Last night was one of the strangest games we've seen in a while at the TDBG. With the unremarkable Clippers in town, the second quarter had a playoff-like intensity to it, with technicals, an ejection, and some really scrappy play. The fourth quarter showed a surprising lineup, as Doc left the second unit (House, Powe, Davis, Posey, Tony Allen) in for almost the entire time. Most surprising of all - the bench played some fantastic......

Junot Díaz will read at the Brattle Theatre on Wednesday, September 12, at 6:00 pm. Tickets are $5 and are available through Harvard Book Store. Some books are interesting. Some books are memorable. Some books may eventually win prizes. And then there are the books that, one day, will be taught in classrooms as an example of how writing is really done. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by author and MIT prof Junot......

Now that it's fall and writers are stepping out for tours, we'll be offering a spotlight on the best of the week's readings. You'll still see book reviews and interviews with authors, but "Authorial Intent" will help you get the jump on tickets so you don't wind up out in the cold. Also, it's impossible to read everything, so please e-mail Bostonist if "Authorial Intent" misses anything. Thursday, September 6, 7:00 pm, Robert Whitcomb and......

UPDATE: From the AP: "US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday his agency will seek to "terminate" the deportation case against the wife of a Massachusetts soldier missing in Iraq so she can stay in the country and apply for permanent resident status." Unless we're mistaken, that sounds like Yaderlin Jimenez will be able to get her green card. Yesterday, word spread all over the Web that Yaderlin Jimenez, wife of missing......

The US government is considering deporting the wife of Alex Jimenez, the soldier from Lawrence who has been missing in Iraq since May 12. Jimenez is a citizen of the United States. His wife, Yaderlin, is not. She came here illegally from the Dominican Republic, and they married. She was in the process of getting a green card, but, according to WBZ, an immigration judge stopped the process when Alex Jimenez went missing. Her lawyer......

Maybe you can't get tickets to Fenway anytime soon, but a little bit of baseball, international-style, will be coming to the Somerville Theater as part of the Independent Film Festival of Boston. Rumbo a Las Grandes Ligas will be making its East Coast debut on Monday night at the festival. The documentary by Jared Goodman explores the persaviveness and the love of baseball in the Dominican Republic, which produces a number of major leaguers-per-capita high......

Yesterday the Red Sox and Wise Foods announced a new partnership. The agreement names Wise the official Potato Chip and Cheez Doodle sponsor of the Boston Red Sox. Guess all those unofficial chip and doodle sponsors are sore out of luck. It's not just a deal with the front office – Big Papi is moving out from just hawking his mango salsa and will now Big Papi will hereby be known as the Wise Player......

Nelson De La Rosa, the "world's smallest actor," passed away on Sunday at the age of 38. He may have been only two feet and four inches tall, but he was big enough to hang with the larger-than-life personalities of both Pedro Martinez and Marlon Brando. De La Rosa climbed from the schlockfest Rat Man to a role as Marlon Brando's sidekick in The Island of Dr. Moreau, and De La Rosa's character supposedly served......

Some random sports thoughts while pondering how Danny Ainge is still the GM of the Celtics after disassembling the 2002 Celtics team that was 2 wins away from a date in the NBA Finals... Manny gets to report on March 1.... Bostonist wonders if that will fly with our boss after our next vacation... "No, we won't be there on Monday, but we'll be there a week from Wednesday, and please make sure our pay......

Today is a sad day in Red Sox nation -- J.P. Villamen, the Spanish-language voice of the Sox died in a car crash yesterday on his way home to Lawrence from Yankee Stadium. One of the first Spanish language broadcasters in the Majors, Villamen had been with the team since the 1995 season. His announcing was broadcast throughout the Spanish-speaking world, across the United States and Latin America in places like Nicaragua and his native......