Floridiots

January 2005 was the month that I moved away from good ol' New Hampshire and moved to what I now refer to as "Gods Waiting Room" also known as Florida. Yeah this is not exactly the most sane decision I have made, but it was essential to move on with my life. Here I am 2 and a half years later and I can tell you that I can see why Fark has a headline tag specifically dedicated to Florida.
For a few years I would read the website Fark and get a good laugh from it because the headlines are all based upon how mass media is trying to pass junk off as News. The site added a headline tag specifically for Florida because of how many stupid things happen in this state.
Seriously there are so many dumb things that go on here that it makes you wonder what it is that causes all of the problems that are happening here. So, in the last 2 years I have begun to amass a list of what causes all the moronic activity. Even with the observations that I have made, I can tell you that I think I am only scratching the idiotic surface of the stupidity vein that runs clear through Florida.

10)General Stupidity - This is coming in at number 10 because I am an optimist and I would like to be one of those the believe that there aren't that many people that are born to be stupid. So, yeah there are some that are going to be dumb, it happens in every town / city / suburb, there will always be a group of people that were just born without the ability to learn from their mistakes or from the errors of those around them.

9) Cultural Differences - Talk about melting pot. Florida attracts people from all walks of life, not just because of the amusement attractions like you find in Orlando, but because of its location. Lots of water, warm weather, and the fact that is one of the easiest ways to get into the USA. While I get emails from friends and family that say "Things were simpler in the 60's and people that wanted to become American's would learn to speak English", Florida is the land of disagreement. There are people that actually get annoyed at the fact that I don't speak Spanish. It's amusing to me because I have made a number of friends that all speak Spanish, and so I have made an effort to try and learn a little bit. While I am not very good at it, hell I can't even string simple sentences together yet, I can understand some of the basics. But as a society in general we cater to the minority and instead of requiring change, we are trying to force the environment to change... I believe this was the Angus Bethume theory, and while it worked in the movie Angus, it doesn't quite work so well in reality.

8) Lifestyle Differences - In Boca Raton, an area called "Millionaires Row" is located on a waterway near the ocean. Everything around it is very ritzy, but less than 2 miles away is when you start to get into the "lower class" areas. Another 2 miles from that you have a damn good chance that you will be mugged if you look like you don't belong. The ghetto area here are not racially different they are based upon country. You have Brazillian ghetto, Dominican ghetto, Mexican ghetto, Puerto Rican ghetto, and each of them act as though they are in their home countries. Their flags are everywhere, and they don't like it if you don't speak their language. My first apartment was in the Brazillian ghetto area, it seemed nice at first, and after a little while I was accepted as someone that wasn't going to cause problems, but I can tell you that trust was something that is not easy to earn in that area, especially considering there is no way I could ever pass off as being anything other than Irish/Scottish. There were days when I would go out to my car and see kids sitting on it waiting to go to school. I use to use my auto start to get rid of them because telling them to move would have put me higher on the list of cars getting keyed or broken into.

7) Family Surroundings - Lots of people have very family oriented lives here. That can be good and bad at the same time. There are lots of people here that are on welfare, they work for a couple months get fired and then jump on welfare. They are doing the same thing that their parents did. Why work when you can get free money. Why spend the money on things that are necessary when you can use it to buy 28" rims and a truck suspension for your 1982 Chevy Impala. I have to say that while I am all for family life and instilling moral values in children, there should be a government program that says that if you are on welfare, or if you are not actively trying to work, then you are not allowed to have children. If we are going to impose societal laws that tell people how they should act, what they should wear, and what they should do, then they should be told that if they are going to leach off of those that work they cannot have children and train them to do more of the same. There is a lot of this going on around this country, but it still adds to the outcome of stupidity here.

6) Education - Boca Raton has over 20 middle schools, and more than 15 high schools. I have never been to their middle schools or high schools but they are obviously not teaching the kids properly. When you drive past these schools and see the bars on the windows on all the schools it only makes you wonder what kind of education these kids are getting. Boca isn't Boston or New York or Newark it shouldn't have to bar up the windows on almost all of their grade schools.

5) Weather - Weather is erratic in Florida, between Hurricanes, intense heat, and flash flooding, the weather makes everyone crazy. There are no season changes and there for it is the same all year long. Hurricanes cause rioting (Hurricane Wilma forced a curfew into effect, and the cops were swarming everywhere), the slightest hint of rain causes people to fear a flash flood so their driving gets worse, a couple drops of rain, and people will hit there emergency lights and jam their brakes. I also think that the heat has a tendency to boil the brains of the people down here. Lots of people that bitch about air conditioning when the temp is 105 outside with 80% humidity, means that there is something wrong with them.

