Shyzer.com

Well, contrary to how it might appear, I’ve spent the last day and a half doing upgrades and minor maintenance work on Shyzer. The biggest overhaul was my blogging tool, MovableType, which got a hefty upgrade from version 2.661 to 3.121. I am well aware that those numbers mean absolutely jack-diddly to most people and that you can’t see a difference, but from my end, it’s a world of a difference. I now have much more control over my blog and can do quite a few nifty little things that couldn’t be done before. For instance, I was able to get rid of the security code while keeping the anti-spam features. So no more complaining about filling in that code, Sax! I should have all the updates done around here by the end of tonight.

Anyways, instead of making a real post, I thought I’d pass along a few links that I thought you all might enjoy. Batter up:

Road Trip! – This video is pretty cool, but it’s the music that I like the best. It’s just entrancing. I didn’t even like the song the first time I listened to it, but the more and more I did, the stronger it started to grow on me. But even if you don’t like the song, it’s still enjoyable to watch the video. Cool little concept.

The airplane! Go for the airplane! – This, my friends, is both a simple and amazingly complicated version of tossing a ball of paper into a trash can. When you go, click on the free version to the left. You’ll have to wait in line (usually takes about 60-90 seconds) and then you are tossing away! The game works like this. You co-worked lazily tosses you a wad of paper. It is your job to catch the ball with your hand, which is controlled by moving your mouse. Once you’ve got your hand near the ball, click and hold your mouse and the character will make a grab for it. If successful, you now are charged with throwing the paper into the nearby trashcan by motioning your arm and releasing the mouse. It sounds easy enough, but trust me, it takes a little while to get the hang of tossing the paper. And it’s dangerously addictive.

My highest score to date is 6430. Anybody think they can beat that?

Did she just say…? – This one is pretty much self explanatory. Two guys, bored and looking for something to do while on a layover, managed to get the announcer at the airport to call a few Arab names out requesting they come to the service desk. The only thing was that…well, the names sounded funny =)

Are you Kramer? – I’ve saved the best for last. This great site here is a fun little game that I’ve only been able to fool twice (and I’ve tried many, many more times then twice). The object is simple. Pick either your favorite sitcom character or a dictator and answer the questions as if you were that person! If you pick somebody popular, it won’t take long for the computer to say, “Let me guess. Are you Kramer from Seinfeld?” But your whole goal is to try and get the computer to guess wrong or simply say it has no idea who you are. It may sound like a stupid idea, but it’s actually pretty fun.

And with that, I’m off to translate 40 Latin sentences. Be sure to stop back in this week for the results (and subsequent final round) of the Best of Shyzer, along with my rant on what is wrong with the Democratic party and how the best new show on TV in years (Lost) turned me onto one of the best books I’ve ever written.

In case you didn’t hear, Stan’s got some new songs up over on his site. Registration is free (as are the downloads), so be sure to go and check them out once your done here. My personal favorite is the children’s The Flat Stanley Song he wrote for his brother’s third grade class. I still have yet to get that tune out of my head. I wonder as well how many stamps it would take to send something to the North Pole. I also hadn’t heard Less Than Words, which is a soft, floating melody that is perfect the way it is.

And I wish he’d written Know a year or two ago. That song really could have helped me out back then. I’m just sorry you had to go through the same situation as well bro. So yeah, go check out his site and download those three songs. The have the official Shyzer Stamp of Approval.

Last Sunday night witnessed the first all-nighter I pulled this semester as I attempted to finish the first draft of my senior thesis. I somehow downed two pots of coffee and didn’t even find myself remotely exhausted the next morning, which was a pleasant surprise. Needless to say, I took a nice four hour nap when I got home before doing some work for my uncle and moving on to the next task at hand. It’s right about then that I would normally be saying “I can’t wait until this semester is over and I finally have some time to relax in December, “but honestly, I’m enjoying life so much, I wouldn’t want to fast forward over any of it. Yeah, sure school work is overwhelming right now (I believe I’ve got 100 irregular Latin verbs to memorize by tomorrow or something. Man, if only I hadn’t given up cheating…), but there are so many things to look forward to in the coming weeks ahead, some of which will no doubt make their way onto Shyzer for the world to see and mull over.

Anyways, I would like to thank each and every person who voted for the Best of Shyzer that’s been going on for about three weeks now. I am still in the process of tallying all the results and weeding the nominations down to five for the final round. If you didn’t get a chance to vote during the first round, you’ll still be able to vote during the finals, which should be up and ready to go within a day or two!

