Creative Loafing has opened the voting for their annual Best of the Bay issue, and the only category for which I want to make a recommendation is Best Local Blogger.

Clark Brooks runs the blog Ridiculously Inconsistent Trickle of Consciousness and is a sports blogger, covering local teams, at SB [...]]]> First, and foremost, vote for Clark.

Creative Loafing has opened the voting for their annual Best of the Bay issue, and the only category for which I want to make a recommendation is Best Local Blogger.

Clark Brooks runs the blog Ridiculously Inconsistent Trickle of Consciousness and is a sports blogger, covering local teams, at SB Nation. He is also, hands down, the most consistently funny writer in the Tampa Bay blogosphere. I suspect he’s the funniest writer across all local media, but in all candor most of my media consumption is through the Internet, so I can’t say too much about newspapers, radio, or television. But, I know the Internet pretty well, and Tampa is lucky to have someone as talented as Clark writing in our collective backyard.

Tampa has some excellent bloggers, but none have been so consistent, and so funny, for so long. You can vote for Clark in the category People, Places & Politics for Best Local Blogger.

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Fusion Tampa Bay visits Pane Rustica and learns that it has expanded. They now have a bar.

“The bar is a large, beautiful U shape leaving lots of space for people to sit without feeling like the person next to you is breathing down your neck and listening into your conversation. They’ve also added cozy booths alongside the opposite wall and a few cocktail tables scattered throughout for those who would rather have a little more privacy. The decor is dark woods accented with shades of blue and the feel is much more contemporary than the adjacent olde world decor of the original dining room, but it still it blends well and the Saturday night ambiance was very chill with a twist of romantic.”

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Smiles Go With Everything reviews Talking Dirt.

“If you’re interested in learning about organic gardening, this is the book for you. Annie Spiegelman speaks in a modern, humorous tone as she explains everything from starting a compost pile to native plants to vegetable gardens to English roses. This is a fantastic guide for both experienced gardeners and novices.”

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Tampa Do-Gooder ruminates on her love for radio.

“God bless internet streaming…I also “discovered” KCRW in Santa Monica and XPN in Philly. And when I moved to Tampa, I found WMNF. My love for radio was absolutely restored.”

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Welcome back Tommy! Tommy in Seminole Heights has returned from his work-related African excursion. With any luck he’ll also return to regular (or at least semi-regular) posting.

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Where’s Sticks of Fire? SoF has been eerily silent for nearly two months. Here’s hoping everything is OK, and Tommy’s just going through a spell of blogger burnout.

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Visual Alliance Media launches [...]]]> Connecting Tampa reminds us that there will be a public discussion about Tampa’s transit future at the Tampa Museum of Art on July 29.

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Where’s Sticks of Fire? SoF has been eerily silent for nearly two months. Here’s hoping everything is OK, and Tommy’s just going through a spell of blogger burnout.

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Visual Alliance Media launches a new blog: Tampa Social Media Services blog.

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The Ybor City Stogie has been posting a ton of good stuff lately, check it out.

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Between the Bits has a decidedly novel method for serving tater tots.

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There is a Facebook page and a YouTube channel for Tampa Natives.

LeBron is a democrat (or at least donates to the DNC).

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Rasmussen polls indicate that 60% of Floridians oppose the federal government’s suit against Arizona over their new immigration law. 62% support passing legislation similar to Arizona’s [...]]]> It’s been a busy day, so today’s post is a round-up of some of the items that caught my attention.

LeBron is a democrat (or at least donates to the DNC).

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Rasmussen polls indicate that 60% of Floridians oppose the federal government’s suit against Arizona over their new immigration law. 62% support passing legislation similar to Arizona’s in Florida.

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The Florida Gators have been misusing Facebook according to the NCAA.

“A Florida assistant posted comments on the Facebook walls of two recruits on Aug. 5. An opposing school monitored the walls and reported the comments to the SEC office.”

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The Florida Times-Union of Jacksonville is trying what looks like a progressive exquisite corpse (“each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence”).

“Note to readers: In recent weeks, we have been running a progressive column based on the local political sage, Jimmy Ray Bob.

“We started with an opening chapter written by Columnist Ron Littlepage, then asked members of our E-Mail Interactive Group to contribute the second chapter.”

I like the idea even if I’m not bowled over by the columns so far.

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DARPA is inventing their own version of True Blood, an artificial blood grown in a vat that can be used in war zones.

“The blood was produced using hematopoietic cells, derived from umbilical cord-blood units. It’s a trick that scientists have pulled off for years. The hard part is making quantities of red stuff that are large enough for military or medical utility. Currently, it takes Arteriocyte scientists three days to turn a single umbilical cord unit into 20 units of RBC-packed blood. The average soldier needs six units during trauma treatment.

“‘We’re basically mimicking bone marrow in a lab environment,’ company CEO Don Brown tells Danger Room. ‘Our model works, but we need to extrapolate our production abilities to make scale.’

…

“Human trials aren’t likely until 2013, but the Pentagon could invoke “emergency protocol” to snag the blood sooner — Brown predicts military use within five years.”

