http://www.myspace.com/unionsquareroundtable" target="_blank">Union Square Round Table Friday, February 29 PA's Lounge, 345 Somerville Ave, Somerville (Union Sq) 9:00 p.m., $8 for 21+ / $11 for 18+ It's the bonus day of the year, so Bonus! is tonight's theme of the (now) bimonthly multi-media performance night that's usually two hour-long segments. How the theme will manifest itself is a surpise until the performance, but frequent musical guest Yoni Gordon usually tries to tie in at least......

When Bostonist entered Buckaroo's Mercantile, a pop-culture store across the street from T.T. the Bear's and the Middle East in Central Square, stocking stuffers were on our mind. The owner of Buckaroo's Mercantile, Brooks, layers retro images over metal wallets, night lites, light-switch plate covers, and more. Brooks told Bostonist that all of the above items were hot sellers at the Bazaar Bizarre, and you can buy them at the store. You can also choose......

When Bostonist heard that J.P. Licks’ October flavors include not just predictable seasonal favorites like pumpkin and caramel apple, but also a whole series of Thai-food-inspired ice creams, we had to give them a try. The Thai iced tea had a nice consistency—perhaps from the addition of condensed milk—but it had a milder tea flavor than we hoped for. If you hadn’t told us it was Thai iced tea, we might have mistaken it for......

For a town that has a good number of vegetarians, Boston has surprisingly few vegetarian restaurants. Luckily, some of our favorite restaurants have veggie options that make even the most devoted carnivore think twice about their order. Chief among them is Mediterreanean- and Arabic-influenced Oleana’s six-course vegetarian tasting menu. Bostonist has tried it out several times, and it is never exactly the same twice—it varies from night to night with what’s fresh and best, and......

When Bostonist were kids, pitching the tennis ball against the chimney for five hours straight, we often dreamed of the day we'd get called up to the Red Sox, in the heat of a pennant race, tabbed for a sudden start, and then go out and throw a no-hitter in our big-league debut. Clay Buchholz is a slacker. It took him until his SECOND Major League start to have a piece of memorabilia suitable for......

Now that the July 4 hub-bub has subsided (quick recap: boo to rain, yay to fireworks, poor network branding choice to have the Scottish Craig Ferguson serve as an honorary MC for a July 4 celebration), we can note that we had earlier this week our first expereince observing baseball speed-dating in progress. Bostonist was on hand for Monday night's Sox/Rangers game - sometime late in the game, we turned to the center field jumbo......

We wish we had an ongoing series of unfortunately named centers, because the James J. Kaput Center for Research and Innovation in Mathematics Education at UMass Dartmouth would be a top notch feature. Some could say that it's over before it began, dead in the water, or, quite simply, kaput. But it's not, it's only just begun. From the UMass Dartmouth press releaseThe goal of the Center is to democratize access to core ideas in......

Chanel 5's Cindy and Jeff have a blog. It's about traffic. Today it was about grabbing a Taxi. When Bostonist has a flight to catch we've been known to walk ourselves to the nearest hotel so that we can grab the flat rate to Logan because it's almost always cheaper than a ride with the meter running. As fast as the Big Dig has made an airport run, traffic usually slows us down enough to......

Grant Stoddard will read from Working Stiff at Harvard Book Store, 6:30 pm, Wednesday, February 7. A few days ago, we talked about Vendela Vida's day jobs as an editor and writing teacher. But Grant Stoddard has a day job worth talking about. He has sex all day. That's pretty much it. Then he writes about it. Grant Stoddard has done everything you can think of, and probably a few things you haven't thought of.......

When Bostonist scanned the list of those on Deval Patrick's inaugural committee, we thought, "James Taylor? Huh. James 'Fire and Rain' Taylor? Is he doing the Bono thing now?" We learned that was indeed the case, and rumors have now surfaced that the soft-rocker might be dropping a few tunes at the Deval Patrick Million-Dollar Bash. Carol Beggy and Mark Shanahan write, "At his Boston concert before the election, Sweet Baby James dedicated 'Fire......

When Bostonist saw this guy on a tricycle tooling down Washington street at 10:00 a.m. this morning with two cases of Corona in his basket, we thought he looked cool, so when he stopped to chat with a friend, we caught up to him and asked if we could take his picture. As he was saying yes, the friend hopped out of his wheelchair and posed too (we don't know why he decided to......

Bostonist had a chance to catch one of our favorite indie hip hop acts when Soul Position brought their "things go better with RJ and Al" tour to the Middle East. Soul Position is beat master RJD2 and fellow Columbus, Ohio homie Blueprint. RJ and Blueprint were on. Really on. Bostonist had a chance to chat with them before the show. They are both disarmingly easy going and, well, nice. And funny. When Bostonist......

When we first heard about Johnny Cupcakes, Bostonist was thrilled to hear about a new shop devoted solely to the art of the cupcake. (After hitting up Magnolia Bakery on our last trip to NYC, we are kinda obsessed with the 'cake.) Then we realized that Johnny Cupcakes isn't a bakery but a Hull, MA based brand of funky tees, sweatshirts and accessories that take the cupcake icon and integrate it into fashion. With a......

When Bostonist met a friend for lunch last week in Coolidge Corner, we automatically began walking to our favorite place, Zathmary’s. When we got there, however, we found locked doors and two bewildered little old ladies standing outside. “They’re closed for good!” one of the ladies said, and it was one of those moments that Bostonist thought only happened in movies where everyone gasps in unison. We glanced in the windows and sure enough, all......

