Blog
I’m not a huge fan of cross posting. I mean, there are a lot of people around town who self identify as bloggers for whom cross posting seems like a truly legitimate Internet business model. There’s nothing better than thinking you can get something for nothing except thinking you can get something for nothing without having to leave your house. I’m sorry your pyramid scheme didn’t work out. Yes, try blogging! Better yet, start a blog about your MLM/Network Marketing scheme.
Anyhoo, long-standing Tampa icon of generally spazzy dance cool, Jeremy Gloff posted this over on his Reax blog, and it’s so freakin’ hilarious, I had to share. Messing with the christians in Ybor? Pure comedy gold.
I loves me some live-action Rickrolling. Oh yeah, did you know that Reax has a crap ton of blogs on its site? It’s true. You should go read them. Some of them are swell. Original content, too. Shocking.
Have ya’ll seen those douchey Segway® tours going on downtown? You know, the ones wherein douchey looking people with silly helmets ride the scooter that Dean Kamen predicted would be a world changing transportation revolution?
Anywho, here in Florida we embrace anyone with a grand idea and the ability to steal another person’s logo. And hell, if you’re going to steal a logo, go big. In fact, why not grab something hugely recognizable in the area like the Buccaneers flag?
Yeah, that’s nice, I like that. I mean, if it works for them it will work for you, right? I’m sure there’s no problem with just borrowing the flag. It might be nice, also, to go ahead and use the Bucs’ font as well.
Yes! That’s tits! See, people will associate all that built up good will they have with the Buccaneers brand and your shitty little tour company will seem familiar and trustworthy because of it. Dude, what if you put a really bad line drawing of a Segway® on the flag itself that is just a few lines away from being a penis!? HAHAHA. Man, THAT WOULD BE TITS!
Seriously, people, come on now. It is called trademark infringement, look it up. Try doing a Google or two at some point during your “business” planning. Oh, and you might want to hire a lawyer - incoming cease and desist!
Gay pride is in the air; in fact, it’s been in the air all month, seeing as how June is pride month. It seems to me it’s had a little lower profile this time around in the media. I can’t figure out if that’s a good or a bad thing. You might remember that last year we got to deal with everyone’s favorite brimstone-spewing megaphone jockey, Larry Keffer, and there was a lot of discussion of free speech zones, all of which, of course, somehow magically elicited lots of feisty, raving anti-sodomoy bursts from Larry Keffer. I swear that dude captured a Google bot and keeps it somewhere in his basement. That dude will comment on your blog before you’re even done writing. Oh, that reminds me: HEY BUDDY! Now make with the Leviticus. I’m still a little unclear on that shellfish thing.
I don’t know, maybe the protestors are keeping it on the DL this year, since a bunch of them who came down here in their creepy church van from Georgia were just found guilty of violating a city ordinance for having signs that exceeded a certain allowable width. According to the ordinance, signs can’t be wider than the carrier’s torso. Rad. See, now this is one of those moments where the absurd literalism of the law can actually be used for good. Had the ordinance had anything to do with the actual content of the signs, well then you’d have a free speech issue on your hands. No, however, as the ordinance states, it’s just about public safety and ensuring that people are able to walk freely around you, your bible, and your silly sign. You know, public safety, and ok, maybe an eensy weensy little bit to do with keeping jackasses away from the proceedings. Unofficially, of course.
Why not fight a technicality with a technicality? Are you morbidly obese? Do you hate gay people? Can you carry a sign? Awesome! The van will be by your house at noon. Bigger torso. Bigger sign. Ahem.
The other startling news this year? Mayor Baker will again neither be endorsing, nor attending the parade tomorrow. Why the latter? It appears his office never got the email invite. Sure buddy, sure. Jesus built my spam filter.
You love a parade, and it’s tomorrow, June 28, at 10am. Be there.:
This story is AWESOME - and here’s why: it could have been written for St. Petersblog. It has all the trappings of one of our finely written stories such as a lack of facts, serious speculation, assumptions and willy nilly half ass journalism. Let’s take a look, shall we?
The Tampa Bay Rays may soon abandon their push for a November referendum to build a $450-million waterfront stadium.
Well I’ll be damned, that sounds good to me, I bet there are a ton of facts within this fine story to prove such a statement.
Rays executives did not return calls for comments Tuesday, and team officials denied as late as Monday the possibility of pushing back the referendum.
Oh, OK, the first fact actually says that the source has denied a delay. But hey, often times “no comment” means FUCK YEAH I’M GUILTY AS FUCK!
