thomaskdye

This week in my humor blog: a double dose of comic strip plot recaps, some useless home advice, and my dentist gets all clingy. Want to know more? Follow any of these links and you will.

• MiSTed: FX Down To Mobius, Part 4: Host Sketch
• What's Going On In Flash Gordon? Did Ming and Bok get atom-grenade-blasted? December 2025 - February 2026
• Statistics Saturday: Some Things You Ought Not Run Through The Washing Machine
• Robert Benchley: ``Name, Please?''
• Read to the End for the Most Blandly Shocking Revelation
• What's Going On In Mary Worth? What With the Pompous Axx? November 2025 - February 2026
• Keep on Smiling?
• MiSTed: FX Down To Mobius, Part 5: Freddy Gets a Message

Let's see if we can't finish that tour of Six Flags America historical panels and the grammatical problems count.

2014, they add the thing that one goes to a theme park in one of the Thirteen Colonies: a Mardis Gras section. No grammatical problems here but the Bourbon Street Fireball was a Larson Giant Loop and while there are people who call that a coaster we do not invite them to stay for dinner. Eight grammatical problems out of 13.

2016, they impose virtual reality on Superman: Ride of Steel. I'm dinging this for grammar because the phrasing suggests they had a virtual reality experience on Holiday In The Park, and also suggests that the virtual reality roller coaster ran five years. I can't find how long the virtual reality coaster lasted but I'm going to bet not that long. Nine problem panels out of 14.

2017: that elevated swings ride appears. Ten problem panels out of 15, as the sentence about The Wild One's centennial [nb] is a muddle.

2021: Delay from 2020, you say? And Spinsanity too the place of Dare Devil Dive, huh? Eleven problem panels out of 16.

And finally, 2024, the final panel in the park's historical parade, and we return to our old friend, the wrong it's. The tally stands at twelve problem panels out of 17.

There's no grammatical errors here, just a picture including a guy who looks uncannily like one of bunnyhugger's relatives, enough that we texted them to tease about this.

Back to SteamTown. We wanted to get on that weird ride you can see behind the enormous tree, but if I remember right, there weren't any operators around just then.

They apparently had Old West gunfighting shows! But not when we visited.

So back to the carousel, for some more pictures of glossy animals with numbers that suggest some of these mounts have been moved around.

Rhino looks like the sun is just too much for them.

There isn't a full rounding board but there are tiger heads disappointed in you.

There's also elephants who wonder how long this is going to go on.

Trivia: 112 people (athletes, officials, and spectators) received fractures or broken bones while maneuvering on the snow (over fifty inches!) at the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics. Source: Encyclopedia of the Modern Olympic Movement, Editors John E Findling, Kimberly D Pelle.

Currently Reading: The Red Planet: A Natural History of Mars, Simon Morden.

Still not really up to starting the Motor City story but a little exasperating moment today as we got back to normal.

After several instances of having the mail held and them just ... not ... delivering the held mail at the end, I've started checking the box that I want them to keep the mail at the post office where I will pick it up. So this afternoon after work I drove from the office to the post office, gave them my name and address, and stood back to wait and hear how this went wrong.

The clerk --- the same one I had to ask last week why the post office hates us when they just lost a priority mail envelope bunnyhugger had sent from there (it was delivered two days later without ever being scanned at any point ever) --- disappeared for somewhere between ten minutes and all the time in the world before coming back to say there wasn't any mail for us there. Not a bit.

I pointed out that the Informed Delivery e-mail had pictures of stuff we were supposed to be getting, Friday and Saturday and today. And they had dropped a package off on our doorstep Friday, when they were supposed to be holding letters and packages for me to pick up. He couldn't explain where our mail had gone and I just gave up and went outside and yelled at the building. I figured to go home and print out both the receipt from my mail hold request and every single Informed Delivery e-mail so they could know just what to look for.