For those living across river (or willing to hop the Red Line or #1), Bostonist thinks there’s no better place to grab a pint, munch on some gourmet pub fare (yes, there is such a thing) and hear our favorite local band than The Plough & Stars, reopening this Friday. Last year proved to be a difficult one for the 35-year-old Cambridge bar, and after being cited for a noise complaint (Anyone remember the faithful......

When Bostonist first saw Sarah Sze's work a couple years ago, we thought a benevolent fungus or a swarm of very resourceful insects had made their home in the Museum of Fine Arts lobby. The sculptures couldn't have been mounted in place: we got the distinct impression that they lived inside the walls and had just now decided to creep out, sending tendrils into the museum to snare unwary found objects. Tonight, Harvard's Carpenter Center......

The Mayor seems disposed to do anything conceivable to fight violent crime, except put more police on the streets. We've seen him blame t-shirts for lawlessness in Boston, and now he's focusing on pay phones. The theory, as detailed in a story in today's Globe, is that drug dealers and prostitutes use pay phones for their business and congregate around the phones. When Bostonist lived in a poor immigrant neighborhood in Brooklyn, we recall pay......

When Bostonist thinks of legendary bands from the U.K., Newcastle doesn’t immediately spring to mind as a hotbed of activity. Oh sure, the town produced Eric Burdon and the Animals, but it wasn’t really a player in the post-punk heyday of the early 1980s. So perhaps its no surprise that none of the hot new British bands to emerge in the past several years hailed from Newcastle. Until about a year ago that is, when......

When Bostonist has had it with the Au Bon Pain lunch scene, we turn to our co-workers for lunch suggestions and last week, we were led to a delightful place. Located on Church Street in Bay Village (that tiny area between Back Bay/the Theater District/South End), Rachel’s Kitchen is a tiny, bright place to pop in and grab a sandwich and a retro soda pop in a glass bottle. The place is not a place......

Sure, Benjamin Franklin’s 300th birthday has been getting lots of press here in the city that strives to keep that American Revolution spirit alive. Well, there is another famous birthday coming up next week and a local museum has decided to dedicate a whole day to him. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is turning 250 years old on January 27th and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum will be celebrating it all day long on Sunday, January 29......

When Bostonist received an e-mail notifying us that the results were in, we were expecting news about a new M&M color being introduced. It turns out the e-mail was referring to the latest survey from Men's Fitness magazine, which once again ranked the Fittest/Fattest Cities in the U.S. While Bostonist’s own fitness routine has dropped off in the last few months, it seems that our city has actually improved in health, moving from the......

Ah, dumb crime - we can never get enough of it. When Bostonist did a clinical program in law school where we worked as a public defender for juveniles, we decided that if we could teach one thing to high school students, it would be a quick course on constitutional rights, so they wouldn't always consent to police searches they could have refused. Apparently, though, that wouldn't be enough - we'd also need to teach......

Bostonist doesn't pretend to be a statistician, but we're a little perplexed by the worry being aired over new Census Bureau figures that show the Commonwealth has lost population for two years running. It's not that our feelings aren't hurt - they are, because we definitely love Massachusetts and want people to love it too - it's just that we're not sure what the big deal is. The Globe points out that Massachusetts has lost......

There’s the Duck Tour, the Trolley Tour (we’re not talking Green Line), Park Service Docents, the Freedom Trail, and dozens of biking and walking tours of the city. Steven Tyler may be local, but Bostonist has already seen the Old State House and we can’t be wasting our precious cell phone minutes to listen to him talk about it. With our attempt to find out some of those local hidden historical markers, we were very......

When Bostonist read that Senator Kerry served on a jury last week, our response was, "Uh huh. So?" Because Kerry is boooooring. He may be smart, sure, and maybe even a decent senator, but it's hard to imagine Kerry in the jury room wielding a knife to prove a point, Twelve-Angry-Men style. But when we heard that President Bush got the call in Waco, Texas, all we could think about was how to make sure......

This weekend Bostonist made a little trip over to Wikipedia. We wanted to find out what else had been named “Black Friday.” Turns out that once upon a time it did refer to a stock market crash, one in 1869, like its brothers Black Monday (of 1987 and also 1929), Black Tuesday, and Black Thursday of Great Depression fame. There are a whole host of other Fridays that Black Friday has referred to, but presently,......

When Bostonist thinks of the theater scene here in the city, we immediately think of our beloved Mayor Menino front and center at a matinee viewing of "Kiss of the Spider Woman." Okay, so we never really thought of him hitting up the theater district at all, but Menino announced his "Mayor's Holiday Special" for this upcoming month of December. Teaming up with ArtsBoston.org, a non-profit association that oversees lots of the city's performing......

Before Bostonist could make it to one of the hundreds of Dunkin’ Donuts locations to try their Caramel Creme and Mocha Almond latte flavors (just released for the holidays), we heard about a contest: Free coffee for life - could it be true? Dunkin’ Donuts is asking patrons to tell their story about the great lengths to which they’ve gone for a cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. With a location within arms' reach* anywhere in......

When Bostonist didn't get into Harvard Law School, we settled for another fine, albeit architecturally challenged, institution in the area (and married a Harvard grad student, which made us feel much better). But according to a story in today's New York Times, high school students rejected by Harvard College are increasingly doing bachelor's degrees at the Harvard Extension School, seeing it as the Harvard experience on the cheap. (Why not just go to community college,......

Bostonist has noticed that haircuts for women tend to be a big, expensive, high-stress affair. The people who do the job take an exceedingly long time to remove a very small quantity of hair at a very high price, and for this reason they are called "stylists," not "barbers." We have observed that these stylists are treated almost like mystic oracles - or at least like rock stars - by their faithful customers. ("I went......