Shyzer.com

My first filler post in a week…not too shabby for me at all. This post will be removed tomorrow though and two posts will take it’s place. Until then!

I really want to meet the heads of Warner Brothers and give them hearty pats on the back for delivering to us five outstanding Harry Potter films to date. They sure have been spectacular!

Wait, that doesn’t sound right. Oh, yes, I see where I screwed up. I accidentally typed “pats on the back” when I meant to type “kicks in the crotch.” Whoops. Rookie mistake. The keys are like right next to each other.

Honestly, by the time the 7th film rolls around, I fully expect that when you go into the theater or rent it from Blockbuster, you’ll be given a complementary tack hammer to bludgeon yourself with once you’ve finally become bored and/or disappointed. Which, judging by the track record of the recent films, should be somewhere around the 12 minute mark for the average fan.

I didn’t think there was any way imaginable to screw up such an amazing story, but you proved me wrong, WB! Thank you for reminding me that the impossible still happens every day! Fucking idiots…

This “review” of what websites looked like back in 1996 is easily the funniest thing I’ve yet to find in this early new year. In fact, it reminded me of a post I’d half completed over two years ago and so I went back and finished it up. But before you read anything else, please, please click that link above and read it. It’s been ten minutes and I’m still cackling uncontrollably.

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A lot can change in 10 years.

I’ve written a little about how much has changed from since I was a “kid” and now, especially with regards to technology. But I wanted to share a quick story with you.

My earliest memory of on-line gaming was back when I was in 7th grade. It was the end of 1995 and my dad had just built a new computer which at the time was smokin’ awesome but if it was sitting in my room today, would be around the 19th most powerful electronic in a 10 foot radius. A few days later, he bought a game called Air Warrior and installed it, to which I quickly became addicted. Yet beyond that, I never touched a computer for any other reason.

By the 8th grade, my dad bought a new service known as AOL, which provided blistering surfing speeds of up to 56kb/sec. I would sign onto my account whenever I had the chance, only to realize there was nothing really to do and quickly grow bored with the whole experience. The only person I knew that had an account as well was a snobby girl from school, so the IM feature was of little useless to me. Oh, you could go into chat rooms and play .wav files of Homer saying Doh and cars crashing. So there was that. Or you could go in the religious chat rooms and just type “satan satan satan” over and over and watch people get immensely angry at you. Actually, you can still do that today, but I digress.

It was around this time that companies began advertising their websites in television commercials. I don’t know if anybody really remembers this, but I clearly do, if for no other reason than I started writing them down.

That’s right, I had a notebook where I wrote down all the websites I saw on TV since I was that desperate to find something to do on the Internet. Each page was filled with nothing more than lines of random companies with their websites next to them.

Pepsi - www.pepsi.com
Sunny D - www.sunnydelight.com
Nike - www.nike.com

You know you’ve got a brilliant piece of technology that people are starving to use when they’ve resorting to going to Sunny Delight’s website. I just wish the purple juice had had a page, I would have been all over that.

By 9th grade, I no longer needed my notebook. Lycos and Excite had finally entered my life and with a few (ok, a lot of) mouse clicks, I was able to find at least something somewhat interesting on the Internet during my alloted hour of computer time every day. It wasn’t until the 10th grade that the wonders of AIM finally burst onto the scene. Actually, I only had AIM for a few months that year before getting in trouble with my dad. My punishment? He “deleted” the program by taking the icon off the desktop.

Think about that for a second. I was a 10th grader in high school and was convinced that AIM had been removed from my computer simply because the icon was no longer there. Wow.

I remember starting an angelfire page in the 11th grade. When we were moving right before I went into 12th grade, Napster had just been ordered to shut down and thus I loaded my computer up and schlepped it across town to our old house since it still had Internet, hooked everything up, and sat on the floor in an empty room for about 5 hours so that I could download maybe 30 songs on dial up. For you see, when Napster was finally shut down, file sharing would finally be eradicated!

Now? I’ve got cell phones. Myspace. X-Box 360. Facebook. Google. AIMSKYPEMSNYAHOO. And I don’t bat an eye when it comes to not only understanding it all, but knowing how to work it. I’ve come to expect my cell phone to not just give me directions if I’m lost, but to also let me know where the nearest pizza joint is since driving makes me hungry. I carry in my pocket a thumb drive with more space on it than was on the first three computers my family owned - combined.

All in the span of 10 years. I can’t freaking wait to see what we’ll have in 2017.

When most people think about Poland’s contribution to the Allied resistance against the Nazi, the usually recall something about the Germans kicking a bunch of Polish ass to start the war off and that’s about it. Some of you might even recount the tales of Polish cavalry gallantly being slaughtered against German tanks and how the entire Polish air force was destroyed on the first day then smile like an idiot. Hooray American education system!

