At first glance, this imported household product looks like a package of six multi-colored abrasive sponges. But after reading the label, we’re not so sure. Clearly, this product necessary product improves with culture knowledge of dwelling understanding.

Brushing & Washing King

 - Never stick any grease

 - Good helper for cleansing

 - The superior Choice Residential Necessaries

 This product is the clear high-tech kitchen with general world Clean appliance, have decontamination power strong do not have scar to not glue The characteristic such as oil is the kitchen clean appliance that receives America, Japan and Italy deeply to wait for the world housewives thick love of every place.

Suitable scope: Family, guesthouse and hotel etc. rub to wash the clean utensil such as refrigerator, washer, and plastic product of aluminum products, porcelain wares and glass utensil.

 
Yu Wu Jiang Ting Ting Commodity Factory
Factory site: Zhe Yi Tuan Industrial District
Made in China

4/20/2008 12:01:14 PM by Clif Garboden | Comments [0] |  

That is actually not a joke. A group of folks in the ultra-leftist California city would like to honor our current president. And they hope to do it by naming a city building after him.

A sewage treatment facility.

"The local grassroots movement, helmed by 'Wayne Pickering,' is proposing an ordinance initiative for the November 2008 San Francisco ballot in order to get the poop/pee/vomit plant's title changed. Why? To honor our current leader of the free world with an "appropriate and enduring legacy, for no other president in modern American history has accomplished so much in such a short time."

Perfect.

4/3/2008 8:57:15 AM by Ryan Stewart | Comments [0] |  

Tee hee! We're all a-titter over this week's Observer cover, although we can imagine Anna Wintour has an enormous bee buzzing in her bonnet right about now. Oh my!

Here is this April's cover of Vogue, featuring LeBron James and Gisele Bundchen. It was shot by Annie Leibovitz: click for what might have been her "inspiration." As you might imagine, its been causing quite the stir!



Weeee! Here's the Observer's silly little spoof, conveniently timed to their magazine-themed issue. Doesn't Si Newhouse look ever so dainty?

4/2/2008 3:32:32 PM by Sharon Steel | Comments [0] |  

The Guardian online reports: "A robotic cat with magical powers has been enlisted by Japan's diplomatic corps to promote the country's popular culture overseas."   

Enough said.

3/20/2008 11:12:28 AM by Clif Garboden | Comments [0] |  

3/18/2008 9:27:16 AM by Ryan Stewart | Comments [0] |  

   There were flowers, of course at the Mass Horticultural Society Flower Show — a/k/a/ “Rhapsody in Green” — at the Bayside Expo center last week. But not as many as we’d expected.

Actually, the majority of the capacious Bayside show-space was taken up by a craft fair where vendors large and small pitched everything from decorative brass frogs to chain saws to home-equity loans. That part was a bore, but the plants were nice.

Some were displayed in natural settings; others in inventive arrangements. A survey of the award-winning table-top arrangements made you wonder what these shows must have been like before gay liberation.

Still others were showcased in elaborate stand-alone garden plots, each of which had a theme — some recognizable, some comparatively oblique. There was one set up as a monastery herb garden and several simulations of soul-defiant suburban back yards. One incorporated an electronic grand piano, programmed to tinkle out gag-me hits of the 1980s. And then there were these two pictured displays.

We never got an explanation.

3/16/2008 1:43:02 PM by Clif Garboden | Comments [0] |  

Obama the Giant Has A Posse

Not bad for a guy who started out making "Andre the Giant Has A Posse" stickers, eh?

Today, the campaign of Barack H. Obama unveiled its newest campaign tool -- a limited (but not too limited) edition poster of the candidate designed by Shepard Fairey, the street-art provocateur who helped popularize the idea of brand-theft/street-art/anti-marketing as a swiss-army tool of urban resistance. Let's first say this about the Barack posters: they're pretty fucking cool. The one at top was unveiled by Fairey on his own site and sold out in seconds (b&W paster pdf is available here if you want it; it's also available as a t-shirt.). The one at bottom is coming soon to an Obama online marketplace near you.

