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Ever wonder how busy people get sooo much done? Secrets revealed! Join Socializing for Justice for a Productivity Tech Tips Skillshare on June 4, 6:00 - 8:30 PM.

SoJust hosts events that draw progressives of all stripes who share common values but may work on different issues. We host monthly socials that allow for the possibility of cross-issue connections and run a monthly Skillshare Series, hosted by The NonProfit Center*, which increases our individual capacity for movement building.

RSVP at http://www.sojust.org - newcomers always welcomed!

Cost: $10-$20 collected at the door.

SCHEDULE
6:00-6:30 Socializing - bring your own dinner
6:30-8:30 Training and Q&A

Productivity Tech Tips
The tech world can be an overwhelming place. You know that there are 1001 great (and free) tools you can be using to live a more productive life, but you don't know where to start. Let us help you out! At this skillshare we will go in depth to demonstrate many great tools you should be using everyday, including Rapportive (social media Gmail integration), Google docs and forms, Google voice, Jing (video captures), Dropbox and much more. Have a favorite productivity tech tool? Email it to robbie AT sojust DOT org.

ABOUT OUR PRESENTERS

Brookline Graffiti delivers what it promises: Photos of graffiti - and the anonymous blogger's war on it:

As you can see, the razor just scraped away what would have been many layers of scrubbing! Usually you have to alternate a layer of scrub with a layer of scraping, as the solvent penetrates on each pass. But in some cases, like on this mailbox, I got almost all of it off on the first scrape.

Whenever I have a smooth surface, I always have my long razor handy. It saves a lot of time, and sometimes, is the only way you’ll get some paints off the surface.

Via Samuel Klein.

Mark Levy at Cambridge Day puts Cambridge businesses on record: If you put a giant "Going Out of Business" sale in your window, he's going to write about it, even if you ask him not to. He's tired of getting scooped on stories he knew about first.

On Limeduck, David reports he's a co-founder of a concern called Sprout Lenders, an investment club hoping to support local farms and locavore food concerns in the Boston area:

If you believe in any of the ideas of Slow Money and Slow Food, how can you advance those agendas in your community? Buying local and eating local are great starts, but individual action only goes as far as your own spending. Activism, advocacy and lobbying are other paths. In the organizing discussions at Sprout Lenders, we wanted to take our experience in business and orientation as capitalists in a kinder and localer direction.

Equity investing might be the "slower" path, being more involved in the running of the business and having a long time horizon. Lending, however, is somewhat lower risk for us as beginning investors, and it fits the seasonal and cyclical needs that a lot of food businesses have for working capital. If we're successful, the loan fund will grow with interest on repayment, and we can help several businesses a year become a little more successful themselves.

Do you often get stuck in conversations? Not know how to approach people at networking events? Join Socializing for Justice for a fast-paced, fun & interactive Skillshare on the Art of the Schmooze on May 14, 6:00 - 8:30 PM at the NonProfit Center*, 89 South St, Boston.

Register at http://www.sojust.org - Newcomers always welcomed!

SoJust hosts events that draw progressives of all stripes that share common values but may work on different issues. We create social spaces that allow for the possibility of cross-issue connections and run a Skillshare Series, hosted by The NonProfit Center, which builds our individual capacity to make a difference in the world.

SCHEDULE
6:00-6:30 Socializing - bring your own dinner
6:30-8:30 Training
8:00-8:30 Q & A and more socializing

Event fee: $10-$20 cash at the door.

SoJust's Co-Founder, Robbie Samuels, who is well known for his schmoozing skills, is this month's facilitator.

Art of the Schmooze

Deb Geisler reports some computer at Brigham and Women's Hospital keeps making appointments for her in departments that have no record of her - and then calling her to inform her about them.

So Richard Chudy, the Boston Burger Guy, raved about the burger at the Citizen Pub on Boylston Street, finding fault only with the bun.

An outraged David A. DuBois, CEO of the Franklin Group, which owns both the pub and Tasty Burger, replied by calling Chudy an asshole and saying he'd like to meet him in person to drive the point home even more.

Armed with an April food-truck schedule, David at Limeduck is attempting to sample the offerings from each truck. He starts with a visit to the venerable Savory Food Truck 1, which was dishing up Chinese food at MIT probably long before anybody at Clover was even born:

Yep, that's the stuff. Fried rice, a layer of bulk-adding cost-cutting cabbage, no more than three chunks of not-overcooked broccoli, and tons of would-be-crispy-if-n0t-drenched-in-gloopy-sauce white meat chicken. Bad for the earth styrofoam box, flimsy plastic fork. Piquant without really being spicy, served hot and fast, and filling filling filling. There's nothing Michelin-rated here except maybe the tires on the truck, but it's still a national treasure to me.

