Comcast SportsNet ran an ad that says, "We can pronounce Worcester ... without sounding like an Athol." Beavis, meet Butthead. As if residents of Athol haven't heard that gag before. They're still not amused by it. In fact, the AP says they're pissed off, and now Comcast SportsNet isn't running the ad anymore. (If you haven't had your coffee yet, just say it a few times, but don't do it around your boss, okay?) Oh,......

What's going on here? Not only are students afraid to ride the bus to school, but they also might be afraid to eat lunch. On February 27, four adults--the father of a student, two uncles, and a woman--went into the Urban Science Academy of West Roxbury High and beat on a kid who allegedly attacked the father's son. From the Herald: The adults surrounded the victim, who was repeatedly punched by the student. “The adult......

--Heating oil, which is already insanely expensive, costs less if you pay cash. Not that it will make you feel any better. [The Big Guy] --A Google map of foreclosures in Boston. [Boston Real Estate Blog] --Remembering what happened five years ago during the horrible fire at the Station nightclub in Rhode Island. [Platinum Elite] --Where to eat if you are living or working in Longwood. [Menu Pages] --Mega Man sighting! [Sushiesque] --Did you say......

--Adam Gaffin of Universal Hub was on NPR this week to discuss Boston Crime, which tracks violent crime on a Google map and allows people to comment on cases. A must-listen. They describe him as a "computer guy by day, crime chronicler by night." [NPR] --What's with the rats all over a recent edition of the Boston Globe? [Massachusetts Liberal] --Where to find pictures of Boston back in the day. [Beantown Bloggery] --Food sniglets! [Cave......

Gary Vaynerchuk has a message for Bay Staters: Rise up against your oppressors. He says it’s a “sad state of affairs” that the place that hosted the Boston Tea Party allows itself to fall victim to “archaic wine shipping laws.” Vaynerchuk, the 30-something host of the wildly popular Wine Library TV podcast – “the Internet’s most passionate wine program” – says that “a few special interest groups have shut things down” and not allowed wine......

Is it even an argument at this point? Boston's Mayor Menino caused the Patriots' loss by planning the city's victory party a little too early and much too transparently. Last Wednesday, well before the unthinkable happened, the Herald was already proclaiming, "Tommy, you might as well have suited up for the hated Giants." While the mourning (and the blame game) continues, political life must also go on. With the Massachusetts primary being held tomorrow, the......

A spring-loaded dress, a sun-lit fan, and a purse with a built-in alarm system were just a few of the futuristic fashions on display at the Seamless: Computational Couture fashion show at the Museum of Science on Wednesday. Over 1000 design and technology lovers packed three floors of the MoS's Blue Wing to admire clothes and accessories ranging from sublime (an air-filled dress that changes shape based on barometric pressure) to sci-fi (a burial suit......

Art The exhibit Rhythms of Modern Life: British Prints 1914–1939 shows the sharp, mechanical-feeling prints that set the artistic tone for the future. Museum of Fine Arts. Read Bostonist's preview of the show. Runs through June 1. Fashion Put away your spindles. Fashionistas can flash forward to the 21st century at Seamless, which showcases "experimental works in computational apparel design." The dry-witted Steven Rosengard of Project Runway 4 will be hosting, and Red Sox......

Somebody better check on Mitt Romney because he's not acting like himself. The campaign bus for Mr. I-Eat-My-Wife's-Granola-Every-Morning pulled into a Kentucky Fried Chicken. Reporters rejoiced. The LA Times declared, "Mitt Romney is human!" That all depends on how you look at it. Plenty of people might argue that eating KFC indicates you actually have a Teflon tummy instead of a human stomach. But when Romney strays from the script, he doesn't go that far.......

In a sense, it's comforting. The Celtics went to battle against one of the other good Eastern teams without Kevin Garnett, and almost beat 'em. On the day of the C's' long-awaited return to national afternoon TV, the script ran eerily similar to the first game in Orlando; the Magic jumped out to a big lead, the Celtics clawed their way back, but ran out of gas at the end. Orlando's the only team to......

Boston, you did Kimya Dawson right on Thursday night. So right, in fact, that we can't even tell you about it. Bostonist had fully intended to be able to report back to you today about how Dawson, the quirky and kickass singer-songwriter now captivating music fans with her work on the Juno soundtrack, performed during her 7 p.m. in-store at the Newbury Street music shop. We arrived on the scene a little later than we'd......

You may have noticed that Bostonist underwent a few tweaks recently, including the ability to customize how you see the front page and to use tags to zip around the site. These new tags also allow you to customize your RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed if you prefer to keep up with blogs on your homepage or with a reader. If there's a Bostonist subject that interests you, then you can choose exactly what you......

On New Year's Eve, firefighters battled a seven-alarm fire at a condo complex in South Boston. One 47-year-old man, Peter Clancy, died of smoke inhalation at the scene. Then, this morning, firefighters discovered the body of a woman who has not yet been identified. However, neighbors told the Globe that the second victim is Clancy's 46-year-old wife, Arvette. Eighteen families were left homeless as a result of the fire. The Clancy's had a 15-year-old......

In Dorchester early this morning, two children died in a fire that may have been caused by a space heater. The fire started in a triple-decker on 44 Bellevue Street. The Globe reports, "Fire officials said a couple with five children lived on the first floor. Four of them, including the two who died, were sleeping in the room where the fire broke out." WCVB identified the victims as 9-year-old Rebecca Zizi and 11-year-old Rooben......

--A new company, FlexPetz, will let you rent a dog for a few hours so you can enjoy canine companionship without getting up in the cold to walk the critter. Wouldn't it be great if you could just rent human companionship for a few hours? Oh, wait. That's illegal. Nevermind. [Boston Globe] --Wondering why there are so many kids running around today? Seventy drivers called in sick or took a personal day today, and about......

