Second Negative

Never Lost, But Often in Doubt

Down here at the Second Negative headquarters, we make trip plans instead of taking trips. It’s not our fault, we had to mow the grass. If I could find a way to permanently stop working, while still drawing a paycheck, I’d get around to solving some of these problems.

Gas is too damn expensive to be driving anywhere anyway. And since I can’t find a decent alternative to the dinosaur juice, I’ve been forced to start riding a horse everywhere. Which is exactly what you guys in Delaware thought I was doing already, but Trigger didn’t come with an air conditioner and Texas only has one season. Hot.

Let me give you some free advice. When you need a relief map, a road atlas probably isn’t going to work. Not that I’m talking about anyone in particular. I have two very nice road atlases from Rand McNally. I love maps. Statistics and maps. Football, statistics, and maps. And spaghetti, but only if the noodles are cooked right. I spend a lot of time looking through my road atlases even when I’m not thinking about going anywhere. I like how everything seems to fit together, and the relationship between locations, and the layout of the highway system. Places often seem closer together on a map. Especially if you stop factoring in bathroom breaks.

I’m always looking for a better route, even when I don’t know where I’m going. Sometimes I’m looking for the scenic route, but the map only provides details like the location of every Dairy Queen in Texas.

I’ve been using Google Maps for a few months now. What do you use the satellite view for? I’ve already looked up everybody I know. Which is pretty much the same thing I did with the other satellite image sites. If I need to get somewhere and the address won’t pull up, I just put in “Austin, TX” and then I start pulling the map around. The “pulling around” feature might be my favorite part of Google Maps. Those directional buttons Yahoo has are for chumps.

The only part that bothers me is the directions. Google Maps gives out the same crappy directions that every other map site gives out. What are these directions based on? The simple route? The straightest route? It’s certainly not the logical or quick route. For instance, this is not the best way to go from Austin to Roswell. That’s at least an extra four hours in the car with the kids, or the woman, or whoever says things to you like “are you sure we’re going in the right direction?” Nicole says that to me when I pull out of the driveway.

Let me end by giving out a shout out to Kansas. Hey Kansas, why do you exist? I mean really. Other places have already done the whole “nothing” thing. And your version isn’t that good. Seriously, merge with Nebraska.