Around the Hub – Wednesday Words

Here are a few links from around the web that I’ve been meaning to write longer stories about, but just ran out of time.

Walt Disney’s original movie muse Virginia Davis passed away this week at age 90. The Alice series featured Davis interacting with cartoon characters. She became a Disney Legend in 1998. CartoonBrew and The Kansas City Star have remembrances.

The NY Times reviews Hayao Miyazaki’s PONYO, with voice over and distribution in the US added by The Walt Disney Studios. Are you planning to see it? The film did well with limited exposure last weekend.

I also wanted to catch “The Time Traveler’s Wife” at the cineplex this weekend, but life got in the way. Someone at Disney obviously liked what they saw because now ABC is turning the book into a TV series. I really liked the book, but it’s very dark and quirky and Disney didn’t do very well with Pushing Daisies. What do you think?

DISunplugged has a few photos from inside the newly opened Kouzzina, the new restaurant from Iron Chef Cat Kora at the Boardwalk Resort. Scott Joseph, Orlando’s food watcher, has copies of the menus. Go ahead and try some Greek inspired food.

A new study says frequent vacations are key to a long life. Those who take the time to wind down and catch up on sleep live longer. I think I see a new resort idea for Disney here — Sleepy’s Inn’.

One more detail from this weekends visit to the parks. Air Conditioning was a major issue. Most stores, some restaurants, and some bathrooms had little or no A/C. Two locations I visited were practically saunas. It’s unsure if this is a new energy-conservation effort or just a string of broken A/C’s due to cut maintenance hours. Most locations tried to adjust by closing some of their doors, but they might as well have had giant holes in their ceiling. Environmentally speaking, the right thing to do is have your doors closed when running the A/C. But will guests still wander through the stores? That said, there’s no excuse for a restroom that’s hotter inside than it is out or a restaurant where the cast members are walking around waving plates to cool themselves.