Frontier City Accused of Throwing Games for Chance at Drafting Bush

In an editorial that has rocked the football world, sports columnist Roger Blue yesterday accused Oklahoma City's Frontier City amusement park of intentionally failing in an effort to obtain the first draft pick in next year's draft, presumably to obtain running back Reggie Bush.

"This strategy likely started way back when the park first decided not to install [mine train] Excalibur and have it just sit there rusting," wrote Blue. "And it became obvious when that ride was shipped to Six Flags Over Texas. Management may have well formally announced: 'We will lose all of our games this year and we want Reggie Bush.' Nightmare Train's status [as standing but not operating] for five years is obviously part of that strategy as well," Blue added.

The park denied that it was failing intentionally. "Sure, having 'Free Urine Spray Day' in the park turned out to be a bad idea in retrospect, but we thought it was a heck of an idea for cooling down in the Oklahoma summer," said Nellie Kokesh, park spokeswoman. "But it certainly wasn't an effort to have a disastrous season."

NFL analysts predict that Bush would instantly become the park's starting running back and could make the park a contender. "He's got the ability to avoid tacklers right out of the box; he's an instant impact player," said Michael Irvin (who, according to ARN&R's drug test, was not at that moment high on crack). "I've always thought Wildcat was an underrated quarterback who just needed a good back to establish the running game and give the play-action credibility. With Wild Kitty as a down-the-field threat at receiver and Diamond Back as fullback, this team immediately can contend for the NFC North championship."

Toddler Invokes Six-Day Rule

Feathers were ruffled today as a three-year-old Damon Carter invoked the well-known but controversial "Six-Day Rule" during a post-Christmas family visit to Disney World's Magic Kingdom in Orlando.

The incident occurred at approximately 4:00 PM, as the boy, his older sister Jean, and his parents passed behind the Pinocchio Village Haus restaurant on their way to the ever-insufferable Small World attraction. While his parents were distracted by the sight of a vicious nearby seagull pecking the eyes out of a hapless customer, Damon spotted a scrap of food in a corner behind a dumpster, grabbed it, and ate it. Witnesses say the child cried out "Six Days!" before eating the dicarded food scrap. The same witnesses were unable to ascertain whether the scrap was formerly a hot dog, hamburger, turkey-bacon wrap, or a solidified seagull turd.

Other youngsters in the vicinity derided Carter's actions. "It's one thing to invoke the five-second rule," said surprisingly eloquent Thad Goody, 4, who witnessed Carter's actions. "Myself, I have specifically ordered my butler Chauncy to pick up and return my dropped filet, caviar, and foie gras so I can eat it. However, I only do so within the accepted five-second period, and call out that I am doing so; otherwise, the dropped food items would become gross and spoiled, perhaps in as soon as six seconds. So six days is an obscenely long period."

Carter rebuffed Goody's comments, saying that the seagull turd was "nummers." Later in the day, he engaged in even more daring behaviour when he announced "Fifteen Days!" shortly before eating what might or might not have been a moldy french fry he found on the sidewalk near the Jungle Cruise.

--JCK

Willis McGahee Blamed For Park Closings

"I really hate Willis McGahee." So was the pronouncement last night from carpenter, coaster enthusiast, and avid fantasy football player Josh Warner, 41. "That little prick was a total waste of my first round pick in two fantasy leagues, where he proceeded to tank my seasons, make me finish in last place, and pretty much anally violate me on a weekly basis without even giving me a reach around."

"At first, I was only blaming McGahee for screwing up my fantasy seasons," said Warner. "But after I thought about it for a little while, I was fairly certain that he also caused Six Flags Astroworld and Whalom Park to close. I don't have any real proof of this, but he's such a p*ssy that I know he influenced them to shut down somehow, maybe because the owners had him on their teams and he sucked out their will to keep bothering with running a business." Warner further speculated that high gasoline prices, a weak dollar, and cockroaches might also be McGahee's fault, though he refused to go into specifics.

When asked for comment, McGahee grabbed a football from Kelly Holcomb, danced around nervously in the backfield, saw a defender thirty feet away, shit himself, slipped vaudeville-style on his own feces, and fell on the ground for a six-yard loss, whimpering like a little girl. Afterward, he proclaimed himself the greatest running back in the league, case closed.

"I loved Astroworld," concluded Warner. "I'll never forgive McGahee."

--JCK

Corporations Imitate Naming Strategy of Wholesale Shopping Club

The wholesale shopping club BJ's, with numerous stores located in sixteen states, has experienced substantial economic growth over the past several years. Multiple factors play into the success of BJ's: continual but cautious expansion keeps the company financially sound, while profits are sucked in from swarms of customers due to the wide variety of departments, the discount pieces, and the easy availability of freezer-burned, industrial-grade meat in bulk. However, the most important factor in the widespread success of BJ's has nothing to do with its finances or its filling a desperate consumer need for 400-gallon tubs of mayonnaise and Vaseline, but with its actual name.

"Market research showed that customers positively flock to a brand name that is sexually suggestive," says Tex Strong, BJ's Vice President of Consumer Relations. "Particularly when it's a blatant euphemism for oral sex. Everyone loves BJ's, right?"

BJ's has enjoyed years of acclaim due to its explicit name, but its uniqueness in the business world is coming to an end, as other companies seek to capitalize on the ability to sell their product through the use of implied head-giving. One famous example is the vehicle company formerly known as Environmentally Unsound Asshole-Mobiles Targeted Solely to Obnoxious Jerks With Tiny Limp Penises, which has seen a massive upswing in profits since its recent decision to rename itself "Hummer."

Among the other corporations that have announced new blowjob-friendly monikers over the past week have been The Knob Polishers (formerly Merry Maids), McMuff Dive (formerly McDonald's), and Skin Flutes & Rusty Trombones (formerly Sam Ash). But the most surprising oral-themed name change is the one undergone by what was known until today as Disney World.

Despite having a set of theme parks with what many experts describe as one of the most recognizable brand names in the history of the planet, Disney executives announced that the Florida entertainment empire will reopen tomorrow as Bone Yodel Land. The executives stated that the "chance to bring in a whole new crowd of passionate pleasure-seekers" was too good to pass up. Heading off any potential complaints from the Religious Right, the executives added that "nothing could possibly be more family friendly than steaming the carpets or churning some fresh man-butter."

In related news, Hooter's Restaurants and Dick's Sporting Goods issued a joint statement today indicating that both companies will also be considering name updates in the very near future, since neither currently has an appellation nearly suggestive enough to compete in the current economic climate. "Naming our businesses after dirty slang words for body parts was cutting edge in the 90's," the statement read in part, "but fellatio is clearly the wave of the future that we must embrace."

--JCK

What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate

We recently received the following email, which we swear is reprinted precisely as we got it:

Subject: SECRET FILE

I AM YOUR SERVER...............................................PLEASE UPDATE APPROPRIATELY

SERVER IS HERE!

"Currently eating chicken from Knott's Not Nice Windjammer Factory poweredby Togo(the company,not the crappy country). Either way,they are both crappy.


Politically incorrect things over......................................


POLITICS>BUSH SUCKS!

AAAARRRNNNNNNRR!

RANDOM NAMES
Tom Wielfenstein, Okaki Wenkayahu, Abigail Omerson, Mzai Onzimonga, Jade Killerson, Hendrik Von Wonderboot.




DIE!




cUrReEnTlY pLaYiNg tHiS wAy








FUN COASTER

OPENING IN KNOEBELS!

250 Feet, 6 inversions, 6,777 feet,made by the American Coaster Company(grants provided by Carole Sanderson)




Opening in 20093,the meaning of life




SERVER IS DYING,DYING,DYING. ARNR GONE!

Yahoo! Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it free.


We had no earthly idea how to respond to this email, since we assumed it was written in some sort of foreign language that none of the editorial staff speaks. We therefore forwarded the message to Miguel Fredrickson, our Executive Vice President of Foreign Language Foreign Support Technician Customer Servicing Help Pleasuring Lackey Enabling Services at the majestic AbsolutelyReliable Towers. After some delay, we received the following response:

Dear Sirs and Madams:

Greetings and salutations. The Foreign Language Foreign Support Technician Customer Servicing Help Pleasuring Lackey Enabling Services staff apologizes for the delay. Despite working around the clock for a week,and bringing in assistance from Dieter at the Quick Action Branch of the Semi-Literate Customer Inquiry Center, we still cannot tell in what language it is written. We have narrowed the likely choices down to Norwegian, Dutch, Afrikaans, and Quenya, but have gotten no further. Some of the staff believe it might also be some sort of beat poetry created in Sanskrit by a person who has never studied Sanskrit.

Dieter informs me that he is fairly certain that it's just the delusional rantings of some random cretin, and that it isn't written in any foreign language at all. I discount this theory, because I find it hard to believe any human is stupid enough to create this particular email if we are actually to interpret it as being written English. I feel a far more likely scenario involves the work being a short literary work of some sort in Punjabi or Finnish, and the words just happen to coincidentally line up into a series of simian scratchings and imbecilic nonsense if read, incorrectly, as English.

We shall continue to work our hardest on solving the mystery of this bizarre email.

