Shyzer.com

After a 42 hour journey, I’m arrived about 24 hours ago.

AND I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have no Internet connection, so give me a week or so to upload a real post.

First off, thank you all for the positive IMs, comments, and e-mails not only on the Shyzer Shuffle, but Shyzer itself. It’s what keeps me going.

If you’re a friend of mine and have yet to IM me your e-mail address, then do so now. Place it either in the comments section or the tag-board over there. I figured the best way to keep in touch with family and friends was through mass e-mails every now and then, so don’t complain if you don’t give me your address! Also, Angela, Ally, Angel (way too many A’s there), Jaime and Stan - I’ve added y’all to my contact list even though I’ve yet to meet any of you. I consider y’all friends =) I used the e-mail addresses you all have given Shyzer when commenting, so if they are junk ones or you don’t want periodic e-mails from me, let me know.

Yesterday, I received the following IM’s from Stan:

Stan: Hey before you leave the country get a hold of me. After watching your video I was inspired to write you a going away song. I’ll get it done and recorded ASAP

Stan: Ok sir. As your birthday present and as your going away present, thus killing two birds with one stone. I present to you the new Goob song. I call it. “Goob, You Bastard.” Enjoy!

The second IM actually said “present to you the knew Goob song,” but I went ahead and proofread / edited it for him =) Anyway, the song was so kickass, that I decided to upload it for all to hear. But first, I remembered that last year he wrote a song late one night as well after one of our Stoobela meetings. I dug through my Music folder and found “The Goob Song.” Upon listening to it again, I felt that it too should be uploaded to Shyzer. So here are both. The Goob Song and Goob, You Bastard.

Now, try and guess what the following is:

That’s my supposed itinerary, but since I always fly standby, who knows how I’ll ultimately get there. I’ve always enjoyed flying standby though. It makes the trip interesting. It’s like high stakes musical chairs. I’ve been in Seattle and actually gone Seattle -> Denver -> Chicago -> Phily -> Charlotte before. It’s fun to me running around an airport, finding a nice ticket agent, listing yourself for every single flight leaving in the next hour, and then running around between four gates trying to guage which flight you’ll actually make it on. I view it as practice for when I finally am accepted on The Amazing Race. During my trip this weekend, I’m gonna try and keep a running log of it, kinda like how Dave did for an M’s game last year and how Bill Simmons does for ESPN every now and then. No telling how long I keep up with it, but I figure it’s worth a shot and that way I’ll have something to post right when I get there.

Anyways, I’m off to make a list of things that need to be accomplished tomorrow, throw in my last load of laundry, and countdown the seconds until Chapter 6 of “My Goob is Bigger Than Yours” begins!

It looks like Shyzer has its first ever, very own, self-produced video. It runs about 1+ minutes and it is of myself, Waynus, and Clayster doing our dance that was actually renamed during filming to the Shyzer Shuffle. (you even get to see the thought process that leads to me saying “Shyzer shuffle….hey, I like that!”) It’s basically a variation of The Twist. All you do is twist faster and further to the point where it looks like you are retarded and makes your muscles cramp up within a few seconds. We all love it, mainly because it’s ours. I’m gonna tweak the video a bit tonight (basically brighten it up) but I thought why not just go ahead and throw it up here for all to see now before perfecting it.

As I was working on the film, I realized something else. Unless you have ever met me in real life, I don’t think Shyzer readers have ever heard my voice. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think I’ve ever uploaded a sound clip of myself talking and therefore, everybody is now able to hear how I talk. I’d like to add that my voice is actually deeper in real life. Anyway, here’s the clip (please right click and “save as”)

If the film doesn’t run on your computer, please let me know and tell me the error it gives you. I know I’m completely jinxing it by saying this, but I think I have it so that anybody should be able to view it. If it gives you a codec error, it means you haven’t been keeping your computer up to date…shame on you!…so you will have to go out and download the newest codec, which is only a Shyzer search away if you use the search function over there. I included a link to the latest codec in a post last month, so go dig that up and have a look.

