We’ve all been there – the camera is on us, and we suddenly feel a burning desire to impress it. Sadly, not everything turns out how we plan.

Take for example this cool customer – he spots the Googlemobile cruising down his street, and decides his patented bicycle ’skid and turn’ manouvre should be executed, maybe with the objective of sending a small puff of dust into the eyes of the unsuspecting driver.

As our intrepid daredevil starts to make the turn everything seems to be going perfectly – but suddenly the stunt falls apart, and moments later he lies in a bizarre tangle with his two-wheeled friend.

As the camera car moves on – rather heartlessly I might add – we see the boy in further distress as he presumably tries to free himself by way of a reverse roly-poly.

As the Google car continues on down the street the poor lad appears to be lying flat on his back, presumably regaining his composure. I do hope he was alright.

Thanks to Jason O and Streetviewfun.

While capturing Street View images in Cleveland, Ohio, the Google team drove past a car in flames.

The incident that caused the car to burst into flames took place before the Google car arrived on scene, as the smoke from the fire is visible all the way up the street. It’s worth pointing out though that the frame that should have shown the wreck in most detail has been replaced with a shot taken on a different occasion.

What might have happened here?

Via Virtual Globetrotting.

See our previous posts Expensive Car Crash and Multi-Vehicle Car Accident Captured on Google Street View.

It’s been just over a month since Google added 12 new US cities to Street View, and yesterday we got new imagery in another 13 cities, and interestingly, a US national park! Here’s some of the highlights, including links straight there:

• Albuquerque, New Mexico
• Anchorage, Alaska
• Austin, Texas
• Cleveland, Ohio
• Fairbanks, Alaska
• Little Rock, Arkansas
• Madison, Wisconsin
• Nashville, Tennessee
• Rockford, Illinois
• Richmond, Virginia
• Spokane, Washington
• St. Petersburg, Florida
• Tampa, Florida

Finally, Google have also added imagery for the few roads that run through Yosemite National Park, California, which enables us to see some pretty stunning scenery.

Here’s El Capitan, a 910 metre vertical rock formation that’s a popular challenge for rock climbers, and some spectacular Giant Redwoods living up to their name!

Read the full story at the Google Lat Long Blog, read more about El Capitan and Giant Redwoods at Wikipedia.

The number of cars in the drive, and the number of people in the pool at this house in Cleveland, Ohio, can mean only one thing… Pool Paaaaarty!

I wanted to illustrate what this pool party might look like from the ground, and I found this QuickTime VR image of a pool party in progress. Now I’m wondering what kind of geek makes a Quicktime VR image of a pool party?

Thanks to James Boorman-Padgett.

We get lots of submissions from people who claim to be able to see faces, animals or even aliens in the natural landscapes of Google Earth, but often the images are so open to interpretation that we unfortunately can’t see what it is that our readers are seeing.

On the other hand, when we’re sent something that’s clearly recognisable, in virtually every case the sight has been man made. So when we received this submission that bears an undeniable¹ resemblance to the profile of a face in a field in Ohio, we initially assumed this was the work of a particularly adventurous crop-circle artist.

On closer inspection however, this face might not be so obviously man-made. Are the “eyes” actually islands of trees? Is the “mouth” just a naturally darker patch of ground? And yet, the “chin” must surely have been created by a trail left by a tractor, right?

So whilst it’s possible that a farmer was getting creative, we think the most likely explanation is that this is just a particularly freaky combination of natural formation and man’s influence, which is playing on our natural predilection to assign meaning wherever we look.

Still, it does look an awful lot like a face.

Thanks to Jennifer.