Channel 4 reports a guy speeding westbound on the turnpike early this morning lost control of his car, which sailed through the air into an empty toll booth at the Weston plaza and then burst into flames.

With photo of the newly impaled car.

Weston Police say he's one of two people apparently caught by surprise when they tried breaking into a Summer Street home off Rte. 20 around 3:45 a.m. on Dec. 29. Must be Northern Irish, because in addition to describing him as "Irish looking," police report he was wearing an orange T-shirt.

Weston tries to keep a Dunkin' Donuts out of town. And since America runs on Dunkin', ergo ...

What could possibly go wrong when a film crew sets up shop at the Weston toll plaza during morning rush hour - especially when turnpike crews are already there doing some lane reconfiguring? Try a westbound traffic jam from Weston to Newton Corner.

Turnpike mouthpiece Mac Daniel at least had the decency to apologize for this, ah, clustertruck:

... In hindsight, we should not have allowed the filming to take place during the morning rush hour. In addition, work reconfiguring the lanes at the Weston interchange compounded the problem and should have been stopped when the backups began. Again, apologies all around. It won't happen again.

Terry Klein points us to a Mass. Appeals Court decision that gave a thumb's down to an attempt to make "by hand" mean the same as "in hand."

At issue: A $760,000 purchase-and-sale agreement for some property in Weston, specifically, a clause in the agreement that required delivery of documents "in hand."

Turns out the plaintiff dropped off a notice to postpone closing at the defendant's office when nobody was around, but made a point to leave it where he thought somebody would see it, and thought that this was good enough.

The court refused to knuckle under the plaintiff's logic, ruling that this was merely "by hand" delivery, and that just wasn't good enough, because "in hand" means it has to be put in an actual person's hands:

The plaintiff, in essence, asks this court to revise the explicit language of the notice provision from "in hand" to "by hand." We decline.

And then the court nailed the plaintiff for attorney's fees and court costs for the defendant.

Larry Davidson, who teaches at Weston High School, recounts a couple of student discussions he overheard recently, including two kids discussing life in Compton:

... Why do the people in Compton think they have it so tough? Life is actually much harder for us in Weston. We have all this pressure to get good grades and get into the top colleges; they don't have that kind of stress in Compton! ...

Larry Davidson, who teaches in Weston, describes how "Asian" has taken on a new meaning among kids there.

Turnpike ramp is falling down, falling down, falling down ...

Steadfast Correspondent happens upon a bad car crash on Rte. 20 at the Weston/Wayland line. And has his cell-phone camera with him.

Frankie has lived here long enough to know how to use "wicked" correctly, but she still can't find her way around our sign-less cow paths. Take, for example, her attempt yesterday to get to Wellesley College, in a trip that left her somewhere in the middle of Godforsaken Weston:

... I wandered around aimlessly on the unmarked roads until I reached a small cluster of civilization. Oh look! A woman walking with a baby carriage! I pulled over to ask her for directions, but she took one look at my 11 year old car and high tailed it on out of sight as fast as her Talbots-wearing ass could go. Apparently, she mistook my ghetto-mobile and that self-knitted blue and grey scarf I was wearing as an obvious sign of my gang affiliation. I was clearly undergoing some sort of ritualistic initiation where I ask a soccer mom for directions to Wellesley College and beat her senseless with her own Coach bag when she approaches my car. ...