Busses in Broward still require masks, or so says the sign.
It's that time again. The Democrats are fucking up the country; Oil is $80/Barrel. And the Patriots are back.
While I get the sentiment, it's pretty ballsy to put this sign on your car in Broward county. I wonder how many times a day this guy gets pulled over?
The uglification of Las Olas continues, as someone has painted a hideous "mural" downtown. We used to get people sentenced to community service to wash this stuff off back in the day. Now the idiots in city planning actually think its trendy. We have an "arts district" for this kind of ugly shit; can we keep it away from the expensive real estate please. Nobody wants to look at this from their $2M condo.
I really don't get the people who can't go 20 minutes without texting someone. To make it worse, doing it in an open vehicle on a sunny day when it's hard to see the screen is really dumb. If you need to contact someone, give them a call and put them on speaker.
Other Random Stuff
Fresh market couldn't get enough chickens for their usual $5 chicken demand, so they decided to cancel the special. The point of specials like $5 chicken Thursdays is to lure people into the store in hopes that they'll buy other overpriced stuff. So this is lame. Running out is one thing; charging the regular price is just wrong.
Fresh Market keeps getting lamer and lamer. At $8 I can throw a 1/2 chicken into my air fryer.
Many things have been taken away from us, but we still have rainbows.
An idiot is born every second. As I was pumping gas this dude in the Mercedes parks right at the Federal Highway entrance, gets out of the car and goes inside. There were several spots available. Just a complete jughead.
2/3 of Walmart's Parking lot was flooded after Tropical Storm ETA drenched the city yesterday.
The main road through "Himmarshee Village" has been closed so don't make the mistake of trying to drive through; not that there's any reason to come here at this point in time with most venues closed.
You may have been reading about so-called "King Tides" which have been occurring this week and flooding some roads around the New River. This is when the Climate Change kooks take their pictures claiming that the sea is rising and the End is near; actually these are normal ultra high tides that occur after big storms and with full and new moons.
In hard times, entrepreneurship reigns; this dude decided to provide some live music to shoppers at Whole Foods. Notice he didn't set up at Winn Dixie; but at Whole Foods where people pay $2 more than Publix for everything just to say they shop at Whole Foods.
It wasn't clear to me if he was actually playing the sax or just "air" saxing, but the music was pretty good. I have a lot more respect for this guy than the people with signs we see begging at every street corner.
Who knew that Tim Petrillo was a supporter of Black Lives Matter? Closed Township has banners across their windowed doors. I suspect that they put them up in hopes that protesters in Huizenga park wouldn't bust up their windows. It's not clear if the boarded up panel was caused by protesters.
Contrails from a large space ship, or just a wicked awesome cloud? You make the call.
While President Trump was speaking at Mount Rushmore, downtown Fort Lauderdale was disrupted with some very loud noises. Now in other neighborhoods you might have thought it was a gun fight in progress, but here it's more likely someone shooting off some fireworks, particularly on 4th of July weekend. The source of was Smoker Park.
While it was pretty cool to have this stuff right off your terrace, it was also kind of scary. "Did these guys know what they were doing"? Could these fireworks go wrong and cause a fire in one of these buildings? Was it safe to be on my terrace; could flaming debris come my way?
This went on for about 20 minutes; no police anywhere to be found; this is the new lawless normal; Police are too busy keeping people off the beach to worry about people shooting off fireworks in residential neighborhoods.
Expect more of this tonight.
People may be out of work, but they haven't given up on decorating their homes. The line at Home Goods was longer than I've ever seen it, and I've been in the store Christmas week. I would have just bolted but they had exactly the pot I wanted and it was only $22 ($87 on Amazon), so I waited for 40 minutes. Im also stocked up on Mediterranean Sea Salt for the next year so I think it was worth it.
There was a pretty spectacular lightning show last night. It went on for hours around 1AM.
Toilet paper and paper towels have returned to shelves. For the first time since the shutdown, Winn-Dixie had both Scott Tissue and Bounty Paper towels in stock. I've seen some store brand paper towels now and them, but this is the first time I've seen toilet paper of any kind in a supermarket.
The fact that the store was fairly crowded on a Sunday and nobody was fighting over the limited supply tells me that things may return to normal shortly. People are stocked up and they have no more space for paper goods.
