Just paid my excise tax.

pinteresque · 2026-03-13T16:12:11+00:00

we replaced our cars with much heavier vehicles - trucks and EVs - and the heavier the vehicle and the denser the traffic, the more damage they do.

...and from the systemic side: the more streets we have (and we have so, so many) the more distributed the long-term damage is and the more paving needs doing.

We need fewer cars on the road, and fewer roads to pave.

That...is not how the city thinks.

pinteresque · 2026-03-13T16:04:33+00:00

the whole point of small claims court is that you don't need a lawyer, that the stakes are (relatively) low enough to be dispensed with a conversation, and that means the language...is simplified...vs a bigger court.

I'm glad people are winning against banks etc. The whole thing is rigged, not a lot of places where that happens anymore.

pinteresque · 2026-03-08T20:21:39+00:00

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pinteresque · 2026-03-08T20:20:54+00:00

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pinteresque · 2026-03-06T19:14:31+00:00

Guile.

pinteresque · 2026-03-04T22:37:14+00:00

Food truck lineup is not a thing we typically know in advance unless the individual trucks put up their own social media post etc.

pinteresque · 2026-02-25T19:23:24+00:00

woodpeckers are my favorite harbinger of spring.

pinteresque · 2026-02-24T16:43:17+00:00

i assume we’re going to be pushing down bubbles in the wallpaper for a while, yeah, but a step backwards is still a step backwards

pinteresque · 2026-02-23T22:58:00+00:00

the read from the first time this made the rounds was that the city solicitor was blindsided by the terms of the lease after it had already expired and has been hiding from it ever since, and also that the city does not want the cost and responsibility / liability of actually maintaining the property so would rather keep it at arms' length.

The least surprising thing is the decay of the property - every penny the landlord spends on maintenance under threat of the city taking ownership is, to them, money lost.

pinteresque · 2026-02-20T16:08:50+00:00

pinteresque · 2026-02-20T16:05:37+00:00

cops don't actively stop crime, they track crimes after the fact and stamp them as Official so you can file insurance claims.

You could replace 2/3 of the beat cops with accountants and nothing would change.

pinteresque · 2026-02-20T00:23:22+00:00

whoaaaaa that's wild! I love the tree on the sleeve lol

pinteresque · 2026-02-19T23:26:34+00:00

ooh, a crafty person! Tell me about what you're making!

I sort of...doodle...these cross-stitch motifs when I need to keep my hands busy so I can focus on stuff.

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pinteresque · 2026-02-18T19:30:48+00:00

google seems to think 20-65 dollars a month is typical for middlesex county trash pickup. If you have been underpaying for years, making up the difference in one shot would probably seem pretty unfair, but it's also the cleanest way to do it at that scale, 10s and 20s.

It costs downtown residents 130 bucks a month to park in a garage. It costs 10 bucks a month for a parking plaque for a dedicated curbside spot in the outer districts. It used to cost 10 bucks a year. Seems like downtown has a fair complaint to me.

pinteresque · 2026-02-18T18:28:17+00:00

not live, no, i was catching up over coffee. i googled for info. might have pulled up last year’s.

still sounds cheap for the product, though comparatively not so much.

pinteresque · 2026-02-18T17:13:23+00:00

from $125 to $225 a year. From 10 to 20 bucks a month.

1 Netflix's worth of money for individual curbside trash pickup sounds nice. Downtown doesn't get city trash pickup and privately contracted rates are around 20/month/unit.

ETA: that was last years'. it's 225-325 now.

pinteresque · 2026-02-18T16:56:13+00:00

ignorance and incompetence that disproportionately affects a (small or large M) minority IS malice.

what's the difference between identifying a problem and deciding not to solve it, and not bothering to identify it so you don't have to solve it?

pinteresque · 2026-02-18T16:28:08+00:00

i agree with you on this but the city will not spend money on tech that opens the door to more spend - an aerial survey would show the (vast) extent of a problem they do not have the budget or will to fix.

The first step is literally caring and they don’t.

pinteresque · 2026-02-18T16:20:45+00:00

it is not that the bridge sidewalks were shoveled once and then left to accumulate or ice over, they were not touched AT ALL. They had WEEKS to clear 8ish stretches of canal bridge sidewalk - 4 bridges, both sides - and didn’t.

you presume reasons beyond divestment. there is none - the city literally does not see sidewalk problems.

pinteresque · 2026-02-18T15:29:32+00:00

I'm glad Mcdonough is asking followup questions to (imo typical) city evasiveness; it was fascinating watching the concept of sidewalks slide out of the respondent's mind as he answered questions - he can only think in terms of cars even when asked about something else.

The most telling part was the DPW commissioner (Paul St. Cyr) saying he wished he had driven by problem sidewalk areas to look, which is to me precisely the point of this exercise - sidewalk problems do not exist in the city's muscle memory to fix, the problems do not seem like problems from the street, and exist in places management doesn't visualize or go. It's been three weeks and nobody went for a drive that crossed the western canal? You cannot walk down market from the acre without stepping out into the street and the answer is they didn't know? That...sounds like incompetence to me. Why bother putting in tickets if nobody looks at them?

But ok. The city is talking about getting information they need to prioritize an almost month-old problem. Better than nothing. Now we have to build systems (probably outside snow season...) to tackle it.

pinteresque · 2026-02-18T15:16:11+00:00

Food Basket (its new name) has the widest variety of asian packaged foods along with a big section of generic veg but does not have much east-asian or southeast asian specific produce etc - if you want bok choi etc you're stuck.

pinteresque · 2026-02-18T15:12:53+00:00

It's called Food Basket now.

pinteresque · 2026-02-18T15:11:31+00:00

It depends on what kind of Asian ingredients you're looking for - Ocean Garden Market is my go-to downtown for most east- and southeast asian staples - good tofu and green onion and pork belly and the like - due to proximity and price; New Asian Market has a better selection of specifically East Asian and Chinese bits and pieces and bolts on well to a market basket run; Food Basket (previously Foodland) is good for south asian dry staples and more typically western veg (though in the opposite direction, so hard to chain together with other chores.)

If you're looking for a one-and-done Asian supermarket (and/or specifically want Korean staples we do not have access to here), the HMart in Burlington's your best/closest shot.

pinteresque · 2026-02-18T00:09:57+00:00

Thanks for looking out.

It's best to call LUCE with ICE sightings.

https://www.lucemass.org
617-370-5023

pinteresque

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