Mary Jane's Last Dance

Have any of you guys tried this thingie before? Hah, I can't get enough of it. If you're one that likes to keep catalogue of everything (I am), it may be for you. I keep adding stuff to the dining section of it.

Sometimes I wish I was back in the central VA/northern VA/DC area again. The job market for people in my field is as dry as an old whore's vajayjay. Up in that area, it's like a boom. Gurf. I might be stuck doing retail again for a while :(

That storm didn't do squat here. SQUAT. It didn't even rain. We just had some cloud cover. And yet the media market here went bonkers. Ooooh, clouds, scaryyyyy. Better call Winnie-The-Pooh, it's a slightly blustery day. We were probably the only area in Florida that didn't get affected by the storm, and yet the media went bonkers, especially the local newspaper. I don't understand why they all have such a hard-on for a hurricane to hit the Bay area. Phhhhbt. Sometimes I wish that once we pack up and move elsewhere (assuming we do), that afterwards a big ol' hurricane would come and hit the Bay area directly so they can all shut up about it. Tampa's got nothing cool to lose, anyway.

It's about time we got efficient public transportation around here. I can't afford to drive. I'd basically be paying out the wazoo to go to work, and have next to nothing left over. Gas is through the roof. Insurance is ridiculously gouged (ESPECIALLY in the state of Florida). Car payments are expensive.

I'd like to live in a large city with a great public transportation system, like Washington DC. Here, it's nothing but urban sprawl, waste and the roads are packed full of senile old people who should have had their licenses expire ten years prior, dumb bimbos who text while driving (TAMPA, I'M TALKING TO YOU ASSHOLES), and lots of drunks. Yee-freaking-haw.

Someone get us light rail plz, Norfolk, a medium-sized city in Virginia, is getting light rail and one of the twenty largest metropolitan areas in the country is still living in the freaking stone age. We might as well wear strips of fur as togas, carry clubs and grunt. Uuuurgaurga.

So, I got woken up by screams at five in the morning. I thought it was a dream at first, but then I heard it again about five minutes later, as I lie awake in bed. About fifteen minutes later, as I got up to go to the bathroom, I heard it yet again. It was bloodcurdling and I heard a struggle. A couple of minutes later the cops came.

That was around 5:30 a.m. -- it's close to 7:30 now and the cops are STILL here, trying to figure out a way to break into the guy's apartment across from us (where the screams came from). They got the apartment's maintenance guy out to unlock the door, but it didn't work. The guy has changed his deadbolt a month prior (unsanctioned, of course). So that was a no-go.

About every three minutes or so I hear the cops pounding on the door.

I guess what's kind of cool about it is that I've been watching it all take place from my porch (overlooks the parking lot) and the peephole in the front door. It's like watching COPS! ...An extended version of COPS, I guess.




I'm glad I'm getting out of this dump next month.

EDIT: A forensics van came around 9:30. It came, left, and I don't know what the fuck is going on. The guy came out of his apartment around 9. There are no signs of him -- my guess is that he had the cuffs slapped on him and was hauled off. Meanwhile, the victim in question (the screaming girl, his girlfriend) is missing. I think her parents are outside, by the police car? I dunno.

Hurray! Thursday is supposed to be nice, so the State Fair will be comfortable this year!

Last year it was all drizzly and it was frigid. I don't even think it got out of the 40's. I had on a coat and a hat and gloves and I was still cold. Man, I'm a wuss.

Things I look forward to:

FAIR FOOD. My yearly intake of uber-fatty delicious strange foods. I usually just play it safe and get an Italian sausage and a funnel cake.

That seal show.

Hanging out in the Old Florida section of the fair

FARM ANIMALS (especially the cute ones like bunny rabbits)

Being amused at rednecks in their high fashion, which consists of outdated trends from two or three years ago, plus lots of plaid, camo, Confederate flags, and Big Dog. Nothing says "Redneck Fashion Week" like a pair of terrycloth pants with "Sexy" written on the ass paired with a Big Dog shirt.

