TampaBLAB

View full size photo uploaded July 31, 2009

It's been known for awhile that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers would be wearing throwback jerseys this year in the November 8th game against the Green Bay Packers.  What wasn't known is which uniforms would be worn. 

All that can be put to rest as the throwbacks were modeled and worn by current players.  They apparently will wear the throwbacks one or two times over the next five years.  The uniforms are sure to bring back some nostalgic moments for the glory days gone by.

The only that makes me sad is that Barrett Ruud didn't have his fierce mustache for this picture. 

One of our favorite jukebox heroes of the '80s, Foreigner now has followed the lead of Journey and AC/DC and cut an exclusive marketing deal with Wal-Mart.

Foreigner announced this week that is is releasing a three-disc set of new and classic material on Sept. 29. Titled Can't Slow Down, it will include a CD of new tune, a disc of remixed older tunes and a live DVD. Total price: $12.

The three-disc set and price is nearly identical to Journey's Revelation deal with Wal-Mart, which helped fuel sales big time for the band.

"As we've been off the album scene for some time, we need a lot of support to get the word out," Foreigner's Mick Jones told the Associated Press. "Although we've played a tremendous amount of shows, a lot of the public doesn't realize that we're back."

[AP photo]

ST. PETERSBURG — An elderly woman's search for a rodent in her garage Thursday afternoon instead led to the discovery of a bazooka shell, authorities said.

Police say Jeanne Tipton called authorities shortly after 3 p.m. to pick up the projectile, which she had found while trying to locate a rat she'd heard.

Before police arrived, the 81-year-old moved the shell from the attic, which was above the garage, to her backyard.

Officers from the Tampa Police Department's bomb squad removed the item, determined to be an inert practice round. St. Petersburg officers asked neighbors to remain inside and blocked traffic in the Shore Acres neighborhood while they worked.

The projectile is believed to be at least 40 years old. Tipton told police her brother had been a Marine in World War II and had stored several things in the attic before moving in 1969.

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From Tampabay.com

Me: Oh my God. Isn’t this July?
Tour Guide: (nodding) Mark Twain said the coldest winter of his life was the summer he spent in San Francisco.
Me: (looking around and shivering) Word. My nipples just fell off.
Tour Guide: (blink, blink, blink) I prefer Twain.

Me: This vacation certainly isn’t the romantic getaway we envisioned.
Husband: Because you stopped plucking your eyebrows and I stopped plucking my ears?
Me: No. It’s because we invited the kids to come along with us.

Oldest: Wow, Mom. Thanks for getting us up at 5am to visit a deserted prison where the scariest men in America were kept and where some of them shot and killed several prison guards. I especially liked the part where three of them made dummy heads before escaping through the wall.
Youngest: Those dummy heads scared the bejesus out of me.
Husband: It’s not a vacation if we don’t have nightmares for at least two months afterwards.
Me: Say it with me: theme parks are for pussies.

Husband: Why aren’t you following the GPS?
Me: That ignorant whore has lied to me about “estimated time of arrival” for the last time.
Husband: That time is based on the route you refuse to follow. Plus you should drive the speed limit.
Me: Why are you always defending her?

Husband: Did you leave your heart in San Francisco?
Me: No. But I did leave two pounds due to questionable Chinese food and “mystery” guacamole.

Me: I went to sleep and it was 57 degrees. Now it’s 108. What happened?
Husband: Oregon. Oregon happened.

Me: What kind of local wine do you serve?
Waitress: We don’t serve alcohol.
Me: I’m sorry, I don’t understand. This is The *Vintage* Cafe, right? Surrounded by Oregon’s finest vineyards?
Waitress: This is a family restaurant.
Me: (snorts) I call bullshit. Most families I know require a full bar.

The area's biggest interview get has finally been gotten

Nick Schuyler, the former University of South Florida football player who survived the capsizing of a boat in the Gulf of Mexico which killed three of his friends, will finally tell his story next month to HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.

Schuyler's interview -- where he presumably will talk about his rescue after clinging to a boat motor for two days in a spot 35 miles south of Clearwater -- airs on the show at 10 p.m. Aug. 18, reported by correspondent Bernard Goldberg.

