What is it about Worcester? When not battling bizarre beetles, the city has to worry about loose moose:

The 1,000 pound moose then walked to Quinsigamond Avenue, strolled into a warehouse at Castle Metals and wandered out. ... Because it was so close to a busy road, authorities determined it was becoming a public safety issue. The moose was shot dead around 8:15 a.m. It was taken away on a backhoe.

Worcester Magazine captures, photographs its very own Asian Longhorned Beetle, then fails to tell us how they promptly incinerated it in a blinding ball of flame, let alone filed a report with state creepy-crawly monitors. Maybe they plan to take him home and love him and hug him and pet him and squeeze him and call him George.

Know your enemy.

Worcester in Olde Englande is waging cyberwar against our own Wormtown for the right to come up first in Wikipedia. So far, Merry Olde Worcester is winning, but it's hard to avoid logic like this (scroll down):

[T]he arguments that Worcester, UK is a county town, has a longer history, or is the origin of Worcestershire sauce are all irrelevant. Similarly, the arguments that Worcester, MA is larger in population, is chartered as a city, or was the site of the first rocket launch are equally invalid. The one and only thing that matters is what article readers are looking for; given that Worcester, MA has over 5,000 more readers than Worcester, UK, it is fairly clear that a vast majority of readers (which would be the requirement for "Worcester" to be located here) are in fact not seeking the city in Worcestershire.

Via Worcesteria.

Meet the beetle. Source.

Beetletown might be a better name for the Commonwealth's second largest city now that voracious Asian Longhorn Beetles have been found there:

... This pest attacks a wide variety of hardwood trees, particularly maples, and is considered a serious threat to the nursery, lumber, wood products, maple syrup, and tourism industries in our state. If it became established over a large area, it could also significantly disrupt the forest ecosystem.

The Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources, and the City of Worcester are partnering with the U.S. Forest Service and USDA APHIS-PPQ to coordinate a management plan to eradicate this species in Massachusetts. First steps include a survey of the area to determine the extent of the infestation, and regulatory management to prevent movement of host trees and wood out of the infested area. Infested trees will need to be removed and destroyed, and susceptible host trees may need treatment to prevent further infestations. ...

Secretly Ironic recounts a disappointing trip all the way out to Worcester for a "Jack and Jill night" at the Boston Gun Range, which, despite what its make your eyes bleed Web site and answering machine would have you believe, actually closed several months ago:

... So, then what? Obviously, the four of us drove around past the nudie bars and automotive spring repair shops on the outskirts of town until we hit Worcester Center. We briefly got lost in the Abandoned Warehouse district, and then stumbled upon the Gentrified Abandoned Warehouse district, featuring loft condos (natch), a discount meat store (”We Towed You So” emblazoned cheerfully across the parking lot), and a tapas bar called Bocado. ...

Blue Mass. Group reminds us that today's the anniversary of the deadly Worcester Tornado of 1953.

The name's actually a bit of a misnomer, since the tornado continued down Rte. 9 to almost the Framingham line - one of its last spasms was to flatten the Fayville post office in Southborough.

That would be Worcester, which apparently has an identity crisis like you wouldn't believe.

But ya gotta love a city where people still pitch woo.

Generous tax breaks have made our fair city into the Toronto of the US and made Hollywood faces a not uncommon site around certain restaurants.

So does our Sunset Blvd. stretch all the way to Worcester? If so Perez Hilton may have found our Viper Room, where TV's Topanga, Danielle Fishel, got all Britney last night......

TD Banknorth wants to merge with New Jersey-based Commerce Bank and rename the whole thing to TD Commerce Bank.

Just one problem -- there's already a Commerce Bank & Trust in Worcester, and they say the new name would infringe their longstanding trademark.

Earlier: It's TDious to keep changing the Garden's name

The Upstairs Girl tears a new one for some Cambridge nob who finds herself stranded in a Worcester hotel room with no books to read and only a large-screen TV to keep her company:

... Worcester! Horrors! It's so backward it's practically the deep South! It's too bad there aren't nine colleges within the city itself - a city so devoid of intellectual life would never have any bookstores. In fact, my education - received as it was in the even vaster, emptier wasteland surrounding that city - was conducted entirely through the use of cave paintings, until I miraculously woke up one day at college and fully literate, in the author's fair city of Cambridge. ...

The Upstairs Girl also ponders what sort of Cambridge intellectual would leave for a trip to Worcester in the middle of a frickin' snowstorm without taking a book along.