For my parents, my aunt and uncle, and my grandma who are all headed to Hawaii tomorrow, I give to you the Hawaii chair. This is by far the funniest thing I've seen in a long time.

And of course, we have to see what they're like if you try to use them in "real life." I don't think I'll be investing in one given the fact that it looks like it just beat the crap out of the woman in this video.

It seems like some days the public as a whole decides that their mission for the day is to be as obnoxious as possible which typically involves getting in the way of everyone nearby. Well, today was one of those days. For those of you who don't talk to me about video games, you probably don't know that I've been waiting for Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates to come out for a couple years now. Yes, years. It's been on my Christmas list (yes, I still make them even though I'm 23 now) for the last two years and each year my parents have said "We wanted to get you this game, but we can't find it. Are you sure it's out?" After finally playing through the entirety of the original Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles for the GameCube (thanks Jim!), I couldn't wait for the sequel to come out.

Well, after a long waiting period and too many release date changes that always moved the release date back, the official release date is today! John and I went to Nebraska Furniture Mart to pick up copies of the games. I found the copy of Smash Brothers okay, but we couldn't seem to find Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, the game I was most excited about. I found a sales person and asked where the copies of the game were located (assuming that since it's the release date, that means it will be in stores on this date). He looked up the inventory and told me that the games had shipped today, but they wouldn't have any copies till Thursday or Friday.

To all of the brilliant marketing people, I have a request. When you publish a freaking release date, how about you give the public the actual date when they can expect to have the game in their hands? Would that really be so hard to do?

Okay, so I couldn't get my video game. I was planning on buying Smash Brothers anyway, so I went to check out. Failure at every single open check-out lane. The first lane apparently didn't have the correct change, so the guy was asking the 2nd lane for change. However, the 2nd lane had multiple people in line, and didn't want to give change until they were done with all of their customers (of which there were three). The third lane only had two people in it and they were checking out with one item. The fourth lane apparently knew the customers and had no interest in doing any more work until they were done with their conversation. At first I got in the first lane, but when the change problem came, up, I went over to the third lane, assuming that it wouldn't be that difficult to check out with one item. However, after letting the cashier scan the item, tell them the total, handing over their credit card and signing the receipt, THEN the customer decides to complain that the price of their ONE item isn't what it said on the shelf. You would think that if you only have one freaking item you'd notice that the total doesn't sound reasonable and say something before handing over your credit card or at least notice the total on the receipt before signing the thing. Anyway, after more wasted time, the guy needing change had finally gotten his change and his line was empty so I checked out there. The people in lane four were still talking when I left and the cashier and security person were trying to figure out what to do with the people in the 3rd lane who'd already signed the receipt. The 2nd lane was checking out it's last customer in line after taking a break to provide change for the first lane. Regardless, it all too longer than it needed to and I wasn't satisfied because I didn't get the game I actually went to the store to buy.

I'm looking forward to getting out of the store after the combined annoyances. As John and I are walking towards the doors out, we ended up behind a woman who decided the perfect spot to stop and examine her receipt is directly in front of the door to get out. One second, she's walking, the next second she's just standing there causing congestion. The people next to us almost ran into her.

So we finally escape Nebraska Furniture Mart and we're heading to get food. I want Chipotle and John wants Runza, so we're trying to get to Chipotle because it's closest but we run into even more morons. There's a long line of cars trying to get into the poorly designed parking lot, causing a small traffic jam in the street outside the little strip mall. The way that the parking lot is set up is there is one row, barely wide enough for two cars with parking spots on either side. Adding to the mix is that on one side the parking ends so that cars can essentially do a U-turn to go through the Starbucks drive-thru. So, there isn't much room. And who's at the front of the line? Some lady who has decided that now is the perfect time to back her SUV into a parking spot after making a four-point turn. John is finally able to pull into the parking lot and we see a spot, but the giant extended-cab truck in front of us decides that they want to back into their parking spot too. We wait five minutes for him to get his truck turned around and by some miracle, the spot is still there. I ran inside and go my burrito.

