--MBTA General Manager Dan Grabauskas has received plenty of angry e-mails in his time, and should be able to take some serious heat. But he is furious about an e-mail from a Department of Corrections employee that got way too personal. Grabauskas is gay, and the e-mailer used anti-gay slurs about Grabauskas when describing MBTA service. Now Grabauskas is upset with Deval Patrick and his administration for not doing something about it sooner. The......

--A man walking on a pond in Weymouth on Sunday fell in and was rescued before freezing to death. Neighbors heard his screams and called for help. The footage of the rescue was so dramatic that it's been making the rounds on CNN. [WCVB] --The Globe displays pictures of the region's worst storms, which carry the subliminal message "Quit yer bitching." [Boston Globe] --Is Will Ferrell's "Funny or Die" tour coming to Boston College......

In October, Boston University threw down the gauntlet and declared plans to expand. Now, Boston College is one-upping BU with expansion plans of its own. BC's expansion plan rivals that of BU. BU said it would put in $1.8 billion, and BC has announced that it will spend $1.6 billion. The BC Heights reports that the money will go to construction and renovation, and 100 new faculty members will be hired. The rest will go......

--Paul F. Ware Jr., the special prosecutor looking into the Big Dig has cost the state $1 million so far. Maybe, if the AG's office actually gets around to getting some money out of Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, they can foot the bill. [Boston Globe] --More gratuitous limos and tour buses in New Hampshire! Oprah's coming to town to campaign for Obama! She'll be in Manchester, NH, on December 9. [WBZ] --The Worcester Telegram & Gazette gets......

Dan Savage Thursday, October 18, 8:00 pm The Heights Room, Boston College, Free More info. The ubiquitous sex columnist and friend of Colbert Dan Savage will offer advice at Boston College tomorrow. Lena Chen at Sex and the Ivy told us of the appearance and said she might be there herself. (Now that would be something if Chen and Savage were on a panel together!) Savage has popped up frequently in the Ist-a-Verse. Seattlest was......

--Because some teenage bonehead with an anger-management problem and a gun shot popular Pop Warner coach Myron Stovell in the leg, Boston Pop Warner games will be getting a police detail. Way to ruin the fun for everyone. The alleged shooter is currently being held without bail. He is not being identified because he is a juvenile. The press release from the DA's office confirms that the shooter got angry after Stovell accidentally hit the......

--On Saturday, some alleged whack-job trying to get a piece of Star Simpson glory told an AirTran employee at Logan Airport, "I'm with al-Qaeda. I'm with them and I'm here to blow up things." Hardy har. Those words earned 27-year-old Ermiyas Asfaw, from DC, a one-way trip to jail. Attention, world: You may be able to do whatever you want in other cities, but Boston is sensitive. We may not agree with their hypersensitivity, but......

With unseasonable weather descending upon much of North America, schools getting ready to reconvene, and sports seasons getting exciting, it's a busy time of year for us here in the Ist-A-Verse. Luckily, even with all the things we have to do, we still managed to get together to let you know what we've all been up to. After cooling down from a hot weekend of many badass Sunset Junction Street Fair photo dispatches, LAist asked......

--17-year-old Jose Gurley was shot and killed at Roosevelt Heights, a Brockton housing complex. He was a wide receiver and defensive back on the football team and also played basketball and ran track. The Enterprise reports that he was good at all three. One witness suggested the gunfire broke out because one gang was trying to reclaim territory from another one. --Another young man was much luckier after a shooting. A 21-year-old man got shot......

Seattlest has a talk with the photographer from last week's "Segway Mom" and then experiences some dissension in the ranks over the question of wine vs. beer. It's not West Side Story, but about as close as they'll get. They're also still waiting on some inbox relief after a spammer is arrested. As Chicagoist counts down the days to its third anniversary party, they found all-organic pizza to be underwhelming amidst the hoopla, tried......

--We don't always put fires on the blotter, but a firefighter had bad luck during a Dumpster fire at Boston College early this morning. However, it wasn't fire that hurt the firefighter – it was his department's own truck! The Newton Fire Department arrived to fight the blaze. The BC Heights reports, "While the fire truck was powering the pumps, the vehicle lurched forward, running over the injured firefighter. The truck broke through the fence......

Boston College lets us know that women's ice hockey is actually rather hot. Tom Mutch, the women's ice hockey coach resigned yesterday following allegations of sexual misconduct." This is quite a change for Mutch, who helped bring the Eagles to this year's Frozen Four. The Heights describes the misconduct of which Mutch is accused: "Allegations have surfaced suggesting that the former coach, 39, was involved in an inappropriate sexual relationship with Eagles Rookie of the......

The Heights reports that Boston College has bitten the iTunes bait, hook, line, and sinker. The plan by BC is for a roll out for fall 2007 classes in a campus-wide initiative to provide iTunes U services. Apparently this education will be podcasted. iTunes U will provide Boston College with a number of educational tools that will allow semi-tech savvy professors as well as students to share materials online using the iTunes store format –......

After the total lunar eclipse spiced up the night sky this past weekend we've got enough of the visuals. This week we're committed not to go see live music but to go hear live music. This week we're welcoming a few new contributors to the list, have a listen, will ya? Monday 3/5 Badly Drawn Boy It's okay to admit to liking British singer-songwriter Damon Gough, aka Badly Drawn Boy. He may write lyrics......

The findings of a scientific study recently asserted that this nation's college students are really into themselves. Since Boston is flush with colleges, this would mean the city is absolutely drunk on narcissism during the school year. According to the study, narcissists may love themselves, but that doesn't mean anyone loves them back: "[Narcissists] are more likely to have romantic relationships that are short-lived, at risk for infidelity, lack emotional warmth, and to exhibit game-playing,......

The season finale has just aired for your favorite TV show. NBC hasn't run Must See TV on Thursdays for a decade. The sun is shining and temperatures will be perfect for showing up jacketless to the next performance. Something to do every night this week – and rock it out for free with the pop tunes from WBOS' EarthFest line up on Saturday, starting at noon. All this and we're tivo-ing the Sox/Yanks games......

Honorary Degrees are worthless documents, printed at a premium on fancy paper, and signed by the president of the university. Well, they’re not worthless. The honorary doctoral degrees don’t give the holder any academic credentials (they can’t use PhD after their name or call themselves Dr. whatever, either) but they do serve as official acknowledgement from the granting institution to an individual of their accomplishments in life that fit with the mission of the university.......

In the greatest celebration of Evacuation Day the cannon was drawn from Pasadena to Cambridge. The feat was a bit different from the schlep Henry Knox would make from upstate New York to Dorchester Heights – but still a page in a historic battle. Perhaps a better sign of spring than crocus or forsythia the rivalry between MIT and Caltech has begun in full force. Each year creative, technically challenging, and often quite humorous pranks......

Since Bostonist knows you are all gearing up for the big anniversary party tomorrow night at the Kinsale, we assume you’ll all be staying home and resting tonight…well, okay probably not, but we thought we’d do a news roundup today because hell, it’s Friday. We certainly don’t expect you to read a newspaper. Bar Brawl on Newbury Street: Bostonist has had its fleeting moments of drunkenness over on Newbury Street’s basement level bar, Daisy Buchanan’s.......

Walking to work today, Bostonist saw two people a day early in their full-out St. Patrick's Day Irish gear (green paper hat, "all about drinking and Irishness in a hard-drinking, heavily Irish town. But part of us clings to the belief that if people only knew more about Evacuation Day - commemorating an actual Revolutionary War victory in Boston (unlike Bunker Hill Day) - they would embrace it as we do. To that end, some......

This year attendance numbers were drastically down in movie theaters. That was the mantra being blasted at anyone who'd listen. When asked what was causing this, industry experts presented cases such as movie piracy, home movie theaters gaining in popularity, and if pressed enough, the waning quality of movies in general. If you looked hard enough or sampled enough of the releases, however, you would have seen a good number of entertaining and challenging films.......