Shyzer.com

My “bedroom” is actually just an extension of the play room down in the basement. The laundry area is also connected to my room and being a family that adheres to a strict 15-outfit a day per person policy, my mom and I spend a fair bit of our waking moments in there sorting through clothes and getting out skid marks in underwear. One of the other fine benefits of living downstairs is the fact that I get to enjoy the sounds from above in their full glory. When somebody walks through the kitchen, I am treated to loud thumping. When somebody runs through the kitchen, I hear elephants wrestling. When two humans are actually wrestling in the kitchen (it happens in this household), I hear the full wrath of God coming down upon me.

Last night, I was performing one of my hourly rituals of transferring laundry from the washer to the dryer. This lucky batch included bed sheets, socks, and a rug Koral had peed on, among other things. Juls was watching television in the next room and Clay was playing on the computer, so the only person upstairs was Colton, who was supposed to be in bed falling asleep. It was right around the point where I was pulling out the rug when I froze dead in my tracks and my heart stopped. The entire house, not just the laundry room, shook with a violent force and my chest literally vibrated for a second. The deep boom that filled the air lingered in my ears for what seemed like minutes and before my brain even had time to compute what was happening, my legs were in Emergency Mode and carrying my body upstairs.

I’ve never moved as quickly in my life as I did during those few seconds.

I was upstairs and in Colton’s room before Clay or Juls were even out of their seats. The rumble was so heavy, so consuming, that I knew it wasn’t just Colton tripping and falling down. Something else far more massive had succumbed to the force of gravity with him and my mind was racing with visions of him trapped under a bulking set of chester drawers or a massive armoire or even a collapsed roof.

You can imagine my surprise when I burst into his room and was greeted by Colton, sitting up in bed with a giant grin spread across his face, and telling my, “WHOA! That was a big explosion! It woke me up!” Clay and Juls spilled into the room moments later and we all stood there for a second looking around before my mind finally caught up with the situation again. I barked out a few orders to the kids and went to look around the rest of the house. Something, somewhere, had to be wrong in the house. The noise had sounded as if it came from upstairs, as if the entire roof was trying it’s hardest to come crashing down upon us.

And yet not a thing was amiss. None of the large object in the house had fallen to create the shudder. A few small things here and there had been knocked over due to the shock, but for the most part, everything was fine. Having made sure the kids were safe and the house wasn’t falling apart on my watch - because I’ll be damned if I’m blamed for it! - I decided to venture outside and see if maybe a car had rammed the house or something. As I stepped outside, I noticed I wasn’t the only one out searching for answers and finally I realized it wasn’t just confined to our house. Just about every single person in the neighborhood was outside, trying to figure out what had just disturbed them as well. We all stood around with a queer look on our face for a while, trying to guess what had happened. Someone thought a plane might have crashed, but I ruled that out because with most plane crashes come fires that light up the nearby night sky. Others thought maybe there had been some explosion at one of the nearby factories, but again, I figured we’d at least see a fire if that had happened. My money was on a gas explosion somewhere and literally right as the words tumbled out of my mouth, Clay got off the phone with his friend and burst with the news.

Clay: “Ryan, a house blew up down by Matt’s! It just….exploded!”
Ryan: “By Matt’s? That’s only two hundred yards away! How come we don’t see a fire?”

Around this time an entire brigade of rescue vehicles came screaming down the road and swerving around the corner. In fact, I had enough time to go get Colton out of bed and over to the window to watch them since the stream of sirens and flashing lights was almost endless. Before long, the vultures started coming in full force and by vultures I mean curious people who are only getting in the fucking way and who should have just stayed home. I can understand slowing down to look at an insane car wreck, but people who go out of their ways just to drive by the car wreck get on my nerves to no end. A cop finally pulled up alongside our house and started turning people around. Clay, Juls, and I sat on the steps listening to what he was telling people and we learned that there had been a gas leak in a nearby house for what must have been house. It built up in the garage and when the father went outside to start up his car, a spark from the engine ignited the entire place. He managed to crawl out of his car and into the street, where he was airlifted to a nearby hospital and luckily, nobody else was home at the time.

