Bar none, the weirdest theme park right now may be your own work cubicle...
Well, you might still remember the "World Craziest Roller Coasters" article that was on DRB some time ago, and with the recent economic meltdown, a visit to a theme park may not be of utmost importance (even almighty Disney is laying off park staff left and right...) However, remembering the good old times, and with hope for a better future for theme parks - here is a rundown of the most bizarre ones...
Is it really your fault that you're not amused any more?
"An amusement park on steroids, growing beyond all control, feeding on an unamused and increasingly terrified public. Increasing in complexity by the hour until it has developed a twisted kind of intelligence..." - (source)
Don't get me wrong, if a real "Jurassic Park" came into existence, I’d be the first to line up. However, there are some theme parks today that seem to have forsaken a simple fun factor and are trying very hard to get visitors... trying too hard, we might say:
(some ideas, provided by Photoshop masters at Worth1000
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1. Willy Wonka is outranked by "Hershey Park", Hershey, PA
Giant huggable candies wander freely in that real world chocolate fantasy... as kids marvel at the hot steamy kisses popping up here and there:
(photos courtesy of Hershey Entertainment & Resorts Company)
Sure, you can still find Harmony at this park, but it turns out to be a cow:
This theme park looks like it’s constantly under construction. A fantasy for almost every young boy (and some adults), as they can play in a larger-than-life sandbox with larger-than-life toys. Images of rambunctious eleven-year-olds at the helm of a 40-ton dump truck immediately come to mind, and YouTube videos of bulldozers spreading destruction everywhere - but the reality seems to be quite a lot tamer:
You can drive a police vehicle there, host a corporate event (some heavy bonding there), and even rent it for stag parties... let your imagination run wild, but we're not going to elaborate.
Diggerland is purpotedly going to expand this year, building a "Reddit-Land" addition, smaller but significantly more intense.
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3. Dubailand: twice the size of Walt Disney World in Florida.
Dubailand is currently in development stages (which threatens to become a permanent condition with recent Dubai economic woes), but if completed, it will be a giant theme park 3-billion (yes with a b) square foot complex.
The Great Dubai Wheel will be one of the biggest in the world (on the right is Dubai SnowDome):
On a Ferris Wheel - to the Stars!
Actually, Dubai ferris wheel is slated to be the second highest. The highest ferris wheel in the world will be a 200-meter structure in North Bud, Shanghai, China. Note, that it's not really a wheel - the pods are climbing up and down a strange-looking arc, not dissimilar to Star Trek logo - a coincidence?
Back to Dubai, not a small part of Dubailand will be a futuristic City of Arabia, complete with dinosaurs, monorail transport - all on Dubai patented steroids, of course:
The gateway to City of Arabia is the super-mall (of course) and biggest in the world (of course), threatened by a flock of dinosaurs:
Built, or not built, enjoy another view of a mirage in a desert (bottom image is a four arena Sports City):
The creators of Dickens World in Kent, England, promise a "dark, smoky, moody London, full of smells and mist". Steampunkers of the world, unite! Modern economy, though, may prove darker, smokier and moodier than anything these guys planned for...
Charles Dickens drab portrayals of the United Kingdom during the industrial revolution come to life at Dickensworld, resembling a Tim Burton movie set. Now the whole family can pay to be bothered by grifters, hussies, walkabouts and other choreographed nuisances.
Animatronic "ghosts" from A Christmas Carol, a boat ride featuring a trip to the depths of a London sewer... exccciting!... A Victorian School complete with nasty schoolmaster is also among attractions (Harry Potter Theme Park - soon to open in Orlando - may have nice competition overseas)
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5. Mukluk Land, Alaska
Hardly Alaska’s most unique destination, Mukluk Land nevertheless features exciting attractions like skee ball, mini-golf and large Alaskan cabbage.
