Shyzer.com

I’m searching like hell for a local base/softball team to join for the summer. There’s surprisingly more activity up here then I had originally thought, but most of it seems like it’s older men’s slow-pitch softball leagues. I can technically join them….but it’s slow pitch softball. I really wish I could find a fast pitch or even full out baseball league around here, but honestly, baseball isn’t the biggest sport in this area. There’s a few local summer leagues that are for college players only, but I can’t get into any of those since I don’t play for an NCAA school. God, what I would give to be able to go run out and play in Duncan Park again. I remember how huge that outfield used to seem and how fun it was to roam center field back in high school. I swear though, if they would just hold tryouts, I would be there in a flash.

I know I’ve said this a thousand times, but I really miss playing baseball competitively. Not going out for my high school team honestly is the biggest regret I have. I never even went and tried out because I was scared of not making the team. Jesus Christ, how pathetic is that? And now I sit here practically begging my way into a slow pitch softball league. Go figure.

Is it just me or does that Fantasia chick from American Idol look and sound like Chris Tucker? And who thinks these people actually sound good?

I seem to have lost the will to blog right now. I know it’s just a little slump, but when I checked Shyzer tonight and saw how amazingly blank it was, I realized the severity of my neglection. I’m about to head to bed, but fear not, I’ll start posting again real soon here. Regularly. Even if I’m forced to sit here and recap my day like those melo-dramatic teen blogs, I’ll do it just to get the creative juices flowing.

I’ve invested too much sweat and blood (and fucking cash) into this site to let it die. Oh, and I like those of you who still show up =)

*side note* Microsoft Word tried to tell me “neglection” wasn’t a word. Dictionary.com proves otherwise Bitch. Just thought I’d toss that one out there.

I realize that there has been a seriously lack of posting here lately, but to tell you the truth, Shyzer has been the last thing on my mind during the past week or so. It’s been one hell of a hectic week, but I realized from the drop off of visitors that you all must be getting bored. Fear not. I’m not going to shut down the site for the whole summer like I did last year or any random shit like that. I’ve just been busy trying to straighten out all the drama here at home and figured nobody out there would be interested in hearing about it. Therefore, I haven’t been on here too much.

I’ll post more later. Right now I’m off to take one of the most needed naps of my entire life.

(This post does not turn into the post you might think it would. I mean, come on, I’m sure you all can already see the tip of a giant carrot with googly eyes. So give me the benefit of the doubt, take my word, and read along even if you like President Bush.)

I’ve managed to stay away from talking about political matters here on Shyzer. There have been countless times in the past few months were I almost broke down and started ranting and raving over how far President Bush is setting this country back, but I’ve managed to contain my emotions and hold back my feelings. For the past year, I’ve been utterly amazed over the hypocrisy of the Bush Administration. I cannot believe half the stuff that comes out of their mouths and at least half of their policies are down right retarded at best.

As a student of history, I’ve grown to learn how political and diplomatic figures think and act. You have to think in the long term, not the immediate future. Hell, studying history alone teaches you how to do that, much less when you study how successful world leaders operate. Bush is the type of President who is fixated on bandaging the cut on a leg while the patient is having a heart attack. Then when the patient dies, he looks around stunned and mumbles under his breath how it was the nurses fault, and calls his friends down at the morgue to help him out by clearing him of any wrongdoing.

Okay, you know what? I’m not going to do this to you all. I’m know you’re not here to read about my political views (and while we’re on the topic…why are you here?) so I won’t subjugate you all to a post where I list the reasons why I think President Bush is a horrible President. (And I’ve gotten up to well over 100 the last time I made said list). Instead, I’ll let the site below do all the talking for me. If you are interested in why President Bush desperately needs to lose the election in November, click it. If not, don’t. Either way, if I can get one person out there to click it and read through some of the articles, then I’ve done my job.

Anybody But Bush 2004

Instead, I am going to give you some of these other, not-so-well-known candidates who are running against President Bush in November. You all know of the Democratic Presidential Nominee John Kerry (and the URL name for that link to Kerry could not be more true) and many of you know about the Green Party candidate Ralph Nader. But like I said, there are a few others choices out there who you might want to consider before you head to the polls this November.

Therefore, I give you Chris P. Carrot. Retarded name aside, Chris shows quite a bit of promise. The first question you might be asking is why the hell you are voting for a produce item. Well that’s simple. According to Chris, “It will take a carrot to improve America’s vision!” Get it? Vision? Get it? Yeah…okay, so horribly placed pun aside, Chris still has some great ideas. He wants the entire population to convert to vegetarianism. Whoops, I meant to say he has some fucking retarded ideas. I’ve always gotten those two confused.

Some of his critics have expressed concerns that he doesn’t look “presidential” enough. Now I personally don’t have anything against a giant penis in a tuxedo and top hat, but I can see where others might object. I just think those who object fail to see how much influence he could have with other world leaders. Female leaders would be fixated on his….um…head while male leaders would be admiring that sparkly bow tie he wears. Classy.