Needless to say, Clay and I were glued to the late night evening news and finally, we were able to see some pictures of the destruction. One of the first answers we got was why there was no fire blazing in the night sky - there was nothing to burn. The entire house was virtually vaporized and in its place was a pile of rubble and twigs of lumber that were smoldering with small fires. Debris was actually scattered across a few miles radii and they still won’t let us down there to take a look at it. I wanted to include some pictures along with this post, but the local news in this town makes the Spartanburg Herald Journal look like the New York Times, so I guess I’ll have to wait until they let us down there in a few days.

But don’t ever let me say again that nothing interesting happens up here.

When you write a 2,522 word post, you feel as if you’ve accomplished something.

When you realize you don’t agree with most of the 2,522 words you’ve just written, that feeling begins to dissipate.

When you decide to sit back down and start over again, you feel as if bashing your face in with a blunt object might be a little more productive.

If you ever need somebody to come over and completely break your modem, give me a call. Saturday evening I was trying to tweak things and I somehow severed our connection to the Internet, so we’ve been without it (gasp!) for the past 48 hours. It honestly felt like I’d lost my right arm and for two ghastly days, my siblings and I were forced to “interact” and “talk.” *shudder*

With it now restored, I feel complete again. Don’t ever do that to me again, Internet.

Somebody needs to drag The History Channel into the backyard and shoot it in the head with a double barrel shotgun.

Back when our local cable provider first picked it up, it was a big moment in the Geek Department of my life. I was no longer forced to rely upon “books” or “teachers” to learn about history - good ole’ TV could start pumping into my room and I could absorb as much of it as humanly possible before switching over to Comedy Central late at night to catch those hot Girls Gone Wild commercials.

But now? Now my stomach cringes any time I flip over to channel 70. Somewhere along the way, they succumbed to what I call the “24 Hour News Syndrome.” Out with the trash went responsible reporting and actual…oh, what’s the word…facts. In turn, they started airing sensational pieces that are meant to entertain, truth be damned. Gone are the days of airing episodes based on documents and speeches and the like and in are the days of interviewing authors of horribly written books who think they know what they’re talking about because they’re run a blog on the subject for the past 4 years.

I’m guessing they did for the same reason every other network has made the switch - ratings. I can only imagine how few people watched a channel dedicated to nothing but dead people and things that happened 500 years ago. But even with that said, The History Channel took a giant and messy dump on those of us who loved them back in the day and who appreciate that F word I spoke of earlier. Out of the shows I watched this week, I counted somewhere along the lines of 25+ major blatant and outright mistakes and/or lies and this is considering the fact that I’m nowhere near excellently versed in many of these fields. To make matters worse, I’ve Googled a few of the “experts” they’ve had on their show and the only thing a few of these guys seem to be experts in is tricking television networks into thinking their experts in something.

When somebody watches a show like Inside Edition or anything on MTV, they know (at least, they should know) that whatever they’re seeing is for entertainment purposes only and that for all they know, it’s completely scripted and fake. But when you watch a station like The Discovery Channel of The History Channel, you would hope to have a shred of truth in whatever you’re watching. To The History Channel’s credit, I guess, they’ve gotten better at making things entertaining without outright lying. For instance, in most episodes and specials (such as the Little Ice Age a few weeks back and the one last night about secret organizations), for 58 minutes they air conspiracy theories, ludicrous claims, and wild accusations. Then, in the closing minutes, they say something along the lines of “Some historians, however, disagree with these findings and therefore the debate will go on forever.” Wow, thanks for showing us both sides and giving us a full view on the subject, guys. I would have hated it if I’d only gotten to hear about the view held by 0.00001% of historians, but luckily for me you tossed in that final sentence to give those 99.99999% of people a voice.

I’m not saying the minority shouldn’t have a voice for who knows how much of history we’ve screwed up and gotten wrong. But don’t pass off what they say as complete truth. My faith in the American publics intelligence isn’t that strong and frankly, if you don’t spell out for them that what you’re saying is simple the opinion and views held by only a small number, then they may start to think that what you’re saying is what actually happened in the past. And if there’s one thing that I can’t stand more than green beans or Laura Bush’s face, it’s people who rewrite history.

So fucking stop it. Now. Thanks.

In the span of 24 hours, I received eight - count em, EIGHT - comments about my children. Which is funny, because it’s been a while since I’ve gone through the process of having sex, then asking, “so…have you peed on that stick yet, honey?” before I finally, oh you know, HAD A KID!

