Was that our very own Philocrites flashing up on the screen during last night's "Daily Show" report on "The New Journalism?" Why yes, yes it was:

My role? I supplied compelling visuals for the following bit of advice to would-be bloggers: "If you're liberal, you want to show people that you're smarter than they are. Try something obscure and literary." Eschaton (aka Atrios) and I were the two featured smarty-pants.

Looking out over Roslindale and Hyde Park from Grew Hill in Roslindale.

Prefer a more traditional Boston view? Here's a nice shot of downtown from the 15th floor of the Hyatt Harborside.

Rose is not impressed with the proposal to turn the old Assembly Square Mall into a "new urban village:"

... This new "urban village" is going to be at least as problematic as IKEA in terms of traffic and overloading public transportation. Will MBTA improve the bus service along that route? Will this place be pedestrian friendly? Will everyone living there have to own a car? Will there be coffeeshops, convenience stores, etc. in this forced village? How high will the residential rent be? Will anyone be able to afford it? Or will the city just be catering to the wealthy? ...

Joyce has the scoop - and makes you wonder: What were they thinking back then?

So yesterday Boston Sports Media Watch quoted an e-mail from boston.com Editor Teresa Hanafin on how we shouldn't take Boston Dirt Dogs "scoops" seriously because it's a blog, for God's sake. Today, Bruce over at BSMW pulls up an interesting post from Hanafin from last May, when boston.com announced it was buying Boston Dirt Dogs:

... We are going to hold BostonDirtDogs to the same editorial standards as the rest of the site, but we're going to work really hard NOT to squelch its spirit. ...

Note: To see Hanafin's original comments, click here and scroll past the stuff about boston.com acquiring me (something I think we can safely assume won't be happening).

Only click "read more" if you really have a newborn (or have had one in the past). Trust me.

Jay reveals:

... I have an outrageously strong gag reflex and couldn't even unfasten the diaper without trying to retch. So I went I gargled with a little Listerine wintermint before trying to change it. That was sufficiently overpowering and distracting to get me through it. ....

Jay, can you drop a line to Eric? He might appreciate the advice.

Goodbye FleetCenter.
It's now going to be the TD BankNorth Garden.

Alyssa discusses the challenges of driving in the Boston area:

... I have 400 different types of maps to the greater Boston area in my glove box.

The big issue that arises over and over again is that there are not a lot of signs. You sometimes can't figure out what street you are on. When the Democratic National Convention came to town this past summer – signage in and around downtown Boston improved greatly. But that only helps so much when you're on the edge of Jamaica Plain and you're trying to guess where next to turn. ...

Kristie reads about the latest dog electrocution and says she's trying to keep it from happening to her:

... I've taken to teaching Cash to walk AROUND anything metal on the street. But it's difficult because a) he's a dog and b) I'm incredibly indulgent even when I have the best of intentions and c) he's so darn tiny that walking AROUND for him can take like hours. ..

Which is probably good advice for people, too, given that even if the manhole covers aren't electrified, they could explode.

Frank's a newcomer to Waltham. He describes talking to a couple of locals at a garage about how to get to the Watertown RMV so he could get Massachusetts plates:

... Then the two of them got into a discussion about how long I'd be there and how slow it was at the RMV and how if I drove over to the Vineyard I'd get waited on much more quickly and could have my plates mailed to me. ...

Cape Cod Canal tunnel permits

Via H2otown.

Doubleperf reviews and photographs their show at the Somerville Theater:

... I'd never seen the brothers perform before, and it was a treat to see their brotherly similarities and interactions. ...

Ramon gets up early this morning to photograph the sun rising over the Back Bay.

Justin, meanwhile, has posted a set of photos of a snowy Arnold Arboretum.

You could drive by the Olde Irish Alehouse on Bridge Street in Dedham pretty much every day for 10 years and never notice the two carved swans up in the cupola atop the restaurant's roof (until one day you park nearby to take a photo of the old Waving Neon Chicken).

Jenn is outraged over the way dogs keep dying from improperly grounded or capped NStar wires:

NStar, stop killing dogs, goddamn it! ... I feel horrible for that poor family. It's awful. Can you imagine being a 13 year old kid just out walking your dog and then seeing him get electrocuted? Really terrible.

Interesting confluence of news out of Morrissey Boulevard today. On the one hand, we have boston.com editor Teresa Hanafin saying a blog written by a boston.com employee and posted on boston.com doesn't have to meet the same journalistic standards as other content on the site.

On the other hand, we have the Globe ordering tech columnist Hiawatha Bray to refrain from commenting on non-technology issues in his offhours on non-Globe sites.

The first case involves the Boston Dirt Dogs site and the question of whether its "scoop" on Nomar Garciaparra rejecting a Sox World Series ring was based on a hoax. Hanifin's comments come in an e-mail to Boston Sports Media Watch's Bruce Allen. The second involves anti-Kerry comments Bray made on a blog and mailing list. Referring to that case, Dan over at the Phoenix says:

Bray, in his posts, not only raised but answered questions about his neutrality. But he doesn't cover politics, which means it's questionable as to whether he compromised his professional neutrality. It might be different, for instance, if he'd written online that Steve Ballmer is the Anti-Christ.

Moreover, Media Matters presents no evidence that Bray campaigned for, demonstrated for, or endorsed anyone. Rather, he was expressing his opinion. Should he be able to? I say yes, but his editors obviously disagree.

More Hiawatha Bray/Swift Boat comments than you can shake a stick at

If you have a Universal Hub account (what, you don't? What are you waiting for?), you can get e-mail notification whenever somebody replies to a discussion you're interested in.

Unfortunately, as I type this, some jerk spambot is going through every single post on the site and posting spam. Fortunately, the site's spam filter is deleting them (so yay Bayesian spam filters!). Unfortunately, it does its work after the "notify" module sends out those e-mail notices. So my apologies if you get e-mail and then click on the link and find no reply where you thought there would be one.

I guess I need to either make a login a requirement for posting or install the module that doesn't let you post until you type in some fuzzy looking string of random numbers.

Oh, and Kahnawake Gaming Commission, Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake, Canada? You suck! So bite me, because the Kahnawake Gaming Commission sucks.

Marilora sends a hearty f-you to the driver of the 117 express bus in Eastie who, even though he had a red light and so had to stop in front of three people waiting for the "local" bus during yesterday's snow, refused to let them on:

... When you firmly gestured behind you with your thumb at the non-existant 114 bus, you showed us who was in control. You must have been truly annoyed when you had to stop at the next bus stop up the street and pick up passengers. Did some poor soul actually have the temerity to have to get off the bus, forcing you to stop and foiling you attempts at "express-ness?"

Beantown Search claims to index "the Boston Area's top 100,000 web sites." 100,000 Web sites?!? Zounds; makes you wonder about the bottom 100,000 Web sites in the Boston area.

The basic search seems to be good. I typed in "roslindale library" and it got me a link to the BPL's Roslindale-branch page; "Big Dig" brought up a relatively small but functional list of sites related to that project.

Seems to be in beta (I found it via Universal Hub's referral log) - some of the specialized links at the top (like "News" and "Find Business") don't work and the "Directory" is all messed up (but hey, for that, there's always Boston Links - and yeah, I run that).

Still, it's a cool idea; definitely worth playing with. For the techies, they're using Nutch, which is designed for large-scale search engines.