Sincerely,
Your Humble Employee,
Miguel Fredrickson
Executive Vice President of Action Assistance Enabling Performance Supervisory Customer Pleasuring Happy Fun Directive Team Support Squad Services
A Proud Part of the Absolutely Reliable News & Rumors Customer Service &
Delight Center

--JCK

ARN&R Broadcaster Wins Award

ARN&R is proud to announce that the host of its new Podcast, Co-Editor-in-Chief JCK, has received a 2005 National Association of Broadcasters Marconi Radio Award. The prestigious honor is believed to be the first for an amusement park satire publication, the first for a Podcast of any sort, and the first for a broadcasting group that has only released one actual broadcast in its history.

Shocked gasps were heard from the awards banquet audience as the announcement was made that JCK was being honored with a Special Achievement Marconi for having the Best Face for Radio Broadcast.

"I'm extremely pleased and humbled to be graced with such a magnificent prize," said JCK, upon taking the podium. "I've worked my whole career to be able to tell people, yeah, I won the Marconi for Best...what a second...does this statue actually say 'Best Face for Radio?' What the hell?"

--JCK

Zero to One Hundred Percent Annoyance in Two Seconds

We like amusement park websites that don't provide any useful information. We like them even better when they're impossible to navigate and take eons to load. And we positively love them when they try so hard to be cool and "with it" that they vanish into a vortex of their own suckyness. That's why we simply adore the preview site for Superman Escape, a new ride premiering in (fill in the exact time you see on their countdown timer here) days at Warner Brothers Movie World in Australia.

Bear witness to the above-mentioned travesties throughout the site, but pay careful attention to:

-The Shout-Out feature. Yes, an actual website for an actual theme park offers for people to register and give mad props to their homies. As if it's not awful enough that rich white suburbanites are feebly co-opting street lingo every chance they get, now they get to try it out online, where they can't see people pointing and laughing at their lame, pasty asses. Bad idea. And the scrolling comments in the Shout Out bar, real or fake, are annoying enough to make you want to ram a fork in your own eyeball.

-A section of the site called, and we are not making the slightest bit of this up, "Stuff 4 U." AOL-speak sucks in its original form, it sucks in forums, it sucks on websites, and it especially sucks when people start using it in everyday life. It's started making its way into formal papers in schools, and now we have a theme park website thinking it's cute and that they can use it to attract young customers. Well, we can see what sort of audience Warner Brothers Movie World is courting: lobotomized howler monkeys. Don't be one. Don't visit until this park's management learns how to speak and write properly in its native language. The time has come to stand against the insidious destruction of the English language.

-The Ride Cam section. Doesn't "Ride Cam" seem to imply a webcam or photo album or something? Well, there appear to be two pictures and a video that features a really awful interview with someone in park management. The evidence appears to be in stark contrast to the park's claims that the section is "packed with photos of the ride." Incidentally, "there's even interviews with the rocket scientists who put this puppy together" is an offensive sentence for two reasons. One, "there's" means "there is," and that means they are using a singular to describe "interviews," which is plural. In other words, they have again butchered the English language. Secondly, do we even have to describe why a professionally-designed website using the phrase "put this puppy together" is such a crime against nature? Die!

-The annoying interview with a winner from some contest. Maybe it's a real interview with a real idiot. Maybe it's made up by an idiot. All we know for sure is that at least one idiot was involved, probably several.

The Superman Escape preview is believed by many religious experts to be the fourth sign of the Apocalypse. While this is being ascertained for sure, we'll just go ahead and make it our Site O' the Weak.

--JCK

Coaster Enthusiast First in Line for Final Destination 3

Following the grand tradition begun by Star Wars fans, a lone coaster enthusiast has begun waiting outside a cinema for a movie that will not be released for months. Gregory Diffendorfer, 23, has staked his place in line for Final Destination 3, which is expected to appear at movie theatres in mid-February.

"I'm first! That's right!" he told reporters from his lawn chair directly in front of the movie theatre entrance.

Final Destination 3, a sequel to the essentially unwatchable horror films Final Destination and Final Destination 2, tells the story of teenagers who escape their fate aboard a crashing roller coaster and are hunted down by death himself in retribution. According to Diffendorfer, the crossover appeal of the movie between horror movie fans and coaster enthusiasts mean that this will be "the event movie of the next decade" and that the "lines will stretch for miles," leading to his need to assure himself of a ticket by waiting outside for over two months. Experts claim that Diffendorfer's personal odor will be "unimaginable" after he curdles in his own sweat and urine for that long.

When one passerby pointed out to Diffendorfer that the Grauman's Chinese Theatre, the cinema where he is waiting in line, is not scheduled to exhibit Final Destination 3, the intrepid enthusiast stated that he was certain that overwhelming online protests that the landmark film was not being exhibited in its proper place would lead to Grauman's being shamed into adding it to their lineup.

--JCK

Snyder Consults Thesaurus

After gaining three seats on the Six Flags board of directors and carefully reviewing Six Flags's books and plans, Dan Snyder quickly purchased a copy of Roget's Thesaurus and put a tape flag on the page for "weather."

Exclusive sources indicate that Snyder has prepared a list of synonyms in preparation for upcoming conference calls. Investors can, in the future, expect to hear that revenue targets were missed due to atmospheric conditions; adverse barometric measurements; unexpectedly high wind and precipitation outcomes; negative temperature, air pressure, wind, humidity, cloudiness, and precipitation conditions; and nonpositive meterological situations.

"We are creating a new approach here at Six Flags," said Red Zone spokesman Paul Atkinson. "No longer will we simply blame bad results on bad weather. That's not good enough in the Snyder era; we're stepping up to the plate and being honest about the financial impact of liquid deposits that fall from the atmosphere to the surface and have a diameter greater than 0.5 millimeters."

Disney Announces Chronicles of Narnia Ride

The Walt Disney Company announced this evening that it will open a major new attraction at its Florida Disney World resort next season. Debuting at the Animal Kingdom, one of four major theme parks within the boundaries of Disney World, in the spring of 2006, will be The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the With and the Wardrobe: Aslan's Pride: The Experience. Built to capitalize on the excitement generated by this holiday season's release of the movie version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, TCN:LW2:APTR is being billed as Disney's most innovative amusement concepts yet.

"It's an e-ticket attraction using technology the world has never seen," said an Animal Kingdom representative.

Most unusual about the attraction is the relatively short time it will take to implement it within Animal Kingdom. A typical major Disney show or ride might take years to plan, build, and test, but according to the representative, the company's Imagineers came up with the idea "just yesterday" and that it was anticipated that it will open on schedule in a few short months.

According to one insider, Animal Kingdom will move one of its lions from the Kilimanjaro Safari ride into a private enclosure surrounded by public viewing areas. A sign saying "Aslan" will be placed in front of the enclosure, and a park employee hidden nearby will broadcast his voice through a small microphone hung around the lion's neck, saying things like "Though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know" and "Rise up, Sir Peter Fenris-Bane. And whatever happens, never forget to wipe your sword."

TCN:LW2:APTR is expected to cost Disney in excess of four hundred dollars, but executives are confident that the company will recoup its investment rapidly when C.S. Lewis fans descend upon Animal Kingdom in droves this coming season.

--JCK

AdBuzz Now Broadcasting in HD

Webmaster and coaster enthusiast Jeffy Pizzle's world famous advertising website, AdBuzz.com, will now be broadcasting across the Internet in blazing high-definition glory, according to a press release issued today by AdBuzz's parent company SODA Global Media.

"We at AdBuzz are extremely excited to bring this new entertainment technology to the roller coaster lover community," Pizzle was quoted in the press release. "Everyone who has ever wanted to 'spank the monkey' in full 16:9 aspect ratio now has a place to call home. The same goes for everyone who has ever wanted to 'win a free iPod Shuffle' in 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound."

Visitors to AdBuzz also have the opportunity to join the "almost ad-free" version of the website. The site's "Frequently Asked Questions" section states that members of AdBuzz Club will be given "the privilege of viewing AdBuzz.com in 'super Hi-Def.'" ARN&R researchers spent three hours researching what "Super Hi-Def" is and came to the conclusion that it must have something to do with the AdBuzz business model, which is also described by Pizzle in the press release:

"Our business model at AdBuzz.com is built on treating our potential customers as absolute shit. We vow never to let any content be displayed 'above the fold,' to badger club members to join the damn club after they already joined it, to censor ourselves and others whenever something is said that would make our admins, moderators, or amusement parks we kiss the asses of look bad, and to annoy the piss out of potential customers with ads until they pony up the cash. If they don't like it, they can just stop visiting the website."

When asked how, exactly, a business can survive by telling its customers to sod off all the time, Pizzle replied, "You have no life and you're a douche bag."

Already rumors are emerging about the next generation of AdBuzz technology. One popular rumor includes small projectiles that shoot out of CD/DVD drives and pierce the eyeballs of site visitors while playing an audio ad proclaiming "Bow to me, my sheep! Free Kool Aid with purchase!"

--WCT

Best. Post. Ever.

Thank you, Coasterfreak2. You're the best.

Our favorite line:

So I go into my wallet and pulled out my ACE card, and it almost seemed like a drug bust.

Again, Coasterfreak2, you rule.

Does "Al-Sha'ab" Translate as "Really Hurts Our Eyes and Ears?"

