mapping

This is why online mapping programs are kind of ridiculous:

6.	Turn left at Nebraska Ave NW	1.2 mi
7.	Slight right at Tenley Circle	223 ft
8.	Continue on Nebraska Ave NW	0.7 mi
9.	Slight right at Ward Circle NW	52 ft
10.	Slight left to stay on Ward Circle NW	308 ft
11.	Slight right at Nebraska Ave NW	0.5 mi
12.	Continue on Loughboro Rd NW	0.2 mi

Ohhh ok. So those six steps, if you're counting? All one road. I especially appreciate the part where it tells you to take a slight right at Ward Circle, go 52 feet, then take a slight left to *stay* on Ward Circle. Then 308 feet later, be sure to get back on Nebraska! Wow, thanks, Google! Gosh, what if I'd gone 58 feet on Ward Circle before turning left to stay on Ward Circle? That would have been disastrous!

omg click now

I try not to blog at work, but I cannot resist linking to this anagram metro map my editor just sent around. This morning I took the Red Lien in the direction of Harvey's Dog! And I used to work near Woof-Gym Butt Gog....

facebook

Ok, I have to take back what I said. You know how I declared myself to be over social networking sites? Yeah. I joined facebook. But I wasn't going to socially network! It's not my fault! S.Vix and B.Vas were tempting me with tales of this game where you click on places on a map and you get points and it's awesome. So I joined and, indeed, it was. It's called the World Traveler IQ Challenge and I am no longer #1 among my friends because my cousin Haw Haw is better than me at maps, darn her.

Of course, now that I've joined, I also have to obsessively search for friends on it. Grr. Stupid social networking sites, sucking me in.

craigslist

Here's a weird thing about craigslist. So, I know people exaggerate the apartments they're offering to make them sound better. It's tacky, and it's just going to backfire when people actually *get* to the apartment and realize it's a hellhole, which means (hello) you've just wasted the time of showing it. But the weirdest is the lies about how close an apartment is to an important feature. Like, say a metro station.

See this ad for an apartment on Capitol Hill. The text says the apartment is "3 blocks to Union Station." Which would be awesome, right, because it's nice to be near public transportation, and also the closer to Union Station, the safer, on the whole. Ok. Except this apartment is totally not three blocks from Union Station. How do I know? Because there's a link to the map right there in the ad. Look at the map. See the apartment? See Union Station? In what possible numbering system is that three blocks?

I understand that for many ads, the person who wants to rent won't realize that the lies are lies until it's too late, but, I mean, this is *right there*. Dumb.

google maps just made my day

I actually said "ohmygod" out loud just now when I realized that they now have metro stations on google maps!!! So now when I need to go places on the metro (example: the wilds of Virginia) I can actually find metro stations! So exciting! This has always been a major flaw in the online mapping programs - they were clearly designed for driving and only driving, so if you wanted to know how to get somewhere on public transportation, you had to already know which station was closest and map the station address and go from there. Totally inconvenient. (Mapquest and Yahoo don't have metro stations yet.)

Now if Google could only figure out that Rock Creek Parkway switches directions during rush hour....

google maps

Holy cow - I just got on google maps and discovered that they have Japan now - down to the level of buildings. This map actually has the apartment house where I lived my second year. (From the 7-11, go north, turn right, turn left at the entrance of the school, and it's the long building on the left labelled "Shimoda Heights.")

And look! Here's the apartment building where my family lived the first year! From the train station (red) walk northeast along the white road. It's the gray apartment building on the left after the empty lot.