Billy Baker

The Boston Globe, January 20, 2012
The BMOC at MIT? It’s the Grand Integrator
I once asked a friend who went to MIT what would make someone the Big Man on Campus? He said you had to win the Integration Bee. So I wrote this, the finale to my MIT Trilogy. [See Episode 4: The Mystery Hunt; and Episode 5: The Bike Auction.]

The Boston Globe, January 15, 2012
The Annus Horribilis for the Backyard Rink
Like a baby or a puppy or a saltwater fish tank, the amount of work required to keep a backyard rink alive is more than anyone thinks going in. Throw in a very warm, very late winter, and what you get is disaster after disaster. Read

The Boston Globe, January 10, 2012
Why Gym Regulars Hate January
It happens each year: the New Year’s Resolution crowd invades the gym, hogs all the machines, clogs the best classes, and pisses off the regulars. Read

The Boston Globe, December 18, 2011
The Epic Life of Johnny and George
This a story about two brothers. It is a a story about poverty. It is a story about tragedy. And it is a story of that great opportunity we call Boston Latin School. It is many stories, but at its core is a timeless lesson of hope and resilience delivered by two remarkable young men who refuse to give up. Everything about this story was an emotional roller coaster for me. I lost track of how many times I cried, especially as I was writing. And then, once the story appeared… there are simply no words to properly capture the outpouring of support and emotions from our readers. These boys touched a lot of people, none more than me. You can read the story here, and be sure to check out the remarkable photos and video by my Globe colleagues, Yoon Byun and Lauren Frohne. And if you’ve been led here by a desire to help, please reach out to their mentor, Emmett Folgert. emmett.folgert@gmail.com. He can point you in the right direction; that’s what he does.

The Boston Globe, November 14, 2011
The Problem with the MIT Bike Auction is that it is Held at MIT
Or, the algorithm to explain why there are so many crappy bicycles at MIT. [Note: I am now very mad at myself for not using the algorithm angle in the story. Dammit.] Read

The Boston Globe, November 7, 2011
The St. Peter of Scratch Tickets
I was at the lottery headquarters one day and I met this nice lady named Ann Kearns, and I just couldn’t get over what she did for a living. Her job is to greet people who have won the lottery. All of them. In the time she’s been doing it, she has greeted people who have won over $3 billion dollars. That’s kind of an interesting job, right? So I spent a day with her and wrote about the weirdness. Read

The Boston Globe, October 30, 2011
Libyan Fighters Arrive in Boston
So I had to work a Saturday shift at the Globe, which could mean anything, and on this day it meant I was sent to the airport in a blinding, freezing rain, stood just off the side of the tarmac, and watched the first Libyan fighters touch U.S. soil after the fall of Khadafy. It was a privilege to witness a small moment in history — they were here for medical treatment — but what struck me watching them come off the plane was how ordinary they looked. They were men of my age, dressed in regular street clothes. Yet what they had done was so extraordinary… Read

The Boston Globe, October 18, 2011
Witches vs. Zombies
Why yes, I did cover the witches vs. zombies war in Salem. Read

The Boston Globe, October 16, 2011
The Hiker, The Trail and The Dream
When Kim Nilsen was a young man, he dreamed of creating a grand hiking trail spanning the length of northern New Hampshire. In 2011, 33 years after he started, I was there to watch him finish the 162nd, and last, mile. Read

The Boston Globe, October 14, 2011
A Cambridge Icon Flickers Anew
A few years ago, it got to the point where the Shell sign on Memorial Drive — Cambridge’s answer to the Citgo sign — was passed repair. It was left for dead, and it did die. But no one expected what happened next, which is that a new one, an exact replica, rose in its place. Read

The Boston Globe, October 10, 2011
In Maine, the Great Potato Tradition is Under Threat
In Aroostook County, that part of Maine that sticks up like a thumb into Canada, there has long been a great tradition: the kids get let out of school for three weeks to help in the potato harvest, where they get an education in the fields that no school can offer. But an increase in mechanization and a decrease in demand for potatoes, that whole tradition is under threat. Read

