NORAD Tracks Santa

NORAD has been tracking Santa Claus since 1955. Why? To make sure they don't accidentally mistake him for a nuclear warhead and shoot him down! That would kind of suck, wouldn't it?

Where is Santa right now? Follow him on NORAD's Santa Tracker:



This screen capture was made when Santa was on his way to Thailand.

Happy Christmas to you all.

It's Beginning to Look Like an Ebay Christmas

According to Ebay:

Every minute, every second, every nanosecond — someone's taking advantage of eBay to find that special item they love. Others use eBay to sell great stuff. It's a match made in shopping heaven.

The Ebay animated map shows sales throughout the day yesterday; the so-called "Black Friday" of Christmas shopping. It makes the United States look like it has been decorated with Christmas lights...

At least if you do you Black Friday shopping on Ebay (or Amazon), you don't have to worry about being trampled to death...

HT to Matt

Here Comes the Flood

In honor of the flood in my basement last night, I share this worst-case-scenario map of global warming:


From Bits & Pieces

Not relevant to maps, but still funny, in a dark way, these are the Christmas cards we're sending out this year.
From The Onion: Merry Second-To-Last Christmas

Maps in Advertising

As I mentioned in my first post, finding this ad in a magazine really caught my eye:



Obviously, it is not a literal "road map", but the metaphor of a road map is that the customers of this Lexis-Nexis product will be able to find their way through complex information sources, without getting lost. Anyone who has ever used a road map to navigate through unknown territory should be able to relate to this ad, especially if you're the type that doesn't like to ask for directions...

When I saw this ad (1991?) I was not so familiar with the Lexis-Nexis corporation, or Ohio geography. So, I didn't appreciate at the time that they were using an Ohio road map. The floppy disk map includes Dayton where their U.S. corporate headquarters are located.


A map of the world, or a globe, are other common themes for advertising:

I guess it wouldn't be Christmas without a Bacardi drink



Obviously the advertisers are not using the globe as a way to indicate which planet they are on...

CS First Boston is rather transparent in their intentions

Perhaps they want to indicate their "global presence"...

Of course, MCI is now part of Verizon

or that their product is useful to everyone on the planet...

Does mean that CIBA is part of the Flat Earth Society?
and sometimes, it's just silly.

An Everlasting Piece, 2000, directed by Barry Levinson. Has anyone ever seen this film?