“Two years ago, when I began writing about the housing crisis, I got to know a bungalow in Sulphur Springs, a Tampa, Fla., neighborhood that was famous in the 1920s for its [...]]]> Tampa’s own Sulphur Springs makes it into the NYT as an example of a neighborhood devastated by foreclosures. The Ecology of Foreclosures. (Thanks, ML!)

“Two years ago, when I began writing about the housing crisis, I got to know a bungalow in Sulphur Springs, a Tampa, Fla., neighborhood that was famous in the 1920s for its sprawling oaks, giant water slide and shopping arcade, but which is now a ghetto. The oaks are still mostly there, but the water slide is long gone, the arcade a parking lot for a dog track. Suffer Springs is what a lot of folks call it these days.”

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St. Petersburg writer, author and “Mr. Media Radio” host and producer Bob Andelman provides a wonderful interview and write-up of Tampa Chief of Police Jane Castor.

“Jane Castor is a product of Tampa, through and through. She grew up in the city, the fourth of five children, lettering in basketball, swimming, volleyball and track at Chamberlain High and attending the University of Tampa on an athletic scholarship, At UT, she became a figure of legend, a 1,000-point shooter on the women’s basketball team.”

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I was searching for recipes that emphasize mushrooms just last night. Inkwatu posts some information about using dried mushrooms.

“They’re available in small packages in the grocery stores and I recommend starting with those while you experiment with different types. There are an amazing variety of dried mushrooms available, even at the grocery–far more dried varieties than fresh varieties.”

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Local YA author G. Neri is getting rave reviews for his most recent book, Yummy.

“Like Joe Sacco’s work (Footnotes from Gaza, 2010), this is a graphic novel that pushes an unsightly but hard to ignore socio-political truth out into the open.”

Kirkus also gave it a starred review.

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At The Stew Jeff Houck gives us a post about the slow food movement in the Tampa Bay area.

“Locally, the movement has taken root at several restaurants that emphasize local, sustainable ingredients. At the Sono Café inside the new Tampa Museum of Art, for example, chef Marty Blitz and co-owner Maryann Ferenc designed the fare to mimic the Italian roots of the slow food movement.

“The Slow Food Tampa Bay chapter started in November. School social worker Jaye Williams said the national organization put her in touch with others from the Tampa Bay area.

“Williams said she was surprised the Tampa Bay area didn’t yet have a group, especially since there’s plenty of agricultural activity in Hillsborough County. She hopes to spur demand for produce and livestock grown by local farmers by promoting them.”

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From the Sometimes You Get a Job, Sometimes You Lose a Job department: Stogie finds himself unemployed, but Clark gets a job writing about Tampa sports at SB Nation. My condolences and congratulations.

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The Tampa [...]]]> Johnny Cakes and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypso note that their songs are in rotation at New Music Tampa Bay podcast.

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From the Sometimes You Get a Job, Sometimes You Lose a Job department: Stogie finds himself unemployed, but Clark gets a job writing about Tampa sports at SB Nation. My condolences and congratulations.

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The Tampa Street Market makes it to Etsy’s front page.

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Michael Hussey at Pushing Rope weighs in on the Kendrick Meek campaign. Peter Schorsch at St. Petersblog 2.0 does the same. Plus, I get name-checked! Thanks, Peter.

“Sure, some of the most liberal bloggers are with Meek, but certainly not the majority. The Reid Report, Opinion Matters, Pushing Rope, Recreating Tampa, (my) Saint Petersblog…all of these sites have remained dangerously neutral.”

Both Hussey and Schorsch offer some solid advice. Perhaps I’ll see if I can conjure up some advice for the Politics Monday column.

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Some changes in the Tampa food scene – St. Pete Times restaurant reviewer and food writer Laura Reiley is on sabbatical for a year in an undisclosed location in Europe and Grill-meister Jim Webster takes over the reins. Some of you may remember that Jim won the Mario Batali Ultimate Grilling Challenge in 2008. Congratulations, Jim! Looking forward to your reviews and blog posts.

“St. Petersburg CBS affiliate WTSP-Ch. 10 could present dozens of “hyperlocal” websites by the end of the year, featuring news and information specifically tailored to various communities across the Tampa Bay area, as part of a national [...]]]> Eric Deggans at The Feed reports that WTSP – Channel 10 is jumping on the hyperlocal blogging bandwagon (blogwagon?).

“St. Petersburg CBS affiliate WTSP-Ch. 10 could present dozens of “hyperlocal” websites by the end of the year, featuring news and information specifically tailored to various communities across the Tampa Bay area, as part of a national program announced by owner Gannett Broadcasting in 10 cities across the country.”

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Jordi Scrubbings shares the story of “The Saddest Mascot.” Mindy gives up her promising career as a librarian to become a mascot for a professional sports team!

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For those budding entrepreneurs out there, Clark offers some tips on running your own sports bar.

