More bad news for 38 Studios. It seems the studio founded by former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling failed to make its latest loan payment of $1.125 million, causing the state of Rhode Island to investigate the studio’s sketchy financial situation, WPRI reports after confirming the news with Rhode Island House Speaker Gordon Fox.

38 Studios was to provide payments to the Economic Development Corporation, but the EDC has now scheduled “an emergency meeting” tomorrow morning to discuss “an unexpected occurrence that requires immediate action to protect the public regarding the 38 Studios LCC financing.”

As was reported earlier, 38 Studios has already used up $49.8 million of the $75 million loan that it was given to move to Rhode Island. Fox didn’t comment on what would be discussed at tomorrow’s meeting, but it’s a safe bet the first thing on everyone’s minds will be how the money will be made up. If the burden falls onto taxpayers, Rhode Island citizens may wind up paying upwards of $112.6 million through 2020 after interest payments.

38 Studios has yet to make any statement.

Source: WPRI

A local Rhode Island NBC station reported on Monday night that Curt Schilling’s 38 Studios is now facing insolvency issues, just three months after the release of their first major title Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.

Back in 2010, 38 Studios moved to Providence from Massachusetts after Rhode Island offered the company a $75 million loan with the hope of bringing 450 employees and tax revenue to the state. WPRI reports that the studio has received $50 million and currently has 288 employees.

Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee has been in talks this past weekend with company executives regarding the future of 38 Studios.

“We’re concerned and just doing everything possible to ensure that 38 Studios stays part of the Rhode Island community,” Governor Chafee told WPRI on Monday night. “We’re working on different issues with them.”

The massive taxpayer-backed loan is actually funding the studio’s “Project Copernicus,” a massively multiplayer online game that is supposed to be released this September. 38 Studios has not announced plans to showcase the game at E3, nor has it planned any booth for the show.

If the former Red Sox pitcher can’t find a way to pay off his studio’s loan, Rhode Island taxpayers could be forced to pay up to $112.6 million through 2020 after interest payments, according to bond documents reviewed by WPRI.

Source: WPRI, WPRI

Made up of former employees from companies such as Harmonix, Irrational Games, and Iron Lore, Eeerie-Canal Entertainment is a Boston-based independent studio whose goal is to make creative and inspired games that are too risky for large studios.

Well into the development of its first title, the team today released the teaser trailer for Dreadline, a game that turns the tables on typical monster huntings and has you controlling a group of creatures that visit humans right before they face certain calamities. The trailer shows off the game’s Titanic level that involves harvesting the luxury liner’s passengers before they face their inevitable doom.

Eerie-Canal plans to release Dreadline on PC. Considering how well versed its employees are at making console titles, let’s hope the team gives us more platform options in the future.

While attending Empire Beauty School in Boston, Sasha Brown, a 30-year-old hairdresser from Watertown, spent nearly every evening after class Googling Nick Arrojo’s online hair tutorials for styling tips. Now, as a top three finalist in Arrojo’s Masters of Beauty competition, Brown can potentially put down the laptop and learn from Arrojo, the world-renowned celebrity hairstylist from “What Not to Wear,” firsthand.

“It’s a dream,” says Brown. “I always thought he was brilliant hair-wise and now I have a chance to work with him.”

The Masters of Beauty competition was open for all 150,000 students from 105 different Empire Beauty Schools in 19 states. The winner of the competition will win a 24-month apprenticeship with Arrojo at his New York City salon, Arrojo Studio, $10,000 for moving expenses, free classes taught by Arrojo and tickets to the New York International Beauty Show in April. The top two runners-up will also get tickets to the show.

“The goal is for the winner to become a really good stylist,” says Arrojo. “We’ll train them to the best of our ability.”

Brown says that winning this competition would be the best opportunity for her to grow as a hairstylist and to jumpstart her career, but she didn’t always think this window of opportunity would be possible for her.

Before the competition’s first-round deadline, her husband, Phillip Brown, had secretly entered her in the contest by submitting a picture of one of her haircuts. When Brown discovered she had made it to the second round of the competition, she was in shock.

“He mentioned the competition to me and I said, ‘No way would I have a chance with that.’ and he said, ‘Of course you will, you’re brilliant,’” says Brown, adding that her husband is her biggest fan.

The two then worked as a team to further her into the competition. As a professional videographer, her husband put together a video of Brown transforming her client, Leslie Pederson’s, look from a light brown do to a red asymmetrical bob. She was then selected to be a top 10 finalist.

“She wants to work for Nick Arrojo, she wants to go to New York City, she wants to learn as much as she can,” says Pederson, of Haverhill, who has been Brown’s client for eight years. “She listens and she knows how to cut hair. She deserves it.”

Arrojo says that the look Brown submitted stood out because her cut was up to par with his taste level. “She definitely had elements that I would consider the Arrojo style, which is contemporary and wearable,” he says. “We kind of have a more fashion-forward feel, and her cut kind of fit the brand.”

Although Brown had just started beauty school at Empire two years ago, her hairstyling practices began long before she was enrolled. While growing up in her hometown of Brighton, England, Brown would visit her mother, Lynn Rome, while she worked as a hairdresser at the Deborah Jane Salon. At the age of 5, Brown had started her beauty school education. She would observe her mother wash, cut, color and style client after client’s hair, and often helped braid some of the customers’ locks.

“I loved watching my mom do everything,” says Brown, adding that she continued to shadow her mother after they moved to a new salon in Palm Springs, Calif. when she was 13. “I loved watching her do perms, cuts, color, everything.”

Like mother like daughter, Brown dreamed of becoming a hairstylist and practiced her natural talent on My Little Pony toys, Barbie dolls and her family’s heads whenever she could run her fingers through their hair.

“I remember walking in the living room and my grandpa was on his chair and he had mini ponytails,” says Brown’s brother, Marc Rome, an attorney in Oklahoma City. “She’d use multicolored elastic bands to put his entire hair in pony tails.”

Brown and her brother grew up as polar opposites; Rome was a bookworm and Brown was a social butterfly. Where Rome was often spending hours studying for exams and quizzes, Brown spent her time singing, dancing and acting. Although she often felt the pressure to be “smart” like her brother, Rome never thought his little sister didn’t have brains.

“She was really intelligent, but she used her intelligence in different ways,” says Rome, who remembers Brown braiding her friends’ hair all the time growing up. “It’s more of a creative intelligence.”

After high school, Rome took the college route, attending Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., but Brown knew that school wasn’t for her.

“I was always interested in the creative half of things, which didn’t really require the schooling in college but required schooling,” says Brown.

Going to college was something her mother wanted both of her children to experience, so she initially did not support Brown’s decision to pursue hairstyling.

“Growing up, she wanted to be a hair dresser and I wanted her to have an education,” says Brown’s mother, Lynn Rome, who has been a hairdresser for nearly 50 years. “I just desperately wanted her to go to school.”

As a kid, Brown remembers her mother soaking her swollen feet in hot water and complaining about sore limbs, shoulder pains and pulled muscles from constantly styling hair. The hair profession was physically demanding, and that was another reason why her mother didn’t support Brown’s career path.

“She kept telling me it’s really hard on the body and it’s a lot of hard work, and I was dumb and I listened to her,” says Brown.

Following her mother’s wishes, Brown went into various jobs trying to discover her passion. She worked as a flight attendant immediately after high school, was a nanny for seven years, was a waitress at multiple restaurants and was a dental assistant for five years.

“It was good pay and my mom kind of coaxed me into the go-for-the-money kind of thing, but I was miserable doing that,” says Brown. “I worked hard at it but it didn’t fulfill me.”

It wasn’t until she was 28 years old when she realized doing hair was her true calling. Two years ago, her husband had come home with a botched haircut that  “looked like someone had their eyes shut when they were cutting his hair,” says Brown. She grabbed a pair of scissors and intuitively knew how to recover her husband’s awful new ‘do, and when she was done, Brown says her husband looked at her and said, “This is ridiculous. It’s time for you to do hair.”

“I like her cuts a lot better than other people I’ve been to, to be honest,” says Phillip Brown, her husband, who was in the Army, stationed in North Carolina at the time. “I’m really picky when it comes to who cuts my hair, and she does such a good job.”

When she moved back to Boston after living in the South with her husband for three years, Brown went straight to beauty school, where she’d have three-to-six walk-in clients a day coming in and out of the Empire salon. As a hands-on learner, Brown perfected her techniques through her experience at the school.

Emily Shuman, a career planning specialist at Empire Beauty School in Boston, says Brown was a standout student. She says that compared to other students, Brown had a large clientele and it was clear she produced quality work and that her clients were drawn to her perky, bubbly persona, which made them often come back asking if they could make an appointment with “the British girl.”

“Every single client left here with a giant smile on their face ready to book their next visit with her,” says Shuman. “She’s a very charming student here and made the clients feel very at ease. They didn’t feel like they were getting their hair done at a beauty school, she made it feel like the real deal.”

One loyal walk-in client of Brown’s at Empire was Jenna McGowan, who says that she enjoys going to Brown to get her hair done because she’s talkative, funny and a great listener.

“She’s very easy to talk to, which is great,” says McGowan, who started going to Brown a year ago. “That’s what people are looking for in a hairdresser.”

Brown’s brother agrees. “I think it’s really quite appropriate she’s a hair dresser because there’s more to being a hairdresser than just the design component,” says Rome. “There’s an entertainment component to hairdressing and she’s very good at being a hairdresser.”

In addition to studying Arrojo’s online videos and attending Empire part-time, Brown would seek inspiration by going into various hair salons throughout Boston and passively observing other stylists at work. She constantly envisioned hairdos that would look good on people everywhere she went.

“She’s always looking out for what she can do to people’s hair,” says McGowan. “She dreams about what she would do to their hair if they would let her.”

Her easygoing and welcoming personality and her commitment to improving her craft is exactly what Arrojo says he is looking for in a winner. “The salon is very friendly and I think very cool,” he says. “I’m looking for someone who’s very nice and someone who’s very committed.”

And committed, she is: Brown won first place in a competition at Empire put on by Arthur Miller, an owner of a salon on Newbury Street; volunteered to do children’s hair while teaching them about hygiene at the school; and always participated in school events, even dressing up as Betty Boop for an Empire look-a-like contest.

Currently, she is working at the Waban Salon in Newton, where both she and her more-than-proud mother work side-by-side. The competition winner will be selected on May 21, and Brown says if she wins, this will help her provide for her, her husband and their two children, Bailey, 6, and Brighton, 3, and it would create more opportunities for her in what she is most passionate about–the hair business.

“Finally my passion got the best of me and I did what I knew I should’ve done 10 years ago,” says Brown. “I love it and it’s not hard work to me at all. It’s loads of fun.”

Tyler Balliet, co-founder of Second Glass.

Are you a would-be oenophile who sticks to beer or vodka tonics in an attempt to avoid the snobbery so often served up with sauvignon? Second Glass is here to bring you around to the bottle. Founded by former Bostonians Morgan First and Tyler Balliet, Second Glass aims to make wine accessible via Wine Riots, events that the company defines as two parts education and one part revolution.

After attending the Wine Riot at the Boston Park Plaza Castle earlier this month and speaking to Balliet, I can now answer the following questions with ease: “Can you get good wine from a box?” Yep; “Can great wine come from Massachusetts?” Surprisingly, yes; “Is there such a thing as a wine event that is devoid of old boys in tweed waxing poetic about a wine’s nose and legs?” Yes. Thank you, Second Glass. Yes.

