll; 3 inversions; 15 extreme airtime moments; and Maximum speeds of 53 mph.
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Dubai: 20th Century Fox World, Dubai will boast a series of themed lands, with amusement park attractions, themed restaurants, and stores. There will also be a Fox-themed resort hotel. The partners also plan to build rides and other features based on “Ice Age,” “Rio,” “Predator,” “Night at the Museum” and “The Simpsons.” The company cannot include its most popular film franchise, “Avatar,” in the resort, since characters and material from the James Cameron epic have been licensed and will be featured in themed attractions at Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. Of all of the pictures mentioned as part of the rides and attractions at the new resort, “Titanic,” a romance that ends tragically, sounds the most unconventional. But Godsick says it’s the perfect fit. “We are working on creating an immersive experience that includes motion theater simulators and will allow you to experience what it was like to be on the Titanic in an exciting way,” he said.
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Ourimbah State Forest, Australia: Zipline-based “rollercoasters” seem to be all the rage at the moment. Here’s a new one and the longest in existence from New South Wales. Rollglider combines the excitement of hang gliding, paragliding, and proximity flying, into one safe ride. The customisable design makes it an excellent solution for both indoor and outdoor areas, where – as seen here – maximum use can be made of existing assets such as trees. Riders reach speeds of up to 44mph (77 km/h). So far, Walltopia has completed five Rollglider projects – in Ourimbah State Forest in New South Wales, at the Krushuna Falls in Bulgaria, District 21 in Malaysia, the foot of Mount Fuji in Japan and Huimala in Helsinki, Finland. In 2016, the company will makes its first installation in the US.
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Hanna, Japan: A Moomin Theme Park covering a vast lakeside area is scheduled to open in Saitama Prefecture as early as 2017. The area chosen around Lake Miyazawako in Hanno, Saitama Prefecture, is meant to resemble the popular fantasy characters’ nature-rich homeland in Finland. The theme park is expected to house facilities where visitors can interact with Moomin characters, as well as museums and restaurants offering Nordic meals, said investment company FinTech Global Inc., which is behind the project. The Tokyo-based company clinched a deal June 30 to buy a 187,000-square-meter area of land from Seibu Railway Co. for 600 million yen ($4.9 million). The land will house the theme park “Metsa,” which means “forest” in Finnish. The project will cost several billion yen, and organizers hope to attract 1 million visitors annually. Moomins are hippo-like characters created by Finnish illustrator Tove Jansson. The first Moomin book was published in 1945, and the characters are very popular in Japan.
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p.s. Hey. ** Tosh Berman, Hi. Ha ha, I hear you. Really good mosh pits aren't gender-specific. They do seem to have gotten more treacherous with time. I used to sidle into pits in the early punk days before they were even called mosh pits, and they could be kind of exhilarating. I think my being tall made a difference. But then they started getting trolled by assholes, and, yeah, I basically stay a layer or two of people back now and just gawk. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, D. Yes, I agree about Eco. And 'Travels in Hyper-Reality' is really great, for sure. Oh, what a shame that Morrissey didn't make that film. 'The Vatican Cellars', which had the title 'Lafcadio's Adventures' in the version I read way back when, seems like it could have been a terrific movie, in Morrissey's hands at least, at least in memory. ** Damien Ark, Hi, Damien! Awesome to see you! Never been in a Ty Segall pit or even at a TS gig. I'm going to try that. Well, the latter option at least. I hope you're a busy body for reasons that are a big boost. What's going on? ** Bill, Hi, B. Yeah, my pit experiences were mostly early-on (late 70s) when what you're saying rings totally true. This is probably before your time, but something happened, in LA at least, around the time that 'punk' started meaning, say, Black Flag rather than, oh, The Screamers or Germs or whoever, and this creepy macho thing started poisoning the pits. Yeah, that bus thing was a mindfuck. How was your weekend? ** Steevee, Hi. Ah, so it took a bit to settle. Kind of like mushrooms or something. Or mushrooms in my experiences. Flesheaters! Man, I haven't thought about them in ages. I knew that guy, the singer, pretty well back in the LA scene days. They're wonderful. I'm really, really happy to hear that you loved 'Malgre la Nuit! I loved it too, as you know, and I agree with what you wrote about it. I think it might even be my favorite Grandieux film. That's great! But not great at all about your leg pain. Are you feeling better today? ** Thom, Hi, Thom! Welcome! No, I don't know the name Timothée Chalamet. Hold on, let me try your link. Huh. He looks really different in each of those photos at the top. Yeah, he looks good. Is he an interesting actor to boot? Thanks, man. ** h, Hi, h! Really nice to see you! I'm glad to hear that this place still draws you in occasionally. I hope your secret projects are going really well. Secret projects = yum. ** Sypha, Hi, James. Yeah, you don't seem like a mosh pit-joining type, ha ha. Thank you immensely for putting aside your editing to do Là-Bas Day! I'm very honored. Your posts are always so incredible, I can only imagine the difficulty they involve. You're a saint for toughing that out. Thank you! Excited! 