The wheels are coming off the bus. After Monday night's debacle in DC and Tuesday's shutout at the hands of Florida, the Bruins desperately needed a strong showing last night, with Toronto in town and their six-seed hanging by a thread. They gave a strong performance, all right, but only if you gauge by smell. The Bruins opened a 1-0 lead, then watched helplessly as the Leafs pummeled them into a fine dust, scoring eight......

Photo by Andy Sternberg/LAist A posthumous tribute wall dedicated to singer/songwriter Elliot Smith sat defaced by graffiti for months on end -- LAist said enough, so did the fans and city council.SFist was surprised to learn that chronic presidential candidate Ralph Nader picked former San Francisco Supervisor Matt Gonzalez as his running mate.Phillyist explored the possibilities of green cleaning.In the latest edition of Reel Toronto, a bi-weekly feature looking at films shot in Toronto......

Now that filmmakers have rediscovered Boston, the city wants to take advantage of it by building a movie studio in Weymouth, the Herald's Scott Van Voorhis reports: Seeking to build political support and persuade the state to expand existing tax credits, a team of Hollywood film moguls is flying into the Hub this week for meetings with state lawmakers and the development firm that controls the former naval air station in South Weymouth, industry sources......

Photo by Phillyist's Matt Johnson, SkyscraperSunset.com, December 19, 2007. Phillyist explored an impending implosion and lived to tell the tale.Gothamist marveled at the city's new NYC-branded condom campaign - especially the use of a Toronto landmark in the advertising. (Also, fun fact: Gothamist turned five years old yesterday.)Tired of the worldwide Scientology protests? Torontoist totally isn't: they covered the big downtown protest the day it happened, and followed up with an examination of all......

Is it just us, or does it seem like whenever the Bruins have the spotlight to themselves, they lose? When they play the same night as the Celtics, or Patriots, they're fine, but give everyone else the night off, and it feels like we always have to lead with a Bruins loss. Maybe it's just us. But they deserve better. They certainly deserved better last night, as they dropped a 4-3 OT game in Toronto.......

It looks like it's going to be an easy season for Red Sox beat writers. It looks like all they'll have to do is set up a microphone within half a mile of Jonathan Papelbon, and he'll come a-runnin' with enough material to fill a dozen Notes columns. More, if they can be padded out with 40-year-old rock lyrics (hi, Dan!). So it's the time of the season for Spring Training, and Papelbon held court......

The rumors that JFK fathered a love child who is now living in Canada have not gone away. In fact, they seem to be gaining strength, at least up north. The love child went to the press and revealed some information about himself. His first name is "Jack," of course. The Herald has his full name, but the Toronto Globe & Mail does not. "Jack" wants DNA tests, and he says people stop him and......

Look outside the window. Grimace. Then realize that somewhere, in a magical land known as Florida, spring is only one day away. Pitchers and Catchers Day is almost here, which means that spring is creeping closer to our frozen city. Ballplayers will be ready to welcome in the season when they finally get back to Fenway. The journey just happens to take them to Florida, Japan, Los Angeles, Oakland, and Toronto before spring finally reaches......

Photograph of Michael Strahan, coach Tom Coughin (holding the Vince Lombardi trophy) and quarterback and Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning by Tien Mao Gothamist was amazed after the Giants won the Super Bowl, the city went wild, and it witnessed a ticker-tape parade.Barack Obama drew 20,000+ ahead of Seattle’s Saturday caucus.Londonist had Super Tuesday too.Elusive guerrilla street artist Banksy revisits Los Angeles.After the Patriots lost the Super Bowl and came this close to making......

On top of the loss of his chosen presidential candidate, Barack Obama, in the Massachusetts primaries (debate on the "Kennedy Lift" here), Senator Ted Kennedy now has to deal with more rumors about the Kennedy Clan. The Kennedy Clan has always been a magnet for rumors, some sordid, some not, some true, some not. In this case, whether or not it is true, the latest rumor will have a high-profile mouthpiece in the form of......

The Globe reported that the Metro was shrinking, and Joe Keohane at Boston Daily noted that the Globe got details wrong. Then the Metro trumped that little blunder by reporting that the Globe was planning "hundreds" of layoffs and would raise the price of the paper to 75 cents. The Globe told the Herald that's not so. Meanwhile, the Herald stands by, endlessly amused, not the least because the Globe and the Metro are......

"Half the guys in our league couldn't shoot 15-for-21 if they were in a gym by themselves," said Doc Rivers. The man would know, having coached Kedrick Brown, Gerald Green, and Brian Scalabrine over the years. But 15-for-21 were the numbers Toronto rained down on the C's from 3-point-land, dropping the C's to their first division loss of the season. It was perhaps the Celtics' poorest defensive game of the year; the Raptors shot 58%......

So a few movies shoot in Boston, and all of a sudden the city is Hollywood East. Well, a lot of movies stopped by here, and Denzel Washington's The Great Debaters premiered at Harvard. The New York Times called Boston the "new Toronto" as long as movies are concerned. Today, the Track Girls became excited at the prospect of Canada being jealous of Boston. But who cares about that? All we care about is--what in......

On December 12th Berklee College of Music hosted a show (broadcast live for Sirius Canada) dedicated to the music of Canadian artists - rapper k-os and rockers The New Pornographers were billed as the headliners. The Canadian music scene has been on indie radars for a while now, and this show proved that the attention has been well deserved. The show began with performances by Canadian Berklee students, and while all the students showed......

We could choose to be disappointed. We figured (and we weren't the only ones) that the combination of crappy weather, boisterous fans and motivated personnel would mean the Patriots would kick the Jets' butts up and down the field for three hours. We figured that, even though we're better than New York in every sport right now, yesterday would be a cathartic blowout to soothe any lingering anti-NY feelings around here. Well, not quite. The......