Balliet is a former wine writer who noticed a hole in the market. While wine was alive and well with older folks, younger people just weren’t drinking it. Balliet knew that his peers were interested in learning, they just didn’t have the resources to do so. Sure, they could read about it, but who wants to read when tasting is more rewarding (not to mention more fun)? In the summer of 2008, Balliet partnered with First and turned this realization into what is now Second Glass. Their goal? To present people with the opportunity to experience wine in an educational setting while allowing them to connect with people who were just as curious as they were.

The idea that wine should be about fun and curiosity isn’t as revolutionary as the reigning wine culture makes it seem. Balliet notes that he has never encountered pretension among wine makers and others that work closely with the product. Even in France, where he lived for a few years, wine was regarded as something to be enjoyed and explored. That wine should fill the glasses of erudite socialists is a strictly American idea that can be traced back to Prohibition. Rather than making us a more upright society, the ban on booze spurred a cocktail culture. As many of us know from our wayward teenage years, a handle of vodka is easier to smuggle than a case of wine. By the time wine reappeared on the American market, it was bolstered by a group of people who appreciated the fact that it could be debated and discussed as well as imbibed. Slowly but surely, wine became one of the only products whose technical language became its marketing language.

I can’t vouch for makers themselves, but there was certainly no pretension among the  distributor representatives I encountered at Wine Riot. And while I’m sure they possessed a wealth of knowledge and technical jargon I couldn’t even begin to appreciate, they mercifully refrained from using it, and instead discussed their products with an enthusiasm and ease that was not only easy to understand, but easy to get excited about. After tasting the wines being offered at Mouton Noir, the rep asked if I was ready to try the “big boy wine.” It wasn’t the kind of language one would encounter in The Wine Advocate, but it definitely made me want to drink up.

Wonderfully, this fantastic wine fell within the price range of everything Mounton Noir was offering up that night (between $17 and $24). Balliet noted during our interview that “price and quality are not directly related.” Barring those wines he’s purchased as gifts, the co-founder of Second Glass reports that he rarely spends beyond $40 to $50 on a bottle. It seems wine and fashion have something in common: You buy a $150 bottle of wine for the same reason you buy a pair of Gucci sunglasses. True, you’re getting a superior level of craftsmanship, but ultimately, you’re paying for the label. And just as that dude in designer jeans, shades and (seriously?) t-shirt may prove to have less than a sparkling personality, you can’t judge a wine by its bottle.

Guests at the event used their smart phones to rate wines.

As it turns out, good wine can also come from a box. In fact, a box lined with medical-grade plastic prevents air from getting inside and turning your yummy red wine into vinegar. Unlike bottles, which will keep wine fresh for about 48 hours, a box can be opened and then left on your counter for a month without altering the product. The reason everyone’s not doing it lies in the price. Compared to bottling, putting wine into a box is extremely expensive for producers.

Balliet also emphasized that in the same way wine isn’t bound to a bottle, it’s also not bound to traditional wine producing regions. Though he admits that the wine that got him into wine hails from France’s Loire Valley, he admits to finding delicious offerings from all sorts of unlikely places since then. He is a huge advocate of local wine and insists great wine can be made in all 50 states. Sure, terrible wine can be made in all 50 states, but France can turn out some crappy wine, too. It’s important to remember, Balliet notes, that 25 years ago, everyone thought the guys trying to grow grapes out in California were crazy.

So what’s the image of a satisfied wine rioter? Someone who leaves knowing more about both wine and themselves. “I want people to come and leave with knowledge they can apply to wine buying. My goal is to make wine buying easier and more enjoyable,” Balliet said. Given the crowd at Wine Riot and Second Glass’ ingenious integration of technology (want to give your wine two thumbs up and take a note or two? There was an app for that) it seems more and more 20-somethings will find themselves thinking outside of the beer aisle.

Last Friday, I was a guest on Michael Graham’s popular talk radio show, which airs from 3-7 p.m., on 96.9 WTKK. I was participating in the final hour of his broadcast–the “That’s a Wrap” segment–during which Graham and other pundits recap some of the news stories of the week. The other guest that night was the great Charlie Hall, the brainchild of the uproarious Mass Hysteria, a “musical, satirical cabaret that pokes fun at the local goings-on, personalities, and politics of Massachusetts.” After the broadcast, Hall was kind enough to extend an invitation to my boyfriend and me to come to the next day’s show for a free viewing, which, of course, I could not resist.

Mass Hysteria isn’t new to Beantown–it debuted more than 15 years ago, receiving rave reviews from critics and audiences alike. Eventually, Hall, a Rhode Island native known affectionately by many as the “Rhode Island State Jester,” put the show on hiatus, deciding to focus his attention on his other creation, Ocean State Follies, a similarly-themed musical spoof about Rhode Island. Perhaps inspired by recent absurdities here in our glorious, uber-liberal, scandal-plagued Commonwealth of Massachusetts (umm … three consecutive speakers of the house thrown in jail?), Hall, a stand-up comic by trade who has appeared on such programs as the Joan Rivers Show, Caroline’s Comedy Hour, America’s Funniest People  and Star Search ’93 (he was a semi-finalist!), felt the timing was ripe in the Bay State for a return to the roast.

“There’s something incestuous about the big cities in New England,” said Hall in an email to me. “We all seem to know each other, are related to each other–it breeds corruption. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining: Without it I’d have no show!”

I had never heard of Mass Hysteria–surprising, given my affinity for politics and the nonsensical folly it often engenders–but Graham couldn’t stop raving about how funny it was, filling me with high hopes for a night full of delicious Schadenfreude as my boyfriend and I headed over to the back room of Club Café this past Saturday night for the 7:30 p.m. performance.

It just so happened that Hall, who greeted us at the door, was starring in the show that night as one of the main performers–one of his cast members had to bow out to commemorate the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt. But the show must go on! Luckily, Hall knew the material cold–after all, he scripted each of the acts and wrote the lyrics to all of the songs–and had a decent singing voice to boot.

The show kicked off with a number on the oh-so-despicable tradition of corruption in Massachusetts, setting up the tone and direction for what was to come. The regular cast members present on Saturday–Tom Berry, Danielle Hecht and Krystal Bly–performed excellently throughout. Given their acting chops, great comedic timing and superb vocal skills, one might wonder why Broadway hasn’t come calling.

Each song was set to a familiar tune, making the sentiment and lyrics even funnier. Cases in point: a Catherine Gregg-Gisele Bundchen duet, played by Hecht and Bly, respectively, made use of Tammy Wynette’s famous tune “Stand By Your Man;” and a biting spoof of Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray’s recent driving mishap, during which he says he fell asleep at the wheel, was set to The Chordettes’ “Mr. Sandman.”

While the show often dealt with various incidents involving state corruption, many acts focused on more lighthearted subjects. Hall’s skits poked fun at all things Massachusetts, from notable politicians (and wannabes), such as Mitt Romney, Elizabeth Warren, Joseph Kennedy III (portrayed hilariously by Berry as an overly ebullient, dunderhead schoolboy who giggles and fumbles awkwardly), Tom “Mumbles” Menino, and Bawney Fwwank (“My Bawney Lies Over the Ocean”) to established institutions and landmarks, such as the MBTA, the completely unremarkable paint-stained gas tank on Route 93 and the Citgo sign, the four beloved Boston sports teams, and the One, the Only … Dunkin’ Donuts. Issues such as the ruckus over gay marriage and casinos (“comiiiing to town”) were also satirized.

Of all the bits during Saturday’s performance, two were, hands down, the funniest: The first was a number featuring Hall as a resurrected Ted Kennedy (a dubious halo hovering above his head, a margarita in hand), flanked by two angels, singing altered lyrics to the tune of “Jesus Christ Superstar”; the second, a pee-in-your-pants skit featuring Berry as a knucklehead professor of “Bostonics,” in which he helped the audience understand, through the use of flash cards, the often-confusing phonics of the Boston accent. My boyfriend and I were in legitimate hysterics.

I highly recommend Mass Hysteria. The acting, comedy, and singing are marvelous, and it feels great to support an unpretentious, grassroots production. There will be a few more shows in April at Club Café (check out www.masshysteriathemusical.com for the schedule), but Hall is looking for additional venues in the coming months. The cast will perform pretty much anywhere (private parties, business meetings or fundraisers) they are hired to go–except Mitt Romney’s backyard.

Behind a massive booth at PAX East lay a never before seen look at one of the most anticipated games of this year, Assassin’s Creed 3.  While the game was not playable, we were treated to a walkthrough video showing some of the new features in the game.

For those uninitiated in what Assassin’s Creed 3 is about, the game takes place during the Revolutionary War. You play as Connor, a half-British, half-Native American assassin who is in a lifelong hunt to bring down the Templar order.

The video is set during the battle of Bunker Hill in 1775. Connor starts out on the American side of the conflict, yet nobody seems to know who he is, leaving the idea of an actual allegiance up in the air. His target is Major Pitcarin, one of the soldiers leading the British side of the effort. The battle continues to rage as you work your way through solid cover in an attempt to break away from the main combat. Ubisoft is promising over 2,000 troops on the screen at once, making these battles as epic as they really were. While the battles are scripted story moments, there is still a sense of open world exploration, with several ways of accomplishing your mission.

As Connor worked his way through the battlements and line infantry a new cover system was in the works as well as a completely new set of animations for the main character. There are now brand new contextual animations in the vein of the Uncharted series, where Connor will react to environmental effects such as nearby explosions.

Eventually Connor worked his way to a nearby wooded area and showcased the new tree free-running in Assassin’c Creed 3. With a large part of Assassin’s Creed 3 taking place in the vast wild woods of early colonial America, Ubisoft has implemented the most coveted feature form the original games and applied it to an object most people can actually climb. Connor was able to jump on a tree and work his way around the branches is an extremely natural method. The most impressive thing was how organic the environment looked, making Connor’s traverse through the woods even more outstanding.

As he stood on a branch, a small British patrol walked below him. This was a chance for Ubisoft to showcase the new combat in the game. A rope dart was thrown at a walking guard which allowed Connor to use his weight as leverage to fall slowly from the tree. As the now dead guard hung from the branch, his comrades began engaging Connor in combat. Four guards formed a firing line as one began engaging the assassin directly. Connor then grappled his enemy and used him as a human shield against the barrage of bullets from the other guards. He then ran towards the now reloading firing line and engaged them at close range. Connor is a dual wielding expert, leading attacks to be much more varied and counters to be bloodier than ever.

Once the patrol was dispatched, Connor climbed a steep rock wall and approached the British camp. Here, Ubisoft showed the new stalking zones, small areas where an assassin can remain undetected. In prior games they were crowds, yet Assassin’s Creed 3′s wilderness provides vegetation for Connor to hide in. Once the target was in view, Connor jumped out of the bush, assassinated a guard while running, shoved another out of the way and jumped over a rock for an air assassination on Major Pitcarin while he was on a horse. Ubisoft is trying to make Connor an “assassin in motion,” creating new moves and counters that will allow players to never loose momentum while on the hunt.

