Not For Sale

The deadline for the trackwork is Christmas. They don't want to have any paths blocked off for when the crowds pour in.

This is mostly true, except for theme park management is not a major, but a track that one can take as a hospitality management major. It's pretty great, I go there.

Hola, ladies and gentlemen. Today I have some Manta goodness for you. Here are the photos, and the video will come later today. Edit: added Adam's photos Edit 2: Added my video. Maybe I'll make it good at one point. I stayed up all night editing it and getting really frustrated with iMovie, so this is the product. Edit 3: Added Adam's video. My video (5 minutes general info) Adam's video (13 minutes, in depth) [coastertube]http://www.themeparkreview.com/coastertube/play.php?vid=MantaCT[/coastertube] And that's when the batteries on my camera died. I took the rest on Adam's camera, and those photos will be coming soon. Track monkey almost done. Here's some rock work at the bottom of the pretzel loop. The future site of an inline twist. Yes, it will go through the pretzel loop. These are the missing stairs for the lift hill. Keep working, track monkey. I believe this is the "VIP entrance". Sing, Brian Morrow, sing! The track monkey doing his work. The non-riding entrance is that black thing on the bottom right. Non-riding entrance. You may notice that this piece of track wasn't here 5 minutes earlier. And those are new supports. This is Brian Morrow, the project manager of Manta. And that's an aquarium. No, not the guy on the left, the building. This is a picture of an inedible pretzel. Adam and I bearing our super stylish hard hats. Also see: transition glasses. It's so homey. That's all the photos now. Look forward to the video late tonight. That was all the construction they did. They were either taking a union break or there was a shift change. Obligatory shot. Here's a picture of an ape dressed like a child near a waterfall. Sorry about the glare, friend. It was really hard to get a picture of these because there was food on the table right in front of it, and it was a coaster event after all. New concept art, I think. Here's the first Adam's camera photo. Pictured: the cutest support ever.

Ladies and gentlemen, the last day of Cypress Gardens Adventure Park. Bye bye! Imposter Tim Allen! And boy did we fight fire. Then we went on the firefighter kiddie ride. Starliner's seat belts are shorter than an Intamin's. Read the last sentence. You can stop reading now, it's not going to get better than that. Oh yeah, this is the line for the Starliner. Why of course, it's the kinky scarecrow! Not you, really bad Elvis impersonator. Just 2 more pictures to the absolute highlight of the update. Does that pumpkin have a cameltoe? Well, that's enough of that. With his faithful sidekick, Mario Batali. With our handsome host, Doug Benson. Well, this seems like a great idea. And this is why I don't ride these. THERE we go! He's a master at this. Next up was the Power Circf. Neil has mastered the art of posing for candid photos. Next to him is Tori. I can't think of a caption to make this picture any better. Also, Neil. Oh yeah, Kim was there. The Fiesta Express was her 250th credit. So lonely. Yeah, doesn't look like it'll be opening today. Or ever. Hold it. Ooh, the island in the sky is open! I couldn't find the Thunderboldt on the map. All of the automated teller machines were out of order. Banana George is going on unemployment.

Sorry folks, no trip report/demands fulfilled today. I was fully ready for some, but I didn't realize Andrew hadn't been to Epcot in a while, so we went there for a while, then to the Studios. We also stopped by Sea World for a bit. So, a demandless few parks. I apologize to all my loyal fans. Note: Yes, there is a demand for Sea World (Take a picture of you kissing the glass near an electric eel at sea world, giving the illusion of you kissing it.) but what I have seen, it is against park rules to touch the eel egg thing at Kraken. Anyone know where I can fulfill this honorable demand by The Ghost?

New rule: Barry is no longer allowed to make demands.

I'll be going to a bunch of parks for the whole day tomorrow and would like some demands, people! Get on it!

Today Adam and I went to Epcot to ride some amusement rides. I also did my first to demands for the Year (or so) of a Million Demands. Thanks to Adam for some of the pictures. And now, Eric Idle eats a child. Good evening. Nothing to see here. Move along. Adam's happy because he finally made me cry. We're offended. How dare you. Kill me. For some reason we decided to go on Journey. Figment kept bouncing up and down during the song. Adam does a very good impression of it. See? I'm not a liar! You thought you could escape my nerdiness, you could never escape it! There's new napkins and cups. DEMAND FULFILLED. Then I finished the cup. I AM NOT AN ANIMAL. I AM A HUMAN BEING. I don't remember this part. And that's where the posing ended and I realize I actually have to drink this. Still posing, taking a sip. This is when I started posing for the camera and not remembering I actually had to drink it. "Andrew will be so proud of me!" DEMAND: "I want to see pictures of you drinking Beverly at Epcot, and I expect some funny facial expressions with witty captions." -Swimace Look at them choppers. I'm escared. "Do I sound like a musical robot?" DEMAND FULFILLED. "How about riding Test Track until you find the car sponsored by the Wake Board Camp and then get a new picture of it."-Hotlanta Little known fact: Bill McKim was a stand in for Ad-Rock in the Beastie Boys. ACTING! Don't make Adam angry. You won't like him when he's angry. Then we played "Try really hard to break a TV". Adam let me borrow the shopping cart for a while. Re: TPR pandering. I wanted to play Don't Waste It but Adam wanted to go food shopping instead. Let's pretend this wasn't the first picture, and the first one was of the Epcot sign.

