--Let's look on the bright side for a change. Any number of homicides in this city is bad, especially given the fact that the victims are often so young. However, the overall number of homicides in Boston is down from 71 to 66. [WBZ] --A guy who worked at a porn shop decided that selling porn just wasn't enough. Dwan Hammond, who worked at the Amazing.net on Stuart, was selling poppers, too. Can you imagine......

The cold weather - and holiday festivities - descended upon Gothamist. The Rockefeller Christmas tree was lit, Broadway stagehand finally ended their strike, and NASCAR decided to run their victory lap through Times Square. There were disturbing photographs revealing the working conditions in which many city manholes are produced and ninjas were also a hot topic, either robbing homes or entering into alibis. But the city was really rocked by how Rudy Giuliani's visits......

During a conversation about the flood of movies shooting in Boston, a member of b0st0n LiveJournal linked to video of Diaz shooting The Box. The LiveJournal members also debated what a dumb title of a movie that is. Besides the obvious porn connotations, The Box is too vague. Does the box belong to anyone? Is it big? Is it small? We need an adjective here, people! The Patriot Ledger posted a YouTube video of The......

Happy post-Thanksgiving and food hangover wishes from Bostonist with the help of PotD contributor hmmlargeart. We're suckers for macro 'food porn' and love how this shot captures the essence of a yummy Thanksgiving meal. We hope everyone had a great Holiday, while you're getting back to the daily grind don't forget to keep tagging with 'bostonist' for us!......

SFist witnessed a new apartment building tszuj the skyline with spectacular, gaudy turquoise aplomb, the (informal) renaming of the Mission/SOMA neighborhood border, the return of the Maltese Falcon, the Mayor Gavin Newsom mea culpa-ing over his Hawaiian getaway during the oil spill, and double-decker buses hitting the streets of San Francisco. Oh, and some baseball player named Barry Bonds is a liar whose pants, it seems, are totally on fire. LAist continues to cover the......

Londonist got the big scoop of the week with what may be the first images of notorious street artist Banksy in action. They also got on a runaway train without an operator provoking a response from the transport authorities. Elsewhere, London's answer to Central Station is about to open for business, and Londonist got a sneak preview. Meanwhile, spooky goings-on beneath London Bridge, where a cache of skeletons provided an apt story for Hallowe'en.......

A Conversation with Michael Haneke Friday, October 19, 7:30pm, Harvard Film Archive Michael Haneke: A Cinema of Provocation Ongoing, Harvard Film Archive and Museum of Fine Arts Austrian director Michael Haneke, best known for his spare and chilling 2001 adaptation of The Piano Teacher, will discuss his thirty year career in television and the movies tomorrow at Harvard Film Archive. The talk will be followed by a screening of Haneke's latest: his shot-by-shot U.S. remake......

--Massholes Behind the Wheel: A driver was so appalled by another driver that he called the phone number on the side of the truck. (Apparently the phone number wasn't 1-800-EAT-SHIT.) Anyway, instead of reaching an operator or supervisor, the bad driver himself answered and was surprised that another driver would dare question his driving. The BPD report notes that the truck driver argued with the other driver - with whom he was still sharing the......

A hot-pink color scheme. A dead ringer for Kate Bosworth on the cover. A first chapter that opens with lyrics from Loverboy's "Workin' for the Weekend." No kidding. Restless Virgins, a book on the Milton Academy sex scandal, just screams, "Bourgeois sex! Bourgeois sex! Yippee skippy!" The sex scandal in question didn't involve teachers (Exhibit A: Arlington's school system) but a 2005 incident in which one girl was - ahem - orally satisfying the sexual......

Chicagoist is gearing up for this weekend's annual Air & Water Show along the lakefront. In what's becoming an annual tradition around there, staff member Todd McClamroch even got to fly with one of the participants. Chicagoist's decidedly opinionated readership was also appalled that one of their staffers found a popular local brewpub to be a great place to bring a kid. They also think that an unlikely activist for immigration rights should just take......

