Google Has a New Logo!

And New Zealand is getting a new flag.

Google. Always fixing what isn't broken and making it worse.

Take Maps for instance. Worked great before. Until they updated it, slowed it down and made it stupid. They give you the option to revert to old maps, but before they'll take you there, they want to know WHY you're reverting to the old maps. Because the new maps sucks and slows everything down and is stupid?

Maybe I'm not the guy to ask, since I use XP Pro at home (and Photoshop 7). Why? Because they work just fine.

Lately, I can't access the templates of some of my blogs hosted on Google's Blogger platform because...well...because THEY UPDATED IT AND NOW IT DOESN'T WORK ANYMORE.

"Refresh the page," they tell me. Good god, man! Is that your solution? "Turn it off and turn it back on again," is what techs tell end-users when they don't want to figure it out.

Here, Google: I refreshed. And I get a whole new error code every time! You guys are starting to suck.

You know, Google, I've been loyal to your stuff from WAY back, but I might be about done.

Saturated Street Scenes and Other Odds and Ends

Found this one on Google Maps at Hersheypark in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

More locally, a Salvation Army bell ringer at my local Publix has a style that suggests she has found joy in this volunteer position. She never uses the chair they provide her, and she's always dancing.



I've obviously not been doing much ad blogging. Other things seem to have overtaken this thing in importance. Like work, among other endeavors. I'm so far behind on current events, not to mention the stupid, echo chamber, self-love-fest that is the advertising industry. Here's how far behind I am. I only today discovered Bad Lip Reading's Obama song called "Trick the Bridesmaid," which is pretty good for a silly little song. That ridiculous chorus is stuck in my head. It's got a catchy hook.

Went to the mall yesterday. That was terrifying. Have to go again today. Can't wait.

Saturated Street Scenes - Seattle

We're calling this one "Hendrix on His Knees." - Threatening sky sold separately. See the actual Google Street View image here:

Click for a big version and see the rest in the series here, provided the stupid kitchen server doesn't give out, as it is prone to do every half hour.

Saturated Street Scenes: Prague

I'm calling this one "Lo, I Am With You Always"

Across the Vltava River from downtown Prague, Czech Republic, (where there is no shortage of opportunities for western dining, including a TGIF's and nearly a dozen McDonald's) is a nice public park called Letenske Sady. It was in that park one beautiful day on an unknown date that the Google Street View camera came across the scene of an innocent childhood game amongst some girls.

Creepy lurking clown sold separately.

Click for the large

You can view the actual scene here.

And all of the Saturated Street Scenes are here.

Saturated Street Scenes - Trégastel, France

It's low tide in the north of France. Click for the bigger.

Here's the map location.

All of these are archived here.

I'm Sure It's Happened

A modern tale of betrayal. (Poorly art-directed, I know, and thank you in advance.) Be sure Google will find you out.

Saturated Street Scene - Ireland

I'll call this one "Generations," found in Dublin. (The corner of First Ave and Seville Pl if you want to go find it.) Click for the extremely large version, print it on canvas, frame it and then send me 1200 €.

The entire Saturated Street Scenes series is here.

Saturated Street Scenes: Cialis Edition

The trouble with trying to duplicate the Cialis commercials is you need two bathtubs and you have to change the water regularly. Someone is halfway there in this latest Saturated Street Scene from Whalsay, Shetland Islands, Scotland, overlooking the North Sea. The entire series is here.

(Much bigger when clicked.)

Crossposted to all sorts of places.

Supersaturated Street Scenes - Montreal

Click 'em for bigness.

First view is in the Vieux-Montréal area, the oldest part of the city and apparently the most touristy. Then I randomly dropped the little yellow man in a suburb north of the city called Lachenaie, where some very colorful laundry flies in the backyard. Nice of the Google Car to cruise this area during a pretty season, grass so lush it almost felt wrong to pump up the saturation, but since that's the name of the series, I had to stay true.

(Camper, above-ground pool and white fence optional.)

Supersaturated Street Scenes - Brotherly Love Edition

There are some "photographers" getting a lot of attention for their cropped Google Street View images. Honestly, it's not that hard to troll the virtual streets and find cool things. Here's my latest. And here are some more.

Back To School

Click for much bigger, art gallery hanging version

Philadelphia, PA (N. 15th ST, between W. York and W. Dauphin)

One Fine Day in Downtown Charlotte, North Carolina

Super Saturated Street Scenes - Washington, DC

There are so many sights on Google Street Views; everyday and ordinary things, captured in a moment when a funny looking car drove by. Pump up the saturation level and the scenes take on a surreal and dreamlike quality. Or at least they do for me. I can find and frame scenes all day long.

