Baristaville’s Jenny and Peter Skinner have created a free online service that you might just get addicted to: It’s called www.MenuNotes.com and it’s perfect for the restaurant mecca that is Baristaville.
Just sign up for a log-in at MenuNotes, then type in your thoughts about your favorite (and not so favorite) dishes at the restaurants you frequent. Next time you dine at a given spot, use your cell phone’s browser to connect with MenuNotes and check out what you wrote. You’ll never have to worry about remembering whether you’re at the restaurant with fabulous Pad Thai or the restaurant where the Pad Thai is a sticky, awful mess.

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Cabbage Patch dolls. Tickle Me Elmo. The X Box. And now … the iPhone.
David Pogue’s review in the Times almost makes it sound like magic. “You can enlarge a Web page — or an e-mail message, or a photo — by spreading your thumb and forefinger on the glass,” he writes. “The image grows as though it’s on a sheet of latex.”
Wow. My heart speeds up as if I’m hearing a description of a David Copperfield magic show or a particularly neat trick in a Harry Potter book. It almost makes me want to plunk down $500 in order to participate in the mad collective thrill.

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FREE! Catch the fireworks show tonight, 7:30 pm at Brookdale Park. You”ll want to bring a blanket to sit on, but it looks like you can leave the umbrella at home. (weather.com says there may be some clouds, but no rain.)

You’ve heard of Dress For Success, the charity that helps underprivileged women prepare for professional life. When Bobbi Brown heard how DFS was helping women look good, she decided she to kick it up a notch, and make them feel like a million dollars. From CNNmoney.com:

…she heard DFS founder Nancy Lublin speak about how she’d started the charity with the $5,000 her great-grandfather Poppy Max had left her.
An hour later Brown left the venue inspired. She started offering makeovers for women who were getting outfitted by DFS. And recently, as a way to mark her 50th birthday, she ran the group’s 10th-anniversary gala and set a goal of raising $1 million.

She surpassed her goal.

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Rrrriiipppp….
That’s the sound of folks tearing open letters that are arriving today from Montclair BOE with kindergarten placements. Where did your kid end up?

This summer’s annual beach guides seem to be rolling off the press on a daily basis to give us the latest ranking: most beautiful, quietest, best boardwalk, the most family-friendly. Which one is worth the drive? With gas prices soaring, you should know which of the NJ beaches is the most expensive. From Asbury Park Press:

The most expensive public beaches on the Jersey Shore are right here in Monmouth and Ocean counties, according to the state Public Advocate’s second annual beach guide released Thursday…Sea Bright, Monmouth Beach, Avon, Spring Lake, Seaside Park and Surf City all charge $8 for a daily beach badge while Mantoloking is one of only three towns — the others are Longport and Margate — that do not offer daily beach badges.
Mantoloking’s season badge is $12, and daily beachgoers are charged that rate even if they only visit that town’s beach once this summer.

Baristaville, are you headed to the beach this weekend? Tell us about your favorite sandy spot – in and out of the Garden State…

…some drivers may get more than just a ticket. From Lt. James Carlucci at Montclair PD:
Arrest: A traffic stop on June 28 led to the arrest of Tumba Cool, a 26-year-old resident of Montclair. Shortly before 11:00 am, an officer observed a black Volvo traveling south on North Willow Street. The man in the driver’s seat not wearing his seat belt. The officer pulled the vehicle over on Glenridge Ave near Bloomfield Ave. A registration check revealed that Cool had warrants for him from Montclair in the amount of $600.00 and in Newark for $120.00. Cool was arrested and transported to police headquarters.
There were also two thefts reported:

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Tomorrow, (Saturday, June 30th) from 10:30 am to 2:30 pm (rain or shine), head over to Marion Road in Montclair for what’s being described as a “rather huge multi-house tag/garage sale.”
Furniture, television sets, stereo equipment, books and cds, some great cook cook books will be spilling out onto the front lawns of six or more homes.
For those who are old school, who want nothing to do with DVD or downloads, there’s an impresssive VHS movie library up for grabs.
Ms. Laura Linn will be selling an assortment of her world famous homemade cookies…(people around Marion Road have grown accustomed to her amazing baking during the Holidays.) There may even be some 4th of July appropriate libations poured for friends, neighbors, and customers. Sounds like a block party where you pick your own party favors!
For more events and sales this weekend, see our Calendar.

It wouldn’t be a holiday weekend without new parking rules to follow. An announcement in the Montclair Times from Montclair Parking Authority says the Church Street lot – that’s the one destined to become the site of Hotel Caliplofker – has a new central pay station…New regs take effect July 2. Read the details here.

In Glen Ridge and Bloomfield, the Annual Sunset Classic Run is tonight. Here’s where not to drive…

Starting at approximately 7 pm in Bloomfield on Broad Street at Pitt Street the race will start and continue North on Broad Street to Sunset Avenue traveling into Glen Ridge. From Sunset Avenue the race will turn South onto Forest Avenue traveling the entire length to Osborne Street back down to Broad Street into Bloomfield.
Vehicles traveling in the area will be restricted to residents. Expect traffic delays on Ridgewood Avenue, there will be police officers along Ridgewood Avenue to assist in directing you to your location.
Alternate routes into Bloomfield are Belleville Avenue or Watchung Avenue.