Fluffers Hired for Coaster Event
 
Anticipating hordes of coaster enthusiasts needing to be kept "excited and at the ready," the Western Washington Fair recently announced that it would be hiring fluffers for its time as host for the 2004 ACE Summer Con.
 
"This is grand news," said enthusiast Jacques Off, 26.  "Sometimes when lots of enthusiasts are waiting in line for their turn, you can lose some of your arousal about the coaster you're about to experience.  I'm always just pumped and ready to go for it at the beginning, but after running around to the station area a few times and then standing there a while, I can't keep up the same level of excitement that I really should.  I want to perform at the highest level an enthusiast can, and that's why I'm happy that I'll have a fluffer available to service me."
 
Other parks could not be reached for comment as to whether or not they, too, would be providing this helpful enthusiast service in the future.
 
--JCK

Enthusiast Ends Up Being Ugly American By Accident
 
Two United States coaster enthusiasts turned out to be Ugly Americans this past week, despite their best efforts.  According to Ben Gavel, 35, he and his friend, Don Timmerman, 37, had wanted to avoid this at all costs.
 
"We tried, we failed," said a despairing Gavel.
 
Claimed the enthusiast, "we did our best not to be typical jerk American tourists.  We both tried to study enough books on Spanish and German to make ourselves reasonably conversant and not make locals switch to English.  And we also read books on customs so we wouldn't insult anyone.  We were certain never to openly disparage anything and look like asses.  But then we ran into to trouble."
 
The trouble, according to Gavel, was when a raging thunderstorm hit Barcelona's Port Aventura, right as the pair of enthusiasts was waiting in line for Dragon Kahn, the park's signature looping coaster.
 
"We'd been waiting there patiently for a few minutes," he said.  "The rain was obviously not letting up for a while, but we figured we'd just stay there until it stopped and the ride got going again.  But then one of the ride ops said something extensive in Spanish and the gates opened.  We were like, huh, well, maybe they run it in the rain?  Heck, why not!  And we sat down.  That's when everyone started pointing and laughing, and the op had to angrily point for us to get off.  How awful.  How rude."
 
Apparently, the long-winded Spanish explanation was not a call to board the ride, but was the following: "We do not anticipate the ride opening for some time.  You may wait in the station as long as you choose, but we do not guarantee how long it will be.  We shall open the gates for you to walk through and leave via the exit ramp if you choose.  Thank you."
 
"We didn't know Spanish well enough to catch all that," said Gavel.  "Damn it!  We were tricked into being Ugly Americans!  Tricked, I tell you!"
 
--JCK

Feed Me Manflesh, Demands Shamu

Long a fixture of family fun at Sea World, the killer whale Shamu created quite a stir this week with his demand to have his diet of mackerel and squid supplemented with human flesh.

"I'm sick of this crap," noted the mighty Orca from his holding tank. "You splash around for four shows a day and then try to subsist on these stupid little fish and mollusks. They better set me up with the good shit. I won't perform again until Sea World agrees to provide me with succulent and tender manflesh at least once per week."

Shamu noted that he would prefer to dine upon full-sized men, but would probably be willing to compromise by feasting upon a bratty child each week, so long as the meat was "uniformly scrumptious and juicy."

At press time, Sea World employees had not officially responded to Shamu's demands; it is assumed that the park is calculating whether the loss of revenue from patrons not coming to the park due to Shamu's lack of performances would outweigh the loss of revenue from patrons not coming to the park due to the possibility that they might be fed to Shamu.

--JCK

Helpful Tips on How to Make a Crappy Site for Your Amusement Park

For the second day in a row, ARN&R presents an insightful discussion on a real-life issue. Yesterday it was the ACE elections, today it's how to make your official amusement park website absolutely as shitty as humanly possible!

Follow these tips and you, too, could make visitors erupt in scathing peals of laughter:

1) Make the design costs as cheap as possible. Give five bucks to some stoner working the counter at Little Ceaser's and tell him to slap some stuff together in under six minutes. Or, better yet, let your cat do it.

2) Don't put any useful information on your website. You don't want people to actually come visit the park and give you money, do you? Be sure not to list the hours of operation or the cost of ride tickets. (You may feel free, however, to list the group rates, as this will get the school group brats in to irritate ordinary patrons who decide to come even after viewing your useless website.)

3) We can't stress this enough, because it's the single most important step in making sure no one ever comes back to view your website ever again: please, please, please have a really obnoxious MIDI song blasting on each and every page. If a potential visitor fails to ram their fist or a nearby friend's head through the monitor within five seconds of reaching your home page, then you have failed miserably.

An excellent example of an amusmement park website that fulfills all these criteria to the fullest potential is the one for Sylvan Beach Amusement Park, our Site O' the Weak. Follow the example of this website, and soon, you, too, can be designing a really crummy website for your very own park!

