Latest The Columbus Dispatch Stories
By Tracy Turner, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio Aug. 5--Even the most innocent-looking Web site can hide dangers -- and the cost remains high for computer users who fall into such traps. "I've seen people who downloaded a SpongeBob calendar for their kids and end up with a virus," said Craig Brasmer, president of PC Guys, a Worthington-based computer-repair store. In fact, 70 percent of computers brought in for repairs have been infected with viruses. "Phishing and ID theft has gotten way out...
By Rick Rouan, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio Aug. 5--Network. Haggle. Get there early. Come back late. For the best deals on a garage-sale item, take notice of veteran shoppers' tips. Carmen Rodgers did most of her shopping for the upcoming school year at a series of garage sales last weekend in Pataskala. As her 11-year-old daughter enters a "grunge phase," Rodgers said it was more practical to buy used clothing. Plus: "Apparently buying new clothes is not 'in'." However, it was...
By Misti Crane, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio Aug. 5--Maybe you've seen the TV ads or heard the ominous voice on the radio warning Ohioans to prepare for a flu outbreak, the likes of which could radically alter life as we know it. Reminding viewers of the toll of past flu pandemics, the TV ad shows a vacant football stadium, a classroom emptied of students and a field of gravestones before a voice warns, "It will happen again." The ad campaign is brought to you by the Ohio Department of...
By Misti Crane, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio Aug. 4--Maybe you've seen the TV ads or heard the ominous voice on the radio warning Ohioans to prepare for a flu outbreak the likes of which could radically alter life as we know it. Reminding viewers of the toll of past flu pandemics, the TV ad shows a vacant football stadium, a classroom emptied of students and a field of gravestones before a voice warns, "It will happen again." The ad campaign is brought to you by the Ohio Department of...
By Mike Pramik, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio Aug. 4--Construction of medical office buildings is all the rage in central Ohio and around the country as the health-care industry continues to expand. But some of the offices around Dublin Methodist Hospital might be in need of defibrillation. While the hospital slowly increases its patient count, the attached medical office building developed by Daimler Group sits nearly empty more than half a year after the hospital opened. Bob White Jr....
By Frank Gabrenya, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio Aug. 3--With all due respect to Batman, the Joker and fans of dark crime dramas, the best-reviewed movie of 2008 is an animated feature rated G. WALL-E, the sci-fi comedy-adventure from the Pixar studio, has received a score of 93 on the Web site Metacritic.com, which tallies numerical grades of zero to 100 based on reviews from key publications and online sites. That score is the highest of the year; The Dark Knight, by comparison, boasts a...
By Simone Sebastian, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio Aug. 2--The cheers were so deafening that some adults in the Arts Impact Middle School gym stuck fingers in their ears. Students stomped rhythmically in the bleachers, chanted their team names and waved signs attesting to how cool they were. The scene could have been from a state championship basketball game. But the title these kids were competing for had more to do with physics than field goals. "That excitement ... to that magnitude, I...
By Matt Tullis, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio Aug. 2--Early-music expert Ben Bechtel was such a perfectionist, his friends joked that he would spend two lessons teaching a student how to take an instrument out of its case. "You needed to do everything right," remembered Barbara Herzog, a former member of the period music group Early Interval, of which Bechtel was a member. Herzog learned how to play the viola da gamba from Bechtel. "You had to know how to open the case," she said. "You had...
By Michael Grossberg, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio Aug. 2--Frank Sinatra fans are the prime audience for My Way, but Otterbein Summer Theatre's creamy season finale should appeal to anyone who enjoys great music. With That Old Black Magic, I Get a Kick Out of You, I've Got You Under My Skin, I've Got the World on a String, Young-at-Heart, All of Me and Fly Me to the Moon among the almost 50 signature Sinatra hits selected for the tribute revue, who wouldn't enjoy such a trip down memory...
By Dan Gearino, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio Aug. 1--Add something new to the list of things getting more expensive: electricity. AEP Ohio is seeking state approval to increase electricity rates by roughly 15 percent in each of the next three years, a plan the company said is tied to the rising price of coal and a new state energy law. Consumer advocates are calling the plan excessive and poorly timed. The plan, filed yesterday with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, would lead to...
