You, the player, using your own name and gender, play the character of a longtime friend of Grace and Trip, an attractive and materially successful couple in their early thirties. During an evening get-together at their apartment that quickly turns ugly, you become entangled in the high-conflict dissolution of Grace and Trip

I wouldn’t keep posting these Google Map hacks if they didn’t keep getting so darn awesome. The ability to customize Google Maps has been around for a few months now. But it has typically involved things like sending requests to various servers via Python proxies and altering XSL stylesheets (i.e. not for the faint of geek).

GMapTrack, on the other hand, looks easy enough for AOL subscribers to use. Look! Surveillance cameras in Vancouver!

Fill out a simple form, and bam — you’ve got a map. Your map nodes can have images, links, captions, etc. The next logical step is either Robin or I actually making a map with one of these things. With this one, I might just try. (Unmediated.)

Word It is a monthly project by the design collaborative Speak Up. Every month, they post a word, and anyone can submit a 5×5″ image illustrating that word. Very simple, yes. Surprisingly absorbing. I think this is my favorite (the word is “pleasure”).

Where do you put a 9-year reminder to yourself? I figure I’ll put this one here, since I’m sure that 9 years down the road, when I’m perusing through the Snarkives as C.O.O. of Snarkmarket, Inc. (and chairman of the board of directors for the Snarkmarket Foundation, natch), I’ll come across this post and say, “Oh yes. I must get on that.”

So — Note to future self: If the Vermont High Court didn’t unseal Howard Dean’s records back in ’05, go to Vermont and dig them up. You may be the only person still curious about what’s in there, but still. It’ll be a nice getaway for you.

Color me mind-blown. (Waxtastic.)

This unofficial Web applications list is fantastic. My favorite is the Brilliant Button Maker. (Via Tim Yang.)

There’s also a brilliant list of color palette resources out there, but I only have the link bookmarked at work. I’ll put it here when I find it again.

Update: Tim Yang also notes this helpful list of Web developer resources.

Ouch. EPIC’s third tour through MetaFilter is not so auspicious. Hype. Backlash. The circle always comes around in the end.

Apparently people have been going nuts with the BBC API BBC’s RSS feeds. The BBC Backstage blog (“Use our stuff to build your stuff”) is currently blowing my mind just a tad. Bayesian news filtering! BBC.icio.us! Extract names and places from stories! News maps galore!

All of it is hella beta, but also scrumptious. Why is the BBC so awesome?

Kevin Drum just wrapped up an excellent five-part series on peak oil and its portents. If your eyes aren’t already glazed over, take a read.

For its 80th anniversary, The New Yorker is releasing a DVD collection containing every single issue of the magazine — cover, ads, articles, cartoons, everything. Only $100.

Umm, can every publication in the world do this immediately, please? (Via Kottke.)