The Boston Globe, October 10, 2011
You Know What Would Be Awesome…
A few years ago, ten young people got together in Cambridge, kicked in $100 each, and sent out the call: If you have an awesome idea, we’ll give you $1000. From those humble beginnings, the Awesome Foundation is now spreading across the globe, a leader in the micro-grant/crowd-sourced ideal. Read

The Boston Globe, September 20, 2011
Do They Give Out Pulitzers for Stories about the Death of a Giant Pig?
If so, then I’m a shoo-in. Read

The Boston Globe, September 18, 2011
The Naked Lobster
For the longest time, I wanted to go up to Maine to meet this guy who had figured out a way to get a lobster naked using high pressure (and by naked, I mean he could get the meat out of the shell without cooking it, so it looked like a lobster, only naked). When I finally made it up there and walked in the door, I couldn’t have asked for a better character to greet me than John Hathaway. Seriously, I loved that dude. After you read the story, watch the video.

The Boston Globe, September 17, 2011
Fake ID Season Begins Again
I was curious about the current state of the fake ID cat-and-mouse game, so I went to Mary Ann’s — which is the most-BC bar on the planet — to check in on the kids and see how it works in 2011. Turns out it’s exactly the same as it was in 1996 (my last peak season); even in the age of photoshop, the good ones still come from a guy who knows a guy. My one regret is that I scared the shit out of the poor girl mentioned at the beginning of this piece when I stepped outside to ask her about her fake ID. I thought she was going to cry. She thought I was going to arrest her. Read

The Boston Globe, September 4, 2011
Looking for California
This is the story of the best week of my life, when I took my young family on an aimless California road trip in a vintage Volkswagen bus. It was one of those weeks whose joy was impossible to describe, but since I was writing a “travel” article about it I had to take a shot. Here’s what I came up with. It is inadequate. But it did trigger so many wonderful emails from people who have taken similar journeys that I’m 100 percent certain the Bakers will soon become owners of their very own vintage VW bus. Read and look at pictures.

The Boston Globe, September 3, 2011
The Fine Art and Sweet Science of Move-In Day
I thought this was going to be a story about the logistical nightmare of getting a BU dorm ready for a new school year, but when I showed up to watch the students move-in, I saw another story, which was that sad push-pull between parents who don’t want to let go, and kids who want to move on. As a young parent, I felt so sad watching those moms and dads get blown off that I worked it into the story. It may have weakened the narrative — it is really two stories shoehorned into one — but I couldn’t help myself. Read

The Boston Globe, August 24, 2011
The Lottery Winner and the Guitar
Every eight to ten minutes, I think about what I’d do if I won the lottery. I would not do what this guy did, which is act super weird, play the guitar, and not bother to check if I’d actually won. Read

The Boston Globe, August 8, 2011
Islands Apart
The rivalry between Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket is very real. And wholly imagined. It is fierce. And it is phony. But it is something. I think. Read

The Boston Globe, July 17, 2011
The Everyday Emergency
Iris Soares spends her life waiting in line at food pantries. I wish that were an exaggeration. This is the kick-off to our series, “Life on the Line,” about the poverty along the #19 bus line in Boston. This first story chronicles what it’s like for Soares and tens of thousands like her, those people who don’t qualify for government assistance, yet can’t afford to eat, so they survive on a ragtag network of food pantries throughout the city. Perhaps more than any other story I’ve ever reported, the two weeks I spent with Iris were the most revelatory; truly changed how I think about the world. Read

The Boston Globe, July 10, 2011
How to Lose a Boston Accent
This is a story about a class where people go to learn how to turn off their Boston accent. Sounds simple enough, but I’m pretty sure this is the most talked-about story I’ve ever written. This ran on the front page of the Sunday Globe and people just went nuts about it, especially the video that ran with the story on boston.com where I attempt to teach my father to speak without his Boston accent by using a dog-training clicker (NPR even played clips of it on All Things Considered). This story was a lot of fun to be a part of, and I’m honored to have started a lively debate about the Boston accent and the role it plays in the heritage of this region. Read the story, watch the video, then join the discussion in the comments. Soup to nuts, this was just a special moment in my career (the best part was getting to involve my dad). You can hear the NPR piece here.

The Boston Globe, June 25, 2011
Back in the Town He Terrorized
I didn’t write any stories the day Whitey Bulger finally returned to Southie, in handcuffs. My job was to Tweet impressions from the courthouse and feed reporting back to Peter Schworm in the newsroom, who wrote the main story here with Jonathan Saltzman. Though I am but a footnote on this story, I include it here among my clips because it is the broad overview of perhaps the most surreal day in my journalism career, and I’ve had a few (including the day before, when I was awakened at 2 a.m. with a call from my mother, who said: “They arrested Whitey in Santa Monica and your brother is standing in front of his apartment.”). But that day felt like the prelude for that moment when the motorcade of black U.S. Marshals SUVs came over the bridge, back into Southie. I can think of no movie that has ever delivered such an incredible climax. The trial is denouement; we know what happened. It will just be the chance to tie up the loose ends and throw away the key. Being there that day was something I’ll forever struggle to describe, and it was an honor to be part of the Boston Globe’s historic coverage of the biggest local news story of my lifetime.

The Boston Globe, June 24, 2011
Where’s Whitey? In Southie, an Answer to the Ultimate Riddle
It was a day most thought they would never see, and so it was rather surreal to be in Southie as the sun rose and the morning papers hit the racks to watch people learn that the question had finally been answered: Whitey Bulger was in jail. Read

The Boston Globe, June 4, 2011
What Really Happened in the South End of Springfield after the Tornado
Proud to be the only reporter willing to call it looting (because it was) and say the shooting was related (because it was). Don’t ever ask me about TV reporters. Just don’t. Read

The Boston Globe, June 3, 2011
The Ballad of Barstool Sports
When I was growing up on the corners in Southie, there were really only three things my friends and I talked about: girls, sports, and each other. And by each other, I mean we destroyed each other (for comedy’s sake, I think). Many years later, I noticed a return of sorts to that vibe when those same friends, now grown up, started emailing me links to Dave Portnoy’s blogs at Barstool Sports. These are the same guys who used to email me links to Bill Simmons’ blogs. In the world of guys-guys, that means something. Herein, the story of how Portnoy, the “sports/smut” tycoon, put street-corner rank-downs on the Internet and (with the help of girls and sports) is turning it into an empire. Read

The Boston Globe, May 25, 2011
Beside Themselves
So there’s a model in California who was turned into two virtual twins at the Museum of Science in Boston, and she (the model) decided she had to meet her other selves, and I went with her. Does that make any sense? Read

The Boston Globe, May 8, 2011
A Tale of Two Cambridges
They are united in name, but divided by royalty. And now, with the announcement of the new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, there is a reminder that Cambridge, MA and Cambridge, UK once shared more than an overabundance of nerds. Read

The Boston Globe, April 30, 2011
Live from London: The Royal Wedding
Front-page story about what it was like to be among the 1.5 million people who crowded along The Mall in London for the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. We saw nothing, but I wouldn’t change anything, because that was the experience of most and most would say it was an experience. Ultimately, it was just about being with others in celebration; one of the most incredible events of my life. Read

The Boston Globe, April 28, 2011
For Visiting Americans, Royal Wedding is Bliss
The wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton — as British as events get — has a decidedly American flavor this week in London, thanks to the influx of so many Yanks from across the pond. Which raises the question: are we more into it than the Brits? Read

The Boston Globe, April 27, 2011
From Bored to Beside Themselves, Brits Await Royal Wedding
They’re all pretty happy about the day off, and yeah, they’ll prolly watch it in the pub. After that, ask any Brit about the royal wedding and you’ll get a new opinion, from those who want the royals thrown out on their rears to the diehards who are getting ready to camp out overnight for a glimpse of the dress. Live from London, wedding mania. Read

The Boston Globe, April 7, 2011
The Hottest Couple in Hand Modeling
They waited till the end of the interview to inform me that they had just broken up, but by then I didn’t care. The glamorous world of hand jobs was just too fascinating to not end up on the front page of the Boston Globe, right? Read

