This weekend we in West Boylston celebrated the towns Bicentennial with a art show, bonfire, grand parade and ended it with a fantastic firework show. It was indeed a grand weekend with hundreds of people showed up for the arts show and thousands showed up for the grand parade and fireworks. I took part in helping my mother set up at the art show and I was impressed with both the amount of people set up, and the amount of people that showed up. I saw the bonfire set up and from what I saw it was going to be huge, I wasn’t in attendance but from what I’ve heard it was big and well attended. Overall the day earned an estimated $20,000 for the West Boylston Arts Foundation which is great news because money is needed to protect the arts in West Boylston.

On Sunday was the grand parade and how grand it was. There was thousands of people in attendance and it was great to see the town come together and celebrate as one. The parade had over 2000 participants of various acts and floats. Some of the highlights were the Shriners and their different cars and bikes, the West Boylston school system and their floats, UMASS Amherst band, UMASS Lowell band, and many many classic cars. One of the let downs was the WalMart truck and Dunkin’ Donuts truck, they were both out of place. The day ended with a fantastic fireworks show at Goodale Park and the football field. It was resemblance of the old West Boylston Days and a great way to end a great weekend.

Banner Article of the weekend

Telegram and Gazette Photo Gallery

Towns Photo Gallery of the Parade and all events

Some pictures of the Parade in the ‘OntheCommon.com’

Today was the release of the Zune 3.0 software and they finally added a clock. That whole update was worth it just for the clock. But 3.0 also brings a lot of nice features and improvements. After the release of Apples Genius feature where it picks songs that match your taste, the new Zune software comes with Mixview which is:

Dynamic representations of your collection, as well as artist and song recommendations based on what you and other members of the Social are listening to.

Its quite interesting to play around with, Jesus Diaz gives a good review over at Gizmodo. Some of the other more notable features added are games (Hexic and Texas Hold’Em), browse Zune marketplace by WiFi, buy from FM, which when your listening to a song on the radio you can add it to your cart and buy the song next time you sync it with your computer. Another notable feature is Zune Channels, which if you have a Zune Pass you can subscribe to the channel and it will add songs to a play list based on your listening habits. You can get a complete rundown of what’s new here.

Overall I think this new software is a step in the right direction for Microsoft and for the Zune team. I am glad that when I had the chance I chose the Zune over the iPod. Hit the jump for a couple of screen shots of the new software. I also scored a free episode of The Office off of the Zune Marketplace!!! So that along with the clock addition made it worth it.

If you haven’t heard already Google came out with their own web browser today called Google Chrome. Google Chrome is a browser that looks to compete with the IE market share more then the Firefox market share. Chrome is an open source browser but is currently only made for windows PCs. There is however a portable version for your thumbdrives. Overall its a pretty impressive browser however it does have a long way to go. There have been some talk about it being a little intrusive about your personal life but nothing that bothers me, yet at least. The second thing was the amount of ads that I saw, I hope when this takes off somebody ports over AdBlock Plus for it, then it would be useable. Hit the jump for some screen shots and things that Chrome does.

Its been awhile since I’ve posted, there’s been a lot going on in the month of August/September. The most important thing being my sisters wedding. The wedding was perfect, went off without any problems at al, good weather, good food, interesting dancing. The week before her wedding I spent it in Key West Fl, for Sean’s 21st birthday/ graduation present. That vacation was amazing after dealing with “Hurricane Fay.” I’ll post a couple of pictures on the next page. Other then the wedding and Key West I’ve been busy moving, and juggling three freelance jobs. Its a lot of work but I’m handling it well and all of the projects are fun and creative. Hit the jump for the pictures.