In the rural, relatively quiet east Orange County community of Bithlo, all you can hear right now is the roar of motorcycle engines. It’s Saturday night, and like every Saturday night, the Orange County Raceway is hosting a motocross race in which dirt-bike racers blast around a hill-laden, often mud-drenched mile-long track, soaring sometimes 20-feet…

Jeffrey C. Billman

Doctors get the straight poop

Doctors get the straight poop News of the Weird has reported before on “smart toilets” that can make daily health-status readings. Now, a Cheshire, England, company has racheted up the technology a bit with a model that automatically performs urine and fecal analysis for users and can transmit the results to the family doctor via…

Chuck Shepherd

Seeing the lyte

I’ve been here before. “Billy, I haven’t seen you in ages!” ages a publicity princess standing registerside at Camelot Music in the Florida Mall. “What’s it been, like two years?” “Ages!” I blither, having no idea which black-smock blowout it is that I’m talking at. “C’mon back,” she instructs, as she surely must have two…

Billy Manes

Better than bull from Bush

There are a few Irish taverns in town serving pints and the occasional jig. But for an authentic drinking-with-chums experience you need a real English pub, and you’ll be hard pressed to find one more genuine than the Bull & Bush. Almost invisible behind the Colonial Plaza Market Center at 2408 E. Robinson St. (407-896-7546),…

Joseph Hayes

At age 27, Darin Shapiro …

At age 27, Darin Shapiro is currently ranked No. 1 in the sport of wakeboarding and considered a legend. As the most decorated man in the history of his chosen profession, he’s won the season championship six times by handily pounding the competition into pulp. Shapiro counts Toyota, O’Brien, Neil Pryde and No Fear among…

Mark Padgett

One smoke over the line

In Christopher Buckley’s novel “Thank You For Smoking,” you get to meet a guy with a really hard job: Nick Naylor, spokesperson for the tobacco industry. Given all the cancer statistics, lawsuits and bad press, Nick’s job is to try to make tobacco companies look, if not good, at least not so bad. You have…

Liz Langley

Disney gets religion

How badly does the Mouse want to be one of the big boys in broadcasting? So much so that late last month, Mickey agreed to get into bed with Pat Robertson. Now, depending on your sexual orientation and/or political bent, televangelist Robertson is either God’s close, personal friend or the devil himself. This unlikely union…

Jim Hill

What’s in a name? Part 2

TD Waterhouse Group Inc. continues to solidify its position on the list of companies that have tumbled since entering stadium naming-rights deals. Orlando Weekly reported in June that the online brokerage’s stock had fallen more than 50 percent since it struck a four-year, $8 million deal with the city and the Magic in February 2000.…

Orlando Weekly Staff

USOC to Orlando: Drop dead

From the start of boosters’ efforts to lure the Olympics to Tampa Bay, Orlando was seen as a vital partner. In return, the city was promised billions of dollars for economic development and a high-speed rail line, all without footing the considerable start-up costs. But this week, the Florida 2012 logo is no more. Now,…

Orlando Weekly Staff

Last days of Bohemia

It hasn’t been quite 10 years since a couple of enterprising twentysomethings opened an unpretentious coffee shop on a dead end street in downtown Orlando. She was Barrie Freeman, an Orlando native who worked as a bartender and briefly as a city planner before returning to post-graduate work at the University of Georgia. He was…

William Dean Hinton

Aug 1-7, 2001

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