You get the thing?
Yeah.
You talk to the guy?
Yeah.
Good, c-ya.

I hope the feds aren’t tapping my phone.

Then last night I realized DayQuil has the exact same benefits as its counterpart, minus all the crazy.

Is it wrong that I’m slightly missing the crazy?

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!

DESMOND! PENNY!!! OH MY GOD, I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING SO SOON!

I just had to get that off my chest.

Also, I’m contemplating going back and deleting a far bit of content I’ve posted here in the past. Nothing from the best of Shyzer list, but random posts (like this) that don’t serve any real purpose months down the line. If there’s anything you especially enjoy reading, you might want to save it now.

Then again, who knows if I’ll actually do it. That’s a lot of work for not much gain, you know? It might be worth while, seeing as how liberating I already feel with The Great Purge that is getting underway.

Maybe they meant you had to wait 24 hours before you get the help.

So here’s your chance to maybe get a few (hopefully tons, though!) extra cash and support to your favorite charity. Sound away in the comments or contact me directly.

–

Whoever is in charge of making video tributes over at ESPN is a genius. I don’t know what orchestral database this guy has access to, but every single snippet he’s plucked from it is strong both in sound and spirit. I’m not even talking about all the Favre pieces were on last week. I first noticed this back in 2003, when they had Kiefer Sutherland doing a voiceover tribute to Pat and Kevin Tillman for winning the Arthur Ashe award. I’ve still yet to find a copy of that tribute either, which is a shame. It took ESPN years to finally put some of their goofy “This is Sportscenter” commercials up on their site – why they don’t also put their tributes up as well is beyond me. This further shows how companies are failing to adapt to the Internet.

Even though I love the fact that it’s still light outside at 6pm, how come it takes me weeks to get used to it? Yet jetlag takes 24, or 48 hours max, to overcome?

I just cooked and ate some lunch. Just throwing that out there.

Airline has got to be the most pointless show ever. What were they thinking when they came up with this idea? “Hey, you know what I hate? Travel delays! Wait, let’s make a show about that!” Every episode is the same. You’ve got one person angry about a flight delay, another person is drunk, and look at that third person who missed her connection! I can’t wait to see what happens next week. I’ve got my fingers crossed for an ice storm!

Why is it that people are commended for doing things late in life (old people getting college degrees or learning a new language, etc.) and proving that it’s “never too late” to do practically anything. Yet people who don’t achieve some sort of “accomplishment” (marriage, college graduation, etc.) by a certain age are deemed to be “failing,” whatever the hell that means. Talk about double standard.

Okay, I’m still stuck on this stupid Airline show. What do people not understand about a standby ticket? They’re flying on a ticket that cost pennies on the dollar, if not free. Everybody else paid full fare. You do the math as to who will be kicked off if there are too many people. How is this a complicated concept to the majority of the American population?

Super Smash Brothers Brawl is an extremely fun game, but whoever wrote the story for the single player mode has to be the same person who comes up with ideas for new Japanese game shows (edit: hahaha). It. Makes. No. Sense. The fact that there’s no vocal dialogue probably doesn’t help matters. They need to have a disclaimer on the case saying only to play it if you’re both drunk and high.

Sleep pants are awesome.

There’s been a black plastic bag stuck in some tree branches in my back yard for at least a year. It now looks like a giant vampire cape when the wind blows. I think I’ll make up a story and scare Colton with it tonight.

That’s all for now.

As I sit here and look around my new living quarters, I can’t help but feel they’ve changed in some small way. For instance, see if you can tell the difference between from how it looked before…

And how it looks now…

That’s actually not such a bad picture, as I’d cleaned up a little beforehand. However, there’s clearly a bunch of crap I didn’t bother removing either out of necessity or the feeling of futility since I knew a carbon copy of the item would soon replicate in it’s place. Take the many coffee mugs, for instance. At this point, there’s no real reason to move them until I’ve actually run out of coffee mugs. What’s the point of taking them upstairs and washing them out when I know that in a sort few hours more will seemingly magically reappear.

In fact, let’s look at the second picture a little more closely. I’ve never really been a fan of flickr before, but the ability to tag certain areas of photos with notes is pretty nifty and thus, I’ve uploaded and tagged the hell out of that photo. Go check it out and move your mouse over the photo, there’s a guaranteed chuckle or two in there. I’ll wait.

Back so soon? Sweet. That gave me time to slide my gloves and slippers on. It reached a cozy 10 degrees a while back, but it’s since dipped below zero again. If I die soon, please make sure the mortician checks for hypothermia. In fact, the only thing keeping me alive is the trace amounts of adrenaline pumping through my body as I try and anticipate what song will be on channel 415 next.

You see, all this time in front of my computer hasn’t just allowed me to de-evolve into a subspecies who lives in his own filth, but it’s given me ample time to discover some new music. With our cable plan, we get somewhere around 10,000 channels, give or take. I think 50 are devoted to Mexican soccer leagues and there are another few dozen showing travel guides to Nigeria (hint, bring lots of rice and hand soap). But if you’re able to get the channel shifted to the low 400s, you’ll find streaming, commercial free radio stations targeting every genre imaginable. In fact, I think the Mexican soccer leagues have a station up there too, where the announcer just sits around screaming “goooooooal” all day long.

