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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.

Well, like I promised, I’ve finally finished putting together the final round of the Best of Shyzer. The field was narrowed from 15 to 5 and I cut some of the fluff questions down, so the voting process should go much smoother and quicker now. That said, there is now absolutely no reason for any of you reading this not to go vote! Don’t piss me off and give me some poor ass performance like you did last time (but to those who voted last time - you’re awesome. Now keep your awesomeness by voting again!)

Some of the posts I had nominated before were strikingly similar, so I decided to merge them.

1. The Catch - This post is basically a narrative of “the catch” I made back in November ‘03 during an intramural softball game. I wish I could say there is some sort of hidden message within it or something more to it, but honestly it’s just a story about how I love baseball and how I love playing the outfield.
2. Tan Nguyen and Week 1 - Before the previous round, I had trouble deciding if I should include posts like these, but in the end, I decided not to place a filter on the vote. And judging from the votes, the voters agreed with my decisions. These posts are basically a somber reaction to the sudden news that one of my best friends had passed away right after Christmas in ‘03. They both produced massive amounts of feedback from people I never even knew read Shyzer, which definitely helped with the hard healing process that I had just begun to embark upon.
3. Part I & Part II of The Creation Education Science Fair - Probably one of the best and most well received posts I’ve ever made. This two-part entry was made in Feb. ‘04 and basically cracks fun at one of the most extreme Christian groups I have ever encountered.
4. Reunion, Part I and Reunion, Part III - These are the first and third parts in an overall three part post that I made back in April ‘04. The first deals with the special and complex relationship I’ve had with my father while the third was a Good-bye to my longtime girlfriend.
5. Only In Spartanburg - This post probably produced the most feedback outside of Shyzer, which lead me to see just how many people actually read my little corner of the net. In it, I mock the botched handling of a hostage situation in Spartanburg over the summer of ‘04 and the pathetic news coverage by FOX.

So there you have it. As an added bonus, I’ve gone back and done a little editing on all 5 posts. I was aiming mainly at typos, poor grammar and sentences, etc. instead of trying to rewrite each post, so you probably won’t see a huge difference. But I was just looking to enhance the main flow of each post so that you didn’t find yourself stopping to go “wait a minute…what’s he trying to say here?”

So please, go vote here and let your opinion be heard! I promise, there is more to this than me just wanting to see what post I’ve written is the best. You’ll just have to wait and see for yourselves =)

To everybody who complimented me on the post I made about the election, a big hearty “thanks” goes out to each and every one of you. Special thanks to Ally and Angela, who both had kind words and whose sites I hope each and every one of you check out from time to time.

Anyways, I remember last week I also thanked all the people who voted in the first round of The Best of Shyzer. I’ll be honest and say I expected more votes to be cast than actually were, but I wasn’t disappointed with the overall numbers. I thought that maybe having people try and choose from 15 different posts was a bit much, so for the last and final round, I’ve narrowed the field down to 5. I hope to pound out a rough post for that late tonight and upload it sometime tomorrow, so be sure to come back for that.

I’m also working on a post that will have something to do with the not-so-covert message I used for a closing in the last post. Anybody whose talked to me in person has quickly learned its one of the only things I can talk about and frankly, I can’t wait to write about it. I’m forcing myself to wait until Wednesday, however, because I will have many answers to many questions after that evening.

So what’s the point of this post? None that I can think of so far. I would write about this past weekend, but each and every hilarious scenario I went through was one of those “you had to be there” type things. Friday night I went and played in some huge game called The Great Race, which was kind of like a Survivor type game. While our team might not have won, I can confidently say that our team name (The Lactose Intolerant Spotted Geckos) and our team cheer (which basically was about us drinking milk and having it go “all the way out”) kicked all the other team’s asses. Saturday night brought with it a drunken Jackson Crossing show, which was off the hilarity charts. Of all the countless times I have seen them perform, I have never seen Mike (the lead singer) drunk while trying to sing. I haven’t laughed that hard in a while. And Sunday I traveled back to Spartanburg for a family reunion, which again provided some hilarious situations. So all in all, a great weekend.

It’s time for me to go work now. Since this post sucked some major ass, I updated the cam picture over there. And check back tonight, I promise to have something a little more worth while to read posted. Until then.

*Note, I wrote this last night before the results were in. I was just too lazy / tired to find a floppy disk and transfer it over to Shyzer off my laptop. So ignore the “whoever wins” attitude that I have.*

Well, here I sit at 10PM, before any of the real election results have been turned in, watching The Daily Show Live, and trying to figure out how in the name of all things Holy to put these thoughts I have onto paper…or, Microsoft Word I should say. For some reason, the task seems a thousand times more daunting than the major test I have on Friday in Latin or trying to finish this senior thesis paper or curing cancer. So let’s start this post as I start any other overwhelming task I partake in; by starting from the beginning. Using the best sugarcoating skills I own, I guess I could sum up my feelings in two points and go from there.

(1) The Democrats will lose this election because of their own fears and incompetence that they were simply either too stupid or too afraid to face.

(2) There is a growing part of me that is thrilled over this, for I hope it will either break or make the Democratic party for my lifetime. And personally, I’m hoping and cheering for some Break.

Let’s see here, Point 1. Well, Jesus, is this even at all surprising? Okay, maybe not to some, so let me try and explain where I’m coming from. It’s no secret that I was a staunch Howard Dean supporter. Why? Because he inspired me. He alone motivated me to go out and vote this year. He was the source of my revitalized interests in politics and he never failed to check his political rhetoric at the door, instead, opting to openly speak his mind. He was the proverbial “fresh air” that so many Democrats have cried out for over the past decades.

So what did the Democrats do? They shied away from Dean in fear. As soon as the first “How will this guy poll? Maybe undecided NASCAR Dads and Moral Moms won’t vote for him” seeds were planted, the Democrats fled and weaseled their way to a “safe” candidate. Their chosen replacement for Mr. Dean? John F. Kerry, the most non-personal, placid, docile person available who was unable to parlay his goals and visions to the American public in a clear and concise method. The Democrats allowed fear to overtake the entire party, not realizing that the entire “swing voters” were looking for somebody, anybody who could say where they opposed President Bush and what they planned to do about it. Howard Dean was more than willing to do so from the beginning. John Kerry was amazingly unable to do so from the beginning. And yet, the Democrats still chose a “comfortable” candidate, one who didn’t step on any toes and would make sure he always said the “right” things. Would Howard Dean have won? Who the hell knows. But I guarantee you this, he would have made this race much more clear cut. He was the Democrats best chance at rallying and inspiring massive amounts of support through his ideas, but the Democrats chose to hang their future on another strategy. And what was it?

The “lesser of two evils” and “he’s not Bush!” strategy. Wonderful. Instead of finding and supporting a candidate who inspires and gives you hope, you people decided to get behind a person because he isn’t somebody else! What the hell is wrong with this party?! If Kerry does get elected, he won’t stand a chance at being reelected in four years. The “Anybody but Bush” support will have vanished by then and where will that leave the party? With an unenthusiastic, bland President going up against the likes of a Senator McCain or Rudy Giuliani. The Presidential election of 2008 will be disastrous for the Democrats and I am simply left here shaking my head wondering who fell asleep at the watch here? Who failed to raise their hand and point out that sometimes you have to nominate the dark horse, especially when HALF THE COUNTRY HATES THE CURRENT PRESIDENT! What better time IS there to nominate a dark horse?!

Anybody But Bush. Jesus H Christ. How in the HELL did nobody see this as a grotesque and monstrous error that could only lead to failure!? What does the Democratic party stand for? If I didn’t keep up with the news and only listened to the statements and slogans they put out instead of digging through all the bullshit, which is the case with the majority of people in America who are a bit too busy with raising their kids and getting their next paycheck, I’d say the Democrats simply wanted Kerry elected because his last name wasn’t spelled B-U-S-H. Way to go guys! I honestly wonder if I will ever see another monumental fuck up like you guys just pulled in my lifetime.

Which brings me to Point 2. As I said, President Bush handed this election on a silver platter to the Democrats and they still were unable to win, which only furthers my belief that the Democratic party is too inept for their own good. So why does this make me happy deep down inside? Why does this please that little voice in my gut that seems to be saying “this is actually good for us, Ryan. This is the beginning of something greater.” Because maybe, just maybe, this might be the failure I’ve been waiting for that will help jumpstart the rise of a true third party, which is something I think would give this whole process we call “elections” a full dose of reality. No longer would either of the two major parties be able to hide behind the veil of ambiguity and misdirection. They would both be forced to provide solutions instead of the political rhetoric that we are all so accustomed to by now. That is, if they wanted to keep their power. Otherwise, there would be other parties ready to step in, ready to shove aside the old and usher in the new. You think a three or four or ninety party system doesn’t work better then a two party system? Take a good, strong look at history my friends. Hell, take a look at Europe in the present, where virtually every country has at least three major parties.

And don’t tell me that it can’t happen here in America. Back when this great nation was clawing it’s way out of infancy, the two main parties were the Whigs and the Democrat-Republicans, who soon shortened their name to the Democrats. However, the seeds of a new party were planted in the early 1800s and any by 1856, they finally emerged as a viable alternative campaigning under an anti-slavery, pro-expansion, and pro-North ticket. Only four short years later, they won the Presidency. You might have heard of their candidate, a Mr. Abraham Lincoln. This new party also decided to pick up the name that the Democrats dropped and began calling themselves The Republican Party of the United States of America. Somehow, people find it interesting that it was indeed the Republicans who freed the slaves and ruled the North during the Civil War. 80 years later, the party found that they had taken a complete 180 turn as they campaigned against the Civil Rights, but we’ll save that argument for another day. But it’s not just America that’s seen the rise of alternate parties before. Sure, their end result might have been just a smudge different then what they promised, but the Communists in Russia and China, the Fascists in Italy, and those pesky little Nazis in Germany all came out of nowhere to form a viable alternative to the standing parties.

I’m tired of being chastised for “throwing my vote away.” I’m tired of people telling me that nobody but Bush or Kerry has a chance of winning, so why waste my time? And most of all, I’m tired of the overall feeling people have that unless things change now, this very moment, then what’s the point of voting? You don’t think I know that no matter who I vote for, Kerry or Bush will win? Come on now, give me a little more credit than that! I’m not looking at this election. I’m looking at 40 or 50 years down the road. I’m looking at building the foundation for a new party, one that is certain to change in shape and form by the end result, but one that can finally rise up and say “no more, we’ve had enough of your bullshit.” Maybe I’ll be able to give my children or grandchildren the opportunity to realistically be able to choose from three or more parties, and that, to me, is more precious and valuable then anything else.

So as I sit here reading over this and noticing that President Bush should pretty much win this election, I can only sit back, shake my head in disgust, but smile at the same time. Sure, the next four years are going to be devastating to our foreign relations, our environment, and our civil rights. But those are all fixable, even if it seems daunting. Let the courts ban gay marriage. I don’t worry about it anymore whatsoever because anybody with half a brain realizes that 50 years down the road it will all be overturned. Let President Bush continue to blow off our allies. It might cost us our superpower status, but honestly, is this such a bad thing? If he gets us into another war, though…

This election is over and in the past now, so instead, from here on out, I’m going to focus on some of the most wonderful news I’ve ever received.

Australia, brace yourself. =)

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.