Of course, it was all dropped off in our mailbox at home, along with a letter for two houses down that we keep getting mail for because the letter carrier apparently can't tell our numbers apart.

I do not know why the post office wants me angry with them but fine, they've got it.

Venture with me now into Steam Town, at Six Flags America.

What could be more steampunk than carp who're harassed by people tossing coins in the fountain? Yes, carp with top hats and those geared monocles harassed by people tossing farthings in.

The artificial waterfall uses the same technology our backyard pond does, only theirs is bigger. Same problem with the rocks not covering the plastic cover though.

We didn't go in to the Filaments Steampub, but considered it. I kind of like the name.

But here's the roller coaster we went there to ride, Professor Screamore's SkyWinder.

Do you recognize it? ... Because it's another installation of the same track we know as Thunderhawk at Michigan's Adventure, Flight Deck at Canada's Wonderland, Infusion at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, and Mind Eraser and a half-dozen Six Flags parks.

The climb up to the station took you right up to the woods, though.

On the station was this defunct(?) zeppelin prop.

Here's the operator's station and a couple people wondering why I'm photographing them.

The place had a big cafeteria where we got some pop and rested from the sun (and, later, from a shower) and it had a wall with a lot of posters to explain the park's history.

So yes, the park started out as a project of Ross Perot and ABC, and it strikes me as very close to the drive-through safari that made Great Adventure, in New Jersey, which also opened in 1974.

By 1982 and 1983 the park had reached the point they weren't able to tell the difference between ``its'' and ``it's''. But just wait!

Four panels in and three of them have used the wrong it's, which does great things to leave you confident they're giving an accurate history of the park. The coaster's original incarnation at Paragon Park does appear to have been the tallest in the world at its opening, which adds to our tally of coasters that were world's tallest coasters at the time they opened (this, Montaña Rusa, Top Thrill Dragster/Top Thrill 2, Kingda Ka, and in the category of wooden coasters Mean Streak and, for bunnyhugger, American Eagle and Son of Beast) since Wikipedia considers the category established in 1917. (I think records of earlier coasters are too incomplete to say what was the tallest before this.)

Trivia: Italy raised money for building the complex for the 1956 Cortina d'Ampezzo Winter Games in part by the football pool Toto Calcio; a fifth of the revenue from these bets on Italian soccer matches went directly to the Italian Olympic Committee. Source: Encyclopedia of the Modern Olympic Movement, Editors John E Findling, Kimberly D Pelle.

Currently Reading: The Red Planet: A Natural History of Mars, Simon Morden.

More of the 1st of July, Six Flags America, Maryland.

Back of the station for Roar, with the train roaring past behind the operator.

A photo opportunity for Spanish-speaking friends who support the message ``Yes Flags''.

As a (legacy) Six Flags park, they hd a Gotham City-themed area which results in things like this attempt to be a funnel cake stand but all DARK and BROODY because my PARENTS were KILLED. It was closed when we visited although note they were hoping to open later in the year.

Joker's Jinx is one of the rides put in when Six Flags bought the park. It had some funhouse mirrors out front, and a bit of similar theming inside the queue.

The Joker looming over the canopy here makes me wonder if the covering is a later addition, maybe to relieve the sun beating down on people in line. You can't get an unobstructed view of him but that could also be part of the wackiness of it, you know ?

Walking up the queue; there's some more mirrors and things to look at such as this.

I forget which ride this was on, but you can see some of Joker's Jinx in the background. It's your classic spaghetti-bowl track.

Whistlestop Park didn't actually have anything there, but the place looked like it had once held a couple of rides, and it seemed like it might have once been a stop on the railroad.

Skull mountain that's a part of one ride and that The Wild One ran behind.

Some of the length of The Wild One behind, with the launch hill for Firebird in the foreground.

The station for Firebird, which was the only roller coaster we found specific merchandise for. The ride was only about a dozen years old --- only Rajun Cajun was newer at the park --- and had once been a stand-up coaster, which has always been rare --- but it still seems weird they'd have merch for that and not for The Wild One.

Looking out from the front of the Firebird queue; you can see The Wild One outside it.

Trivia: At the 1932 Lake Placid games the (men's) speed-skating was for the first time done in a pack of all skaters going at once, rather than every competitor racing against the clock individually. After American victories in some of the early events, European skaters protested to the International Skating Union, which upheld the protest and required the races to be re-run, individually. The Americans won those races too. Source: Encyclopedia of the Modern Olympic Movement, Editors John E Findling, Kimberly D Pelle. But the entry for the 1932 Lake Placid games says that saw ``the emergence of women's speed skating as an Olympic sport''. This is what happens when different people write different articles! (Maybe it was an exhibition?)

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 84: A Man in a Moon, Ralph Stein, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.

Yeah so I got stuff going on. Explaining What's Going On In Flash Gordon? Did Ming and Bok get atom-grenade-blasted? December 2025 - February 2026 for example. But also real-life stuff you'll hear about starting next week, so here, please enjoy a dozen pictures closing out our first, short day at Six Flags America. When last seen we were on the Minuteman Motors Antique Car ride.

Another Minuteman Motors sign, for the Great Race Garage. Great Race was the former name for this attraction, but the ``since 1999'' doesn't make sense as Wikipedia tells me it had opened in 1993.

Running through the forest again, getting back to the station.

It was a grove of bamboo here.

The normal swings ride was called The Flying Carousel, which got bunnyhugger very curious what was so special about it. The ride operators having a lot of fun with their passengers was part of it; they had lively, interactive operators every time we were nearby.

The clock tower was off by several hours and several minutes every time we went past. This picture was from a little past the closing hour of seven pm. Also --- wait a minute. Computer, enhance.

Ye Olde Digital Clock? Really?

Park was closed so we got some views up the main midway again. Fine Furniture seems an unlikely thing to sell at an amusement park but I guess if it works for them, hey.

Funny thing about home style funnel cakes is I have never made a funnel cake at home and have never known anyone who said they did.

Here we're a little more on point, for one of the gift shops.

And here's their Liberty Bell replica, crack side forward. It doesn't look like they copied the text around the top of the Bell.

Curious. You claim to be Six Flags America but I see eight flags, three of them American.

The exit would be funny any normal year but is a little heartbreaking for the park's last year.

Trivia: Jacques Rogge, eighth president of the International Olympic Committee, was on the Belgian national champion yachting team sixteen times. He was also world champion once and runner-up twice. Source: Encyclopedia of the Modern Olympic Movement, Editors John E Findling, Kimberly D Pelle.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 84: A Man in a Moon, Ralph Stein, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.

Monday I went to again donate platelets and, since they asked, what the heck. Plasma too. In filling out the RapidPass ahead of time to save me answering a bunch of health questions you're supposed to answer ``No'', I realized I automatically blipped past one that I could no longer truthfully do that for. They ask if you've ever had a cancer diagnosis and as of the waning days of December ...

I did go back and correct the question, but wondered how this would change the donation. When I got to the screening they checked my arms and blood pressure and pulse and hemoglobin and all that, and checked my ID and that my address would be valid for the next eight weeks and as always I said, I sure hope so. They scanned the QR code of my RapidPass and asked if anything about my health had changed since I last donated and I told them. Diagnosis of prostate cancer, I'm not on any treatments yet, so, no medications or anything that might get into some recipient's bloodstream.

The intake nurse had to check about what this implied, and after a few minutes came back with someone else who seemed more experienced. On some discussion and trying out different options on the computer they gave me the verdict. I'm deferred, until at minimum February of 2027, barring some change in Red Cross blood-donation guidelines.

The ``at minimum'' is because it's really until twelve months after I'm certified cancer-free. As we're right now just waiting to see what happens for a year, that implies that even if there's full remission (however that would be demonstrated) it won't be until at least 2028 that I can donate again. It feels weird to be not just not donating but to have an expectation for at least two years that I can't.