As for me, I stick it on 415 or 417 or whatever else is playing decent music I’ve never heard of and by days end, have a new batch of awesomeness to upload to my iPod. Technology can be a bitch at times, but as long as I can tap my foot along with it, I’m all good.

You know, maybe I’ll just skip straight to The Colbert Report tonight.

I can install a trillion different sodoku or Vegas poker scripts. Are you telling me there isn’t one nerd out there who also enjoys college basketball? Everybody just waits until ESPN posts their blank file on-line and then prints it out? Nobody has come up with the idea before to hold a similar tournament on-line before and thought to themselves, “gee, this would be a lot easier if I could have a program on-line do this for me!” I find that hard to believe.

In other Goob related news, I can’t find the cord that connects my digital camera to my computer. Anybody know where it is?

We all know I love beards. They’re awesome, easy to grow for real men, and . There are plenty of examples out there of men who have sported the beard at one time or another and they all look better with a little scruff. Brett Favre, President Baltar, Goob – You name it, most guys who rock out with the stubble are light years ahead of their non-stubbled peers.

But there are a few people who shouldn’t ever grow a beard. It makes them look like a hobo, a bum, or at the very worst, a hobum.

David Letterman is one such man.

Yeouch. Buddy, it ain’t working. Kudos for the effort and I wish more guys would follow your lead, but I’ll personally send you a razor if need be.

I have the afternoon and evening blocked off for basking in the glow of my excessive nerdiness and then I wrap things up by punching my way through a crowd of 9 year olds at Barnes & Nobles at 12:01am.

Yep, sounds like a full day to me.

From the looks of it, they’ve already begun with the chemical warfare! You’ll end up spending that $100 prize on medical bills in an effort to cure yourself of whatever disease(s) you contract from touching them.

Look, let’s just get this out of the way. Tolkien is great and all and I throughly love the land of Middle Earth, but the tradition of creating songs and inserting their words into a book is not only annoying, it’s retarded. Stop copying him. If I don’t know the tune the words should be sung to, then it’s just a poem. And I think it’s an established fact that poems suck. They’re like riddles, but with less fun and more desire to stab yourself with a spoon. He was only able to pull it off because you knew that if you just grunted through it, the next page might have some goblins or trolls or talking trees. Your story most likely has a romantic love triangle and/or a possible clue to who committed the murder in the first chapter. Chances are people are only reading your book because they’re trying to fill the time before the next Harry Potter book comes out. You could have flying space aliens bring back Abraham Lincoln in your story and nobody would really care. They’re just thinking to themselves how in the world is Harry going to get Snape. So please, for the love of all that is Holy, just stop.

And with that, enjoy your 4th of July tomorrow everybody.

Click To Play

Yeah, the official Beijing 2008 Olympics Committee totally ripped that off, except they found a way to make an even cheesier and longer version with worse actors and more absurd scenarios, like a little Chinese boy running through the streets chasing his soccer ball only to be saved by an aware driver who slams on the brakes at the last minute. Quick cut to another guy standing on the curb and staring at this little Kodak moment with eyes aglow. Now, call me old fashion, but isn’t that just called being a good driver? Is it common practice in China for drivers to mow down any pedestrian in the street at will? Because otherwise, that little act of kindness was probably executed out of the driver’s desires not to end up like Jack Bauer instead of helping his fellow man.

It got better though, as one of the good deeds was done by a man walking down a crowded street and picking up a recently dropped apple by the woman in front of him, who promptly thanked the good Samaritan and chomped right into the tasty snack. Oh, I left out the part where the apple was dropped IN A PUDDLE ON THE STREET. But hey, China only has 16 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world. I’m sure it was perfectly healthy.

Halfway through the commercial (it was honestly about 90 seconds long), I asked the guy next to me if he noticed it as well and we spent the next hour dissecting every ad we saw as there were plenty. McDonalds has a campaign that basically rips off The King from Burger King, except it’s not nearly as funny and his face will most certainly haunt my dreams. And even though I have no idea what they were saying, Chinese car commercials looked to be just as annoying as their American counterparts. Glad to see that crappy ads screaming at you to buy a new truck is a global experience.

This “game” goes from Super Easy to I Need A Drink in about 5 minutes, so just stick with it.

1. When I look through my inbox and see starred e-mails from a month ago that I never responded to.
2. When I download a video file only to be told none of the previous 832,316 codec files I’ve downloaded will play the clip.
3. When people ask me if I’ve seen a video or joke on the Internet that I saw back in 1998.
4. When the ending to a great book sucks ass.
5. Not being able to finish a New York Times crossword puzzle. Watching Wordplay didn’t help any, it only made me want to fly to their yearly convention and punch somebody in the face.
6. When I climb under the covers, get snug in my bed, and then realize that the remote control is on the other side of the room.
7. Getting pwned in Starcraft over and over by Koreans who do nothing but play the game all day.
8. When I see my favorite song on somebody else’s playlist. That’s my song, dammit. How dare they!
9. Paying my student loan and looking that the cost of graduate school.
10. Hearing my cell phone ring. And yet I would kill your mom for an iPhone. Go figure.
11. Being asked why I didn’t shave this morning. I don’t ask you why you used a lawnmower on your hair or if your blind preschool daughter dressed you, so don’t imply that I’m a bum simply because I don’t find the act of dragging a razor blade against my skin pleasurable.
12. Spending an hour and a half cooking a meal just for 20 minutes of enjoyment.
13. How much luck is involved in everything.