Hopefully we'll see the robot again.


So, that's what I'm doing for V-day. Nothing says love like a big ol' funnel cake. (Hey, the restaurants are going to be busy as hell)

Our city is celebrating Christmas with a fatal accident down the road from us.

Our neighborhood is celebrating Christmas with six cop cars outside my apartment building, fucking off and doing nothing. There was a hoodlum outside our neighborhood cursing and driving erratically and pulling the race card on objecting neighbors, and the first cop cars that came LET THE FUCKER GO without running anything.

I dislike the cops in this town, and our neighborhood has gone to shit. Beautiful St. Pete, my ass. If we lived a few miles away where the county sheriffs are in control, they would have taken him right to jail and booked him.

I am starting to hate our neighborhood, and this city kind of sucks. It's sad, but we'd be better off with vigilante cops because the hired cops do nothing but talk on their cell phones in their car, hang out at Bennigan's, and fuck around and do nothing.

I really wish I could say "Merry Christmas" on a higher note, but, well, shit happens I guess. Now I'm off to stick a knife under my pillow and start shopping for Tasers and bear mace.

UPDATE: We had to call the cops again. So, a cop came, and the stupid cop walked RIGHT PAST THE GUY THAT WAS CAUSING THE TROUBLE! We had to yell at the cop to get her attention, and she seemed real nonchalant about it!
If there is a police department that fits the lazy donut-eating stereotype, the St. Pete police department is IT. It makes me feel a LOT less confident about my safety.



Sadly, I'd rather have these guys defending our city.



Psyduck: Florida's mascot. Wikipedia's description of Psyduck: "It is slow-witted and clumsy by nature, and its vacant expression often unnerves its foes."

AW HELL NAW

Dude, the Rays (sans Devil) new uniforms look like shit. It was everything I had feared and more. Not only did they make the uniforms look fruity, they had the AUDACITY to change the connotation of "ray" from a cute little thing in the ocean to some sunshine shit. A SUNSHINE. If they change the mascot Raymond (which is supposed to be a stingray thing but looks kinda like a crazy Muppet; I like him, he has spunk)to some gay-ass sun or something along those lines, I'll flip my shit. I'll lead an angry mob down to Tropicana Field with picket signs shaped like pitchforks and torches.

I'm also a Red Sox fan (since I was young, I'm not a bandwagon fan I promise you). And believe me, if anyone tried to change the Soxes' uniforms, mascot, or anything else, there wouldn't be a party like they threw last night with Kevin Costner and his mediocre band. There'd be another type of band in Boston, the type that doesn't play music. It would be a mob marching to Fenway Park, with real pitchforks and torches. Perhaps tar and feathers too!

This area really needs to put more pride in their ball team. Without pride...shit like this happens.

Dear Florida:

STOP RAINING KTHANKS.

So, yeah, streets are starting to flood out here. I bet Shore Acres is totally underwater right now, it floods over every time the sky spits out a raindrop.

I saw a couple of fish flopping around in the parking lot at work this morning. It was a couple of catfish about 11" long or so. A guy was trying to catch them to put them back in the water (there's a little retention pond in front of the Publix a few doors down), with no luck. I tried to catch them with a piece of paper. I, too, had no luck. They kept flopping out of my hands and back onto the pavement.

A few minutes later, a cop was driving down the parking lot. He saw the fish, and came out to help. The cop and the guy found a pizza box, and captured the two catfish in it. They then were put back into the water. Kinda fun.

Later, my manager on duty saw another catfish out back when he was on a smoke break. Don't know what happened to that one, though.

Fish. On pavement. Isn't that crazy?

Yesterday smelled like fire and death outside. The sky was brown and hazy and it looked like Tatooine. I had to wear a face mask all day and I looked like I was in a country that had SARS confirmations in it. I was calling my mask "my SARS mask" all day. Man, breathing sucked.

Fucking Florida.