There's something about traveling around the island virtually with Google Street View that combines the creepy, the voyeuristic and the fascinating.

Now that Oahu and Maui have been added to the popular Google Maps feature, exploring the islands in this way can occupy hours and hours of leisure or work time as you check out the houses you used to live in and guess at the prices of your old squeeze's current abode.

What are all these people frozen in time to do when their friends call them up to ask: "Hey, Edwin, what you doing crossing the street near the strip joint on Keeaumoku?"

I have a particular interest in the girl in the pink dress on our roadway who appears to be struggling to get into a car. Who the hell is she and what is she doing on MY street?

Beyond this rather rude curiosity, the Google Street View feature is a practical way to drive to a new destination so that you don't get lost when you do it in real life. It doesn't show all of the Oahu and Maui streets, only those that Google shot with its special 360-degree camera hoisted on top of a Googlemobile. So unless the street is outlined in blue in street level view, you will run into the dreaded message informing you there is no photo available.

For the most part, however, the major streets are shown and landmarks are available — so it is perfect for the visitors who want to plot out their vacations. For the rest of us? I would brace for the discomfort to come when the Internet stalker you can't shake smiles and says: "Nice house."

Now, back to these Hawaii people frozen in Google Street View: do you know any of these folks? Where and what were they doing when they were captured? Let us know. We'd like to celebrate their immortality.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at 12:12 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.