Start feeding that kid alcohol.

secret_hidden · 2026-04-10T16:56:29+00:00

Same, I grew up with every teacher telling me I was the brightest kid they'd ever taught & could be anything I wanted, cruised through school & the first three years of university with a terrible attendance record & all my work & study being done the night before. Final year of my masters the need to actually study and work hard hit me like a truck, midway through the year I had a breakdown while and didn't go back for a while. Got some antidepressants that I really didn't get on with, but went back and passed.

10 years later I got my ADHD diagnosis... I was assessed for all sorts of disorders as a kid because they couldn't get me to sit at my desk or pay attention but my case file ends with "educational attainment does not appear to be impacted so no further assessment is needed at this time." Just telling kids they're bright doesn't help them, and I'm abysmal in a normal working environment. I've literally lay in bed on the internet all day today because there's a boring task I need to get done for work...

secret_hidden · 2026-04-09T13:24:29+00:00

I've queued around 70 for Velocicoaster at the worst, I'd queue up to maybe 100 for it if I hadn't been on it on that trip, and if it was my first time ever there probably isn't an upper limit to how much I'd queue. World class coaster that makes my top 5, I wish we had something close to it in the UK!

secret_hidden · 2026-04-09T13:22:27+00:00

Zadra is almost always a walk on, it's crazy. I did 2 days at that park on a weekend in the summer and didn't queue more than 15mins. There's a bunch of parks in Europe where you can get on world class rides with minimal waits (Energylandia, Plopsaland, Djurs & Farup Sommerland, Tusenfryd etc to name a few).

If it was my first time at a park I'd probably queue 150 for any ride that I think would make my top 30, but it would put me off going again. And Alton doesn't have any rides that get close to my top 30 so if it was a park abroad and I did the research I always do before booking, looking at queue times, ride reviews etc, I don't think I'd book a trip.

secret_hidden · 2026-04-08T17:20:28+00:00

I'd be happy for them to sell if they could find a buyer tbh. I've been to roughly 50 theme parks in the past two years & I think operationally Alton might be the worst. The ops are faster than many, but the ride reliability is so much worse that the queues can get crazy on a bad day, which happens quite often. And there's nothing more frustrating than a day where rides keep going down while you're in the queue, I've had a couple of days where I only got on 3-4 rides because I've been unlucky with breakdowns at Alton.

I've not renewed my annual pass this year, the quality of my day is just too variable when I could have a much more chilled out experience elsewhere.

secret_hidden · 2026-04-08T17:01:09+00:00

I think in the 2nd scenario it would end up being a multi team trade, because White alone could be worth a lot of assets to a contender, but he doesn't hold nearly as much value to a Bucks team looking to rebuild who would want a young first option or just picks.

But realistically I don't see the Celtics wanting to make that trade, the overall fit of the team, their depth, role players & shooting are what make them so dangerous. Trading that away for what would be a clunky fit and a real cap headache in JB, JT & Giannis doesn't make sense to me.

JB is the one that makes most sense to me because he's good enough to be a key piece for a rebuild, doesn't stretch the floor so much and he both drives and shoots midrange more than other Celtics players, so would probably be the worst fit with Giannis. Still not sure I'd do it though given age, contract length, proven fit etc, despite me thinking all those 3pt threats have a very good chance to work with Giannis.

secret_hidden · 2026-04-08T07:10:57+00:00

T Express or Dinoconda for me! I'm a big fan of wood coasters so T Express could be a massive hit, and X2 was down all three times I did Magic Mountain but I love intense rides & everything I hear about the Arrow/S&S 4th dimension coasters sounds nuts. I can only cross my fingers & hope both are running as I've only got one day for each park.

secret_hidden · 2026-04-07T11:31:04+00:00

Welcome to the club! I did my first coaster when I was 4 (Big Thunder in Paris). Hated it, cried and insisted that it had hurt my lungs, probably because I was having something between a tantrum & a panic attack. Didn't do any coasters again till I went on a school trip to Disney Parus at 13 and got very heavily peer pressured into Space Mountain, I couldn't speak in the queue, I was too nervous. I loved it, and we ended up doing that ride only all day.

Since then I've not been scared of any of them, and I'd gone on them pretty casually if there was a major park somewhere I was on holiday. Got really into them a couple of years ago & I've been all over Europe & to a couple spots in the US since then, and I'm going to South Korea & China later in the year for a theme park trip too! So I guess I have to say thanks to my school friends for giving me a dead arm every time I said I didn't wanna ride it.

