September 8, 2003

• WARNING: Long post ahead. Proceed with caution…

  
  

   

  
  

  Well, the first Denison weekend of the year is over, and week 2 of classes has started. Actually, I was at Cedar Point all day Saturday, so I only spent half the weekend at Denison. Cedar Point was fun. The weather was sunny and nice, which automatically made it a big improvement over last year, when it was cold, gray, and dreary all day. We actually had amusement park weather this time around. I ended up hanging out with a freshman named Courtney that I had never met before, but we hit it off pretty well since we had similar tastes in rides. She had never been to Cedar Point before, so I ended up playing tour guide, which I enjoyed. In all, I went on the Iron Dragon (which is my favorite roller coaster; I love sharp curves and turns on roller coasters, and the Iron Dragon is full of them. It only has two drops, which makes it even better) and the Mine Ride three times each, as well as the Gemini once (To my surprise, I enjoyed it. The Gemini had been the first roller coaster I had ever ridden. I was 9 or 10, and it was a bad experience. My safety bar had come loose at the top of the hill, and I hadn’t ever heard of the term “airtime,” so I assumed that I was flying out of my seat because of the loose safety bar. I never rode it again until Saturday. There were no such problems with the safety bar this time, and the older, wiser me learned that the Gemini has a LOT more airtime than most other roller coasters I’ve ridden, which is probably what complicated the problem I had ten years ago). We also went on a lot of the other rides I liked, but I often went on them alone because Courtney didn’t like spinning rides (she went on the Corkscrew and the Gemini three times each while I went on the spinning rides).

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  The Gemini (Apparently when it was first built in 1977 it was the tallest roller coaster in the world. It's also one of about three racing coasters left in the United States. BTW, most of these photos are from Cedar Point's website)

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  The Mine Ride (this is a really crappy picture of it, but oh well; that's also a pic of the only drop of the ride; everything else is made up of sharp turns)

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  The greatest ride ever: The Iron Dragon

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

  Courtney and I both didn’t like vertical drops, so we discussed how insane the people riding Top Thrill Dragster, Power Tower, and the Demon Drop were. For those of you not familiar with Cedar Point, I better explain each of them. Power Tower was built about five years ago. It’s a 300-foot tower with 4 posts. Two of the posts launch you upwards at high speed (I think you hit 3 Gs, but I’m not sure). The other two raise you up to the top slowly, then drop you in freefall. The drop is randomized, so you could be stopped at the top for anything from 10 seconds to a full minute. Doesn’t sound too fun to me (I’m not afraid of heights, but I don’t like that weird feeling you get in freefall. I also don’t like going upside down. Those two conditions rule out most of the roller coasters at Cedar Point, but there’s nothing I can do about it).

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  Power Tower...or at least the top half of it

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

  Top Thrill Dragster is Cedar Point’s newest ride, and it’s billed as a roller coaster, even though the ride only lasts about 20 seconds. Basically, you’re shot up a 400-foot vertical track at over a hundred miles an hour (Like Power Tower, the takeoff is randomized, so you don’t know exactly when the car is going to go shooting out of the station). You go over an arc and straight back down another track. That’s it. Even so, the line is almost always at least 4 hours long. Even Laura (who loves big roller coasters) thinks it’s a waste of time to stand in line for 4 hours for a ride that lasts 20 seconds. If that weren’t bad enough, the ride keeps breaking down. I live about an hour away from Cedar Point, and all summer on the news we kept hearing about it breaking down once more (Laura actually saw it go up the track and back down the wrong way once). It got so bad that they had to bring in the engineers who designed the thing from Switzerland just so they could look at it (apparently, its big problem was that it wasn’t going fast enough to make it all the way up the track). It’s not as big of a problem as it used to be, but it still breaks down frequently. And yes, it did break down on Saturday.

