Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

Due to popular demand, the blogrolling Tampa area blogroll has been transferred from over there to over here. You can find it at the bottom of the left margin. Many folks like it because it highlights the recently updated blogs, and puts those at the top of the list. If your blog doesn’t move to the top after you post, it’s because you are not pinging a notification service. SoF uses Ping-O-Matic.

Since the move, I’ve neglected to update the blogroll. Therefore, several newly found blogs are not included. If your Tampa area blog is not listed at the left, let me know in comments, and I’ll try to include it soon.

Likewise, if you follow a link over there and it leads to neverneverland or a bunch of crap (including any not updated recently), please let me know so I can kill it.

I’m also keeping the random five in the right margin, just for kicks.

It looks like The Weekly Planet is revamping their webspace. They must not be finished, though. Articles now allow your comments, but after leaving one, I couldn’t (easily) get back to the story. And the comment did not appear right away. On some pages clicking the bottom menu sends you right to Atlanta. Plus I can’t find the archives. Maybe I should give ‘em a minute, huh?

By the way, the alternative rag has added a “First Person Singular” feature, and wants you to submit your 850 word essay.

Mayor Pam unveiled some new “Welcome to Tampa” signs. The signs claim we are the “City of Champions,” noting the local teams’ Super Bowl, Stanley Cup, and Arena Bowl wins. I guess accomplishments by the Rowdies, Brooke Bennett, and Antonio Tarver don’t deserve mention.

Of course there are other cities that lay claim to the “City of Champions” title. Google the phrase for 16,000 entries. There are 45 recent claims in Google News!

The responses for your favorite meteorologist were all over the place. The most popular answer was basically “what is a television?” Some guy named NOAA got three votes, followed by Channel 8’s Steve Jerve and the entire team of Bay News 9. Those that do watch TV all love the VIPIR. Dick Fletcher got a minus 2.

Here’s a fun one:
In an interview with the Tampa Tribune’s editorial board, St. Pete Mayor Rick Baker rightfully bragged that his downtown waterfront parks held fantastic festivals and events throughout the year. Tampa has a couple big gatherings, as do most municipalities in the area. But if you could only go to one of these events, which one would you choose? Which is your favorite festival?

Within a year, the Ford Ampitheatre has gone from Tampa’s next big thing to a useless waste of money. The theater, built and owned by Clear Channel, has been a boondoggle. Summertime concerts in outdoor venues in Florida are not real wise to begin with. Sprinkle in a few broken promises and a sizable helping of deceit, and you got a white elephant.

The story in a nutshell: The venue promised to heed noise guidelines, and supported the guarantee with specific building plans. Based on those promises, the county approved the State Fair location. Clear Channel built the theater, but completely ignored the original specs. The place opened, but concerts were too loud. Both the Environmental Protection Commission & Hillsborough County tried to convince the owners to turn down the volume. Huge, ugly fences were built and plastered with banners and flypaper in a lame attempt to keep the sound in, which did not work. Clear Channel turned it down a bit more, but the volume in nearby neighborhoods is still over the acceptable limit. The EPC sued CC. CC fought the suits with a “screw the neighbors” strategy. That did not fly with Judge Holloway, so CC and the county are now in negotiations to come up with a compromise.

The volume now is so low, they could almost play in Ybor City. I’m no expert, but I am of the impression that music fans go to concerts to actually hear the music. Artists know this, and have no desire to whisper their lyrics (see: eminem show changes venues).

In theory, sitting on the grass listening to music while gazing at stars sounds like a wonderful idea. In reality, sitting in rain-soaked mud while nighttime temperatures don’t go below 80 under a hazy sky and straining to make out recognizable sounds, well that pretty much sucks.

Grouper Drives a Truck?

Underwater Streetcar?

Swingin’ for the Seaweed?

You know, it’s really this freakin’ simple.

And local TV station Channel 10 doesn’t help. Many of their stories begin with the impossible dateline.

The City of Clearwater offers an annual “Citizen’s Academy,” and they are now accepting applications for this year’s program. Classes are for 2 ½ hours each Monday night from Sept. 12 to Nov. 14. The course gives regular folks the chance to learn all about the people, departments, and infrastructure necessary to run the city. Presentations are made by elected officials, department staff and directors. It’s an excellent way to see the inner workings of a city government. Twenty people will be admitted to “Clearwater 101,” and if you want to participate, send ‘em an application before August 17.

After searching for the St. Pete Times list of area blogs last week, Costa reports they published the list this week.

We here at Sticks of Fire are constantly looking for new local blogs to add to our list of Tampa area Blogs as well. And like the St. Pete Times list of blogs, our lineup is divided into a few categories such as Sports, News/Opinion, and Personal. It’s a very time-consuming endeavor to find, read, and categorize every blog we find, so I don’t want to complain too much, but (complaint ahead!) we think SoF belongs in the Times News/Opinion slot (the one line description reads “Opinions on the politics and news in Tampa”), yet somehow the newspaper considers this a personal blog.

In addition, within each Times category the blogs are listed in alphabetical order. Shortly after starting this blog, Sticks of Fire learned that “St” is much closer to the end of the alphabet than the beginning, so Sticks is way down at the bottom of the page.

Having said all that, we’re still very happy that the local media published the list, and are grateful to be included. They even sent two new visitors this week! Anyway, go check out the Times list of local blogs, you may find some new favorites.