mMmMm I have turned my brain into mushy pudding as I can’t work without checking my phone every 30 minutes! This is extremely unbefitting of a working professional so I better do something about it very soon! Ideas come to mind like writing down each time I grab it and what I check it for. That would be extremely embarassing to report and might make me reconsider checking it. aaaaaiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Talked to a former co-worker who wanted a refresher on ‘current topics’ for work for his interview, so I briefed him on topics I’d expect an ‘experienced hire’ to be proficient/knowledgeable in. Hope he gets the job?
why is my time zone in phoenix
I heard there’s gonna be free points tomorrow on table A! Hope I don’t lose too many…
uhh i went to work and caught up on e-mails and work and came home and cleaned my room up a bit (but not entirely) then watched some my teammate play in /mjg/ league 7 and then I got owned in tile game but notice how exercise is missing in those list of activities???? better fix it after eating so much on vacation!!!
I remember last time I came back from Japan I wish I could stay there forever. Luckily, I don’t feel the same way about Canada, so I had no problems wanting to come back home!
How have I been doing without logging into X for at least the last two weeks? I just check @avidseries because I’m racist, so doing pretty well. I’m finding politics and current events less interesting to check, so that’s a plus too! Now I just need to work on converting free time to useful activities…
i had a fantasy I’d do all of these waiting in line for roller coasters… haha…
Probably giving up IIDX for the short/medium term. Can’t fit in a few hours a week as I’m already behind on my other goals. ;_;
But it’s ok, I also didn’t do a lot of things in my life too! Like have a girlfriend or have 2277 skill level in runescape or complete a wow expansion with full pve epics or reach global elite in cs:go or reach master 1v1 in starcraft 2 or reach celestial in mahjong soul or reach 鳳凰 in 天鳳. but at least I have c*nny (:
ok early bird gets the worm! unless you don’t like worms. then you can stay up tonight.zzzzzzzzzz
Stopped by a Canadian grocery store. Not too much different, but I liked that they play sounds of chickens clucking near the eggs section. Very cute!
Here’s the re-assembled Leviathan train with test water dummies in it. Seat 1.4 (front row, seat 4) lap bar doesn’t lift all the way, so no humans allowed!
Last meal in Canadia. This french burger was fun with roast beef and brie added to it. Also, we noted that this Heinz ketchup was made in Canada instead of the USA. I couldn’t tell a difference though.
Going home… I read a chapter of manosaba on the plane and started crying at the end of it. It was messed up… I should finish the rest soon!
Thanks Daniel
home sweet home. it’s been 10 days of sleeping without a real daki ™. i have work tomorrow too. time to get back to real life. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Writing this on the morning of the 25th so I’m a little late. Oops
one last look from the expensive ass hotel room
how many pictures of niagara do you need?
Niagara Boat Cruise. A little cloudy and drizzly today, so visibility isn’t too good. When I came last time it was nice and sunny, so I could see a lot of rainbows against all of the water falling down. Still good to see it up close again.
mmm gimmicks
And we are back! The rain stopped a little bit after our cruise, and we noticed the roller coaster was testing as we were walking back to our car. The ride is entirely janky and rough with overly strong laterals on the turns, but you do get the illusion that you’ll fly off the building when the coaster rushes towards the edges.
A strawberry cheesecake beaver tail. I think it’s just ok, but my brother liked it more than I did as he likes how crunchy it is. I guess I like my things nice and soft.
A quick stop at Seabreeze Amusement Park. It’s a family oriented amusement park and the thirteenth oldest one in the world. The main highlight is their roller coaster Jack Rabbit, which is the oldest continuing operating roller coaster in the United States. For something built in 1920, it’s pretty good! While the park doesn’t have too much to offer in terms of overall thrills, it has a unique charm to it that I don’t feel at other parks, especially compared to…
Six Flags Darien Lake. This park is quite literally in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by mostly forests and farmland. Six Flags just operates the park on behalf of a separate REIT, so they don’t have any headliner roller coasters in their roster. That isn’t to say that they aren’t improving the park, but it’s somewhat backwater and rundown. We were able to get one ride on each roller coaster before the rain come in, so mission accomplished on our part.
