A white T-shirt, to be exact. Cambridge Police report the Store 24 at 321 Broadway was held up shortly after 3 a.m. today by a polite black man, 24-30, about 6 feet tall, who was also wearing a black button-down shirt and black shorts.

Suspicious Fires Popping Up In Roslindale: Three overnight fires in Roslindale Square. With some raw footage of pickup in flames on Poplar Street (by Adams Park?).

OK, but what does it mean?

Blogging Barbie (yep), who normally takes the B line, is a bit shook up by this morning's derailment/fire in Brighton:

... I've truly loved Boston for the past three years. But in a way, I wonder if that derailed car is a metaphor for my life here, right now. As I drove to my interview this morning (don't get excited, just a temp position), I watched that trolley car being dragged from the wreckage, its charred and broken remains, being pulled along as its tired wheels screamed in discord.

I can't help but wonder ... is that my relationship with this city? ...

Michael Femia asks for help:

I'm having one of my occasional "maybe I should move out of Boston" spells. This spring's weather broke my spirit, the local sports scene has nowhere to go but down, I've looked at apartment costs in other cities which break my heart, and...I don't know...I just feel like maybe life will be a little different (read: better) somewhere else.

So convince me why I should or shouldn't go, and if I go, where I should go. ...

Bobob reports:

I was walking in the Davis Square area and saw a man from a industrial cleaning company dumping his cleaning waste down the street sewer from his van -- it was pretty stinky. I'm assuming this is illegal because when he saw me he packed up his truck and took off in a hurry. ...

Promo for a documentary by the Hyde Square Task Force's Health Career Ambassadors on youth violence in Boston:

Info on the documentary's premiere, May 29 at the John D. O'Bryant African-American Institute, Northeastern University.

Stephen Rosenberg discusses lawsuits against State Street Corp. by pension funds that say the company improperly invested their money in risky real-estate funds - which could leave the company vulnerable to hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of damages if it loses:

... [I]t may well be that the administrators' fiduciary duties under those circumstances require them to then try to remedy their initial mistakes by suing to recover the losses, rather than compounding their own fiduciary breaches by simply absorbing the loss; that latter course of action would likely just make the administrators themselves targets for breach of fiduciary duty lawsuits based on their own mistakes in investing in the State Street funds. ...

Death threats targeted DiMasi.

With Donnie Wahlberg, to boot, playing a war hero turned DEA agent, Joel Brown reports.

Oops.

One of the last trains on the B Line overnight, running through the Commonwealth Avenue and Chestnut Hill Avenue intersection around 1:30 AM, hopped the tracks. This normally wouldn't be a big deal, as it happens pretty regularly with the new Breda trains. Except, this time it hopped the track right into a power pole. The shorted power lines lit the train car on fire. About thirty people on board were able to get off safely but it's taken all morning and then some for officials to untangle the mess and realign the wheels to put the train back on the tracks to move it out of the way. As of 6 AM, the train is still in the middle of the intersection and the B Line is being bussed from BC to Babcock Street.

Of course, this all began over 4 hours ago, but it is just now "breaking news" on all of the local news agencies and television stations without a single article to link even at this hour.

I live on a thoroughfare, and recently I'm often woken up by a noise that made me think the apartment is getting attacked by a sea monster.

Turns out Boston Police have been equipping their cruisers with "The Rumbler", which is an amplifier and subwoofer designed purposefully to make everything within a few hundred feet shake; if you're inside, it sounds like a very deep and disturbing "whoop". Despite being for use at "clearing busy intersections", BPD seems to be happily employing it on deserted roads in the middle of the night.

If you agree to write about it (good, bad or indifferent).

It's the Ennio show on Tuesday, May 20, starting at 7:30 p.m. The first 10 bloggers to send their blog info to ennioblog@gmail.com will get a ticket.

Conflict of interest note: The Huntington is an advertiser here and across the Boston Blogs Network.

Mike Ball is all in favor of bicycling, but says Mayor Menino needs to stop dressing like a grumpy Care Bear:

... That's doubly unfortunate in that he was doing something vaguely athletic and he was quite jolly at the time. ...

Don Martelli writes the photo of the biking mayor reminds him a bit of that infamous video of Mike Dukakis in a tank.

Mike Mennonno, normally an inveterate bike rider, is thinking of taking the T to work:

... Because the problem with encouraging more bicycle commuting before you've got adequate infrastructure in place for it is it may end up having the opposite of the intended effect. Add to that that there are plenty of Massholes among the ranks of cyclists, too, and Bike Week in Boston is a recipe for anarchy. ...

Oh, yeah, Masshole cyclists.

Casey reports on her first bicycle commute:

... When a Prius passed me, I laughed. "You think you're green? Ha!" ...

Adam Pieniazek reports Bike Week news, including:

... Yesterday I was biking through Cambridge and Somerville, via Hampshire and Beacon Street and noticed a new feature on the Beacon Street/Somerville side of the trip. Bike lanes! ...

Insufficient evidence to prove he pawed a woman.

Spatch reports on some rickrolling beer ads on the Red Line this morning - and suddenly, he wishes the sperm ads were back.

Obligatory rickroll explanation.

J.M. Lawrence sums up the whole Cheeseman affair:

... New England godfather Raymond Patriarca rolled over in his grave. ...

Bruce Allen tries to sort out the whole issue involving the Herald Patriots reporter and what did or didn't happen in New Orleans in 2002.

Montreal's transit authority is replacing its paper tickets with a CharlieCard-like system. Chris DeWolfe, a reporter at the Montreal Gazette, is writing a story about the new Opus Card (OK, I really have no clue if it'll feature a penguin):

Part of my story will look at how the names of smart cards in other cities have been derived from or have become part of the local pop culture. Naturally, I'm very interested by the CharlieCard.

So, what do you think about the T naming its pass after a character in a song protesting the T's predecessor? I told him the song is such a part of local character, the question is almost more how could the T even think of naming it anything else, but what do I know? You can e-mail Chris with your thoughts on the name or post them here.

Lexington Auto Service charging $4.29 a gallon for regular.

Terrysigh wears glasses and is amazed when some woman comes up to him while he's waiting on lunch and asks if he's ever considered Lasik.

Ed. Note: I wonder if she really has a boyfriend with better vision who's getting Lasik or if she is getting paid by some marketing company to create buzz on the street for it.

The National Weather Service has issued a red-flag warning, which basically means low humidity, relatively high temps and high winds leave us today with:

EXPLOSIVE FIRE GROWTH POTENTIAL.

At least in Middlesex and Worcester counties.

Only Massachusetts requires police details at road work sites. Boston drivers are from Massachusetts. Coincidence? DrivingLikeAss.Com thinks not.
The new DLA Labs study, Traffic Authority Figures & Their Effectiveness in the Modification of Ass-like Driving Behavior: A DLA Research Study, points to a possible sensory cortex dysfunction among Boston drivers. On the other hand, it could also be that they just like driving like ass.