Coming Soon to a TV Near You

Microphone from RadioShack (batteries not included): $9.87

2 AA Batteries found in Dad's toolchest: $0.25 (Dad's an asshole)

Sticker made from home inkjet printer: $0.55

Look of suicidal desperation on Cedar Fair marketing executive's face (third down) when she realizes she has to pretend you're a "serious member of the press" as part of her job: Priceless (for ARN&R)

--MOS

Manhattan Express to Receive New Trains

Wild speculation has run rampant on the internet that the horrifically rough TOGO looper Manhattan Express, located on top of and around the New York, New York casino in Las Vegas, might soon be receiving new trains. ARN&R is happy to confirm these rumors as true, following a discussion with a completely untrustworthy source.

Manhattan Express will run as normal until this July 12th; at that point the coaster will be shut down for a period of approximately two weeks as the maintenance staff tests the new vehicles.

"Everyone thinks the Manhattan Express is a great ride with a great layout," said the source. "And its height and the interaction with the building make it a notable landmark on the Vegas skyline. However, the one complaint often made is that the trains are very rough and brutal, of the type that some call "headbangers" or "pieces of shit." New York, New York has listened to those complaints and will be introducing spectacular, far more comfortable trains very soon."

The chief problem with the current trains is with the restraint system, which tends to both compress the spine and box the ears of riders. No more with the soon-to-be-delivered trains. Instead of the unwieldy lapbars and shoulder restraints currently in use, the new vehicles will feature a space-age, ingenious new system. Passengers will be held in place by thick, unlubricated, fourteen-inch-long splintered wood poles thrust into their anuses, rusty fishhooks gigged through their ears, electrified clamps attached to their nipples, and rabid, starving Dobermans chomping on their wrists, legs, and testicles (where applicable).

Preliminary estimates by the casino suggest that the new, improved trains will result in a 55% reduction in complaints and a 34% increase in rerides compared to the old, more uncomfortable ones.

--JCK

Moron Can't Wait for IOA Ride to Open

Many fans of Universal's Islands of Adventure theme park have been overjoyed by news that the park's long-delayed Sylvester McMonkey McBean's Very Unusual Driving Machines family attraction will finally soon be opened to the public. However, few could possibly be as thrilled as area moron George Burnsides, 14, a junior high school student who enjoys spitting on people from elevated locations.

The Driving Machines, announced as one of the park's original Seuss Landing rides and constructed in time for IOA's grand opening, never took on passengers and remained unused for the past several years. In recent weeks, word has leaked that a new transportation system and vehicles had been designed for the attraction, which would open shortly as the High-In-The-Sky Seuss-Trolley-Train-Ride.

The ride may have changed names, it may have changed vehicle designs, and the track may now be constructed differently from how it was originally envisioned, but one thing hasn't changed: the fact that the ride is an excellent platform from which idiots can spit or discharge other bodily wastes on unsuspecting park guests below them. People like area moron George Burnsides, for example.

"I can't wait," said Burnsides, fairly vibrating with pleasure at the thought of spitting on people's heads and making a thorough jackass of himself. "There's nothing more fun than hocking a good loogie on someone, especially if you're high enough up that it achieves terminal velocity and makes that awesome splattering sound when it smacks into their head," he said, using sentence structure and words highly unlikely for a fourteen-year-old moron.

Burnsides added that he had been spitting at people for years, usually off bridges and out of balconies, occasionally off a coaster lift hill here and there, but that the new IOA ride would offer "incredible opportunities" for him to be a complete prick and douse people with his saliva, not to mention provide a relaxing and fun tour of most of Suess Landing. The moron noted that it would be "the best day of [his] life" if he were to discover that the ride traveled near any restaurants or food stands, since he could soil patrons' meals with his expectorate.

"It will be an immersive experience for everyone," he added. "I will be immersed in spectacular whimsical delights in the form of intense Sneech theming, while other guests will be immersed in my filthy and unsanitary bodily fluids."

--JCK

We're Not Dead Yet

As you may have noticed, we actually put an article up yesterday, and there will be more to come, at least until the next week like last one, where we are at work from 7:30AM to midnight every day. But at least we had you. In our time of annoyance and exhaustion, all your letters and cards of warm support and concern were the only thing that kept us going.

Wait a minute. There were no letters or cards of support or concern. In fact, there were no messages of any sort, not even an amusing, grammatically-suspect bit of hate mail. You uncaring pricks.

Fake French Protest PKI Opening

The changeable spring weather was notably calm for the start of the 2006 season at Ohio's largest (themed) amusement park - but the rhetoric was volatile. Over ten fake French natives turned out to protest last season's closure of "Le Patisserie Français."

