Given everything that's been going on, it's hard not to wake up, remember it's Friday the 13th, and think, "oh, you're trying to make me uneasy about what misfortunes the immediate future might have in store. That's cute. Get in line."
Tampa's Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino debuted its new high-end poker room yesterday. Because there's something less-than-luxurious about just rubber-banding your cash to a brick and tossing it into the dirty ol' bay.
Baseball superstar Derek Jeter has received an exemption from the city to build an eight-foot privacy wall around his 30,000-square-foot Davis Islands mansion. Because people are looking at it. Fame: Its numerous unconsidered and weighty burdens aren't always completely mitigated by 30,000-square-foot Davis Islands mansions, OK?
A former St. Pete postal worker faces up to 15 years in prison after being found guilty of stealing more than $2 million in Social Security checks. So, pretty much all of it, then.
And finally, a new report calls St. Petersburg the most fiscally healthy large city in Florida, and 23rd in the nation. And to think Mom was all like, "just don't go blowing it all on ferries and outside wall pictures!"
This article appears in Jan 12-19, 2017.