Mukluk Land’s hit attraction is the world largest Mukluk, suspended between trees and adorned with white balls. There are also a few rusting snowmobiles - and a red wonder vehicle, of unknown origin:
6. "Fantazy Land" is not abandoned, although it should be
Situated in Alexandria, Egypt, Fantazy Land is plain dangerous to anybody who enters there. Adrenaline junkies should draw insurance before checking out these rides - rusted, partly demolished, and yet still in operation (entry fee is 1.50 pounds for locals, and 30 pounds for foreign tourists, take note)
Social ignorance runs strong at Pedro Land, where you’re in for a day of stereotypes, generalities and flamingos. Play a round of mini-golf at "The Golf of Mexico" and ride a glass elevator up the Sombrero Tower.
Limestone Heritage is a theme park dedicated to - you guessed it - limestone! Located in on the Island of Malta, this destination teaches children and adults the vast importance of this stone with wax figures and interesing historic vehicles on display:
9. Harry Potter franchise is running out of sequels. Time to build a theme park.
Coming in 2010, a billion dollar theme park will open within Universal Studios in Florida. Now readers and movie-goers of the Harry Potter mega-seller can leave Muggles behind and go explore Hogwarts for themselves. After a relaxing day of spending boatloads of money (conjuring them out of thin air, surely), enjoy a “Harry Burger” or have a glass of mead.
I like the tag line of this experience. "Let out your inner wizard!" Amen to that - he was peeking out from time to time, but now he can be properly unleashed in Orlando.
Vagabond Bible is an online travel webzine that was founded by three backpackers who are currently based out of Chicago. It features plenty of useful information for the seasoned or novice backpackers.
i go to uni in kent, which is located about 3 miles from their largest site, in addition that site is also right next to one of kents largest clubs and i think its definatly time for some night-time drunken exploring
it was a surprise to find the limestone heritage on this site since its not a theme park but an open air museum depicting the soft stone building traditions of Malta (i guess you have realised that im maltese! :) ) one though can try his or her hand at stone carving once you are at it.. :)
Pedro's south of the border is truly one of the saddest excuses for a theme park you could see. The ONLY reason to stop there is for fireworks, or to gas up your car... If you drive to NC on I-95 you cant miss it, its literally on the border between SC and NC
You forgot Disney's California Adventure. A theme park with such a bad theme and so poorly executed, that it is now being remodeled and expanded at the price tag of $1 billion.
i go to uni in kent, which is located about 3 miles from their largest site, in addition that site is also right next to one of kents largest clubs and i think its definatly time for some night-time drunken exploring
Thanks once again for a great post. The learned architectural comments highlight the decided similarities between Socialist and National Socialist art, and reinforce the insight that Nazism was in fact merely a heresy of Marxism.
A useful comparison would be to the neo-Imperialist architecture of the new 0bama displays, beginning with the faux-Roman structures at the Denver convention. Not much changes.
I enjoyed reading / watching your article, especially as a German. I really appreciate your neutral description of German history, maybe better than some contemporary German historians do. This helps the younger people to get distance to things my generation never dealt with. I don't forget history, but I live in present. Great contribution, thanks!
Great post!!! I like this site very much, it's very funny and informative. However, it's sad that such a great post just made the De Witt guy reinforce his wrong insights...
like the first comment says, One of the best articles last weeks.
about the Prora Rugen, There are plans to make it into a youth hostel. A dutch architect -Kempe Thill- has won a recent (2007) competition about "what to do with the building"
here is the site: http://www.atelierkempethill.com/0030.html
There remain huge debates as many classical buildings are still being pulled down as the unwanted "wrong kind of architecture" for a modern Germany.
The other invented architecture, Volk, has usually been assimilated, and the only alterations one usually sees is removal of various swastikas. Hitler's personal home, tea house, and other homes in the Volk style in Berchtesgaden on the Obersalzberg were destroyed during or immediately after the war. Most other buildings in this style were just reused and accepted.
I'd like to see another illustrated article on this invented architectural style.
Much of Prora has recently, (2008), been sold and condos seem to be in the structures future.