11/12 update: Trackgasm And you'll be the transition to the block brakes (or brake run) (or something) (I don't know what I'm talking about). One day you're gonna grow up to be an inline twist! DO I WIN?! I'm pretty sure the entirety of the track is on site. We got track on track up in here! This track is actually 45. This piece of track has scoliosis. Looks pretty long to me, but that's just me not knowing what I'm talking about. Well what do we see here?

I think I speak for all of us when I say we demand 10% of all merch and kindly ask you donate $10 per use of our photos. In all seriousness, I do the updates for TPR to enjoy, and the photoshop contests are an extension of that enjoyment. Also, if anyone that is photoshopping one of my photos would prefer an unedited version of it, contact me.

Update for 11/11: The Dania Beach Hurricane! This park was...interesting. I've been here before, and the coaster is great. I took a video of it. Excuse the quality. Bye bye! Look forward to a Year (or so) of a Million Demands update tomorrow! It's like it's a homemade coaster. That's just wrong. And I see you, gigantic vacant lot! I see you, insane airtime hill! Notice the beautiful track work. The front row on this has better ejector air than the back somehow. Date of manufacture. Yep. This is when I start complaining about the employees. She was listening to here iPod with earbuds in BOTH ears and doing homework. The other ride op was even talking on her phone at one point! Yeah, that's I-95 over there. Do you hear that? That's the air calling you. No, I don't know this kid. Intestines: The Experience I can't not have a picture of this sign. Waiting and waiting and waiting. One dispatch every 5 or so minutes. It's no $5 Fridays, but it's still good to me. Let's all welcome Grandma Stoll to TPR! Lots of people confuse Boomers for Hooters. It's an honest mistake. VID00001.AVI.zip Non-streaming version

^Sometimes I wear it to sleep, but I suppose I'll be going to the Magic Kingdom in it soon! I'm loving the demands! Keep it up!

FOR RELEASE IMMEDIATELY: Announcing a new era of coaster and theme park nerdity, Bryan Stoll is announcing a one of a kind project. Taking the role of a crappy lounge act, he will now take requests. No, he will not play "Walkin' on Sunshine" or "Free Bird," rather he will take photos or video of something of interest to you. He is your puppet, and will [probably] post whatever you requested within the week. It's called "The Year (or so) of a Million Demands." The weirder the request, the more interesting it is! Don't limit it to just rides! There's plenty of cool hotels, walk-throughs, shows, and tourist traps all around the Orlando area. Please kindly note these simple guidelines: -Bryan only has admission to Sea World, Disney, and Universal. Crappy Orlando things are not out of the question, though there's no saying if I'll be able to get to them. -Bryan will not break park rules doing your dirty work. -Many parks do not allow large cameras on rides. My video camera is pocket-sized but my still camera is not. -In the event that this is a total failure, Bryan will delete this and pretend it never happened.

Construction update for 11/5. And that's the end. Thanks. The last of the evac stairs to be added. Thems looks like supports! Station framing. And here's the other side of that. Maintenance shed and future aquarium (I think). Oh yeah. It's blurry because I was trembling in excitement. A coaster nerd's dream. Time for the money shots. Correction: They did not build the roof of the station the other day. Can't think of a caption for this one. The pretzel loop is looking to be pretty intense. And this truck was to blame. It was opened back up in about a minute. Our attempt to go over to Journey was foiled by a wall. They were bolting in the support for 2nd top of the pretzel loop. This is where the pretzel loop will begin.

Anyone else loving the new Best Week Ever format?

...You guys realize it's a comedy short, right?

Yeah, that pretty much sums up my feelings for Coney Island. I won't spoil it for you, it's a very interesting tribute.

