The Beantown Bloggery Your Guide to Anything and Everything Boston Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 52 0 51 7203

Articles from The Beantown Bloggery

Back to School - Midtown/Chinatown 2007-08-30 10:32:00 I'm trying something different today thanks to advice from reader, Jim. Instead of just posting a screenshot, I'm using GoogleMap's MyMap function to hopefully make the map a little more useful. I've added a few markers, but if you have others you think would be useful, email me and I will add them.View Larger MapI'm not real estate expert, but to me Midtown is basically the region inbetween Boston Common and Chinatown. The Ritz Carlton is there, a bunch of really expensive condos are there, and the nicest movie theater downtown is located there: AMC Boston Common.Chinatown is about 4 square blocks bounded by Essex Street and Kneeland Street to the north and south and Washington Street to the west. Chinatown is the home to dim sum, late night dining (after clubbing ends at 2am) and overall great asian food. I say asian because there are several Vietnamese restaurants there and also a Malaysian restaurant as well. Here are some of my picks.Best Dim Sum - China PearlBest Seafood Sel ...

8/31 Entrain Contest Winners 2007-08-29 23:24:00 Congratulations to the following winners that each won a pair of tickets to the 8/31 Rock and Blues Concert Cruise. I hope you enjoy Entrain's performance.Margaret ChengShiori MoyCongratulations to the winners. Each of you will be added to the guest list for the cruise along with a +1 for whoever you'd like to bring along. Thanks to all my readers and those who entered the contest.Know of Any Interesting Boston News or Events That You'd Like to Share?Email me at beantownblog@gmail.com ...

King Richard's Faire - 9/1 2007-08-29 17:29:00 The 26th season of King Richard's Faire opens this weekend starting 9/1. For those of you that don't know, King Richard's Faire is a recreation of a 16th century English marketplace at festival time. It's like Medieval Times meets the State Fair and it's open on weekends through October 21st. Click (here) for a schedule of performances including jousting, actors, dancers, puppeteers, jugglers, minstrels, mimes, magicians, musicians, a zoo, and tons of food. This festival takes place on an 80 acre village, there will be plenty to do, I'm sure.Tickets are $25 for adults. Click (here) for a $1 coupon. Know of Any Interesting Boston News or Events That You'd Like to Share?Email me at beantownblog@gmail.com ...

Free Concert Tickets Contest - 8/31 2007-08-29 10:53:00 Just a reminder. Only 12 hours left before I do the drawing for 2 pairs of tickets to the Rock and Blues Concert Cruise on Friday 8/31 featuring music from Entrain.Click (here) for details. If you win, your name will be added to the guest list so you and your friend can enjoy the cruise for FREE. Here's how you win. Send me an email with "Entrain" in the subject line and a link to your favorite post on the Beantown Bloggery in the body of the email. Per usual, I will collect all the names, and do a drawing. The contest ends on Wednesday 8/29 at midnight. Winners will be contacted via email and names will also be posted online.Want to enter the Contest? Email me.beantownblog@gmail.com ...

Back To School - Back Bay 2007-08-28 23:30:00 I figured since all the students are filtering back over the next few days, that I would do a series of posts in the spirit of Back to School. It'll be a little remedial for those already living in Boston, but hopefully it will help those that are new to the city to get acquainted a little faster.First up, is Back Bay. Back Bay is one of the more expensive neighborhoods in Boston. Read more about it (here) on wikipedia. This area is within walking distance for a lot of students (MIT, BU, Berklee School of Music, amongst others) and is home to some of the best shopping in downtown.It's a little tough to read, so click on the map to enlarge it, but I've circled 3 of the biggest shopping areas: Newbury Street, The Prudential Center, and Copley Place. In addition, you'll see little blue M's where the T stops are (subway stops).Here are a few places in the area that might come in handy for new students: Best Buy - Intersection of Massachusetts Ave & Newbury Street Star Mark ...

