Your long day of corporate drudgery is over. Get out and enjoy the city! Here are a few ideas to get you started, lovingly picked by Boston Daily.

Who doesn’t love a dinner party? Especially when someone else does the cooking, and brings the wine. Check out Craigie on Main’s for a wine-tasting soiree.  Read the rest of this entry »

WBZ’s Jon Keller has some interesting poll data on his Keller @ Large blog that suggests Gov. Deval Patrick’s approval ratings have slipped in the past month or so, moving from a solid 51 percent approval rating to a more modest 45 percent, including an 18 percent drop among Democrats. (His ratings among Republicans and Independents has remained consistent).

As Keller points out, the obvious inference is the governor’s proposed toll hikes are to blame. As the toll hike/gas tax debate has dominated the news cycle for the last month that’s the likely root cause.

What else could be behind the slip? Read the rest of this entry »

The pairing of Rupert Murdoch and Pat Purcell is so obviously intriguing, and so completely unclear, that it has led to all kinds of rumors and head scratching. Dan Kennedy, as he so often does, said it best: “And no, I have no idea what it means.”

Quick review: Purcell, who once served as Herald Publisher under Murdoch, and who bought the paper from Rupert, was named executive chairman of Ottaway Newspapers, which owns a handful of papers, including the Cape Cod Times and the New Bedford Standard-Times.

Let’s examine the theories: Read the rest of this entry »

Taking you around the Internet for your afternoon enjoyment.

That’ll buy a lot of ponys: Peter Gammons reports that the Sox signed MVP, and little caballito, Dustin Pedroia to a 6-year, $40 million contract. The deal takes Pedroia through his arbitration years and two years of free agency. Obviously, Scott Boras is not his agent. [ESPN] Read the rest of this entry »

I’m a week or two late in commenting on this, but since it’s about my hometown of Newton—the Fig City as I lovingly call it—I really can’t help myself.

On November 22, the city’s Citizen Advisory Group, assembled to assess ways for Newton to deal with its impending fiscal crisis, basically came out and said that serious cuts to the schools and municipal services will be needed to balance the books. And that’s even if the city somehow managed to increase its revenue streams. From the Globe:

The report, released Wednesday, says Newton can raise between $2 million and $10 million through a variety of measures, including pursuing higher payments from universities and other nonprofit entities, and increasing fees for garbage, parking, and recreation.

But even those steps would close the city’s growing budget gap - created by a demand by residents for high-quality services and a property-tax base that cannot keep up - for only one to two years, the group says.

Want to know a big reason why those steps will only hold the budget together for a couple years? Read the rest of this entry »

There is some cheap irony to be had in the news that Harvard University’s endowment plunged in record-numbers—what exactly were all those HBS types doing, besides belting out power ballads?

But we take no comfort in the misery of others, except for maybe Matt Amorello, and despite losing $8 billion (and maybe more), our Ivy League institution isn’t doing that bad compared, with say, Tweeter. Read the rest of this entry »

The Globe fronts a piece today about the successful legal maneuvering done by the firm of  McDermott, Quilty & Miller in front of the city’s Licensing Board. The firm won an impressive 65 percent of the 20 liquor permits the board handed out in 2006, making them the “go-to firm for licensing applications in Boston.”

McDermott, Quilty & Miller are obviously very good at what they do, and anyone who has a need for a liquor license seems to realize that to do business, they need to business with the firm. But what does that say about the Licensing Board?  Read the rest of this entry »

Transportation hearings (or, how the hell are we going to get out this mess, if you prefer) begin today, and we haven’t been this excited about a public meeting since the casino battle royale. The main event doesn’t take place until the 17th when the Joint Committee on Transportation Oversight Hearing on Tolls and Gas Tax takes place, but the opening act isn’t all that bad.

Today’s hearing is on the Joint Committee on Transportation Informational Hearing on Public-Private Partnerships, which means, essentially, leasing the Turnpike. Proponents say leasing the Pike means quick cash and a get out of debt free card. Opponents worry about rising tolls, and also if selling in a down economy would be a bad long-term investment.

Fortunately, we have an interesting test case to examine. (It goes without saying that our crack legislators have also done their due diligence here, right? Right.) Read the rest of this entry »

Your long day of corporate drudgery is over. Get out and enjoy the city! Here are a few ideas to get you started, lovingly picked by Boston Daily.

I’m never last picked, I got a cheerleader chick. Words to live by, to be sure, but unfortunately for Nada Surf those lyrics will haunt them forever. That’s a shame because the boys have put out a decade’s worth of fine music (download Blizzard of ‘77 if you need proof). They play The Paradise tonight. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the exterior of the building that houses the National Bureau of Economic Research. You are probably familiar with their work by now, since they were the folks who called the recession “official” yesterday.

But who are they, and why are they located in a rather drab office building on Mass. Ave between The People’s Republik and Harvard Square?

The first part first: Read the rest of this entry »