Massachusetts has a reputation for being uptight, and the state police isn't doing us any favors. A State Police Trooper is catching static for having his picture taken with porn icon Ron Jeremy after Jeremy's tour bus had a near-miss with a drunk driver over the weekend. According to Boston NOW, the State Police is now "reviewing" the behavior of the unnamed trooper. Boston Magazine's blog contacted Pastor Craig Gross for the scoop. They......

Is this how a porn star is welcomed in Boston? A drunk driver swerved in front of Ron Jeremy's tour bus as he and his friends with the Porn Debate were leaving town early Saturday after holding their Porn Debate at the Middle East. Luckily, no one got hurt, but Ron Jeremy and his posse were rattled. Jeremy, anti-porn activist and self-described "porn pastor" Craig Gross, and members of the Porn Debate tour crew......

The Porn Debate will be at the Middle East Downstairs, Friday, August 10, at 8:00 pm. Visit the official website for details. And, yes, the site plays that skanky seventies porno music. Porn star and reality-television presence Ron Jeremy will debate porn anywhere. He raised a ruckus at Simmons and spoke at Northeastern, and now he's taking his show to the Middle East. Apparently there is money to be made in debating porn. Or just......

Former Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential aspirant Mitt Romney is in a full-scale Battle Royale with former Harvard hotshot Democrat presidential aspirant Barack Obama about the subject of sex. In the Atlantic piece Obama, Romney, and Sex, Sex, Sex, which appears to be titled for maximum search-engine optimization, Marc Ambinder writes about Romney's "shock" at Obama's proposal to teach sex-ed in kindergarten. Romney said, "I heard a quote today from Sen. Barack Obama which puzzled......

The Brattle Trailer Smackdown Contest is open until Sunday, July 1. Get details on the rules and regulations from the Brattle Theatre website There is a $10 entry fee. Gee whiz, the Brattle Theater has been pugnacious lately given the recent anime-fest Brattle Royale, and now with its Brattle Trailer Smackdown contest. In this contest, aspiring filmmakers are invited to submit a trailer to the Brattle for a fictional movie. There are only a few......

--The Suffolk County DA's office announced that LaDawn Hicks, the sister of murder defendant Jason Meeks, has been charged with witness intimidation. Boston NOW reports that Hicks and Meeks made a three-way phone call from jail "urging" a witness not to testify, and it blew right back at her. Meeks allegedly shot Alvaro Sanders in Roxbury in 2001. To keep her brother out of jail, Hicks also went to the witness' house (we're not naming......

LAist is experimenting with blogging dates from J-Date, but finds the best men are found offline. Some date vicariously online and that is one reason why porn is big -- really freaking big -- so they ask if they should cover XXX since the heart of it lays in the city's San Fernando Valley. A writer grapples with her food porn photography obsession, another gets censored on Flickr, one gets scooped by the LA......

The nicer the weather gets, the busier we get across the Ist-A-Verse. But we like being busy. Here's a peek at what we've been up to since last week! Chicagoist had an interview with Audrey Niffenegger, whose popular book, The Time Traveler's Wife, was based in their fine city. They also had a heated discussion about Rush Limbaugh's controversial Barack Obama parody, talked about whether Uncle Julio's Hacienda is a good place to get......

You read that right. The self-proclaimed "hedgehog," "hardest man in show business," porn star, and occasional reality-show participant Ron Jeremy will be debating pornography at Simmons – a women's college. As you can imagine, several Simmons Women are underwhelmed at the prospect of Ron Jeremy duking it out with author Susan Cole tonight. A senior from Simmons told the Herald: “He’s a white male who is very rich and has gotten very rich from pornography,......

The Globe reported today that Deval Patrick was reversing an order by former Governor Mitt Romey and would allow 26 couples to have their marriages to be recorded in Massachusetts. A 1913 law which stated that those couples whose marriage was specifically outlawed in their state of residence could not marry in Massachusetts was used by the Romney administration – and withheld by a State Supreme Court decision – precluded the couples marriages from being......

