A woody with a corkscrew?

"The sunburn." "One more butt lifter." Think we're short a few verbs in there. "Summertime." Even Gershwin knew to put a few more words after that word to make a sentence.

Actually, it isn't that bad an article. It's actually refreshing to read a sentence that states a simple fact. "Gates open." Most other journalists would use about 30 more words and 65 more syllables and I still wouldn't be sure what the gates are doing. It would have been much worse if he had kept writing "and then the coaster goes up, and then it goes down, and then..."

Thank God some government bureaucrat who gets paid by the word didn't write that, or we'd have no clue what they were writing about.

BTW, did anyone listen to the narration of the story? There's an audio link in the column to the right of the article.

Wow. I've ridden it 29 times, but never noticed the corkscrew...
Maybe they just added it.

When reading the article I got the impression the author was trying to achieve a sense of "being there" -- you know, the excitement as the gates open, waiting in line, going up the lift, and the ride experience. Short staccato-like sentences help create that.

Moosh gets it! I actually enjoyed the article, and I'm self-admittedly a HUGE stickler for good grammar. Sure, there are sentence fragments all over the place. It's stylistic writing. Like millrace said, it's not the greatest piece of literature ever written, but the style in which it's written is meant to create imagery. Works, IMO. The whole article's got a nice, light-hearted, day-dreamy feel to it. And why shouldn't it? Its subject is something we daydream about all the time. Right? :)

Or am I the only one who doesn't daydream in complete sentences...?

Think about it... the shape of a corkscrew is like a helix. Maybe the turnarounds go down slightly. Or maybe because we're enthusiasts we like to have all the details straight. :)

Aside from the article, go ride that thing. It's a ton of fun!

The article called it FL's tallest roller coaster. What is the writer smoking? Crack? FL's tallest coaster is at @BGT and IOA has at least one taller than DBH and counting Shiekra BGT has THREE coasters taller than DBH. BTW how is the back seat on the first drop lately? Is there a floater in the back with the long 30 passenger train?

Let's just be glad that the journalist isn't a ride inspector or even worse, a coaster designer. At least in jouralism, screw-ups don't affect peoples lives... unless you laugh until you pee your pants ;-()

Well said Annie and Pink Floyd Fanatic! That article made my day!

-Tina

Here's good journalism for you:

This morning on TV I heard a broadcaster talking about Game 7 of the NBA finals tonight. He excitedly said "this is the first game seven of an NBA championship series in history, since 1994."

So if history didn't start until 1994, what do we call those other few billion years?

We all know nothing exciting happened until 94'.

Everybodey knows that Raptor was the first important thing to happen..;)

Talking about idiot reporters...

After another quake last week, a 4.9 near Riverside, CA [about 100 miles east of LA] a reporter asked the CalTech official if "a tsunami warning would be issued?"

The official tried her best to be nice and answered back, "In order for a tsunami to occur the quake has to hit under the ocean. Given the location of this quake its highly unlikely any warning will be issued."

Gee...really? Duh! LOL ;)

mOOSH [posting from my hotel in Santa Fe, NM]

*** Edited 6/24/2005 5:13:17 PM UTC by Mamoosh***

^And we wonder how the facts get skewed when they are reported.

Buzzer(posting from work and jealous of Moosh;)

Facts? what do facts have to do with reporting a good story?

I am assuming his use of the term "butt lift" means what enthusiasts refer to as "air time".

The thing that got me here was can they do that to a wooden coaster. Make a corkscrew element. Just wondering considering that they have achieved the loop.

Yeah, swampfoxer, either that, or as near as I can tell, its what you get when your butt gets really flabby and you have your panis removed.

:)

Tekno: Did you mean "pants removed" or "penis removed?" ;)

Niether. Don't you know what a panis is? It isn't as perverted as you may think.