Here a child is at play on the banks of the Anacostia River, apparently herding geese with a stick.

Anacostia Drive, SE, looking across to the District Yacht Club.  
(Click for the massive, full screen size)

This link will take you to more of my super saturated street scenes, and in cooperation with Google, all of my compositions will be brought together in a giant coffee table book available very soon*. When it's released it will be met with bookstore protests by privacy rights alarmists who think blurred faces and illegible license plates aren't enough to protect us from the evil Big Brother that is Google. "They drove by me! They took a picture of my house! We must stop this menacing intrusion!" Get over it. Your whole life is documented, right down to every item you ever purchased with your debit card. 

* Well, OK, not really, but I'm throwing the idea out there for Google to ponder.

Hope That Something Pure Can Last

This is what they will play for you on your deathbed, like the old man in Soylent Green watching the film of flowers before he's wheeled into the processor to become snack crackers. (Did I lose you, kids? Look it up.)

Indie band Arcade Fire, in cooperation with "some friends from Google," have showcased the capabilities of HTML5 with director Chris Milk through the website The Wilderness Downtown. Type in the address of a childhood home (or any address for that matter) and wait a bit. Provided you grew up in a suburb, the film will aptly reflect the title of the band's latest release, The Suburbs. (Is there something about Canadian bands and their obsession with subdivisions? "Any escape might help to smooth the unattractive truth," I suppose. Look it up.)

Having moved around quite a lot as a child, I watched it several times using different addresses. The birds cast shadows over your neighborhood and the running child can be seen from the birds' view on high, running down your old street. As he/she spins on the wet asphalt, the scene in front of your old house begins to spin. It's like a dream, honestly, up to the point where the film asks you to write a letter to your childhood self, which I found to be an overwrought stretch. I was enjoying a journey, not looking for a therapy session.

The video, as far as I can tell, is only viewable in Google's Chrome browser, and it's a little clunky. Even still, it's worth it. But believe the warning: "This film is processor intensive. Please shut down other programs and close unnecessary browser tabs. Doing this will enhance your viewing experience. Thanks."

Is it a clever promotion for Google's Chrome, still slow to be adopted after two years? Is it a smart publicity piece for Arcade Fire's new music? Is it a showcase for the capabilities of HTML5? Yes, yes and yes. What's more, it's a hauntingly beautiful piece of art, it's a good (and catchy, damnit) song, it's an unexpected trip into your childhood, and the lyrics recall an innocence that will make you nostalgic for the time before "the flashing lights settled deep in your brain."

Via

Super Saturated Street Views - "Moving Pictures" Edition

Some time back, I was cruising around the world on Google Street Views and came across a Porsche just south of Bellagio in Italy, meandering along the shores of Lago di Como behind the Google Street View Car. I thought, "That'd make a nice Porsche ad." Then recently, I was watching a Rush documentary and wondering, "How come no Rush music has ever been featured in a commercial?" UPDATE: MTLB thinks Rush music was used for a Nissan Pathfinder commercial some years back. Regardless, this will make that look like trash.

So, I'm combining the two interests - Rush and Street Views. Here's an ad made entirely from Google, including the pull-away at the end using Google Maps. I even took the tune from YouTube, where every song you ever wanted to hear resides for free, except the music of Prince, who has a crack legal team that will sue your ass in two shakes of a backup dancer's tail if you so much as THINK of one of his songs without asking.

And every Rush fan, be they old school headbangers or fans of "The Mullet Years" will agree, YYZ is the tune that unites every generation of Rush fan, and I've selected the best :30 of that tune. So here goes: I'm ready to be a one man crowd-source with this thing and take a couple hundred grand, 'cause I need a new roof. (And a Porsche, s'long as I'm at it.)

Here's the reasoning:

• Rush and Porsche are a natural fit: Power + Precision
• Some older Rush fans are wealthy now, even in this recession, and Rush fans are out of the closet. This tune will stop them in their tracks, guaranteed.
• Porsche HAS to be hurting in this economy.
• It rocks.
• It was easy and cheap. Took me a few hours. Keep in mind, this is spec. We'll make it HD and pretty in a nice studio somewhere. (It's the IDEA that counts, bitches.)
• It's an opening for Google to license their Street Views for commercial usage, seeing as they're out to rule the online revenue world.

