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.

The photos above came from LOL at McCain. Some of them are pretty stupid (and dirty) though, however that’s operating under the assumption that the photos above aren’t stupid, which is a pretty fragile basis to begin with.

Oh, and there’s that whole election thingy everybody seems to care about. Go vote dammit and then get some free Krispy Kreme, Ben & Jerry’s, and chicken tenders.

Yeah, I hate that.

I’ve got two other posts I want to put up, but I’m waiting to get paid before I post one (thus cementing the validity of the post) and the other one is in a holding pattern because I need to get somebody’s okay before posting what I want to about them.

Oh, did I forget to mention that I’m finally designing a new theme for this place? One word sums it up best: black.

A few months ago, I sent off a short story I’d written to a few magazines and websites. Today I got a letter from one of the publications thanking me for canceling my subscription to them and asking what they could do to get me back.

I think it’s safe to say my story was never read by them.

But….wow. That was a painful experience and I hope that all of you click the link and suffer along with me.

This is a bit of a filler post, I understand that. I’ve once again stretched myself too thin, starting way too many projects that I’ll never finish. Hurray for good intentions and trying to help other people though! I actually sold off two of my old websites that I never really talked about. Facebook Talk might soon follow, as the Facebook-fan site market is exploding and I have absolutely zero interest in continuing it.

The video below might be one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a while.

Oh, and the Mariners still suck. Good times.

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.

It’s the fact that I now get to the edit the copyright year at the bottom of all my websites. For some reason, it’s so fulfilling yet pointless at the same time and I love it.

I spend most of my on-line time now fiddling with Hey, It’s Free since I’ve gotten some very receptive reviews/links/plugs lately. In fact, I always thought the weird and stupid stuff I did on-line (making a random song or story or video, etc) would always occur here on Shyzer. But that’s not the case, as I’ve found recently. It’s kinda nice. I’ve also been teaching myself some advance PHP recently, in an attempt to learn how to do something really cool that I really want to do here on Shyzer. But this shiznit is hard. Rewarding, but a pain in the ass nonetheless.

We’re doing a Christmas card exchange on the HIF as well. Anybody here wanna get in on the action? I’ve never actually sent out cards like this before, but we all enjoy getting some mail-love every now and then. If you’re game, leave a message in the comments and I’ll contact you.

I applied for a job in Iraq recently. Haha, no, I didn’t join the military. But I got wind of an opportunity to something that I’ve always wanted to do and it just happened to be located in Iraq and the pay was off the charts. That’s kind of to be expected though, no? Don’t worry Mom and Dad, there’s no way in hell I get it, but it’s still funny to think that sometime soon I could be asking my boss if I could trade the corner office with a view for a cubicle since I’m scared of mortar attacks.

I took a test for the first time since God knows when. It was long and hard. It was also fun. I’ve always been a nerd like that.

Maybe I’ll get another post up here on Shyzer later this week. WordPress is actually pretty good at reminding you of all the unfinished business you have. At the top of every post I write, there is a list titled “Your Drafts” with links to all the crap I started writing and then quit. It’s always a little disheartening to see that damn thing. Just glancing at it, I see posts about zombies, Turkey (the country, not the deliciousness), stealing, the state of novels and reading in America, regrets, President Bush, and the Mariners. Maybe I’ll get around to finishing one of those sometime soon.

Probably not though. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go work on the goofy Christmas carol I’m writing for HIF. And then I need to film it. Take care, y’all.

What more needs be said? Baseball is back and suddenly the world is right again. Sometimes I amaze even myself by thinking about how I survive such a cold and barren winter every year.

Isn’t technology grand?

It’s almost a guilty pleasure that feels so wrong, it starts to feel right.

It’s not. And it’s not.

The problem was that the movie wasn’t anything like the trailers made it out to be. It’s a drama that goes on and on about how we can’t communicate with other people who have the same feelings, emotions, blah blah blah. It was basically three poorly connected stories going on at once. It’s as if I was watching three separate mini-movies that kept cutting away just when I started to tolerate them. To make matters worse, half of the characters acted as if they had a learning disability that put them on par with 4 year old with Down’s Syndrome. Just because you’re a fish out of water doesn’t mean you have to act like an idiot, despite what this movie tries to teach you.

In fact, you know it’s a shitty movie on the screen when you find that you don’t give a shit whether any of the major characters to live or die. What rubbish.

But, oh, to be 10 or 14 again! You couldn’t have kept me out of that white wonder! My body, however, is thankful that my idea of enjoyment now is reading while under a thick cover of blankets.

WordPress is a wonderful blogging tool. Hell, when used correctly, it can even be a fantastic CMS. But for the love of all things Holy, when it decides to have a little fluke and stop working, it just stops. No error reports, no logs to go over, just the simple fact that WP decided it’d been working for long enough and that it was time to take a break.

And when you disable all your plugins to find out which one is the culprit, which is the solution 90% of the time, and that doesn’t work…well, let’s just say I’m not good at figuring out that other 10%.

HIF! went on the fritz today, loading every post I’ve ever made on the main page (fixed) and deleting every custom field (all the country flags) I’ve ever added (not fixed). The custom field mystery is the biggest stumbling block I’ve hit so far. The only code I touched all day yesterday was the quicktags.js file for Christ’s sake!

The irony of it all is that I don’t even care. HIF!’s current theme and design has already reached a breaking point that I’m gearing up to fix and the pure fact that a few flags aren’t showing up isn’t really that big of a deal. After hiring a few new writers, my next job is to seriously try and get a redesign made for the site.

But that still doesn’t erase the fact that I’ve got no Earthly idea why those damn flags just vanished.

I guarantee any ad agency out there that I could come up with a better commercial than any we’ve seen during the first half of the Super Bowl so far. Just contact me with via e-mail with “$$$$$$$$$$” in the subject line.

So CBS is airing the Super Bowl this year and decide to pull a page out of FOX’s “How To Fuck Up A Broadcast” playbook by using cameras that fog up every 12 seconds. I just stuffed an old rag in an envelope and addressed it to Miami.

Did I mention Favre is COMING BACK FOR ANOTHER SEASON?!

The older I’ve gotten, the less and less I’ve enjoyed the Super Bowl. There’s a problem when the game is being played mere days before catchers and pitchers report to Spring Training. If the NFL wanted to cut down on all the damn hype and move the game back a week, I’d be glad to start spreading the word.

FAVRE IS COMING BACK FOR ANOTHER FUCKING SEASON! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

And that’s been my MO for about the last 10 years now. I’ve already wasted too many tomorrows, damnit. What the hell’s wrong with me?

At least the Hey, It’s A Contest! was a decent success.

I didn’t know what to do with myself. I flipped about 20 light switches and tried to turn on the TV four or five times before finally dusting off something called a “book” and “reading” it. It was like a page out of the 1920s! You know, without the speakeasies and floozy women showing their kneecaps.

Now? Double whammy. Not only are the gooblings home all day when they should be in school, but I can’t even work. And the substitute teaching gig is already drying up a bit. Damn teachers and their healthy bodies. Is it wrong that I want to pull out a few history books and teach myself how to pull off a modern version of the infected British chickenpox blankets? On second though, don’t answer that.

Yeah, this was a totally pointless post. Hooray New Year’s resolutions!…

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.

Merry Christmas, folks

Now I guess I need to watch an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

That said, I’m in a bit on limbo here – I’m waiting to hear back from a certain lady named Hera to find out if I’ll be able to something I dearly want to. Hopefully I’ll know what’s up either way in a week or so here, because if there’s anything I hate more than Bob Costas or El Nino, it’s The Waiting Game. Never fear though, once I hear back from my Greek Goddess, I’ll let all six of you who still read this site know what’s up.

In an effort to take my attention off my cell phone (RING DAMN YOU!), I’ll do a quick recap here. Almost immediately after making my last post, I climbed into a car built for 7 with no luggage room and somehow crammed 8 people, 1 dog, and 49 suitcases into it. Then it was off for a leisurely 12 hour drive to the beach. Oh, how I long for the days when the beach was only a 15 minute bus ride away.

It was a great week at Myrtle Beach, though. I had contemplated renting a car to drive to Spartanburg to see some old friends, but it was simply going to cost too much money in the end. But other than that? Nothing beyond being back in Virginia and playing that damned game while trying to rush three new websites to active status, one of which I need to get launched in a day or two max due to the fact that it centers around school work, tests, and the such. And what better time to launch a site like that then when everybody is heading back for yet another year?

