I've decided that I will add this category to my web log. Today, I drove home from Omaha and there were nine cars and one semi that managed to drive off the interstate into the ditch. There was also John's neighbors who's daughter was dating an idiot who couldn't figure out how to park. So, today's moron count is: 11.

...especially of the "can't drive" type. It is Thursday and I have passed four accidents between work and home this week. Given that it's only about five miles of interstate between my place and work, that's quite a few. I'm not sure why everyone decided they couldn't drive, but I'm certainly sick of the slow-down on my commute. Tuesday, a three-care accident happened when someone tried to change lanes across a split between the two interstates and hit the barrier between. Wednesday, three ladies in their SUV's ran into each other while on the ramp onto the interstate to Iowa. I'm sure they had big purses. They all looked confused as to how it possibly could have happened. Then, today, there was a three car accident near the on-ramp between 42nd and the split to I-480 on the way to work. There were also three abandoned cars on the side of the road. Oh, and there was a guy being arrested at the bus stop on Farnam. Then, as if that weren't enough dumb people, there was another accident on the way home today. Someone ran into someone else while they were changing lanes. And before I finally made it back, there was another abandoned car. So, the official moron count for this week, as of Thursday, comes to 16. I just hope none of them find me tomorrow between home and work.

Yes, I'm posting. It's been awhile and I'm not out of ideas, I just haven't taken the time in quite awhile. As some of you might know, I've been having issues with coming back to my apartment and finding a less than desirable smell in it which subsequently resulted in running to my sliding glass door, flinging it open and quickly packing whatever I can think of and then leaving as quickly as possible before feeling like I'm going to pass out. This was rather frustrating as I pay a rather significant amount to live in a fairly nice place and it's I have been unable to sleep there on multiple occasions because I cannot live in a place where the air causes my throat to become sore, my eyes to get itchy and then I get migraine all the while feeling like I can't take breathe deep enough.

I couldn't find a pattern to the problem, but it seemed to be coming out my heating vents. But only sometimes. I'm sure the manager loves me now because they've checked for carbon monoxide twice, maintenance serviced my furnace, they also had the furnace company come out and service the furnace. Maintenance checked my water heater, my washer and dryer, my stove and my dishwasher, thinking maybe one of them had a problem or was leaking something causing the smell. Then, they also had the water heater company come out to check that again as well. However, no luck. All this on and off over the course of about a month and a half. During the first couple checks, no one could even smell anything remotely close to what I was smelling which could only be described as someone funneled the smoke from their fireplace into my apartment without the actual smoke, just the smell.

Finally, we have a solution. Apparently a guy who lives on the third floor decided that his food wasn't tasty enough when he used his gas grill, so he added wood chips to it (he wins moron of the month). On breezy days, the smoke from the grill would blow up to the roof (directly above his floor) and into my air intake. When my furnace would come on, I would be subject to the lovely aftereffects of his grill pumped directly into my apartment. I've been told he won't be doing that anymore. I don't know how much money my apartment management spent on having things serviced that didn't need to be, but I'm sure they weren't pleased. We aren't allowed to have charcoal grills at the complex, so I'm sure that wood-burning grills aren't acceptable either.

Hmm...we did get a notice that someone started a fire on their balcony...I wonder if it was him? Anyway, I will hopefully be breathing (easier) at my apartment from now on.

The morons were definitely alive and well yesterday and they were causing plenty of accidents. I heard on the radio that the police had stopped responding to accidents because there were so many of them so if you were in an accident and your car was movable, you should move it out of the way of traffic, exchange insurance information and file your accident report with the police department later. Apparently there were over 100 accidents in Lincoln as well. I know when I was driving home from the dealership, I had one guy behind me who decided that he was going to drive about a foot away from my bumper. I was less than pleased. Sometimes when I stop at a light, I will inch forward to see if the person behind me is going to do the same thing and of course, he did this every time I inched up a little. I could see him in my rear view mirror and he was yelling at me to go faster because obviously having a car length in front of me was too much room and I wasn't tailgating the person in front of me to his liking. Regardless, he definitely adds to the moron count. I feel lucky he didn't hit me because he was making me pretty nervous. I'm assuming he was driving like the rest of the many people who caused the accidents. To that I have to say "Come on, people!" Seriously, we live in Nebraska and it snows pretty much all winter. I do not understand why people get this idea that when it snows they should drive like crazy people because it's "extra fun" to slide around and there's no possibility that they're going to be one of the hundred accidents of the day. It was almost like it was the first snow of the season. There are always lots of accidents after the first snow, but I'm pretty sure the accidents yesterday outnumbered the accidents earlier this season. John even saw a guy come flying over a hill and couldn't get stopped before sliding through most of the intersection. Note to all people with large cars: having four wheel drive helps you go, it does not help you stop! Anyway, moron count += 100.

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, 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.

Seriously, since when is putting an entire apartment's worth of furniture in the parking lot blocking garages that cost extra to use a good idea? What a bunch of inconsiderate assholes. Yes, my garage is blocked by the furniture. They managed to not block anything with the UHaul, but then they spread their furniture in front of five garages.

Moron count of the day is definitely four as that's the number of people I've seen moving around the crap in the parking lot.