The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Charles Dodgson:

There's some public greenery closer to the Noreascon venue than the Public Garden, for those in need. A block or two south of the con venue, there's a nice ribbon park (which starts across the street from Back Bay Station, and goes roughly southwest, hitting Mass Ave. between Huntington and Columbus). On the north side, before you get to the Esplanade, you run into Commonwealth Avenue, which has a nice planted mall down the center, and lots of greenery in front of the buildings on either side. (This was actually deliberately planned as Boston's answer to the Boulevards of Paris).

Even closer, abutting the venue, there are the grounds for the Christian Science mother church, which don't have all that much greenery (mostly of the trees-stuffed-in-holes-in-concrete variety), but do have a nice reflecting pool and a fountain which may or may not be running. Depending on your taste, that may also be a good spot for a quiet moment in the sun...

@Charlie Stross:

I was (avoiding) referring to the Godiva shop in the Copley Place mall adjoining the Marriott. That hotel also has a sweet shop called "Truffles", I think, on the second floor near the footbridge to another mall, and thence to the convention venue itself. Truffles features Lindt and other imports, but beware -- some of it's been on the shelves for a while... it's probably worth the (short) walk to Teuscher's.

While in Boston, there's also the Teuscher's on Newbury Street, a few blocks from the conference venue. But I've met connoisseurs disdainful enough of them (Belgian is where it's at, I'm told, not Swiss; I report, you decide) that I hesitate even to mention the "chocolate" vendors -- cough, cough, Godiva, cough -- in the malls adjoining the venue itself...

I blogged this wrt scientific journals here, including a brief excerpt from the official OFAC explanation of their rules, which makes it quite plain that copy edits, etc., of works by the damn furriners are verboten. So no, Teresa, you aren't just being paranoid here. At least, not excessively paranoid.

The Patriots had a sellout football game yesterday. And about thirty inches of snow fell on the stadium. It wasn't pretty. The team actually clinched a playoff spot with the win, but an astonishing amount of talkshow airtime afterwards was consumed by people who were trying to go to the game, but never made it into the parking lots...

Comment statistics for Charles Dodgson on the Making Light blog

Total: 12 comments. View all these comments on a single page.