Even more remarkable is the personal thank-you note he got from Obama, in which the candidate bravely ignores the political consequences of endorsing the defacement of public property. It reads, in part:

"Your images have a profound effect on people, whether seen in a gallery or on a stop sign. I am privileged to be a part of your artwork and proud to have your support." 

You heard it here first: Barack Obama, the wheat-paste candidate.

Although the Andre stickers were mainly a wacky RISD sk8er-boi in-joke at first, Fairey was able to speak enough artspeak to enough critics that he was granted his own artform. The idea of promoting something that doesn't exist is now so thoroughly ingrained in the culture (and on its lampposts) that it seems impossible to imagine a world without it. Fairey proved so good at promoting imaginary, anti-concept concepts that, inevitably, he was able to get lots of actual commercial work. Later, he developed a fetish for Soviet- and other mid-century Communist propoganda -- in the process further cementing some nice critic-friendly connections between consumer culture and totalitarian rule.

Here comes the punchline. Ready?

Shepard Fairey has now made the leap from making art about political propoganda to making political propoganda.

Without naming names, we will simply pause at this juncture to recall that history has not always been kind to artists who use their aesthetic talents in the service of coercive political messaging.

Then again, Mitt Romney had a posse first.

Here is Fairey's statement, courtesy of the Obama camp:

"I wanted to make an art piece of Barack Obama because I thought an iconic portrait of him could symbolize and amplify the importance of his mission. I believe Obama will guide this country to a future where everyone can thrive and I should support him vigorously for the sake of my two young daughters. I have made art opposing the Iraq war for several years, and making art of Obama, who opposed the war from the start, is like making art for peace. I know I have an audience of young art fans and I'm delighted I can encourage them to see the merits of Barack Obama."

We've admired Shephard's art for many years. Most recently, we jonsed severely for his MC5/White Panther Party streetwear line. But if you are the kind of person who just thought, "Shit, maybe they shouldn't be mentioning the words 'White Panther Party' and 'Barack Obama' in the same blog entry," then you understand why this whole thing is making us just a little bit uncomfortable.

3/12/2008 2:46:25 PM by Carly Carioli | Comments [0] |  

3/4/2008 9:48:09 AM by Ryan Stewart | Comments [0] |  

This is real. Or at least, at the video's end, seventy-year old Jack Nicholson, in stunning pair of tinted eyeglasses, appears as himself and says, "I'm Jack Nicholson and I approve this message."

3/3/2008 5:26:33 PM by Ellee Dean | Comments [0] |  

RAIN ON THEIR PARADE
5 years ago
February 21, 2003| Seth Gitell wondered if the imminent invasion of Iraq could turn into a quagmire of urban combat like the 1993 debacle in Mogadishu, Somalia.
“There are scores of optimists (mainly in the Pentagon) who believe the Iraqi army will evaporate into the ether. According to this optimistic scenario, the American entry into Baghdad will resemble the Allied liberation of Paris in 1944. Most experts believe US forces will quickly take control of the countryside, an event, they figure, that will have a demoralizing effect on the rest of the Iraqi military. ‘When an army loses the countryside and finds itself reduced to just defending a couple key cities, they tend to just melt away,’ says retired Marine Corps general Bernard Trainor, a senior MSNBC military analyst.

“But what if that doesn’t happen? Baghdad is a city of almost five million people; it’s roughly the size of Chicago. While most military experts don’t think the ordinary citizenry will take up arms (if they even have them) in Hussein’s defense, the dense urban environment could provide formidable cover for members of Iraq’s Special units, including its Special Republican Guard and various intelligence services. ...

