Tampa Taxi Shots

Flugtag In Tampa Bay Only United States Event In 2011

I have no idea why 100,000 people showed up for an evnt called Flugtag produced by Red Bull. I guess there is not much to do in Tampa during October when the weather is getting cooler. Flugtag is German for "flying days." That's the problem; nobody flies. All they do is crash off the end of a pier into the water without ever getting airborne. Red Bull says their product "gives you wings." Yea. Seems like a waste of time.

This was the only United States event this year. There were teams from all over the world at this event willing to launch their crafts off a diving board for five seconds. Some of them took months to build their flying machines. The wind was gusting today up to 20MPH; I was hoping some of these planes would catch big air and take off. That did not happen.

It really does not matter to Red Bull. As long as they can draw these crowds, they will continue to sell hugh amounts of energy drinks that people have been brainwased by advertisers to buy. they have convinced an entire generation that they are out of energy, and need the Red Bull product.

I don't know how the people got down to the Convention Center becasue we got very few calls at United Cab today. I did not even put 100 miles on the cab. I was hoping to make money. That really sucked.

They should go save the whales or something or "Occupy Wall Street."

A New Tampa Bay Blog

I am proud to announce my new web blog about Tampa Bay called Tropic Of Tampa. It will have many post about sports and events happening in Tampa. There will be many links for people to like, including hot babes and such.

It is a work in progress and I am finding my way. This should give me more lattitude in subject mattter instead of just posting about drunks that throw up or just misehave. Who cares.

People want to know what is going on in Tampa expecially since the Republican Convention will be here in 2012. 

Tampa has a reputation for being a very fun town. I do not want the tourist being dissapointed in any way. They can contact me and I will show them how they can have a good time. That is whatever they want. Tampa is the place to be.

Do you love golf? you have come to the right place. Do you love beachers? Of course. Tampa has everything you could want.

I will Bring Tampa Taxi Shots Back To Its Former Glory

I beleive I have worked out all of the software issues that have plauged this site for months. I've settled on a design I like because of the flash elements involved. Anyway, Tom and I did get to go to the Whitney Bank Club at the Trop for the Boston RedSox vs. Tampa Bay Rays baseball game Sunday night and it went 16 innings. Can you believe that? It was fun by the way. We were not so lucky on Saturday night...

Lose weight now...ask us how!!

There is nothing like getting free tickets to a Tampa Bay Rays baseball game. These are not just tickets, but Boston Redsox vsTampa Bay Rays tickets. In fact, they are too the Whitney Bank Club high price seating. This is where the fat cats and the bigwigs go to watch a game. These $175 tickets include free buffet style food and free booze. There is prime rib, shrimp, lasagna, and everything you could dream of. The wait staff serves your every need, and we Tom and I had tickets.

  My best taxi driver friend Tom Castros took a high-roller to the airport this morning and they businessman said he had the tickets, but his plans had changed and he wanted to just give Tom the tickets for the $25 fare. Tom took them in a heartbeat and called me on my cellphone. I said "hell ya! Lets go!" The game was set for a 4:15 start and we were both hungry. Free drink and food...I'm all over it! We would soon be surrounded by beautiful women and the rich and powerful in the Tampa Bay area. Wait till they get a hold of us.

 Since we are cab drivers, we know how to get within two blocks from the stadium without ever encountering traffic. I am not exaggerating on this. Most people are on the interstate and it is gridlock. We know a parking lot that charges only $10 to park, and you are in the shadow of Tropicania field. How cool is that? We walked right up to the stadium and got someone to take are picture. We were on our way and breaking all the rules We felt like Thelma and Louise. This was going to be awesome.

We walked up to the gate with our expensive, high baller tickets and proudly gave them to the ticket people. The lady scanned my ticket with a light and said, "I'm sorry sir; something is wrong with your ticket" I could not believe that. She did point out that we needed to go to gate 6 and perhaps everything would be all right. Tom and I headed over there. We could not believe that had happened and felt we would be fine over at gate six. Wrong. Now this was something out of a "Curb Your Enthusiasm" episode.

