Walkway under McGrath?

[closetalker11.livejournal.com]

Hi everyone!

Is there a way to walk under the highway over by Assembly Square? Specifically here: http://g.co/maps/u8bv7

Thanks!!

Seems Legit?

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

A guy rang our doorbell late this morning saying approximately "Hey, wanna buy a driveway?"
the story being something about working a utility job near by and having left-over asphalt.

I'll you you right now, though I feel like an idiot doing so, that I talked him down to half his price and did a hand-shake agreement on it. Then I was confused that he drove off in a hurry. When was he coming back to do the work? No, I didn't give him any money; and no, he's not likely to come back. He was probably making as graceful an exit as he could after my taking too long asking him questions.

My friends quickly edjumicated me that the "left-over asphalt" scam is actually one of the 'oldest scams' out there (for certain hyperbolic definitions of 'oldest'), and pointed me to http://www.apa-mi.org/asphalt_scam_press_release.php (and more generally, https://www.google.com/search?q=left-over+asphalt+scam ).

I called him into to Somerville non-emergency police line, and am posting here in case any of you are as nearly-gullible as I am. If you get the same visitor, you can call him in more promptly than I did and give the PD more useful information.

Let my close-call-stupidity save those of you as gullible as I am. The rest of you, who are too smart to fall for this, be nice.

[tag this "local scams"]

long shot: missing wedding band in ball square

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

Maybe if I post all the long shot places it might be it'll turn up on the next search in a corner of the front hall having slipped off when I took of my coat.

but if you happen to find a very plain & fairly small gold wedding band on the sidewalk around True Grounds or the book shop across the street (places in which gloves and coffee cups and pockets were maneuvered when I got coffee and caught the bus today), think of the sentimental value rather than the weight of the metal in it and let me know. My hands shrunk, it's winter, and getting it made smaller was on my todo list this month. Alas, too late.

[hey, I lost and found a loaf of bread in ball square, why not a much more important item?]

Dear Dancing Roomie...

[pklemica]

Ok, so not quite a roomie, but: my upstairs neighbor plays Dance Dance Revolution or some similar jumping game at all hours. I've tried to ask him to keep it down several times - approaching him not even a large proportion of the times he's done this, and only ever when he's up to it on weeknights past midnight - only to be met with what I'm frankly interpreting as hostility. He will not agree to stop; the first time I tried to talk he wouldn't even acknowledge me as I was knocking on and pleading through his window over the span of 1-3am. Any time I do try to ask it seems that things just get worse for a while. I've even talked to my landlord, who seems shocked at his behavior and has spoken to him about it, but he's still at it... more often than ever in my mind, although in all honesty at this point it may just be that I've been dealing with this since at least August and am starting to lose perspective/patience.

I've found the Somerville Noise Ordinances here, and am wondering to what extent they apply to my situation. I am particularly intrigued by 9-116(17), which prohibits
"the operation of any device that creates vibration which is above the vibration perception threshold of an individual at or beyond the property boundary"
among other things. Do you know, would jumping around violently on someone else's ceiling for long stretches, shaking the building enough that it bothers my roomies even at the other end of the apartment, qualify as such vibration? I'm worried this "device" reference actually only means not using jackhammers or something like that.

Perhaps more of y'all would be familiar with the more general: what happens if you call the police about a noise disturbance? I'm not planning to do this without further conversations with my roomies, the tenant in question (if he'll talk), and the landlord, but ultimately if he refuses to stop waking me this is something I'm considering. I don't have a decibel meter, though, and while the activity in question is clearly a nuisance (it wakes me up Every. Single. Time. and at this point I'm anxious enough about it that even once he's stopped it takes hours for me to get back to sleep), I am not sure just how much weight that carries once you've made a For-Serious Complaint. Do I risk getting in trouble if they determine he's within his noise-making rights? How is such a determination made? Have you had any experience with either end of a noise complaint, and if so, how did it go?

For what it's worth, I used to quite enjoy DDR.

Geocaching Urban Shrines in Somerville

[ron_newman]

My friend Pauline Lim from Brickbottom has placed nine 'Urban Shrines' all over Somerville. You can find pictures of them, and their GPS coordinates, here: Geocaching Urban Shrines

If you find all nine of them before February 24, and e-mail Pauline a photo of yourself next to each of them, she'll enter you in a drawing for a stainless steel water bottle with one of her paintings printed on it.

You don't actually need a GPS device to find them. If you don't have one, just enter each set of coordinates into Google Maps and take careful notes on the location that the map shows you.

Pauline says that this search is best done by bicycle, and I agree. Take advantage of the continuing nice weather before real winter sets in.