Punchdrunk Sox fans wake up; look for aspirin
By adamg - 8/19/06 - 10:59 amBeth: Suck-a-thon.
The Couch Potato draws up the 12 steps for Red Sox Anonymous, including:
... 3) Made a decision to turn our interests to the care of Big Papi, because we understand that the Sox season home run record may be the only thing to look forward to for the rest of the way. ...
... I lost, for a day, my warn out and bedraggled Red Sox hat. Yes, the hat that I bought after game 2 of the 2003 Oakland series because they needed a change in luck. And their luck changed (with the exception of 1 Aaron Boone homerun). I wore that hat nearly every day during 2004 and look what happened. Yesterday, when I went to find it, it was missing. ...
Soxaholix: Hey, you know, it ain't so bad. I mean we beat the Yankees once.
Cranky says another thing that really sucked was listening to Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd babble for ten minutes:
... I guess it's for the Jimmy Fund thing, but he's not even talking about that. He's talking nonsense. There should be no politicians in the broadcast booth. Ever! Can't you just shut up let us watch the fucking game? Great, now Trump is on. ...
Ed Prisby wonders if the problem is that Sox management has gotten too cheap:
... Say what you want about Steinbrenner, but he was right when he said that he'll spend that extra little bit for the fans, and the Sox won't. Like it or not, that spending on Johnny Damon and Bobby Abreau is looking like it will be the difference between the Yankees playing in October, and the Sox playing in October. ...
Where'd all the T cops go?
By adamg - 8/19/06 - 9:26 amThird Decade recalls that after the Madrid and London bombings, T stations and trains were flooded with cops. Where'd they all go?
... I ride in the same cars on the same trains everyday and wouldn't know where to find a police officer if I needed one. ...
Strollermania
By adamg - 8/19/06 - 9:23 amMargaret wonders when it became OK to spend $900 on a baby stroller:
... Suddenly Bugaboo strollers are popping up all over Somerville. My first CAR didn't cost much more than that. I used to only see them on beautifully coiffed women on Charles Street, but suddenly normal people are pushing them around. ...
Boston buildings that suck
By adamg - 8/19/06 - 9:20 amMike Mennonno starts a series on architectural abominations, beginning with the Tip O'Neill federal building, even though he allows as how it's not a complete abomination:
... The architect's inspiration seems to have been a stingy slice of tiramisu. ...
Logan Airport as impenetrable fortress
By adamg - 8/19/06 - 9:14 amNo, we're not talking about anti-terrorism stuff here. We're talking about how impossible it now is to actually get there - even if you live just 15 minutes away, as Korte reports:
... I amble over to Southie and find Broadway, eventually getting back on Rte 93 North. Amusingly, there is no exit directly to the airport on 93 North anymore (chuckle chuckle)
I think to myself, "Hey, self... if you get off at Government Center, the airport is RIGHT THERE. There used to be an exit to shoot right into the airport, this isn't THAT bad after all. A quick glance at the clock tells me my friend has been waiting for about twenty minutes. As I approach Government center, exit 23, there are THREE SIGNS, three, and two of them lit AND blinking which state "Government Center ONLY" and Government, NO EXIT. ...
Privatize the T?
By adamg - 8/19/06 - 9:08 amOn Blue Mass. Group, jconway makes the argument for selling off the rattly old MBTA (yes, that's right - a liberal wants to do that):
... By privatizing the T we can ensure that a private company, motivated by a need to make a profit will actually have an incentive to have faster trains come on time, professional and courteous staff, better service AND cheaper fares, increase ridership, and have a more comfortable better quality ride. ...
It was 40 years ago today
By adamg - 8/18/06 - 7:25 pmThe Beatles played Suffolk Downs and Tom Sheehan was there.
Cambridge's very own doomsayer
By adamg - 8/18/06 - 6:03 pmRemember the French guy who claimed back in May that Boston (and the rest of the East Coast) would be destroyed by a 600-foot-high tsunami?
Jesse Kanson-Benanav reports that Cambridge has its very own prophet of doom - who wants to meet with the City Council to do something about the city's imminent demise.
Unfortunately, many of Peter Valentine's predictions have already failed to come to pass - at least, as far as I can tell here in the remote wastelands of Roslindale:
Aug. 3rd a massive ecological disaster affecting the entire planet.
Aug. 9th an earthquake in Northwest America.
Aug. 13th a nuclear attack inducing all hell to break out.
In January, 2000, while serving as National Officer in Charge, US Military and Planetary Command, Valentine told the Cambridge city council the earth would be destroyed by a comet a few months later.
Fishermen's festival in the North End
By adamg - 8/18/06 - 5:57 pmBarry Freed posts photos from the festival last night.
One discount that will bug you
By adamg - 8/18/06 - 5:46 pmPazzo Books in Roslindale is offering a $5 credit to the first person who brings in a female adult cankerworm.
