Is Big Brother Watching?

• Posted on April 15, 2008
• by Karen Fayeth
• 1 Comment

To my Albuquerque friends, welcome to the fray.

According to today’s ABQjournal, ya’ll are getting Google’s “street view” maps.

They photographed the streets here in the Bay Area a bit back. It’s both cool and creepy. Cool in that when I’m going to a restaurant I’ve not been to before, I can take a look, see what it looks like and spot it more easily from my car. Creepy in that I looked up my home address and by God, there it is. On a nice clear sunny day.

It was a quiet day in my neighborhood. I’m not there, at least not outside. Not like the scores of people who are up in arms over how they’ve been caught on Google’s camera, like this couple who have even filed a lawsuit.

It’s something of a game online, web forums dedicated to finding nekkid people on Google street view. And yes, by the way, there are quite a few. Some worth seeing…others, notsomuch.

Street View really is a fascinating thing. I mean, it can put you “right there”, which is cool. When they are done with Albuquerque, I fully intend to look up lots of favorite places in a homesick kind of way. I may gaze longingly at the Garduño’s location on Academy for hours…(it’s not there yet despite the article saying much of Albuquerque is already done)

I just looked up the house I grew up in. It’s there. And the residents have totally redone the house. Almost didn’t recognize it. Whoa! (bastards took out my mom’s rose bushes!)

Ok, it is also pretty creepy. Especially when you see people caught unawares as the van rolls by.

On Sunday, The Good Man and I were waiting for a table at our new fave breakfast place. While leaning against our car, I heard a van rattle by and pause. It caused me to turn around. Turns out Microsoft might be launching a similar service. At least that’s what the van said on the side. So there I’ll be, face hungry and agog on yet another street view service. Just. Great.

Creepy.

At least I had my clothes on.

For fun: top 15 street view sightings. No nudity on this one, just FYI.