The park has one joint offering Buffalo Wings, but since it’s really just a joint in a park, they’re just chicken wings and they were OK.
it’s ok, the place was named in the 1930s so Adolf is a-OK
We picked Adolf’s Old First Ward Tavern to get our taste of real Buffalo Wings and selected Salt and Vinegar and Smokey Mesquite for our flavors. We probably should have gotten one flavor as sauced wings as it ended up being quite dry, but the exterior wings are satisfyingly crispy. The blue cheese ‘dressing’ offered was extremely thick and had chunks of actual blue cheese in it, compared to a more liquid form of dressing that I’d normally expect, so eating that with the wings was really fun!
Time for one last rodeo at Canada’s Wonderland before we fly out. It was very cold and rainy on Saturday, so it ended up being that Leviathan and Behemoth, the parks two big coasters, had their cars valley and fail to make it through the course due to temperatures and wind. We were worried that the rides would be down for an extended period of time, but it looks like they were able to disassemble the trains to get them out of the way. let’s gooooooo
Hello I am writing from a fancy hotel at niagara falls past midnight!
it’s like mt. fuji: HoW mAnY pIcTuReS oF nIaGaRa FaLlS dO yOu NeEd
I would have balked at the price but my brother booked it without consulting me. I would definitely rather get a night of ryokan in Hakone over this. But, the view is nice, so maybe I can only say that after having seen it myself.
Anyway, let’s go back to the start of the day!
more breakfast slop. today we get these veggie egg things instead of just scrambled eggs
translation note: lait is french for milk
my brother cussed me out cause I told him these lights at night from our window weren’t from canada’s wonderland. now that the sun has risen… i lost
a peameal bacon sandwich from St. Lawrence Market. It’s a salty slice of pork with some additional breading. An interesting, salty taste but I don’t think I would need to have it again
oh noooooooooooo sportsball
A visit to the Hockey Hall of Fame! I started following the San Jose Sharks around the middle 2010s with my brother. Unfortunately, it has been mostly suffering, but our guy Joe Thornton was recently inducted. Also pictured are some decorative punch bowls, but I’ve seen those before.
umm…. we have japaneses steak at… Japan
A 5 oz steak at Kyoto Gyukatsudon! wait, you ate here… 5 months ago! idc dude. It’s yummy and it’d probably take me a very long time before I’d get sick of eating it. I wish we had one near my home instead of in Toronto. plz fix
(editor’s note: is switching between first person and whatever the fuck talking to myself is could be jarring to readers)
We were originally going to visit the local aquarium, but a Toronto BlueJays game was going on, so there was no chance of finding parking there! So we stopped by the mall instead and I picked up some Jinbei from the Muji there. Normally when you visit a Japanese hotel they’ll offer you these to wear as loungewear or within the hotel in place of you regular clothes, so now I can pretend to be a real 日本人 at home.
On the way to Niagara Falls we stopped by a Costco Wholesale. some things I noted:
Beef sold in the United States is listed by USDA grades, primarily prime for the highest cut and choice for the one below it. We don’t talk about anything below select. Here, we only get Canada AAA grade!
Rotisserie Chickens are $8.00 CAD, which, when translated back to USD, is about $5.00, which matches.
But the food court hot dog / POLISH SAUSAGEis only $1.50 CAD! which is $1.00 USD! bullshit man
Out of order chronologically, but the Montreal Smoked Meat Sandwich is pretty good. It’s like a roast beef sandich, but more peppery due to the montreal teak seasoning used to season the meat. At $5.00 USD, it’s better than the pastrami sandwich shit we have for sure. I would sleep on the chicken strips and fries though.
MILK COMES IN BAGS!!!! I WAS SO HAPPY TO SEE THIS I WAS GRINNING WALKING OUT HELL YEAH
They’re trying to pitch Mountain Dew as American Dew in the United States so it was jarring to see Mountain Dew in present day. I guess American Dew wouldn’t fly in Canada.
I would totally give these Maple Whiskey Ribbers a try.
what the fuck man this is not fair
its cute
Sodas don’t come with straws here! Just a sip lid.
Also, the deli ordering system works differently. In the United States, you order your item from the self-serve kiosk, then bring your receipt to the food court clerk to prepare and serve you your items. Instead, here you get a number assigned to your purchase receipt and then they yell out your number to pick up your order. Perhaps this way is more efficient.
While driving in the rainstorm we saw this Canadian flag ripped. pour one out for Canada, it’s over.
