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2010-06-22T13:46:00.000-05:00

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2010-06-21T16:21:00.001-05:00

The Leftovers for June 11.

2010-06-11T09:01:00.002-05:00

Since Massterlist usually leaves me with several open tabs with stories that just don't fit into the daily email's mandate of state government topics, I've decided to share the leftovers here. It's mostly wacky stuff, but there may be the occasional interesting news tidbit.

Beverly High to require costly MacBooks in ’11

Haverhill police answer Craigslist ad for sex and bust 'Hot Chocolate'

Give her a salad, some tofu, and she's good to go

Third Of Boston’s Catholic Parishes In Red

... and the solution to the Church's revenue woes:
Marijuana plantation in Uganda convent probed

2009-04-03T13:17:00.002-05:00

There is something in the Conn. River

2009-02-26T13:46:00.002-05:00

Air America broadcast locations in New England:

Ignoring the aim of sexual assault/privacy policies.

2009-01-26T08:59:00.002-05:00

From Today's Globe:

Authorities said Luke attacked two Cape Verdean sisters in an apartment building on Clinton Street, where he and his mother had once lived. Luke allegedly killed Selma Goncalves, 20, and raped and shot her sister, 22, whose identity the Globe is not releasing because she allegedly is the victim of a sexual assault.

What is the boundary between reporting the facts and seriously damaging someone's privacy? Oh, but its OK, they didn't say her name. Anyone that knows that poor girl can put 2 and 2 together.

Happy New Year, everyone!

2009-01-01T16:46:00.002-05:00

2009 came in with a vengeance last night.

The 2008 Metal Mix

2008-12-20T12:30:00.002-05:00

2008 was an odd year for heavy metal releases. Most of the prominent releases were from well established "brand name" bands and, for the most part, the results were not good. Children of Bodom, Edguy, Avantasia, AC/DC, Guns 'N Roses and many others all released mediocre albums this year that more or less fell flat with both myself and fans.

But that's not to say that there weren't several outstanding releases and comebacks this year.
COMEBACKS in order of awesome:
- In Flames A Sense of Purpose - Its about time these guys found a way to merge their newer, more mature work with the fantastically melodic Gothernburg warhammer that is their backcatalog.
- Motörhead Motörizer - Every few albums, Lemmy and the boys put out a killer slice of rock and roll. This should hold us over for a few more years, let's hope Lemmy's body does too.
- Metallica Death Magnetic - Most of my friends who have given this album even the slightest chance agree with me when I say that it is one of thier best efforts and gets better with each listen. This CD is really the cornerstone of the year in heavy metal for me.

So without further ado, here's the tracklist you'll be wanting to burn to drown out the family this Christmas:

1. Prophecy - Judas Priest Nostradamus
2. Tides of Blood - Into Eternity The Incurable Tragedy
3. All Nightmare Long - Metallica Death Magnetic
3. Monolith - Ihsahn angL
4. Chiron - All That Remains Overcome
5. Live For the Kill - Amon Amarth Twilight of the Thunder God
6. Crucify The King - Iced Earth The Crucible Of Man (Something Wicked Part II)
7. The Lotus Eater - Opeth Watershed
8. Heroes - Motörhead Motörizer
9. Fire Lances of the Ancient Hyperzephyrians - The Sword Gods of the Earth
10. Alias - In Flames A Sense Of Purpose
11. E=MC2 - Ayreon 01011001
12. Suicide & Redemption - Metallica Death Magnetic

First Snow, Nov. 2008

2008-12-07T08:26:00.000-05:00

I woke up to this this morning.

From Drop Box

2008-11-24T19:26:00.002-05:00

The very second I uploaded my new, ultra swank and trendy hipster facebook photo, I can targeted with this ad along the side. Beacon knows I'm a prick.

'That's my cat!' says man with bat - Boston.com

2008-11-19T12:03:00.001-05:00

'That's my cat!' says man with bat - Boston.com

Posted using ShareThis

Socks on orange placemats down 12%!

2008-11-15T02:36:00.003-05:00

I just saw this in the sidebar of a NYT's article. Apparently, rolls of paper are down only slightly less than gray-teal socks, and are a "winner" because of this.

Ok, so the full graph makes some sense, but it begs the question: Who do they think they're fooling by slapping the word "multimedia" all over the Times' site?

New Watchmen trailer....

2008-11-15T00:06:00.002-05:00

The new trailer for Zack Snyder's Watchmen furthers some of my hopes - and more of my doubts - about the film. The good news: it looks like it's going to be a serviceable, deep, action/adventure flick. The bad: it's not going to be nearly as good as Watchmen should be. I shouldn't complain though, at least everything looks right.

State House Multimedia Bonanza!

2008-11-13T18:57:00.002-05:00

I was busy today. One event = 2 videos and 2 photo slideshows. Since the SHNS is subscription only, you miss out on my terrible multimedia page design, but oh well.
Slideshow #1:

Slideshow #2:

Video #1: is pending, actually...

Video #2:

In which I make fun of John Mcain's age...

2008-10-27T09:05:00.002-05:00

From Sunday's edition of Meet the Press:

Brokaw, on polls showing a widening lead for Barack Obama: "I know you're a film buff, so let me begin with a film metaphor. Do you feel more like Kevin Costner in the 'Field of Dreams,' or like George Clooney at the tiller of the ship in 'A Perfect Storm'?"

McCain: "I think that I could draw my own, and I'd have to think of it, maybe 'The Gipper.' I feel like Knute Rockne at halftime when he said, 'You go out there and get one for the Gipper.' And look, those polls have been consistently shown me much further behind than we actually are. It all depends on the voter turnout model."