But the real reason I’m making this post is to share with you all a general conversation I’ve had a few times recently. During various conversations, a few people recently brought up the topic of how they wished they could post on the tagboard or in the comments. I had no idea what they were talking about, but I soon figured out the misunderstanding and realized that there might be more people out there with the same confusion.

I just wanted to make sure everybody knows that in order to post on the tagboard or comments section, you do not need to have a website of your own.

If you want to write on the tagboard and don’t want to leave an e-mail or URL, you can leave that section completely blank and still leave a message. It’s not a required section whatsoever. Now for the comments section, like I said, leaving your mark is just as simple for those without a website as those with. However, I do have the security features jacked to the maximum setting, which is sadly the only way I can keep the spammers and computer bots from flooding my oh-so-precious posts with free offers for scantily clad women or chips for some on-line poker site. So what the means for you, the reader, is that all your information is required. Name, e-mail, website, and security code. But what if you don’t have an e-mail address or website? No worries! Just enter something random! Joe@aol.com works. So does neus93@inus.com It truly doesn’t matter. As far as the website goes, well all you have to do there is enter something random in! Or heck, I even give you permission to just put Shyzer.com if you want to.

And to ease the burden on my commenting visitors, I set up a nifty little feature. The first time you leave a comment, enter all the information into the boxes and select the option to the right to “remember your information.” Shyzer will immediately memorize the information you just typed in and so, the next time you go to comment using your computer, Shyzer will fill in your information for you! I honestly couldn’t make it any easier for you guys!

And with that, I’m off to sip some coffee, allow John Coltrane to sooth my soul, and memorize the Latin work for “to teach” among 99 other verbs…Till next time.

Boston Red Sox. 2004 World Champions

10 days ago you were three outs from being eliminated. So you decided to win eight games in a row. The Marlins last year were just scrappy and took advantages of other teams mistakes. You guys were simply pure heart who willed yourself to victory.

Congratulations Boston. I think you’ve earned this one.

Well during my stay in the library this weekend (which totaled somewhere around 20 hours), I typed up a short post for Shyzer. However, the disk I saved it to will only work on the computer libraries now, so I’ll have to wait until tonight before I can post it. I thought about posting some links to a few cool sites I’ve stumbled across lately, but low and behold, I don’t remember a single one of them and they are all bookmarked on my computer back home. Guess that post too will have to wait until later this week.

So for the meantime, there’s only one thing I can really think of to talk about.

For the past 21 years, my wisdom teeth and I have had an amicable relationship. I allowed them to come in half way and promised to brush and floss them twice a day. In return, they agreed not to cause me any pain or force my more permanent teeth to grow crooked.

Apparently the cease-fire has ended. Approximately five nights ago, they held a meeting while I slept where they decided, for some unbeknownst reason, to try and cause as much pain as possible. I was alerted to their mutiny and declaration to war the following morning when I awoke to a swollen mouth and massive amounts of pain. But don’t kid yourself into thinking I turned the other cheek! I responded with a two-front attack that would have humbled Eisenhower himself. Comprised of painkillers from the inside and ice packs from the outside, I vigerously fought back in an attempt to win back my mouth and more importantly, my sanity. I even authorized the mobilization of the psychological warfare division, which basically entitles the recitation of “screw you, fuckers!!” over and over. To date, the war has been neck and neck with no clear cut leader emerging.

However, my patience grows thin. I have now issued my final ultimatum. They have one week to lay down their weapons and admit defeat or else I will investigate and begin to take the steps needed for mass extermination through surgery. For a moment, I worried they might actually call my bluff since I have absolutely zero dollars to spare on any emergency surgery, but I think my pokwer face held long enough for them to see that I wasn’t kidding around. Here’s to hoping they don’t decide to play chicken and see how far I’ll go.

And people say it’s pointless to talk to yourself.

*VOTING ENDS FRIDAY!! Be sure you go vote for the Best of Shyzer soon! Anybody and Everybody is asked to vote, especially those who have been reading my site for over a month or two! For more information on what the heck I am talking about, please read this post I made a few weeks ago! Thanks!! *

Just a few things to get off my chest.

