Andy Gapin

Last weekend I took a trip to Toronto with the girlfriend to see Evil Dead: The Musical again.

The drive up wasn’t too bad for the most part. We left about when I wanted to and would have gotten there right when I was planning despite stopping to get pizza and Rita’s and having my GPS decide that the best route was to go through downtown Scranton (leading to the adoption of the phrase “What the Scranton?!?”), except we got stuck in traffic for over an hour at the border to Canada. Once we got up to the booth, we went right through, but it felt like it took forever to get there.

By the time we got into Toronto and got checked in at the hotel, it was close to midnight so we just hit up a nearby bar for some greasy food and a few drinks…and photo hunt.

Saturday morning we got up and went down to the Distillery District to get breakfast. Unfortunately, it was a little early in the day to really check out the area so we walked around underground a bit instead.

We grabbed a very expensive dinner at the CN Tower, but it was pretty awesome. The food wasn’t the best that I’ve had, but the view is really amazing from up there. I had eaten there once before, but it was later at night when it was already dark out and we had a more inside table. This time we had a table right up against the window and it was still light out. It was really great.

The play itself was just as amazing the second time as it was when I saw it in NYC the first time. Ash was played by the same actor, but all of the others were different. The only actor that I didn’t like as much the second time was Cheryl (Ash’s sister). I didn’t feel that her singing was as good, but everyone else was really awesome.

Last time when I saw it, we sat in the fourth row which is just out of the “splash zone,” but this time I wasn’t having that that bloodless nonsense. We sat in the second row and got covered in blood. It was pretty awesome, but getting it all off was kind of a pain in the butt. I couldn’t even get it all off of my coat. It’s definitely going to need to take a trip to the dry cleaners. I probably should have showered before I went to bed because I woke up and the white case on my pillow had turned a nice blood red.

On the way back, we stopped at Niagara Falls for what I was planning to be a very short visit, but instead we stayed for a few hours. We took some pictures in front of the Falls, but really how long can you stare at a waterfall? So we went through a haunted house, played mini-golf, and got fudge, breakfast, and ice cream.

Getting through the border on the way back was a breeze which was much appreciated after all of the crap I had to go through to get a copy of my birth certificate so that I could get back into the country.

One of the best things about the whole trip was driving home and having a car behind me be a complete jerk, honking and flashing his lights for me to get out of his way when there was no where to go. When he finally was able to get around us, we were pretty ticked at him, but all was righted shortly after. A couple miles up the road, we saw cop lights go on and we both looked at each other and were like “no way, that’d be too good to actually happen.” Well, it did! It was great.

And here are the pictures…

This morning when I woke up, my legs were absolutely killing me! I couldn’t believe how bad they still hurt.

The line for the keynote was crazy! I got there at 6am (about 3 hours early) and there were already a couple thousand people there. From what people were saying, there must have been at least 10,000 people total trying to get in. It was kind of cold out and my legs were not very happy standing there for over three hours.

There was a dude walking around in a giant TiVo suit which looked pretty awkward because of how wide it was. He nearly took a few people out with it. There was also a mess of Ron Paul supporters walking around handing things out and holding up signs. One of them got interviewed by Molly Wood from CNet right in front of us. He seemed like he kind of weirded her out. I had no idea that she was so tall! Then there was a guy handing out free energy drinks. I was a little worried that I might die, but it’s been about three hours and I’m still alive. So I think I’m clear.

I didn’t make it into the actual room. We got into an overflow room with a projection screen of the keynote, but they didn’t let us in until like 20 minutes after it started. It was still pretty neat though.

The new MacBook Air looks pretty hot. I’m not usually into ultraportable notebooks, but with a decent sized screen and real keyboard, I could get into that. I can’t believe there’s a full computer in that thing! I also like the new AppleTV interface. I would consider buying one if they played my DIVX movies from my server.

Randy Newman’s performance was really good and pretty funny too. It was a nice way to end the keynote.

Last night, my legs hurt so bad that I didn’t really want to do anything else. We walked around for like an hour trying to find a place to eat. Not that there aren’t a ton, but we went in a bad direction to start and then had trouble deciding.

My camera stopped reading my memory card, so I had to swap the one from my phone into it which is pretty annoying.

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Yesterday I got to go to Six Flags America (Maryland) for $5 including food and parking. It was pretty awesome. The deal was through Lockheed Martin (I have a friend who works there that scored a bunch of tickets). They did a family day and bought out the park for the day so it was closed to the public. With very few exceptions, we were able to walk right on the rides we wanted to go on with no lines.

Being raised in New Jersey with Six Flags Great Adventure less than an hour away, I never ventured to any of their other parks. I was very pleasantly surprised and with having been to Great Adventure just one week prior, comparison is easy. Overall, the park seems smaller in land area than the Jersey one, but they pack stuff much closer together. It doesn’t seem like Six Flags America is quite as well kept as Great Adventure with things seeming slightly more run down and dirtier. Instead of there being cable cars to take visitors across the park, there is a train which is quite annoying if you’re on foot and have to wait for it to pass. Where Six Flags America beats Great Adventure is where it really counts, the rides themselves. Each roller coaster was very unique in what it offered instead of being the same thing as the last one you were on. At Great Adventure there isn’t really a lot of diversity among the coasters, they all kind of do the same or very similar things.

However, the coasters and attendants are much more painful at Six Flags America. I presume that many of the female attendants had recently been dumped by their boyfriends. When they walk by to check the restraints, they often used both hands to push down as hard as they can, as if giving CPR, and thus shattering the rider’s pelvic region.

Mind Eraser
We started the day off with the Mind Eraser. It’s a pretty decent coaster that flips you upside down five times and has a few corkscrewy things as well. It also has a pretty neat heart shaped thing going on with the track that you can see in the picture to the left.

When I got on the ride, the first thing that I noticed was the huge pads for your head on the shoulder restraints. Once the ride started I quickly found out why the pads were so huge. The method used to erase your mind is simply slamming your head side to side repeatedly for the entire length of the ride.

Roar
Roar was second for the day. This was one of two wooden coasters at the park. It also was the roughest coaster that I think I’ve ever been on and nearly compacted my spine. Riding this directly after the Mind Eraser left us all feeling like we had just been beaten up…a few times. The ride looked and felt like it was a few decades old and had suffered the normal warping that occurs with wooden coasters, but apparently the ride was only built in 1998. Overall, it was not all that impressive though I did see some very positive reviews for it online. There is a 200′ roofed section of the ride that is less like a tunnel and more like going through a shed.

The Wild One
After we ate, we went on The Wild One which we figured would be a nice way to start again after just eating. This ride actually has a very long history and originally opened in 1917. Despite being very old and having been moved from another park, it was quite smooth and very impressive. It felt extremely fast and towards the end there is a 450° helix which was one of the best parts of any coaster I’ve ever been on. The speed and g-force around it is pretty incredible. This helix is replicated to a degree on the Superman ride which we later went on.

This ride was made even better by the guy sitting in front of us. He was wearing a Gilligan hat and definitely was not too bright. Just as the coaster started down the initial drop, it started to blow off of his head. He reached up to grab it, but instead of taking it off and holding it in his hand for the rest of the ride, he just held the hat on his head. Part of the time, he had one hand on his head and the other up in the air and part of the time, he was holding both sides of the hat down. It was absolutely hilarious. We instantly burst into side splitting laughter that lasted well through the whole ride and popped up at various other times throughout the day.

Two-Face: The Flip Side
This was one of the most innovative coasters I’ve ever been on. Each car seats the rows back to back so the riders are facing the riders in front of them. This adds an amazing element of being able to see the faces of other riders throughout the ride.

The ride starts out by pulling you up the incline and then letting you go back down the way you came and through the loading area. Then you go up through some loops, back up another incline, and then down again through the whole thing in the other direction. Half the riders go backwards on the first pass and forwards on the way back while the other half are the other way around. It’s very neat.

When I rode it, we weren’t fortunate enough to have anyone facing us so that element was out. We went backwards first which was super intense. When the coaster went up the incline on the other side, we were left hanging facing straight down at the ground. That was probably the scariest part for me.

Joker’s Jinx
This coaster was just a mess to look at. The entire coaster is completely compacted on itself and looks as if the blueprints for building it were really just a bowl of spaghetti. The entire half mile of track only takes up about as much space as my bedroom. Looking at the ride is a complete mindfuck.

The ride starts you off with a 0-60 in ~3 seconds linear induction launch and then you get jumbled through the mess of track. Unfortunately, the launch and fear of decapitation are really the only good parts of the ride. Most of the time the train moves pretty slowly though everything then leaves you cooking in the sun for a few minutes while they load up the other train with riders.

Superman: Ride of Steel
This ride was pretty simple, but a whole lot of fun. It starts off with a big climb with a decent drop then goes into a couple humpbacks before
sending you through two opposing helices and then back through another couple humpbacks. The ride feels extremely fast, applies a nice amount of g-force through the helices, and the humpbacks hit you with that nice ejector-seat feeling.

The landscaping around the ride is a bit barren though. The ride is in the back of the park and feels like it’s just in someone’s backyard. There is absolutely nothing around it other than the Batwing which is even further back behind it, but at least near some trees.

The real gripe with this ride is the design of the restraints. The lapbar has a pole that comes between your legs and as man, this is very much less than ideal. Not only does the attendant destroy your chances of being a father when they check the bar, but the pressure against your crotch the entire time is very uncomfortable.