The Boston Globe, March 29, 2011
Snail Mail
I suppose it was inevitable that at some point in my hard-news journalism career, I would have to write the story about the letter that gets delivered decades after it was sent. This is that story (complete with obligatory snail comparison). Read

The Boston Globe, March 26, 2011
The Scalpers and the iPad2
I had intended to write about how the release of the latest Apple products have become the “last line” — no one camps out for anything else because you can buy everything online. But when I arrived at a mall at 4:30 a.m. to begin the gregarious experience, there were no Apple geeks to be found; instead, it was all scalpers, so that’s the story I wrote. (And while I was there I picked up an iPad for myself, and my grandma. It’s a surprise for her birthday; please don’t mention it if you see her.) Did I mention that all this was going on two weeks after the iPad2 went on sale? Read

The Boston Globe, March 20, 2011
Being Miss Ice-O-Rama Ain’t What it Used to Be
For Nicole Rezza to defend her figure-skating crown, she had only to beat the girl with the hockey skates… Read

The Boston Globe, Feb. 27, 2011
A Madcap Quest for ‘Free’
An account of the Great Toilet Paper Rush of 2011 — “It was like the whole world had diarrhea,” according to one participant — and the events in the ‘extreme couponing’ underworld that led up to it. Adventures with the shopping ninjas. Read

The Boston Globe, Feb. 21, 2011
Enabling a New Icon
You’ve seen the wheelchair icon, but have you ever really looked at it? Sara Hendren has. Read her story, and you’ll never look at it the same way again.

The Boston Globe, Feb. 6, 2011
On Frozen Ponds, The Old Made New
I spent a good chunk of my youth scheming with my younger brother as to how we could turn our backyard into a hockey rink. Scott Crowder pulled it off on a very grand scale, and is positioning himself as the impresario of the outdoor game in New England. Read

The Boston Globe, Jan. 29, 2011
Trapped by Walls of White
For seniors and people with disabilities, a poorly shoveled sidewalk is not just an annoyance, it is a barrier to life. Read

The Boston Globe, Jan. 17, 2011
MIT, Puzzles, and the Pursuit of ‘Aha’
The MIT Mystery Hunt is very-MIT, which means the entire thing is like a deleted scene from the original Willy Wonka movie. Essentially, it’s a series of puzzles that lead you to a coin hidden on campus, but the level of detail and the rhapsodic ingenuity are a testament to the love of mental play. It’s a weekend-long exercise in intentional intellectual frustration for people unaccustomed to that feeling. Also, it’s just fun. Read

The Boston Globe, Jan. 16, 2011
The Last Horse Logger of Coos County
Rick Alger is the last guy left in northern New Hampshire who is still logging with horses. It’s very quaint, but that’s not his motivation. The reason he does it like they did in the past is because he believes it is the future. Read

The Boston Globe, Dec. 31, 2011
Southie Parking Wars (Winter Edition)
In which I do the Globe’s annual story about the war that erupts over parking spaces in Southie after it snows. My contribution to the genre was to follow the poor trash collector sent by the city to pull the savers out of the spaces. Read

The Boston Globe, Dec. 23, 2010
Line, Line, Everywhere a Line
I’m obsessed with the science and psychology of waiting in line — what is known as queuing theory — and I have an intellectual crush on this guy at MIT who calls himself Dr. Queue. So I keep writing what is essentially the same story (usually geared around holiday lines), but I don’t care because if you stop and think about what is actually going on when you — human with free will and hi-speed Internet — stand in a long line waiting for something, it’s quite fascinating. Read

The Boston Globe, Dec. 21, 2010
The Signature Boys At War
Here’s a very meta story of how I, in the process of writing an article about the Signature Boys, broke up the Signature Boys. So there’s these two guys who go around getting celebrities to autograph their skin, then they get the autograph tattooed on. It’s a well-documented possessive streak when it comes to celebrity; that’s probably why, when a reporter came around dangling the promise of the most micro-celebrity, they started stabbing each other in the back. Read