I don’t get much quality time with you and your computer screen, therefore I can’t re-teach all of History to you. No, I must focus on only the greatest parts that you may have missed. Scratch that. I’m talking about the most awesome, existence-shattering, mind-blowing, not quite sure if you’ll be able to scoop your jaw off the floor types stories out there.

Enter Voytek.

Honour Sought for ‘Soldier Bear’

A campaign has been launched to build a permanent memorial to a bear which spent much of its life in Scotland - after fighting in World War II. The bear - named Voytek - was adopted in the Middle East by Polish troops in 1943, becoming much more than a mascot. The large animal even helped their armed forces to carry ammunition at the Battle of Monte Cassino.

Voytek - known as the Soldier Bear - later lived near Hutton in the Borders and ended his days at Edinburgh Zoo. He was found wandering in the hills of Iran by Polish soldiers in 1943. They adopted him and as he grew he was trained to carry heavy mortar rounds. When Polish forces were deployed to Europe the only way to take the bear with them was to “enlist” him. So he was given a name, rank and number and took part in the Italian campaign. He saw action at Monte Cassino before being billeted - along with about 3,000 other Polish troops - at the army camp in the Scottish Borders. The soldiers who were stationed with him say that he was easy to get along with.

“He was just like a dog - nobody was scared of him,” said Polish veteran Augustyn Karolewski, who still lives near the site of the camp. “He liked a cigarette, he liked a bottle of beer - he drank a bottle of beer like any man.”

When the troops were demobilised, Voytek spent his last days at Edinburgh Zoo. Mr Karolewski went back to see him on a couple of occasions and found he still responded to the Polish language.

“I went to Edinburgh Zoo once or twice when Voytek was there,” he said. “And as soon as I mentioned his name he would sit on his backside and shake his head wanting a cigarette. It wasn’t easy to throw a cigarette to him - all the attempts I made until he eventually got one.”

Voytek was a major attraction at the zoo until his death in 1963. Eyemouth High School teacher Garry Paulin is now writing a new book, telling the bear’s remarkable story.

‘Totally amazing’

Local campaigner Aileen Orr would like to see a memorial created at Holyrood to the bear she says was part of both the community and the area’s history. She first heard about Voytek as a child from her grandfather, who served with the King’s Own Scottish Borderers.

“I thought he had made it up to be quite honest but it was only when I got married and came here that I knew in fact he was here, Voytek was here,” she said. “When I heard from the community that so few people knew about him I began to actually research the facts. It is just amazing, the story is totally amazing.”

Holy. Christ.

So a group of Polish soldiers, after recuperating from their captivity in Russian, finds an Iranian bear and takes it with them through Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Italy to help them kill German Nazis before finally letting the bear live out his days in a Scottish zoo.

And people say History is boring.

But the story doesn’t just end at “OMG! A crazy bear killed Germans!” Oh no, there’s an even more in depth story about Voytek and his crazy-ass owners, which has some tidbits about this seemingly mythical beast that frankly I wish I had been able to make up myself.

During the most crucial phase of the battle, when pockets of men were cut off on the mountainside desperately in need of supplies, Voytek, who all this time had been watching his comrades frantically loading heavy boxes of ammunition, came over to the trucks, stood on his hind legs in front of the supervising officer and stretched out his paws toward him. It was as if he was saying: “I can do this. Let me help you”. The officer handed the animal the heavy box and watched in wonder as Voytek loaded it effortlessly onto the truck.

Backwards and forwards he continued, time and time again, carrying heavy shells, artillery boxes and food sacks from truck to truck, from one waiting man to another, effortlessly. The deafening noise of the explosions and gunfire did not seem to worry him. Each artillery box held four 23 lbs live shells; some even weighed more than a hundred. He never dropped a single one. And still he went on repeatedly, all day and every day until the monastery was finally taken.

—

Although he was world-famous, the bear of Monte Cassino was forced to spent his last years behind bars in Edinburgh’s Zoological gardens. Artists came to sketch him and sculptors to make statues of him. Sometimes his old army friends arrived to visit him, leaping over the barriers to wrestle and play with him in the bear enclosure (to the utter horror of all the visitors and zoo officials).

The farthest I’ve gotten my dogs to helping me in a real battle is when they’ll lick Colton’s face as I hold him down and tickle him for hours on end.

Oh screw it, there’s not a single thing I could write that would make this story any more awesome or entertaining, so I’ll just stop trying. I should be referencing Stephen Colbert or the hilarity of men having enough confidence to get a wild bear drunk in their midst, yet I’m still stuck on the fact that A FUCKING BEAR HELPED BEAT THE NAZIS. Eat it, Hitler.

