I wanted to smack you.

Walk up to it and smack it on the backside.

It's what made you smack your baby brother, stamp on a cockroach, scratch your mother.

And some people fall smack in the middle of the introvert extrovert spectrum, and we call these people ambiverts.

But now that I am actually smack dab in the middle of my own third act, I realize I've never been happier.

Let me give you an example a huge power project, 300 million dollars, to be built smack into one of the most vulnerable, and one of the most beautiful, areas of western Kenya.

And a small part of my brain is thinking, 'That is so gross and really dangerous,' but most of my brain is thinking, 'Please let there be some smack left by the time it gets to me.

A knee to the groin follows, and while the attacker doubles up in pain, you twist the gun from his hands, smack him in the face with the barrel and back up, keeping the weapon trained on him.

Yes, the Kremlin was able to smack down the uppity Mikheil Saakashvili s hope of reuniting his country by force. But the world saw in Russia s onslaught against so puny an antagonist a thuggish state determined to recapture its lost empire.

So, upon landing this was still at the old Hong Kong airport that's Kai Tak, when it was smack in the middle of the city I thought, If I see something good, I'm going to have a great time here in my two weeks. And if I see something negative, I'm going to be miserable, indeed.

Since I have never had either the benefits or misfortunes of adhering to any religion, it might smack of hypocrisy for me to defend those who have. But watching the Burmese monks on television defy the security forces of one of the world s most oppressive regimes, it is hard not to see some merit in religious belief.

Men are the maintainers of women for that Allah has preferred in bounty one of them over another, and for that they have spent of their wealth. Righteous women are obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah has guarded. Those from whom you fear rebelliousness, admonish them and desert them in the bed and smack them (without harshness). Then, if they obey you, do not look for any way against them. Allah is High, Great.

Men are the maintainers of women for that Allah has preferred in bounty one of them over another, and for that they have spent of their wealth. Righteous women are obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah has guarded. Those from whom you fear rebelliousness, admonish them and desert them in the bed and smack them (without harshness). Then, if they obey you, do not look for any way against them. Allah is High, Great.