But I’m still not sold on his support group. Unlike Kerry, Carrot has already named his running mate, Colonel Corn. He currently spends his time supporting PETA, who to the best of my knowledge pisses off Democrats and Republicans alike. He seems to preoccupied with his “peas for peace” program to effectively take over Dick Chaney’s evil cyborg role. He also doesn’t look that delicious, and when I think about it, neither does Carrot. What happens when they both spoil? Or if their secret service body guards get a case of the munchies and see a large boiling pot of water across the room? No, these guys certainly can’t have my vote.

Since I’m not too fond of the idea of eating nothing but fruits and soy beans for the rest of my life, I decided to take a look at the next candidate, Tabby. Just like the name implies, she’s an ugly house cat whose eaten her fair share of mice over the years. Personally, I’ve got a problem with Tabby right off the box. First, her “Presidential” website is lacking. She went a little overboard with the animated gifs and seems to think that her horrid Photoshop skills are decent enough to show to the rest of the world. She’s even still on a Geocities account. Sorry, but my President needs to be able to pull enough strings to buy his own domain. I even question whether or not her owner really wants her and if this is a legitimate candidate. Her press photos show her sitting in the glass recycling crate. Is this campaign just an excuse to get rid of her? Since when did the Presidency position become a local Animal Shelter?

Okay, I admit, I still had yet to find a candidate that I could get behind and fully support. I was still in search of that perfect leader to guide my country for the next four years, but I finally found him in Gay Penguin. That’s right, we’ve finally reached the day when a gay penguin can rune for President and I for one could not be any more thrilled. We’re already the laughing stock of the world and the butt of everybody else’s jokes…why not have a Gay Penguin be our President!?! It’s so crazy, mind numbingly retarded, and pathetic that it’s downright perfect!

Gay Penguin is a homosexual penguin. He is incapable of speaking, of signing laws and bills, and perhaps even incapable of abstract thought. However, in retrospect, the past four years of American Leadership have been so poor that Gay Penguin would have easily been the best choice for America. Gay Penguins are coming out. Just recently, two penguins at the Central Park Zoo in Manhattan have celebrated six years of monogamy, and zoo keepers have given them an egg to raise, which hatched successfully. While Christian Fundamentalists rally around Constitutional Amendments against Gay Marriage, Gay Penguins are proving that God has no problems with Gay Marriage or Gay Adoption.

Hell, I’m liking Gay Penguin already. But that’s not all folks. After reading about Gay Penguin and seeing his picture on his site, I knew I’d seen him before, but I couldn’t quite think of where. I gave up on trying to figure it out and it wasn’t until I was joking around the other day with some friends until I finally remembered where I’d seen him! I was reciting a hilarious quote from The Simpsons: “It’s my first day!” and was reminded of the scene near the end of that episode. That’s right folks. Gay Penguin served aboard the S.S. Antarctica and I’ve got the pictures to prove it.

So that settles it. We’ve got a soon to be President who: is gay, has war time experience, appreciates fresh shrimp and squid, can handle those frigid winters, and most importantly was on the Simpsons. I think I’ve found my candidate.

(Serious Note: Check out Gay Penguin’s owner’s site. Doubtful many of you will like it, but I enjoyed parts of it, especially the plea to John Kerry to stop being an idiot and just win this damn thing.)

I have about 6 word documents sitting on my desktop now, all 3/4 the way finished. They are all potential posts and yet here I am at 2:30 in the morning unable to complete any of them. I swear on my life that one of them will be finished by tomorrow and uploaded and that at least two more will make their way on here during the next week. I’ve sort of been soaking up this “summer” bit and just enjoying all the time I haven’t been working. Yeah, that’s right, I was able to get a job with my dad working on this house across town. I started last Wednesday and so far it’s been great. I’m doing the same stuff I was forced to do as a child and yet this time I don’t depise it with a passion. Maybe it has something to do with that paycheck at the end of every week, but I like to think it has something to do with the fact that I’m learning how to actually do all this stuff correctly.

I never knew putting up crown molding was such a bitch.

I guess today was my first “day off.” I promply spent it by sleeping in, getting kicked out of Burger King with my brother for not being “respectful,” and hanging out with Fellner. I sure could get used to this whole “summer” concept. =) I’m headed to bed now, but like I said, I’ll have another post up by tomorrow and will stop neglecting my faithful readers.

I promise.

(This will be the last post of this type for a long, long time. So humor me and read it. Also, for those of you interested in how the hell I became such a big Mariners fan, you can find the answer in the comments of this post.)

Well, the move back home has gone smoothly enough. I still have yet to deal with the pile of shit in the garage I call “my stuff,” but that will be dealt with sometime soon. I have, however, been working on a number of new posts to soon show up on Shyzer. I actually had a good one ready and prepared to go up tonight, but I decided to hold off a day on that one to finally get in these 2004 baseball predictions I made this past March. I would have posted them then, but I wanted to take the time to explain why I picked each team to finish where I put them, which you can read by hovering your mouse over the team’s logo. Looking back on them, I didn’t see any prediction that made me go, “Wait a minute…what in the hell was I smoking when I make THAT?!” but at the same time, quite a few of them have been off so far. Yeah, it’s only a month and a half into the season, but things are starting to settle down, the dust is clearing, and we are beginning to see the true side to most of these teams.