I'm happy to have given you all the opportunity to practice your condescension. I'm certain you have done sufficient research to refute my point, since you were proud enough of your opinions to post them anonymously ;-}.
I always wondered about Hitlers fascination of the Romans. He was obsessed with Nordic lore, but Roman architecture. It was the naked men sculptures, had to be.
Robert Hughes' "The Shock of the New" has a good discussion of totalitarian architecture, where he describes the pseudo-classical architecture as "totalitarian doric" and also observes that the buildings in the New York state government mall in Albany would like perfectly natural with hammer and sickle or swastika decorations. On a related note, the Beijing Olympic structures seem like a modern version of this.
Just goes to show that bad regimes can make good art and impressive architecture. It was ironic that everytime we saw a new concrete-and-steel box go up in our town... a school, or an office building, and we'd deride it as "communist looking". And yet when you compare postwar architecture of the US and the USSR, the Soviets were the ones making beautiful, impressive buildings, while it was we who were making the plain, soulless glass boxes. East Germany promoted that kind of Phillip Johnson asthetic, but the Russians knew how to make an impressive building (though often constructed poorly). I'll take the magnificent Moscow State University main building anyday over soul-sucking boxes like the Seagram Building.
The best comment ever made about our numbing modern architecture of the postwar years was made by Tom Wolfe, when he looked at the rows of plain, glass and steel boxes of Manhattan and called it the "Rue De Regret".
Lichterdom was - according to Speers son - one of the works he was most proud of. Actually it was a solution to a funny problem: Four groups of the armed forces were to parade: Army, Navy, Airforce and the 'Desk-force'. The latter were not so fit for parading - out of practice and out of shape. To hide this is it was decided to make the parade at night! But the decorations were made for daylight use and Speer came up with the idea of the unusual use of searchlights. Between 1 and 200 were needed and this covered the entire German searchlight reserve. Hitler had to be asked and was delighted: Our enemies will never believe, that we use all our reserves - off course we do it.
The pic of the 1937 is amazing considering it's context and time. I'd not seen it before. Thank you.
If you've not done an article on it yet, it would be interesting to compare the architecture of the same time between the Soviet Union and the US (Germany could be included). As an example, Moscow State U's building is remarkably similar to what was happening in lower Manhattan (and Rockefeller Center). http://www.panoramio.com/photo/13358802
Wonderful piece. Thankyou. Have added outgoing links back to here from a piece on Blather which touches on this: http://www.blather.net/globaleyes/archives/2009/01/welcome_to_the_game.html
I'm annoyed that the clearly superior side is labeled 'B' as thought it should come after 'A' in consideration. The janitor at my place of work also uses this obnoxious 'over the back' configuration, despite the many notes I have left him to rectify the situation.
true. configuration A isn't just unergonomic but more complicated to use as well. considering that there are some TP-holding constructions with a lid on top to help in tearing individual pieces off, configuration A is clearly not the one to prefer.
i would guess they are watchin a particulary painful stunt.
the reason i'm thinking this is because i recognise the faces. on the left the half face belongs to "Steve-O", the doggy i dont know, the guy with the missing tooth is Ehren McGhehey, the one in the lower right is Dave England and the quarter face behind Dave is Loomis Fall.
so i guess someone is breaking his own bones, slamming hard on the ground or doing some other pretty painful thing. =)
This site is Awesome I havitsaved as a Favorte, and stuble acros it on my searc nd end up spendin hours Here ! keep up the good work and don't use a wirelss keyboard as typos happen alot. the Wykeman
If anybody knew anything about anything, they would surely see the vast difference in sanitary properties of each choice. B is superior. Be keeps the paper away from touching the wall ( which is of questionable cleanliness). If you need proof that B is superior, make note that in better hotels, the roll is in the B position, and the first sheet neatly folded into a point.
The roll at all times should not touch any surface, so it stays sanitary. This would also insinuate, that any cat playtime with said roll would be a definite breach in sanitary condition....