“The US has good reason to fear city battles. The last time American soldiers fought in a city, in 1993, in Mogadishu, Somalia, the US lost 18 servicemen, in a battle that saw some of their bodies dragged through the streets. Even though they were ultimately victorious, the difficulty American troops had in securing the Vietnamese city of Hue during the Tet Offensive in 1968 (remember the combat scenes in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket?) helped the public lose confidence in the war in Vietnam.” Read Article here
 
SMOKE AND MIRRORS
10 years ago
February 20, 1998 | The Phoenix commiserated on Mayor Thomas Menino’s public smoking ban proposal.
“There is no compelling reason for this kind of far-reaching change. The ratio of smoking seats to non-smoking ones already tilts heavily in favor of those who don’t smoke. Some establishments ban smoking entirely. And the few that do cater to more tobacco-loving crowds still obey government guidelines. Choices abound for diners. ...
...
“Boston is supposed to be a sophisticated city, not a nanny state. Let businesspeople decide how to best meet the demands of the public. And let the public make up its own mind about where it wants to eat and drink.” Read Article here

HEAR THEM ROAR
25 years ago
February 22, 1983 | Alan Lupo wrote about the growing clout of the Hispanic community in Boston.
“ ‘The only power we have is through the ballot,’ says Maria Sanchez, a social worker who spends her time off registering her Latino neighbors in the sprawling Mission Hill projects. When Sanchez arrived there, nine years ago, very few were registered. She began knocking on doors, driving around with a loudspeaker on her car encouraging neighbors to register and to vote, and taking people to the polls. Now, she estimates, about 75 percent of the potential voters are registered. To her, there is a direct connection between voting and getting services. ‘Politicians have told me that people in public housing don’t vote. The funding comes to neighborhoods with registered voters who vote. I can’t tell a person to vote and she’ll get the food the next day. I’m talking in general — politicians are concerned with neighborhoods that do vote.’ ” Read Article here

QUICK STUDY
35 years ago
February 20, 1973 | Charlie McCollum sounded off on the city budget.
“Governmental budgets are the funniest animals. The federal budget is all but incomprehensible and it can be years before the general public and the Congress find out they have been dealt a dirty hand by some bureaucrat. The state budget is only slightly more understandable. That budget, a state rep once observed, is designed for maximum confusion and minimum comprehension.

“And then there’s the budget for the City of Boston. The federals can spend billions on useless jet planes and petty dictatorships. The state can pour millions down Account 03 tubes. But the city catches all the flak. Budget allocations for police, schools, firemen and street repairs are far more comprehensible to the average city dweller than the defense budget and 03 accounts. When state and federal taxes go up, the average citizen shouts. When Boston property taxes go up, he screams.”

2/21/2008 12:53:24 PM by Ian Sands | Comments [0] |  

As always, in times of trouble, trial, and tribulation -- no less THE SINGLE WORST LOSS IN NEW ENGLAND SPORTS HISTORY -- we look to . . . Hannah Montana. Oh, Miley, what would you sing to a town writhing in misery this morning? What have you for the vanquished 2007-08 New England Patriots, a team whose season is destined to replace "Casey at the Bat" as the tragic, cautionary sports tale of all time?

2/4/2008 8:12:03 AM by Carly Carioli | Comments [0] |  

I just discovered this handy, helpful chart on the Project Runway Season 4 wiki page, whilst dreamily envisioning what fashion challenges our beloved contestents might encounter on tonight's episode. (Who needs writers when we've still got the two best shows on television, Proj Run and History Detectives?). [Ed. note - You're a writer.] Oh, right. Nevermind. I <3 writers. Anyway, here's the chart:

This is the squinty, mini version, of course. For the real thing, look here. So, let's get out our pointers and consult the cold hard facts of the chart, shall we? Judging solely on wins, Christian, Jillian, Rami and Victorya seem to be the top contenders, although Kevin ranked high scores for four out of seven challenges - but now he's out. My money for winner is on Jillian or Christian, even though he's ranked low on two challenges - the judges just don't understand sometimes, ya know? I mean, Nina Garcia never changes her effing hairstyle! Does anyone else notice this? Why is it always down? Never a casual ponytail, or maybe a Chanel scarf. Nope, nothing - totally boring. And Heidi flops between dramatic hairstyles like they're sticks of Juicy Fruit. Nina, it's a show about fashion, live it up a little! How can we trust you in that repetitive, vanilla 'do? I digress, back to investigating the chart. The next one out, according to lowest scores, should be Rami (Rami! He's so complex), Sweet P (but I'd miss her funny commentary!), and Ricky. Ah, Ricky. How has he possibly made it this far? Is he bribing someone at Bravo? Does nobody notice these horrible mesh, male escortish police hats he wears every day? I'll bet you $15 worth of Mode fabrics that he'll be out tonight. I miss Kit already.

