Hilltopper39

^Yeah, it's such a hot show right now that they are being very strict on the ticket distribution which is good I guess. When I picked up my ticket in New York at the box office after I ordered over the phone via telecharge they wanted to see my ID, confirmation number, and the credit card I purchased with ticket with. I've never been asked to show all three of those for a ticket at will call before, maybe one if any but never all 3. It's an awesome show, have fun!

^I read back through like 5 pages of posts and didn't notice anything about the official train capacity, so excuse me for only "casually" following the off season progress of a coaster that I will probably never ride because it is on the other side of the world....

Thank goodness Apple isn't developing an iOS based device that had a camera integrated into an ordinary wrist watch, that would really mess with park camera/loose article policies. Oh Wait, uh oh......

This thing looks insane, can't wait to see all of the details revealed! From the video can we assume that the ride will accommodate trains with 4 rows of 4? I was curious as to the capacity a ride like this could handle but with multiple 16 passenger trains it might not be an issue. I really hope this thing is a success an that some American parks look into building gigantic Euro-Fighters in the near future. The compact nature of the layout could potentially make something similar to this a great fit for a lot of parks.

I don't even remember when my last visit to Universal was but I remember the place feeling kind of run down and slightly out dated so it's nice to see everything with a fresh coat of paint, and great crowds even in the "off season". I seriously need to get back down there but at this point I should probably just wait a few more years until everything at both parks is completely done! Then I can get a room at Cabana Bay Beach, play the sci-fi drive in mini golf, get a multi-day multi-park hopping ticket Potter Transport ticket and see everything I've missed over the past couple of years! Also, even though it's 7 months away it should be interesting to see how the construction effects HHN.

The only kind of ride I've ever thought would be really feasible for a cruise ship from the standpoint of space, size, capacity, etc. would be something like a condensed version of Toy Story Mania, which I actually think might work really well.

This whole project really looks great, I can't wait to check it out when it opens. This may be a dumb questions, but is the Waterpark schedule to open at the beginning of June with the rides section, or that a separate phase of the project for the future?

I've seen a lot of crazy things working in parks over the years. At Disney it always amazed me the amount of foreigners that would pee in bushes, behind buildings, and even into floor drains in que lines! One of my favorite stories though was I once worked at a park that had a fairly old carnival style Himalaya ride where the ride cycle direction and length was manually controlled by the operator. One day the operator actually fell asleep in the control booth for like 20 minutes with the ride running, with guests on the ride! I was working across the midway and didn't really notice what was going on until I finally noticed that the kids on the ride were screaming for someone to help them, and at full speed reverse rotation It's kind of hard to tell when a 10 year old kid is screaming out of pure joy or complete terror! The funniest part of the story was that the operator was from Africa as part of some sort of student employee exchange program, so they couldn't exactly fire the guy and send him home the next day! Needless to say the rest of the summer he exclusively dedicated to trash and clean up duties, no more ride operations for him!

I LOVE Long Johns! I know it's basically the worst thing ever you could possibly eat but it's freaking delicious. In college Long Johns was our hungover Sunday lunch tradition, so good after a night of hard "studying" and the "library". There aren't any around me where I live now but there are a few in the towns I travel to for work fairly often so I get my fix in every now and then.

I finally got around to seeing the Book of Mormon this past Sunday at the Eugene O'neil Theater in NYC, and it was fantastic. I've been wanting to see this for about 2 years ever since it made it's debut, and it's not often that something lives up to the ridiculously high expectations you put on it, but it certainly did. The show was hysterically funny, beautifully staged, and the music was just pure fun from start to finish, it's kind of like an R rated version of a Disney Musical. Highly highly recommend the show to anyone that can see it when the tour comes to your city.

Nice report Adam, I've always felt that this event is a bit underrated. Every time I've attended I've had a great time.

^Exactly. Imagine that your an up and coming assistant coach with a good sized program where the fans and want to see 4 and 5 star "talent". If you have a kid like Clay Mathews who is only listed as a 2 or 3 star talent and you recruit him and he doesn't pan out it's your fault for signing him, but if you sign a 4 or 5 star who doesn't pan out then it's their fault for living up to their expectation. It's hard to justify taking a risk on a kid who isn't as highly "ranked", even though the rankings are mostly ridiculous to begin with One of my old coaches told me this happens to them a lot, they might find a kid that no on knows about because he's from a small school or doesn't do the camp/combine circuit in the summer even though he can really play at a high level, but If he doesn't have any offers, or isn't 3 or 4 star ranked then it's hard to pursue him. On the flip side, if a kid goes to a football factory and tests well at a combine he may end up being a 3 or 4 star ranked player even though he's really not that good. Sometimes as soon as a kid has an offer from a decent school, everyone else will make an offer just so their in consideration. You better believe that if Florida offers a scholarship to a kid then Alabama and Georgia are gonna follow suit whether they've really evaluated him or are even interested in the first place. Basketball recruiting is a whole different mess, at least in football there's no AAU.......