We're really glad we're not the New York Jets. Especially today. First of all, if you were a Jet, you'd have to be outside for hours and hours in this weather. Second of all, you're not a very good football team, and you are playing today against a remarkably good team. Third, you're the team whose coach finked out Bill Belichick early this year, putting the Patriots on a mission to destroy everything in their......

Come on, it wasn't as if anyone thought that the mighty Toronto Raptors would snap the Celtics' unbeaten home streak. Sure, they could have - insert your "any given team, any given night" coaching adages here - but it wasn't a match up that was highly anticipated. You didn't hear any of the Raptors guaranteeing victory. We're just sayin'. So it was with a pleasant little lack of surprise that the Celtics took an early......

The baseball winter meetings are over, and the Red Sox find themselves without an ace. Except for the one they have. And the Japanese guy who might yet become one. And the old cowboy back for one more year. And the two or three promising kids who might be a couple years away. But they haven't landed Johan Santana, which is either a failure (if they really were after Santana) or a success (if their......

After the Mooninite Menace and Star Simpson's light-up sweatshirt, we were starting to think that the entire city of Boston was afraid of its own shadow. But Toronto just made us feel better by having its own experience of homeland security gone awry in the face of art. Torontoist has an interview up with a gentleman who just scared the holy shit out of the city. And this is Canada, people, aka America's Hat. They're......

Remember when Celtics-Lakers games used to mean something? In the Sixties, the Celtics championship road seemed to always end with a victory over LA. In the Eighties, the Bird-Magic schism divided the NBA right down the middle, but the Lakers took two out of the three Finals in which they went head-to-head. The rivalry even has its own Wikipedia page. Alas, for the last 20 years or so, the cachet has been long gone. While......

No matter how old we get, the more we get a kick out of the immature, downright gleeful sensation of zinging another city's team. Case in point: Toronto on Tuesday night. The Maple Leafs hosted Boston, who in turn officially introduced the NHL to Tuukka Rask. Rask, a mere cub at 20 years of age, then made 30 saves and led the Bruins to a 4-2 victory over the Leafs. The zinger? Bruins fans know......

--Corinne Stephen was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the brutal death of Dontel Jeffers, a four-year-old who died in her foster care in 2005. [Boston Herald, Boston Globe] --Massachusetts environmentalists are upset because they think the Legislature's new energy bill will breed wind farms. Folks, if you want to free yourselves from oil, you are going to have to suck it up at some point and try out the turbines somewhere. [Boston Globe] --Follow-Up: Herald......

Tim Thomas has been a rock in goal for the Bruins; even when they've been floundering offensively - and make no mistake, they have - Thomas has played well enough to keep them in the game. But last night against Toronto, another team struggling to put the biscuit in the basket, the B's found their rhythm and controlled the tempo, punishing old friend Andrew Raycroft for a 5-2 win. (Your humble correspondent was there, doing......

We're the most starry-eyed, green-Kool-Aid-guzzling optimists anywhere, but even we never thought it would be this good, this fast. Even on a night when two-thirds of Ghidorah wasn't quite up to snuff (Ray Allen 4-for-14, Kevin Garnett missing his usual double-double), the Celtics still had enough to put the clamps on Jersey and win their seventh straight. Any time you defensively hold a team to 69 points and 33% shooting, you're doing something right. And......

International Pop Overthrow The Great Scott, Allston Friday Nov 2 - Tuesday Nov 6 $10 // 7 PM // 18+ except for 11/3, 21+ Sounds cool, doesn't it? Well, we certainly think so. The International Pop Overthrow, the brain child of creator David Bash, comes to Boston for the Festival's 5th year. The 5-day long event will showcase local bands whose sound can be classified as indie, rock and/or pop. But wait - pop?......

The Red Sox didn't play yesterday, so of course they were more successful than usual of late, picking up half a game on the Yankees (thanks, Toronto!). Now they face their final homestand, against Oakland and Minnesota. This looked at the beginning of the season like a rough end to the season, but both those clubs have been surprisingly bad this season. Remember, all the Red Sox have to do is win five of the......

Earlier this season, when the Red Sox suffered a 2- or 3-game losing streak, we suggested that the mood in Red Sox Nation (a term we promise never to use again) was like the scene in Airplane! when Elaine got on the PA and asked if there was anyone on board who knew how to fly a plane. What movie scene defines Sox fans now? We've got to go with the one near the end......

Last night featured one of those "How the hell did that happen?" games in which the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Red Sox 6 to 1. Much of the credit goes to the Blue Jays' Frank Thomas, who homered three times, two of those times off Tim Wakefield. Guess Thomas just has a taste for knuckleballs. And now, we'll get to an image that blows our minds - pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka in a Teletubby outfit.......

Money and draft pick(s). That's what NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is taking from Coach Bill and the Patriots as punishment for this week's video brouhaha. The team gets fined $250K and a draft pick or two, depending on how they finish this year. Bill gets whacked for half a million personally, which will eat heavily into his suit budget. Let's just all agree we probably got off very easy, and get ready for San Diego......

Manny's still hurt. Okajima is cranky. Team officals are anonymously bellyaching that bringing back Mike Lowell next year might be too expensive. Boy, it's fun being in first place, huh? Last night vs. Toronto was a fairly ho-hum game, with a disappointing ending. Curt Schilling pitched well again (See? All is not lost.), but Manny Delcarmen and Okajima gave up killer home runs to Troy Glaus and Vernon Wells, respectively, and the Jays avoided getting......