Re/Creating Tampa

I have a deep, unnatural love for auto-tuning. Here’s a clip of various scientists, explaining science, auto-tuned. As Richard Dawkins says “There’s real poetry in the real world. Science is the poetry of reality.”

“The Poetry of Reality is the fifth installment in the Symphony of Science music video series. It features 12 scientists and science [...]

I’m hanging out in the Jury auditorium at the Hillsborough County Courthouse listening to a canned history lecture from Pat Frank explaining the origins of the clerk of the circuit court. She has more than 1000 individual responsibilities!

The auditorium has wifi and some nice desks for computer users to sit at, so the day won’t [...]

I have been getting a ton of hits lately from people searching for information about Krampus. Searches point to a post from December 2008. Consider the following a re-run for the 2009 season.

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Krampusnacht is Just Around the Corner!

Krampus, of course, is Santa’s evil twin, and travels with Santa to punish naughty boys and girls while [...]

This doc is a couple of years old, but still well worth checking out. If there were a follow-up doc today who would the next ten women be? Off the top of my head I think you’d have to include Police Chief Jane Castor, new Creative Loafing publisher Marty Petty, local entrepreneur Jaden Hair, Betty [...]

Betty Cracker thinks this painting is mockable (which it is), but it is also teh awwsuum.

I want its sibling with Barack, Bill, Jimmy, Lyndon, Jack, Harry, Frank and Woody. I wonder if such a thing might exist.

I came across the following passage while reading this morning, and thought it nicely captured how the war on terror and the “culture wars” are confluent. Feminism, in its meaning of women being accorded equal citizenship rights with men (i.e. able to own property, vote, hold office, work, chose their own healthcare, dress as they [...]

I spent the morning reading Frédéric Bastiat’s “The Law,” (it is the concluding essay in a collection you can find here titled Essays on Political Economy).

I dig 19th-century essays about political economy as much as the next policy geek, but reading this essay made me super sad.

Bastiat, apparently, is part of the intellectual arsenal of [...]

Brass Bowl has some great images of the Glazer Children’s Museum’s Tampa in LEGO exhibition.

The Ybor City Stogie posts this great pic, and points out that the ACLU Camerahead Project will be in Ybor during Heatwave.

“We are constantly being filmed and photographed, but people may not even realize how much,” said USF grad student Justin Martin, who is the director of a group of USF art majors producing the [...]

One day a four-year-old boy asks his father if he can leave some cheese outside for the animals. The next morning the cheese is gone. The boy really wants to know who ate the cheese, so an experiment is born. The father buys an infrared-sensing floodlight, a webcam, and locates some motion-detection software, and before [...]

I’m not really as impressed by these numbers as some other blogger/pundits (only 23% of the population self-identifies as Republican). Ever since Ross Perot (at least) the majority of so-called Independents have been semi-disgruntled Republicans.

Let’s face it, both parties are composed of uneasy alliances. The libertarian conservatives are not always happy sharing the stage [...]

Wurzelbacher teabagger sez –

“‘Let me give you another extremist view, ‘In God We Trust,” he said to wild applause. ‘Say that too loud in some parts of America and you will be shot. It’s terrible.’”

First, no it won’t. Second, by whom? Gun-hating liberals?

Why can’t we have principled debate about serious subjects? Why does Joe [...]

the supernumerary phantom limb, an imaginary limb that can scratch your [...]

Dolphins take time to prepare their food.

“A wild female Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin was observed going through a series of complicated steps to prepare cuttlefish for eating in the Spencer Gulf, in South Australia.”

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“The dolphin then lifted the body up and beat it with her nose to drain the toxic black ink that cuttlefish squirt into [...]

Creative Loafing launched their new food section yesterday. Check it out!

Here is the introductory post from Brian Ries.

“…[W]e assembled a crack group of local food and drink bloggers to cover the Bay area’s vibrant eating and drinking culture, from tours of local ethnic markets to a behind-the-scenes look at the people who bring you food. [...]

The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services keeps a page called Marketing Florida Agriculture that’s full of useful information.

Here’s a list of farmer’s markets from across the state. They list five in Hillsborough County, Brandon Fresh Market (which no longer has a location and so seems to be closed for good), Plant City Sunday [...]

It turns out that the Department of Agriculture has its own chef.

Justin Timineri is the executive chef for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

His webpage includes a long list of recipes, including the Orzo With Feta, Green Beans and Tomatoes seen here.

It looks like the recipes attempt to stick with native flora. The [...]

I am now an occasional blogger at Creative Loafing.

CL is expanding their food coverage and recruited some local folks to write about food for their Daily Loaf blog. Here’s a nice link list of the new food bloggy goodness.

As some of you know the company that owns Creative Loafing filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection [...]

Local foodie Jim Webster is the winner of the Mario Batali Ultimate Grilling Challenge.

Congratulations, Jim!

Inkwatu reviews Sa Ri One Korean Bulgogi Restaurant.

Wow, MonkeySee has several hundred high-quality cooking videos. Here are three dozen about cooking breakfast.

(Thanks, Matt!)

The month is over and voting in Eating Tampa’s Best of Tampa Reader’s Poll has ended. Thanks to everyone who voted. I’ll be compiling the votes and should start rolling out the results this weekend. Since this is a one-man operation, I’ll be rolling out results over the rest of the month.

The end of the month is rapidly approaching, which means that the polls will soon be closed on Eating Tampa’s Best of Tampa Reader’s Poll. Vote! Vote! Vote! (And THANKS to all those who have already voted).

You can vote in the comments, or send me an email at eatingtampa AT gmail.com

I’m pasting the original post [...]

Jim Webster, local foodie, Trib St. Pete Times writer, and Gastroblogger needs your votes. He’s a quarterfinalist in Mario Batali’s “Ultimate Grilling Challenge.” Help make sure Tampa is represented in Texas during the final cookoff.

From Laura Reiley -

“You can watch his video here, but there have been some technical difficulties with the online voting process. [...]

Here’s a quick introduction to what it takes to build skills as a food critic. It’ a wiki, so if you want to add to it, go ahead.

I suppose I should try some of these things!

Travel to food and wine festivals, from first class to the obscure.

Study the art of cooking. Take cooking [...]

GNAtv has a new episode up. This time they visit Hot Rod’s out in Lutz.

Check it at their site. It looks a lot better there than the squeezed down version I have to concoct when I embed it.