--Everyone needs money, so it's not a surprise that Mayor Menino wants to increase fines for illegal parking in the city: "The largest increase will be for parking in a fire lane, which would rise from $40 to $100 under the mayor’s plan. Parking in front of a handicapped ramp would go from $50 to $100, while parking in front of a hydrant would rise from $75 to $100." [Boston Herald] --Former House speaker......

We don't like to think back to the final moments of Super Bowl XLII. If we could, we'd erase the name Plaxico Burress from our memory, and we'd focus on the good times we've had with Ellis Hobbs. But on Tuesday, Boston was asked to go back to the Super Bowl and that second, 35 from the end of the game and a perfect season, when Burress beat Hobbs and scored the touchdown that set......

Despite what Bostonist is now calling "The Debacle" of last night, other stuff happened today. --The weather will be appropriately "dreary" on the day during which the Rolling Rally was scheduled. But at least it will be easier to vote! [Boston Globe] --Speaking of elections, many of the presidential candidates are looking for Massachusetts love. [WBZ] --The mother of Imette St. Guillen, who was murdered by a bouncer in New York City, has filed......

One of the better deals for parking in Boston just got a little worse. The garage underneath the Boston Common is raising its rates effective March 1, the Herald reports. Evening and weekend rates will rise to $11. The weekday rate will go up to $27. Then again, the rates remain much better than your other options. Many garages in the city charge $6 after 20 minutes, so $27 for a weekday rate isn't awful,......

--Why merge the blotter with snow emergency announcements? 2007 appears to be ending quietly, blotter-wise, and, if the incoming storm is going to be as bad as the weatherheads say it is, someone's gonna get arrested for a parking-related problem. In fact, the city of Boston has declared a snow emergency. The Mayor's Office announced that "the snow emergency and parking ban will go into effect at midnight tonight." For more Boston-related information, go......

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......

Matt Viser at the Globe did a report today on how a few South Boston residents are hogging parking spots with chairs, trash barrels, and whatever is laying around. The city of Boston explicitly states that a person can save his or her spot for 48 hours after a storm. After that, it becomes hogging. 48 hours seems perfectly reasonable. Maybe even three days if the storm is bad. But anyone unwilling to give......

When it snows in Boston, the rule is clear--you don't park in a spot that another person has shoveled out. The Mayor's Office backs this up: Any Space-savers in on-street parking spaces that have been cleared should be removed 48 hours after a snow storm has ended. WHDH reported on an East Boston resident who found out the hard way what happens if you park in a spot that has been shoveled out and is......

After a brief flash of clarity in which City Councilor Marjorie Decker suggested things might be getting a bit out of hand, Cambridge has up and banned the leafblowers, for five months of the year, anyway. Here's the details from the Cambridge Chronicle: According to the ordinance, residents are permitted to use leaf blowers from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday, from March 16 to June 14, and from Sept. 16 to Dec.......

--Maybe Fung Wah isn't so bad after all. The local press picked up on a b0st0n LiveJournal story that a Peter Pan bus driver felt that his passengers on a trip to Boston should be punished and forced to stay on the bus in Framingham because one of them called the company about his poor driving. The driver's sorry ass is about to get fired. [WBZ, Globe, b0st0n Live Journal] --Female parking enforcement officers......

Snow emergencies have been declared in Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville. Here's the dirt on parking and getting around: --T alerts: This should come as no surprise, but all T lines are experiencing delays of 30 minutes or more. The MBTA website has been blinking in and out, but we did get an alert that the Silver Line Routes 742 (SL2) and 743 (SL3) are being diverted and that all buses are "omitting 88 Black......

--Yesterday evening, a woman was caught driving in East Boston Memorial Park--on a pedestrian path. The BPD Blotter writer, obviously thrilled to be back on the job after the recent technical difficulties, adds, "As the name of the path suggests, it is designed and designated for pedestrian traffic only." Yes, she was allegedly drunk. And in a Big Lebowski move, she showed officers a Liquor ID card when asked for license and registration. She was......

--Fires ran rampant yesterday. A mother and her son were injured last night in a fire in Somerville. One firefighter was treated and released at the hospital. [Boston Globe] --Another fire broke out in Haverhill last night, and people were injured jumping out of the windows. No one died in the blaze, but 24 people have lost their homes. [Boston Globe, Boston Herald] --The state Supreme Judicial Court is letting Heidi Erickson, who kept......

--An 18-month-old baby girl from East Somerville was kidnapped, allegedly by her own aunt. WBZ reports that Somerville police found the baby today. Four people were arrested in the kidnapping of Hayden Augustin-Laurent, and one of them was her aunt, Ketia Valmont. Two detectives were hurt because one of those arrested went after them with a baseball bat. Auditi Guha at the Somerville Journal reports that the kidnapping may have resulted from a fight over......

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.......

--John Edwards, the Harvard sophomore whose body was found yesterday at Harvard Medical School, committed suicide. People who knew him, such as a professor and his roommate are mystified. Eva Wolchover lists Edwards' many accomplishments. He was a top science student (and that's saying something around here), a stem cell researcher, and a guitar player. A Facebook group named "In Memory of John Edwards" has already been established. --Michele McPhee reports that a State Trooper......

Other -ists, such as Chicagoist, Houstonist, and Austinist, regularly peruse Craigslist's "Missed Connections" for the good stuff. Boston's Missed Connections have been fairly straightforward, with the exception of the guy who thought he found Fung Wah Love. But this has been a good week for impressive Missed Connections. First, a love note to a "meter maid" caught our eye: You waited until I backed into the parking space to tell me that in the future......

--An employee at the TGI Friday's at the Shoppes at Blackstone Valley in Millbury was stabbed to death in broad daylight in the restaurant's parking lot. Ronda Healey, 27, of Worcester, was a mother of three. Her boyfriend, 30-year-old Justin Hiser, has been arrested for the crime. The Herald described the weapon as a "large hunting knife." According to the Globe, he led police on a chase but was arrested after hitting traffic in Southborough,......

--On Saturday morning, a construction worker in Watertown went on a crazy trip to Brookline. The worker, 24-year-old Kevin Lasquade, happened to be drunk at the time. According to WHDH, Lasquade got noticed when "he allegedly hit a parked car on Beacon Street in Brookline." He also took the backhoe into a Stop & Shop lot and almost did some damage there. As if driving drunk weren't bad enough, WHDH pointed out that Lasquade didn’t......

The Globe got misty-eyed today over the closing of Liquor Land in Roxbury, which will soon become a CVS. Liquor Land's demise is a plus-minus kind of story. The people who actually live in the neighborhood might be happy at the thought of one less liquor store and the arrival of a pharmacy. Others are saying it's gentrification. Alas, the liquor store's neighbors never get to decide what they want within walking distance, do......

-- A pair of shootings remain mysteries. At 10:13 Friday, police responding to calls in Roxbury found a black male in his 20s suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. And at 2:45 this morning, police found a man shot multiple times on Torrey Street in Dorchester. Both victims are at Boston Medical Center being treated. No suspects have been arrested in either case. -- A Taunton man was found by police shot dead inside a parked......

-- Police shot and killed a corrections officer last night. Marquis Barker, 38, an officer at Nashua Street Jail, was gunned down after stealing a police cruiser and leading officers on a chase through Dorchester and Mattapan. Police responding to calls found Barker out of control outside his Dorchester home, wielding what appeared to be a handgun. Barker begged police to shoot and kill him before escaping in the police cruiser. After crashing the cruiser......

--Surprise snow! --A local kid figured out something to do with bubble wrap other than pop it. [WCVB] --Did you get stuck on the Red Line for a while today? A "very small trash fire" at Andrew Station shut down the Red Line this afternoon for 15 minutes. [Joe Pesaturo at the MBTA] --Doctors believe they have successfully reattached the lip of the child whose father bit it off over the weekend. [WBZ] --Cambridge can't......

--Shooting broke out in the parking lot of Dorchester's Holy Tabernacle Church on Washington Street last night--during a packed worship session. An unidentified person was shot in the shoulder. --Emmanuel Greene, 22, of Dorchester, was not happy when he picked up his Chinese food at Chung Wah on Bowdoin Street last night. A Safe Street Team spotted him kicking a door because some kind of mixup happened with his order. Greene said that he didn't......

--Someone found a man in his 20s who had been killed by a gunshot wound to the head this morning on Westville Street. The Herald is reporting that the man was a relative of Andre Stoner, who was killed on October 17. Whoever killed Stoner's relative left him for dead in the John Marshall Elementary School parking lot. --Speaking of Andre Stoner and his family, Jessica Fargen of the Herald reports that the family has......

--The man shot yesterday on Harvard Street in Dorchester was leaving a funeral when he was hit. The man, 17, is in critical condition. According to the Globe, the funeral was for Charles Bunch, who died on October 14, possibly as a result of gang activity. Michele McPhee's sources ID'd the victim as David Johnson. She also noted that Johnson and the person who shot him were both wearing memorial buttons for Charles Bunch. --On......

We're taking a brief jaunt south to Providence for this jawdropping Oddblotter entry. A woman didn't ingest her Dunkies coffee fast enough at a drive-thru, and she took it out on another woman in the drive-thru line. Laura Defazzio, 27, received her order, but she didn't drive off right away. Denise DeMedeiros, 36, honked the horn--a reasonable decision given the circumstances. Defazzio responded that she was going to take as much time as she bloody......

Boston Vegetarian Food Festival Saturday, Oct 20, 10:00 am - 6:00 pm Reggie Lewis Athletic Center 1350 Tremont Street Free More info Boston is proud of its efforts to become a foodie-haven; and the success of such chefs as Ken Oringer, Barbara Lynch, and Michael Schlow have brought well-deserved publicity to the Hub. So while cutting-edge cuisine is on the rise, Beantown has not been known to fully live up to its legume-y name.......

Mike "Flash" Flaherty was only on hand to win the Iron Butt title. On a chilly and damp October Sunday, Cruiser Club Boston met at the Honey Dew on Lowell Street in Wakefield for its last official ride for the season, and Flaherty had some other place to be. But he couldn't miss the final odometer reading if he wanted the title. The Honey Dew -- known as "the Dew" -- is a biker......

--An alleged drunk driver decided to turn the JFK library parking lot into her own personal fun zone on Wednesday. Christine Selby of Wareham got cuffed and sent out for a psychological evaluation. --The body of an unidentified man in his 60s was found in a Roxbury apartment yesterday. The BPD says the man may have been stabbed. The body was discovered when neighbors complained about a smell. --A man was found wounded on Thane......