Well, I guess I've opened up an opportunity for at least three entities to order me to cease and desist, and to them I say, "Live a little and lighten up." (And feel free to hire me. And of course we can work on my lame tagline at the end. But it's easy, cheesy and obvious, in anticipation of the client's desires.)

Supersaturated Street Views - Music Video Edition

If you search Google Street Views on this blog you'll see how long I've been fascinated (obsessed) with this aspect of Google's Total Domination of the Earth. They own my email, this blog, YouTube and the street I live on.

This video combines my one-guitar, one-voice rendition of the very dark American Blues classic "Dock of the Bay" with images of the San Francisco area as seen on Google Street Views, with the saturation pumped up a bunch to give it a dreamy quality. (Assuming you dream in color.) I found the mundane, the sublime, the silly and the sad just by dropping that little yellow man onto the map and moving him up and down the streets of this great American city, trying to frame each scene just so. I've only been to SF a few times, but I was captivated, just like most people who visit that very unique Golden State town. Now I feel like I've been there again.

If I get 1 million views of this video, I might just ride my bike from Orlando to San Francisco in support of some worthy cause, perhaps homeless veterans. I figure it'll take a little over a month. ('Course I'm gonna need a few sponsors, like a motel chain and a restaurant chain, probably a bike shop as well.) If not, I might attempt to sell this song or video on iTunes and try to get enough money to fix the roof, because it's leaking. If the estate of Otis Redding or the monolithic monster Google come after me, I'll jump from that bridge when I come to it. Short of that, just enjoy. And for best results, please crank it up.

Super Saturated Street Scenes - Easter Edition

One of my more random hobbies is Google Street Views. Just drag that little yellow guy onto any map and it's never the same. In this limited edition print, Jesus returns to East Harlem, helping out where he sees need, while somewhere on the other side of the country the militias cry out, "What about our needs, Jesus?"(Click for large.)

I've done my share of virtual travel via Google Street Views.

New Tuscany Condos Probably Won't Be Called Tuscan Pointe

In the actual region of Tuscany, I wonder if these two workers pouring a porch on a condo construction job realize that across the world, in the fabled land of L'America, upper middle class white people think that God created Tuscany just for them to imitate.

Be it tile, paint, furniture, real estate, food or drink, we will somehow attach this image to any item named Tuscan: A Sunny Afternoon Feast spread out on a Big Oak Table Outdoors with a Rolling Hills Countryside Background while a Gentle Breeze Blows through a Renaissance Romance. Ah, yes. People will pay for that image. They will pay more than whatever you're selling is worth.

Unemployment Will Make a Man Do Weird Things - Part 2

Regular readers of this blog know that I'm a huge fan of Google Street Views. So I decided to tour the country and see every state capitol building. It was fun. Here is a record of my trip, with an original track by the insanely talented Fred Leo of Atlanta, on which I provided the whistle. I hope this little half-minute lark goes a long way toward healing the deep divisions that threaten to tear our country asunder, but I'm a realist, and some of these state capitols are hideous monstrosities of architectural incompetence, built by stupid people in stupid states where all the opinions are stupid. So there.



More Google Street Views nonsense.

The Virtual Vacation

Also known as the "See America Randomly" time-waster game.

Summer's almost over. Were you deprived of a vacation due to unemployment or other economic woe? All is not lost, Citizen!

See America from the comfort of your computer or smart phone! No bags to pack, no tickets to buy, no kids in the backseat crying, "Are we there yet?"

Start at Google Maps with a wide image of the US.

Drag the little yellow guy (that Google stole from AOL) to the map.

Drop him randomly and thrill at the purple mountain's majesty or amber waves of grain.

Ahhh. Look at that! A mountain road in California! Friggin' beautiful!

Take screenshots of each of your map-drops and put them in an album on Flickr to share with your family.

Bonus! Works in parts of Europe, Japan and most of Australia & New Zealand!

Virtual Travel

I love Google Street Views. Sure, it's got shades of Big Brother, but it's not like they have live video feed from the street in front of your house. Yet.

I like to pick random towns and just parachute in to look around, maybe moving forward a few miles by clicking on the furthest shaded circle that appears when you mouse over the road. That new feature allows you to speed down a road faster than before.

Here are the four corners of the continental US, as far as Google has mapped them on Street Views. (Click for larger.)

Northeast: Hamlin, Maine

Southwest: Imperial Beach, California

Northwest: Blaine, Washington

Southeast: Key West, Florida