boston.com always seems to launch some intrusive exciting new ad campaign the day something horrible happens. Like today:

Via the eagle-eyed Jonelle, who warns: Avert your eyes:

... Because nothing subtly underscores a tragic top news story like stick figures dancing in a sea of blinding orange. ...

Earlier:
The exploding-glass ad over news about the Emerson scaffolding collapse.

Dude, you look like American Idol exploded all over my screen.

Charley on the MTA writes it's past time the legislature did something about rapacious cellular companies ripping off consumers by locking them into overpriced, shoddy service:

... How cool would it be to actually have real, fluid competition in cell phone service? Unlock the contracts, and the companies will have more incentive to improve service. Someone else has a better/cheaper phone plan? Go with them! ...

Not so fast there, Peter Morin says. He argues service is just fine along major highways and such and that the real problem isn't cellular companies but obstreperous local boards in hoity-toity towns like Weston that refuse to let the companies put in enough cell towers because they're NIMBYs run amok:

... [T]he town of Wayland has been chastised by a federal court for its "fixed opposition" to wireless, been sued successfully a second time, and doesn't appear to have been chastened in the least. If you live in Sudbury and commute from Boston, either take the Pike to Natick or take Route 20 and listen to Howie Carr, because a phone call you will not make. ...

David Weinberger follows up this Globe article about how Cingular refuses to prove its fewest-dropped-calls claim with his own Cingular experiences:

... My Cingular phone only works if I actually climb a Cingular antenna tower, of which there seem to be a total of nine in the continental United States. Fortunately, the towers are only 11 inches tall.

I exaggerate. My Cingular phone also works if my phone is within shouting distance of yours. ...

A Cingular ad on page A7 of the Globe today proclaims that Cingular puts more bars in more Boston places. Only problem, Ron notes: The baseball stadium in the ad isn't Fenway.