at one time a tiny Publix. Now Thornton Park has a small grocery store again in the form of Central City Market (407-849-9779). Developed by Culinary Concepts, the same folks behind HUE, Central City Market is like an upscale convenience store, a fast place to pick up the odd Boar’s Head sandwich, cup of coffee…

Joseph Hayes

Dispatches from the outer Fringe

You know the Orlando International Fringe Festival is up and firing on all cylinders when you see something wholly unexpected — like a human skull resting on a windowsill in the Church Street Exchange, mere feet from what is currently the Orange Venue. Closer inspection reveals the skull as a leftover prop, and you sigh…

Steve Schneider, Al Krulick, and Brad Haynes

Swinging both ways

The U.S. Patent Office last month awarded patent number 6,368,227 to Steven Olson, age 7, of St. Paul, Minn., whose father had filed to help him protect a method of swinging on a swing. Young Olson’s discovery: While seated, if you pull on one side’s chain or rope and then on the other, while gradually…

Chuck Shepherd

A hunt for the homeless

The nonprofit organization Ripple Effect will host a scavenger hunt this Saturday, May 18, to raise money for a telephone-answering system to service low-income people. The group already has raised $4,000, but the planned voice-mail system will cost $25,000. Kelly Caruso, who founded Ripple Effect 12 years ago, says she originally hoped to have the…

William Dean Hinton

Obscene feminists

Dian Hanson is sorting through dozens of porn magazines. In one pile are Jaybird nudist publications from the late 1960s, featuring what she calls “crotch-liberation” fantasies of happy, unshaven young hippies. Filed in a different category are the British magazines, which “are so tidy and sensible — they have names like “Practical Photography.”” Hanson, a…

Annalee Newitz

Play nice, kids

In March, the Orlando City Council rezoned a proposed time-share near Turkey Lake and Wallace roads into 445 houses and apartments. In doing so, it aggravated Orange County commissioners, who have fought a contentious two-year battle against school crowding by denying high-intensity residential developments near packed schools. Orange’s policies stop at the city limits, though…

Jeffrey C. Billman

Out of the streets

Lakemont Heights neighbors won a significant victory over Time Warner Communications last week in a battle to prevent the company from using residential streets to gain access to a 371-foot transmitter tower located adjacent to the community. To complete the construction of a new building on the 11-acre tower site, the cable giant agreed to…

William Dean Hinton

Breaking up is hard to do

“Oh my God, my eyes are going to water!” squeams the Boys and Girls Club girl over my shoulder. Oh my God, mine too. ‘N Sync has gathered us for a typically sterile press conference to announce its latest sports-themed philanthropy: “Challenge for the Children,” a celebrity basketbally game to benefit Boys and Girls Clubs.…

Billy Manes

A hell of a time at the movies

Because I’m the kind of person who will watch anything if it’s on a screen, I’ve been to a lot of film festivals. I’ve attended animation festivals, gay film festivals and more than my share of bad film festivals back in the ironic ’80s. When the second annual Greater Orlando Christian Film Festival showed up…

Liz Langley

Dino’s sour note

There’s nothing worse than being haunted by a lost opportunity. So, you really have to feel sorry for the guys who are running the Walt Disney Co. For the past five years, they have taken a pass on more than their share of projects that would go on to become huge hit movies and TV…

Jim Hill

Late Blight

Back in the golden days of television, the rules of being a talk-show host were simple: You had to be affable, quick-witted and telegenic. You had to care about your guests. And, most essential, you had to care that you were on television — ready, willing and able to entertain audiences from coast to coast.…

Craig D. Lindsey