Unlikely Words » boston

Dumbest company in the world executes dumbest PR stunt in world history

aaron cohen — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 23:05:15 +0000

Online pawn shop company, Pawngo, made themselves a lot less popular in Boston this afternoon as they dumped 900 pounds of Buterfinger candy bars in Copley Square making fun of New England Patriots wide receiver Wes Welker. Obviously they're thinking any publicity is good publicity, and they sure got a lot of publicity out of this. That said, Boston hates them now, and a search of Twitter shows sentiment is overwhelmingly negative. I'm not sure how they imagined a mean-spirited PR stunt would go off any differently, but bringing it to Boston? Speaking as a Patriots fan, people might be mad at Wes Welker, but now they're MUCH angrier at Pawngo.

According to the City of Boston's website, the company is going to be charged with violating commercial dumping laws and the honorable pawn brokers of the Boston area are calling for the Attorney General to investigate Pawngo's business model.

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This is only exciting for me and my friend Ben

aaron cohen — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 15:22:31 +0000

This is one of my biggest internet sleuthing successes of the last year or so. Get excited for me, because that's the only way any of this will be interesting to you. About 7 years ago or so, Ben started working for the same company I did. We were bursting at the seams, people were jammed everywhere, 2 to a desk, etc. Ben ended up sharing an out of the way table with the printer. I sat around the corner and heard people asking Ben about print jobs all the time. I remembered hearing a This American Life about a guy in an office who sat in the hallway next to the copy machine. He was constantly getting badgered by people about the copier and no one really knew his name. In any case, I started telling Ben about this and figured it'd be no problem to find the show for him to listen. This was around 2005-2006 and the TAL website wasn't what it is now. Search was available, but it was terrible. I couldn't find the show. Anywhere. But I knew it was there. I knew it existed. And so every now and then when I thought about it, I'd try new search terms and variations on the TAL site and Google. Nothing. Ever! UNTIL the other day, I started fresh and happened upon this blog post talking about a very similar story and mentioning This American Life. Success! But wait. Unfortunately, since TAL changes their website every quarter or so, the link was dead. I knew I was close, though, and I persevered, finally finding Episode 241: 20 Acts in 60 Minutes and the mystery was solved. The reason I never could find it is this episode doesn't have a summary of all the stories so regardless of what I put in to search, the words were never there. In any case, I am now triumphant and Ben has heard the story.

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Ravens-Patriots trash talk from The Wire

aaron cohen — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 17:18:09 +0000

All sports trash talk should be done with images from The Wire.

Original images by Jake's friend, Jake, and Jamie.

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Oh, Allston.

aaron cohen — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 21:15:27 +0000

"You've probably never heard of the crime that was committed."

If you're from Boston, this is hilarious. If you're not from Boston, Allston is where all the kids live.

Via Allston.Tumblr

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What did Big Baby Davis do during the lockout?

aaron cohen — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 03:07:19 +0000

Knitting and model making of course.

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New Boston Globe website

aaron cohen — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 19:44:58 +0000

I'd meant to call this out earlier, when everyone was talking about the new Boston Globe website.

The newspaper’s existing site, Boston.com, will remain free and will offer breaking news, blogs, photo galleries, sports coverage, and a limited selection of stories from the paper.

Emphasis mine. I think this might be one of the reasons there wasn't a huge uproar in Boston about the Globe starting to charge for online content. The new site has been live for over a month now, and today was the first time I tried to get to a page that was blocked.

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The Art of The Wire at Boston Book Fair

aaron cohen — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 20:37:20 +0000

The Boston Book Festival kicks off tomorrow with a discussion on The Art of The Wire. I've never been to one of these, but I'm always curious... Did The Wire just get lucky with amazingly insightful actors able to discuss race, class, institutional failure and the visual novel? These are heady topics, I wouldn't have thought actors would generally be the best to discuss them. I don't know who would be MORE qualified, though.

Kick off the Boston Book Festival with a thoughtful and timely exploration of The Wire with its cast and creators. Its creator, David Simon, referred to this powerful, gritty, and all-too-realistic exploration of urban poverty as a "visual novel." The Wire, perhaps the most critically-acclaimed series in television history, has been compared to Dickens, to Greek tragedy, even to Shakespearean drama. It is both high art and social commentary. Join several cast members and writer/producer George Pelecanos in a conversation about The Wire and issues of race, class, institutional failure, and the visual novel. The discussion will feature Donnie Andrews (the real "Omar"), Fran Boyd (the inspiration for David Simon's The Corner), Tray Chaney ("Poot"), Robert Chew ("Prop Joe"), and Jamie Hector ("Marlo Stanfield") and will be moderated by Reverend Eugene Rivers, co-founder of the Ten Point Coalition.

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Picture of #occupyboston…from the Fed building

aaron cohen — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 21:54:32 +0000

The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston is right next to the #occupyboston campground. This was taken from the 23rd floor of the Fed's office. There's something to the fact the picture was taken from high above in the Fed, right? It's symbolic of something...

(via @timlanning and @BostonTweet)

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I’M WITH TITO

aaron cohen — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 20:30:22 +0000

I don't think the Red Sox should fire Terry Francona so I asked Dave to make a picture I could use to show my support. Dave is awesome. So is Terry Francona. #TeamTito

Thanks to Thea for helping out.

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A collection of Red Sox related Tweets I liked on the occasion of their season being over

aaron cohen — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 21:08:59 +0000

The Red Sox have had a pretty up and down season. I'm still not sure what to say about it, but there's humor in pain. Especially other people are making fun of my pain. Anyway, I thought these Tweets were good.

@fivethirtyeight

@jazayerli

@joekinsella

@mickshaffer

@petersagal

Via Stellar

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Cindy Brady’s Fluff art

aaron cohen — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 21:25:16 +0000

Susan Olsen, who you may know as Cindy Brady, from The Brady Bunch, also makes Fluff art. Her work is currently showing at Bloc 11 Cafe in Union Square, Somerville. Union Square is the home of this weekend's Fluff Fest. I know all of this because that's me on the Cooking Contest Judge page right under the astronaut and State Representative. No offense, Mr. Astronaut and Ms. State Representative.

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My food stuff

aaron cohen — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 14:34:03 +0000

Our friend Ali made a video of the pop up restaurant we put together in May. It's only a minute and I'm psyched with how it came out.

Also, our summer project Eat at Adrian's got a nice review in the Boston Globe.

Eat at Adrian’s is part of a motel, and the atmosphere is fairly basic, aside from the view of Cape Cod Bay. The food, however, is anything but. The menu incorporates seasonal ingredients and local seafood, including a sampler of fish charcuterie. One evening it features a pot of cod rillettes, fish pate with pickled mustard seeds, smoked salmon, and fuchsia beet-cured scallops. These are accompanied by a variety of pickles (sunchokes!), mustard, and toasts.

Click through for the rest. Yes, we have a drink called the Honey Badger.

In more exciting news, tickets for this year's Ice Cream Showdown are on sale right now.

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Flood on Lake St, Somerville

aaron cohen — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 20:17:39 +0000

My street floods fairly regularly because we're below the hills of Somerville so it's no surprise, with Hurricane Irene and all, that my street would flood this weekend, too. That said, I expected it'd actually wait for the hurricane to get here to start. Irene is supposed to get here sometime tomorrow...

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Today’s Big Baby Davis Quotation

aaron cohen — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 13:35:50 +0000

I just want to make sure I’m Glen Davis wherever I’m at. I think I can be Glen Davis wherever. It just depends on the system, the people around the system, who’s going to let Glen Davis be Glen Davis, not make Glen Davis something they think he should be.

From a column by the terrible Dan Shaughnessy.

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Hawk attack in Somerville

aaron cohen — Mon, 09 May 2011 02:00:52 +0000

Linking to this story about a dude getting jacked up by a hawk while he was walking down the street minding his own business (the dude was walking, not the hawk) because I have a fascination with the hawks that hang out in Boston. I can think of at least 3 posts I've written about them over the years, including the 2nd or 3rd post I wrote when I started blogging again in 2004. HOLY SHIT that was a long time ago.

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Sharks encroaching on my territory

aaron cohen — Sat, 07 May 2011 01:14:23 +0000

About this time every year, Great White Sharks are spotted off of Martha's Vineyard. And about this time every year I think 5 miles from the coast might not be far enough.

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Somerville asks, ‘Are You Happy?’

aaron cohen — Mon, 02 May 2011 14:18:08 +0000

My city in the NY Times! I remember noticing this question on the City's census form a couple months ago, but I didn't realize it was among the first in the nation...

Officials here want this Boston suburb to become the first city in the United States to systematically track people’s happiness. Like leaders in Britain, France and a few other places, they want to move beyond the traditional measures of success — economic growth — to promote policies that produce more than just material well-being.

To draw up its questions, Somerville turned to a neighbor, Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard psychology professor who wrote the 2006 best seller “Stumbling on Happiness.” Dr. Gilbert, who donated his time, is also helping the city do a more detailed telephone survey, using a randomized sample of Somerville’s 76,000 residents.

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Perk is a Beast

aaron cohen — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 02:25:25 +0000

I'd never heard this story, but it just adds to the reason Kendrick Perkins was my second favorite Celtic. Big Baby Davis, is of course, first.

Via Long Reads

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Boston Movie Trailer from Funny or Die

aaron cohen — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 17:25:21 +0000

I'd probably watch this movie. Just kidding, I'd definitely watch this movie.

Via @BostonTweet.

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Watching the paint dry

aaron cohen — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 19:40:33 +0000

I always wanted to know what would happen if a truck carrying printer cartridges crashed, and it happened in my relative backyard!

Approximately 16,000 pounds of ink cartridges from the Flint Group, an Indianapolis-based company selling printing and packaging products, was bound for a newspaper company in Portland, Maine. Red, blue, and yellow ink cartridges were inside the truck, but Ferson said there is no evidence the yellow ink was released.

Via Wired

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