• Londonist pondered who might be the next sponsors of the London Eye and whether or not readers would be willing to donate £1,000 each for a Londonist Eye.
• Shanghaiist was shocked to find a cameltoe in the city's only English-language paper.
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Continue Reading "Week Around the -Ists"

--The BPD has issued another warning asking Red Sox fans to "play it safe," and they have announced that they will shut down the Fenway area one inning early. The last time they announced a warning, before Game 7 against the Cleveland Indians, they said they would shut things down for the 7th inning, but for tonight's Game 4: If you are not already inside an establishment, be it a bar or restaurant, you will......

"That's not the way we drew it up," said Colorado manager Clint Hurdle. "Obviously we have to change our game plan," added Todd Helton. "You can't make any mistakes," chimed in shellshocked starting pitcher Jeff Francis. If you're Colorado, what else can you say? The team that charged through September and most of October, and held Arizona to eight total runs in their mockery of an NLCS, looked like they hadn't played baseball in eight......

We keep hoping a couple of tickets will drop like magic from the sky, but we've pretty much resigned ourselves to several more long nights with Joe Buck and Tim McCarver and several more mornings when coffee is all that stands between us and oblivion. Or you could sell everything you own and do what one guy did: pay $21,766 for two seats behind home plate, as the Globe reported this morning. The article also......

Game Seven was a perfect little microcosm for the 2007 Red Sox, wasn't it? It left you laughing, and crying, and reaching for the Mylanta, and reaching for the whiskey, and jubilant, and terrified, and when it was all over, you looked back and wondered how you could have possibly ever doubted the final results. The story coming into this was whether Daisuke Matsuzaka would be able to reach deep inside himself and find whatever......

Gothamist learned about the craziest urban nightmare come true: A huge python found in the bathroom pipes. It was also a nightmare for some Yankees fans, as manger Joe Torre declined to come back and manage the Bronx Bombers. At least the city's attempt to give some direction to subway riders was interesting, pranksters went shirtless at the Fifth Avenue Abercrombie & Fitch and the I Heart Brooklyn Girls calendars came out. And just......

Nothing makes the Cliche-O-Matic sputter and squeak like a Game Seven in the playoffs. Back to the wall. No tomorrow. Do or die. Now or never. All true, of course. So tonight, the Indians and the Red Sox will live the cliches. The Red Sox, of course, lived to fight another day on a supremely gutsy performance by Curt Schilling. Seven innings pitched, six hits, two runs, a thunderous ovation as he left the field......

Sox fans, the request has been made of you: dig out your reddest of red and wear it proud today. The Sox brass hit the television news airwaves on Friday and asked you to show the Red Sox that you're behind them - and show the Indians that in order to get to the World Series, Cleveland is going to have to get past our team AND our fans on our turf. Fans have added......

So Sheriff Beckett stared down the Cleveland gang last night. Once again, when the Red Sox needed Josh to be at his absolute best, he pretty much was. Sure, he gave up one more hit than he did in his Game One dazzler, but he only gave up one run - on a double play ball. Other than that, he struck out 11 Indians and gave 44,588 Clevelanders something to do with their towels beside......

This one's fresh from Deadspin: The Cleveland Indians have pulled out all the stops to excel in the ALCS. Now that they have a shot and winning the series against the Red Sox, they have basically decided to deliver a low blow to the Sox and to tonight's starting pitcher Josh Beckett in particular. How? By trotting out Josh Beckett's ex-girlfriend, country singer Danielle Peck, to sing the national anthem. That's cold. That's just plain......

We sure hope Josh Beckett found time during yesterday's off-day to watch High Noon. If you haven't seen it, the plot is that Sheriff Gary Cooper has one day left until retirement, and a pack of mean outlaws are coming to town to wreak havoc. He tries to round up a posse to meet them, but everyone in town has a dentist appointment, or their hair is drying, or they don't roll on Shabbos, or......

'Nac Attack With Brad Searles Great Scott 1222 Commonwealth Ave, Allston Tonight, 9:00 pm Music blogger Brad Searles, the man behind Bradley's Almanac, is frequently seen dee-jaying for Tourfilter DJ Night on Thursday nights at River Gods in Cambridge. (Speaking of Tourfilter, have you heard about Antiplex?) However, tomorrow's Tourfilter DJ night has been cancelled because of the Sox-Indians game. River Gods is bringing a television into the bar so its patrons can keep up......

We can second-guess or backseat coach all we want. Should Beckett have started Tuesday night's game instead of Tim Wakefield? Should Jacoby Ellsbury have started in the outfield for J.D. Drew or Coco Crisp? Should Doug Mirabelli have been replaced by Jason Varitek the moment Wakefield left the game? Should Julian Tavarez be on the pitching roster in these ALCS games? But that will only madden Red Sox fans and distract them from the reality......

As Northeast-centric as we are, we kind of assumed that the other LDS ended the way it did because the Yankees had porous starting pitching, a weak bullpen, an aging core, and a superstar still yet to prove himself in October ("Yankees suck", in the parlance of our times). But maybe Cleveland really is that good. Their bullpen has matched or bettered our bullpen (and that's not even counting Gagne), their hitters are getting timely......

After a week full of intense competition, the finalists in this year's Boston Comedy Festival Contest took the stage last night at the Cutler Majestic. The pressure was already high because they would be judged by Lifetime Achievement Award honorees Shelley Berman and Bill Dana, Comic of the Year winner Lewis Black, and a range of industry bigwigs. The comics also faced an even bigger challenge--the Red Sox game. These comics had to distract the......

