Via Red Sox Monster, who found evidence indicating that is indeed John Mayer: He sums up so much with the words, "And then that happens!"......

We were confused when we read Dan Shaughnessy's wrap-up of Tuesday's season opener in Japan yesterday afternoon. While we agreed that the return of Red Sox baseball was "fun-filled, action-packed," it felt as Shaughnessy saw something in Japan that we missed back here in the States: title defense from the Sox and "those cardboard cutouts wearing an Oakland Athletics uniform." We saw occasionally shaky pitching and an Oakland team that could very easily have set......

1-0. That's all that matters. Sure, Daisuke Matsuzaka pitched like he just got off the plane after a 19-hour trip. Papelbon was shaky. J.D. Drew got hurt. But look at the bright sides. Hideki Okajima upstaged his countryman and got the win. Manny's on pace for 648 RBIs. And J.D. was replaced by Brandon Moss, who hit the game-tying home run. In case you had cable or satellite problems, you weren't alone. And ESPN's GameCast......

It's important tonight to get to bed early and not overdo it tonight; you've got a 6 AM date with the Red Sox. We've finally more-or-less internalized the 13-hour difference between the East Coast and Japan, and we're ready to accept that the defense of the World Series title begins before sunrise tomorrow. Though we do feel sorry for Oakland fans; for them the game starts at 3. Tony Massarotti looks at the Sox' chances......

Yesterday was a bad day for Boston teams to play in cities associated with French exlorers. First, we'll blame Samuel Champlain, who established a fur-trading post on an island in the St. Lawrence River in 1611. That post eventually grew into the city of Montreal, whose major industry changed over the years from fur-trading to Bruin-beating. It was, truth be told, the best Bruins-Canadiens game of the season; the B's even escaped with a point......

For a team that was set not to board the planes, the Red Sox sure are making the most of their ongoing trip to Japan. They're sippin' their sake, they're seeing how much of a Japanese rockstar Daisuke Matsuzaka really is, and they're winning ballgames. Clay Buchholz struggled in his start, but the Sox went on to defeat the Hanshin Tigers, 6-5, on Saturday (yes, Saturday. In the future.). David Ortiz and J.D. Drew homered......

Even the most pie-eyed, green-blooded Celtic optimist didn't think it was going to be this good. No team since the Kings did it in 2001 has traveled the fabled Texas Triangle without at least a nick and a scratch. Maybe no team since then has really been as good as the 2007-08 Celtics. And last night was tough; make no mistake. The Mavericks, even though they haven't gotten all the attention of some of their......

Did you enjoy yesterday's narrowly-averted international incident? All is well, and the Sox will be landing in Japan this morning. The deal as we understand it is that instead of the $40K(!) the coaches were supposed to get as a business-trip bonus, they're now getting a good chunk of that from MLB, and the Red Sox will make up the difference. The best thing to come out of this is that the team's been united......

Hold your horses. Put your plans to start drinking at 6 AM on hold. The Sox plane to Japan is sitting empty on the runway. The team voted unanimously to boycott the trip to Tokyo, over some confusion over whether bonuses to the team's coaches and other off-field personnel were actually promised or not. Coaches were supposed to get an extra $40K(!), but when Terry Francona went to cross the T's and dot the I's,......

--A four-alarm fire broke out in Brookline overnight on Sewall Avenue. The building was vacant, but 120 people were evacuated, and three firefighters were injured. [WCVB] --Heist, heist baby. The Herald pulls out all the stops when anniversary the theft of priceless art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990. [Boston Herald] --Whole Foods plus the South End sounds like a perfect storm for satire. [Boston Real Estate Blog] --The priceless line of......

This Bostonist finally got around to seeing There Will Be Blood last night, so we're prepared to concede that the West can be a harsh and pitiless place. Until this week, the West had been very good to the Celtics. But now they're drinkin' our milkshake! The reeling C's have matched their longest losing streak of the year (two) after Baron Davis broke our hearts with a game-winning shot for the last of his 29......

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......

In the Mood For Love (花样年华) Tonight at 7:30 7:00 (oops) Harvard Film Archive (Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy Street, Cambridge) Free admission! For anyone looking to launch a pre-Valentine's Day attack, Bostonist recommends tonight's free screening of Wong Kar-Wai's In The Mood For Love. This is a cheap date that says, I am sensitive (but not in an Eat, Pray, Love way). I am stylish (but not in a leggings-and-Uggs way). I can put up......

Victoria Beckham is a style icon with Hermes bag collection that would make most women green with envy. It’s also fitting that she would make an appearance on Wednesday promoting her jeans & sunglasses collection right before her other gig that night. For those of you who don’t know, she sometimes sings with this pop group from the UK, ever hear of them? Spice something? Some people know her as the one who doesn’t sing......

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......

The 2008 Golden Globe nominees were announced yesterday, and to nobody's surprise, they skewed heavily toward the period drama Atonement. Charlie Wilson's War, No Country for Old Men, American Gangster, and Sweeney Todd all emerged with at least 4 noms each. Local fave Casey Affleck was nominated for his (non-Jesse James) title role in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and though Gone Baby Gone didn't get a nod in the......

