Hilltopper39

I always thought Flight of Fear was a tad underrated. That thing has a powerful launch, pretty decent layout with some wicked transitions and the lap bar only trains make the whole ride fairly smooth. I know it doesn't have any extensive themeing inside the ride building and the ques is pretty cheesey and dated but for what it is, it's really pretty good. I remember when that thing first opened in 96 it was one of the first launched coaster in that region (maybe one of the first LIM launches anywhere) and there was a really cool mystique to the ride because no on had seen a coaster like that before. At the time that was one of the more extensively themed rides anywhere outside of Disney ( and it is still a level of quality that you don't see very often at Cedar Fair/Six Flags) and I remember how cool it was to finally get through the hanger and inside UFO to see that train just rip out of the station down the launch tunnel, it was all pretty cool to my 12 year old self. So partly because of nostalgia and partly because I really think it's pretty decent coaster I'm gonna say Flight of Fear is the best dark coaster.

Can we just go ahead and have the Giants and Patriots play next week for the Superbowl and forget all of those silly playoffs?

You said it, money talks. His contract is reportedly 4 years $850,000 which is almost double what we were paying Willie.

Yeah we'll see how it goes, I'm not sold on him one way or the other yet but I'll give him a chance. I mean ideally he'll probably be there for 2 or 3 years, have a couple of wining seasons, then leave for a bigger job which is kind of a win win for everyone involved.

And my Western Kentucky Hilltoppers might have made the biggest splash of the College Football coaching off season today by hiring Bobby Petrino to replace Willie Taggert who recently left for South Florida. Haven't really decided how I feel about the hire yet but I do have faith in our President and AD to make decisions that are in the best interest of the program. I'm not going to judge the guy for his past actions like a lot of people will, I'm just going to support him until he gives me a reason not to. Major College football is turning into big business, and we just hired one of the biggest names in the business, so we'll see how far that takes us.

^Yeah, I just noticed your post after I had read all of those awful comments on the Busch Gardens Blog. Just because the internet gives you a voice doesn't mean your should be allowed to use it. On the HBO Series Newsroom this past season there was an episode where the main character wanted to require people to enter their name, age, and highest level of education to be allowed to post comments on his blog but the management at the company wouldn't allow it for legal reasons. I don't remember all of the details of the episode but it was a funny exchange and sometimes I wish something like actually was required.

The comments that are posted on this response are awful, come on people.

I don't know what's more impressive the new attraction or the party they threw for it! Looks great, can't wait to check it out sometime.

The freakin Giants are gonna win this thing again, they're conveniently getting hot (and healthy) right when it matters.

^Yeah, I don't know much about Jones but he has been pretty successful everywhere he has been at. I wonder if he was in consideration for the Wisconsin job, that might have been a better fit since his previous 2 jobs have both been in the Midwest.

Did you happen to get any pictures of the outdoor lightning at night? Just curious what that looked like, I can't remember if the old version had any lighting at night on the outdoor section or not. I'll admit, my comments about the outdoor section were REALLY nit picky. I wasn't really trying to complain about it or purposely find something to be negative about I was just thinking that a little bit of the lighting they used inside could really enhance the experience outside, especially at night.

Don't be surprised if you see Louisiana Lafayette's head coach Mark Hudspeth be one of the next coaches to land a big job in the next few weeks, he has quietly put together a VERY good program a ULL and would probably be a good fit for any program (cough cough Tennessee cough cough).

Yeah, I thought the same thing when I saw some aerial photos of the project site that were posted a while back, the job site for the coaster is MUCH larger than I had previously imagined. It's so big that it seems like it should be the star of the new expansion even though it seems like throughout the construction process it hasn't been getting as much publicity as everything else.

^Who is the leading candidate for Tennessee now that Strong is out of the picture, I haven't even heard a new name at this point.

I was originally really not that excited about this whole expansion from a personal perspective but it all looks really nice and I'm kinda excited about checking it out now. The 7 Dwarfs coaster looks like it might be a lot of fun, much more detailed than I originally had thought.

^Yeah, but like any scheme you run you have to have the right players to execute it to be successful. Texas A&M this year was good because they ran a unique style of offense but they also had some elite talent on the field running it.