1/23/2008 11:42:00 AM by Caitlin | Comments [0] |  

Here's what we imagine happening between last Friday and this morning: football pundits like Peter King started mentally drafting their AFC Championship preview columns for Monday that would have focused on how if there was one team who could beat the Patriots, it was the team that most resembled the previous, title-winning editions of the Patriots: the Indianapolis Colts. Then, we picture them all watching Sunday's game and thinking in the backs of their minds "What do we do now?"

Credit the Chargers, for sure. We were initially tempted to declare a Patriots-Packers Super Bowl as inevitable, but perhaps we shouldn't look past this team, who beat the heavily-favored Colts despite injuries to Phillip Rivers, Antonio Gates, and LaDanian Tomlinson. Their coach, Norv Turner, has been mocked quite a bit, but he had his team prepared.

For the Colts, on the other hand, one must wonder if their window is closing. Tony Dungy might retire and Marvin Harrison may never be the same again. Their offseason should be an interesting one.

1/14/2008 10:05:33 AM by Ryan Stewart | Comments [0] |  

There's a lot of hatred being directed toward the new Guitar Hero Air Guitar Rocker, a device from Jada Toys (available in March) which allows its operator to air guitar "out loud," if you will. Most of it seems to be coming from outraged Guitar Hero fans, who apparently find the idea ridiculous, even reprehensible, thinking it will somehow dilute the brand. While we're not surprised to see the reaction, especially when the first glimpse of it in action came courtesy of this guy at this week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, we don't think it's much sillier than standing in front of a screen with a plastic guitar. And to be perfectly honest, we couldn't be happier that all of our Bill and Ted-inspired fantasies are now going to be realized. Ladies and gentlemen, air guitaring just got a whole lot more exciting.

                                                 Fuck Yeah.

1/9/2008 11:42:37 AM by Ian Sands | Comments [0] |  

12/28/2007 4:41:03 PM by Ryan Stewart | Comments [0] |  

Playing catch up on Jezebel, I caught this horrifying freakshow of Bindi Irwin rapping about the jungle book, grizzlies, and orangutans on Today. The fact that her mother let this happen makes me want to hurt someone. This girl needs a Degrassi marathon and some pants that aren't pedal-pushers. More importantly, therapy. And more time to grieve for her father OFF the camera. Stat. Thanks.

11/27/2007 1:45:49 PM by Sharon Steel | Comments [1] |  

10/22/2007 3:37:36 PM by Ian Sands | Comments [0] |  

Just announced Wednesday, Capcom is releasing Street Fighter IV, a continuation of one of the most popular fighting games of all time. We can't rightly call it the fourth installment because of the numerous different variations Capcom has made for each different iteration of the series. It's been ten years since the first proper release of Street Fighter III, but we suspect most gamers only remember the landmark SFII (plus Championship Edition, Championship Edition: Turbo, etc.) And judging from the trailer, Capcom is banking on the nostalgia factor. Nothing wrong with that in this case.

10/17/2007 10:43:47 PM by Ryan Stewart | Comments [0] |  

Friend: ... are you for real? you’re really going to a UFO convention?

Me: yeah

Friend: you’re going willingly?

Me: yeah

Friend: with people?

 

It’s been a secret dream of mine to attend a UFO event. I have long been intrigued by the paranormal. When I was a kid I would spy ghouls in the windows of silent houses on a regular basis. I’d pore through stories of UFO sightings in books and on the internet. I could get lost in the stuff for an entire day. Suffice to say, I was looking forward to the Mass UFO show.

