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......

This is the week we've had circled on our calendar since the Celtics' blistering start. We knew at least three of the four games would be tough, but now every team between the Mississippi and the Pecos has their eyes on the NBA Finals, and since the Celtics want to be there to meet them, these four games are huge. It starts tonight in San Antonio against the defending champs, who have a shocking 2-game......

"Bye-weeks. Bronco Nagurski didn't get no bye-weeks! And now he's dead! Well, maybe they're a good thing." - Moe, The Simpsons These are the times that try fan's souls. The cavalcade of ridiculousness that is Media Day is long over, but the actual game is still three looooooong days away. But with 564,000 media members stomping around Greater Phoenix, stories will be filed even if there's no story there. And we have to talk about......

In a way, it doesn't feel right; the Colts should perhaps be in town today. They are(were) the defending champs, after all. They gave the Patriots the first in a long stretch of runs for their money that the Pats survived. The Dungy-Belichick and Manning-Brady rivalries are about the biggest stories in sports in this young century. But who cares, really. The Colts are on the golf course and it's San Diego who's in town......

Evolution is on trial again. A former postdoctoral fellow at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has sued the Cape Cod research center, claiming his 2004 dismissal resulted from his religious beliefs. Nathaniel Abraham was dismissed from Mark Hahn's research lab after refusing to work on the "evolutionary aspects" of his assigned project, according to the Globe. Hahn is a senior research scientist known for studying the effects of toxins on aquatic animals, using a hybrid......

Former Massachusetts governor and presidential aspirant Mitt Romney delivered a thoughtful, moving speech today at the George Bush Sr. Presidential Library and Museum in College Station, Texas. Romney delivered points that no one could argue with--namely, that religious liberty is "fundamental to America's greatness." No kidding. Isn't that why the pilgrims came here in the first place? Aside from a few "duh" moments, Romney delivered a solid speech with some quotable lines, particularly: "Americans do......

Last night WFNX radio put on their "Miracle on Tremont Street" Holiday concert at the Orpheum. The show featured recent alt-rock favorites Spoon, The Cold War Kids, Against Me!, and Mute Math. By the time Bostonist got there to check out the headliner Spoon, the crowd seemed to have thinned considerably. We're going to assume that the Tuesday night date and bitter cold helped to keep attendance lower than would be expected. The Orpheum's......

Former Massachusetts governor and presidential aspirant Mitt Romney has decided to reassure voters about his Mormon faith in a speech. He typically diverted questions away from his faith in interviews--but former Arkansas governor, the folksy Weight Watchers posterboy Mike Huckabee, is posing a surprise challenge. Politico is already calling the speech a "huge gamble," but it might help. Romney's faith is the one thing he hasn't flip-flopped on. It's sad that some people can't leave......

Fun Fun Fun Fest 2007 Recap from Super!Alright! on Vimeo. Austinist attended a town hall meeting about proposed noise ordinances that could undermine the city's future as the Live Music Capital of the World, and lamented the possible loss of Texas's only feminist bookstore. Throughout the week, they interviewed a bunch of indie fashion designers and D-I-Y websites—Etsy, Ornamental Things, 31 Corn Lane, and Aorta Designs—for the upcoming Stitch Fashion Show. They also did......

Next Food Network Star Auditions Tuesday, November 6, 2007, 11:00 am-4:00 pm Flat Iron Tapas Bar & Lounge, Bulfinch Hotel 107 Merrimack St., Boston More info Auditions are being held for a new season of The Next Food Network Star. Last time, the show plucked Tommy Grella from Methuen out of a lineup because of his oversized personality, body type, proportions, and ever-present stogie. Unfortunately, homesickness got the better of him, and he left early.......

The Red Sox have been linked time and time again to reality television this season. There was "Sox Appeal," of course, but there were also calls for the jigging Jonathan Papelbon to Riverdance his way onto "Dancing With the Stars" and the segue FOX used last week to link the Boston bullpen band (the Black Pearl) to what looks like a God-awful new series, "The Next Great American Band." Sox bloggers, however, just might be......

Boston Comedy Festival Preliminary Rounds --Monday, October 8, Comedy Connection, Faneuil Hall, 7:00 and 9:00 pm --Tuesday, October 9, Comedy Connection, Faneuil Hall, 7:00 and 9:00 pm --Wednesday, October 10, Comedy Connection, Faneuil Hall, 7:00 and 9:00 pm All tickets for the preliminaries are $15 The comics rush up onstage and change right before your eyes. One moment, they gaze into the camera and at the audience like classic deer before headlines. Then, an internal......

Are you a sci-fi kid who spent last night in Las Cruces Jail? Then saddle up and mosey down to the Middle East tonight as Two Gallants and Blitzen Trapper take the Middle East out west and down south for some down-home tunes that mix up AM radio, Old West swagger, and a modern hippie/hipster vibe to create loud and laid-back jams. You can almost hear sixguns cocking behind the rough guitars of San Francisco's......

--Sure, people like to collect knickknacks. Salt-and-pepper shakers, Beanie Babies, comic books, parking meters. Yeah, parking meters, 123 of 'em, in fact. Thomas Gannon of Cambridge had cut the meters off poles all over Cambridge and Somerville. Police stumbled upon them when visiting Gannon for other reasons on Monday night. Master of understatement and Cambridge PD spokesman Frank Pasquarello said, "This does seem to be odd." Indeed. --Police arrested 17-year-old Derek Lodie, of Revere, for......

