The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century

Enjoying a nice scotch at my friend Adam’s place.
Photo by Adam PW Smith.

I’m attending a whisky/whiskey tasting event at my friend Erinn’s place tonight, which makes it the perfect time to share some topical information.

There’s a difference between whisky and whiskey. It’s academic, and generally distills down to the country of origin:

• Countries that have E’s in their names (UnitEd StatEs and IrEland) tend to spell it whiskEy (plural whiskeys)
• Countries without E’s in their names (Canada, Scotland, and Japan) spell it whisky (plural whiskies)

When it comes to matters pertaining to scotch, my go-to guy is Richard Paterson (he’s @the_nose on Twitter), Master Blender at Dalmore and Whyte and MacKay. If you’ve got four minutes to spare, check out this quick intro to whisky tasting vide that he did with Time.com:

He gets a little more in-depth in this six-minute video, which includes his coffee and chocolate pairing suggestions:

Also worth reading: a 2010 article in Wired titled This Nose Knows Whisky: A Spirited Talk With Master Blender Richard Paterson.

Yours Truly at a Bombay Sapphire rooftop party in Toronto.
Click the photo to see more pics from this party.

When this technology fad blows over, I’d like to stop being a tech evangelist and become a “brand ambassador” for some wine or spirit, like Bombay Sapphire’s Merlin Griffiths (ignore the fact that it’s not as good gin as it used to be; pay attention to the fact that the accordion gets you invited to his shindigs), or Randy Adams, who’s The Macallan’s brand ambassador:

If you’re in the mood for some longer viewing and have an hour to spare, watch this documentary — Whisky: The Islay Edition…

There’ll be bourbon at this party too, so this video is appropriate…

…as is this photo with one of my alco-heroes, Tom Bulleit, of the bourbon of the same name:

And while this event will be about drinking our whiskys/whiskeys neat or with a little water, I have to share this recipe for Bourbon and Branch, one of the favorite cocktails of none other than Commander James Bond himself:

Each guest is expected to bring a whisky/whiskey to this party, and Anitra and I are bringing something a little offbeat (as you should expect we would). We’re bringing Corsair Distillery’s Quinoa Whiskey, and yup, it’s made with that lovely high-protein South American grain (along with malted barley). Complex lists it among the 10 Best Spirits You’ve Probably Never Tried, Distiller gives it high marks, and Ryan the whiskey blogger gives it a four stars (out of five) rating.

Failure Factories: Pinellas County’s terrible schools

Campbell Park, Fairmount Park, Lakewood, Maximo, and Melrose are elementary schools that occupy a six-square-mile zone in one of Florida’s most affluent counties. They’re also among the worst schools in the state: in standardized tests, eight in 10 fail reading, and nine in 10 fail math. They’re worse off than they were ten years ago, which was before the school board ended integration. This Tampa Bay Times piece on these schools, which they’ve dubbed “Failure Factories”, is both informative and heartbreaking.

$3,000 reward offered for info in Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office deputy shooting

A $3,000 reward is being offered for information to help catch a man who shot a Hillsborough County deputy on Thursday morning. The deputy is going to be all right, but the suspect is at large.

Travel + Leisure loves our local food scene

Citing wonderful examples like Fodder and Shine and The Refinery in Seminole Heights, and Ulele closer to downtown, Travel + Leisure are fascinated with the new restaurants popping up here in Tampa.

While we’re on the topic, I’d like to plug Sea Salt in downtown St. Pete, where we had dinner last night before heading to the Weird Al concert. Their 5 p.m.-to-6 p.m. prix fixe gives you an appetizer, main, and dessert for $28 and provides a lot of tasty bang for the buck. Here’s a video of the dessert we had: a strawberry panna cotta covered with mango sauce on the side. The sauce is applied by pouring it into a container on the side, which has a couple of pieces of dry ice in it:

Proposed mega-development in Channelside

Channelside is the home to Amalie Arena (formerly the Tampa Bay Times Forum, formerly the St. Pete Times Forum, formerly the Ice Palace), the Aquarium, cruise ship docks, the History Center, the SS American Victory, and somehow, in spite of all this, a whole lotta nuthin’.