Maybe one day I’ll actually do this on the proper day. Yeah, probably not.

I saw it for the first time the other day while a bit tipsy and I’m pretty sure soon thereafter I was convinced I’d just been teleported into an alternate universe. Then I realized I’d just passed out in the freezer again. Luckily this time my mom didn’t get a chance to take pictures of me, so I count myself as being lucky.

Anyways, the tagged topic is simply one question: Why do I blog? Well, that’s actually pretty. Besides all the obvious benefits, like the throngs of adoring fan girls who follow me around everywhere and the massive bankroll I pull in every month thanks to all those ads under the “Sponsors” section, I blog for one additional reason. Because I get bored.

Seriously, that’s about the only reason I keep this site running day in and day out. It clearly doesn’t have a focal purpose, as opposed to Hey, It’s Free! Back when I first started it, I just wanted a place where I could put down any random thoughts that I wanted to share with people and I thought if others might comment and respond to them, then all the better. Half of the enjoyment comes in trolling through the archives when I’m bored and reading all of the random crap that I posted forever ago and promptly forgot about. Seriously, give it a shot sometime. You’ll be surprised at how much I’ve written on here and some of it isn’t even that crappy

So I guess this is the part where I have to tag people? Man, I always sucked at Tag whenever I was it. I tended to just go watch TV and leave all the people hiding in the trees and behind trash cans, but I guess for now I’ll just pass this along to Ally and leave it at that.

But no, none of the reasons you can come up with can accurately account for my absence from the known universe. That, my friends, can be blamed on none other than Clayster. A few days ago, he went out and purchased Guitar Hero II for the Xbox360 and saying I’m hooked would be putting it politely.

I’ve missed at least ten consecutive meals because of this game. I see the “chords” to Sweet Child O’ Mine in my sleep. I think I’ve developed arthritis in my fingers in mere days. And yet it’s taking everything in me not to stop typing this post and run over to play Free Bird.

It’s been a good experience for me beyond a pure video gaming nerd aspect though. I’ve discovered some new songs that I otherwise would have never listened to since I’m not that into any hardcore metal or rock. Hell, they’ve got Trogdor on there! Ok, fine, I admit I’m just looking for any angle that’ll give me another excuse to go rock out to some more Foo Fighters.

Like I said earlier, Spring Break starts tomorrow. And now that I think about it, that means I have no work for the next seven days. You know, the prospects on my skin absorbing any direct sunlight soon doesn’t look too great.

Tomorrow? I may be pulling out my boats to go shovel the driveway.

I blame El Nino.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a long post over here on Shyzer, which is part purposefully, part circumstance. It doesn’t take a genius to know that “pithy” is not a word used very often to describe my writing, even when I’m aiming for that short, but sweet type post. I like to think I’m getting better at it though.

On the flip side, whenever I actually have had time to work on something, 9 times out of 10 I gravitate towards a project on Hey, It’s Free! and devote all of my attention there. Today while “teaching,” I made a list of all the projects I’ve got half complete on HIF! and that ultimately led to doing the same here for Shyzer. Who remembers this? I sure as hell do. I remember sitting outside on the deck or trampoline and trying to come write it all. I easily spent 15+ hours working on it – trying to research stuff I could turn into jokes, setting up the best matches possible, writing more then I even ended up publishing here on Shyzer…

And yet I never finished it.

Those last four words don’t even surprise me anymore when I say them. “I never finished it.” Shlyrics. Tens of thousands of words strung out between dozens of potential posts. The Religion Tournament. And this is just on Shyzer. Is it because I’m lazy? Do I enjoy just dabbling my feet in something new before growing bored with it? Do I start them only to realize they are going to suck and thus cut my losses?

I don’t know. I’m too lazy to bother thinking about it.

Well fine, if people enjoy feeling stupid, then they can take my Goob’s Thought Quiz and find out just how futile it is for them to try and follow my train of thought! For best results, just don’t answer at all and read the “solutions” from start to finish.

Maybe it’s time to pull out the bald look again.

I’m still debating over this photo I recently found via English Russia. The obvious observation is that it’s portraying some Cold War Soviet propaganda about the Evil, Bastard Americans and their damn nukes that are going to destroy the world.

But then on the other hand, if you look closer, you can clearly make out two butt cheeks on the sides of Russia. And in the middle are a few suspicious looking phallic figures…

So which is it, Russia? Do you think we’re trying to kill you or just get in your pants? Just let me know either way, because I’m kinda confused as to why I’m evil after looking at this photo.

But today, Goobrent Mom left for work and thus pwned was broken out once again. On the way home from school, in the post office, even in the kitchen as it was screeched from a streaking brother as he ran down the hallway, fleeing the scene of a recent dual Wet Willie / Wedgie attack. (I’ll give you a hint. I can run really fast.)

But here’s a little word of caution. If you’re sitting in the waiting area of your local barbershop and the other patrons are giving you weird looks as your seven year old brother says over and over, “I’m gonna pwn you,” it might be because that sounds awful similar to “I’m gonna bone you.” And that, my friends, is illegal in all states, pending the approval of a new law in Alabama.

Over the years, I learned a few tricks in combating them. If I took some light headache medicine at the first sign of an onset, sometimes I’d get lucky and advert it. But chances are that it wouldn’t work and I’d be left with playing the waiting game until nighttime came, where I could fall asleep and hopefully wake up in peace. Dark rooms and quiet places were always helpful, but they were akin to giving a dying man a shot of morphine. Sure, they might help dull the pain, but they were by no means a solution to the problem at hand. No, I thought that pharmaceuticals would save me.

Back in my younger years, I can remember my grandma giving me Bayer’s to combat the problem. After a few years of taking two capsules once a week, they had about the same potency as Skittles. My mom stepped it up to Tylenol a few years later, then Extra Strength a few after that. By the time I started middle school, I arrived every Monday morning with a pocket full of pogs and two Excedrin pills to stash in my locker just in case one came that week. As I was leaving three years later, I emptied out the few Excedrin Extra Strength pills and slap bracelets that remained. In high school, they came out with Excedrin Migraine and I was excited, for finally I figured they’d invented something that my body wouldn’t grow immune to after only a few bottles. You can imagine my annoyance when even they had stopped being effective by the time I got my diploma. Finally, in college, I discovered Goody’s Powder, a magical elixir that not only cured migraines, but any other body pains you were having. In fact, not only were they amazing for curing all that ailed you, but they were excellent for fooling your friends into thinking that you were addicted to cocaine, but that’s for a different post.

It was around my sophomore year that I started hating both medication and the chiropractors. I’d been going to that latter for about 10 years at this point and I finally realized they were only hurting my case, not helping it. But the elimination of those body twisters didn’t solve the issue. The elimination of medications, however, was a big struggle. By this point, I probably only had a migraine a month, but I was still scared of growing immune to the only thing I knew that worked. Plus, I was only in my late teens and I didn’t want to end up like Bret Favre and become addicted to painkillers by the time I was 30.

So I started prepping myself. I tried to psych my mind into thinking meds were useless. I told myself that the people moving out west during the early 1800s didn’t Tylenol! I reminded myself that there weren’t any pharmacies or doctors in the remote mountains of Appalachia! Of course, a simply snake bite used to be fatal back then and they all used heroin as a treatment for everything anyway, but that’s beside the point. I finally started believing my body could beat most of the stuff out there. I got rid of my Nyquil and cough medicine. Gone was the Pepcid AC and throat lozenges. They were all useless in my mind and ever since, I’ve made my body fight off any of the illnesses that would have made me reach for them before.

That was three years ago. Today, my medicine cabinet is quite bare. There’s a jar of pills that I never finished off leftover from the great Poison Ivy debacle. A half-used stick of chap stick lies on it’s side, nudged between a tube of Neosporin and a box of Band Aids. A dusty box of floss lies in the corner behind my toothpaste, which means my dentist is surely going to yell at me the next time I see him.

Last night, after one of the easiest and stress free days I’ve had as substituting, I came home and felt “it” coming. For no fucking reason whatsoever. But I told myself I could beat it. I had a big dinner and drank a few cups of coke. I took a long, hot shower and let the water beat on my neck until the skin was practically numb. And yet shortly thereafter, despite the early warning, the food, the caffeine, and the added blood flow to my head, I was curled up in bed, with a hot rag draped over my forehead, cursing myself for what I knew I was about to do next.

An hour later, I was reached past the toothpaste and around the Band Aides and over the chap stick. My eyes were fixed on the little blue box hidden behind everything else. The one with fraying corners and marked with a fading “GOODY’S” on the cover. The one containing the supernatural concoction of powder held in tiny sheets of folded wax paper that I so desperately wanted. And had, just like every other time.

Sometimes my fleeting willpower shames me more than anything else.

Look, I’m not one to champion copyright laws. Those four 180-capacity CD holder cases shoved under my bed aren’t full of thousands of movies, programs, and complete seasons of every TV show I’ve ever watched. Honestly. You know, there’s no reason to look, just take my word on that. HEY, GET AWAY FROM THE BED!

Ahem, sorry. Like I was saying, I’m not the best person to preach the evils of filesharing. In fact, I can’t help but think it’s a good thing. As services like Napster and bittorrent and sites like Myspace and YouTube continue to grow, more and more stories such as Okay Go‘s develop. Every time downloading and sharing files gets easier, whether it be through a new service or through new technology, more and more deserving people get their shot at “making it,” whatever the hell that is. Bands/comedians/authors/DJs/stupid pet trainers who would have gone unnoticed 50, 20, hell, 5 years ago now have a shot. They don’t have to play “the game” and can mass market themselves directly to the people. Call me crazy, but I’ve always been a fan of eliminating the Middle Man whenever possible.

But having also been raised as a child on the wages of concert tickets and record sales (and also eating way too many M&Ms on tour buses – I blame the music industry for my massive sweet tooth), I can’t help but see where the other side is coming from as well. There’s no way around it – downloading is stealing. No ifs, ands, or buts. You are obtaining something illegally that you didn’t pay for. You are getting something without giving anything in return as payment or compensation. The original artist is getting Jack and Squat for their work, effort, and time. You. Are. Stealing.

Well, in the conventional sense.