Happy first weekend of September - and happy Labor Day weekend, too, for our American cities! Let's take a look at what's been happening around the Ist-a-verse. The deaths of two firefighters shook Bostonist this week. Boston's firefighters bent over backwards all week long - first, they fought flames pouring from the Boston Tea Party museum, and then a restaurant fire killed two and injured many more. Their efforts make everything else - like Tom......

Frankly, we'd like to know what Daisuke Matsuzaka did to alienate his teammates. Does he play "Gyroball" constantly in the clubhouse? Mix wasabi in with the Ben Gay as a lockerroom prank? There must be some reason why his lineup consistently fails to give him any run support, making him 1-3 against the Devil Rays to his 12-7 record against the rest of the league. Don Orsillo put it best late in the game last......

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney won the Republican straw poll in Iowa tonight with about 31% of the vote. Of course, it wasn't that hard since John McCain and Rudy Giuliani opted out, and the straw poll was Romney's to lose. Lisa Wangsness at the Globe pointed out that Romney outspent his opponents by an "almost comical degree." Adam Nagourney of the New York Times noted that everything wasn't all Romney all the time. Presidential......

There's an old saying in baseball...well, there are a lot, like "Take two and hit to right", or "Don't bunt to break up a no-hitter", but there's an old theory that when you get lots of men on base, it's in your best interest to drive them in. A little crazy, to be sure, but it's a piece of wisdom that the Red Sox have been ignoring for some time. Not last night. The Sox......

Part of us thinks that a team that's scuffling as bad as the Red Sox are right now deserves to have five guys named to the All-Star team. But we do recognize that the honor is bestowed upon players based on the entire spring's production, not just the last couple weeks of lousy baseball, so let's give credit where credit is due. Manny, Papi, Lowell, Beckett, and Papelbon are all going to San Francisco for......

After three innings last night, the mood at Fenway was as good as it gets. Josh Beckett was on the mound, and the Sox had staked him to a 4-0 lead. The team was hitting well, including superprospect Jacoby Ellsbury, who got his first major-league hit by zipping down the first-base line to beat the throw on a routine ground ball. The Sox even had a helper monkey named Ayla throw out the first pitch.......

Friday night's adrenaline-filled Texas/Boston matchup confirmed for us two things that we've suspected: Jonathan Papelbon is human and man, we really don't want to ever tick him off. While we can't post the photo directly, we can encourage you to take a look at an image of rage from Fenway Park last night. During the top of the ninth, as the Sox were clinging to a 2-1 lead, Papelbon had given up what first base......

No joke - if you have a bag of Veggie Booty at home or in your lunch bag, throw it away NOW! Robert's American Gourmet has issued an immediate recall of Veggie Booty, the incredibly nasty, green version of Pirate's Booty. Veggie Booty has been linked to outbreaks of salmonellosis in 17 states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin. According......

Yesterday Massachusetts and Texas were recipient of a whole heap of grant money to test new wind turbines. This isn't part of Cape Wind at all, the grant provides funding for massive wind power blades to be tested in East Boston in Charlestown, not in Nantucket Sound. The Cape Wind project has created a bunch of flap from aristocrats griping about the potential for an oceanic wind farm to obstruct their view, this $2 million......

Happy Father's Day! For those of you who have dads, are dads, or know dads, this one's for you, from all of us at the Gothamist network. It was a week of bizarre, embarassing headlines at DCist. The trial of the local administrative law judge who sued his cleaners for $54 million over a pair of missing pants left everyone shaking their heads. Then the capital city was nearly brought to its knees, twice, by......

June marks the first time Golden Bear has ever played beyond Texas state lines. The Austin-based five-piece has been busy honing its indie rock sound in the Lone Star State, generating a fanbase and some serious critical buzz. It seems to have paid off: SPIN recently featured the band as one of its bands of the day, The Daily Texan at the University of Texas named its self-titled 2006 debut one of the ten best......

Paris is in jail, the Red Sox are on their way to California, Mitt is still running for president, but we're bringing it back to the clubs. Well, the clubs and urban outfitters. Some folks that seem like they've been around forever (dinosaur jr.) and those who legitimately have been around forever (Lee "scratch" Perry) come and visit the nontraditional and traditional venues, respectively, as part of this weeks music picks. Tuesday 6/5 The......

We were deeply disappointed that a Boston chef isn't on the new season of Top Chef, but the Food Network picked Tommy Grella of Methuen as one of the competitors for "The Next Food Network Star." The show made its debut last night, and we can see why the Food Network gravitated towards Grella. As soon as he walks into the house, he makes an impression with his girth and his declaration that he is......

Seattlest has a talk with the photographer from last week's "Segway Mom" and then experiences some dissension in the ranks over the question of wine vs. beer. It's not West Side Story, but about as close as they'll get. They're also still waiting on some inbox relief after a spammer is arrested. As Chicagoist counts down the days to its third anniversary party, they found all-organic pizza to be underwhelming amidst the hoopla, tried......

All across the Ist-A-Verse (or at least the American parts thereof), writers and editors are in the midst of enjoying their three-day weekend. But after the week we've all had, we feel like the break is not only needed, but deserved. Just look at everything we've been doing! Gothamist headed into the Memorial Day weekend with a number of tasks accomplished. They worried about Long Islanders giving New Yorkers a bad name. They tried......

We've now entered the portion of the 2007 Red Sox season where, frankly, it's not that big a deal if the starters struggle. How long this portion will last, we don't know, but we saw the Sox' offense rescue a queasy Daisuke on Friday, and they bailed out a shaky Wakefield Saturday to club the Rangers 7-4. Wake struggled in the fifth, giving up a two-run double to Gerald Laird as the lowlight of a......