Assassin’s Creed 3 is set to release on October 30, and judging from the massive line at PAX, fans cannot wait to get their hands on it. The video preview was impressive and the new features were cool, but we have yet to see to what level Ubisoft is able to take this franchise.

It’s that time of year again! The snow is melting, the weather is getting warmer and we’re at the beginning of the 2012 Major League Baseball season. This year’s season has a lot of interesting questions going in, how will big name acquisitions like could the Cardinals repeat, how much will Prince Fielder and Albert Pujols help their new ballclubs? Will the Marlin’s move to Miami (complete with stadium right out of Baseball Simulator 2000) pay off? It’s a long season, and we didn’t want to wait, so we took MLB The Show: 2012 for the PS3 and simmed the entire season. We used the current rosters and allowed the game to do it’s thing. The results..were interesting to say the least.

AGAIN — these are not our predictions, just what the game says will happen.

Boston folk rejoice — the Red Sox got out of last year’s chicken and beer induced slump by not only winning the division, but bringing home the best record in baseball at 111-51. They were chased closely all season by those pesky New York Yankees, who put up a 101-61 record, claiming the American League Wildcard spot. Over in the National League, the Cardinals took the best record with 100-62. The Rockies were a HUGE surprise this season, winning the west, and producing an MVP in Carlos Gonzalez. The American League MVP went to Prince Fielder.

The Playoffs became a battleground for the league’s biggest franchises and biggest names. In the American League, Boston beat Detroit in five games in the first round, with the Yankees doing the same to the rangers. That setup another classic matchup between bitter rivals The Yankees and the RedSox for a chance to return to the World Series. It looked like the Yankees would get their revenge for the regular season, winning the first two games, but Boston quickly tied it back up, before losing the next game, and finally clinching their world series birth in game 7.

In the first round for the National League, Arizona stunned the world by eliminating the world champion St. Louis Cardinals in the five games in the first round, meeting the Colorado Rockies, who beat the Phillies in the first round in the championship round. Arizona proved themselves to be the more powerful upstart team as they won a trip to the World Series in six games.

World Series: Boston Red Sox VS Arizona Diamond Backs

This year’s Fall Classic lived up to it’s name, pitting one of the sport’s biggest and most loved franchises, looking for redemption against what can only be described as a Cinderella Story. It looked like that Cinderella Story would go all the way, as the Diamond Backs won the first three games, but the clock struck midnight as in classic  franchise fashion, The Boston Red Sox won their eighth World Series Championship.

According to MLB The Show, Boston should be getting ready for another victory parade.

Check out below for complete standings and awards. What do you think will happen this year? Let us know in the comments below!

National League Standings:

Central:

Cardinals – 100-62

Reds – 85-77

Brewers – 84-78

Pirates  - 71-91

Cubs – 71-91

Astros – 59-103

West:

Rockies  - 96-66

Diamondbacks – 89-73 (wildcard)

Giants – 84-78

Dodgers: – 77 -85

Padres: – 71-91

East

Phillies – 87 -75

Nationals-  82-80

Marlins – 82-80

Mets – 77-85

Braves – 74 -88

American League Standings:

Central:

Tigers – 83-79

Twins – 82-80

White Sox – 78-84

Indians – 78-84

Royals – 72-90

West:

Rangers – 94-68

Angels: 79-83

Mariners – 71-91

Athletics – 68-94

East:

RedSox – 111-51

Yankees 101-61 (wild card)

Rays – 86-76

Orioles 70-92

Blue Jays: 68-94

National League Awards

MVP – Carlos Gonzalez (Rockies)

CY Young – Erik Bedard (Pirates) 18-9 ERA: 1.95 SO: 208

Silver Slugger Award: Carlos Beltran (Cardinals) AVG: .336 HR: 19 RBI: 84

Delivery Man of the Year Award: Rafael Betancourt (Rockies) 53 saves ERA: 3.99 SO: 45

Rookie of the Year: Lance Lynn (Cardinals) 17-5 ERA 3.21 SO 176

Hank Aaron Award: Carlos Beltran (Cardinals) AVG: .336 HR: 19 RBI: 84

Golden Glove: Adam Wainwright (Cardinals), Hunter Pence (Phillies), Mike Cameron (Nationals) Chris Heisey (Reds), Jimmy Rollins (Phillies), Scott Rolen (reds), Chase Utley (Phillies), Gabby Sanchez (Marlins), David Ross (Braves)

American League Awards

MVP: Prince Fielder (Tigers) AVG: .289 HR: 43 RBI: 132

Cy Young: John Lackey (Red Sox) 19-2 ERA: 3.37 So: 158

Silver Slugger: Miguel Cabrera (Tigers) AVG: .344 HR: 33 RBI: 108

Delivery Man of the Year: Andrew Bailey (Red Sox) SV: 52 ERA: 2.35 So: 40

Rookie of the Year: Jesus Montero (Mariners) AVG: .266 HR: 16 RBI: 66

Hank Aaron Award: Miguel Cabrera (Tigers) AVG: .344 HR: 33 RBI: 108

Golden Glove: Jesse Litsch (Blue Jays), Taylor Teagarden (Orioles), Adrian Gonzalez (Red Sox), Dustin Pedroia (Red Sox), Brandon Inge (Tigers), Omar Vizquel (Blue Jays), Sam Fuld (Rays), Curtis Granderson (Yankees), Nick Markakis (Orioles)

At 10 minutes to show time, almost every band on the bill was present and accounted for. The doorman was still missing, but he was probably just running late. Outside, a patch of lousy smarch weather dampened the dirty sidewalk.

The circumstances at O’Brien’s Pub last weekend, through no fault of the venue, were not exactly conducive to a rowdy rock and roll show. It was Sunday, too, and barely the afternoon. Allston seemed busy nursing its hangover.

The crowd inside could accurately be called a crowd: 40 or so people, more than half of O’Brien’s room capacity. They were well into their first Sunday beers. No coffee or brunch on this menu. The video golf machine in the corner? Dead, unplugged. Al the sound guy had the Descendents on the PA. He untangled cables and tried to reach the doorman on his cell phone. There was change to make, and a lot of hands to mark. No answer.

Enter Ryan Agate. Oh, he’ll take the door for now, no problem. After all, Ryan The Terrible—as he’s known on flyers—booked this show, the fourth in a weekly series of Sunday matinees that he’s aptly named “Day-Drunk Pop-Punk”.

Ryan Agate (Credit Christina Atturio)

“This [series] has been surprisingly successful,” he says, sipping a Miller High Life kept cool by a koozie brought from home. “We usually get 30 or 40 people. It helps I made a catchy name.”

Along with his ability to alliterate, um, alluringly, Agate is a rock promoter who can juggle the duties of talent buyer, graphic designer, band mother, ringleader, heckler, and, yes, even doorman. He’s almost too cheery to be drinking this early. His upbeat attitude can seem a little at odds with that of the “older, jaded punk rock bands” he tends to support, but someone has to keep the show on schedule – even if its theme is three-chord tunes and, well, drinking early.

Agate is only one of many Boston promoters trying to do one thing: set up the kinds of shows they wish they could attend. It’s not always easy, especially for younger bands who try to do it themselves. The city has a reputation for being an absolute haven for new music, and boy, is it ever. Yet very few Boston-bred artists get more than a dollop of national attention before they fizzle out, or relocate to New York to fizzle out.

Chalk it up to a problem of logistics. That’s where promoters come in. Will Mayo, who organizes noise, psych, and other self-proclaimed “weird” shows, understands that the prime directive of any artist is to find a place to showcase their work.

“The hardest part [about Boston] is the lack of venues and the city’s lack of support for the non-commercial elements of the art and music scenes” Mayo says. “That issue is compounded by the fact that people tend to leave Boston shortly after they’re done with school.”

Those very kids make up much of the target demographic for small club shows, and so they remain small, as if by design. This is far from a destructive force, but it does have a crowding effect. In a city full of smart, creative folks, there is an awful lot of good music to take in, on a variety of scales. It can be daunting to a fan and unforgiving to an artist.

Wolfie Burns plays Day-Drunk Pop-Punk (Credit Jonathan Meyer)

A vast network of bands, movements, scenes, collectives, venues, clubs, and promoters all compete for attention. And they change rapidly about every four years. The hyper-specificity of Agate’s Sunday shows isn’t just a cute gimmick; it’s a rallying cry to the music’s base.

“One of the things that I try to do is to be the voice for those smaller bands,” Agate says. “Get them into a real venue so they can play for people they wouldn’t normally play for. And it’s worked out really well for some of those bands.”

Boston has a wealth of those “smaller bands,” and they find places to play even if the corporate-owned venues on Lansdowne Street aren’t offering opener slots (national booking agents generally pick those). Throughout the week, dozens of houses and basements around town operate under the radar.

Spaces like the Democracy Center and Lorem Ipsum Books also open their doors for all-ages shows. Neighborhood bars like P.A.’s Lounge and the Midway Cafe give way to mid-sized clubs like the Middle East and Great Scott.Agate and Mayo have booked pretty much all of them at one time or another, and they’ve been at it for nearly a decade, first in service to artists they like.

A principled approach like this begs for red tape. Most music venues, even non-profit spaces and event halls, require room costs. Some bars will have to make a certain amount of money in drink sales before the bands can see any of it. Most promoters are no strangers to having to pay their bands out of pocket at times. The age restrictions at bars pose an even weightier issue: why book a band at a place many of its fans aren’t allowed to enter?

The Democracy Center in Harvard Square solves this problem with three rules: shows must admit all ages, be booze-free, and end by 11. Kimberly Jane, who works part-time at the non-profit, also books hardcore shows in its ballroom. They’ve caused a few broken windows here and there, but have done well enough lately for Jane to start a fund for such incidental repairs.

“It’s really important to me that everybody who wants to see a show can,” she says. “When people are shut out because of age, it’s very clearly a nod to alcohol sales. I go to shows because I want to hear the music. If you want to drink, there are bars around, and there’s a river you can walk to and drink at. Just because a space is alcohol-free doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go to shows there.”

The Democracy Center challenges more than a lack of all-ages shows. The venue hosted part of last weekend’s Smash It Dead Fest, a three-day event featuring more than 25 bands benefiting the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. Jane was part of a collective that raised more than $4,000 for the center.

Kimberly Jane (bottom left) and the Smash It Dead Collective (Credit Rachel Atcheson)

But big charitable festivals simply can’t happen every weekend. Smash It Dead required months of planning, and went smoothly thanks to lessons learned from the previous year’s effort, when a slew of last-minute venue changes nearly derailed the event.

Agate has had some time to learn tricks of the trade, too, if on a smaller scale: work with people and places you like, book shows in all sorts of spaces, see what works for what kind of gig, avoid shows in January.

He says the hardest part about booking shows in Boston is trying to make the bands happy. He’s a guy who knows his audience because he is his audience, often no more or less than a friend of the band. For his purposes, all-ages shows aren’t a necessity.

“Of course there are disadvantages to doing shows in bars,” Agate says. “Certain people won’t attend age-restricted shows, even if they’re of age, on principle, and that’s a valid point. But it makes my job easy to have a sound guy and a bartender at a place like O’Brien’s. If I can make 10 people come through the door, I can pay the bands.”