See, they might not be getting money, but they are getting fans (I just typed that as “fangs” which would be almost as cool if they could get those too). Back in the day, guys like Dave Matthews and John Mayer got their name out amongst college students by playing free concerts around the country. They understood the power of a rabid fanbase, which they parlayed into huge record sales. Well file sharing is no different, in fact, it’s easier. Now Mayer only has to do a live radio broadcast of his new CD, like he did back in September, and he can let the power of the internet and piracy take it from there. The smart artists figure this stuff out and don’t try to fight new changes. There’s a reason groups like Aerosmith have stuck around for so long while ones like Metallica have crapped out. If you attack your fans for trying to share your music, suddenly you’ll have no fans left to share anything.

And thus despite my upbringing (thanks Dad!) and clear understanding of the unethicalness of downloaded…I can’t help but think that downloading isn’t just here to stay, but a force that’s more good than evil. I have yet to see any concrete proof that downloading, and only downloading, is hurting any of the major industries. Yes, CD sales are down, but so are the number of quality CDs. Yes, less people are going to the movies, but DVD sales are higher than previous VHS sales a decade ago. And I’ve yet to hear of a major artist go bankrupt due to pirating. So don’t try and stop piracy simply because it’s something we haven’t had to deal with before. Imagine if radio executives had said that about television.

But admit it for what it is. Running to some island and acting as if your God given right is to share a copy of Adobe Photoshop worth $399 won’t help a damn thing. Downloading is stealing – that is, until we change the minds of the people.

Just because you’re 23 and out of college, that doesn’t mean you have to propose to your girlfriend. You know, you can try living together while dating first or maybe waiting for a year or two if you want. There’s no law requiring you get married once you’ve been handed a degree or gotten an entry level job at the nearby Kramerica Industries factory. Just because you’re old drinking buddy decided to propose to his lady doesn’t mean you have to as well. It’s not a race, folks.

I understand we grew up in the South where tradition is king, but Christ. I couldn’t see myself getting married right now any more than I could see a small monkey crawling out of my ass tomorrow. In fact, I’d have an easier time picturing the latter. If I ask another one of my friends why they’re getting married and their response is, “Uh…isn’t that like what we’re supposed to do now?”, I may just go postal.

When are people going to stop doing things simply because they think it’s what they’re supposed to do?

Call me demanding, but I expect my coffee to be pesticide free by default. To me, you’re in bad shape if your favorite local eatery has to go out of their way to let you know there aren’t any added chemicals in your coffee that might cause a third arm to grow out of your chest. Yet there I sat in Uno’s pizzeria, laughing my ass off, and wondering why those family members who were accompanying me did not find this as funny as I did.

It doesn’t take long to get a visual representation of the author, William McKeen. On the downswing of middle age. The world around him seems a bit too unfamiliar, too alien. And man, did he enjoy the good ole’ days a hell of a lot better than now.

One of the best ways to poorly argue that today’s generation is too cut & dry, too filtered, and too focused is to employ the tactic McKeen seems to enjoy – Quickly define your age so as to turn off younger readers and then proudly proclaim, “In my day, we used to waste time! Lot’s of it! On purpose! For fun! You kids suck!”

I used to be in agreement with people like McKeen. I thought we were losing a valuable art in our daily lives, one of uncovering and finding items we enjoyed without having to be told about them. I thought the only decent way to discover the true gems in life was to find them the old fashion way – without technology. I didn’t even think it was possible to find anything worthwhile in the giant goop we call the Internets. And then I realized how blatantly wrong that concept was.

Battlestar Galactica. Mitch Hedberg. Watership Down. Angela. Stan, whenever he has a site. David Gray. DMZ. Box Car Racer. Heather Armstrong. Imogen Heap. Techno. Doc. The Postal Service. Firefly. The Stand.

All artists, authors, creators, books, movies, and countless more I never would have discovered for myself without technology.

Just because people now a days don’t waste their time flipping through newspapers or wandering the stacks of a library doesn’t mean they aren’t discovering unexpected treasures throughout their day. McKeen truly shows his age when he talks about how easy it is to find things on the Internet, how personal and custom tailored our information is, and how much time technology saves us. I guess my only question is this:

Really? It’s easy to find things on the Internet? Have you ever used Google? Name the last time you were looking for something specific and found it within 2 minutes. Chances are you had to wade through a lot of crap before you finally found what you were looking for, whether it be a recipe for a certain souffle or a funny op-ed your favorite comedian wrote a few years back. I’d even be willing to bet that occasionally, you unintentionally watched a video of a new comic or read an article by an unknown blogger while on your quest. And you enjoyed it. Maybe even enjoyed it so much as to start a second, separate search to find more pieces created by them.

Gee wiz, don’t look now, but that sounds awfully similar to that “lost art” McKeen seems to be lamenting over.

Time saving and technology are not two (okay, three) words that I put together very often. American’s spend more than an average of two hours a day on-line just at work alone. And what do you think people are doing during those two hours? Reading the few news articles of the day that interest them? Watching our favorite funny videos over and over each day? Listening to the same songs by our favorite bands, whether they be old school Beatles or somebody new like The Killers? Give me a break.