No one the Times spoke with on Tuesday expected the Rays to halt their quest for a new ballpark, or even one on the waterfront.
Hmm, I would read this as “seriously, we made this shit up, no one has said a damn thing that would make it true.” But, upon closer reading (which is a rarity for me), it looks like no one expects the new stadium to be HALTED, which is different than DELAYED. So, hmm. More facts please!
Members of the St. Petersburg City Council were unaware of a possible delay.
Well shit, another group that is not backing the Times claim. So the score is Times says delay, everyone else says WTF are you talking about!?
Look, I’d be happy if this were delayed, certainly it doesn’t mean it wouldn’t happen later, but a broomstick in the spokes of the new stadium plans would certainly hurt the necessary momentum for something like this. The problem, though, is that the Times should leave the shitty journalizing to the professionals - namely us. You guys are supposed to have facts and supporting evidence and shit when you make claims, don’t be trying to front on our half ass speculation mongering stylee. You are not a blog, you are composed of paper and shit, we are composed of internets. BIG DIFFERENCE.
Not to beat a dead flag into the ground, but all this recent talk about the hugh jass confederate flag really did get me thinking about the south rising again, and just how smelly and decayed it would be; well, and then there would be its inexplicable desire for BRAAAIIIIINNNNNSSS. Thankfully, Troma produced this delightful educational film on How to Survive a Zombie Confederate Uprising. Whew.
You know, I’ve been writing in this blog for a while now, and I have to be honest, sometimes the comments I get really hurt. I like to think of myself as being pretty much above it all. I mean, it’s just the Internet, right? Everyone’s an asshole on the Intertrons. Actually being affected by anything anyone writes on the Internet is a clear sign that you’re doing it wrong. And yet, I don’t know. Maybe I just had to read one too many comments in which it was suggested that I a) Get a life, b) Get a job and/or c) Do something more productive and positive with my life.
Ultimately, I think those misguided, ostensibly geriatric, contextually confused, and laughably incensed commenters may have a point. It’s with that in mind that I’d like to take this opportunity to announce that I’ve turned over a new spiritual leaf and brought myself under the guidance of a spiritual advisor. You might know him as Raymond, that shirtless guy in your neighborhood with a transistor radio bungeed to the milk crate on his bike. I, however, refer to him as His Absurdly Holy Luminescence. His Absurdly Holy Luminescence hopes to make me a more positive and productive person, and he has a number of teachings to bring me into an openness and oneness with my fellow travelers.
The first thing His Absurdly Holy Luminescence wants me to do is stand on the side of the road in high and tight cut off jean shorts and sing .38 Special songs at the top of my lungs all day. I’ll admit, I was a little skeptical concerning how doing this was going to make me a better person. “Like, seriously Ray Ray - er, I mean, Your Absurdly Holy Luminescence,” I said. “How will people react? How will the awesome 80’s country rock stylings of .38 Special teach them about the one true path?” I’d like to share with you HIs Absurdly Holy Luminescence’s response in full, as I think it will help you in your journey:
We’re approaching the closed mind and the open mind — whatever mind drives down that interstate. … Is he or she going to drive in and check it out and determine what this is? Well, if he or she does, they’ll get the picture on the ground, which is the important picture. If they don’t, if they just drive on by, it’s a lost cause. If the closed mind stays closed, then they lose and we lose, because our object, our goal, our aim has gone amiss. We haven’t gained anything. …
Awesome, right? Ok, I lied. I didn’t have a spiritual awakening, although, who the fuck doesn’t love some .38 Special now and again? No, that quote came directly from Alex Pickett’s interview in Creative Loafing with Marion Lambert, apparent mystic, sometimes historian, and batshit crazy member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. You remember, those zany folks who are still pissing everybody off with their hugh jass confederate flag. This is how that dude responds to questions in an interview. How Alex Pickett didn’t just stop and go, “Seriously? Are you fucking kidding me with this shit?” is completely beyond me. That’s why he’s a professional I guess.
I’m a little late on this article, but it’s worth reading just so you know the kind of people we’re dealing with here. Go for the article, stay for the batshit crazy amateur historian redneck commenters. Jesus. Which one of you assholes told those people about the Internet? Bad move.
Also, in case you didn’t notice, that spiritual awakening thing was total bullshit. I am still totally a dick! Go me!
**Update: But wait, there’s more. Alex Pickett directed me to his post on CL’s “Blurbex” blog which includes the full version of his interview with Lambert. Bonus awesome: “Confederate Flag Dude talks about his ‘tourist attraction’, presidential hopefuls and his Scientologist black friends.” Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better.
