Around 3 p.m., an aggravated citizen filed a complaint about an ice-cream truck in the area of Grant Street and Crescent Avenue in Dorchester:
There is an ice cream truck that has been circling the neighborhood playing a loud annoying tune every 5 minutes for the last 4 hours. Is there an ordinance that can be enforced to stop this?
MuckRock gets the list of complaints to the state Department of Public Utilities about those people who knock on your door and demand to see your electricity bill and who often keep talking, sometimes through one of your windows, even after you close the door on them.
A correspondent who grew up in the South End and who now lives in Roxbury was not at all pleased with the post card he got the other day advertising a house for sale on Greenwich Street. For one thing, that's Lower Roxbury. For another, that's not the "Fredrick Douglas Historic District." Read more.
A concerned citizen who lives at the intersection of Washington Street with West and East Brookline streets in the South End files a complaint:
Samsung is [filming] a back pack commercial on our stoop without permission or permits. Also, taking up two sidewalks with film materials.
Remember when our worst complaint about Bernie and Phyl's ads was their jingle?
Several months after the furniture chain plastered subway trains with mildly risque ads about how many people their couches could handle, they've introduced new ads that cut right to the chase: If you copulate or die in bed, you better hope you do so in one of theirs. Read more.
We’ve heard the gripes about the commuter rail before and I’ve done my share of complaining (see attached) with no results or response so maybe I need a new approach. Some of this we know as a given:
NBC Boston reports the state attorney general's office is investigating a company that promises to send you a Boston-lovin' T-shirts and stuff for just the cost of shipping - and then signs you up for monthly payments of $38.80 a month.
Shire is a Lexington company that got permission earlier this year to sell a drug that allegedly helps people with chronic dry eye disease. You know, like Restasis. But unlike the company that makes that, Shire's decided a good way to advertise their product is to fill the sidewalks of Boston with chalk ads overnight. The city reports it's sending out parks-department crews to deal with the dry chalk issue - by washing the crap off.
Shire's headquarters is conveniently located off the intersections of 128 and 2, should anybody wish to do a little impromptu chalking. We're sure they'd love it.
Residents living near an Amazon warehouse on the Dedham/Readville line tonigh recited a litany of complaints that go back months: Van drivers who drive like maniacs, hog local gas stations in the morning and flip off other motorists. Read more.
Wicked Local Watertown reports the helicopter that buzzed the town awake early yesterday was hired by the production company making Marky Mark's Marathon-bombing movie. Back in February, the town asked the film company to find some other place to recreate the Watertown manhunt because it was just too soon.
Kat Powers reports a low-flying chopper, with one of those large video thingees mounted on the front, began buzzing Watertown awake before 6 a.m. today.
At least she's in touch with local lore, though, adding:
If I pull a Gidget on the #lowFlyCopter, how #Boston is that?
Yeah, yeah, Legal Seafood calls Clinton a cold fish, but the chain also remarked on the size of Trump's hands. But it also has a TV ad that goes:
Some candidates want to limit a woman's right to choose. Not Roger Berkowitz. "All I can say is, if you're pro-choice, you'll LOVE how many options we have in our menu."
You can see that ad here (around 0:36).
Pilotblock noticed this map in the window of a South End real-estate broker, who's replaced Chinatown and Bay Village with "Midtown" (and dramatically expanded the range of "Waterfront" and de-annexed the Seaport from South Boston).
An irate citizen filed a complaint at 2:23 a.m. today about the intersection of Boylston and Tremont streets:
Street is closed - my uber driver just informed me that Boston closes the street every weekend to allow people to leave the bars! Frankly, I can't believe this. As a tax paying resident I think it's entirely inappropriate to deny residents access to their neighborhoods to allow people to leave a bar. Boston needs to come up with a new solution that doesn't inconvenience residents.
A peeved citizen is unlikely to patronize the Dorchester Street laundry that left a flier on his or her car:
[They] left a flier on my car windshield that now has melted and cannot get off. Who should I report to that they are defacing my private property?
I normally would not quote two articles from the Huffington Post, but they are Boston specific and make a ton of sense to me.
I've been trying to figure out this whole FiOS rollout in Boston. There has to be a sweet deal in there for Verizon for them to re-neg on years of telling the city, "No, no FiOS for you". Now I have the smoking gun. Read more.
Anyone else encounter door-to-door solicitors for electricity service in Brighton? Talked to them yesterday. I don't know if they're legitimate, but they were pretty keen on seeing my electric bill and left once it was established that it's online and I couldn't remember my password. They left me with a business card with no business name or website, a gmail address, and an address that didn't appear on GMaps to be a permanent office. No website, pamphlets or info to review. Heads up, could be one of those scams where they want to see your bill to get enough info to switch you over.
Chris Brogan tells Papa Gino's to go to hell after chronicling everything that went wrong with his attempt to get some food delivered from there:
You stink. You’re a national chain that can’t do what my local place does flawlessly every time.
Steve Garfield of Jamaica Plain explains why he's thrown up his hands and given up on the Mass. Health Connector after more than a month of trying to figure out, without success, why the state accepted his first payment for a new health insurer yet never sent it to that company. So with five days left before his new insurance was supposed to start, he's now dealing directly with the insurer: Read more.
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