It's Wednesday, and I"m pretty sure we'd all rather be fishing.
Mayoral candidate Rick Baker and incumbent Rick Kriseman sparred verbally during their first public debate at St. Pete's Mt. Zion Progressive Missionary Baptist Church. It's fair to say there wasn't a clear winner in the forum; it's also fair to say that the clear loser was anyone who still expected this race to remain nonpartisan.
Lightning owner Jeff Vinik's ambitious, long-in-the-works downtown Tampa redevelopment project will officially be called Water Street Tampa, after one of the area's more historic thoroughfares. Simple, timeless, ampersand-free. We love it, though we still think our suggestion, The Sport & Wander, would've brought in more organic-beard-pomade retail.
Pasco authorities are investigating the desecration of a couple of graves at a Zephyrhills cemetery. Probably just some smart, proactive kids training for the lucrative black-market body parts business they'll start after Obamacare is repealed. It's all sacred and horrifying until you need a semi-new kidney and get turned down for coverage for the preexisting condition of having kidneys.
And finally, some angler dudes broke up their business meeting in downtown Tampa to see if they could catch a snook from a third-floor balcony. And they did. Think about it: That meeting was so excruciating that "hey, think I can hook that fish from the third floor?" was both daydreamed up by a participant and immediately embraced by everyone present.
This article appears in Jun 22-29, 2017.