A weekly airing of national and local politics, sports, lifestyles and historical notes from a very politically incorrect viewpoint, Tampa Bay Rants and Raves has been published since 2014. As always, beware - some of what is printed here should not be taken literally.

First thing on our mind:

Just to be ornery, we are presenting this week’s blog in a Comic Sans font, which some group of experts has determined is “the most hated font.” As a long time printer, we always kind of liked it.

Leading off: Would you buy electricity from them?

The City of Clearwater has produced a report saying that city residents would pay 7% less from a city-owned utility rather than Duke Energy. This from a municipality that just raised water and sewer rates 8% and doubled many parking rates. The acquisition of the needed infrastructure from Duke would amount to more than the annual city budget – funds we assume would be raised through heavy bonding while praying the rates are at the right point at that time. Granted, in our retirement years with energy needs minimal, this “savings” would amount to less than ten bucks a month. We’ll cut back by one or two cups of coffee monthly and stay with a tested company that can pull in a lot of fellow companies in time of emergency.

Tampa Bay, politics and notes:

While underwhelmed by the new Rays ownership’s pursuit of a fixed roof stadium, we do salute their effort to emulate the campus surrounding Truist Park in Atlanta. That will be no small feat.

Most of us erroneously assumed there was significant government oversight involving rides at places like Disney World and Universal. That is not the case and reforms in that area are needed.

Biz factoid: What that retailer makes on each gallon of gas you pump into your car – about 20 cents, making them hope you’ll stop inside and buy something with higher margins.

Related: You’ve lived in the bay area (or anywhere else) a long time if you remember the “gas wars” of the late fifties and early sixties when gas sometimes dropped to below 20 cents a gallon.

Hats off to Sue Berry and her Largo High 1970 classmates on their reunion this past weekend. In the old days, we of CHS would bring along some cans of spray paint to help decorate, but we’re just too darn old now.

Problem at the office of the 5:05 Newsletter: This morning I accidentally pressed the ALT, backslash, left arrow, F3, ampersand and right parenthesis keys simultaneously, and now it seems I may have declared war on Hawaii.

Sports, media and other notes:

How we enjoyed her movies. Academy Award winning actress Diane Keaton passed away last week at age 79.

The Titans’ Brian Callahan is the first NFL head coach to tumble in 2025 after a 1-5 start.

Sick joke in New York these days – if you’re stopped for a traffic violation, you’re given a Jets’ ticket.

Overshadowing The Athletic 136 this week were two more high profile firings at Oregon State and Penn State respectively. Our Florida teams had a middling week with Miami dropping from #1 to #3. The other top 25 team is USF (#20). The others – FSU drops to 33, the Gators 47; UCF 80; FAU almost escapes the three digit neighborhood at 101 and FIU is 122. By virtue of a big win, Indiana goes to #1 while UMass remains in the cellar at 136.

The NCAA recently announced they will allow college athletes to bet on professional sports. What could possibly go wrong with that?

As we watch FSU and USF jockey on the national polls, we’re reminded that the two schools have only met four times with FSU successful in three of the four. Unfortunately, barring a schedule change, the two teams will not meet again in this decade.

Astounding factoid: $40 million per year – the salary of Stephen A. Smith. We wonder if anybody has ever broken that down as to dollars per person who actually watch the guy.

A contribution from our northernmost Focus Group member: The only thing Flat-Earthers fear is sphere itself. 

Topping the charts 50 years ago (1975) this week and next was Neil Sedaka’s Bad Blood. Ten years earlier, The Beatles’ Yesterday had the number one position for four weeks in a row.

One last thing: Back to the future

Technology is a great thing – until it isn’t. As we near the end of baseball’s postseason, we learn that more and more tickets, both regular and postseason, are simply disappearing and then turning up on Seat Geek, Stub Hub and other ticket sights. The problem seems to be with MLB’s ballpark app which allows you to send tickets to friends or buyers. MLB, typically, is in denial blaming fan’s passwords for the breaches. All this electronic ticketing started when sophisticated printing equipment made it easy to forge tickets. Now it appears ticketing technology is even more vulnerable. The one thing that short circuits forgery is paper that cannot be had on the open market. Unless MLB gets their technology straightened out, we may have to go back to old fashioned tickets that seemed to work for a century or more.

NEXT WEEK: Halloween; Insurance; 25 cent toll

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