'The Counterfeiters' was a real revelation to me when I read it back in the '70s. Like I said the other day, I'm a little afraid to reread it, but I think/hope it holds up. I'll be curious to learn what you think of it, obviously. ** Chris Dankland, Hey Chris! Thanks about the gif set. That's funny you mention a Melvins pit. One really bad Melvins pit experience was what made me become kind of permanently standoffish at gigs. A couple of friends and I were suitably transported by a typically incredible Melvins performance, and we thought, 'What the hell', and we slid into the pit. Then everything became a blur, literally. The next thing I remember was security guys dragging us towards the venue's exit. I guess we got attacked, knocked to the floor, punched, kicked, etc. by some guys. Our clothes were half-ripped off, and we had bruises all over the place. After that, I went wuss when it came to pits. So, yeah, that's probably my stand-out mosh pit memory. Man, I hear and feel you about Trump anxiety, but ... Facebook has become, for me, an almost unbearable hell to visit lately, due mostly to the vicious Sanders vs. Clinton stuff that occupies most of my newsfeed these days, and I've been hugely enjoying that this place is like an oasis away from that, so I decided that I don't want to talk about the election here, at least for now. You and others can, of course. There are no rules, but I'm super wary to get that battling poison in here. But, yeah, I definitely hear you on that. Man, again, I love your book! And, yeah if the blog has been any help at all, that's so amazing to hear. You being here has really helped make the blog very amazing. Truer words hath ne'er been spoke. Love, me. ** Armando, Happy birthday a little late, whether you like it or not, ha ha. Oh, well, actually, I recommend you consider starting by self-publishing. That's what I did. I self-published my first two books, and that got me some readers and name-recognition and stuff, and then it was easier to get published after that. I think self-publishing is a totally legit way to go, and there's no stigma around it anymore. I mean, d.l. Chris Dankland just self-published his first book, 'Weed Monks', and people are reading and writing about it, and I think it was a really good thing for him to do. A lot of really interesting writers self-publish their books. I read a lot of them. Heck, Michael Salerno self-publishes most of his books through Kiddiepunk, for instance. So I think you should consider it, especially if your work is risky, abject, etc. If I hadn't started out by self-publishing my stuff, I'm not sure that I would have ever gotten wherever I am today. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Me too, duh, about LBD. So sorry to hear that you waylaid with a cold. I hope it's clear of you and on its way to hell by now. Thanks a lot for starting the Day! ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! It does, right? Yeah, the bus thing, yikes. It didn't affect the dig stuff really. The thing I learned that summer is that being an archaeologist working on digs is unbelievably tedious. Like spending three days spooning tiny bits of dirt and sand out of holes. Let's just say that my archeologist dreams died about two days into my two month-long job working on the dig, and it was not the most exciting summer I ever spent, in a word. Thank you about my tall, skinny mosh pit! I hope your weekend was a very, very good one. Was it? ** Unknown/Pascal, Hi, P. Wow, a My Bloody Valentine pit must have been pretty intense and trippy. Wow. I'm a huge Noe fan, but I really didn't like 'Love'. Great week to you! ** Misanthrope, Cool, glad Quin's stuff rang your bell. That's a George I never knew and who is hard, though not impossible, to visualize. Wowzer. Autocorrect just corrected 'wowzer' to 'woozier', which works too. I just hope against all rationale and logic and hope that FB doesn't stay like this until November. I don't think I can last it out that long. ** James, Hi. Yeah, I guess it does explain my bus weirdness. Your mention of this book 'Streetwalker' is the first I've ever heard of it. I will investigate. Thanks, bud. Lucky lucky lucky you about Tokyo! It's going to blow your mind and capture your heart. Swear to God. Ha ha, nice pit story. And a Ronnie James Dio pit, no less! ** Okay. Today I am yet again indulging my fascination with amusement parks and their rides, in this case mostly re: rides and parks that are forthcoming. See if I can persuade you into sharing my excitement. See you tomorrow.