Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

When journalists start working on their multi-media stuff, sometimes they expose the work to an adoring public before it is actually published.

Case in point - rhythmnation2004, a contributor at SkyScraper City, found this very interesting collage of the History of the Floridan building created by TBO online producer Kathy Moore.  Kathy had previously done the fancy looking Mission: Orange multimedia report earlier this year, too.

For those of you who have not kept up with it, a developer is refurbishing the old building and plans to re-open the place as a fancy hotel.

I would guess that a printed article in the newspaper about the history of the Floridan will be coming soon - perhaps this Sunday.  But for those of you who dig the history stuff (and like sneak peeks) check out the multimedia report on Kathy’s VUVOX website:  The cool collage of the history of the Floridan building.

By the way, for those of you who have video and image and want to create such a thing, VUVOX looks like a pretty cool tool.

On the afternoon of Aug. 18, Pinellas officials ordered mandatory evacuation of the county’s most flood-prone areas for 6am the next day.  Tropical Storm Fay was heading our way.

Over at the TradeWinds Island Resorts in St. Pete Beach, visitors checked out and took off.  They say they missed out on over $150,000 in canceled rooms and missed food and beverage sales.

The storm shifted and ended up making landfall south of Naples.  Pinellas canceled the evacuation order at around 5:30am.

So now, hotel managers are saying that Pinellas “overreacted.” 

“It was outrageous for the authorities to make the call prior to even being put on hurricane watch,” wrote Philippe Eversdijk, general manger of the Marriott Suites Clearwater Beach. “The decision … shows lack of respect for our area’s bread & butter: tourism.”

It sure is easy to whine about everything a month later.  Pinellas County Commission Chairman Robert Stewart wants the hotels to man up and deal with it:

“This was an unavoidable development,” Stewart said. “We’re always going to err on the side of caution.”

Pinellas is Florida’s most dense county - they have more people per square mile than anywhere else in the state.  The land is surrounded by water on three sides.  Any storm is going to cause trouble, and a big storm will nearly flood the entire county.  With that big of a responsibility, officials must act early. 

If your business loses a couple of bucks to ensure that nobody gets hurt, then you gotta tough it out.  You have another 330 days of the year to be profitable.  Or, you can move your multi-million dollar resorts somewhere else, perhaps New Orleans.

I bet these guys piss & moan about the insurance bill, too.

Back in the early ’80s, civic leaders branded Tampa “America’s Next Great City”. Since then, we’ve been on a quest to gather as many sports franchises, high profile events, aquariums and streetcars as possible in an effort to legitimize that claim. Another brick in that wall was added this week when it was announced a big name was coming to Tampa. No, not quarterback Brett Favre who was traded to the New York Jets instead of the beloved hometown Buccaneers, but a much, much bigger fish. Or rather, someone who…allegedly…sends others to sleep with the fishes.

Naturally, we as a community could not possibly be more excited. Well, except maybe for Rays skipper Joe Maddon, who when he first heard Junior was coming to town thought a late waiver wire deal had been worked out to get Ken Griffey. But for the rest of us, while we love justice, we really love spectacle on a grand scale. And this has all the makings of an epic, just the way we like it. Word is that negotiations are already underway for either Joe Redner, Debra LaFave or a couple of Hogans to throw out the ceremonial first affidavit (I’m pulling for Redner; having been arrested over 140 times, the guy really knows his way around a courtroom).

(Cross posted at Ridiculously inconsistent trickle of consciousness)

Besides the (very) loud music, here’s your introduction to Criss Angel > The Official Website:

Don’t miss the first LIVE episode in MINDFREAK history as Criss attempts to escape from an imploding building! Watch it LIVE on Wednesday, July 30 at 10 PM EST / 7 PM PST on A&E, or watch it LIVE here on www.CrissAngel.com!

It’s always fun to watch a building implode!  The whole “escaping death” part is just a bonus.  We find out more in the news section:

… From within a 9-story former hotel outside of Clearwater, Florida, Criss will attempt to escape a building that is loaded with explosives and set to detonate.

Clearwater!?!?  Now famous for Scientology AND Death Defying Stunts!?!?

Anyway, Angel has 3 and a half minutes to get out of handcuffs attached to a balcony railing, through three or four locked doors, and up 3 flights to the roof, where a helicopter will whisk him off to safety.

Cool.