Food – Serve chicken wings, of course. Burgers and french fries too. That’s what every sports bar serves. But you want to stand out, don’t you? Sure you do. And the way you do that is you name stuff after people. What people? It doesn’t matter. What matters is that your chili becomes “Cindy’s Secret Recipe Chili”. Your curly fries become “Ted’s Famous Curly Fries”. Who the hell are Cindy and Ted? Who gives a shit? It’s the names not the people. You’ll have regulars who eat at your place four times a week who’ll think they’ve had beers and watched the World Series together. “One thing about ol’ Ted; he always likes his fries curly.”

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The Ybor City Stogie located this video which shows the BP oil spill only about seven miles from Tampa.

(Whoops! It’s been removed. OilFlorida keeps a YouTube account collecting vids about the spill and Florida. Here’s one showing an animation of the oil spreading through the Gulf.)

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Head over to Reax Music to find out which musicians are performing where this weekend.

The Florida Independent’s daily essential Florida politics reading.

The Spencerian is one of my favorite local blogs that covers national politics.

Pushing Rope is another.

In [...]]]> You might want to bookmark some of these, or drop some into your RSS feed reader. In no particular order, here are some of the local politics blogs and pages I read regularly.

The Florida Independent’s daily essential Florida politics reading.

The Spencerian is one of my favorite local blogs that covers national politics.

Pushing Rope is another.

In addition to contributing to Pushing Rope and Cogitamus, LitBrit keeps her own blog here.

Sayfie Review offers a nice round-up of what’s going on in Florida newspapers.

St. Petersblog 2.0 does an excellent job of covering local races.

The St. Pete Times The Buzz is essential reading, as is Creative Loafing’s politics page, and the Mitch Perry Report.

Campaign Manager is a fun insiders blog. Updates aren’t particularly frequent, but insights are great.

The Florida Progressive Coalition Blog updates infrequently, but has a tremendous blog roll.

Florida Politics covers a lot of ground.

Interstate4Jamming2 provides a great model for how to cover local politics (in this case, Polk County). I wish more counties had local bloggers like Robert.

Of course, other sites (like Stogie, and Sticks) also touch on politics, but it’s not their emphasis, or they link without much commentary.

There are a lot of great political bloggers in the Tampa bay area. Keeping up with the above takes all my time, but comment if you have one you’d like to recommend.

“They are open from 7am-5pm and have daily lunch specials that start at 11am.”

Next week I’m going to walk up to Nani’s for lunch. Yum, I can’t wait.

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Between the Bits sheds some light on a local [...]]]> The Official Unofficial Seminole Heights blog reports that Nani’s Sandwich shop next to the Publix on Nebraska is finally open.

“They are open from 7am-5pm and have daily lunch specials that start at 11am.”

Next week I’m going to walk up to Nani’s for lunch. Yum, I can’t wait.

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Between the Bits sheds some light on a local anti-light rail group.

“Light rail works. I’ve seen it for myself. And all the fear mongering in the world won’t change that fact.”

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The Ybor City Stogie lets us know that you can help Gulf coast marine life rehabilitation while drinking beer at Tampa Bay Brewing Company. New Horizon Beer.

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Hunter’s Green Neighborhood Watch, a hyperlocal blog out of New Tampa, regularly posts monthly crime reports.

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Clark at Ridiculously inconsistent trickle of consciousness apologizes to the BP CEO for misspelling his name.

“I have taken full responsibility for cleaning up the spelling errors on this blog. I’ve helped organize the largest spellcheck response in this blog’s history. It’s an ongoing process and may take a while. There’s no one who wants to start spelling his name correctly more than I do.”

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RunDMT has some ambitious plans for the summer. 30 Things I Vow to Do This Summer.

“# Set aside time to read each day.
# Get good use out of our Busch Gardens passes.
# Splash around at any and all of our spray grounds.
# Do lots of crafts and attempt some art projects.
# Garden with the girls.”

“As I started to acquire more boots, I began to realize that I needed a way to keep them in shape and upright when stored in my closet. I looked up boot shapers on [...]]]> Smiles Go With Everything (Style and Sustainability for the Optimistic Soul) has a smart tip for boot shapers. Use wine bottles!

“As I started to acquire more boots, I began to realize that I needed a way to keep them in shape and upright when stored in my closet. I looked up boot shapers on several websites, but I was disappointed with how expensive they were, and I was concerned that they were likely to eventually fall apart and end up in a landfill. Then, I read somewhere about using wine bottles as boot shapers, so I saved up a few, and tried it out. It works like a charm!”

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Tampa Bay Breakfasts eats at Mom’s Place and give it 4 1/2 pancakes.

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Tampa Bay & Company reminds us that the Annual Tampa Elvis Festival is just around the corner (July 17).

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The Homemade Music Symposium will be next weekend in Ybor City. (via Brand Tampa)

Poster designed by Kelly Young, Nightcat Studio

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The Tampa Bay Transit Blog informs us that HART (Hillsborough Area Regional Transit i.e. our local bus system) recently won a prestigious award.

“The American Public Transportation Association (APTA), awarded Hillsborough Area Regional Transit (HART) with being the Outstanding Public Transit System of the Year for 2010.”

From the HART page -

“HART has been designated the most Outstanding Public Transit System of the Year for all agencies in North America carrying between 4 – 20 million passenger trips by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA).”

Congratulations HART!