Today's comedy comes from Publix, who has implemented 1 way aisles. It's the dumbest thing I've seen in a supermarket. Only the stupid people were paying attention to it.
Adding insult to injury, they had their parking lot coned off for no apparent reason, with a car parked in the way; also for no apparent reason. The only thing it seemed to do was cause a traffic jam in their parking lot.
Also of note that Publix doesn't seem to be paying any attention to capacity limits. I haven't seen a line to get into Publix since the first day of this nonsense; and it was pretty crowded today.
I'm not sure if it's gouging or just a general absurdity, but Publix is charging 11.29 for a jar of tomato sauce. Who would pay that? It's so utterly absurd that it must be some sort of joke.
No Mussels until further Notice. Not even for take out.
The Red Door figured out how to get some customers; violate the order and provide full restaurant services when every other restaurant on the street was closed. Every table was filled. Don't expect this to last much longer.
People are willing to eat raw fish with a "deadly" virus floating around.
The Publix on Andrews had a lot of stuff, but no meat. They had beef, because even in a crisis nobody is dumb enough pay publix prices. But they were out of pork and chicken.
Winn-Dixie was out of beef altogether, with only chicken remaining. I bought a whole chicken which will provide me with a chicken dinner and 3 chicken salad sandwiches.
You think you're having a bad day? How about these folks. This surreal scene in front of the Element Hotel at 3pm Dec 19.
If you were wondering what the flashing police car lights were all about downtown this afternoon, roughly 1000 of Broward's dumbest people were in front of the court building protesting prosperity and record low unemployment.
People are so dumb it's unbelievable.
BIKES ARE A HAZARD
So the city is spending $Millions eliminating lanes and parking spots to put in bike paths virtually everywhere, and the stupid bikers don't care. This one didn't move over one inch as cars cut into the other lane to get around her.
How about giving bikers tickets if they're not in the bike lane?
When I first saw this I thought the river had risen and was flooding the road.
But closer inspection showed that it was the sewer backing up. Coverage from the beach don't show much rise in the ocean. We're on the "good" side of the hurricane, so the storm surge should be minimal.
Condos showing some Patriotism. Happy 4th of July.
A group of Asian tourists came prepared for rain or sweltering sunshine with their umbrellas. Kind of strange to see on an 89 degree sunny day.
More than a year after they opened, Etaru now has a sign telling people they're open. Sounds desperate to me.
The beach is a COMPLETE DISASTER. The same bad venues and massive constructions. They have Las Olas blocked so you can't get to A1A anymore; so to go North you have to go all around the construction. Stay away until at least October.
As if traffic isn't bad enough in this stupid city, they're installing these little islands in the roads which make it even worse. In this case I couldn't get into the turn lane. That white car actually drove into the other lane to get around the little bugger. The city planners are truly clueless.
Once a year people put on santa caps and swarm Las Olas. Tonight (Dec 22, 2018) is the night.
A pretty bad accident was holding up traffic and then I saw the driver. Probably on her way to get another tattoo.
I voted the other day; voting is very slow moving this year. There are 12 referendums, so it takes a while to go through the ballot; which means that the line moves very slowly. This seemingly short line took 1/2 hour. Expect long waits on Election day. So plan accordingly.
If you were wondering why Las Olas was closed at night for a couple of weeks here it is. Instead of ticketing people for making illegal turns, they decided to put in an island. Pretty amateurish paint job; I hope that's just a first coat.
While I was waiting at the seafood counter at Penn Dutch I noticed this sign; "From the Gulf" and notice on the bottom it says "Wild Caught * Argentina". Last time I looked at a map, Argentina isn't in "The Gulf". No matter, they were pretty good.
It's pretty cool when you're driving on I95 and a plane flies right in front of you.
Losers of the Week
Some visitors from Nebraska caught my eye. They're not losers because they liked Bernie; they're losers for still having the bumper stickers on their car 2 years later. And why do you need 3?
Target in Fort Lauderdale has re-installed self-checkout, and there are twice as many as before. "Express" checkout in this store has always been a disaster; I just rolled through with the new checkouts. And nobody asked if I wanted to sign up for a red card.
