Stubby News 4/30

Posted by on April 30, 2009 | Add a Comment

Dorney ParkDorney Park Opens for it’s 125th Season

Allentown, PA: Dorney Park is set to open Saturday, May 2nd for it’s 125th season in operation. Residents near Dorney Park will get a special discount this weekend and next, only paying $21.99 to enter the park, while it’s $27.99 for all others (which still isn’t bad at all!) However, Wildwater Kingdom doesn’t open until May 23rd.

Check out this article for more information.

Dollywood to unveil SkyZip

Pigeon Forge, TN: Dollywood, the amusement park owned by Dolly Parton, will open their new attraction SkyZip this season. While the article didn’t exactly give a lot of details about the ride, I’m pretty sure it’s one of those automatic cable rides that jettisons riders across a ravine at a brisk speed. It’s cost $40 bucks to ride, being a “premium” thrill attraction (aka stupid low capacity.)

Here’s the article: Thrill Seekers Zip Over Dollywood

Let’s Take an Acid Trip to Seaworld!

Orlando, FL: It’s stories like this that always bring a smile to my face; a smile made from the thought of “haha, that’s funny” and “oh crap” smashed together…you know that smile! Yesterday at SeaWorld Orlando a “sweaty, shirtless man on LSD” attempted to gain entry to the park. After the 23 year old man attempted to enter the park a second time, a skirmish erupted, he was shot with a stun gun numerous times and eventually used a recycling bin lid as a shield while screaming “never!” at the stun gun wielding deputy. Wow, now that’s something I would have liked to see!

Here’s the story: Tased SeaWorld Man on LSD

This is Dreamland?

Posted by on April 29, 2009 | Add a Comment

Back in the 4/5/09 Coney Island trip report, I included a photo of the Dreamland Park sign that had been put up in front of the former Astroland site. It promised rides, attractions, food, games, and whatever else an amusement park should have. Well, it looks like we were ‘Sitt Slapped’ once again as it seems like Dreamland Park consists of nothing more than a bunch of inflatable ‘rides’ and a huge ass parking lot that they’re charging $20 bucks to park in! Is it evident that Joe Sitt really doesn’t care about Coney Island yet?

Here’s a few photos posted by users Capt_Nemo and electricia over at the Coney Island Message Board. Does this still count as destructoporn? It may as well…

Sitt Land 1 Sitt Land 2
Sitt Land 3

Astroland

A pic of Astroland in Sept. 2008, just for comparison...

Now there’s still some hope left as the official opening of Joe Sitt’s “festival by the sea” hasn’t come yet, so maybe there will be something diminutively more redeeming than a bunch of inflatable garbage. Then again, this is Sitt we’re talking about; we’re not dealing with an stand-up business man here. For example, the folks over at Coney Island Message Board bring up the point that Sitt is effectively violating C7 zoning (amusement park zoning) by placing a parking lot on the premises. One member notes that “(Sitt) does so much illegal activity here, it is mind boggling how he gets away with it all.” Jeez…

We’ll see where this all goes; probably nowhere good but we can at least hope, dream, or be delusional now can’t we?

DoD3 Album Basement

Posted by on April 27, 2009 | Add a Comment

Image FolderThe one thing this site never really had was an image gallery; actually check that, an image gallery full of ride images. This site does have an image repository called “DoD3 Gallery” but it’s basically a dump for random, off and ontopic images. Many people would click the link only to find images of seemingly un-related stuff.

So instead of leaving it this way, I decided to add some software to turn the image directories here into browsable albums! Now you can see all the ride and trip report photos, which are currently scattered around in different articles, in one convienent place.

Here’s the link: DoD3 Album Basement. You can also find it in the ‘Multimedia’ menu at the top under ‘Ride Photos’. I’ll be adding photos to it routinely as right now there’s quite a few albums that have only one or two images in them.

Have fun browsing!

Six FlagsIt’s been well documented now that Six Flags is in financial shambles, that the chain has been delisted from the New York Stock Exchange, and that the parks are finding every way possible to grab an extra buck from guests. However Six Flags’ latest money making scheme is just incredible! When printing out a Six Flags ticket from home, a “Print n’ Go” as it’s called, you now need to pay a $5 surcharge to do so.

So…why exactly are they doing this? Like, other than the obvious “because they want to bilk you out of money, dumbass” answer. I remember stumbling across this new feature back in January or so when ordering a discounted season pass for Great Adventure; they had an option to print out a virtual ticket for $5 bucks or send the actual plastic card all ready to go via UPS for $10. I recoiled at the $5 dollars to print it out; I mean first you have to not lose the thing for four months, and then you have to wait in that cattle line to get it processed.  Some pondering and a few swears later, I begrudgingly hit the “send via UPS” option while muttering something about not having a “send for 42 cents via US Postal Service” option.

Fast forward to April and they’re raking in their dirty money by doing nothing more than letting some poor park goer use up his or her ink and paper to make an e-ticket! Are they doing it as collateral for making their web servers work an extra fraction of a second to make up a unique e-ticket? Are they doing it because they want to make some money back from the discounted e-ticket (in the article it says that a ticket purchased at the gate at SF Magic Mountain is $59.99 while an e-ticket is $39.99.) Or maybe it’s because…well, “because they want to bilk you out of money, dumbass!”

So what’s your take on this? Don’t mind the charge too much or are you planning to bill Six Flags when buying a new ink cartridge?

6 Incredibly Odd Carnival Rides

Posted by on April 18, 2009 | 11 comments

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 appearance or motion. In other words, these are rides that might make you say “what the hell?!”

6. Flic Flac

odd_flicflacFlic Flac is a strange ride 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. So, what the hell is a ‘flic flac?’ Apparently it’s a  gymnastics term for a back handspring; basically a back flip.

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.

… 6 Incredibly Odd Carnival Rides

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