Thursday, July 25, 2013

Breaking News You Won't Believe

Once upon a time, there were competitions. In those battles, the victors took home the accolades and the spoils. The losers went home and hoped it wasn't a battle to the death or for pink slips. And for those who don't know pink slips means racing cars and the owner keeps both cars. It's old drag racing terminology and not any of that new fangled top thrill dumpster type of drag.
Now when competitions stopped being exciting and the people got bored, they invented the "awards show." Now you've heard of the one for movies, television, broadway, and perhaps even the one run by the Entertainment Sports Programing Network. For those that aren't familiar with it, I recommend contacting the Cable News Network or perhaps the Columbia Broadcasting System. But, we digress.
At this time in the seasonal theme park calendar, we pause to prepare for the granddaddy of all award battles royale. Only this one couldn't be more predictable. The Golden Tickets were started by an industry publication around the time that Dick Kinzel decided that if a ride wasn't good enough he'd just put a building around it. And then it still wouldn't be able to run in the rain. Now the Tickets of destiny are designed to help decide the best and the brightest and the shiniest based on the voting of "industry experts."
Let us now define "industry expert." The Encyclopedia Galactica and dictionaries made by Webster and the Institute for Directed International Operational Theoretical Studies all have the same definition as the Hitchhiker's Guide. It defines industry expert by asking "expert on what?" In this case, we seek the sub-entry on competitions and voting for awards. These manuscripts define experts as two drunk dudes holding a giant jamaican banana that cost the park $4 but took them 3 hours a day for 3 weeks and a total sum that could feed a theme park employee for a year. Not an actual year, just the amount of time until they finally run away after the last gate locks in October.
The other experts are listed including the guy running the nacho stand who hasn't showered in 2 weeks, a CEO, a "reporter", a guy with a twitter feed, 3 people from Canada so they can call it international, and the first 5 people to ride the Flying Turns. The last group of "experts" is 497 lonely guys who only leave their mother's basements to cast their annual ballot. And of course to make their weekly trip to worship at the alter to Snoopy and Kinzel known as Cedar Point.
How else can you vote the Point in your eye as "best" for as long as it's been since they saw a non-related woman. They tried to throw us off for almost that long by saying King's Island had a better kids area. This was a decoy. DECOY!!! Let's place bets now. Best kids area to the Island, Cleanest and Friendliest will be a fight between Dollywood and Holiday World. Best New for 2013 will be Gatekeeper (if we haven't found the keys first). Best New Wood to Outlaw Run which will fight voyage for overall Wooden Supremacy. And if the "fanboys" win, Millennium Fastest Of Roller Coasters Ever (for 3 months) will take the best steel crowny thing.
Keep your Golden Tickets. We're gonna stick to the Bronze Nacho Chips because they've gone bad award thing. Maybe then Kentucky Kingdom can finally win.