You may know them better as winter moths - except that it's the males that fly around en masse in winter, since the females are wingless and pretty much sit around waiting to get serviced so that they can then pop out roughly 89 trillion gazillion bazillion eggs, all of which hatch in the spring and then commit suicide in our pool.
In support of the Killer Coke guy
By adamg - 8/18/06 - 5:40 pmDan Kennedy explains why unions and other types trying to shut him up through complaints to the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance are wrong:
... Ray Rogers is the modern equivalent of the lonely pamphleteer, the very essence of who the First Amendment is supposed to protect. It shouldn't matter whether he's right or wrong, where he gets his money from or which campaign or campaigns he's talking to. Let him get his message out, and let Deval Patrick get his message out. ...
Game 1: How 'bout that Hinske?
By adamg - 8/18/06 - 5:37 pmSoxfan reports when the score was 11-3:
... I think I'll keep my TV on CNN. For once, it's less depressing.
Andrea Mihos: I am not a lush
By adamg - 8/18/06 - 2:58 pmMayor says: Eat your vegetables
By adamg - 8/18/06 - 11:41 amPeople are dying in the streets, property taxes are escalating, we don't have a school superintendent or police or fire commissioners, so what's Tom Menino doing? Coming up with a way for restaurants to advertise they have healthy food.
Jay Fitzgerald is a bit non-plussed:
WTF? ... Mayor, you're a mayor, not a nanny. For Christ's sake.
Bruce on mAss Backwards: Mayor McVeggieburger.
Amy on Pasquinade: I think the money spent on this program would be better spent in schools teaching kids about healthy eating at a young age.
The cranky days of summer
By adamg - 8/18/06 - 8:35 amWhen Karrie and a clerk at the Coolidge Corner McDonald's can't agree on her order, the woman next in line explodes:
... At this point, a rabid bank teller pushed me (Me! all 6ft and 240 pounds+ piggybacking toddler!) and barked "Oh forchristsakes! Why didn't you make up your goddamn mind before you came here?" ...
Then it goes downhill from there.
David Pye, meanwhile, witnesses two annoying slackers too wussy to duke it out like real men at Prince and Salem in the North End, so they wind up screaming at each other from opposite sides of the street.
You know what Beacon Hill really needs? Lots of neon green signs all over
By adamg - 8/18/06 - 8:28 amJenn Martinelli is sick of the Beacon Hill Civic Association and its bright green posters telling people not to put the trash out the night before when, as far as she can tell, there's no such city ordinance to that effect.
Audi headlight thieves continue to plague Back Bay
By adamg - 8/18/06 - 8:17 amTwo years after he first reported the problem, Carpundit informs us that Audis parked in the Back Bay keep having their headlights stolen.
Snakes in a theater
By adamg - 8/18/06 - 8:14 amSushiesque photographs people with snakes on their way to or at the Loews Boston Common premiere of Snakes on a Plane. And provides exclusive video of an inflatable snake being tossed around the theater.
Sean McCarthy reviews the people at the premiere and reveals the exact time of the line you know you want to hear.
Rod Begbie reports that meanie AMC theaters were confiscating people's rubber snakes.
5-alarm fire destroys Hyde Park church; injures two
By adamg - 8/17/06 - 9:01 pm
The fire broke out around 7 p.m. and pretty quickly destroyed both the All Grace Harvest Church and a three decker attached to it at 858 Hyde Park Ave., near American Legion Highway. Police blocked off a wide swath around the fire scene for hours - traffic was blocked at Canterbury Street on both Hyde Park Avenue and American Legion Highway.
Channel 4 reports two were injured - one a firefighter; 15 evacuated.
Will lives about a quarter-mile away and reports:
... When the house began to fill with smoke I started closing windows but it kept seeping in no matter what I did. ...
This was the second major fire on Hyde Park Avenue today; around 2 a.m., a two-alarm fire broke out in one of the stores across the street from the Forest Hills T stop (note to Channel 7: That is not Hyde Park and it's not a strip mall).
Photos taken from Grew Hill in Roslindale; you could see and smell the smoke at Washington Street and Metropolitan Avenue.
The Society of Kids Who Stuff Things into Other Things
By adamg - 8/17/06 - 5:47 pmI don't remember why I'd started to head upstairs this morning. Because when I got to the stairs, I heard two things: A crying kid about to go hysterical and what sounded like a fountain.
We don't have a fountain. What we have is a kid who finally got an answer to a question that had apparently been puzzling her for awhile: Just how much toilet paper could she stuff in the toilet without it overflowing when she flushed it? Answer: Just a bit less than the amount she stuffed in. Oh, well, the bathroom floor needed to be cleaned anyway, although I'm kind of thinking the water that began dripping out of the kitchen chandelier not long after was not A Good Thing.
Jay, meanwhile, photographs what he found when he unscrewed an old computer speaker:
... [C]rayons everywhere! Apparently Sadie had been pushing crayons into the speaker unobserved. You'll notice that no crayon is allowed to remain clothed. The wrappers must be torn methodically off each and every one as soon as possible. ...