Brokaw, who is 68, mentions a 19 year old film, and an eight year old film. John McCain, 72, feels that the national TV audience would better associate with a film as old as his interviewer.

Calvin sows seeds of dissent 8 days out...

2008-10-27T06:39:00.001-05:00

Boston Government Examiner for 10/14/08

2008-10-14T13:01:00.002-05:00

The axe is about to fall on the 2009 Mass. budget.

SHNS Weekly Roundup for 10/10/08 - [Expletive] [Expletive]

2008-10-10T20:08:00.001-05:00

Start collecting recipes for shoe leather, folks. We're in for some bad times a'comin'.

Quote!

2008-10-09T07:14:00.003-05:00

A Boston Globe article on Amherst, NH resident Peggy Silva, the woman who submitted the "What don't you know and how will you learn it?" question at Tuesday night's debate, contained her response to Tom Brokaw's comment that the question was "zen-like."

"I'm the least Zen-like person on the planet," Silva said with a laugh in a telephone interview yesterday. "I'm chaotic, I'm disorganized, and I giggle." [emphasis mine.]

LolCampaigns

2008-10-07T22:52:00.002-05:00

Media criticism doesn't have to be smart.

2008-09-30T13:58:00.000-05:00

I forgot I had a blog again.

2008-02-27T14:29:00.000-05:00

Testing out if google docs lets me publish straight to the blog....

2008-02-22T07:01:00.001-05:00

I forgot I had a blog. This will be great for procrastination.

2006-08-14T15:49:00.000-05:00

Clearly,, the Spanish-American War had the finest headwear of any military conflict.

2006-07-18T09:24:00.000-05:00

Bush Being Bush and Sheriff Romney's Back in Town

Yesterday at the G8 summit, President Bush used an expletive to describe the ongoing violence in the Middle East. The media reaction to this has been akin to that of third graders when the teacher lets slip a frustrated curse under her breathe. The president’s language should not come as a surprise to anyone, especially people who make a living regurgitating what the man has to say.
Many of the major news outlets have been using the same short AP story to report the more sensational portion of the news. ‘What an idiot this guy is, he left the mic on and swore during a world summit,’ many must think. Why is America, and by extension, the Press, so shocked when Bush’s humanity leaks through his otherwise unfathomable persona? Johnson was the most foulmouthed president since the invention of voice recording, but I don’t recall reading about any giggle-fests breaking out in the newsrooms of America when LBJ used all manner of horrid speech to describe friends and enemies alike.
That AP article quotes Bush as saying “See, the irony is what they really need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this (expletive)," with the deleted expletive clearly being the word “shit,” (oh my stars!) as heard on the fine video CNN has provided. There is a stunning lack of context for that quote. Who is “they,”? Israel? Lebanon? This uproar is over a quote that leaves out the very subject of the sentence in question. Don’t leave the modifier hanging like that, Associated Press, you know better.
The incident should be welcome verification to doubters of the president’s involvement and interest in his job. He showed personal frustration during a candid moment, not indifference or ignorance. Bush’s “cowboy” image is an extension of his genuine personality, a personality that includes a Texas-drawled profanity once in awhile. It’s perfectly expectable that he’d use that type of language in conversation with Tony Blair, a man he’s been friends and allies with for years now. In the fall of 2000, Bush called New York Times reporter Adam Clymer as “major league asshole,” in a candid remark to Dick Cheney. This is how the man communicates when he’s thinking on his own, not a sign of immaturity or ignorance. If anything, it’s a sign of Texas.
To see Bush giving a shit to the point of using the word “shit,” is impressive in and of itself. Blair didn’t respond to the comment by politely nodding and asking if he could talk to Dick on the secret puppeteer earpiece now, he responded as one Head of Government does to another. We should all rest a little easier knowing that the president has the ability to speak for our country at these types of summits without his handlers and shadowy shock troops feeding him lines. Or maybe we should be very upset that Cheney and Rove let him fly solo like this.
Blair is the one that should be worried about how he looks in the footage, not Bush. Tony Blair has been labeled a Bush crony since the Iraq invasion and his pandering responses to W’s irritation don’t help his case. He volunteered to go to Syria to lay the groundwork for Condi Rice’s upcoming visit. Why is the Prime Minister of The UK playing second fiddle to the US Secretary of State?

The Governor’s Back, and he’s packing charts!
For the first time in months, Governor and presumed presidential candidate Mitt Romney has been all over the local media for something other than not being in Massachusetts. Taking a page out of the Perrot playbook, he’s been on most every front page and 5pm newscast telling us, with helpful visual aids, all about how he’s going to figure out this Big Dig Tunnel mess. Mitt’s got drawings of bolts and ceiling panels, a bright national spotlight and a magic marker he is certainly not afraid to use to prove to all Americans (especially those in Iowa, New Hampshire and undecideds in Ohio) how he’s going to fix the tunnels, clean up the bureaucratic mess of the Commonwealth’s biggest tax sinkhole and make Boston safe for everyone.
Today’s Globe shows Romney up to his eyeballs in public outrage and loving every minute of it. He’s more or less taken over NECN for the past week, guiding the press through every nook and cranny of the tunnel problem with a Jerry Lewis-like stamina for television endurance.
Before Romney blew into town with his crisis-management guns a'blarin', Attorney General Tom Riley captured the headlines with his prompt announcement of an investigation into the matter. It would have been interesting to see Riley and Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healy go toe-to-toe in dealing with the fallout of the big dig, but Mitt and his fantastic hair (which only gets more fantastic after a good dry-erase board workout) have stolen that opportunity away from us.

Also: Shut up, Mike