Swimace

I think some people may look at it as giving into temptation. I don't personally feel that way, but from a biblical standpoint I can see the problem.

^YES!!! Rock on!!! I think this has strayed from the point I was trying to prove in my original post. When Bucket called conservative values "bullsh!t", I stood up for the conservative movement to prove that many Republican values are extremely good for gay people. Rather than always making conservatives out to be anti-gay, its worth taking a moment to pause and think about how Republican politics can be really good for serving the self interests of many gay people. Bucket later clarified his statement, and we moved on. I feel that I made some valid points, but now this has become "well that's not how I think". I wasn't saying that's how you or your friends vote, if that's how you read it then you obviously missed the point. I was dealing in the abstract, based on obvious political ideals and how they could be applied to your average gay person. Yeah, I agreed with him too, which is why I said "Oh I completely agree". I'm not talking about individual beliefs, I was responding to Bucket's post by pointing out strong domestic issues that the democrats run on that have no direct effect on your average gay person. Obviously education reform will have an indirect long term effect on everybody, and plenty of gay people support that, but your average gay person isn't going to start jumping for joy over child tax credits, child care credits, and education savings accounts. That stuff is coming from their tax dollars and won't really pay them back as much as it will future generations. So once again, this was in response to Bucket's post which was later clarified. I'm not talking about MY political ideals or anybody elses on the boards. As far as I'm concerned nothing I have said is worthy of being deemed "offensive". I'm talking about core Republican values and relating them to the average gay person. I don't understand, wouldn't a gay republican agree with me rather than offended that I'm backing their argument? You're taking a statement that was made in response to Bucket's post and your applying to your life. I made my point, Bucket then understood and clarified his post. Quaker contributed to the discussion with some disagreements he had, which is great, but now it's getting way off of the original intent of my first post. There might be a problem with your account information, it says your 17. Otherwise, you may be confused on what voting is.

^First of all, awesome post, and I respect everything you said. That's my point about gay Americans being better suited as individuals to vote for the Republican party. We're talking about politicians here, they spend millions of dollars trying to get people to vote for them. If all they have to do is act sincere to get a substantial group of voters to vote for them then of course they will do it! They know that the Republican party has a lot to offer gay people, which is why they have clinged to the idea of gay marriage for so long. It's pretty much become ingrained in gay people to vote democrat. The way I see it, gay marriage is a single issue, you simply expanded on why that issue is so important to so many people. Oh I agree completely. I wasn't talking about my personal political views, I was talking about the issues that Democrats are really strong on that don't really have a direct effect on the majority of gays. I agree with most of your last paragraph, I was just pointing out that gays benefit from an individual standpoint under the Republicans. It's like if I was your average gay American standing at the poll saying "which one of these parties will be better for ME", that's where I was coming from.

^^That makes more sense, and I agree with both you and terrence that the argument that a lot of people use against gay marriage is somewhat hypocritical, since a number of the people who argue to protect marriage don't have any room to talk about marriage being holy. Even so, there are TONS of people who vote against gay marriage because they don't believe it's right, and that's their right as voters. Thanks for clearing that up. I live in South Carolina for most of the year and have out of the loop on what's going on in Florida politics

It's amazing how most of the country agrees with that "bullsh*t", being a part of a democracy must be such a pain for so many liberals. I think Florida is about to vote again on Gay marriage (that's where I'm registered to vote), and I would honestly be shocked if it passed. I could personally care less about gay marriage, I think that there are so many more important issues in the country today that it is sort of sad that so many people will choose who they vote for based on that single issue. Most gay people vote for the democrats just because that party caters to the idea of gay marriage. If you look at the overall picture, gay people would be better off voting republican. Statistically speaking, gays have a higher income than the average American, so voting for the party that likes to raise taxes to create government programs that mostly cater to the poor seems like an illogical choice. Aside from the fact that the democrats appeal to lower income voters (aka "not the gays"), Democrats are all about education reform, but most gays don't have children so that's sort of a mute point. Out of all the government programs that the democrats like to create, how many of them are of actual use to your average gay person? Basically, Democrats adopt gay marriage as an issue because your average gay American doesn't have much of a reason to vote for that party otherwise. As for the republican argument against gay marriage. Let's be honest, we all know it's crap. Most of the people who vote against gay marriage do it on a moral/religous basis, but you can't use a religous argument in American politics so they just come up with another reason. They vote the way they do because of their personal beliefs, which is a right that our country is founded on. I'm sure I'm going to get jumped on for this post, so let me clarify: I am NOT against gay people in any way. I'm just pointing out the facts the way I see them, and I'm far from a raging conservative (registered democrat here, so don't try the ignorant republican argument). I'm also not the one who calls half of a country's political ideals "bullsh*t", especially when I'm not from that country and can't vote in that country.

Nope. Plus, UCF is kind of an athletic joke anyways. That's one of the biggest drawbacks of that school to me, I want a football team that I can take seriously. I grew up in an SEC town and I've competed for two years in the ACC, so I have a hard time taking UCF athletics seriously.

hahaha, your Singin in the Rain vortex made me die laughing!!! I can't wait to see your Knoebels update, I hope you had an awesome time

I'll trade you. Right now. No but seriously, I don't think I'm going back to Clemson in the fall for so many reasons that can't really be explained in a post like this. Basically, being a college athlete isn't all it's cracked up to be, I'd rather put my energy into something that I enjoy more. I may end up at Alabama, Auburn, or UCF next year. If I go to Alabama or Auburn then I'll probably go in the fall, but if I decide to go with UCF then I'll probably take a semester off to work. I'm happy with however that situation works out, I just wish I had a better idea of where I'll be living when August rolls around. That's awesome that you used to swim btw.

