Bus system yay!

This apartment has "lower utilities than Coventry" AND it's only $600 for a one-bedroom. Where is this place? I want to move in! With rents like that, "Cherry Creek" obviously isn't anywhere near where I found this, in Porter Square. This place is located on a bus line ("yay!") and apparently includes refreshments? Also has a medicine cabinet. Rock on.

Blowhard

This is a flash card of some sort. What kind of class/seminar/training session would require one to know the word "blowhard."? Is it an SAT Vocabulary word? I don't think I've ever used the word "blowhard" in my life. Perhaps I should start. Also, I always thought the lined side of the index card was the *back*. Perhaps I've been getting it wrong all these years.

Special Pass

I found this note stuck to a bench near South Station. It's at the place where you get the shuttle bus to take you to the concerts being held at the Fleet Pavilion or Bank of America Pavilion, or whatever they're calling that tent thing with overpriced beer now. Perhaps the bearers of this Special Pass weren't able to get backstage since they left this behind!

gbfb.org

This attractive button is advertising the Greater Boston Food Bank.

I found it on the ground near Park Street Station in Boston. Park Street is one of the major stations in Boston for both visitors and locals alike, so I always find the most dropped items there.

Hi, My Name Is...

I found this sticker on the ground near Park St. Station-- it was folded in half, so I scanned both sides and put them together. It's written in black marker on a name tag-sized sticker --perhaps someone is known as the "Bi Polar Express!"

Red Sox vs. Detroit Tigers

It wasn't long after May 16th that I found this ticket... it seems remarkably beaten up and crappified for only being a couple of days old. but then, looking at the Red Sox website, the May 16th game was postponed until the next day-- maybe the ticketholder was standing in the rain waiting for the game. I found this near Government Center in Boston.

I'm rich, Beeyotch!

I found Ten Thousand dollars today on my way to the train! A couple of weeks ago I found this poker chip. Apparently the red ones are normally worth $5. So, I'm $10,005 richer just from my morning commute! Ah yes, the Game of Life. I always hated that game--it seemed kind of stupid that whoever had the most money in the end wins. I mean, we all die, don't we? That's why I made up my own edition in high school, called either "Death" or "Get a Life." I never decided on a name, but in this game you get sex changes, lose kids in accidents (you can only gain kids in Milton Bradley's world), and in the end everyone dies. Basically nobody wins the game, you just play it for kicks (kind of like real life).

Anyway, back to the subject-- the design of this money is pretty grim. I mean, come on--the "10,000" fading into the bottom? It looks like some reject printing from a former Soviet Union satellite. I had a 10,000 whatever (dinar?) note from the former Yugoslavia sometime in the early 90s when I was there. I'd scan it to show you what I'm talking about, except some douchebag broke into my apartment last year and stole all my completely worthless foreign money, much of it from countries that no longer exist.

Here's a bank note from Latvia -- this is sort of what I'm talking about:

Swimming Medal

I found this swimming medal on the ground when I was in elementary school. I kept it in my "treasure box" with other things that could double as either pirate booty, hidden chests of riches belonging to rightful kings of the land, or other imaginary worlds that have need for lost treasure. I liked the laurel wreath on the back; it looked very Greek and stately to me.

Look, medieval coffin nails!

In Ireland, graveyards were often used over and over, people being buried on top of each other without rhyme or reason. This was the case in one little churchyard in Kinfenora, Co. Clare. There had been a recent burial, and the archaeologist who was leading my group around stooped down to examine the freshly dug dirt. "Look, medieval coffin nails!" he said, and held one up. I kept 2 as a souvenir. The chunks at the top of this picture once looked like the bottom nail; in the 9 years I've had these, they have crumbled to bits.

Andy is a Safe Driver. Unfortunately, he is also a forgetful driver. So forgetful in fact, he managed to lose his name tag in the snow somewhere in Oswego, NY in the winter of 1994/1995. Hell, it could have been spring or autumn-- Oswego gets snow pretty much 8 months out of the year.

I always hoped that Andy was a Manager In Training or some other such thing, and not that he had gone to MIT and this was now his reward.

Army Surplus earring

I just found this; I had no idea that I still had it. I found it in the pocket of a jacket I bought at an army surplus store when I was about 15 (ca. 1987). It just turned up again in the bottom of my hardware drawer. Go figure! The jacket is long gone, but the earring remains.

I was always intrigued by this really ugly, cheap earring. The "diamonds" are really bad imitations in plastic, and the gold colored sheen on the metal was wearing off in many places. Was it part of a pair that a soldier bought for his wife/girlfriend? Was it leftover from a night on the town? Was it the incriminating evidence from a cross-dresser?