In fact, now that I look at, I can’t help but chuckle. The League that I should know the most about, the American, seems to be where I made the worst predictions to date. I picked the Twins and White Six to be bad (nope and nope), the Blue Jays to play decent (nope), the Angels to tank (God I was off), and the Royals to win their division (Okay…I was REALLY off on this one). The only prediction in that whole league I seem to have nailed is the Mariners blowing. But more on this later.

The National League, however, I seem to be doing decent in. My three “upset” picks were all over here. The Phillies sucking, the Dodgers winning, and the Padres surprising everybody. So far, so good. It seemed like every “expert” out there picked Philadelphia to dominate that division, but they are hardly “dominating” and winning this one with ease. Apparently winning the World Series and keeping your most important player isn’t that big of a deal now a days. Folks, the Florida Marlins are still good. They were good last year. They beat Atlanta, Chicago, and New York. They are still good this year. How much more is it going to take to prove they aren’t just some “fluke?” The Padres seemed to have snuck up there on everybody and all of a sudden they are a playoff team and the Dodgers have finally found the offense that they so desperately needed. Yeah, yeah, it’s only May. Come October, the tables could be turned in both leagues and Kansas City could be winning their division like I said. But I’m not holding my breath on this one. =)

Which brings me back to the Mariners. The season is over. I knew all along they weren’t going to be a good team, but with the birth of every new season for every team, there is that small seed of hope. Maybe, just maybe, your team will exceed all expectations and win despite all the odds. It happened with the Marlins last year, it happened with the Angels the year before, and it happened with the Diamondbacks the year prior that. They all just barely made the playoffs and then caused chaos for all the other teams in the playoffs. But they all had one thing in common. Pure, common, unfiltered luck. They suffered no injuries, they picked up key players along the way, and had more then one player have career years. And so I held out hope that maybe, just maybe, they’d have a season like that.

Ha.

Sunday afternoon was the game that slammed the steak in. Last night was the final blow. Sunday, Seattle has an offensive outburst by scoring 6 runs in the 2nd inning. They’ve only scored 6 or more runs four times this season, helping them earn the 4th worst offense in the entire major league. They went on to allow the Yankees to score 7 runs and lose the game. Then, last night, I watched the Mariners get 17 hits. SEVENTEEN HITS! 16 of those hits were for singles. Yet even with those weak singles, they managed to carry a 6-2 lead into the 8th inning. So what did they do? Let the Twins score 5 runs and win the game 7-6. This team stinks. I cried and stared in amazement as the Mariners went out and signed some of the worse players this off season. The Mariners’ management ignored logic and went with “community friendly” guys who can’t hit or field worth a shit. They continue to operate in a method that will maximize their wallets (publicly stated numerous times. They aren’t bashful about this fact) while staying relatively competitive. You almost want to root against them at this point so that they’d finally realize how erroneous their assumptions on your average fan’s intelligence is. Attendance in Seattle has already dropped by over 10,000 fans per game. Jersey sales are at a decade low and they were only able to get 6 games televised on national TV this year.

It’s time to clean house. Trade whatever elder players we have, stockpile on young talent, suck for another 4 years, and see if we can’t win a world championship that way. The method their operating under now has already proven futile and now it’s just a matter of the fans staying away from the ballpark and merchandise staying in the store to prove to the owners that this new path must be undertaken. It would be so much easier to start following some other team (I’ve practically fallen in love with the Marlins since last October), but I can’t. I love the players on the Marlins, not The Marlins. If Pierre and Dontrell and Lowell and Choi and Castillo were all traded, the Marlins would be a different team and I’d no longer follow them. And even if I did, I couldn’t forgive myself for becoming one of “those” fans, which is why you stick with your team through thick and thin. Yes, the next few years are going to physically blow. I’ve already stopped following baseball with the same passion, the same zeal, the same energy that I once did. I still love the sport, I still will stop flipping through channels if I spot a baseball game, and I still drop everything the moment the guys decided it’d be a good day to go out and play. But The Mariners have jaded this fan with their greedy ambitions and until they prove that they care about their fans, I’ll stay away.

Like I said, this will be my last post about the Mariners for a while. I’ve got a few funny posts ready to go, so don’t think I’ve forgotten about y’all. Back to my daily weekly ramblings. (And that y’all was just for you Stan)

Oh yeah…Go Mariners.

So how about that last Friends episode? You know, I really thought they should have…

Hahaha, gotcha.

School is officially over for me. I had my last exam today, which was a great feeling. I wasn’t too nervous about it, since like I stated before, I’d reached that point this semester where I ceased to give a rat’s ass about my classes. At least now I don’t even have to care about not giving a rat’s ass. I’m moving back to Spartanburg this weekend for the summer, which means I am in the midst of packing as we speak. You never realize how much shit you have until you’re forced to drag it all out into a massive heap in the middle of your room and shove it into boxes for the transport. I’ve already filled two garbage bags full of shit I’m getting rid of and another box full of shit to pawn off at the Flea Market. If I can make $20 from it all, I’ll be happy.

