Our Vegas trip is over and the 85 degree days have been replaced with a 28 degree Minnesota day. It’s good to be home again, but it’s to darn cold.

While out in Vegas I got to ride the rides at the top of the Stratosphere tower and the rides are relatively lame, but on top of a skyscraper, they are amazing. Each one sits over 100 stories above the ground and just the thought of them makes most people scared.

In our Wii downtime, I checked out Thrillville for Xbox (also available in Playstation and PSP). Where it may seem similar to Rollercaoaster Tycoon, it’s much different.

Listing off the objectives and game play of both games, one would think they are quite similar. However, Thrillville is more about mini-games and goals than it is about building the biggest and best amusement park. For example, when you hire a park employee, you have to train them via a mini game. The more training, the better they’ll do. You also have to talk to people and make friends. You can ask them what they’d like to see or talk about sports or animals. You even get the ability to flirt with the ladies.

Checkout the yExplore page for the latest updates to the Firefox & Flock extension.

Here is a quick preview of what’s new:

We finally got to play RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 Gold over the weekend and it’s as addicting as ever.

The main downfall in the game is that it’s a system hog. I couldn’t get the Mac version because my computer is no where near what is needed. My wife’s PC was closer and we found out that the only thing needed was a better video card. So we ran out and go one just so we could play.

The game takes forever to load, but once in you can do just about anything.

The beagle has left the building. The Mall of America in Boomington Minnesota has officially lost the rights to Snoopy and the Peanuts gang.

On January 19th the mall’s indoor amusement part will be called “The Park at MOA” until a new theme is decided upon. The rides will remain open, however a lot of re-branding has to be done as the park is heavily Peanuts themed.

No word on new deals, but Nickoledian or Disney would be great additions I think. However, they’d probably be spendy. What do you think would be a good theme for the park?

Technorati Tags: disney, nickoledian, peanuts, moa, snoopy, Theme

For our wedding anniversary (ok so a few weeks after the actual date) Christi and I went on a hot air balloon ride! It was a crisp 30° at dawn when we went up but that didn’t stop us.

It’s a little tricky on the take off and landing but other than that it’s smooth sailing! We didn’t go to high in the air but enough to see for thirty miles or more. Check out the pictures and you can see the birth and death of a hot air balloon.

Here are some impressive pictures of Six Flags New Orleans under water.

Check out all the pictures here.

Yahoo Search Night Off was a lot of fun. They rented out Paramounts Great America and we were given free food, drinks, ice cream and rides! I only made it on three rides, however they were fun rides. Especially when riding in the front of the Top Gun roller coaster. Invertigo was cool too

Hard to believe but it’s true! RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 will be released for the Mac this fall!! Aspyr is creating/porting the Mac version and the system requirements are not out yet. For those who don’t know, RollerCoaster Tycoon lets you build and run your own amusement park. Also, in version 3, you get to ride the rides!

I can’t wait. I’ll have that on my Christmas List for sure!

According to Screamscape, Camp Snoopy in the Mall of America has decided to part ways with Cedar Fair, the current owner. This is a big deal because Cedar Fair is a huge theme park company that includes Valleyfair, Knotts Berry Farm and Cedar Point. Not sure what’s going to happen from this point on, but I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about it in the future. It’s also worth while to note that Cedar Fair owns some rights to the Snoopy characters as more than one park uses them to promote their amusement park. However, from what I understand, the Mall of America has the right to use the Snoopy characters without Cedar Fair.