Boston Police are mobilizing for this weekend’s do-or-die Red Sox-Yankees series with the largest crowd-control force of any recent sports event and with a deployment plan that addresses shortcomings found to have contributed to a fan’s fatal shooting by police last October. (more here)

I’ll surely be watching the game tonight, but from the safety of my living room, or if I’m feeling adventurous, the local bar. Either way, the next three days are sure to provide a fantastic end to the baseball season, not just for New Yorkers and Bostonians, but for Clevelanders (sic), Chicagoans, and anyone with a pulse. Take a hint from the police and get ready for mayhem. For added enjoyment, pick up a copy of the Weekly Dig for one of the more interesting/controversial/hilarious images I have seen in a while.

Every first and third Friday of the week, parking officers nail about ten cars on my street alone with $50 fines for parking in a “street cleaning zone.” This morning, my roommate was among the unlucky who received such a fine. This is her first week living in our apartment and she had no clue about the regulation. I’m sure she’ll never get fined again after this experience, but it’s something different that really irks me. When I came home, I noticed that the street sweeper had been by, not because the streets were cleaner, but because they were in fact, much dirtier. The machine had served only to blow the leaves on the street up onto the sidewalks, and lines of mud had been sprayed on the street during the “cleaning.” Now my street is striped with mud, and the leaves and garbage have only moved a few feet. For the revenue they generated in parking tickets for just this one day, one might think they would actually clean the streets.

What a scam.

The greatest science-fiction film of the silent cinema, Metropolis was made by Lang at Berlin’s Ufa studio with an unprecedented budget for its huge sets, inspired by the New York skyline. Set in the twenty-first century, the story is derived partly from medieval legends, partly from the dystopic vision of a future of intensified conflict between capital and labor. Photographed in Expressionist style and designed to display powerful geometric symmetries, many of the film’s sequences are unforgettable, especially the dramatic laboratory creation of the robot-woman. more info here

Additionally, the Somerville Theatre, while keeping a busy live performance schedule, also plays host to late night showings of classic and cult classic films like Dr. Strangelove, and Fight Club. It is also one of the homes for the Boston Underground Film Festival held in April, and one of my personal favorite theatres.

I’ll give you a sarcastic hint: It’s somewhere in Cambridge

An easy one to start so there’s plenty of room for improvement.

The logic is simple: If you aren’t forced to finish the bottle at the restaurant, you are less likely to drive while impaired. It would save lives, claim some. Others are more suspicious, alluding to the lifting of the restriction as a trap to enforce open container laws. That shouldn’t cause you any trouble with your leftover wine, as long as you obey some simple guidelines:

When you leave with your leftover wine, make sure it is securely corked. Put it in a bag, and stash it in your trunk. If you get pulled over (assuming you aren’t legally impaired,) the state will not be able to prosecute you for an open container violation if the bottle is tightly closed and out of reach.

You know, it’s not easy to try to spread the word about better beer. Take for example a fluffy Herald piece on Todd English’s recent endorsement of Anheuser-Busch’s new Michelob brand, “The Gourmet Lager” - English of course being the highly egotistical restaurateur, chef and TV personality from Boston who brought us Olives, Figs and the like. According to the Herald, a campaign will be launched to celebrate the partnership, including print ads in major food magazines, retail point-of-sale marketing collateral, a website with suggested recipes and pairings and, of course, English waving the A-B flag at food and drink fests

more here

I’ve heard a lot of negative things about Todd English, none of which I can substantiate personally, but the uninformed endorsement of Michelob speaks volumes about the man. You might also be interested to know that the famed 21 Club in New York, while boasting an incredible wine list, also serves a less than adequate beer selection. A secret insider source at 21 told me that their beer list includes only beers such as Coors, Amstel, Bud, and the best available: Heineken. For a restaurant with such a reputation for quality, you might think they would have beers that the connoisseur might appreciate.

Try some of these when you get a chance as well.

It’s a bit of a Catch-22. It’s illegal to ride on the sidewalks, but I risk serious injury and harassment from drivers if I ride in the street. Last night as I rode home from work, I prepared to turn left onto my street (off of Highland Ave.) I made sure to use the old hand signals to indicate my turn, and seeing only one car far behind me, it seemed like a pretty reasonable move. That is, until the car behind me sped up, caught up to me as I made the turn and swerved around me at the last second - a bit unnecessary considering there was no one else on the road and he could have easily avoided me by either a.) going the speed limit or b.) actually paying attention. Instead, as I turned down my street after a completely legal maneuver, the gentleman in the car passing me leaned out his window to make sure I heard what he had to say, “Get off the ****ing road you ***hole!”

Am I doing something wrong here? Is there some unwritten code of bike versus car ethics that I haven’t read? Did I miss the memo?

Here are the rules and regulations for the game. It’s pretty much just poor-man’s horseshoes, but if you take the time to make or spend the money to buy a good set, it can provide years of entertainment. And plus, when you have guests over, you can invite them to play this ridiculous game from the Midwest. Who wouldn’t want to play a game called “cornhole” anyway?