Double0Kevin

Just went through my photos from about 10 years ago. Thought I'd share some. It's interesting to see how things have changed. Enjoy. First up, original V2 Quite a bit taller than it is now. Looks tall? Naaaw, it's 150', promise. Totally safe. Then this happened... No more vertical tower. V2 got circumcised. You guys remember these things? I miss the ski show. The first year or two, Medusa plaza had no fencing along the pathways. They had this too... Then they started building this beauty. And advertising it. The parking lot was full of colorful track... ...that when put together, it looked like this. Pretty Always liked this shot. Found this too. Recognize these people?

^ I don't care to be cold and wet, and the weather wasn't exactly hot. So I skipped all water rides, including JP. Butterbeer tastes like Butterbeer. Not sure how to describe it, cause it's own thing. I guess similar to Root Beer and Cream Soda, but still different. USF will be up tonight. Just sifting through the photos now.

From what I remember from high school physics, the human body can't go beyond -2Gs. I believe that is the threshold where you would die. Anyone able to confirm this, or am I making it up?

A TPR POV without Robb commentary? I don't want to live in that world. I sometimes feel weird when I watch the rare videos where Robb isn't providing commentary. It feels, unnatural. Plus, the "weeee!" and "Loop-ty Loop!" type of commentary kind of defines the culture of TPR. Don't you go changin' Mr. Alvey (though I was never worried this topic would cause you to).

I don't mind, the majority of everything added in was taken from the works of Tolkein. The stuff with the Necromancer and the back story of Moria sets up the major events and players of Lord of the Rings, even if you don't realize it just yet. Those story lines are important, but unlikely going to ever be made into their own movies because of their short length and lack of core characters. This film is no where close to Phantom Menace. I'm kind of shocked that critics, people who are supposedly professionals, are judging this movie by comparing it to LotR. Yes, it is a prequel, but the source material is campy and fun. People shouldn't compare the goofiness and fun to crap like Jar Jar Binks or anything else within the video evidence of George Lucas raping our childhoods.

I approve of Jeff's choice in headwear. Also Gold Striker looks awesome. Seems like its progress has slowed down quite a bit, as I would expect being that it's the holidays and the guys at GCI deserve a little break. Can't wait to see things start to pick up again after the new year.

^ I could be wrong, but I believe they started in 2007 when SFDK started as well. EDIT: Holiday in the Park started in '07. Apparently they did "Lone Star Christmas" from 1994 to 1997.

I'm thinking it will be Space Mountain at DL or Screamin' at DCA. SLIGHT chance it will be Mummy at USH.

I liked Log Jammer, especially how it had the one drop up top before the second main drop. But I've always been more fond of Jet Stream, maybe that's why I wasn't brokenhearted that they took out Log Jammer? I definitely think that they should look into a water attraction in the future. An Intamin water coaster in the vain of Divertical could work really well at the park, and it still adds to their coaster count.

Awesome report. Drayton seem like such a funky park. It's definitely on my must visit list.

^ Totally agree. With the Hobbit there is all these huge events that take place over just a few pages and then on to the next thing. With Lord of the Rings it took 4 chapters just for the characters to talk about an upcoming battle. LOTR mercifully cut unneeded slow points, where as Hobbit generously gave us more of what we loved to see. I'm not sure why it's gotten such mixed feelings from critics. It seems like everyone went in expecting dark and serious Lord of the Rings and instead got the lighthearted and fun Hobbit.

I'm excited to see the outcome of the new gate. I never really liked CP's gate. They have a beautiful park, yet the gate always seemed so plain to me. I think have some twisty B&M track flying through will make it a little more visually appealing, and very representative of what to expect once inside.

^I concur with both of you. Loved Starlight at KD last year. It's just a fun bonus for people that stay late. I always enjoy seeing the Disney parks light up at night too, and often they do just simple things to make things look nice.

So I watched the new Total Recall last night... while it wasn't close to as good as the original, I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. It was a fun action move with and interesting twist on the separated societies.

^Seems normal to me. Isn't that what always happens? No one is happy with what they get, they just bitch about what is there.

^ Agreed, and I think the fact that Shanghai sounds like it will be so different is proof that they realized with HKDL they can't just keep building the same park with tweeked layouts. Granted some of the rides are really great and we can clone a few. But what about HKDL is going to make a tourist head there over Tokyo DL or Shanghai? I am speaking of course of long distance tourists that could fly to any of the selections rather than locals. Great to see new things being tried at HKDL. Starting to make me want to go there more.

^ I don't.... what do you got that's so important... I also hope they don't totally destroy that section of the park. I like the abundance of trees and forest like feel to it.

^ I would love to have gotten to ride Gwazi when it was new, or even in an alternate universe where it was new AND have Millennium Flyers. I think it could have been a really stand out attraction. I'm going to try and get USF up over the next couple days and then get into the Disney parks.

Those restaurants unfortunately make a ton of money though. A friend of mine works for Monte Carlo and the Diablo's restaurant there is apparently wildly successful and is a good way to draw people in. I rarely go to TI anymore. It feels so low class now.

^ Its such a big group (Hundreds, sometimes thousands if it's a big one like the 20th anniversary back in october) so the police are pretty powerless to do anything. Pretty soon it will be illegal to be naked in public. It became a health hazard and they are moving to outlaw it now. Safe to say the hippies aren't happy.

^ What are they doing to the area? I haven't heard anything about that.

^Totally forgot about Twisted Rails! I love the whole Zonga report, I remember that day fondly and even see some of my old coworkers. Didn't see myself in any of the shots though, oh well.

^I have to agree with this. Goliath kind of marked the end for me, then they decided to go "Xtreme" and get X and Deja Vu at the same time and then suddenly the focus was how can we add thrill ride after thrill ride with nothing more than the ride itself going for it. No attempt at theme or story, just a coaster. They aren't the only park to do this of course, but it comes out more here because they used to really try and then just kind of gave up.

I can't see Silverwood buying a ride that has such a bad history like a Thrill Shot. Seems like a bad investment, and that park so far has done a good job with the rides they've purchased, both new and used.

Watching TRON: Legacy for the gazillionth time... I just absolutely love this movie. So excited that the new studio head at Disney sees TRON 3 as a priority and they are beginning to really move forward on it.