--JCK

[Editor's Note: Another superb example of a terrible park site would, of course, be the Only in America website, though its failure to use a bad soundtrack leaves it just short of Sylvan Beach for this week's award.]

Courtney Love Accused Of Attacking Ninja

Los Angeles police this morning confirmed reports that Courtney Love was arrested on Friday at Six Flags Magic Mountain after attacking the park's inverted "Ninja" roller coaster. The attack reportedly occurred after the coaster failed to show Love what she termed "proper Ninja respect" and further refused her repeated requests that it "get all Ralph Macchio" on another park guest who observed that Love's recent solo album "blew chunks."

Love initially approached the coaster around noon and ceremoniously bowed to it in a manner based on the obscure Filipino martial art known as arnis, expecting the coaster to reciprocate with a formal Ninja bow. The coaster, however, simply continued to operate, entirely ignoring her entreaties to "Bow, you piece of sh*t!"

Things got worse when season pass holder Shawn Fanelli recognized the rocker while standing in line. Fanelli, who recently purchased Love's solo release "America's Sweetheart," yelled "Hey, Courtney! Your new album sucks ass! Guess you shouldn't have offed Kurt [Cobain]!"

Love, outraged, initially sought to attack Fanelli herself, but then remembered the terms of her bond from one of her many recent arrests. She instead urged Ninja to attack Fanelli in the mode of Karate Kid star Ralph Macchio "to protect [Love's] honor." Ninja again ignored her requests and continued to operate as a simple suspended coaster.

At that point, Love lost control and ran at Ninja's first car, screaming and flailing about, holding a broken bottle. She was struck by the car and instantly knocked unconscious, with over a dozen items of drug paraphernalia falling out of her pockets.

Love is scheduled to be arraigned later today.

Enthusiast Apprehensive About Relationship After Rye Playland Visit

According to sources close to Guy Walter, the longtime coaster enthusiast is "somewhat apprehensive" about the future status of the relationship he has with his current girlfriend, Shannon.

"Everything seemed to be going really well," Walter noted. "Shannon's really cute and bright, and she actually makes about eight times the amount of money I do, so maybe she could function as a sugar momma for my coaster trips. But then she agreed to visit Rye Playland with me, and things turned sour."

Apparently, Walter's daydream became a nightmare when the couple rode on the park's exceptionally modest coasters, the wooden Dragon and the Crazy Mouse.

"She was terrified of both of them," he wailed. "Utterly terrified! She had to sit on a bench, and she was shaking, and then she said she liked me a lot, but she'd never ride another coaster with me ever again."

"She was scared of a friggin' mouse!" Walter screamed out, after a moment of silence. "A mouse! Augh!"

Walter stated that the situation was still up in the air. "I was initially just sick to my stomach over the whole thing," he said. "But Shannon's pretty hot, and she puts up with my hobby, and, much more importantly, dropped the terms 'enthusiasses,' 'upstop wheels,' and 'tick rides' in conversation recently. I guess I'll probably keep her around."

--JCK

Cheney Blames Edwards For Lame-Ass BORG Name

In a strongly-worded statement, Vice President Dick Cheney today blamed Democratic VP candidate John Edwards for what Cheney called "the totally lame-ass name for [relocated Vekoma flyer] BORG Assimilator at Paramounts Carowinds" in Edwards's home states of North and South Carolina.

"The fuzzyheaded liberal thinking of trial lawyer John Edwards leads to the abandonment of just fine names like Stealth and selection of something called BORG Assimilator," said Cheney, gesturing wildly and cursing regularly. "Idiot punks like trial lawyer Edwards just love this sort of thing and probably threatened to sue Paramount if they didn't name it BORG Assimilator. Goddamn trial lawyers."

"Did I mention that he's a trial lawyer?" Cheney added later. "He can go f*ck himself."

Edwards, running his hands through his luxurious head of hair, denied Cheney's charges. "I didn't have anything to do with the theming, though I wish I had, since the theming is all part of making one America. What Mr. Cheney may not understand is that my father worked in a mill, and that, as the son of a mill owner, I resent the idea that theming this roller coaster to a television show popular among those who work in mills is a bad idea."

Enthusiast At National Fireworks Distracted

Long-time coaster enthusiast Martin Staples, traveling with a church youth group, braved rain and winds last night to attend the fireworks on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. While the magnificent display unfolded overhead, however, Staples could think of nothing other than the fact that, if the Smithsonian (much of which is located along the Mall) had a coaster, it would have had virtually no lines.