Um, just wow. So there I was, minding my own business, and this shows up in my inbox:
But wait, there’s an entire photo set: Midget Chippendales at the James Joyce in Ybor City. You stay classy, Tampa. *facepalm*
Hey everybody, well what do you know? We got voted Best Local Blog as part of the Netroots Awards, at least, that’s what the Florida Progressive Coalition Blog is telling me. Usually when I hear the word “coalition,” it’s followed by the word “forces” or some other such scary, martial sounding thing. This, however, is like a militia of badass Progressives. I bet they have awesome uniforms. Like, cool jumpsuits with a really well-designed patch. Anyway, Coalition + Progressives = good. We’re in good company, too. Creative Loafing’s Political Whore got Best Media Blog. That Wayne Garcia is a swell dude. Awesome! And look, I managed to get through an entire post without saying fuck. Wait . . . aw, balls.
I think we can all agree on something right now. There’s just something not quite right about people who actively choose to drive PT Cruisers. A recent impromptu poll I took among people who don’t actually drive PT Cruisers confirms this. The general consensus was that the sort of people who drive these cars probably have first-hand experience with a pyramid scheme, and have narrowly avoided involvement in various white collar crimes. Presently they’re putting fliers for their new tan and smoothie business in Evos.
It’s one of those cars that seems to have borrowed a great deal from the cars of people who actually know a thing or two about classic styles, restoration and chopping, but says, “Hey, you, you sort of think that stuff is kind of neat, huh? But you’re not sure why, and you certainly don’t know a goddamn thing about it, but maybe you’d like to pretend to be cool like that.” It’s like a fake pair of Chuck Taylors. The only people who should be driving those cars are old men with jaunty caps. As far as I’m concerned, old men with jaunty caps can do whatever the fuck they want.
Anyway, I’m bringing this up because I’ve noticed a lot of PT Cruisers running around town advertising some kind of custom meat delivery service. These services have clever names like The Meat Man, and Beefy Meat Slingerz. This bothers me. See, I remember The Meatmen, and they sure as shit didn’t drive PT Cruisers plastered in bad ad designs culminating in weak .info domain names.
See how this works? They’re the Meatmen, and you do, in fact, suck.
I wanted to write more about these local meat men, but none of the domains I remember from their awesome rides were resolving. Maybe I left out a .biz or something. I’ll have to wait until the next time I see them on the street.
The consolation for this is that it reminded me of a similarly awesome ad-ride. Perhaps you’ve seen it. Yes, that yellow Mazda Protege enticing all of us to “just whistle.” When I first saw this car, I remember thinking, yes, now this is the kind of person with a website. I thought that because the url was displayed prominently on the car itself. I am good like that. I am also good enough to know that generally speaking, websites advertised via urls on back windows are usually a wonderland of design and programming Win.
This yellow car belongs to none other than local whistling virtuoso “Whistlin’ Tom.” This is Whistlin’ Tom’s home on the internets. It’s pretty much exactly what you would expect. In fact, it’s barely worth talking about. Bizarre copy that tries just a little to hard to elevate whistling to a serious art form? Check. Dude in zany print shirts with a moustache? Check. Comic Sans? You better fucking believe it. Obligatory Times article? Absolutely.
It’s a proven fact; if you’re capable of doing something slightly more creative than breathing, the Times would like to talk to you about a feature article.
The high point for me is the Whistlegram service. Dude, will whistle over the phone to your relatives and loved ones. I love it.
It seems like Tom’s done pretty well for himself, and you know, he does have something resembling a talent. Now if he could get away from referring to himself as the “Lord of Lips” and from using squirmy phrases like “Puckulations,” we’d probably get along just fine.
Starbucks. It’s the morning rush. The collective caffeine deficit is palpable. It’s that special time when the thin veneer of civilization is pretty much at its thinnest. In fact, in something of a cultural paradox, the only thing keeping the line itself from devolving into a savage mob is that people haven’t had their caffeine yet, and therefore really lack the energy to rip one another’s limbs off. All that, and this woman has a list. A list of no less than ten drink orders, each of which is somehow miraculously more complex than the one preceding it. I swear at some point I saw the ghost of Obi Wan floating over the barista’s shoulder saying, “Remember your training. You can do this.” Seriously though, a list at 8am? Don’t be that person.
Aw, crap. I knew there was something I missed last weekend. Yup, last weekend was the 2008 meeting of the Society for People who abuse the same Photoshop Filter in everything they do. Correct. SFPWATSPFIETD for short. Ok, no. Last weekend was the 2008 Florida Ghost Gathering, however, and it was held at the Heritage Hotel in lovely St. Petersburg. That’s right; people who believe in ghosts and suck at Photoshop. Where the fuck do I sign up?
OMG!!1!! Look at that ghost that looks like a fountain! Wait, oh; it’s actually a fountain.
I can’t tell exactly what went down at this thing, but apparently, beyond the basic roundtable stuff, there were investigations happening - serious business, as it were. Like, I think everybody got to hang around the lobby and watch some pros try to figure out whether or not there was anything paranormal going down. All I’m saying is for $128 a night, there better have been some kind of EVP electric laser light shit happening in there.
Participants had to be members of “an established paranormal investigative group in Florida”, and to prove that, they needed “a website or similar proof of existence.” Now, far be it from me to question the bullshit meters on a bunch of paranormal investigators, seriously, those tricoder things you kids have have “legit science” written all over them, but the fact that I have a Godaddy.com account and invented a Ghostbusters drinking game probably doesn’t qualify me to attend this gathering.
Anyway, I can’t remember how I even stumbled across this, but I thought I’d share. Whoever this dude is seems to be the main local paranormal pimp, and he also seems to have an unhealthy fascination with live streaming himself talking to other paranormal enthusiasts from what looks to be the comfort of a control room with enough monitors and shit to support a NASA launch and simultaneously destabilize the economy of a small country.
To top it all off, you’ll note one of the sponsors, S.P.I.R.I.T.S. of St. Petersburg is our very own local paranormal investigative group. If someone knows what S.P.I.R.I.T.S. stands for, let me know. I couldn’t get past the spooky design on their Myspace page to find out. Apparently, they’re good at what they do, since they’ve verified what everyone’s known for years, which is that my beloved Haslam’s is haunted by the product-placement obsessed ghost of Jack Kerouac. No shit. It’s all written up right here. I guess the elder Jack used to roll in to Haslam’s and move his books to more prominent places in the store. Apparently his ghost shows up every now and then to you know, rearrange shit. If you say so, kids; you’re the ones with a website.
Lastly: Ectoplasmic residue. It’s a bitch to get out of your clothes.
Just moments ago, a sketchy looking older woman, clearly intoxicated and clearly carrying years of hard living on her bones, said the following to me in the parking lot of the 22nd Ave Home Depot:
I have $81, want to do it for $50?
Um, what? Is this some kind of new reverse hookerism? Was she offering to pay me? I’m confused.
Reader Doug points us to this story on the city doing research into some “light rail” action. Looks like peeps from Clearwater, Tampa and the Burg will be touring Charlotte, Dallas and Denver to check out their rail systems.
The article mentions TBARTA, who has been around for about a year working on plans for multimodal transportation (including light rail). Theoretically TBARTA is capable of financing, constructing, operating, maintaining, and managing the transportation system it develops. That all sounds fantastic, but the reality is that most of these forms of mass transit have died as a result of a lack of funding.
The argument against rail in Tampa Bay goes like this: Few locals ride transit now. The public is sick of taxes. We don’t have a big, dominant downtown. The benefits of rail are exaggerated. No one will walk to a final destination in our stifling heat.
Light rail would indeed mean increased/new taxes, and as we learned with that “Yes on 1” bullshit, people don’t like new taxes even when they are actually a good idea.
There are lots of reasons light rail would be a great thing in the bay area, and here’s the most important one: no more drunken trips across the bridge. Seriously! The TBARTA plans include a rail line along I-275 linking the downtowns of St. Petersburg and Tampa. This way I’d just have to stumble from Ybor to downtown Tampa, and then I’ll be whisked safely home with a bunch of hobos in a cattle car. Awesome!
It looks like the soonest a vote would come (at least for Tampa) would be 2010. That seems a bit optimistic to me at the rate things move around here, but I for one will be eagerly awaiting the opportunity to watch as yet another awesome idea gets shot down.
got a tip?
love
buy shit
subscribe
recent comments
- farscape: Well they did it again yesterday…. Had to hire another VP.
- Todd: Too funny…..you get the quarter back when you are done shopping….geez!
- someone from NEHI: dawg yall punk niggas need to stop bitchen i know some of these...
- RAIN: YES I THINK THAT IS REALLY A DOG ON SHAME HOW THIS FACILITY IS MAKING THE BURG...
- Dorkmunder: Big Bounce Media?