Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

Congratulations to Deborah Newell Tornello, aka LitBrit!  Her blog was chosen by the Creative Loafing staff as the Best Local Blog in their Best of the Bay 2008.:

Staff Pick
BEST LOCAL BLOG: Litbrit

She’s progressive. She’s a hottie. And she is a major Frank Zappa fan, posting little-known clips of the late composer-rocker on her blog each Friday. So what’s not to like…

Check out LitBrit at  litbrit.blogspot.com. We love Deborah’s writing too.  We just wish she’d lose the blogspot and get her own domain (godaddy says LitBrit.com is available!).

Oh, and thanks to the great writers here at Sticks of Fire, and all of you wonderful readers - lurkers and commentors alike - Sticks of Fire was voted number one in Best Local Blog in 2008 by readers of Creative Loafing.

We don’t like to brag, but will gladly accept a first place award from Creative Loafing / Weekly Planet for the fourth straight year.

• First place Creative Loafing Best of the Bay 2008 - Best Local Blog, Readers’ Picks.
• First place Creative Loafing Best of the Bay 2007 - Best Local Blog, Readers’ Choice.
• First place Creative Loafing Best of the Bay 2006, Reader’s choice for Best Local Blog.
• First place Weekly Planet’s Best of the Bay 2005, Editor’s choice for Best Local Website.
• Third place Weekly Planet’s Best of the Bay 2005, Reader’s choice for Best Local Blog.

Check out all the winners at Creative Loafing’s Best of the Bay 2008.

According to the print edition of this week’s Creative Loafing, they received over 3,000 ballots for the 2008 Best of the Bay readers’ poll.

We are proud to announce that Sticks of Fire has been named a finalist for Best Local Blog, along with two other great blogs, Seminole Heights and Creative Loafing.

We also want to congratulate the finalists in all other categories, including our friends, Bubba the Love Sponge, the Hogans (by the way, Bubba and Hulk are gonna be on TV together), Gasparilla, Rick Baker, the potential St. Pete Waterfront Stadium, Brian Blair, the Riverwalk, and Ronda Storms.

We’ll find out all the winners at The Loafies, CL’s BOTB award show to be held at the Tampa Theatre next Tuesday at 8pm (red carpet at 7):

The CL staff sort of went ’round the bend last year when one of us said “Hey, let’s do a Best of the Bay awards show!” and the rest of us didn’t duct tape his mouth shut. So we went ahead and did it. Called it The Loafies. And you know what? It worked. The show was fun and funny and lively and glamorous (if we do say so ourselves) and actually came off with nary a hitch. So we’re doing it again. This year’s Loafies show is held at the same venue, Tampa Theatre, with witty and urbane host Brendan McLaughlin, anchor man for ABC Action News. We’ll hand out lots of Best of the Bays, of course, and have guest presenters and all that good stuff. Local Americana act Have Gun, Will Travel plays a classic cover (a surprise), and Basic Rock Outfit, the Damon Fowler Group and Daylight District are also scheduled to perform. And it gets better still. We’ve set up an after-party at an unfinished space a couple of blocks down Franklin Street from Tampa Theatre. It’s free to anyone who attends The Loafies. And as if that weren’t enough, two magic words: drink tickets.

If you want to go, you can get your tickets at Tampa Theater for $10 or online for $12.

It’s been a week (well, six days) since I got robbed and I’m fine. Thank you for all the well wishes; very much appreciated. While going through the process of dealing with the aftermath (replacing my driver’s license, picking up a police report, figuring out how to get my hands on cash for gas and whatnot without a bank card or ID, etc.) a friend pointed me towards a website that offers assistance: http://www.211atyourfingertips.org/

I don’t know why I never heard of it before now but it’s incredible and should be in everybody’s bookmarks. There are resources there for every conceivable crisis a person could encounter. Go there and add it to your list. If you don’t need it now, you’ll be glad you have it if/when you or someone you care about ever does. Unfortunately, it’s Florida specific so if you don’t live in the area, you’ll need to contact someone locally and see if your area has something comparable.

(Cross posted at Ridiculously Inconsistent Trickle Of Consciousness)

You’ll remember that SohoTampa and Sticks of Fire were named to Creative Loafing’s Best of the Bay list for 2006. Sticks of Fire was chosen the Best Local Blog by readers of Creative Loafing, and SoHoTampa.com was the CL staff pick for Best Local Cultural Website. 

