Eunos Chump

Day 754. I have a new friend living with me, his name is Wilson and he's a box of Cheezits.  He doesn't like me watching Sponge Bob, he thinks it has no moral compass... he doesn't like me using the internet either, so I have to go now.

On Sunday we visited Kings Dominion, and there was a LOT of rollercoaster action. Best one there is the Intimidator 305 (that being the height in feet), it's a mile long and reaches 94 mph.  After the illness of Six Flags I was taking it easy and missing quite a few rides, but I went on this a couple of times.   Dominator was good too, if I was a nerd I'd mention it's the same model of B&M coaster as AT's Oblivion , though much longer and minus the freefall drop. Again, rollercoaster-enthusiast weirdos would tell you that Anaconda is a late model Arrow Dynamics Corkscrew.  It's quite long but with a painful full-stop part way through, feels like it was too intense and had to be tamed.  Pretty rough ride. There's some good wooden coasters too, such as  Rebel Yell which is 2 racing coasters, like the Grand National at Blackpool (really painfully rough).  I didn't do the others, apparently they're even tougher on the arse so I sat them out and had ...

Raf and I went to Six Flags last night, it's a chain of theme parks across the USA.  It's good, technically better roller coasters than those at Alton Towers, but the themeing, landscaping and general feel of the place is quite slapdash. It was a halloween night, so there were plenty of roaming zombies with chainsaws scaring people (so a lot like Kings Lynn) First we went on a wooden coaster built in 1917, which was as rough as you'd expect.  Next it was the 208' high Superman, the first hypercoaster I've been on... intense.  Lot of negative-G's, and a very long ride.  Then Batwing, the photo above.  If I'd seen this in daylight I doubt I'd have gone on it, it was the most extreme ride I've ever been on.  You sit in the car backwards, then the seats recline so you're laying on your back, and then... I don't know, I couldn't tell what was up or down beyond the first twist.  All I know is I was flung about and felt very, very ill afterward...

Check it out, I found it under the sofa. I'm considering hiring one of these for a weekend (convertible version, so ladies can enjoy my pretty English face), but the roads here are awful and sap all the joy of driving (I've been piloting our little Kia recently).  Get some roundabouts, America!.

I went to the new air and space museum near Dulles airport today  SR71 Blackbird; it was my favourite plane when I was a kid, 2200mph! Talk to me, Goose!  Every aircraft museum seems to have a Concorde now.  I liked the 707 prototype in the foreground better. It's a shuttle! shame it's only  Enterprise , which was launched from the top of a Boeing 747 for flight testing and never saw space.  Still impressive though, it's bloody enormous. Cabbage soup, in a tube; Soviet space grub. 128K computer, $1.9M in the late '60s and finally the mothership from Close Encounters of the Third Kind it's got a number of objects added which you couldn't see in the film, including a submarine, WW2 aircraft and R2D2

Can you guess where it is yet? No, not Bracknell Nor Wisbech... Not even Basingstoke.  It's DC, this is the Korean war monument. Apollo 11, encased in plastic, at the Smithsonian Air and Space museum The Watergate complex in the evening we went to a riverside bar with Matt's friends, who are local.  I had swordfish, I'm pretty much eating anything unusual I can find (you should see the contents of the fridge).  Then they drove us around the old part of Washington, and showed us the staircase from the Exorcist... I've not seen that film for years and can't remember this bit, but hey, here it is.

Hey, I'm visiting the Great Satan!  The climate is warmer and petrol is cheap... everything else is rubbish, I don't like it. We arrived at Washington Dulles on Monday via Bubbles , went Premium economy so it was pretty comfy with lots of snacks.  I tried to watch Thor, but it was too rubbish.  Then I tried Battlefield Los Angeles, and it was worse.  I ended up watching Fast & Furious 5 which was absolute tosh, but I had nothing better to do of course (I wasn't given any opportunity to drive the plane, how rude). After a lot of Blackberry-related trouble (we couldn't call each other or retrieve the emails containing the addresses, etc), we got to our apartments in the evening.  They're pretty plush, and you can see the office from the balcony: I've seen loads of interesting cars, I'll start getting some photos.  I like the new Beetle, and there are a lot of sleek Japanese coupes we don't get in the UK.  There are a LOT of Camaros around too, an...

I'm going to be in the USA for a few weeks so I've put the bike away in it's little hidey-hole.  It's had a clean and I've sprayed the bits that might corrode over winter with WD40 (because that ACF stuff is bloody expensive).  I have considered hiring a Harley when I'm out there for a weekend, it works out to be quite expensive though and there is an increased chance of coming to harm... maybe not a good idea. Coming up next: pigging out news, and complaints about TV/tea/crisps, etc.