The Creative Loafing team prides itself on producing more Daily Loaf content each week than any individual could ever possibly comprehend. As such, you’re bound to have missed at least one worthwhile story from the pages of this blog over the last few days. Here’s a “greatest hits” list from the week that was, broken down by section:
NEWS
MUSIC
Movies, food, sex and Punky Brewster after the break. Read the rest of this entry »
The campaign for Best Local Blog in the Creative Loafing Readers’ Poll is getting serious; note the campaign photo at right.
Not everyone’s a fan. One jaded voter responded to the question this way: “There’s no such thing.” We also got “no,” “none” and “I hate blogs” (which may be the name of a blog, I’m not sure).
But the 100-plus blogs nominated so far in the category suggest plenty of our readers would disagree.
The leaders at the moment? Here they are in no particular order (as the host says on I can’t remember which reality show): Read the rest of this entry »
A few weeks ago, I joined Twitter on the advice of super food blogger Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen. It has been great. The hardest thing by far is to schedule actual “twitter sessions” during my work day, or I’ll just produce absolutely nothing and tweet all day.
For anyone who’s unaware, on Twitter, you can “follow” people (meaning you can read their constant updates in real time) or you can be “followed” by others (meaning people who “follow” you can read your constant updates in real time). Needless to say, the more followers you get, in comparison to the ones you follow, the cooler you are in Twitterville. But also, the quality of the people who follow you is really important. Following Barack Obama, Demi Moore or Jay Leno, for instance, is not as cool as being followed by said persons. It’s a balancing act.
There’s always someone you admire, a guru you cherish, or a big shot you respect. For chefs like me, being followed by Thomas Keller, Daniel Boulud or Grant Achatz would be a huge deal.
And that brings me to Eric Ripert. Read the rest of this entry »
Our 2009 Summer Guide will be hitting newstands today, chock full of ideas on ways you can spend your summer vacation. If you don’t want to hunt down the print edition in the physical world (it’s hot outside!), you can stay cool and find all the Summer Guide content online here.
As part of putting the issue together we asked people, “what are you doing on your summer vacation?” Those answers appear throughout the issue and will be posted to Daily Loaf, Tampa Calling and Political Whore over the next few days.
To get things rolling here on Daily Loaf we have Holley Sinn (that’s her below) and Jerome Ritchey, the hosts of Tampa CBS affiliate WTSP’s morning-chat show Studio 10, talking up their summer plans after the jump. Also, a programming alert: Be sure to tune in to Studio 10 tomorrow morning (10 a.m. on channel 10) to catch CL Editor David Warner and interns Lily Reisman and Hannah Walk discussing the summer guide.
Jon Stewart thinks Twitter is a silly waste of time, according to yesterday’s Daily Show segment of “Jon Stewart shakes his fist at _____.”
Reporter Samantha Bee plays the Twitter enthusiast. Or is she a desperate member of the media, clinging to Twitter like a branch on the bank of a raging river? You make the call.
[Editor's Note: Arielle Stevenson (left) is on the hunt for the perfect apartment, or at least something she can afford without having to live with someone weird. Follow her hunt on The Daily Loaf.]
I am not one to bash Craigslist. Sure, it may have vastly ruined the print industry’s main source of income — classifieds — but it is a working model of what the Internet is supposed to be, free community communication.
Craigslist has enabled Internet romantics to post missed connections, brief moments like:
“You are from Poland, 31 yo. I can’t get you out of my thoughts. Please don’t take this wrong…but you have one of the nicest shaped ass I’ve ever seen. Looking at you drove me crazy!! If all I ever get to do is look, it’s worth the stare LOL. Looking forward to see you again!”
Ahh… Democracy at work.
While endearing, this little online engine that could has also created a vehicle for numerous crazies – who are normal by day – to go a little buck wild online. Your bank teller, electrician, doctor, realtor, lawyer and young male college student who momma still thinks is a good boy, that we know hormones have already gotten the better of.
I found lots of these guys in my Craigslist search for a roommate. Let’s take the token “30 something guy, single and sane” posting, which would seem fine enough except for the photograph, obviously copied and pasted, of a 4-month-old puppy, who was apparently lonely for a woman, though I doubt the puppy was the lonely one.