I thought the tourists were mostly gone, but apparently there are still a few around. I don't think I've ever done anything like this while sober.
Who knew these little guys ran on gas?
This strange, head-turning vehicle was sighted cruising around town this afternoon. I'm not sure what it's all about, but they seemed to be supporters of President Trump.
Starting the New Year off right is important, and how better than with my personal Shrimp and Cheese Grits for breakfast? You're not getting food like this in this town people.
The City of Fort Lauderdale is systematicaly destroying this city; traffic has become bad and its going to get much worse. The intersection at US1 and Broward is a disaster; this is the backup at about 2:30pm; 4 or 5 light cycles. and you're absolutely trapped from turning around.E Sunrise has been equally ridiculous. And they keep building more and more apartments and hotels.
Fort Lauderdale is going to make Brickell look like a suburban mall by the time they're done.
Fort Lauderdale is spending our tax dollars on electronic no right turn signs; because illegal right turns is a huge problem. It's actually not entirely clear what the sign is at first; I thought it was equivalent to a red arrow. Later I surmised that it was no turn on red, since the light clearly had turn signals already.
Bike paths, crap like this. The bozos running things in this city sure have no regard for our money.
2 weeks after the "hurricane", traffic lights are still out in Fort Lauderdale. Here a worker fills the gas tank on a generator powering a traffic light at the corner of SE 3rd and Las Olas.
While waiting at one of the seemingly thousands of drawbridges in Fort Lauderdale, I notice cardboard cutouts of Trump and Melania in the bay window overlooking commercial. Funny stuff.
I'm wondering if the 7/11 over by Fresh Market is closed for good? On Friday, 5 full days after the storm, it's still boarded up with no gas. I get why they would be closed if they don't have electricity, but I don't see why they'd still be boarded up. Maybe they took this opportunity to bail out? The 7/11 on Sunrise closed a couple of years ago, and the convenience store over by New River Pizza closed as well. 7/11s are a big deal on Long Island, but they don't seem to be down here. On Long Island, they have milk, cream, light cream and 9 flavors and coffee is a huge deal for them. Down here, not so much.
UPDATE: It's not closed. It reopened a week after the storm.
The Escape Lounge opened up just in time for the big mess as they prepare to tear down the adjacent buildings. The road is a real mess. Some moron tried to park in front of Pita Pit while I was behind them; No, there's no parking on Brickell for the foreseeable future.
Coral Ridge Mall is getting a new floor, so you Mall Walkers may want to use an alternate venue for the time being.
There was some sort of accident at Oakland Park and US1; a stand-still traffic jam that had me turning around. As I was waiting to make a U Turn, this Fire Truck Ambulance pulled out of a driveway and started to go the wrong way down US1. OK, I figured, They didn't want to have to go down and turn around. Except they didn't cut over the the northbound side after they hit the light; they kept going the wrong way at full speed. Must have been fun for people seeing a Truck speeding towards them going the wrong way.
Breaking Bad
This is what happens when you take your eyes off the road. This was a 3 car accident (I just happen to be driving by), so it's likely that someone up front stopped short, so the 3rd car had little or no notice. Don't TAILGATE!
You know this disastrous area where sunrise meets US1 and cars are cutting across. City planning at it's worst. This section of Sunrise is a total mess all day long.
Oakland Park road is closed at the Railroad this weekend, so AVOID it at all costs. Combined with the nightmarish traffic for the Tortuga concert and you might want to just stay home (or head west) this weekend.
Amazon Locker is now available in downtown Fort Lauderdale. So if you're buying a blow-up love doll or a gift for your girlfriend and you don't want your wife to find out, you can now have stuff delivered to a locker.
The one pictured here is at the 7-11 across from Fresh Market.
Rainbows are real, sometimes you even get a double rainbow. Nice stuff.
A sure sign that taxes are too high is when you have police cars dedicated to investigate accidents. When you have a lot of 90 year olds driving around, fender benders are aplenty.
If you have a water cooler and lug your own water like I do (instead of paying $7 for 5 gallons to a service), you probably head to Publix every couple of weeks to fill up your 5 gallon jug of water for $1.75. If you're really adventurous you can go down to the Publix across from Galleria and get it for $1.60. And now, they've installed one at the Home Depot on E Sunrise for just $1.25 for 5 gallons.
