Results tagged “boston”

Bostonist caught the new George Clooney flick, Men Who Stare at Goats, last night. Despite being a little over the top, the film is an often-entertaining (if ultimately somewhat pointless) ride through the PsyOps of the New Earth Army, with The Dude as guide (you could pretend that Jeff Bridges is playing a different character here, but he's really not). From killing goats to locating long-lost idols and nemeses, the psychic abilities of Clooney's character ("Jedi warrior" Lyn Cassady) prove remarkably effective, at least within the fictional realm. The film's a sort of Fear and Loathing in Baghdad with a little Catch-22 mixed in, plus some Kevin Spacey going borderline Nazi (it's mostly the mustache, but he's also quite an asshole to his fellow Earth Army members). Perhaps more important than Cassady's excessive tan and his appropriately groovy mental prowess, though, is the subtle yet sustained presence of Boston in the film.

We're big fans of Honk! Festival, Davis Square's annual convergence of lefty, adult marching bands, but we feel like Boston has gotten screwed in years past. HonkFest has been confined to Somerville and Cambridge, forcing the rest of us to cross the river to see the spectacle. No longer.

It's not just Mission of Burma Day today in Boston. It's also ADORE-chester day, when bloggers from some of Dorchester's best blogs list a few things that they love about their neighborhood, Boston's largest—and often least well-covered by the mainstream media. Check out all the blogs today, listed below, and get to know your city a little better.

We're not shy about expressing our gawking admiration for Mission of Burma, the best rock band ever to come from Boston, and we were geeked to see that city councilor John Tobin feels the same way. In recognition of the release of The Sound the Speed the Light, the band's fifth studio recording, Tobin passed a resolution naming October 4, 2009 Mission of Burma Day in the city of Boston. See the declaration above and bust out your copy of Vs. this Sunday morning. Or, better yet, hoof it across the river to Cambridge, where the band will be playing a free show at MIT.

Unless you've been living under a rock, or in Somerville, you've probably heard about the new Flaherty-Yoon alliance. A "marriage," according to the Globe's Scott Lehigh, which weirdly echos something we overheard at Fenway Park yesterday. "You know, Flaherty-Yoon; it's like gay marriage, but for politics." After the jump: Tell us how the "Floon" ticket changes things.

Boston and Los Angeles don't have much in common. We have miserable winters, they have palm trees. We have Ben Affleck, they have everybody else. They have Rodney King, we have Skip Gates. It's a different world.

The Boston Public Health Commission announced that it will be offering free flu vaccines to residents of the city starting today in Dorchester. "Nearly three dozen public flu clinics are scheduled between now and October 21, and many more are planned," says the press release. More flu information is available on the city's website or by calling the Mayor’s Health Line at 617-534-5050. Full schedule of vaccination clinics after the jump.

In a personal letter to Hyatt CEO Mark Hoplamazian, Governor Deval Patrick issued an ultimatum yesterday: Rehire the housekeepers you fired in August from Boston's Hyatt hotels or stop doing business with the state of Massachusetts. Hyatt fired housekeeping staff from its Boston locations on August 31 and replaced it with outsourced, contract labor. In his letter, Patrick called the move "the worst nightmare of every worker in today’s weak economy." [More]

Like Paul on the road to Damascus, the scales just fell from our eyes, but it wasn't the Holy Spirit that we saw. It was the Boston political machine. Earlier today, we wondered why only 60 percent of possible votes in the at-large city council races were cast. The answer: "bullet voting"!

The Globe calls its new front page a "cleaner, leaner homepage that makes it easier to find the stories, sections, and topics you care about most." A "Hot Topics" bar (which just makes us think of goth clothes) and "Best of Boston.com" sections are designed to help you find what everyone else is reading as well as what you want to read. See a sampling and answer our poll after the jump.

On Tuesday, we learned Forbes Magazine decided living in Boston is stressful. Bostonist had no idea. More bad news today, this time from those party-poopers at IBM: Driving in Boston is stressful. President Obama should put these guys to work on the deficit. Boston tied for fourth with Chicago with 47% of commuters stressed out from driving to work. For the Hub, that's a 10-point spike since last year. Part of the problem, according to the study, is Boston's 33-minute average one-way commute is tied with New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., for the longest in the country.

We've had a lot to say about the passing of Ted Kennedy, too much to sum up in a tidy post. Thankfully, considering the exchange rate between words and pictures, Bostonist contributor Korri Leigh Crowley has put together a farewell slideshow that we'll present as our final statement on the passing of our favorite senator. It's the depiction of a city in mourning, and we're not sure what could be more moving than that.