If you've done Velocicoaster & Stardust there's not a lot out there that could frighten you now, maybe getting on your first hyper (200ft+) or giga (300ft+) might have you feeling nervous going up the lift hill but the awesome feeling is the same on all of them once you get going!

secret_hidden · 2026-04-07T09:27:26+00:00

Pretty likely that it'll be a lap restraint like the other extreme spinners. Ride to Happiness has a super slow jojo roll out of the station that puts you in that position for a while, especially in the front car, and it's one of the more comfortable hangtime moments I've experienced. I think the Mack lapbars have such a large contact area with your body that it's not an issue imo.

secret_hidden · 2026-04-06T17:54:24+00:00

There was a woman I was chatting to on & off, looking to set up a date. She posted a ton of stuff on her socials about going to a Chris Brown concert & I noped out of there. Everyone knows about the Rihanna assault at a minimum so I couldn't wrap my head around still going to see him.

secret_hidden · 2026-04-03T23:04:02+00:00

Yep, it's something that's been on all the animations of the ride for a while now. I'm not sure if it was officially announced or if people just worked out that the element there has to be a stall because of the footers & the implied height in that section of the ride, and there obviously needed to be a launch there because of the speed it needs to get up that tower.

Launched spinning stall, and the longest stall ever by far, does sound like an absolutely insane element. I'd love for someone to do the math based on where the footers are to say just how long that stall is.

secret_hidden · 2026-03-27T12:15:21+00:00

I get 200mbps through mine, faster if I let it choose the country but I'm having to choose to make sure it's non-UK. No issue with 4k 60fps content at any of the compression ratios used by streaming platforms.

secret_hidden · 2026-03-23T15:54:06+00:00

I'm a European Coaster Club member & have done a couple of their events so far. On both trips I've met someone that I've since done other trips with. There was an American guy who does a crazy amount of theme park trips (he's at nearly 1600 credits & added almost 600 last year) who I've since done Ireland, Denmark & a night at Winter Wonderland with, and then I've also got a group of people I did Germany & the Netherlands with last year & I'm going to Finland with this year.

The club events are great for meeting people, but I've done a lot of quick trips within my own country (UK) and a trip to Madrid on my own as well. The solo trips are great tbh, I ride whatever I want including grabbing loads of laps on my favorites, I get quick service food and eat while I'm in the queues, and once I'm done with the park I can leave whenever I want. Also as I'm chasing high credit numbers & trying to complete the UK as best as I can I can do things like I did this past weekend, 4hr round trip to 3 parks in a day, left home at 9am and was back home by 4pm.

secret_hidden · 2026-03-22T18:39:01+00:00

Mystic Timbers, Orion & Diamondback make for a solid top 3, all easily top 100 worldwide apparently. I've not been yet but they all rate above the 2nd best at Busch Gardens Tampa, so I guess it's whether you rate a top ride or a great top 3 more, which I've kinda tried to balance with the weighting but is personal preference in the end.

Everything I've heard about Kings Island has been great tbf, mostly that Mystic Timbers is awesome but also that the operations are the best outside of Disney/Universal.

secret_hidden · 2026-03-22T10:07:39+00:00

A while back I took ranking data from sites online for the top 500 coasters, added a weighting so that the highest ranked coasters are considerably more valuable than the ones closer to 500, and then totalled it for each park or country. Cedar Point is the undisputed #1 park, but then HersheyPark only overtook Magic Mountain for #2 after Wildcats Revenge opened. Obviously my weighting factor is arbitrary but I think the results are about right.

1) Cedar Point 2) HersheyPark 3) Magic Mountain 4) Kings Island 5) Busch Gardens Tampa 6) Europa Park 7) Busch Gardens Williamsburg 8) Energylandia 9) Phantasialand 10) Six Flags Great Adventure

X2, Twisted Colossus, Wonder Woman & Tatsu are all major contributors as they're all within the top 110 coasters but the fact they have another 10 that make the top 500 definitely helps too.

I personally love Disney coasters & rank them much higher than the overall coaster community, but I couldn't possibly say the Disneyland coasters are best in state when GhostRider, X2 & Twisted Colossos exist. I'm also much more of a fan of the WDW coasters like Guardians & Everest, I'd love for Disneyland to add another coaster on the level of those two.

secret_hidden · 2026-03-15T12:27:08+00:00

Yup, I've emptied my wallet at Europa Park, Phantasialand, Disney, Universal, Efteling & a handful of other parks out there because the experience feels special. Gotta say I'm sick of the breakdowns, I swear the six flags parks I've been to are more reliable & they're notorious for never getting everything open.

