Shyzer.com

That’s right folks. Look at that cam picture over there. Print it. Admire it. Question how such a miracle could occur. I know I sure as hell have since this afternoon. That, my friends, is my Senior Thesis. Here, let me recreate the scene from earlier this afternoon as my professor handed back the papers.

Goob: Look, Professor Gregg, I just want to apologize for the poor quality of my paper, especially near the end. I simply ran out of time editing it! You yourself saw me run into class 30 minutes late since I was trying to edit as much as humanly possible and I just want…
The Best Grader Ever: Uh, Mr. Shyzer, what are you talking about? You received the highest grade in the class.
Goob: If you’d be willing to just let me…wait, what?
Goob grabs the paper and takes a look at it.
Goob: I…I…I MADE AN A!?!?! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! YEEEEEEEES!!!! DAMN, I LOVE THIS SHIT AND I MAY MOVE TO ENGLAND, AHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I think I may have dry humped the pencil sharpener on my way out, but honestly my memory is a little hazy around that time period. I remember sprinting back to my apartment, literally high-fiving random strangers as I went. The janitor wearing a Christmas Santa Hat on her head yelled something to me as I hugged her, but I didn’t quite catch it.

An A. Holy Damn… I have no idea how I pulled this off. None. I’m about to go punch holes into the corners and hang it around my neck for the rest of this week. And you think I’m kidding. Man, sometimes, it’s nice being smart. I’ll be honest, I try to be a modest person. I’ve yet to bring up the A with anybody on my own. But the minute somebody’s asked me how it turned out, I’ve let go.

I guess I’m just proud of myself.

Anyways, I want to alert everybody to a new site that just opened up last night. In case you haven’t heard, my good buddy Neal has opened up a site over at Nealsmack. He brought it back from the dead last night and the forums are already bustling with activity. He apparently had the site a few years ago, but it died due to complications even the doctors couldn’t foresee. But now it’s back and so, you need to go check it out. Now.

And hey, while you’re at it, GO AND VOTE in the final round of the Best of Shyzer. Voting will probably be closed after this week, and therefore, you only have a few days left. Seriously, it takes a maximum of 60 seconds to vote. So none of you have excuses not to. Especially those of you I know in real life and who will be bitched out by me personally if you fail to vote =) And just in case anybody need a memory refresher on what the heck I’m talking about, you can read all about it in this previous post of mine.

And yet onto another random topic. Everybody do me a second favor. See the Tagboard? Look beneath it. See the Radio Blog? Good. Click on a song and tell me if it plays. I’ve got it playing on my computer, but I want to make sure it works on everybody else’s. And yes, this is kind of important, because it’s going to come into play here very soon on Shyzer. I’ve currently uploaded seven songs that I’ve been playing over and over for the past few days. My two favorites easily are Perfect To Stay and Since U Been Gone. I’m not really a Kelly Clarkson fan other than the fact that she’s hot, but for some reason, I love her voice when she screams. And she does quite a bit of screaming in her new song, meaning therefore I love her new song. The chorus is pretty damn good too. As far as the Collective Soul songs go, well, everybody knows they are one of my all-time favorite bands. They released a brand new CD a week or so ago and those are the best songs off it. I think Perfect To Stay is the best of them all, but my brother thinks Satellite is. Anybody care to set us straight and help us decide? =)

And while we’re on the topic of Shyzer, how about a mini-update? The achieve is a mess right now due to some of the new MovableType code that I don’t understand. One day it looks completely wrong, then the next it magically fixes itself, only to reverse the following day. I hope to fix that sometime this week. The gallery is down as well and I have no idea why. I actually have a ton of new pictures I took over Thanksgiving to upload, so that has suddenly jumped to the top of my List of Things to Fix. Shlyrics (a new subpage) is coming along nicely, as is a bunch of the half-completed posts I talked about earlier. Hell, don’t look now, but ever since November rolled around, I’ve been making a good 5 posts a week or so. This is a trend I plan to maintain.

But for this week, I’m floating on cloud nine. That A on my thesis was an unbelievable way to start the week. The Packers won tonight, tomorrow is Pizza Night, Wednesday is all new Lost and West Wing, Thursday my apartment will host the second Swagger Party of the semester, and Friday…well, I can’t think too far ahead. Honestly, life couldn’t be treating me any better right now. And that’s without even considering the fact that I only have a week and a half left of school before I get two months of vacation and a trip to Australia.

As Fellner says, “It’s Good to be Goob.”

If so, then I would suggest you move along and skip this post. This is by no means “politically correct.” You’ve been warned.

This game caught my attention the other day over on CNN.com. It took me a few minutes to shake off the pure disgust I had for the creators of the game, but at the same time, my mind started to wander. I immediately thought of some other horrible “games” that they might come up with. The few titles that had sprung to mind were so wrong, but at the same time, so unbelievably funny. So, I have decided to offer my services to this company and give them a few suggestions for future games.

Remember, I warned you. =)

• Xtreme Arafat! – You sit in bed and die slowly!
• O.J. Simpson’s Wife Hunt – Hopefully you’re black! Otherwise, it’s guilty for you!
• Princess Di’s Twisted Metal IV – Now with paparazzi!
• Sonny Bono’s Downhill Skiing Challenge – Watch out for the trees!
• Christopher Reeve’s Equestrian Extravaganza – You’re Superman! What could go wrong?!
• Mark Maples Disneyland Adventure – It’s a small world after all.
• Chris Farley & John Belushi’s Virtual Pharmacy – Last Customer Served: River Phoenix.
• Bill and Monica Play Hide & Find the Cigar – A child’s game has never been this much fun!
• Alexander Hamilton’s Dueling Glove – Never insult his honor!

And with any great video game industry, they have to come out with a sports line!

• Dale Earnhardt’s Need For Speed – Watch out for that oil slick!
• Pete Rose’s Online Casino – But remember, never bet on your own team!
• Ted Williams’ Home Popsicle Maker – For those who love a good sibling rivalry.
• Ron Artest’s Punch-Out – We love updating old classics!

But it doesn’t just stop there! They could come out with a whole line of books, making perfect gifts for that hard-to-buy, avid reader in your family!

• Abraham Lincoln’s critic of Our American Cousin – So, how’d that play turn out?
• Amelia Earhart’s Pacific Travel Guide – Want to know the best way to cross the Pacific?
• Phil Hartman’s Guide to a Successful Marriage – Just in case counseling doesn’t work.
• Adolf Hitler’s Top Ten Honeymoon Spots – First, grab some cyanide and a handgun….
• Ken Caminiti’s Workout Routine – Comes with a free sample of “muscle builder”!
• Kurt Cobain’s Guide to Happiness – I’ve seriously got to stop myself.

And finally, the one game that will eventually put this company out of business due to the public outrage sparked by its release:

• 9/11 – The Flight Simulator!

So, so, so, so wrong, yet so fun to write. =)

[EDIT]Here’s a few more that a fellow Shyzerian came up. Let’s all thank Shipman![/EDIT]

• Ted Kennedy’s X-treme Bridge Jumping: Chappaquiddick.
• Jim Jones’ Virtual Kool-Aid Stand.
• Koresh vs Reno: Armageddon in Waco.

I received 7 IMs tonight yelling at me for not uploading a post tonight like I promised. Give me time folks! These babies take me a few hours to draft and in case you haven’t been keeping count (trust me, I have!), I make about 4 posts a week here, which translates into 12 hours a week I put into Shyzer posts alone! Factor in all the maintenance work, upgrades, diplomatic missions, and side pages I work on each week and we’re talking 20 hours a week. Minimum. And I’ve been running for two plus years at that pace.

So until that money starts rolling in, you’ll just have to wait until I’m damn ready to post! =) And besides, the night is still young. I promise, the new post will be up before I go to bed and tomorrow, yet another one will be up!

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. I went home for Thanksgiving break and never really got on the computer =) I’ll be heading back to Columbia tomorrow though, so I’ll polish off something and stick it up here on Shyzer sometime tomorrow night. Until then…

That’s right, it’s finally over. I just walked in the door after turning in the final draft of my senior thesis and all I can think of is “I just needed one more hour with the damn thing. ONE MORE HOUR!” The paper was due at 2:30 and by 3:00, I was only editing page 13. I know for a fact that there are some errors on pages 14-25, but frankly, there was nothing more I could do. I was already tempting fate as it was and that’s something you never willingly do.

If my teacher came up to me right now and said, “Goob, I won’t even read your paper if you agree to take a B-,” I’d shake his hand in a heartbeat. Anything below that and, well, I guess I’d just roll the dice and tell him to read it. C’s don’t please me. I’ve never been average.

However, right now, I am going to crawl into bed and take what might be the most deserving nap in the history of man kind. I’ve been up for 30 straight hours and since Thursday, I’ve amassed a total of 15 hours of sleep.

Okay, my bed just called my name. Literally. When I wake up around midnight or so, I plan on spending all night typing posts, responding to comments, and just working on Shyzer. Until then….

During hour seven of working on my thesis today, I turned on one of my favorite radio stations broadcast over WinAmp for some background music. Some time later, I heard a country song by Deana Carter and found myself subconsciously tapping my foot and nodding along with the lyrics. I then proceeded to consciously search out, download, and listen to the song again. A few hours later I even uploaded it to my iPod.

I downloaded a country song. On my own free will. And it’s still on my computer and iPod.

Wow, this thesis really is starting to play mind games with me.

First, let’s take care of the important things. Everybody needs to head on over to Stan’s site and listen to his latest song, Pray for Rain. So why don’t you all go ahead and do that now before reading the rest of this post. Go on now, don’t be shy.

I’m serious.

GO!!

And while we’re at it, if you haven’t done so already, you need to go vote in the final round of the Best of Shyzer. To those who have voted already, Thank You! To those who haven’t, may you rot in hell. Wouldn’t you rather receive a thank you? Then go vote!

Okay, now that we have those taken care of, I can get on to the pointless crap I was going to talk about in the first place. If you take a look at the post below, you will see there’s a total of 11 comments. ELEVEN! That, my friends, kicks some serious ass. Way to go on the commenting and keep it up! I also wanted to thank everybody who mentioned to me both on-line and off-line that they enjoyed the post. I know I say this every time, but I truly love receiving feedback on the stuff I write here. It gives me motivation to stay with it.

Although, some of you may be saying to yourselves, “if feedback gives you so much motivation and you received tons of feedback on the last post, where in the hell was your motivation to post during this past week?!” Well, that’s an excellent question and the answer lies in one simple phrase. Writing a senior thesis blows. It’s just that simple! I’m coming down the homestretch here and I officially have 72 hours left until my final draft is due. Which means, during the day I spend my time going to class and working while at night I am forced to replace my usual “Shyzer” time with a new set called “Oh my God, I have no fucking idea how in the world I am going to finish this thing by Monday” time. And somehow, that time is even worse than the name sounds. So yeah, I’ll be spending my entire weekend living in the basement of the library. Come Monday, you’ll probably be able to find me by coming on down and closely listening for the sway of my body since I’ll probably hang myself around Sunday evening.

I do promise, however, to make at minimum one post during Saturday / Sunday. Possibly two, but I won’t push it. I finally put all the word documents I had that contained partial posts into one folder and counted them up. Twenty-seven. TWENTY-SEVEN! Some of them were so outdated that I had to just toss them in the recycle bin, but I was able to salvage a few of them since they were non-time sensitive posts. But Jesus, 27…I’ve made a promise to myself to finish them all before I head to Australia (which, as you guessed it, is one of the 27).

And I just realized something. This post is the type of post I abhor and loathe the absolute most. There was not a single piece of real substance in the entire thing and I basically just wasted a few minutes of everybody’s time by making them listen to my whining. Sorry about that folks. I promise this weekend’s post will something worthwhile.

M-O-O-N, that spells a great book, laws yes! Everybody knows that!

Today I wrapped up reading what might be one of the best books I’ve ever read. It all started with ABC’s new show Lost, which I absolutely love, but that post’s for later this week. As I was browsing the message boards over at TV Without Pity, I found that Lost had finally received enough acclaim to warrant it’s own section. While slowly crawling through all the pages of posts, I stumbled across a discussion over an interview one of the show’s creators had given, where he divulged that the basis for the whole show was loosely pulled from a Stephen King novel titled The Stand. I read a few pages of the interview and of the discussion on the message board and twenty minutes later I had ordered a copy off E-Bay.

It finally arrived about a week later, all 1136 pages of, with its coverless front and its dog-eared corners. I tore into it that very night and it seems like I’ve yet to put it down. Until today, that is. The first chapter fires off like a rocket and you quickly learn what the book is about. A military germ warfare facility has a little mishap, the computer safety system has a little lapse, and a sentry is caught a little off guard. Before you know it, a nasty strain of the flu is released into the world that has a mortality rate hovering around 99.6%. Whoops.

The survivors soon find themselves scattered across the country and searching for each other, among other things. As they slowly begin to migrate together, a weird and unexplainable force begins to show them their paths. On the one hand, they could draw towards Her, in Nebraska, where the smell of corn is sickly sweet and where God has given Her the strength to live on. Or, they could go to Him, the Walkin’ Man, the Dude, the Dark Imp. With his red, cold eye and his dark, astounding powers. With his control over nature and his warm, bountiful, electrified Las Vegas. With his promises and his electricity and his stability and his…

The rest of the novel plays out the scenario. Good versus Evil, Light versus Darkness. Her versus Him. But honestly, the book wouldn’t be considered spectacular without something else, like say some memorable characters. And by the end of the novel, you find yourself calling everybody your friend. I’m not joking. I punched and dented the wall when one of the characters died in an assassination. I launched the book across the room when another character was sent out on a suicide mission. When another character passed on, I simply laid the book across my chest, grabbed the pillow lying beside me, and screamed into it. And when I finished the book, I realized that I wanted another one. I didn’t care anymore about the surrounding situations in the book, I cared about the characters. I cared about my friends. I wanted reassurance that they would survive, that they wouldn’t meet the same fate that some of my other friends had met. I wanted to see how the rest of their lives turned out, after the apocalyptic battle had finally resolved itself. I wanted to make sure they were alright, that they were happy. I just wanted to see them again.

I wanted to see the ever silent Nick Andros, who always seemed to hear what needed to be heard.
Good ‘ole East Texas himself, Stu Redmond, who was there from the start at the TEXACO.
Larry Underwood, who ain’t no nice guy, right?
Baldy Glen Bateman, who proved Sociology had its uses.
Sweet mother Abigail Freemantle, who still made her own bread to this day.
Amazing wild Joe, or whatever his name might actually be, and his “gift.”
Giggly Fran Goldsmith and her undying love for…well, I won’t spoil that.
Pimply, misunderstood Harold Lauder and his knack for never quite understanding them back.
Quiet Nadine Cross and her stark white hair, who knew what she had to do, but not how to do it.
Country boy Ralph Brentner, who reminded Larry to Fear No Evil.
The Judge. Dayna. Lucy. Doc. Lloyd. Trashcan Man.
Even burley Kojax himself, who always knew deep down he was a good dog.

And then there was Tom. Tom Cullen, who loved his matchbox car garage and who loved Nicky even more. Tom Cullen, who knew how to spell illegal, and Boulder, and DeeDee Packalotte. Tom Cullen, who just wanted to go back home where people loved him, laws yes. I honestly don’t think there has ever been a more likeable character in the history of novels. He may have been playing with a few cards short of a deck, but he more then made up for it in other ways.

The copy I ended up buying was the 1990 version, the Uncut and Unabridged version. King had originally released the book back in the late 70s and had been forced to cut out quite a bit. In his later version, he added some 300 pages and after I finished reading the book, I wanted to see if I could find a site that listed all the changes he had made. I never did find such a list anywhere on the Internet, but I did stumble upon a message board where somebody commented that chapter 38 hadn’t been in the original. As my eyes flickered across the computer screen and onto the chapter number, my heart instantly froze over and my chest suddenly felt as if somebody had knocked the wind out of me. It might seem silly that out of a book with 70 some odd chapters, I would remember chapter 38, but I did. Out of all the chapters, 38 was the only one I knew by its number. 38 was the only one where I found tears streaming down my face, where I found myself ripped from the story and sent spiraling into my mind only to fall right back into the tale. 38 told the story of Sam Tauber.

  As the superflu epidemic wound down, there was a second epidemic that lasted roughly two weeks. This epidemic was most common in technological societies such as the United States, least common in underdeveloped countries such as Peru or Senegal. In the United States the second epidemic took about 16 percent of the superflu survivors. In places like Peru and Senegal, no more than 3 percent. The second epidemic had no name because the symptoms differed wildly from case to case. A sociologist like Glen Bateman might have called this second epidemic “natural death” or “those ole emergency room blues.” In a strictly Darwinian sense, it was the final cut – the unkindest cut of all, some might have said.

  Sam Tauber was five and a half years old. His mother had died on June the twenty-fourth in the Murfreesboro, Georgia, General Hospital. On the twenty-fifth, his father and younger sister, two-year-old April, had died. On June the twenty-seventh, his older brother Mike had died, leaving Sam to shift for himself.

  Sam had been in shock ever since the death of his mother. He wandered carelessly up and down the streets of Murfreesboro, eating when he was hungry, sometimes crying. After a while he stopped crying, because crying did no good. It didn’t bring the people back. At night his sleep was broken by horrible nightmares in which Papa and April and Mike died over and over, their faces swollen black, a terrible rattling sound in their chests as they strangled on their own snot.

  At quarter of ten on the morning of July 2, Sam wandered into a field of wild blackberries behind Hattie Reynolds’s house. Bemused and vacant-eyed, he zigzagged among blackberry bushes that were almost twice as tall as he was, picking the berries and eating them until his lips and chin were smeared black. The thorns ripped at his clothes and sometimes at his bare flesh, but he barely noticed. Bees hummed drowsily around him. He never saw the old and rotted well-cover half buried in tall grass and blackberry creepers. It gave under his weight with a grinding, splintering crash and Sam plunged twenty feet down the rock-lined shaft to the dry bottom, where he broke both his legs. He died twenty hours later, as much from fear and misery as from shock and hunger and dehydration.

I must have read that intro to chapter 38 ten, probably twenty times. Each and every time I finished, my mind would race to Colton. Each and every time, I thought to myself, “if something like this really happened, that could happen to Colty. He could be all alone, looking for Pikachu, simply wanting to see a familiar face.” I then would try and shift my focus away from those thoughts and I would always find myself wondering had I been in the book, would I have maybe saved Sam? Would I have somehow been in Georgia and stumbled across him before he tumbled down to his grisly death? Probably not. It’s a fair bet that if something like that ever happened, I would instinctively head north. Away from Georgia. Leaving Sam…

I finally jumped on the computer and punched in mapquest. I asked it to locate for me Murfreesboro, Georgia. I wanted to see how far away it was from here, because I wanted to know how far I’d be traveling on my first day if such a plague were to strike this planet during my lifetime. But to my surprise, it told me no such place existed. As I sat staring at the screen where mapquest patiently waited for me to choose between Murfreesboro, TN, AK, or NC, I realized that Sam wasn’t real. It was the first time I finally let such a thought seep into my mind and take root, but it didn’t seem to warm me over much. I suddenly wanted to hold Colty in my arms, see for myself that he was alive, and promise that I would never let such a thing happen to him. As I finally began to regain my composure, I clicked the option for Murfreesboro, North Carolina. Mapquest immediately pulled up a nice map of a small, rural town and it took me a few zoom-outs to see where it rested. North-east of Raleigh, on some random, secondary highway that was far off the path of any destination I’ve ever embarked upon. But seeing the map was still comforting in a sort of queer way and I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t until later that I finally understood. It was because if there ever is a large scale tragedy and I ever do decide to head north, it will be to Virginia to pick up my siblings. To pick up Colty. And Clay. And Jules…

But not before making a short pit stop on the way. Just north-east of Raleigh. Just down a little secondary highway. Just in case.

Only a good book can do this to a man. Laws yes.

I have before me two options for tonight. On the one hand, I can stay here and work on the every growing mountain of posts and subsections for Shyzer that I have neglected for months on end. On the other hand, I can accompany Fellner to Ashley’s birthday party.

Why is this even a debate? Adios folks.

I’m a little pissed that Shyzer was down for virtually all of today. I e-mailed my hosting company to see what the problem was and never heard back from them. Oh well, it’s back up now so I can’t bitch.

But the real reason I’m posting this is to wish a huge Happy Birthday to my buddy Tucker! I hope your 22nd year here on this planet kicks some major ass. Now we just need to play a game of capture the flag before I leave =)

I’ve got work and baseball tomorrow, but I plan on posting about my orientation sometime tomorrow night. Until then folks.