The project continues in earnest and I’ve got responses from quite a few folks, enough to get started!

Here’s what I have so far. In parentheses is my best guess at pronouncing the place name. Let me know, please, if I’m wrong about either bit.

Bean               Lincoln	             (LINK-un)
Carol              Cardiff, Wales            (CAR-diff)
El10t              Near Fareham              (FAIR-um)
Henry The Thirst   New Haw                   (as spelled)
Lisa               Maidstone, Kent           (MAID-stone)
Lordhutton         Teignmouth, South Devon   (TANE-muth)
Miss Sixty         Leicestershire            (LESS-ter-sheer)
Omally             Southampton               (South-AM-ton)
The Merman         Portsmouth Harbor         (PORTS-muth)

If you’re in the UK and not on the list, I’d love to get your approximate location … nothing that would do a stalker any good or that would be unsafe to reveal, just the town you live in.

My original idea was to do this as a wall map. I’ve browsed around the stores here in Atlanta that sell maps, though, and the only one readily available is a folding Michelin map of the UK that is 40″ by 60″, with the map printed on both sides … I would have to buy two of them and tape the seam together, which would mean a map roughly five feet by six and a half feet. Too big.

I have also prowled around online looking for a map in either bitmap or vector form that I could print out on our large, “D”-size color plotter. Most of the ones I can find have really crappy resolution, though, and are really meant for online use. They’d look totally ridiculous if printed. It seems that the British “Ordinance Survey” have some nice detailed maps, but they come in quads just like our USGS maps do, so we’re back to the stitching/taping together problem.

Any ideas are welcome here.

The rains have descended on Atlanta and will not let up. It has rained every single day this week, and will rain all weekend by all accounts. Indoor recreation will be on the agenda this weekend, I think. Rain, particularly when it lasts for days at a stretch, really has a terrible effect on my mood. I guess it does that to everyone. I don’t have as much energy, and I tend to feel listless and unenthusiastic. My wife prescribes beer. The store down the street has four pints of Boddington’s that are calling to me! Hang on, 6PM’s coming.