Batwing
This was the last ride that we went on for the day. It also was the only ride with a significant wait. We were in line over an hour for it and had considered giving up. It wasn’t so much that there were a lot of people in line, but it was that they were only using one train at a time and the loading process for each one took five to ten minutes.

The wait was well worth it though. It’s a flying style coaster much like Superman at Six Flags Great Adventure. I had never been on one before so I can’t compare it, but many of the reviews I’ve read say that it’s one of the best, if not the best, of this style. The coaster starts you off laying on your back and carries you up the incline like this with you staring up at the sky. Once you get to the top, it flips you over so you are hanging underneath with your stomach to the ground. You are whipped around some loops and curves and many times it feels like you’re going to fly off face first into the ground. It’s a very intense ride and was well worth the wait.

Yesterday I got to go to Six Flags America (Maryland) for $5 including food and parking. It was pretty awesome. The deal was through Lockheed Martin (I have a friend who works there that scored a bunch of tickets). They did a family day and bought out the park for the day so it was closed to the public. With very few exceptions, we were able to walk right on the rides we wanted to go on with no lines.

Being raised in New Jersey with Six Flags Great Adventure less than an hour away, I never ventured to any of their other parks. I was very pleasantly surprised and with having been to Great Adventure just one week prior, comparison is easy. Overall, the park seems smaller in land area than the Jersey one, but they pack stuff much closer together. It doesn’t seem like Six Flags America is quite as well kept as Great Adventure with things seeming slightly more run down and dirtier. Instead of there being cable cars to take visitors across the park, there is a train which is quite annoying if you’re on foot and have to wait for it to pass. Where Six Flags America beats Great Adventure is where it really counts, the rides themselves. Each roller coaster was very unique in what it offered instead of being the same thing as the last one you were on. At Great Adventure there isn’t really a lot of diversity among the coasters, they all kind of do the same or very similar things.

However, the coasters and attendants are much more painful at Six Flags America. I presume that many of the female attendants had recently been dumped by their boyfriends. When they walk by to check the restraints, they often used both hands to push down as hard as they can, as if giving CPR, and thus shattering the rider’s pelvic region.

Mind Eraser
We started the day off with the Mind Eraser. It’s a pretty decent coaster that flips you upside down five times and has a few corkscrewy things as well. It also has a pretty neat heart shaped thing going on with the track that you can see in the picture to the left.

When I got on the ride, the first thing that I noticed was the huge pads for your head on the shoulder restraints. Once the ride started I quickly found out why the pads were so huge. The method used to erase your mind is simply slamming your head side to side repeatedly for the entire length of the ride.

Roar
Roar was second for the day. This was one of two wooden coasters at the park. It also was the roughest coaster that I think I’ve ever been on and nearly compacted my spine. Riding this directly after the Mind Eraser left us all feeling like we had just been beaten up…a few times. The ride looked and felt like it was a few decades old and had suffered the normal warping that occurs with wooden coasters, but apparently the ride was only built in 1998. Overall, it was not all that impressive though I did see some very positive reviews for it online. There is a 200′ roofed section of the ride that is less like a tunnel and more like going through a shed.

The Wild One
After we ate, we went on The Wild One which we figured would be a nice way to start again after just eating. This ride actually has a very long history and originally opened in 1917. Despite being very old and having been moved from another park, it was quite smooth and very impressive. It felt extremely fast and towards the end there is a 450° helix which was one of the best parts of any coaster I’ve ever been on. The speed and g-force around it is pretty incredible. This helix is replicated to a degree on the Superman ride which we later went on.

This ride was made even better by the guy sitting in front of us. He was wearing a Gilligan hat and definitely was not too bright. Just as the coaster started down the initial drop, it started to blow off of his head. He reached up to grab it, but instead of taking it off and holding it in his hand for the rest of the ride, he just held the hat on his head. Part of the time, he had one hand on his head and the other up in the air and part of the time, he was holding both sides of the hat down. It was absolutely hilarious. We instantly burst into side splitting laughter that lasted well through the whole ride and popped up at various other times throughout the day.

Two-Face: The Flip Side
This was one of the most innovative coasters I’ve ever been on. Each car seats the rows back to back so the riders are facing the riders in front of them. This adds an amazing element of being able to see the faces of other riders throughout the ride.

The ride starts out by pulling you up the incline and then letting you go back down the way you came and through the loading area. Then you go up through some loops, back up another incline, and then down again through the whole thing in the other direction. Half the riders go backwards on the first pass and forwards on the way back while the other half are the other way around. It’s very neat.

When I rode it, we weren’t fortunate enough to have anyone facing us so that element was out. We went backwards first which was super intense. When the coaster went up the incline on the other side, we were left hanging facing straight down at the ground. That was probably the scariest part for me.

