Seven-seven-seven

Seven meals for seven bucks a pop, all during the seventh month of the year. In these days of high prices for everything, doesn’t this sound good?

Well, the Halfway Cafe is doing just that! During the month of July, you can choose from any of the following tasty entrees, for only $7 a pop!

Shrimp Scampi Ravioli – Shrimp filled ravioli, finished in a scampi sauce served with mixed greens.

Mexican Lettuce Wraps – Grilled marinated fajita seasoned chicken with tricolored tortilla strips on lettuce leaves served with salsa, sour cream, shredded cheddar, avocado, and flame roasted corn and peppers.

Buffalo Mac & Cheese – Creamy macaroni & cheese tossed with buffalo chicken, baked with herb bread crumbs.

Calzone – Our own dough filled with Italian sausage, peppers and onions, with mozzarella and marinara.

Pulled Pork Sandwich – BBQ pulled pork on a toasted roll served with cole slaw & Halfway fries.

Asiago Ham & Cheese Panini – Virginia ham, swiss cheese grilled apples, and whole grain mustard on grilled Asiago focaccia served with Halfway fries.

Spicy Turkey Salad – Grilled marinated turkey tenderloins in a spicy Cajun dressing, with peppers and onions, served on a bed of summer rice salad.

This is not fancy gourmet cuisine, but it’s tasty enough, and you can’t best it for seven bucks! We’ve only eaten at the Marlborough location, but I imagine the food at all of the other locations is the same. In addition to Marlborough, you can visit the Halfway Cafe in Dedham, Watertown, Canton, Holbrook or Marshfield.

If you go to their website, you can sign up for their email list, where you can get a coupon good for a free meal for your birthday.

The Halfway Cafe has something for everybody…tables so that the whole family can dine, and a separate bar area which is a great place for watching your favorite Boston sporting events.

So, if you think you can’t afford to go out to eat, think again!

Dear MBTA…

…WHEN exactly are you gonna let people re-up their Charlie Cards online?  As it says on your website…

Card users pay only the standard T fare while ticket users often pay a surcharge. In 2008, card users will be to access Charlie Online to add value, sign-up for “No-Worries Protection” to insure the card from theft or loss and auto-reload the card.

Newsflash!  2008 is half over now!  Will this happen sometime this year, or not?

I am frustrated because I have a plastic Charlie Card, and I have no idea how much money is on it.  I don’t ride the T that much, so it’s not like I have a commute and walk past Charlie machines every day.  Nope…I am sitting here, in my house, with no way to put money on the card so that I can walk across the street and get on the bus.  And if I don’t have enough money on the card, and have to pay cash, I’ll get hit with the surcharged fare.

You know how, on the commuter rail, you can buy tickets on board the train?  But if you are buying a ticket on board, when you got on the train at a place that has ticket booths, such as North Station, they hit you with a surcharge.  This, I see as reasonable.  But if a passenger gets on the train at one of the smaller stations that does not have a ticket window, the surcharge is waived.    They don’t make people drive to a further away station just to buy a ticket at a window.

But the way the Charlie thing is now set up, I DO have to make a special trip to a T station so that I can find out how much is on my card, and put money on it.  My feeling is that the T waive the cash surcharges, on buses only, until the online account management stuff is up and running.  Then they can put the surcharges back, to get people to use either the machines or the online account management system.

I don’t think they should waive it on the trains, because you are at the train station, where they have Charlie machines.  The last time I looked out the window, there was NOT a Charlie machine at the bus stop across the street.  Probably a good thing when I think about it, in this neighborhood, it would probably get vandalized anyway.

I kind of feel that the infrequent T rider is being penalized by the bus surcharge thing.  I have a doctor’s appointment in Medford on Wednesday, to which I must take the bus.  Why call my husband out of work to take me, when it’s easy enough to get there on the bus?

So I guess I’ll have to pay the inflated cash fare, and when I get to the Malden Station, if I have enough time between bus connections, I can re-up my card.  The only other thing I can do is wait until Mike comes home, and make a special trip to a station fill the card ahead of time, so I’m not fumbling with coins and all on the bus.  But that uses gas.  Okay, not much gas, but still.

If I could do it online, I could have taken care of this in far less than the time it took me to write this post.  Get with the program already, MBTA!

A 4th of July alternative…

…to going to see the Boston Pops at the Esplanade?

I honestly don’t see how people can go to this. It’s mobbed, you have to wait in line for hours to take a leak in a porta-john, it’s hot, and it takes forever to get home, whether you drive or use the MBTA.Yeah, you can stay home and watch it on TV, WBZ has it on this year in the Boston market. But what if you want to go somewhere and enjoy REAL fireworks, in person?

