Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

“woke” is the new caravan.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Bark louder, little dog.

He really is that stupid.

This fight is for everything.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Let’s finish the job.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Gauging Interest: Possible West Central Florida Meet Up

Gauging Interest: Possible West Central Florida Meet Up

by | 106 Comments

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Commenter Lyrebird emailed me and asked if I’d gauge the interest of our snarling jackals for a meet up in St. Pete, Florida for next weekend. She’s going to be in St. Pete for a conference. I know there are some commenters in the area, and possibly some lurkers too, in the area. So if you reside in the area and would be interested, would you be so kind as to indicate which night – Friday the 19th, Saturday the 20th, or Sunday the 21st – you might be interested and/or available. I’ll then get back with her to see what she wants to do, and we’ll go from there. AnneG has requested that we do a food and drink meet up, so not just a bar, but a restaurant.

And Open Thread!

Reader Interactions

106Comments

  3. 3.

    hovercraft

    What, no takers for a Flo-ri-duh meet-up?
    Come on guys maybe you can generate some BJ Florida Man/Woman headlines of your own.

  4. 4.

    jl

    Isn’t Florida cut loose enough already?

    I’ll attend if someone lends me (ha ha…. ‘lend’, that’s funny…You’ll get your money back asap, I swear) cross country airfare.
    And if I can get some sort of BJ letter of diplomatic immunity so I’m safe from the vagaries of Florida this that and the other.

  5. 5.

    efgoldman

    @hovercraft:

    you can generate some BJ Florida Man/Woman headlines of your own.

    “Florida Man Misses St Petersburg, Drives Into Bay”

  6. 6.

    efgoldman

    @efgoldman:

    you can generate some BJ Florida Man/Woman headlines of your own.

    “Florida Man Buys Ticket to St Petersburg, Deplanes in Russia”

  8. 8.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jl: No worries. Everyone gets issued a shooting iron in the caliber of their choice upon arrival.//

  9. 9.

    efgoldman

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Everyone gets issued a shooting iron in the caliber of their choice upon arrival

    “Florida Man Reaches for 9-Iron Without Looking, Shoots Self in Leg”

  11. 11.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: You’d be amazed at how often a rookie cop on their first day gives themselves GLOCK leg trying to look cool in the mirror when they put their uniforms on for the first time.

  12. 12.

    hovercraft

    @jl:
    Hey get in line, I’m still waiting on my trip to Rome for a BJ meet-up!
    @efgoldman:
    Driving into the bay seems a bit tame to me, given the adventures of John Cole Animal Lover, I’d at least expect us to be be able to top our blog hosts adventures. Driving into the bay, driving into a field, too similar ; )

  14. 14.

    geg6

    Hey, I’m going to be in Bradenton the week of June 18 – 23. Any BJers who may be in the area who want to meet up, let me know! Will be up for it.

  15. 15.

    Adam L Silverman

    @hovercraft: Someone down in Miami did drive into a Dunkin Donuts last week. And not through the drive through!
    http://miami.cbslocal.com/2017/05/08/car-plows-dunkin-donuts/

    MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Several people were hurt after a driver accidentally plowed into a Dunkin’ Donuts.

    The accident happened around 10:45 a.m. Monday when a woman in a white Honda crashed through the glass door.

    Chopper4, over the scene, spotted the car completely inside the store in the 83rd block of W Flagler Street.

    A woman who was in the car, said her friend was trying to park and hit the wrong pedal.

    “I think she was trying to back up and instead of putting it in reverse she put it in drive,” said ‘Liz.’ “She was trying to get into the parking spot correctly….instead of putting it in reverse she put it in drive.”

    The car then shot forward and ended up in the dining section of the restaurant.

    A man who was also a customer was seriously hurt and rushed to Kendall Trauma. Another woman was also injured. Four others, including the driver, was checked out on the scene. None of the injuries appeared to be life threatening.

    Dunkin Donuts server Marilyn Baretto said she got cut on her hand.

    “By the time I looked up the car was inside. I heard the smashing of the glass, thank God we’re alive,” she said.

    Congressman Carlos Curbelo happened to be on a ride along with fire rescue when the call went out.

    “It appears to have been an accident but this puts on display the amazing work that our firefighters do every single day,” said Curbelo.

    About two hours after the crash, the car left the Dunkin’ Donuts, not under its own power and left the restaurant a mess.

  16. 16.

    efgoldman

    @Adam L Silverman:

    You’d be amazed at how often a rookie cop on their first day gives themselves GLOCK leg

    I probably wouldn’t (be amazed)
    I have an extremely low and cynical view of my fellow humans.

