RESTON'S DOPPLEGANGER

I always suspected that my idyllic, planned community of Reston(tm) had a darker side (though I'm sure it's actually an HOA-approved shade of russert brown). Little did I know, though, that it has an evil twin.

Located on the other side of Washington, D.C. in Maryland, Columbia has all the same hallmarks of a master-planned community -- the goofy, sylvan community names, persistent earth tones, questionable contemporary architecture, etc. Only, instead of a fake downtown, they plopped a generic shopping mall into the middle of "town," right next to an outdoor music venue where you can still hear all your favorite hair bands from the 1980s.

Sure, all this speaks to the banality of evil. But Columbia apparently isn't at all shy about its wicked ways. While Reston has street names evoking sunrises, sunsets, and Wiehles (whatever they are), Columbia has Satan Wood Drive.

Of course, I probably shouldn't be so smug -- as this handy search of Google Maps can attest. Who knew I was just 19 miles from that well-known locus of nefarity, NBC News?