Firstly, Toronto is a nightmare to try and navigate if you need anything more than a simple subway trip or single bus route. Have you ever pulled up the PDF bus routes map from the TTC website? It is a rats nest. Additionally the TTC has one of the worst transit websites that I have ever seen and I wouldn’t trust them further than I could throw a trolley car to improve it. If Google is able to integrate TTC and GO Train data it would make navigation in Toronto as easy as breathing. Perhaps that is slightly exaggerated but you get the point.

Secondly, students who are looking for Off-Campus housing here in Kitchener/Waterloo would have a much easier time of learning the route they would need to take everyday instead of trusting landlords to tell them or having to figure it out from the GRT website. I would certainly be integrating walking directions into our Off-Campus housing and Sublet systems.

I wonder who I have to pester to get GRT, GO Transit and the TTC to open up their routes to Google.

The other day I caught myself frozen on the Google home page with my hands poised on the home row and a blank expression on my face. It certainly wasn’t the first time this has happened so now I am looking to find something to blame, after all it can’t be my fault. I certainly can’t have forgotten what I was going to search for that is just crazy talk.

Let’s see here… Hmm. Ok got one.

I blame the austere whiteness of the standard Google search page! I hit the page and get lost in its snowy emptiness. Why can’t they fill it up with lots of Ads, links, tools and other stuff. The distracting page would then make me focus on the search box and I would be more productive. Alright, I admit this is BS. Firstly, I use iGoogle which has lots of boxes with RSS feeds, dictionary words and famous sayings. Secondly, my iGoogle page is pimped out with the Tea House theme. Hmm. Something else must be at fault. Ah ha!

My focus is drawn in by the most beautiful small “g” in existence. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue but flanking the “g” are the most boring “o”s and the ugliest “G” and “e” I’ve ever seen. The dichotomy is the distraction. Google, please get the artist who does the holiday logos to add an artists touch to the crappy normal logo. My productivity needs a boost! (Note, I don’t even consider switching search engines).