I have the answer…go to a minor league baseball game! There are several teams within an easy drive of the Boston area that will be offering a fireworks spectacular after the game. They turn off the stadium lighting, and let the show begin!

Where you go should depend on whether you live north or south of Boston. The idea is to avoid having to drive through Boston at all, because it will be especially be hell trying to get home if you do.

We live north of Boston, so we decided to get tickets to the New Hampshire Fisher Cats July 4 game.  Manchester, NH, is just an hour north of Boston, but I guarantee that you will likely get there, and get home faster than if you took the T into Boston for the Esplanade thing.  The Fisher Cats are the Class AA affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays, and they have a beautiful ballpark.  Last I checked, plenty of good seats are still available.

Another north of Boston option is to go to the Portland Sea Dogs game, which is two hours north of here.  The Sea Dogs are the Class AA affiliate of the Boston Red Sox.  They’re having fireworks on the Fourth, too, but if you want to go, better hurry.  Their tickets sell out FAST!

If you live south of Boston, check out the independent CanAm League Brockton Rox.  Yep, they are also having fireworks after the game.  And if you are closer to Rhode Island, the Pawtucket Red Sox (Class AAA affiliate of the Red Sox) are also in town, offering post-game fireworks.

Yeah, you have to pay to get into the ballparks, but it’s cheap…the most expensive tickets average around ten bucks a pop, with many cheaper options.  You have a seat to sit in, you get to watch a game, and they have REAL bathrooms with little to no lines…unlike those nasty porta-johns at the Esplanade.  And you don’t have to get there at the butt-crack of dawn to snag a place to sit, you can buy your tix ahead of time!

For more info and tickets, visit any of the teams’ websites.

He done did it…

Neil Entwistle Found Guilty Of Double Murder

Long story short, for those who are living under rocks:  Guy is having money problems, and is also unhappy with his sex life.  He “found” his wife and baby daughter shot to death in the couple’s bed.  No call to 911, then he runs off to England, where his family is.   Entwistle is accused by the crime and is returned to the U.S. to await trial.
Never any doubt in my mind that he did it.  I’m surprised that it too as long as it did for the jury to decide this.  But the prosecution had tons of evidence, and the defense only had the lame-o theory that Rachel shot the baby and then herself, with her stepfather’s gun.  DNA evidence on said gun showed otherwise.  Neil had access to his father in law’s house, from which he stole the gun.  I believe he put it back after the crimes were committed.

His computer history showed him looking for sex on the internet, as well as cheap flights to England…AFTER the murders.

Well, I’m glad that this is finally over, and Neil Entwistle will be spending the rest of his days with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as his landlord.  And I bet he’ll get roughed up in the slammer…he’s one of those “pretty boy” types who will find himself with a big guy named “Spike” as his “special friend”, if you know what I mean.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy!

A better way to go to P-town?

Provincetown, on the Cape, that is.

Believe it or not, I have never been to Cape Cod.  I’ve heard all about the humongous traffic jams, and how it takes forEVER to get there and back.  So we just never did it.

But I’ve always wanted to see the Cape, and I thought I’d found a better, quicker, easier way to get there.  I saw an ad in the Boston Globe for Boston Harbor Cruises…they have a high-speed boat that goes from Boston to P-Town in about 90 minutes.  They have service from Gloucester, too.  It’s advertised as a good way to take a day trip there.

I checked out the website, only to find that to go from Boston to P-Town would cost a whopping $71 a pop!  $80 a pop if we went from Gloucester.  So for the two of us, that would be $142-$180, just for a day trip.

That is a bit steep.  I know, gas prices and all are high…but we could save money, but not time, and just drive there.  Driving would be far less than $142, that’s for sure!  We have a Ford Focus, which gets about 30 MPG.

Also, there is nothing on the BHC website that says whether or not the ship is smoke-free.  Yeah, a lot of these boats in Boston Harbor allow smoking outside, inside the cabin is non-smoking.  But what is the point of going out on a boat if you can’t be outside, enjoying the nice sea air and sights?  There are some scenic cruise lines that we avoid because we found that they allow people to smoke on the outside decks…no fun for us!

Maybe we will plan a trip to the Cape in the fall, after Labor Day, when it’s less crowded.  And yes, we’ll be driving.  It costs us about $40 right now to fill the tank of the Focus, and I doubt it takes even a whole tank to get to the Cape.

Plus, our car is a guaranteed smoke-free zone!