  17. 17.

    Adam L Silverman

    @hovercraft: Someone in Coconut Creek back in February had a negligent discharge and shot a woman in a Dunkin Donuts too!
    https://www.local10.com/news/crime/man-making-morning-run-to-dunkin-donuts-accidentally-drops-gun-shoots-woman

    COCONUT CREEK, Fla. – A woman was shot at a Dunkin’ Donuts in Coconut Creek Saturday morning when a man accidentally dropped his gun at the store, police said.

    The man arrived to the store at 6502 North State Road 7, in a white four-door Mazda. When the firearm discharged and the 55-year-old woman was shot, he ran away.

    More Crime Headlines
    3 Carol City Senior High School students injured in Miami Gardens shooting
    The woman suffered a “non-life threatening” wound, the Coconut Creek Police Department said.

    Randy Barroso (Photo courtesy of the Coconut Creek Police Department)
    Randy Barroso, 38, turned himself in Saturday at the Police Department. Police said Barroso was cooperative and provided a statement to detectives.

    Barroso told police that the discharge of the weapon was unintentional. Police said Barroso possesses a concealed carry permit and does not have a criminal arrest record.

    Barroso was arrested for culpable negligence and booked at the Broward County Jail with $500 bail, police said.

    Copyright 2017 by WPLG Local10.com – All rights reserved.

  18. 18.

    efgoldman

    @Adam L Silverman:

    her friend was trying to park and hit the wrong pedal.

    “Elderly Florida Man in 74 Caddy Arrested for Doing 45 on I-95”
    “Police say he was Weaving in and Out and Passing Multiple Vehicles”

  19. 19.

    Adam L Silverman

    @geg6: Shoot me an email at the end of May and I’ll put a post up like this one for you.

  21. 21.

    (((CassandraLeo)))

    I’m in Sarasota and would be interested in attending but will only definitely be free Sunday night. May be free Saturday night too but depends on work schedule. Will definitely work Friday night.

  22. 22.

    hovercraft

    @Adam L Silverman:

    About two hours after the crash, the car left the Dunkin’ Donuts, not under its own power and left the restaurant a mess.

    That’s some crack reporting there! With those observation skills the reporter
    is ready to graduate to villager status.

    @Adam L Silverman:
    I know you said that you’re not really as dumb as the headlines make you seem, but that your FOIA or something requires all these things to be made public, but sheesh! What’s with all the “accidental” discharges?

  26. 26.

    Mnemosyne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I remember that, a few years ago, there was a commenter here whose wife was on the wrong end of a similar accident here in So Cal — she was one of the people inside an office that got hit and ended up in the hospital getting surgery. But she pulled through just fine, fortunately.

  27. 27.

    Sebastian

    Off topic:

    I was wondering if the latest leaks about indictments aren’t meant to freak out Trumps camp before the action starts. I would imagine that IC and LE would do exactly that to have the conspirers start turning on each other, make mistakes, panic, run, rat each other out.

    We shall see in the days to come.

  28. 28.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    trying to look cool in the mirror when they put their uniforms on for the first time

    Seems to fit (Gilbert and Sullivan, Patience, “When I first put this uniform on”)

    Colonel.
    When I first put this uniform on,
    
I said, as I looked in the glass,

    “It’s one to a million

    That any civilian

    My figure and form will surpass.

    Gold lace has a charm for the fair,

    And I’ve plenty of that, and to spare,

    While a lover’s professions,

    When uttered in Hessians,

    Are eloquent ev’rywhere!”

    A fact that I counted upon,

    When I first put this uniform on!

    Dragoons.
    By a simple coincidence, few

    Could ever have counted upon,

    The same thing occurred to me,

    When I first put this uniform on!

    Colonel.
    I said, when I first put it on,
    “It is plain to the veriest dunce,
    That every beauty
    Will feel it her duty
    To yield to its glamour at once.
    They will see that I’m freely gold-laced
    In a uniform handsome and chaste” —
    But the peripatetics
    Of long-haired aesthetics
    Are very much more to their taste —
    Which I never counted upon,
    When I first put this uniform on!

    Dragoons.
    By a simple coincidence, few
    Could ever have counted upon,
    I didn’t anticipate that,
    When I first put this uniform on!

    The Dragoons go off angrily.

  32. 32.

    Adam L Silverman

    @amk: The Assistant US Attorney in charge is Bharara’s hand picked #2. Before everyone freaks out.

  34. 34.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mnemosyne: I’m sorry to read that, but glad she came through it okay. I am constantly amazed how often these “create a drive through” accidents happen.