We managed to make it to Runza without any significant problems. Then back to my apartment. Unfortunately, John had to go back into work to do an upgrade so I didn't have a friend to play Smash Brothers with. After he'd finished the upgrade, he got online to talk.

John: how is smash brothers?
me: haven't opened it
John: sad
wait
if there can be cool beans
there can be sad beans
so my reply is actually "sad beans"
the beans are very sad because you haven't played yet.
do you want the beans to be sad?

So, I apparently made the beans sad. Oops.

So, after too much ranting, the moron count for today is: hmm...we'll say 100 for the marketers who don't give you an actual release date (but that's probably low), five for the people in the various check-out lanes, one for the lady stopping in front of the doorway, two for the people backing into the parking spots, and I suppose one for me making the beans sad by not opening a brand new video game until a day after I bought it. So, that brings the total to 109. That's a lot of morons.

So I've managed to become addicted to this Facebook game called Packrat. The cards are so cute and I can't help but wonder if the next pack might have something I need in it or more credits I can spend. The game is generally simple. You want to collect all the sets of cards available. You can have up to 15 cards in your pack and then once you have a set of 5 or more of either the same card or different cards from the same set, you can vault them. You get points for vaulting things, stealing things and making things. You can make things by getting the right combination of three cards and then combining them to make a new, single card. Besides the general appeal of the cuteness of the cards and the fact that it's a collecting game (which is why I always liked games like Animal Crossing), how can you not be entertained by friends you can steal from with names like Shakirat, Rat Cassidy, Ratty Crocker, Captain Ratbeard, and Rattori Hanzo.

When I get home from work, I plop down in front of the computer and start clicking away, hoping to complete more sets. Each set has a theme. One of the sets I've completed is below. Obviously I like it because it's got a penguin. But I do think the abominable snowman is cute. The nice thing is that if you have a cute card, you can open it in a "bigger" version to see the detail on the card. And they keep adding more cards, because the team that created the application is a team of designers.

If anyone decides they want to play, let me know and I'll send you an invitation. I get more credits I can spend if you accept. ;-)

Besides the game being fun, I've found that they're also entertaining when the application is down. Over the weekend, the servers were down for an upgrade and they put up a notice saying they'd be back soon. I have to say it's one of the more entertaining upgrade notices. Ha! Gathering cheese...so cute!

All in all, a good (and addicting!) game. But I have to get back to clicking. I need more credits!

I've been playing plenty of FFCC: Ring of Fates. The game is awesome! My only complaint is that it's not as long as the original GameCube version. However, the graphics are really sweet and the game has the same feel as the original. I've heard that you can play through it again twice more and you get two more areas to explore, so that will be cool. John and I haven't done a lot of multi-player stuff yet, but I'm sure we will after we finish the story. Anyway, to give you a hint of how shiny it is, take a look at this:

That's the intro video that plays every time you load the game (yes you can skip it). The game-play doesn't look quite as good as that, but it's close enough to make me happy. The story is great and the characters are amusing. The fact that the game is cooperative is a huge plus for me. I like playing through a game with someone. Now I have to wait for the Wii game to come out. Sadly the release date is still TBA. Even the release on this game was pushed back several times. Oh well. This one was worth waiting for, so hopefully the next one will be too.

But, for anyone who's considering buying a DS, I'd highly recommend one (or two so you can play with a friend). They just came out with a cool blue/black combination similar to my red one. They're much less expensive than the consoles and the games are typically less expensive as well. So far I have played and would recommend:

• Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates (obviously)


• Mario Kart (A classic. This one is download and play, but the full experience is better if you both have the game.)


• Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Great Zelda game! I've heard it's similar to the Super Nintendo one.)


• Animal Crossing: Wild World (A collector's dream, plus it's so cute!)


