I wouldn’t be so sure. She has since appeared in a campaign ad with the democratic Missouri senator candidate in the 2022 midterms, moved out of Missouri, and sued the hospital in Kansas for denying care under the EMTALA. Her opinion piece on CNN (https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/27/opinions/emtala-scotus-ruling-emergency-abortion-idaho-farmer/index.html) is particularly harrowing in describing her experience and advocates for federal abortion rights.
Six Flags Great Adventure confirmed the long-rumored closure of two of its roller coasters, including the iconic Kingda Ka.
I don’t think this is too surprising, but I am upset that the park didn’t provide any notice on a final operating day for the tallest roller coaster in the world. I finally got to visit Great Adventure for the first time this year and was able to ride it, but I would have tried to squeeze in one more visit if I knew. It’s confirmed that this is a removal and a completely new cosster rather than a re-imagining, so let the rumor mills begin!
A little while back, my hometown’s mayoral election was decided by a difference of just 5 votes. Unfortunately, the candidate I didn’t like won the election. I didn’t live there anymore and wasn’t able to vote, but it really showed me the importance of voting at all levels of government.
Is this a HomeKit camera or are you using third party software? HomeKit allows for defining zones for activity detection (so you could exclude an area) and only sending activity during certain times. If you don’t use HomeKit, maybe your camera software has a similar setting.
Is there a source on this? My initial fact check search suggests this was debunked.
To add on to this having also only been on a ride with partial tilt (Escape from Gringott’s), the track tilting motion is less natural-feeling than the approach into a dive coaster’s holding brake. The seats that are away from the tilt axis aren’t just tilting but also translating around the circular path. Additionally, all seats will experience a vertical hold unlike on dive coasters where the front car gets the steepest decline and the remaining cars are progressively more horizontal. I’ve wanted to ride one of these things since Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 so I’m looking forward to this and Circuit Breaker at COTALand.
G602/4 gang! I picked up a Razer Naga Pro to play around with since it also has a 6 button side panel that is hot-swappable for a 2 or 12 button configuration too. I think the Logitech mice are more ergonomic (but I’ve also been using the G602/4 for years), and I hate the Razer Synapse software. Being able to switch to a 12 button panel for some games is useful, but I find 6 buttons to be the sweet spot for general computing. I think the Naga Pro is the closest option for the time being unless Logitech decides to introduce a new model.
Ugh, I can’t believe I forgot about Dragster - rode that one a good 15 years ago!
I didn’t get to ride SkyRider while that was still at Canada’s Wonderland, but it looks like the same model as King Cobra. I wish I could ride a Togo stand-up coaster but I’m not sure when/if that’ll happen.
How many coasters have you ridden that are now defunct (and not relocated), and do you have any fond memories of them?
My defunct credits are:
- Disaster Transport, Cedar Point
- Wicked Twister, Cedar Point
- Dueling Dragons/Dragon Challenge, Islands of Adventure
- Fire in the Hole, Silver Dollar City
- SandSerpent, Busch Gardens Tampa
I never got to ride Dueling Dragons while the two tracks dueled, and that’s still something I wish I could have experienced. I liked the concept of two completely different layouts with near misses over the course of the ride experience.
Honorable mentions to Iron Wolf at Six Flags Great America (now Firebird at Six Flags America) and Mantis at Cedar Point that are now floorless conversions.
Jumblie #241 🟢🔴🟠🔵 4 guesses in 58s
This one went a lot better than the movies one from yesterday haha
That is how it works. Unwanted tracking notifications only trigger if separated from the owner for some time. It’s possible the paired iPhone was drained or had Bluetooth disabled which would cause the tracker to think it’s separated.
Aw man, the launch on Maxx Force at Six Flags Great America is crazy, and I was really hoping to experience this one since it launched to almost a 50% higher top speed in even less time. I still want to visit this park for Eejanaika but this is sad.
I loved this coaster when I rode it last year, but I actually had no issues with the restraints. That being said, it sounds like this will be the same restraints as on Velocicoaster and Pantheon (among others) which are solid so this should be an improvement overall.
Now that 2023 is coming to an end, what were everyone’s coaster highlights from the year? What was the best new coaster you rode this year? Did it dethrone your previous favorite? Were there any surprises? Is anyone still planning final trips before the year ends or ringing in the new year at a park?
This year, I was able to visit 10 new parks and ride 81 new coasters along with revisiting a few favorites from the past. Of these new credits, the best is Iron Gwazi (I know, not a very controversial opinion haha). In the same trip I got to ride Velocicoaster too and those became my new 1 and 2, respectively.
The best new park I visited was Hersheypark. I have been wanting to go to this park for years and had two unsuccessful attempts (including one earlier this year) due to weather or poor planning. Luckily this park’s top-tier coaster lineup lived up to the hype. A couple of coasters were closed including Sooperdooperlooper, but I was able to get two rides on Skyrush in a back right wing seat. I actually only thought Skyrush was okay after my first ride in the morning but I snagged another ride at night with a full train and it was a completely different experience with crazy intensity and airtime.