Three blocks from O’Brien’s, though, starts a spread of lofts and basements that take care of their bands in a different way: they’re usually absolutely bonkers. “I mainly appreciate working with bars for the simple fact that they’re reliable,” admits Will Mayo. “Of course, the wild energy of the basement is hard to capture elsewhere.”

One such Allston space sprouted up last year thanks to the efforts of Nate Richardson and Ben Henry. They’re nothing more than two brazen knuckleheads who “sling food poorly” for work and strive to put on good shows for their friends’ bands. Though they admit to “stealing the business model” from Somerville’s famed studio/space Starlab, “they’re way better than us,” says Henry. “They drink less during shows, book better shows, and are much nicer guys.”

“Yeah,” says Richardson. “They probably use a calendar.”

These two dudes pay for their room themselves, though. Even if the show doesn’t go so well (i.e.: graffiti, fireworks, windows kicked out, people thrown down stairs), the band on tour is usually compensated, and the local acts will get to play for their friends and maybe make some new ones.

“You can’t always get the band more money at a bar,” says Richardson. “Sometimes you can’t get the band any money. A bar is going to be pretty strict on their room cost. We try to be strict on ours, but if the band’s not getting paid, we’d rather pay the band than take the room fee.”

Nate Richardson (left) and Ben Henry (Credit Jonathan Meyer)

Richardson’s option to forgo his own room fee is not one afforded to legitimate venues. Unlisted, donation-driven shows, where the floor is as shaky as the legality, are asking to be shut down. For all the righteousness, a nagging struggle over money remains. Touring bands are likely to be assertive about how the money at a gig gets handled. Booking agents are more likely to make unreasonable demands far before the date is ever set. Both The Terrible Agate and the Democracy Center’s Jane admit to simply crossing off much of a band’s tour rider. It’s never out of spite – again, it’s a problem of logistics.

“Apparently there’s a lot of money in show-booking that I don’t know about,” says Agate, who prefers to pay out with a divided percentage of the door. “I know what the bands make. I know what the shows make. I don’t make anything. A lot of bands and venues don’t make anything. Where’s the money in this? A lot of people wrongfully assume that bars are making hundreds of thousands of dollars. A perfect example is a Monday night at Charlie’s [Kitchen in Cambridge]: if we make 300 bucks at the bar we’re doing all right.”

For the moment at least, so is Boston’s music scene. Its promoters are its unsung heroes, sacrificing time, money and windows. Bands and venues will come and go. Trends will sparkle and fade. Students will graduate and move back home. Yet against all odds, there’s still always something going on, if you know where to look.

Sundance Selects – a video-on-demand platform providing independent documentary and world cinema films to customers of major cable companies like Comcast and Time Warner – will have two works featured in the 2012 Independent Film Festival Boston.

Ai Wei Wei – Never Sorry, directed by Alison Klayman, profiles “China’s most famous international artist and its most outspoken domestic critic,” from his work to protest through art and organized efforts to the merciless pushback from the Chinese government.  It opens in Boston on July 27.

How To Survive A Plague, directed by David France and Peter Staley, opens in Boston in September. The film tells the story of the groups ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group), whose efforts, without any formal scientific training behind them, helped to turn AIDS “from a death sentence into a manageable condition.”

The Festival, in its 10^th year, will run from April 25 to May 2. It aims to showcase a number of American films made outside major studios as well as International films, be they animations, narrative features, or documentaries.

More information on the festival and its films can be found at http://www.iffboston.org

Games like Journey have assured many that video games are in fact an art form, and that their emotive strength is relies heavily on what we see and hear onscreen. A talented artist’s contributions, then, make a big impact on game’s overall success.

But what do artists do after months working on a game? Many seek creative outlets that give them the freedom tight schedules and product deadlines often deny them. Some just do what they enjoy doing  - their art!

“Art Out of the Game” is a show sponsored by the New England Institute of Art that brings together nine local New England artists who have worked on pieces “for a wide range of reasons, from exploring themes of identity to exercising their passion for history to connecting with lost family.”

Their professional work has graced the games of New England video game studios including Turbine, Harmonix, Demiurge, 38 Studios, and Zynga Boston. Now, their personal art is on display for all to enjoy.

“Art Out of the Game” is currently running through April 19 at the Gallery on the Plaza at the New England Institute of Art. There will also be a reception on April 4 from 7pm-9pm. The show and reception are both free of charge. Click here for more information about the show.

Listen Up

Hometown heroes the Dropkick Murphys have shipped up to Boston for a set of shows at the House of Blues. Check them out on March 16. Doors open at 6 p.m., and the show starts at 7 p.m. Standing room tickets are $32.50, and reserved seating tickets are $60. 

Eat and Drink Up

If traditional Irish fare isn’t your thing, venture to Ole Mexican Grill in Cambridge and Zocalo Cocina Mexicana in Boston on March 17 to enjoy the very best of Irish-Mexican cuisine. Pair chef Erwin Ramos’ corned beef and cabbage tacos with baby Guiness shots and Irish tea. Dinner is served from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. at both locations. RSVP to Ole at 617-492-4495 and to Zocalo at 617-456-7849.

The Black Rose Irish pub will be opening its doors at 8 a.m. on St. Patrick’s Day, featuring live Celtic music all day long.

Jamaica Plain’s Doyle’s Café will be serving up corned beef and cabbage alongside the tunes of the  Boston Police Gaelic Column of Pipes and Drums on March 16, and the Fenian Sons on March 17. Times TBA.

Head to America’s first Irish sports bar, McGreevy’s, on St. Patrick’s Day to enjoy a traditional Irish brunch (starting at 8 a.m.) and to watch the live streaming rugby match between Ireland and England at noon.

Step Up

The St. Patrick’s Day celebration on March 17 at Faneuil Hall features performances from The Bay State Pipers (11 a.m. to noon), O’Shea Chaplin Academy of Irish Step performers (noon to 1 p.m.), the Carlynton High School Band (1 p.m. to 2 p.m.), the Wood School Of Irish Step Dancing (1 p.m. – 3 p.m.), and the O’dwyer School of Irish Dance (3 p.m. to 4 p.m.).

The South Boston St. Patrick’s Day Parade kicks off March 18th at 1:00pm.

Available all year, three miles of the Irish Heritage Trail might prove particularly interesting after a few drinks.

Sober Up

If all that celebrating has got you feeling “down,” head over to McGreevy’s for a Feeling Green Hangover Party on March 18, starting at 10:30 a.m. Nothing says “headache cure” like an ice cold beer and the NCAA basketball Touney. Top o’ the morning, indeed!

Hi Neely,

I’m a 30-year-old guy living in Boston who is sick of the women in this city. They are cliquey and cold. I moved here from the South a couple years ago for a job, and have found dating women here really difficult. Do you have any suggestions?

Frustrated, Boston

Submit your dating/relationship questions to neely@blastmagazine.com. And don’t forget to check out my website: neelysteinberg.com.

TAKEAWAYS:

• 40 seconds: Boston women may or may not be what you say, but the bottom line is you’re here. So you have to make the best of it!
• 58 seconds: Put your dating dilemma in perspective. Tune in to see how Boston ranks in the singles department against other cities and just how many eligible women there are for you. You will be surprised.
• 1:51: What does the Met Life Stadium (where the NY Giants and the NY Jets play) have to do with women in Boston? Tune in to see what I have to say?
• 3:04: There is one woman in that stadium (all it takes is one!) for you. So get out there and find her.

The Massachusetts Convention Center Authority announced this morning that PAX East, the annual gaming convention that drew over 60,000 visitors last year will remain in Boston through 2023.

“We’re thrilled to host PAX East for at least ten more years,” said James E. Rooney, Executive Director of the MCCA in a statement released earlier today. “Hosting an event for the next decade that draws gamers from around the globe to Boston is fantastic, but the international attention it brings to the technological advancements coming out of the common wealth is a win-win.”

PAX East is the sister event of PAX Prime, the Seattle based gaming convention put on by the folks at Penny Arcade. This year’s PAX East will take place April 6-8.

It’s ok if your Valentines this year are Ben and Jerry, but friends don’t let friends spend the night at a pity party. Instead, grab your single friends and scope out these local events for a good time–you may even find your next date!

A Very Fine Valentine: The Timberfakes at Hard Rock Café

Since Justin Timberlake still won’t make any new music despite desperate internet pleas he do so, The Timberfakes, a Boston-based Justin Timberlake tribute band, have stepped in to bring sexy back to downtown Boston. With a set list that includes material from JT’s N*SYNC days, solo career and SNL spoofs, the Timberfakes playing at the Hard Rock Café (24 Clinton St., Boston) will make you feel 15 again. Friday, Feb. 10; 8 p.m., 21+ only. Tickets are $12 in advance and $15 at the door.

Revolutionary Chocolate at the Old State House

Head down to the Old State House (206 Washington Street in downtown Boston) with your history buff friends for an after-hours demonstration of 18th century chocolate making. Enjoy sampling the aforementioned historically accurate candies, because calories consumed for educational purposes don’t count towards that New Year’s Resolution you made. Ingest some interesting tidbits about Boston’s chocolate history while being guided on a candlelit tour of the tower, and see items from the collection rarely displayed in the museum. Friday, Feb. 17; 6 p.m. Tickets $7.50.

Mortified’s Doomed Valentine’s Day Show

Remember the painfully embarrassing puppy-love-and-war things you used to angstily scribble about in that Lisa Frank journal you were convinced was as secure as Fort Knox, but really your entire family knew about the push-button release? Don’t miss this special love themed event at the Coolidge (290 Harvard St., Brookline), featuring regular men and women “sharing their most hilariously embarrassing diary entries, lyrics, poems, and artwork from their teenage years…from unrequited high-school crushes and tumultuous off-and-on romances to bad prom dates and awkward sexual firsts.” You might be single, but you’ll be thankful you don’t have to live through that again! Monday, Feb. 13, 7:30 p.m. Tickets $15 in advance, $18 at the door, students with valid ID $12. 

Valentine’s Crawl with Crawl in Boston

Crawl in Boston is a social networking group that organizes bar crawls as a way for people to meet and explore the city, and, by asking for donations from each crawler, also raises money for local charities such as Horizons for Homeless Children, or this crawl’s beneficiary, the Hattie B. Cooper Center, which provides educational services to underprivileged children and families in Roxbury.  The Valentine’s Crawl is advertised as the biggest of the year and offers $3 drink specials–not to mention Crawl in Boston also claims to be responsible for at least five weddings! Check their Facebook event page for a list of bars, more info and to RSVP. Come on, it’s for the children, right? Saturday, Feb., 11; 12:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., $5. 

Project Cupid

Project Cupid is a charity fundraiser, so you can feel good about paying for a date. Boston’s most eligible bachelors and bachelorettes, including former NESN sportscaster Heidi Watney, will strut their stuff on the auction block at The Estate (1 Boylston Place, Boston) to raise funds for the Jimmy Fund and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Winning bidders get a dinner date with their “prize” at a local restaurant. There will also be auctions and raffles for sporting events and memorabilia, hotel stays, spa services and more. Saturday, Feb., 11; 6:30 p.m. $15 suggested donation at the door, with all proceeds going to charity.

Susan Baxter, 32, founded Hire a Boston Wingwoman in 2010.

