Orlando Scene TV

I often complain there is not much Indian food in my neighborhood, but there are lots of great Indian places. Some are vegetarian only, some aren’t, some are Americanized, some are less so, but they’re all pretty great.

There’s almost a Vegetarian Indian District in the OBT/Florida Mall area, topped off with an Indian grocery in the same area. I have yet to try them all, but I’ve heard it’s certainly worth checking out. Two bonus reviews for you too, one by I-Drive and Kirkman and the other in East Orlando near UCF.

Indian Food

What's this?

1. Woodlands Indian Cuisine

I often go for a sampler, about $16, which features small bowls of different sauces, soups and even a dessert, along with a bit of rice, some flat bread and a few appetizers – including a veggie and potato Somosa, yum! The other popular choice for us are called Dosas, which are giant pancakes/crepes with some filling, normally potato, rolled inside. They always bring a pitcher of water to the table, and be ready for some spicy food. You can request different levels of heat for some dishes.

I first heard about Woodlands from some vegetarian/vegan friends of mine. I have been seeking out veggie places lately, because it lets me know I have a city that is tolerant of different lifestyles, and it proves I don’t have to move somewhere else to get access to other cultures. This restaurant is not decorated very lavishly, unless you count the lemon and chili peppers hanging by the front door. Right off of north OBT, easy to get to, and always good service, and a staff who is used to helping us Americans figure out what we should order.

2. Udipi Café

Head here for the lunch buffet. Completely worth your time. They even have a dish on the buffet that resembles “Sloppy Joe”, but it’s made with some meat substitute, and still served on a plain hamburger bun. Every buffet comes with a giant Dosa pancake/crepe filled with potato and vegetable – delicious. The food is all vegetarian. (hint: Udipi is a region of India that is known for vegetarian food) Would definitely come here again, despite the fact that it’s almost up in Longwood, which is not close to my home. Hopefully I’ll have a good excuse to go again soon!

3. Khasiyat Indian Restaurant

The interior (and exterior) is not all that interesting, but they do have a a few things going for them. The service was pretty delightful. We saw a large family who must have been visiting the theme parks, and made the trip all the way out to this neighborhood for a taste of home. I’m also going to assume they might have been vegetarian, which can be a challenge at the local theme parks, unless you like salad. After having been to a few other vegetarian places in town, Khasiyat held few surprises, but they did sport a television with music videos and other Bollywood gems.

YouTube, Ridley Scott and Kevin McDonald are putting together what claims to be the most videotaped day in human history. Let’s help them make it so.

http://www.youtube.com/lifeinaday
The film will premier at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Anyone who gets video in the film will be credited as a co-director, and 20 of those people get a trip to Sundance.

http://sites.google.com/site/lifeinadayfaqs/

How do I submit my video(s)?
Between 24 July and 31 July, just click the “Submit” tab on Life In A Day channel and upload the footage directly from your computer. The “Submit” tab will become visible on 24 July.

Does my video have to be documentary? Can it be fiction?
All we’re asking is for you to document your world over the course of a single day; we expect most videos to comprise documentary footage, but if you think that your world is best captured through fictional storytelling or even animation, it is entirely up to you.

Do I need permission to record other people in my video?
Yes, you do need permission to include other people in your video. If your video makes it through the first stage of our selection process, we will email you release forms which you must send back to us signed by anyone who appears in your video.

Can I use music?
Please avoid the use of music within your submission.

What do I need to know about recording sound?
It’s important to think about the audio on your video, as sound recording often affects the overall quality of a video. Good sound recording will probably increase the chance of your footage being chosen to be in the final film. If possible, it would be great to enhance your recording by using external microphones, in addition to those built in to most cameras.

When is the Sundance Film Festival?
The 2011 Sundance Film Festival will take place from 20 January to 30 January 2011. The premiere date of Life In A Day will be announced closer to the start of the festival.

All week long, the roof of the Downtown Orlando Library will be filled with voices reading some of their favorite words. It’s called 67 Books, and it’s the latest creation of serial performer Brian Feldman.

Above: Terry Olson reads from The Tale of Desperaux

It’s not just humans getting into the mix, either. Puppets and Monsters are sure to appear during the hour organized by Brian’s wife, a member of a local performance group called Thunderhag & the Thunderland Orchestra.

If you’re not able to make it downtown, or you’re house-bound, Brian will be Tweeting and Live-streaming pretty much every major (or minor) event during the week.

Our beloved Amway Arena will soon be replaced by the… Amway Events Center, down near the intersection of I-4 and 408. This means the current Arena and that huge parking lot will become mostly useless. The Bob Carr will remain in operation – possibly indefinitely – until the new Performing Arts Center is built. As for the rest of the land, well, let’s just say that Mayor Buddy has big dreams!

There are lots of watercolor drawings and slideshows with maps available on the City of Orlando’s website. They have a page with a few downloadable documents created that outline the gentrification of Parramore, creating lots of “party curb” streets (so drunk people don’t trip?), and making greater use of parks and public spaces. They also want to make sure the venues and other city buildings are “good neighbors”, whatever that means.

If you want to hear this BS in person, they’re having an event on Monday at City Hall. It seems to be open invite, so if you care about the future of downtown, make some time in your schedule for this.

Creative Village event March 22nd

If I’m allowed to videotape, the meeting will show up on our Watch Live page.

As I get older, I tend to have more and more visitors come down looking for a break from the rest of the world. Orlando can be a pretty good place to do that. It’s one of the top vacation spots, after all!