Here’s how the room looks like when I walked in. one whole ass chair just pointing out to the falls. nice
My brother is trying to get a ride on this frankencoaster on top of a Burger King. But it’s closed tonight due to rain, so we’ll try again tomorrow morning.
A carbonara pizza from Boston Pizza. Better than Pizza Pizza in quality and crisp bottom of the pizza, but it does cost more so it might be comparing the wrong thing here.
I think I’m uhh two days now without my own mahjong log review so oops bad habits die hard I guess
hotel breakfast slop. it’s nicer than the one in detroit, but this is a much bigger hotel
tipping on complimentary breakfast? these were left on every table
It’s an American tradition to play the Star-Spangled Banner at park opening, but they didn’t play O Canada for this park opening. How unpatriotic! EDIT 5/24/26: After internal discussion we noted that we were already in the park due to season passholder priveleges in advance of official opening at 10:00, so this is most likely incorrect as we would not have been able to hear the anthem at the opening gate because we were already deep in the park.
no, the white sauce is unfortunately not cinnamon roll frosting
Kebab with most likely yogurt sauce on it. Very middle-eastern-ey flavored. I’m a fan. Portion is a little small though.
couldn’t even print out a flavor sign for AlpenFury
Alpenfury flavored mini donuts. I’m not sure what raspberry has to do with AlpenFury though, since AlpenFury’s colors are like orange and blue.
Opted to have Manchurian Wok twice. Their Lo Mein noodles is better than their fried rice. I seem to be weak to “Chinese” breaded and fried shit tossed with sauce as I’m a sucker for Panda Express’s Orange Chicken. Their Honey Garlic Chicken is quite sweet and moist and can compare against Panda Express’s Orange Chicken. I’m a fan!
caught this guy redhanded shoplifting some noodles
the “daki” looks fine here… thank you jury rigging
Hotel pillows aren’t firm enough for my fat ass so I’ve settled on using my ‘head’ pillow as the actual head pillow and stuffing in two normal pillows as my daki. It ends up being disjointed anyway but I”m holding the first pillow with my arms and crossing my legs around the second pillow. so close enough. let’s fucking goooooooooooooo
i don’t normally eat potato chips on my own, but, when in Rome…
First stop today was this snack storefront for Better Made.. You can buy bags of chips for only $2! I think with shrinkflation these days an equivalent bag of Doritos or Lays or something would cost you like $4-5, so it’s good to shop local. I would note that the desk counter is heavily plexiglassed and the ‘clear box’ is for passing the purchased goods through from the cashier side to the customer, showing how rough Detroit is if a damn snack shop needs to fully seal off their store. Haven’t tried the chips yet so we’ll find out later! I picked our sour cream and onion, sweet bbq, and sweet maui onion.
how the hell do you come up with this shit
On the way in to Detroit we saw a billboard for Koegel’s and was wondering what it was. They make lunch meats! If I had to pick one to make a sandwich with, I’d pick Macaroni & Cheese Loaf. Olive Loaf will come in second.
cheese, pepperoni, mushrooms // hawaiian (cheese, ham, pineapple)
Our first Detroit pizza of the day is from Loui’s! It’s a more traditional take on Detroit Pizza. My frame of comparison is Slice House‘s Detroit style pizza, which I love for having a fluffy and pillowy pizza dough. I think the thing I like most about this pizza is that the cheese just keeps flowing out. Like, I’ll take a bite out of it and the cheese will ooze down out into the space created from me chewing off a piece from it.
For today’s activity, we visited the Henry Ford Museum of Innovation. It houses artifacts relating to American History, aviation, and cars. I don’t really know anything about aviation and cars, but as an American, I really like American History!
people had to draw the lines for your ruled paper! crazy!
hey bro
yeah, except my mahjong placement rate. jack that shit all the way up on the left side
weiners
the only dymaxion house. a really cool ‘tech bro’ concept but not at all practical
old school cute little girl
don’t let them tell you what the resolution is on those
shoulda handed translated copies of those out at hiroshima and nagasaki
yes, smoking is bad for you. choose a better vice instead, like cute anime girls
maybe one day my room will be in a museum too!
damn… i can’t use this either… tfw not white
lincoln’s chair when he got killed. I guess that’s his blood. but why isn’t this at the ford’s theater instead? they have a lincoln exhibit of their own. now I’m imaging fights between these museum societies arguing over who gets what artifact when something significant happens
please re-enact this. god bless america
real used bed by george washington!!!