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  Top Thrill Dragster...Only for those who are patient and insane (Don't let the lack of people in the pic fool you. That line is ridiculously long)

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

  The Demon Drop was built in 1982 (I think). The concept is the same as the “drop” posts of Power Tower, except the Demon Drop is only about the height of an 8-story building and the time interval between reaching the top and dropping isn’t randomized. You go up the tower in a car on an elevator cable. Then you’re moved out onto a ledge and dropped about 10 seconds later. The track curves at the bottom and you coast to a stop (By this time, you’re on your back). Well, as if the breakdown of Top Thrill Dragster wasn’t entertaining enough, Courtney and I watched as the Demon Drop’s car went to the top of the elevator shaft and promptly got stuck. Actually, the amusing part was watching the ride operator absolutely race up the stairs to the top (Remember, this is the height of an 8-story building and he was running top speed the whole time, and no, this isn’t going to turn into a physics problem). After about 10 minutes, he finally got the car to move out onto the ledge and drop. Then they did about 15 or 20 test runs before letting people back on.

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  Demon Drop...hey, at least it still has a better track record than Top Thrill Dragster

  
  

   

  
  

  In the meantime, we also made observations about the arcade prizes. There were a bunch of kids carrying around stuffed Spongebobs that were bigger than them. There were also a lot of shiny stuffed dolphins that were extremely ugly (I know it sounds cute, but trust me, it wasn’t). The most amusing prizes were the giant stuffed puppy dogs that were bigger than the dads carrying them. But it wasn’t just size that was amusing. Some guy in the Denison group won a bunch of Cedar Point shot glasses. Each shot glass had a picture of a different roller coaster on it. Now, obviously you would have Millennium Force, Magnum, Gemini, and even Iron Dragon, but one of the shot glasses had the Junior Gemini on it. What’s wrong with this picture?

  
  

   

  
  

  The bus rides to and from Denison were better this year, too, except for the Headache from Hell that I had on the way back. This was possibly due to the movies this year. Last year we watched Tomb Raider on the way to Cedar Point and The Mexican on the way back. Tomb Raider was okay, but The Mexican sucked. It’s gotta be one of the worst movies ever made (and it’s extremely hard to believe that it was directed by the same guy who directed Pirates of the Caribbean). This year, on the way to Cedar Point, we watched Bringing Down the House. I thought it was going to be stupid, but it actually wasn’t bad (I probably won’t see it again, though). On the way back, we watched Space Cowboys, which became the first Clint Eastwood movie I’ve ever seen (We didn’t get to the end, though. The bus arrived at Denison just as they were trying to re-enter Earth, so I don’t know what happens after that). I also saw a major grammar error on the Meijer in Sandusky. Along with the logo was a sign that read “Why pay more,” but instead of a question mark on the end it had an exclamation point, so it read “Why pay more!” It’s funnier when Chris says it, actually.

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

  Okay, enough about Cedar Point. Onto other things (I’m sorry about making this blog even longer, but a number of tidbits are swimming around in my head that I want to post and I’ll probably forget them next time).

  
  

   

  
  

  Someone in the hall keeps making loud squealing noises, and it’s getting very annoying. Oh, God, she’s giggling now…

  
  

   

  
  

  I have some Phantom of the Opera movie news, from IMDB. Apparently, Alan Cumming has been cast as Andre (one of the owners of the opera house), Miranda Richardson is playing Madame Giry (the ballet mistress), and Minnie Driver has been cast as Carlotta (the arrogant diva soprano that the Phantom doesn’t like).

  
  

   

  
  

  I also have DVD release dates for the three best movies of the summer. Finding Nemo comes out November 4^th, X2 comes out November 25^th, and Pirates of the Caribbean comes to DVD on December 2^nd. It’s frustrating how they go in reverse order like that, but there’s nothing I can do about it. In the meantime, The Lion King comes out on DVD October 7^th (I think), so there’s always that (and I STILL want to see it in IMAX; I’m very disappointed that I did not get a chance to).

  
  

   

  
  

  I’m sure you’d just love for me to go on further, but this blog is long enough so I’ll end now. Bye!

  • 10:33 pm
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