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.

Outside Job

Deval Patrick’s administration has finally hired an outside firm to evaluate the basic assumptions behind its casino gambling proposal, four months after filing legislation to legalize casino gambling, five months after initially backing the legalization of Class III gambling, and a mere seven months after the governor first disappeared into the Berkshires with an armful of industry-authored research to decide whether or not casinos made good fiscal sense.

Patrick’s people see no problem with the timeline at work here, nor with the credentials of the firm looking over the gov’s numbers; Sue Tucker begs to disagree.

But for my money, all you need to know about Spectrum is that Clyde Barrow likes their resume – they’re “one of the most notable private sector gaming analysts in the Northeast,” the guy who virtually made the Patrick administration’s pro-gaming case for them tells the Herald.

Something tells me Dan Bosley won’t be happy with these guys.

UPDATE: From Bosley: “I don’t know how anyone could call [theirs] an unbiased viewpoint. I don’t think they’ve ever done a report that says you shouldn’t do gambling. But we’ll take a look at it.”

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.

Hey!

Hello there. This site is, quite obviously, a major work in progress. In the coming weeks, there’ll be all sorts of useful and interesting material living here – clips, thoughts on politics, reviews of unbelievably bad reality shows. It just doesn’t live here yet. So be patient. And in the meantime, feel free to busy yourself with Boston news and politics, beer, or puppies.