And hey, Juno, give me a freaking call here. I’m ready.

Also, I’ve updated the Radio with a few new songs for your listening pleasure.

And finally, I just recently discovered that the subject of two of Shyzer’s greatest posts has returned to the net! Back in February of 04, I made the this and this post on the Objective Christian Science Fair. Well, they’re back and while they don’t have much new material, you can find their current digs over here. I updated the scripts on the second post so that the interactive children’s guides about what to do if you meet an atheist and what to say to your Hindu friends now work.

Although, I gotta admit, it seems like there’s enough new material for me to do a third post on our favorite Objective Christian Ministries. Hmmm…

Job accomplished.

And just like that, the bitching commences. People start talking about how much they hate getting out of bed in the morning or how little their paid or how they just wish they could go one day without having their boss chew them out for something as trivial as forgetting to refill the coffee maker. And to all those people out there, I have one thing to say to you:

Become a substitute teacher.

Oh the joys of being a substitute teacher. When I initially signed up for the gig a few months back, I knew it would go one of two ways. On one hand, I’d hate the job since all the kids were hellions who made my day a living nightmare. On the other, the kids would actually listen to me and I’d have a great time. Truth be told, after remembering some of my earlier schooling days, I was fully prepared for the worst and yet to my surprise, it never came, mainly because I figured out how to stay away from it.

Subbing breaks down into three categories: you’ve got the elementary kids, the middle school kids, and the high school kids. To put it plainly, 90% of the troublesome children are in middle school. After subbing a few of those classes, I gave it up. It simply wasn’t worth the effort. It also gave it a newfound respect and appreciation for anybody who can handle kids that age for 180 days a year. It certainly takes a patient person.

No, I decided to focus on elementary and high school kids simply because subbing in those two environments couldn’t be more different. Whenever I get a call for the older kids, I know I’m in for an easy day. The high schools around here have four classes lasting 90 minutes each, a 30 minute study hall, and a 30 minute lunch. Most teachers have at least one planning period a day and add to that my lunch period and we’re already up to 120 minutes of sitting around alone while getting paid.

But what about when I actually have a class? Well, that’s basically just as easy. You see, in high school, the teacher has no idea what qualifications their sub has. It could be a recent college graduate of history or an 80 year old retired banker whose last history class was in 1941. Therefore, in each and every high school class I sub for, I am left one of two orders. Either I show a movie that the teacher has provided or I hand out a packet of worksheets that was left on the desk. That’s it. I then crack open the giant book I brought along with me for the day and count the minutes until the final bell of the day. Sure, sometimes you get a great class of seniors who are smart, funny, and enjoyable to shoot the shit with, but for the most part you get a classroom full of kids who simply are there because they have to be and are likewise counting down the minutes.

But this can grow old quick. Sure, it’s nice to be paid to do practically nothing, but I can’t do that for more than a few days at a time. I quickly grow bored and before you know it, I’m starting to hate my job. Enter the elementary school days. With these kids, there is never any downtime and usually, the teacher has left plenty of material for you to teach. I guess they all rely on the fact that if you didn’t know what nouns and verbs are or if you can’t add 4 and 8, then you honestly have no business subbing. Regardless, with the young’uns, there’s always plenty to do and if you’re lucky, they might even ask you to play with them at recess. If there’s anything I’ve learned lately it’s that I still totally own at kickball.

I try to do 3 or 4 days in an elementary school and 1 day in high school and so far I’ve been pretty fortunate to get basically that. One thing is certain though, I’ve certainly loved what I’ve been doing the past few months. Sadly, the school year is drawing near a close, but with it, maybe I’ll have some time to share some stories I’ve acquired while subbing.

Ok, you got me, my only knowledge of American medicine comes from television commercials. But to get back to my original point, I hope to be well enough to do a little more typing and a little less coughing up of my lungs tomorrow.

In other Shyzer news, my mysterious Romanian visitor has stopped coming to Shyzer. For about two weeks there, I had some dude in Romania checking Shyzer literally six or seven times a day. I’m not sure what happened to him, but hopefully he didn’t succumb to Bird Flu or anything. It was cool seeing him pop up on my stats list for a while though.