Tampa Bay Lightning owner Jeff Vinik is trying to change that with a big development plan to create an actually walkable hub in the area, and now Port Tampa Bay has announced their “vision plan” to develop the area. It includes wavy 75-storey buildings and looks interesting; will it bring people to hang out?

Star Wars fandom’s yin and yang were here

If you like geek culture and Star Wars, this was an exceptionally good week to be in Accordion Bay, as both the good-clean-fun and potty-mouthed yin and yang of Star Wars fandom were here. Kevin Smith did his “Evening with Kevin Smith” schtick at the Tampa Improv on Wednesday, and Weird Al’s 82-city world tour played at Clearwater’s Ruth Eckerd Hall on Thursday. Anitra and I caught both of ’em, and both were geektastic.

Smith is smart: he knows to play to the locals whenever he does his monologues. When he comes to Toronto, he always talks about his love for the Degrassi Junior High, which is set on Toronto’s Degrassi Street (the street exists, but there’s no school on it). For the Tampanians, he told us that he wrote “half of Chasing Amy” here in Tampa for his then-girlfriend Joey Lauren Adams while visiting her when she was here shooting Second Noah.

He also talked about his friendship with Johnny Depp, whom he said considers himself a “failed Floridian musician”. Depp was enjoying some success with his Florida-based rock band, The Kids, when they decided to move to L.A.. The band didn’t do that well, but he went on some acting auditions and ended up having to leave the band to focus on a gig for a then-new show called 21 Jump Street.

Weird Al put on a great show last night and even broke out the accordion to play some of his hits from those heady Dr. Demento days in the 1980s, including Yoda. In all this time, I’d never seen Weird Al live before, and it was great to finally do so.

“Clean up on I-75!”

This happened not too far from Tampa when the driver was distracted by his dog. At the very least, we can take comfort in the fact that no good beer was lost:

There’s always a chance that the designer was going for “ironically funny” and that the spelling mistake pictured below is intentional:

Otherwise, the manufacturer deserves to be haunted by the hepped-up-on-goofballs ghost of John Belushi…

…who most certainly wouldn’t let this sort of offense go without a response:

Stupid sexy Flanders.

Of course there’s a Ned Flanders-themed metal band. The real question is: what took them so long?

Okilly Dokilly — notice the embedded KILLs in their name — are from Phoenix, and according to their Facebook page, they’re the “world’s only Nedal band”. Listen closely to the tracks below, and you’ll discover that many of their lyrics are Flanders lines from The Simpsons.

And since it’s Throwback Thursday and we’re on the topic of Ned Flanders…

The corner of Central and 2nd Street North in St, Petersburg, 8:50 a.m. today.

Hello from St. Petersburg!

The Missus does a king-sized commute from Tampa to St. Pete every weekday, which isn’t too bad in the morning, but is rather gruesome after work, as people cram their cars onto the couple of causeways that cross Accordion Bay. To make life a little more pleasant for her and to provide me with a change of scenery, I spend one day a week working in St. Pete’s many wifi-equipped places during the day, and follow up with a date night dinner there. It’ll typically be on Wednesday, when The Iron Yard, a “coding bootcamp” school in St. Pete, has its Open Hack night (the next one’s on the 19th) — I try and catch as many of these as I can.

A scene from Iron Yard Tampa Bay.

Weird Al

I’m here today as opposed to Wednesday because Anitra and I are catching Weird Al’s show later tonight, which takes place at Ruth Eckerd Hall. Given our mutual penchant for the squeezebox, you may be surprised to read this, but this will be the first time I’ve ever seen Weird Al play live.

Here’s an interview that Florida Today did with Weird Al. See you at the concert!

Pinellas County’s “failure factories”

Pinellas County is on the west side of Accordion Bay and includes the cities of Clearwater and St. Petersburg. Having water on both its east and west sides means that it’s got a lot of pretty sights, including the place where Anitra and I got married (photos are here and here).

A screen shot of Tampa Bay Times’ presentation on Pinellas County’s schools.
Click the image to see it at full size.