The Boston Globe, Dec. 18, 2010
The Day I Missed the Boat, and that Boat was the Mayflower
I was supposed to spend seven hours on the Mayflower II, and write a story about what that was like. But I missed the boat. Literally. I got the time wrong and showed up an hour late. I managed to eek out some sort of story (more of a caption to go with the photos, because the photographer did not miss the boat), and the only reason to read it would be to understand how I write when I have 1) almost no material; and 2) a fear that I’m about to be fired for missing the boat. Seeing as I did not get fired, I guess this is a funny story. Not many people can say they missed the Mayflower. Read

The Boston Globe, Dec. 12, 2010
Boston [Expletive] Dawna
The too-strange-to-be-true story of Boston Dawna, the so-called “Batman of Venice Beach.” Her story raises a lot of questions about what it means to be involved, and the line between your own business and the public good. It is also the first time the Boston Globe has published the sentence “Everyone in LA is a [expletive] [expletive].” Read

The Boston Globe, Dec. 5, 2010
Desperately Seeking Marisol, By All Means, Old and New
The Semperes met at the MIT Media Lab — which is kind of like Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory for eggheads — so when their dog got lost, they tried to use technology to reinvent the search process. This was probably a mistake. A story of instinct and ability, of a sweet little dog named Marisol (and a hero dog named Toby), and two good people who refuse to quit on their little buddy. Read

The Boston Globe, Nov. 29, 2010
A Food Fight on Beacon Hill
Virgil Aiello, who sounds exactly like the actor Chazz Palminteri,  owns a famous grocery store that caters to the hoity and the toity, and now he’s in a fight with his neighbors, and… well, it’s a very Beacon Hill story. Read

The Boston Globe, Nov. 21, 2010
It’s Totally Gonzo!
In which I set out to do a 40th anniversary story on how the term “gonzo” began in Southie and then went through Hunter S. Thompson and on to the world, and instead end up in a prolonged argument with the historian Douglas Brinkley. He’s a boob who refers to himself as Hunter’s “official historian” (which I always thought was a term the town council gave to some old guy who could remember the important dates). For all I know, Brinkley is right; I just can’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth, and I can’t believe Hunter S. Thompson would trust a snake-oil salesman like him with anything. Read

The Boston Globe, Nov. 14, 2010
Why Trains Turn Men into Boys
Did you know you can buy a tiny little car and drive it on train tracks? Real train tracks! Dude. Read

The Boston Globe, Nov. 3, 2010
Voters Are Upset at Historic Change
The Old Town House, in Marblehead, was thought to be the nation’s oldest active polling place. Then, after almost 300 years, the state kicked them out because of accessibility issues. Many people are furious. Many others are furious at the people who are furious. Read

The Boston Globe, Oct. 30, 2010
The Birthday He Never Saw
“When have you ever seen a funeral in a convention center?” On what would have been his 21st birthday, D.J. Henry is mourned by thousands. Read

The Boston Globe, Oct. 28, 2010
The Corn Maze Wars
In which agri-tourism trades “quaint” for “mega.” I believe I may get credit in the Oxford English Dictionary for first use of the term “corn texting.” Read

The Boston Globe, Oct. 22, 2010
The Case of the Missing Pedicab
In which a reporter, out walking his dog one night, sees a pedicab floating in the Charles River, and works it backward. Not sure how I got away with this one, but Dan Kennedy, the Boston media critic, gave me this rather backhanded compliment on Twitter: Take a nothing news item and turn it into a first-rate feature. Billy Baker shows you how: Read

The Boston Globe, Sept. 18, 2010
Robbed of its New Image? Charlestown Hopes Not
Townies, Toonies, Jack O’Callahan, Dennis Lehane and Ben Affleck discuss whether or not everyone in Charlestown is a bank robber. Read

The Boston Globe, Aug. 11, 2010
An Unexpected Hot Spot: “Southie Beach”
The story of how a once-desolate stretch of beach became a flash point in the old natives vs. newcomers war in Southie. Read

The Boston Globe, July 10, 2010
The Jury is Out
They’re always out. They just sit there and do nothing. That’s kind of awesome. So is writing a story about nothing. Read

