Hilltopper39

I had the Iphone 3g then got the Iphone 4s, so I guess by my normal pattern of upgrades I'll be waiting another year or so for Iphone 5.2 or whatever they end up calling it. The more I looked at some of the info last night the more I really want one, looks amazing. I assume that the new ear pods will work with older devices, but those looks pretty cool. I was reading on Apple's website about how much research they did to design those things to fit in different types of ear. I can never keep any type of head phone bud in my ears while jogging (or is it yogging? the j is silent I think) so I'll put these to the test and disprove all that precious research they did. On a completely unrelated note, what does everyone do with their old phones after an upgrade? Keep it for games, music, anyone re-purpose old phones for anything cool?

^I've been saying for the past couple of seasons that the Pac12 is a bit underrated down here by the SEC Media because the games are rarely on national broadcasts before 11pm but now that 5 teams are ranked my theories are slowly coming to fruition! I still think that physically the top tier teams in the SEC are superior on the offensive and defensive lines so they still have an advantage but I'm pretty excited to see Bama or LSU play USC or Oregon. Any combination of those 4 teams will be a fantastic.

I was kind of surprised at the price of the new phone, seems like I remember the 4 and 4s be quite a bit more expensive when it was initially released. Looks like a great phone, and I'm sure it is. Sometimes I wish Apple would just slow down bit between releases, I just got an Iphone 4 and Ipad 2 for Christmas and barely 7 months later both of my devices will be out of date haha.

Something else that no-one has really mention, but I wouldn't mind seeing a poll that is split between American parks, the rest of the world's parks, as then have some type of combined composite lists for best in the world. The majority of park goers in America (GP and several enthusiasts included) might never go to Europa or DisneySea or Alton Towers so have a poll that is simply best wooden/steel/park/new ride for America only might be a little more useful for the average american park guest. Then again any sort of "Best Coaster" poll isn't really for the GP anyways so maybe this is useless. Anyone else have any thoughts on this? It's kind of like reading a list of the top 10 best golf courses in America only to realize that half of the courses are private and I can't play them anyways.

So......we can assume that they are still re-locating it to Michigan's Adventure then?

Have they allready re-painted that B&M Flyer? Your pictures are fantastic as usual Hanno but I like the old paint scheme much better. How was Extreme Rusher? That's probably one of the rides I'm most interested in hearing a review of. Would love to see a few of those in America (if they don't suck).

Agreed, but Knotts also built Xcelerator and Silver Bullet 2 years apart.... I'm not saying KD is getting a new world record holder next year but I'm sure if the return on invest could justify the purchase they would build a major coaster every year. The whole major ride every 4 years or whatever is probably more like guidelines than actual business model.

Because that's Cedar Point and this is Kings Dominion? Volcano and Flight of Fear were built 2 years apart, and Italian Job, Dominator, and Intinidator 305 were also 2 years apart.........

I forgot about Lambeau, point Joe, Green Bay is really just a college town with a pro team. Seriously though, other than Lambeau and maybe Seattle, most NFL stadiums that I've been to seem to the in game experience in the stadium just feel kind of bland and boring. I wish more NFL franchises would try to create unique game day atmospheres like a lot of college programs do.

I would rather see the Great Movie Ride get a massive make over then be retired all together. I still love the concept of that ride, and it has to be a capacity monster. I'd love to see them remove some existing show scenes and add in some new ones from more modern movies like Pirates of the Caribbean, Avengers, Alice in Wonderland, Avatar, whatever. The idea of Captain Jack Sparrow taking over your ride vehicle and traveling through the "movies" with you instead of Mugsy could be a lot of fun.......

Then again what Pro Football stadium has any personality other than maybe Seattle? New England is a little funky I guess.

I rode Rattler several years after the re-profiling and still thought the first 30 seconds of the ride were insane, can not wait to see what RMC does with this thing when it's all said and done.