Chants of "Starbuck doit disparaître!" and "Le goût de café comme la pisse de rat!" echoed from the fake Eiffel Tower as the protest's leader, Etienne Âne d'Grenouille, rasied a megaphone to address the sparse and puzzled crowd.

"Mesdames et messieurs, eet ees verr' sad day today for fake France!", exclaimed Âne d'Grenouille. "My fazzer, 'e 'elp beeld le fake Eiffel Tower. 'E raaaise us, 'ees cheeldren, to be tres bon fake French - and now, what ess 'appen? Zey close ze last 'ome of nateeve fake French culture, right een ze shadow of zis towairrr!"

M. Âne d'Grenouille then bemoaned the loss of traditional fake French foods, such as doughnuts labelled 'eclairs' and "le elephant ear". In a later interview, he reviewed the history of gradual deportation of fake Mexicans and fake Germans from International Street, and eventually the park, without protest from the patrons. He believes it is part of a pattern of homogenization driven by powerful multinational corporations at the expense of native culture. "Eff we do not now put down ourr feet wiz a shout of Non!, soon zis corporate octopus crush us all een hees - 'ow you say - testicles," he said.

Hikaru "Bull" Smythe, Paramount's King's Island's PR Chief disagrees. "Cheese-eatin' froggy talk like that'll get y'all a visit from homeland security, know what I mean?" he grumbled, petting his revolver. "They just got no idea of progress. When King's Island was opened in 1972, International Street had all kinds of European stuff - food, clothes, toys, whatever. Now in 2006, there's a bunch of Chinese stuff with American brands and a Starbucks - now, if that ain't just like Europe, I don't know what is!"

--PJS

Marineland Revisits Dragon Mountain Theming

Dragon Mountain, an Arrow four-inversion steel coaster located at Marineland, is one of the more unusual rides in existence. Part of the reason for its uniqueness is its sprawling layout, part is for some intriguing elements such as the dark tunnels and bowtie double inversion, and part is because of the bizarre unfinished theming that has permeated the area around the track since the coaster was first erected in 1983.

Some of the theming has always been in place, including the ominous carved entryway leading to a cavern containing the coaster's loading area. But other areas, primarily a massive volcano and a large recreation of nearby Niagara Falls, were never completed. Strangely enough, the decision to abandon these theming elements was made well into the ride's actual construction, so both large structures were partially built, but never brought close to fruition. Instead, passengers on Dragon Mountain have for years been treated to the gorgeous and inspiring sight of two huge piles of filthy, rusting steel that form the barely-begun volcano and waterfall.

ARN&R is pleased to report that Marineland has listened to the thousands of complaints it has received over the years, and has finally begun the long-awaited task of finishing the elaborate theming for this coaster. Soon visitors will not be faced with hideous, completely oxidized steel frameworks but with incredible scenery.

Of course, that scenery won't be exactly what people are expecting. Indeed, the park's managers felt that the original ideas had become overplayed and cliched in today's market, so they wanted to go for something more distinctive and original. With that in mind, the plans for a fiery volcano and roaring set of falls have been replaced with a fresh, creative, avant-garde interpretation, where the ugly metal supports are merely covered with a giant Hefty bag.

The new garbage-bag-enshrouded, corroded, collapsing metal is anticipated to be ready to entertain throngs of smiling visitors as soon as this weekend.

--JCK

Park Patron Educated by Pencil-Necked Geek

According to Midland-Odessa cow semen milker Billy Ron Hunt, he recently learned some interesting facts about Six Flags Texas during a visit to the theme park with some friends. Unexpectedly, the informative tidbits were gleaned not from park brochures or ride operators, but from a pencil-necked geek standing nearby in the massive queue for Titan.

"I was telling my buddies about how Titan was the tallest coaster in the world and this little nerd a few people away leaned over and said that I was wrong, and that the world's tallest coaster was actually at another Six Flags in New Jersey. Who woulda thunk it?"

But that was not all the education the group received from the dork. At various points during their wait for a ride on Titan, they were fortunate enough to have the geek lean in and correct their errant views about roller coasters. For instance, they were told in no uncertain terms that the Texas Giant was not the first roller coaster ever made, that the Flashback did not feature the most loops of any ride in the country, and that Mr. Freeze was not a ride worthy of consideration for top ten steel lists. The last bit of news was the most interesting to the group, as all four of them had Freeze ranked in their top three until learning from the nerd how stupid their coaster opinions were.

"It was real great having someone tell us all that stuff," said Hunt. "We never woulda known. It was so interesting that I still remembered most of what that guy said even after I kicked his ass."

--JCK

Yale Library Gets Surprisingly Low Marks

In a recent review by the Coalition of American Libraries, the libraries of Yale University were given a surprising thumbs down, as COAL derided the collection as "underwhelming" and "deficient in scholarly works in some important areas of modern research." The review came as more than a mild shock to the departmental heads at Yale's libraries, considering that the overall university collection ranks as the fourth largest in the United States (after only the Library of Congress, Harvard, and the Boston Public Library) and for decades has been acclaimed as one of the top scholarly research institutions in the world. So what led to the poor scores?

"Roller coasters," said COAL's Vice President of Academic Library Review P. Piers Woodhouse IV. "Or, should I say, the near complete lack thereof."

Woodhouse derided Yale for maintaining a roller coaster literature collection that consists of a mere two books, Robert Cartmell's Incredible Scream Machine and Todd Throgmorton's Roller Coasters. "The Cartmell book is a classic, and they do get some positive points for at least having that one," he said. "But to have such a woefully inadequate set of texts on coasters, and not a single Discovery Channel special or Robb Alvey onboard video in their media holdings, is truly pathetic."

"It amazes me how this university has squandered its ample library funds," Woodhouse added. "They have this utterly huge main library, Sterling Memorial, with fifteen floors of books, and entire massive branches devoted to the Divinity School, music, arts and architecture, science, and many other disciplines. There should be a completely separate branch to house a massive and world-renowned coaster-related collection, and they don't even devote a single shelf to one. Bah!"

Woodhouse also complained about the Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale, a translucent marble facility that houses valuable and fragile books, in particular two original Gutenberg bibles. "This just shows how little interest Yale is taking in a field as important and relevant as roller coaster research," he said. "To think that a special display would be made for anything created by the insipid star of Police Academy and Can't Stop the Music, while the works of David Bennett and Mark Wyatt lay ignored, is a travesty."

He also pointed out that although Yale is in "excellent shape" in "relatively obscure and unimportant areas" of its holdings, such as British literature, math, history, and political systems, it was unfortunately also "criminally deficient" in a number of other disciplines, including Star Trek novels, classic Dungeons & Dragons dungeon master guidebooks, Steven Seagal movies, and hardcore Japanese stroke mags.

COAL stated in its official criticism of Yale that the university would be given six months to substantially improve its insufficient collections or risk losing accreditation from the Coalition.

--JCK

Can't Let This Boo-Boo Go

Okay, we try to realize that reporters aren't always going to know a bunch of geeky coaster terminology, so we give them some leeway when they write about our hobby. Frankly, if we busted the media for not recognizing the difference between a suspended and inverted coaster, or got pouty because someone failed to report who did the trackwork on our favorite ride, it would just be silly. That's the enthusiast's job to worry about that stuff, and ARN&R's job to make fun of those enthusiasts. As long as reporters get somewhere in the correct ballpark, that's cool. After all, we don't tell the photojournalists what F-stop to use if cloudy but backlit conditions (though, now that we think about it, we actually could if we really felt like it and saw them doing it wrong), so why would we care if they make a distinction between a new ride's ejector versus floaty air and crap like that?

However, we've got to draw the line somewhere when it comes to media ignorance of our hobby, and that line is here, where a reprinted Washington Times article refers to Six Flags America's removed Iron Eagle flat ride/torture device as a "roller coaster." Please.

There's also the usual local media's fawning over Mark Shapiro as he grandstands at yet another Six Flags property, something of which we've grown extremely weary after the fortieth time. The combo is sufficiently grating enough to make this our Site O' the Weak.

--JCK

Thanks For Your Patience

To anyone who is actually still bothering to check for updates on a regular basis (we're thinking of you, Peter and Darryl, and probably no one else...), we thank you for your support. And even if you aren't bothering to check very often, we still appreciate your understanding and patience. It's been pretty insane at the ARN&R Towers of late, as we try to supplement our massive and lucrative ARN&R holdings with a bunch of other jobs (you know, for hot tub repairs and aggressive corporate takeovers and such). As certain of the editorial staff have been growing more accustomed to their new schedule of working over 24 hours a day, every day, rest assured (not "be rest assured," which is incorrect, is a pet peeve of ours, and makes you sound like a cretin if you say it that way) that article updates will soon begin flowing in, if not quite at the same frantic level of old, then at least with far better regularity than the past couple weeks.

Thanks again.

--JCK