Susan Baxter, 32, has the solution for single Boston guys looking for love: Wingwomen. Sure, you’ve got your Bud Light-guzzling, cleavage-ogling, popped collar-wearing wingman already, but isn’t the same old “you distract the less attractive friend while I talk to the hot one” routine getting a little stale? Baxter’s wingwomen get straight to the point with confidence, class, and a well-worth-it fee: the girl you’re going after.

For clients of Baxter’s company, Hire a Boston Wingwoman, it works like this: You and a wingwoman go to a bar or a lounge, or wherever you want to go to meet chicks. You scan the room, zoom in on your potential love interest, and your wingwoman goes in for the kill. It might begin with a compliment (“I love those shoes!”) or a question (“What’s your favorite drink here?”). Then, she might say something like, “This is my friend Joe; we’re looking for a bar to go after this. Do you know of anywhere good?”

“She kind of hangs around in the background once the introduction is made,” says Baxter. “If it doesn’t work out, then the client tries another woman. And if it doesn’t seem like the woman is interested, the wingwoman can pretend to be the client’s girlfriend.”

Wingwomen are better sidekicks than wingmen, Baxter says, because “Women tend to have their guards up when they go out; maybe it’s a girl’s night and they are just out for some cocktails with their friends and aren’t looking to talk to guys. Women feel less intruded upon if a woman comes up to them. They have their guards up when a man goes up and says, ‘Hey, I’m Joe, how are you ladies this evening?’ It’s old, and it’s lame, and she’s like, ‘Oh, here we go again.’”

Even better, adds Baxter, “It’s a boost of confidence to walk in to a place with a beautiful woman by your side. Girls like competition, so if they see you with an attractive woman, they’ll think you’ve got something to offer.”

So what makes a successful wingwoman? Generally, says Baxter, they are outgoing, and unafraid to approach and strike up conversation with that intimidating, hot girl you’ve got your eye on.

“You’ve gotta play the part,” she says. “You can’t go to that trendy, upscale bar if you look like you just got out of a Red Sox game; it’s gotta be realistic. But each wingwoman has a different personality. Some are bubbly and are good for clubs, and some are more intelligent and would be good for a social networking-type party. They’re attractive, outgoing, social, and willing to go up to a woman and say, ‘Hey, where’d you get your hair done? I’m looking for a new salon in the area.’”

Baxter, who has a master’s degree in applied sociology from the University of Massachusetts, started her business in September of 2010 with the knowledge that “a lot of people are shy and are intimidated to go up to people at a bar,” she says. “People tend to just stand there at the end of the bar and wait to be approached.” Plus, she was already being a wingwoman for her guy (and girl) friends, so why not make it a business?

“My ‘aha’ moment was when I was watching an episode of the ‘Tyra Banks Show,’ and a woman was on there who was a wingwoman for her friends,” says Baxter. “And I was like, ‘Wait, that’s what I do!’ The idea had spread to New York City and to Las Vegas, and I thought, why not Boston?”

Now, Hire a Boston Wingwoman employs nearly 40 wingwomen (and counting–she’s hiring!) in their 20s, 30s and 40s. The business works with about 10 clients a weekend, with many repeat clients. Fall is the busiest time of year for the company, which Baxter attributes to several factors: “In the fall, people are coming back from their vacation or their summer fling, and are looking for something more serious. The holidays are coming and they don’t want to be alone; it’s time to settle down. Plus, fall weather is cozy.”

Hiring a wingwoman costs $65 an hour, with a two hour minimum, and is $30 for every half-hour thereafter. Several testimonials on the company’s website attest that it’s worth the price: “My wingwoman focused on making connections and harnessing intuition,” says client Scott Alden. ”The method was to hang out with her, be myself and seize the moment when it was right. Women who saw that I was with her felt more comfortable around me, and I didn’t have to work as hard. I felt comfortable, too.” Michael, a client from Cambridge, writes, “I felt really comfortable after meeting the wingwoman, who introduced me to a couple of very attractive ladies.  I have already re-hired her because she was great company and made me very confident.”

There’s no guarantee that a wingwoman will help you find your future wife, of course, but who can argue with at least giving it a try? Besides, you get to be seen with a hot, confident woman by your side instead of your cologne-drenched, awkward-pick-up-line-using best friend.

(Media Credit/Melissa Ostrow via UrbanDaddy.com)

There was a time when cocktails weren’t trendy, but classic. For most of Boston, that time has passed, but for Elm Street’s clandestine Saloon, that time is now. Upon walking into Somerville’s newest basement joint, one anticipates the impressive atmosphere and bar menu. To our surprise, it was the soundtrack that proved immediately impressive. The sound of Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris affirmed our suspicions that good things were to come.

And come, they did, in the form of the bright green Nay Sayer cocktail ($10), remarkably complex fried pickled peppers ($9) and a savory steak and kidney pie ($26). As a cocktail, the Nay Sayer is bad for you while tasting very, very good. Indeed, the shot of wheatgrass included in the whiskey and ginger beer mix makes the concoction feel almost healthful.

The wine list is slightly narrow-minded, obviously aiming to please to masses, but the cocktails easy compensate for this. The Ward 44 ($10) is the alcoholic answer to smoky, chocolate covered bacon, and the Corpse Reviver no. 2 ($10) provides tart, absinthe laced refreshment.

Where food is concerned, the deep fried pickled peppers stuffed with Boursin cheese reign over all other appetizers. The steak and kidney pie earned accolades from a native Brit, as well as this reporter and her companion. The savory filling and delightfully rich crust allow one to forget, and even embrace, the fact that it is cold outside.

A reported favorite of Davis Square’s “Slutcracker “cast, Saloon is not to be missed. Whether you crave brown walls, brown gravy, or brown liquor, it is sure to satisfy.

Saloon, 255 Elm St, Somerville; 617-628-4444; www.saloondavis.com

A series of meningitis infections have appeared in various areas of Massachusetts. An unnamed seventh-grade student at Boston Latin Academy died today from a probable case of bacterial meningitis, as well as 64-year old Russell Marcoux, the town manager of Bedford, on November 10. A staff member of Hopedale Junior-Senior High also fell ill on November 17, but appears to be doing well.

Health commission officials have concluded that there are less than fifty people at the Boston Latin Academy who came in contact enough with the 12-year old girl to have possibly contracted the infection, and have advised anyone who spent extended amounts of time with her to visit their doctor. Dr. Anita Barry, the director of the Infectious Disease Bureau at the health commission, said “We consider close contact to be someone who was within 3 to 6 feet for at least an hour duration. It’s not someone who happened to walk past”.

Meanwhile, in Bedford, N.H., town official Russell Marcoux was hospitalized on October 31 at Elliot hospital in Manchester. Cause of his contraction of the illness is unknown, though it is believed that it was not contagious.

Also, parents of students at Hopedale Junior-Senior High have been contacted after a staff member fell ill, but state health officials say that the chances of the infection spreading are slim.

Meningitis can be transferred through contact with saliva, but can be avoided with a vaccine that prevents three strains of the virus. Symptoms, according to Mayo Clinic, include high fever, severe headaches, stiff neck, vomiting or nausea, difficulty concentrating, sleepiness, and sensitivity to light.

Boston’s Mean Creek has been hard at work writing and recording their much anticipated new album.

“The songs feel more different. Dare I say more poppy and happier,” guitarist Chris Keene said. “It is not in generic way. Weare just expressing different emotions.”

For the band creating new material has been invigorating. “It’s been exciting to work on new stuff. It’s been very natural,” Keene said.

There latest single “Land of hopes and dreams” has quickly become a fan favorite. “I love the song,” Keene said. “The song expresses the feeling how it feels to live in this country to us. It’s hard to explain. The song speaks for itself.”

Keene gets equally flustered when discussing about the sound of his band. “It’s hard to describe us,” he said. “I never knew how to answer that question.”

The Improper Bostonian declared them one of the ten bands you have to hear. Paste magazine said “Mean Creek is not merely a great Boston Band; they’re a really great band period. Everyone outside the 617 should be warned Boston has birthed its next prodigious band. Be prepared.”

The beloved rock band must be doing something right. In 2009,they won Boston Music Award’s Best New Act of the Year. This year they are nominated for Artist of the Year,” “Album/EP of the Year” and Song of the Year (Sunlight)

“It’s awesome,” Keene said. “We couldn’t be happier. It feels amazing to be recognized.”

Known for being a Boston band, the band credits the New England city for shaping them as artists.

“Boston has shaped who I am as a person,” Keene said. “The city has its own attitude. It feels different than any other place.Every place has its own attitude. I think it being cold for months makes you a certain way.”

The band formed a couple of years ago. Keene knew lead vocalist Aurore Ounjjan from high school. One day, the pair decided they wanted to forma band. Time went by and they finally met bassist Erik Wormwood and drummer Mikey Holland. “It didn’t really feel like a band until we met those guys,” Keene said.

The four instantly connected. “It all just came together,” Keene said. “That’s what made Mean Creek.”

Mean Creek is revered for their vibrant live shows. “I hate watching someone who is apathetic in what they are doing,” Keene said. “I just want to watch someone who loves what they are doing. When someone loves playing music, it is obvious and contagious.”

Mean Creek will be playing Brighton Music Hall on Nov. 26.

Adele, who has been suffering from rupturing blood vessels in her throat, has undergone laser microsurgery.

The 23-year old singer had to cancel numerous concerts on her U.S. tour due to the hemorrhaging caused by the rupturing blood vessels. But, Dr. Steven M. Zeitels, the director of the Massachusetts General Voice Center where Adele was operated upon, “expects Adele to make a full recovery from her microsurgery”.

Unfortunately for fans, Adele has apparently cancelled public appearances for the remainder of the year to rest her healing throat.

wireimage.com

A Boston-based throat surgeon has confirmed that he is treating singer Adele for a singing related injury, according to the Boston Globe.

Dr. Steven Zeitels announced on Sunday that he is seeing the soul singer regarding a common injury amongst singers.

“There have been crazy and unfortunate rumors — that she’s being treated for cancer, for example. I can tell you that is absolutely not true,” said Zeitels. “To be blunt, her throat is bleeding. It’s a common condition among singers. But it is not career-ending. It is not the most serious. And in her case it can be fixed with surgery. And I will be performing that surgery on Adele at some point in the future.  I believe she will be just fine.”

The doctor went to the press as per the request of Adele’s representatives to ensure that the public knew the truth and to refute cancer rumors.

Zeitels is the director of the Center for Laryngeal Surgery and Voice Rehabilitation at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Eugene B. Casey Professor of Laryngeal Surgery at Harvard Medical School.

Adele recently canceled her tour, citing throat injuries as the reason.

Theo Epstein, the general manager who assembled two World Series championship Boston Red Sox teams, has officially resigned and will depart for the Chicago Cubs, where he has been named president of baseball operations.

The move comes after an epic September collapse and one of the most disastrous endings to a season in Boston sports history.

Epstein has long been rumored to be interested in the Cubs job, as the presidency is a major promotion. He could also perhaps bring a championship to the only team that suffered a longer World Series drought than the Red Sox.

The teams released the following statement:

The Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs jointly announce this evening that, effective immediately, Theo Epstein has resigned from the Red Sox in order to become the new President of Baseball Operations for the Cubs. The clubs also have reached an agreement regarding a process by which appropriate compensation will be determined for the Red Sox and that issue will be resolved in the near term.

