--Sacre bleu! Beamer drivers like finding items at the town dump! [Boston Globe] --Speaking of reusing instead of building new stuff, an architect is fighting to save and restore City Hall, reminding us that at one point people thought it was beautiful. Then again, people liked shoulder pads, too. [Boston Herald] --House speaker Sal DiMasi's buddy and mortgage fairy, Richard D. Vitale, is in still more trouble. He said he wasn't a lobbyist for......

Recently Bostonist wondered: how do hometown-loving fashionistas show their Boston pride without resorting to tacky Cheers t-shirts or the ubiquitous Red Sox hat? So we made a visit to our favorite source of unique, handmade merchandise, Etsy, and searched "Boston." To say we were delighted with the results does not do justice to the amount of squealing that occurred. Amy J. Designs offers a necklace (pictured) and cuff links made with now-sadly-defunct T tokens.......

Despite costing us the Super Bowl, Boston is Mayor Tom Menino's city to lose. Given relative peace and prosperity, and the incredible challenge of defeating an incumbent, Menino will likely decide when and how his tenure as mayor comes to an end. Still, a rival politician can dream. The Globe today details three people who are weighing a run for mayor in 2009: --City Councilor at Large Michael Flaherty, 38, who's been having low-key......

Today from 12-6 PM, Dunkin' Donuts will be handing out free samples of their oven-toasted sangwiches in a "toasty tent" that has been erected at City Hall Plaza. If that were not enough excitement for ya, from 1-2 pm, preselected contestants and a few random people off the street will have an audience with Ted Lange and Bernie Kopell from the Love Boat (TOS). Isaac and Doc will serve as celebrity judges for a......

The fight over the mayor's pet project of moving City Hall to South Boston is about to fire up again. Mayor Menino has been dreaming of escaping the concrete confines of the current City Hall and its depressing plaza. Hence, the City Council is putting up a fight by launching an exploratory committee. (That's how American politicians do things--they don't get into a fistfight. They form opposing committees.) Menino would like to give the whole......

--The BPD tied up some loose ends with an armed robbery arrest that happened on the 23rd. They also arrested a 17-year-old and a 20-year-old for pot and guns, while a 17-year-old was arrested for breaking into cars in Dorchester and a 19-year-old was arrested for a road-rage incident on Milk Street. [BPD News] --That's not the last of the budding perps on today's blotter. A 15-year-old was charged with phoning in bomb threats to......

--This week, legislators will consider banning all hand-held gadgets while driving. [Boston Globe] --You may have noticed that Cape Wind received good news today, but don't expect a wind turbine at City Hall. The idea of the turbine blowing over on the plaza effectively ended the mayor's plan. [Boston Globe] --How to build an igloo in eight easy steps. Was the weather today really that bad? [Boston Globe] --One of NESN's most familiar faces......

All right. Let's dispense with the false modesty and ersatz humility. The Boston sports scene was AWESOME in 2007. So many great moments, and so many great stretches that can't be summed up in a single moment. How do you make a top-ten list of near perfection? Well, we tried. 10. Back to back to back to back. It wasn't Clemens or Mussina. It was only Chase Wright, who began the year as a potential......

The space-saver war continues. Yesterday, Donovan Slack followed up on the city's attempts to get a few residents of South Boston to stop saving parking spaces after a snowstorm, even though they can keep the space for 48 hours. Apparently a few protesters feel that tradition trumps the law: But sending a special crew to South Boston angered some in the neighborhood. They interpreted the move as another offensive in the years-long battle between City......

Some City Councilors have complained about the mayor's blame game regarding the snowstorm, but one city councilor might be contributing to the problem. WBZ sent cameras to Chuck Turner's house in Roxbury, where his sidewalk wasn't shoveled. It gets better. Turner said that he's not going to shovel it and "claims people in his neighborhood don't use sidewalks." Well, where do they walk, then? Do they float? If a sidewalk is on the street, it's......