Here's the construction update from yesterday that were lost in the crash. And here's an overview. Thanks for reading! The first drop is done. It's close to the ground as of now, but we'll see how that turns out once construction is over. Roof-a-plenty at 5:00. Roofless at 3:30. And here you can see construction if the construction was looking in a mirror. Here you can clearly see construction. I forgot the caption I used for this one last time. It's starting to look like a real coaster! I see you, maintenance shed! The cranes of Manta. Look for the sexy swimsuit calendar of them soon.

Construction update! And here's a shot of them installing it. They're going really quick, these pictures within 5 minutes of each other. They were putting in something. I think it's to help evacuate. I'm Coaster paparazzi. The drop isn't very steep.

^You can look forward to a Rocket update by Adam shortly.

Construction update! These photos were taken today (10/29). If you would like full resolution and unedited versions of these photos, shoot me a PM. And to conclude here's a picture of the styrofoam stones. I foresee this building being completely gone soon. The former site of the dragons. This is probably where that cement thing was. They're tearing up the sewers, I think. Central is still here, so look forward to more destruction. Construction workers. This was taken from Dueling Dragons' queue. Here's a walkway near the ceiling and a sprinkler system. Air conditioning! I don't know where this is. The scaffolding was down a week or two ago. It's up again all around. These next few pictures are of the side facing Jurassic Park River Adventure.

Today I went on my lonesome to the Magic Kingdom and then Epcot. I'm too lazy to write anything. It'll all be in the captions. And here's your present for sticking around for this long. Thanks for reading! I'm not very good at remembering to take pictures of the ride's signs, so I take them after a lot. The problem with that is I never remember to post them before the ride pictures. Hey, this is new, right? Ew boy. Notice the complete lack of joy in the jaded nerd's face. I think I should just make a bank of pictures of rides. I think I've taken this picture 5 times already. Chaksmmdoammaodm. I didn't realize Test Track had a duel sponsorship. Clever, Disney, very clever. Hey, thems is new! "I wanna hold you till the fear in me subsides." Thank you, Gary. "I wanna hold you til I die, 'til we both break down and cry..." "And I have to close my eyes and hide..." "And sometimes when we touch, the honesty's too much..." And now, Gary Sinise sings a ballad. "My eyes are up here." I just keep crawling back to Epcot. I can't resist its worldly charm. Time to say bye bye MK. Space Ace Bryan Stoll is not a Galaxy Defender. Trendsetter Bryan Stoll was the first one to wait for it to reopen. Snipers. So, noticing Space Mountain was down, waited for it to reopen. Also, the TTA was stuck for about 3 minutes. I'll leave you two alone for a moment. Onward! Okay, so I was riding the TTA and I noticed there were some lights on in the Space Mountain tunnel. Then I realized it broke down and all lit up to me to take terrible pictures of. My thumb hurts. I suppose it's time to feed my addiction. Brer Rabbit, stop checking out the Cast Member! This guy was great. "Please step onto the red carpet... Where the spikes are... ...It wasn't originally red, you know." YOUR SOULS ARE MINE I'm legally obligated to post a picture of the Haunted Mansion in a slightly different angle every time I ride it. Spoooooky. I got excited because I thought Beck was here. Nerd shot to the power of 10. That's a rolling coaster right there I tell you what. Hi Dave. Caption option #1: Pointing out how much Bush doesn't look like Bush. Caption option #2: Pointing out how tight Nixon's suit is. After I went into shock, I decided to check out the Hall of Presidents, which will be closing soon to add Barack Obama. Huh?! Off to Pirates, which will certainly be a walk on! The secret to taking good pictures is having the foreground be in a shadow. In other news, absolutely nothing has changed at Good [Contemporary] Tower. Wait, what? I was not aware of this. I will burn the TTC to the ground one day.

Okay, here's the rundown. This update will be split into 2 updates: one I forgot to post from October 16th and one from today's events. I don't remember much from the 16th, so wish me luck. I leave this section of the update with the best picture I've ever taken. Ever. Hi Tyler. Allison and Kristen got in a heated game of "take card, give card". Holyshitrunaway. This is completely unacceptable. I need to trick or treat harder next time. This is confusing on so many levels. I guess we're riding the Barnstormer now. I have no idea what's happening in this picture, but it brings me so much joy. Apparently I forgot to take pictures of us going from the Studios to MNSSHP. Apparently this is a costume. It was a little busy. And she's bitten Matt Damon! It's a feral Lou! Oh my god it's worse than I expected. It's... It's... I believe these televisions are new at the ABC Commissary... Did you guys hear that? It sounds like... This one will do.

Andy Daly's new album Nine Sweaters is amazing. Give this man some money. http://www.aspecialthing.com/store/index.htm

Manta has been topped off and the first drop is now under construction.