Goob + the flu = perfect excuse to sleep all day and watch crummy old movies on TV.

Actually, that’s not quite accurate. I did spend a little time on the computer today and as a result, discovered Angry Video Game Nerd. Basically, it’s a guy playing old NES games while swearing and pointing out how much they sucked. Anybody who grew up in the 80s needs to watch some of them, ESPECIALLY the Ghostbusters one. It’s a tad long, but chock full of truth and laughs.

If you want, go ahead and picture me playing with all the toys he shows at the beginning of the video as I recognized each and every one of them.

Edit #1: Here’s his review of Independence Day, a video game my siblings might remember. So damn accurate!

I recently started the process of overhauling the freebie forums on HIF, which basically took 48 hours of work over the past three days. People have been asking me why it’s such a pain to upgrade a piece of simple software and the same people are ones who ask why I never upgrade Shyzer or other websites of mine. I’ve never really taken the time to explain, so I thought I’d do my best now.

Imagine buying a car from Ford that does 90% of what you want it to do. It takes you from point A to B, it gets good gas milage, and people love it. Well, that’s like installing the basic forums or wordpress, which is the software I use here on Shyzer. I install them, people can post, reply, make friendships, etc. But there’s still a few things you wish the car had. You’d love a GPS navigation guide and a cool stereo system wouldn’t hurt either. But you don’t want to buy Ford’s version of these since there are companies out there who specialize in and make better version of them. So you buy a GPS guide from Company X and a stereo system from Company Y and have them custom fitted and installed in your car. These are the equivalent to forum modifications or wordpress plugins. Basically, they’re made by hobbyist coders and tech enthusiasts worldwide and while they’re usually nice and cool, since it’s a one-man job there’s no quality control or tech support on them. You have to download them, install them, and then just hope they do what they’re supposed to.

Now a few years pass. Your car is doing great, you’ve found some custom mods that are working fine, everybody’s happy. But you notice that Ford’s come out with a newer model of the original car you bought. You’re not sure if you should really upgrade or not, but then you see this awesome new autopilot system that Company Z is selling! Sweet! Just install it in your car and presto - you can let the car drive for you. You mast have it! But wait a minute…aw crap, they don’t make a version compatible with your old car. They only made them for the newer models. Doh! And you start to notice that more and more companies are only making add-ons for the newer cars. This is the allure of upgrading.

But upgrading isn’t that easy. You and you’re members have made thousands of posts and comments. You don’t just want to throw them all away. You want to bring them over with you to the newer upgrade. It’s like wanting to upgrade cars, but still wanting to keep the same seats that you’ve spent years molding to your own physique. And you really love the way the steering wheel grips in your hands and you hate the sound of the newer horn, so you want to bring those along too.

So in this horribly long analogy, instead of just buying a newer model car, Ford sends you all the pieces that have changed and you have to upgrade your car, piece by piece, bit by bit. And once you’ve finally done so, you realize that the old GPS guide you had doesn’t quite fit in the new dashboard anymore. So you need to go out and find a newer model of that. And a newer model of the stereo system. And…

See how much a pain upgrading software can be?

On the freebie forums, I had 14 mods installed - including two custom mods that I paid to have created just for us - and luckily managed to find upgrades for all 14 of them. There are still a ton of tweaks and fine tuning to be done on the forums, but the hard part is thankfully over. The same can be said for that crappy analogy

Anyways, that’s why sometimes you’ll see sites using older versions of software. It’s not because they’re lazy or don’t care about security, it’s because they’re not convinced that everything won’t break after they upgrade! But luckily for all involved, keeping Shyzer up-to-date is quite an easy task.

As I sat down to type this post, I realized it’s already after midnight. 2:15 to be exact. Well to hell with that! I haven’t gone to bed yet, so it’s still my birthday damnit and thanks to Wordpress, I can manipulate it to look at if this post went live at 11:59PM on February 7th

I can already tell this whole 30 days of posting is going to be a task of epic proportions for me. There’s only so much one wants to share with the entire world and most of what I’ve ever had to say has been archived here on Shyzer long ago. Case in point: before I write any post, I come up with three extremely quick and rough ideas of what I’m going to write about. I just jot down three simple sentences about three random topics and then pick the one I want to talk about most and run with it. But since Shyzer is already 5+ years old, it’s gotten to the point where I need to search through it to make sure I haven’t already talked about it before.

So tonight my three sentences were about how I love birthdays, how I’ve grown to harp and nag myself over my age (and how much I hate the fact that I harp and nag myself over it!), and how I really effing hate my hair.

