Dear newspaper-with-an-identity-crisis:

As a native of Pinellas County (my family has about 100+ years of history in this little peninsula upon a peninsula) I would like to point out a proud Pinellas tradition.

We don’t let the names of things change.

Weedons Island’s “Official” name is Weedon — I have heard one person call it that — and they were quickly corrected.

9th St. is 9th St — and not out of any disrespect for the great man it was dedicated to.

In the common tongue, I doubt you will ever be known as “Tampa Bay Times” — I think this move will only hurt your brand. Much like Netflix splitting their DVD rental service off as “Quikster”.

Also, your timing is particularly poor, considering this is near the 100th anniversary of the separation of West Hillsborough from Hillsborough.

Be assured that as I have never lived in Tampa Bay (being unable to breath water), I won’t be able to subscribe or purchase your new periodical. I hope your waterproofing technology is sufficient for the marine life to be able read the comics.

P.S.

“Pinellas Times” would have been acceptable. If we are to be “Tampa Bay”, we will need better means transport between the two counties. this may even be the case in a decade or three.

Additionally, I believe “Tampa” portion is bad for a generic toponym. I would favor an initiative to call this area the “Pirate Bay” (ignoring other uses of this name).

However, today I am resting on a bench, while my feet recover from walking a lot today. This morning Vadim and I set off in search of the fish tongue louse, which is suppossedly housed at the “Horniman Museum”. This museum had a lovely garden, some fish and old masks, a unicorn exhibit, but no fish parasites.

I suppose I should mention why I am resting. My feet hurt. They hurt because I am wearing my vibrams everywhere. Walking everywhere in them if liberating, awkward, and good exercise. In that order.

Liberating because my usual walking fatigue is gong – these shoes are not heavey. Awkward because the vibrams are unusual, and while being unusual is fun when at home, it is discomforting when in a strange country, full of “polite” English people.

The exercise comes from the fact my foot musculature must improve from walking without foot support.

Thinking back to last year, though, I feel that I experience less foot discomfort in these strange toe shoes…

Anyway, I might as well talk about the London Zoo. It is pretty big. It has many types of animals, and seems to provide a lot of conservation information…

I think he might make a creepy young Doc Brown from back to the future…

Now this is at least a way of making me make time to do an iron man blog post…

Of course, I misread the post, I missed the part about still being in the aggregator, which I am not, due to my utter failure at blogging. :)