If you're planning a visit to Kuwait in the next few months (and who isn't?), you're almost certainly going to want to visit the country's top amusement zone, Al-Sha'ab Leisure Park. However, if you're looking for more information about this place, we highly recommend that you call and ask for a brochure and avoid the website at all costs. That is, unless you enjoy the following:

-Seizure-inducing colors, annoying Flash animations, and incessant, ear-crippling music.

-Even more incessant, ear-crippling music, on a page that refuses to actually go "back" when the "back" option is given on the page itself.

-Bizarre scratch ticket promotions that seem a little too good to be true.

-Roller coasters with unwise catch slogans, such as "Blow Your Brains Off."

-Spellings along the lines of "Fire Grigade."

If you do enjoy all these things, by all means girdle yourself with the splendor of our Site O' the Weak for hours at a time.

--JCK/SPS

New Coaster Design Firm Announced

The competition between roller coaster design firms has grown more fierce than ever in recent years, as drastic reductions in the number of major new projects for the world's amusement parks have continued. As if established coaster companies didn't already have enough trouble landing a coveted contract for one of these projects, yet another strong new player has just entered the crowded field.

Announcing its presence today is the coaster design firm of Bollinger & Mabillard. Combining the engineering know-how of famed designer Claude Mabillard with the modest football skills of New York Jets quarterback Brooks Bollinger, this dream team firm comes with built-in respect, and immediately has thrust itself into consideration for upcoming amusement park projects. Faced with a juggernaut such as this one, several smaller design firms are rumored to be filing for bankruptcy within the week.

Mabillard formerly was one half, with Walter Bolliger, of the successful company Bolliger & Mabillard, which revolutionized the coaster industry with innovations such as its inverted rides and smooth, organic trackwork. In recent years, the company, although still respected, had reached a point of stagnation, and Mabillard felt like he "needed to shake things up." He insisted that his decision to partner with a mediocre football player with minimal engineering experience had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that his new company would be easy to find in Google searches, seeing as approximately 87% of all coaster enthusiasts incorrectly spell "Bolliger" as "Bollinger" anyway.

"This is not an ELP situation," Mabillard said sternly, referring to the pretentious prog-rock band that once replaced drummer Carl Palmer with Cozy Powell pretty much entirely because he was the best available option whose last initial did not require the band to alter its name.

Bollinger, who majored in sociology at Wisconsin University and occasionally completes passes to his own teammates while playing quarterback for the Jets, provides what Mabillard refers to as "near competence" and an "energetic ability to accept failure" to the roller coaster industry. Bollinger, meanwhile, has indicated that it is far more relaxing to design roller coasters than it is to play football, as evidenced by the relatively paltry number of sacks and turnovers he has suffered thus far in his new job.

After the termination of his partnership with Mabillard, Walter Bolliger will reportedly be working on some darker, more introspective acoustic material he feels was suppressed over the past two decades by the more crowd-pandering Mabillard.

--JCK

Holiday Flashback

We're still in a bit of a food coma this weekend, so we thought it might be appropriate to commemorate that fact with a Very Special Holiday Flashback Rerun Episode of ARN&R...

ARN&R Writer Felled by Thanksgiving

According to sources, an ARN&R writer was utterly conquered by Thanksgiving dinner this year. Although many were led to believe his membership in the American Coaster Enthusiasts would enable him to survive metric assloads of stuffing, cranberry sauce, and turkey, the writer proved to me a mere mortal, managing to cram only one substantial plate of food down his gullet, and suffering greatly as a result.

"He just lay on the couch moaning and massaging his stomach for the rest of the night," said the writer's girlfriend. "I thought these enthusiast people were supposed to be able to pack down three or four tons of slop at one sitting. What a loser. Maybe I'll go find myself a real enthusiast who actually likes going backwards on rides and can help himself to a fifth plate of collard greens without having to loosen his belt and whine about how his tummy hurt."

According to one friend of the writer, his busy work schedule and lack of money led to the Thanksgiving incident. "Normally, he makes it to at least a couple enthusiast events," said a guest at the dinner. "Being amongst other enthusiasts for even just two or three buffets really keeps him in shape for pitching trowels of meat carcasses and bread into his esophagus. But this year, he wasn't able to get to a single event. If you don't practice ramming jugs of gravy and entire hams into your maw, you get out of shape at doing it."

When asked for comment, the writer allegedly grasped at his stomach, made a pained expression, and said "Uuuunnnnngggghhhhhhhhhh."

--JCK

King's Dominion Ride Renamed

In unexpected news, Paramount's King's Dominion announced today that it would be changing the name of its venerable Shockwave roller coaster. Although the big news at the park will be the opening of its new Italian Job roller coaster, management representatives indicated that it was important to spruce up the image of some of the classic older rides at the park in order to keep interest in them at their typically high level.

Beginning with the 2006 season, the former Shockwave, an innovative standup looping design by Japanese manufacturer TOGO, will be known as the De-Testiculator. A new paint job and signage will accompany the switch.

"When we debated a new name for this wonderful attraction, we thought carefully about what Shockwave has meant to us and our visitors over the past decades," stated a portion of the announcement. "And we realized that the thing that stands out about the ride is its majestically aggressive restraint system. The chest-crushing things you hook your arms through, the sharp, thin anal probe, and of course the signature gonad-obliterating lap bar- all of them combine to create one of the planet's sublime masterpieces."

Other names considered for De-Testiculator included Groin Master, Ball Crusher, Crotch Shredder, Scrotum Hater, and The C*ck Punch.

--JCK

Baby Experience Goes Poorly

According to witnesses, single coaster enthusiast Jeb Gado, 26, had a trying time and really pissed off several friends during a recent visit to Islands of Adventure, a theme park in Orlando. Gado was the only person in his group of seven who was not carrying a baby with him, a situation which the same witnesses felt could be a major source of the trouble incurred during the trip.

"You could tell he was terrified of kids," said a random ugly woman without a bra who was standing in line for Spiderman. "He kept making gagging sounds and spasming whenever there was talk of breast feeding or baby doo-doo, so, considering the continual topic of conversation in line for that group was almost entirely based on those subjects, he was gagging a whole bunch."

"Man, that dude went nuts when one of the kids vomited green stuff all over him," said a soaking wet man with prominent man-boobs standing near the mean fountain. "And the parents just laughed and said he did it all the time. Boy, he was spitting mad about that. It looked like he had on some sort of really nice coaster t-shirt with tremendous collector value."

The most traumatic portion of the day, and the one which annoyed his friends, was when Gado was given a small child to hold in the baby swap area of Hulk. The mother of the youngster had wished to ride the launched coaster with her husband and, according to an annoying teenager with a thong sticking out of her incredibly short jeans, "thrust" the baby at a horrified Gado, whereupon said baby immediately began screaming its head off. At this point, Gado allegedly yelled, "Oh my God! Why is it making that sound? I'm breaking it! Take it away!" According to sources, these comments did not sit well with Gado's friends, nor with the many other parents in the baby swap area.

Gado could not be reached for comment.

--JCK

Clean, Concise, and Informative

Attention amusement parks and those who design websites for them: when we come to look at your site, we have very few needs. These needs definitely include being easily able to find basic information such as price, location, discounts, nearby accommodations, and how many annoying photographers will be hanging around at the park entrance waiting to block our path and piss us off. Our needs may include wanting to see pictures of your new ride or to get a list of attractions we'd want to prioritize in case of long lines.

Our needs most certainly do not include sitting at our computer for eight hours waiting for your stupid overzealous flash animations, rollovers, bouncing figures, javascripts, banner ads, pop-ups, and MIDI renditions of Celine Dion songs to all finally load up. They also do not include spending another hour browsing through your hopelessly mangled pages looking futilely for the basic information we mentioned above.

And, while we sometimes like to peruse a park map ahead of time so as to have a plan of attack on a potentially busy day, and appreciate park websites that provide them, we'd prefer they just show us where the crap is and let us link to descriptions, instead of looking like this slow-loading monstrosity from Knott's Berry Farm.

Those who do not cater to our needs are sometimes punished by being named the Site O' the Weak. You have been warned.

--JCK

Particularly Vicious Wedgie Administered

According to numerous witnesses, coaster enthusiast Reggie Johnson, 14, received a wedgie of staggering violence and savagery this morning in the locker room of his junior high school. Although Johnson has been the victim of a high number of pranks, taunts, and minor assaults over the past several years, onlookers described this wedgie as "particularly vicious."

"These five guys tackled him after gym," said Daniel Blair, 14. I thought maybe they were going to dunk his head in the toilet like last week, or maybe take him into the girls' bathroom and superglue him to one of the toilet seats, but they went straight for the underpants."

Blair described the event in lurid detail, including an assertion that one of the bullies had stretched Johnson's underwear a full seven feet through the locker area before it tore. He additionally reported that Johnson spent the rest of the school day with the shredded remnants of the underwear flapping out the back of his corduroy pants.

"I keep telling Reggie that he needs to quit wearing the Coaster Zombie tie-dye, the coaster pin jacket, the Absolutely Reliable hat, and the themed fanny pack to school," said Johnson's friend Tony Bush, 15. "It makes him such an easy target being this coaster dork. I keep suggesting some cool hobbies for him that would make people realize he's not a nerd and leave him alone, like running a Star Trek continuity blog, playing Hero Clicks, or dressing up like Ash for Evil Dead 2 conventions, but he's really stubborn."