1. Yes, the Red Sox just completed the biggest comeback ever in the history of baseball. Yes, Curt Schilling performed one of the most amazing feats in sports I have ever witnessed. But please, don’t try and say this was one of the best series ever. The comeback was historic, the Yankees’ meltdown was momentous, but for all of that, it didn’t have the drama and excitement that the 2001 World Series had. I’m sorry, but that series still reigns high atop the “Best Series Ever” category. People seem to forget that back then, the Yankees had never fallen. They were still the powerful giant of old who didn’t lost close games and who knew it. Out of all seven games in that series, not a single one of them was a blowout and the entire series went back and forth and back and forth…that series, my friends, was of epic proportions. This series was just fun to watch.
2. And no, these have not been the “Best Playoffs Ever.” Do people not remember last year? Or 2002 for that matter?? In order to win this title, the entire playoffs as a whole have to be amazing. There wasn’t even a riveting series out of the four divisional series this year, especially compared to last year! Last year we had the Marlins-Giants, the Bosox-Athletics, and even the Braves-Cubs. This year, we had a bunch of boring, flat series. And people are calling this the best ever? Oh how quickly we forget.
3. “The Curse” hasn’t been lifted just yet folks. I’m telling you this, if Houston makes the World Series, they will win it like I said at the start of these playoffs. There is a serious possibility that Roger Clemens could pitch and win the decisive game against his former Boston team almost 10 years after they traded him away since he was “washed up.” If that doesn’t have “The Curse” written all over it, I don’t know what does.
4. And finally, why has nobody seemed to care about the NLCS? Tomorrow night we’re heading into a game 7 for Christ sake and people don’t even know it’s going on!

And after reading all that, it almost sounds as if I wasn’t in my living room each and every night telling Fellner “So what if a professional sports team in any sport has never overcome an 0-3 deficit in 238 attempts? There’s a first time for everything.” It sounds as if I didn’t stay up every night to watch every inning of every game. It sounds as if I didn’t jump on IM and send a message to every single person who was on-line telling them how exciting this series was to watch. I. Hate. The. Yankees. Case closed. So thank you Boston for giving me even more reason to smile tomorrow. Look, I’ll put these playoffs in the top 10 ever for sure and I won’t argue with anybody who tries to say this was one of the top series they have ever seen, but people just toss around the title “Best Playoffs Ever” and “Best Series Ever” far too generously.

But seriously, go Astros =)

*THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO VOTE! Be sure you go vote for the Best of Shyzer soon! Anybody and Everybody is asked to vote, especially those who have been reading my site for over a month or two! For more information on what the heck I am talking about, please read this post I made a few weeks ago! Thanks!! *

When I am in the library, like right now for instance, my usual intention for being here is to study. How come I am instead in the computer lab typing a post for Shyzer?

I got back safely from Virginia Sunday night after an awesome trip up there. I don’t care how much money I lost in poker or how much gas it took to get there and back. I had fun so it was well worth it. Case closed. I got to see live and in person the now infamous Math Emporium who can attribute its fame and glory to Dave’s away messages. Friday night was spent drinking, playing poker, and getting to know Dave’s friends. We capped it off with a trek to Waffle House, which apparently is a tradition for whenever any of David’s friends come up. It helps make them feel at home or something. =) Dave’s roommate Weed is also awesome as hell and no; his nickname isn’t derived from what you are probably thinking. And Virginia Tech’s campus blows USC out of the water. It’s amazing what a nice, clean, centralized campus can look like. Even though they are virtually in the middle of nowhere, the surrounding environment couldn’t be more beautiful. Honestly, is there a more gorgeous place on Earth then the outskirts of the Shenandoah Valley? I think not. But all in all, I had an awesome time and can’t wait to go back to see him one of these days.

Oh and Dave….quit putting the peanut butter into the refrigerator!

I also got to finally see my brother Tommy play for the high school football team. The Ogre is actually pretty damn good. I feel like I can take some of the credit since we all know I toughened him up from all those years of torment and agony I forced him to go through growing up. Hopefully he’ll remember I’m the one to thank when he’s making millions in the NFL.

But now, I am back to Reality. I have a huge test tomorrow that basically determines whether or not I make a B in my Diplomatic History class. I have mountains for Latin homework and a quiz due Friday. I have my rough draft for my 25-page British History paper due on Monday and so far, all I have is my title. I have a Latin American History test the following Tuesday. And to top it all off, my afternoons are already full with classes, working for my Uncle, and tutoring people in Computer Science.

