TOP 10 BAD TASTE FAIRGROUND RIDES

1. X2
Six Flags Magic Mountain
Los Angeles (Valencia)
Brace Yourself: First opened in 2002 as the world’s first “fourth-dimensional” ride, with 360-degree rotating seats and headfirst, facedown drops, Six Flags Magic Mountain’s X was closed in 2007 for a $10 million rejiggering. This May it has emerged, phoenixlike and more spine-tingling than ever, with new immersive tunnels, more audio and visual enhancements, and sleeker wing-shaped trains. For the uninitiated, it’s called four dimensional, or 4-D, because the seats extend off the track to the sides, allowing riders to independently rotate head over heels, forward and backward—giving that mind-bending dimensional effect.

2. Fahrenheit
Hersheypark
Hershey, Pennsylvania
Brace Yourself: Opened in May 2008, the so-called “sweetest place on earth” just got edgier. This inverted vertical loop “lift” coaster starts off swooping riders up 121 feet above the ground only to plunge them right back down in a gut-wrenching, 97-degree negative drop—the steepest in the U.S. At the 121-foot crest, the upcoming drop is at such a steep incline that the only thing riders in the stadium-seating trains see is, well, nothing. No track at all. Once you survive that first drop, there’s still more to come: a 107-foot inverted loop, an inverted corkscrew roll, cobra element, airborne inverted S-roll, another inverted corkscrew, a little airtime hill (stomach floating), a high-speed banked curve, another hill, and then a high-speed banked curve to end it. All this action takes place in about 85 seconds—less time than it takes to polish off a Hershey bar.
3. Insanity
Stratosphere Hotel and Casino
Las Vegas
Brace Yourself: Not all the scariest rides are roller coasters, a fact that everyone who has been to the top of the Space Needle-like Stratosphere hotel in Vegas knows only too well. Perched over the Strip, the most frightening of the Stratosphere’s three rides is an electric-green-colored centrifuge called Insanity, which extends 64 feet over the north edge of the tower. Spinning over 40 mph, riders are angled down by 70 degrees so all they see is the street, 900 feet below. This is truly one of the world’s most harrowing rides.
4. Colossus
Thorpe Park
Chertsey, Surrey, U.K.
Brace Yourself: Sure, Britain’s mostly dreary climate can seem like a strange choice for a theme park, but this roller coaster, built in 2002, still holds the record for number of inversions: 10. It flips riders over and over and over again in maneuvers called the double corkscrew, the cobra roll, and the quadruple heart-line roll. If you’re more likely to be in China than the U.K., an exact replica of this ride, called the Tenth Ring Roller Coaster, was built in 2006 at Chimelong Paradise in Guangzhou.
5. Kingda Ka
Six Flags Great Adventure
Jackson, New Jersey
Brace Yourself: The current big daddy of coasters, this ride towers, quite literally, above all others. At the ride’s highest peak, the brave folks who step aboard soar a record 456 feet (the equivalent of 45 stories) aboveground. Catapulting up with the help of a hydraulic launch at a record-setting speed (128 mph), Kingda Ka reaches its top height in just 3.5 seconds. On the way down, there’s a 270-foot spiral; this is not a world record, but there’s plenty of spinning action for this hair-raising trip, during which riders will experience both negative and positive G force.
6. Eejanaika
Fuji-Q Highland
Fujiyoshida, Japan
Brace Yourself: The name translates roughly to “hey, what the hell,” which is what you will hear others shouting in Japanese when you’re on this ride. Only the second “4-D” coaster in the world (X2 is the other), this has the same 360-degree turns and insane style of head-over-heels spinning on the winglike cars as X2. But there are plenty of differences; for one, this track is a little longer and the ride is far taller—at 250 feet, it’s the seventh-highest roller coaster in the world. And from the top, riders have a spectacular, if brief, view of nearby Mount Fuji.
7. Tower of Terror
Dreamworld
Gold Coast, Australia
Brace Yourself: Australia’s Gold Coast is a little off the map for most people, but if you are in the neighborhood, head for this: the fastest, tallest thrill ride in the Southern Hemisphere (and at 100 mph, the fourth fastest in the world). After climbing at a rate of 4 G’s to a heart-stopping height of 38 stories, or 377 feet aboveground, the steel shutter roller coaster has a 6.5 second, 100 mph, zero-gravity drop, and then stretches straight out for the equivalent length of three football fields.
8. Expedition GeForce
Holiday Park
Haßloch, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany
Brace Yourself: Always tops in any list of the best coasters in the world, including Internet Coaster Poll, which polls fans from around the globe, GeForce is not only one of the largest coasters in Europe, it’s always one of the most complete and satisfying because it’s long enough and not gimmicky. But it’s also harrowing, reaching 4.5 G, a height of 203 feet, and speeds exceeding 74 mph. And there are seven coveted moments of weightlessness when your stomach just floats…and floats again..


9. Maverick
Cedar Point Amusement Park
Sandusky, Ohio
Brace Yourself: No list is complete without mentioning at least one of the 17 roller-coaster rides at the self-proclaimed home of the roller coaster, Cedar Point. Of the many to choose from, Maverick, the newest (built in 2007) and most expensive ($21 million), is not one of the park’s highest-tallest-fastest record-holders, but it’s one of its best. It’s plenty fast—at 70 mph—and features eight airtime-filled hills and countless twists and turns. It’s just a more complete ride, and during the longish 2.5-minute trip, there’s even an unusual surprise…which would be spoiled if we told you beforehand.


