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In the last seven years, the 32-year-old freelance computer programmer from Houston has become America's most prominent java junkie.

This celebrated adventurer is now the Christopher Columbus of cappuccino, the Charles Lindbergh of latté. It's an obsession that began in Plano, Texas, in 1997, after a Starbucks employee told him the company had plans to open more than 2,000 locations. Winter figured, why not visit them all?

"My parents don't approve." Winter says. "I've got an undefined online relationship with a woman and she definitely approves."

To caffeine-addled motorists, Winter offers this advice: "Get off the interstate. You'll see more of America." And, presumably, more Starbucks. 2. Blindfolded Driver: Seeing Is Not Believing

Driving is easy, but it's not one of those things that you'd say you could do blindfolded — unless you're Jim Passé, who arrived in Los Angeles on June 6 after driving a car at high speeds with six layers of cloth over his head.

This must be some sort of trick, but Passé won't explain how he does it. "I'm a magician," he says, and he based this stunt on work originally performed by Houdini.

He's learned to drive with other impediments, and not by choice. He was paralyzed from the waist down nine years ago, when an 850-pound crate fell on him as a delivery crew was unloading a magic prop for his stage show.

His lawyer, John Edwards, now a North Carolina senator and the Democratic vice presidential candidate, helped him receive $4 million in damages.

But even Edwards' famed skill as a trial attorney would have been challenged if Passé had gotten into an accident while driving a car bearing a yellow sign that read: "Caution! Blindfolded Driver."