Both the Red Sox and the Cubs intend to hold press events on Tuesday, October 25 during which the Cubs intend to announce Mr. Epstein, and the Red Sox intend to announce his successor as General Manager.

Out of respect for the World Series, both clubs have agreed to forego further comment until Tuesday, the next scheduled non-game day.

Protesters link arms as police approach (Blast Staff photo/John Stephen Dwyer)

Dozens of the protesters arrested during Occupy Boston’s expansion into a renovated portion of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway on Monday will not face criminal charges if they pay a $50 court fee and accept a civil infraction.

This was done at Boston Municipal Court this afternoon the request of the prosecutors in the office of Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, said Jake Wark, his spokesman.

Most of the protesters had no prior criminal record.

“Most had no prior records and had their misdemeanor trespassing charges amended to civil infractions at prosecutors’ request,” Wark said.

But some declined the offer of a civil infraction, equivalent to a speeding ticket, and will now have to press on with their criminal cases.

“A small number insisted on proceeding criminally,” Wark said. “Another small number had criminal records, and they were arraigned with court dates in December.”

A protester is arrested during the bridge rally (Blast Staff photo/John Stephen Dwyer)

Yesterday, thousands of people swelled the ranks of Occupy Boston in a march that began at the Boston Common and snaked through various Boston neighborhoods to protest — among other complaints — high unemployment, government malfeasance and corporate greed.

Student groups and representatives from local labor unions were well-represented.

The throng stopped at several points, sitting in the streets and blocking traffic in an act of non-violent civil disobedience. Then, in what one local commentator has since called the “battle of old North Washington bridge,” the protestors blocked the bridge to Charlestown for over an hour but were prevented from advancing onto the expanse itself. One protestor, a gray-haired man in a baseball cap, was arrested.

According to many within the Occupy Boston movement, the “battle of the bridge” was a diversionary tactic enabling protestors to expand their protest community in front of South Station to a part of the Rose Kennedy Greenway that Mayor Thomas Menino and Boston Police had declared to be off-limits. Protestors, arguing that their camp is too overcrowded to accommodate the number of people who arrived daily to join their cause, see physical expansion as vital to the success of their mission. They note that similar protests in other US cities have been allowed to expand and unsuccessfully implored Boston to afford them the same opportunity.

"Medics" stand by on the Greenway during the protests (Blast Staff photo/John Stephen Dwyer)

By early evening, police and protestors were at a standoff. Tents had been pitched in the new area and some of the infrastructure of the main camp, such as the protest group’s logistics and medical tents, were in place as well.

Gregg Housh, a 34-year old father of two serving as liaison between Occupy Boston and the city, reported having been given conflicting information. Word from the mayor was that the new site had to be surrendered by midnight or it would be cleared by force, while Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis threatened to tear down both areas if the new site wasn’t vacated by midnight.

Boston police, in an official statement later, said this was not true and that police only wanted the protesters to vacate the Greenway expansion.

The new encampment held a general assembly meeting to decide if they should stay or go. Nancy Brennan, Executive Director of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway Conservancy, stood up to address the crowd and, like all speakers, used the call-and-response of the “people’s mic” being used in occupy protests across the country.

The “people’s mic” involves the crowd simply repeating what the speaker is saying so that the message carries across a large group.

Police form a line during the bridge protest (Blast Staff photo/John Stephen Dwyer)

Brennan reminded everyone that the Conservancy had asked protestors not to expand onto the other portion of the park because of special concerns regarding a new irrigation system put into place and works on loan by various artists. But she ended her comments saying “…another thing that the Greenway stands for…is freedom of speech…and I ask…for as long as you are on this land…would you please help us take care of it?” Her smile beamed as the crowd chanted “Nancy! Nancy! Nancy!” in appreciation.

After the meeting, she said that the lawn planted in the space in question is deep-rooted, grown without chemicals, and was likely to survive the occupation, “If not,” she explained, “they’ve promised to replace it…and I have no doubt they will.”

As midnight approached, protestors locked arms and formed a human barrier to protect their occupation sites. A tight circle of more than 160 people surrounded the new campground while a ragged line of more than 220 people protected the original site. Legal advisers went around dispensing pamphlets and legal aid phone numbers, helping people write a contact number on their bare skin should they be arrested.

Medical volunteers were also present, most of them equipped with bottled cocktails of Maalox and water to neutralize pepper spray should it be used.

Jason Lydon, a Unitarian Universalist minister with the Community Church in Boston’s Back Bay, offered comforting words to the largely young and frightened protestors.

“Remember to relax and to breathe … remember that whatever happens, if you get arrested or whatever, this community will not abandon you,” Lydon said. “We will take care of you.”

Shorly after 1 a.m., hundreds of law enforcement officials, including Boston, transit and State Police, as well as members of the Suffolk County Sheriff’s department descended upon the scene.

They began making arrests around 1:20 am as protestors sang “God Bless America” or chanted slogans such as “this is a peaceful demonstration” and “the whole world is watching.”

A contingent of gray-haired war veterans and one young female Iraqi war vet, from the group Veterans for Peace had their own chant: “We have a permit. It’s called the Constitution.”

The police gave several warnings by bullhorn for the crowd to leave or face arrest. Those who stayed were quickly taken into custody. Just minutes after the first protester was cable tied, 141 arrests had been made.

Some protestors complained about what they saw as excessive use of police force.

A member of the veterans group said they were prepared to come along peacefully, “they didn’t have to rough us up and walk all over the American flags we fought overseas to defend.”

Protestors were also upset that police may not have seen the difference between the protestors who locked arms in resistance and the medical and legal advisers, identified by their clothes, who stood close by to help.

Protestors also claimed that phones, cameras and other valuables belonging to the protestors were thrown into the trash along with the mangled remains of their tents that were taken down.

Blast recorded footage of a woman being arrested on a sidewalk adjacent to the park after she yelled at police.

A statement at the Occupy Boston website objected to both the way the arrests had been conducted and the way the protestors had been characterized saying:

“…hundreds of police in full riot gear brutally attacked Occupy Boston, which had peacefully gathered on the Rose Kennedy Greenway. The Boston Police Department made no distinction between protesters, medics, or legal observers, arresting legal observer Urszula Masny-Latos, who serves as the Executive Director for the National Lawyers Guild, as well as four medics attempting to care for the injured….Following the raid, Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis made no mention of veterans, organized labor, students, or families, nor did he issue an apology for his department’s aggressive tactics. Since the beginning of its occupation, Occupy Boston has worked tirelessly and successfully to maintain a positive working relationship with city officials. Today’s reprehensible attack by the Boston Police Department against a movement that enjoys the broad support of the American people represents a sad and disturbing shift away from dialogue and towards violent repression…Despite the city’s attempt to silence us, Occupy Boston remains, and bears no ill-will towards the men and women of the Boston Police Department who were simply following orders.”

In the wake of the arrests this morning, Mayor Menino maintained that he has a certain degree of sympathy with the protestors and told the Boston Globe, “I understand they have freedom of speech and freedom of expression, but we have a city to manage…I’m open to suggestions, but civil disobedience will not be tolerated.”

Talking to NECN, Menino expressed his mistaken belief that anarchists – a minority contingent within the Occupy Boston community since day one – had recently entered the movement and had changed its character.

Charged with unlawful assembly and aided with bail money donated by supporters, most of those arrested were released today but are due to be back in court later in the week.

The original Occupy Boston encampment, set up on September 30, remained in place this afternoon.

Frank Zoll at work. (Courtesy of Zoll Cellars.)

On Wednesday, the Boston Center for Adult Education (BCAE) will be hosting Frank Zoll of Zoll Cellars in Shrewsbury as part of a two-part winemaking class. The two classes will feature Frank, who is the owner and primary winemaker at his vineyard, directing students in the creation of wine, from the crushing of grapes to the bottling of their very own homemade bottles.

Zoll’s passion for food and beverage began as child, when he would make bread as a hobby and continued when he attended Johnson & Wales in Providence, Rhode Island, graduating in 1997. In 2001, while he was pastry chef at The Marriot Marquis in New York City, often cooking for up to 3,000 people, Frank began making wine in his parents’ kitchen. Starting with grapes he’d procure from California, Massachusetts, and New York, Zoll began making more and more wine until, in 2008, he planted his first vineyard in Shrewsbury. The next year Zoll Cellars was a genuine winery and has continued to grow since the first Zoll Cellars bottles were introduced to commercial market in late 2010.

Zoll Cellars grows roughly 25 percent of the grapes they use for the wines in their repertoire. The varietal grown in Shrewsbury is Traminette, which is a French-American hybrid that shares many characteristics with a Gewurztraminer, strong and heady with a heavily perfumed scent of grapefruit, honey, and peach. Frank contracts most of the other grapes, including Riesling and Cab Franc, from other states.

Wines produced on the East Coast and in the middle of this country do not have a reputation for yielding the highest quality wines; that distinction has been bestowed upon California, Oregon, and Washington, but Zoll is looking to open people’s eyes to the growing quality of local wines.

“I want to show people what is growing around them, we can make good wine in this region,” he said. “We have an Alsatian like terroir with an elevation of 500 or so feet. It is similar to a Zone 5, French varietals grow well in Massachusetts.”

Currently Zoll Cellars distributes to nearly 20 wine and liquor stores across Massachusetts and is expanding. In 2011 they have sold over 500 cases.

Zoll is teaching the wine class at BCAE because he has noticed how much people enjoy consuming wine and that there has been a rising interest in the industry as a whole. On October 12th at 6:00pm Zoll will bring in a between 400 and 500 pounds of Riesling and a 30 gallon ratchet-press to the BCAE and instruct the students while they crush the grapes by hand. “We’re going to put the Riseling into fermentation for four weeks at room temperature, then bottle it in November,” says Zoll. “Each student will take home six bottles just in time for Thanksgiving.”

The second class, on November 15, will involve the bottling of the wine. Zoll chose Riesling because it pairs well with the traditional Thanksgiving Dinner. “It’s similar to a nouveau style of Riesling,” he said. “It goes very well with both roasted turkey and butternut squash.”

You can sign up for the class online at the BCAE website.

After a drop in listenership partly due to weak AM signal, WEEI The Sports Hub (850 AM) will begin simulcasting on WMKK (93.7 FM), wiping out the existing pop rock station on that channel.

The Boston Globe reports that Entercom, WEEI’s parent company, will announce WEEI’s switch to the station best known as Mike FM.

The Sports Hub executives have denied claims that a simulcast on FM radio was in the future, but it has been discussed that this would be a smart move for the station.

This news comes only a few months after WEEI’s victory in Arbitron’s spring ratings book.  The station earned an 8.8 share, winning the men 25-54 demographic.

The announcement will most likely be made on Thursday morning at 8 a.m. on the “Dennis and Callahan Show.”

Beckett walks the red carpet with Avalanna Routh, a 5-and-a-half-year-old with a rare brain tumor.

Boston Red Sox pitcher Josh Beckett donned not  his cleats but those oh-so-attractive bowling shoes at Lucky Strike Lanes in Boston for the fifth annual Beckett Bowl, a star-studded bowling tournament to benefit Children’s Hospital Boston, the top pediatric hospital in the nation. The annual fundraiser, held this year on Aug. 29, was organized by the Josh Beckett Foundation, which supports community-based programs that improve the health and well-being of children, especially those who are seriously ill, disabled, poor or otherwise disadvantaged.