Cheap water is back.
Flood last night at the downtown Valet. I've never seen it like this before.
While I see cars making illegal right on red all the time, usually you figure it's someone not familiar with the neighborhood. There are 2 signs at this intersection, and it's particularly dangerous because you can't see through the brick wall on the left.
However I DO expect cabs to know that you can't make a ROR here, but this cabbie didn't care. First he crept into the road to see around the corner, then he made the right. Where are the police when you need them?
Fort Lauderdale has rolled out their new stealth police cars. Pretty snazzy. This officer had stopped to deal with an abandoned bicycle.
This menu is hilarious and scary at the same time. It illustrates everything I've been saying about the restaurant scene. Every restaurant is selling the same junk; the same model from the same blueprint. It also shows how underdeveloped the palates are of modern diners.
Florida Powerball Winner
It was announced early that someone in Florida was one of 3 winners of the $1.5B powerball jackpot. The winning ticket was purchased at a Publix in Melbourne Beach. Sorry Broward Countians.
Road Rage
You can't even go to the supermarket these days without some asshole getting out of his car to give you the finger. This dude took exception to my blowing my horn at him. I was simply trying to convey that waiting to make an illegal turn across 3 lanes at rush hour wasn't a good idea. I hate people like this; they'll sit and wait for 10 minutes to save them from driving a half block to make a U Turn.
He ended up making the turn anyway, weaving across 3 lanes of traffic.
You have to be careful in modern times when you get out of your car as there might be a dashcam on you. Luckily he didn't come at me with a tire iron or anything.
Planes on Fire
A plane caught fire at Fort Lauderdale Airport today, October 29th. So expect some delays.
One bad thing about this time of year is that the City decides to fix all of the streets; even the ones that don't really need fixing. They're ripping up the roads in Lauderdale by the Sea, even though they just redid the entire town 2 summers ago. A1A by 33rd Street is closed on one side; you can't even get into the neighborhood with circling around the back.
And they've also ripped up Las Olas Boulevard; we all know about the construction further east that's been going on for 2 years. It's kind of absurd to think that so much road work is needed on main roads all at the same time. But nothing much makes sense when it comes to the City of Fort Lauderdale.
The real absurdity is the Bike Path logos that they've started putting on main road, even though there is no bike paths. The tens of thousands of people sitting in traffic simply must yield to the 5 people on bikes because a bunch of old ladies say so.
One bad thing about new cars is that they make minor non-issues seem like a big deal; like my tire pressure monitor complaining about 39.9 psi pressure like I had a flat tire or something. In order to get rid of the warning, I have to add air. I knew that the 7-11 next to Fresh market had an air machine, so I stopped in on my way to the supermarket.
When I pulled in, I was appalled at the cost. $1.25 for air? Are you F'ing kidding me?
The details in the fine print indicate that you can get 4 minutes for $1 or 5 minutes for $1.25. What a bargain. But adding insult to injury, they don't take bills. Only coins and credit cards. Luckily I had 4 quarters.
This is an abject rip-off. Anyone who know Air sources around Fort Lauderdale feel free to post comments. We need to end this Tyranny.
Part of a European Rocket washed up on Fort Lauderdale Beach Sunday morning; part of the European Union's Galileo rocket. The rocket was used to launch navigation satellites.
Broward Blvd Closure
They're going to close Broward Blvd at the railroad crossing from 10pm Wed July 22 to 5am Monday July 27 as work on the new All Aboard Railroad station is to begin. Expect major jam up on Thursday and Friday.
A Disturbing Trend on Las Olas
Last week, I noticed a banner offering a "summer special" on the street at the Tuscan Grill. I thought to myself "Are we allowing free advertising on the street now. What if every restaurant on the street decided to do the same thing".
Well Lo and Behold, today I saw that both Grill Republic and Noodles Panini also have banners advertising their specials.
Signs have to be approved, so why can someone hang a banner out on the street? If you let one restaurant do it, you have to let all of them do it. Which means that you can't let any of them do it. Today we have 3, pretty soon Las Olas looks like a NASCAR chevy.