And please, let me know what you think. If I even get one “hahaha, that was great” comment, there will be plenty more to come.

ONE LAST THING. I call my mom “mother” in the clip. I think the last time I called her that, I was 15 and trying to impersonate a stuck up snob. I have no idea why I called her mother in this clip.

Just a quick update until later tonight. I found a way to convert my 350mb home videos into an 8mb file without losing hardly any of the sound or video quality, so I cannot wait to get all of these converted and uploaded to Shyzer. If I don’t do it by the morning, you can shoot me.

The artist section of shlyrics is complete! Now all I have to do is stick the meanings section on them and then open it to the public. You may be wondering what’s taking me so long, but when you see the size of this thing (about 110 pages or so), you’ll realize that it’s about 8 times larger than all of the current Shyzer.

And most importantly, my all-time favorite Internet Flash video (Magical Trevor!!!) has a SEQUEL!!!! Magical Trevor 2!!!! Here’s the lyrics for those who can’t understand it.

“He’s back and he’s got a new trick,
Magical Trevor is ten times as slick,

Look at the mess in aisle two.
Aisle two, that’s the place where we saw the Ragu
There’s so much…”

Fellner gave me a great idea on a way to combine Magical Trevor and my new home video editing / acting skills. I’m gonna work on it tonight and if it turns out to be even remotely funny, I’ll upload it. But I’m already giggling just sitting here thinking about it, so I’m guessing this will be a go.

I’ve just spent the past four hours and about fifteen hours in the past month trying to get these home videos I shot onto my computer. I have a program that will record them over, so I gave it a whirl. I transferred a 2 minute video clip and it was 350 MB. Not cool. Plus, both the sound and video was extremely choppy, to the point where it’s unviewable. I’m currently downloading another program to see if that will work any better, but let’s just say for now I’m a bit annoyed.

Anyways, recently I’ve run into a handful of sites that have instantly gone on my “daily reads” list or in my “Random” bookmark folder for later usage. Here’s a few of the best I’ve found in 2005.

Dooce.com - Apparently Dooce has been around for a while now. Since 2001 to be exact. The name became famous across the net in 2002 when Heather, the chick who runs Dooce, was fired from her job over things she had been writing on her blog. Dooce instantly became synonymous for “losing one’s job due to their blog” and ever since then, her site’s been huge. My favorite part of the whole site is how “God” comments on every daily picture. Sometimes he’s out smiting people, so he has his secretaries or interns check in for him. Heather and I couldn’t be more different though. In her words, “I’m a Stay at Home Mom (SAHM) or a Shit Ass Ho Motherfucker. I do both equally well” who lives in Utah and is married. Yet even though we have nothing in common, she writes in a way that is quite refreshing. Plus, it’s fun to see that I’m not the only person who has such a comfortable relationship with my parents that I can tell them to “suck it.”

Angela turned me onto ObliviousMind the other day and it was an instant hit. Her blog teeters on the balance of just recapping her days (something I looooooooathe for a general blog) but she adds a bit of emotion and storytelling into it that keeps it fresh. Worth the read.

You might have heard about this on the news a few days ago, but if you didn’t see the video clip and the interview, this is a must. Last week, a college basketball player sunk a full court shot with 0.6 seconds left on the clock. But that’s not even the amazing part. The next day, he was interviewed by WFMY and during the interview, he was given 16 basketballs and was asked to see if he could sink the exact same shot again. Guess what happened on the 11th shot. Both of the videos can be found on the site linked earlier.

I’m a huge fan of good commercials. I would give anything to be able to create a button called the “Die a painful death” button as well. See, the whole idea behind the button would be that whenever a horrible, gut wrenching awful commercial comes on, I could push the button and every single person who worked on creating the commercial and stared in the commercial would die a painful death. However, this VW commercial would succeed in halting my finger from pushing the button. In fact, I love it so much, I ripped the music from it. If interested, please download it from me right here.