Jim McCue Book Launch Party Comedy Connection Faneuil Hall (T: Government Center) Sunday, December 16, 8:00 pm, $15 Free for veterans and military personnel Official Jim McCue Site AnySoldier.com The troops could use a lot from us right now, whether it be body armor or sunblock. But one local performer is using his specific talents to make the lives of the troops a little bit better. Comedian Jim McCue, who is also co-founder of the......

Four Stories The Bitter End: Stories of loss, endings, and final acts Featuring Jeremiah Healey, Drew Johnson, Julia Glass, and Joan Wickersham The Enormous Room 
(567 Mass Ave,
 Central Square) Monday, December 3 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. Free! Four Stories is a unique reading series: Boston-based but also Japan-based, set in a bar, and featuring four writers instead of just one, the event proves that readings don’t have to be torture. The unorthodox setting and......

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......

We already know they must hate us in Minnesota. Once, they had David Ortiz, Randy Moss and Kevin Garnett. Now they don't. But they must really hate us in Denver these days; less than two weeks after their Colorado Rockies were vaporized in the World Series, the Nuggets came to Boston and fared just as badly. The Celtics (who said they'd need time to adjust to one another?) annihilated Denver almost from the opening last......

Honest-to-goodness Nobel Laureates, along with a few non-Laureates, indulged their silly sides on Thursday night when Harvard University hosted the 2007 Ig Nobels ceremony. The Annals of Improbable Research magazine (that sounds like something Dave Eggers would have thought up) grants the "Ig Nobels" for achievements in "unusual and imaginative scientific discovery." Here's a list of this year's winners in all the Ig Nobel fields from the Guardian UK: Medicine: Brian Witcombe of Gloucester and......

In between the drama of a pennant race and the pressure cooker of the playoffs, comes a day like today. A day when absolutely nothing is up for grabs. Yesterday the Red Sox won and the Indians lost, guaranteeing the Red Sox the best record in the AL (they'd win a tiebreaker with Cleveland) and Fenway-advantage throughout the postseason. The win yesterday (you might want to sit down) came largely thanks to J.D. Drew, who......

The next Four Stories reading will be on October 1, 2007. Kris Frieswick, Jake Halpern, Michael Lowenthal, and Hank Phillippi Ryan will be participating. The evening's topic is "Love and Money: Tales of Making It, Having It, and Losing It," and the readings will take place at The Enormous Room. For more details, visit the Four Stories site. To prepare, check out Bostonist's interview with Jake Halpern. Many of us spend our days in front......

Word began to spread on Tuesday night that Hideki Okajima, our lights-out middle-reliever, was in the top spot in vote-getting for final bids to the All-Star game. In the spirit of giving proper credit to a pitcher that has amazed thus far this year, we wanted to make sure to get you voting for the guy. Tallies are close - and if Daisuke Matsuzaka is getting his friends and family back home in Japan to......

And we thought the days of musical Red Sox pitchers were over when Bronson Arroyo got traded. But we can't wait for July 17, when pitching sensation Daisuke Matsuzaka will release his own mix CD, "Music From the Mound" with a collection of songs that inspire and touch the hurler, plus an original track or two. You may have heard one on Monday night, when NESN gave us a few seconds of "Gyro Ball", which......

Trevor Corson will read from The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket at Harvard Book Store, tomorrow, Wednesday, June 13, at 6:30 pm. Trevor Corson couldn't have timed the arrival of The Zen of Sushi any better, at least where Boston is concerned. With the arrival of Daisuke Matsuzaka, Hideki "Hero in the Dark" Okajima, and their media entourage, Bostonians who previously eschewed sushi might be giving the raw-fish treat......

The complete game is a dying art in the States. In the age of relief specialists, managers tied to pitch counts, and Papelbon, there aren't a lot of occasions when a manager wants to leave his starter in any longer than necessary. And last night, in fact, Papelbon was warming up when the Sox blew the game open in the 8th, taking a 7-1 lead and giving Terry Francona an excuse to leave Daisuke in......

Robert Cheruiyot won the Boston Marathon for a third time. He is an absolute Iron Man. We love the little detail that he blew a kiss as he crossed the line. Here are the names and times of the big winners: Men's winner: Robert Cheruiyot (Kenya), 2:14:13 Women's winner: Lidiya Grigoryeva (Russia), 2:29:18 Men's Wheelchair winner: Masazumi Soejima (Japan), 1:29:16 Women's Wheelchair winner: Wakako Tsuchida (Japan), 1:53.30 Also, the American men's winner was Peter......

Have we pretty much run out of Japan-themed headlines? Almost? OK. After all the hype and promise, Daisuke turned out to be everything Red Sox Nation could have hoped for. Of course, he gave up six hits and a run, so there's room for improvement, but Dice was firmly in control of the hapless Royals in the 4-1 victory. Which puts the Red Sox alone in first place, and makes us feel a little silly......

-- Red Sox fans got their first real regular-season glimpse of their $147 million team on Wednesday night, as Boston handed Kansas City a 7-1 loss at Kauffman Stadium. Jason Varitek got his first hit of the regular season with a single in the fourth, JD Drew's stepping up, Kevin Youkilis hit the team's first home run in the seventh and Josh Beckett (five innings, two hits, five strikeouts, four walks) put in a decent......