The Cat in the Hat Ride at IOA never seems to get any love but I always found it to be pretty decent little ride. It's fairly long, has some nice animatronics, and even some funky motion on the ride vehicles. It's obviously not going to be on the top of anyone's dark ride top 5 like Spiderman or the Haunted Mansion, but it's for what it is it's pretty solid (could use some touch up paint though).

Wow, looks like another great offering from SeaWorld parks. I've been very very impressed with their seasonal events over the past years, everyone I've ever been to (Christmas at Seaworld, Hallowscreeams, Summer Nights, Bands Brew and BBQ, Sppoktacular) have all been REALLY good and this looks no different. Kinda cool that it's a separate ticketed event, the Cheetah Hunt and Kumba walk ons make this event worth the admission price alone.

^A thrown chair during a sporing event is always a good thing in my book! Some big news today on the coaching front, Arkansas hired Wisconsin head coach Brett Bielema and Auburn hired Arkansas State head coach Gus Malzhan. Honestly I didn't see the Bielema hire coming but it might turn out to be a good fit. Malzahan was at Auburn as the offensive coordinator during the Championship and put together a great season this year at Arkansas State, so he certainly has the tools to succeed but will that translate to the SEC? So Tennessee seems to be the job that is still available, and with Gruden now out of the running seems like Charlie Strong is the new leading candidate.

Looks like Carl Edwards was doing some undercover research for Ford and their new car rides concept set to open at Six Flags Parks across America in 2014..... But seriously this whole revamp looks fantastic, can't wait to check it out. I guess my only minor complaint is that I've always thought the outdoor section of this ride is kind of bare, and now with the inside so futuristic and awesome looking the transition from inside to outside is even more drastic than it was before. I wish they would have tried to incorporate some of the themeing elements of the inside dark ride portion onto the outside track sections even if it was something as minimal as some neon for the rides at night , or some head chopper signage above the track or a couple of little tunnel with some lighting effects or something. Still looks like an awesome attraction, and one that will around for a while.

Well it's Bowl Season, also known as 34 meaningless exhibition games and 1 Championship Season. This years bowl lineup might be the least exciting in a while, NIU without their head coach vs. Florida State? Louisville vs. Florida? Stanford vs. Wisconsin? Even the New Years Day Bowls are terrible, Michigan vs South Carolina? Georgia vs. Nebraska? The only two bowl games I have any interest in at all are the championship, and the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl which Western Kentucky somehow managed to backdoor their way into (Middle Tennessee and Louisiana Tech got completely screwed). Bama vs. Notre Dame should a good game to watch and might end up being one of the highest rated college football games of all time, to bad we have to wait 35 days to see it!

Agree, I felt the same way about the Mat Racer at Aquatica, the enclosed tube wasn't nearly as exciting as the drop was.

Yeah, Notre Dame is still kind of the interesting lone wolf in all of this realignment. They just signed a contract to play all of the sports in the ACC but play 5 games a year in football, so they are sort of loosely affiliated with the ACC at this point. I kind of think that the Big 10 is tired of waiting on Notre Dame at this point so they moved on to Rutgers and Maryland. I still think the the ACC is going to slowly get absolved by the SEC, Big 12, Big 10, and who ever is left will end up in the Big East. The Pac 12 is kind of in an interesting position because while there aren't really any "major" programs left out west geographically I don't think they really need to add any more teams to still be justified as one of the top 2 or 3 conferences in America. Where "this" whole realignment thing is going and whatever the landscape of college sports looks like in the next 4 years I think the Pac-12 will surely be a part of it. I guess if the Pac 12 had to get to 16 teams they could add Boise State, BYU, San Diego State, and Nevada and they would still be a fairly legitimate conference, would probably still be better than the ACC/Big 10 at that point.

Implode as in North Carolina and Duke to the SEC, Florida State an Clemson to the Big 12, Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech to the big 10? I'm already sick of re-alignment but it's far far far from over at this point. Also, When You (Joey) wish upon a star.......Monte Kiffin to retire after bowl game... Joey's dreams have come true!

The uphill mat racer looks awesome, some be a lot of fun.