Yet I somehow find time to watch playoff baseball every night….Interesting…

I’m in no way complaining though. I actually don’t mind all the work. But I felt that I might as well justify why there won’t be any mind-blowing posts made on Shyzer in the next week or two (like there would be anyways, right?) I will be updating this week though, because I’m trying to balance out making long, drawn out and short, succinct posts. And what better time is there to make concise posts?

*Reminder: Be sure you go vote for the Best of Shyzer soon! Anybody and Everybody is asked to vote, especially those who have been reading my site for over a month or two! For more information on what the heck I am talking about, please read this post I made a few weeks ago! Thanks!! *

I’m about to leave Columbia for Fall Break. I’m heading back to Spartanburg to see my dad for the day and then watch one of Tommy’s football games! Then I’m packing up and heading to Virginia Tech for a weekend of massive debauchery, mischief, and alcohol consumption with my good friend Dave. Ahhh, good times are on the horizon.

But before I left, I wanted to share something with you all. I find this story absolutely hilarious.

Wearing shorts and a T-shirt, the boy left his suburban Kansas City home early Tuesday, making his way onto Interstate 35 and driving 92 miles to Bethany, a northwest Missouri community in an area where he used to hunt with his father. He stopped there at a convenience store for some chips and a soft drink, then drove off aimlessly, following several other highways before ending up 135 miles away in Callao in northeast Missouri’s Macon County.

The kid not only managed to steal his family car and drive almost 100 miles away, but he had the balls to pull over and buy some chips and a coke! Shouldn’t somebody be giving this kid a medal or something? I mean, not only does he manage to avoid a wreck or being pulled over, but he has the cahones to pull over and grab a snack?

The boy reported some problems during the trip, saying the 1995 Chevrolet ran out of gasoline at one point, but that he continued on his way after some construction workers helped him out.

So not only does the boy pull over and buy some food, but when he runs out of gas, some construction workers help him out? Not a single one of them thought it was weird that an 11-year old was asking for gasoline to put in “his” car? And when they gave him the gas, they didn’t notice there weren’t any parents around? Hell, the kid probably just hoped in the car and waved so long to the workers and they still probably stood there like complete idiots without doing a thing. I love it. Man, I wish I had pulled something like this when I was younger…

Scientific Research and Progress just lost one of it’s most identifiable and likable spokesman of our generation. Christopher Reeve was this country’s best champion for the possibilities that stem cell and spinal cord research had to offer. Not only did he inspire millions of paralyzed individuals around the world into realizing that their lives were not over simply because they couldn’t move their limbs, but he also gave them something many of them desperately needed. Hope. Even though Reeve was in one of the worst paraplegic conditions possible, he never once gave up hope that one day he might be cured. In fact, after only five years of being paralyzed, Reeve was able to inspire millions upon millions of people worldwide…by lifting his index finger, something that doctors had sworn he’d never be able to do again. I can only hope that before he passed on, Reeve was able to inspire and pass the torch over to another champion for Scientific Research. God knows it sometimes takes seemingly improbably odds to finally make miracles happen and I pray I’m alive to see the day when those miracles finally come to fruition.

I just wish Christopher Reeve could have lived to see the day as well…

And even though I agree with him wholeheartedly when it comes to stem cell research, I hope John Kerry doesn’t take Reeves’ death and use it as a playing chip in the days leading up to the election. Please, have some common decency and don’t make a political gain out of this…

No, I haven’t died. Yes, I will be posting tonight. Yes, when I do so, this post will vanish. Just sticking my head in and letting everybody know that all is well and that I’m busy drinking and partying with friends. Nothing like some fun to make all your worries wash away.

I decided to leave this post open and just update straight into it and yet as I sit here and type, I realize this is extremely pointless. I have so much going on in my life right now and yet it feels like I have nothing to talk about. I actually took some pictures of what I spent most of the day working on, but for some reason, my digital camera won’t connect with my computer. Whoopee…another random task that I need to take care of. If I ever do get it fixed, I’ll upload the pictures and everybody can have a good laugh at my expense, because trust me, I spent way too much time manufacturing a piece of crap “bookshelf.”

I think I’ve found the reason why the posts here on Shyzer have seemed to dry up, though. I know I just said in the last paragraph that it feels like I have nothing to talk about, but that’s just it: it only feels like that. There most certainly is a wide variety of topics I could be talking about right now and in fact, the entire right hand side of the dry erase board hanging right next to me is full of potential Shyzer topics. So you might say to yourself, “then why have you suddenly started posting only once or twice a week?” Well, it’s because I’m hot.

That’s right. You see, Fellner and I have had trouble keeping our apartment cool while at the same time saving money. Our power bill for the first three weeks was exuberantly high, so we decided to try and save some cash and just cut the A/C off…permanently. Yes, it’s hot as balls in our apartment for most of the day, but it’s a CHEAP hot as balls apartment, which brings me to this new realization. I can’t think when I’m hot. I don’t like sitting in front of a computer trying to develop rational thoughts when my nuts are hanging down beside my ankles. I don’t like trying to stare at a computer screen and catch typos when the sweat is gushing over my brow. And I especially don’t like the sudden heat stroke I develop while I am in the middle of a post. So that, my friends, is why Shyzer has taken a fall recently. I’m too hot.

Now if Fall-weather could just hurry and get here =)

*Note. Make sure you vote for the Best Of Shyzer soon! Check out the post below for more details!*

*Note #2. I typed this before any of the playoff games started so as not to influence my prediction*

It has begun. The ever so sweet, succulent, fulfilling joy of playoff baseball has finally come full circle and I for one couldn’t be happier. October truly is the best month of them all when it comes to sports, for not only do you have playoff baseball, but you also begin to separate the men from the boys in football.

I’m still not sold on any one team though. Last year, I knew the Marlins were going to win it from the beginning. They had the perfect mixture of skill, hunger, depth to pull off the upset and I honestly think I was the happiest non-Marlins fan to see them win it all last year. You could just sense from the aura they gave off that they wanted it and by God they were going to get it, just like you could with the Angels the year before. I think I was the only person in the country rooting for them to beat the Cubs and it was funny to see how everybody thought the Yankees were going to win since they “only” had to beat the Marlins. Oh how they were wrong. (And side note, I’m so damn happy the Cubs didn’t make the playoffs. Is there any other team that seems to have less fun playing ball or play with less intensity then the Cubs? You know, it wouldn’t hurt to smile here and there guys. You are playing baseball, remember? Maybe not going to the playoffs this year will teach ya a thing or two…)

But this year is a bit different. Out of the eight teams, I’ve only been able to narrow it to three. The Houston Astros, Minnesota Twins, and Boston Red Sox. The Yankees are too flaky and are on the verge of collapse, the Angels aren’t that strong offensively after Vlad, the Dodgers need more hitting and lots of it, the Cardinals pitching won’t be able to win a 7-game series, and the Braves just…well, suck. They always lose. Always.

The Bo Sox are trying to ride two dominate pitchers to win it all in Curt Schilling and Pedro Martinez. It’s worked before (ie, the 2001 Diamondbacks with Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson in what has been voted as one of the best World Series of all time) so there is some precedent for this method being able to work. But my problem is this…it’s the Red Sox. They always find a way to lose. I’m not trying to kick them while their down, but hey, it has been 86 years. So until they prove otherwise, I have to rule them out. I think they’ll knock out Anaheim with relative ease, but win the World Series? I don’t know…(But God, how awesome would that be if I was wrong?!)

The Twins are easily the “worst” team in the playoffs, yet they have probably the best pitcher, Johan Santana. This guy went 13-0 after the All-Star break. He didn’t lose a game. Not one. Oh yeah, and that’s never been done before. Not once. The man is a beast and I think it will be because of him alone that Minnesota knocks off New York in the first round and face Boston in the ALCS, but I question whether or not they have the depth to win a best-of-7 series. So I think Boston knocks them off and advances to the World Series.

And enter, The Houston Astros. See, here’s why I’m going with Houston. They’ve got a little mixture of the 2003 Marlins AND the 2001 Diamondbacks. A month ago, nobody, and I mean NOBODY thought they would be in the playoffs. And then out of freaking nowhere, they win something like 18 out of 20 games, come roaring back from the dead, and snatch the Wild Card! That is extremely Marlin-esque. But they also have the players needed to win a championship. Roger Clemens and Roy Oswalt are a pretty damn good 1-2 pitching lineup and their offense with Beltran, Berkman, Bagwell, and Biggio is killer.

So here’s how I see it all playing out. In the AL, Minnesota beats NY in 5 games. Boston beats Anaheim in 4 games. Boston beats Minnesota in 6 games.

In the NL, Houston beats Atlanta in 5, St. Louis beats Los Angeles in 3. Houston then beats St. Louis in 6 and to wrap it all up, Houston wins the World Series in 7 games.

Now let’s have some fun and see how this baby turns out.