Author: XSA

Today we are at Cedar Point! Staying at the on property Hotel Breakers allows you to enter one hour early into the park. We chose to wait for Top Thrill 2… except it didn’t start running until after we left for a different ride because we gave up on it coming back up in time…

unfortunately, the “crown jewel” hotel is actually not all that luxurious

We were scheduled for thunderstorms at some point in the day, but rides were being taken down for wind constantly through-out the day. A bit unfortuante so our ride count for the day was quite… poor. Also, it’s a god damn Tuesday. Shouldn’t kids be in school right now? bugger off…

admittedly a lot sadder than what we accomplished at Kings Island

farmhouse chicken and grill. steak and cornbread casserole, then grilled chicken and potatoes

We ended up eating at the same place for lunch and ‘dinner’ given where we were at the park. The steak was moist and rare and the scent of the wood smoke used to cook it is the first thing you sniff when entering the building, so I opted for that first. Second time around we got the chicken drumsticks. You can see there’s a lot of herbs on it, which gives it a very refreshing flavor.

Siren’s Curse and Top Thrill 2 are the two new rides for us, since we were last here in 2024. I don’t think they crack the top 3 of Steel Vengeance / Maverick / Millennium Force, but the speed of shooting up the Top Thrill 2 Spike at 100+ mph is quite exhiliaring and I cant help but be laughing and giggling on the way down. Dropping down on Siren’s Curse’s tilt portion definitely has B&M Dive Coasters beat for dropping straight down, but the rest of it is just a ‘good’ regular coaster. A bit of a gimmick honestly, but still fun to ride.

is there a cute anime girl deep down in its soul?

They have a farm animal section where you can pet some animals like goats and pigs and cows and camels. It’s for kids though, and since time is of the essence we walked past it briskly.

There was a cool MIllennium Force station diorama in one of the stores. Here’s the picture I took of the train exiting from the 4th row. Very accurate!

storm warning approximately 3 minutes after this picture was taken

Towards park closing we were trying to spam Top Thrill 2, but they closed it off due to inclement weather. We were like “awwwwwwwwwwwwwww” but accepted that the day was otherwise productive and began walking home. Then gusts of 20-30 mph started rolling in with strong rains pouring down, so it was a defeat we had no choice but to take.

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

Now just chilling in the hotel. We’ll pack up our bags tonight and tackle day 2 of the park tomorrow and hopefully have better luck with crowds and the weather!

harold and kumar were here i think

For breakfast we visited White Castle! We don’t have any in California and I never bothered to try the frozen sliders they sell. The bread is nice and fluffy and the different fillings complement the bread well. I could see myself being a regular if we had them on the west coast.

Some sights from the top of Kings Island’s Eiffel tower. It makes the huge roller coasters look tiny!

For lunch we went back to Skyline Chili. My brother opted to get the 3-way again with the spaghetti, but I opted to diversify my portfolio with the two coney dogs. It’s about what I’d expect from a chili cheese dog. The large amount of cheese means that the top of the shredded cheese won’t actually melt since the dog itself isn’t hot enough to melt all of it, but I think it’s fine.

We were supposed to visit the Columus Zoo for the purpose of riding their two roller coasters, but they only operate the amusement attractions on the weekends. Since today is a Monday… Oops! You might also ask, why does a zoo have a roller coaster? Well, while you’re asking, maybe you can also ask Tobu Zoo, too…!

a random assortment of animals

The zoo also has a “Dinosaur Island Boat Ride” of dinosaur animatronics. Unfortunately, no, the dinosaurs aren’t alive. But it’s nice to see them just passively idling, instead of trying to chew your ride vehicle a la Universal Studio’s Jurassic Park.

a random assortment of dinosaurs

gas stations in Ohio have walk in refrigerators for beer. I’ve never seen this before.

For dinner we stopped by a place that is world famous for their Bologna Sandwich. It only costs $5.70 so it’s pretty cheap. It looks like someone just slapped the shit together and put it in a microwave, but it’s quite nice! Bologna is nice and juicy andd really makes what looks like lunch meat and bread something suitable to serve in a restaurant. I’m a fan, but admittedly, it’s pretty out of the way!