And finally, I have a great story that I’d like to share, but can’t publicly for at least a few months. I did, however, tell Stan about it and his direct response was, “hahahahaha. That’s the funniest story you have told in the last year Goob! Awesome to the max!”
Needless to say, it’s pretty funny.

Other than those stellar news bulletins, my life has been full of snow, HTML, and the Olympics. Sorry for the lack of posts within the last week or so, but I promise to pick the pace back up soon.

With it now restored, I feel complete again. Don’t ever do that to me again, Internet.

But I’m taking a break and relaxing until the New Year. I’ve been neglecting Shyzer for the past week almost, what’s another few days? Besides, I should have something good come January 1st

We’re always missing ya, bro. Two years or two hundred years, it makes no difference.

Just for a short preview of what’s to come, November will bring with it a trip to South Carolina for Thanksgiving, which means there should be at least a good post or two out of that. There’s also some other videos that I shot a few weeks back at home, including “Box Man”, but apparently our camcorder is malfunctioning ever since root beer was spilled on it on the trip out here to Aussie, so I’m gonna have to send that in to get it repaired first. Whoops. Let’s see, what else do we have here. Oh yes, there are some 11-month old prank phone calls that I hoep to get uploaded that now aren’t in the least bit funny to me, but since my brothers and I did them, I’m gonna upload them damnit!

Okay that’s it. Until next time.

I still have some tweaking left to do around here, such as fix all the sublinks, change some of the colors, etc. Nothing major thankfully. I’m also back on track working on Shlyrics, which Stan didn’t know about until last week. Sucker. And finally, go ahead and silently curse me for wasting your time, because I am not going to go to bed. Which means this post will have no real substance and therefore was probably a waste of your time. Sorry bout that.

Now for some good news. Remember the post I made a year ago about a little flash animation called Magical Trevor? And remember the post I made last February about the sequal, Magical Trevor 2? Well if you haven’t guessed it by now, Magical Trevor 3 was recently released and I’m in love all over again.

Also, I updated the radioblog with a singer named Marc Broussard. I absolutely love his song titled “Hope For Me Yet,” but he’s got some other great stuff in there. Check it out.

And of course, there’s Hey, It’s Free, which opened up earlier this week. I want to thank everyone for the kind words as well as constructive criticism. I’m still tweaking the site constantly, trying to find out what works and what doesn’t, where to place ads, what type of ads, etc. And of course there’s the large amount of material that I’ve been writing for the site. Here’s to hoping it pays off and Hey, It’s Free takes off. Remember, tell your family and friends about it and seriously, if there’s anything you don’t understand, ask me! That’s what the site is freaking for!

But that’s not the only web venture that I’m striking out upon. Oh no. For the past year or so I’ve had quite a bit of pent up energy to make a few more sites, some for business and some for fun. The next one is already under development (sadly it’s a business and I’m still undecided if I want to affiliate it with Shyzer. We’ll just have to see) and then there’s the next one over the horizon that hopefully will be ready by October. Like the title says, it’s heaps of work, but I’m enjoying it and learning so much as I progress.

Anyways, I know this has been a bit of a random post, but I wanted to give a small update on things. Check back here later on today as there will be a few updates on the site to check out. Until then, I’m off to bed and waking up early tomorrow. Job interviews…what a waste of time…

Second, I have no idea where my webcam is. It’s packed up in one of my many boxes around the house, so I just threw up an old cam picture over there. It’s from early 2003, so I doubt many of you were around for it the first time. In fact, I’m guessing all of zero of you would have even recognized it was a recycled picture. I should have just kept my mouth shut.

As you can see, I’m back in South Carolina after an awesome 5 days in Seattle. I’ve got a few days here before I go down to Columbia to graduate this Saturday, then it’s off to the beach for four days and then……then……time to get a job.

Son of a bitch….

I’ll try and get a few posts up this week, but in all honesty, 90% of my effort is being directed towards a new site that has been in the making since April. I want to launch by this time next week. But fear not! While in Seattle, Chong and I made some interesting travel plans for the end of September which shall be fully revealed in due time. Of course, they involve going to a foreign country where neither one of us knows the language and renting a car to drive to another foreign country where we still don’t know the language, so there shall be plenty of hilarity to share. But I’m getting too far into the future here. Now, I need sleep. Tomorrow, I shall post. Until then.