"note that in better hotels, the roll is in the B position"
This is true, I worked at hotel and we had to place them in the B position. Most places I've worked which had public toilets also insist on the B position.
You don't want to know what happens if you put it in a A position in a public toilet... Some people have no coordination when wiping their behind.
Don't forget Jeff de Boer's amazing armor for cats and mice: http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2006/12/animal-armor-new-art-form.html?showComment=1167414420000
For the history minded, the longbow didn't do much against the French except goad them into a fight. The armor clad infantry were killed the old fashioned way: spears and clubs.
true. it wasn't the longbows that killed them. the terrain played a huge part in that conflict. First, there was a bottleneck in the terrain, so the French knights weren't able to gain from their advantage in numbers. Second, the area became very muddy, thus, the armor not only slowed the knights down, but the sheer weight prevented those that went down/slipped from standing up. In contrast, the lightly armored Englishmen had better mobility and were able to cut down the (horribly) advancing French knights.
@anonymoous: >chain mail did not make a difference, they did not carry you off they battlefield on a stretcher in the middle agess. what a muppet.
Of course. They just left their friends and brothers to die in the mud and the cold. Friendship and comraderie hadn't been invented yet, you know, in those days. /irony //just to be sure
Just wanted to say wow, what a great article! I am a medieval buff but never looked at the history of armor. Can not wait to share this with my friends.
There's nothing medieval at all about the first one with the face and eye-grills, and there are a large number of copies/fakes/fantasy in there but you've got lots of great originals too.
But as weapons got more sophisticated during this Middle Ages arms race, smiths had to keep up, making their suits stronger, lighter, and more flexible until they'd reached the pinnacle of defense as well as offense
Well, not so much. Suits got heavier as firearms came into popularity, until they were too heavy to be useful and still stop a bullet.
(Thus "bullet proof", from being tested (proofed) by being shot, and successfully stopping the bullet.)
Lighter armor is great against a thrusting weapon, assuming it can still stop it - but against a mass weapon or heavy impacts, heavier armor is more protective, as the mass of the armor will absorb impact.
(This is observed by modern re-enactors; one can use titanium armor to reduce weight, but it doesn't absorb impact force very well.)
Several photos here I've never seen before. I wasn't aware that Europeans ever created helmets made to emulate an actual face, but it seems they did. Interesting.
Early in the Hundred Year's War, longbows could easily take out a knight - provided he was within penetration range. At the beginning, this was anywhere from 50 to 200 yards, but towards the end of the war some armour became so heavy and strong that it was almost impossible to penetrate (aside from some weak sections such as the thin armour near the eye holes).
The French knights got scrooged over mostly because they were riding horses which had nowhere near enough armour to protect them from an arrow, especially not the incredibly damaging broadhead arrows which longbowmen carried especially for killing horses.
The horses would get hit, fall over. The knights, if they were lucky, would land safely and get on with the moving - but more often the knight would be hurt by the fall (he is in heavy, restrictive armour, after all).
The longbow, it gets so much love that it seems many people have forgotten that the English actually LOST the 100 years war and that means the French WON the war. Unbelievable? believe it ;)
What a great reference page, thanks for posting it!
Meanwhile, Jesper is right - a longbowman could really mess up an armor'd knight's (er) day, regardless of terrain and weather.
When folks such as Anon & raul talk about terrain acting as an advantage for longbowmen, they're usually thinking of Agincourt. True, the terrain at Agincourt was an undeniable advantage in that encounter, but it was by no means the only battle decided by longbows. Ask Harold of England in 1066... :)
William the Conquerer did not use longbows and except for an arrow in Harolds Eye did not decide the outcome (he was wounded by the arrow but killed by Norman knights). The first major use of massed longbow fire was at the battle of Flakirk, which so impressed the English King with the slaughter of the lightly armoured scottish clansmen that they became a large section of every English Army ever since.
There were nearly 10,000 English archers at Agincourt, if they each fired off 25 which is 1 quiver each thats a quarter of a million arrows.