Moving on, I have a new alternative to Mapquest that has yet to lead me astray. It’s called Maps24 and it seems to be the best competitor to crappy MQ. I’ll still never forgive them for telling me to get on a highway that didn’t exist on my way to Baltimore or for making me pull out my own map in the middle of West Virginia to find my own damn route. The zoom-in feature on Maps24 is light-years ahead of MQ and I’ve used it a few times so far without any qualms.

And finally, I found a neat video file that attempts to predict the future of news. It’s called Epic 2014 and it tells the tale of bloggers and Google taking over the likes of print media. Of course, it’s a bit far fetched, but the concept is still plausible, especially after seeing how blogs had such a huge impact on this past Presidential Election, not to mention the countless news stories that have been proven false by bloggers.

Okay, back to working on Shlyrics. Did I mention I’m going to be living in Australia by this weekend? Just thought I’d let everybody know in case they’ve been living in a cave lately.

First off, I would like to register my extreme disappointment with MovableType. It supposedly has a feature where I can type and upload a post and categorize it as “future.” I then enter in the time and date and when that rolls around, the post will automatically become public. There was supposed to be a post uploaded Friday morning and then another uploaded this morning. As you can see, neither uploaded. So I’m going to trash the one that was to run today, replace it with this one, and run the Friday one tomorrow. Piece of crap MT…

I’m now back home and prepared for my trip. My apartment in Columbia is cleared out and all my stuff is packed up and ready to go. God I’m so nervous / excited. I spent Friday night here at the house with my dad, his girlfriend, and my brother just hanging out and telling old stories of crap we pulled in our younger days that always bring a smile, no matter what. Waynus and I stayed up until 0300 (yes, I’m forcing myself to get in the habit of using military time.) before getting up at 0500 to go to the Flea Market. The only reason I tell you of this is because we managed to shoot some decent footage of ourselves acting like complete assholes / 12-year-olds, so if I can ever figure out how to get my computer to recognize my camcorder, I’ll upload them to Shyzer. Chong happened to be back in town for one final week of training, so of course I went out with him and all his friends from work to Greenville. Much fun was had, even more beer was consumed, and I somehow managed to drive back to his house before crashing on his couch. A very fine sendoff with my bro if I do say so myself.

The Goob Experience also ended this afternoon. In case you’re too lazy to click the link, I’ll let you know how the bidding turned out:

Un-fucking-believable doesn’t even begin to describe that. At the start of the auction, I told many people that if it sold for $10, I’d be happy. Well, right now, I am 11.250 times as happy as I would have been. I called Waynus right before the auction ended today and we watched it go from $50 to $112.50 in a matter of minutes. I wish I had written down some of the quotes from that conversation so that I could add them to the ones below, but rest assured that “Holy fuck” was uttered many times. I had no idea who mighty320 or mystericbidder was, but I knew that I would at least be able to learn the identity of mystericbidder. Oh how very wrong I was. But first, here are some of my favorite quotes that I had enough sense to write down after they were said so that I could put them here on Shyzer

“He only bid $21?! What a pussy! Who the fuck!?” - Fellner, commenting on Boston Matt raising the bid by one dollar at a time.

“I am hoping someone will buy it for valentines day…..for me” - Different Andy, not the one who bid on the experience.

“This guy must have a tiny dick. I mean, if you were that scared to bid against me, we are talking minuscule penis action.” - Fellner, talking about Boston Matt, but before we knew it was him.

“WELL, now we’re really throwing our hat in the game. Now we’re really shaking it up, making it interesting with a big $23.50″ - Fellner, and I bet you can guess who he’s talking about.

“I might have to dip into my savings. My kids won’t be able to go to college because I bid too much on the Goob Experience. I’ll have to get some money wired to me from Switzerland.” - Still Fellner, although this was by far the most sarcastic I’ve ever heard him talk and I was rolling.