--JCK

Visit to IAAPA a "Trip of a Lifetime"

Coaster enthusiast William Sanderson, 46, has always dreamed of attending the convention for the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA). This year, that dream became a reality.

"I've been saving up for ages so I could attend this amazing event," said Sanderson. "Wandering the floors; showing off my very best cargo pants, flip-flops, and yellow-stained Banshee t-shirt; giving B&M sorely-needed enthusiast input; riding the rides; and spilling armloads of free food everywhere...oh god, how many times to did I wet myself in my sleep thinking about it?"

Sanderson was certain that any old coaster enthusiast could just wander in the gates of the Georgia World Congress Center and receive accolades and respect from the show exhibitors as they recognized his years of intelligent and thought-provoking roller coaster riding and patch collecting. Unfortunately for him, his enthusiast organization, the Super Coaster Mofos, does not have an official arrangement to maintain a booth or tour the facilities of IAAPA during the convention, and he let his membership in ACE lapse a decade ago.

"A lot of people would see this vacation as a total failure," said Sanderson from his holding cell at a nearby jail. "I mean, some enthusiasts would be upset when they planned their entire lives around this trade show and then were told they can't come in. But I make the best of things. I sprinted in anyway. I tried six different brands of deep-fried chocolate bars; I offered my services to Gravity Group as a well-compensated ride tester; I bounced up and down on the back of that Vekoma mini-bike coaster car and went "vroom!" and I managed to grab Stan Checketts' ass, or someone's ass anyway, just before the police tackled me."

"This was still the trip of a lifetime," he added, before using his one phone call to contact Holiday World's IAAPA booth to offer his input that a "couple more" bunny hops could probably be squeezed in to the Voyage's layout.

--JCK

Site O' the Weak: An Obvious Choice

It probably seems unfair to list International Theme Park Services as our Site O' the Weak, seeing as we already revised their website to claim they would be marketing a ridiculous tourist attraction called the Purple People Bridge Cl!mb, and we already pointed it out in a taunting article.

Well, unfortunately, we aren't fair. Congratulations on the award.

--JCK

ARN&R Takes Over Consultants' Site

In the boldest move yet by Absolutely Reliable News & Rumors, its extensive staff of web developers and hackers staged an enormous "happening" today by completely revising the website of International Theme Park Services. In a move of satirical genius, ARN&R made it appear that the consulting group had announced a tourist attraction based entirely on climbing an enormous bridge to see the supposed delights of Cincinnati, Ohio, from the air.

"We really decided to take this over the top," said the site's editors, known as the Grand Poobah and JCK, in a prepared statement. "So first, we came up with the utterly ridiculous name of The Purple People Bridge Climb, but then we decided that wasn't quite enough. So we pushed it further and made it so it was called the Purple People Bridge Cl!mb. Yes, that's right, an exclamation point right in the middle of the word climb! And we replaced virtually every 'i' on the entire site with an exclamation point!"

The editors also noted with pride an obviously insane paragraph they included in the purported steps leading up to a climb (sorry, cl!mb):

All indemnity forms will be signed. An alcohol breath test will be taken to ensure that each Cl!mber is fit to take the Cl!mb. Cl!mbers will receive their Cl!mbing gear, placing it over their personal clothing. Communication equipment will be distributed consisting of the newest in “BONE CONDUCTION COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY.”

"'Bone conduction communications technology!' What a great line! God, we rule!" said JCK in an interview.

Another outstanding part of the spoof site, according to the editors, is the logo, in which an enormous man appears to be contempating urinating on the bridge. They also point to the theme climbs, in particular to the theme climb that would include these delights: "Cl!mbers decked out as gangsters will cross the bridge and learn the details of the 'sin city' past of the area, once known as 'Little Mexico'." ARN&R's editors pointed out that anyone doing so would obviously be dragged from the bridge by any rational human coming upon them, and that the concept of charging for such a privilege was utterly ridiculous.

Inquiries to the staff of International Theme Park Services have been unanswered; they appear as yet to be unaware of the fact that their site has been hacked so thoroughly.

Hydra Being Watched by Wildlife Management Teams

According to industry experts, Hydra: The Revenge, a floorless roller coaster desiged by Bolliger & Mabillard, has been under near-constant clandestine surveillance at Dorney Park by wildlife management teams since it opened earlier in 2005. The team, which has managed to remain hidden in Dorney Park's dense jungle foliage and tall savanna grass so as not to disturb either Hydra or the park's large number of patrons, has been carefully tracking movements and behavior patterns of the new ride.

"New, young roller coasters are always on the prowl, looking for a new area to call home," says coaster behavioral specialist Dr. Harry Wang. "When they come across a pride already in place, they will generally challenge the incumbent coaster. The result of this challenge will be that either of the combatants is killed or driven off in defeat. The unusual, and somewhat disturbing part of this scenario is that, if the new coaster is victorious, it will almost always make a prompt move to kill any of the prior coaster's offspring."

Scientists are therefore watching Hydra with great interest. After defeating Hercules, a large wood coaster created by Summers & Dinn, many are concerned that the new looper will make a move to destroy any surviving younger relatives of Hercules. Accordingly, the wildlife team is in constant contact with the owners of rides like the Georgia Cyclone, Mean Streak, and the Texas Giant to keep them alert to any aggressive moves from Hydra.

"Any and all Summers & Dinn rides from after 1989 are at risk," said Wang. "But frankly, we're most concerned about Mean Streak. As lame and weak as that ride is, it presents an incredibly easy target and would be unlikely to survive an attack of any sort."

--JCK

Enthusiasts Disgruntled With Special Features

Although the long-awaited release of the Special Tenth Anniversary Criterion Collector's Extended Edition of Cedar Point's groundbreaking roller coaster Mantis was eagerly anticipated, sales of the product are falling flat due largely to complaints from the coaster enthusiast community.

Mantis was the first of the relatively short run of major, innovative, megalooping standup coasters from B&M to hit the market. Initially popular, the ride has seen interest in it wane in the intervening years, as more exciting and less ball-cracking rides were opened at Cedar Point and elsewhere. Nonetheless, the nostalgia market for Mantis was considered very strong, which led to the special edition being prepared for release this year, along with a major television and print marketing campaign.

"This is hardly any better than the original release that just had the coaster on it," complained ACE member Drew Marshall, 50. "They have a splashy new package and paint job, they talk up how many great extra features it has, and then it's such a pathetic letdown."

"While we are disappointed in sales, we assert very strongly that the Tenth Anniversary Mantis release is a strong one, and it is nonsense that these enthusiasts are whining about it," said a Cedar Point representative. "The behind-the-scenes featurette is extremely informative and offers never-before-seen looks into the making of the ride. The Banshee retrospective, complete with poster gallery, is comprehensive. And we even incorporated new, thrilling ride sections into the main footage of the ride, complete with specially composed new music and fully integrated effects and headbanging. It's a definitive anniversary product."

"Whatever," sighed Marshall. "Sure, the incorporated footage is cool. But they have that and those two featurettes, and that's it! No deleted track sections, no commentary track from Bolliger and Mabillard, no outtakes, no easter eggs, no commemorative upstop wheel parts, not even the original trailer! And for 45 bucks? Screw that!"

Lagging sales for the Mantis anniversary package have reportedly had representatives of the New York New York Casino in Las Vegas rethinking their plans to release a monumental Ultimate Quadrilogy Collection for their Manhattan Express coaster's gala tenth anniversary celebration next year.

--JCK

VH1 Debuts New Reality Show

Continuing its successful franchise of "celebreality" programming, the VH1 network last night debuted a new show called But Can They Design a Roller Coaster? Hosted by Ahmed Zappa, the show pits nine celebrities in a roller coaster design battle. At the end of each episode, the coaster designs are showcased before a studio audience and judges, whereupon the people of America vote for the winners.

In the first episode, airing immediately after the popular trilogy of VH1 shows 80 Hottest Hotties Over 80, Peter Brady Plows Some Bimbo, and C*ck-Punching Danny Bonaduce, the new program showcased the coaster design talents of such major celebrities as Antonio Sabato Jr., Larry Holmes, and Morgan Fairchild.

Celebrities were allowed to enter any coaster design they chose in the first week of competition, and some of the designs were more successful than others. The winning entry came from Holmes, who produced a wood twister called The Knockout that featured remarkably smooth transitions and good airtime.

Others left much to be desired. For instance, Fairchild's entry was a steel looping ride that featured sustained forces in excess of 12 G's over the course of its seven consecutive non-clothoid loops taken at eighty miles per hour. Although riders reported a great feeling of excitement, the fact that all of them passed out, and most ended up covered in their own nose blood and vomit, led to points being deducted by many viewers at home. Joe Pantaliano constructed an aesthetically pleasing inverted coaster that seemed like a lock to achieve victory, but he unfortunately forgot to connect the track sections together in one location, leading to entire trains of passengers diving into the ground at fifty miles per hour; this modest defect caused him to be sassed by the judges, and Pantaliano finished a disappointing fourth.

The weakest ride design, however, was definitely that produced by Bai Ling. In her creation, passengers rode a kiddie coaster in circles over and over again while Ling herself wailed her horrifying rendition of Like a Virgin at full volume. The themed coaster experience was described by one passenger as a "visit to Hell itself," and viewers agreed, voting Ling off the show entirely.

But Can They Design a Roller Coaster? moves into its second week next Sunday, when the contestants vie for supremacy in the difficult Standup category.

