It’s truly winter here in Central Florida with temperatures dipping down into the teens at night. Hopefully you’ve all been able to keep warm.

But with the record low temps we’ve been having the last few nights, I just wanted to let you readers know that if any of you have extra blankets or other coverings that you can spare, the Coalition for the Homeless of Central Florida could really use them.

As you can imagine, with the ultra-cold weather, they have more people than ever needing their help…and yours.

So if you have any items you can donate to the Coalition, please visit their website at centralfloridahomeless.org for directions or call 407-849-2754 for more information. You can also find them on Twitter @cfl_homeless.

Earlier this week, Orlando-based IZEA CEO Ted Murphy gave away a bathtub full of cereal (52 boxes worth of the breakfast stuff) on his blog. It was just a fun little promotion that he decided to run but the cool part is that in addition to awarding the cereal to a lucky winner, Murphy says he will also donate the same amount of cereal to a local food bank.

Yay to him for doing that!

Now, Murphy is thinking of doing another bathtub giveaway and is looking for suggestions, preferably holiday-themed. If you’ve got an idea — and believe me, he’s open for any challenge — head over and leave it in his blog’s comments. I voted for canned pumpkin since I love pumpkin pies and bread this time of year, plus, it’s good for the skin, which is handy if you plan to fill the tub with it.

If Metblogs is a city, hub.metblogs is the playground. We kept hearing from people that one of their favorite parts of Metblogs was meeting and interacting with readers and writers from other parts of the world, as well as getting requests for more ways that readers could be involved besides just posting comments. We thought about this for a while and decided that with a network like this, a giant community area where folks from all over the world could hang out, post photos and videos, talk with each other, form groups, play games, send messages, and do about a million other things was probably a pretty fun idea. The Hub is that.

If you have any tech ideas or suggestions join this group and speak up. See you on hub.metblogs!

This is the full text of a note I just sent to Baskin-Robbins on their feedback form, regarding the location on Edgewater in College Park.

Dear Baskin and/or Robbin,

It appears as though the location on Edgewater Drive in Orlando has come under new, grinchesque management, as this is now the second time I have arrived at your store to find that the promised “31 flavors” are actually more like 4 or 5. They were out of EVERYTHING. And again, this is not the FIRST TIME this has happened.

I love your ice cream, but you make it hard to love you. Perhaps this makes me love you more, and I have a problem regarding loving things that hurt me. I have not discounted the possibility.

Best, Matt

In the vein of yesterday’s post, I was alerted that K92FM is giving away $92 gas cards during its morning show with Doc and Grace later this morning (Friday) and next Friday as well.

To win one, listen to the station and call 407-424-9236 or 1-800-749-9292 between 7am and 8am. If you get through, you’ll get one of the gas cards mailed to you. Doc says he and the morning crew plan to give out as many gas cards as they can during that hour.

Visit K92FM.com for more details.

I know other gas giveaways have been going on around town, but I like that with this one, they mail you a card so you don’t have to waste gas driving to the station and waiting in line for the free gas.

Good luck to y’all and let us know if you end up winning one.

With gas prices creeping over the $4 mark, we all need to look at alternate forms of transportation to save money. One way already in place is public transportation via the Lynx bus system.

Today, Lynx is joining a national program called Dump the Pump, a one-day effort to entice new readers by offering up coupons to ride for free all day.

If you want to give it a spin, simply cut out coupons available in several local publications like the Orlando Sentinel or Orlando Weekly, or you can head on over to golynx.com and print out all the coupons you need for today. While there, you can also look up maps and schedules for all of the Lynx routes.

I’ll be the first to admit that Lynx isn’t perfect, especially to those who live or work on the outskirts of Orlando. And a few more buses along the tourist routes and out to Walt Disney World could boost ridership via visitors to the city (hint, hint Lynx).

But if you can make it work for you, a $44 monthly bus pass is a lot cheaper than filling up your tank several times a week for that amount.

Did anybody else gag up their corn flakes this morning looking at the picture on the front page of the Sentinel, the one of that smug bastard who runs Summit Charter School?

You know, the guy who is accused of taking a fat salary and spending school funds willy-nilly while the educational institution almost went bankrupt?

Man, if ever a dude deserved a punch in the face, it’s him. Turquoise turtleneck and all.

Orlando is a MAD HOUSE! A MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADHOUUUUUUUSE!

Police nab wild monkey with banana in west Orlando — OrlandoSentinel.com

*Yes, I realize monkeys are not apes. I think they aren’t, at least.

I live in College Park. I notice things. I type.

–Anyone else noticed the serious decline in ice cream available at the Baskin Robbins/Dunkin Donuts on Edgewater? It seems to have changed ownership recently, because all the employees are relatively new, but the real problem is that they just DON’T HAVE ALL THE FLAVORS. Come on, folks–Rocky Road is not some exotic temporary fad. It’s a staple. If you’re out of Rocky Road, you have serious problems as an ice cream-related business.

–I’ve attended a community meeting on this and helped a bit with the efforts, but it can’t hurt to blab here too: Let’s all remember that Princeton and Smith streets are RESIDENTIAL, not two-lane highways where you can show off your need for speed. Posted speed limit is 30. I’d like my kid to be able to play in our front yard someday without being terrified she’s gonna lose her arm to some jerk doing 50 cause he just got off I4 and he’s got to get to 7-Eleven STAT.

–The weekly Farmer’s Market over by Harmoni Grill seems to have slowly tapered off…I remember the first few installments involved a side street closing and the erection of tents. Now it’s just a guy with a guitar playing pop-rock favorites and some meager fruit offerings. It would be neat if this type of event would take off. It would also be neat if I actually supported the event by doing more than walking by it when I’m taking my daughter to the park.

–Jade Bistro: Best Chinese food in Orlando, or best Chinese food outside of China?

So Wal-Mart’s ongoing attempt to dominate the known universe with identical big-box stores where you can purchase both a rifle and some Cocoa Puffs at the same time has hit a minor setback in Central Florida, as their new store over in East Orange will be a “smaller” Wal-Mart:

Wal-Mart originally proposed building one of its Supercenters at the site in 2005, but community pressure prompted the retailer to change its model to a Neighborhood Market, part of its grocery-store chain. The Neighborhood Market is about 40,000 square feet, much smaller than the Supercenter, which could have been up to 250,000 square feet.

Of course, residents are still unhappy, especially those who choose to air their grievances online:

We wanted an up-scale market as a concession and got a poorly run, poorly maintained and low-income venue that has already brought property values down. Thanks Mildred. I am sure you will not shop there – nor will I unless I am on welfare like most of the customers.

Um…yikes!