CoasterBuzz Podcast #180 posted

I've always wanted a shout out. lol

It's not taunting, Gonch. Carrie seems to understand. It's all in good fun.

I love that it's a "minor stabbing." Nothing to be concerned about, really. It's New York. To be expected.

Yep, adds to the ambiance. That's why I described it as minor!

I know what you mean about the facebook apps. What I couldn't tell from your conversation was whether or not you realized that you can block posts from specific apps without blocking a specific person. I participate in a few apps. But, I block the ones I don't participate in.

By the way, Zamperla Flying Coasters.

Yeah, I knew you could block apps, but I seem to recall they didn't have that feature available right away.

That could be. It took me a while to get on Facebook. Plus they keep changing it. So, it's hard to keep up sometimes.

• I wonder if people simply saw through the Bell's tax plan for what it was: properly executed, a lease arrangement will pay for itself and generate profit. The proper way for a government entity to finance that sort of transaction is with a bond issue, bonds to be repaid through the proceeds of the lease. What they were proposing is nothing more than a permanent, ultimately unrelated tax increase in that most hated of taxes, the sales tax.

• Dudley Do-Right does have lap bars that kind of go up and down and mostly just make it really awkward to get into and out of the boats. According to standards, restraints as we think about them are not actually required on anything until you get to certain levels of sustained acceleration, and even at that it is ultimately the designer's decision...every requirement in the standard says "unless otherwise indicated by the ride analysis."

• Facebook apps are annoying. More annoying than the ones that post updates to their users' pages (which can be blocked) are the ones that actually change the user's status message, which apparently cannot be blocked without blocking the user. (I'm looking at you, ChaserTV and UStream...) Am I the only one who wants to know what people are thinking and doing and want to share, but couldn't care less what those same people's browing habits are? "Look, I am watching this video" or "I'm visiting this web site" is right up there with the "I'm taking a dump" status updaters. On a related note--Jeff, I'm not really stalking you, it's just that your updates are more interesting than 80% of the other crap on Facebook. :)

• The Zamperla flying coasters are pretty awful, but I have to give them some credit: they are the only ones that really get the whole flying thing right. Their vehicle is on the right track, and the lift is really cool, but the ride action is kind of wasted with no real drops and barrel rolls that don't work very well. I've ridden the ones at Canada's Wonderland and Elitch Gardens, and was prevented from riding the one at Rye (AFTER I paid my ticket!!) because of the glasses thing.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.