 

Sir...There is a problem Security said that the tickets had been 'forwarded' yesterday to another party. In short, these tickets were no good. There was nothing we could do. Its bad enough to get beat out of a fare, but to go through all this and get your hopes up so high is just cruel. David Shields was pitching and I really wanted to see how good he would be against this powerful Boston batting lineup.

 It was very hot and we just wanted to get to some kind of air condition. We had no water because we were going to get that in the club suite. When we went back to the parking lot, the guy asked us why we were leaving so early. We told him that we had been ripped off and he was good enough to give us a refund of the $10 parking fee. At least something went right.

On the ride home Tom's friend called and said that he has a special who gave him tickets to Sunday's night baseball game between the RedSox and the Rays and he could not go. He wanted to know if we wanted to use the tickets. We told him yes. He then said they were not just tickets - they were to the Whitney Bank Club and they were $175 which included free food and booze. Great! I can't wait for tomorrow night.

Obama Is Getting Worked By Tony Hayward 'Ja Blow Me Of BP

 "The Ocean is just a barrier to getting the oil we need. Kill the oceans. Get the oil" - Tony Hayward - CEO of British Petroleum

Everyone that lives on the Gulf Coast of the United States will have their lives changed in ways that we can only imagine now.  I live on the west coat of Florida and work in the tourist industry - I drive a taxi cab. Tourism is very important to me. People come down for our beaches, golf courses, and great defense (Bucs).  If the white sugar sand of the gulf becomes black sludge, kiss it goodbye. What is sad is that this could of been over by now if we had a President that had actually had a job before he took the highest office in the land. Did you hear him last night?  This guy can hardly speak without a teleprompter in front of him. REALITY IS WHAT YOU WILL SEE BELOW.

This is the Deep-water Horizon explosion.  This should have gotten somebodies attention. 

Within days giant sea turtles were washing ashore dead. Very sad.

Shrimp boat were out in the Gulf Of Mexico trying to bring in a catch.  They had no choice. This is shrimp season and their families are depending on them.

These dolphin are trying to find flipper and wondering why their home is now full of oil

The Gulf is on fire.  You would think that it would have got the attention of the President while he was in San Francisco at a fund raiser for Barbara Boxer. 

Former Obama voters and supporters are directing their rage at Tony Haward of BP.  It won't be long before their boy starts to get the blame. 

If this don't make you sad, what would?

This looks like something out of the ANDROMEDA STRAIN with these guys in hazardous material suits running up to the beach while Nero played his fiddle.

There are NO WORDS for this photo

More Andromeda Strain Guys along the Gulf beaches

On day 10 Obama met with "God" himself Bono of U2 in the White House. I guess this man has all the answers.  I would have been meeting with engineers and scientist...but what do I know?  I am just a taxi cab driver.            

Many ships are now dumping at sea to save cost.  I was out at one of our local beaches Sunday and the stink was beyond belief.  They say there is no oil here, but where did this shit come from?  What is happening to our world right under our eyes?  See this video I put on YouTube.

A Strong Cup Of Coffee

Sometimes you just need a strong cup of black coffee. Taxi drivers keep the hours of pimps and we need the extra pick me up that only diner coffee seems to provide.  

This was at POT BELLIES in south Tampa just as they opened.  You can tell I am tired and have been working a lot of hours. 

Get the skillet with eggs over medium.  Add tobasco sauce and its a winner. 

The girls are great, with nice service.  They actually smile and seem to like their jobs. 

Specials

 Many cab driver have what are called specials. Those are fares that will call you direct without calling the taxi company. I am sitting in Frank's driveway as I write this. Specials are special; they are like a social event.  You become friends with these people, and you look forward to picking them up.  Frank was a special of Larry's for many years befor Larry retired. I have a few regulars but I could not imagine how a driver could fill his day up with mostly specials. Too much for me to handle.