Joker’s Jinx
This coaster was just a mess to look at. The entire coaster is completely compacted on itself and looks as if the blueprints for building it were really just a bowl of spaghetti. The entire half mile of track only takes up about as much space as my bedroom. Looking at the ride is a complete mindfuck.

The ride starts you off with a 0-60 in ~3 seconds linear induction launch and then you get jumbled through the mess of track. Unfortunately, the launch and fear of decapitation are really the only good parts of the ride. Most of the time the train moves pretty slowly though everything then leaves you cooking in the sun for a few minutes while they load up the other train with riders.

Superman: Ride of Steel
This ride was pretty simple, but a whole lot of fun. It starts off with a big climb with a decent drop then goes into a couple humpbacks before
sending you through two opposing helices and then back through another couple humpbacks. The ride feels extremely fast, applies a nice amount of g-force through the helices, and the humpbacks hit you with that nice ejector-seat feeling.

The landscaping around the ride is a bit barren though. The ride is in the back of the park and feels like it’s just in someone’s backyard. There is absolutely nothing around it other than the Batwing which is even further back behind it, but at least near some trees.

The real gripe with this ride is the design of the restraints. The lapbar has a pole that comes between your legs and as man, this is very much less than ideal. Not only does the attendant destroy your chances of being a father when they check the bar, but the pressure against your crotch the entire time is very uncomfortable.

Batwing
This was the last ride that we went on for the day. It also was the only ride with a significant wait. We were in line over an hour for it and had considered giving up. It wasn’t so much that there were a lot of people in line, but it was that they were only using one train at a time and the loading process for each one took five to ten minutes.

The wait was well worth it though. It’s a flying style coaster much like Superman at Six Flags Great Adventure. I had never been on one before so I can’t compare it, but many of the reviews I’ve read say that it’s one of the best, if not the best, of this style. The coaster starts you off laying on your back and carries you up the incline like this with you staring up at the sky. Once you get to the top, it flips you over so you are hanging underneath with your stomach to the ground. You are whipped around some loops and curves and many times it feels like you’re going to fly off face first into the ground. It’s a very intense ride and was well worth the wait.

This was one of the best weekends I’ve had in a long time. It was just a lot of fun and a lot of awesome things…

Friday, I took a half day at work and then headed down to South Jersey to chill with a friend. I stopped by my parents’ house, like I always do when I’m down there, to say hi and break some news to them. What came out of this? Well, I found out that when my mom was pregnant with me, she was minutes away from having an abortion before my parents changed their mind. That was pretty interesting to find out. It sure makes you think though. For a second, I almost second guessed my pro-choice beliefs, but not quite.

I spent the night down there and woke up early on Saturday so we could take a day trip to Washington D.C. We decided to really pack the day full of stuff too. On the way down we stopped and had breakfast at a Sonic. None of us had ever been there before, but we’ve seen the commercials tons of times. For some reason, they advertise in places where they don’t actually have restaurants. The food was great. It was the best fast food I’ve ever had. I ate there at 10am and was completely satisfied for the entire day. I really didn’t need another meal after that. I had the breakfast burrito and hash browns. To drink, I had an apple cherry slushie which was pretty much the best drink I’ve ever had. And in addition to that, I got a soda, but I didn’t know what flavor I wanted so I asked the guy to surprise me. I figured he would have just given me a Coke with lime flavor or something simple, but nope, he concocted this crazy drink with about six different flavors in it. Excellent!

When we left Sonic we somehow managed to get lost in Delaware. How you get lost in a state that normally takes 15 minutes to drive though, I don’t know, but we did it. Eventually, we found our way out, which took us past Slaughter Rd., and made it to Washington D.C.

We parked pretty far away, but I don’t mind walking so it wasn’t too bad. We had only planned on going to the Air and Space museum, but we were able to get through it and see most of what we wanted pretty quickly so we went to the Natural History museum as well. Both were pretty awesome. I would have liked to take my time a little more and see some of the stuff that we skipped over, but we had planned to be on our way home by 5pm, so it was like a greatest hits version.

On the way back, we stopped at one of the 7-11s that they converted into a Kwik-E-Mart. Had I not had to pee so badly, I would have probably bought some stuff and enjoyed it a little more, but it was still pretty awesome.

Later that night, I went to another friend’s party which was chill and a lot of fun. In the morning, the same friend had some people over for breakfast which was eaten outside in the gayzebo and quite yummy. Then it was off to the radio station to get some work done.

All in all, it was good times with good people all weekend. I actually don’t care about the fact that tomorrow is Monday.

Anyway, check the slideshow. This whole post was really just made as an excuse to post the slideshow.