In snowy weather like this, complaints about icy roads or snowpiles are normal. But you know the weather is bad when the snow is so heavy that it collapses the roof of a Rite-Aid. Last night, in Brighton at Market and Surrey, the roof of a Rite-Aid buckled under the weight of snow. According to WCVB, four employees and a customer escaped. Falling debris hit the customer in the head, but the injuries were......

Upon realizing that large chunks of Boston neighborhoods were left unmapped by Google Street View, Bostonist e-mailed Google HQ to find out why. We received a fairly standard response that the neglected areas would be mapped soon: We generally start collecting imagery at the metropolitan center (in this case Boston) and move out from there, which explains why the more outlying areas you mentioned are not covered in as much detail. However, we plan on......

Google Street View has been available in several cities but has now made its debut in Boston, according to the Globe. The process allows you to take a 360 view of an address. If you want to use it, just go to Google Maps, type in a Boston address, and click on the little yellow man that pops up at the address. A new window will appear with a street-level image of the area. You......

The guy who drove the tanker truck that exploded in Everett is officially Blotter material. Not only did Chad LaFrance have some driving trouble on his record, but he admitted to issuing a bomb threat in 1997. The Globe quoted what he wrote on a package at a UPS store where he used to work: "Tick. Tick.Tick. The time is running out. UPS Sucks. Danger. Explosive illegal bombs enclosed. Watch handling." His aunt called it......

A man has taken took people at the headquarters for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign hostage in Rochester, New Hampshire, and he wants wanted to speak to Hillary Clinton. [WBZ, MSNBC] Clinton is was not in New Hampshire. Here is the latest from the thread, with earlier information after the jump: 6:15 pm: IT IS OVER. A young man just ran out of the campaign office. The man who took the hostages followed him. He pulled......

Some stories just sound like terrible jokes. But this one is all too real. WBZ reports that a priest from Boston got arrested last Friday for stalking Conan O'Brien. Pardon us for using the words "priest" and "hell" in the same post, but, seriously, what the hell? You couldn't make that up. And the Archdiocese of Boston took its own sweet time to release the news. They waited until today to announce that Reverend David......

View Larger Map During today's "Rolling Rally," be sure to thank Jacoby Ellsbury for stealing a base and earning everyone in the nation a free Crunchy Seasoned Beef Taco. If you are looking for a taco after the rally, your best bets are the Taco Bells on Comm Ave, at Cambridgeside Galleria, and in West Roxbury. Even if the promotion is somewhat absurd, at least according to the transcript of Royce Clayton and Coco Crisp......

Our Senators, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, are catching some heat for an earmark on a transportation bill designed to help prevent delays at airport hubs. The earmark is for $8 million, which is peanuts in guv'mint terms, but that $8 million isn't going to Logan--it's going to airports in Barnstable and Nantucket. And Barnstable and Nantucket are hardly "hubs." Money flowing into Massachusetts is a good thing, but an $8 million earmark for Barnstable......

Residents of Harvard's Pennypacker Hall had to apply insecticide cream, and their personal items were fumigated when three residents of the dorm were diagnosed with scabies last weekend. According to Lena Chen and IvyGate, word had been going around that Harvard's University Health Services had misdiagnosed the students and that they just got attacked by some especially bloodthirsty mosquitoes. If so, then the whole insecticide cream-fumigation hurrah was all for nothing. Bostonist tried to track......

As if there weren't enough icky skin problems that can be spread via the questionable hygiene practices of college students! Ivy Gate tipped us off that some Harvard students are suffering from an attack of scabies. A university memo states, "Today, three students from Pennypacker were diagnosed with scabies after presenting to University Health Services with an itchy rash." Once UHS determined that the "itchy rash" wasn't caused by the usual suspects, they went into......

Going to Logan Airport, even before the Star Simpson Incident, typically inspires a sense of dread. If one person mentions that they have to pick up a parent/boyfriend/girlfriend/SI at the airport, anyone else involved in the conversation immediately offers condolences. Airport meetings involve robbery via high parking prices, hassling with State Police if you linger at the curb, or guns if you're a slightly spacey MIT student. Trips to Logan might get easier with a......

Update: A commenter let us know that MIT is paying $6,000 to help clean up the boat. Pretty much everyone and their mom knows that MIT has a yearly tradition of dropping sodium off the Longfellow Bridge into the Charles. It was only logical that, when some volunteers cleaning up the Charles got burned by sodium, someone would put two and two together and look at MIT. But a recent article in The Tech argues......

A man is as good as the company he keeps, right? If so, then former Massachusetts governor and presidential aspirant Mitt Romney needs to make some new friends as soon as possible. Last week, someone linked to Team Romney was accused of putting up a website called "Phoney Fred." The website criticized fellow presidential candidate/TV actor Fred Thompson, who is already smoking Romney in the polls. The site offers the many moods of Thompson, including......

Someone burgled the local headquarters of former Massachusetts governor and presidential aspirant Mitt Romney. The headquarters are in the North End on Commercial Street. Someone might want to check on the portrait Romney's hiding in the attic. Perhaps a clue was at the North End headquarters? Anyway, according to the Globe, the current assumption is that it's not Watergate Redux. A campaign spokesman said that the burglars were into the usual stuff - computers......

Now that a partially dissolved piece of sodium metal has been deemed the culprit in the burning of several Charles River cleanup volunteers, the local news is playing up the MIT ritual known as the "sodium drop." MIT students like to drop stuff. Sometimes they drop pianos. In this case, at the start of each school year, students get the sodium from somewhere on campus, tote it to the Longfellow Bridge, and drop it bit......