Joel showed me that you can go on Microsoft Virtual Earth and get birds-eye views of your house that are disturbingly clear. To do it yourself, go to Microsoft Virtual Earth Live Search and put in your address. We know these pictures (which Joel thinks were taken by drones), must have been taken in the last 2 years because you can see the white satellite dish. They were not, however, taken in the last week, because now we have a black satellite dish in the same place.

The disturbing, and somewhat voyeuristic part, is when you start looking at what’s really going on in your neighbor’s backyards (behind those 6-foot fences). I thought the mess under my side deck was bad last year … but it didn’t hold a candle to this mess a few houses south of us!

So if you’ve always wondered … now’s your chance to get a view from 20-25 yards up.