Swimace

I'm 6'3, so I guess I'm a pretty tall person. I think tall people have an advantage on a lot of rides, since your head isn't boxed in between the OTSR's. The only OTSR's that bother me are the Intamin ones that they have been using lately (i.e. Storm Runner). Since the parts that physically come over your shoulder are more like un-padded straps, they push against the tops of my shoulders and can leave sore spots if I do a lot of repeat rides.

^I made my opinion clear in the "favorite bands" thread so I'm not going to be redundant by posting it here. However... I'm using a pretty cheap/busted camera right now that isn't a good as my last one (which got stolen out of my house). With that in mind, I took this video at the Panic! show. The visuals don't really look that good, but for some reason the audio turned out really well so I threw it up on YouTube. It's an acoustic version of "Time to Dance" and it'll give you a good idea to the feel of the show, especially for anyone going later in the tour. I usually don't take videos at shows because I'm hardly ever holding still enough to take one, but since I was farther back in the crowd than I usually am I decided to give it a shot... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXvKu5vzZzo

I am so jealous right now Erik. I love BGE, it's one of my favorite overall parks that I've been to. I can't wait to see your updates! haha, Gainesville Regional Airport. Keeping it luxurious....

My point isn't about Hot Topic. What I'm try to say is that not listening to popular music doesn't make you an original person, it makes you a typical non-conformist, which is basically a contradiction of terms that equates to being a fraud. I hate when people become condescending over popular music with the "oh, you listen to that band..." type of attitude. If you listen to music based on what you like and not based on what others think then you're an original person. If you listen to music because it's popular or not popular then you're simply supporting an artist so that you can fit into a certain group. Scaparri made a really good point about feeling ownership of a band and a band's touring, but to say that the music changes based on how popular it is just doesn't make any sense to me. Just my opinion here, take it for what it is. If that sounded harsh it wasn't directed at you personally, just the idea of a person who dislikes a certain artist simply for the fact that they're popular. I understand that popularity can detract from the personal connection to some music, but just rejecting a band once they become popular is just a desperate attempt at appearing original or indie (assuming the band in question doesn't sell out of course)

^If music is good then it doesn't lose or gain meaning based on how many people here it. If people liking music means that music becomes meaningless pop that is simply made for MTV, then you're probably listening to bad music to begin with. That view just makes you sound like you're "too cool" to listen to music that other people know. I may be reading you wrong, but I think that's why you made that Fall Out Boy statement in the other thread. Saying "they're just bad" is kind of like saying "I shop at Hot Topic because I want to be like all the other non-conformists".

I agree with you on the touring, I really don't like seeing a band in a huge venue for the most part, especially when it's assigned seating. It's not unusual for me to be that person standing outside of a venue hours before the doors open just so I can get a good spot, and arena concerts kind of ruin that. I like mid-sized venues that are big enough to get a large crowd going, but are small enough so that you can never feel too far away from the stage. When a venue is too small a show can sometimes seem less exciting (although that depends on the artist and genre of course). However, I've seen some really good concerts in large venues. One of my favorite bands of all time is The Shins and I saw them in The Atlanta Civic Center in the fall. My seat wasn't too close to the stage, the seats were really large and comfortable which kind of made the crowd seem a little bit too spread out. Even so, I just stood there in awe for the entire show because they were just incredible (call me bias or whatever, but I'm trying to make a point on one of my favorite bands that is pretty popular). Would they have seemed better in a smaller venue? Probably. But the fact that a lot of people would pay to go see them sure didn't detract from the experience. That's an interesting point you made about feeling a sense of ownership for a band. That makes a lot of sense, but I still think saying that if a band gets popular then it's ruined (referring to Disney Dood, not you). I could care less how many people like or dislike my favorite bands, but I think seeing a band go from a club tour to constant arena touring would make me sad.

The only magazine I subscribe to is The Economist. I try to keep up with what's going on in the world, and it gives me a good weekly update of things I have missed in the news. Final exams and the end of the semester have kind of thrown me off over the last few weeks, so an Economist can be a good way to play catch up.

^ Thank you for that. ^^Thanks, it sounds like you had an awesome weekend too!

I don't understand the logic that a lot of people use that they can't like a popular band. If you like the music, why does it matter how many other people feel the same way? A band you like becoming popular can be a really good thing, it often means that they can afford to record higher quality music with better equipment. Sure, if a band becomes popular and sells out their sound then that's a bad thing, but if a good song gets picked up by MTV that doesn't change the words or the meaning. How can your favorite band becoming popular ruin them for you? Plus, bands that don't have fans are too poor to go on tour. True story.

Nobody questioned because everybody knows that it totally is one. duh. haha, kidding.

