I’ve had this ride hanging around in No Limits limbo for a while and finally decided to finish it. Ravine Runner (I couldn’t really think of a good name) is a Schwarzkopf looping coaster that’s set in a hilly, wooded …
Entries Tagged as 'randomocity'
No Limits Coaster: Ravine Runner
December 30th, 2009 · No Comments · games, randomocity, videos
Lead Ticket Awards 2009 Results
November 24th, 2009 · No Comments · randomocity, site news
Well…the Lead Ticket Awards were a good idea I thought, but alas they seemed to go over about as well as Friday the 13th VIII: Jason Take Manhattan. Although, the lack of promotion by a few other sites didn’t help too much as well as my own dwindling interest as the awards sort of flopped.
While there weren’t many who took the survey, there still were enough to get a result…a kind of skewed one, but a result nonetheless. So here we go, the results for the 2009 Lead Ticket Awards!
Park Categories
Park with the Worst Food for the Value
Theme parks are kind of hit or miss in terms of food. There’s typically a huge selection of greasy foods to choose from, but sometimes the burgers are rubbery and have those disgusting hard pieces of fat in them while the hot dogs are mushy inside. On top of that, your rubbery burger might cost in upwards of $7 bucks! As chosen by you, the park with the worst culinary fare is…
Cedar Point! I’ve never been there myself but perhaps their budget for coasters has diminished their budget for fine foodstuffs.
Rudest Staff
Let’s face it, some staff are rude. I’ve worked at an amusement park myself and I have to admit that I’ve barked at a few guests; six hours solo operating the Scrambler on a disgustingly hot and busy day will do that to you. However sometimes you’ll just be inundated with rude staff on some days! The park with the rudest staff has been selected, and it is…
Six Flag Great Adventure! I’ve run into a few baddies there as well, however my personal choice was Dorney Park by a slim margin.
Grossest Bathrooms
Ever walk into a theme park bathroom and see a big brown streak on the floor? Be glad if you haven’t! The park with the worst bathrooms is…
Boardwalk Parks! While not a single park, there is truth to this. After all, down in Wildwood, NJ is where I saw Mr. Hanky in the middle of the floor.
Most Overpriced Admission
Some parks just don’t fit the bill with an exorbitant admission for their lackluster selection of attractions. The park with the most overpriced admission is…
Busch Gardens Europe! At $61.95, it does indeed seem kind of steep. The place is nice and has decent rides, but is it really worth $62 bucks?
Worst Themeing
They all can’t be Disney but they can at least put some effort into it! The park that likes to theme their western ride with a few wagon wheels, a fake cactus and some horseshoes is…
Cedar Point! Being a Cedar Fair park, this place really doesn’t have a theme at all; rides are kind of compartmentalized into separate themes with rides such as Top Thrill Dragster having some sparse racing paraphernalia and Millennium Force having…I don’t know actually.
Worst Overall Park
Simple, the park that compounds all of the above into a nice little ball of junk. This dubious the award goes to…
Cedar Point! After all, they did take two of the categories above as well as showed up in every category in the results to some extent.
The list continues with the Roller Coaster Categories up next in the full article!
6 Incredibly Odd Carnival Rides
April 18th, 2009 · 4 Comments · observations, randomocity, the lists!
Sorry I haven’t been updating the site as regularly as I’ve been, I’ve been pretty busy this past week with some things as well as preparing this fat, three MS Word page post; and yes, MS Word pages are the measuring stick for article length. 1500 word essays are out, it’s all about 3 page MS Word essays now! But I digress…
Last month we took a look at five insane flatrides that each brought some type of baneful attribute to the table. This time around we’ll take a little tour down ‘freak alley’ to check out a sextet of carnival rides that defy any decent description due to either appearence or motion. In other words, these are rides that might make you say “what the hell?!”
6. Flic Flac
Flic Flac is a strange ride (with an equally strange name) made by Huss Rides of Germany, a company that has made such theme park staples such as Top Spin and Breakdance. Flic Flac is kind of like a combination of an Octopus and a Chance Chaos; weird right? The ride features six arms radiating from a center hub with pairs of three passenger gondolas at the end of each arm. The 12 gondolas can freely rock forwards and backwards and each sport a counterweight.
Once started the gondolas will begin to revolve around the center; they don’t travel too terribly fast though. Next, a mechanism in the hub kicks in rising some of the arms in the air. Finally the hub mechanism starts to spin in the opposite direction of the gondolas, making the arms perform a wave type of motion; this is what I mean when I say that it’s like an Octopus ride, it has that same type of waving arm movement. The free swinging gondolas, now being assaulted by a hectic wave motion, rock wildly and even perform lengthy sets of a flips.
You can find these rides at German and French funfairs under names like ‘Devil Rock’, ‘Mega Dancer’ and other music related monikers. Flic Flac is a pretty cool ride, I really have to hand it to Huss with this one. The one downside is that the ride looks pretty large and seems like it would be very tough to haul around and set up.