The tragedy became a white hot national story in March because Schuyler's friends were all athletes; former Tampa Bay Buccaneers Marquis Cooper and Corey Smith and former University of South Florida player Will Bleakley. Their bodies were never found (at right, is a photo of a tattoo memorializing his friends published on the Web site TheDirty.com).

Once Schuyler was rescued, news outlets from across the globe tried to secure his story, and speculation ran rampant over who might actually earn the "get" (as TV people call it). John Dunn, a spokesman for Tampa General Hospital, said Schuyler was adamant that he would not speak with media while recovering there, and discouraged family members from conducting interviews, as well.

"I got the feeling he had more than enough on his mind without worrying about (the media coverage)," said Dunn, who initially had to place media on the hospital's loading dock, because so many reporters showed up unexpectedly when the story exploded. "I told the family, 'Once you talk to one of them, you'll have to talk with all of them.' "

It didn't help that initial reporting during the search for the players, who were missing for two days before the news broke, was occasionally inaccurate, with some local outlets reporting Cooper had also been rescued.

Schuyler, who seemed to work hard to avoid media after leaving the hospital, may have concluded HBO's sports investigative show Real Sports was the best place to tell his admittedly difficult story.

(Many thanks to Times staff writer Brant James who contributed to this story)

The late Ralph Hughes, shown with state Sen. Ronda Storms in 2006 at a Plant City Republican event.

The Tampa Tribune is reporting that a new court filing by the Internal Revenue Service has more than quadrupled the amount of money it says it is owed by the estate of the late Ralph Hughes, a powerful anti-tax power broker in Hillsborough County.

From the Trib story:

Before he died last year, conservative powerbroker Ralph Hughes fraudulently took millions of dollars of his companies’ assets, leaving the businesses insolvent and owing nearly $300 million to the IRS, the federal government says in a new court filing.

Earlier this month, Hillsborough County Commissioners voted to remove Hughes’ name from the county’s Moral Courage Award. Hughes’ family asked that his name be taken off the award after The Tampa Tribune and TBO.com revealed the Internal Revenue Service claim that Hughes died owing more than $69 million in federal taxes.

Hughes’ family has disputed the IRS charges, saying he paid millions in taxes and would not avoid his responsibilities to the government.

That breaks down to “$128 million in back taxes, $117 million in penalties and $54 million in interest.”

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I have to say, I don’t think I could get past the though of that tooth being in my poop either. It hurts, but I think you made the right decision.

Once when my sister was a toddler, she swallowed a couple screws. My mom had to watch her poop to make sure they passed, but they weren’t ever going back in someones mouth. Panning your child’s poop is a whole lot different than you own, too!

This is the movie I’ve been waiting for! This Sunday at 3pm the Tampa Theatre will show The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). In 3D!

“A classic of the science fiction/horror genre, Creature From The Black Lagoon follows a group of scientists who come across the fossilized hand of a human fish creature while digging in the Amazon. That night, the creature emerges from the swamp to kill. The creature’s plans change, however, once he spies the lovely female scientist on the team….”

“Everyone gets free uber cool 3D glasses!”

From the mid-1920s until the mid-1950s Universal Studios managed to create THE most iconic images of movie horror to ever exist. The blockbuster success of Lon Chaney in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925) prompted studio head Carl Laemmle Jr. to focus considerable attention on the horror flick.

This led to the production of perhaps the two greatest horror movies ever made – Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931). Each spawned fantastically successful franchises, and launched the careers of Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. These two movies have become so woven into our cultural memory that it’s easy to forget how ground-breaking they really were. When I went back and watched these movies earlier this year it struck me how much I thought I knew about them was wrong. Most of my memories of these two movies is actually memory of the pastiches and parodies.

The 1930s also saw the creation of The Mummy (1932) and The Invisible Man (1933), and 1941 brought Lon Chaney, Jr.’s heart-wrenching Wolf Man. Universal produced about four dozen horror movies in this thirty year span. Some, like Bride of Frankenstein (1935) matched up well to the original, while others (like Werewolf of London (1935) which didn’t actually have a werewolf in it) were ground out to capitalize on the Universal reputation. Some are forgotten gems, like Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), a stunningly dark movie in which the protagonist (Lon Chaney, Jr. reprising his role as Lawrence Talbot, the Wolf Man) is driven to find a way to commit suicide.

By the 1950s the Universal horror franchises had deteriorated into literal self-parodies as each was resurrected to perform comedic pratfalls for Abbott and Costello movies.

