You Are Here!

Lately I’ve gone a little Frappr Happy.

I attribute it back to the fact that I’ve always liked those maps you see in public places like malls, the zoo, etc, in which there’s a little dot indicating that “you are here.” The fun joke, of course, is to stand in front of the sign and in a very loud voice (so that passersby can hear you) exclaim: “Wow, how would they know exactly where I’d be standing right now? Isn’t that freaky? I guess Big Brother really is watching.”

A few days ago, my buddy Pete Mitchell and I were talking about how many different people around the world we seem to “know” just via the large blogging community on the internet. I know it’s not cool to get all giggly about the technology, but I think it’s just so darned neat in how the internet has allowed us to connect not only with people around the world, but also with people within our own communities. Funny how the "world wide web" helps connect you to a person in the same city, sometimes on the same street, or within the same company.












Snapshot of visitors to my blog in the past few months

And recently I’ve gotten a great kick out of creating personalized maps on the internet using Frappr, which allows people to put their own “pins” onto the map, their own little “I am here” indicators. I got the idea when Osbasso, the mastermind behind Half-Nekkid Thursdays created an HNT Frappr map. I find it fascinating to see where in the world different people are.

For example, I created a map for One Hand Screaming called Screaming Hands Across America, because I thought it would be neat to see where people who’ve read my collection of horror stories are from. About a week later, I created a map for my old high school (Levack District High School - LDHS) because I thought it would be neat to see where ex-students now reside. (So far, of course, I'm the only member -- yes, just like in high school, there I stand by myself, the big nerd that I still am)

But because this is like an itch that I can’t stop scratching, I’m also going to create a map for my serial thriller told via blog: I, Death.

Someone stop me. I’m getting a little out of control.