sarasota
Latest
New Southgate, Florida Apple Store confirmed
The Herald-Tribune is reporting that Apple is planning to bring a retail store to Southgate Mall in Sarasota, Florida, which could open by December. Currently Southgate Mall is going through major renovations, the end of which will bring 30 new stores to the mall. Westfield, who owns the mall, is moving two of its current tenants, LensCrafter and GNC, from the number 14 and 15 spaces in the mall in order to accommodate the new Apple store. When completed the new Southgate Apple Store will be 42-feet wide, with a total square footage of 4,100 feet. As noted by ifoAppleStore, the Southgate Mall store will fill an Apple store in the area of Florida's west coast south of Tampa that has no stores.
Apple in talks for Sarasota, Florida retail location
The Sarasota Herald-Tribune is reporting that the owner of the Westfield Southgate retail mall is attempting to lure an Apple Store to the Florida location, possibly by the end of 2011. Mall owner Westfield Corp. cited the results of recent customer surveys, which indicated that visitors to the shopping haven wanted an Apple Store more than any other retail outlet. For Sarasota residents, having a local Apple Store would eliminate a 55-mile drive to either the Brandon Town Center or Tampa International Plaza stores, or further to the two stores in the vicinity of Naples, Florida. As the newspaper notes, analysts maintain that the Sarasota area possesses "plentiful discretionary income." We can only hope that Apple retail officials decide to help Sarasota residents part with some of that income in exchange for shiny electronic goods.
Chat highlights from the TTR stress test
As horrible as Barrens chat and the trade channel can be by times, one of my favorite parts of Sunday's tournament test realm stress test was reading through the chats. Although I'm sure the guys had some pretty great tells, considering their names were more obvious than mine (Insideradam, Insideralex, and Vehn), I did catch some gems of my own. One thing that was rampant on Sunday was names that were clearly against the terms of service, and of course nasty language. So if any of the photos have blurred-out names, you'll know why! Before you jump through, keep in mind there are a few photos, so the load might be slow. Don't forget to check out my full coverage of the stress test! %Gallery-18020%
Alex's TTR stress test review
Yesterday's TTR Stress Test had its up and it had its downs, but overall it was a very fun experience. It was rocky in the beginning, with the server needing to be pulled down for a hardware upgrade shortly after the test was scheduled to begin. The TTR was riddled with soul-searing, unplayable lag up until that point, so I'd say it was needed.The WoW Insider gang sat around for an hour doing a load of nothing until the server came back, but it was worth it. Most of the lag was gone, the Blizzard Entertainment crew were out and about doing their thing, and we were finally able to hit the arena. Unfortunately, our first match was against a three Resto Druid team. In a magical fairy world where Druids don't have Innervate or any natural mana regen whatsoever, I'm pretty sure Adam would have still gone OOM trying to Mana Burn all three of them to nothing.Interested in the good times we had? Hop on past the cut and I'll give you the details! %Gallery-18020%
Manda's tales from the TTR: Stress edition
Sunday's Tournament Test Realm stress test was, in my opinion, a huge success. Despite the lag, the occasional crash or kick, and a one-hour maintenance downtime, the server held up quite well considering just how many people were bombing around on it. After maintenance, the lag improved quite a bit, and I'm guessing that Blizzard learned a fair amount that will help them to design the arena tournament realm.Of course, interaction with the GMs, fighting spawned bosses dropping orange epics, being polymorphed into all sorts of things, receiving rare mounts, and reading through /general, /say, and /yell, not to mention tells, were the real highlights from yesterday. While Alex has already given a fairly detailed account of our adventures, I have some stories of my own to tell. %Gallery-18020%