--JCK

Parents See Coaster Zombies Costume as "Too Scary"

Dana and Jon Kopkee have always let seven year-old son Ryan do as he pleases. They frown on excess, but try to let the young boy make his own mistakes in life and learn about the world around him. "We feel like Ryan is getting to the age where it is important that he start taking baby steps when it comes to personal responsibility," said Dana.

However, both parents put their proverbial feet down when Ryan said he wanted to be a Coaster Zombie for Halloween. "They seem kind of cool," said Ryan. "They like roller coasters and travel to ride them."

Jon said that there were a lot of good choices for his son's Halloween costume, but this was not one of them. "Let's face it, a majority of these people are, well, losers," commented Jon. "They spend time and money traveling to ride roller coasters. They don't have families or basic interpersonal skills. I am sorry, but it is just too scary to think of my son as an enthusiast for Halloween."

Permissible costumes included axe murderer, blood-sucking Vampire and even a flesh-eating Zombie. However, a Coaster Zombie just would not do. "We want our son to have self-respect, so we couldn't have him walking door-to-door as a tie-dyed coaster counter," sighed Dana.

While Ryan is disappointed by his parent's decision, he has taken it all in stride. "Mommy and Daddy said I could not be the scary Coaster Zombie, so I think this year I will be an escaped prisoner. At least they aren't afraid to talk to women," joked Ryan.

--FMB

Sucking so Hard it Chafes

There are bad coaster websites, and then there are amazingly bad coaster websites. And then sometimes there are coaster sites so horrifically awful that you kind of wonder if the whole thing is just some kind of joke. That's the pickle we're in this week, as we debate whether The Geauga Show is actually the worst website ever made or just a lazy prank. Assuming it's for real...holy crap. The gaudy colors, the Tripod hosting, the one page that has all the site's pictures load at once, the over-reliance on exclamation points and misplaced quotation marks, the use of footage from "proffesional [sic] Shows that air on regular television" without permission, the non-working forums, the Brittany Lynn-esque failure to remove "Enter content here" headers from web pages...it all adds up to form a monument to suckage. And a Site O' the Weak, not coincidentally. And hey, if somehow the whole thing is a joke, more power to you. Glad you've got this much time to spare.

--JCK

Enthusiast Shocked to be Used as Safety Valve

Lifelong coaster enthusiast Thad Norbert, 35, was amazed and befuddled this weekend at an office party, say sources. The reason for this shock was because, despite the fact that Norbert is quite open and vocal about his adoration of roller coasters, he was used as a safety valve by an attractive female co-worker eager to escape another conversation.

"I simply couldn't believe it," said Norbert. "I was chatting with a couple of office friends when I noticed Gillian out of the corner of my eye, sort of bugging her eyes and making furtive hand gestures at me. Of course, initially I didn't think she was doing it in my direction. I mean, why would she? I'd be very likely to bore her senseless by reciting the world's top fifty steepest wood coaster first drop angles or confuse her by talking about how I don't count Rebel Yell as two coasters but I don't care if other enthusiasts do."

"But after I had turned around a bit, I actually made eye contact with her," said Norbert. "And that's when it suddenly dawned on me that she was indeed making silent, pitiful cries for assistance in my direction. She was clearly shifting around, irritated by the conversation she was having with this guy, and every couple seconds she would mouth 'save me' or 'help' at me. And there was no one behind me, so obviously it was really me she wanted to provide a save for her."

"I still can't get over how Gillian wanted me to save her at a party," noted Norbert. "I mean, we're acquainted, we talk for a few minutes almost every day around work, we get along fine, but it's not like we're really close, and since I'm a coaster enthusiast and she's frankly kinda hot, it wouldn't seem logical that she'd see my conversation as an improvement over some loser who was following her around and hitting on her. Hell, usually I'm the one that people want to escape at parties. I sure wouldn't want to hear about what length of timber Summers and Dinn used to make their bents."

"Well, actually I would," he added after reflecting for a moment. "But I merely use that as an example."

According to eyewitnesses, Norbert indeed worked his way over to the other conversation and managed to come up with a reason why Gillian needed to see some imaginary mutual friend of theirs in the next room. For his assistance, Norbert was rewarded with a hug and fifteen minutes of conversation with a nice-looking member of the opposite sex. As an added bonus, the member of the opposite sex did not noticeably roll her eyes, yawn, or pointedly look at her watch when Norbert started poking fun at Arrow shuttle loops.

"Thad can get all excited that some chick actually used him as a safety valve for a party," said his friend Luke Solomon, 40, "but when some big, smelly drunk guy keeps trying to rub your shoulders while bragging about his awesome new truck and the cool fishing trip he took last week, anything, even some coaster nerd's blow-by-blow description of each element on Talon, sounds pretty cool in comparison."

--JCK

Enthusiast Thinks He Catches Sister Snoring

According to coaster enthusiast Dan Wise, 36, there is widespread suspicion afoot that his sister Rebecca, 34, might have been snoring while he was describing his coaster exploits to her over the phone.

"See, I called up Rebecca last night to tell her about my awesome trip to Pennsylvania to go to PPP and Dorney," said Wise. "She seemed a little surprised to hear from me, since I forgot to call for her birthday, and my nephew's birthday, and went to ride coasters in Florida instead of going home last Christmas, but whatever. So she asked how I was doing, and where was I living since she hadn't heard from me in a year, and naturally I told her about how many rides I got on Phoenix, and how hard I bashed some kid on the bumper cars, and how Hydra's Revenge was a lot more rattly than most B&M's and therefore kind of disappointing, and then...."

At this point, Wise scrunched his face up before continuing:

"And then right around the part where I was describing how much better the fourth row of Steel Force was than I expected, because of that cool shelf where you can rest your feet and all, I heard this odd sound. A relaxed rumbling sound. I called out Rebecca's name four times, and every time the rumbling sound continued, until the last, when she said 'Wha? Huh? Oh, yeah.'"

According to Wise, his suspicion that his sister was uninterested in his exciting and important coaster conquests led him to brusquely hang up on her.

"I'm not talking to her again until something really important comes up," said a disgusted Wise. "Like if one of us ends up in the hospital, or if I think that new Intamin at Six Flags Great Adventure rules and I absolutely have to share it with someone right after I get off it. No one disrespects me like this and gets away with it!"

--JCK

Deal of a Lifetime

It's not every day you come across an offer like this.

The New York New York Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas is currently offering the following spectacular online deal:

-An all-day ride pass for the loathsome Manhattan Express coaster
-An all-day pass for the Coney Island games area nearby
-A Manhattan Express souvenir photo that you'll ever view again out of fear that they it will remind you of the seizures the ride caused after it bashed your brain to smithereens
-Something the New York New York website calls a "Manhatan Express" t-shirt; we aren't sure whether the webmaster is unable to spell or if all the shirts have "Manhattan" spelled wrong, but rest assured that even one ride on this horrible coaster will most likely leave you unable to mentally process any written language ever again, so it probably doesn't matter what the thing says)
-A meal that consists of small fries and a coke, along with one hot dog or a slice of pizza
-And finally, for no apparent reason whatsoever, a clown doll

All for the low, low, low, low, low price of a mere $40.00!

Dang, why would you want to go to Islands of Adventure for another ten or fifteen bucks, or Cedar Point for another five, or maybe Holiday World, Knoebels or even, if it came to it, any random Six Flags park for less?

Anyone with the balls to advertise this "deal" online with a straight face deserves our respect, our admiration, even, yea verily, our Site O' the Weak award.

--JCK

DAFE Hard at Work on 2006 PPP Costumes

There is no rest for the weary. Two days after taking home another first-place award at the annual Phoenix Phall Phunphest, this time for their costume as the Knoebels' Shooting Gallery, the D.A.F.E. (Dark Ride and Funhouse Enthusiasts) started work on next year's get-up. Founder Steven Suggs said, "This is all that really matters. I don't go out socially, I don't exercise and if need be I am celibate. All of my time and energy is focused on one thing -- winning."

The D.A.F.E. have racked up a number of awards since first entering the contest several years ago. Whether dressed as rooms from the Knoebels' dark ride or as Whispers regulars, the group has constantly taken home the blue ribbon. Suggs said a large part of their domination is due to the lack of competition. "Sure, we work hard," he noted. "But, look at what's out there. Cute kids, Medieval Wenches, Fascination?! You have to be kidding me. Those chumps in black shirts and Devo hats can't hold a candle to us. They obviously haven't spent every Saturday night since July focused upon costume completion."

Tina Yothers, the only woman in the Fascination gang, defended her design efforts and her group's lack of nerdiness. "Yes, I only spent one day shopping on the costumes, but is that really such a bad thing? Don't brag to me about your utter lack of a life, Suggs."

Yothers is quiet about her groups plans for next year, but promises that they will blow D.A.F.E. away. Suggs insists that is not the case and said that his group will again remain supreme. "We will win. If that involves me not blowing up Sally, my inflatable woman, from December to February, then my God, that's what it will come to."

--FMB

Bandwidth Thieves!

The kind folks at the ECC have declared us bandwidth thieves for linking directly to their pictures. Actually, we're using less bandwidth than their requested alternative -- linking to the full page, which will load every single one of the pictures for the day -- and we weren't including the images themselves in our stories (which would genuinely be bandwidth thieves).