A party by tech-blog site BostInno that featured free cans of Naragansett beer landed Ned Devine's before the Boston Licensing Board today.

The Turnstile Theater Company's Blogoliloquy, at the Boston Center for the Arts next week, is a play that focuses on "life and people in Boston" as told through the posts on six actual local blogs.

The Passionate Foodie fires back at the Globe for a piece that raised ethical questions about bloggers who accept free meals from local restaurants, by charging the author has herself accepted free stuff:

The Boston Globe correspondent who penned the Boston Bruncher article is named Kathleen Pierce and I have met her. In fact, I met her back in March 2010 when we both attended a free wine junket to Paso Robles, California. Free airfare, free hotel, free meals, free wine tastings, and more. As a reasonable estimate, each writer probably received benefits worth at least $2000. This really puzzles me. How can the writer who received such a bountiful freebie now complain about a blogger receiving only a $30 brunch? Even if a blogger went to 10 of those brunches, the value of those meals still would not equate to the value of the wine junket.

UPDATE: Doug Most at the Globe sent this statement:

Kathleen Pierce did take the wine trip in question. It was more than two years ago. We were unaware of it, because at the time she was not a regular freelancer for The Globe. She was working part-time in a wine store and had only done a several freelance pieces. She did not write about the trip for The Globe, which would have been in direct violation of the Globe's ethics policy. I spoke with her and reminded her of the Globe’s freelance policy and the importance of adhering to the standards we apply to all our writers, which is that they must avoid any junkets or trips or free meals that put them in conflict, or the appearance of conflict, with anything they have written about or may write about in the future.

The Passionate Foodie displays some repertorial herring-do as he roams the floor at the annual International Boston Seafood Show.

Dan Kennedy considers a proposed law to protect journalists' sources that appears to extend its definition of "journalist" to bloggers - although they might have to show they actually make some money from their online writing.

Earlier:
State court system includes bloggers in definition of journalists.

The Supreme Judicial Court this week approved a new rule that for the first time will let "citizen journalists" photograph trials and other court proceedings on a routine basis.

Nate Swain, the guy who wraps old walls in giant photo sheets, has started a site to chronicle the ugly and the ennui inducing walls and abandoned storefronts of Boston:

These neglected places are everywhere in our landscape. They are areas that all have potential to be something more beautiful but currently fail. I have gone around the entire city taking photographs of the public realm. I have trained my eyes to hunt these spots out. I have figured only about 10% to 15% of Boston is blank ugly. Don’t let that number fool you. There are thousands of these drab spaces and places. The square footage is massive. They add up to something blanker and uglier than the sum of their parts.

Does anyone remember Bucky from the Teddybear and what he is doing now? Forever Amber

You'd think a new restaurant seeking to, um, curry favor with the local foodie bloggerati would put some effort into a "VIP Grand Opening Party" for them:

If you just want to be a drinking spot, a watering hole for locals, a dive bar with a fancy wall by another name, then throw open the doors and let them in. Just don't invite food writers to your VIP Party and expect them to take your poor excuse for dining and your shoddy, inexcusable service as anything less than a revolting violation of trust. You are a true, lasting, memorable disappointment.

Southie Wing Quest flies the coop and samples wings from across eastern Mass.

Ubiquitous Berlin is all about Rick Berlin.

Jamaica Pond Monster (Jessie) sightings.

Blue Mass Group and Red Mass Group are joining the online protest against two bills in Congress that would privatize parts of due process and force Web sites to become proxies for music and movie companies in their mad dash to go after copyright infringement.

Richard Auffrey reports that a company called iPura is once again offering a $1,000 prize to the local blogger/tweeter who best captures the raging glory that is the awesome world of seafood products and services at the annual International Boston Seafood Show in March.

Mike the Mad Biologist notes the annoying irony of giant publisher Reed Elsevier posting an extract of something he wrote and then slapping a copyright notice on it - an explanation of why he thinks Reed Elsevier sucks.

The Jamaica Plain Gazette reports:

Sammons, who often traverses the neighborhood dressed in his brown cloth habit tied with a cord, writes about the religious life in a blog called “A Minor Friar” (friarminor.blogspot.com). His posts range from scholarly commentary on Catholic theology to the perils of walking across the Arborway.

Mixed in are plentiful references to the likes of horror-punkers the Misfits and diabolical thrashers Slayer. The music may seem surprising—and certainly is to some of Sammons' peers. But the metal and punk subcultures brought Sammons a key realization: "the given thing, the given taste, is not what you really want."

Students Against T Cuts is just what it sounds like: Area college students working to fight proposed cuts at the T. Repeal forward funding, they argue.