Boston's roads are so convoluted that they are commonly (but erroneously) said to follow 19th century cowpaths. The first quintessentially Boston experience most newcomers endure is getting lost. Bostonist's advice to incoming students, partners and spouses of incoming students, itinerant bankers, post-docs, junior faculty, and whoever else might suddenly find themselves calling Boston home: Get a map. The Motion Affair Planner (MAP) Boston, created and published by local entrepreneur Morgan First, is a good choice.......

For the past few months, Bostonist has engaged in a scientific experiment. We've been sniffing around T stops to find out which ones are the most pleasant and which ones are an offense to the olfactory nerves. Each day this week, we'll evaluate the odors you will find at various T stops. The Red Line offers so much variety that you just might get dizzy--or drunk: Central Square: 40s, vodka, burnt rubber, more 40s,......

Google Street View has been available in several cities but has now made its debut in Boston, according to the Globe. The process allows you to take a 360 view of an address. If you want to use it, just go to Google Maps, type in a Boston address, and click on the little yellow man that pops up at the address. A new window will appear with a street-level image of the area. You......

The guy who drove the tanker truck that exploded in Everett is officially Blotter material. Not only did Chad LaFrance have some driving trouble on his record, but he admitted to issuing a bomb threat in 1997. The Globe quoted what he wrote on a package at a UPS store where he used to work: "Tick. Tick.Tick. The time is running out. UPS Sucks. Danger. Explosive illegal bombs enclosed. Watch handling." His aunt called it......

--House speaker Sal DiMasi is renovating his office and is shouting from the rooftops that he is paying for "most" of it and really needs new carpet. Unlike some people. [Boston Globe, with picture of carpet with nasty stain on it] --Moved by Governor Deval Patrick's plan to bring gambling to Massachusetts, Donald Trump--along with his hair--has been looking for land. [Boston Globe] --In related news, whoever makes maps at the Globe might want to......

Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair November 16-18 Hours: Friday 5-9 Saturday 12-7, Sunday 12-5 Hynes Convention Center Directions | Tickets (Purchase $15 weekend tickets on Friday, or $8 for Saturday or Sunday only) If nothing turns you on like yellowed pages and musty smells, the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair is for you. From a copy of Ariel inscribed by Ted Hughes to an original copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone with promo......

View Larger Map During today's "Rolling Rally," be sure to thank Jacoby Ellsbury for stealing a base and earning everyone in the nation a free Crunchy Seasoned Beef Taco. If you are looking for a taco after the rally, your best bets are the Taco Bells on Comm Ave, at Cambridgeside Galleria, and in West Roxbury. Even if the promotion is somewhat absurd, at least according to the transcript of Royce Clayton and Coco Crisp......

You know those TGIFriday's commercials, where they portray the hard workers of today sitting at a round table and laughing, drinking, and eating inexpensive but tasty comfort foods to celebrate the end of another work week? Not this time. This Friday, it's time for a fast, light meal and one or all of the variety of events going on in this city. It seems there's been a lot more nightlife lately, with parties happening left......

Earlier today the home page of Channel 5's website carried a story about a Massachusetts bridge closure in prominent position. It's since been buried on the site. The story with the headline "Mass. Bridge Closed After Minn. Tragedy" evoked imagery of any of those bridges we reported on earlier, I-91 closures as it crisscrosses the Connecticut river, or some span over hills on Rt. 2, or even more local like the length that leads over......

Londonist are starting to think their city is getting just a little bit too expensive, when even Christian Slater can't afford to go out there. And there's no escaping, as local singer Lily Allen discovered when she was barred entry to the US. The British mapping agency caused further bad karma, by blocking a 3-D representation of London in Google Earth. But the smiles returned to Londonist's faces as they interviewed Baroness von Reichardt,......

Jason Bailey may have been chasing the car that eventually crashed into a tree on Blue Hill Avenue and Callender Street yesterday morning. That crash killed a passenger, 18-year-old Porsche Hubbard, and injured the female driver, a 10-year-old girl, and a baby. The DA's office announced that 28-year-old Bailey, of Mattapan, was arrested and charged for the crime yesterday, and he is being held on $100,000 bail. That announcement says that Bailey was allegedly vicious......

Sam Adams is the flagship beer of the Boston Beer Company. On the tour of the brewery in JP, they'll tell you that there are a couple of reasons they call themselves "The Boston Beer Company" – the two most compelling – the name was available when Jim Koch started the company and they're located in Boston. A deal was announced today that will put the Boston Beer Company in a position to purchase a......

The Boston Public Library is all jazzed because it wants the Copley T station's name changed to "BPL Station" or somesuch. Apparently, Mayor Menino and some local pols are behind the BPL on this, and are sponsoring legislation to have the name changed. Pro-change parties cite Boston's quaint precedent of naming T stations for nearby landmarks, a la "Suffolk Downs," "Aquarium," and "Airport." For the past five years, the T has rolling its eyes......

It's hard to believe there's a Major League team we know less about than the Diamondbacks, but there is, and they're coming to town starting tonight. Who and what are these Colorado Rockies? The popular conception is that the Rockies are a team loaded with sluggers, who benefit from the thin air of the Mile High City. That may have been true a decade ago, but right now, they're a young team full of promise......

Holy smokes! Giant fish on the MTA, Paris Hilton in jail, then out, then in again, Al Gore, goatses, blumpkins, Matt Damon, and baby art critics! It's been a busy week across the Ist-A-Verse, and here's a smattering of what's been going on. In Gothamist's neck of the woods, they found out that many things are possible: A man caught a 40+ pound fish off the Rockaways and took it home on the subway. Graffiti......