We surf at random, blindly, having no idea what the next click might hold. Sites like Break and College Humor are massively successful because we know that each day, new and unexpected items are going to be uploaded to them. They might be funny, they might be stupid, or they might be one of the greatest things we’ve ever seen, read, or heard. But one thing is certain. There will be at least something we’ve never seen before and that excites us. We know we’re getting something fresh, something new, something we might even love.

There’s a reason people don’t spend an hour a day pouring through their local paper or strolling through the library or going to the bookstore instead of using Amazon and it’s because we’ve got shit to do. Like work. Like play. Like experiencing life.

Or maybe more like spending an hour watching the Top 25 videos on YouTube or reading the most Dugg articles of the week.

Either way, don’t blame technology for the “lost arts” of wasting time or serendipity. Neither are going away any time soon. If anything, technology has only enhanced them both and allows us to pursue them as much we want.

In other Goob news, I have an open letter to send out:

Dear Mom & Dad. If you could go back in time, buy this house, and then raise me in that, I’d be thrilled.

Much love,
Your Favorite Son

Seriously, imagine all the freaking fun you could have with a house like that, especially as a kid! When I was younger, my godparents lived in a large house in Chicago that was both huge and ancient. It had hidden doors galore and some of the earliest memories I have were running around looking for new rooms and passageways. There’s nothing like discovering something new in the walls or corners of a room you’ve been in a million times.

And finally, I’d like to request a favor of Mother Nature. Knock this “getting dark earlier” shit off. I’ve put up with it for 22 years and I’m putting my foot down this time around. I let you have your little natural disasters, killer snakes and sting rays, and even that fraking El Nino every now and then. All I ask in return is that you let the sun stay out until at least 8:00 at night or so. Thanks, I appreciate it.

Of course, that was before the record breaking 429 F heat wave swept through the area, causing pavements to sizzle, plant life to shrivel, and my own body to boil and burst after a mere 12 seconds of direct sunlight. I like to say I’m in the wrong era and should have been born 400 years in either direction, but damn if my ancestors didn’t get screwed over by not having AC.

As for my predecessors in the future…well, I’m sure that by 2406, we’ll have invented some sort of ray gun that zaps those cute little umbrellas in tropical drinks and enlarges them into global heat shields. I figure the inspiration for such a device will come from either American’s lazy desire not to have to put on sunscreen anymore because it’s too much of a hassle or because the o-zone will have become only a brief paragraph in their history books, like the dodo bird, Democrats, or Lebanon.

Whichever comes first.

If a company spends money on an ad campaign, one would assume that their main goal is for as many people to see the ad, correct? We can take that assumption a step further and find that there are certain advertising agencies that are known for producing better commercials than your garden variety, run of the mill ads. These advertising agencies might have a vast portfolio of memorable ad campaigns that were not only wildly successful, but in turn massively profitable. Therefore, I’m guessing that these advertising agencies would charge a higher fee for developing and producing a series of ads and such, if a company hired them, they would expect a high quality ad in exchange for the high price tag.

Which leads me to a question that I’ve yet to find a reasonable, or even competent, answer to. Why is it that almost every company out there fails to make their ads readily available and easily accessible for their consumers on the Internet?

How much more dense can these companies get? They’ve shelled out high dollar for an ad campaign, they’ve managed to land a series of ads that don’t make people want to immediately flip to the next channel, and they now have a base of consumers who are actively seeking out these ads just so they can watch them repeatedly and share them with others. So why is it that whenever I see one of these types of commercials, I’m forced to search countless forums and Google result pages in an effort to find a video copy?

Whether it’s by myself or someone else, the ad will inevitably be found either buried on the companies website on some remote server or directly ripped from a TiVO feed and posted to the web. To make matters worse, half of the time when the commercial is actually found, it’s usually encoded in such a manner that it can’t readily spread. Most of the time this means that the video is encoded in flash format and embedded in the webpage, which means a nerd like myself is going to have to figure out a why to rip it off the page and encode it into something more easily transferred. Hell, half of the time I give up and shell out a few bucks for a month subscription to Ad-Rag and then rip it straight from their server…

And don’t even get me started if all I wanted in the first place was the musical score!

What is the point of this? Why spend time and money on an ad campaign and then execute it so poorly that your consumers who enjoyed it are prevented from viewing it again! I’ll admit there are some companies, such as Apple, who at least make it easy to find and view their latest commercials. But even then, you can’t download the commercial or soundtrack unless you view the source, find the code, load only it, and then save page as. And frankly, I think it’d be a lot easier to simply hit a “download” button instead.

So listen here all you Fortune 500 companies out there. First, stop making shitty commercials. Make them funny. Make them memorable. And then make them available for download.

Is it really that hard of a concept to grasp in this day and age?

Seriously though, congrats you two. Y’all deserve it and I couldn’t be happier for either of y’all.

Take a trip back in time. It’s August of 2005, and I fancy Jen. I enjoy the fact that she flirts with me non-stop on the Grand Canyon trip. Until a few years ago I didn’t even detect flirtations. Unfortunately they occur about as often as a solar eclipse so any sort of attention from a woman is a major plus. At first glance Jen has an intriguing personality and is fairly attractive. She dresses especially well. She is smart. In short, I am very pleased to be on the receiving end of her interactions. What I selectively choose not to observe is that Jen’s attention to me is not singular.

