Shyzer.com

I closed the laptop for a few days last week and it was the best move I’d made all year.

I have a ton of work to catch up on for HIF over the next few days. Doesn’t matter, because it was still worth it.

Having Tommy up here for Christmas made for quite the entertaining week.

I’ve finally got some plans and longer posts I’m working on for Shyzer.

I’ve also found a new hobby.

And finally, I’m in the beginning stages of planning another trip abroad.

That’s all for now.

So this is what inflation looks like. I especially like the $100 billion dollars it takes to purchase three eggs.

God forbid something like this happen here in America less we want to be stuck with the penny for decades to come.

United begins flying to Zihuatanejo on January 6. I think I might go for a weekend just because of Shawshank Redemption. Anybody want to join me?

It’s crazy how fast-paced life is right now. In the past two months alone, I’ve done more work on Hey, It’s Free than I did in the 10 months prior combined. My daily routine now consists of waking up, hunting for freebies, answering e-mails, trying to squeeze in a quick lunch, more e-mails, an interview here or there, manage the forums, work on a featured post, holy crap how is it bed time already? And yet I’m loving it.

As if that wasn’t enough, in the next month I plan on launching a new charity website, doubling up HIF, and re-launching an old website that I never fully developed. Plus there’s that whole social and family life that has to be fit in somewhere!

Thanksgiving was quite fun. I got to catch up with a few friends, find out that my little brother is far superior in shooting a gun, and relax a little bit. I’m excited about Christmas as well. This is always one of my favorite times of the year, cold weather be damned. Sitting down to a Thanksgiving dinner with a table full of friends and family and sitting around Christmas morning laughing and joking with everybody are by far two events that I look forward to the most every year. I certainly start to appreciate them more with each passing year as well.

I’ve started to try and be a good friend as well. I sat down back in August during some random Olympic match and made a list of every person I hoped to still be friends with in 10 years. Then I circled the names of anybody whom I’d talked to in the prior two months. I think my list was something like 40 people with only three or four circles. It was a harsh reminder of how hard you have to work at actually maintaining friendships! There are still a few people I need to get back in touch with, especially certain family members, but I’m already pleased with the progress I’ve made. It’s one thing just to call somebody up and say “hey, long time no talk!” but it’s a whole other to actually keep the contacts going from that point onward.

Let that be a lesson, little Gooblings.

The author of one of my favorite websites is up for a $10,000 scholarship and seeing as how he’s in 2nd place, I wanted to ask if you’d please click this link and vote for David Cameron. It takes like 10 seconds and a vote for Cameron is a proxy way of saying you love me as well. Because let’s face it: if you’re still a daily reader here, you must certainly either be a loving friend / family member or a stalker and I’m sure he’ll take your vote no matter what.

I was in a bit of a bad mood this morning. Then I saw the two pictures below and inexplicably brightened up.

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I have 100ish sites added to my RSS reader, which pings them every 30 or 60 minutes in search of new content. Inevitably a few new posts are found each round, which triggers a dull “ping” from my computer and an automated response from me to ignore them for 30 days until they’re deleted.

However, I also have four or five blogs filed under the heading “Awesome,” which is instead checked every 5 minutes. On the rare occasion that something new is found, the computer equivalent of a klaxon is sounded and my browser automatically loads the page. I only wish I was MacGyver enough to rig a ham sandwich-bearing robot to accompany the glorious occasion.

These sites could be classified as my all-time favorites – ones that have yet to disappoint, who time after time drive me to laud them far more than any healthy human being should, and who literally make surfing the net enjoyable for me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some obscenities to scream while I delete one of the feeds.

I’m not a fan of crotch shots when they happen to me and yet that’s exactly what I felt last night when I read of Fire Joe Morgan’s demise. I’m not going to harp on this, but damn. It was a brilliant fucking website and I’ll miss their insanely rational reasoning and absurd sense of humor. For the FJM virgins out there, enjoy this and this before breaking out the cigarettes.

I meant to post this last month, but never got around to it, surprise surprise. It’s Barack Obama giving a roast at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner. I like this side of him.

You can find part 2 here.

McCain’s wasn’t too bad either.

Change is here. For all of us. As I listened to President-elect Obama’s speech, I can’t help but notice a common undercurrent that’s been there since Day 1. Every other word is us or we or together. Has any other President spent as much time addressing those who oppose or disagree with him than Obama just did? If you interpret that observation as an insult, you clearly don’t understand half of Obama’s appeal. We all have a new President, not just 51% of us.

Maybe I’m naive. Maybe I’m drinking the Kool-Aid. Or maybe I’m simply not old enough to be jaded. I want to believe that hope can triumph over fear. I no longer want exclusiveness to rule the land. The idea of knowledge and service and sacrifice all come together to make this world a better place isn’t just appealing, it’s enough to get me out of bed every morning.

Tonight begins the first step of an excruciatingly long, uncertain, and difficult journey. But dammit if it’s not exciting.

Every generation deserves its Obama. He could turn out to be our Lincoln or he could wind up flopping into the history books next to Carter. Either way, I’m excited. For the first time in my adult life, the leader of my country is somebody whom I trust and respect. Right now, that’s good enough for me.