I’m still not entirely sure what I’m doing this summer. I have a pretty good idea, but as with everything else in my life, I’ve been known to suddenly change my mind at the last second and take the foolish/exciting path. It’s still a possibility for this summer, but we’ll have to see.

I actually spent last night typing up 3 separate posts for the upcoming week. 1 serious, 1 funny, and 1 kinda both. I also am rounding up Tommy’s friends to help participate in the First Annual Shyzer Fundraising Drive. I’m low as hell on cash (I know. Shocker.) and there’s a few things that I want to add to Shyzer, but they of course want current, authentic currency in exchange. Since those new 50 dollar bills the government released totally destroyed my counterfeiting ring, I’ve been forced to go to Krispy Kreme and tell them that Shyzer Inc. is a non-profit organization that helps in the study and preservation of South Carolina culture. I’ll give you all time to stop laughing. Hey, the argument could be made that my semi-regular posts help archive the chronicles of a 20-something year old male’s struggle and triumphs while growing up in South Carolina, thereby giving younger and older generations access and insight to mind of my generation. Of course, I’ll make up a better bullshit when I make my final pitch to Krispy Kreme, but I’m confidant in my lying abilities. I’ve been brushing up on my skills in the past few weeks in preparation for my final meeting however. You might see this post disappear in the near-future for a week or two. I wouldn’t want anybody from KK coming over here and realizing that I’m not as authentic as they will soon believe.

Now leave some comments for me, will ya? I like to know I still have a few readers =) Oh yeah, if anybody wants a 3 year old answering machine or some blue jeans from my early high school days, come on out to the Flea Market next weekend. I’ll be there with the rest of this shit I have.

Anybody who knows me knows that I spend an inordinate amount of time on the Internet. It’s not like I’m addicted to it or anything (and if I am, then we all know I’ve yet to take the first step towards recovery), but whenever I have a free moment and a computer is nearby, I jump on it and see if there’s anything new to gander over. When I get really bored, I head over to Google and see if I can find anything new. Seriously. I just type something random into the search bar and leave it to the Gods to provide me with something entertaining within the first 30 results or so. I literally have a folder in my Favorites dedicated to nothing but the random sites I find every now and then.

While in the midst of a caffeine-driven, sleep deprived frenzy last week, I was racking my brain for something new to search for. It was then that two random brain nodes decided to spark each other and give me the idea of typing in “Japanese Commercials.” The first result turned up a priceless site full of American celebrities doing commercials in Japan, otherwise known as Japander’s. Some of the best ones on there are done by Governor (you don’t know how hard it is for me to type that) Schwarzenegger. I suggest the left and right ones on the middle line for him. The Simpsons have a few funny ones as does Sean Connery and a talking stuffed bunny.

But even B-list celebrities are cashing in. Stevie Wonder saw well enough to recognize the easy money, Whitney Houston found a new income for her crack habits, and hellMichael J. Fox was even able to control his Parkinson’s long enough to cash in on the fad!

The basic rule of thumb for finding the really funny ones is to look for screenshots of the actor or actresses with an extremely heroin-driven, murderous, crazed look on their face. Then you know you’ve struck gold. But have a look around. The laughs you’re sure to get are well worth the time.

And finally, I want to share a few things from an IM conversation Dave and I had earlier. I received an IM from Dave telling me that he’d been kind enough to sign me up for a new dating service and that I could check out my personal video here. Once I regained the ability to breathe from the fit of laughter I had, I went and made this to counter the one he made of me. And then I went ahaed and made this one just for the pure hell of it. =) They’ll only be good for another 10 days or so, so go check them out.

I almost didn’t finish these before I went to bed like I promised. For as emotional as today was, I still couldn’t sleep tonight and it just didn’t feel right breaking yet another “promise” I’d given on here. You have to do the little things in life right in order to get the larger ones accomplished. And so here you are, the answer to all your questions in the order in which they were asked. I hope they suffice your expectations.

1) Besides manipulation, why would you REALLY want to know what people were thinking?

Information is the key to everything. It’s why I’ve always wanted to learn, why I’ve never really been bothered by and actually enjoyed school, and why if I could, I’d spend my entire life just taking classes. Any change, any power, any control is all based on information. I’ve never had any desire for massive power and domination, but I like knowing that if I need to bring out the big guns, I can….and the best way to build those is through information.

Whenever I play board or video games, I’m always the kid who sits in the corner and just stockpiles weapons and men. I never attack anybody first and I’m quite content in just sitting throughout the game with little / no action whatsoever, just as long as I can do what I want to do in my own little corner of the world. I’m the same way in life. I have no intention of attacking anybody, but when push comes to shove, I find pleasure in totally and utterly annihilating my competition. I enjoy the look on their face when they realize I am a hundred times stronger and smarter then they gave me credit for and that spilt second in their eyes where they realize they are fucked is priceless.

As long as people let me be, I don’t bother a soul. But I’m up for a fight just as much as the next guy if you really want it. And to win, I need information, which is why I’d pick reading people’s minds over those other powers.

2) Do you think it’s possible to be TOO honest for your own good? why?