Done, done, and done. Doh!

While none of those topics were sure to win a Pulitzer, that fact alone helps emphasize my point that I’ve run out of topics to write about. At least that’s what I’ve grown to believe. Yet here I am, creating a post out of nothing, mashing and juggling words to form some sort of cohesive, albeit weakly joined, narrative. But it’s working. Still. Even after five fucking years. That’s got to say something.

Going back and reading that second “done” post above was kind of enlightening in another way. That post wasn’t half bad. Decent writing, not too wordy, good story, even better message. And as I said during Shyzer’s fifth birthday, there’s a lot of crap I’ve written and forgotten about that’s not half bad. Why do I bring this up?

Thanks for the writers strike recently, many of the late night talk shows have been without their usual staff despite being forced to create new shows. As a result, you’ve got guys like Stewart and Colbert and O’Brien basically creating the jokes and the entire show on their own. (quick side note, if you haven’t watched the video where those three guys have a battle royal and pretend the beat the crap out of each other, you’re doing yourself a major disservice.) It can be painfully obvious that the shows are sans writers and none of their shows carry the same zip and level of quality as we’re used to, but at the same time it’s been almost encouraging. These guys are, in a much grander sense, doing what I’m doing here. They have an audience who expects to be entertained and dear God if they aren’t doing whatever the hell they can come up with. By mid-January they were all tapped out and openly stated so. Yet there they are, showing up on my TV on schedule, slugging it out and still giving it their all.

I admire the hell out of Ze Frank. Last year, he created brilliantly funny and witty videos day in and day out. Yet even he called it quits after only one short year and anybody who thinks that wasn’t a calculated move is fooling themselves. The cast of Seinfeld walked away from a 10th season not because they didn’t want to be paid another $10 million each, but because they knew they were out of good ideas. John Elway retired after winning two Super Bowls not because he hated playing football, but because there was nowhere to go but down. These people knew they only had so much, could only be tapped for so long, before they needed a break to replenish and refresh. That’s where the obscure nature of Shyzer comes into play. I can toil and write mundane and pointless crap all I want and it’s fine. I’m not on network TV nor do I have a following of 100,000 people. I can afford to suck and suck and suck as long as I squeeze out something decent every so often. Thus the challenge to create something for 30 measly days. I want to finally know what my suck to good ratio is.

Last year, Ze was 34. Seinfeld was well into his late 30s before he got started with the show. Colbert and Stewart and in their 40s and still able to create material on the fly. Before, I looked at them and though, “Dead God, how did they last that long? I’m not even 25 and I’m already tapped out of ideas!” But that’s not it at all. The more I do this, the more I realize how much crap they had to slog through before they found their voice and honed in on their river of talent.

And while I’ve got no idea when they started creating things, I can assure you it wasn’t much earlier than when I got started. So no, I’m not out of ideas, I’m still figuring out how to come up with and develop them. And at 25, I don’t think I’m so bad at it after all.

Now let’s see what I’m saying come March 6th

Starting today, I’m going to post at least once a day here on Shyzer for a month.

Why? Uh-uh. Just feel like it. I’ve never made 30 straight posts and I want to see if I can do it. That’s about it.

Luckily for me, this counts as 1. Phew, that was pretty easy.

I tweaked the hell out of Shyzer the other night since I realized I’m sticking with this theme longer than I originally imaged. Some new features of note:

• The share this button. Click on it to easily and quickly send a certain post to a friend via Email, Facebook, Digg, etc.
• When you go to leave a comment, scroll up a little and you’ll notice a new box of “related posts” to the post you just read. It’s a great way to be reminded of all the pointless crap I’ve written over the years!
• The search box now has magic text that disappears when you click it and then poofs back when you click elsewhere. OMG ITZ WITCHCRAFT!
• When you hover over a post’s title, it no longer double underlines it. That always annoyed the crap out of me, but I was too lazy to fix it.
• I upgraded all the plugins on the site, so now they no longer break for no reason.
• The sidebar links were cleaned up a bit. Nothing new added, a few old links removed.
• The freebies widget was added on the sidebar, to show all the awesome freebies I post on HIF. I can’t get the damned timestamp removed on it though, which sucks. The widget, though, was created thanks to wigitize.

Wow. Wasn’t all that so exciting?

Hey, South Carolina. Do me a favor and please don’t screw this up tomorrow.

Also, to everybody who commented in the post below, thanks. I honestly didn’t know that many of you still read Shyzer. You guys rock

Edit: Welcome, CNN readers. Don’t bother reading this post, check out the good stuff.