  36. 36.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Lyrebird: Depending where she is in Sarasota and where she is going to in Tampa or St. Pete, as well as traffic, could take anywhere from 35 minutes to 2 hours.

  40. 40.

    Sebastian

    @Eric U.:
    Isn’t he already (sort of)? His last tirades on Twitter were weirder than usual. He is allegedly completely withdrawn and hyper-paranoid. Bunker mentality. I am not an expert and will let Adam and other more knowledgeable people comment but wouldn’t that be SOP for law enforcement? To stir up conspirers and make them go crazy and turn on each other before striking?

  41. 41.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Sebastian: One wouldn’t want to push someone into a position where striking out seems to be the only response. Always leave the person a way out – but ensure that their way out gets one what one wants.

  42. 42.

    Sebastian

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    Interesting. Which one would that be? Considering that there are so many targets, do we know at who this psycho-tactic is targeted? I just read on Politico ( I know, but if it has reached Politico it has reached mainstream) that staffers should start thinking about lawyering up. And on Twitter people keep pointing out that the language has shifted from terms of intelligence to terms of prosecution.

    Something is brewing. I just don’t know what exactly it is. My hope is of course that all the rumors about dozens of indictments are true.

  43. 43.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Sebastian: For the lesser Trump monkeys, give them a way to save face. Let them talk out of “patriotism” with a good plea deal as something in the background. Let them fool themselves as to why they are dropping dime. I don’t care what stories we let them tell themselves; I want them to rollover and snitch like madmen.

  44. 44.

    Sebastian

    @Omnes Omnibus: Oh yes, definitely. And if I am not mistaken, that’s how law enforcement works. You get the smaller ones first and they spill the beans on the bigger ones.

    Interesting thing happened the past 48 hours. AG for NY announced probe into Manafort’s real estate dealings. That could indeed be the beginning of the RICO indictment. Interestingly enough, US attorneys also settled the money laundering case with Provision (sp?) yesterday for a laughable sum. Maybe this is Trump’s work paying back his buddies. Or, more likely, the US attorneys cut a deal for something much more valuable …

  45. 45.

    Anne Laurie

    @Adam L Silverman: Heck, the local news here in Massachusetts seems to carry a new ‘Elderly Driver Hits Wrong Pedal, Takes Out Storefront’ story approximately every other week. What with all the retirees you’ve got down in FL, I’d be shocked if it weren’t a regular occurrence…

    Saddest / scariest recent local example: 76-year-old employee at an auto auction accidentally killed four people. Turned out this guy was driving with a suspended license. Reason for the suspension not mentioned that I recall, but he may just ‘not have bothered’ renewing it — there have been similar cases I remember where aging drivers chose to break the law and hope for the best, rather than risk failing the eye chart or other testing. Another “gift” to those of us behind the first pig-in-the-python wave of baby boomers: we’re all gonna pay the price for creating a society where too many people are placed so they can’t get around without driving, but they’re no longer capable of driving safely.

  47. 47.

    Sab

    @Adam L Silverman: I spent my elementary school years in Florida centuries ago. Back then, we only worried about hurricanes, poisonous snakes, and the occasional rogue alligator imported from Louisiana. People didn’t shoot you if they weren’t angry relatives. Also no traffic. Totally different state now. But Jim Crow still the same.

  48. 48.

    Omnes Omnibus

    So in GOP assholes are such assholes that even their kids are assholes new: My nephew (high school freshman – public high school) is dating a girl from the local Catholic high school. Apparently the son of the GOP Congress Critter from the area goes to the same Catholic high school and has a thing for my nephew’s gf. GOP spawn stole gf’s phone and texted my nephew the gf wanted nothing more to do with him. Nephew got in touch with gf and all is good, but, at brunch today when I asked him about it he said “Don’t even get me started, but what an entitled asshole.” FWIW he is the nephew who told some racist assholes to go fuck themselves for picking on a Latino girl right after the election.

  53. 53.

    Sab

    I remember when my town started a sanitary sewer system (instead of dumping it into the intercoastal waterway) and we were so proud they put up a sign announcing to people driving into town. Those people didn’t care, but I did as a child playing in the intercoastal waterway. Boo tetanus.Yay seacows.

    Autocorrect is weird and not wonderful. Who programs it?

  55. 55.

    burnspbesq

    Reaching back to a post from the morning.

    I don’t know whether Mulvaney is a Catholic, but if he is, he needs excommunicatin.’ “Whatever you do unto the least of these,” etc.