Also weird is that after explaining the deferral to me, they finished up the last couple of questions, despite their irrelevance. They did offer that I could help myself to the refreshments table, but I felt like that would just be a stranger feeling than I was up for.

So there I am, until something changes.

Shortly after the change last June where I became someone with 300 roller coaster rides, at Six Flags America, I took these photographs, mostly of The Wild One on which I logged my 300th ride:

The lift hill of The Wild One, with some ice cream of the future past underneath it all. You can see the lovely main drop too, there.

And here's the return leg including a late hill and then where the track turns to a helix (lost, and then rebuilt decades later, part of what makes The Wild One's historic identity so questionable).

Walking towards the next section of the park brought us past this fountain, and you can see the fenced-off walkway behind it, evidence of a ride and a park link no longer there.

But here's the view of the lift hill from the tunnel underneath.

And that's the view of a tunnel underneath the track from near the fountain.

The crest of the lift hill and start of the return leg from the near side of the park.

Trivia: Before his election to President of the International Olympic Committee, Michael Morris, Lord Killanin, headed the 1967 commission that judged that South Africa violated the requirement to provide equal treatment and facilities for all athletes regardless of race, religion, or nationality. Despite this, the IOC invited South Africa to the 1968 Mexico City games. Source: Encyclopedia of the Modern Olympic Movement, Editors John E Findling, Kimberly D Pelle. The text makes it sound like Morris was doing his best to make an Olympics where all people were welcome, only for the three under his tenure --- 1972 (with the Munich shooting and then Avery Brundage shooting his mouth off), 1976 (with Taiwan refusing to compete since China was invited, with African nations demanding New Zealand be kicked out because of rugby players playing in South Africa, and with Ukranian demonstrators protesting the Soviet Union), and then 1980 (US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance demanding the Moscow games be cancelled at the opening of the Winter Olympics, and then the boycott afterward) --- to not give him a moment's peace. On the other hand, book says Morris directed The Quiet Man (1952) with John Ford and, uh, not to hear IMDB tell it.

Currently Reading: Some comic books.

So last night we settled down to watch The Flophouse's live FlopTV stream when I saw something running on the rug in the living room, and I called it out: ``Mouse!'' One of our pet mice was running loose.

What had happend was the mice were running one of their wheels and it was squeaking just this small persistent bit. Rather than listen to that noise through the event, or take the time to oil it, bunnyhugger grabbed the wheel out of the mouse's bin and set it on the floor, and told the mice she'd make it up to them later. It was a couple moments after that I saw the mouse running around.

I got up maybe faster than was wise and tried to catch the mouse. In this I was a little helped that the mouse was surely confused as all heck about what was going on, and also carefully exploring and retracing her steps to the one thing she was sure existed, the running wheel, so she wasn't making distance as fast as she could. bunnyhugger --- who at first thought I was talking about a wild mouse that had got into our house --- told me to throw something over the mouse, which yeah, was the right way to catch her. The only thing I could find was the Christmas tree skirt that we somehow hadn't put away yet, but, I dropped that on the mouse and didn't see anything escape from it, so that was good. I peeled the skirt up and got worried when I didn't see anything underneath, but finally found the mouse, turned upside-down, feet caught in the fabric of the skirt. The important thing is I could grab her safe and sound.

I handed the mouse --- one of the brown ones that turns out has grown up without our being able to tell them apart --- so bunnyhugger could apologize to her. And she did, but took a moment to admire the bits of gold in their fur that we never get to see. She also, more sensibly, took a moment to count the mice in the pen, just in case it turned out she'd accidentally taken two mice out. Everyone was where they belonged.

A wild accident, of course, and caused by our just assuming that the mice, who ordinarily skedaddle as soon as anyone reaches for them, would jump off the wheel when it was picked up. Either the brownie mouse was feeling brave or was so confused by the wheel being picked up that she didn't notice, and with our having the lights out for the podcast event we didn't see her until she was having her rug-exploration experience.

