MBTA General Manager Dan Grabauskas is on vacation in Thailand, which is in itself not a crime. However, the Herald is reporting that Grabauskas left for vay-cay as an Amtrak strike looms. But is it a story? Rarely do we defend the MBTA, but Joe Pesaturo at the MBTA noted that the earliest time a strike can take place is January 30. Then again, a possible strike would be a "giant snowball of crappiness" for......

If Amtrak workers follow through on threats to strike nationwide on January 30, Boston commuters of all stripes will find themselves deeply embedded in a giant snowball of crappiness. If you take the Commuter Rail, you'd better come up with a Plan B -- fast. During an Amtrak strike, South Station and the Providence/Stoughton line would basically shut down until it's all settled. Not so smug, everyone else, because you're screwed, too. If South......

Hope you sports fans were able to relax yesterday. The disappointing non-slaughter of the Jets is in the rear view mirror, the Dolphins game isn't quite as exciting since the stupid Ravens ended Miami's bid for a winless season, everything is sewn up in the AFC, and the Monday Night game wasn't that exciting. Plus, the Celtics and Bruins were off. But we've got some big games coming up in the next 48 hours, so......

A sad week for LAist as they lose their trusted and amazing editor Tony Pierce to the LA Times, but what a blast his last week was. He shared his 25 Favorite CDs of 2007 and wrote a great review of just a good movie, No Country For Old Men. At UCLA, thousands of students celebrated the end of their quarter by running around campus in their undies (lots of photos in a two-part......

First Night Monday, December 31 Everywhere in Boston (see below) All indoor outdoor events are free. All outdoor indoor events are accessible with a First Night button ($15) Official First Night site First Night has been preparing to ring in the New Year. Revelers can enjoy all the First Night outdoor events, such as the ice sculptures and the fireworks, for free. But they'll need to pick up a button to attend the indoor events,......

Boston Celtic Kendrick Perkins might miss today's game against the Sacramento Kings because a bed attacked his toe. No kidding. Even the AP just let Perkins tell the story of the headboard that tried to take his toe: I was asleep. I guess whoever put my bed together didn't put it together right when I moved, so one side of my bed fell. My bed was tilted, so I got out of my bed to......

WGA Strike Support Rally Friday, December 14, 12:00 pm-3:00 pm Harvard Square Fans4writers.com Update: Bradley's Almanac just gave us a heads-up--the WGA East announced "Please RSVP to 212-767-7843 and leave the number of people in your party" if you plan to attend the event at the church. By now, we're all sick of the writers' strike, and Bostonist HQ is suffering from MCRW (Major Colbert Report Withdrawal). Rest assured, the writers are even sicker of......

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......

Big Brother Casting Call Saturday, December 8, 12:00pm - 3:00pm Felt, 3rd and 4th floors, 533 Washington St., Boston (T: Downtown Crossing) Big Brother casting site The only people happy with the Writers' Strike right now is reality television fans and those who want to be on reality television. The latter will rejoice because CBS is launching another cycle of Big Brother, and auditions will be held at Felt. The release states that casting directors......

The Five Brothers, aka Mitt Romney's kids who all blog for Dad, are toothy, cute, and so wholesome it could make your brain bleed. They strike us as mostly harmless sorts who just want to tell the world how cool their Dad is. But they do not, under any circumstances, need to be playing touch football with streamers dangling around their butts. The Team Romney football game marks the second time that Bostonist has seen......

The cold weather - and holiday festivities - descended upon Gothamist. The Rockefeller Christmas tree was lit, Broadway stagehand finally ended their strike, and NASCAR decided to run their victory lap through Times Square. There were disturbing photographs revealing the working conditions in which many city manholes are produced and ninjas were also a hot topic, either robbing homes or entering into alibis. But the city was really rocked by how Rudy Giuliani's visits......

A man has taken took people at the headquarters for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign hostage in Rochester, New Hampshire, and he wants wanted to speak to Hillary Clinton. [WBZ, MSNBC] Clinton is was not in New Hampshire. Here is the latest from the thread, with earlier information after the jump: 6:15 pm: IT IS OVER. A young man just ran out of the campaign office. The man who took the hostages followed him. He pulled......

--The National Research Council says that the federal review of the BU Biolab flunked. Future neighbors of the lab, you might want to join an opposition group or invest in a gas mask. [Boston Globe] --BU officials don't particularly care about the report. [The BU Daily Free Press] --The state appeals court overturned a 2005 reckless driving conviction for a man who drove recklessly because he had just been shot and was driving himself to......

--The Mattapan teenager who was shot in the jaw yesterday has not been named but was a student and basketball player at Charlestown High. Also yesterday, a man was stabbed last night on Cambridge Street, and he is in the hospital with life-threatening injuries. --An armed robbery happened at the Au Bon Pain at Harvard Square the night of November 19. Matt Dunning Erin Smith at the Cambridge Chronicle reports that three masked robbers "tied......

Michael Ian Black With Michael Showalter Thursday, November 29, 7:30pm Somerville Theatre 55 Davis Square, Somerville (T: Davis Square) Get tickets Listen to the Interview Here: Unless you've been living under a rock for the last 20 years, then you've seen the work of comedian/writer/actor/director Michael Ian Black. Let's rattle off just a few of his accomplishments: co-creator of "The State," "Viva Variety," and "Stella." You've seen him co-star in NBC's "Ed," as well as......

In Los Angeles, LAist most definitely celebrated Thanksgiving like no other. After all, one has to keep up all the energy to keep on walking the line at the Writers Strike and fighting the unfortunate return of the wildfires in Malibu, which single handedly destroyed over fifty homes within the first 24 hours. National outlets may be covering the fires, but CNN also found it is easier to buy a gun than fruit and......