Even cooler is the building that will host the stunt, the old Spyglass Resort Motel.  You know this place - it’s 10-story building with 100 foot mural of the hot air balloon on it.  Clearwater artist Roger Bansemer painted that mural back in 1978 (Tampa Bay’s 10 has the story of the mural). 

This place became quite the dump over the past few years, but the rooms were cheap!  That, along with many of the balconies facing the beach, the Spyglass became the perfect place for partying spring breakers.

Not everyone is impressed with Angel’s plans to escape getting blowed up.  Steve Otto says the stunt is “pretty lame.”  Ernest Hooper agrees, challenging Criss Angel to attempt to find a parking spot at Clearwater Beach in 3½ minutes on a Saturday.  Eric Snider simply says Angel is repugnant, pretentious, and unimpressive.

Good grief, ya’ll.  The dude is giving Clearwater Beach some free marketing national coverage, and BLOWING UP A BUILDING!! 

Actually, Advanced Explosives Demolition is blowing up the building, and Applied Science International created a video simulation of the implosion.

Those of you interested can watch Mindfreak on A&E tonight at 10pm, or see the webcast beginning at 9pam on AETV.com, watch it live at CrissAngel.com, or watch it live from Clearwater Beach - they will have giant screens there, too.

You gonna watch/go to this?

I passed by a Days Inn the other day, and noticed their new brightly colored sign.

I hadn’t seen it until recently, but the new look is an effort by Days Inn owners Wyndham Worldwide to reinvigorate the brand. They changed from the old black and yellow to a new bright yellow with deep blue background in February of 2007.

For some reason, it reminded me of certain local baseball team, which also changed their logo last year from a dark green to bright yellow and deep blue, along with a name change.

This image is from the Official Tampa Bay Rays wallpaper page.

… or is it “Stay Home and Sulk”?

For her 18th birthday, Wifey and I took the High School Senior to the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casin o. She had gotten some birthday spending money from friends and family, and I thought it would be a good idea to teach her how to effectively make it disappear at the slo t machines.

As we showed her the ropes, she learned there is a lot more than just

• a. insert money
• b. place bet
• c. pull handle
• d. repeat until broke

For instance, the Degenerate Gamblers Rewards Gimmick.

Before you sit down at your first machine, you gotta visit the Degenerate Gamblers Rewards Gimmick Concierge Desk (they MIGHT call it the Players Club or something like that). Give ‘em your name and ID, and they give you a plastic card that can track how much you lose play at the place. Each time you play at a table or any machine, you rack up points, and after 20 years or so, you will have enough points for a free soda or something.

So the 18 year old became a member of the Degenerate Gamblers Rewards Gimmick, and after a small handful of visits to the Hard Rock, she has earned at least a couple of points. But yesterday we learned that she has only FOUR DAYS to redeem those rewards.

You see, Governor Crist gave the Seminoles permission to add some Vegas Style Table Games, and convert all those Bingo Based Slots to real Vegas Style Slot Machines. In exchange, the Seminoles agreed to disallow those under 21 to play with these more official gam bling options.

In preparation for that upgrade, Doug Hoppe, VP of Sales & Marketing of the SHRH&C sent out a letter to the High School Senior, explaining that as of April 1, she is no longer welcome as a member of the Degenerate Gamblers Rewards Gimmick. She is no longer welcome to play those one-armed bandits. (She can, however, continue to play poker.) She is no longer welcome to collect points, redeem offers, participate in any promotions, or redeem points.

Of course, the minute she turns 21, all bets are off (so to speak), and she will be reinstated as a full member of the Degenerate Gambler’s Society.

But in the meantime, these sharks have given her 4 days’ notice to find time to get to the glorified Bingo Palace, redeem her points, and get that free piece of Hard Rock Candy (or tiny trinket, or cash, or whatever) she so richly deserves.

By the way, SHRH&C PR guy Gary Bitner says some Vegas Style Slots could be in the Tampa casino as soon as June 1. We’re betting (ha!) that you will see some in there by mid-May.

It’s been a busy couple weeks around here, what with my roommate Jennifer getting engaged, other friends getting married, Devil Rays news, and what have you. This past weekend alone was a fine vignette of episodes that make you kind of appreciate how nice it can be to live here sometimes.