The Boston Globe, June 14, 2010
Getting Naked to Get A Job
Lawson Clarke is kinda my hero. He grew a mustache, bought a bear-skin rug, got naked, made a website, and got kinda famous. Since this article was published, we’ve become friends. He took me to see a Rod Steward cover band (this was shortly after he rode a scooter across the country, and shortly before the end to his #HolidayAnalBet with his wife). Read

The Boston Globe, May 2, 2010
Circus Is In, About Town
A behind-the-scenes story on the Big Apple Circus, and the unique way it interacts with the city each year. Read

The Boston Globe, March 14, 2010
The Running of the Pols
In which I attempt to coin a new term for a rather particular brand of political pomp seen in the Southie St. Patrick’s Day parade. Read

The Boston Globe, Feb. 26, 2010
He’s Clawed His Way to Twitter Fame
Sockington was found next to a Red Line stop when he was still a kitten. Now he’s got 1.5 million followers on Twitter. A rather odd dispatch from the land of the cat people. Read

The Boston Globe, Dec. 2, 2009
For Local ‘Freegans,’ Dumpsters Yield Bountiful Harvest
The freakin’ freegan story, complete with the best/worst lede I’ve ever written. Read

The Boston Globe, Oct. 9, 2009
Unicycling May Catch On in Carbon-Conscious World
Is it time to reconsider the unicycle? A strangely compelling argument for one-wheeled commuting. Read

The Boston Globe, Sept. 24, 2009
Skating on a Thursday Night, Rolling Back the Years
I heard the best roller skaters in the area went to a little rink in Bradford every Thursday night to jam, so I went there and wrote about it. Read

The Boston Globe, Aug. 31, 2009
No Beef With Julia’s Kitchen
When “Julie & Julia” hit theaters, there was this great Julia Child moment in our culture and her decades-old cookbook shot to the top of the best seller list. I knew she had lived most of her life in Cambridge, so I knocked on the door of her old house and asked the new owners if I could invite myself over to try to make some of her recipes. They said sure, as long as there was no meat involved. Read

The Boston Globe, July 31, 2009
At Ellis Haven, a Southie Reunion
During the summers, Boston’s biggest Irish neighborhood isn’t in Boston at all. It’s in Plymouth. In a trailer park. Read

The Boston Globe, July 24, 2009
Remembrance of Things Pasta
Remember those “Anthony! Anthony!” commercials for Prince Spaghetti? I do. So I tracked down the original Anthony and had him take me to the North End for the 30th anniversary of its filming. People loved this story. Read

The Boston Globe, May 31, 2009
Showstopper?
A little story about the Sharpe Brothers, MIT super-kids and world-class diaboloists, as they went through a big transition in their lives. Read

The Boston Globe, March 1, 2009
Hot Dog! This Takes a Bite Out of Winter
Story about one of the great New England traditions: the opening day of Sullivan’s at Castle Island. Read

The Boston Globe, Feb. 22, 2009
Life Down Under
One of the great “Boston” moments for me is when you’re on the subway and that really bad accent comes over the loudspeaker and says: “Mass Aye and Eyah.” So I called the T and asked them to hook me up with one of their old-time conductors. Read

The Boston Globe, Dec. 13, 2008
A License to Look Your Best
I went to renew my driver’s license, and after they took my (horrible) photo, they asked me if I wanted to take another. What? You get three choices? I must do a story on this. Read

The Boston Globe, Nov. 23, 2008
Where’s Sully?
Sully was not just any turkey. He was a Southie turkey. And when he went missing, there were questions. A semi-comic romp through the life of a wild turkey. Read

The Boston Globe, Oct. 28, 2008
Troubling Toll in Thoreau’s Backyard
Henry David Thoreau. Walden. Flowers. Global warming. A bummer story in a majestic place. Read

The Boston Globe, Oct. 26, 2008
They May Look Unbalanced, But Their Wobbly Sport is Catching On
Light feature on slacklining and the city’s growing scene. Read