Hell yes. Without a doubt. But I think the most dangerous type of honesty is voluntary honesty. When you start giving extra bits of truth to people when they never asked you about that in the first place, you are playing with fire. When somebody asks you if you went to the party last night, all you need to answer is the question. “No” will suffice. You don’t need to add “I was out with your girlfriend.”

People don’t realize that most people who “don’t talk that much” or “keep to themselves” are just not giving you extra information that most people give you. I can have a conversation with somebody I’ve never met and be given the answer to 30 questions when I only asked 4. It’s times like these that you get yourself into trouble. If a question with an unpleasant answer is actually directly asked, then you deal with it then. It means that person is ready to deal with the actual truth. Now whether or not you are willing to tell the truth is another story, albeit a more important one.

3) How do you think “your one true love” works?

I’m guessing you’re talking about those conversations we had a few years ago. Well, as with everything else in my life, I tend to see things as complicated as possible. I don’t see the world in black and white. I don’t even see the world in gray. My eyes are filtered through one of those jumbo boxes of 256 Crayola crayons that all the rich kids had in kindergarten. So if the following makes little to no sense to you, don’t feel bad, you’re in the norm Okay, we all know how “odd” my sense of religion is. There’s not a single organized religion out there (except for maybe Taoism) that I could follow, so first we need to get to the base of how I believe in things. I’ve always been a gut vs. mind type person. My heart and brain battle it out over which brand of milk to buy, much less how the concepts of love and religion work. My head, mind, and sense of reasoning usually wins out in most contests, but when the dust finally settles in the love, religion, and other such categories, my gut pulls out the upset. I have no data except for my own observations and realizations to back my theories, which sometimes can be stronger then anything anybody will ever try to tell me otherwise. So my views on love to many seem far reaching, speculative, and just down right foolish. It also raises the nature vs. nurture argument, but I don’t feel like going into a long essay here as to how I answer that part, so you’ve got to look over that. Here goes:

Somewhere along the line, before birth, our soul’s are assigned a specific, quantitative, precise property. The easiest way for me to express this property is in the form of numbers. You must think of the numbers in a circular fashion, not a linear line. How many numbers are in this circle? I have no idea. I don’t pretend to know. I have absolutely no method or thoughts on how to calculate the amount of numbers. Yet. But seeing as how there are around 6 billion people on the planet, let’s go with 50 million for argument’s sake just so I can prove my thinkings clearly. So here we have a large circle of numbers with 0 and 50,000,000 connecting to finalize the loop. Now, we need to understand the properties of these numbers. Each person, as complex as we are, can be summed up in a few pages of basic sentences. Our tendencies, our habits, our reactions…they are all wrapped up in this assigned property that we were given. So now these properties can be translated into a number, ie: the number you are branded with. But you might be saying to yourself, “But Goob, that means there are 120 other people out there with the same number as myself!” Well nice observation Sherlock. Is it really that hard to believe that there are 120 other people out there who are basically the same as you? What makes you all different, you ask? Life experiences. They warp and mold each person differently so that at first glance, you wouldn’t notice one of the other 119 people like you if they came up and kneed you in the groin. So where the hell am I going with this? Hang with me here.

For the rest of this argument, we’re going to pretend my number is 1000. Now, according to our calculations, there are 59 other 1000’s out there. We’re going to assume that the breakdown comes to an even 60 males and 60 females, at least for the rest of this argument. Now we need to define our “one true love” property. Is this somebody you can fall in love with? Somebody you marry? Your “soul mate?” I’m gonna go ahead and go with the latter and say you’re referring to soul mates and proceed from there.

It should be obvious what I’m doing with the numbers by now, but like I said, there is still just a little more to be dealt with. You might be asking “So can I only fall in love with people of my same number?” Not quite. Those 60 people of the opposite sex (or 59 of the same sex) are your most ideal matches. Yes, they are interchangeable. There is no such thing as a “One True Soul Mate.” There are “60 True Soul Mates,” but it’s not quite as loose as it seems. Let’s pretend that I met another girl whose number is 1000. We hit it off, start dating, fall in love, get married, etc. etc. I have found one of my soul mates and that is that. There is no other girl out there who can match any better with me and even if by some stroke of pure luck I meet another girl whose number is 1000, I wouldn’t leave my wife. There is nothing more to gain because I am perfectly happy with where I am. This is where the emotion variable comes into play. I’ve sat here for a good few hours trying to think of a decent way to explain it, but I can’t. You’re just gonna have to realize it for yourself. When you are in love, true love, you’ve found one of those matches. Not fools love, not temporary love: true love. Only you can tell us whether or not it’s true love. But we’ve still got just a little more work with these numbers: Defining the ranges.