I went over to American Stageon Monday evening to accept awards on behalf of both websites.

It was a rainy night that scared a few away, but there were many spirited, community minded that showed up.  There was great food, interesting conversation, top class drink and more.  Without question, the entire affair was nothing if not fun.

And isn’t that at least part of what Creative Loafing is known for?  Well, that and covering stories like neither of the dailies do.  And that is why receiving this recognition is quite an honor.  They speak up - in depth - when everyone else seems to stay silent.

Thank You Creative Loafing for all you do!

Marketing Gorilla gives writers their due:

[Sticks of Fire has] … great contributors and they offer a unique citizen journalist viewpoint to life in the Tampa Bay area.

How about a big round of applause for all of the contributors here.  As the Gorilla notes, they really do a great job.

From Mike at Perpetual Beta release - » Link Whoring: Sticks of Fire

Sticks of Fire is not Tampa’s first weblog, nor its most prolific, but it may be the Bay Area’s most decorated. Showered with awards from local free culture papers like the Weekly Plant (or whatever it’s called now) Sticks of Fire is widely considered Tampa’s best blog about Tampa.

This may be the best review I’ve ever read that avoids any actual opinion. With absolutely no sarcasm here, I love it. Thanks for the attention, Mike!

Sticks is the current featured blog on the St. Pete Times blog portal. The description includes some very flattering words (which I captured forever):

Sticks of Fire: The gold standard among Tampa Bay blogs. Named by tbt* as one of a handful of must-read blogs for the bay area.

We really like being called “the gold standard.” Thanks for the props, guys!

Creative Loafing (nee Weekly Planet) announced the winners of their annual Best of the Bay for 2006.  I’m happy to announce that once again, Sticks of Fire has won an award.

You may recall last year Sticks was chosen by the CL (nee WP) staff for Best Local Website 2005, and that we earned a runner-up slot in reader voting for best blog (behind the now-defunct Midnight Culmination and the still-defunct bayciti).  We remain quite proud of that, displaying our alien at every opportunity.

This year Sticks of Fire made it to first place in the Loaf’s (nee Planet’s) readers poll for Best Blog 2006! (I had NOTHING to do with either of the 2005 blogs in front of me just… uh… disappearing).  You can be sure to see the CL/WP time traveler showing up now and again this year.

Runners up in reader voting include a couple of very worthy sites. Congratulations go to both Seminole Heights Blog and the Tampa Book Buzz.

Of course there are some other sites that the Creative staff (nee Weekly) offered as a notch above as well. We offer a laurel and hearty congratulations to the Best New Political Blog, The State of Sunshine.  Said the Loafers (nee Planeteers):

This former USF student body president and one-time candidate has an incisive eye for the guts of political campaigning, and he brings it in every post he writes. In one, Johnson broke down the current Florida legislature races. In another, he gave a behind-the-scenes account of how John Carassas won a House seat against a better-financed opponent in 2002. This is serious inside-baseball, political junkie stuff, but even though Johnson is a Republican, he doesn’t let ideology get in the way of ’splaining some politics. Read the Times’ Buzz blog to get the breaking political news; read The State of Sunshine to figure out what it means. stateofsunshine.blogspot.com. Unfortunately, Johnson is on hiatus from the blog while working a new job, but his anonymous replacement has been pretty good, too.

Last, and certainly not least, SoHo Tampa was named Best Local Cultural Website. Inside the blurb, editors at the “multimedia company” (nee alternative weekly) also give Sticks another compliment:

SoHo Tampa, the best chronicler of nightlife in the Bay area, focuses on the stretch of bars and restaurants along S. Howard Avenue. The city taking away 100 parking spaces? SoHo Tampa covered it. The latest pub crawl? The new restaurants opening? Ditto. Sure, the site is run by a marketing company and so the message is generally chamber-of-commerce upbeat, but owner Bill Sharpe is all over the SoHo scene, including updates on bartenders’ and restaurant managers’ job moves. Sharpe’s alliance with the Sticks of Fire blog will only make this website even better. http://www.sohotampa.com/.

Thanks to Creative Loafing (nee oh you know) for running the annual show and including a spot for websites (two years running now). And tons of thanks to you who voted for Sticks of Fire as Best Blog of the Bay this year.