Alicia goes down to the Quincy Market Starbucks with a gift card, buys one of its new fruity Vivanno drinks, reports:
... The smoothie had a unique taste to it; it definitely didn't taste like oranges, mangoes and/or bananas, but it was sweet and I became slightly nostalgic drinking it. About halfway through the drink, I realized what it tasted exactly like: amoxicillin! Amoxicillin is the pink bubblegum flavored medicine I used to take for ear infections, and it was delicious (for a medicine.) I'm not sure if drinking Vivannos will cure a bacterial infection, but they sure taste like they will.
Tom Menino has a new mission: Turn Faneuil Hall into the Natick Mall. The Globe reports that an angry Menino, way up there near the top of Mt. Crumpit, could no longer take the noise, noise, noise, noise and ordered Boston Police to bust up those dangerous street performers - and balloon artists - in front of Faneuil Hall:
The officers shooed away clowns and caricature artists. They ordered music and dance acts to contain their performances to a single, small patch of brick - measuring 15 feet by 15 feet - near a stand of trees. And they erected steel crowd-control barricades in a wide swath around three sides of Faneuil Hall, to make sure the performers didn't sneak back.
But did they confiscate their tartinkas and who-hubas?
Flann takes a photo on the Orange Line of the Quincy Market Ben Franklin, you know, the one who gets crabby if you try to take his picture without paying him. No word if he started yelling at her or didn't mind because he was off the clock.
Boston Guerrilla Queer Bar will "take over" a Faneuil Hall bar this Friday. No, of course, they don't announce which one beforehand (you need to sign up for the mailing list to get some e-mail the morning of the event):
The idea is to turn an unsuspecting straight bar into a gay bar for one night. Call it guerrilla bar fare.
Margaret and Rich take the kids to the Quincy Market tree lighting tonight, which featured Tom Menino, Wally and Santa Claus:
... And they threw the switch and the whole square lit up and they blew millions of white, swirling pieces of rectangular paper over the crowd. The effect was reminiscent of standing in a snow squall but it was quite pretty. ...
Cowbark photographs a parrot shredding a Metro at Quincy Market:
He was eating popcorn and shredding newspaper (apparently that's how parrots build nests, but made out of tree pulp), and had a friend that was sitting on a woman's shoulder. The woman also had an iguana hanging out on top of a cage that you could pet.
Say you're that guy who walks around Quincy Market all day dressed like Ben Franklin. What do you do when it's time to go home? Suzie reports you keep your britches on and get on the train to Andover, but adds that seeing him there only raises more questions:
... Does he take his wig off and lay his costume aside when he enters his home? Or does he don a nightcap and traditional Ben Franklin night clothes? Does he fly kites around the neighborhood? ...
The Herald reports that the Yankee Candle shop was held up yesterday by a guy carrying what appeared to be a shotgun in a bag (also: when an assistant manager asked a customer to call 911, he instead just ran away, leaving his credit card behind).
On Thursday, a guy carrying what appeared to be a shotgun in a bag held up Bel Tempo in Downtown Crossing.
Seth Finkelstein just happens to have a copy of the same software used by the city to decide what you get to see on your laptop while connected to the city's WiFi network in Quincy Market. And so he discovers exactly which Boing Boing post got it banned.
You're sitting down, I trust. It's a post about some guy painting a mural about the ocean.
Huh? Seems Boing Boing has a link to a Google search to bring up other posts about the guy that includes the term "safe=off," which means, if the guy has done any murals of NAKED PEOPLE those links might come up. And we can't have links to photos of NAKED PEOPLE showing up on screens all over the marketplace rotunda, now can we?
John Keith notes that Abercrombie and Fitch is moving back (although only three floors instead of eight this time) to one end, while the Hard Rock Cafe is moving to the other end:
Whatever. It can't make Faneuil Hall any less relevant than it already is.
Ed. in-a-daze note: When did Quincy Market become Faneuil Hall, and why wasn't I cc'ed on the memo?
We have it on good report that Japanese TV news crews have descended en masse on our fair Hub and they are, even as I type, Borat-ing innocent tourists from Iowa at Quincy Market demanding to know what they think about Daisuke Matsuzaka. Given that most tourists from Iowa have no idea what they're talking about, the crews are extremely grateful when somebody like Jose Melendez, being half-Japanese himself, wanders by:
... "Do yoo seenk, oder peoper in Boston, will know how to say hees name?"
"Probably not," Jose answered. "Not yet, but by the time the season starts everyone will be able to say it perfectly. After all, we all managed to say Yastrzemski for 23 years." ...
Herald Managing Editor Joe Dwinell checks in from the Quincy Market rotunda, where he files a blog post via the marketplace's free WiFi - and where he learns from a visiting Mayo Clinic physician that the wireless service won't be giving him a brain tumor:
... He has pulled up a seat next to me to blog along. He's also asking about Mitt Romney and how a liberal Massachusetts can elect a Mormon Republican. Checks and balances, I say. ...
Greg Kulaga begins and ends a music video (set to Ween's "So Many People in the Neighborhood") with everybody's favorite panhandler (also features streets scenes from Downtown Crossing and Quincy Market). From January.
On Involuntary Slacker, Lyss describes the scene (before abandoning it for the non-green environs of the Union Oyster House):
... As we waited in line, the friends an I spotted this girl licking the shaved head of a bald guy through the window of the nearby Bell in Hand bar. Then she got on his lap (facing him) and began rhythmically moving up and down. ...
As everybody knows, Boston's most important product - even more so than Cheers t-shirts - is lobster! So it's no surprise that roughly one out of every two items for sale in Quincy Market has a lobster theme. Herewith a small sampling.
Hand-made glass lobster:
Wow 'em back on the farm with your new lobster-claw harmonica and lobster-claw salt and pepper shakers: Read more
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