Romeo and Juliet? This year's swans are more like dual Lady Macbeths. Mike the Mad Biologist chronicles the avian war on the lagoon:

... One day I saw one swan prevent the flock of ducklings from entering the pond: wherever the ducks went to try to jump in, the swan was right there hissing at them. That day, the swan even jumped out of the water and pursued them on land.

It gets even more vicious. The swan (again, no idea which one) will try to isolate a couple ducklings and then pursue those ducklings. The duck's mother then tries the 'broken wing' gambit (squawking loudly and then veering off, in an attempt to draw the swan away). It never works. These swans are on a mission.

Indeed, sports fans, something is rotten in the state of Comcast. No NESN, no Versus, no a whole lot of things - including Internet and phone service.

Comcast Bonnie down in Philadelphia hears our howling and tweeted around 9 p.m.:

We have a central link down in Needham which caused a bunch of channels to go kaput. We're working on it now. Stay tuned.

Oh, but wait, it gets more interesting. We can't get NESN in Roslindale, but people in South Boston, Cambridge and Concord say they can watch Beltre run into outfielders just fine. We can, however, watch the spelling bee, while people in Brookline get only a blank screen instead of kids trying to spell "terribilita" and "rhytidome."

Also: People working in local TV newsrooms wish the viewing public would stop calling them to complain because they have nothing to do with the local cable service.

Boston Police report arresting a local man late last night on charges he broke into a car in front of 285 Columbus Ave. and stole a bottle of cologne and a stick of men's deodorant. Police report the man left the deodorant cap in the car.