Shyzer.com

Earlier this month, as I was returning from easily the best Christmas Break ever, my luck took a colossal nosedive and I had quite possibly one of the worst weekends in the history of mankind. Things broke down and were destroyed, money vanished to the point where I had no idea what to do, people were arrested, and let’s not even get started with the Packers game…not a single positive event occurred in a span of about three days. Yet I managed to get through it all by reciting one word to myself over and over.

Australia.

I’ve felt like Red for the past few months, saying “Zihuatanejo” over and over, reminding himself that there’s hope for seeing his old friend Andy one day. This past summer, a good friend of mine gave me what might turn out to be some of the best advice I’ve ever received. We hadn’t talked in quite some time and we both knew that it was going to be one of our last meetings for quite a while, so we were determined to make the best of it. We discussed every topic imaginable and when I was through pouring my heart and soul out to him late in the evening, he looked me squarely in the eyes and said, “Ryan, you’re not like this place. Get the hell out of here. There is so much more out there and you feel it. I can see it in your eyes. You’re through with this place and it’s through with you.” I remember sitting in the booth for a few minutes mulling over what he had just said before slowly nodding my head in agreement with him. It was something I had needed to be told for quite a while and he somehow sensed that. I guess that’s always why we were such great friends.

The day I moved back to Columbia, I had a little unexpected bad luck fall my way. Of course, it only helped further strengthen my “everything happens for a reason” mentality for it sealed my friend’s advice and the next day I walked into the Study Abroad office, told them I was a senior, and asked what forms I needed to fill out. There was no question about it, I was on the “Australia or bust” bandwagon.

With me being a senior in my final semester, it adds a different twist to the whole equation. When most people go to study abroad, they still have at least another year of two of college remaining. They are able to go away, do their thing, and then come back and assimilate back into their old lifestyle. But that’s not the case with me. College is over for me. The classes in Aussie are “ass/fail,” meaning that it doesn’t matter if I make all D’s or all A’s, I’ll get the same credit regardless. That, in turn, means my GPA is officially locked and done with, I can take whatever classes I want, and when I return I graduate. I’m planning on going to maybe one or two classes a week. The next 5 months will essentially be a long vacation for me and I feel I’ve earned it. When I come home, I’ve already got plans to visit 5 or 6 different places and people across the country, I’ll have a grand sendoff with my bros at Jeremy’s bachelor party, and USC will hand me a diploma. Then it’s off to start chapter 6 of “I Bet My Goob is Bigger Than Yours: A memoir by Ryan Shyzer” or whatever the hell I decide to name it.

I was able to say goodbye to my family over Christmas Break, which was wonderful. Nothing in the world is more important to me than my siblings and my parents and therefore I was extremely thankful to have been able to have such a fantastic extended vacation with them and make sure we created some new memories. Last night, I was given the chance to say goodbye to all my friends here in Columbia as well. A kick ass “Goob Farewell Dinner: Brought To You By Kevin Fellner” was held in my honor and it was fantastic. (Wait, that sentence doesn’t even begin to describe last night. As one of our guests so eloquently phrased it, “Fellner, you went all out!” He started BBQing somewhere around 2 in the afternoon outside in the freezing cold and rain. When it was all said and done, we had ribs, chicken, corn, and beans. We even had a celebrity guest and today I was able to eat many leftovers. All in all, a most memorably night that will never be forgotten. Brought to me by the one and only Fellner.)

I’ve got three choices / job offers for once I get out of college and the closest one to South Carolina is 800 miles away. Color me excited. Of course I’ll miss all my friends and family, but that’s the exciting part. I’m forcing myself to get out there and start from scratch all over again. The level of terror I feel every time I think about the fact that I’m about to travel 10,000 miles to live in another country without knowing a soul is off the charts. But the minute a drop of that terror starts to flow through me, it makes me feel ecstatic. It’s a good terror, hell, a great terror. A few minutes later it has me convinced I can take on the whole world and that feeling doesn’t subside for days.

This isn’t some “the grass is greener on the other side” cry for help either. I know I’m running away from here. There’s so much baggage that I haven’t successfully dealt with that it’s not even funny. I’m not even going to try and hide it and maybe being upfront with that will help in the long run. But for me, it’s time to pick up the check, kiss South Carolina goodbye, and take off for the night. Hell, it’s not even that I’m unhappy here. I honestly haven’t been this content in a long, long time. It’s just that there’s still something missing, something more out there that I need. I can feel it every single day and I’m just irritated that I waited 22 years before going out in search of it. Is it in Australia? Probably not. But at least I’ll have searched there.

I actually only got accepted into the affiliate program, which will end up running me about an extra $1500 compared to what it would have cost had I been accepted into the direct enrollment program. I’ve also been told recently that my housing acceptance letter was never received, meaning I’m now in a heated battle trying to regain my room. But you know what? I don’t even care. At my current rate, I’ll run out of money in Aussie sometime around late April, but I’ll find a way to make the extra money, even if that means pawning off everything I own. And as far as housing, I’m sure that will work out. If not in the dorms, I’ll get an apartment. That’s how bad I want to go and see what’s out there. Besides, everything works out in the end. Everything.

I still don’t know what I’m going to do with Shyzer when the time comes. I can assure you here and now that in no way will I close shop. I’ve invested far too much blood and energy into my baby to just toss it aside for six months. Besides, there’s nothing like this nagging sense of duty I feel to a group of people whom I’ve never met. Of course, I won’t be taking my computer with me and my laptop has no Internet connection available, so the whole “Internet Access” might pose to be a problem. But I’ll make it work. I give you my word that you’ll have weekly updates and they won’t be some half-assed post. I feel I owe it to all those who’ve stuck around here for so long. IM will quickly become a thing of the past (which I am intriguingly interested in anyways) and the thought of no cell phone is actually a little comforting. And surprisingly, I’m debating whether or not to bring the name “Goob” along with me. That is actually one of the hardest decisions I’ve been forced to make in quite a while.

Well, the sun is rising now, which is my signal to hit the sack. But before I do, I’ll leave a few questions that I want some of you to answer. Why are you living where you currently reside? What special grip is holding you to that area and what would it take for you to move on? Seriously, I want to know.

Australia. Australia. Australia.

Want to legally download a movie for free? Go to this website and enter in your e-mail address for a coupon code that you can use for a free movie rental from movielink. Then, once you do so, go into your internet setting and erase your cookies and repeat the process over using a new e-mail address. So far I have about 20 codes and they are all good through August.

The coupon is for a 24-hour rental only, but hey, they’re freaking free. Plus the download speed is incredible. I’m currently downloading a movie at 1000 KB/sec.

First off, it looks like Shyzer suffered a little hiccup this morning. One of the posts I made last night around 5AM and two comments that were left on the post below were all erased for some reason. It might have had something to do with the fact that I just upgraded Shyzer’s hosting account from 150mb to 1 full gig, but oh well. Just wanted to let the people who commented know that I didn’t erase your comments on purpose.

Anyway, the short version of the post I made last night was that in case you haven’t already noticed, the Shyzer Picture Gallery has been updated. There’s a whole new section of pictures taken over New Years called Snowmobiling. I also added two new subfolders to the Family section, one of pictures from Thanksgiving, the other of pictures from X-mas. I also updated all the pics in my Past Cam Images section and even stuck a few pictures onto the end of Goob’s Life. All in all, there are about 100 new pictures to see and I’m actually not even done uploading them. I have about 50 more to scan that are going to go into the Old School folder. So anyway, be sure and go check all those out.

And yes, that was the shortened version.

[EDIT]As Waynus pointed out to me, all the pictures I uploaded last night were erased in the hiccup as well, which basically means I’m missing the Family X-mas pictures. Those shall be up by mid-afternnon[/EDIT]

I’ll be honest. I’ve quite enjoyed the spike of traffic Shyzer has experienced lately. So in an attempt to further boast my daily hit count, I’ve decided to perform an all out search engine-whore and write certain phrases that will guarantee me thousands, no, millions of hits! But this won’t only be a hit whoring affair! It’s a well known fact that we here at Kramerica Shyzer Incorporated take public service very seriously, which is why in addition to posting the certain phrases, I am going to explain why they will bring in so many hits. Also, I refuse to travel the easy route and run off a list of items like Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Patriot-Eagle Super Bowl, Slutty Virgins, Blog, Sex, Seex, Sexx, Blog Clicker, Blog Explosion, The Daily Show clips, Family Guy, fun sleep pics, mercedes terrell video, etc I just won’t stoop that low. So without further A DEW….

Mark Kotsay’s Wife – Big Foot. The Lock Ness Monster. The Phantom of the Opera. Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Jessica Simpson’s high IQ. None of these are more mysterious or cloaked then the infamous wife of Mark Kotsay. It’s a well-known fact that men who play professional sports tend to have smoking hot wives. It’s a lesser-known fact that Mark Kotsay has the hottest wife of them all. Except there’s a small problem. There ceases to be a single picture of her on the Internet. You see, for every team Mark Kotsay has played for, his wife has joined the team’s corresponding player’s wives association. They do small public services for the community and basically are used as a public relations tool by the team. Now most teams have jumbotrons or huge televisions or something along those lines in their stadiums. At random times during random games, most teams like to tout that they too have a soft and caring side for the community, so they run announcements for some of the public services they offer, which is where Mark Kotsay’s Wife comes in. For every team that Kotsay has played for, his wife has not only joined the association, but has been the main spokeswoman for their jumbotron commercials. Over time, more and more people have had a chance to see Mrs. Kotsay’s commercial and there’s a general consensus among all those who saw her; she is the most gorgeous woman they have ever seen. Message boards have thousand-page threads dedicated solely to her. Websites are repeatedly spammed in search of a single picture of her. She has become a living legend amongst baseball fans and those who have reportedly caught a glimpse of her swear by their lives that she is easily the most breathtaking female they have ever laid eyes on.

And no, this is not her, so don’t be fooled. Although Kris Benson’s wife has a wonderful site, she’s a bit too much on the slutty side for me.

Songmeanings – The most popular song lyrics site on the net always seems to be shut down for months at a time, which leads to thousands of people searching for a reason as to why. So to anybody who has come looking for an explanation, you won’t find one here, so why don’t you just stick around and read up on the site? But seriously, why does the best lyrics site on the net always go down? I want to frackin’ know. (Note to Andy. Bet you liked that Battlestar Galactica reference there. I swear, I’m not obsessive!)

Psycho Girl Video – Yes I have it. No I’m not putting it up on Shyzer. Let’s just say this girl had a crush on a guy and went a little too far in her attempts to seduce him. Instead, she became a psycho. Big time.

Joe Theismann video – Angela mentioned that she got a few hundred hits in one day from people searching for this, so I figured I’d just throw it out there as well =) Can’t hurt!

Vida Guerra – Hell if I know with this one. I was told by a friend that he gets a few thousand hits a month from this chick, so I figured it couldn’t hurt. I’d never heard of her, but she’s not that hot.

Elin Grindemyr – Easily the hottest chick that nobody has ever heard of. Well, I take that back. If you’re on the computer any and surf message boards from time to time, you’ve more than likely come across her. She’s a Swedish girl who was spotted by their version of Maxim in one of those “Hotties Next Door” contests. She shot a photo shoot, but the editors decided to cut her out of the magazine and that was that. Until, that is, an employee leaked the pictures located in Galleries One, Two, and Three found here. Suddenly she skyrocketed to celebrity status throughout Sweden and quickly throughout Europe. Most people here in America have never heard of her, but trust me, you will one day very soon.

Okay, I’m extremely bored with this now. I’m off to bed.

Tonight was…wow…yeah, tonight was simply wow. It’s 4 AM and I’m just impressed that I’m sober enough to type this without massive typos. But tonight…seriously…wow. Kick. Ass.

[edit]Apparantly I made a few phone calls as well last night. To anybody who received one, I’d be very interested in hearing just what in the hell I said to you, so please IM me and let me know. [/edit]

I can’t fathom the idea that my friends are starting to get married. It always seemed to be one of those concepts that you always heard of, but never really encountered. Marriage, Family, Careers, etc. I’d like a family one day, probably marriage, never a career. But I’m 21 and right now, none of those are on the horizon for me and I just always assumed everybody else my age was the same way.

So with that said, I find it hard to believe that the group of friends I grew up with has now entered the “Marriage” stage of life. Yet low and behold, it’s officially begun. I was asked tonight to be a groomsman in one of my good buddies wedding this summer and I quickly accepted. Not because I’ve known him since the 4th grade or since he was the very first kid to be nice to me at my new school. No, I’m looking at something more valuable here. I want the coveted Wedding Sampler Crown. To date, I’ve already been a ring bearer, a cameraman, and a guest. After this one, all that’s left is the priest and, well, the groom.

But in all seriousness, congratulations bro. I couldn’t be happier for ya. And thanks for asking me to be a groomsman, because you know what that means. Hellooooooooooooo Bridesmaids!

As Jaime pointed out a few weeks ago, I never shared the final results of the Best of Shyzer. Allow me to do so now. The method for determining the winner was simple. I created an Excel spreadsheet and entered the individual results as they were submitted to me. At the end of the spreadsheet, I tallied the votes for each post and divided the final number by how many votes there were. So in essence, the best score possible was a 1 while the worst score was a 5. Also, if you haven’t noticed by now, I turned this whole voting thing into a subpage over there on the left for any and all newcomers to Shyzer so that they too can experience the Best of Shyzer. And now, for the results.

*drumroll please*

Coming in 5th place, with a much higher than expected score of 3.4, was Part I & Part II of The Creation Education Science Fair. Fellner might be shocked to see this post this low, but I think it got such a low score because people didn’t want to go back and read a lot.

In 4th place was Reunion, Part I and Reunion, Part III. with a final score of 3.26. I personally would have ranked this higher, but hey, it’s not my call.

Capturing the Bronze Medal with a surprisingly low score of 2.866 was The Catch. I didn’t even think this would make the final 5, much less become a medallist, but I was most pleasantly wrong.

Our Silver Medallist finished with a score of 2.8, beating The Catch out by one single point. Who was the lucky bastard? None other than Only In Spartanburg. Goes to show that the people always love humor.

And finally, our Gold Medallist, who finished with a score of 2.6 and received over 25% of the first place votes. I can’t say I’m shocked at all because Tan Nguyen and Week 1 were winners from the start. God I’d do anything to have Tan back with us, but until that day we meet again, all I can do is share his memory with the rest of the world.

Just for fun, I went back and looked at all the voting patterns to see if anybody happened to vote exactly the way the final results ended up. Not a one. So I went back and looked to see if anybody got three posts in the correct position (and thereby flipping two other posts incorrectly) and I came back with some results. Jess (1,3,5) and Clay (1,2,3) both nailed three in their correct spots, so congrats to you two. But Clay, I deem you the winner since you were the only person to accurately vote for the top 3 posts in their correct final positions. So way to go Clay for knowing what the public likes and voting along with them. =)

Oh, and Andy, you were the only person not to get a single one right. Congrats on that as well! VALIDATION!

Thank you so much for all those who voted. Sorry it took me so long to post the results, but you know how it goes with me. Seriously though, I wouldn’t have been able to pick or rank these on my own so I couldn’t have done this without any of you. Thanks again.

Just a little side note before I start. Not a single quote in this post was made up. My laptop was turned on at the time of this event and I quickly grabbed it and began pounding out the quotes verbatim just to make sure that when I came back to type this post, I didn’t exaggerate. That’s right, as the events unfolded, I was thinking of Shyzer. Anyways…

A week or so ago, Waynus and I were forced to share a bed at our aunt and uncle’s house since they were in the process of buying a new spare bed. We didn’t mind at all, but it did lead to the occasional mid-night blanket tug-o-war match for supremacy of the covers. Plus, the Berlin Wall of Pillows we constructed only lasted a few minutes before we both started beating the crap out of each other for attempting to inch it towards the other person, thereby securing more lebensraum for our bodies. However, there were times before our struggles when we both shared the bed peacefully. Every night we’d lie there, me reading my book and him talking on the phone, and not utter a single word to each other. It was bliss. Yet, there was one such occasion where I not only threw down my book in disbelief, but ended up getting out of bed, having a complete meltdown, quizzing a tenth grade girl to the brink of tears, and then yelling at her in rage.

Some of you may remember this post I made last summer about the stupidity of one of Tommy’s friends. Well, he failed to learn that stupid people are, well, stupid and so he continues to associate with this bimbo. As I was just getting to the good part of Fail Safe, I heard the following phrase come out of Waynus’ phone.

So you’re in California? Is that on the other side of the country?

Immediately my brain was livid. I couldn’t believe my ears and yet at the same time, I remembered my previous encounter with South Carolina’s very own Jessica Simpson, and so I knew that this was not out of the norm for her. The minute Waynus heard it, he squeezed his eyes shut knowing I was within earshot. My emotions pleaded to just let it go and continue reading, but I couldn’t. I simply couldn’t.

Goob: Wait a damn minute. What the hell did she just say?
Waynus: Nothing! Nothing! Just let it go!
Goob: Oh hell no, give me that damn phone.

I made a swipe to grab the phone, but Waynus jerked it out of my reach and went into damage control. He claimed it was an honest mistake, one that anybody could have made at 0300. “Okay,” I said, “Let me give her another geography question. Ask her how many states there are.” Waynus looked at me for a second before sighing heavily. He knew the exact same thing I did. The answer would be anything but correct.

Waynus: Um, Catherine, let me ask you a question. How many states are there in the U.S. My brother is just wondering because he doesn’t think you’ll know.
Stupidest Tenth Grader In America: Fifty-one! HA! GOTCHA! I bet he didn’t think I’d know that, so just tell him to back the fuck off!

I went absolutely apeshit. Gotcha? Gotcha? GOTCHA?!?! YOU GOT IT FUCKING WRONG! Waynus almost lost it upon viewing my reaction. I jumped out of bed, grabbed a handful of pillows and tossed them across the room. Our baby cousin was sleeping in the next room and Waynus was trying to muffle a hysterical outburst as I grabbed one of the pillows and screamed into it. I finally looked up and just shook my head.

Waynus: Look, maybe she just doesn’t know geography. Everything you’ve ever asked her had to do with geography. Ask her something else!
Dumb Retard: Ask me about current events! I keep up with the news!
Goob:…….Fine. Let’s see here…. Okay, name either country we’ve invaded in the last three years.
Dumb Retard: Oh geez, this is hard. It’s one of those I countries, right?
Goob: Waynus, I swear to God if I ever meet this girl, I may strangle her on the spot.
Waynus: Give her another question! Those middle eastern countries are easily confused!
Goob: Okay, what just killed a bunch of people in Asia? I’ll give you a hint, it was a natural disater.
Dumb Retard: Hell if I know….
Goob & Waynus: IT WAS A FREAKING TSUNAMI!
Dumb Retard: Oh, that’s like a wave or something, isn’t it! I know that from Johnny Tsunami!

I was speechless. This had to be a horrible joke. How could somebody be this retarded, honestly? I wanted it to end and yet at the same time, curiosity and rage had formed a strange mixture that made me want to see just how stupid she was before making sure she never passed on her genes to a future generation.

Waynus: This has got to stop before you kill somebody.
Fucking Moron: NO! I want to prove to him that I’m not dumb.
Goob: Haha, good luck with that. Okay, how about a few history questions?
Fucking Moron: Yeah, ask me something about history! That’s my second best subject in school!
(Waynus whispering to me): Please, ask her something easy. I don’t want you to kill her.
Goob: Catherine, who fought in WWII. Anybody. Name any damn country that fought in the war and what side they were on.
Fucking Moron: America and somebody…didn’t we fight the Jews?!
Goob & Waynus: WHAT?! DIDN’T WE FIGHT THE JEWS? WHAAAAAAAT?
Fucking Moron: Common guys, this is really hard. Ask me something common.

I felt sick. I’m not joking. Even my stomach, upon hearing her response, threw its hands up in protest over her stupidity and threatened to rebel. My knees suddenly felt weak and my head was spinning. Didn’t we fight the Jews? Yeah, we fought the Jews. It was that Anne Frank bitch who started the whole thing by making bagels in her local banks. Luckily we had our good buddy Hitler around to help us coral them up into nice bed and breakfasts in Germany and Poland. Jesus, my eight-year-old sister even knows that Germany was “the bad guy” in WWII.

Goob: I can’t go on. This is just too much. She’s actually made me sick.
Waynus: Wait, I’m sure she can answer one question, can’t you Catherine? Here, I’ll give you the easiest one I know. Who was the first President of the United States?
Never Needs To Procreate: Um…I’m really tired. I don’t know.
Waynus: Oh Jesus Christ, I can’t talk to you anymore tonight Catherine. You don’t know?! You’re an idiot! Goodnight.

I pray that our bodies never enter the same room in real life. Even though I’ve never tried prison food, I already know I have no desire to eat it for the rest of my life.

This story is simply heartbreaking. I’ve probably stared at the above photo for 20 minutes and tried to imagine what he must be running though his mind. One minute he’s going to buy ice cream for his little girls and the next, they’re all dead. How do you recover from that? How?

You may notice some weird stuff over on the left side of the page today/tomorrow. I’m working on finding one decent ad company as well as adding a few new subpages and a search function. All should be well by tomorrow night.

I know I’m a few weeks late on this, but my vacationing led to a very erratic and unpredictable Internet connections, which meant that I only had a few minutes at best to type up a post for Shyzer recently and this seemed to warrant a little more than just a “Hey, doesn’t this suck?” type of gloss over. I simply wanted to say Farewell to Reggie White. Reggie was easily one of my most favorite football player of all time. Being a huge Packers fan might have had a little something to do with it, but Reggie was loved far and wide by almost every football fan. There was no way you could hate the guy, even if he was sacking your teams quarterback at that very moment. He, together with Favre, restored Green Bay to respectability and glory by unexpectedly signing with the Packers when they were among the league’s laughing stocks. But more importantly, Reggie was one of the greatest men off the field. His community service and support was second to none and I know I speak for thousands of people out there when I say you will be missed Reggie. I’ll never forget what you did for the Packers and for that, I thank you dearly.