Category: Florida

Categories
Florida The Current Situation

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis downplays the coronavirus threat. Two months later…

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.

Photo: Governor Ron DeSantis rants at press while VP Mike Pence, behind him silently watches.

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.

Graphic: A “SpongeBob SquarePants”-style title card that reads “2 months later...”

Two months after the rant:

Photo: Newscaster reports on Florida’s record-breaking COVID-19 numbers.

Nice going, Governor DeVirus.

Categories
Florida Life

If “Floridian” was a race in Dungeons and Dragons

Photo: “Floridian” as described in a Dungeons and Dragons Player’s Handbook.
It looks just like an entry from the Player’s Handbook! Tap the image to see it at full size.

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.
Categories
Florida The Current Situation

Disney World’s re-opening ad, but with “Don’t Fear the Reaper” as its soundtrack

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:

Photo: EPCOT dome, as seen through a nearby triangular window.

Photo: A finger pushing a button labeled “SHOW START” on a control panel labeled “ENCHANTED TIKI ROOM”.

Photo: Close-up of the “SHOW START” button on the “ENCHANTED TIKI ROOM” control panel.

Photo: Woman in surgical mask and Animal Kingdom uniform on a walkie-talkie.

Photo: A hand polishing one of the wristband scanners at the EPCOT entrance.

Photo: The staff of the Enchanted Tiki Room, all in surgical masks, being briefed.

Photo: The giant statue of Woody from “Toy Story” and the sign marking the entrance to Toy Land.

Photo: The cups on the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party ride, all empty.

Photo: Two attendants in surgical masks pushing open the gates to the “Be Our Guest” restaurant.

Photo: The attendants of the πBe Our Guest” restaurant, all in surgical masks, standing in formation at the entrance.

Photo: The entrance to the Magic Kingdom park, with the Walt Disney and Mickey statue in the foreground, overlaid with the text: “Walt Disney World / Come stand with us”.

Categories
Florida Internet Finds Stranger than Fiction

Meanwhile, in Florida…

Tap the photo to see the Florida-ness at full size.
Categories
Florida Tampa Bay

A gorgeous shot of downtown Tampa

Tap the photo to see the source.

This photo was taken by the Reddit user “BornByFireandFlames”, who said it was taken while talking a walk downtown a few weeks ago.  The photographer said in a comment that it was shot with a Nikon D810 and a Sigma Art 20mm (f/8 @ 30 seconds, ISO 64).

Categories
Florida

Florida of the day: Pasco deputies use Taser to remove individual from inside Walmart ceiling

As soon as I saw the words “Walmart”…

and “Pasco”…

in the same headline, this was my reaction:

…and I was not disappointed. The reports are still coming in, but here’s what WFLA 8 news had to say in their story titled Pasco deputies use Taser to remove individual from inside Walmart ceiling:

NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. (WFLA) — An individual under the influence had to be removed from inside the ceiling of a New Port Richey Walmart Tuesday afternoon.

The incident occurred at the Walmart at the intersection of State Road 54 and Little Road.

It has not been specified how the person got into the crawl space above the ceiling, but Pasco deputies were able to get them down with the help of a Taser.

The Walmart was temporarily evacuated while deputies were working to coax the individual out of the ceiling and deputies are still on scene investigating the incident.

The story will be updated, which is a good thing, because I have many questions.

Because this is Florida, this is the second incident in a month where someone was hiding out in the ceiling of a store:

From the WLBT 3 story titled Deputies: Florida woman hides in store’s ceiling for six hours to try to avoid shoplifting arrest:

Around 7:30pm Thursday, the manager of a Big Lots store in Port Charlotte called the sheriff’s office when she suspected a woman was shoplifting. The manager told deputies that a woman had gone to the restroom with a shopping cart full of items and when the manager went to check on her, she found garbage cans blocking the door.

The manager warned the woman deputies were on their way and entered the restroom, only to find the woman wasn’t there and several tiles had been removed from the ceiling.

Deputies arrived and say they started removing ceiling tiles all over the store, spotting the woman several times, but say she ignored commands to give up and come down.

The store was evacuated in case the woman fell through the ceiling and the fire department was called to put up ladders and use thermal imaging to try to locate the woman. While searching, deputies say they found the woman’s purse and inside were three syringes and a spoon that tested positive for morphine.

I’ll close this post with this supercut video of people falling through drop ceilings:

Categories
Florida

Florida of the day: Tampa man was born white, but says he’s “transracial” and feels like he’s Filipino

That’s what I love about Florida: just when you think it can’t get any weirder, someone says “hold my beer”. Case in point: Adam, a man from Tampa says that while he was born a white guy, deep down inside, he feels Filipino, goes by the name “Ja Du”, and identifies as “transracial”:

But given his not-so-Filipino-sounding nickname, hair, clothes, and especially the shoes, he needs to do a lot more research, practice, or maybe just face-time with actual Filipinos (and no, this is not me volunteering my time):

Crocs? Ay nako! If you really want to be Filipino, you’d best up your shoe game.