Brief Overview:

CoasterWarriors.com is looking for a best-looking, attractive, eye-appealing wallpaper for our first give-a-away!  

Requirements:

This contest will be design with three different sizes to allow members to choose the appropriate wallpaper to suit with their monitor.  You will design the Wallpaper at this size: 1680 x 1050px.

House Rules:

1. You have to be a register member of CoasterWarriors.com to participate.  It’s free.  Join today! Click here to join!
2. It has to be a roller coaster / theme & amusement park related / dark rides related theme wallpaper.
3. You can use photos, drawings, illustration, or rendering images EXCEPT premade wallpaper from the parks’ website.
4. You may submit up to 3 wallpapers for this contest.
5. You have to submit compress images (640×480) on the assign forum to allow other members to participate in the contest.  Forum is found here.

Deadlines:
Feburary 19, 2010 11:59 PM EST

Voting:
CoasterWarriors community will have the opportunity to be the judge and will submit their polls if they wish to participate from Feburary 22, 2010 to Feburary 26, 2010.  The wallpaper with most vote will be the winner.

Prize:
$10.00 iTunes Gift Card | Sponsored by Hand Tech Studio.  The prize will be given after the winner submits the files to CoasterWarriors.com with the given instructions.

About Hand Tech Studio:
Hand Tech Studio is a freelance creative media agency that develop and recreate websites, flash, database, WordPress Theme, and more.  You have a project in mind?  Contact Hand Tech Studio today to get more information at info@handtechstudio.com and also see their developing site at http://www.handtechstudio.com.

Let’s think fresh and new name! What CoasterWarriors.com will be offering is a counter for these following: parks, coasters, rides, & haunt zone! Sound like a lot right? I agreed but everybody is different and they can track what they care about and CoasterWarriors will do that for you!

Welcome to CoasterWarriors.com AKA CW3 project.  It is exciting new year since I finally had times to rebuild all the framework and clean up the coding to produce quick result and add more features.   We are still behind on schedule with CW3 due to various reasons, no reason to spill the beans here.  But I’m open for feedback and suggestion as well.  Many of the things will be up and running in full gear before the end of the month.  Be sure to check our update weekly to see what’s being add/change/updated/removed…. It is located in our about section which will be kept in Blog Format and we will have more of the “Help” section as well after each features is revealed.

Let talk about the new feature and sections:

News Section:
We have our new news section, which is pretty much completed. There are few more features that I will be adding this month such as RSS feeds, ReTweet Feature, Images Gallery, Video Gallery that connect with the stories.  We have other ideas that we would like to add but that will happen in future date.

Park Section:
We have redesigned our Park Database but it is not finish since it is a big task with many features that I would like but I have narrowed it down to less features that I will reveal this month.   You will be able to post review, comment, and more on the park database.  And you will see the selected park with their twitter feeds show on the site which is a neat feature along with other features which will appear in a week or so.

Roller Coaster:
Our main attraction of Coaster Warriors.com!  Roller Coasters!  There quite bit of errors in our database due to configuration which the CW staff and I will go back to the database and fix up all the errors before we add any new data in our database.  But the neat feature that is available now is that you can submit your recent wait time on any of the roller coaster in our database and post your review on the database!

Rides Database:
More database? Yes!  We are loaded with data!  We have over 700 rides in our database! So I thought there are a lot of flat rides fans out there and would like to contribute or learn more about the different flat rides so we want to make this available to our fans.

Haunt Zone:
Another Database!  Yes!  I’m also a HUGE fan of haunted houses so we will have database for 3 different categories for Haunt Zones (Theme Park Halloween Events, Year-Round Haunted House, and “local haunted house”.  We will have exclusive details for several MEGA haunt “temple” such as HHN, HOS, and a few other famous haunted house.

Extra Section:
This is exciting section and it will be a surprise which I will not reveal at this time but it will be live on Feburary 1, 2010!

Video Section:
We have totally revamp the video section as a “Remix of YouTube/Yahoo Video Design”  and it works!  You now can post comment on the video!  And also this year we will be producing videos as well… ahem It is about time right?  I thought so.

Event Section:
Event Section will happen but it is last section of our priority list.  But we will include ACE, TPR, Coasterfusion, other coaster enthusiasts club and park main events in the Event Section and it will appear in the park database as well.

Store:
We will be opening our store in Spring 2010 where we will launch 5 new shirts designs and it will be available for you to buy.  The money that we earns will go back to CoasterWarriors.com funding and future expansion in the future date.

About Section:
It is revamped and store with some information that you would like to know more about CoasterWarriors and staff and so forth.