In any event, we really don't want them to have to block all referrers, so we've changed the links below to those of the full report pages from the relevant days. ECC folks: we won't link direct to your pictures again, so you can unblock other referrers if you like.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Buck-Fifty Spent

No, ladies and gentlemen, the website for Go-Karts Plus Action Park is not a child's website design project that received a failing grade. It wasn't created back in 1995 by someone and forgotten. And it (probably) wasn't created by accident when chimps escaped the zoo and banged randomly on a computer in an internet cafe before being tranquilized.

Nope. This appears to be the actual, real site for an actual, real amusement center that is currently operating. Yikes.

Oh, we love all the spinning things. We love all the tender care that must have gone into building the site, all three or four minutes of it. And we sure love crappy spinning clip art, yes we do. Especially when the website draws attention to the crappy spinning clip art by thanking someone "for the 'cool' animations he has available for free" and claiming that "[w]ithout his 'stuff' our site would be a snooooooze!" And we also love that the website advertises that the management have the idea that someday they might offer some sort of web discount, but, just to clarify, they aren't doing it right now.

By the way, we also love lots of professional-looking swarms of exclamation points and scare quotes. IT'S ALIVE!!!

And hey, if 867,456,235 Visitors (and counting!) have seen this site, then it must be awesome.

In short, we think this is the best corporate website ever designed for a buck-fifty. That's why it's the ARN&R Site O' the Weak.

--JCK

Enthusiast's Friend's Wife Knows a Little Too Much About Amusement Parks

According to local coaster enthusiast Kirk James, 33, he recently grew very suspicious of his friend's wife. The reason for this newfound suspicion was a conversation he had with the couple, Ricardo and Donna Neywitz, while staying at their house.

"Ricardo and I had just spent the whole day at Knoebels," reports James. "We came home and joined Donna for a glass of wine. Everything was normal at first; we talked mostly about the morons we all have to work with, and I asked them why they keep insisting, against all evidence and taste, that Roadhouse and Red Dawn are actually decent movies. The usual. But then, Donna started asking questions about Knoebels."

This was where, James asserted, things got "freaky."

"I sort of assumed Donna was just being polite and feigning interest so we'd be excited," said the enthusiast. "But then after the general questions about how the crowds were or did we have a good time, she asked if we'd managed to snap the cables on the Flyers. I think I actually spat some wine on myself."

And it only got more creepy from there, he notes. "The Flyers question was weird enough, but it got stranger! She asked how the airtime was on Phoenix, and said 'I hope you rode in the orange train's third seat, right?' And when we told her that Whirlwind had been removed, she said she had hated that coaster because it was 'such a damn headbanger.'"

James has apparently already alerted local authorities to the fact that Ricardo Neywitz's wife has obviously been abducted and replace by an alien or a deadly robot.

--JCK

Role Playing a Failure

Tim and Amy Fitzsimmons have been married for five years and are looking to start a family soon. To spice up their love life, Amy recently suggested the couple engage in role playing. They agreed to trade off being responsible for each week's theme, choosing the week's concept as well as any necessary props.

Amy says that trial run went very well. "My idea was that Tim was a knight and I was the damsel trapped in the castle. He had on some naughty chain mail while I let my hair down and wore some revealing lingerie. It was some of the best sex we have had in some time," she blushed.

However, the highs reversed themselves when Tim took charge. "Oh yeah, I was ready!" he said confidently. "I knew I had to come through with something special. That's why I felt we should be the hot coaster operator and the enthusiast that wants space at his lap bar. I got her a Beast thong from some coaster site and a Mantis t-shirt I wore when I had my summer job at the Point. All I wore was a patch jacket. I thought it was going to be as hot as California Screamin's LSMs!"

Amy was not so amused. She said that an old t-shirt was not sexy and seeing Tim's gut push apart the vest made her dry up faster than a waterpark after Labor Day. "It just wasn't hot. We could have been lost in the woods, he could have been my pool boy Pepito, or we could have had a threesome with Tammy next door. Instead he chooses to pretend we're banging below a B&M coaster. That's great."

As of this printing Tim and Amy have done some further role playing but she has chosen all of the concepts. She mused that she might let him start choosing themes after Phun Phest, but even then they will have to be approved.

--FMB

Japan Trip Breaking News Recap, Part II

We continue here with our special limited edition collector's leather-bound presentation of the entire ACE/ECC Japan Trip breaking news. If you enjoy the collected headlines here, be sure to read the article directly below this one, which contains the remainder of the recap.

Ed. Note: Those fun-loving folks at the ECC have blocked all referrers. We really don't want them to have to do that, so we've changed the links below to those of the full report pages from the relevant days. ECC folks: we won't link direct to your pictures again, so you can unblock other referrers if you like.


Scandalous Photographic Evidence Comes to Light: Signature Move Not Done Back on Day Three

Richard Nixon Spotted During Browse of ACE/ECC Japan Trip Archives

ARN&R Writers and Editors Constantly Hit Refresh, Praying For Day 14 Pictures

Telly Savalas Replaced as Spokesman for Player With Yourself Club Card

ECC and ACE Members Now Keeping Track of Number of Times They Jack Off to POV Footage

Mysterious Odor Overwhelms Ride Attendants

"That's very funny. Now tell us why you really came all the way to Japan. Our viewers will never believe this 'roller coaster' business."

"What's this stuff all over the lap bar?"

Because Paying $5,000 For One Shithole Wasn't Enough

On Day Thirteen, Signature Move Interferes With Ride Restraint

The Spirit Of Ace, Part III

...And They're Strangely Painting The Stairway to Heaven

Nothing Like Traveling Halfway Around The World To Visit A Shithole

Day 12 And The Signature Move Is Still Going Strong

Who Would Have Thought Shoes Could Get That Worn Out With No Physical Exertion Besides Standing In Line?

Japanese Parks Learn From Six Flags Theming and Landscaping

Steel Dragon, Roped Into Group Picture, Tries to Pretend it Doesn't Know Enthusiasts

Buffet, Lacking Gravy, Sits Untouched

James Woods Falls Asleep On Japanese Coaster

Ratt's Drummer Enjoys New Look

Friendly Local Provides Enthusiast With Sign Reading "I Am A Huge Nerd."

Hulk Mad. Hulk Smash Japan.

"It's Day Eleven, And I'm Totally Committed To My Signature Move."

--The ARN&R Staff

Japan Trip Breaking News Recap

Due to the volume of fanatical support (well, three adoring emails and a girlfriend of one of our writers actually sort of chuckling, or perhaps involuntarily grimacing, at something on the site for once) we've received over our series of ACE/ECC Japan Trip breaking news reports, we've decided to take the unusual step of reproducing that entire series in more permanent form here at ARN&R. Although some of the Japan news will remain in rotation until replaced within the usual Breaking News section, those headlines will also be collected here in two parts for your pleasure through the rest of eternity.

Additionally, the Japan trip breaking news will also be made available in a breathtaking special limited-edition encyclopedia version, in three volumes handsomely bound in rich Corinthian leather and hand-signed by the ARN&R staff. Each set will sell for the low, low short-time offer of $1,345,222.03 per set, so hurry and get this amazing family heirloom while supplies last.

Ed. Note: Those fun-loving folks at the ECC have blocked all referrers. We really don't want them to have to do that, so we've changed the links below to those of the full report pages from the relevant days. ECC folks: we won't link direct to your pictures again, so you can unblock other referrers if you like.


Japanese Parkgoer Puzzled By Presumed American Custom Of Long White Socks With Dark Shoes

"OMG I'm In DDR Mecca!!"

A Sea of Tools

Japanese Park Installs Blinders In Effort To Protect Patrons From Sight of Enthusiasts

So Many Cameras, So Little Worth Photographing

Why Ride This at Wild Adventures When I Can Ride It In Japan?

This Credit Is So Worth $5,000

The Spirit of ACE, or We Travelled All the Way to Japan to Ride Your Kiddie Coasters

The Spirit of ACE Part II

ACErs Ask Buddha Statue For Directions To McDonald's

ACErs Curse Absence of Duran Duran, Metal Ballads on Japanese Radio

ACEr Spends Eighteen Dollars Calling Mom From Japan To Have Her Set VCR To Record Discovery Channel Special

Japanese Hotel Staff Puzzled By Volume Of Sweat, Other Excretions On Sheets

English-Speaking Enthusiasts Quickly Pick Up Japanese Words for "Tool," "Bad Smell," "Loser," and "Annoying" After Hearing Them Constantly During Trip

Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, Gamera, Ghidora, Mechagodzilla, Iron Chef Italian Lay Aside Differences, Launch Full-Scale Attack on Invading Coaster Enthusiasts

Japanese Scientists Report Unusual Increase in Seismic Activity This Week

In Unrelated News, ACE and ECC Arrive in Japan This Week

ACErs Arrive in Japan, God Sends Rain To Deter Them From Staying

In Related News, Japanese Authorities Report Pork Supplies Low

Godzilla Recoils in Terror at Sight of ACErs

Sushi Restaurant Rejects Request for Gravy

Japanese Kiddie Park Goers Puzzled By Wacky "Rowing" Motion While On Kiddie Coaster Lift Hill

Also By Presence Of Grown Adults On Kiddie Coaster

ACErs Refuse To Stop Singing Mr. Roboto

--The ARN&R Staff

Enthusiast Upset With Stronger Sail-Whipping Rules

Long a lover of the legendary Flyers flat ride, Roger Kratchof, 40, was stupified upon his recent visit to Knoebels Amusement Park. It had been two years since the enthusiast had visited the park, and new to him was the installed-during-late-2004 sign at the Flyers warning visitors: "Please Do Not Whip the Sails." This sign caused Kratchof considerable outrage.