old diner used as a present day diner.the old prices are cheaper on a nominal basis, but those price swings between each item are actually way bigger!
a replica of the first plane. thank you mr wright for now i can buy cunny goods because of your hard work
patron created cat quilt thing. i like it and honestly it is more artful than a lot of ‘modern art’
Second Detroit PIzza from Michigan and Trumbell. I seem to have not taken a picture of the second pizza we got. what the fuck. This one focuses on having a more ‘dense’ dough, rather than the fluffy and soft dough I’m looking for in a Detroit pizza, so not a big fan of it. It’s fine as a ‘normal’ pizza.
welcome to Canada
Technically there are Timmy Horton’s in the U.S. now. But it just seems wrong to go to one in the U.S. For me, it will always only be a Canada-only exclusive. It’s basically a dunkin donuts serving primarily pastries and coffee. But it looks like they also some some normal foods per the menu.
onroute, a portmanteau of ontario and enroute. probably.
These seem to be state sponsored rest stops along Ontario highways. They’re nice. My only complaint is…
99 cent bros…
You can’t sell cans of Arizona for that much! Even if you take it at USD, that’s $2.50 USD!!! It’s not allowed!!!
ok i goofed off a lot and i need to go to sleep bye
Since we ducked in to our hotel after park closing at 19:00 the night before, we hadn’t eaten anything after our last meal yesterday. S owe took a gander at the breakfast spot inthe hotel.
maybe i should have tried apple butter on toast
Some dish with tater tots and sausage, ham, and eggs covered in the sauce they use for country fried steak. I have no idea what the sauce is actually called though; I’d guess it’d be caled something like country sauce or country steak sauce or something. It’s probably a little bit too much for breakfast but the crunchy grilled meats and fried taters offers a good contrast against the creamy sauce and soft eggs.
thank you mr. walter knott
My brother was complaining that Cedar Fair overusing their Boysenberry goods in other parks diminishes the value of Knott’s Berry Farm, where the Boysenberry originates from. But if they have something special in their portfolio, I’d think they should take advantage of it. Boysenberry is a fun flavor though so I don’t mind them sticking it everywhere.
The park was rainy at opening, but settled down at around 11:00. The park ended up being less crowded today, presumably since one wouldn’t normally think about visiting an outdoor theme park if it’s cloudy and gloomy in the morning. So, perfect for us!
tfw I can smoke meat better than this. though maybe not at the quantity they do
Lunch is smoked barbecue sirloin, a hunk of cornbread, and baked beans. I liked the baked beans as it has a deep, bold flavor complemented by the beans, but the sirloin is sadly a dry husk and I needed to douse it in barbecue sauce to make it moist.
wildlife in its natural habitat
Some birds in the park. The goose below was hissing at me like it owns the place. I’ll have you know I’m a season pass holder, bitch! Then the little birds pecking at the cornbread was taken when I was eating lunch. I suppose a theme park is a good place to camp out since there’s water and food available freely. Just make sure you don’t build your nest under a noisy roller coaster.
like that one
moist meat plz
For the second meal I went back to ole’ faithful wood fired smoked steak. mMmMmMmMmMmMmMmMmMmmMmMMmm
what a cute horse! my horse won though, that’s why I’m taking the picture in front of it afterwards
My brother wanted to ride Cedar Downs Racing Derby for fun. It’s like a carousel alternative, but instead you’re pretending to ride a racing horse and the 4 horses in each ‘row’ alternate moving forward and backwards on the yellow slots. It’s a cute and fun ride, and apparently there are only two of these kinds of rides as a “racing carousel” in the United States! A rare opportunity indeed.
welcome to delicious
Took a pit stop at Culver’s on the way to detroit. A good smashburger plae and I ordered a side of Wisconsin cheese curds. These probably aren’t fresh though, but I don’t know when I’ll be in Wisconsin! Though I suppose I never knew when I’d ever be in Michigan, either.
So now I’m in the hotel at 12:07 falling asleep but I need to stay awake for the dryer cycle to finish for our laundry. Good thing I played mahjong earlier today already. So now let’s recap the rides at Cedar Point:
#1: Steel Vengeance. This is the longest RMC hybrid coaster, though I think Iron Gwazi has taken most of the other stats since it debuted in 2017. While it has less intense elements than Iron Gwazi, the total number of elements and sheer amount of time spent flying out of your seat makes this take the cake. I actually prefer riding this in the cold (today) vs in the hot as taking the elements slower means you aren’t having your thigh bones slammed into the seat forcefully, which actually starts to hurt after a while. But I can look past the pain to ride my 2nd best coaster.