Pretend scientists at Forbes Magazine have decided that living in Boston is stressful! Here's why. Remember when everybody had a job and valuable real estate? If you are remembering hard enough, you are probably having stress spasms in your back since now everybody in Boston has bupkes. That's what the Forbes people are talking about. But buck up. Boston's only the 8th most stressful city. Think of it this way. If you're looking at Tom Brady, you probably think he's the hottest man ever. But, actually, he's only the eighth hottest NFL quarterback, and at least you aren't looking at Ben Roethlisberger, allegedly the sixth hottest. Similarly, living in Boston might seem stressful, but at least you don't live in Providence, tied for fourth most stressful, despite or because of its legal weed, prostitution, and gambling. Come to think of it, maybe Providence is the Ben Roethlisberger of New England cities.

      

This past Wednesday, Absolut Vodka unveiled its newest flavor- Absolut Boston. That’s right, folks, we have our very own vodka flavor, and before you ask, no it doesn’t taste like the Charles. Absolut has decided that black tea and elderflower are the essence of Boston infused in vodka, and what a tasty city we are.

Between Tropical Storm Danny and the rash of street closures for Ted Kennedy's funeral, many of them clustered around the student-heavy neighborhood of Mission Hill, this final weekend in August might be the worst move-in weekend in recent memory. Do you have a move-in horror story? Or some funny photos of your UHaul in traffic? Were you the first student of the year to smash your truck on Storrow Drive? Send us an email at tips@bostonist.com!

Despite the sweet t-shirts, YouTube channels, rock band endorsements, and shiny new presents from the city, the 2009 Boston mayoral race has been kind of a snoozer. Sure, Menino's opponents have dogged his record on development, education, and crime, painting him as a dictatorial autocrat with his hands on every municipal project. But, when you open up the dictionary to "Mayor of Boston," the entry reads "dictatorial autocrat with his hands on every municipal project." Menino's most polemical opponent, the South End developer Kevin McCrea hasn't gotten much traction outside of the Boston wonk corner of the internet.

The City of Boston has just unveiled an online, searchable map that allows visitors to see where and when complaints to the city's 24-hour hotline were made. From requests to fix broken sidewalks—common—to requests to replace missing signs—surprisingly uncommon—the map lets you see, at a glance, how broken the city is.

-- Brookline police say that two men grabbed a Brookline woman in the street this morning, strangled her, threw her into a pickup truck, and raped her. According to police, the pickup truck is a red, two-door Ford that was captured on video by a Brookline surveillance camera. [Brookline Tab]

Today may be the hottest day of the summer. How are Bay Staters reacting to it? Well, earlier today, Bostonist happily wrote about city pools staying open so we can beat the heat. Mayor Thomas Menino knows how to keep voters residents happy duuring a heat emergency. Everyone is not as lucky. After Cambridge struggled to keep Veterans Memorial Pool at Magazine Beach open longer, the pool was closed today after a chlorine spill. Across the state, 21 of 27 pools run by the state Department of Conservation and Recreation are closed for the summer due a lifeguard shortage.

The Sam Yoon campaign knows how young people communicate with each other. Using their t-shirts. The campaign has set up a Cafe Press store hawking several t-shirt designs using Yoon's name in sometimes excruciating puns. Nobody among his competitors in the mayoral race offers anything similar. We couldn't find a single Thomas Menino shirt for sale, provided this one doesn't count, and Michael Flaherty only offers boring white t-shirts with the campaign's logo affixed.

Bostonist's inbox has been flooded by press releases from Sam Yoon's campaign office describing Yoon's "GreenPrint" for Boston. It's a series of proposals to add incentives for homeowners, business owners, and drivers to reduce their carbon footprint—by renovating existing buildings and using alternative transportation—that Yoon hopes will become central to his campaign. To kick things off, he proposed legislation in City Council today to add a tax incentive for businesses who are willing to build "green" roofs—roofs with soil and living flora that reduce winter heating requirements and storm runoff and clean the air to boot. It's a big proposal, destined for the front page of the Globe, right?

Bostonist is dedicated to bringing you the most viral Boston-based videos the internet has to offer.

Mayor Thomas Menino announced today that the City of Boston will be raising local hotel and meals taxes at the beginning of October. The move, which was authorized by the recent state budget, will increase Boston's hotel tax from 12.45% to 14.45% and the meals tax from 6.25% to 7%. Menino expects the increases to net $18 million during the next fiscal year. According to city figures, the rates are still lower than other major cities. New York, for example, levies a 14.75% hotel tax and a 8.38% meals tax.

Yelp Boston's "Weekly Yelp" newsletter this morning promises restaurants "Beyond the City Limits" where diners can eat al fresco. We thought we might find a gem or two to highlight in our own Stuff to Eat in the Suburbs series, but alas. It turns out that Yelp's editors just don't have a map. Of the nine restaurants listed, only four of them are actually outside of Boston's city limits, in Cambridge and Salem. The other five are located in Jamaica Plain, Roslindale, Allston, and Dorchester: all parts of Boston last time we checked. Kids, don't go to journalism school; the people who write this drek are going to be your editors when all the newspapers are gone.