“I want to know who the fuck this person is. Now.” - Fellner upon learning he’d lost the bidding war.

“Jesus christ man, $112.50. I’m gonna sell my fucking soul on ebay” - Dave

“That is at least 2 hookers, maybe 3 if you get grungy female extras from the first mad max” - Andy, the one who bid $10.

“I feel like I haven’t earned it. No, I actually feel like I’m being taunted by this person. I want to know who it is!” - Fellner, upon learning the experience had been donated to him.

If you read the caption after that last quote correctly, then you’re probably sitting there going, “Donated to Fellner? Huh?” Well, when I received the e-bay form saying the auction had been sold, alarms immediately went off when I saw the address was 123 Main Street, New York, NY 10108. I quickly contacted the buyer and began drafting an e-mail to e-bay to complain when I got another e-mail. Mystericbidder had already sent the money to my Paypal account. Stunned, I went ahead and transferred the funds to my bank account and within a few minutes, I received an e-mail from the winner. They sent me they AIM name (which was something like Mystery9798750890987647 or whatever) and we began to talk. They asked to remain anonymous and said that they wanted to go ahead and invoke Item #11, which was the potpourri section. I asked what they wanted and they replied with “I would like you to donate every item to that roebuckrunner fellow, except for Item #3 (the pizza breadstick recipe). I’m interested to see what that tastes like.” I asked why they wanted to do this and they told me that it was a reward for his valiant bidding efforts. They said they love e-bay simply for the thrill of the last minute bidding and thought that my auction was so funny, they felt like bidding.

So, as it turns out, Fellner “won” the experience, even if he doesn’t feel like he earned it. In fact, he thinks I’m the one behind this, but I can assure you that I have no role in this whatsoever. I was paid, I had the conversation, and I was asked to make sure they remained anonymous. Craziness if you ask me. So, if you feel inclined to wish me a happy birthday today, please make sure you send the same message to Fellner. His AIM name is USCFellner or if you don’t have IM, you can do so here in the comments. But either way, all Happy Birthday requests need to make their way to him one way or the other!

I am now off to try and get this camcorder to download its files onto my computer, work on Shlyrics, and give the “cast” section a much needed update before heading overseas.

Oh, and Jaime, thank you again. Thank you so, so, so, so, so very much. That was awesome of you.

I’ve recently run into a handful of sites that have instantly gone on my “daily reads” list or in my “Random” bookmark folder for later usage. Here’s a few of the best I’ve found in 2005.

Dooce.com - Apparently Dooce has been around for a while now. Since 2001 to be exact. The name became famous across the net in 2002 when Heather, the chick who runs Dooce, was fired from her job over things she had been writing on her blog. Dooce instantly became synonymous for “losing one’s job due to their blog” and ever since then, her site’s been huge. My favorite part of the whole site is how “God” comments on every daily picture. Sometimes he’s out smiting people, so he has his secretaries or interns check in for him. Heather and I couldn’t be more different though. In her words, “I’m a Stay at Home Mom (SAHM) or a Shit Ass Ho Motherfucker. I do both equally well” who lives in Utah and is married. Yet even though we have nothing in common, she writes in a way that is quite refreshing. Plus, it’s fun to see that I’m not the only person who will tells his parents to “suck it”

Angela turned me onto ObliviousMind the other day and it was an instant hit. Her blog teeters on the balance of just recapping her days (something I looooooooathe) but she adds a bit of emotion and storytelling into it that keeps it fresh. Worth the read.

Moving on, I have a new alternative to Mapquest that has yet to lead me astray. It’s called Maps24 and it seems to be the best competitor to crappy MQ. I’ll still never forgive them for telling me to get on a highway that didn’t exist on my way to Baltimore or for making me pull out my own map in the middle of West Virginia to find my own damn route. The zoom-in feature on Maps24 is light-years ahead of MQ and I’ve used it a few times so far without any qualms.

And finally, I found a neat video file that attempts to predict the future of news. It’s called Epic 2014 and it tells the tale of bloggers and Google taking over the likes of print media. Of course, it’s a bit far fetched, but the idea is still plausible, especially after seeing how blogs had such a huge impact on this past Presidential Election, not to mention the countless news stories that have been proven false by bloggers.

Okay, back to packing up my things. Did I mention I’m going to be living in Australia within a week? Just thought I’d let everybody know in case they’ve been living in a cave lately.

In an attempt to help fund my quickly approaching study abroad session in Australia, I shifted my money-making gears into “dangerously drastic” mode. I looked at my income, savings, credit card bills, etc. and came to the following conclusion. I only have enough money to pay for my plane ticket, housing, meals, and tuition. I have no money for snacks, beer, presents, going out, or even “lady friends!” And since I won’t be able to work while living in Australia, I realized that my only hope was to sell just about anything I could in an attempt to make some cash. And that’s when I came up with the Goob Experience!

You might be asking yourself just exactly what in the heck the “Goob Experience” exactly is, so allow me to explain. As my good friend Fellner says, “It’s good to be Goob.” It’s so good, in fact, that I’m going to give one lucky winner the chance to be me. If you win this auction, you get the following items / events:*

(1) A guest authorship on Shyzer.com - That’s right folks. For the entire month of February, you will have full access to my website, Shyzer.com, and all its glory. I will let you post whatever you want, whenever you want, with no restrictions whatsoever. Pimp your own site, explain how “whitey” has kept you down, or even be completely unoriginal and recap your day each and every day with no real substance whatsoever!**

(2) My cell phone number and a personal call from me - Not only will you win my coveted “digits,” I’ll give YOU a call at some random time and strike up a conversation that I guarantee will last a minimum of 20 minutes. What happens if we run out of things to say around minute 5, you ask? 15 minutes of dead silence. You paid for it, you’re getting it! Plus, since you’ll have my number, you’ll be able to call me whenever you want! And I also promise not to change my number within a week of giving it to you or block your number. I’m not dirty like that.

(3) Pizza Breadsticks Recipe - This recipe is quite possibly the only recipe that I have ever learned from a cookbook. Everything else I know how to make comes from first hand teachings from mi madre y mi padre, but I still love this breadstick recipe. I make it every Wednesday around 8:00 just as LOST is coming on and devour the entire plate of breadsticks before it ends. It’s really easy to make, pretty cheap, and is guaranteed to fill you up.

(4) All my Happy Birthday wishes - My birthday is February 7th, which is quickly approaching. I thought about auctioning up my birthday presents themselves, but I’ve got everybody in my life trained not to get me anything, so that would be a pretty lousy thing to sell. So, instead, I’m selling all the Happy Birthday Wishes I get. What that means is that any IM, phone call, e-mail, or personal wish to have a happy birthday will be forwarded to you by the people who give them to me! Think about it, you’ll get TWO birthdays in 2005! All day long Monday, you’ll be getting phone calls and IMs to have a Happy Birthday and let’s be honest here, even if it isn’t your birthday, personal attention puts anybody in a good mood. And we all could use a little pick-me-up on any given Monday. Don’t worry about me, I’m still young, I won’t miss this birthday.

(5) My most favorite T-shirt in the entire world. - Let me warn you first off. It’s big, it’s old, and it’s a Seattle Mariners shirt. It has countless tiny holes all over it and I use it now as a “sitting around the apartment chillin” shirt. I honestly can’t even believe I’m selling it, but if you want a true Goob Experience, then you need some personal items from me.***

(6) Any page out of my journal - Since August of 1996, I’ve kept a journal. For the first year or two, I wrote in it once or twice a week. After that, I began to write in it and then later type and print them out every night. I’m talking every night folks. My journal now fills up an entire box and it’s still going strong. I’ve also never let anybody voluntarily read it. I know of a few people who have snuck a look here and there before I found out, but up until now, I’ve never let anybody read it. So, by winning this auction, you get to pick one date, ONE DATE, to read. Any date my friends. What about July 3, 2000? Or November 14, 1997? I have absolutely no Earthly idea what I wrote on either of those days, but you could soon find out! I must warn you though, there are some days where the only entry is “Nada.” This is for days where absolutely nothing of consequence happened. If you happen to pick a nada day, I will give you the chance to pick another date and this process will continue until you pick a date with something other than nada. Also, my journal tends to lack a certain level of emotion. It’s more of a tool I use to jog my memory instead of a tool used to record exactly everything that happens. Some “big” events will read as follows: “This happened, that happened, man I was pissed” or “this happened, that happened, yea!!” So don’t go expecting some huge revelations here. But regardless, you’ll be able to read any day you want.

(7) Monthly letters from Australia - Growing up, I always saw kids on TV and in movies with pen pals. Maybe my school was the only school in the nation that didn’t have a sister school in Peru, but I always felt gypped that I never had a pen pal growing up. Therefore, when I go to Australia, I want to have a pen pal here in America. So why not make it you! We’ll write each other every month and accompany each letter with photographs of ourselves playing with all the other children in the schoolyard. If you send me a dollar, I’ll send you a picture of the rice I used that dollar to buy and…..wait, this is sounding more like one of those “Adopt a Kid” type things. Okay, scratch the whole rice thing. But you can send me a dollar if you want. That’s what really cool pen pals do. Seriously, I saw it in a movie once. Send me a dollar!!!

(8) Crash course in baseball, more specifically, Seattle Mariners baseball - Well duh, anything based on me is going to have a Mariners section. With this, I will teach you everything you need to know to become an avid Seattle Mariners fan. I’ll tell you all about our glory days pre-1995. Then, once I’m finished with that sentence, I’ll tell a tale of a little team that could, that chugged up that mountain and saved baseball in Seattle. I’ll teach you all the important nicknames, I’ll teach you the proper three ways to call for a beer in any baseball stadium, and I’ll teach you just what in the heck an infield fly really is. By the time I’m through with you, you’ll be as huge a Mariners fan as I am.

(9) I’ll sit down and have a beer with ya or go toss a baseball around with ya - Okay, here’s the deal. When this auction ends, I guarantee that within one (1) year, I will meet you someplace and have a beer. I’ll come to your town, you’ll come to my town, or we’ll meet someplace in the middle. I’m stuck here in South Carolina until I leave for Aussie, but when I get back I’m doing some major traveling and so I’m certain we can come up with something.

(10) Make fun of all my friends - I will teach you how to properly make fun of somebody. Sadly, there are many people today who still don’t know how to properly make fun of somebody. So, in order to show you how, I’ll give you all my ammunition and let you have at it with my friends. In no time, you’ll be calling Fellner a “whoooore” and Waynus an “Oooooogreeeeeeee” like the pro that you should be. And you’ll have the Goob School of Making Fun-of to thank.

(11) Potpourri! - I figured I’d throw in some sort of Wildcard item or something, so I decided to leave it open and let the winner decide! Ask me a question, request an item, whatever you want!****

So there you have it folks, the full “Goob Experience.” Bidding starts at $1.00 and if I get anything over a dollar, I will be quite surprised. So surprise me dang it!

* = This is a serious auction. Do not bid on if you don’t honestly want the “Goob Experience.” I will not just send my favorite T-shirt in the world to some Joe Schmo who won’t care for it the way I do!
** = Note, if you do this, I may hunt you down and make you pay. Shyzer shall not be demeaned like that!
*** = Shipping for the shirt will be $2.00. E-bay demands that you actually sell some sort of “goods,” so I’ve gotta throw the shirt and shipping in there somewhere!
**** = By whatever you want I mean whatever I feel like doing.

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.

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