The night was clear and warm, a great relief in Boston, which had been battered by tropical storm Irene just the day before. As the sun began to set, an impressive lineup of Boston’s professional athletes and celebrities began to walk the red carpet with some very special guests: several of the pediatric cancer patients currently being treated at Children’s Hospital. Blast caught up with some of our hometown boys to get their thoughts on the event.

Though he’s modest about his bowling skills, Beckett said of the event, “This is something that’s close to my heart and any time you can touch other people’s lives, your life ends up being touched just the same.” Of course, we couldn’t let “Big-Game Beckett” walk by without getting his thoughts on this week’s Yankees series, especially with Jeter and A-Rod out. “It makes their lineup a little easier, but I’m sure they’ll replace them with somebody that’s pretty good, so you gotta go out and make the pitches,” he said.

Following Beckett, Sox second-baseman Dustin Pedroia described his bowling skills as “Not very good, but I’ll give it a shot,” he said. “I’m here to support my teammate, and it’s pretty fun. I’ve been here every year to support Josh and it’s just great to do anything I can to help him and his charity out.”

Other celebrities spotted lacing up for this great cause included John O’Hurley of “Seinfeld” and “Family Feud” fame, NESN broadcaster Heidi Watney, former New England Patriot Max Lane, several members of the New England Revolution, current Stanley Cup champions Bruins players Dan Paille and Dennis Seidenberg, and Staind lead guitarist Mike Mushok. Many of the Red Sox roster were also in attendance, including Adrian Gonzalez, Jon Lester, Jason Varitek, Mike Aviles, Jacoby Ellsbury, manager Terry Francona and Red Sox president Larry Lucchino.

Inside, Beckett kicked off the event by thanking the local sports and business communities, and helpingWilliam Oulton, a pediatric brain tumor patient from Medford, Mass., throw the first ball, which of course looked like a giant baseball.  William and his family, who are avid Sox fans, were excited about the event, which provided an amazing distraction during this tough time. Although his tumor damaged his optic nerve and left him legally blind in one eye, William sees no reason he cannot realize his dream of becoming a professional baseball player himself.

Beckett helps pediatric brain tumor patient William Oulton throw the first ball.

A few lanes over, Blast also spoke with Red Sox center-fielder Jacoby Ellsbury, who was busily signing autographs and chatting with fans. “This is great. I’ve been coming each year and it seems to get bigger and bigger and it’s great to be here on behalf of the kids,” said Ellsbury.  While he felt “alright” about his bowling skills, Jacoby approached the Yankees with more confidence. “We’re excited. It’s a big series, and it should be a great three games. We want to win. We want to be in the playoffs, but we just want to keep on winning games and go out there each night and beat them,” he said. A great outlook for Ellsbury, who went on to smash a two-run homer over the Green Monster in Wednesday’s victory, proving why he is an American League MVP candidate.

The Josh Beckett Foundation also hosted the Beckett Bowl Ultimate Jeep Raffle presented by After FX Customs, where fans had a chance to win Monster Seat tickets to Red Sox games, autographed jerseys, or the grand prize of a fully customized 2011 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Sport 4-door. The tournament was followed by an afterparty where lucky fans mingled with their idols.

In just a few short years, the Beckett Bowl has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Children’s Hospital Boston, and funded the 2009 opening of The Josh Beckett Cancer Treatment Room, which features a miniature Fenway Park scene, giving patients the chance to experience a ballpark-like atmosphere.  Just back from a brutal travel schedule, and in-between a hurricane and a pressure-packed Yankee series, our Red Sox players took their only day off to give back to Boston and proved once again why they are heroes on and off the field.

There is so much to do in Boston that living here can feel like a full-time job. It only seems fair that someone should offer monetary compensation.

No matter how satisfying your real job may be, getting paid for what you do in your leisure time will always seem ideal. Sadly, no matter how much you think about it on the T or ponder it in the Public Garden, there is nothing out there that will allow you to cash in on your spare time.

Unless of course you’ve got an iPhone. Want to get paid for your walk home? There’s an App for that.

Gigwalk is an application that allows users to report, record and share information about their surroundings. The application is free, and works by notifying users when a job is available in their area.

According to Jenifer Silver, a local Gigwalker, there are over 4,000 gigs in Boston. Provided you’re willing to snap a photo, you can now earn a second paycheck for doing whatever you’re doing, wherever you happen to be.

People rely on Gigwalk to provide them with information the internet may fail to capture, such as the daily drink special at a tiny independent cafe. Gigwalkers, as Gigwalk employees are known, function as a human search engine, providing photographic proof to specialized queries.

Silver reports responding to anywhere between five and 40 gigs per week. “My favorites are the ones where you can pop in and out without anyone noticing, such as Starbucks, McDonalds and other fast food settings. Occasionally I’ll make friends with the person working and they’ll give me a coffee!” Though Silver’s rate of response depends on her daily schedule, she points out that any time can be a good time for a gig: she’s even completed gigs on dates with her husband.

If the idea of earning $5 while dining out sounds appetizing, take heart in the fact that Gigwalk is growing. Over 100,000 gigs are available nationwide, and 5,067 of them are coming to Boston. With most gigs paying between $4 and $7 each, Gigwalkers have the potential to earn $12 to $20 an hour. Unlike you’re entry level office job, effort is always rewarded at Gigwalk. The more gigs you complete accurately, the higher your odds of accessing gigs that pay between $70 and $90 each.

“Since launching Gigwalk in May, we have rapidly grown into an on-demand mobile army of 50,000 iPhone users nationwide,” said Ariel Seidman, CEO and co-founder of Gigwalk. This army isn’t fighting for just anyone, either. With a client roster that includes TomTom and MenuPages, Gigwalk could prove beneficial to both your wallet and your resume.

So go out to eat, drink, and enjoy your city. And, if you’re a Gigwalker, get paid for doing so.

A teenager was shot dead on Saturday with no provocation of the alleged killer.  Alex Sierra, 16, was fired at when a Roslindale man asked him if he was from the Villa Victoria housing development, and Sierra answered “yes.”

Ricardo Arias was arraigned today in the Boston Municipal Court for allegedly murdering Sierra, and unlawful possession of a firearm, according to Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley.

Arias and a 16-year-old companion were seen in the area of Tremont and West Boylston on Saturday evening, asking people on the streets if they lived in “the Villa,” a reference to the housing project that had a long-standing rivalry with Mission Hill.  Investigators believe the rivalry sparked the shooting.

“The victim, Alex Sierra, was the one and only person who answered yes,” said Assistant District Attorney Amy Galatis.

The victim staggered into a barbershop after being shot, and was then transported to Boston Medical Center, where he died from the injuries.

“Once again, an innocent child has been gunned down amid the madness of a gang feud he had no part in,” Conley said. “Alex Sierra had no criminal record, he had never been arrested, he had no gang affiliation, and neither he nor his family did anything to deserve this fate.”

The suspects were apprehended through a description of their vehicle and their appearance.

According to Galatis, Arias was on a one-day-pass from the Department of Youth Services that allowed him to go to a baseball game.  He was at the DYS for unlawfully possessing a handgun in December 2010.

Arias will go to court on October 4.  His underage companion will attend a closed-door hearing at Juvenile Court.

After undergoing major renovations and menu changes, Tryst restaurant in Arlington is celebrating its grand re-opening on Sept. 12 with “buy one get one free” entrees–and you’re invited!

Chef/owner Paul Turano proudly debuts the completion of his vision for Tryst, which has been at its 689 Massachusetts Ave. location for nearly seven years. A tapas menu and updated, lively decor help Turano bring the city to the suburbs.

“When I first opened Tryst, my goal was to bring the Boston dining scene to the suburbs, and I think we’ve done that to some extent, but life gets in the way,” says Turano. “I originally had planned to return to honing the concept less than a year after we opened, but things got busy pretty quickly. Two kids and thousands of supportive customers later I feel like I have finally completed my vision of bringing a city-like neighborhood restaurant to Arlington.”

The New Menu

Just a Fling

Shrimp Tacos with avocado, red onion and Aji crema, $8

Local Corn Chowder with avocado spuma and cornbread crouton, $8

Sassafras Glazed Baby Back Ribs with house-made kim chee, $10

Duck Wraps  with spiced cashews and crunchy vegetables, $11

Crispy Fried Calamari  with arugula, cherry tomatoes and hot pepper aioli, $12

Tomato, Basil and Fresh Mozzarella Flatbread,  $10

Habanero Chicken Wings with Great Hill bleu cheese and carrot pickles, $9

House-made Guacamole and Chips, $10

Artisan Cheese Plate  with three cheeses and spiced fruits, $11

A Lil’ Something on the Side

($6 each or three for $15)

Marinated Olives

Roasted Asparagus with evoo and parmesan

Truffle Fries

Sweet and Spicy Bar Nuts

Cheese Croquettes

Ricotta Stuffed Squash Blossoms with curried tomato sauce

Griddled Rice Cake

Getting Fresh

Simply Tossed Greens with champagne mustard vinaigrette, $6

Market Salad with Boston lettuce, shaved seasonal vegetables, seven-grain croutons and mustard vinaigrette, $9

Heirloom Tomato Salad  with burrata, arugula, sourdough crostini and vin cotto, $9

Baby Spinach Salad with Great Hill bleu cheese, poached cherries, pecan crisps and apple cider vinaigrette, $9

Caesar Salad with hearts of romaine, evoo, roasted garlic, cracked pepper and sourdough crouton, $9

(Add roasted chicken, $3, add steak tips, $6, to any salad) 

Getting Serious

Herb Roasted All-Natural Chicken with potato puree, toasted almond green beans and natural juices, $18

Prime Sirloin Tips with cheese croquettes, arugula and smoked tomato, $19

Slow Roasted Salmon with crab stuffed squash blossom, griddled rice cake and avocado salad, $24

Wild Striped Bass with “summer minestrone,” house-made pancetta and lemon aioli, $25

Pig Under a Brick with corn polenta, mostarda, collard greens and apricot glaze,  $22

Grilled Angus Sirloin with potato puree, roasted asparagus and truffle butter, $29

The Grand Re-opening

When: Monday, Sept. 12 from 5 to 8 P.M.

Where: Tryst, 689 Massachusetts Ave., Arlington

RSVP: Reservations are required. Call 781-641-2227 or visit trystrestaurant.com for more information.

A single-vehicle crash left two men with serious injuries early this morning, according to State Police and the Suffolk County District Attorney.

State Troopers found a white Infinity in flames on the median near the Storrow Drive off-ramp to Kenmore Square at 4:15 a.m. this morning.  Two men, the 27 year-old driver and his 29 year-old brother, from North Andover were in the car, and police could not get them out immediately.

The Boston Fire Department put out the blaze and removed the men from the car using the Jaws of Life.

The operator was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital and the passenger to Brigham and Women’s Hospital.  Both men were in critical condition, suffering from burn and trauma injuries, but are now reported to be in stabilized condition.

State Police are still investigating the cause of the crash.

Have Nots sophomore album "Proud"

The Boston based punk band Have Nots announced a tour with Big D and the Kids Table, also of Boston, set to kick off this Fall.

The six-week tour will start in Buffalo, NY on September 20 and hit many major cities across the country.

