Dan Kennedy considers Watertown Town Councilor and Governor's Councilor Marilyn Devaney's attempt to force a local reporter to tell what she knew and how she knew it about Devaney's alleged outburst at a Waltham beauty-supply shop last year.

Whoever stole the autographed Rat Pack photo from Franco's Pizzeria in Waltham thought he or she was getting something worth a lot of money. Krissy posts a photo of a note where the photo used to be that indicates otherwise.

Mike Ball discovers a self-planted bonsai in a municipal parking garage behind Watch City Brewing on Moody Street in Waltham:

... A seed insinuated itself in a seam on top of a wall and the resulting evergreen shows the sculpting by the wind off the adjacent Charles River. ...

Teddy Kokoros takes photos at the Moody Street dam on the Charles.

Jo addresses a Saab driver on Rte. 128 north:

... I am terribly, TERRIBLY sorry that I didn't intuit your desire to drive straight across from the fast lane to the exit at Trapelo road in one fell swoop. ...

Rob Sama's hosting a Cinco de Mayo at casa Sama in Waltham this Saturday - and the entire blogosphere is invited. He'll supply the carnitas and guac; you bring the whatever.

Jay Fitzgerald is reading The State Boys Rebellion - about kids at the old Fernald State School in Waltham. He writes:

... I'm only a few chapters into it and already in a state of shock how the mentally ill, and those who were thought to be mentally ill, were brutally treated. It begins to explain a bit why it was so difficult to act on the warning signs of the Virgina Tech killer." ...

Leigh reminds this old Brandeis grad of one of the school's distinctions:

... How many universities can claim to be the alma mater of three of the only eight women to ever make the FBI's Most Wanted List? ...

Unfortunately, unlike with other Brandeis convicts (Abbie Hoffman and Jack Abramoff spring to mind), a Boston police officer wound up dead, murdered during a Brighton bank robbery in which two of the three women participated.

Dennis Fox was there, reports, posts photos.

On BadTransit, Susan, who gets on the Fitchburg Line at Brandeis/Roberts, reports a conductor let her in on a little secret: People who pay in cash only get levied a surcharge if they try to pay with a $20 bill:

... "So if I pay with a $5 I won't get the surcharge?" Conductor: "Yeah just don't use a $20. We always run out of change."