Shyzer.com

THERE IS A GOD!

I just found a pretty neat site that I would suggest everybody go check out. It’s called Buddy Zoo and what it basically does is map buddy list networks. It’s quite easy. All you do is upload your buddy list and then it will cross-reference your list with everybody else who has uploaded theirs, which is over 5 million or so.

So say you upload your list. Then you get your friends Jim, Jack, and Sally to upload theirs. Now that their lists are uploaded to the server, you can see common buddies. Just go do it. The only person on my buddy list who has done it is Aaron, so I need some more people on there.

Also, MT should be set up by the end of the weekend. I’m saying this so that I’ll actually have some motivation to do it. I know I’ll be cursing at myself for doing this on Sunday night, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do. So there will be no excuse for you not commenting anymore Stan =) Also, I’m putting together a “best of” Shyzer for those of you who asked. I’ve only picked one or two posts so far, but we’ll see.

This right here is why I’ve wanted to learn Japanese for the past few years. For as creative and imaginative as this country seems to be, I have yet to see anything this side of the Pacific (save Matrix) come even close to the story lines and animation they come up with. Maybe it has to do with the fact that creativity is looked down on in Japanese society, so therefore you see a flood of people go into the movie / video games / fashion industries since those are the only places they are accepted. Whatever the reason, all I know is that there is nothing short of a mass plague that will keep me away from that movie.

And I stole this from Kat, so be sure to send her your thanks.

The gallery is currently down since my host blows. It’s going to stay down until I switch hosts, which will occur early next month. In other news, I’m starting another project (yeah I know) that will be very similar to 1000 Journals. I’ll need some volunteers this summer. It should be interesting and I’m swallowing most all of the cost, so you’ve got nothing to lose. I’ll post more information later on though once I secure my financial backing (ie. get a job).

Oh yeah, I sorta sunburned myself this weekend.

Doc

It’s no secret that my two favorite people on-line are Stan and Angela. We get along great, love the Simpsons, and make each other laugh. Their sites (in Stan’s case, whenever he pays the bills) are two of the only three site I check numerous times a day for updates. I could go on and on about these two, but it’s this third site that I want to try and introduce my readers to. A man by the name of Brian, also known as Doc, runs this third site and while we might not have ever spoken a word to each other, I feel as if I know him just as well as Stan and Angela.

You see, I came across his site around three years ago and was hooked immediately. Like I’ve said before, the first of these oh-so-addictive personal blogs that I found was that of Nicole’s over from sparkley.net. I didn’t quite understand at first. “What? You say that people actually will read the shit I type? Willingly? I was hooked and I wanted more. But after a few days, Nicole’s site wasn’t enough. I wanted to see what else was out there, so I just started clicking on the dozens of various links she had. After about twenty pages of “Lik, OMG! Brad came over two me at lunch twoday and like told me that he like wanted to date me!!! or “i hate my life. Mary told Mike who told Steve who told Betty that i like her boyfriend so that bitch came up to me and started talking all dis shit and i wuz like ‘oh no you just didn’t’ and she was all like ‘oh yes i just did!” I realized that maybe there wasn’t quite as much to this whole blogging sphere as I had initially thought. My dreams of opening up my own site were quickly fading as I realized that nobody over 15 went to or operated any of these pages. That’s when I finally checked out one of her links buried at the bottom of her page. It was titled Doctor Grosz. As if that alone wasn’t enough to perk up the interest of any red-blooded male, her description of the site included the word “panties.” Eh, it’s probably just some porn site I figured. So you can understand why I proceeded to click the link. I soon realized that there was hope as I read over the site that eventually lead to the inspiration to open Shyzer.

It doesn’t take long to figure out that Doc isn’t like most people. For starters, he’s one hell of a writer. Look back over the last few days worth of posts he’s made and you’ll begin to understand what I mean. Rarely will you ever see a recap of the boring events of his day and if you do, they don’t seem boring in the least and end up serving some sort of purpose. There’s a lesson or joke at the end that makes it all worth your while. But it’s not just his material. It’s his style that sets him apart. He operates on an entirely different wavelength; one that I’ve only been able to pick up on stormy days. He experiences the world in a way which I have yet to be able to grasp and it intrigues me more then anything else. He seems to have the experience of an 80 year old with the energy of a 5 year old wrapped up in the body and mind of a 25 year old. He’s not afraid to speak his mind, express his creativity, or show emotion. But his trait I probably admire most is his ability to articulate those twisted and confused feelings that each and every one of us experience day in and day out.