Here’s a nice video from one of my favorite thrill ride video YouTubers, Xtremerides.
The 5 Most Insane Carnival Rides
February 26th, 2009 · 30 Comments · observations, randomocity, the lists!
Have you ever been to an amusement park or carnival and see a ride that simply pushes every limit you thought couldn’t be pushed? Rides that look so intense, nauseating, or just downright torturous that you can’t believe anyone would actually ride them…and enjoy them? I know I have! Here are the five carnival rides that I think fit the bill of being the most ‘insane’ out there.
5. Storm (Wisdom)
It’s not too often that I’ll come across a ride that I won’t ride again. Storm, however, is one of the few that I may not ever ride again! Storm is basically a modern version of the Hustler/Tempest ride. The movements of all three rides are nearly identical, with the Storm’s components being upgraded a bit; for instance, Storm allows riders to board all at once and has a better safety mechanism.
While the Hustler or Tempest have cars that can spin freely, Storm’s cars spin mechanically. They don’t spin too terribly fast, nor does the main platform, as a matter of fact, the arms that hold the cars only spin at a moderate rate as well! The thing is that all three spin in the same direction, making the G forces horribly intense! Riders basically partake in a whirling dance of doom on three axes.
The lone Storm ride I had was at the New Jersey State Fair in 2008. When the ride was up to full speed, all I could see were the people sitting across from myself with everything around the car as a giant blur. If the ride lasted for 30 seconds, slowed down for a bit and then sped up for another 30 seconds, the ride would have been fine. Instead we got a full two minutes of crushing G forces and spin cycle-like rotation; as an added bonus, the ride was in full sunlight on a 90+ degree day with high humidity! My cousin and I felt like total crap after a ride on Storm!
Another ride that can probably be lumped together with Storm is the Huss made Take Off, which spins in a similar fashion to Storm minus one axis. Take Off also has the ability to rise up to a pretty steep angle and spin in opposite directions and such. The large ride vehicles on Take Off can also spin at an incredible rate, much faster than Storm’s vehicles, providing some very high G forces.
To sum it up: Storm, and subsequently Take Off as well, make it on the list for having prolonged periods of high G forces.
Below is a video of Storm taken by myself!
Christmas Light Craptacular
December 24th, 2008 · No Comments · observations, randomocity, special
Album Page: Chistmas Light Craptacular
Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone! Guess what? I made you all a little present! It’s a photo set called Christmas Light Craptacular! Twenty houses unwittingly entered into this competition; a …
Remembering Seaside’s Waterworks
December 10th, 2008 · 1 Comment · observations, randomocity, seaside heights nj, water parks
I remember my first waterslide ever; it was this pair of crappy slides that used to reside in Keansburg, NJ. Before Keansburg Amusement Park opened their Runaway Rapids waterpark, a pair of old, wooden supported slides took their place. The two slides utilized mats which you sat on (as opposed to lay flat on like most mat slides) and had many twists and turns until dumping you into this small scummy splash pool. The slides weren’t too bad, but it was just those two slides and that’s it. You couldn’t really call it a waterpark or anything, just “the slides.” Not long after my first experience on a waterslide, I went to my first real waterpark, Waterworks.
Waterworks was a waterpark that took up a full block in front of Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, NJ, a popular Jersey shore destination. It was a very unorthodox waterpark with quite a few odd slides that hailed back to the days when slide manufacturers were still in the testing phases of waterslide building. However this waterpark wasn’t nearly as notorius as north Jersey’s Action Park in terms of using riders as test dummies. From the outside the place looked like a mess of slides of every color typical to waterslides: eggshell white, forest green, and light blue. Every possible space was filled up with some sort of h2o contraption.
The first slide that I and probably most patrons would notice was a pair of slides that weaved over and under each other. The slides went right over the park and then curved down into one of those ‘splash lane’ things. A splash lane is basically a flat portion of the slide that’s flooded with water. When a person slides into it, they slow down to a stop due to the water’s resistance. Anyway, it was a really weird looking slide, sort of looking like a DNA double helix. I’m not too sure of the name but Twister or Tornado seems to stand out.
Next to the splash lanes of the above slides were the splash lanes of two vertical drop speed slides. They’re not actually vertical, but they are pretty steep. They were just your typical speed slides where you drop down a large hill, maybe 70 feet or so, and fly into the splash lane. Absolutely no frills at all; it was just “here it is, ride it” much like every other vertical speed slide.
Behind the splash lanes of the aforementioned slides was a large pool; this harbored quite a few things if I remember correctly. On the right side of the pool were a couple of slides that started maybe 10 feet off the ground and simply dumped riders into the pool below. A newer map of the former Waterworks park lists these as “Cannonball Falls.” Not to be confused with the Mountain Creek/Action Park counterparts which are much more sinister.
