Each of us woke up one moment, and here we were in the darkness.

(This title a line spoken by the ballerina in The Twilight Zone's "Five Characters in Search of an Exit"; click to watch via IMDb/Hulu.)

I'm in a rather bizarre place. It's loaded with trees, and the ground is doing this crazy up-and-down business. I think I've heard that referred to as...hills? A while back, there was a stretch of civilization or something like it. I think it was called "Oceana". It had these gas stations I've never seen before: "Chevron" and "Sunoco". Since then, I've seen occasional dwellings amid the trees and neighboring creek over which there have been little, rickety, wooden bridges through which I'd think a car would bust but perhaps not. A "Logan County" sign was legible not too long ago. I've momentarily pulled into a driveway off this road which has only been labeled with an eerie "10" in a box — to write this "journal". So, what I know is this: I'm on State Highway 10 in Logan County, somewhere in the United States. And I figure I'm in the United States because every other country that has Street View has nice, clear, high-definition, where I can actually read signs (unless they're auto-blurred) and occasional license plates (that should have been auto-blurred). We only have some of that.

This is just one of my "hobbies" that I've taken up in my nights and often days with the computer in the corn and soybeans. I put on some good music, zoom the Google Map all the way out, move it around a bit, switch to label-less satellite view, center it roughly around the eastern States — eyeballed, y'know; sometimes I miss. I haven't tried this in other countries yet, although this low-resolution imagery in this country is rather persuasive in that direction. Anyway — I click on the zoom scale to go directly all the way in, drag around until I find a road with Street View, drape a thing over the upper left of the monitor so I can't see the informative pop-up that Street View provides, and proceed to "drive" until, through recognition of highway signs and other clues, I've sufficiently figured out where I am.

I've gotten to know some of the States: Indiana and my state of Illinois have square-shaped state highway logos with their names in them. Kentucky puts their state highway numbers in circles. Tennessee mixes squares for the thruways and triangles for the more "roots" roads. Ohio has Ohio-shapes, Arkansas has Arkansas-shapes, and Missouri has Missouri-shapes (with lesser "letter" highways in squares). But I've yet to pick out this state, which is crazy hilly and wooded and only uses plain squares with plain numbers. And I've yet to hit a US highway or interstate, which would help me gauge how far north/south/east/west I am. I'm tempted to say I'm in Appalachia, but I really don't know.

By the way, a quick tip for American travelers, be they in real life or, like me, on Street View: For interstates, lower numbers within two digits are generally farther west (for odd-numbered roads, which primarily go north/south) and south (for even-numbered roads, which primarily go east/west). For the old US highways, it's the opposite: lower numbers are north and east compared to higher numbers. Triple-digit interstates are specific to one metro or otherwise not so long. And state routes seem to be total chaos. As can be the occasional diagonal US highway. (Where is 52 going?) So, New England gets US highways 1 and 2 and interstates 95 and I-don't-know-what-even-number, while Cali gets US's 101 and who-knows and I's-5 and 10. Florida gets I-4, and the rest of us get numbers in the middle somewhere. Me, I'm physically at the intersection of US 45 and 150, and I 74, 72 and 57. And virtually, I'm in a delightfully bizarre place (except, too many churches). And I'm fixin' to see more.

On 3D Printers

Apparently, these things are becoming a real phenomenon now. They can essentially create duplicates of objects, such as household tools. It got me thinking:

In the Twilight Zone fourth season episode "Valley of the Shadow", a reporter finds himself basically held hostage in a remoter-than-remote town where such technology and beyond exists. The town can't let knowledge of the technology escape to the outside world where it will certainly be used for evil.

The reporter tries to escape. He does this at one point by "printing" up an object — a gun.

....Even after being told the reason that the technology can't be let loose on the world.

So, the question I want to ask about this 3D printer thing is: Which will it be used for first: printing up food (à la Star Trek) for the poor, or printing up weapons to eliminate competition for food (and other things; clean water, perhaps)?

Place your bets, folks.

(And yes, I did see the xkcd strip about this. There'll be plenty of that, too.)

Idea For a Corona Ad

For those who haven't seen the Twilight Zone episode "Eye of the Beholder": SPOILER ALERT! (You can look it up on YouTube and watch it before you read on.)

And for those who haven't seen the Corona beer ads on TV here in the States, they tend to base themselves on dialogue-less perspective tricks using the Corona bottles at a relaxed scene on a beach. And the more recent ones involve a couple on the beach (shot from behind) silently going at each other for ogling passing members of the other sex.

Anyway, my idea: Start with that same scene of the couple in their chairs. The camera zooms in kind of semi-slowly on one of the Corona bottles. Eventually, it gets too close and knocks it over. A voice says "Oops!" The camera zooms back out. The couple simultaneously turn their heads to glare at the camera, and it is here that they turn out to have the sort of faces that the majority of the people in the "Eye of the Beholder" world have.