As it becomes more likely that the use of handheld gadgets while driving will be banned, the Globe tossed out a thought worth debating--if drivers are still allowed to use headsets, will they drive better? Or is the mere act of talking the problem? Noah Bierman talked to an MIT engineer who said, "Conversations are the problem, not the phone." A Virginia Tech researcher added that the act of trying to dial was also distracting.......

BC was hoping for results similar to, or better than, the last time they saw Virginia Tech. That was the game back in October when the Hokies outplayed the Eagles for about 90% of the game, until Matt Ryan led an improbable comeback to keep BC's ACC title (and, at the time, national title hopes) alive. Well, so much for that. Virginia Tech outplayed BC for most of the game, including the last few minutes,......

As tempting as it would have been for the Bruins to come out swinging last night, playing back the Flyers for Patrice Bergeron's concussion, that's not how they roll. And they needed the two points even more than they needed the visceral satisfaction of seeing the Flyers laid out like the wounded soldiers in Gone With the Wind. The 6-3 shellacking wasn't exactly a tea party, though. Defenseman Andrew Alberts left the game after a......

Any objective observer would agree that last night's game was a game the Celtics honestly didn't deserve to win. They didn't shoot well, they looked tired after the Laker game, and they were facing a Bobcat team that may have no identity whatsoever, but played with spunk and energy the whole time. Things looked especially dismal down two with five seconds to go. Paul Pierce missed a game-tying shot, and Charlotte got the rebound. Boston......

The story about a Boston priest getting arrested for stalking Conan O'Brien keeps getting weirder, if that's possible. Reverend David Ajemian, 46, who attended Milton and Harvard and who was a local priest, was nabbed trying to get into an O'Brien taping. The Smoking Gun has documents that show Ajemian may be even stranger than previously thought. Letters indicate that Ajemian was mad at John McEnroe as well, and he claimed that McEnroe assaulted them......

A somewhat abbreviated Redux, since we're preparing for our live-blog of NFL Armageddon this afternoon. Let's start with the bad and end on a high note. First, the Bruins. They went to Ottawa last night to play the Senators, who are 11-1 and running away with the Northeast Division. So now the Bruins know how it feels to play any of the other teams from Boston. It was close, and the B's even led at......

If what they say is true, and Curt Schilling truly pitched his last game as a member of the Boston Red Sox last night... Let there be no mistake. The dividing line between the Sox' Era of Perpetual Failure and the current Golden Years can easily be geotagged; it's somewhere between Theo Epstein's Thanksgiving dinner in Arizona and the first time Curt posted on the SOSH message board. Somewhere in that stretch, the Red Sox......

"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......

Sherman Alexie will read Thursday, June 7, at 6:00 PM at the Brattle Theatre. Tickets are $2 and available at Porter Square Books. Now - this event is sold out - but do what you gotta do. Novelist, poet, blogger, and serious NBA fan Sherman Alexie's latest book went straight to paperback. That's not a big deal, but it became a big deal to Alexie when Jenny Shank, a reviewer, wondered if the book went......

--The BPD released a statement about a series of eight armed robberies in the South End and Downtown that have a clear pattern. They've robbed a Lindt Chocolate Shop, Ben & Jerry's, Emack and Boulios, Bon Bon, the gift shop at New England Medical Center, Truly Jorg's Patisserie, Papyrus, and Vitamin Shoppe. Perhaps they hit up the Vitamin Shoppe because they realized their robbery diet was on the unhealthy side. Despite their fondness for candy......

Text messages aren't just our favorite way to vote Sanjaya off of American Idol, they're also the quickest way to get in touch, no matter where we are. The mobile is always close at hand (and usually in the pocket) if we're at a concert, in class, or even in the cube toiling away on our TPS reports a text message won't likely go ignored for long. A number of US colleges and universities have......

We're a little late with this one, but we had to mention this incident from Emmanuel College. What took place wasn't a crime, but it will forever be marked in the Annals of Poor Taste. An adjunct professor at Emmanuel College re-enacted the Virginia Tech massacre in class – using dry-erase markers. He did it to make the pro-gun point that the Virginia Tech shooter could have been stopped if another student had a gun,......

With all that went down this week, we thought we thought we'd cheer everyone up by giving everyone a double dose of dogs. It was a rollercoaster ride of emotions this week at DCist. Like the rest of country, we were floored by the news of so many dead coming out of Virginia Tech, and with so many of the victims and their relatives from the D.C. area, we felt it important to pay......

--The guy who threatened another Virginia Tech because he got dumped has been arraigned. Andrew Rosenblum must stay at his parents' home in Needham, and he has to wear a GPS monitoring device. BU and Wheelock College, the school that the recipients of his threatening e-mail attended, have banned him from their campuses. His lawyer called him an "immature young man." Indeed. Rosenblum is getting attention not just because he did something incredibly stupid. He......

--At Stonehill College in Easton, a student found five empty shotgun-shell boxes in a parking lot. Given the rampage at Virginia Tech, people got nervous. However, Stonehill College waited four hours before telling students what to do. The school met with Easton Police before evacuating a dorm, but one student shot back, "It doesn't take four hours to consult with Easton Police." --Andrew Rosenblum, the part-time BU student who threatened an ex-girlfriend is now facing......

As expected, local universities are evaluating their own security response mechanisms in the hopes of avoiding a rampage similar to what happened at Virginia Tech. Boston police didn't wait around - they held a meeting with representatives from local universities one day after the shootings. (Look on the bright side of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force embarrassment - we already know that the BPD and local law enforcement are fast.) WHDH reports, "The group focused......

The nation is still reeling from the massacre that left, according to DCist, 33 people dead at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg. Local news reported this morning that one of the people killed was a student from Saugus named Ross Alameddine. Many people are still puzzled about what exactly happened between the first shooting, which happened in a dormitory, and the second shooting, which happened in a classroom building. An inordinate amount of time -......

With the BIG EAST mens basketball tournament about to begin it means that it's about time for some awards to be handed out. Yesterday the Boston College Eagles provided two of the six players named to the All-BIG EAST First Team, Jared Dudley and Craig Smith. Sean Williams, a freshman on the team, was named to the All-Rookie Team, and Coach Al Skinner was named the Coach of the Year. When you have a......