 

So why did I make a run for the door after 30 minutes on Friday night, feeling like an ass after John Horrigan, the event organizer, was kind enough to get me in? Because it was spectacularly boring. Arriving at Hibernian Hall in Watertown, I walked into a dark room, where a woman was giving a slide show presentation. She was telling us in her crusty monotone about her stay at a young man’s farm house and the weird things that happened to her there. Something like 40 people were sitting around in neat little rows listening to this. Off to the side, there were about 6 or 7 men and women — presenters, most likely — all of them dapper in suits. From where I was sitting, the "exhibits" surrounding the room looked like the sort elementary school science students might craft to adorn the school gymnasium come science fair. The woman continued on about how she and this man went out to the fields one night to take pictures/inspect a crop circle. All of the photos taken of the man, she announced with newfound excitement, came out blurry. Someone gasped at this. I looked down at the program I’d been given at the door on which we were instructed not to talk to any of our fellow attendees during the presentations. Not until the 15 minute or so intermissions, which looked to be scattered around presentations much like this woman's, throughout the program. After the woman finished, a man was readying his own presentation. It was then that I jetted, not wanting to spend my Friday night in such a setting.

 

I’m not sure what I was expecting — at the very least, I thought I’d be entertained. It was a UFO show for fuck sakes. Where was the hysteria, the color, the fun?!?

10/15/2007 3:29:48 PM by Ian Sands | Comments [2] |  

When I first heard about the idea of “leaf peeping,” I thought it was a joke. It was in an episode of Family Guy, as I recall, and as I had never spent an autumn in New England, I could only assume that the “hoards” of tourists who descend like Hellfire on the Northeast “to watch the leaves change color” was some kind of hyperbolic mockery of people with a severely bastardized concept of both nature and vacations…

So it is with incredulity that I look at the Boston Globe and see that Columbus Day was Maine’s 2nd biggest tourism weekend because of the some 700,000 carloads of people, apparently eager to take their three-day weekend and go peep some leaves.  Similarly, Eileen Ognitz at CNN International offers some ideas on how to keep the kids entertained on your leaf-peeping trip, and the Aspen Times sadly reports to it’s citizenry that the 2007 Leaf Peeping season is past it’s peak.

Where’s the jocular ridicule? Gentle scorn? A stray facetious compliment or an underhanded jab? Far be it from me to condemn someone’s fetish, dendrophelic or otherwise, but has leaf-peeping moved so far into the mainstream that journalists can’t mock it publicly? Seriously: leaf-peeping? Yes, it's pretty, but that's a perk, not a reason. That's like paying $2200 to stay at the Ritz Carlton because they put mints on your pillow.

Holy Shit.

I get nature. It’s splendid, and I readily concede that a picture of the Grand Canyon cannot begin to substitute for being there, toeing the precipice, wind in face, sun on back, etc. But there is a sense of grandeur involved in such things, and I have a hard time imagining that a red leaf is that much better than a picture of a red leaf, so much so that it would be worth a 3-day weekend that could be spent watching baseball or… you know… doing nearly anything else.

-- Jason O’Bryan

10/11/2007 12:48:10 PM by phloggist | Comments [0] |  

One of the traditions at The New Yorker that has continued unabated by tables of contents, photographs, bylined Talks of the Town, and other heady incursions of late-20th-century magazining is the "newsbreak" -- the wry, lightly condescending filler blurbs at the tail end of select New Yorker stories in which the magazine's copy-editing staff, having plowed through its 3,000-word feature for the afternoon and availed of no better way to entertain itself, takes to excerpting the copy-editing malapropisms of lesser publications. E.B. White once said, "I still regard newsbreaks as the thing I came to earth for." White even edited a book-length collection of newsbreaks; in later years, the tradition spawned an entire genre of shitty late-night comedy bits (see "Jaywalking").