Blades of Glory fills a specific comedy niche - the nuts 'n' butts genre. There's nut jokes, butt jokes, and body-part jokes galore. Despite the emphasis on the pratfall and the gross-out joke, Will Ferrell and Jon Heder's brand of physical comedy pulls the sloppy script up a few notches. Even though all sports have been satirized to death, figure skating truly deserves mockery. As Chazz Michael Michaels, a male Tonya Harding, Will Ferrell resembles......

--The outrage over Chiara Levin's murder is growing. Like Quinntessa Blackwell, Levin wasn't the "intended target," according to police. But no one is talking – and no one has adequately explained why it took so long to take Levin to Boston Medical Center early Saturday morning. She was shot in the head, so it wasn't as if there was a question of whether or not she needed to go to the hospital. To get people......

And you thought the library stacks were quiet! Well, just because people are quiet doesn't mean they aren't up to something. Last Friday, a 59-year-old Marshfield man was caught gazing upon child porn on his computer – while the library was jam-packed with kids. It was his own laptop, but he was allegedly using the library's wireless for evil. Just a few days ago, WCVB reported on bad things happening within the Boston Public Library.......

The Schlock-Around-the-Clock festival kicks off on Saturday night at the Brattle at 9:30 pm. Bring your jammies - they're going until the next morning. Tickets are $20 for the all-nighter. The Brattle is hosting its very first Schlock-Around-the-Clock this weekend, and, when it comes to schlock, they've set the bar very, very high. You may never see schlock like this all in one place again. Here's the Brattle's lineup: Shanty Tramp (1967) This movie plays......

Another young person has been killed, this time at Lincoln-Sudbury High. One student stabbed another to death in a school bathroom early yesterday morning. Some of those who are supposed to watch over the students are in trouble, too. Two former Boston school employees were charged Thursday for beating on their middle-school students when they took them to Rhode Island. Supposedly, they were on an Outward Bound kind of trip. Way to go, fellas. You......

Hot on the heels of his feature film debut in Jesus Camp (Bostonist's most enthusiastic movie pick in October), megapreacher Ted Haggard faces allegations of methamphetamine use and indiscretions with a male prostitute. Haggard was (until last night) president of the National Association of Evangelicals and senior pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, where you can rent a "prayer closet" for $25 per night and apparently give new meaning to the phrase for......

LAist is flashing a sad peace out to their editor Carolyn Kellogg with one hand and bumping knuckles with their new head typist L.A. blogger king Tony Pierce with the other. Where do ist editors go when they hang up the 'editorial we'? They take on MySpace, apparently. At least Ben Brown does. Austinist reminds of the just rewards of less savory careers this week and then they witness the Arctic Monkeys and We Are......

When, like Bostonist, you keep your hair very very short, it is easy to “let yourself go,” at least inasmuch as coworkers and friends start calling you “shaggy” even though your mane is nowhere near the average for clean-cut Bostonians. This was the condition we found ourselves in last week when we stumbled upon the Capitol Barber Shop, a quaint-looking little affair across from the State House on Bowdoin Street. After a terrible experience......

In a world where there's nothing to do but watch movies. In a city full of theaters, museums, and libraries. One moviegoer who can be in three places at once. Wednesday 5/3 Dolls & Being John Malkovich Beat Takeshi's bunraku-inspired drama Dolls is paired with Spike Jonze's puppetry-obsessed black comedy Being John Malkovich: two surreal tastes that taste surreal together. Harvard Film Archive 7 pm (Dolls), 9pm (Malkovich), $8 Dolls: IMDB | web site |......

In a world where there's nothing to do but watch movies. In a city full of theaters, museums, and libraries. One moviegoer who can be in three places at once. This week, Boston's movie theaters offer a variety of giant monsters (fire-breathing turtles, radioactive lizards, skyscraper-climbing apes), smaller monsters (teenagers on myspace, paintball enthusiasts), and a terrifying alternate universe where everyone sings with R. Kelly's voice. Wednesday 4/26 King Kong & Godzilla Triple Feature A......