TAMPA, FL -- Tampa ranks in the top twenty strangest cities in the country, according to a new survey by Tableseed.com. The company that helps restaurants get more customers using birthday email clubs, has analyzed nearly 2,000 Associated Press "strange news" stories that were released in the past year. After segmenting all of the news stories by location, the state of Florida was the runaway winner of Tableseed.com's strangest state award.
The rankings were calculated by collecting all of the AP's strange news stories released over the past year, segmenting them by the location where the stories took place, counting the number of stories in each state and adjusting for population.
A sampling of the 169 strange stories that came out of Florida this year were:
* Man calls 911 after eatery runs out of lemonade -- Boyton Beach, FL
* Florida lotto winner seeks to open a nude dude ranch -- Brooksville, FL
* Dead shark left in Miami street after failed sale -- Miami, FL
* Man wearing sleeping bag as cape attempts robbery - Gainesville, FL
* Man allegedly flings jellyfish at teens at beach - Madeira Beach, FL
Here are the top ten strangest states in Tableseed.com's rankings:
1) Florida
2) New Hampshire
3) Alaska
4) Wyoming
5) Maine
6) Wisconsin
7) Vermont
8) Pennsylvania
9) North Dakota
10) Ohio
The strange news data was also broken down by city, which resulted in New York City easily winning the strangest city crown.
Here are the top twenty strangest cities according to Tableseed.com's rankings:
1) New York City, NY
2) Lincoln, NE
3) Madison, WI
4) Philadelphia, PA
5) Chicago, IL
6) Cinncinnati, OH
7) Boston, MA
8) Detroit, MI
9) Dallas, TX
10) Pittsburgh, PA
11) Columbus, OH
12) Salt Lake City, UT
13) Des Moines, IA
14) Portland, OR
15) San Antonio, TX
16) Cleveland, OH
17) Sheboygan, WI
18) Fairbanks, AK
19) Denver, CO
20) Tampa, FL
The full rankings can be found on the Tableseed.com website at
www.tableseed.com/strange/