The Boston Globe, Oct. 2, 2008
Invitations to Partisan Partying
Trend story on how Obama and McCain were using the web to convince people to throw debate-watch parties in their home for total strangers. Also, a short treatise on the difference between Democrat and Republican cuisine. Read

The Boston Globe, Sept. 5, 2008
He’s Quite Comfortable When the Mood Turns Dark
Short profile of Alan Ball, the creator of “True Blood” and “Six Feet Under,” and the writer of “American Beauty.” Read

The Boston Globe, Sept. 1, 2008
Juggling’s Best? An Old-School Veteran is Challenged by a Hot Young Star
Who’s the world’s best juggler? The one who can do the most five-club five-up 360s in a minute, obviously. Anthony Gatto and Vova Galchenko get into a very specific war than only about 100 people in the world care about (and I’m one of them). Read

The Boston Globe, Aug. 2, 2008
Mutts Decoded
New DNA technology allows you to determine your dog’s breed (and reveals how bad “experts” have been at determining a dog’s breed by simply looking at them). Read

The Boston Globe, May 25, 2008
Wicked Good Bostonisms Come, and Mostly Go
An exploration into the Boston dialect, some musings on the term for a French kiss in my high school, and frappes as our shibboleth. This was a story that people loved. Read

The Boston Globe, Jan. 18, 2008
Hanging With Paul ‘Fitzy’ Fitzgerald
Drinking at the Pats game with a fictional Masshole played by a real Masshole. Read

The Boston Globe, Nov. 19, 2007
Could Failure Be Thy Name?
A science story on the “name-letter effect,” which argues that your initials can be the root of your success or failure. Read

The Boston Globe, Oct. 31, 2007
Papelbon Dance: He Plays it to the Kilt
A crazy reliever, his crazy dance, and the crazy parade after the Red Sox won the 2007 World Series. Read

The Boston Globe, Sept. 29, 2007
Seats of Honor
Anyone can stop and watch the Red Sox on the big screen in Harvard Square. But only the diehards get a seat in the chair club. Read

The Boston Globe, Aug. 6, 2007
Bending it Like Beckham Takes Practice, Physics
A science story about the physics involved in David Beckham’s ability to make a soccer ball curve. Read

The Boston Globe, June 25, 2007
The Search for ‘God’s Number’ in a Rubik’s Cube
Northeastern University turned on its supercomputers to attempt to determine ‘God’s Number,’ the minimum number of moves it would take to solve a Rubik’s Cube from even the most difficult of its 43 quintillion possible arrangements. This one’s loaded with geek goodness. Read

The Boston Globe, June 14, 2007
Catching the Wind
An unusual combination of flat water and big wind have turned Pleasure Bay in Southie into a premier destination for kiteboarders. Read

The Boston Globe, June 10, 2007
The Bubble Zone
Bubble hockey is the single greatest arcade game of all time, and when I learned that it’s greatest player lived in Norwood, I drove on over there. Read

The Boston Globe, March 25, 2007
Up for the Count
The only way to make MIT geekier would be if it had a juggling club. Wait, they have a juggling club? What? And I’m a member? Read

The Boston Globe, March 21, 2007
Super Mario Kid
The story of Andrew Gardikis, a 17-year-old from Quincy who was trying to achieve the holy grail of video-game records: the perfect speed run on the original Super Mario Brothers. Shortly after this article came out, he did — finished the entire game in 5:08. Wha? Read

The Boston Globe, March 18, 2007
Old-School Neighborhood Style Still Has Legs
I’m still not sure how I ever convinced the Globe to let me write this story, because only about one percent of their readers would find this even remotely interesting. What’s worse is I cursed Jones’. They closed like a month later, and took the old days of Southie style with them. Read

The Boston Globe, Feb. 11, 2007
Hockey and the Beast — A Legend
The story of how Brian Zive used an abundance of body hair to become a Boston hockey icon. Read

The Boston Globe, Jan. 7, 2007
Wearing Their Virility Yearly
A friend of mine named Sean Donnelly started a beard-growing movement, Bearduary, that started as a joke but has since taken off. This was the first story about it, and my first article for the Globe. Read