On Tuesday we wrote about how Governor Deval Patrick's intellectually lazy casino job creation numbers gave ammunition to the skeptical of gambling Speaker of the House Sal DiMasi. Yesterday, however, Patrick got some good news from the Chamber of Commerce, who released numbers much more helpful to his cause. The previous criticism was related to Patrick's projection that the three proposed casinos would create 30,000 new construction jobs, while a more balanced analysis in......

Boston's King of Boogie-Woogie With his long hair and white beard, Preacher Jack may look like a wild-eyed holy man descended from a lonely mountaintop. He's actually a living piece of boogie-woogie/rockabilly history who grew up and resides on the North Shore. Pounding the keys for fifty years, he may not keep a weekly residence at Frank's Steak House anymore, but Preacher Jack comes down to Cambridge & Boston every couple weeks to spread......

...only makes you stronger. That has to be the attitude the Bruins take today, after having their winning streak stopped, killed, set on fire, stomped, buried, and the earth salted. The good news is, they will never play a worse game than they did last night. It was 6-0 Capitals in the first period. Alex Ovechkin had a hat trick before half the fans had found their seats. Tim Thomas got pulled, put back in......

It seems that the Bruins' approach to the NHL trade deadline - to hold steady and remain as is - might just pay off. On Tuesday night, against an Ottawa Senators team that the Globe kindly referred to as "thoroughly disinterested" (read: someone's will to play didn't arrive at the TDBN Garden with the rest of the Senators' gear), the Bruins cruised along to a 4-0 win, extending the winning ways that began out on......

Maybe it was being in L.A. one night after the Oscars, so the magic of the stars could rub off on them (because when you think "glamour", you think Coen Brothers). Maybe it wasn't. Probably it had a lot to do with the injury-riddled, overmatched Clippers. But whatever the reason, the results speak for themselves: the C's blasted LA last night, and come home with a 2-game winning streak. The Clippers only broke 20 points......

We don't like to think back to the final moments of Super Bowl XLII. If we could, we'd erase the name Plaxico Burress from our memory, and we'd focus on the good times we've had with Ellis Hobbs. But on Tuesday, Boston was asked to go back to the Super Bowl and that second, 35 from the end of the game and a perfect season, when Burress beat Hobbs and scored the touchdown that set......

Can you put a price on Super Bowl immortality? MasterCard would likely say no (because let's face it, it's priceless), but some people in St. Louis offer a resounding "hell yes." The estimated price of a 2002 Rams Super Bowl win, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court in New Orleans, is $100 million. The lawsuit, which names the Patriots organization and Coach Bill Belichick, stems from former Rams player Willie Gary,......

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 good news for the Celtics is that the Timberwolf portion of their schedule is in the history books. After surviving a 1-point game against Minnesota at home a couple of weeks ago, the C's went to the Twin Cities and pulled out a 2-point win. It started with a polite Minnesotan reaction for Kevin Garnett, who of course didn't play again but got a huge ovation from his former hometown fans. It continued with......

Well, at least somebody within the Romney campaign got some good news after Super Tuesday. DA Dan Conley announced that he won't press charges against former Romney aide Jay Garrity. No, Garrity wasn't the Romney aide who put a picture of himself in a hot tub on mySpace. He was the guy who allegedly pretended to be a police officer and hassled a reporter. According to the AP, Garrity was cleared of pretending to be......

--The MBTA put out its most recent crime statistics. The good news is that "Part I" crimes (homicide, rape, robbery, larceny) are down by 10%, and the most violent crimes are down 18.5%. "Part II" crimes (simple assault, vandalism, and the grab-bag that is "Disorderly Conduct") are up by 12%. Larceny is the most common "Part I" crime, while fraud is the most common "Part II" crime. [Full presentation at MBTA Police] --Police have officially......

BootWatch: Tom Brady sprained his right ankle. It is a high ankle sprain viewed as minor, according to the local media types, and while it's a big enough deal to have rendered The Boot necessary in New York on Monday, it's not enough to keep QB Brady out of the Really, Really Big Game on February 3. We're going to go out on a limb here and state that we're not going to invest much......

You are what you eat, so the saying goes. Well, this one old adage certainly rings true. Ask a vegan/vegetarian why they keep their diet, and health will be near, if not at, the top if their reasons. Putting healthy vitamin-rich whole foods into your body makes you feel better, gives you more energy, and helps to prevent against both short and long-term illness. In his book SuperFoods RX, Dr. Spencer Pratt talks about the......

--This week, legislators will consider banning all hand-held gadgets while driving. [Boston Globe] --You may have noticed that Cape Wind received good news today, but don't expect a wind turbine at City Hall. The idea of the turbine blowing over on the plaza effectively ended the mayor's plan. [Boston Globe] --How to build an igloo in eight easy steps. Was the weather today really that bad? [Boston Globe] --One of NESN's most familiar faces......

It's easy now to sit back and bask in the glory that has been the Boston athletics scene in 2007. World champions in baseball, undefeated in the NFL regular season, second place in Major League Soccer, packing crowds into the TD Banknorth Garden for the Celts and (to a lesser degree) the Bruins...we have it good. But it's our job to remind you that there were days where hats were thrown, hands were clenched, and......

