SuperMark reports that when his cab driver told him after an $18 ride that his cab's credit-card reader was broken, he told the guy he only had $8 on him and that he was breaking the law by driving around with a busted reader. Miraculously, the cab driver managed to get the reader to work.

Just because I can't think of one doesn't mean there isn't one. So why would a Boston Transportation Department worker block a Brighton Center bus stop and force a guy with a cane into the street to board a 57 bus?

Oh, of course there's a good reason! As the person who took the photo explains:

The BTD truck driver was parking to buy scratch tickets and ignored the man with the cane that was waiting for the bus. He threw the ticket out the window into the back of his truck afterwards.

Here's his license plate, should anybody at BTD wish to inquire:

Somehow I missed this account of what happened when some kid stole Ben Franklin's hat in Downtown Crossing last week:

... Ben Franklin catches up and starts whacking the thief with his cane, so the cop starts yelling, "Easy with the cane! Easy with the cane!" ...

I bet it's the Faneuil Hall Ben Franklin who gets mad if you take his picture without paying him.

Via Bostonist.

He manages to take up a seat without even sitting in it - or next to it.

Location

It's a faceoff! CT3 bus driver vs. SUV driver at W. Concord Street and Harrison Avenue in the South End.

Jason Laramie, who took the photo around 9:47 this morning, reports the two have been facing off like that for 10 minutes, blocking traffic (including him) all the way back to Mass. Ave.

John Ford reports on an apparent scam in Cambridge: A single guy rented half of a two-family house, then re-rented it - at a higher rate - to, natch, college students, and is now teaching others how to do this via that wretched den of scum and villiany known as Craigslist:

... Perhaps worst of all, the landlord wanted a single or couple living in her unit upstairs and now "I have drinkers, smokers and partyers who dance until two o'clock in the morning, keeping me up at night." ...

Mitch Blum tweets:

bummy kid shaking down commuters for cash on the [Newburyport/Rockport] train at N. Station...he scored $11.

Katie W. suggests a douche tax, for example, on "the guy doing pull ups and bragging about his appeal to the ladies on the Green Line." Yes, pull ups on the trolley - on the bar above the space designed for wheelchairs.

The Hack reports that foreign riders are the worst but that everybody seems to be tipping less these days:

... I recently had one guy who had a $6.25 fare, handed me a $100 bill and then got ticked off that I didn't have the coin on hand so he could leave me a fifty-cent tip. Instead, I got bupkus.

Rick reports on one of those neighbor-vs-neighbor disputes that spilled into a zoning hearing in his North Shore city when one of the neighbors sought permission to expand her house:

... When the floor came open to the public, there were throngs of support until the abutter - some portly bitter woman, got up and lambasted the petitioner because the development would impede her water view and breeze. But instead of sticking to facts she started spouting how the lady was a spinster, had no need for additional space. She didn't have a boyfriend, there's never been children there in 20 years. There was no need for her to expand. ...

The zoning board disagreed.