My friend Todd is down this week, and he and I and Seb went down to Zac & Steph's for dinner and to play a little Xbox tonight. Halo2 was on the menu tonight, and we had some bbq'd steaks too. Yum. We played til about 11 or so, and then packed up and headed home.

Todd commented that he was amazed at home much traffic there was, considering it was after 11pm on a Thursday in August. One of those utterly moronic dipshits was heading south on West Bay Road, and needed to turn right into one of the condos along the beach (Right turns are across incoming traffic, since we drive on the left here, for those of you tuning in late).

She started to turn, and then stopped, slightly angled and slightly across the center line. I was heading north, towards her at 40mph and in the back of my mind thought "WTF is she doing?" and then she hit the gas! As soon as she realized that she made an error, she then STOPPED, blocking my lane, with me bearing down on her at 40mph, no more than 100 yards away from her. I stomped the brakes.

I felt the Jeep start to slide out from under me, my nose started to turn to the right, aiming for her trunk. I oversteered on purpose to push my nose to the right of her ass-end, and then layed off the brakes and started to straightened out, swung the wheel around the other way and curved around her trunk and the top-heavy jeep started to swing around onto the right-side wheels, countersteered and ended up back in my own lane, heading north, all in one place but with my heart rate slightly elevated.

Once we got to that point I stole a look in the rearview mirror and saw that she just carried on and finished her turn into the condo. la dee frickin da.

Where's the video game angle come in? I've been playing Ridge Racer on my PSP constantly for the last month or so, practicing drifting and four-wheel slides, oversteering, countersteering and generally practicing controlling a vehicle that isn't really in control.

Of course, that's a video-generated sports car, and this was a real-life Jeep with two other souls on board as well.