  56. 56.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Walker: The Rep’s house is about two blocks from my parents’ place. I suggested egging it. But my mom, who didn’t disagree with the concept, noted that the legal climate for “youthful high jinks” has changed and shit my brother and I did in high school would keep people out of college today. The nephew will find his moment.

  59. 59.

    GregB

    The Twitters are showing me that Pres. Low-T’s lawyer Michael Cohen is tweeting out lingerie pics of his daughter and that Frank Luntz is having a big sad because Mother’s Day has become politicized.

    Pres. Low-T goes to the most conservative religious wingnut college in the US on Sat. On Sunday his lawyer is tweeting skeevily about his daughter and Trump appears to be spending Mother’s Day away from the three women he helped make mother’s.

    Family values.

  61. 61.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @burnspbesq: Neck punching? Interesting. He tends to be a living well is the best revenge kid – even on the soccer field. (His kid sister is the “fuck you, I will fuck you up” kid.) He’ll just point out to the asshole kid that his relationship may not last, but, after that stunt, the girl will never date the GOP spawn. “You burned that bridge, shithead.”

  65. 65.

    ruemara

    If I was in the area, I’d do it. Hope all who can, do and have a tall glass of something good together.

    If I manage to figure out housing for SanDee Comic-Con, any Juicers interested in that?

  67. 67.

    Sab

    @Gretchen: I am a stepmother, and I love these kids and do not plan to have them eaten by witches in the woods (Hansel and gretel) as is traditional among stepmothers. I don’ t object to mothers day because I had a wonderful mother and mothering is hard, and one of my stepkids also had a wonderful mother. However, stepmothering is also hard (and much harder to get by autocorrect in comprehensible form). Turns out we also had our day but we missed it. Oh well. This year was May 1. Next year step-mothers step up to get acknowledged also.

  69. 69.

    GregB

    @Gretchen:

    I am not certain what he was responding to exactly. I am assuming criticism that Pres. Low-T spent Mother’s Day by himself on a golf course.

  75. 75.

    Gretchen

    @Sab: I agree that step-parenting can be very difficult. That’s why I am apprehensive about my only grandson getting a stepdad next Saturday. He seems like a good guy, and grandson seems to like him. But small children are often a pain in the ass, and I’m afraid about that.

  77. 77.

    Mnemosyne

    @Gretchen:

    It’s always a little hard to say how these things are going to turn out, but I’ve had a stepmother for 35+ years and I love her. The teen years are going to be tough, but those would be tough on a biological parent’s relationship with their child, too. My brother and his current wife are successfully co-parenting with his ex-wife and her current husband and have been since the kids were toddlers.

    It’s not going to be all sweetness and light, but parenting never is. Hopefully your daughter has chosen wisely.

  79. 79.

    GregB

    @Redshift:

    Tis to laugh. I tweeted at him the same sentiment.

    Ii have recounted before, one of my fondest NH primary memories was berating Luntz at a crosswalk in Manchester.

  80. 80.

    efgoldman

    @GregB:

    one of my fondest NH primary memories was berating Luntz at a crosswalk in Manchester.

    You could have pushed him into traffic
    If there was any

  81. 81.

    Mary G

    I have never been to Florida; it scares me. The reptiles and giant insects, plus guns and humidity. Betty Cracker’s bird pictures and nature views are tempting, though.

  82. 82.

    efgoldman

    @Mary G:

    I have never been to Florida

    We used to go regularly; haven’t been since my dad died in 2004, and Mom moved back to Boston. Don’t care if I never go back. I’ll be damned if I’ll support the economy in a place run by shitheels like Governor Voldemort and worse.

  83. 83.

    jl

    If Bugs saws off Florida and we get a Caribbean cruise out of it, I’ll pay my own airfare and bring some party hats leis. and hula hoops.
    I think I got that straight. Or, let me know what to bring.

  85. 85.

    Sab

    @Omnes Omnibus: Uncling? Uncling or uncle-ing? I am assuming uncle-ing, which I am sure is everybit as hard as step parenting and more important because the stepskids don’t even realize you are doing it . They just think you are “family”, whatever the he’ll that means in modern families. Step kids think it’s whoever is on their side. Step-patent is “other” for the first decade or so. Aunts and uncles are family, and thus fill a huge void.

    By the time autocorrect got though, I had no idea what I had said

  86. 86.

    Anne Laurie

    @Steeplejack:

    Pray that those self-driving cars arrive soon!

    Believe me, I do!

    Except, of course, the folks who’ll need them most soonest (a) won’t be able to afford them, and (b) are more liable to be resistant to the concept, since at least they’re (we’re) not the ones more interested in texting or instagramming than keeping an eye on the road…

  87. 87.

    frosty

    @Mary G: We’re starting to go for a month in the winter, camping in the state parks, which they advertise as “the real Florida”. It is, and it’s worth the trip.