How The Tampa Police Are Hurting Gasparilla and The Economy

The local government and police department are having an adverse affect on our tourism and local economic growth by turning us into a police State.  Did you know that one out of every 31 men in Florida are in a State or Federal Prison.  Home of the free?

 

Photos Posted Live On Taxi Shots!

Tampa Taxi Shots will now be posting lmages live from the field. Typepad has a new feature that will allow email mobile posting of my cell phone pictures. Now how cool is that?

Why Guavaween Is A Bust

It used to be Guavaween was the main Halloween event in Tampa.  Not anymore.  Take it from the cab driver himself.  This event is getting smaller and smaller every year.  I worked overnight Saturday night and not once went into Ybor City.  There are a few reasons for this.  The local politicians have made some very bad decisions about the direction of the event and Ybor itself,  price and security involved, and more competition in other areas such as So-Ho or Hyde Park.

At its zenith over 100,000 people would stream into Ybor for the event.  Saturday night they had only 15,000.  I know you can say the economy had an effect, of course, but part of the problem was the elemination of the motorized floats in the parade.  What our local politicians failed to understand is that was a big deal to the people who would go.  $17 to get in the gate did not help either.

Many people just don't do Ybor anymore.  In recent years, it has become a very unsafe place to go.  With the violence that happens on Saturday night from gangs and the Tampa Police slamming anyone to the pavement that looked the wrong way, nobody wants to go into that violent atmospher.  Way to much tension.  That is why as a cab driver, I stopped going there.

So-Ho is safe, has many bars.  AND YOU CAN WALK AROUND AT NIGHT without a thug or a Tampa Police officer slamming you to the ground and beating your head in.

In short, people just said fuck Ybor.

Racist Holiday Rammed Down Our Throats

Was MLK really color blind? I know his followers are not. Why is it that a racial separatist holiday that can only really be celebrated by one race has been rammed down our throats?

Banks, County buildings, Schools and so forth were closed today in honor of the only contemporary American that was not a founding father that has a holiday. OK. That's cool. Why are Thomas Jefferson and George Washington now eliminated and combined into "Presidents" day? That, to me, is an outrage. Did any of you go to West Tampa today to the parade? Would you have felt welcome? I don't think so.

MLK was not a perfect man. He was a plagiarist, an adulator(Just like Clinton) and a Communist sympathizer(regardless of how much he denounced dialectical materialism on the NBC show MEET THE PRESS) He was a proponent of Non-Violence...That was a good thing...we can all see how much that has taken hold in the black community. That is not an opinion; just look at the Tampa Police Stats. Name one holiday that is named after a contemporary man? None. Why should a certain race force a holiday down my throat and tell me I have to honor it. Go to hell!

UPDATE: Since I have received such a response from knee-jerk reactionaries, let me explain why this type of thinking is dangerous. Rod Serling wrote:

"The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own -- for the children, and the children yet unborn." - Rod Serling

These words were written about 40 years ago during the paranoia of the cold war. Serling was trying to tell us in that episode that the greatest challenge to man was found within his own mind. The words "thoughts, attitudes, prejudices" can be modernized with the words "pacifism, compliance, political correctness."

We are in a war for our own survival as a people. The circumstances are different than when Rod Serling wrote those penetrating words, but the goal is the same. For the record, pacifism can kill, compliance can disable, and political correctness can infect the mind to a degree that it's own ability to use reason conflicts with any basic instinct for preservation.

I knew when I posted this that I would get "reactionary" response from the converted masses. I was not disappointed. In the 1960S people had bomb shelters. The bomb shelter of today is your own mind. Use it or be transported to the future.

LET THAT BE YOUR LAST BATTLEFIELD: Stardate 5730.2 The Enterprise receives a distress call from a shuttlecraft and take on board a strange alien who's face is half black and half white. His name is Lokai(Played by Frank gorshin the Riddler on Batman) and the white and black is split perfectly down the his face.

