Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

The State of Small Business: Of the top 25 MSA’s, only seven showed consistent, annual growth in the number of small businesses from January 2000 through December 2003. Among the seven is Tampa at 19.2%.

This weeks Planet highlights several local blogs, most of which address state politics. They singled out new blog Florida News for being the first to report that the Florida Democrats registered scottmaddox2006.com. The online article also links to FlaBlog and the Sayfie Review, but the print edition includes a small description of each along with the urls for Florida Politics, Blogwood, Discourse.net, South of the Suwannee, and Interstate 4 Jamming. Congrats on the writeup, guys.

Of note:
Man bites dog.
State Rep Kevin Ambler is a bad driver.
Café Pepe, Palios Brothers, The Old Meeting House, The Chatterbox, and now Malio’s?
71% of drivers think it’s ok to speed. 59% eat while driving. 90% admitted engaging in some kind of risky behavior while driving within a six month period.

Gambling:
There are 2.1 Million gamblers in Florida. 440,000 of ‘em in the Tampa Bay Area.
Since the slot machine amendment passed, an advocacy group says State help is needed for compulsive gamblers. Of course.

Education:
Most Floridian parents don’t know about free Pre-K starting next August.
Tutoring companies are getting rich off “No Child Left Behind” initiative. This is happening all over the country.

Tampa Bay Bloggers:
Great St. Pete blog DebWire turned one year old.
Population Statistic reports that Clearwater-based Hooters now has a franchise in Shanghai.
Unstoppable girlie has the scoop on the new U2 tour.
Bayciti reminds us that Swann Av might have been an interstate after all.
Crazy Island reports that Atlanta sucks.

The County decided to take ownership of the St. Pete Times Forum from the Tampa Sports Authority. When the Lightning first moved into the arena, it was with the understanding that they had no property tax obligation. A subsequent Supreme Court ruling held that the arrangement was not exempt. This move enables the team to lease building without owing those taxes, as originally intended. In return, the Lightning agreed to remain in Tampa for the next ten years. The new arrangement still must be approved by the Tampa City Council.

Now, if we could just end the lockout…

The other day, I told you that Michael Hussey (Last Day of my Life) beat Howard Troxler to the punch in calling out Dick Greco for the LaBrake scandal. Hussey later suggested that he and I as well as other local bloggers should write for Tampa Bay Indy Media. I gave it a half-ass thought, then went on with my life.

Then yesterday I pointed out how a post here inspired a news story at the Tribune. And now I see that Dan Ruth also gets ideas for his column by reading Sticks of Fire. I had half-joked about reporters using my stuff back in August, and today Rachel reports on the pathetic writing at tbt*.

It could be Hussey is on to something.

Are you in that giving spirit this holiday season? But not sure where to spend your hard-earned money or volunteer your time? Check out the Charity Navigator. They evaluate the effectiveness of charitable organizations in Tampa and nationally. Guidestar does a similar job, and even checks on each group’s IRS tax filing, and confirms their status as a 501(c)(3). Happy giving!

While I’m picking on the Tribune, earlier this month they were busted using an incorrect homophone in a headline. Blogwood caught them using “peek” instead of “pique.” Yesterday’s print edition ran with this gem: State Roll In Faith-Based Pre-Ks Murky for this article. Uh… shouldn’t that be “role?” Although I can see how the private pre-ks might soon be rolling in dough from the state.

Less than a week after writing a very long, boring post about the increase in cost of the Ybor/downtown Streetcar System, a Tribune headline today announces “Tampa Streetcar Cost Estimate Off Track By $13 Million.” This is not news. The helpful information would be explaining how the figures went up 54%.

According to articles taken from the Tribune itself (written as far back as 2002!), the cost overruns are closer to $40 million. What is going on here? Either past articles are inaccurate, or the reporter just accepted official’s numbers and claims that it was simply “poor planning.” Furthermore, today’s “story” is buried on page three of the Metro section. Not to single out one paper, neither the Times nor the Planet have reported any details either.

Last week in New Port Richey, Cesar Domico put on a magic show that lasted 52 hours. One hour for each card in a deck. The show ended at 6pm Friday, and the Colombian-born magician likely got himself into the Guinness Book of World Records. Other Guinness records from around here include the longest golf cart parade (Spring Hill), the bicycle built for 52 (Englewood), most consecutive days (768) of sunshine (St. Petersburg), and the longest continuous sidewalk in the world, Bayshore Blvd. Plant City no longer holds the record for the world’s largest strawberry shortcake, it is now in Pasadena.