The strangest thing to me is that we seem to have nothing in common on the surface. While neither of us enjoy the majority of “popular” music, we don’t have the same taste in music. I’m led to believe he could physically disassemble a car and put it back together while I’m just lucky I know where the gas nozzle goes. He can build visually stimulating websites and paint brilliantly in his sleep. It took me a good 2 days to finish that logo up top that won’t be updated for at least another year. He would probably laugh at me for my obsession with baseball and video games. Somehow, he didn’t find humor in Seinfeld. Hell, until recently, I never even drank while he has a page on his site that breaks down what alcoholic beverages and accessories every house should contain.

And yet, if you dig a little deeper and get pass the surface, I find that we live relatively similar. When I told all my friends about the John Coltrane two-week marathon that was being broadcast, they just cocked their heads to the side and responded with ”Johnny Cold Train?” To my friends, Danger Mouse was just another rapper thug who got in the way of their Outkast and anything created before the golden 90s isn’t worth experiencing. He’s one of the few people I know who also find relaxation in spending a day working on an arts project, whether it be painting in his case or writing my book in mine, instead of staring at the TV for hours. And while it may seem silly to most that I play video games for a few hours a week, if you were to look at some of the games out now, you’d see why. I’m not talking about the popular ones like Laura Croft or Grand Theft Auto, I’m talking about RPGs such as Xenosaga and Final Fantasy IX. With their storylines, they could easily be translated into a book and be just as, if not more successful. When a video game starts debating Plato’s Cave Theory or gets you to start questioning the theory of Direct Realism, you know you’ve got something special. Sadly, people prefer just to shoot zombies or save the princess. We both love our friends and family dearly and yet we both are almost stubbornly independent. We both are viewed as outsiders, people who go against the norm. Hell, when you have nicknames like Doctor Grosz and Goob which have lasted through middle school and you still embrace them as if they were your natural name, well, you shouldn’t have trouble seeing us as being different. But most importantly, we both just seem to enjoy life, something I think that most people just don’t do.

He’s someone that seems like I would enjoy knowing in the real world; one of those guys who when you see him after spending some time apart, you’ll always be treated to a few hours of entertaining stories and still have time to go out and create new ones. His posts cover almost anything you can think of. Vegas, cops, Kinko’s, bad sex, 9-11, rediscovering old friends, nostalgic drives, getting run over by a car, how dumb people help stop the spread of spam (Get a scissors, locate modem, cut every single fucking wire that is plugged into said modem with the aforementioned scissors, and don’t go near technology again. Ever.), pig roasts, how it is not smart to turn to the Internet to find out what is medically wrong with you, and almost everything in-between.

His best piece of work, IMO, would be his essay titled “Locked, Not Loaded”. I won’t do any injustice to it by trying to summarize it. Go read it. If it doesn’t appeal to you, doesn’t strike some chord deep down in you, then go ahead and move on. Doc isn’t for you. But if it does, I’d recommend checking out the rest of his site. You won’t be disappointed. Now that I sit here and read what I’ve written, it almost feels like I’m trying to convince y’all to date him. I don’t know, I just want to show my readers another blogger out there who is definitely worth checking out and who inspired me to open up Shyzer. Enjoy.

Now I’m off to work on Project #98673 of mine….updating all these sub-pages and getting Moveable Type set up. Wish me luck.

Apparently Shyzer has a strong and somewhat large following of highschoolers. When I first learned of this, I was a bit shocked. “Highschoolers?” I said to myself, “What the hell are they doing here? I sure as hell didn’t invite them.” Yet, after a little (about 25 seconds) of digging, I found the source of all the fresh meat. My brother, Mr. Smartass himself, had put a link to Shyzer in his profile. Almost instantly Chris (have I met you?), Chad (deaf dude), Peezie (blind dude), Catharine (oh yeeeeah…a chick), Drew (huh?), Smiley (can sell anything), Elliot (your religion sucks), and countless other started flooding my tag-board and comments. I figured this would be some temporary thing. You remember how quickly fads faded when you were in high school. I thought I’d just become another set of Pogs, another Who Let The Dogs Out, another…Pokemon. Yet it hasn’t quite turned out that way. I’ve become the Survivor of website fads. They just keep coming and coming. Every time I go home, multiple friends of Tommy’s will start telling me what they thought about my latest post or what they’d like to see on Shyzer. They call my Jesus now. Shyzer has elevated me to the status of an equal. I am now thought of as “hip” and “phat” and am frequently referred to as the nozzle or nizzle of a garden hose or something. It’s amazing how you can one day reach this height of “coolness” 4 years removed from high school, especially when you never sought it while you were physically there. I’m not complaining though. As long as I don’t have to do anything, dress a certain way, or act a certain way, it’s all good to me.

