Talking About Six Flags in the Week of Kill Bill
Monday, Oct. 06, 2003
Well, well, well.
Which, not to immediately sidetrack us, but saying �Well� three times in a row makes me realize that there are some oddities in the English language. Lately, I�ve been trying to learn some more Spanish. Mostly from watching 100 Mexicanos Dejeron (Family Feud in Spanish), but until I get a better spanglish dictionary (hopefully on my birthday) I�m holding off a bit. But when I was still watching the high school Spanish for kids trapped in the Midwest, I learned that Pues is similar in usage to Well in English.
When we�re saying, �Well, my coffee is cold�, the word well isn�t meaning what you�d look it up in the dictionary to mean. Actually, I just looked it up and it�s a generic interjection as well as meaning good, and whatever form I used it in when I just said �as well as�.
Now, Pues means �then.� But I�ve been told it�s a stalling word just like well is. You can say well really slow and stall for time as you think. Same with pues.
In any case, forget all that crap. Let me write about what I want to write about. That is, Six Flags and the Upcoming Week.
At 5:30 in the morning on Saturday, Tom and the gang (Teri, Christine, Brad) showed up to pick up Aisai and I. Then we hopped over to Stickley�s house (Christine�s boyfriend with the blonde Mohawk) and picked him up. We were headed to Six Flags in Atlanta.
Tom and family have season passes. They had gotten coupons in the mail to �Get a Friend In Free� so Aisai, Stickley, and me were free pals.
Ride Review:
Superman � Though considered the �New Hotness� by many, I just didn�t dig it. While using the same seating type as in Montu/Kracken/Batman, the Superman coaster will tilt you forward 90 degrees so you are facing the ground. This makes my lil mind say, �if the harness opens, you die.� On other rides, If the harness loosened or opened, I�d just hang on. In this one, I�d die. I couldn�t get that out of my mind and relax.
Scream Machine � This 8000 year old wooden coaster is the �Old Busted� coaster that will not die. Now, it will have all it�s wood warp and all the paint peel up. Brad (13) wanted to ride this and no other adult was willing to, so I did despite my dislike of old busted wooden coasters. It was harsh and choppy as expected. Going up the first big hill, while click-click-clicking, Brad said, �I�m not comfortable with this situation.� I told him that was unfortunate. Neither of us really enjoyed the ride, but it sure is pretty to look at.
Ninja � Another �old busted� coaster. This one used to have a name like �Afterburner� when it first came out. It�s a very Japanese like coaster as it is crammed into a very small space. The Ninja is not a modern coaster, designed by computers so that you don�t get jerked around. It beats you up. Tom and I give it a thumbs down.
D�j� Vu � Underrated masterpiece. While Superman is taking up the physical space where the brilliant minimalist coaster �The Viper� once stood, D�j� Vu is filling the philosophical ground it left vacant. The Viper accelerated you from zero to 70 mph in three seconds using a mechanism borrowed from an aircraft carrier launch pad, throws you through a single loop, up a tower you coast back off, go through the loop backward, through the loading area, then up a tower in the back where you reverse direction, then are stopped in the loading area. D�j� Vu also contains the towers, but is a suspension coaster and starts you by click click clicking up a tower backward. That tower gives you the energy to zip through some little spins n� loops and then you�re going up the second tower forward. Click click click as they crank you to the top of that one and then you go through the spins n� loops backward back to the first tower. And you�re lowered slowly off the first tower. I don�t do the ride justice with my description. [Insert comment about dancing about architecture.]
Mind Bender� Best old busted ride they had. An industry classic of the early 80s. [Makes me pine for the old Wabash Cannonball from Opryland.]
Batman � See Seaworld�s Kraken or Bush Garden�s Montu. Well, except that the Kraken does a good job of fooling you into thinking you�ll hit the concrete at one point, which makes it rise above the rest.
Acrophobia � I normally don�t like drop rides. But this one was so calm and peaceful at the beginning, providing a good view, and then rather than drop you, it pushed you faster than gravity could toward the ground. Brilliant.
The food in the park sucked and was overpriced, but I can�t complain much since we got in free. Another cool thing was that we got free Q-bots.
A Q-bot (formerly known as the poorly named Lo-Q) is a device which allows us elite theme parkers to skip to the front of the line. You get your Q-bot and go to the ride�s reserve sign and hold the bot up to the little window. Beep beep and you have a reservation. The longest we had to wait was 30 minutes for Acrophobia. It was 17 minutes for D�j� Vu. But those numbers are fake and inflated since if it was under 10 minutes, as all the others were, then you could immediately go to the check in sign and have it say �Enjoy your ride.�
The Q-bots were $20 and then $10 for each additional person on it. So the one I held, with 5 people on it would have cost $60 and the one that Chris and Stickly used would have been $30. But they were free since they had a coupon.
Pues, I don�t have much room to talk about his week, as I�ve written much more that I like to in an entry. But today I get my flu shot. The flu viruses* that will sweep through this year are going to be killer, so I highly recommend you pick one up. Tomorrow I get my fillings.
Yes, my 34 year run with no cavities ever is over. I blame TC�s candy jar. In similar news, that Orange flavored Crest is great.
And finally, and best of all, Kill Bill part 1 comes out this Friday. Yeah yeah yeah. And you know all that black stuff on Uma�s outfit in the previews, that�s blood that has been digitally altered so they can actually show parts of the movie in the previews. The fight with the 88 guys used over 100 gallons of fake blood. Yeah yeah yeah.
*I tried to write viri as the plural of virus, but MSWord didn�t like it.