^You know it's all a rouse when you have to pay for an ESPN insider account to access the recruiting information, same thing for all of the rivals sites and yahoo recruiting sites and all. It's all a joke, a star ranking doesn't reflect attitude or work ethic just a 40 time and a vertical jump number. Is a 3 star player from Florida going to Kentucky better than a 2 star kid from Kentucky who wants to play for the school he grew up following?

And from my perspective that's more or less exactly what has happened. Someone figured out how to make a little money off of these kids and now they are exploiting everyone. The whole system is a joke to me, I saw Western signed a kid who was ranked as the nations 24th best offensive guard? What makes this kid better than the 24th best guard but not as good as the 23rd ranked guard? It's all a big raquet...

Not that the SEC's dominance needs any more affirmation, but Kentucky just had their best class in a long time, a class ranked nationally as the 27th or 28th best recruiting class and this top 30 recruiting class (for whatever that's worth) is good enough for the 13th best class in the SEC.........

^Yeah, I think Jim Harbaugh knew that in this day and age of football to win a Superbowl he has to beat the likes of Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Eli Manning and other teams with prolific offenses where 20-25 points might not be enough to win. When Brady and Rodgers can consistently put up 30 points per game against elite defenses you better be able to go toe to toe with them in a shootout and I think Kaepernick gives them a better chance at doing that. This season in the playoffs the 49ers had to put up 45 and 28 points to win, and 31 in a losing effort, and I think Alex Smith was only averaging about 23 points per game over his season and a half as starter. Kaepernick gives them more potential to be great, that's it.

I just read this on a Kentucky fan site, and again yeah college signing day is still ridiculous. Don't commit unless you are truly committed, if your not truly committed don't commit until signing day. I don't know much about this kid but if Kentucky is ever going to succeed they have to keep the in state talent in state. Probably still won't be enough to consistently compete with Bama, Florida, and Georgia, but it's a start. I haven't read much about what my Toppers are signing tomorrow but for Petrino's first class it should be interesting...

This thing looks awesome, even though I've only been on a few Gerstlauer coasters I've always been a huge fan of them. After Takibisha and now this thing hopefully an American park will invest in a full size crazy looper (I don't consider Dare Devil Dive and Mystery Mine "full size" even though they are both great rides. The indoor section of this thing is intriguing, I can't wait to see what is in there. If it is the rumored "inversion machine" or what ever I wonder if there will be one or multiple setups for that. I haven't seen info on how many cars this thing will operate but with multiple lifts on a ride this size for a park like Alton Towers it would might have more than normal 4 or 6 cars that Euro Fighters have, and it might be useful to dispatch 2 trains at once maybe through two different pre lift layouts. Just a thought.

Yeah I'm with ya here, while that is the "Superbowl audience" there certainly seemed to be a lot more of that this year (and the past couple of years in advertising in general, it's like everyone is trying to make money off of American pride which just rubs me the wrong way at times). This is funny because I have a lot of friends from back home who are farmers (or rednecks if you prefer) and they all though this was the best commercial they've ever seen. I wouldn't be surprised if Dodge truck sales see a nice increase across the south/midwest.

^Yeah, the power outage being the reason for the 49ers comeback is BS. The very next play after play resumed was a 3rd and long which the Niners didn't convert and were forced to punt. The holding on Crabtree was a tough call to make, I mean if Crabtree didn't have his hands all over the defender then it would have been a pretty easy call to make but the contact looked both ways to some degree. The 49ers future is very bright, I do think offensively they could use second receiver. I'll be surprised in Moss play another year, and he's not the guy even if he does play another year. Also, I have a feeling this might have been Akers last season, he struggled a bit this year and is getting pretty old.

^^^ We will see how good the Gators basketball team is next week when the Cats come to town...... Signing day is an exciting time for all programs but Im kind of sick if all the media attention it's getting these days. I find it ridiculous that these kids are having the televised announcements, and the hat switches, and all the silly theatrics just to pick which school they're going to before they have ever accomplished anything at the collegiate level. Basketball is getting ridiculous as well, as big of a fan as I am of Nerlens Noel his whole turn around in the chair to reveal the UK logo shaved in his head thing on ESPN was lame. Nothing like giving opposing fans bulletin board material before you've ever stepped foot in campus. Joey, is that Jason Hatcher kid from Louisville Trinity still committed to USC? A lot of my Kentucky sources were saying he had unofficially de-committed and was considering UK, Louisville and a bunch of others, yet other sources were saying he was still committed to USC all along. Freaking soap opera, but apparently USC has had several decommitments over the past couple of weeks?

^Awesome, after watching the trailer for the movie I'm really interested in this whole project.

Wow, unbelievable. I always loved the look of the original drop on the Rattler when it opened with that nasty subtle banking at the bottom. I'm glad they're giving this thing a similar profile.

^That's coming to Jacksonville later this spring and it's one of the shows I'm looking forward to seeing mostly because I know absolutely nothing about it other than it was on Broadway for a while so it has to be decent.