#2: Maverick. I moved this up from #3 as I think I enjoy the launches and the sudden jerky turns more now after having ridden more roller coasters since 2024. Even though the listed height is only 90 feet, the launch itself down the hill ensures you are traversing through all the elements at a very high speed, so don’t underestimate it!
#3: Millenium Force. I previously had this at #2 in the park, conceding the spot to Maverick, but after riding other giga coasters since then (mainly Fury 325 and Orion) there’s more we can do with the speed I expect from a giga. Of course, we need to take into context that the ride is now 26 years old, but it’s still a very fun ride taking the large banked curves at 90 mph!
#4: Top Thrill 2. The ride I missed in 2024, and oh boy did I miss out on a lot. I thought riding giga coasters at 90 mph was blistering fats already, but being shot on the third launch up the spike at 100+ mph (its listed at 120 mph but that’s probably under the most ideal circumstances) is even crazier. I was even able to get lucky enough to get a front seat at the end of the day and the wind is even crazier against your face! I just start laughing about half-way up because the whole damn thing is so crazy. For the first few rides I was holding on to the handlebars going wtf after the third launch but by the end of the day I was comfortably and happily hands free. I have to concede that riding this is kinda better than wh*cking it to c*nny (in most circumstances)
#5: Siren’s Curse. The tilt mechanic is a gimmick, but it’s a good gimmick! Being held vertically facing down is cool, especially if you’re in the front seat, and the rest of the ride is silky smooth through its corkscrews and inversions. Main drawback for me would be the metal detectors before it like Steel Vengeance, and given the relatively decreased intensity I don’t think it’s warranted.
#6: Raptor. It’s an old B&M invert at this point but it doesn’t suffer from B&M rattle that affects some of its more modern coasters. Relatively long for a coaster with strong elements and good a forceful ending helix.
#7: GateKeeper. It’s the only B&M Wing Coaster that I’ve ridden. The swinging/rotating around the track is fun, and flying through the two keyholes is exciting! Unfortunately this one was only running one train when we visited this time, so we couldn’t stomach waiting 40 minutes for another ride…
#8: Valravn. I think B&M dive coasters are a little boring since you just swing around after the initial drop, but the elements are pretty big and I really like entering the twist at a slowre speed.
#9: Gemini. A really old dueling wooden coaster. It has some decent air time hills and good drops, but what makes this fun to ride is the dueling element of the track. Since each car enters the curves at different speeds, it provides opportunities during the duel for each car to pass each other. Though I think the understanding is that the blue car wins more often than the blue one.
#10: Magnum XL-200. It was not operating for this visit, but all I remember was it’s an OK ride and a little rough towards the end with the bunny hills.
#11: Iron Dragon. A Vekoma suspended coaster, but unfortunately not as good as The Bat at Kings Island. It just kinda meanders for the first half before doing more aggressive turns in the 2nd half.
#12: Wild Mouse. Didn’t stop by it this time but it’s more for kids. The seats will give you good laterals, but without a separate fast pass lane it’s a pass for us.
#13: Blue Streak. The oldest roller coaster at Cedar Point from 1964. A historical relic at this point but it doesn’t offer too much at this point.
#14: Corkscrew. I’m not a big fan of Arrow corkscrews since you spend the whole ride trying to brace tightly to withstand the corkscrew itself, but this one has historical significane I believe for being the first one.
#15: Cedar Creek Mine Ride. The only thing going for this is the pond the ride takes place in. Ride is janky and rough. But at least it’s not actually unpleasant like…
#16: Rougarou. This B&M floorless conversion actually sucks because it hurts if you don’t aggressively ride defensively and suffers from extreme rattle.There is absolutely no fun to be had on this ride.
The only thing I missed out on this time was the Lake Erie Railroad ride, which takes you through the inner sections of the park not accessible on foot and populated by skeleton animatronics living life in the wild west! The first time I rode it in 2024 there was a group of really excited girls yelling Boneville! Boneville! Boneville! for a majority of the ride, which helped to get me excited for it too.
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!