Good episode of the Flophouse's FlopTV, too.

These pictures are from our anniversary, yes, but more important they're from Six Flags America, now closed for good unless something bonkers happens. Let's look.

The parking lot! Which was more empty and more shaded than we expected, but don't worry, it was still a million and forty degrees.

Welcome to Six! The theme park based on the hit Broadway musical telling the story of the wives of Henry VIII!

Oooh, Six Flags America, I see. The park traced its origins to the early 70s which is why it looks so American Revolution in architecture. It also looks so much like the original midway from Great Adventure (opened 1974) that I felt like I was back in New Jersey a while.

Just inside and hey, look, a replica Liberty Bell! This is two we've encountered at amusement parks, neither of them in the same state as the actual Liberty Bell.

The main midway, with a couple of gift shops and stuff like that. We never did found the souvenir we really wanted but there were places to search.

And oh, did you know June 30th last year was National Ride Operator Day? Well, it was, and we celebrated it by riding things.

Trivia: On joining the International Olympic Committe's five-member executive board in 1921, Sigfrid Edström (who had competed for Sweden, running the 100-meter sprint in the 1896 Athens games) countered the traditional Scandinavian opposition to separate Winter Olympics Games by letting the IOC patronize the Wintersports Week held in Chamonix, France, in 1924, which have since been recognized as the first Winter Olympics. Source: Encyclopedia of the Modern Olympic Movement, Editors John E Findling, Kimberly D Pelle. He also fought against compensating athletes for the time spent away from work as that would ``open up the floodgates'' to lower-class professionals. The IOC eventually agreed athletes could be compensated for their expenses for up to 15 days. And let's not get started on how weird he was about women in sports.

Currently Reading: Joke Farming: How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense, Elliott Kalan.

For the first time in 87 days we got above freezing today! Just for a couple hours in midday but still, it was there. ... Also we got another inch or so of snow, just in time to make bunnyhugger's fourth drive up to work this week lousy. But it also meant we have a somewhat clean-ish driveway for the first time in a month or so, with the snow and ice scraped clean. That's nice.

It also puts me in mind of unending days in the 90s or above, like during the Most Extreme Mid-Atlantic Parks trip, and our day at Kennywood that was too short because for some reason they closed at like 8 pm against all reason and decency:

Here's the Lucky Stand, now a self-service pop refill station, and the silhouette of The Phantom's Revenge in the late afternoon light.

And the fountains of Lost Kennywood's midway looking into the late sun.

We're back to the Grand Carousel for the last ride of the day!

And here's a picture of a horse with the pole almost lined up to the decoration of the railing around it. This is a good idea that maybe I can execute better next time.

So, shockingly, Kennywood closed before sunset that day. The result is the traditional picture from the bridge looking out at Racer and Jack Rabbit over the lagoon looks like this instead.

There's the carousel with the lights all off suddenly. They closed it fast on us, including running a weirdly short cycle after waiting for everybody to get on.

This directional sign is new but I like it, for building on the Kennywood Arrow and for letting all the attractions have their own typefaces.

We didn't even get to see if the Refreshments neon was still neon!

Since the park didn't have printed-out maps I grabbed a photo of one of their too-few map signs.

Spotted this car in the parking lot. Wonder if it's an amusement park fan's.

This is a picture outside our motel room. bunnyhugger found a spot with a great 50s-60s style layout (the interior was sadly fresh-renovated) that was really sweet.

Here's the road sign which could not be much better.

Trivia: The International Olympic Committee accepted its first female members (Pirjo Haggman and Flor Isava-Fonesca) in 1981. Isava-Fonesca became the first woman elected to the Executive Board in 1990. Source: Encyclopedia of the Modern Olympic Movement, Editors John E Findling, Kimberly D Pelle.

Currently Reading: Joke Farming: How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense, Elliott Kalan.