^I think "Loopy Water" was my favorite. I actually paused the video at that part because I was so confused. Maybe that can become a new character drinking experience at a Pleasure Island, haha

^Saturday was without a doubt awesome, we'll have to do something like that again soon ^^I think that for the most part "bad music" is an opinion, not something that can be dictated. I've done my fair amount of critizing Fall Out Boy in this thread, but it has all been based on me seeing them live and them just straight up not being able to deliver a decent performance. I would never say "well that's just bad music", because I think that comes off as rather pretentious. Plenty of people like Fall Out Boy, and I think that a statement like that is in a way putting those people down by essentially saying they have bad taste. If you don't think they're a good band then say so and provide an argument to support why. Just my opinion...

lol, "Goofy Water"? That sounds like it should be alcoholic Nice video again.

Wow, this is a lot more extensive than I thought it was going to be. I really like Universal Studios, I'm glad that they're giving me a reason to come back! I was kind of bummed when I heard that they decided not to go with a B&M mini-hyper coaster, but now I'm actually happy about it (assuming that this doesn't turn out to be rough).

So I can't remember if it was this thread or another, but a little while ago some of us were having a Panic! at the Disco versus Fall Out Boy debate. Now I've clearly stated my opinion of Fall Out Boy based on when I saw them live back in the fall, but this weekend I decided to go see Panic! in Atlanta. The show was at the outdoor section Masquerade, I posted a concert from the indoor section here (the first concert I posted on that page). Anyways, I spent the day at Lake Winnie and then headed up to Atlanta for the night. I wanted to go to this show because I really liked Motion City Soundtrack, and to be honest I wasn't really huge on the other three bands playing (The Hush Sound, Phantom Planet, and Panic!). Well I opted to stay longer at Lake Winnie than I originally planned because we were having such a good time, so I missed Phantom Planet and was farther back in the crowd than I normally would be (but Lake Winnie was definitely worth it). So The Hush Sound was pretty good I guess, I didn't really know any of their stuff but they seemed to play pretty well. Motion City Soundtrack.... kind of disappointing. They were the reason I went to this show and they just didn't deliver. They weren't terrible by any means, but their vocals were way off from their recorded stuff which leads me to think that their albums may be really over-produced. So I stuck around for Panic! since I had paid the money for the ticket and I just generally enjoy live music, and they were AWESOME!!. Seriously, they were great live. Although Scaparri made a case for Fall Out Boy a couple pages back that is worth reading, from my experience seeing both bands this school year I can there is honestly no comparison in my opinion. Anyways, for those too lazy to read here are some pictures. I went for Motion City but left really happy with Panic. The concert was outdoors and the lighting was kind of weird for the smaller sets so I didn't like any of my pictures of Motion City Soundtrack or Phantom Planet turned out. ....and here's Panic! at the Disco. They really delivered a good show, so it was fun times Overrated-thump-thump-thumpthumpthump Oh sorry, just warming up for football season. Masquerade is about a mile down North Ave from G-Tech's football stadium Wow, so I'm going to an outdoor concert? Thankfully the rain stopped right as I was getting into downtown, but aparently it rained through The Hush Sound. I drove through a pretty sizeable thunderstorm on the way to the show, so I'm glad I ended up fairly dry at the end of th night. So yeah, I spent the day at Lake Winnie. Check out Beemerboy's TR of the day in the Donkeys forum and don't forget to voice your/my opinion by voting yellow.

1) I rode that drop tower more times that day than all of the drop towers I've ridden in the past five years combined. You got special treatment, but at least by the third or fourth try I could keep my eyes open for the whole thing. 2) When you step on the black mat the ride stops, or at least that's what I hear. 3) Put whatever caption you want, but at least I dominated Joe on that slide despite the fact he had a better start. If I'm going to take funny pictures I'm at least going to do it as a winner, haha. Great TR man!

Know Your Onion!- The Shins

Away We Go- Valencia

It's almost 10:00 on a Friday night and I'm six pages into a paper on how the media is often misleading on reporting science. This paper sucks, I want to go out, but I have to finish this thing because I'm going to be in Atlanta tomorrow night and out of town most of the weekend. School sucks, now back to work...

^That's really messed up, if they didn't take the pictures then they really shouldn't watermark them. That seems to be kind of a slap in the face to Hersheypark if you ask me. ^^If there's a letter in that one I think you found it. That "I" is much more convincing than the other cases that have been made about that picture.

The Underdog- Spoon

The Florida music scene sucks unless you go to see local bands. Most bands that tour nationally skip Florida because it's pretty much a dead end. The only show I saw last summer was The Ataris, they pulled up in some junked out van and played like four songs. I didn't know they were even touring anymore, so yeah Florida is kind of bad if you're trying to see a lot of well known bands.

This is too hard, do you think you could give us an easier hint?

^Here's one of the more noticeable examples from one of the pictures you posted. If you look closely you'll see a white "N" in the circle.

^^Haven't all of the letters been white up to this point? I'm not sure that there's an I in your circle there, but I guess we'll find out with some time.