I should be used to this by now. And then with Colton only being six, I naturally am assumed to be his father when it’s just the two of us out and about. But Julianne is nine. Clay is thirteen. This means that if Clay was my son, I would have had to have him when I was Julianne’s age. I don’t think my 4th grade days were THAT wild and crazy.

It started when I took Juls and Clay to the dentist. Two school helpers, two nurses and one doctor later, I knew we were going to be in for a long day. By the time we’d walked out of the dentist and into the mall, I’d given up on correcting people and just started playing along: “Huh, what? Oh, Clay? Yeah, he’s a great kid, thanks. I tell ya, I can’t wait for him to grow up and start making the big bucks though, because I want to retire and let him take care of me as soon as possible!” or “Your daughter is precious as well. My little Julianne over there is a sweetheart. You should see the adorable little bracelets she makes for me. She can’t cook or clean worth a damn, but I’ll beat it into her eventually.”

And this isn’t the only misguided assumption people make about me. Last week, my mom and I were mistaken for boyfriend-girlfriend far too many times and while that may be a huge compliment to her looking young and fresh, it raises far too many Freudian issues that I would just soon rather forget. But I think the real kicker came today. The kid’s babysitter, who has got to be in her 70s, called the school and when they called back, I picked up the phone and was greeted with, “Hello, is this Clay’s father? Well, your wife called earlier”… I mean, sure, who doesn’t like older women? I just prefer mine not be on Medicare yet.

But the other night made it all worthwhile. Juls came home begging me to take her and a friend to the local skating rink since her school was having a fund raiser for a few hours. I had plenty of work to do and was kind of tired, but I could tell she really wanted to go. She spent a few minutes picking out her clothes and packing her little purse and when we arrived, she paid and got her own skates. It was around this time that she finally told me she had no idea how to skate.

Her friends tried to teach her, but after 20 minutes I could tell this wasn’t going anywhere and when I walked over to her, I could tell she was discouraged and embarrassed and ready to leave. So I did the only thing I knew to do; I went and grabbed a pair of skates myself, laced up, and as soon as I stepped into the rink, the number of people who had no idea what they were doing doubled. I never learned to skate since the skating rink near where I grew up was a tad redneck and hillbillyish. (Although, now that I think about it, every skating rink I’ve ever set foot in has fallen into that category). Juls was still grabbing onto the side, so I pulled her out into the middle with me and for the next hour and a half we twirled around like idiots and fell down approximately every seven seconds. But the whole time, we had these giant grins on our faces and by the end, Juls was getting the hang of it.

As everybody was putting their skates away and getting their coats on, one of the moms sitting nearby came up to me and said:

Hey, I wish I’d had a dad like you while growing up. Mine would have just sat over there in the corner and shouted instructions to me until I started crying.

Ok, so I guess there are worse things than being mistaken for a dad.

I have to admit, killing hookers is fun.

Clay recently bought Grand Theft Auto: San Antonio or whatever the hell it’s called and I’ve been hooked since I picked up the controller. However, since talking about killing hookers isn’t nearly as much fun as actually killing hookers, I won’t bore you with the details. You’ll just have to take my word for it. Either that or go buy the game for yourself and start killing some hookers.

For the past week, I’ve been walking around screaming “I’m in a Flank Two position, everybody!” Clay and Julianne have surprisingly already gone through the stages that occur when I get hooked on something that is annoying to most people but hilarious to me. First, there’s a small window where everybody else finds it funny. Then we quickly enter what I like to call the “Uh oh, is he gonna keep doing this?” stage. Soon afterwards comes the, “What do we do? Play along or make him stop?” stage followed by the “Good God, Ryan, if you don’t shut the fuck up, we’re going to strangle you with a dog leash in your sleep” stage. And finally, we arrive at the “…it’s Ryan, the most stubborn man on the planet, he who will not stop at anything if it brings him at least 0.0001% joy - we surrender” stage. That’s where we are right now.

So, in honor of the official return of Jack Bauer, I’ve changed the Title Bar for Shyzer and want to share with y’all a site I recently found. About a year ago, I stumbled across the “Random Vin Diesel Fact“ page, which was an absolute goldmine.

That is, until I found the “Random Jack Bauer Fact“ page. Out of the top thirty, I think my five favorite would have to be:

1. If Jack Bauer was in a room with Hitler, Stalin, and Nina Meyers, and he had a gun with 2 bullets, he’d shoot Nina twice.
2. Jack Bauer’s favorite color is severe terror alert red. His second favorite color is violet, but just because it sounds like violent.
3. Jack Bauer got Hellen Keller to talk.
4. You walk into a bar and Jack Bauer’s your wingman, you’re probably gonna get laid.
5. Jack Bauer can get McDonald’s breakfast after 10:30.

   Okay, I lied, I can’t stop. These are just too damn funny. Let’s make this a top 10 list for good measure.

6. 1.6 billion Chinese are angry with Jack Bauer. Sounds like a fair fight.
7. Upon hearing that he was played by Kiefer Sutherland, Jack Bauer killed Sutherland. Jack Bauer gets played by no man.
8. Jack Bauer once forgot where he put his keys. He then spent the next half-hour torturing himself until he gave up the location of the keys.
9. When life gave Jack Bauer lemons, he used them to kill terrorists. Jack Bauer fucking hates lemonade.
10. Superman wears Jack Bauer pajamas.

And in our final 24 segment of the day, I would like to share with you a letter that was sent to Bill Simmons over at ESPN which is oh-so-true for a frighteningly high number of American citizens.

I think I was actually more upset over the assassination of former President David Palmer on “24″ last night than I would have been if our actual president would have been assassinated. It was like I lost a member of my own family. Maybe I’m just screwed up, but I don’t think so. Here is my question: If you forced every registered voter in America to watch seasons 1-4 on DVD, and convinced Dennis Haysbert to legally change his name to David Palmer, don’t you think he would win in a landslide in 2008? I have bounced this question off several people and Palmer has every vote so far, and most would have voted for him over Bush and Kerry.

Not only would we be electing David Palmer to office, but the guy who gives us those great All State commercials and Pedro Cerrano, the man who had no marbles. Yep, he’s got my vote.

If you haven’t heard of Facebook.com by now, you’re obviously (A) Not on the Internet more than an hour a day, (B) Not a college student, or (C) Have absolutely no friends and spend all your time brooding and plotting to blow up your campus. If you happen to fall into one of those categories, then I’ll be kind enough to give ya a quick rundown about the site so that you too can seem hip and cool and feel like a young kid again. Started back in late 2004 by a Harvard student, it’s basically a college social networking site that is the ninth most visited website on the Internet, according to Nielsen/Net Ratings. Open only to people with college e-mail addresses, you can create an account, link up with your friend’s accounts, upload and share photos, join groups, and “poke” people in a somewhat sexual manner, among countless other things. I joined back in October of ‘05 and since then it’s added another 4.6 million students and received a $13 million dollar investment by a group of Silicon Valley wizards. Also since October of ‘05, I’ve spent way, way, waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many hours on it. At one point, I was logging in 10 or 20 times a day to check up on things. I even have my own Goob Fanclub Groub (Ignore the fact that it’s titled “Goob Sucks”)

One day I might tell you about the time I became a Facebook God and had unlimited powers on the site, but that’s not what this post is about (Although I’m sure Fellner can tell you all about how depressed I was when I was suddenly stripped of my newfound powers). No, this post is to share a little story about a group of kids one upping the local police.

Not every college is on Facebook, but all the important and big ones are. On most campuses, statistics place the Facebook saturation rate somewhere between 50-90% and recently, college officials have caught on to this. Since registration only requires a college e-mail address, they too can create accounts and make fake student pages with the real intention of spying on students. There have been a few reports of people being busted for drug and alcohol use thanks to pictures they’ve posted on their Facebook profile. A student at Fisher College in Boston was expelled last year for his online criticism of a campus security officer. Officials at the University of California Santa Barbara, said they would discipline students living on campus who posted information or photographs on their profiles that involved illegal activity like under-age drinking. At North Carolina State, RAs wrote up 15 students seen consuming alcohol in photos on Facebook. The list goes on and on.

And then there are the students at George Washington University who decided to fight back and launch a “Facebook Attack.”

It all started last year when a party was shut down by campus police. Students found it odd that the cops had known about it and then began to realize that the only place they’d heavily talked about it was on Facebook. So, a few months ago, they decided to strike back. They planned another party and talked about it only on Facebook, therefore ensuring that if the cops came this time, the students were being spied upon. They created a group, left tags on each other’s boards, and talked non-stop for weeks about how awesome their “Beer Bash” was going to be.

So imagine the look on the police officer’s faces when they burst through the doors only to find a group of kids standing around eating cake and cookies with the word “Beer” painted on them in icing. Luckily for you, though, you don’t have to imagine. Pictures of the party surfaced on the net soon after and I’ve stuck them in the newly reformatted (although not yet finished) Shyzer Gallery. Have a look here. My absolute favorite is the last one, which contains the stunned look of one of the cops. I just wish I could have been there.

This whole topic raises an interesting issue, though. I used to tell Fellner I couldn’t wait until the Presidential elections of 2024 or beyond. I always thought it was interesting to imagine how sites like Myspace, Livejournal, and the such could come back and bite a politician in the ass. Bush and Kerry and Dean might be a little too old to have run a website while they were growing up, but my generation isn’t. When it comes time for my fellow peers to start running for office, people are going to dig up what they wrote in their blogs, what they posted on message boards, what they said in chat rooms. Everything, and I mean everything, put on the Internet is archived somewhere. Whether it be in Google’s cache or archive.org or a server’s backup in downtown Atlanta, chances are if you want to find an Angelfire site from 1999, you can, especially if you have the resources most powerful news agencies have. We make such a big fuss over what our politicians have maybe said in an interview or possibly said in a speech. Now think about having daily writings from an angst-ridden teenager who went on to clean up his act and run for political office. Imagine the worst thing you’ve ever typed and posted on the Internet. Now imagine seeing that run as a headline in the New York Times or USA Today. I’ve kissed any possible political career away with Shyzer, but that’s fine with me. For other people my age, they might not be ready to write off a certain career choice already and yet they might have already done so without even knowing it.

But Facebook is bringing this scenario to us in the present day, even if it’s only in a smaller scale. Reports are now surfacing that big-time companies and possible employers are getting into Facebook to check out prospective employees. Like I said, all it takes is a college e-mail and any bigwig in a Fortune 500 company surely can call up his alumni rep and get a college address to his old school. Ten minutes later, he’s pulling up Brad Johnson’s profile on Facebook and finding pictures of Johnson’s Johnson on there, right next to another one of him drunk and passed out in his dorm and reading about his “appreciation of the festive greens.” And just like that, there goes Bard’s chances of landing that internship.

On-line privacy debates are nothing new. From the recording industry suing Internet Providers for ISP records, to the Bush Administration’s attack on pornography, to employers being able to read their employees e-mails - It’s all ongoing. But the recent rash of Facebook incidents shine light on the new question involved. Where does the privacy line lie with minors and those releasing their pent up, youthful expressions and indiscretions?

Looks like we’re lumped together with the porn peddlers, the illegal downloaders, and those who are lazy on the job. Good company.

Now I just can’t wait for those 2024 Presidential Debates.

The cool thing about living in northern Virginia is that we’re an hour and a half away from the nation’s capital and all its historic wonders. The bad thing about living in northern Virginia is that we’re an hour and a half away from the nearest airport, which coincidentally employs my mom full time and is our main mode of any transportation involving multi-states or countries. So when I have to get up at, oh let me see, 0500 to drive to the airport and then drive home and then drive back to the airport and then drive home again, it can involve, what some might say, a tad bit of driving time.

When my mom goes to work, she’s gone for three to five days at a time. Growing up, that meant we had a babysitter come stay with us for those days since my Dad was usually off touring as well. Today, it’s still the same. My mom goes to work, the kids need somebody to watch them, and therefore a babysitter shows up. However, since I moved up here a few months back, I’ve talked my mom more and more into letting me watch them instead. It saves cash, which is always a good thing, and I like it better anyways with just me and the kids.

Colton has a tendency of suddenly spouting off random phrases, sayings, and entire conversations he’s overheard recently out of the blue. It’s hard to pick up on too, because usually half of the words that tumble from his mouth are actually spoken in a as of yet untranslated Native American tongue that sounds something along the lines of, “bicabakatiktaopikadubadubada.” His ramblings honestly sound as if he’s tuning the radio somewhere up in his brain, trying to find that right frequency that will allow him to emit comprehensive consecutive syllables. Therefore, the hard part is not trying to understand the gibberish, but trying to pick up where the radio surfing suddenly turns into real words for a few seconds before racing off into the black void of twaddle and static.

A few weeks back, our mom had left for a trip early in the morning and I had a few errands to run “in town,” so that afternoon I piled the trio into the passenger side of my truck and the adventure soon began. During the drive, Colton demanded we stop talking so that he could tell us a story and off he went channeling the dead, or at least that’s what it sounded like. We had no choice but to sit there and muffle our laughs and nod along with him when finally after a few minutes, he seemed to find the station he was looking for and began issuing orders to us.

Colton: “Guys, it’s time we had a wild party.”
Goob, Juls, & Clay (in unison): “What?”
Colton: “Yep, that’s right, a wild party. Ryan, you’re in charge of the music. Juls, you need to get the disco ball. And Clay, you bring the punch.”
Clay: “Well wait a minute, what’s your job?”
Colton: “Oh me? Um…I’ll take care of Mom!”
Juls: “But Mom already went to work this morning!”
Colton: “Well, looks like my job’s done! See y’all at the party!”

And with that, he was off into his own little world again as the rest of us burst into laughter.

One of these days, I hope we can figure out where he gets half the stuff he comes up with. Until then, I’ll just sit by the radio and see what’s on.

Current Count: 103

Since the day this post was created, Shyzer has received visitors from the following countries:

Afghanistan
Algeria
Argentina
Australia
Austria
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Belgium
Bermuda
Bolivia
Brazil
Britain
Brunei
Bulgaria
Burkina Faso
Canada
Chile
China
Columbia
Costa Rica
Cote D’Ivoire
Croatia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
Egypt
El Salvador
Estonia
Europe
Faroe Islands
Fiji
Finland
France
Germany
Ghana
Greece
Greenland
Guatemala
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Ireland
Isreal
Italy
Japan
Jordan
Kuwait
Laos
Latvia
Lebanon
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malaysia
Malta
Mauritius
Mexico
Morocco
Netherlands
New Zealand
Nigeria
Norway
Oman
Pakistan
Panama
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Puerto Rico
Qatar
Romania
Russia
Saudi Arabia
Serbia
Singapore
Slovakia
Slovenia
South Africa
South Korea
Spain
Sri Lanka
Sudan
Sweden
Switzerland
Syria
Taiwan
Thailand
Trinidad and Tobago
Tunisia
Turkey
Uganda
Ukraine
Uruguay
United Arab Emirates
United States
Venezuela
Vietnam

Allow me to take a moment to say, “That’s damn cool.”

Loyal Shyzer-ian Fellner forwarded me an e-mail last week from his Aunt and it still has me chuckling.

This past summer I wrote about going down to Charleston to spend some time with Fellner and his family at the beach. Some of his fellow relatives in attendance were his aunt, uncle, and four cousins from Kansas City, all of whom were quite fun and enjoyable to spend time with. Fellner’s cousins were especially adorable since they were all below age 9 or so, with the youngest, Gabrielle, clocking in around 4 years old.

So you can imagine the humor aroused when Fellner forwarded this to me:

I had to e-mail this story before I forgot it. At bedtime, when we say our prayers, all the kids get to “bless” whoever they want (God bless Mom, God bless Dad, etc.) The other night, we were saying prayers and it was Gabrielle’s turn to bless someone. We had already blessed all the family members so she was trying to think of someone else. Out of the blue she said “God bless Goob, that Kevin brought to the beach.” It was hilarious - I was surprised that she even remembered him and don’t know what made her think of him.

That’s right folks. You spend a week with me and the impact I have on you is so enormous, you’ll be making sure the Big Man is looking out for me. Which is great for me, since we all know how spotty my church attendance is. But luckily for Gabrielle, I like to return each and every favor I receive, so tonight she’ll be getting a little somethin’ somethin’ in the prayer department.

Hopefully I send it to the correct God, though. I can’t count how many prayers I screwed up on and accidentally sent to that damn Ganesha! An elephant with four arms…what will they think of next?!