Alright, so now you are saying “Yeah, but what if I never find my significant other with the same number as me? There’s only 0.00000001% of people that I can fall in love with! I’ll grow old alone and bitch, bitch, bitch….” Shut it. There are still acceptable ranges that people can be happy within. 50,000,000 numbers is a lot. That’s like fifty million different numbers. So what about the different ranges out there. Some people can easily get married, live happily for many years, divorce, repeat. Or some people’s spouses die and they are able to find others who they are happy with and spend the rest of their lives with. So how do we calculate these? Well they fall in the “200 category.” The 200 Category is the range of numbers two people can be apart and still live happy, content, enjoyable lives together. Which means that anybody 1200 through 800 fits that criteria for me. That’s 24,000 people folks, or 0.000004% of the population. Hey, those odds are looking better! But what about “love?” People fall in love all the time, only to eventually fall out of it. Well those situations are reserved for the “1000 Category,” which says that I can be happy with people within the 2000-0 number range for a time, but that it probably won’t last. That means there are 120,000 people, or 0.00002% of the population, that you can fall in love with. Obviously these “Categories” aren’t completely defined. Maybe it’s a 1000 and 10,000 Categories. I have no idea. But I just used 200 and 1000 to illustrate my point.

I know there are a lot of buts and ifs in this calculations, but I really don’t want to keep going on and on unless people have actually read, understand, and are interested in this. Besides, when I have to explain this, it comes out much, MUCH more scientific and thought out then it is in my head. This is just the way I think folks. If I was way too confusing, let me know and I’ll dedicate an entire post to it and break it down even more complexly, but I really don’t want to have to do that because it takes all the emotion and variables out of it, which is where my gut triumphed. But if you really want to know anything else, just ask and I’ll answer them. Jesus, I’ve only answer 3 fucking questions so far?!

1) Describe ideally (and yet somewhat realistically) where in life you’d like to be in five years?

Hmm…well, let’s start at today. This summer and next semester are kind of like the end of my college years. This summer I’m going home to spend my last summer there. It will be nice to have a final summer together with Alex, Nook, David & Suzie, Dad & Tom, etc. Then we’ve got next semester and (hopefully) next Spring I’m off to Australia. I want to end my “college life” here in the states before I leave and start on my next leg in life over in Australia. Then we’ve got me coming back home, going through the graduation process, grabbing a few essential things in my truck, and taking off. I’ve said it since day one: I can’t stay here. I don’t regret at all going to college here at USC, but I honestly should have gone somewhere else. I needed to get away 3 years ago and I still need to. Where will I go? Who knows. Maybe Seattle. Maybe New York. Maybe Australia. But not here. I don’t like plans. In fact, I hate them. I hate being ruled by an itinerary. I hate my life being dictated by deadlines and schedules. I like having goals and sticking to them rigorously once I’ve set them, but other then that, I want to be as loose and free as possible.

Once I graduate, I think I might get a job for a year or two to save up some money and then move on to something that actually makes me happy. I can’t pull the 9 to 5. I refuse to have my soul sucked out by fluorescent lighting. I refuse to spend the better part of my day surrounded by people who aspire to “climb the ladder” and join middle management. I refuse to be happy by the thought of casual Friday when all it means is the same outfit minus a tie. I refuse to operate in a cubicle smaller then most jail cells. You know me better then anybody else Jess: money has and never will be an important part of my life. So getting a corporate job is just out of the question. Maybe I’ll become a cop. Maybe I’ll go to the local elementary school and ask if they need any subs. Maybe I’ll join a bunch of Mexicans doing some yard work in the fresh air. We’ll just have to see what kind of mood I’m in the day I go looking for a job. As long as I’m happy with what I’m doing and I am not starving, I’m content. But, I know one day I’ll return home to these Blue Ridge Mountain Skies. The older I get, the stronger that feeling grows. Yet the need to get away for a decade or two grows with it and I can’t return if I never leave.

2) What would your perfect significant other be like?

Forgiving. Must love baseball (bonus points for Mariners fans). Can’t get jealous easily. Must appreciate my sense of humor. Liberal. Needs to have one of her own as well. Can’t be quick tempered. Athleticism is a plus. Intelligence is an even bigger plus. Physically attractive (in my eyes). Must know who she is. I expect her to know myself better then I do. Supportive. Comforting. Has got to realize the difference when I talk with my head and with my gut. Can go days without talking about herself. Isn’t afraid to take initiative. Can’t be needy. Straightforward. Oh yeah, and she’s got to love me for who I am. Forgiving.

I would have added the trustworthy, honest, etc. crap that everybody says. But honestly, whose picture of an ideal significant other is NOT trustworthy, honest, etc? Who goes, “You know, I want a bitch who will lie to my face and sleep around!” Those are all a given! I’ve been slowly adding and pruning away at that list above since you gave it to me and that’s the best I could come up with so far.

3) What is the most cruel thing you have ever done to anyone?

November-March of 11th grade.

1) Out of all the things in life, what has inspired you the most?

Instead of wussing out with a weak answer, I’m holding off on this one. I’ll come back and edit this once I’ve had a little more time to think about it.

2) Consider the worst possible day ever. Who would be the ideal person to comfort you?

What the hell’s with these serious questions coming from Stan? I didn’t expect anything of this magnitude from you. Alright, well if I were to actually consider the worst day possible, my most ideal person to comfort me would be dead. But that’s a cop out of an answer, so I’ll pretend that I had the second worst day possible. In times of crisis, I’ve always turned to myself. I implode, I break down, and I become a wreck for a few days. Then I force myself to get it together, drag myself out of bed, and take that first painful step to recovering from whatever it is that beat me down in the first place. I do this not because I comfort myself better then others can, but because I hate to put my burdens on those I love. I feel needy, whiny, and most of all weak. I feel as though I’ve failed and need someone else to rescue me and I’ve been like that for as long as I can remember. But the most painful thing is that most of the time, I am holding myself back from reaching out for help. I want to be comforted. I want to be reassured. I want to be helped. But I refuse to allow myself to ask for it and most of the time will even refuse any help offered to me from those who know me well enough to realize I need it. It’s a self destructive tendency that might one day ruin me…but I like doing things my own way.

Now, with that all being said, there is one person who throughout my entire life has been the most comforting person to be there for me. We might have some trust issues now and our history might be a little rockier then I would like, but my mom has always been there to comfort me. She has that motherly touch that no other will be able to replace and even as she tells me things that I know she’s saying just to make me feel better, I believe them and it works.

3) Several nuclear bombs have been strategically set off throughout the world. You are the only Democrat left. Do you realize your error in thinking or continue on being a dumb ass?

Ahhhh….so you were saving your best for last. Well, since several nuclear bombs have been set off throughout the world, there must have been a Republican in the Presidential position at the time. Therefore, all the Republicans who were left would realize how horrible and backward their way of thinking is and begin to convert to the Democrat’s side. And since I would be the only true Democrat remaining, they would elect me President over you. =) So now I’m kind of hoping this happens!

1) That you can remember, what is the best day of your life?

That’s like asking which kid is your favorite (even though mom and dad would easily say me). It wouldn’t be anything like graduation or my first day of college or any of that crap. I don’t know…I mean, there have been some really good days in my past. You know those type of days where everything just falls into place and for 24 hours not a thing goes wrong and everything turns out for the absolute best? They never last longer then a day, but I can remember feeling that some days have been the best days of my life, so I know I’ve experienced some. I just can’t think of any now =)

2) That you can remember, what was the worst day of your life?

I don’t know. There are quite a few events that pop up in my mind, but they all span out over the course of a few days, weeks, or even months. All the times Jess and I broke up were hard. The day Lorraine was killed was horrible, because I lost my best friend over the next few months, as shallow as that sounds. You know me, I am far too much of a perfectionist to be able to say which day has honestly been the worst day of my life without pouring through my journal and actually calculating all the bad days I’ve had.

3) If you could be anything. Career wise. What would it be? And why

First, I need to make fun of your use of punctuation. Instead of using commas, you broke it up into 3 fragments and 1 sentence. Your last fragment didn’t even warrant any punctuation….I like it little bro =) Now, I’m glad you asked me this question. Jess’ question forced me to be realistic and now I can be as idealist as I want. I honestly don’t know if I have 1 dream job. I can’t narrow it down from the 3 I have in my head. So here goes.

1. Professional Baseball Player: Do you even need an explanation for this? Ever since I was little, I’ve dreamt of playing major league ball. I dread the day when I’m 40 and suddenly realize that I have absolutely no chance to ever play. Right now I’m looking at a 0.0001% chance, but I’ll take that any day over zero. I don’t even care what team I played for. I don’t even care if I was viewed as the team’s worst signing in history and every single fan despised me as much as they do Bill Buckner. None of that would matter. I would have been able to play baseball on a major league field. I would have been able to patrol and own centerfield and have the opportunity to climb walls, lay out, and care little for my body’s protection as I attempted to catch fly balls. I’d have the opportunity to hit a 98 MPH fastball and an 80 MPH change up. God that would just be amazing.
2. Secret Service Agent for President’s Child: I don’t want to be protecting some old man or doing advance scout work for the First Lady’s trip to Orlando. I want to be the lead agent for the President’s kid. Call it the older brother side of me going as far as possible, but I’ve always relished situations where I was able to protect those weaker and younger then myself, especially children.
3. Delta Force Member: If I were disengaged from the world enough to not have or not care about my family and friends, I’d want to be in Delta Force. I’d want to drop off the face of this Earth, go across the globe in complete secrecy, go behind enemy lines in covert operations, etc. It’d be like real life RS6 Tom =) And then quit it all once I turned 50 or so, start a new life, and people would have no idea.

1) Which character from The Simpsons do you most identify with and why?

I’d have to say Maggie. She’s always the quiet one of the group and likes to keep to herself, yet at the same time is brilliantly smart, as we saw in the episodes where she saved Bart and Lisa from the Babysitter Bandit and then later on when she led a revolution and helped all of her fellow kids escape out of the daycare. Yeah, gotta go with Maggie on this one.

2) If you were given $10,000 to have plastic surgery, what would you have done?

The only thing I would want to change on my body would be my eyes. I’m sick of glasses and contacts, so I’d love to one day have the lasic eye surgery and rid myself from these vision problems. I’d then spend the rest of the money on a new computer =)

3) How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Having not known the answer when I first read this, I felt the sudden urge to go find it out. So I went and found a woodchuck who agreed to chuck as much wood as woodchuckingly possible. He went a remarkable 18 hours straight (with one short break for sweet tea and Ritz crackers. I felt this was reasonable) and the final tally came up to 3 desks, 12 chairs, 2 kitchen tables, and 1 grandfather clock.