^Yeah, no way they would have taken a home and home in the Carrier Dome. As much as no one cares about college football in NYC, Syracuse isn't exactly a world class program anymore. It would be interesting to see what the reaction would be if they were regularly ranked in the top 10, probably not a lot different but ya never know. Interesting to hear you describe Metlife Stadium as bland and boring, on tv it atleast looks really cool. Still can't believe they are hosting a Superbowl next year in NYC, in February.

I had no idea that you could apply to vote. I was kind of under the impression that the voting was done predominately by people within the amusement industry (which kind of makes the results more understandable).

Results seem consistent with past years, some rides overrated some rides underrated and a lot of rides from parks that probably buy ad space in Amusement Today. Robb, have you ever considered doing some type of "official" TPR coaster/park awards ? It would be interesting to compare TPRs results to polls from other publications and evven to the Mitch Hawker wood/steel results.

Wow, there is a TON of active construction going on at the Studios, I'm not a huge fan of that park to begin with but at this point I don't really see a reason to visit again until sometime in 2014 when EVERYTHING is completed.

^Yeah, yeah, we covered the spread against the number 1 team in all the land so that's kind of a win in my book! (with 4 turnovers we still had almost as much total yardage as Michigan!). I love spicy food but with most pork cuts (ribs, butts, tenderloin) here lately I'm really starting to prefer flavors on the sweeter side. I smoked two Boston Butts this weekend for pulled pork and glazed them both a bourbon mint and apple butter mixture that turned out to be fantastic! I was a little hesitant at first but the flavors worked really well when it was all said and done.

That Chinese SLC (or whatever) looks incredibly messed up, wow! I'm almost more excited about random Chinese food reports from this trip than the random Chinese coasters.

Geat pictures, I love seeing aerial pictures of any park especially Cedar Point (probably one of the most photogenic parks in the world). Ugh,those pictures of Mean Streak really make me wish that ride wasn't so average. It's one of the best looking wooden coasters in the world, and just towers over that section of the park. I know they've done a lot of work in the off season and it's running better now than before but honestly it never was any better just okay. I'm still in favor of some sort of Rocky Mountain style re-hab even though it may not happen.

Yeah I'm not gonna say that wasn't a surprising outcome but Arkansas is in total disarray right now with their off season fiasco. John L. Smith is the last person I would want to take over my program. I guess people in NYC just don't care about college football, which is understandable. The biggest shocker for me this weekend was Auburn getting crushed by Miss. State. I watched that Auburn Clemson game week one and thought both looked liked legit top 15 teams, but never saw an 18 point beatemdown coming. Then again Miss. State was a team that i thought last year was going to take a huge step forward and never did, so maybe this is their year (to finish 3 in the west behind LSU and Bama).

Valid point, although I've been around some crowds at HHN that were pretty awful. I do appreciate how HHN makes an effort to provide you with some backstory on the houses while in line through the interactive text games, it does help set the tone for each individual house. The biggest negative for me about HOS is the recycled houses each year, they do make a nice effort to slightly re-theme each house but it doesn't make a huge difference. I can understand reusing 1 house a year for budget reasons but lately it seems like every new house sticks around for 2-3 years. Again for night rides on Kumba I can overlook the Toy Factory house for the third year in a row .

This basically sums up my opinion of the two events as well however in recent years it seems like the overall at quality at HOS is really starting to catch up. Also night rides on Kumba and Montu are a huge check in the win column for HOS for me.

^No I've never "smoked a fatty" (chuckle) but I've seen tons of different recipes for them that look awesome, it's definitely something I'm going to cook in the very near future!

^Thanks, I'll have to start reading your face book page more often now for info like this!

Here is a question that I have always been curious about but why does GCI use a "solid concrete slab" for the footers on some coasters and "individual" concrete footers on others? What are the benefits to the solid slab over the individual footers? Solid slab on Apocolypse Individual footers on Kentucky Rumbler