Seattlest has a talk with the photographer from last week's "Segway Mom" and then experiences some dissension in the ranks over the question of wine vs. beer. It's not West Side Story, but about as close as they'll get. They're also still waiting on some inbox relief after a spammer is arrested. As Chicagoist counts down the days to its third anniversary party, they found all-organic pizza to be underwhelming amidst the hoopla, tried......

E. Forbes Smiley III received a $2.3 million restitution fine in addition to his prison sentence for thefts of nearly 100 rare historic maps. It has been nearly two years in the making. E. Forbes Smiley III (it's such a great name, can't we use the whole thing all the time?) was caught by a Yale librarian as an X-acto knife was found near him. It was discovered he had some rare maps from the......

Every day for the last week month it seems we've read something in the papers about the Mashpee Wampanoags and their move to set up a casino. Will it be in Middleborough? New Bedford? Palmer? Some other Massachusetts town? It's not clear where they're going to open up just yet, but two things are certain: 1. the Mashpee Wampanoags receive their official federal recognition this week and 2. We'll hear the word "bingosino" a lot......

How do you measure, measure a year evacuation route? Self-described new media artist, kanarinka is undertaking a project to evacuate Boston and count every breath taken. She's up to 20,271 to date over the combined eight runs. Each leg is mapped out on a Google map and recorded as a podcast you can listen to. She's estimated that by the time she's done with the project she'll have taken 154,000 breaths while running the entire......

As if we needed another reason to head to Dunkin Donuts, Rachael Ray is selling us on the caffeine that we've come to need as residents of Boston. Yesterday, when we posted a story about two guys who had hit up 40 Dunkies in 17.5 hours over 350 miles, we thought that the record could totally be beaten. Reader Dave Bonner shows us that there are, in fact, more than 50 Dunkies in a......

Zooming in on the South End/Roxbury in Google Maps something interesting showed up: the gentrification line. The high resolution images are in their satellite database for all of Downtown and Back Bay. Most of the South End is included, but once you cross over Mass Ave, into what we generally accept as Roxbury, things aren't quite as clear, they aren't as green either. Back in January the Globe ran a piece called "Breaching Mass......

This afternoon, before the sloppy snow began to fall, a 22 year old man was struck by a Taxi on Huntington Ave near Forsyth St. The taxi clipped the rear wheel of the cyclist and sent him under the rear wheels of a nearby dump truck carrying a full load of scrap concrete. Northeastern News reports that police recovered a fixed-gear bike (with mangled front wheel), a cell phone, a right shoe, a messenger bag,......

Bostonist would suggest that if you're looking to get from Boston to London you check out the number of international flights available on any given day. Apparently Google Maps makes a different suggestion – 3,642 miles of swimming across the Atlantic Ocean, a stopover in France, and a crossing of the English Channel. It is not surprising that the Green Line won't get you there. Via Digg......

a Herald review shows passengers at busy MBTA stations such as Forest Hills in Jamaica Plain, Ruggles in Roxbury and Dorchester’s Ashmont stop are most likely to be victims of assaults, robberies and other mayhem. Watch out, "other mayhem" may afflict you next time you're looking to hop a train. The Herald has a write-up today (with interactive -but incorrectly labled (thanks for the tip reader GreenLine) - maps if you head to the website)......

There have been a lot of reports about problems with the MBTA's online mapping service. Most of them arise from the trip planner which has all sorts of bugs that are still being worked out. One thing that is noticeable when you look at the map overlay of the T's routes is the connect-the-dots manner in which stops are connected. We recently came across a map that accurately maps the T's actual routes (as......

We were thinking about how clever presidential candidate Barack Obama must have been to find parking in Cambridge, tickets be dammed. And then we saw the latest in ridiculous rates in this city. The Globe reports, "At least seven garages are charging for parking in 20-minute rather than 30-minute increments, and many of them are collecting their all-day rates for periods of less than two hours." Many places are charging $6 for 20 minutes or......

Uncle Google unwrapped another Werther's and handed it to us. Again, with butterscotch goodness in our mouths, we're totally giddy. Today's sugar high comes in the form of real-time traffic information on the Traffic button toggle on Google Maps. Major roads from Worcester to Boston and northbound and southbound from the area are color coded. It's also available in Providence, Springfield, Hartford, and many cities nation wide. The official Google blog gives us insight......

It's tough to not envy our Austin peers these days, as the sonic ear candy that is South by Southwest looms in mid-March. Without the ability to hop on a plane and hightail it to Texas, many have been left to look at initial lineup announcements and imagine wandering Sixth Street with happy grins on their faces. A new tool on the official festival site could add to the bitterness, but it can also......

Stephen Puleo will be reading from Dark Tide: The Great Molasses Flood of 1919 on Thursday afternoon at 2:30 pm. He'll be in the English lounge of Wheatley Hall on the U-Mass-Boston campus. Forget what you know about molasses - molasses is fast, as North End residents discovered on January 15, 1919. The story isn't told as often as it should be - a tank full of 2.3 million gallons of molasses fell and burst......

Today the Globe ran a piece on Jackson Square. Void from the coverage was any mention of "cultural center," ample coverage was given to "crime stricken area." Jackson Square a precarious area between Roxbury and Jamaica Plain has been discussed as the anchor to the stretch of Centre Street to be renamed "Avenue de las Americas." Though we haven't heard much about the renaming initiative since it was first floated back in August. Avenue de......