You might ask yourself where this is all going. All I have to say is go buy something Shyzerific. Or you can just donate me the money instead. Either way. We here at Shyzer don’t discriminate. Na, the real point of this is that while I might not say it, I really run this site for people like them. Forget the fact that I enjoy every minute of blogging (okay, not every. Sometimes y’all can be real bitches) and I love it even more when people let me know that they are just reading it. I’d rather have 100 people tell me they hate my site then absolutely no comments on it at all. I like having people tell me they laughed their asses off at my Objective Creation Science Fair post (which, by far, has been the most positively received post I’ve ever done. When you start getting random IMs from people telling you how much they loved it…well, it’s the best motivation in the world). I run Shyzer for all the Angelas and Stans (well, okay, Angela and Stan) and for all those other fellow bloggers out there who take a few minutes out of their day to wander on over here and read what I’ve got to say. This will all start to be a little more relevant in the coming weeks when I put up some of the posts I’ve been working on lately. Until then, just take from this that I appreciate each and every visitor I have. You guys are what keeps Shyzer alive.

I’ve got another fairly important post, to me at least, that I was planning on putting up tonight. However, the site I was going to link to is currently down, so I will have to wait to put it up until later this weekend. Now I’m off to bed only to arise far too early to tutor some folks (Meaning I have money to eat this week!) and then watch the USC Basketball game, The Mariners Spring Training Game, and then go to the USC baseball game. Ah, the joys of college.

And one last thing. Somebody recently asked me if I ever trim my beard. When I told them that the only thing I’ve trimmed on it in the past 5 months was the moustache, they asked me how. I think the cam picture speaks for itself.

First, they magically took away some of my webspace. Then they started fucking with my GM files (I swear I didn’t touch them). Then they moved me onto a new server, which caused my gallery to stop letting people log in and now the gallery won’t even work. Their tech support consists of a single e-mail address and their website hasn’t been updated since January 25, 2003….

I hate Contrast Hosting. I want to switch hosts, but I already paid for this month. Stop laughing, I’m poor, not cheap.

Somebody do me a favor. Take all my mid-terms this week for me and I’ll give you a free Shyzer shirt and trucker hat. I honestly could care less about my exams tomorrow, which is evident in the fact that I spent a good hour and a half typing up a post today instead of studying. I’ll finish it up tomorrow and take this one down. So until then, you’re stuck with this shitty one.

Guess who’s got exceptionally ugly, highly overpriced, officially licensed Shyzer items for sale?! That’s right. Now you too can own your very own Shyzer hooded sweatshirt, Shyzer mousepad, or even a Shyzer BBQ apron. And what says I love you better then a pair of thongs with Shyzer stamped across the crotch? Just think, the very last thought you could have before jumping into the sack with the Misses could be of this shitty site. And they say I’m not a Romantic.

Granted, $7.99 might be a little pricey for a piece of cotton that will be used to collect dribbles of Gerber, especially when you could spend that on a few rolls of paper towels that would last much longer, but I ask you this. Does Brawny guarantee that it not only will keep your child clean, but will then take him out back and entertain him for hours at a time while you kick back with a cold one? I didn’t think so. And while you’re at it, why not sip that cold one out of a Shyzer stein? As you can see, the possibilities are endless.

Sure, I only make like 2 bucks on anything purchased from my “store,” but I’m only 8 purchases away from earning enough money to buy that Shyzer Tote Bag I so desperately want.

Note: I just realized that you can click on Habu’s red dot and Mr. Gruff’s coffee and head to make them say / do something.

One of Mr. Gruff’s sayings is “Hey kid, wanna go read some Ayn Rand?”

Priceless.