That was a lot of text… let get busy!  Enjoy and see the new features adding on CoasterWarriors.com throughout this month!

As always,

I am always open for feedback and suggestion!

Happy New Year!

Jeff Guilkey
Webmaster/Owner of Coaster Warriors

Alton Towers had quite a big announcement today as the name of SW6 (Secret Weapon Six)  was announced; it was announced as TH13TEEN!  From the official TH13TEEN website:

“Thirteen will be based on the discovery of an unearthed ancient burial site in an area of unexplored woodland known as the Dark Forest.

Built on the site of the old Corkscrew rollercoaster, visitors will be invited to take a petrifying ride on Thirteen, venturing into the seemingly living and breathing Dark Forest. There they will face an unknown horror that has been unleashed from the ancient crypt.

The ride has been developed with the world’s leading coaster and thrill consultants who have collaborated to combine the ultimate elements of physical and psychological fear – to create what experts are dubbing a ‘psychoaster’.”

It’ll be interesting to see how this coaster turns out.  From the pictures and videos on the site, it looks to be pretty well themed.  Let’s hope it turns out this way!

Until next time,

Aaron “ahank” Hanke

I thought I should inform you of some of what is going on here at Coaster Warriors.

CW 3.0 is approaching, and it’s coming rapidly!  Mark January 1, 2010 on your calendars!  Expect a fresh, new design with more features than ever before!

Keep telling your roller coaster buddies about us.  The bigger the community the better!

Until next time,

Aaron “ahank” Hanke

Come back to this blog regularly for additional date post, I will post on Twitter as well for additional dates as well.

Confirmed Dates:

• Holiday World – August 13^th, 2009
• Kings Dominion – August 20th, 2009 @ 11 AM.
• Carowinds – August 26^th, 2009

Sometime in August:

• Universal Studio in Orlando and Hollywood will reveal all of their HHN haunted house, scare zones, and shows.
• Busch Gardens Africa will reveal House of Vayne!
• Busch Gardens Europe will reveal more information about Christmas Town coming in November thru January.

Also the parks will reveal their Halloween events as well so that is another reason why August is awesome!  Stay tuned for more information!

In Septemeber, I will post my reaction toward to each major announcements.  I can’t wait to see what the parks have in their sleeves!

Photo by KDFansite.com

Let start with the most obvious one at Kings Dominion:  The tracks are laid down on King Dominion’s parking lot and the land has been clear in the far back and it is going to be a Giga Coaster made by Intamin which is pretty obvious from this point.  Thanks to KDFansite.com and CoasterCrew for keeping the Coaster Enthusiasts around the world by giving the latest update about what’s going on at King Dominion. 

Photo by CarowindsConnection.com

Carowinds have something going on as well.  The land has been clear and already has one huge footer installed so what could it be?  It can be a roller coaster or it can be the most extreme thrill ride coming out or something!  But what?!  That will come in months later!  Many are saying another Hyper Coaster or Mega Coaster.  August is usually the time when the park start to announce the new attraction but that is not always the case thou.   This is going to be driving me nut!  Good thing I have more than 2 reason to go back to Carowinds:  1) Just to get back on my #1 coaster all time, Afterburn 2) Get my Thunder Road credits, and 3) Ride on this and/or see this new attraction at Carowinds!

We will be seeing the Coaster Wars still going on at Cedar Point and Six Flags Magic Mountain.  So last but not the least, Cedar Point.  We don’t have any particular photos at this point but there are rumor going on that there will be a roller coaster over at the Millennium Force Island since there has been some clearing going on so that will be later on.  Could it be true or could my guts be true seeing Aquatrax at Cedar Point?

Who knows what next year will bring but I’m excited to see what they have in store for 2010!

I just recently put myself through torture this past week just by watching SAW series and it was a sick journey.  I am not saying that I don’t like it.  I still am a horror movie geek but I don’t think it is really classify as a horror movie.  I pretty much would say more of a thriller movie.  I do admire one thing from the “Saw” series which is rare to see that you don’t normally see from many films I have watched in my life.  Every series of “Saw” really tied in together and it make sense after you watch each one series.  Yes I already lost the thrill after watching Saw III but still Saw V really highlights the truth behind Saw.  I’m looking forward to see Saw VI which is supposed to be the last series of Saw and it may tell you the whole truth behind Jigjaw.  I’m not planning to see Saw VI in the theater but I will watch it on DVD.  I spend the same amount of dollars on the rentals for all 5 series of “Saw” that I would normally spend in the movie theater for one film alone.  I’m not a fan of Saw but I can appreciate the storyline alone and how they put it together.