"When did they put this crap here?" asked the befuddled man, who obviously hadn't seen all the enthusiast whining online when the sign first went up last year. "There's nothing wrong with whipping the sails. It's a perfectly normal part of the sexual experience."

"This new harsher regulation is a blatant attempt by Knoebels to stigmatize and ostracize those of us who have healthy experimental sex lives," he added. "But what's next at this place of intolerance, I ask you? First they take away whipping, next maybe they'll forbid dressing the Flyers in leather or pulling out the handcuffs . Then maybe they won't let you rub whipped cream and chocolate all over the ride and seductively lick it off."

"The no-whipping regulation is not at all an attempt by Knoebels to keep people from practicing whatever sexual activities they wish in the privacy of their own homes, or maybe in the campground as long as they aren't too loud," said Taylor McGuffin, a representative of the park who wished to remain nameless. "We simply felt that enthusiasts were unfairly exposing the Flyers to acts of bondage that could be physically harmful to this classic ride, as well as mildly freak out the poor children who were waiting in line."

"Cleaning up all the semen stains after those leather-clad enthusiasts whipped their sails was getting to be pretty disgusting, too," said McGuffin, who once again asked that his name not be divulged.

The park released a statement to the press that indicated that enthusiasts would still be allowed to role-play ("the deviant 380-pound German maid and the helpless underage pool-boy" was one suggestion), engage in foot fetishism, wear diapers, and talk dirty to the Flyers, but that the decision to ban whipping would not be reconsidered.

--JCK

It's About Time, Isn't It?

Yeah, we know. You've all been pining for a new Site O' the Weak, haven't you? Especially poor, pathetic Ed Alonzo, who has technically been up there for weeks. Well, Ed has had his day in the sun and it's time to move on.

And what could possibly be the choice as the Site O' the Weak makes its dramatic return? Why, it's the ECC/ACE Japan Trip Report Page, naturally. As you may be aware, our Breaking News has primarily consisted of mocking the photos within this very website for a good two weeks now. But we aren't ready for the fun to stop. First off, Site O' the Weak award. And, there is sure to be more coverage as the days go by.

We know, we're hopelessly addicted to this site. The first step is admitting you have a problem. Hey, at least we've made it that far. We'll worry about those other eleven pesky steps some other time!

--JCK

Conductor Punished for Annoyingly Stupid Joke

So I was walking around on the Upper East Side the other day, and this foreign couple comes up to me. They say, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" So I tell them- get this- "Practice!"

So went the "joke" that a guest conductor recently bequeathed upon the annoyed members of the New Britain Symphony Orchestra during a rehearsal last weekend. Although he still professes that the joke is hilarious, as evidenced by his open snickering and clutching at his spleen immediately after he told it, it has landed him in hot water. A judge at the New Britain Superior Court today found him guilty of first-degree gross irritation.

"That was the worst joke I've ever heard," said the Honorable Judge William H. Childers, the man who handed down the verdict. "It's so stupid I actually became physically ill when it was repeated in court. Those poor musicians; how they must have suffered."

In addition to the sheer fact that the joke sucked, the conductor was faced with the damning court testimony of seventeen orchestra members, all of whom claimed they had heard the joke from someone else, and thought it completely sucked shit, as long ago as fifteen years. This cast serious doubt as to whether the alleged incident had actually even occurred on the Upper East Side and had involved the defendant.

The conductor was sentenced to fourteen straight days in the back seat of nearby Lake Compounce's Zoomerang, a Vekoma Boomerang clone noted for its ability to inflict unspeakable pain and agony. Human rights organizations plan to protest the sentence as cruel and unusual punishment.

"It's too bad the Riverside Black Widow isn't still around," said one disappointed musician who just happened to be knowledgeable about roller coasters. "That would have been a much better punishment. But the Zoomerang will still put some decent stank on his ass."

--JCK

Six Flags To Sell Mr. Six

Saying that his various parts are worth more to shareholders than his promotional value for the chain, Six Flags Theme Parks announced today that it would begin an auctioning process to sell the organs and other parts of chain mascot Mr. Six.

"We've had a great run with Mr. Six," said Kieran Burke in a prepared statement. "We're very proud of our ability to simultaneously promote our parks and creep out a substantial percentage of the population over the last eighteen months. We are grateful to all of those who danced like, didn't turn off the TV during, or merely gazed with an annoyed look at Mr. Six, and we're hopeful that his parts will improve the health of at least two Americans. Or Chinese. I hear there's a better market for human organs there."

Mr. Six is expected to continue in some role through the Halloween events at the various Six Flags parks, with his euthanization and organ harvesting taking place on the final day of Six Flags Magic Mountain's Frightfest in front of a crowd of thousands.

Football Fan Scoffs at Blackpool Ride

According to one American football fan, a ride at Blackpool Pleasure Beach is completely wrong. Unfortunately, no one in the entire country of Great Britain gives a flying rat's ass.

The erroneous ride was spotted by football lover Dave Spugwicker, 45, during a visit to Blackpool this past week. "They have this set of bumper cars," he said. "It's called the Superbowl, and the cars are themed, strangely enough, to American football players instead of, I don't know, cricket or soccer or lawn bowling or something. Kinda cute. But when I got close to the ride, I almost had an aneurysm."

According to Spugwicker, the building for the ride featured paintings of the helmets, complete with logos, for various NFL teams, except that they were all wrong.

"They obviously haven't updated this ride since the 70's," said the disgusted Spugwicker. "The Broncos had that dumb horse rearing inside a big 'D', the Bucs were that horrible eye-searing orange color, the Bengals helmet actually said 'BENGALS' instead of featuring cool tiger stripes. The Jaguars and Panthers aren't even on there and the Oilers are! It's an atrocity. Don't they pay attention to the theming of their rides?"

Sadly, no one in the entire nation of Great Britain gives a shit. "Who cares?" was the only printable response received. Nonetheless, Spugwicker tells ARN&R that he will be initiating a letter-writing campaign to have the terrible and misleading ride theming altered.

--JCK

Special Soaking Wet Japan Vacation Fun Day Edition

In celebration of reports that the ACE/ECC coaster trip in Japan has thus far been spoiled by rainouts at parks the tour group has visited, we present today a Very Special Episode of ARN&R. For the rest of the US, this is Labor Day; for ARN&R it shall be Special Soaking Wet Japan Vacation Fun Day. All throughout this magical holiday, we'll update you with the reams of breaking news that keeps pouring in to us regarding the ACE/ECC trip. Keep your eyes on our left sidebar for all the action as we report it.

And, most importantly, have a safe and festive Special Soaking Wet Japan Vacation Fun Day.

--JCK

Vekoma Sales Rep Dodges Enthusiasts

Lake Compounce is a beautiful park. Recently Vekoma Sales Representative Bennie Van Der Schlong was enjoying a relaxing day at the Kennywood-owned facility when two coaster enthusiasts, decked out in Beast and Son of Beast t-shirts, followed him in line. “I vasn’t quite sure vat they wanted,” noted Van Der Schlong, “but then I remembered I was wearing a Vekoma polo and sported a briefcase. Things could have gotten very ugly.”

Things, indeed, got very ugly when Van Der Schlong saw the faces of the two enthusiasts. Enthusiast Tim Simmons and his fugly wife Regina were standing in line for Boulderdash, two people behind the Dutch salesman, who noted that, “All I vanted to do was relax in the park with my meeting with the GM.” Like a vulture eyeing a carcass the enthusiasts crept closer, slowly inching their way to the loading platform where the restrictive line would be gone and they could get behind their sworn enemy -- a Vekoma salesman.

Seconds before confrontation a stroke of genius hit Van Der Schlong. “Vat I decided to do is ride in the second-to-last car,” said the crafty Dutchman. “I knew they vould not follow me into such an inferior seat.” The Cheese-Eater’s instincts served him well. Disgusted at the thought of riding anywhere but the back, the Simmonses moved to the rear of the train. They hoped to catch the sales guy on his way out, but as luck would have it they were on two different trains.

“I love stalking people, but I love the back seat more,” smiled Simmons in an ARN&R interview. “Best seat, best seat!”

--FMB

An Apology

Yesterday, we posted a SFNO piece poking fun at Six Flags marketing. When it was posted, it looked like the hurricane was going to be much less in terms of impact than it turned out to have, and then frankly we forgot about it being up on the site. We intended it to primarily make fun of Six Flags marketing but recognize that given how the situation has played out, it was a mistake to post it.

Our apologies.

ARN&R Hiatus Over

As you may have noticed from our article yesterday, ARN&R has begun the posting of articles again in earnest. That two-week hiatus we told you about is finally over, so your vigil can stop and you may feel free to resume your lives again.

Er...what's that? We didn't actually mention that we were going to be on hiatus for two weeks? Um...uh...well, we were so excited about our various trips and such that we kinda forgot. Sorry. Hope you found something else to pleasure yourselves viogrously to in the meantime.