The newsbreak is such a New Yorker hallmark that, when we came across page 63 of frequent New Yorker contributor Jeffrey Toobin's Supreme Court tome The Nine, we wondered whether Toobin hadn't edited in a newsbreak just to get another mention of the book wedged into his magazine's hallowed pages. If so, it would be the meta-est newsbreak of all time: a New Yorker writer caught in a malaprop involving The New Yorker. (Remember, all, that italics are reserved for publication names, albums, and the titles of creative works.) In the style, then, of a New Yorker newsbreak, we give you the Newsbreak of the Century:

HOOPLA DEPT.

"[In picking a list of potential Supreme Court nominees] the names of several nonjudges came up, but it quickly became clear that [Bill] Clinton was most interested in one of them -- Mario Cuomo, then governor of New York.

Clinton and Cuomo had a complicated relationship. Clinton admired The New Yorker's way with words but found his indecisiveness maddening."

We never liked him either, Bill.

For all you bookworms, Toobin discusses The Nine on Wednesday evening at the Brattle Theater, in conversation with local lega-eagle Alan Dershowitz. Tickets available through Harvard Book Store.

10/8/2007 3:05:03 PM by Carly Carioli | Comments [0] |  

It seems like the Heroes writers were so busy packing their premiere with plot that they neglected to consider that they were also making it unwatchable. A character had barely enough time last night to finish his/her lines before we were whisked off to the next character’s scene. Ok that’s an overstatement. But you get my point.

 

Surely, last season had the same insanely crowded feel to it — so, why oh why is the approach only getting on my nerves just now?

 

 

stuff I didn’t like:

 

Kill the cheerleader already. They keep moving Claire Bear from town to town, but all roads inevitably lead to Dullsville.

 

While we’re at it, kill the Petrelli mom as well.

 

No Kristen Bell. Where is the sassy star we were promised?

 

The show’s insistence that we were experiencing limited commercial interruptions courtesy of Nissan kinda made me feel like burning down a Nissan dealership.

 

The random trivia question in the middle. Because I didn’t know the answer.

 

 

stuff I liked:

 

Save the cheerleader’s creepy Dad. The scene in which Jack Coleman kicks his boss’s ass killed me last night. Man loves his coffee breaks!

 

Nathan Petrelli’s beard. Dynamite.

 

The argument between little Molly Walker and her mind-reading new daddy Matt Parkman as to whether the latter actually cheated on his police exercise by using his powers to ace his scene.

 

Hiro finding out that his own hero, Takezo Kensei, is a white Brit and a drunk to boot.

 

Ned Ryerson as Goldenstash

 

 

 

Hmm, although simple mathematics says otherwise, I still say the premiere stunk.

 

 

How I Met Your Mother didn’t fare much better last night. In fact, it was so bad that I was embarrassed to be watching it in front of my girlfriend, whom I invited over to watch it for the first time.

 

stuff I didn’t like:

 

The huzzah over Ted’s so-called “tramp stamp.” Wow, guy gets drunk, wakes up with a girly tattoo. There’s a new one for you. Let’s all shit our pants over that one.

 

The casting of gorgeous Mandy Moore as Ted’s one night stand — one of those experiments that sounds like a hoot on paper — turned out to be a major flop.

 

stuff I liked:

 

The casting of Enrique Iglesias as Robyn’s new boy toy may have on paper been a terrible idea, but in practice his scenes worked out much better for the show than Moore's did. The scene where he’s feeding Robyn and says with feeling, “taste the food,” raised a rare laugh from me. And the one where the camera moves from friend to friend, all of them visibly smitten with Iglesias’s character, was also funny. Especially when it stopped at the batty-eyed Morgan. I’m still convinced the former freak on Freaks And Geeks, Jason Segal, is the best thing about that show.

9/25/2007 4:31:41 PM by Ian Sands | Comments [0] |  

Last Wednesday night began average enough for Lee Peters. He stopped in at Economy Hardware on Mass Ave in Boston, near Christian Science Plaza, around 6 p.m. When he walked outside, he explains via an e-mail from the Boston Critical Mass chain, he saw “two people standing around my bike in the middle of stealing it. I ran forward, the guy saw me laughed as if we were friends. Then he took a swing at me with the bolt cutters. I ducked. He ran. I got on my bike to follow. I couldn't find him.”

