Holy crap!
We asked you to vote for Orlando's best people, places and things, and did you ever respond. This year we got 2,678 votes in our readers poll, almost 1,000 more than last year and the highest number in the 14 years we"ve been doing this. Good job, people!
Now that we've got you all voting, we'd like you to keep a couple of things in mind for next year's poll:
"Your mom's house" isn't the best adult entertainment store in Orlando; we've been there. And while "Sylvia's bedroom" may be Orlando's best place to work out for one—hell, maybe dozens—of you, it isn't open to the public. For future reference, "Yip-Yip" is a band, not a dog park, miniature golf course, veterinarian or a place to buy seafood. The "Family Christian Bookstore" may be the best place to buy comics, but that's not really what we had in mind. And "The United States" could in fact be the "best country act," in an existential sort of way, but we were going for names of local country musicians , see. "Iraq" isn't a water park. The "Springfield Isotopes" aren't a real sports team. And "your mom's house" isn't the best strip club, either; we've been there, remember?
Also, we'd like to congratulate Aaron Haaland from A Comic Shop on his apparently irresistible powers of persuasion. Haaland managed to convince enough people to vote for him for "best local big shot" to beat out Tiger Woods. Either that or there are just more geeks in Orlando than anyone realized.
Finally, a word on the art in this issue. we've featured the work of five stellar local artists: Doug Rhodehamel, Dolla Bill, Johannah O'donnell, Andrew Spear and Charles Marklin. The crew was hand-picked by our art director because they represent the diversity of Orlando's rich, burgeoning visual-arts direction, and they agreed to work for what we pay. Times are tough.
Combine it all with our dedicated staff's musings on what to see, do, eat and avoid, and you hold in your hands the ultimate guide to the City Beautiful. It's still the original Best of Orlando, and it's still the best.
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