THE WORLD AT YOUR FINGERTIPS

If you have not downloaded your FREE version of Google Earth, you have to do it right now. It's the coolest time-waster I have ever come across. And I've wasted a LOT of time in my life.

As you are likely aware, there are satellites spinning night and day around our beautiful blue planet. It's a seemingly insignificant speck in the middle of a boundless cosmos - unless you happen to be stuck here. Then our planet is a massive, intricate patchwork quilt of worlds - all fused together to form a thin skin around a rocky, molten core.

This thin, fragile skin is where you and I play; microscopic dust mites on the face of a vibrant, heavenly body.

Some of these satellites rotating about us in the night sky are visible if you stare long enough. They look like shooting stars that never fade, steadily charging like slowly-drawn chariots from one horizon to the other. Perhaps you've seen one and wondered what it was doing. Sending you a television feed? Monitoring the weather? Spying on your neighbor?

A lot of these satellites take pictures. These pictures help us put together the jigsaw puzzle of our world. And now YOU can explore the completed jigsaw puzzle from a console in your home. It's truly an amazing gift to mankind - the ability to span the globe and zoom in to every nook and corner. Once the space-pod in your mind's eye has broken the stratosphere and sends you hurtling toward your destination, I recommend tilting the view so you can get a better perspective on the terrain.

Then take a simulated flight from New York to London to Moscow. Or climb Mount Everest. I just got through driving north along the Magnificent Mile, over to the beach where I played volleyball last night, then jogged slowly back to my apartment building. There was even a function that mapped all of the buildings in my fine city - including the one in which I live. Tapping the controls carefully, I was able to put myself on the 20th floor facing south. The makeshift architecture generated by the satellite feeds was eerily familiar. I turned looked out the window behind me and, sure as shit, the views were nearly identical.

A free computer program built from satellite images managed to simulate the view from my apartment. Pardon my language, but how fucking cool is that?

It gets better, my friends. The interface also allows you to search for roads, restaurants, hotels, banks, and anything else you might be looking for - all with the click of a button. I checked a tiny box and the names of every restaurant in my neighborhood came up on the screen in their location relative to my global position. I used the rotate button to spin around and new restaurants popped up in my field of vision. So not only is this program free and fun to use - it's useful!

I highly recommend you take a little trip to:

http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Google-Earth-Download-23512.html

Or click the header on this post - it will take you right there. You will be prompted to save the interface program to your desktop and install it. It is small, and takes roughly 30 seconds to complete. We only know one world - now you can explore all of it.

Stagger across the Sahara. Fly over the Falkland Islands. Look for a place to stay in Antarctica (I couldn't find any, so I'm going to be packing a tent for that destination). Zoom into a Hawaiian volcano. Take a cruise around the Caribbean. Have coffee beside the Eiffel Tower tomorrow morning. Technology has put the world at your fingertips.

I'll meet you in New Guinea around 5pm tomorrow...