But the story doesn’t end there. Turns out there are some Good Samaritans in Boston - Christian Science Monitor staffer Andrew Heining, a stranger to Peters, who’d had two bikes stolen in the same area, witnessed the incident, and took action. He explains, via a lengthy entry from his Facebook page (we shortened it to the abridged version):

“One of them ran across Mass. Ave., directly toward me. Never one to shy from the action, I took chase. In fact, I began yelling: 'Call the police! This guy's stealing bikes!'

I was right on his heels for most of the chase (I was on my bike and he on foot), and I never stopped yelling for people to call the police, much to their collective puzzlement... It was at this point that he got a little tired of me following him, and he stopped running... I again yelled for someone to call the police (and this time, someone did - a bystander from Mass Ave, who'd followed us, cell phone in hand, and was standing behind me now)... he came at me, swinging the bag of tools he'd been carrying - a pair of bolt cutters, a socket set, a screwdriver, and I think a saw - hitting me in the back. We wrestled, Greco roman style... he escaped, pushing both me and the other guy who'd stopped to help out of the way, and running, this time up Dalton St., over the Mass Pike. ...a police car came screaming down Scotia street after like 45 seconds, and, upon being told that I had been chasing the thief, the officer told me to get in and help him look for him.”

A different police car eventually tracked down the thief, and the police asked Heining to ID him. Now, he says, the thief is being charged with: "larceny, being in possession of burglary tools (he dropped the bag of them in the scuffle with me at Scotia street), and, get this – assault with a deadly weapon. Yep, that bag of tools constituted a deadly weapon."

One bike thief down, thanks to two unfuckwithable bystanders. And a bunch o’ police. Nice job, guys.

9/24/2007 3:07:02 PM by Caitlin | Comments [1] |  

Spoilers abound, even if Fox is the one doing the spoiling.

9/20/2007 8:24:34 PM by Ryan Stewart | Comments [0] |  

Today’s Globe features a front page, above the fold story about Mayor Menino’s plans to make Boston more bike friendly (titled “Pedal Pushing,” ugh. Did someone’s grandmother think up that headline?). It’s serendipitous timing since, as I was biking to work today I:  a) was nearly hit by some dude in a black two-door of some sort, who sped past me to get to the um, red light. Which was about 50 feet ahead. And b) was nearly hit by a white SUV of some sort, which swerved in front of me just over the BU bridge, in an apparently speedy race to get to the quiet neighborhoods of Brookline.  So now Boston's going to become a biking city?

Menino has big plans:

“A newly converted cyclist himself, Menino will announce today the hiring of a bike czar, former Olympic cyclist Nicole Freedman, and a first phase of improvements to include 250 new bike racks across Boston and an online map system.

In the next several years, Menino said, he plans to create a network of bike lanes on roads such as Massachusetts Avenue and Commonwealth Avenue in the Back Bay and the Fenway. Paths could also be constructed to connect the Emerald Necklace system of parks, and the mayor is looking at facilities like showers, bike storage areas, and automated bike rental systems that make wheels instantly available to anyone with a credit card.”

There’s more!

“Boston's planners also hope to address a major concern: About one-fourth of respondents to a 2005 Internet poll of area residents said they would ride to work more often if there were showers available.

Officials plan to encourage businesses to offer shower facilities, and will try to encourage local gyms to allow nonmembers to use their showers. The city is also considering coin-operated public showers.”

That all sounds great, but what’s not discussed in the story is an epiphany I had after my frustrating ride to work today, is that there’s a massive problem with driver mentality.  The people that speed past bikers, or cut us off, or honk their horns, and give us dirty looks think of the road as their road. They think the road belongs to cars, and we bikers are permitted to use it occasionally, provided we stay out of the way, like polite road guests. There’s a reason those “Share the road” stickers are kicking around - those of us who choose to bike are tired of this mode of thinking. Menino’s bike lanes might give us a bit more space, and a shower here and there would be nice (gotta shed that whole smelly biker rep), but until Boston’s drivers are willing to be conscious of the fact that the road belongs to everyone, Boston’s spot at the top of worst biking city lists will hold firm. So, what's Menino's plan of attack for that?