As the weeks pass I plot strategy and during a night filled with Jim Beam and Johnnie Walker make my move. Classy! And it works! This is only the second time that I plant one on a girl and it goes about as well as one imagines. [Sidenote: I am completely serious; my 20 year absence of a sex drive is something that will be fully explored in a future New England Journal of Medicine article.] A week of blissful spooning ensues until Jen realizes that my interests apparently lie in a real relationship. You know, one where the guy and girl attend ice cream socials and ride a two-person bike with streamers for half a decade and eventually make babies. To deal with our differing visions she drunkenly confesses, “I like you but I don’t heart you.” Who says that? You guessed it folks: Frank Stallone!

Tragically our relationship in its official capacity ends sometime between when she starts crying and when I throw her in the pool. Jen is remarkably upset. So devastated in fact that she pins me into the corner of the pool like it’s about time to feed the eel. Toby, who had been relaxing pool-side, notices this and flees in horror. At the end of the night I am surprisingly not too shaken. This is a pleasant surprise as usually any romantic defeat ends with me poised atop a bell-tower with an automatic rifle. Instead confusion prevails, replaced soon-after by revelations. I learn, and should have noticed, that her brief interlude with me has a prequel (we’ll call him Jerome Smith) and a sequel (Bob Takaichi). All the while as she maintains a relationship with former undergraduate boyfriend Chris, who now lives in California in a community presumably distant enough not to be obliterated by the shockwaves of absurdity that she generates with every action.

Unfortunately I have no self control. Despite concluding that Jen has certain appetites that exceed conventional volumes and social boundaries (this is apparently referred to on the facebook as an “open relationship”) and will still like (but not heart) me almost at will, I engage in two spooning episodes with her over the next month. What can I say? The evenings started by watching Battlestar Galactica. And anyway it’s not like I abhor the experience. I purged that whole Catholic guilt dominated brain pattern 2 years prior. No, the whole episode is actually somewhat enjoyable. However there is something deeply unsettling and distasteful to know that you’re just a means to an end and one of several. Conversely knowing that two of your colleagues are infatuated in, share experiences with, but absolutely do not acknowledge their connection to Jen really brings a smile to my face.

To terminate my involvement I make the conscious choice to cease participation in the chicanery. However given my big mouth and absence of sound judgment I am not afraid to mention the “Love Pentagon” at anytime, especially considering that she has now thoroughly ensnared “Bob” and to a lesser extent “Mr. Smith” in her new invention which I casually refer to as the “Soul Reaper 5000″.

Now patient readers this is finally where I get to the juicy, PG-13, chat log which in final analysis really isn’t that great. Sorry.

jjkowski: hey there
Dr Rocks 1982: howdy
jjkowski1: howre you
Dr Rocks 1982: fine, went home to eat and work some on an excel that works
jjkowski1: ahhh
jjkowski1: good times
Dr Rocks 1982: it’s true
jjkowski1: you missed playing with ross’s kids tonight at stick it to the man
jjkowski1: twas hilarious
Dr Rocks 1982: yeah, ill probably be missing a lot of that in coming weeks
jjkowski1: yeahi houlsn’d have gone
jjkowski1: and had 2 beers
jjkowski1: ooops
Dr Rocks 1982: eh what can ya do
jjkowski1: oooh you can have a good time
jjkowski1: thats what you can do
jjkowski1: andy, i am really horny. i just thought i would share that with you
Dr Rocks 1982: i suggest a large pentagon in your office like the wheel of fortune wheel with pictures of myself, [bob], [mr. smith], chris, and yourself
Dr Rocks 1982: if it lands on you…well you know what to do
Dr Rocks 1982: I dont want to make this conversation R-rated
jjkowski1: hahaha but i’m TIRED of that, andy!
jjkowski1: it grows old
jjkowski1: i like R-rated things
Dr Rocks 1982: oh stop complaining and reap what you sew!
Dr Rocks 1982: the abusrdity of the entire situation still amuses me immensely
Dr Rocks 1982: it’s a shame the others don’t see it
jjkowski1: hahaha thats true. i’m glad that you do andy.
jjkowski1: its too bad you’re not quiteas willing to participate in it as others are tho
Dr Rocks 1982: i know what a shame
jjkowski1: haha
jjkowski1: you seem so sad to miss out
Dr Rocks 1982: oh it just tears me apart inside
Dr Rocks 1982: i vent the rage by kicking a puppy each new moon
jjkowski1: hahaha
Dr Rocks 1982: so let’s change the topic away from your sexual dysfunction…
jjkowski1: haha i do’nt think it’s a dysfunction
jjkowski1: i think its an overfunction
jjkowski1: but ok

I don’t think I need to explain why the above bolded statement is so incredibly ridiculous. At least she acknowledges the absurdity. Beyond that there isn’t much else to say. Or maybe there is plenty more but just not tonight. There are some people in this world who are different, vastly different, from me and probably some of you more normal people too. Try not to judge, but try to laugh.

Ok, judge too.

Clay recently bought Grand Theft Auto: San Antonio or whatever the hell it’s called and I’ve been hooked since I picked up the controller. However, since talking about killing hookers isn’t nearly as much fun as actually killing hookers, I won’t bore you with the details. You’ll just have to take my word for it. Either that or go buy the game for yourself and start killing some hookers.

