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I am apparently one nasty fuck. And here I would have thought that honor would belong to Roseanne Barr or something…

Question: Have you ever been in a car accident? Caused one?

My Answer: Yes and no. One time, riding in the passenger seat of a pickup truck after grabbing some hockey gear in Erie, we crested a hill and began going downwards towards a red light. I said "red." "Red!" "RED!!!" and the driver swerved to the left through the intersection just as a minivan smacked into the passenger side door, pushing the truck to within a few feet of some power line poles. Nobody was hurt, but it was fairly scary to see a minivan headed towards my door.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

I watched The Life of David Gale yesterday. Scratch that, two days ago. It was fairly interesting, albeit a bit slow. As soon as Constance was known to have leukemia, I kind of figured out the ending, and the only suspense was in whether he would actually die or not (I figured he would).

Kate Winslet is a talented actress. Kevin Spacey is a talented actor. It's a good movie. Uh huh. I am so blah today it's ridiculous, so that's all I have to say about that.

P.S. I can relate very much to Spacey's character in The Big Kahuna. Yep.

I forgot to point out a few days ago that Bravo is showing every episode of West Wing at 11pm every night. Or something like that. Anyway, woo! I'm recording them all, and I'll certainly try to watch them before the TiVo fills up and explodes.

What will happen this year on West Wing? I don't know - I haven't followed it in the off-season. Will Martin Sheen return? How long will John Candy, errr, Goodman be on as the acting president? I don't know, and I sure hope I get to find out.

On a related note, three of my four payments for NFL Sunday Ticket have already been made. I thought I'd opted for the single payment. Oh well, whatever - either way I'll have every one of my Steelers' games this year. Y'know, the year they pick up their fifth Super Bowl trophy.

There's a strip near where I live that features two short sections of road (broken up by stoplights) and a longer third. Tonight, at the start of the first section, I pulled up (in my Aztek mind you) next to a guy and a girl in a Mustang. I nodded, then proceeded to floor it (nearly - I can't floor it entirely or I peel out) and whip their ass to the next light. At that light, I again floored it and the guy tried to impress his girl (but, sadly, lost again). At the next light, I nodded and smirked, then pushed the gas hard only to back off at 20 MPH.

By the time the guy realized that I had not gone ahead, the guy had hit 60, no doubt impressed his woman with his car's power, and garnered himself a speeding ticket from the cop that always sits in the middle of that third stretch on Thursday nights.

Now you know why this post is titled "Local Knowledge."

Question: If your spouse cheated on you, what would you do?

My Answer: I'd like to say I'd leave her immediately, but frankly, I know I probably couldn't. If I'm married, then I'm committed, and if she's cheated, she's either scum (I'd leave her) and that act would open my eyes, or she and I have somehow gotten off-track and I'd have to work to correct that. Since I would hope I wouldn't be marrying scum, it's most likely the latter. However, I can say with a fair amount of certainty that if she cheated a second time, that'd be that, and I can also say I wouldn't blame her for dumping me if I cheated (never have, never will, so this isn't something about which I worry).

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Question: If you could take all that you know now about life, and return as either a man or a woman of equal attractiveness, which would you choose?

My Answer: I'd return as a woman. As a guy currently, I believe I would possess the necessary knowledge to be able to manipulate men to achieve more than I currently can as a guy on his first run through life. 🙂

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

José and I today went to Jupiter, FL to embark on a kayak adventure. I rented him a kayak - his birthday present a few days after the fact - and we set off at about 11am.

Our route:

• Start at the JOC (Jupiter Outdoor Center)
• Travel to the west, north, east, and north again up the Indian River to a sand bar.
• Hang out at the sand bar and then return to the JOC.
• Continue past JOC around Burt Reynolds Park, staying to the left side past the spot marked "A1" and then under the bridge to the island marked "SB."
• Return to the JOC around 3:30pm.

All told, I believe we kayaked about six miles, all at a leisurely pace. We took on some boat wake (and conquered it, of course!), and both got some nasty sunburns. Says Baz Luhrmann, "if I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it."

Needless to say, I'm moving fairly slowly today. Maybe I'll go buy a few gallons of yogurt and bathe in it.

Question: If every night you could have one singer serenade you, who would that singer be?

My Answer: None of the pop stars count. Celine Dion is out, regardless of the number of ballads she's taken to the top of the charts. I don't know enough about the classic singers to make an educated choice. What's that leave me? I don' know. Not an answer.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Question: What country produces the best looking women?

My Answer: The good old United States of America! That, or Colombia. Or Italy. Or Paris. Or Sweden. Spain, maybe?

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Etan pointed me at Effortless Improvement, which says:

Effortless Improvement uses subliminal messaging to aid in the cure of excess weight, low self esteem, addiction and much more, while you use your Macintosh.

I'm giving it a go on my Mac right now. So far, though, no nubile Swiss women have appeared at my doorway. What? It doesn't do that? Dammit.

I do wonder what's to stop these people from putting up messages like "George Bush is a nimrod" or "kill kill kill!!!" For that reason alone I think I'm going to pass on this one for now.

So as I just said not too long ago, I'm picking up a copy of Madden 2004 for my PS2 tomorrow. Only after having laid down the money for the game do I bother to read the reviews, and here's what I find:

Speaking of finances, once the preseason is completed, that's when you're able to dive deep into the ownership part of the game. Here you'll be able to set the prices for everything in your concession stands like BBQ Beef Sandwiches, the Big Tuna Melt, popcorn, pizza, soda, and beer. You can also set the prices of team merchandise like programs, hats, jerseys, bobble heads, and foam fingers. From there you move on to the price of parking, tickets, and even the amount of money you want to spend on radio, television, and billboard advertising in hopes of coaxing additional fans into the stadium. And if the advertising isn't working, you can even throw a special Fan Appreciation Day and give away key chains, hat, souvenir cups, or even arrange for fans to meet the players before the game.

Uhm, perhaps someone can tell me what this has to do with playing football? Does anyone actually give a rat's ass about the price of popcorn? Aren't football games about - uhhh - football?

Grrrrrr… Just more shit I have to navigate past in order to get to the football in the game.

Some people are not content just to paddle their kayaks and catch a bass or two. Nooooooo sir! Some people like to catch shark on their kayak. Yep - thresher shark to be specific.

We don't have many sharks over here (that I know of - I could be completely wrong), but we have got a loooot of alligators and crocodiles. I won't be catching any. Really, I hope to avoid them as much as possible.

But hey, if my blog isn't updated for a month or so, presume me dead by crocodile attack. That's not too bad a way to go.

Picked up a copy of Midnight Club II tonight for the PS2. You can play it online, and Rob and his nephew already have copies. I'll have to play a little tonight if I can. I pre-ordered Madden 2004 for the PS2 (screw Nintendo - I'd have bought it for the GameCube if I could play it online). I played SOCOM the other day - nice game, but it'd be a great game if only you could use a keyboard and a mouse. Aiming with a control stick is not the way to go. 🙁

Sometimes life is cool. Sometimes Philip Zimmermann emails you about one of your products. Sometimes that day is today.