Newport Waterfront Irish Festival 2007-08-28 22:57:00 It's 3 minutes till hump day and I'm already thinking about the weekend. This particular weekend is a very special weekend - Labor Day weekend. All the students are on their way back and dreading the first week of school while Ikea employees everywhere are bracing for impact.The best advice I can give to the Bostonians in our fair city, is to get out of Dodge for the weekend. Every hotel is going to be booked and the streets are going to be filled with rental cars of parents helping their kids move into their dorms.This brings me to............The 10th Annual Newport Waterfront Irish Festival. The event will be going on all weekend Sept 1 - 3 at the Newport Yachting Center with a special Friday kick off concert. The festival includes: live music, Irish food and drink, a crafts fair, and other family activities. And don't forget the sweet, sweet Guinness.Tickets are $15 for adults, $12 for students or seniors, and free for children under 12. Click (here) for details on the of ...

Celebrities in Boston II 2007-08-28 13:26:00 Filming is in full swing. After my posting yesterday about "The Women", I was informed by one reader that she saw Debra Messing this morning. After my dentist appointment this morning, I walked over to Chinatown to grab some lunch. On the walk over I saw a huge crowd outside of Centerfolds (one of two remaining strip clubs in Boston). And I wondered to myself what was going on.Well I got home and opened up my email and saw the following:Hey Dude, Not sure if this merits Beantown Bloggery status, but as i was walking to work today, kate hudson is shooting a movie in centerfolds today. movie is called bachelor no. 2Keep the emails coming folks. And if you're interested in catching a glimpse of Kate Hudson, head over to Centerfolds. Don't forget your $1's.Know of Any Interesting Boston News or Events That You'd Like to Share?Email me at beantownblog@gmail.com ... Celebrities

Free Concert Ticket Contest - 8/31 2007-08-27 17:43:00 The first concert ticket giveaway was a great success. I got great feedback from some of the winners. As a result, I'm going to host another giveaway for this week's Rock and Blues Concert Cruise featuring music from Entrain. This time around, I have two pairs of tickets to give away to two lucky readers ($54 value per winner).Here's how you win. Send me an email with "Entrain" in the subject line and a link to your favorite post on the Beantown Bloggery in the body of the email. Per usual, I will collect all the names, and do a drawing. The contest ends on Wednesday 8/29 at midnight. Winners will be contacted via email and names will also be posted online.Want to enter the Contest? Email me.beantownblog@gmail.com ...

Celebrities in Boston 2007-08-27 16:58:00 I wasn't sure if I wanted to post about celebrities in Boston, but after seeing the HUGE crowd of people on Newbury Street today, I have concluded that inquiring minds want to know. So before I start, read the Globe article (here) and get the lowdown on the two movies filming in Boston right now: The Women & Bachelor No. 2.So, for the past several hours today, "The Women" has been filming at the intersection of Newbury St and Berkeley St. At around 3pm, they were filming outside of Brook Brothers and then by 5:30pm they had made it across the street and were filming outside of Valentino.I don't know too much about The Women - the movie. It stars Meg Ryan, Debra Messing, Annette Bening, and Jada Pinkett-Smith (none of which I got the chance to see, because I didn't stand around for too long). I saw a bunch of extras walking around carrying Gucci and LV bags. So I'm concluding that this movie is about women and shopping.They might still be filming, so check it out. Otherwise, ... Celebrities

Rough Winter this Year? 2007-08-27 14:03:00 The Globe had an article today about the winter predictions made in the upcoming release of the Farmer's Almanac. According the latest 2008 edition, the folks on the West Coast will have a mild winter, whereas we the lucky folks living in the East Coast are in store for a rougher than usual winter.I was really hoping for a repeat of last year, a very mild winter. I'm not a cold weather person, and I don't participate in any snow sports (I fractured a rib the 1 time I tried to go snowboarding). But then again, who exactly is the Farmer's Almanac? To find out, I turned to my good friend wikipedia (here). According to wiki:Predictions for each edition are made as far as two years in advance. The Farmers’ Almanac publishers are highly secretive about the method used to make its predictions, only stating publicly that it is a “top secret mathematical and astronomical formula, that relies on sunspot activity, tidal action, planetary position and many other factors.” The identi ...