For the past week, I’ve been walking around screaming “I’m in a Flank Two position, everybody!” Clay and Julianne have surprisingly already gone through the stages that occur when I get hooked on something that is annoying to most people but hilarious to me. First, there’s a small window where everybody else finds it funny. Then we quickly enter what I like to call the “Uh oh, is he gonna keep doing this?” stage. Soon afterward comes the, “What do we do? Play along or make him stop?” stage followed by the “Good God, Ryan, if you don’t shut the fuck up, we’re going to strangle you with a dog leash in your sleep” stage. And finally, we arrive at the “…it’s Ryan, the most stubborn man on the planet, he who will not stop at anything if it brings him at least 0.0001% joy – we surrender” stage. That’s where we are right now.

So, in honor of the official return of Jack Bauer, I’ve changed the Title Bar for Shyzer and want to share with y’all a site I recently found. About a year ago, I stumbled across the “Random Vin Diesel Fact” page, which was an absolute goldmine.

That is, until I found the “Random Jack Bauer Fact” page. Out of the top thirty, I think my five favorite would have to be:

1. If Jack Bauer was in a room with Hitler, Stalin, and Nina Meyers, and he had a gun with 2 bullets, he’d shoot Nina twice.
2. Jack Bauer’s favorite color is severe terror alert red. His second favorite color is violet, but just because it sounds like violent.
3. Jack Bauer got Hellen Keller to talk.
4. You walk into a bar and Jack Bauer’s your wingman, you’re probably gonna get laid.
5. Jack Bauer can get McDonald’s breakfast after 10:30.

Okay, I lied, I can’t stop. These are just too damn funny. Let’s make this a top 10 list for good measure.

1. 1.6 billion Chinese are angry with Jack Bauer. Sounds like a fair fight.
2. Upon hearing that he was played by Kiefer Sutherland, Jack Bauer killed Sutherland. Jack Bauer gets played by no man.
3. Jack Bauer once forgot where he put his keys. He then spent the next half-hour torturing himself until he gave up the location of the keys.
4. When life gave Jack Bauer lemons, he used them to kill terrorists. Jack Bauer fucking hates lemonade.
5. Superman wears Jack Bauer pajamas.

And in our final 24 segment of the day, I would like to share with you a letter that was sent to Bill Simmons over at ESPN which is oh-so-true for a frighteningly high number of American citizens.

I think I was actually more upset over the assassination of former President David Palmer on “24″ last night than I would have been if our actual president would have been assassinated. It was like I lost a member of my own family. Maybe I’m just screwed up, but I don’t think so. Here is my question: If you forced every registered voter in America to watch seasons 1-4 on DVD, and convinced Dennis Haysbert to legally change his name to David Palmer, don’t you think he would win in a landslide in 2008? I have bounced this question off several people and Palmer has every vote so far, and most would have voted for him over Bush and Kerry.

Not only would we be electing David Palmer to office, but the guy who gives us those great All State commercials and Pedro Cerrano, the man who had no marbles. Yep, he’s got my vote.

Screw new roads in D.C. or better rural schools, I want something that I won’t mistake as a crummy business card in my wallet. I think I’m gonna refuse to vote here until a candidate campaigns for new voter registration cards.

I would write more, but I can’t see much since I’ve had to throw my contacts out since I’ve been wearing the same pair for, oh, about 18 months now. When I completely lose my eyesight at age 35, I’m gonna have nobody but myself to blame.

Some might think I’m sharing too much information when I tell you that for 7 hours, on the hour, I puked. It was like clockwork. Kinda cool actually. But no, my friends, I think the “too much information” label should be applied when I tell you that once I spewed up the Pepto Bismal that I had taken and it didn’t taste that bad the second time around!

And somebody give Juls a medal for taking care of the house while I was bedridden.

It’s no secret that I love LOST. In fact, I’m thinking about digging up that post I made about a year ago breaking down the show and updating to include the massive amount of info we’ve received since then. It’s also no secret that I think Kate is hot. I try to ignore the fact that in real life she’s dating Charlie and instead pretend in my little world she’s just sitting at home at night waiting to meet me. But still, no matter what hobbit she dates, it still doesn’t change the fact that she’s hot and that she’s hot.

As a 1988 edition of COPS went to commercial the other night, I diverted my attention back to my laptop to finish wrapping up a future post. In the background I could hear some 900 number being given to talk to young hot studs and while the offer was temping, I figured I’d pass. Something told me they weren’t gonna want to talk about the Mariners or my latest computer upgrades. I then heard a voice that was somewhat familiar and which caused me to glance up towards the screen. I couldn’t place where I knew the voice from, but I couldn’t see the speaker since the commercial was showing happy couples lying in front of fire places and going for walks on a beach. Then, right as the commercial was ending, I saw this chick talking to me. A hot chick. Wait a minute….Kate?!

Kate is the freaking LiveLinks girl. I watched it during the next few rounds of commercials and by the end there was no doubting it. I called the number looking to see if she’d pick up, but all I got was a message saying, “to talk to women, press 1. To talk to men, press 2. To talk on our free service, press 4.” The message then started to repeat itself, so I thought since they skipped the number 3, that might be the secret button you had to press to talk to Kate.

It’s not.