You do realize that if he wins, he will never shut up about it.

Tampa Bay & Company is proud to announce that the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Committee has selected Tampa Bay, and the University of South Florida, to host the 2015 NCAA Division I Women’s Final Four Championship.

I hope local media lays off the lesbian angle this time.  If local media is still around in 2015, that is.

Condos on Tierra Verde?  No thank you.

Brian Blair:  My neighbors are extremists.

Rays looking for a new neighborhood?

1. Take advantage of existing geography & history
2. Made more pedestrian-friendly
3. Recruiting retail
4. Residential construction
5. Calendar of Events

Some of the plans in the five step process could be used in other areas seeking to find themselves.

Just because I thought hiring Melrose was a bad idea in the first place doesn’t mean that I’m happy about him being fired. Because as a ham-and-egger off the street (Joe the Fan, if you will), there’s absolutely no consequence whatsoever to me being wrong (or right) about the team’s personnel decisions. That’s one of the great things about being a fan. The professionals who are paid to make those decisions, however, are a different story. They don’t get the luxury of being pleasantly surprised if they’re wrong.

In this case, they fired a Stanley Cup winning coach (albeit one who had just finished with the worst record in the league) and presumably bypassed other candidates to hire someone who hadn’t coached at any level in over a decade… only to fire him after playing less than 20% of one season. Point being, if it took so little time to figure out it wasn’t a good fit, you have to wonder if the pre-hire vetting process was as thorough as it could and should have been. Again, that’s why the professionals make the big bucks.

Considering it took only 12 games to dump Matt Carle, the focal point of the trade that cost the Lightning hard-working all-star defenseman and fan favorite Dan Boyle, fans probably shouldn’t be too shocked if Marty St. Louis gets traded in the middle of the next unsuccessful power play. I can imagine the press release now…

“This was a tough decision to make. Marty is a good man and we have a great deal of respect for him and all he’s done for the organization over the years. We wish him nothing but success. However, we’ve had the man advantage for nearly half a minute now and the results have been unacceptable. The players have to understand that we need to be better. Hopefully this change helps us for the remaining 1:36 of Wade Brookbank’s hooking penalty.”

Of course, an organization that turns to the po rn industry as a model for building it’s marketing campaign probably isn’t one that’s looking to set standards for good judgment.

(Cross posted at Ridiculously inconsistent trickle of consciousness)

Now that property taxes and insurance bills have stabilized, the electric bill will go up.

Did you know that the Trans-Siberian Orchestra originated in Tampa Bay.  The orchestra was formed out of the Brandon metal band Savatage.

Brian Blair left, but couldn’t help himself from taking a few jabs at Kevin Beckner.

That newspapers are in dire straits is not news.  Reporters are losing jobs across the nation as they trim the fat.  But our local daily is completely cutting out all of the marble and cleaving the meat - leaving us with no flavor and little substance.

As Luis Viera points out in a letter to Trib editors, they have effectively chopped the “Tampa” from the Tribune:

The latest layoffs by the Tampa Tribune call into question just what kind of institution this newspaper wants to be. The names of the people terminated by this paper - men and women like Daniel Ruth, Rosemary Goudreau and Joe Brown - are not only the Tribune, but they are, frankly, Tampa. To the extent that the Tribune wanted to speak to the people of this city, it would have done so through thoughtful, talented and original people like this.

Along with Daniel Ruth, Rosemary Goudreau and Joe Brown, take a look at the name recognition of some of the others no longer with the newspaper:

• Kurt Loft
• Scott Carter
• Billy Townsend (Polk)
• Karen Haymon Long
• Mitch Schaefer
• Nick Pugliese
• Carter Gaddis
• Jim Tunstall (Citrus)
• Phil Morgan
• Larry Fletcher
• Pat Mitchell
• Bob Ross
• David O’Keefe (artist)
• Judy Hill
• Please forgive me, I’m sure I’ve missed more than a few names here.

All of these people are Tampa.

Take a look at the TBO Opinion page.  They are down to THREE faces for the paper - Steve Otto, Martin Fennelly, and Tom Jackson (Pasco).  Now that Joe Brown is gone, would you recognize anyone on the editorial board?  Even their once ballyhooed community columnists have not written since August.

And to top all that off, here is the quote from executive editor Janet Coats:

“We have tried to make these cuts so the results are not so obvious to the reader.”

Janet, that is a sick joke to your former employees, and a downright insult to your readers.

Upon the Tribune’s redesign in October, Bob Ross said good buy to “a dying friend.”   It’s time to pull the plug on Media General, and let someone else try to clean up this mess.

Tampa has finally been named the flightcomparison.co.uk World Destination of the Week!  Here are some highlights of their review:

… more commercially oriented than other Florida destinations, but it has plenty to offer…

… grand museums and golden beaches, all flavoured with a distinct Mexi-Flori zest.

… minimal traffic and discounts aplenty if you visit during summer. However, summer is hurricane season and can get very humid.

Getting around town can be done mostly by public bus…

Fun-Lan Drive In… atmosphere is still as great as it was nearly sixty years ago.

Not sure about that “public bus” comment.

And I’ll leave it to you to figure out what “Mexi-Flori” is (google it!).