4) Age - Ok this is a big reason for stupidity. It would seem that most people get smarter as they get older, but the problem is that you have people that are sick of the winters and they decide that they should move on. So imagine my surprise when I was trying to find a decent place to live and the places that were all within my price range were 50+ communities. HA! So in a time when we are so concerned by discrimination, there are dozens of communities that anyone younger than 50 years old is told "you are not allowed to live here because you are too young". Ok so the least expensive places to live are the ones that are only renting to those that have made their money and have decided to retire. The other thing is every day I see teenagers being ticketed or standing outside of a wrecked car because mommy and daddy bought their precious little dumbass either an SUV, a Mercedes, or a juiced up rice rocket that they sup up with NOS, and promptly crash it. Yeah they have this everywhere, but keep in mind there are new kids that have seen "The Fast and the Furious" all the time and they spend all of their money making their cars faster, and you have to keep in mind these are the kids that think that they know everything. Hey I remember being 18, I remember thinking that I was far more intelligent than my parents and everyone around me. Well do some really stupid things and get caught, it might be the only way to give you the intelligence to realize that you are not as smart as you think. Wisdom usually comes with age, but then so does Alzheimer's. So you have a state loaded with the elderly that always drive under the speed limit, and kids that always drive over the speed limit... yah this is a combination that is going to fly really well.

3) Religion - There is a road in Boca called Yamato. There are buildings that are tied to every major religion you can think of. I swear that it is out of control to see that every 50 yards there is another sign for a different religious organization. Also Boca is known to be a place that the New York Jewish snowbirds love to travel to. So it comes to no surprise to me that my current apartment is located within 3 miles of 6 different Temples, a Jewish cemetery, and 2 Jewish schools. Religion can drive anyone crazy because they follow it so intently. I have to say that I am absolutely sick of seeing the Jesus fish on the back of peoples cars. I am tired of people pushing their religion on everyone else. It was only 2 months ago I had someone knock on my door and ring my doorbell repeatedly at 6:30 in the morning. It was a couple of Mormons. I have to admit the intelligence of the guy knocking on my door was definitely up there, and I can only say this because he was banging on my door and when I finally answered and he told me why he was knocking made sure that I knew he wasn't alone.... he had a little girl with him. She couldn't have been more than 7 years old. By putting her there, it put me in the position that I would rely on my better nature, and not swear up a storm at him in front of her for waking me up. It also put him in a better position to keep me from slamming the door in his face, but it didn't stop me from leaning in close to him and telling him that I worked late the night before, I have no interest in his religion, and if he didn't leave immediately I would call the cops to report a creepy old man dragging a little girl around with him. Needless to say he never showed up at my place again. I really have no remorse for those that waste their time trying to convince other people to change their minds about which deity they choose to worship in the privacy of their minds.

2) Beliefs - Very different from religion. People have some crazy ass beliefs, and they can cause all kinds of problems. Some people believe that just because they spend all their time in one area with a bunch of their friends they "own" that area, and everyone else should stay away. Some people believe that if you wear a specific color its because you support or believe in something else, gangs usually cause these problems. There are a lot of people that spend their time bitching about the state of the country. They believe that their candidate would be a better person to have in power... yeah like anyone that is in power isn't going to abuse it for their own personal interests. Seeing people cruise around with "Kerry/Edwards" stickers still on their car or "Is it 2008 yet?" on their car just goes to show you how people's beliefs can cause more problems. These are the same idiots that couldn't figure out how to vote for their candidate in the first place! The same idiots that said "Now that we have a democratic congress we are going to turn things around" and can't seem to get out of their own way fast enough, or make a decision that is going to make a difference. So beliefs are a good thing to have, but there are just too many people that waste their time trying to force these beliefs on others, and then get pissed when someone doesn't agree with them.

1) Adaptation (or lack thereof) - There are many people that have no idea how to adapt to a different climate. I can tell you that when I moved from NH I knew things would be different. I knew that should not expect snow, and that the summers would be loaded with rain, and that hurricanes are inevitable. So whenever they said "Hurricane watch in effect" I reacted the same way they said "Blizzard watch in effect" in NH, I filled my gas tank, got a couple bottles of water and made sure I had some canned food. So when hurricane Wilma hit and the power went out I didn't freak out like just about everyone else. There were people that were bitching about how they didn't get enough warning about a hurricane (as if the 7 that hit the area the year before weren't enough warning) and the flooding that had already occurred in Louisiana from the one only 2 weeks earlier couldn't have told them that hurricanes are dangerous and a pain in the ass. So people move here, and they expect everything to be perfect. Then you have people that move here from other countries. As I said there is such a mix of Latin American people, and they treat the area like their treat their home country. My old apartment had trash everywhere. Cockroaches, Palmetto bugs (big cockroaches), and a large mix of bugs because the people that lived there threw their trash everywhere. I asked a couple about it to find out why they were doing it, and after giving me a dirty look for not speaking Spanish they told me, "Who cares, everyone does this where we come from, its not illegal, let someone else take care of it." So instead of staying where they were from and trashing their home country they decide to move here and trash ours. So when I moved to my current apartment and I saw that it was clean, and that everyone around me were from areas similar to where I grew up it was not that much of a shock to see that there are no cockroaches or palmetto bugs in any of our apartments.

So yeah, every year I get asked the same question, "Why do you drive so far to register your car in New Hampshire?" and the answer is obvious... I don't want anyone to think I'm from Florida. I am not now and I never will be a Floridiot. I can only hope that the rest of the country doesn't become as bad as this has become, but I am not ignorant enough not to notice when things start changing for the worse in areas that were at one time nice.