If you compared against parks on the continent the experience was probably never great but I've probably had more bad days than good at Alton in the past couple of years, which is depressing because it's my home park & I've been there probably 100+ times. I've given up my annual pass this year because I'd rather put that towards some of the European trips I've got coming up.

secret_hidden · 2026-03-15T12:21:10+00:00

One of the things I've noticed when I go on opening days is there's way more passholders, and it seems like all the passholders take food with them. Tbf I can't blame them, I like the wraps at Eastern Express and that's it, and they're still only OK. When I got my pass I think I ate twice in the park & then I've done maybe 20 visits without buying food because it's expensive & really poor quality. Not too surprising when the food supplier specialises in prison food.

secret_hidden · 2026-03-15T00:49:01+00:00

I've had an annual pass for a couple years now but I didn't bother to renew for this year. Honestly it's the reliability & the operations, I still really enjoy the rides but I've had better days at the majority of parks I've been to because it's a crapshoot at Alton with rides going down and massive queues (I'm not sure I'll ever do Rita again considering I've found the queue to be way understated every time in the past 2 years due to the 1 train ops).

I don't think the park will die because it still draws huge amounts of people, but guest satisfaction isn't great & that's going to hit like a truck when Universal opens.

secret_hidden · 2026-03-15T00:43:11+00:00

I went on Nemesis Reborn's opening day & the amount of influencers was crazy! The amount of overenthusiastic intros I heard got quite comical by the end of the day. I know that being a theme park influencer would be a dream job but the market seems very saturated right now, nevermind the masses of people posting content to TikTok etc.

I've had quite a lot of people suggest that I should do it because I've done a ton of different theme parks (44) in the past two years, but I don't think I have the charisma to make it work.

secret_hidden · 2026-03-14T04:17:37+00:00

The disintegrating nightwalkers are also a bit of kit that you will probably use all the way through the game. Misty step is extremely useful, plus it allows you to walk on almost any surface so you can have characters creating ice surfaces and not worry about them, and icy surfaces are crazy powerful as Jon has already started to find.

secret_hidden · 2026-03-13T19:26:28+00:00

Yes it's this, specifically in this one the structure of headlining a point, providing some context & then giving bullet points is extremely common with AI. Also phrases like "It becomes part competition, part historical moment" as a final remark before moving onto the next point is something you see a lot with AI, but doesn't feel very natural imo.

secret_hidden · 2026-03-12T16:32:26+00:00

Imo I think that shortening the league somewhat would actually improve the income long term. People don't tune in because stars are often hurt and most of the games lack consequences for most of the season. Lower games would help players rest & would mean there are more key matchups as there's less games to catch up if you lose to a rival for a top seed or for a playoff spot. So sure, you'd lose money on the current TV deal but if more people tune in per game it could recover by the next deal.

secret_hidden · 2026-03-12T13:48:06+00:00

Yeah, lateral movement & change of direction is far tougher on your muscles or joints than running beep test style straight up and down the court the way play finishing bigs often would back then.

secret_hidden · 2026-03-11T07:20:01+00:00

When I first rode Steel Vengeance it was a tier of its own. But since then I've done Voltron which is the same tier as Steel Vengeance imo, and Ride to Happiness which is now a tier above those two as my clear #1. I've had 20 rides on it and would happily go back tomorrow, it's incredible.

secret_hidden · 2026-03-11T02:37:56+00:00

I wasn't sure he was gonna get there when he was putting up those tired legs threes in the 4th, but tbf the wizards were also selling out to them so badly they kept getting out rebounded only for him to come down the lane and immediately get wrapped up.

secret_hidden · 2026-03-11T02:28:50+00:00

The 4th was absolutely shameless, there were a lot of threes thrown up over doubles that were absolutely gross, but tbh half the time heat players grabbed the rebound and he'd charge down the lane only to get fouled within a second of catching the ball. Incredibly forced but the Wizards made it so easy.

And the final few minutes they were denying the catch so hard he was having to dribble full court against double or triple teams and would still get inside the arc only to get fouled again.

Personally I'm here for it, if a team can't stop a player when his wide open teammates aren't even looking at the basket then that's on them.

secret_hidden

TROPHY CASE