Harvard is putting all the money it has (see: "Harvard's Rich, Bitches!") to some truly good use by expanding financial aid packages to students. Here's the details from the AP: The university said it would replace all loans with grants, and spend up to $22 million more annually on aid, mostly targeting middle- and upper-middle class students. Families earning under $60,000 already pay nothing to attend the world’s richest university, with an endowment of nearly......

But before they went back up, whoever writes the blotter wasn't getting a little sick of having to do so many test posts. Commenter Middleman gave us a heads up that something was brewing over at BPDNews.com. Somebody on the BPD end is getting frustrated: "TEST BY IRATE ACCOUNT MANAGER." Middleman responds, "HILARIOUSNESS IS ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA." --Good news. The Green Line Groper has been arrested. The Herald reports that the 60-year-old suspect......

Remember that scene in Airplane! when the guy who can craft a pterodactyl or a brooch out of a piece of paper pulls the plug and makes the air-traffic-control tower go dark? The gag was funny in the movie, but it wasn't funny at all when a similar episode happened at Logan yesterday. An aviation worker cut the wrong cable and put out communications at the airport for two hours. Joe Dwinnell at the Herald......

Here’s a novel idea: if a music scene wants to prove its relevancy through an award show, why doesn’t that scene put in some effort? Boston’s ties to regional, up-and-coming, and national talent were on clear display Saturday evening at the Orpheum Theatre, as the 2007 Boston Music Awards honored many a bold-faced musical name. Metal poster boys Killswitch Engage took home Act of the Year accolades, while critical darlings Lori McKenna and Martin Sexton......

Larry Bird was once quoted as saying, "I've got a theory that if you give 100 percent all of the time, somehow things will work out in the end." If this theory holds true, Larry was speaking in the long-term - the Celtics gave 100 percent last night and things didn't work out in Cleveland in the end. After battling through regulation and overtime, the Celtics fell to the Cavs, 109-104. In order to pull......

We recommend viewing it large Flickr talent tommyvon gives us this quintessential New England capture. We love the bright HDR-enhanced colors and the gorgeous autumn sky. The line of the railroad tracks really draws you in and encourages you to wonder what lies around the bend. Thanks tommyvon! This Bostonist is travelling to St. Louis for the Thanksgiving holiday so Photo of the Day will be taking a hiatus until Tuesday the 27th. The......

The T announced that it is going to order 10 more of the infamous Breda cars for the Green Line. We wondered why the T would order more cars that don't work. The T's problems with Italian company AnsaldoBreda go waaay back: The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority signed a $222 million contract in 1995 with an Italian company now known as AnsaldoBreda to provide the trains. The company was supposed to deliver 100 "Breda" cars,......

With his staff was busy reaching out to his gay supporters, Mitt Romney went to work alienating what must be a much larger constituency: his extended family. At a campaign stop in South Carolina yesterday, Romney ran into a woman whom he misidentified as his "niece" (she's his second cousin) who works as a "teacher" (she's a pediatrician) and whose name he did not know. Despite her cousin's warm affections, Heather Krueger (whom Romney called......

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......

--A man and his mother were shot while riding in a car yesterday in Dorchester. The Globe reports that Darnell Ricks Jr., 20, was hit in the arm, and his mother "appeared to have been grazed in the face by a bullet." Police have a detailed description of the alleged perps: "They were looking for three black males who appeared to be in their late teens and about 5 feet 8 inches tall. One wore......

The boys are back in town, the taco meat has been brought up from the cellar, and all of New England's non-essential personnel are taking the afternoon off for a parade. (Dude...Tuesday afternoon? Really?!) The good news, for some people, is that Jonathan Papelbon's dance of spontaneous excitement and youthful exuberance has now been added to the Official Canon of Sox-Nation-Approved Quirks. The Duck Boats will slow down at predesignated locations so that Papelbon can......

This post has been reprinted courtesy ofBrock Keeling at SFist. Yes, this is Bostonist, but, if you want to send help to Southern California, this is a place to start. As of now, six people have died and more than 500,000 people are in "mass migration" over the mind-numbingly destructive wildfires happening all throughout Southern California. It is, for lack of a better word, heartbreaking. All of it. (Map of San Diego fires) But......

A worker at an MIT nuclear reactor facility has been exposed to "higher-than-normal" levels of radiation. Between July 1 and September 30, the worker had been exposed to 80 percent of the total radiation a person should ever encounter in a year. We presume that the worker has been moved to an other department. MIT swiftly issued a "don't panic" statement, saying that the worker is okay. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is inspecting the facility......

Those hoping for an extension of the Green Line into Somerville and Medford may have finally gotten a some good news. Governor Deval Patrick said on Friday that the state will request $300 million from the feds to build the extension. Now, Patrick is saying that the line should be running by 2014. Recently, Patrick had pushed the date back to 2016 because of funding troubles, and Somerville officials "threatened to sue." The Somerville News......

Four years ago today, Josh Beckett threw a shutout. In the LCS. Good tidings? Last time Josh faced the Indians, he gave up one run and four hits in a hard-luck 1-0 loss to Fausto Carmona. Last time Cleveland starter C.C. Sabathia pitched against the Red Sox, he gave up one run and five hits in a hard-luck 1-0 loss to Daisuke Matsuzaka. You'd have to believe both pitchers are determined not to give up......