Pulp Free

Our already world famous Lisa Merriman made the news in Boston again!!

Now in its 60th year, the annual Filene’s Basement Bridal Event draws crowds of hundreds in search of the perfect gown. Brides-to-be and their faithful bridesmaids, mothers, friends, and a few fiancés lined up today outside the Downtown Crossing store well before the sale started at 8 a.m., braving the ice and cold for a bargain on designer wedding dresses.

Bride Bridget Cuffney (left) from South Boston hoped to find something lacey and “designer for cheap.” Lisa Merriman from the Back Bay (second from left) was looking for a lacey halter top gown. Also pictured are Merriman’s fiancé, Bryan Barth, and Hilary Vandam, both from the Back Bay. Was Merriman worried about her fiancé seeing her dress before the wedding day? “We’re gonna get all the dresses, and when I’m trying them on he’s just going to have to turn around,” she said.

I truly enjoyed the matching fuchsia colors with Lisa leading the pack with a fully colored jacket in the midst of standard black overcoats! Even better is the fact that Lisa matches so well with the colors of our Web site as well! Congrats, Lisa! (Way to go Bryan, as well… For saying “no” to the pink do-rag!)

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!

Just read an interesting article this afternoon about the requests to the US Mint about the legality of melting pennies and nickels down for their raw materials. So you better not get caught:

The new regulations prohibit the melting of 1-cent and 5-cent coins, with a penalty of up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000 for people convicted of violating the rule.

Bummer. Since switching to using my credit card a few years ago for practically everything… I’ve not had the familiar feeling of jingling change in my pocket. (I do have some in my drawer at work in case I get the need for a Diet Pepsi out of the vending machine… but that’s about it!)

But in case you’re feeling a bit feisty:

A nickel is 25 percent nickel and 75 percent copper. The metal in one coin costs 6.99 cents for each 5-cent coin. When the Mint’s cost of producing the coins is added, the total cost for each nickel is 8.34 cents.

Modern pennies have 2.5 percent copper content with zinc making up the rest of the coin. The current copper and zinc in a penny are worth 1.12 cents. The cost of production drives the cost of each penny up to 1.73 cents.

Pennies made before 1982, which are still in circulation, would be even more lucrative to melt down because they contain 95 percent copper and only 5 percent zinc. The metal value in those coins is 2.13 cents per coin, Mint officials said.

LONDON (AFP) - A group of top classical musicians has warned of the threat to artistic life from a hand baggage ban introduced after British police foiled an alleged bomb plot against transatlantic airliners.

The issue even struck a false note at the world-renowned Last Night of the Proms concert on Saturday, with one conductor joking that next year audiences may have to put up with “Concerto for Laptop and Orchestra”.

“I think it’s greatly to be regretted,” said Mark Elder, a guest conductor for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, at the Royal Albert Hall. “The time has come really to put an end to this unfairness.”

Many performers refuse to let their instruments, often centuries old and extremely valuable, out of their sight when they travel on planes in case they are damaged in the hold.

But now they are falling foul of strict rules introduced in August amid fears that apparently innocuous materials could be used to build and detonate bombs on flights to and from the United States.

It is not only high art which is suffering — a spokesman for Scotland’s oldest bagpipe teaching college said tourism could be hit as the regulations deter pipers from the United States and Canada from coming to competitions.

In a letter to The Times newspaper on Friday, seven artists including the principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis, and cellists Julian Lloyd Webber and Ralph Kirshbaum, warned that terrorists must not be allowed to threaten Britain’s place in the artistic world.

“This enviable position is now under serious threat from draconian new rules that forbid any article exceeding the specified dimensions for hand luggage to be carried on planes,” the letter said.

“It is now effectively impossible for musicians to travel by air, since there is no way that priceless 18th-century violins or cellos, for example, can ever travel without unacceptable risk in the hold of an aircraft.”

Kirshbaum, an American, later told the BBC: “When you have an instrument, as I do, that was made in 1729, worth over three million pounds (5.6 million dollars, 4.4 million euros), you have a responsibility obviously for that but it’s also our voice.

“And without that voice, we can’t create our artistic world for those who we perform for.”

Passengers travelling from Britain are only allowed to carry on a laptop-sized bag. However, Transport Secretary Douglas Alexander said Sunday that the restrictions may soon be eased.

He has been working with British airports and airlines on the possibility of relaxing hand baggage size rules and the restrictions on taking certain liquids on board, he told Sky News television.

Further meetings are expected this week to determine whether any changes can be made.

The Musicians’ Union is planning to lobby parliament over the airline security measures, calling for a dispensation on all flights to let musicians carry instruments into the cabin.

Spokesman Keith Ames said Sunday: “It is a risk putting instruments in the hold because they could get damaged — no insurance company will cover it.

“Nobody expects a slackening in security but the fact that musical instruments… have to go into the hold means that musicians will just not fly.”

Some of the best known companies and events in the arts world, including the BBC Proms, an annual two-month season of classical concerts in London, have been affected.

The Orchestra of St Luke’s, from New York, pulled out of a concert shortly after the alleged plot was discovered, while soloists including Russian violinist Maxim Vengerov ditched the plane for the train to get there.

Russia’s Bolshoi Theatre, which was performing in London when the restrictions came in, pledged to use the London-Paris Eurostar service because they refused to check in their instruments on an airplane.

And Willie Park, a piper at the College of Piping in Glasgow, said he knew of Russian and Japanese pipers who had posted their instruments home rather than putting them in an aeroplane hold.

“We’ve got pipers coming from all over the world to compete in championships and this puts people off,” he said.

“Bagpipes are sensitive to temperature variation in the hold because if the wood shrinks it can split, apart from the rough handling they might get.”

Stringent baggage restrictions have come in across the European Union and in the United States, Australia, Canada, Ghana, Kenya and Switzerland in the wake of the alleged plot.

Seventeen people have been charged with terrorism-related offences and 11 with conspiring to murder and preparing acts of terrorism following police raids in Britain on August 10.

by Katherine Haddon