 

9/20/2007 1:07:03 PM by Caitlin | Comments [0] |  

As reported here and here, the kid in the video above is Rhain Davis. He's being called "the next Wayne Rooney" and he just signed with Manchester United. And he's nine years old.

Since we don't really know soccer beyond the Deuce, we only have this to add: how long before real life turns into this Mr. Show clip?

8/2/2007 11:58:52 AM by Ryan Stewart | Comments [0] |  

 

Yesterday was a day of triumph for Tom Lehrer. "It just takes a smidgen’ to poison a pigeon," the Harvard-educated comedian gleefully sang in 1959. "When they see us coming, the pigeons all try an’ hide, but they still go for peanuts when coated with cyanide." In his strained rhyme, Lehrer satirically worried about the response of the Audubon Society, but, as it turns out, his methods have finally earned the approval of animal-rights activists. Sort of.

 

In Lehrer’s home state of California, PETA and the Argyle Civic Association have conspired to dispose of the pestilent pigeon population by no less insidious means. "Citizen Pigeon," a rooftop operation launched yesterday in Hollywood, aims to cull flock growth by "humanely" lacing the birds’ food with an oral contraceptive called OvoControl.

 

According to a recent BBC article, the pigeon population there could dive-bomb to 50% by 2012.

 

"Citizen Pigeon is a win-win project," said PETA wildlife biologist Stephanie Boyles, in a press release: "Businesses get fewer pigeons roosting on their buildings, and pigeons are spared cruel deaths."

 

Yes, perhaps: replacing strychnine with birth control may take better care of the birds. But Lehrer (now a renowned lecturer at UC Santa Cruz) might say they were missing the point.

--Caroline Perry

 

7/31/2007 12:42:34 PM by Nina MacLaughlin | Comments [0] |  

At first, I was oddly lukewarm on this. Sure, there's the obvious immediate benefits. The Celtics now boast an All-Star caliber trio that could easily run roughshod over the perennially weak Eastern Conference. It's not a stretch to say that the Celtics are now not only a playoff team, but also a contender for the Eastern Conference Finals as long as Pierce, Allen, and Garnett all stay healthy.

But at the same time, those three will all be over 30 by season's end. They'll all start showing their age two or three years from now. Will the Celtics just turn into another version of the bloated Knicks at that time with no payroll flexibility to get younger? And what kind of depth does the current team have left? Does it matter that they'll be starting Rajon Rondo and Kendrick Perkins with a bench of basically Tony Allen, Big Baby Davis, and Brian Scalabrine? Will this be what holds them back come next spring? Or will veterans now be rushing to play for this team for less money? And have we forgotten that Doc Rivers is still the coach?

Also, it just hurts to give up Al Jefferson. I know there's a tendency to overrate youth and potential, but Jefferson is a future All-Star.

But in the time since learning about the deal, I've come to realize a few things. First off, Al Jefferson may be earmarked for future greatness, but Garnett is great now, and at a level Jefferson, great as he might get, would be hard-pressed to match. And also, as Jackie MacMullan points out, the other Eastern contenders haven't done much to improve their rosters. The rest of the Conference is that bad (remember the Finals?), so a three-man team like this one can make it through to the end. Once you're in the finals, who knows what can happen. This was a chance the team needed to take. Maybe there will be problems facing this team a few years down the line, but hopefully by then whoever's running the front office will have a plan for a swifter rebuilding process, one that doesn't involve attempting to cater to an establish franchise player like Pierce. So I guess what I'm saying is that I've come around.

Also, check out Bill Simmons's take on this.

7/31/2007 9:40:04 AM by Ryan Stewart | Comments [0] |  

Ever wondered what the MBTA map would look like if Boston ever got around to building a halfway decent subway system? Wonder no more, the people at Vanshnookenraggen.com are on it.