Jar Of Eyeballs

Time to announce a few pointless new years resolutions. I’ll probably have forgotten most of them in a few weeks anyway. Here they are, in no particular order:

• Lose my holiday weight. I have gained about 3 kilograms the last few weeks! It will probably take me at least 2 months to get rid of those.
• Get at least two WoW characters to level 80.
• Not miss a single episode of Diggnation.
• Finally learn to play the guitar. This has been on this list for at least five years now, so I don’t expect this to happen.
• Actually finish a game I’m working on.
• Read at least five books.

I’m also gonna add that 2009 has been the most epic year of my life, for reasons I will not disclose here. I hope 2010 will be at least as kick ass as 2009 has been. A happy new year everybody!

I mentioned it in my tweets a few days ago already, so here’s the full story. Last saturday I went to Brussels with friends. First, we visited the Atomium. This monument is to Brussels what the Eiffel tower is to Paris. It was built in 1958 for the World Expo and represents an iron crystal magnified about 160 billion times. It consists of nine connected spheres. Six of them can be visited and contain an exhibition of the construction and Belgian comics of the 1950s. The top sphere has a restaurant and an very spectacular view of the city. A few years ago, the entire monument was renovated. The steel plating on the spheres was replaced with polished aluminium, making them very shiny. It holds a spot in Wired’s “100 geeky places to take your kids this summer” list, and is shown in Front 242’s video clip for Headhunter.

In the afteroon, we visited Mini Europe, a park full of scale models of European landmarks, wich was located right next to the Atomium. It’s a popular destination for school field trips, although I had never visited it myself. For example, here’s a shot of the Eiffel Tower, the Centre Pompidou, the Arc de Triomphe and Big Ben (with the Atomium in the background). Although the park wasn’t very big, it kept us busy for the rest of the day.

I visited another theme park yesterday: Movie Park Germany! A while ago I went to The Efteling in Holland. It was way too crowded that day and we spent more time waiting in line than on rides. Yesterday was much better. The weather wasn’t too great, wich means the park wasn’t really crowded. Also, unlike last time, we didn’t have to wait for the same jackass who was an hour too late like last time. Seriously, I hate people like that. When you agree to meet at the carpool parking at 8 am, make sure you’re there at 8 am, no excuse! Either show up on time or don’t show up at all!

The park itself was founded it 1995; back then it was called Warner Bros Movie World. A few years ago, it was sold to Star Parks and renamed Movie Park Germany. Unfortunately, this meant Warner Bros theme had to go. Rides based on any Warner Bros titles had to be closed or re-themed. Now, a large part of the park has a Nickelodeon theme and various Paramount themes.

We arrived shortly after the park opened at 10 am and started with a few gentle rollercoasters, without any loops or steep drops. After that, however, it was time for the more serious stuff. I got the biggest adrenalin rush from the Nigh Fall, a tower that drops you 60 meters. A ride that lasts only two seconds but gives you a thrill like no other.

Another great ride was the Crazy Surfer, a spinning disk on a half-pipe shaped rail. This particular one had an extra hill in the middle of the rail. Quite exciting, more than I expected. A girl in our group underestimated it a bit and even got sick on it; luckily, she didn’t vomit! I once almost vomited on a ride and it wasn’t exactly a fun experience.

But the main reason we went were the rollercoasters, of course. The one pictured here is the MP Express. An inverted coaster with about 5 or 6 inversions (it was hard to count them, there were two vertical loops and at least 3 corkscrews). This one gave me a bit of a headache. The corkscrews and quick turns shook my head around and banged it against the safety brace.

There was also a wooden coaster. Rides like this usually don’t have loops. They have lots of drops and hills instead, where you have lots of moments where you’re almost weightless. It was a very, very shaky ride, though. The corners weren’t exactly smooth.

There was also one type of coaster I’m never riding again in my life. It was a so-called “wild mouse coaster”. Rides like this have lots of very sharp turns that aren’t banked, so you get kicked around like hell every time it turns. Towards the end it plain and simply hurt! There’s nothing even remotely fun about this.

We sure picked the right day to go. Yesterday, it was open until 10 pm, and after 8 pm most visitors started to leave. We actually got to do the inverted coaster three times in a row. I sat at the end, front and middle to see the difference. Sitting at the end gives you the biggest drop, since the drop only starts when the train is over the top completely. Sitting in front gives you the best view. The middle doesn’t do anything special. Try to sit in front or in the back if you can.

Yesterday I went to The Efteling, a theme park in Holland. It has been years since the last time I visited one (I think I was 14 the last time). The Efteling is the biggest theme park in Holland, and one of the oldest in the world. It started in 1952 as a fairytale forest. Basically, it was just a park that contained scenes from all sorts of fairytales. For years, it was aimed mainly at children, but in the 1980’s the park started expanding into other age categories.

Probably still one of the most famous rides in the entire park is the Python, wich was one of the first steel rollercoasters in Europe. It’s not very big, and the entire ride lasts only about 20 seconds (not counting the initial climb uphill), but it’s pretty intense, and it does four loops in ten seconds (two vertical loops followed by a double corkscrew). Another famous - or rather infamous - ride is the Half Moon, a swinging ship. Until recently, it was the biggest ever built (the biggest one now is somewhere in Japan). It’s infamous because from time to time, people vomit on the person who’s unlucky enough to sit in front of them. I didn’t get on it this time (not enough time), but last time I did, I decided to sit all the way in the back because I didn’t want someone else’s stomach contents to hit me. Big mistake! At the ends of the ship, you swing much higher, and this one swung very, very high. I felt sick as hell when I got out of it.

The most recent addition to the park is the Flying Dutchman. A very long waiting line, but definitely worth it! It starts out as a boat ride in a tunnel. First, you go through a dark hall filled with fog, ending up near the bow of a ship. There, the boats come out of the water and it turns into a rollercoaster! You make a first descent into darkness, after wich you climb again and come to a stop. Then, you hear a ghostly voice say: “You shall sail into eternity”! Google the legend of the Flying Dutchman for an explanation of this, because I’m too lazy to do so. Next, a door in front of you swings open and you shoot outside. Although it doesn’t do any loops, it’s still an exciting ride. It goes through a tunnel, does a few bunny hops and takes a very sharp turn. At the end, the tracks go back into the water with a big splash. Technicians can adjust the barges to make the splash bigger or smaller. Since it wasn’t very hot yesterday, it wasn’t a very big splash and we all stayed dry for the most part.

There was also a wooden rollercoaster, but unfortunately we didn’t have time to ride it. The park was incredibly crowded. What we did do, though, was the Piranha, a rapid river ride with round rafts. We made a big mistake to save that ride for end, though, because I got soaked! Rides like that are more something for very hot days, but it was quite exctiting. Good thing I had a towel in my car, so I didn’t soak my seats too much on the way home!

A very exciting day, but too bad it was so crowded and we got there an hour after it opened (at 11 am). Good thing it was kept open a bit longer, until 7 pm (usual closing time is 6 pm). During the summer, it’s open from 10am until midnight one some days! Perhaps I’ll visit it again, so I can do all rollercoasters.

Efteling website