"Man, that would've been awesome," said Staples, who ended up watching only approximately a fifth of the display, spending most of his time jumping to look over the crowds at what he described as "potential lift hill sites" and "possible station locations" for an Intamin hypercoaster. "All these suckers would be watching the display and feeling a sense of national unity, and I would just be in airtime heaven. That would totally kick ass."

Staples has previously thought that Muir Woods National Park in northern California would have been better with a GCI twister and, just a few days ago while on the same trip, tried to determine whether a giant Top Scan would have fit inside the National Cathedral in northwest Washington.

Despite the resounding thrum of crickets chirping following the announcement of "The Big Coaster Showdown, part of Looney Coaster's Big Super Fun Summer Extravaganza," the administrator of this Roller Coaster Tycoon contest site has still not packed it in. This means that there's still plenty of time left to actually submit a design to the website, where you can reap the eternal glory and honor of being listed in the Hall of Fame and score with lots of hot chicks. It also means we've found our new Site O' the Weak.

Be sure to browse the rest of this amazing site as well...we're sure you won't mind most of the links being broken or going to a page directory instead of an actual home page. By the way, if you'd like to offer some free help to the administrator in the form of setting up his forums for him, since he's too lazy to figure out how to do it himself, then the offer is still open on the main page!

--JCK

[Editor's Note: As of this writing, the main page directory for this site lists exactly 13 hits, at least 4 of which came from an ARN&R writer doing research for this article. We're curious to see if anyone bothers to actually click on links we provide to our Sites O' the Weak, or if you just trust us that they're horrible and back slowly away, so if the counter reads in the millions by the time you get to it, you'll know the mighty power we wield.]

Cedar Point Feared The Worst Before Start of ACE Con

While it was once believed that California might someday break off into the Pacific Ocean, ARN&R has learned that that theory was feared to be an imminent reality for the peninsula that holds Cedar Point Amusement Park/Resort. Park officials called in civil engineers fearing that the worst might have come true.

The added weight on the peninsula during the recent ACE conference was a concern for park officials for some time. The resort and amusement park feared finding itself on an island in Lake Erie instead of being accessible by a narrow swath of land. During winter meetings, park officials had engineers look into the possibility. However, officials discovered serious concerns even before the first ACEr arrived.

Days before the convention, hundreds of 18-wheel refrigerated trailer trucks, used as temporary warehouses to house the additional food required to feed the attendees, made their way onto the peninsula to park for the event. The trucks alone added thousands of pounds of food to the peninsula.

"Your typical ACE member pounds down half-a-dozen chili dogs, four pounds of fries, two funnel cakes and a gallon of soda in an average meal," according to Carole Sanderson, president of ACE. "For the parks and their suppliers it's a difficult scenario, not to mention the possible geographical catastrophes."

Cedar Point estimates that food sales increased ten-fold during the conference, a logistics nightmare for the park.

"No park has the warehouse capacity to store that much food," said Jaris Colman, director of food services for Cedar Point. "Its been a huge problem for our suppliers too, who operated around the clock for weeks to get the required food to the park on-time."

"The weight of a quarter million dogs, half million pounds of fries and fifty tractor trailers full of chili takes its toll on the causeway and peninsula," said Colman. "At first we were simply concerned about the additional weight of the attendees, but the food alone came close to making our worst nightmare a reality."

While the park denies it, ARN&R has learned that land movement began to occur at least a week prior to the event. Off the record, one Cedar Point official admitted that the park flew in a crew from Southern California's famed CalTech to measure for seismic activity.

Sudden cracks in the causeway, a sink hole in the parking lot and flooding of The Breakers basement were just early indications of the possible troubles to come. Officials denied an inside report that the already-sinking Magnum XL-200 lost an additional 10 feet in the last week prior to the convention.

"By the time the ACE members arrived, we were afraid that Magnum might be an underground attraction," said a night shift security supervisor at the park. "We were all warned and an evacuation plan was in order should the causeway sink during the con."

Park officials banned any additional food trucks from crossing the causeway and requested a police presence to control any problems had they run out of chili dogs. ARN&R has been unable to confirm that Sandusky police used firehoses and rubber bullets on hordes of ACErs demanding additional cobbler.

"I can understand how things might get out of hand when the park ran out of dessert," said Sandusky police chief Daryl Gates. "I had to deal with the problems two years ago when the police officers rioted after the local Dunkin Donuts ran out of doughnuts. Lack of food makes people do things they wouldn't normally do."

Despite the park's fears, a complete collapse of the park into the lake was narrowly averted through the creative and extensive use of underwater scaffolding and bracing, with enormous steel girders being drilled directly into bedrock below the water. The efforts were barely noticed by the attendees, except for one enthusiast who promptly wrote Thrillride! with "confirmation" of a B&M underwater launched coaster for 2006.

--AFU