Shyzer.com

I’m not sure how many of you have noticed, but during the Olympics Shyzer underwent a pretty extensive makeover. Most of the aesthetic changes have simply been to “clean” up the site. The RSS feed is now much more prominent, the search bar actually stays in the sidebar(!), links now have a dotted underline to make them more noticeable, the footer has been cleaned up, and now the comments like approximately 1 gazillion times better. I’ve even incorporated gravatars! The only page that still needs work is the archives and I can live with that for now.

All of this is a long-winded way to say that I’m kinda happy with the way Shyzer looks. And kinda proud. I don’t usually pat myself on the back, but I really enjoy this theme now. I’m even contemplating releasing it to the world as a freebie and letting anybody use it.

I would like to add that I’m aware Shyzer looks like ass when using IE6. My response? Which one of you fools are still using IE6!?! I know there’s at least one of you as it has a 2% market share in my stats. So, uh…stop? Please? The entire Internet thanks you.

Oh, and the Firebug extension for Firefox is a damned Godsend. You can test out edits LIVE! I know nobody reading this runs their own website, so I’ll shut up now. I just wanted to get that in for the record so that when I look back, I’ll know when it was that I finally discovered Firebug.

You know when you sit down to perform an activity that should only take five minutes and then you look up at the clock and eight hours have passed?

Yeah, I hate that.

In my quest to find a suitable chat software for the freebie forums, I was led to God knows how many different forums on the web. Unfortunately for me, in order to test out their chat software, I had to register on them all and make a few posts before I was granted access to the rooms. In doing so, I was reminded of something that I find peculiar about the Internet.

People love virtual Yes Men.

Time after time and time, I found forums that were dedicated to certain niches and which made little to no effort to bring in people with opposing views. I fully understand seeking out people with similar viewpoints and interests. But making it a closed group of only like-minded individuals sitting around in a virtual circle jerk kind of seems counterintuitive to me.

How good are you at telling where somebody is from based on their accents?

I scored 29 points, should have been 32 though. Click more to see my answers and compare them to yours if you so desire.

(more…)

EDIT: Yeah, thanks for telling me that video was dead now, losers. It’s back to the NBC link.

EDIT: I changed the link to a different video site because NBC sucks.

Somebody get this man his own TV show. He’s been the most entertaining part of the Olympics by far. I’d pay good money just to have him follow me around and provide commentary on whatever I was doing.

Datz a good typing. Yes, yes, go to Shyzer! Ohh, ohhhh, de page is loading! Itz haz loaded!!!! Jou are champion at ze Internetz!! Woooo!

Auburn University has seven Olympic medals so far, more than India, Brazil, and every other nation except for about a dozen. Phelps swims for the University of Michigan, which means they’d probably rank in the top 5, but unfortunately their athletic site was last updated in July so screw them.

Or how about this. The nation of Georgia is in the midst of an invasion by Russia and has three medals in the Olympics.

Canada has zero. There’s really no correlation between a war and Olympic medals, but it’s still funny as hell.

I don’t mean to make light of the situation in Georgia though. I’ve been absolutely glued to a million different news outlets in an attempt to absorb as much info as possible. I’ll spare the lecture, but I do want to share this amazing Slate article about the cyber warfare that’s going on now.

At first glance most people think of cyber warfare as some futuristic War Games type of fantasy. But it’s not only real, it’s here and it’s effective.

Long story short, pretty much all of Georgia’s main websites are down. Some of the news agencies have moved to Blogger (it says something when Google is the most secure option a company has) and nobody knows if the attack is being coordinated by the Russian government / military, a collection of “hired guns” by the former, or an outright loose coalition of random hackers who saw this war as a perfect opportunity for a little fun.

Needless to say, the latter is the scariest scenario. It’s only a few steps away from a handful of people being able to shut down a country’s entire Internet infrastructure. Think of it like Die Hard 4, but without the crappy acting and shitty plot.

Ever wonder which countries are still holding out against using the metric system?

You know how I can tell the Olympics are back again? My old post with the Misty May / Kerri Walsh photos is getting a ton of search engine traffic.

Oh, well that and the fact that I’ve been glued to the TV for the past 48 hours. What’s the over / under on how much I get accomplished in the next few weeks? It doesn’t matter, just take the under and bet the kid’s college fund.

EDIT: Who else just saw that epic comeback by the US swim team? AMERICA, FUCK YEAH!

EDITED EDIT: I love this photo.

First off, ESPN needs to die. Seriously. Somebody go blow up Bristol. I’m the biggest Favre fan in the world and even I couldn’t stand watching it anymore. I officially apologize to the Sports Community for the past two months.

I became a football fan because of Brett Favre. I was a Favre fan before I became a Packers fan.

I wholeheartedly believe in the Madden Curse. It’s stupid and illogical of me and I don’t care. It’s real, Favre’s on the cover this year, ipso facto he’s gonna suck. It’s basic logic, folks. It’s pretty easy to see how Favre + shitty team + going from small town where he can do no wrong to New York where you get booed for sneezing = oh shit.

Seriously, New York is not going to be kind to him. At all.

Up until tonight, I honestly expected to follow Favre to whatever team he went to. It’s pretty clear there’s a lot of blame, but Christ if the Packers didn’t botch him from day 1. I’m not even sure I believed he’s actually switch jerseys though.

I was a Ken Griffey Jr. fan before I became a Mariners fan. When he was traded from the team in 2000, I considered jumping ship and following him to Cincinnati. But I stuck with the team since players come and go and my current boycott of them notwithstanding, I think it was the right move. I try not to think about asking when my faith and loyalty will go rewarded though…

All that said, I will root my ass off for Favre to win every game this year. I hope he gets all the way to the Superbowl. But I hope my Pack beats him there.

Angela, get ready!

This is weird though. It’s also just a damn sport. That’s a lesson 16-year-old Goob is really glad 25-year-old Goob has learned. I think that’s the best part about this whole thing.