Daily Loaf

You came, you saw, you voted: The winner of this year’s College Guide contest is Amanda Abadi of the University of Tampa. Her inventive video, which could be retitled “Crocodile Dundee Meets UT,” drew 6,694 votes. Amanda wins the title CL College Guide 2009, plus a CL briefcase stuffed with movie and concert passes, CDs and DVDs and assorted CL gear plus a $500 shopping spree from CL Deals.

Submission #1: Alex Vera | My UT: “Yes, I’m Losing My Mind”

Alex Vera
University of Tampa
Junior, Graphic Design
21, Tampa
My UT is: “The Minaret, my second home.”

Alex’s video takes viewers behind the scenes for a day (and night) in the life of the UT students who put out the school’s Minaret newspaper. Note the tempers fraying as the night stretches into morning.
(Editor’s Note: Despite any impression you might get from the photo, Alex is not UT’s Spartan mascot. We just happened to have a Spartan costume at the photo shoot, and Alex is an amazingly good sport.) Read the rest of this entry »

What happens when you combine naked people with the tone deaf and put them in a dive bar? Pornaoke! Yes, the shockingly infamous social event where people sing (or attempt to) karaoke while cheaply shot porn plays on a big screen behind them. It’s been going on every Wednesday for about six years at the Pegasus Lounge in Temple Terrace and is still going strong.

I’m not exactly quite sure of the crowd I was expecting to encounter during my first visit a few weeks ago — maybe a mid-sized crowd of late twentysomething regulars you’d see on any Friday night. The website lists karaoke starting at 10 p.m. and I arrived on time to an empty bar. I was told by the KJ (karaoke DJ, if you don’t know the lingo) that he’d start it when the place got a little more crowded — 30 people maybe. By the time he actually started it was 11 p.m. and the place was packed to the brim with barely legal “alternative” kids sporting long greasy hair and t-shirts with bands I’d never heard of, only a handful of whom could legally drink. I actually felt old for once and I’m 25. But, I figured, who cares? It’s a bar, just drink some more and have a good time laughing at the free entertainment.

The festivities started with a cheap -looking hardcore porn involving two young gentlemen entering the apartment of a skanky cougar woman who got right down to business. Read the rest of this entry »