First, the really great news: Josh Beckett managed to make C.C. Sabathia look like a Little League pitcher (no offense to some of those who are the future of America's pastime) on Friday night at Fenway Park, ably leading the Red Sox defense in what turned into a 10-3 routing in Game 1 of the ALCS. Seriously, we were a little worried about what hinted at a pitching fan's dream matchup - two great aces......

Four years ago today, Josh Beckett threw a shutout. In the LCS. Good tidings? Last time Josh faced the Indians, he gave up one run and four hits in a hard-luck 1-0 loss to Fausto Carmona. Last time Cleveland starter C.C. Sabathia pitched against the Red Sox, he gave up one run and five hits in a hard-luck 1-0 loss to Daisuke Matsuzaka. You'd have to believe both pitchers are determined not to give up......

As Hillary Clinton hogs all the airtime, Barack Obama fans flames with his fashion choices, and John Edwards ducks for cover under rumors of infidelity, what is a less-recognized Democratic presidential candidate to do? Offer the public Red Sox tickets. In a clear appeal to New England residents, particularly those in New Hampshire, candidate and Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd is holding a "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" contest. If you donate $20.04 to......

It's hard to work up a frenzy against the Cleveland Indians. They seem like a bunch of polite, plucky kids who we'd be pulling for in almost any other circumstance. Gone are the enemies of the mid-to-late-90's: villains like Roberto Alomar and Manny Ramirez. Gone are the mockable stars of that magical 1988 team: colorful characters like ex-con Rick Vaughan and voodoo worshipper Pedro Cerrano. Trot Nixon, who you may remember as one of the......

Anyone who questions that old phrase "idle hands are the devil's tools" ought to take a look at what happens in sports cities when the games are in desperately short supply. When no one's playing, people get ansty. They start speculating. Guessing. Predicting. Complaining - and no good can come of that. We need sports action, people! Thank goodness the Bruins are set to answer the call tonight, when they face off on the ice......

There will be no Ultimate Battle of Good Vs. Evil this year. Evil couldn't get past the first round. Ten men left on base, a useless home run from Alex Rodriguez (bet it will be bold-formatted on the resume), and a miserable start from Chien-Ming Wang had the Yankees calling for tee times by the fifth inning. For Yankee-haters, the fun starts now. Joe Torre has already been given the Dread Pirate Roberts treatment by......

Well...that was a little scarier than it had to be, wasn't it? While Curt Schilling was completely dominating and mastering the Angels lineup, the Red Sox lineup took their sweet time getting around to dominating the game. So for a game that ended 9-1, there was an awful lot of fingernail chewing and knuckle whitening. The Sox did take the lead, insurmountable as it turned out, in the fourth, when Papi and Manny went deep......

In the bid to make 2007 the first season when all four LDS's were sweeps, the National League took care of business yesterday. The Rockies bid adieu to Philly, while the Diamondbacks went to Wrigley and broke Cub fans' hearts for the 99th straight season. Which, if you're a Red Sox fan, at least means that when we win the World Series, at least we won't do it on the back of long-suffering Philly or......

It looks like just might be a higher power looking down on the MLB postseason. He/She/It is a Red Sox fan and, judging from the sight of Derek Jeter slapping like mad at the bugs descending upon him at the Jake on Friday night, any higher powers out there have a wicked sense of humor. On a Friday night that gave us fire (well, on the T here in Boston), locusts cleverly passed off as......

Our long national nightmare is over. The polls are closed, the kind of people who care about this can cheer or mourn, and the rest of us (who think it's kind of ridiculous) can have a quick item to note on the offday between games 1 and 2. That's right, Red Sox Nation (shudder)! Jerry Remy is your new President! Deadspin has the best artistic take on the whole silly, silly business. It's still better......

Someone in the Red Sox front office deserves a bonus today. Someone must have found a loophole in American League rules that permitted Josh Beckett to pitch ping-pong balls at the Angels while John Lackey was forced to throw regulation-sized baseballs. He had to be throwing ping-pong balls. What other explanation could there be that the Angels, a good hitting team and champions of the West, were reduced to flailing around like overmatched patsies? After......

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......

We're going to the playoffs! Sure, it's been an awful September, for the most part. And sure, the Red Sox still very much have to somehow finish off New York, and ideally fend off the Angels and Indians to secure home-field advantage throughout the postseason. But the first step is officially taken, as the Sox rallied to beat the Devil Rays 8-6 and ensure they would, at the very least, beat out Detroit for the......

Glenn Marshall, Mashpee Wampanoag tribe leader and major force behind bringing casinos to Massachusetts, is leaving his position as chairman of the tribe council. He was caught lying about his military past and of hiding the fact that he was convicted of rape and cocaine possession. Peter Kenney at Cape Cod Today first smelled something funny about Marshall's military service. The Cape Cod Times reported that Marshall did not participate in the battle of Khe......

We interrupt your regularly-scheduled fretting and Chicken Littling to announce that, despite being only -5 games back, the Red Sox intend to remain competitive in the AL East race. See, whatever the Yankees do, whether it's fishgutting the Devil Rays, overthrowing the Royals, or....beating the Indians (there's no metaphor we can use there that doesn't make us feel so very wrong), they can't catch the Sox if the Sox keep winning. It's just that simple.......