• New Super Mario (Miss the original Nintendo stuff? You'll like this.)


• Rocket Slime (Those slimes are so cute and the story is pretty entertaining.)


• Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time (A good RPG, but the last boss battle is annoying.)

Bravo has been one of the kings of crap reality TV in my opinion. They keep making more and more crap reality shows. Specifically, reality contest shows. And I would pretty much watch them all...even some of the non-contest reality shows. But, I have finally drawn the line and found a reality contest show I can't stand to watch on Bravo, which is quite a feat for me. I've watched everything from Project Runway to Make Me a Supermodel. The shows are generally pretty formulaic in the way they're presented. There are typically around 10 contestants for each show. They bring in "industry experts" to be the judges and then they have a mini-challenge early in each episode followed by an "elimination challenge" at the end of the episode. The judges say what they think about the results and one person is eliminated till someone wins. Anyway, I watch a lot of these crap shows. And trust me, I know they're crap. Most days I don't want to have to think or actually pay attention to the TV while it's on, I just like the noise and it's pretty easy to keep track of what's going on when they're playing in the other room or across the room while I'm cooking or something. Anyway, on to the list of reality contest shows I've actually watched on Bravo:

• Top Chef: This one's a classic. Probably the one that started the rest (besides Project Runway). It is actually interesting to see what the chefs come up with each week. The drama gets annoying sometimes. All I really care about is the ingredients, how it looks and how it tasted. Then I get to wish I could cook something like it.


• Project Runway: Another classic. Designers make all sorts of weird clothing for various occasions and various people ranging from prom dresses, WWF women's outfits, men's suits, etc. It's always a good time to make fun of the weird stuff people like to pretend are clothes coming down the runway.


• Shear Genius: Modeled after the first two. They gathered a bunch of hair stylists and made them cut hair! Novel idea.


• Top Design: Again, modeled after the first two. A bunch of interior designers have to design various rooms/spaces.


• Make Me a Supermodel: sort of a cross between Top Chef and Tyra Banks' 'America's Next Top Model'. There's guys and girls all living in the same house. Guess what, they all want to be models!

One of the similarities between all the shows is that there's always one judge that you wonder why they're on the panel because they haven't actually worked in the industry, they just judge the industry. The shows also have the habit of replaying the same theme music over and over again.

I've also been known to watch some random reality shows on Bravo as well like Tim Gunn's guide to style. You know, those style shows are kind of mean. Essentially your friends think you dress so crappy they have to contact a TV network to do something about it and then they show up and tell you how crappy your clothes are, make you throw them all away and spend way too much money on new clothes and you end up with 1/2 as many clothes as you started with. I'm not sure I'd necessarily view that as a good thing. Anyway, I also watch (and by "watch" I mean not change the channel and tune out about 70% of the show like the rest of anything else on Bravo) Workout and pretend it's helping me exercise. It hasn't worked yet, but I have hope that someday it will.

Anyway, as I was saying, I "watch" a LOT of crap TV on Bravo, but I've finally found a show I can't leave on the TV for more than 30 seconds without having that feeling that someone has just scraped their nails on a chalkboard. That show would be "Step It Up and Dance" with Elizabeth Berkely. I can go on about reasons why I can't stand the show, but I'd almost suggest you flip past it yourself. Maybe even see how long you can stand to leave it on the channel. I can't stand those "Real Housewive's" shows, but I can last longer on those than I can if "Step It Up and Dance" is on.

Anyway, if you want crap TV you don't have to, or don't want to pay attention to, generally Bravo's not a horrible choice. I wouldn't suggest trying to devote your full attention to most, if not all the shows on Bravo though. But they are generally good filler/background noise. Except "Step It Up and Dance".

