Going to the parade, concerts, parties or anything connected to Gasparilla? Have a Twitter account? Then you are all set to join CL’s Parade of Tweeters, covering all the festivities of Tampa Bay’s pre-eminent annual buccaneer bacchanalia for those of us who ar going to be stuck at work or at home in front of our laptops.

Here’s how:

  1. Sign up for a free Twitter account (or use your existing account).
  2. Have a blast at Gasparilla on Saturday or in the days leading up to the pirate invasion.
  3. Send us a tweet when you see something interesting, funny, stupid, naked, comment-worthy, etc. Just use your telephone txt messaging capability to send a tweet to 40404, using Twitter’s 140-character limit. (You can also submit tweets via your computer.)
  4. Make sure you include the hashtag #gasparilla at the end of your txt msg. For example: “Holy beads! I just saw Gayle Guyardo! #gasparilla”
  5. Hit send on your cell phone. Your tweet will automatically appear on our News Section homepage, along with the rest of the CL Parade of Tweeters’ info.
  6. As if that wasn’t enough for your 15 Minutes of Fame, we’ll take the best and run them in our print edition the week after Gasparilla. And we’ll chose the very best to receive their choice of a free meal, from our Eats or Bites programs in the CL Deals section.
  7. And while you’re in Twitter online, be sure to follow PoHo for political news tweets and cl_tampa for all our Creative Loafing breaking news in arts, music, food and the rest.

This article appears in Feb 4-10, 2009.