Diablevert

Banzai!

I'm coming to you now from during a break from Green Curry V. Red Curry: Amory Products Showcase Showdown! (In which two currys, each with onion, mushroom, carrot, chicken, fish sauce, soy sauce and coconut milk face off in a deadly battle for the favour of my taste buds, thus proving the inherent superiority of their green or red natures) to say hi.

I was bouncing around the internet the other day, like you do, reading Amira (and Emma-who-was-in-my-writing-workshop-and-is-friends-with-my-friend-Tristan’s (hi Emma!)) articles in The Morning News when I stumbled onto this guy’s piece, which led me to his website and thence to Google Maps where I did indeed plug some address into their satellite-photo finder, as I’m sure you’re all about to open a new window and do. (Just click on “Satellite” in the top right-hand corner if the link don’t work for ya.)

Is that, or is that not, creepy as a motherfucker? It reminds me a bit---don’t laugh. . .okay, laugh---of the scene at the beginning of Real Genius* where the highly advanced satellite tracking system is able to send a laser down and completely incinerate a man in a panama hat while leaving the frame of his wicker chair standing. It’s more than somewhat fucked up that, 20 years ago, the idea that one could have the ability to pick out a single individual anywhere on earth with a satellite made people go, “Man, if you could do that you could create a terrifying government superweapon,” whereas now we just go, “Neat!”

It is pretty neat, though, clicking down the zoom from the map of the world to your own address. For while it’s quite unnerving to watch the finger of god single you out---your house, out there on the internet, where anyone could find it---the sensation you get from clicking down the levels is a visual manifestation of a nine-year old’s pleasure in writing down his address---my room, my house, my street, Dublin, Ireland**, Earth, the Milky Way, the Universe.

Okay, so maybe Google hasn’t yet archived the extreme verges of my list, above. But I think it might be just a matter of time…

*Val Kilmer in bunny slippers, in 1985, was hot, okay? I know he’s all bloated and stuff now, but pre-Iceman (and way pre-Doors) he had a delightful insouciance, instead of a real-cocky-prickhood.

**Actually, they don’t have street-level for Ireland yet. Which I find something of a relief.

P.S. Red Curry won. Damn, that shit be spicy, though. The rice simply does not cut it as a heat deterrent; you need a piece of buttered bread to accompany. Both curry pastes suffered from the flaw of all canned spice mixes---way, way to much salt. I think maybe I’ll devote some future Sunday to learning how to make them better. Onward and upward with the cookery! Diablevert out.

P.P.S. Man, I’m in an awfully silly mood this morning.