Not everything is pretty here, especially if you’re young, black, and trying to get a basic education. This Tampa Bay Times presentation features 24 charts that show what happened after 2007, when so-called “school choice” overtook integration, “re-segregation” happened, and student performance in five schools plummeted. The Times published some responses to the presentation today, and they’ll published a full report tomorrow. You can follow this topic on Twitter by looking for the #FailureFactories hashtag.

FetCon!

Fetish Con (FetCon for short), one of the nation’s largest kink conventions, comes to St. Pete this weekend. Creative Loafing has the details, and they’re quick to point out that for admission, they accept only anonymity-preserving cash. For more, see the FetCon site.

Glenn Beck’s ringing anti-endorsement

Right-wing asshat Glenn Beck recently gave St. Pete a great anti-endorsement, saying that you should St. Pete and other “least religious” cities in the U.S., because they’ll be the first to go when the end times (coming soon, he swears!) happen.

Remember, this is the same assclown who said Obama’s lead in the 2012 presidential campaign was part of God’s plan to show us His power — in the end, Romney would win, and it would be an irrefutable demonstration of divine intervention. Beck was such a sore loser when his prediction didn’t turn out that he blasphemed by announcing “Man, sometimes God really sucks”.

St. Petersburg’s mayor, Rick Kriseman, isn’t too worried. He tweeted this in response:

Woke up, sun shining, & @glennbeck lumping #StPete in w/ Portland-San Fran-Seattle-Denver-Phoenix as cities to avoid. An honor! #ThanksGlenn

— Rick Kriseman (@Kriseman) August 12, 2015

Kevin Smith tonight at Tampa Improv

Good ol’ Gatorland.

Kevin Smith is already tooling around the in the vicinity of Accordion Bay! Anitra and I will be catching his live storytelling-and-Q-and-A show, An Evening with Kevin Smith, at 8:00 tonight at the Tampa Improv in Ybor. That show is sold out online, but you might be able to get a ticket or two if you call the club at (813) 864-4000. There’s also a 10:15 show, and tickets for that one are still available online.

Another funny filmmaker coming to Tampa: Mel Brooks!

Creative Loafing Tampa reports that Mel Brooks, creator of Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, and Spaceballs, will take his speaking tour, Mel Brooks…Back in the Saddle Again! to Tampa’s Straz Center on Wednesday, October 14th at 7:30 p.m.. The event will feature a screening of Blazing Saddles followed by a live conversation and Q&A with Brooks.

Regularly-priced tickets are $49-$99, and VIP tickets are available go for $300, for which you’ll get primo seats and a photo-op with Mel himself. No matter which tickets you buy, you know there’ll be additional fees. Tickets may be purchased by calling 813-229-STAR (7827) or online at strazcenter.org.

A lovely, geeky, get-together at New World Brewery

Open Hack Ybor (that’s pronounced “Eee-bor” to those of you who aren’t from Tampa) meetup took place in a great setting last night: the patio of New World Brewery, a lovely little pub located on what’s still considered the outer edge of Tampa’s club district.

Open Hack Ybor is a monthly gathering that brings together interesting and socially-inclined developers together to work on or discuss code, enjoy each other’s company, and partake in some beer and pizza. It’s organized by Tony Winn (who deserves kudos aplenty for putting it together) and is the local chapter of Open Hack, whose mantra is “code together, on anything”.

New World Brewery is a great bar with an eclectic beer selection, knowledgable staff, a great jukebox, the perfect patio for watching people come and go out of Ybor, and solid air conditioning (very important here in Accordion Bay). If you’re into beer and are every in Tampa, add this to your to-do list. Don’t take my word for it, take Beer Advocate’s: this is a fantastic beer bar.

The meetup ended about 9, which was about the same time that local alt-rock band Empire Cinema came on New World’s covered outdoor patio stage. They’re pretty good — I’ll have to keep an eye out for them.

More rain headed this way

The weather may be bright and sunny today, but the current forecast says it’s not going to last. There’s a 70% chance of on-off downpours on Thursday, and an 80% chance of the same for Friday.

Rats don’t look that cute.