I Was a Kaleidoscope

Rorsch Map is a really addicting site for me. It takes Google Map images and turns them into kaleidoscope pictures. You enter a location in (as specific or broad as you want), and then morph it to your liking (e.g., zoom in/out, move it up/down, drag it in/out, etc). I'm a big fan of aerial pictures and the organized patterns of streets and buildings, so I can't say I'm surprised this became a huge consumer of my time. I love the geometric designs.

Here are some images I created while messing around (Note: As they're kaleidoscopic pictures, you'll notice they are mirror-images and not an exact replica of what the city looks like. Also, while zooming out from a picture, it might be that the location is no longer in the city bounds. But I listed the city name that was my starting point):

Paris

Outside Paris

Vancouver

Vancouver (Look at the shadows created from the buildings)

Vancouver (Spanish Banks)

Washington, DC (National Mall)

Barcelona

Barcelona

Venice

Miami

Salt Lake City

Salt Lake City (U of U stadium)

Reykjavik

Copenhagen

Waikiki Beach, Hawaii

Madrid

St. Catharines (for Emma!)

London

London (London Bridge)

Cadaques, Spain

Cadaques

This Brings Me Back

Bubblebathos has a funny tumblr site where she uses free association words to describe different bands. I don't necessarily elicit all the same associations that she does, but I find them entertaining and funny. Like for Taylor Swift, she came up with things like: hoping there are fireflies at your first kiss, ballet flats from Target, canopy beds.
Rage Against The Machine: Refusing to say what you're thankful for at Thanksgiving, graffiti on a freight train, vegan burritos, camouflage cargo shorts.
The Postal Service: Being a graphic designer, "Sent from my iPhone", pretending you were interested in something before you read about it in the New Yorker/Believer, Douglas Coupland, participating in a Miranda July project.
The Kinks: J.D. Salinger books other than The Catcher in the Rye, owning records without owning a record player, telling someone you like the smell of old books, archery.
Beck: Wearing a baby blue tux to prom, Pete & Pete, eating cereal for every meal for an entire summer.

What really took me back to my old middle school days was her perfect description for The Cardigans:

Baby blue nail polish, Tamagotchi bans, buying deodorant for the first time and smelling all the options, trying to make your room look like a dELiA*s catalog [!!! - I totally forgot about dELiA*s catalogs! I loved those!], convincing your mom to let you use Sun-In, jelly shoes, gel pens, having a crush on a boy with a floppy middle-parted bowl cut, having a birthday party at a bowling alley, amassing bracelets/keychains, sticker earrings, Goldfish crackers in a ziploc bag, dingy white cotton spaghetti-strap tops from GapKids, imagining your first kiss, comparing what shampoo brand/smell you use, practicing bubble letters. 

I would also add Doc Martens, reading Seventeen magazine (even though you aren't 17), idolizing Gwen Stefani (because girls kick @$$!), mini backpacks, scrunchies worn around your wrist, choker necklaces, those metal ball and chain necklaces, zig zag headbands, Airwalks, calling *69 to see if it was your crush that just called your house and then hung up, watching a lot of MTV.