The estimable Q Daily News pointed me at the High Line, an abandoned elevated railway across Manhattan. There are some absolutely beautiful photographs of the line on that side; grassy and overgrown, and looking very out of place in Manhattan.

Umberto Eco always has such cool things to say. “I calculated that I had saved the reader at least 25% reading time by shortening Dumas’s language. But then I realised that it was exactly those extra words and repetition that had a fundamental strategic function - they created anticipation and tension - they delayed the final event and were fundamental for the excellent vendetta to work so effectively.” A lovely little article on the nature of translations.

I cannot believe that there is a Web site dedicated to Vintage MBTA maps. But I’m glad there is.

Quirks to fix: the bookmarklet doesn’t seem to be setting categories. It’d be nice if titleless bookmarklet entries took on the first five words of the post as the title, as per Blogger API entries. Blogger API entries need to permit TrackBack by default. Edit: Blogger API entries now permit TrackBack by default. Edit: the bookmarklet is working like I want it to; I think I was just confused before. Addendum: I may skip the whole Blogger API thing and write a little AppleScript to generate entries straight from BBEdit.

Unknown Boston is my feeling that I should be doing something with all this free time; after all, I quit Asheron’s Call. It’s also my knowledge that the most successful campaign I ever ran started with an utterly complete set of character sheets for every NPC vampire in the city. I GM better when I have the setting fleshed out. It’s also my admiration for [the Quail](http://web.archive.org/web/20080724171759/http://web.archive.org/web/20080724171759/http://www.rpg.net/quail/ (original) “”) (original) and his New York by Night (original). Would that I could accomplish something half as cool.