Pulp Free

A child’s birthday party at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant was cut short after a fight broke out between two mothers. Natick police said the mom of the 9-year-old birthday boy apparently became enraged because the other woman’s son was “hogging” an arcade game.

Sgt. Paul Thompson said Catherine Aliaga, 38, and Tarsha Williams, 33, both of Boston, would be summoned into court to answer charges of simple assault and battery stemming from the scuffle.

Thompson told the MetroWest Daily News that police received a number of 911 calls about the fight Saturday night.

He said what started as a birthday celebration turned into a “birthday melee.”

While happening earlier last week, I found the whole bomb scare in Boston just about as ludacris as the next person. Amazingly enough, today the Boston authorities are asking for payment of over $500,000 from TBS over the costs the city took on disarming such foolishly made “bombs”.

While no final tallies were immediately available, the deployment of dozens of state, federal, and Boston police specialists, from bomb experts to terrorism analysts, exceeded $500,000, according to Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino

I mean… is this scary? Threatening?

Go Aqua Teen Hunger Force!

Oh yeah… The point of my post (it wasn’t the whole bomb thing… )

Critics have mocked Boston for overreacting.

“If they were bombs, at that response rate, the city would have been screwed,” said Norajean McCarthy, 24, a friend of both suspects.

Safety officials, however, have praised the response as evidence of the city’s ability to respond quickly to a crisis.

Whew… I feel safe now! This was registered as a “crisis”.

No real commentary on this piece of bizarre news… Just that our own Lisa Merriman made the TV news in Boston! Be sure to check out this news clip…

As parking spaces go, it’s nice enough. While it’s outdoors, the smooth brick paving is immaculate.

But is it worth $250,000?

That’s what an anonymous buyer paid in April for a prized spot tucked in the alley behind 31-33 Commonwealth Avenue in the Back Bay — breaking the city’s record price for a parking space and underscoring the difficulty residents have scoring a spot downtown.

The family is famous now… Way to go Lisa!

Another interesting tidbit making the news circuit today…

ATTLEBORO, Mass. - Tag, you’re out! Officials at an elementary school south of Boston have banned kids from playing tag, touch football and any other unsupervised chase game during recess for fear they’ll get hurt and hold the school liable.

Recess is “a time when accidents can happen,” said Willett Elementary School Principal Gaylene Heppe, who approved the ban.

While there is no district wide ban on contact sports during recess, local rules have been cropping up. Several school administrators around Attleboro, a city of about 45,000 residents, took aim at dodgeball a few years ago, saying it was exclusionary and dangerous.

Elementary schools in Cheyenne, Wyo., and Spokane, Wash., also recently banned tag during recess. A suburban Charleston, S.C., school outlawed all unsupervised contact sports.

“I think that it’s unfortunate that kids’ lives are micromanaged and there are social skills they’ll never develop on their own,” said Debbie Laferriere, who has two children at Willett, about 40 miles south of Boston. “Playing tag is just part of being a kid.”

Another Willett parent, Celeste D’Elia, said her son feels safer because of the rule. “I’ve witnessed enough near collisions,” she said.

That’s what I want as the next generation of kids. Safer ones. Need to keep those near collisions at bay…