-- Buy Nothing Day turnout was discouragingly high. Retailers worry that consumers will not continue not to buy nothing. -- Red Sox season ticket holders are scumbag profiteers shrewd financial wizards who sell tickets they don't own yet. -- “Mitt Romney is throwing this very capable judge under the bus for his own political ends,” said Ed Ryan, head of a Massachusetts bar association task force on fair and impartial courts. “It is gutless.” --......

Does the venue make the team or does the team make the venue? And what happens if the venue has two teams, two games, and one day to pull it all off? The two host teams win, venue staff deserve medals, and a lot of people walk out of the place happy. There wasn't much of a battle on the boards of the TD Banknorth Garden on Friday night. The Celtics, doing what has become......

SFist witnessed a new apartment building tszuj the skyline with spectacular, gaudy turquoise aplomb, the (informal) renaming of the Mission/SOMA neighborhood border, the return of the Maltese Falcon, the Mayor Gavin Newsom mea culpa-ing over his Hawaiian getaway during the oil spill, and double-decker buses hitting the streets of San Francisco. Oh, and some baseball player named Barry Bonds is a liar whose pants, it seems, are totally on fire. LAist continues to cover the......

The Bachelor Casting Call Saturday, November 10, and Sunday, November 11, 3:00 pm to 7:00 pm on Nov. 10 and 3:00 to 6:00 pm on Nov. 11 Felt, 533 Washington St., Boston More Info It's the season for the new reality-television cycle, and with writers on strike, expect even more casting calls in the future. We just visited the "Beauty & the Geek" and "The Next Food Network Star" casting calls, and now ABC is......

Some stories just sound like terrible jokes. But this one is all too real. WBZ reports that a priest from Boston got arrested last Friday for stalking Conan O'Brien. Pardon us for using the words "priest" and "hell" in the same post, but, seriously, what the hell? You couldn't make that up. And the Archdiocese of Boston took its own sweet time to release the news. They waited until today to announce that Reverend David......

Dominic Luberto's annual feat of light pollution Christmas devotion -- 500,000 bulbs and counting -- has long brought media attention to his Jamaica Plain home and won him admirers across the globe. He gets fan letters simply addressed to "Christmas Castle" and has started his own children's charity drive. But his crowning achievement may be his undoing. The Globe has more details on the City's efforts to bring down the "Crown of Christ" that Luberto......

Bostonist has scoop? Yup, looks like we have a gossip scoop! A little bird told us that tonight tomorrow night may be Sarah's last appearance on America's Next Top Model. While we're happy to have some scoop, we're also hoping it's not true for many reasons. A) Sarah is from Heath, Massachusetts. B) She's Vita Lightly of the Boston Babydolls. And C) she has a normal body, which is something to cheer about after seeing......

Londonist got the big scoop of the week with what may be the first images of notorious street artist Banksy in action. They also got on a runaway train without an operator provoking a response from the transport authorities. Elsewhere, London's answer to Central Station is about to open for business, and Londonist got a sneak preview. Meanwhile, spooky goings-on beneath London Bridge, where a cache of skeletons provided an apt story for Hallowe'en.......

Update: The disorderly conduct charge against Hillel Neuer has been dropped. Remember that guy who freaked out the employees at the Stone Hearth Pizza after a 78-year-old man was beaten to death in Needham? Turns out that he was a perfectly normal guy who just happened to be changing his clothes in the bathroom. Franci R. Ellement at the Globe writes that Hillel Neuer is a human-rights activist who is the executive director of UN......

--Needham went into lockdown yesterday when 78-year-old Robert J. Moore was murdered in his home, prompting a manhunt and a standoff with a suspicious man at Stone Hearth Pizza. However, the guy at the pizza shop wasn't the killer. He was just acting nervous. During the standoff, a State Police K-9 unit was busy arresting William Dunn, 41, of Norwood, who had fled to a marsh. The Globe writes that Norwood Dunn was at the......

The Celtics are pleased to announce that they've added an extra level to the bandwagon, and it's poised to start its run tonight at the Garden against Washington. This is the original bandwagon, mind you; not the auxiliary bandwagons the team expects to roll out over the course of the season. Naysayers (and there are some) point out that the supporting cast around Ghidorah is untested and unreliable. OK, whatever. So their starting point guard,......

8:27 p.m. - Hello and welcome to Bostonist's first live blog of the World Series! We've just returned from Blogtoberfest and we're good to go. First pitch and it's a strike! Foul, but foul is a strike. FOX, which not surprisingly is already displaying its season-long anti-Red Sox bias, is telling us that Colorado should be able to hit Schilling tonight. 8:31 p.m. - Schilling is trying to keep Colorado honest - or missing his......

--Six drag racers got busted for sneaky-driving on Washington Street in Roslindale early Sunday morning. Jessica M. Smith of the Roslindale Transcript reports that the racers set up lookouts. Five Honda Civics were towed as well. Did Honda Civics strike you as worthy of 2 Fast 2 Furious? --Mayor Menino and Commish Ed Davis have announced that they want colleges to crack down on students who act up during the World Series. Menino said that......

Early this Tuesday morning, Anna Tang, a 20-year-old Wellesley student, snuck into her ex-boyfriend's Next House dorm room at MIT and stabbed him seven times while he slept. The victim, Wolfe Styke, 20, is in the hospital. According to the Middlesex DA's office, Tang was found with a "buck" knife in her backpack, and her jacket was covered in blood. Apparently, she also wanted to get caught and told police "Here I am" when they......