I realized that I have more video games for the Wii than I ever owned for any other system I had. I think I had two or three original Nintendo games and three Nintendo 64 games. I have three 64 controllers while technically I have 12 Wii controllers (4 nunchucks, 4 wii-motes, 4 gamecube controllers). I already have 9 games for the system after only owning it for almost four months. Granted, 4 of them are Gamecube games, but they're still games I can play on the system and I never owned a Gamecube. I also plan to buy Mario Kart for the Wii towards the end of this month and Wii Fit next month. So, basically, having an income of my own allows me to act like a kid and play all the video games I want. Hmm...I didn't even count the games I have for my DS and I was even able to replace my original DS for a DS lite.

I have discovered the glory of Redbox. They are in pretty much every HyVee in Omaha, which is fairly convenient in my opinion. The rentals are only $1.07 ($1 + tax) per night. So, if you have a grocery store on the way home, or fairly close to your home it's pretty easy to grab a movie or two, take them home, watch them and return them the next night. You have to return the movies by 9pm the next night or you're charged for another night. However, I rented 3 movies when I was sick and returned them after 9pm but only paid $6.42 for all three movies. Still a pretty good deal. Less than Blockbuster.

The way it works is you can either reserve your movies online by creating a login and picking out what you want to rent or you can pick out your movies in the store at the kiosk. The good thing about creating a login online is that it will e-mail you when you've made your reservation, when you've picked up your movie, when you've returned your movie and when they've charged your credit card so you have a paper trail for the whole process. All you have to do is walk up to the kiosk, swipe your card and it dispenses your movie(s).

They kiosks look something like this:

The disks dispensed look like this:

When you return them, you just hit the return button and stick the disc in the side of the kiosk and you're good to go.

So far I've rented 27 Dresses, P.S. I Love You, Atonement, and Waitress (yes, all girly movies because John wouldn't want to watch them with me so I watched them while I was sick). I liked 27 Dresses the best out of all of them and honestly that's the one I expected to like the least. I thought the other three were too depressing.

John bought a wet/dry vacuum recently. His air conditioner had started to leak and he wanted a quick and easy way to clean it up if needed. We actually tried to get a vacuum twice before he finally bought what he was looking for. We went out to Home Depot on our first try. As we were parking in their parking lot, the weather sirens started going off. We walked into the store to be greeted by an announcement over the loud speaker saying that everyone was supposed to report to the break room. So, our options were to cower in the break room (above ground) with everyone else or we could leave. We left. The break room wasn't going to be any safer than the rest of the building. On our second try, we stopped at Wal-Mart, but their selection was lacking some. We went back the next day to Home Depot and bought what he had attempted to buy the first time.

Anyway, after he opened the box and started using it, John came to the conclusion that it reminded him a little of a baby elephant he could drag around by the trunk. He brought it over this weekend and used my garage to clean out his car (given that mine is at the body shop...poor car). While he was over, I made some eyes, which we stuck on the vacuum. I think it does look surprisingly like an elephant. Perhaps we need to move the "tusks" to the front though.

We decided to name it Walt. It sounded like a good name for an elephant-vacuum. So, here is Walt, John's baby-elephant-vacuum:

Now we can be like Michael (in the show Lost) and run around frantically yelling Waaalt! Waaalt!

In case you didn't know, Mutual of Omaha sponsors the U.S.A. Swim Team. How could you miss the billboards, city buses, news reports, and commercials about it? Oh, and of course, Mutual itself. Yes, that's right, the Mutual of Omaha building has a swimmer on the front of it. This photo was taken by a guy in the Mutual media department. I was too lazy to find someplace to park with all the construction so I could get a good photo.

Mutual hosted an invitational swim meet over the weekend. As an employee, I received two free tickets. John and I went on Saturday night. They built an Olympic regulation swimming pool inside the quest center. Pretty impressive:

It was my first swim meet. Things ran similar to a track meet and I definitely enjoyed the experience. I'd definitely go to another one given the chance. I even had the opportunity to see Michael Phelps swim and speak after his race was over. So, all in all, a cool experience.