Anyway, sorry to have left you in the lurch for a bit. We'll make it up to you with a bevy of England-themed humor for you in the upcoming weeks, as one of our correspondents is just about to return from a jaunt across the pond.

We thank our tens of loyal fans for their patience the past two weeks.

--JCK

Woman Can't Decide When Boyfriend Is Sexiest

Area woman Tory Abramowicz, 32, is in terrible quandary this week. Her problem? It's growing increasingly difficult for her to decide when her boyfriend is at his sexiest.

"He's always so awesome," she gushed to ARN&R. "But I just can't decide lately what makes him the hottest. Is it when he talks to me about how the ride experience might have differed on Hades if he'd ridden it at the convention with the tunnel lights on? Or maybe when he shows me those incomprehensible articles at ARN&R that he thinks are funny? Or when he notices slightly more braking than usual on something called the 'Montu midcourse brake' and shares that with me? Or even maybe it's when he can name some company that handled the trackwork on some coaster in New York without looking ashamed that he didn't have to look it up. Damn, he's a stud."

"Then again," she continued, "he might be at his sexiest when he does his fantasy football draft. I love it when he sits intensely at the computer for five hours and laughs out loud and calls his friends to make fun of allegedly stupid picks by other 'owners.' I can't wait til the actual season starts, so I can see him lounging on the couch all day drinking beer, watching football, and checking his so-called team's stats."

"Or," she added, after a moment's thought, "there's always the time he took me into New York to see the premiere of a Star Wars film. And then it's great when he quotes from Mystery Science Theater. And let's not forget the time he told me how Sauron was originally just the chief lieutenant of Morgoth before he became the main bad guy. He was so sexy every one of those times, I can't decide when he was the sexiest!"

"All I know is, I'm the luckiest girl on Earth," she concluded.

--JCK

Cover Bands to F*ckin' Rawk Six Flags New England

WCCC The Rock 106.9 presents the third annual Monsters of Mock Concert at Six Flags New England on Friday, July 8th, LIVE at the Typhoon Beach Stage. See three of the nation's top tribute bands tear it up! It's Metallica, U2 and Motley Crue all on one stage * sort of. We have the next best thing:

Featured performances by Wide Awake In America, a tribute to U2, Alcoholica, a tribute to Metallica, and Megahertz, a tribute to Motley Crue. WCCC and Coors Light will be hosting beach games with prizes.

Plan a day in the sun to ride the all-new Mr. Six's Pandemonium and check-out the Typhoon watercoaster in Hurricane Harbor. The Concert is free with your season pass or listen to The Rock 106.9 WCCC for more info and your chance to win your way in!

--The Six Flags New England Staff

[Editor's Note: One of our staff members at ARN&R received the preceding story, verbatim, in a bulk email from Six Flags New England. Our first thought was that it was just the usual stupid spam, but upon further reflection, we decided it was so funny that it simply had to be a satire submission from the park to us. We haven't had a theme park staff serve as a writer for ARN&R before, so welcome aboard, SFNE!]

Enthusiast Uncomfortable With Jump To "A-List" Status

"And just like that...poof...I was A-list," said Ferrari Albertina, pneumatic line manufacturer.

And so it began that faithful East Coaster. Albertina, who had lived a normal life of being a "high D, possibly low C-list" enthusiast was vaulted up in the eyes of fellow coaster geeks when he gave a 5 minute talk at the famous ACE wintertime gathering in beautiful downtown Allentown, Pennsylvania. "I just mentioned to Carol (the Lil' Kim of ACE) that I worked for a company that occasionally fabricated the pneumatic brake lines for Arrow and PTC. I don't know where things went so wrong," lamented Albertina. "Soon I was talking for five minutes about piping and all of the sudden I was a God to these things...er, people."

His friends said it was because he got stupid. Harvey Goldenblatt, self-proclaimed "Disney dork and Kosher enthusiast" said that Albertina simply got too full of himself. "Look, Ferrari did a great job of being low-key. He didn't let enthusiasts know what he did, he kept a low profile, hell, the boy hardly got laid -- that was dedication. But he f*cked it all up by presenting at East Coaster. His life as he knows it is over."

15 year-old Jared Diesel, webmaster of SuperUltimateRollerCoaster.com, echoed Goldenblatt's sentiments. "Yeah, Ferrari did a great job, as Snoop said, 'goin' Deep Cover,' but he screwed it up by presenting. He might as well pencil his ass in to presenting at East Coaster, Coaster Con, No Coaster and every other coaster event with food and no (or fugly) women."

We tracked down some of Albertina's RRC friends at Williams Grove. TimHi-8 and Shimmer said that the new darling of ACE should quit the coaster community. "He doesn't get laid as it is. I just think being a keynote speaker will only hurt my boy's chances of breaking off some ass," noted Shimmer.

All in all, Albertina is sorry he ventured north for that presentation. "Was it a little egotistical? Probably. But, in all honesty I had no idea random people would come up to me at parks and start 'rapping' with me about their favorite coasters. I just want it to stop. Please God, make it stop."

--FMB

Ed Alonzo Receives Slew of Awards

Ed Alonzo, the wacky, zany, and hysterically funny "Misfit of Magic" who spends his summers entertaining the masses with his live show at Valleyfair!, has recently brought acclaim to the amusement park by receiving a large number of coveted awards within a short span of time.

Last Friday, it was announced that Alonzo would be given a special Lifetime Achievement Award by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences at the 57th annual Emmy Awards this September. In a formal statement, the Academy noted that Alonzo's "decades of exceptional entertainment" led to his consideration for the award, but that his friendship with Screech, his compassion in being willing to be seen in public with the stupefyingly unfunny Gallagher, and his vaguely erotic "giving of tips" to David Copperfield were the three main factors that assured him of winning.

"Although it is unusual to announce such a prestigious honor this far before the actual ceremony," said an Academy spokeswoman, "we felt that this was a rare opportunity to have a performer showcase his brilliance at the actual ceremony. We therefore informed Mr. Alonzo of the award ahead of time so that he will have time to prepare a fantastic display of his magic and humor skills before billions of viewers on CBS."

The accolades continued to pour in on Wednesday, as the American Family Association named Alonzo as its Family-Friendly Entertainer of the Year. "Ed Alonzo is a true champion of family values," said a spokesman for the AFA. "While most amusement park shows are tawdry explorations of gayness, the degrading of conservative Caucasians, and preaching of non-Christian values, this particular show is perfectly appropriate for the whole family."

"We especially approved of the way the show handled women," he added. "For instance, in a show targeted directly to children, Mr. Alonzo referred to the hot babes who served as his assistants as 'holes' and 'pieces' at various times during his show, and had them clothed in tight Hooters shirts as the punchline to a joke. Demeaning women is very child-friendly and appropriate, as girls should learn their place at a young age instead of becoming uppity bitches who think they should be allowed to vote, or get a job at our offices without sucking my wang under the desk."

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, a third major award for Alonzo was announced earlier today: the ARN&R Site O' the Weak for the Ed Alonzo Scrapbook.

--JCK

Some Possible Beech Bend Coaster Names

We've been trying to help out the good folks at Beech Bend come up with a name for their new GCI coaster. A few possibilities:

Bubba's Revenge

Deliverance

Big Wooden Contraption over Yonder

The Grand Wizard

Wooden Thing I Did My Sister Under

Beech Bend Over Coaster

Billy Bob Thornton

The Pig F*cker

--CSB/FMB/GP/JCK

Runnin' With the Sandor

"KingdaKa. Kingda kaHA!" screams a young Karaoke front man at Bobrummels, the hang out spot in Shamokin, Pennsylvania. Locals have been puzzled by his weird interpretation of a Van Halen classic while friends of singer Josh Agner, 23, just find it annoying. "That stupid douche can't ride his roller coaster, so he re-wrote an entire song until it re-opens," moaned friend Tim Rogers.

"Panama," the Van Halen classic off of their 1984 album, was Agner's song template. As ARN&R's staff walked around the bar we heard him sing the first chorus:

"Don't you know its gonna open soon?!
It will never loose the speed.
I'll get a ride!

Kingda Ka, Kingda kaHA!
Kingda Ka, Kingda kaHA!"

Many of the regular truckers and lot lizards that frequent Bobrummels weren't impressed with Agner's rendition. 42 year-old skank Tina Jonstone said his version "sucked." She lamented, "Them boys in Van Halen got rid of David Lee Roth first and now I have to listen to this. What the hell is going on?"

After turning down Jonstone's offer of a five dollar Dutch Oven we grabbed another Old Milwaukee and talked to Agner's friends. They said that while he enjoyed Hydra at Dorney Park, his real love was the non-working, penis-shaped Intamin tower in Jackson, New Jersey. There was just something about the launch that made him hard, and made him write variations of Van Halen songs. At press time, he was reportedly writing a version of "Jump" based on a non-functioning S&S launch tower in an unnamed park.

As we walked out of the bar listening to that catchy tune we couldn't help but plug in our air guitars, strum a chord and pretend to beat that stupid enthusiast tool senseless with our imaginary Fender Strat.

--FMB

Author's Note: Shortly after this story was written Kingda Ka opened. Howewver, Josh Agner cannot afford to visit Six Flags Great Adventure because he spent so much money on Yuengling and Marlboro Reds during its closure.