10. Superman Ride of Steel
Six Flags New England
Agawam, Massachusetts
Brace Yourself: There are three versions of the Ride of Steel coaster in the U.S.: one at Darien Lake in New York State, one at Six Flags American in Maryland, and one here. But this is the one that wins the awards every year as the best roller coaster in the U.S. With its speeds of more than 77 mph, a 221-foot drop into a tunnel, two bunny hills, three camel backs, and a grand total of 10 seconds of weightlessness, it’s easy to understand—with your wobbly legs getting off the ride—why this ride won Amusement Today’s Golden Ticket Award (the Oscar of the amusement park industry) again in 2007.

SCORPIO IN FULL COLOUR (Oct 24 - Nov 21)

This one has a SERIOUS sting in the tail! Enjoy!

Bad Taste Bears Down Time

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the BTB website www.badtastebears.com is currently offline as we are attending to essential maintenance we are hoping to get back up and running within 24 hours.

BAD TASTE DEATHS

With the exciting news that limited edition figurine Natural Causes, will be launched tomorrow night (13th Sept at 6.30pm) we thought we'd have a Bad Taste Bears top 10 horrible (idiotic) deaths, for your sick pleasure.

Enjoy...

1. A circus act in Romania ended in tragedy on 23 January when fire-eater Vlad Cazacu, 43, belched in mid-performance and was blown to bits. Incredibly no one came to his rescue as stunned onlookers assumed this was part of an amazing illusion. Consequently this unfortunate man, who probably could have been saved, was allowed to just lie there and die.

2. Zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt fed his constipated elephant 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries, figs and prunes. The plugged-up pachyderm finally let fly. Standing next to his elephant, Mr. Riesfeldt suffocated under 200 pounds of elephant manure. Investigators say Riesfeldt, 46, was attempting to give the ailing elephant an enema when the beast unloaded on him.

3. A German couple in their 50s took their old car to a scrap yard. They parked, completed the paperwork, but got back in the car to shelter from a sudden squall of rain. "The driver of the crane was told to process their car", said a police investigator. "He did so without realizing that the couple were sitting inside again." The car was grabbed by the crane's steel claws and dropped in the crusher, which normally reduces cars to a small cube. It was stopped when the crane driver heard the woman's screams, but it was too late to save her husband. The crane driver was hospitalized for shock, but was expected to be charged with "negligent manslaughter".

4. Johannesburg, South Africa - A young Saudi man, camping with two friends on top of a mountain, was killed instantly when he took a call from a friend on his mobile phone during a storm and the phone was struck by lightning.

5. Christopher Pane, 34, and an un-named woman of 25 drank 11 bottles of beer and then went on a sexual romp in the sea near Darwin in Australia. They had intercourse in the water when the woman decided to go underwater for a different activity. Pane became excited, put his hands on her head and kept her submerged. Micheal Carey, prosecuting at Payne's trial in the Northern Territories Supreme Court a year later, said Pane told police that when the woman stopped sucking, he wondered what was going on, so he let her up. She had not tried to get up and wasn't kicking or splashing. When he realized she was dead, he "freaked out", dressed and drove away. He was arrested two days later and during his year in prison had constant nightmares and was treated 12 times for outbreaks of boils. Pane's counsel pointed out that the woman might have passed out from drink: she had consumed six times the legal driving limit.

6. Normandy, France - Jacques LeFevrier left nothing to chance when he decided to commit suicide. He stood at the top of a tall cliff and tied a noose around his neck. He tied the other end of the rope to a large rock. He drank some poison and set fire to his clothes. He even tried to shoot himself at the last moment. He jumped and fired the pistol. The bullet missed him completely, but cut through the hanging rope instead. Freed of the threat of hanging, Mr. LeFevrier plunged into the sea. The sudden plunge into the freezing waters extinguished the flames and apparently made him vomit the poison as well. He was dragged out of the water by witnesses on the beach below the cliff and was taken to a hospital, where he died of hypothermia.

7. Toronto, Canada - Police said a lawyer demonstrating the safety of windows in a downtown Toronto skyscraper crashed through a pane with his shoulder and plunged 24 floors to his death. A police spokesman said Garry Hoy, 39, fell into the courtyard of the Toronto Dominion Bank Tower early Friday evening as he was explaining the strength of the building’s windows to visiting law students. Hoy previously had conducted demonstrations of window strength many times according to police reports. Peter Lauwers, managing partner of the firm Holden Day Wilson, told the Toronto Sun newspaper that Hoy was “one of the best and brightest” members in the 200-man association.

8. Sunderland, England paramedics found a prone man suffering injuries including a scorched colon, caused by a Black Cat Thunderbolt rocket. The 22-year-old had, unbelievably, inserted this rocket in his back side, lay down on his front side, and lit the fuse in an attempt to make the rocket fly up into the air. But it was pointing the other way! The regional Firework Association chairman spoke for us all when he said, "This sort of thing is beyond belief."

9. A young couple, driving along Via Dutra, the largest freeway in Brazil with tons of heavy traffic, at 6am under heavy fog. The couple decided that this was the time to park (for "dating" according to the charming Google translation) and, yes, they parked on the freeway in the right-hand lane, not on the shoulder, the median, or at a gas station. Naturally, given time a cargo truck encountered a "speed bump," instantly killing both -- during the act of procreation.

And finally, my personal favourite - follow the link....

10. Scooter Fail