--Police at Dorchester District Court released the wrong man, according to the Dorchester Reporter. The Reporter is very kind to the officers involved: "In a rare but potentially embarrassing gaffe, officers at Dorchester District Court this week appeared to release the wrong man, allowing him to waltz out of the courthouse and bolt down Washington Street, as confusion reigned inside." The reporter, Gintautas Dumcius, later notes that "The court officers glumly walked back to the......

Just when we got our hopes up that Mayor Thomas Menino had forgotten about his plans to move City Hall to South Boston, he declared yesterday that the move is still very much on his mind. Jay Fitzgerald reported that Menino spoke at a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce breakfast yesterday, and he said that he'd like to sell the current City Hall space at Government Center and then use the money to move.......

Illuminations Holiday Tour Saturday, December 15 Tour times: 4:30, 5:00, 5:45, 6:15, 7:00, 7:30, 8:15, 8:45, 9:15 Tickets on sale at McIntyre and Moore Booksellers, 255 Elm Street, Davis Square More info Fighting off a raging case of Seasonal Affective Disorder? Somerville has a cure. The city's residents know how to decorate, and when it's the holidays they want to share their spirit with everyone. The Somerville Arts Council will be offering 45-minute-long trolley tours......

The Transportation Department and Mayor Tom Menino want you to know that, if you get a parking ticket, you can pay for your ticket if you donate a toy "of equal or greater value than the fine on the ticket." As Amy Derjue at Boston Daily points out, "some lame toy from Family Dollar" will not do. If you have a parking ticket that you've been putting off paying, the offer doesn't apply to you.......

Boston Public Library president Bernard A. Margolis officially lost his job yesterday. It was a move Margolis had seen coming since last May, when Judith Kurland, Thomas Menino's chief of staff told him that his contract would not be renewed beyond its current term. Freed from the constraints of office, Margolis told the Globe what he really thinks about Menino. He's a dummy. An "anti-intellectual" whose reign over Boston Margolis likened to Hugo Chavez's Venezuelan......

-- 18 protesters were arrested during yesterday's Veterans Day ceremony at City Hall Plaza. They were members of Veterans for Peace, an organization of former soldiers opposed to the Iraq War. The American Legion had placed the group in the rear of the Veterans Day parade and told them that they could not carry signs protesting the war. The Veterans for Peace responded by blocking the official ceremony podium with gags in their mouths and......

Be prepared to take a long lunch break tomorrow. Mayor Menino has announced that Red Sox celebration festivities will begin tomorrow at noon. Bostonist watched the WBZ webcast of Mayor Menino giving the details. The players will be riding in duck boats in a repeat of 2004's "rolling rally." Menino said that the parade will follow the same route as it did in 2004. Here's an image of last year's route from the Globe.......

The Red Sox has permeated nearly every facet of Bostonist's lives. When they're not live-blogging the games, waxing poetic about the games, thanking Curt Schilling for his splendid work, or telling Dane Cook to watch his hair, they're watching certain presidential candidates hop on the Red Sox bandwagon (sorry, Gothamist). The Sox are so branded on the local brain that people are using the Series to spice up their sex lives. Speaking of spice, Bostonist......

All the local news outlets went nutty over Ben Affleck at the Boston premiere of Gone Baby Gone. They were especially tickled that Matt Damon showed up, too. Of course they both said they would sneak out so they wouldn't miss the Red Sox game. Affleck is on a real hearts-and-minds mission. On Tuesday, he went to City Hall and joined Mayor Menino to help the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) unionize hospital employees.......

--Sure, people like to collect knickknacks. Salt-and-pepper shakers, Beanie Babies, comic books, parking meters. Yeah, parking meters, 123 of 'em, in fact. Thomas Gannon of Cambridge had cut the meters off poles all over Cambridge and Somerville. Police stumbled upon them when visiting Gannon for other reasons on Monday night. Master of understatement and Cambridge PD spokesman Frank Pasquarello said, "This does seem to be odd." Indeed. --Police arrested 17-year-old Derek Lodie, of Revere, for......

New England Film and Video Festival Thursday, October 4, through Monday, October 8 Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline All tickets $10 Official Site Full Schedule What with the Red Sox savoring victory and rallies raging at City Hall Plaza, the New England Film and Video Festival planned the opening night for its 32nd year perfectly. On Thursday, the NEFVF will kick off with the documentary Play-by-Play Men and the Art of the Perfect Call, which begins......

Congratulations, Sox fans! You made it through approximately three minutes of the Red Sox Rally Monday festivities at City Hall Plaza before the first chants of "Yankees Suck" filled the air. New record! Well done! A few thousand fans descended upon the plaza early Monday afternoon to cheer on their hometown baseball team (and decry the arch rivals) for the Boston version of the shindigs going on across the country. Rally Monday was a tradition......

Mayor Menino has gone so green that he might end up looking like Kermit the Frog. First Menino laid out his plan to improve life for cyclists in the city, and now he's drawing inspiration from Cape Wind by proposing wind turbines for City Hall Plaza. The Globe reported on Saturday that the mayor wants a single turbine that can "generate up to one-quarter of the electricity used at City Hall." Globe writer Peter Howe......

Forget for a moment the questions still lingering around the Red Sox. We know about those. Let's take a brief look at the angst-ridden article in today's LA Times about the myriad questions swirling around our first-round opponents, the AnaheimOrWhatever Angels. They don't know who's starting when (OK, neither do we). Two of their key sluggers, Vlad Guerrero and Gary Matthews, are nursing injuries and may not be 100% (hey, just like Manny!). Will their......

In between the drama of a pennant race and the pressure cooker of the playoffs, comes a day like today. A day when absolutely nothing is up for grabs. Yesterday the Red Sox won and the Indians lost, guaranteeing the Red Sox the best record in the AL (they'd win a tiebreaker with Cleveland) and Fenway-advantage throughout the postseason. The win yesterday (you might want to sit down) came largely thanks to J.D. Drew, who......

The South End Open Studios will take place this weekend - Saturday, September 15, and Sunday, September 16, from 11 am to 6 pm. This year's South End Open Studios will be satisfying all your art cravings over the weekend. You can see a full list of participants at the United South End Artists, Inc. website. Some of the more eye-catching projects include Katie DiChiara's "fabulous funky artificial hair sculptures designed to enlighten." Beyond......

If you're feeling particularly juicy today, head on down to City Hall Plaza between 10:30 - 2 PM for the 23rd Annual Massachusetts Tomato Festival. Local farmers will submit their best fruits to be judged by an elite panel of food writers, state officials, chefs, and various other tomato aficionados. The nutritious globules will be appraised on such criteria as color, flavor, slicing quality, and weight. The winning fruit(s) will receive awards at 12:30. The......

On the same day that the Herald runs a story about a real problem involving rising violence in the school system, readers also get to hear more griping about a fake problem – ice-cream men who are too noisy. Michele McPhee quotes one woman as saying, "You talk about road rage. I have ice cream truck rage.” She then added, “You think it’s a silly thing, loud ice cream truck music, until you live it."......

Earlier this week Cardinal Sean O'Malley invited Pope Benedict XVI to Boston during his planned 2008 visit to the United States. The Pope has planned a trip to visit the United Nations in New York and O'Malley suggests that a short trip up from the NYC in the pope-mobile might be in order. The Globe quotes O'Malley as saying "Given everything Boston has been through, having the Holy Father come, I think, would be a......

After a rocky start when the fundraising chair stepped down when the Weekly Dig noted that he was a registered sex offender (whoops!), Pride is back on track and not looking back. The full Pride Week schedule is available at the Boston Pride site, but we've highlighted some of the best events: --Flag Raising Over City Hall Plaza: today, 12 noon --Puppy Pride Costume Contest: Saturday, June 2, 11 am to 1 pm at......