March Madness is not just about basketball apparently.

Dunkin’ Donuts just announced that for all the remaining Mondays in March…

• March 8
• March 15
• March 22
• March 29

You can stop into a local Dunkin’ Donuts store and walk out with a free cup of coffee or iced coffee drink.

And it ain’t no “trial size” cup either like the size of those tiny rinse cups at the dentist’s office (I have no idea why THAT image came to mind, sorry folks!).  But you get the idea. . .

Dunkin’ is giving out free Medium cups of coffee for this March Monday promotion.

Now there’s something took look forward to on Monday mornings!

Are you thinking about stopping by to grab a free cup o’ joe?   Would you leave a comment with which Dunkin Donuts is the closest to you? Is it the one off Northfield Av by South Mountain Arena in West Orange?? On S. Livingston Av in Livingston? On Morris Turnpike in Short Hills?  Let us know in the comments below.

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MARCH 10 UPDATE:  Apparently, even though the promotion webpage announces the free coffee promotion with a clearly marked “FIND A STORE” link with the promotional message, that list of stores is in no way correlated with the “participating stores” list.  (Way to go Dunkin Marketing Team for thinking about the customer experience!)

Here’s the official list of markets where this promotion is live — NJ is not included in them:

The deal: get a free medium Hot or Iced Coffee at participating Dunkin’ Donuts locations in the following markets*, on the remaining Mondays in March:

Albuquerque, NM
Austin, TX
Beaumont, SC
Birmingham, Alabama
Champaign, IL
Cincinnati, OH
Chattanooga, TN
Clarksburg/Weston, WV
Colorado Springs, CO
Columbus, OH
Columbus, MO
Dallas, TX
Davenport, IA
Dayton, OH
Dothan, AL
El Paso, TX
Greenville, Spartanburg-Asheville, Anderson (NC/SC)
Houston, TX
Jackson, MS
Jackson, TN
Kansas City, MO
Knoxville, TN
Las Vegas, NV
Lexington, KY
Louisville, KY
Madison, WI
Memphis, TN
Milwaukee, WI
Mobile, AL
Nashville, TN
New Orleans, LA
Oklahoma City, OK
Pensacola, FL
Peoria, IL
Phoenix, AZ
Rockford, IL
St. Louis, MO
St. Joseph, MO
San Antonio, TX
Springfield, MO
Tucson, AZ

*Price and participation may vary. Plus applicable tax. No substitutes. One per person per visit. Offer valid on 3/8/2010, 3/15/2010, 3/22/2010 and 3/29/2010 only.

Do some spring cleaning and bring it to the parking lot of the Senior & Community Center (204 Hillside Av, Livingston) from 9am-2pm, Saturday, March 27 and be rid of it for good!

The township will shred your paperwork on site.

And if you have any of the following digital leftovers hanging around, they’ll take that too and have it properly recycled on your behalf for free.    You just have to drop it off from 9a-2p on that Saturday.

• computers and computer components
• monitors
• printers
• fax machines
• scanners
• speakers
• keyboards
• main frames
• telecom equipment
• TVs
• VCRs
• stereos
• radios
• DVD players
• toasters
• irons
• cell phones
• pagers
• PDAs
• diskettes
• DVD
• zip disks
• audio and video tapes
• inkjet
• laser printer and fax cartridges
• rechargeable batteries

BTW, you can also recycle your used up batteries at time of the year at the Livingston Library – they have a drop off bin by the front doors.

Due to the current snow storm, there will be no regular residential solid waste or bulky item pickup by Waste Industries on Friday, February 26th.

WHAT NOW?

• The Friday bulk item pickup collection will be done on Saturday February 27th along with the regularly scheduled Saturday bulky pickup.
• The Friday residential solid waste collection will be done on either Monday (March 1st) or Tuesday (March 2nd).

• Recycling Collection – Zone 5 (Fridays)
  Due to the current snow storm, there will be no regularly scheduled pickup of commingled recyclables in Zone 5 on Friday, February 26th by the First Occupational Recycling & Waste Inc. (FORWI). Weather conditions permitting, commingled recyclables in Zone 5 will be picked up on Saturday, February 27th.

Barnes & Noble of Livingston became bigger and better.  It now resides in the Livingston Mall as a new superstore retail location.

But at the same time, the Barnes & Noble on Route 10 off the Livingston circle is dead.

Completely empty, just waiting to be taken over or space split up and made into a strip mall of little stores and boutiques.  My guess is that someone like Whole Foods could come take over the location and do nicely.

It is so sad to see another restuarant option go out of business…this time the victim is Hale & Hearty Soup.

We never got a chance to try out the NYC-originated super-expensive priced soup joint.  I’m sure you’ve noticed too like us that every time we drove by the store was either empty or closed (at odd hours when you’d think a restaurant would be open).

If you recall, this is the cursed spot where Beyond Bagels used to be.

Wonder what other retail concept would work in this somewhat awkward location right off Livingston Circle on Route 10 Westbound.

Hope someone thinks of something gooooooood to replace Hale & Hearty…something a little heartier I guess! (sorry, couldn’t resist that one)

Looks like the Livingston Towne Center has another casualty.  Fresh City which morphed into a new concept restaurant to stay alive in the same space, Cafe Foozy’s, has now closed its doors as well.

If you look at reviews of Cafe Foozy’s, you’ll see that some of the “rave reviews” seem to be planted without any transparency.  You’ll see reviews that mention “and I just heard they do birthday parties too, I’m going to find out if I can book my kid’s next party there…” type of comments.  Given the lack of authenticity, this closing wasn’t such a surprise:

• Chow.com review
• FingerClickingGood.com/livingston
• ChowHound
• Yahoo Local
• UrbanSpoon

While you probably have figured out the satellite view and the real-time traffic overlay features, there’s also another neat little feature that lets you discover all the videos uploaded to YouTube, photos and webcams that are geocoded to different locations while you are viewing any section of Google Maps.

Whenever you upload videos and photos, more and more sites like Picasa for photos and YouTube for videos are letting you tag the media files with actual geographic locations.  Google is taking this geo data and integrating it with their map data just for you.

Check it out and *SEE* what’s going on around town!