Chances are we'll get one more timid little chillwave through the Bay area before we're done for good, but it sure did feel like Florida yesterday. And just in time for the annual cavalcade of Fireball-and-Red Bull-fueled oceanside numbskullery!
As Spring Break approaches, various law-enforcement entities up and down the Tampa Bay area's stretch of the Gulf Coast brace for differing levels of craziness. Long story short: if you like a quiet grouper sandwich and cold Corona unaccompanied by shirtless douchecanoes bowing up on one another over wet T-shirt contest runners-up between trips to the can to retch up Hot Pockets, stay south of Clearwater Beach, hell, Treasure Island if you can help it.
The wife of a Hillsborough County judge arrested in January for allegedly beating the shit out of her is now trying to quash a subpoena that would make their 5-year-old daughter a witness in the case. Everybody's innocent until proven guilty, but it might be a bit late for exhibiting some old-school nuclear-family protective parenting…
Property owners with a stake in the buildings surrounding downtown St. Pete's Jannus Landing are angry that the city wants to move to have the block declared a historic landmark. They're claiming it will hurt their eventual profits, because such status would prevent from building up and up and out and out. And, you know what? They're right — they probably won't make a billion on historic real estate. Only millions. And given the chaotic dollar-sucking real-estate scramble currently going on in the 'Burg, I have a hard time conjuring sympathy.
And finally, on a WalletHub.com list of 116 of the hardest-working cities in the country, Tampa came in tied with Miami for 66th, while St. Pete landed at 78th, tied with Minneapolis. Number 1? Anchorage, Alaska, where you basically have to keep busy knocking bears over with felled trees and crawling inside their skins in order to not freeze to death. What I'm saying is, nobody lazy wants to go there, amirite?
(Image via 2candle at the English language Wikipedia)
This article appears in Feb 26 – Mar 4, 2015.