1) What does Trademarked mean?

Trademarked, ™, is a word, name, symbol or device which is used in trade with goods to indicate the source of the goods and to distinguish them from the goods of others. Trademark rights may be used to prevent others from using a confusingly similar mark, but not to prevent others from making the same goods or from selling the same goods or services under a clearly different mark.

2) What does Registered mean?

Registered, ®, actually is short for “Registered Trademark,” so it is essentially the same thing as Trademarked!

3) What does Copyrighted mean?

Copyrighted, ©, is a form of protection provided to the authors of “original works of authorship.” It generally gives the owner of the copyright the exclusive right to reproduce the copyrighted work. The copyright protects the form of expression rather than the subject matter of the writing. For example, a description of a machine could be copyrighted, but this would only prevent others from copying the description; it would not prevent others from writing a description of their own or from making and using the machine.

4) What does Patented mean?

Lee didn’t ask this one, but I’m answering it anyways. A patent is granted for a brand new or unique idea. If you were to patent a machine, nobody else could build that machine without your permission. It does not, however, prevent people from taking your machine and changing it to create a whole new machine.

1) if you could have anyone living or dead give the eulogy at your funeral, who would it be and what would be the most sentimental thing they would say?

Winston Churchill – He lit that damn candle and never gave in.

2) if you write a book about your whole life, what would be the most interesting chapter title?

Goob’s Goob

3) and my favorite, would you rather be 8 feet tall with a 3 inch penis or 3 feet tall with an 8 inch penis?

Okay. Think of it this way. When you are 8 or 3 feet tall, you are going to be famous. So now, we have to look at HOW you are going to be famous. If I’m 8 feet tall, I’m the first pick in the NBA draft and dominate in a major sport here in America. If I’m 3 feet tall, that means I have to use my 8 inch penis to make my money…which means porn. So it boils down to being a porn star or an NBA Hall of Famer. I don’t care how short my dick is, if I’m in the NBA, women are throwing themselves at me and I’m having no trouble finding new ladies. So 8 feet tall with a 3 inch penis it is. =)

1) When a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound?

Trees never fall. They just trip and have trouble getting back up. Which is why I am creating a revolutionary new device that will make me millions. Remember the old commercials where the granny falls down in the bathroom only to find that she can’t stand up? She then pulls out her trusty box with red button on it, mashes it with her wrinkled fingers, and screams “Help! I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” I’m not sure what happens next, but there’s a picture of an ambulance siren and a guy sitting at a desk in a 1970s uniform and before we know it, she’s up and kicking! Well I plan on implementing the same system for helpless trees. First, I’m going out and hiring three thousand squirrels to eat, sleep, and possibly procreate in the woods amongst the trees. They will be my eyes and ears and will alert me within moments of any tree that happens to come tumbling down. See, when the trees fall, they will just squash the squirrels and my trusty satellite tracking will pick up the exploding collar from the squirrel and send the coordinates to some lumberjacks. That way, we get rid of one more squirrel AND we’ll have plenty of notebook paper for years to come. So to answer your question, who cares, I just want some money.

2) From personal experience, is it necessary to change the oil in your car or is it just a waste of time and money?

Alright asshole =) I guess I’ll tell the story for all of those out there who have yet to hear it. My first car was given to me by my grandmother when she reached the point where she could no longer drive. It was already an old beater, but only had around 17,000 miles on it when she handed it over to me. It wasn’t in the best condition and my excellent reckless driving didn’t help matters any, but that is beside the point. Around 20,000 miles, I remembered that you were supposed to get an oil change on cars after 3,000 miles. But I didn’t understand why they charged $25 at a mechanic when I could buy the oil myself for $4 at Advanced Auto Parts. So I went, got some oil, poured it in my car, and was on my way. I waited until around 24,000 miles before I repeated the process and then as my car was just a few hundred miles over 27,000, it exploded. I was driving down the highway, blue smoke started pouring out, a cool looking fire kinda started up for a second but quickly died out, and that was that. My dad and I thought about repairing it and spent a day taking the engine apart. When we got to the pistons, we saw the main problem. The first piston had a hole in it the size of a fist and the second piston had one about the size of a pea.

I still think the whole theory of an oil change is a conspiracy. I’m convinced sabotage caused my car to explode. But until I can prove this theory, I change my oil every few thousand miles =)

3) And we really can’t figure this one out, where do babies come from?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I really couldn’t stop laughing for a good 5 minutes after reading this one. But my answer is quite simple:

Baby-In-A-Can (sorta like cookie dough) + 30 minutes in microwave = baby
Or you can go to the Anne Geddes factory across town.

Thanks everybody for the questions. I spent way too much time answering them, but it was fun. I’m working on getting my Music Meanings page back up and I’m still working on my Mariners subsection. I’ve got my baseball and playoff predictions for this year ready to go ( I made them back in March…I just had to build the page) and now that school is just about wrapped up, I have more time for senseless posts like that of the Objective Christian Science Fair and such, so keep coming back.