  88. 88.

    Steeplejack

    @Anne Laurie:

    The self-driving revolution may not take the form of everybody owning their own self-driving car. It could end up being something like a vastly improved, smarter taxi/​Uber/​public-transit kind of thing where you say where and when you need to go and the self-driving car pulls up at the right time, possibly with other people going to the same destination.

  89. 89.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Steeplejack: OT: I saw your comment about the pic I posted and your comment about the ‘muddiness’ of some of some of my other pics. I agree with you, it’s something that I’ve been trying to get a little more punch out of those pics. Part of the problem is that the source pics often weren’t taken on a perfectly clear day, due to haze(mainly coastal fog). Frankly, as the kid said the other day, I’m getting much better at fixing some of those problem with light to moderate haze.

  90. 90.

    Bess

    @Steeplejack:

    the self-driving car pulls up at the right time, possibly with other people going to the same destination

    Exactly. Self-driving cars should give us robotaxis which will mean that many of (most of us) won’t need to own a car. We’ll just phone for one as needed. Or set up our daily commute schedule.

    A robotaxi might end up being used (on average) by four people per day. Suppose you spend half an hour going to and from work, the robo gets used a couple of hours doing taxi work in the middle of the day and an hour in the evening. You would be a 1/4th “buyer”. The car company would need to recover 25% of its car cost from you as opposed to you purchasing 100%.

    Then suppose you are willing to share the ride with up to three other people (four seater car) and, over time, shared vehicles average 2.5 passengers per mile. Now your 25% share of the purchase price drops to 10%. Your part of a $30,000 car is $3,000. Not $30,000.

    Driving with electricity is like driving a very efficient car on $1/gallon gas. Share the ride and it’s like $0.40/gallon gas. Insurance costs will be low for self-driving cars, 90% of all car wrecks are due to humans drinking, texting, falling asleep, etc.

    Plus not owning will give you great flexibility. Take a four (8, 12, 20) passenger robotaxi to work and come home in a robo-van with your IKEA boxes in the back or a robo-pickup with a piano or load of mulch. Phone for a robo with lots of windows and a super sound system for your road trip or a robo-convertible for a drive to the beach.

    Over the next few years we are likely to see a great shakeup in personal transportation.

  91. 91.

    frosty

    @Bess: Except for towing a trailer to Florida. :-)

    As far as commuting etc I may have just bought my last car.

  94. 94.

    NotMax

    Car came right through the front door and window of my shop one time. Had it done so maybe five seconds earlier, would have been deader than dead with spine severed by the doorknob based on where I was standing then.

    As it was, no one injured among myself, the teenage driver and customers at the register.

    Of course this happened around sundown on a Sunday. Try finding sheets of plywood to board up the windows and door at that time on that day.

  95. 95.

    Elizabelle

    Good morning, jackals.

    If there’s any residual interest in a Florida meetup in mid- to late July, I’d be up for it. Left my car near Orlando airport; need to swing through to collect it.

  96. 96.

    Repatriated

    @Bess:

    Take a four (8, 12, 20) passenger robotaxi…

    So, like existing Dial-a-Ride programs for the elderly/disabled, but with robots driving instead.

    Or some of the commuter shuttle bus services (commercial or sponsored/subsidized) out there.

    Not sure that automated driving adds much to what’s already available.

  100. 100.

    PaulWartenberg

    @hovercraft:

    Hold on, I just saw this. I was busy last night.

    I need to check my personal schedule, but I may be free for Saturday night the 20th. I am able to make it Friday night the 19th as an alternate.

  102. 102.

    OldDave

    Like with Mustang Bobby it would be a ~500 mile round trip, but there’s always a chance…

  103. 103.

    Lyrebird

    @PaulWartenberg: If people are coming from Sarasota, I would guess the goal would be somewhere with easy access to that bridge twds Sarasota, maybe also with local fish available on the menu?

  105. 105.

    JohnMcC

    The is a (hopefully) major demonstration in St Pete on the 19th. Our Sen Rubio is speaking to a Repub fund raiser that day and the Indivisible13 and other groups are buying a billboard and raising a crowd to protest his lack of constituent contact and the entire Trump array of horrors.

  106. 106.

    Lyrebird

    @PaulWartenberg: There’s a Crabby Bill’s on St Pete Beach which is low key and seemed good. Hafta see which day is best, since it seems like Sunday is better for @(((CassandraLeo))): but not an option for you it seems?

    Not doing so well writing a sensible sentence.

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