Golden Globe Fort Lauderdale
Apparently, the World's Fair is coming to the Lime Green shopping Center. Inexplicably, the strip mall with Joe's Crab Shack and Lime Fresh Mexican has a gold globe in the middle of the parking lot. Are they trying to draw in new tenants? How about painting the buildings a DIFFERENT COLOR?
It appears that the Lobster Bar Sea Grill's Valet service has been cancelled for the foreseeable future. They have a sign sending customers to the general Las Olas valet next to Timpano. That's a pretty long walk for the jet-setters on a rainy day.
Note that this is only during construction, so at night the Valet is up and running normally.
2 More kids out of work because of the ICON.
There's a Smoothie King opening between Offerdahl's and Subway off of las olas. We don't list Smoothie Kings because smoothies aren't food and we've learned that a cup of sugar isn't really good for you, even if some of it used to be fruit.
Lobster Bar Valet Moved
I noticed that the Lobster Bar Sea Grill has moved their Valet down from the end of the street. It's probably not that great for them with the cement trucks running in and out of the Icon all day, but at least they'll clog up Las Olas less than before. I WONDER if my post a month or so ago had some impact?
Traffic in Hollywood
If you haven't been down to Hollywood beach lately; don't think about it. It's a complete disaster. The place is under construction, and the traffic system is still stuck in the 1970s. Want to wait 4 cycles to make a turn? Downtown Hollywood is also under construction, and the traffic jam at the Circle is another waste of 20 minutes.
I don't see how the 1 road in Hollywood Beach is going to be able to handle the new hotels and resorts. It's going to be a place that you'll have to stay; because just going for the day will be a day stuck in traffic.
Glass of Caymus
For some unknown reason, they were selling Caymus 2011 Special Selection for $18 a glass at the Royal Pig Pub. This stuff goes for $120/bottle retail, which means that it should go for $40 or more per glass. I wouldn't pay $40 for it, but for $18 it's a treat. Too bad I didn't have a nice steak to go with it.
Trucks in the Left Lane?
Is that law where trucks are banned from the 2 left lanes in Broward and Palm Beach still in effect? Where are the cops when you need them?
Tunies Coming Soon
Tunies will be opening in the old Office Depot space at the intersection of US1 and Sunrise Blvd. The idea here is simple; offer the same kind of products as Whole Foods at a much lower price point.
Tunies is a full service supermarket selling supplements and organic produce to those who believe that those things matter. While the "science" overwhelmingly rejects the idea that organic food is more nutritious; the massive health food lobby continues to convince people to spend more of their disposable incoming on alternative grains and organic foods. They've done a remarkable job selling snake oil to the masses.
Who would have thought that this area featuring frequent Gun Shows and abandoned buildings would be the home of Fresh Market and Tunies?
This is their 3rd location; all of which are in South Florida.
Lobster Bar Sea Grille Valet is a Hazard
Something needs to be done about these restaurant valet parking setups. The Lobster Bar Sea Grille had created a serious hazard. This picture illustrates the problem; they have cars parked in the street for an entire block. I can't tell you home many times there's a car that stops and swings the door open, right in front of me in the middle of the road. The problem expands to the other side of the street at night, when they'll have 2 or 3 cars in the road. It's just a disaster.
What's really bad about this situation is that cars turning on Las Olas are often faced with parked cars in the middle of the road. The city needs to address this issue.
Santa-con 2014
Once a year, thousands of people dress up in santa-like garb and go bar-hopping through downtown Fort Lauderdale. It's like a bad halloween party with everyone wearing the same costume. There was even a couple in their 60s. The good thing is that they all leave at once, no unlike locusts.
Having a Bad Day
I'm not sure why it gives those of us who drive cars worth less than $100K a certain pleasure when we see an expensive sports car being lifted into a flatbed: but it does.
An Accident on 95 is always a bad day. It also creates a nice traffic jam, which can ruin your lunch hour.
Imagine renting a U-Haul and having it break down while you're moving all of your stuff? As if moving isn't stressful enough.
Wrong Way
It's not unusual in Fort Lauderdale to encounter an automobile in the middle of the road facing the wrong direction. I'm sitting at a traffic light and trying to figure out what was going on. Apparently there was an accident and no police had yet arrived. Very bizarre.
Of course cases are increasing; they've scared all of the Karens and Snowflakes and they spend their days waiting on line to get tested.
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