The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) was Universal’s last attempt to regain its monster-making form. After two sequels Universal essentially ended three decades of movie monster greatness.

The Creature was originally shot and released in 3D, and the showing at the Tampa Theatre is a rare opportunity to see the movie as it was intended. Much of the underwater footage was filmed in Wakulla Springs, just south of Tallahassee, Florida.

If you’re there on Sunday, be sure to say Hi!

One of the more underrated sci-fi movie series of the '80s is set for a new big-screen treatment. Director Ridley Scott is now on board to film a "prequel" of his landmark Alien flick.

The original 1979 was followed by three sequels -- the best I think was James Cameron's 1986 Aliens -- but this new movie presumably will track the origin of the alien that haunted Ripley (Sigourney Weaver and poor John Hurt) time after time.

Variety.com says Jon Spaihts will write the prequel and that Scott, who directed the original but passed on the sequels, will return to helm the project. No release date has been announced and no casting decisions have been made.

So where does the Alien franchise stand in the sci-fi hall of fame? Where does it rank among classic '80s movie far?

One of TV's biggest pet peeves for my wife and I are all the examples of bad parenting shown as acceptable behavior and reinforced on television.

Parents who are inconsistent. Parents who don't follow through on promised punishments. Parents who are so worried about their kids disapproval they avoid discipline and rules. Parents who treat serious infractions by kids as sources of humor.

All these habits are often shown as acceptable behavior on TV series and commercials, though they can often lead to real-life trouble for parents who don't set clear boundaries for their kids and enforcement them consistently.

Which brings me to the 7-year-old Utah boy who jumped in a car an engaged police in a low-speed chase, supposedly because he didn't want to go to church. Initially, his parents avoided media interviews, saying they didn't want to provide "incentive or reward for his actions."

So why did the family appear on the Today show this morning, laughing and joking with host Meredith Vieira like little Preston Scarbrough had faked a stomach ache to get out of school?

"We saw the video the day before yesterday and that was the first time it became...started to become a little bit funny to us," said father Daniel Scarbrough this morning. "We could be sitting here for a lot different reason right now."

The parents say they're cutting off his TV and video games and grounding him for four days. I'm guessing that starts after the flight to New York City, where they meet celebrities like Vieira and the rest of Today's cast while appearing on national television to trade quips about his joy ride.

Daniel called his son a "cotton candy" average kid, saying "This could have happened to anybody." Which treats the incident like an illness or something involuntary, instead of a dangerous choice made by a very lucky young boy. And it seems a case of parental lunacy to treat the incident like a bizarre joke because he was lucky enough not to hurt himself or anyone else.

I'm always amazed at the ability of network TV bookers to get folks who should never be in front of a TV camera to talk about stuff they normally wouldn't tell anyone. But this is a new high (or low), enabling some seriously questionable parenting choices for the sake of an interesting segment.

Hope it was worth it.

photo credit: Tom Hagerty for Lakeland Local

Post from: Lakeland Local

   And a bear that had been up a tree in Fort Walton Beach slipped by waiting police and ended up rifling through trash cans in Mary Esther, nwfdailynews.com reports.

   Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission technicians say they trapped that bear in April 2008 at Bob Hope Village and relocated it to Eglin Air Force Base property in Walton County.

   Wildlife technician Andrew Jernigan said he knew the bear’s background from its tag number.

   Human-bear encounters are becoming about as common as alligator sightings in Florida these days.

   The latest report is from Daytona Beach, where a small Florida black bear is regularly visiting a neighborhood and scaring families into staying indoors, news-journalonline.com reports.

   “It comes into our back yard about two or three times a week and spends about 30 minutes,” Justin Cullins said. “The bear goes all through our neighborhood and goes through our trash.”

   The three-month bear mating season in Central Florida peaks in July, which means it’s prime time for bear sightings.

   Just what we don't need: bad guys carrying stun guns.

   A good samaritan who tried to corral a purse-snatcher outside a 7-Eleven in Bradenton was zapped by the thief, the Manatee Sheriff’s Office told HeraldTribune.com.

   Three people ran after and tackled the thief. But while holding the thief on the ground, one of the samaritans was stunned in the leg, and the thief escaped. But he dropped the purse and all its belongings, which were returned to the owner.