As we have people visit, we’ve started to compile a list of activities (some are mega-touristy) and restaurants that we can recommend to everyone. Here they are, in no particular order:

• The Wine Room
• Disney’s Animal Kindgom
• Cafe Tu Tu Tango
• White Wolf Cafe
• Funky Monkey Wine Co
• El Coqui Mexicano
• Gatorland Zoo (Go Orlando Card)
• Sky Venture Orlando
• Florida Ecosafaris Zip Line (Go Orlando Card)
• A Day Away Kayaks – Bioluminescent Night Kayak Trip
• Blue Man Group Orlando
• SAK Improv Comedy Lab
• Sea World Orlando
• Wild Willy’s Airboat Rides
• Bok Tower and Gardens
• Manatee watching at Blue Springs (cold weather months)
• The Old Spanish Sugar Mill Pancake House, DeLeon Springs
• Disney Hollywood Studios (formery MGM)
• The Ravenous Pig
• Hamburger Mary’s Hambingo (Gay Bingo, Tuesday Night)
• Farris and Foster’s Chocolate Date Night
• Leu Gardens
• Kennedy Space Center (Go Orlando Card)

Note: links to Go Orlando Card are part of an affiliate program.

Tomorrow morning at 8AM, people in 60 cities all over the world will get together for coffee and conversation, continuing a 3-year tradition that started with 2 trendsetters in New York who decided to have good coffee and conversation in real life instead of online. In Orlando, we hold Likemind at the Drunken Monkey, one of the best coffee shops in town, every third Friday of the month. Watch the twitters about likemind scroll by today and tomorrow to see all the other people and places that get involved in this international affair.

To get email updates about future Likemind events in Orlando, check out the Likemind.orl group on FloridaCreatives.com, or use the direct registration link.

@ The Office Art Gallery, Friday Oct 10th

A word from Frankie Messina:

www.apartmente.com got all the info you need.

hope to see you all my friends.. come kick off this incredible evening and be able to say you were there the first night…..

bring a friend and they get in half price.

then they can help you donate to the cause..
that cause being local ART and MUSIC and LOVING the two..

thank you for all the support, and I can’t wait to meet you all………..and give you all a big o’le country hug..,Frankie

This came across my desk at work today:

Does anyone know of an animation school in the Orlando area? A friend’s 16-year-old son is interested in pursuing animation as a career and is looking into classes he can take now as well as college programs for the future. If you have any insight, please pass it along.

Just doing a google search returned a bunch of crap, so I wanted to help this person out with information you could snack on:

UCF’s Visual Language program is top-notch. In Orlando, I wouldn’t recommend anything above the UCF School of Film and Digital Media. They also have a graduate program at the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy (FIEA).

The Valencia Graphics program has some animation stuff as well. I blogged some students’ motion graphics projects at Orlando Video. I think high school students can take VCC classes before they graduate.

They offer some stuff like that at the Orlando Tech Center – it’s run by the Orange County Public Schools – right near the Amway Arena. They have a Computer Animation lab, a 3D printer, a motion capture stage, an Audio Recording studio and a TV studio. There are also several tech or vocational schools in Orlando (besides the OCPS), but I don’t have any information about one over the other.

Has anyone mentioned the DAVE School to you yet? They are/used to be located on the backlot of Universal Studios, but that has nothing to do with what they teach there, it’s just the space that they use. They are focused only on animation, and I think they take students of all ages.

And then there’s FullSail, of course (the school, not the beer). Little-known fact: most FullSail teachers were students from last year’s graduating class – the law of diminishing returns will have to catch up with them sometime. I’m not saying it’s impossible to get a good education there, but from what I understand, there are lots of folks at the school looking to get somewhere without really trying. If one works hard, a good education can be obtained despite the reputation an institution garners for itself.

If you in the blogosphere can think of any other programs of note, please leave them in the comments.

Via the Daily City Blog (who is doing a better job at constant updates than this site might ever hope to, please subscribe), you MUST MUST check out Real Orlando, Real Entertainment (RORE).

You get a ticket to all of the following:

Orlando Ballet
Orlando Museum of Art
Orlando Opera
Orlando Philharmonic
Orlando Shakespeare Theatre
Festival of Orchestras
SunTrust Broadway Across Orlando

Really.

Visit RealOrlando.org to download an order form PDF and mail in your order (lame).

Don’t forget to Subscribe to the Daily City Blog (RSS), courtesy our good friend (and sometimes collaborator) Mark Baratelli.

Saturday, May 10, 200812:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Orange County Regional History Center
65 E Central Blvd
Orlando, Florida 32801
(Yahoo! Maps, Google Maps)

Be ye photographers, videobloggers, people wanting to learn something about downtown Orlando? Are you interested in using your talents to showcase what the non-tourism-driven part of Orlando has to offer? The crew from OrlandoScene.TV will be taking the History Center's official walk of downtown, with dozens of historic stops all over the city. A link to the tour can be found on the always-atrocious downtownorlando.com

We are asking photographers to come with us on a photowalking expedition, because our video piece will be about the photowalking trend and Downtown Orlando will be our setting.

At the end of the day we will be attending "Improv en Espanol" at SAK Comedy Lab. If you're interested in snapping some photos there, it will be their first anniversary doing the show on Saturdays, and I know they will appreciate it.

If you have any questions, please direct them to [info orlandoscene.tv]