(For those of you not from Florida, it’s our toolbag governor.)
Category: Florida
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:
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).
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: