Shyzer.com

As it’s now 5:30AM (don’t bother looking at the timestamp - you can ask Fellner, I’ve always said that the day never ends until you go to bed, midnight be damned) and I’ve yet to post a thing, I can’t help but think I have not a damn clue what to post. So I will say this: after spending the past few hours learning how to use Sony Vegas for a new Freebie Review to come out on HIF tomorrow and subsequently stumbling across the video below, I can say I love making random ass videos. This is a new hobby I could get used to.

Just an aside, I personally enjoy how Clayster sounds like a little girl in this video that was recorded all of two years ago. I didn’t realize testicles could grow in so quickly.

As much as I love the idea of a bunch of nerds actually standing up for what they believe in and taking action in a form other than creating a message board or forming a dinky on-line petition, you’ve got to be kidding me.

Look, I’m not one to champion copyright laws. Those four 180-capacity CD holder cases shoved under my bed aren’t full of thousands of movies, programs, and complete seasons of every TV show I’ve ever watched. Honestly. You know, there’s no reason to look, just take my word on that. HEY, GET AWAY FROM THE BED!

Ahem, sorry. Like I was saying, I’m not the best person to preach the evils of filesharing. In fact, I can’t help but think it’s a good thing. As services like Napster and bittorrent and sites like Myspace and YouTube continue to grow, more and more stories such as Okay Go’s develop. Every time downloading and sharing files gets easier, whether it be through a new service or through new technology, more and more deserving people get their shot at “making it,” whatever the hell that is. Bands/comedians/authors/DJs/stupid pet trainers who would have gone unnoticed 50, 20, hell, 5 years ago now have a shot. They don’t have to play “the game” and can mass market themselves directly to the people. Call me crazy, but I’ve always been a fan of eliminating the Middle Man whenever possible.

But having also been raised as a child on the wages of concert tickets and record sales (and also eating way too many M&Ms on tour buses - I blame the music industry for my massive sweet tooth), I can’t help but see where the other side is coming from as well. There’s no way around it - downloading is stealing. No ifs, ands, or buts. You are obtaining something illegally that you didn’t pay for. You are getting something without giving anything in return as payment or compensation. The original artist is getting Jack and Squat for their work, effort, and time. You. Are. Stealing.

Well, in the conventional sense.

See, they might not be getting money, but they are getting fans (I just typed that as “fangs” which would be almost as cool if they could get those too). Back in the day, guys like Dave Matthews and John Mayer got their name out amongst college students by playing free concerts around the country. They understood the power of a rabid fanbase, which they parlayed into huge record sales. Well file sharing is no different, in fact, it’s easier. Now Mayer only has to do a live radio broadcast of his new CD, like he did back in September, and he can let the power of the internet and piracy take it from there. The smart artists figure this stuff out and don’t try to fight new changes. There’s a reason groups like Aerosmith have stuck around for so long while ones like Metallica have crapped out. If you attack your fans for trying to share your music, suddenly you’ll have no fans left to share anything.

And thus despite my upbringing (thanks Dad!) and clear understanding of the unethicalness of downloaded…I can’t help but think that downloading isn’t just here to stay, but a force that’s more good than evil. I have yet to see any concrete proof that downloading, and only downloading, is hurting any of the major industries. Yes, CD sales are down, but so are the number of quality CDs. Yes, less people are going to the movies, but DVD sales are higher than previous VHS sales a decade ago. And I’ve yet to hear of a major artist go bankrupt due to pirating. So don’t try and stop piracy simply because it’s something we haven’t had to deal with before. Imagine if radio executives had said that about television.

But admit it for what it is. Running to some island and acting as if your God given right is to share a copy of Adobe Photoshop worth $399 won’t help a damn thing. Downloading is stealing - that is, until we change the minds of the people.

It’s kind of humorous, a bit puzzling, and largely disappointing to watch people like Rep. Virgil Goode of Virginia and conservative talk show host Dennis Prager continually denounce newly elected Rep. Keith Ellison for choosing to swear upon a Quran in place of a Bible during his oath of office. Upon learning of Ellison’s decision to use the Muslim holy text at his ceremony, Prager issued a statement claiming “insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible. If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don’t serve in Congress.”

Of course, at first glance, one might cast Prager’s comments aside as the ramblings of some loony talk show host. Yet faster than you could call for a jihad, Prager suddenly found an ally in Congressman Virgil Goode, who penned a letter denouncing illegal immigration and stating “if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt (my) position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Quran.” Both fools men have now found even more supporters, some of which are calling for a new law requiring all officials to use the Holy Bible during their swearing in. Apparently those people hate that little annoyance known as Article VI of the Constitution.

Of course, Goode seems to ignore the fact that Ellison was born and raised in Detroit, a city that has always been right here in America, no matter how hard we wish the opposite. Yet what’s even more jarring is how so many people seem to be motivated by fear more than anything else these days.

You didn’t hear any uproar when Rep. Debbie Wasserman of Florida used a Hebrew Bible without the New Testament two years ago. Nor did anybody make a peep when a Catholic Missal was used when Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the Presidency. All was quiet when President John Quincy Adams used a legal book in honor of his background in law or when President Theodore Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover both swore upon no text at all. President Franklin Pierce went so far as to decline any sworn oath whatsoever and instead simply affirmed his oath and nobody batted an eyelash or gave it a second thought.

Yet when the nation’s first Muslim elected to Congress decides to use a Quran, the zealots on the religious right pull out the guns and start firing across the bow of USS Tolerance. In fact, seeing as how all members are sworn in earlier at a different session before pulling out the Bibles for a ceremony designed for maximum publicity, this debate is essentially moot. Yet people like Prager have for some reason adopted a stance of never letting an opportunity pass where they can remind Americans that we were attacked by Muslims on 9/11 and then scaring them into agreeing with whatever retarded goal they have.

We get it. A handful of Muslims attacked our nation over five years ago. That doesn’t mean we have to sink to their level and become just as close minded as those few individuals were. There’s a reason black people don’t hold every white person responsible for hate crimes committed by members of the KKK. It’s because they understand that just because a small group of idiots hate blacks, that doesn’t mean that all white men and women hate blacks as well! They are able to make what’s called an intelligent assumption - just because a small group of people looks or act a certain way, that does not mean the entire race or sect does so as well.

The day we let fear of the different and unknown rule our lives is the day we stop being American. In fact, we not only would sink beneath our own morals, but would sink beneath those who Prager and Goode are so deathly afraid of. Countries like Iran, who have some of the most narrow minded views on foreign policy in the world (ie, death to Israel!!) still allow Jews to serve in their government. Morris Motamed, a Jewish member, has served in the Iranian parliament for years without having to swear upon the Quran. In fact, when quized as to why this was allowed, Tehran University professor Hossein Bashiriyeh explained that “an oath taken with a holy book other than one’s own cannot be religiousl and morally ‘binding.’…in effect, it will amount to not taking an oath at all.” You know you’re in bad shape when officials in a country like Iran are making more than sense that your own.

One of the many lessons I’ve learned from studying history is that America’s strength has nothing to do with our (somewhat) Christian heritage, but in our respect for individual choice, freedom, and rule of law. People like Prager and Goode would benefit greatly from remembering that.

I want to make sure some of my friends know one important fact:

Just because you’re 23 and out of college, that doesn’t mean you have to propose to your girlfriend. You know, you can try living together while dating first or maybe waiting for a year or two if you want. There’s no law requiring you get married once you’ve been handed a degree or gotten an entry level job at the nearby Kramerica Industries factory. Just because you’re old drinking buddy decided to propose to his lady doesn’t mean you have to as well. It’s not a race, folks.

I understand we grew up in the South where tradition is king, but Christ. I couldn’t see myself getting married right now any more than I could see a small monkey crawling out of my ass tomorrow. In fact, I’d have an easier time picturing the latter. If I ask another one of my friends why they’re getting married and their response is, “Uh…isn’t that like what we’re supposed to do now?”, I may just go postal.

When are people going to stop doing things simply because they think it’s what they’re supposed to do?

Call me demanding, but I expect my coffee to be pesticide free by default. To me, you’re in bad shape if your favorite local eatery has to go out of their way to let you know there aren’t any added chemicals in your coffee that might cause a third arm to grow out of your chest. Yet there I sat in Uno’s pizzeria, laughing my ass off, and wondering why those family members who were accompanying me did not find this as funny as I did.

I’ve never been one for New Year’s Resolutions. The thought of making a weak ass “promise” to myself every year only to fail a week later isn’t as appealing to me as it may be to others. But for the life of me, I can’t shake the feeling that 2007 is gonna be different for me somehow. Not so much “better” than this past years, but “different” in a sense I can’t quite explain. But I’ll delve into that whole can of worms sometime later. I will, however, say I feel rejuvenated after spending the past year in Virginia with my family. I’m ready to challenge myself - physically, mentally, creatively, and, uh, Shyzerly?

Thus, the new norm here at Shyzer is going to shift slightly. First, comments will be turned on much more often than not, as has been the case over the past two weeks. But more importantly, you’ll be able to comment on something new every day. That’s right, I’m going to see how long I can last posting something new here at least once a day. If that can’t pump some life back into this site, as well as challenge me somewhat creatively, I don’t know what can. If anything, this’ll be the perfect way to teach myself how to write succinctly.

I figured I’d wait until at least a week into the new year before announcing this, though - for reasons I’m sure you can quickly grasp. Oh, and for the record, this counts as today’s post. 8 down, 357 to go.

NOTE: I recently found an old article I wrote for Circle of Jerks almost two years ago. It’s a bit mean, but then again it was for a site where the domain name proudly proclaims the authors are Jerks I found it funny, I remember it being pretty fun, if not a change in pace, to write and since it’s no longer on-line over on Stan’s site (slacker!), I thought I’d repost it here for any of you who missed it the first time around. Enjoy.

It would be great to say that I waited to write this post until the eve of the release of Star Wars III. It would also be great to say that I then decided to wait until the movie had been out for a week or two before writing this post. Alas, the truth is that Stan mentioned I should write something on this topic, so I decided to pull an Angela and ignore my responsibilities for at least three weeks. In fact, Stan finally got to the point where he no longer expected me to upload this story, so he took me off the “In The Works” list. That’s procrastination at its finest, my friends.

I’ve always viewed myself as a conveyor of information. Any time I’ve ever found something cool or interesting, I like to pass it along to others in an effort to spread around the Great Cup ‘O Knowledge. This is not one of those occasions.

By now, though, you should be saying to yourself, “Goob, just what in the hell are you talking about?” Glad you asked. With the latest release of a Star Wars movie, we’ve all been reminded of one of the most glaring stains on human civilization: the existence of Star Wars nerds, fans, and freaks alike. They come out in droves, shamelessly supporting their idiotic support for a series of movies that they claim “inspire” them to get out of bed every morning. They line up for hours, nay, days before the release of the movie, dressed in full regalia, just so that they can say they saw the first showing in their hometown of Crap Town, USA. They beam as news reporters interview them for their human interest stories on the 6 o’clock news, unwitting to the fact that their interviews remind each and every one of us normal people how lucky we are not to be one of them.

And with the influx of the Internet into our everyday lives, us Normal people are now bombarded with Their websites. You know the types. The ones that carry on twenty page conversations over why Han Solo should have never been able to use a lightsaber in Episode 5. The ones that try to follow Princess Amidala’s wardrobe in an effort to see what kind of “mood” she’s in throughout the movies. Or the ones that try and explain just how a lightsaber works.

I wish I was making this up. However, in the interest of science and making fun of Star Wars Nerds throughout the world, I ventured through the above site and meticulously made fun of it each step of the way. Join me, if you will, in doing the same.

The opening page contains the following introduction: “Chances are that you have seen a lightsaber at one time or another, whether on the evening news or down at the local cantina.” Chances also are that whoever wrote that is still living in his or her - ok, let’s be real here, his - parent’s basement with George Lucas posters on the wall. I spend many a hours at the local cantina and I have seen a drunk 400 pound man eat an entire jar of pickled eggs, a drunk girl make out with four guys at once in the back alley, and this one guy who could swallow a shot glass and regurgitate it with the liquid still in it! Yet I have never seen a lightsaber. Not once.

Buried at the bottom of page 2 is the following: “Lightsabers are only a figment of George Lucas’ imagination, of course. This is an entirely fictional article, based on information in Star Wars movies and books.”

You don’t say! Really!? Nooooooo. I’m shocked, honestly, I am. You mean to tell me they’re not real?! You mean to tell me that hundreds and thousands of thousands of people worldwide devote their time, energy, and lives to studying and writing Internet How Stuff Works Guides about a fictitious movie? I’m flabbergasted. Now if only these people would do the same in realizing that they are wasting their lives and do something productive! I’m sure there are some homeless people down the street that could use some food. Why don’t you people go use The Force and feed them? Or if you want a bigger challenge, I think the continent of Africa could even use some food. Put down that twentieth Twinkie you’re about to eat and airmail it to Rwanda, you loser!

On page three, we are treated to the following image:

Aside from the fact that it looks like the chick is about to be mugged in broad daylight by a Mexican biker, my favorite part of the photo has to his weapon of choice. A tire iron? How does that lady know he was about to mug her? He could have been offering to fix her flat. Stupid whore. Somebody take that fictional lightsaber away from her and banish her from ever appearing on the Internet again. While you do that, I’m gonna go find that Mexican biker because my left rear tire looks a little low on air.

I’m not ever going to talk about the 4th page, which has a detailed picture of the “inner workings” of a lightsaber. I’ll just leave it at this. Somebody, somewhere, actually took the time to not only learn how this made up product “works,” but they also created a photoshop picture of it to share with others. Somebody get this man a Life.

Page 5 greets us with a collection of high tech sounding phrases to make us Normal people feel overwhelmed. Diatium power cells, power vortex rings, crystal energy chambers, arc waves, activation matrixes, virgins who will never be laid, etc. Okay, so maybe I made up that last one, but it should be somewhere on that page, describing those who actually believe in this shit.

Later in the article, I found myself reading that, “A lightsaber completely blows away a can of pepper spray as a deterrent in muggings or robberies.” Really? Because trust me, the next time I go to rob somebody and they pull out a lightsaber to protect them, I’m going to swat away their little PlaySkool toy and get on with my thievery and evilness. A blast of pepper spray might actually put a halt to me trying to steal somebody’s valuables, but a glow-in-the-dark plastic sword is going to only stop me if I fall on the floor laughing at the person.

And humor me here, if you will. Take a look at this picture:

Does this not look exactly like our favorite Mexican Christ Puncher’s member?! This only leads me to believe that he not only felt threatened enough by our overzealous bitch in the first photo to not change her tire, but that he used his tire iron to beat her and steal her lightsaber. Thankfully, he’s putting it to good use trimming hedges and not attacking other would be Good Samaritans, but it makes me wonder. If these lightsabers are so powerful, how come it couldn’t beat an illegal immigrant with a freaking tire iron? Seriously, these Star Wars nerds will spend years pointing out continuity errors in movies, but won’t even take the time to proof read one of their lame articles.

Thankfully, the last page has finally arrived. On it are more “uses” for a lightsaber, but sadly, all I could focus on were the continuity errors they all contained, especially the one where no shadow was displayed on the back wall while the guy heats up his coffee. Oh no - I’ve already started to become one of Them. First off I’m bitching about a poor photoshop job of a lightsaber and the next minute I’ll find myself whining over how Obi-wan Kenobi’s outfit changed from one scene to another in the latest movie. Thankfully, I caught myself in time and can now go back to beating up Star Wars Fans and stealing their lunch money.

They still believe The Force can protect them when in reality, the force from my fist ensures that I’ll be eating this afternoon. On second thought, let’s keep these morons around.

If you happen to live anywhere other than New York City or near any major media outlets, you might not have heard to story of Wesley Autrey. Earlier this week, a normal weekday morning in a NY subway station suddenly transformed into a scene rarely spotted outside of movies or mythical lores. Cameron Hollopeter, a student and total stranger to Autrey, began having a seizure before falling down onto the subway tracks, where a train quickly raced towards him with the full intention of occupying the same space as his flailing body. What happened next is something many say they would do, but few ever follow through with. Autrey, sizing up the situation, knew Hollopeter’s only chance at survival was to lie between the two rails, so he jumped down, pinned the young man beneath him, and comfortably lied as a NY city subway train screeched to a halt a full two inches above his head.

Autrey might not seem like your everyday hero. He certainly isn’t somebody who gives good interviews, as you can see for yourself in the David Letterman clip below, but that’s what makes his actions even better. This wasn’t a man out looking for fame and glory. He had no grand visions of accolades or rewards dancing through his mind that morning. He simply saw a man in trouble, knew he was the only person who could help, and acted.

Of course, since doing so, he’s not only been giving the highest award a citizen can earn from the city, but has received a free trip to Disney World, a $10,000 check from Donald Trump, a free lifetime subscription to Playboy (since his favorite Playboy hat was destroyed by the train), and a promise by the New York Film Academy (where Hollopeter is a student) of scholarships for his daughters when they’re older, among many other rewards. Let’s just hope he doesn’t end up like some of the other national hero sensations in recent memory.

The last thing we need to do is find yet another reason to discourage the average citizen from helping those in need.

I recently moved Wordpress around on my servers over at Shyzer Industries. Before, everything was www.shyzer.com/wp/blahblahblah whereas now it’s simply www.shyzer.com/blahblahblah. I have no idea why I put Wordpress in it’s own little folder, but it was ugly, it made it harder to get search engine traffic, and…well, it was ugly.

But now, oh now, my RSS subscription won’t work!

I never really understood the idea behind RSS feeds. To me, it’s like saying, “I’m too lazy to go to your site once a day to see if you wrote anything new, so I’ll just let a computer program tell me the first sentence of your new posts and I’ll base my decision to visit your site solely on that.” It’s like walking up to your friend, saying the first sentence of a conversation, and then stopping to see if he gives you permission to keep talking. That said, I’ve still spent a good two hours trying to fix it today for whatever few RSS readers I do have. You people better be worth it!

Anyways, if you had any favorite posts of yours or links to Shyzer with the /wp/ in it, just delete that and it should work fine. I’m trying to set up a redirect so that if anybody types in an old address, it takes them to the new one, but so far no luck.

EDIT: Ha. I’m good, that’s for sure. Not only did I set up a proper redirect (so no matter what link you use, old or new, you end up at the new location), but I got the RSS feature working. I think this calls for a victory beverage.

While partaking in my daily ritual of scouring the internet for pointless crap in between halfway completing two more worthwhile tasks, I stumbled across an article about the lost art of serendipity and how today’s youth no longer discover new things on their own. Yet for some reason, the only thing my mind could focus on was the sound of Grandpa Simpson’s voice screaming, “MAAAAAAAATTLOOOOOOCK!”

It doesn’t take long to get a visual representation of the author, William McKeen. On the downswing of middle age. The world around him seems a bit too unfamiliar, too alien. And man, did he enjoy the good ole’ days a hell of a lot better than now.

One of the best ways to poorly argue that today’s generation is too cut & dry, too filtered, and too focused is to employ the tactic McKeen seems to enjoy - Quickly define your age so as to turn off younger readers and then proudly proclaim, “In my day, we used to waste time! Lot’s of it! On purpose! For fun! You kids suck!”

I used to be in agreement with people like McKeen. I thought we were losing a valuable art in our daily lives, one of uncovering and finding items we enjoyed without having to be told about them. I thought the only decent way to discover the true gems in life was to find them the old fashion way - without technology. I didn’t even think it was possible to find anything worthwhile in the giant goop we call the Internets. And then I realized how blatantly wrong that concept was.

Battlestar Galactica. Mitch Hedberg. Watership Down. Angela. Stan whenever he has a site. David Gray. DMZ. Box Car Racer. Heather Armstrong. Imogen Heap. Techno. Doc. The Postal Service. Firefly. The Stand.

All artists, authors, creators, books, movies, and countless more I never would have discovered for myself without technology.

Just because people now a days don’t waste their time flipping through newspapers or wandering the stacks of a library doesn’t mean they aren’t discovering unexpected treasures throughout their day. McKeen truly shows his age when he talks about how easy it is to find things on the Internet, how personal and custom tailored our information is, and how much time technology saves us. I guess my only question is this:

Really? It’s easy to find things on the Internet? Have you ever used Google? Name the last time you were looking for something specific and found it within 2 minutes. Chances are you had to wade through a lot of crap before you finally found what you were looking for, whether it be a recipe for a certain souffle or a funny op-ed your favorite comedian wrote a few years back. I’d even be willing to bet that occasionally, you unintentionally watched a video of a new comic or read an article by an unknown blogger while on your quest. And you enjoyed it. Maybe even enjoyed it so much as to start a second, separate search to find more pieces created by them.

Gee wiz, don’t look now, but that sounds awfully similar to that “lost art” McKeen seems to be lamenting over.

Time saving and technology are not two (okay, three) words that I put together very often. American’s spend more than an average of two hours a day on-line just at work alone. And what do you think people are doing during those two hours? Reading the few news articles of the day that interest them? Watching our favorite funny videos over and over each day? Listening to the same songs by our favorite bands, whether they be old school Beatles or somebody new like The Killers? Give me a break.

We surf at random, blindly, having no idea what the next click might hold. Sites like Break and College Humor are massively successful because we know that each day, new and unexpected items are going to be uploaded to them. They might be funny, they might be stupid, or they might be one of the greatest things we’ve ever seen, read, or heard. But one thing is certain. There will be at least something we’ve never seen before and that excites us. We know we’re getting something fresh, something new, something we might even love.

There’s a reason people don’t spend an hour a day pouring through their local paper or strolling through the library or going to the bookstore instead of using Amazon and it’s because we’ve got shit to do. Like work. Like play. Like experiencing life.

Or maybe more like spending an hour watching the Top 25 videos on YouTube or reading the most Digg-ed articles of the week.

Either way, don’t blame technology for the “lost arts” of wasting time or serendipity. Neither are going away any time soon. If anything, technology has only enhanced them both and allows us to pursue them as much we want.