Powah!

Wondering what to do with all that free money the government is tossing at you? Keep your coinage away from Sears (no, seriously, stay the f away from that place). Instead, stimulate the economy of your nearest newsstand and grab yourself a copy of the newest Boston magazine. It features a wicked comprehensive look at how power in Boston functions, including up-close looks at Mayor Tom Menino’s fearsome machine, power-schmoozers Jan Saragoni and Michael Goldman, and the university-slaying Beacon Hill Civic Association, along with some other stories by some other people. You also get a shakily-democratic approach to ranking the comparative powerfulness of Boston’s many power mongers. Pale journalists everywhere are absolutely in love with the thing. Maybe that’s because it’s an awesome read and way cheaper than this awful shirt. Get yours today!

April Housekeeping Notes

A few changes of note around the old Rancho de TK TK. First off, this blog’s face has undergone minor reconstructive surgery, and unlike some people, I think we came out the other side looking better.

I’ve dumped Chris Pearson’s PressRow for his Cutline theme, and am really happy with the results. I think the new design feels more unified and less distracting than the old one. It also accommodates image headers on individual posts much better than the old one, which should really allow me to break up the look and feel of all those Hill and the Hall cross-posts.

If everything proves sufficiently usable and easy on the eyes, the next step will be getting paulmcmorrow.com hosted, and hauling this show from WordPress.com over to WordPress.org. The endgame here is, obviously, a heavy paper stock business card with a halfway professional-looking URL on it. And maybe a two-tone picture of the Golden Dome. We’ll see.

I’ve also been able to sprinkle some new content throughout the clip archives. Old stories about Mitt Romney being a bastard, kids on bicycles, art museum security guards and state IT policy join a wicked awesome new interview with Mikkel Borg Bjergsø, the homebrewing superstar behind Denmark’s Mikkeller brewing company.

Unrelated but noteworthy: The new Daytrotter session from Ezra Furman and the Harpoons? Awesome stuff.

The Hill and the Hall Week in Review

(Cross-posted, belatedly, from Boston Daily)

Let’s start by picking on Hizzoner. Nothing gets the natives riled up like parking tickets, so Mayor Tom Menino’s $2.42 billion FY09 budget, which includes $13 million in new parking fines, is sure to be the only thing anybody in Boston ever talks about for the rest of time. Let the schools close; we demand parking amnesty now!

But seriously, the notion that the mayor is sewing great harm by balancing Boston’s budget on the backs of people who can’t manage to avoid parking in front of fire hydrants, rather than slogging through a nasty override fight, is about as dumb as the notion that kids wouldn’t be killing each other if it weren’t for these infernal T-shirts and video games. Gotta love this town.

In other City Hall news, the people who work inside City Hall still suck, just like they always have.

Keepin’ It Streets

Spotted on my way to the T this morning: One dude, late 30’s, tweed jacket, blue Oxford shirt, Toyota SUV, heading towards work. Listening to Beyonce’s “Irreplacable.” Volume on this smoove R&B jam turned up to, like, 78. I didn’t see any tears, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t there.
If you’re reading this: Stay strong, friend. Stay strong.

Archive Awesome Fest 2K8

A quick housekeeping note: They’re finally here. PDFs of old Dig stories. And more are on the way.

Now you can relive the glory of deadlines past. You’ll love it. Maybe.

Since there’s so many of them, I’ve reorganized the clips page, splitting the old Dig section into three new pages, for the calendar years 2005, 2006, and 2007. Hopefully, this’ll make your trip back in time as easily-navigable as possible. Enjoy.

Blue Grbutt Revolution

This wormed its way into my inbox this morning, courtesy of a friend who’s a lot more in tune with the unique rhythms of the tubes than I.

It appears to be a discussion of bluegrass music written by someone for whom saying the word “ass” – even within the context of larger words that have nothing to do with the anatomical posterior, but merely contain the letters A-S-S within some larger syntactical sequence – is immoral and therefore forbidden.

Rockingest Internet Ever???

I found myself at the BPL yesterday, and was in need of some communist wi-fi. The library was happy to oblige.

But not so fast! The city doesn’t give away the privilege of blazing through the internet at 11mbps and waiting for half an hour for Google Maps to load to just anybody. You’ve got to be in the club, fool. You’ve got to have a card.

And trust the trustees of the Boston Public Library – having a library card is the coolest, rockingest thing ever.

Whoa!

Jon Keller calls King Sal an “excellent profile,” and its author a “brilliant young punk political reporter.” Love you too, Jon.

Googling Myself

I was wondering how long it would take the Google to find me on the internet – it’s such a vast, vast place, you know. So I Googled myself to find out.

Turns out, it only took the giant robotic overlord like a day to pinpoint my whereabouts. Which is pretty impressive, considering that this thing currently consists of my name, a couple links, and not much else. Way to go, Googs.

What’s more worrisome is the search results that land above this shriveled up corner of the interweb.