Around 10,000 French were killed. I group which is dedicated to the study and reenactment of this battle told me that more french drowned in the mud after wounds than were killed by arrows and that the English Infantry slaughtered the majority of the rest.
Direct fire from Longbows is nasty but most english armies used showers of arrows which are much less effective against armor except against cavalry as it is almost impossible to give a horse the same protection as a man.
The French knights got scrooged over mostly because they were riding horses which had nowhere near enough armour to protect them from an arrow, especially not the incredibly damaging broadhead arrows which longbowmen carried especially for killing horses.
The writer is a buttnose for referring to the "ugliness" of that wooden car. It's always beautiful to see the realization of a person's vision, especially if you can appreciate it in its own right, instead of comparing it to something else.
"Fred Smilek is the acting president of the Society to Save Endangered Species. It was founded two years ago by Fred Smilek along with his two best friends Charles and Jonathan. http://www.fredjsmilek.com"
nice buddy...... it's an excellent collection of latest cars and i have got many of the my favourite cars wallpapers from ur site but as u know there is always room for the betterment as no body is cent percent perfect
Hey, I'm the Paula Wirth mentioned above... Although I took the photo of the lego car, I am not the owner or artist of the car... but they must be very cool, indeed.
I've felt that I'm simply overwhelmed by the sheer amount of authors these days, and lately taken refuge among classic litterature. This little wonder might just help me on my way getting into contemporary stuff once again.
I have to point out that I read my first Vance Aandhal story in F&SF in 1964 or 1965. If I recall correctly, it was "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed"(from a Whitman poem). He pretty much disappeared not long after that.
"painted over by Brazillian street artists from Sao Paolo, Nina and Nunca Os Gemeos (completed in June 2007)"
Minor correction here...Nunca and Os Gemeos are 3 different people, Gemeos just always paint as a pair. Awesome story though..might have missed this otherwise
A much more "Authentic" experience would include having the street "Artists" SHOOT at any disapproving spectators! Looks great now, but the paint will probably wash off soon, in that rainy Scottish weather!
really stupid. hey - lets go graffitti up the pyramids, or the taj mahal, or other historical buildings, monuments. And I am saying this as an artist. I so agree with Zajac - it is a colorful piece of &&&&**^ Historical places should not be 'raped' by such things. Historical places should be preserved and treasured. Graffiti should be left for the bus terminals, abandoned buildings, or designated fences and other projects, where it doesn't ruin the landscape and cover up beauty.
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15 Comments:
Very cool post!
Thanks!
That girl in the first picture for "construction land" looks like she's having the time of her life.
I can't believe it. You missed the best one - Loveland - the sex theme park on Jeju-do in South Korea.
interesting list of theme parks. I wil be checking out Disney world in a few months, hope its as good as people say it is.
Its really great photos and their description. Nice job done
i go to uni in kent, which is located about 3 miles from their largest site, in addition that site is also right next to one of kents largest clubs and i think its definatly time for some night-time drunken exploring
it was a surprise to find the limestone heritage on this site since its not a theme park but an open air museum depicting the soft stone building traditions of Malta (i guess you have realised that im maltese! :) ) one though can try his or her hand at stone carving once you are at it.. :)
Pedro's south of the border is truly one of the saddest excuses for a theme park you could see. The ONLY reason to stop there is for fireworks, or to gas up your car... If you drive to NC on I-95 you cant miss it, its literally on the border between SC and NC
The big chocolate character looks weird...
Wow, that airplane propeller ride looks like fun!
You forgot Disney's California Adventure. A theme park with such a bad theme and so poorly executed, that it is now being remodeled and expanded at the price tag of $1 billion.
awsoem! I want to go to them all just for the sheer weirdness of it all
Wall, SD would fit on this list...
i go to uni in kent, which is located about 3 miles from their largest site, in addition that site is also right next to one of kents largest clubs and i think its definatly time for some night-time drunken exploring
Hmm...House on the Rock should be here!
It's the most amazing!!!
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