It all started with the phenomenal support Thursday for the Rays’ uniform/branding unveiling which was, to use an accurate and inescapable cliché, fun for the whole family. (See my photo gallery here or check out their promo video and the arrival of the “new” Raymond mascot.) I didn’t stick around for the Kevin Costner concert, but it seemed that most of the 7,000+ attendees were there for some hard-rockin’ action. Yet I was impressed by how many of the Rays took time off from their offseason to come by and model for the fans — and don’t get me started on the news leaked the next day about a new stadium.

Saturday brought the wedding of my friends Brian and Melissa; the ceremony was lovely, and the folks at Maggiano’s surprised me with their attention to detail (i.e. drinks) and terrific food — confirming for me that restaurants can beat caterers at their own game. Things didn’t go so smoothly at the Tampa Doubletree, where no fewer than three of my friends were given rooms (and keys to them) that were already occupied. I’m pretty sure that’s about the worst thing you can do when running a hotel. Personally, I don’t mind if someone barges in on me while I’m in my skivs watching Countdown with Keith Olbermann but I understand that upsets some people.

Sunday, though, was a treat, as I was finally able to catch the curtain-closer of Jobsite Theater’s Gorey Stories. The Grapefruit Gal looked at the program and said scornfully, “You brought me to a musical?” Yet her skepticism was quickly dispersed by David Jenkins’ wonderfully-directed cornucopia of the macabre, and I found it quite unlike anything I would consider boring. The G-Gal liked the costumes, the makeup, and the set design, and I liked Katrina Stevenson’s legs. It was a winner all around!

We topped it off with a visit to my local pizzeria, the Clearwater Country Pizza Inn; I was as skeptical about a Greek-Italian joint as I was about Giorgio de Chirico (Rene Magritte, please) but the quad-cheese pizza is pretty good and the baklava is a great deal at only $2.50.

I know I’ve had my criticisms for aspects of Bay life, but sometimes a fairly mundane weekend can remind you of the little things that give us advantages over, well, places where I’ve lived before. Like Ohio.

Fresh off having drinks with Jimmy Wales and the Wikimedians last month, I headed Saturday to the Howard Johnson on 50th street for the annual Tampa Fark Party.

I’ve written about Fark.com before. The Tribune recently took a look at Fark’s obsession with Florida, too, and Fark was name-dropped by the St. Pete Times back in June.

The Times even went out of its way to investigate the Fark Party phenomenon back in 2005:

Basically, it’s just a bunch of people standing around and drinking who live in the area and have something in common - which is, they like Fark. It’s like walking into a room with 25 people you’ve heard of before. I’d say about half the people are from some kind of a tech-related field, but we’ve had doctors, lawyers, the whole gamut. Baptist ministers show up at these things.

As a matter of personal disclosure, I’ve attended numerous Fark parties and even threw one at the Columbus Doubletree in 2003 that earned me a permanent ban from the hotel. Yet as I’ve grown busier my familiarity with Fark cliches and members has declined; there were roughly 20,000 registered accounts on Fark when I first found the site, and now there’s more than 10,000,000 page views A WEEK. (We’ll get there someday.) Add in that I wasn’t familiar with the 50th St. HoJo (and that the nerd-corps of Fark were sharing the HoJo lounge with a BBW meeting) and you’re talking about an odd amount of trepidation about something I ought to be pretty comfortable with.

As it turns out, the current crop of Florida Farkers is a good group; fairly nerdy, yes (one librarian’s shirt about grammar being free sticks in my head), but ready for a good time. A handful of people at the party had flown in from places like California, Michigan, or Virginia, and very few were actually from Tampa Bay, the majority having come from the East Coast or Gainesville or Naples/Venice/Ft. Myers. It says something about a web site that its fans are so dedicated they’ll travel extensively just to meet other netizens “IRL.”

My most eye-opening observation, though, was the age of the party’s attendees; while Fark claims its readers are 80% male 22-49, there were both Farkers “of a certain age” and women at the party. One woman, in particular, nearly kept me late (I had another party in Pasco to get to) talking about baseball and education; forced with the difficult decision of carrying on with my dream woman (who’d driven down from Gainesville for the party) or ditching my best friends, I scrawled her Fark name on my forearm and headed out.

It turns out I missed the better parts of the night, the parts with the police getting called, the BBW lapdances, the special brownies, and the skinny-dipping. It wouldn’t be a real Fark Party without them, for sure. And now I know that the lounge of the 50th Street HoJo has $2.00 domestic bottles and nice pool tables. Best of all, after swapping a few emails, I think I have a date with the girl from Gainesville…