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things that are useless
April 27, 2005
online maps.
i decided last night that i'd get up and run congress (the street i live on, now) to the capitol, turn around, go back up congress to oltorf, then back down to my place.
"hmm... how far might this little run be," i wondered aloud to myself. my cats looked up briefly, then continued to lick themselves. they have long resided on the ever-growing list of things that are useless.
so, i put the same question to several web sites on the home computer contraption, which at the time was already being helpful filling my room with "the postal service," which i have been digging a lot lately. a stupid promotional sticker on its cover, if written by me, might read, "beautiful, quirky poeticism, put to nintendo music."
mapquest declined to simply tell me how far it is from the intersection of Congress and Oltorf to 1200 Congress. instead, it felt it would be better for me to run out oltorf for .8 miles out to the interstate, run up the highway for 2.4 miles, exit on 15th street, run down it for half a mile, before arriving, exhausted, reeking of carbon monoxide, and possibly, well, dead, at the capitol building. all for a one-way total of 4.49 miles, and a grand total just shy of 9 miles.
out of curiosity, i asked it how best to go from my apartment on congress, to the capitol building, which looms unmistakably at the end of my street. again, the mapquest god clearly has a mysterious plan for us all. i should head straight for my visible desitnation, drawing closer, closer, then, when i've gotten within six blocks of it, turn left on 6th street. wander down for .6 of a mile to lavaca, then turn north again, all the way to 15th street. then double back.
then i remembered - this was the same mapquest that billy used to make maps to his rehearsal dinner back in 1997. maps that took us not the few miles to the restaurant, but over the border into louisiana, through hamlets in east texas that don't cotton kindly to an asian boy and a hippie mezcan driving through lost.
microsoft's expedia was a bit more helpful. it isn't trying to kill me. it agrees that if i can see where i want to go down the street, that i should just head straight for it. but expedia reports the distance from oltorf to the capitol as 3.4 miles, which means i ran 6.8 miles in just under 56 minutes this morning. possible, flattering, but probably unlikely.
granted, at 7am this morning, it didn't really matter much. it was cool out, i had the postal service bopping along nicely in my head. kids played ball down by the school. people groggily clutched their coffee outside jo's coffee house. 1 mile, 3 miles, 10 - maybe it just doesn't matter.
still, i wonder how long it would take me using my tape measure...
Posted by Rob at April 27, 2005 09:17 AM
Comments
Hey you, where do you live? I live in that 'hood in condos behind the TreeHouse restaurant. Which, by the way, is a sucky restaurant without a full bar.
Posted by: sherry at April 27, 2005 03:06 PM
i've never been to the treehouse, and no one has ever recommended that i should. how do places like that stay in existence?
anyway, i'm right across from the school for the deaf (pronounced "deef" by many), in the complex that has the starbucks in it.
it's cool, except that, not until moving in did i really notice the demographic... all greeky college-aged kids in bmw's, range rovers, etc. it's like living on west campus.
on some weekend evenings, i plan to shuffle around in slippers and a bathrobe, looking as old and disheveled as possible, shaking my fist and crabbing at the frats and their bimbo minions ("bimions"? "minimbos"? "onions"?), and telling the "damn crazy kids" to slow the hell down in the parking garage.
Posted by: Rob at April 27, 2005 03:42 PM