The Cure Concert Postponed 2007-08-27 13:53:00 Growing up in the 80's, I was a huge fan of The Cure. Partly because they were awesome and partly because my older brother listened to them (and I did everything my older brother did). Imagine how ecstatic I was when I found out that they were coming to Boston for a concert in September. So, it was a Saturday at 10am, a couple months ago, that I sat in front of my computer pressing F5 over and over until I got tickets. I had a great seat too.Much to my dismay, I received the following email from Ticketmaster last week:Hello, this is Ticketmaster Customer Service with an important alert for your upcoming event. The Cure scheduled at Agganis Arena on Tuesday, September 25, 2007, has been postponed. The new date is to be announced.If you're in the same boat as me and didn't get an email - be sure to call Ticketmaster to figure out how to get your money back. I'm going to wait it out another week or to see if they are really just postponing the show or if they're going to canc ...

1000 Words - Citizen Kane 2007-08-24 23:33:00 Citizen Kane @ Rowes WharfBoston Harbor HotelKnow of Any Interesting Boston News or Events That You'd Like to Share?Email me at beantownblog@gmail.com ...

PayPerPost.com 2007-08-24 17:37:00 There were two reasons that I got into blogging three months ago. The first reason was that I didn't feel like I was fully experiencing Boston and all it had to offer. As a result, I started subscribing to the Globe and reading all the other free papers out there (The Metro, The Weekly Dig, BostonNOW, The Phoenix, Stuff@Night, Improper Bostonian). It's a lot of reading, that's why I started the blog. I figured I'd do the reading so that you wouldn't have to.The second reason was to jump onto the blog advertising bandwagon and see if I could get a piece of the pie. Articles like the one (here) from CNN were my inspiration. There are websites that I read on a daily basis: Engadget.com, Fark.com, Perezhilton.com. Imagine my surprise when I found out these folks were making millions of dollars in advertising.Enter, PayPerPost.com - from the research that I've done, PPP is one of the better advertising venues out there to help bloggers drive traffic. After you register, you c ...

Friday's Free Movies -8/24 2007-08-24 09:57:00 Feeling like a free movie tonight? Well there's a couple of choices for you depending on what you're in the mood for. Both movies start at "dusk," whatever that means. You'll probably want to go early to get a good seat anyway.First off, Happy Feet ( that cartoon about a dancing penguin) is playing at the hatchshell on the Esplanade. Obviously, this event is geared more towards families with young children. Or perhaps those that are young at heart. Click (here) for the hatchshell official website and schedule of events.Next, if you're in the mood for a classic, and what has been voted the best move of all time, the Boston Harbor Hotel is showing Citizen Kane. Waterfront dining is also available from the hotel restaurant.My choice? Citizen Kane. I like my cartoons to be cartoons. Happy Feet has that underlying political message about saving the environment that is best saved for an Al Gore documentary. Know of Any Interesting Boston News or Events That You'd Like to Shar ... Movies

Beef...It's What's For Dinner 2007-08-24 09:20:00 Personally, I always thought the Applebee's located in the Prudential didn't really fit in. Well, now it's gone and coming in it's place will be the newest outlet of The Daily Grill national steak-house chain. The chain is owned by Grill Concepts, a Beverly Hills based restaurant company.As much as I love steak, don't you think it's getting a little crowded in Back Bay? We've already got: The Capital Grille, Abe & Louie's, Morton's, The Palm, The Oak Room, Grill 23, and Smith & Wollensky.According to the Back Bay Sun, "The closing of Applebees marks the complete elimination of the casual dining brand from the Back Bay." What about Cheesecake Factory? That's pretty casual don't you think?Know of Any Interesting Boston News or Events That You'd Like to Share?Email me at beantownblog@gmail.com ...