In between writing repair orders at work, I found myself again gazing at that wonder called Google maps. I check out a new city or area when I get the chance, and finally another town I’d lived in was available…good old Gainesville, seemingly forgotten by Google and that satellite shutterbug miles way in the upper atmosphere.

Now I can look at all the great and nostalgic sights, the University, the curvy roads I’d driven on (and wished I’d found), the intersections, the places now giving way to construction, and all the other natural places that I could never see unless I was flying over it. That’s what I like about the satellite maps, it offers a completely different perspective from what I normally see, unless you fly a lot.

The other day, I was checking out a site about customized Lexuses. Someone had a set of wheels by the brand name of Junction Produce. Excuse me? How in the heck did they pull that name off? There’s nothing to do with junctions or produce…nothing at all! A junction is where two things meet, and produce is coming that grows from the ground and gets sold in a market. It has nothing to do with car customization! How the heck do these marketing departments choose English words, from randomly pointing at words from a children’s dictionary?

I’m returning my own salvo: I’m creating new Japanese words with random kanji, because you can be darn sure that I’m not going to stick to katakana just because I’m some sort of gaijin. That’s completely 港倉 (minato-kura) [harbor-storehouse].

I’m driving in Round 9 of the Board Challenge 6 competition for Gran Turismo 4. Here’s my replay file for AR Max owners.