Wow, your pictures are amazing! I especially like the first picture of the water ride where the splash sort of blends in with the clouds. I was reading this thing and thinking "wow, what a nice looking park, hopefully I'll get back there someday", but then I had to slap myself and wake up.

^Sweet! Yeah I swim for Clemson, I do distance and butterfly, so basically all of the worst events. My roommate last year was a breastroker and a sprinter, I have to admit I was a little bit jealous.

Yeah, I started out with Graphics, but then switched to Accounting. I decided I hated Accounting, so then did Marketing which had a lot of the same lower-level courses that Accounting did, so my classes barely changed. I'm a huge politics nerd, so I finally just decided to do Political Science, although writing essays about politics barely seems like work to me because I enjoy arguing about that sort of stuff so much. Since I got far enough into the business curriculum I am still getting a business degree, although I have downgraded to a minor in Business Administration to allow for my Poli-Sci major. I want to be a college professor in Political Science eventually, so I'll probably go to grad school after my undergrad.

He didn't say he was comparing the popular rides, but I felt it was implied because that was the only explanation that made any sense. His post was a poor argument that was sort of confusing and convoluted, but when isolate a single sentence from an entire paragraph then you're just amplifying a poor post in order to try and make it sound worse than it actually was. It was kind of a dumb thing to compare the two coasters, but you responded with a post that consisted of two words which added nothing to the discussion other than to ridicule someone. He was at least trying to add to the topic with his post, albeit he probably needed to think about what he was saying more. To sum it up, I think you picked out a sentence because using a single sentence is more effective in making him look stupid than using his entire post. This thread walks a fine line between laughing at fellow TPR member's dumb posts (we've all had them) and being mean, and I think you were being a little mean by picking at a post like that. Just my opinion though, take it for what it is.

Give him a break, you're taking the quote out of context which is misleading in my opinion, it's like you're picking apart posts and judging them. He was comparing the parks, and those seem to be the most popular rides at both parks. He was essentially saying Cedar Point's "best" coaster versus Great Adventure's "best" coaster. It certainly wasn't the best argument ever formulated, but it's not nearly as stupid as it sounds when you isolate that one sentence. It wasn't a great post, but there have certainly been worse things posted on this site. His post added more to the topic than your "just quoting" post did, which served no purpose to the thread other than to be condescending.

So wait, they plan on adding theming, but the ride opens in four days? So this is pretty much what the ride is going to look like when it opens, maybe with the addition of a sign or something. The slide looks fun, but it also looks pretty cheap for a Pro-Slide. They....umm.... Have a lot of rides.

hahahaha, just respond with "wow, that is so interesting, please tell me more". Nod for about five minutes, then repeat.

I thought Disney started to introduce "Green" busses, but most of their fleet is still traditional. I think they're gradually switching out their busses, instead of just replacing all of them at once. I could be wrong though.

^ I almost died laughing when I read that I'm telling you, Wild Adventures needed to buy Deja Vu. They never open their rides anyways, so think about how many times they could get him to visit!

^Wow, you really do need to work in Florida.

Thank you! I think a lot of younger people wither go through the "I listen to horrible music that is popular" phase or the "I refuse to admit that I like anything that's popular because all popular music is horrible" phase. It's all a part of the Jr. High clique phase which in my opinion is one of the crappiest parts of growing up. I need to wear what all the other non-conformists are wearing.

^Well, you've visited the park 10 times and you're clearly still alive, so I don't think that has been much of an issue. I didn't make a case for simply rides, I don't think there are many people out there who would legitimately argue that Carowinds has better rides than SFOG. I have never seen line jumping as bad at SFOG as I have at Carowinds, and I can't really put one park over the other in terms of cleanliness (although I can pick a winner for number of trash cans). Just my opinion though.

I don't understand how you can say that when you live in Charlotte. In every single aspect of your complaint Carowinds in MUCH worse. Based on my visits to the two parks, SFOG has the better staff, the better guests (although both can get pretty bad in peak season), and a WAY better ride collection. Line jumping isn't nearly as bad at SFOG as it is at Carowinds, and at least at Six Flags you get line jumped in the shade.

Wow, awesome pictures! BGE is such an awesome park, this TR makes me want to get back up there so badly.

I had to handle large buckets of hydrochloric acid today at work, wearing nothing but some sun glasses, flip flops, a bathing suit, and a t-shirt. Have you ever inhaled the fumes from acid that strong? Not cool. The stuff was slightly diluted, but it was still strong enough to give me small burns on my hands and holes in my shorts from when some would splash out of the buckets, 99% of the time I have to coolest job ever, but stuff like that just makes me complain.

^^That's an interesting article. I wish we knew more about what companies submitted designs and what those plans looked like. I would imagine that one of the companies mentioned was Gerstlauer and maybe another was Maurer Sohne, but I wonder what the other company was and which ones had which problems (not fun enough, too expensive, not enough capacity). When Busch was in the early stages of creating SheiKra, there were rumors that the park looked into B&M building a vertical lift, so perhaps B&M submitted a design. Anyone know more?

^Well in that case did you at least make out with a free CP uniform?