As of 2009, here is what happens that revolve with “Saw”.  Saw V was released on DVD on January 20, 2009.

Thorpe Park opened SAW: The ride which is a roller coaster on March 14, 2009!  Hooray for new credit!   The whole scenario is really eerie to me.  You are actually being put into a test.  The roller coaster look awesome and no problem-o but the queue line is where the game will test your tolerance from what I have read.  I’m looking forward to be a part of it.  Also a few sources said that there are live actors/actress in the queue line, interesting…   After I visit UK, I will come back to this roller coaster in particular in the future blog.  For more info about Saw: The Ride, check out Thorpe’s mini site for it: http://www.sawtheride.com/

On June 16, 2009, Both Universal Studio Orlando Resort and Universal Studio Hollywood has declare Halloween Horror Night 19 icon.  Chucky, Wolverine, and JigJaw have been introduced.  Part of the story being Halloween Horror Night is to allow the visitors to experience the movie before it comes out to the theater.  It is a clever idea.  But again, bring Saw back again?  Which bring this next clue…

On October 23, 2009, Saw VI will be released in the movie theater.  There something in me that is hoping it is the last series of Saw.  Don’t get me wrong, but I think the time for it to be done.

I’m going to leave you to decide the fate if Saw is actually going overboard or not.

Get connected with the park with Facebook, Twitter,  MySpace, and YouTube!  It is a great opportunity to follow the park and seeing what they are up to.  Social Media is becoming popular and it is a great way to get update with the park while you’re away from the park.   This is also a great opportunity to get teaser, follow any construction, and upcoming events.  That’s not all.  There are many things that can feature on the park’s use with Social media network.

Holiday World was one of the very first park that use Social Media after being the first to use the blog format to post update and share funny moments with the readers.   Then we are seeing major parks like Cedar Point join along and Kings Island started blogging this year.

Just a little head up with CoasterWarriors.com park database, we will be adding a couple new features.  One of the new features in the park snapshot, there will be links to Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube channel if the park has any.  We should have the improved version of the Park Database by end of August.

You can follow us:

Blog – http://www.coasterwarriors.com/blog/

Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/coasterwarriors

MySpace – http://www.myspace.com/coasterwarriors

Facebook – http://facebook.coasterwarriors.com/

Cedar Point is now officially open today!

Since Cedar Point has moved one of their webcam to a new location, it is now on top of Pagoda Gift Shop.  It is a great view of many activity that is happening at Cedar Point!

You will have the opportunity to win a free CoasterWarriors.com T-Shirt!  That’s right!  First set of shirts that will be selling in our new CoasterWarriors.com Store starting in Fall 2009!  You will get it a month before we lauch our store!

Try to capture at least 3 of the 10 items from the list below:

• Top Thrill Dragster on the top of the track
• Milliemum Force reach to the top of the lift
• All 4 trains on Power Tower
• Snoopy walking in the Midway
• Lighting during the storming day
• Corkscrew rolling over the hill before going through 2 sets of corkscrews
• Mantis turning before the drop
• Fireworks in the sky!
• 5 Sky Ride in the air (EASY!)
• Any odd moment on the webcam like someone pass out, someone do cart wheel, you name it… 

NOTE: The webcam update their webcam every 30 seconds!  You have 30 seconds to look and save it before it’s gone! 

Here is the catch:  All photos must be submitted on the forum.  You can use 3rd party photo services such as photo bucket or flickr or use our photo attachment options and post the items. 

Rules:

• To be a winner, you have to submit all 10 photos first!
• You can mark your spot by posting your photos and then to add more photos, click on edit to add your recent collection.  If you have all 10, you can PM CoasterWarriors that you completed the contest.
• Photoshop is not allow.  Any photos that appeared edited… the person will be disqualified.
• Winner will be contact by CoasterWarriors.com to gather T-Shirt size and physical address to recieved the T-Shirt Prize!
• Use this link to get right to Cedar Point Webcam, Click Here
• No nudity, profanity, or whatsnot is not allow because it should not be allowed at Cedar Point anyway.
• Only CoasterWarriors.com Member is allow to join in this contest, if you’re not a member, join Coaster Warriors!  It’s free!
• All photos must be posted on CoasterWarriors.com Forum by July 31, 2009 at 11:59 EST.
• The link to the forum for this contest is found here, Pagoda Webcam Contest Forum

THIS APPLY TO ALL MEMBERS EVEN OUR INTERNATIONAL MEMBER!

HAVE A GREAT 2009 Season!

FEAR IT! RIDE IT! LOVE IT!