Surprisingly, I do not find it endearing that a man, who was definitely not a 30-something, would try to lure young women with furry woodland creatures and cheap rent.
The guys who had listed a very small room on the other side of 4th St. were especially convincing. Two hundred dollars a month, if you also do housework, like cleaning and laundry.
I thought this could work. The problem was that the room was actually a closet, and when they saw my reaction to the “room for rent,” they offered sleeping with one of them as a solution. Read the rest of this entry »
November will seem a little less eventful this year with the absence of Gala Corina from the visual arts scene. Since 1999, the unconventional art fair – typically staged inside a historic cigar factory or other unfinished structure ripe for architectural or interior design interventions – has been an annual Tampa tradition. In this, what would be Gala’s tenth year, news comes that there will be no 2008 Gala Corina. However, the loose coalition of artists who organize the event plan to stage two smaller-scale endeavors in spring and fall of 2009.
In lieu of the real thing, Artsqueeze proudly presents a stroll down memory lane in the form of photos from last year’s Gala Corina, in all its sometimes-wacky, sometimes-edgy, always-scrappy-and-spunky glory. Enjoy! (Click through to Flickr to read captions, including artist IDs, for the images.)
Megan Voeller is Creative Loafing’s visual art critic. She teaches at the University of Tampa and The Art Institute of Tampa, edits the weekly online newsletter of CreativeTampaBay and blogs at Artsqueeze.com.
Hola, Daily Loaf readers. From now on, I’ll be adding my ruminations on local visual art happenings to the mix here on the Loaf, to complement what I write each week as visual art critic in Creative Loafing’s print edition.
You’ll see short exhibit reviews, online-first arts reporting and weekend roundups of must-see events—as well as the occasional video.
You can also check out my blog, Artsqueeze.com, for links to many Bay area visual artists and arts venues, including local galleries and museums.
As always, please feel free to leave a comment or drop me a line at megan.voeller@creativeloafing.com if you have any questions.
Megan Voeller is Creative Loafing’s visual art critic. She teaches at the University of Tampa and The Art Institute of Tampa, edits the weekly online newsletter of CreativeTampaBay and blogs at Artsqueeze.com.
Each Fall an army of eighteen-year-old “adults” floods USF, expecting to finally set foot in the long prophesized ”real world.” They soon discover that college, and the real world, are whatever these freshmen make of them. In constructing their identities, most are required to take a basic writing course.
Creative Loafing has chosen four of those students to blog for the Daily Loaf.
These are their rants, insights, fears and hopes…
Years ago, I had hope. The Emmy Academy gave me something to hold on to, something to keep me coming back year after year. With hosts like Garry Shandling and Conan O’Brien, how could I not? (That lanky, redheaded geek could make me watch anything. Fox News. The Wiggles. Anything.) Although the Emmy’s were like watching paint dry, you could rely on the host to take some of that paint and get you high with it. He’d give you just enough to hold you over until his next little quip. There was a connection between the host and viewer: he was our crying shoulder. “I know this is rough,” he’d say, “but we’re going to make it through this together.”
That’s what kept me going; I knew that after the commercial break he would say something just funny enough to get me through the Outstanding Made For Television Movie category. But times have changed, my friends. We can’t just get high with the hosts anymore. No longer are they our crying shoulder. They are the tough loving, beer guzzling dads that slap you around and tell you to be a man… Read the rest of this entry »
Turning eighteen can mean: college, moving out, and the ability to buy cigarettes and lottery tickets. When I turned 18, I was most excited about registering for the upcoming presidential election. It took me a while after my birthday to find the time, but I finally registered to vote two weeks ago at a voter-registration drive on SPC’s Tarpon Springs Campus.
This week, I signed myself up on mybarackobama, and submitted an application to assist where needed in the upcoming months. I support Obama because I believe in a woman’s right to choose, marriage for everyone and because I’m terrified of Sarah Palin (not to mention the fact my mother told me she’d disown me if I voted for McCain…I’m a fan of free food and housing).
Since then, I have received as many as three emails per day asking me to pass things on to my friends, get the word out, etc. Since I’m a first-time voter, I’m paying very close attention to this election. I’ll be posting to the Daily Loaf blog with my reactions and ideas throughout this process. But I do have some questions: Any advice for a first time voter? Read the rest of this entry »
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