The Enterprise soons encounters another shuttle craft in which another alien is on board who's face is perfectly split between white and black. The second alien says he is a police officer and he is there to arrest Lokai for undisclosed crimes. It becomes apparent that he believes he is Superior to Lokai because of the Black/White configuration on his face. What is not apparent to Kirk is that Lokai is White on the left side of his face and Bele is white in the right side of his face. Spock says to show prejudice for this is illogical.

Kirk decides to ignore their racially prejudiced arguments, and returns to the bridge. Bele soon follows and demands that Kirk change course to Cheron. Kirk refuses, informing him that the alien's quarrel is no concern of his, and that he has more urgent matters to attend to at the moment. He allows Bele and Lokai to remain aboard, and offers to drop them off at Starbase 4 once the mission is complete.

Tired of Kirk's babbling, Bele invokes a strange power which takes control of the ship, steering it toward Cheron. With no way to return control, Kirk threatens to destroy the Enterprise. Bele believes Kirk is bluffing until Kirk activates the ship's auto-destruct sequence with voice code approval of his first officer Mr. Spock, and chief engineer Mr. Scott. Bele nervously watches as the countdown nears zero, then finally relents control at the last seconds. Kirk cancels auto-destruct and changes course back to Ariannus

What they discover is that the entire population of the planet has been destroyed because of this insane racial war. Bele and Lokai begin fighting in the transporter room and are sent down to the surface of their depopulated planet to continue the fight.

Many believe that Gene Roddenberry was exploring mindless racism with this episode. I believe it goes beyond that. This episode was a metaphor for irrational thinking among humans. That is were we find ourselves today. I believe our society has lost its mind. But you got to admit those were great Strar Trek episodes.

Time To Destroy Islam

These Pictures tell it all! 

Muslims have stated that England will be the first country they take over!  DESTROY THEM FIRST!

These are pictures not shown on American TV or in American Newspapers (as they might help Bush's war on terror), but were forwarded to me by a Canadian Friend who thought Americans ought to know!

These pictures are of Muslims marching through the streets of London during their recent "Religion of Peace Demonstration."

Why would anyone think

that we should be at war!

with such nice, peaceful Moslems?!



Americans need to Know - You need to forward this one to everyone in your address book!

They are really not bad people...They only want to circumcise women, eliminate all civil rights, and kill anyone who does not believe that Muhammad was the great profit. He was not. His teachingS have been discredited by MOST THEOLOGIANS. HE WAS A FALSE PROFIT. That is why to this day Islam defames Jesus by declaring him a profit of God. HE WAS NOT. HE WAS THE SAME GOD THAT GAVE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS TO MOSES. HE WAS ALLAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bloggers Of Tampa Bay Lets Do Breakfast - Again?!

With the number of people who left messages wishing they had seen my post in time for a social breakfast, I now realize I did not give people enough time so I say lets do it again (nobody showed up last week).

I Will be at the Village Inn next to Barnes And Noble in the 300 block of north Dale Mabry at 9 am Sunday morning. Expect a line. It's a popular place. The food is awesome.

If nobody comes I will still enjoy the food. If you see my cab #497 in the parking lot just look for the big ugly guy in the booth.

Justin's Birthday Party

I hope this text stays on top. Justin was getting very drunk. Mindy the bartender at Sangria's in the Hyde Park area of Tampa(So Ho) posed for the photo.

They have this trendy shit called ta pis(sic). I am not into yuppie shit(hum, I live in Hyde Park, get coffee at Starbucks, eat at Pinaro's, workout at Extremes and work in Hyde Park, sure Tim, you hate yuppies, Whatever.) But this shit called calamari(sic) was off the chart. Justin recommended it!

Justin's Birthday Party

This is me with the long hair. Probably taken last spring at Justin's birthday party at The Outback Steakhouse.