Checked in to our room at Hotel Breakers for a nice day at Cedar Point tomorrow. We came in 2022 with the intention to ride Top Thrill 2… but it would be shut down for the remainder of the season due to numerous issues they were having. We will ride it this time for sure!

i guess folks love their shredded cheese in cincinnati

For breakfast my brother picked a place that serves Goetta, a meat and grain mush that mixes ground meat and oats to make meat last longer by mixing it in with other stuff. Here we have it mixed in with cheese an an omelette, and in the details you can see the oats in the meat mix. The texture is interesting as you have the soft meat but the firm oats together. Worth a try for being historical to Cincinnati but I think we can pass on eating it again,

Our destination for the day is the American Sign Museum, dedicated to preserving signs! It goes through the history of signs and letterings and transitioning from sticking ordinary lightbulbs to make signs pop out and then movving to bending neon lights to add color to it. Most of it focuses on the periods from the 1930s-1960s, before conventional plastic signs starting taking over. A fun visit for sure.

Back to Kings Island to finish the rides we missed.

I have no idea what Barqs Red Creme Soda was a thing. It’s somewhat similar to Big Red, but with less emphasis on vanilla flavor. It’s alright.

Some beef dish for lunch. The name eludes me right now… I feel like this is more chili than Skyline Chili, honestly. It has peas and carrots and shit and not just meat and sauce.

My brother was noting how there are extremely few Asians in the area. While eating here we noted a real nihonjin family next to us visiting. How the hell can they afford travelling to America given the shit exchange rate…? Anyway hope they have fun!

Blue ice cream is a hot item here. There’s some history to do with it that I’m not sure of.

Here’s pizza from LaRosa’s Pizzeria. It’s supposed to be controversial due to the sauce being sweet, making it an acquired taste for locals, but we ate it and it was… normal pizza? Maybe we have to eat at an actual restaurant or something instead.

Some magnets to put up on my desk wall at work.

Now to order the rides by my preference. Probably not too much detail since you could go watch youtube about it or something.

#1: Orion. I didn’t like my first ride on it as it felt flat, but after additional rides it has great speed and floater air time. Sitting in the front is the best as you can feel the wind against your face as you pass through the course, something you can’t experience in any other row.

#2: Mystic Timbers. This is didn’t know a wooden coaster could have this much airtime, I initially didn’t like the lack of verticalityi n terms of overall up and down movement on the track, but I think it doesn’t need that with how much it lateral forces the quick bends have.

#3: The Beast. I think most of the ride is just ok-good, but the final double helix is what sets this apart from any other roller coaster. Do it in the dark and it’s just the howl of the coaster passing through and everyone screaming echoing off the walls while you’re thrown into the walls of the seat. Amazing!

#4: Diamondback. As a B&M Hyper in a park with a B&M Giga (the other two parks being Canada’s Wonderland and Carowinds), it can’t help but feel overshadowed now. It’s still a good coaster with more floater airtime than Orion (not necessarily better, just more).

#5: Banshee. I was just thinking this would be any old B&M invert, but since this one is relatively more modern it seems they’ve made the elements larger and more drawn out. With the elements being larger you spend more time on them such that you actually stay upside down or spinning through a roll for longer.

#6: The Racer. An original to the park duelling wooden coaster that has gotten some upgrades since it initially opened. Has surprisingly good speed and airtime hills for an old coaster, and seeing the other car whizz by to start and finish is always fun.

#7: The Bat. A Vekoma suspended coaster. I think it’s better then Ninja at Six Flags Magic Mountain, but I road that probably some time in 2018-2019, so I don’t remember it much. The way these things swing side to side is certainly unique.

#8: Invertigo. I never got to ride the one at California’s Great America as I was too young when I first went. It’s more smooth than a conventional boomerang and more intense as you get whipped through the vertical loop on the outside, rather than the inside.

#9: Flight of Fear. I much prefer Six Flags Fiesta Texas’s spaghetti bowl Poltergeist instead. While it’s cool in the dark, the train being jerky and the mid course break run kinda sours the ride.

#10: Snoopy’s Soapbox Express. A boomerang for kids! Actually has a decent amount of force, so not actually sure how appropriate this is for kids.

#11: Adventure Express. I’m not sold on the theming and it’s quite rough. Sorry!

#12: Queen City Stunt Coaster. There’s no effects. It’s… a roller coaster.

#13: Woodstock Express. It’s for kids.

#14: Woodstock’s Air Rail. It’s for kids.

i always message a friend who used to work at kroger anything kroger related. i wonder if he’s sick of it

Stopped by a kroger for fun. It’s always funny to see something sourced from California being put in a positive light when out of town. Last time I went to Toronto I saw a lot of billboards for LOCALLY CANADIAN GROWN produce. To me it’s like… does that mean it’s good or bad? Also it seems Red Creme Soda is actually a thing… and we were curious about the Graeter’s Skyline Chili ice cream flavor.

unfortunately, i did not start or witness a fight

A quick bite at Waffle House. It’s always been a piece of lore to me for all the fights that get recorded there or the use of the Waffle House Index for disaster preparedness. I’d probably summarize it as a no frills Denny’s – breakfast items, some items if you’re not in the mood for dinner. It’s a good and cheap place if you’re hungry at some odd hour of the night. We’ll see how the cold brew is tomorrow morning!

last night’s オカズ:

nuffin…

left the house at 02:30 to check our baggots in at 03:30 at the airport.

take that tsa precheck havers

grilled tocino, eggs, longanisa sausage, spam breakfast for $22. god bless san francisco.

this city is mile high

a nice view of downtown san francisco

thank you for your welcoming

I was hoping the water at Denver International Airport would taste good, since Coors Light advertisements like to shill that it uses real Rocky Mountain Water (not tm). It tasted pretty bad though. We used up our one-time United Club ™ passes. It’s ok, please don’t actually pay $50+ to chill in a club in an airport.

tfw I tell my coworkers I’m going to Ohio and they ask “….Ohio?”

snacks

well, where’s his island?

I’ll probably summarize my thoughts after another day there tomorrow. Great fun though! Initial thoughts are Orion being a little disappointing sitting in the 2nd row comparing it against Fury 325, but after getting additional rides in the back and getting more floater airtime on the hills I had a better impression of it. Racer is a really cute dueling wooden coaster that is better than it looks; Diamondback a decent B&M Mega with good floater but pales compared to Seaworld Orlando’s Mako, and Mystic Timbers probably one of the best GCI wooden coasters despite lacking the ‘verticality’ elements I like in other ones. The Beast I probably would have to flesh out in more detail later, but for something made in 1979 (though technically it’s had refurbishments this year!) is pretty damn good in present day!

how many ways do you need your chili?

We opted to eat Skyline Chili for dinner. It’s a chain local to this part of Ohio, though I would consider their chili to be more like a beef sauce than a chili, as I would expect a chili to not only contain ground beef but also stuff like kidney beans or simmered vegetables in it. This dish includes some spaghetti, chili, grilled cheese (the most popular “3-way”), and diced onions (making it a “4-way”). It’s not amazing, but it’s good! Maybe consider it a spin on spaghetti using chili instead of tomato sauce but with grilled cheese added to it.

My brother wanted to check out this local ice cream chain. Since they’re able to state Since 1870 on their logo, that mean’s it’s probably at least decent. I opted to have a waffle cone with Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip and Bourbon Ball. The chocolate chips are really big, since they made their ice cream batches individually. The bourbon ball also had a bunch of other little crunchy shits in it, but it’s not annoying to me like Rocky Road and it’s almonds. Very good!

Settled in to our hotel for the night. I haven’t played my mahjong game for the day yet as of 23:30 Eastern Daylight Time. But I can pretend I’m still on Pacific Daylight Time and say it’s 20:30, so I still have time…!? Luckily I’m not dead from only sleeping 3 hours.

last night’s オカズ:

[クレスタ (呉マサヒロ)] 女学校で男ひとりなので校則で性欲のはけ口にされる日常 2時限目

Finished up the 2nd half of this book. Think 呉マサヒロhas been one of the stronger artists for quite a while, though he’s moved on to mostly original books now.

Finished my annual performance self-review for work. I don’t like buttering myself up to others, but maybe I should do it to make a better case for my own performance. In an ideal world my actions should speak for themself… right? But sometimes I am lazy at work and maybe people might remember that more than the good stuff, so I should be careful for what I wish for. Haha

When I was packing I realized I didn’t have my dakimakura compression bag anymore. I think I threw it out after my last Japan trip since there was a hole in it somewhere causing it to decompress fairly quickly after sealing it up, but I forgot to buy a new one. So now I am just bringing my head pillow in my luggage. Since it’s the king size tall pillow it’s kinda close… so we’ll have to make do with what we got.

Also, in shocking news, I decided I’m not going to bring an onahole or オカズ to read for this trip! Main reason being I don’t really wanna whack off after a full day of walking around and being tired. Definitely out of character but we’ll see if this backfires spectacularly or not. whee

try stealing this luggage set while the there’s a guy with a cute anime girl shirt on nearby. i dare ya

Anyway, all packed and ready to go. Maybe bust a last one out before I take a nap and leave for the airport in 4 hours. (It’s 22:30 as of writing). cya