My biggest surprises were Screamin’ Eagle and Boss at Six Flags St. Louis. Those two coasters were much more intense than I expected. I swear I spent more time out of my seat than in it on Screamin’ Eagle. For Boss, it was a slow day so the train was only about half full. Despite that, it was still hauling. I can’t even imagine what a full train is like.
With the new coasters this year, my total credit count is now around 228. Next year, I’m hoping to visit some smaller parks such as Adventureland in Iowa and Indiana Beach along with a couple of Cedar Fair and Six Flags parks but no concrete plans yet.
It doesn’t feel like it was that long ago that construction on the spike started and now here we are! I’ll definitely miss the original, but I’m still hoping to make it out to Cedar Point this year to ride its reincarnation. Hopefully we have a more reliable ride this time.
I’m a little late with writing and posting this, but hopefully you like trip reports here!
Since I have a couple of friends living in the Salt Lake City area, I finally made it out there see them and visit Lagoon for the first time over Labor Day weekend. Unfortunately, Primordial wasn’t open yet despite my best efforts in going late into the operating season. It was still a great weekend at the park with minimal lines on Sunday. Overall, I was very impressed with how well the park is run. Ops on all rides were really efficient with consistently fast dispatches.
Cannibal (x2) This was the ride I was most excited about, and it was a blast! I rode once just after park opening and once towards the end of my visit (back row both times). The elevator lift and first drop are certainly the highlights of the ride, but I also loved the hang time in the opposing heartline rolls over the water.
Jet Star II (x1) I finally rode a Schwarzkopf Jet Star for the first time, and it’s a great compact coaster. It packs a bigger punch than I expected with some good laterals. The kid in me also likes the old Schwarzkopf spiral lift hills having grown up with Whizzer at Six Flags Great America.
Bat (x1) Not too much to report on this one, but I have always thought Vekoma suspended family coasters are good for broad appeal and this is no exception. It’s a smooth ride that is a great fit for the park.
Rattlesnake Rapids (x1) This one obviously isn’t a roller coaster, but it was a pretty warm day so a splash of cold water felt really nice. I’m always pretty unlucky on rapids rides, so I was drenched for a while after getting off.
Wicked (x1) Like Cannibal, I was excited about riding Wicked as well. The launch was pretty forceful with some solid airtime going off the top hat into the first drop. Unfortunately, the ride really loses a lot of steam after the trims with the second half of the ride really crawling to the final brake run. This one reminds me of Sky Rocket at Kennywood, which I feel has the same problem.
Colossus (x1) Classic Schwarzkopf loopers are always fun, and it was cool to see one at this park alongside Jet Star II. Good positives in the vertical loops and great headchopper moments going through the structure as well.
Spider (x1) This was a fun spinning coaster that is similar to the Gerstlauer spinning coasters. This was my first Mauer spinning coaster, and it’s hard to say which I prefer.
Roller Coaster (x1) Overall a tame ride, but also certainly a historic one (102 years this season!). The station house reminded me of the wooden coasters at Kennywood with the original styling, and the Millennium Flyer trains were interesting given that I’m used to those being on much twistier GCI layouts.
Wild Mouse (x1) This is mostly a standard issue wild mouse with a run drop into a tunnel in the second half of the ride. Not much else to say here, but it was at least refreshing to see 4 cars cycling the layout at once compared to the terrible dispatches I’ve experienced on wild mouse coasters at Cedar Fair parks.
Finally, I ended my visit with a ride on each of the scary dark rides. Pretty good theming in both, and the jump scares got me as well. Afterwards, I left the park mid-afternoon to get some food and drinks outside of the park. I probably will want to go back eventually for Primordial, but for now there are plenty more coasters to ride at other parks.
Two things I’m really missing are the app dock (used to be a single click of the side button) where I pinned common apps like LA Fitness for my membership card and double-clicking the crown to jump to the previous app. Otherwise, I like that apps are now laid out with just vertical scrolling and I like the new app designs overall.
I had this same experience with it re-announcing directions too which got a little annoying. If you set it to only use offline maps, you won’t see this behavior but searching for destinations is sometimes finicky since it will only look in the offline database and even then may not find everything. I submitted feedback for changing the re-annoucing to a chime since the visual is there on CarPlay anyways. If you haven’t submitted feedback for this, feel free to submit one and reference feedback ID FB13139836 to maybe get more visibility on this.
It’s not just that. When connected to an Apple Watch or Apple Pencil (for iPad) the quick toggle maintains these connections along with maintaining handoff and continuity functions between personal devices among other things. In these cases, I think having the quick toggle not fully disable Bluetooth makes more sense to prevent new connections while keeping the existing Watch and Pencil Bluetooth connections active to preserve functionality. Of course, I get that not everyone’s use case is the same, but I rarely need to fully disable the wireless radios. Particularly with Wi-Fi, I use the quick toggle to temporarily disconnect Wi-Fi if I’m on a bad connection away from home. When I return home or to my car (for wireless CarPlay), my phone will reconnect to the respective networks without me needing to remember to re-enable.
On it!
Still on it…
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I believe Instagram usernames are reserved on Threads to ensure people can keep the same handle on both networks, but the users aren’t automatically signed up with a profile.