It’s the first day of fall, which in Florida means “slightly less oppressively hot and humid.”
For the curious, here’s today’s weather forecast for Tampa:
Category: Florida
For the past few months, the Florida Avenue building that housed King of the Coop and what used to be Florida Avenue Eats has been undergoing renovations. The end result is getting close: a side-by-side corner of deliciousness featuring King of the Coop’s Nashville hot chicken and new entrant Wicked Oak Barbeque’s pulled pork, pulled chicken, loaded mac and cheese and BBQ nachos.
They have a phenomenal mango barbecue sauce that works so well with their pulled pork…
…and their loaded mac and cheese is something else:
This locations puts King of the Coop and Wicked Oak a very short stumble away from Revolution Ice Cream and 82° West Distilling for drinks afterwards. I foresee some nice nights out — once we get COVID-19 under control. In the meantime, I know where I’ll be getting some take-out soon!
(For more info, see this article in Creative Loafing — Wicked Oak Barbecue opening new location in Seminole Heights — and follow Wicked Oak on their Facebook page.)
(For those of you not from Florida, it’s our toolbag governor.)
May 20, 2020: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, toeing the Trump Administration’s line of pretending everything is fine, castigates the media for overhyping the coronavirus threat.
An excerpt from his rant:
You got a lot of people in your profession who waxed for weeks and weeks about how Florida was gonna be just like New York.
“Wait two weeks! Florida’s gonna be next! Just like Italy. Wait two weeks.” Well, hell, we’re eight weeks away from that, and it hasn’t happened.
So we’ve succeeded, and I think that people just don’t want to recognize it because it challenges their narrative, it challenges their assumption, so they gotta try to find a bogeyman. Maybe it’s that there are black helicopters circling the Department of Health. If you believe that, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.
Two months after the rant:
- CNN: Florida shatters US record for new single-day Covid-19 cases
- Orlando Sentinel: Florida breaks state, U.S. record with 15,300 coronavirus cases reported in single day
- Tampa Bay Times: Florida breaks nationwide record with 15,300 coronavirus cases
- Reuters: Florida sets one-day record with over 15,000 new COVID cases, more than most countries
- And even “Republican Pravda” is reporting it: Florida shatters largest single-day record of coronavirus infections in US while world sees cases spike
Nice going, Governor DeVirus.
Why play a human, elf, or dwarf in Dungeons and Dragons, when you can play a race that really knows how to have a good time: a Floridian?
This D&D parody page does a great job of describing the strange race that inhabits the swamps of America’s drainpipe. It’s actually pretty good — I would want to play as a floridian bard in my next D&D campaign!
Here’s its text:
Floridian
Much like tieflings carry the essence of Asmodeus, the floridians are descendants of a human bloodline cursed by the trickery domain. A floridian parent will pass along this curse to any and all offspring they create. Anyone born to at least one floridian parent is destined to become an agent of chaos themselves.
Floridian traits
As a floridian, your traits combine those of a human with uncanny traits provided by your chaotic nature:
- Ability score increase. Your Constitution score increases by 2, and two other ability scores of your choice increase by 1.
- Age. Floridians age similar to humans and live less than a century. However, they are likely to perish due to an accidental mishap before they reach old age.
- Alignment. Floridians are entirely chaotic with no discernible logic to their actions. Their intentions are difficult to discern but can lead to results of any alignment.
- Size. Floridians are approximately the same height as humans, though their weight is usually above average. Your size is Medium.
- Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
- Hold my Beer. You have the uncanny ability to succeed in the least likely of circumstances. When you fail an attack roll or ability check that you rolled with a disadvantage, you can choose to take the higher of the rolls instead, potentially turning the failure into a success. You must finish a long rest before you can do so again.
- Muddled Thoughts. You have an advantage on saving throws against being charmed and your mind cannot be read by magic.
- Reptile Wrangler. Whenever you make a Wisdom (Animal Handling) check to handle a reptilian beats, you are considered proficient in the Animal Handling skill and add double your proficiency bonus to the check, instead of your normal proficiency bonus.
- Language. You can just barely speak, read, and write Common and one other language of your choice. You can understand the ramblings of intoxicated creatures as long as they’re in a language you know.
Watch this video before Disney issues the takedown notice! It’s the ad for Walt Disney World re-opening, but with the audio track replaced by Blue Oyster Cult’s Don’t Fear the Reaper.
The people who made the video also added some cuts from the film based on Stephen King’s The Stand, but they’re quite unnecessary. The empty Disney World scenes with masked staff are creepy enough, as the stills below will show:
