🐶 The Puppy Bowl > The Super Bowl

It’s Thursday, Boston.

💜 Finally, some good news: 18 dogs taken in from LA fire zones are officially ready for adoption in Mass. (shout out to the Animal Rescue League of Boston!). You can see all the available pups here. Coal, a lab mix, is clearly adjusting well to the snow. 

👀 What’s on tap today:

• Our snow week starts NOW

• Boston’s most popular dog names

• A BPL wedding

Up first…

FEBRUARY FREEBIES

We LOVE love … and free stuff

Unpopular opinion: February SLAPS. You’ve got the Super Bowl, Valentine’s Day, Black History Month, and the return of post-5 p.m. sunsets. If January is a 1, then February is a solid 6.

Here’s how you can enjoy it all this month without spending a dime:

🪩 Skip the bar cover AND get free food. No, you’re not dreaming, it’s just the Make Friends After College FB group throwing yet another sweet party. They’re going out to Howl at the Moon on Feb. 7. You’ll get free entry till 9 p.m. (just drop the group organizer’s name “Lucian”), and a free appetizer buffet from 6 to 8 p.m.

🐐 Experience a gathering of the GOATs. And by GOATS, we mean Tom Brady (obv). Time Out Market is hosting a Tom Brady look-alike contest on Feb. 8. So whether you or a friend are spitting images of TB12 (or even a bad dupe), it’s your time to shine. The winner gets a $200 cash prize and the most wild fun fact ever. 

🐶 Watch the Puppy Bowl IRL. Deciding whether to root for the Eagles or the Chiefs is like choosing between getting eaten by a shark or a tiger. But everyone wins at Park-9 Dog Bar’s annual Puppy Bowl on Feb. 8, where you can watch adoptable (!) pups duke it out on the field. The best part? The post-game puppy meet and greet. 

💏 Is physical touch your love language? Buenas at Bow Market is turning into a kissing booth on Valentine’s Day, and we are so here for it. Hugs and kisses (on the cheek) are free, but you still gotta pay for their empanadas. Though it sounds like they might offer a special discount for singles. Note: We’ll have tons more Valentine’s Day events for you next week. <3

🎥 Watch Boston’s biggest hits on the big screen. The Wang Theatre is celebrating its 100th b-day with the Century Cinema Series, showcasing famous films where Boston is one of the main characters (think: “Good Will Hunting,” “Legally Blonde,” “The Departed,” and more). 

🖼️ Visit your favorite Boston museum fo’ free! The Red Sox Foundation is partnering with Boston’s Museum of African American History to provide free admission and tours for all museum visitors from Feb. 21 to 23. You can also head to the ICA on President’s Day for free admission (just order your tickets the day before). 

🏂 Shred the gnar at City Hall Plaza. Or at least, watch the pros do it. Some of the top snowboarders in the country will show off their best tricks on rails, gaps, and other crazy contraptions as part of Red Bull Heavy Metal on Feb. 22 (think: the Red Bull cliff diving event, but for snowboarding). You can get a taste of it here.

CITY

Quick & dirty headlines

❄️ Snow day? More like snow WEEK. Not one, not two, but THREE storm systems appear to be hurtling toward New England over the next week. No. 1 kicks off this morning, with snow, sleet, and general dreariness on the menu. Expect 1 to 4 inches of accumulation, followed by a light glaze from freezing rain. Long story short: Working from home might be the move. The timing of the next two storms are still TBD, but this weekend and early next week look like our next victims. Keep up with the latest forecast here.

🚨 Mass.’ emergency shelter system could get a BIG overhaul. House lawmakers have given their official response to Gov. Healey’s proposed changes to the state’s right-to-shelter law via a $425 million bill. In the name of cutting costs and tightening security, the bill seeks to slash the number of families allowed in the state shelter system for a year (from 7,500 to 4,000), cap the length of stays at six months (from nine), and offer shelter only to proven Mass. residents and U.S. citizens — with some exceptions. 

🧑‍💻 Local students are reportedly working for Elon Musk’s DOGE team. Now that’s a sentence we never thought we’d write. Two students from Harvard and Northeastern (a 19- and 22-year-old, BTW) reportedly hold “critical” positions in Musk’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). It’s not exactly clear what their roles are, but we know Musk’s team now has access to “classified, sensitive, and personal information” of tens of millions of people, and that both students have previous links to Musk. It’s giving … “the work is mysterious and important.”

🐶 BREAKING: Charlie and Luna remain Boston’s most popular dog names. The city just dropped its annual list of most popular dog names where all the Charlies, Lunas, Milos, and Bellas got their moments in the sun. The Labrador retriever continued its reign as the city’s most popular breed, with 1,671 registered, followed by the golden retriever (749) and the Chihuahua (421). This is also the city’s friendly reminder to local pet owners that you have till March 31 to license your furbaby (all of which can be done online, by mail, or IRL).

POP QUIZ!

🐕 What’s the SECOND most popular female dog name in Boston?

ONE LAST THING

Get married at the BPL

Want to get married in one of Boston’s most beautiful, iconic buildings … but don’t want to pay the price? We have a solution. 

The BPL recently plugged its one-hour weddings program on IG, which, as the same suggests, allows folks to throw a one-hour wedding at the BPL — complete with 12 guests, ceremony decor, and a photo-op — for just $200. 

Applications are open now, so if you’ve been looking for a reason to lock down your Valentine … consider this your sign.

— Written by Gia Orsino and Emily Schario

😍 Thanks for reading! We’re hoping to continue our streak of getting invited to one wild local wedding a year  … any takers?

🍛 The results are in: Looks like B-Side Certified is headed to Ssaanjh! 38% of readers voted for it for next month’s edition. One said: “Pleeeaaase let this be some good Indian food in the Greater Boston Area, FINALLY!”

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