“We’ve been trying to make this tour happen for a while, but logistically it just hasn’t worked out,” said Have Nots drummer Steve Patton. “With Big D releasing a new record that harkens back to a more ska/punk sound, and our new record Proud just coming out, it seemed like the perfect time to do it, and we couldn’t be happier that the guys agreed to take us along!”

Have Nots were named one of Alternative Press’ 100 Bands You Need To Know in 2011.  Their sophomore album, Proud, has been greatly praised, with the Boston Phoenix claiming it may get punk skeptics to reform their tastes.

“Simply put, this sophomore effort by Have Nots, a gang of Boston punks who like to mix a scally capful of ska in with their high-octane onslaught, roars out of the gate and rarely lets up,” the Boston Globe said.

Catch the punks at one of the dates listed below:

After a spree of violence over the holiday weekend, Mayor Thomas M. Menino said he would hold an emergency meeting with the city’s police commanders this afternoon to decide whether police should act differently to avoid more violence.

Four were killed and nine wounded yesterday throughout five different neighborhoods in just five hours.

“It’s so frustrating,” Menino told Boston Globe reporters. “You think you’ve touched every base. You think you’ve done everything right.”

Commissioner Edward F. Davis said the violence may have been spurred by “alcohol-fueled parties,” typical of holiday weekends.

He said many of the shootings appear to be gang-related.

The identities of the victims were not released, however police did release a list of when and where the violent acts took place. The following happened in chronological order:

-7:16 p.m. 60 Hollander Street Roxbury. One person shot to death.

-9:55 p.m. 36 Norton Street Dorchester. Three shot, one fatally.

-11:26 p.m. 120 Huntington Ave., South End. Two people stabbed. One victim is in critical condition and one victim is stable. One person is under arrest.

-11:33 pm. 52 Thomas Park, South Boston. Two people stabbed and neither suffered life-threatening injuries.

-11:34 p.m. Talbot Avenue and Washington Street, Dorchester. One person was shot, and he went to Carney Hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening.

-11:36 p.m. Blue Hill Avenue and Morton Street, Mattapan. One person was found in this location but believed to have shot elsewhere. He was taken to the Carney, where he was in stable condition. The Area B-3 police station is at this intersection.

-11:54 p.m. 975 Blue Hill Ave., Dorchester. One person was stabbed and was taken to Boston Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries.

JULY 5

-12:15 a.m. 245 Columbia Road, Dorchester. Police said a person walked up to the vehicle and opened fire at the two men inside. The car lurched forward and smashed into a building. Two people were shot, and both later died from their wounds.

After a 23 year search, a man was indicted in the murder of his girlfriend in the West Roxbury area known as the Grove, according to Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis and Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley.

Michael Coker, 48, was arrested today for the murder of 20 year-old Janet Phinney in 1988. Phinney was found strangled in a wooded area behind her home.

“Homicide detectives, Suffolk County prosecutors and the Phinney family have been seeking justice for Janet for more than 20 years,” Davis said. “The dogged efforts of the Cold Case Squad, the painstaking re-examination of the evidence by the BPD Crime Lab and the relentless dedication of prosecutors made this indictment possible. My hope is that this significant development provides Janet’s family with some sense of peace.”

Phinney was working as a hairstylist and a waitress at the time of her murder. She lived with her parents and was discovered dead by a neighbor after her parents had filed a missing persons report.

Officials suspected the victim’s ex-boyfriend, Coker, but did not have enough evidence until recently to charge him.

“Today, after more than 20 years of uncertainty, Janet Phinney’s family members received the news that their loved one’s murderer has been indicted and arrested,” Conley said. “Whether it’s days, weeks, months or years, the message here is that we will never quit in our pursuit of justice.”

Boston Police Department’s Cold Case Squad reopened the Phinney case in 2010, enhanced by new forensic technology involving DNA samples.

Wasn’t his whole life a gamble?

Gangster James J. “Whitey” Bulger allegedly told federal authorities after his arrest that he regularly visited Las Vegas during his time on the lam.

And he “won more than he lost,” he said.

In court documents filed Monday, federal prosecutors said Bulger liked to play the slots during his visits.

Bulger also told officials that he crossed the Mexican border at San Diego and regularly purchased prescription drugs in Tijuana. Former Bulger right-hand man Kevin Weeks has said in the past that Bulger used to boast about how easy it was to get prescription medicine in Mexico.

The FBI also said Monday that Bulger admitted to returning to Boston multiple times in disguise while “armed tot he teeth” in order to “take care of some unfinished business.”

Bulger did not elaborate.

A tourist in a Red Sox jersey poses for a photo in front of Whitey Bulger's apartment. (Kristen Gard for Blast Magazine)

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — As you walk down 3rd Street, between California Avenue and Washington Avenue, it’s just like any other neighborhood. A man sporting Nike sneakers and headphones jogs down the street, while a couple bikes by. On the sidewalk, a grandfather pushes a stroller while his wife, daughter and daughter’s young child follow behind him, and a neighbor grabs a package from her front stoop. Across the street, a man is hosing down the sidewalk, a UPS truck is delivering packages, and an Arrowhead Springs truck is delivering water. For all intents and purposes, this appears to be a busy, normal neighborhood.

But on Wednesday, former mob boss James J. “Whitey” Bulger was found here, along with his longtime girlfriend Catherine Greig. Inside the apartment authorities found $800,000 and later hauled bags labeled as containing weapons, and ammunition out of the apartment.

Bulger had been on the lam for 16 years and was arrested for his alleged role in 19 murders. He was an informant for the Boston FBI. Later, he made the FBI “Ten Most Wanted” list next to Osama Bin Laden.

As news crews swarmed the neighborhood, neighbors appeared intrigued but reserved regarding Bulger’s presence in the apartment complex. One man on his phone boasted to his friend that he had “ridden by him on my bike, I’m sure I have.”

When asked directly about the mob boss, however, numerous people claimed ignorance.

A woman and her daughter, visiting from San Francisco were vacationing across the street from the three-story apartment building. “I’ve been following it on the news, but I had no idea this was happening right across the street!” she exclaimed, before giving her young daughter a brief description of the mob boss.

None of the residents we spoke to would allow their names to be published out of fear for their safety.

While residents of the area went about their routine, tourists were taking advantage of the historic event. Starline Tours briefly stopped in front of the apartment complex. Some cars slowed as they passed, while others stopped altogether capturing pictures on their cell phones.

A group of people, two of whom donned Boston Red Sox clothing, stopped to take pictures in front of the apartment, proudly showcasing their Boston apparel. One of the men even loaned his jersey to a woman in the group so she too could take a picture in front of the apartment in Boston clothing.

A birthday party turned deadly in September 2009 and ended in the shooting of a young woman, Paula Castillo. The case was brought to life again this morning at the trial of her alleged killers.

Castillo’s friends threw a party for her 18th birthday at 28 Hillis Road, which Ruben Sanchez,21, Miguel Vasquez,20, and Andres Brea, 21, attended. These three suspects engaged in a verbal argument with the party’s hostess and were asked to leave.

The suspects complied and left the party, but upon reaching Brea’s car, Sanchez pulled out a revolver and began firing shots at the house, with the other two suspects’ encouragement, according to Jennifer Hickman, assistant district attorney.

The shots hit Castillo, who was leaning out a window at 28 Hillis Road, who was found by police “lying on the ground in a pool of blood,” according to Hickman.

“It wasn’t supposed to end with the death of a young woman,” a Suffolk County prosecutor told the Superior Court this morning about the party.

An off duty police officer witnessed the incident from his nearby home and reported it to the District E-18 police station.

He recalled that “the shooter – Mr. Sanchez – get into that vehicle, observed the vehicle drive a short distance, make a U-turn, and stop in front of 28 Hillis Road for one final round let off from the front seat passenger,” according to prosecutors.

The officer did not see Castillo get shot.

Police were able to get accounts from witnesses at the party, which led to the arrests of the three suspects.

Officers found a revolver in the trunk of Brea’s car, and Sanchez tested positive for gunshot residue.

Sanchez is charged with second-degree murder, Vasquez is charged with assault by means of a dangerous weapon and Brea is charged with being an accessory after the fact to assault by means of a dangerous weapon.

All three defendants are also being charged with unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition and unlawful possession of a loaded firearm

It takes superior willpower to deny the waitress when she suggests a tasty appetizer or recites the desert menu in mouth-watering detail. Normally the words “zucchini blossom frittata” are enough to make eyes light up and heads nod enthusiastically. The chance to nosh on delectable items for a good cause makes saying “Yes, please!” even easier.

For the week of June 12 to 19, restaurants across the Greater Boston area will be donating portions of their proceeds to the American Red Cross, benefiting tornado relief efforts in Western Massachusetts (and Boston foodies’ discerning palates). Greater Boston’s restaurateurs are doing their part by making such generous donations; do yours by keeping these establishments in mind as you make plans for the upcoming week!

Participating restaurants

62 Restaurant & Wine Bar, located in Salem, will be donating 15 percent of their dinner sales on Sunday, June 19.

Boston’s Beacon Hill Hotel & Bistro will be donating 100 percent of their dessert sales on Monday, June 13 and Tuesday, June 14.

Bella Luna Restaurant & Milky Way Lounge, located in Jamaica Plain, will be donating 75 percent of sales of their Smoked Trout pâte with Pickled Red Onion and Capers on Crostini ($8) from Sunday, June 12 through Sunday, June 19.

The Beehive, located in Boston’s South End, will be donating 100 percent of their dessert sales on Tuesday, June 14.

Bondir, located in Cambridge, will be donating 100 percent of dessert sales from Sunday, June 12 through Sunday, June 19, 2011.

Blue on Highland, an upscale eatery in Needham, will be donating 50 percent of their dessert sales on Monday, June 13 and Tuesday, June 14.

Burtons Grill, a New England-based restaurant group, will be donating 10 percent of their total dinner sales on Monday, June 13 from their Massachusetts restaurants in Boston, North Andover, Hingham and Peabody and their South Windsor, Conn., location.

Butter Café & Bakery in Walpole will be donating 50 percent of take-home dinner sales from Monday, June 13 through Friday, June 17.

China Blossom, the legendary family-run restaurant in North Andover, will be donating 10 percent of their dinner sales on Monday, June 13.

Dante, located in Cambridge, will be donating 100 percent of sales of their Zucchini Blossom Frittata with buffalo ricotta and basil honey ($15) from Sunday, June 12 through Sunday, June 19.

Myers + Chang, located in Boston’s South End, will be donating 100 percent of proceeds from their Mama Chang’s Pork and Chive Dumplings ($11) from Sunday, June 12 through Sunday, June 19.

Nebo, located in Boston’s North End, will be donating 100 percent of sales from their Zeppole dessert, which is fried dough puffs dusted with powdered sugar ($6) from Sunday, June 12 through Sunday, June 19.

Orzo Trattoria, located in North Andover, will be donating 15 percent of their lunch sales on Wednesday, June 15 and Thursday, June 16.

Taranta, located in Boston’s North End, will be donating 100 percent of proceeds from their Guavannolis dessert, which is guava and ricotta mini cannolis with pistachio brittle ($8).

Tryst, located in Arlington, will be donating 100 percent of their dessert proceeds on Monday, June 13, Tuesday, June 14, and Wednesday, June 15.