Shyzer.com

Anybody who has watched TV for more than 10 seconds, picked up a newspaper, turned on the radio, visited a news outlet on the web, seen a blimp fly overheard, or talked to ducks in their backyard at midnight knows that one of the greatest natural disasters ever to strike the United States happened a little over a week ago. But to help keep this post going and to enlighten all of Shyzer’s foreign readers who might not have heard about it, allow me to recap. Last week, a category 5 hurricane slammed into the southern part of the country. It wrought death, damage, and destruction on an unimaginable scale and its total damage will be in the tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars range. There are still people trapped in the flooded cities and the water still shows no signs of lowering and people are still dieing everyday. The death toll could very easily surpass that of 9/11 and to make matters even worse, the federal government delayed for many unknown reasons in helping the region, which caused even more damage than the hurricane itself.

The hurricane was called Hurricane Katrina.

When I left Australia, it took me a few days to get my Internet set up. Once I finally did, I jumped on-line to talk to as many people as possible and one of the first people to message me was Sarah. We chatted for a few minutes and then she told me that somebody has finally moved into my room. Soon after, this followed.

“When I met the girl who moved into your room, I was standing looking at the quotes on the wall. She asked me what I was doing, and I told her that a friend from America had put them up there last semester. Then she said ‘That wouldn’t be Goob by any chance would it? Apparently I have a lot to live up to!’ - so you are definitely missed and your reputation is apparently hanging around trying to intimidate the new internationals.”

We talked for a bit longer and then I remembered I hadn’t asked what the new girl’s name was. Who was this mystery woman living in my room, sleeping in my bed, being mates with my mates?

Her name? Katrina. Coincidence? I think not.

I think this is God’s way of telling me to get my ass back to Australia or that he’ll keep sending hurricanes named after the people living in my Australian room to attack America. Either that or I’m just making shit up as an excuse to go back to my adopted homeland.

But the whole God thing sounds so much more bad ass =)

Okay, so maybe they used my full name instead, but it would have been so kickass had they announced me as Goob.

For those of you not paying attention, my college graduation was a week ago. And of course, one of the highlights of graduation is the commencement address. It’s one of the rare times where funny and important people go out of their way to commend you and kiss your ass. Never one to turn down a good ego boosting, I eagerly searched the night before I was to graduate to find out who would be speaking at my graduation.

Some classes get Will Ferrell or Jon Stewart, which I must say is by far my favorite Commencement Address I’ve ever read. Heck, some even get President Bush, although let’s be honest here, it had to be hard for a few hundred well educated people to sit and smile while the President stumbled over basic words. But what about my graduation, you ask? I got the Father of Aerobics.

I kid you not, the speaker for my graduation was The Father of Mother Fucking Aerobics.

He spent the first five minutes talking about how he invented the word aerobics and how the rest of the world had trouble interpreting it into their native tongue. He then moved on to talk about all the books he’s written and all the places he’s spoken at. By this point, the girl beside me and I were whispering to each other how we guessed he was going to tie this all into context. My guess was that he was going to use a route such as talking about the importance of a strong body and then switch over to the importance of having a strong mind as well, which is where we came in.

But the speech just kept going on about him. He began to lecture and almost scream how unhealthy our society is today and how heart attack rates would go down significantly if we would all just get off our asses and exercise a bit. It was around this point that he began to turn red in the face, which led me to mumble something about it looked like he was going to have a heart attack right there on the stage, which would have been oh so poetic.

When he reached the point in his rant where we will be the first generation to die before our parents, I almost began to feel fat. What the fuck, it’s my graduation day and I’m being yelled at over my health. Thanks asshole. About fifteen minutes later, he thanked us for our time, turned around, and sat down.

Without saying one damn word about us. Not even a congratulations or a good luck. I’m now boycotting aerobics.

Twenty minutes later, however, my mind was completely void of any thoughts about our lovely speaker. I was standing in line, name card in hand, ready to walk across the stage. Before we had gotten started, however, our school President had asked for all claps and cheers to be held until the end of the ceremony. The process of calling out names, walking across the stage, and shaking his hand was going to take a while and if we waited for everybody to clap each time, it would have been as long and mind numbingly boring as the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. Of course, the two “barking” fraternities were there to hoot and bark for their brothers who were graduating, but this was to be expected. In case you never had the joy to experience a barking frat on your campus, they’re two frats that have some retarded tradition of barking as loud as humanly possible whenever they hear another bark. So, say a brother is standing in the middle of campus and for the hell of it feels like barking out loud. He’ll cup his hands, bark, and within five seconds he’ll receive barking responses from any brothers who heard him. They too, in turn, will receive barking responses and so for the next minute or so, the entire campus is filled with barking noises. Nothing says finer education than the reproduction of animal noises at noon on a Tuesday for no reason whatsoever.

So there I stood, in line, name card in hand, ready to take the walk. I handed my card to the announcer, began my walk, and literally fell over laughing.

As soon as the “Laude” had finished booming from the speaker, up arose a thunderous cheer from the back of the arena. I shook the President’s hand while laughing, made my way back to my seat, and laughed my ass off. Not to be outdone by any fraternity and damned if they had even been told not to do it, my family, led by my mom, had cheered like a bunch of idiots.

And I loved every second of it.

This evening a decided to throw a pile of clothes in the washing machine in an attempt to turn them back into items that I could wear out in public without disgusting everybody within a 40 meter radius of myself. I tossed the collective filth into the machine and walked off back to my computer for a few hours before remembering I needed to transfer everything to the dryer. I went back to the laundry room, opened the washer and dryer and pulled out the first shirt on top. As I went to put it in the dryer, I noticed little bits of white stuff all over it and upon closer examination, I realized what it was. I had left something in my pocket.

Shit.

I began racking my brain trying to figure out what I had left in what pair of shorts. Having absolutely no clue, I finally decided my best bet was to try and piece together this mystery piece of paper. Here and there I found small clumping of paper the size of fingernails, but of course I couldn’t read shit on them. I was lucky if I could make out one letter on each scrap, much less a word. And heaven forbid a single piece of paper stay intact when I touch it instead of crumbling under the crushing weight of my index finger. This fun game went on for ten minutes before I lifted a sock and spotted my savior…a piece of paper double the size of a quarter! I ran and grabbed a flashlight, less I want to touch it with my acidic hand and destroy the only remaining piece of evidence of whatever the fuck this thing was. I shone the light down in the washer, squinted to see what was on the scrap, and saw a part of my school logo.

Oh yeah, it was that stupid letter from USC. I didn’t need that anyway. I did, however, need the 20 minutes I wasted trying to figure out what in the hell it was.

The kicker though? I completely forgot to put in washing detergent, so I had to do the whole load over again.

The lesson here is to never do laundry. It’s pointless.

Just because you run a blog, that does not mean you run a website. Got it?

Something that used to only irk me has grown into a full blown annoyance as time elapsed. You have no idea how many this I’ve been mentioning Shyzer to somebody and they or someone in close proximity would say something along the lines of, “Oh cool! You know, I run a website too!” My ears would perk up and my eyes would glow because in all honesty, it’s not everyday that you meet a fellow webmaster; someone who knows all too well the joys and pains of running an almost figmented project, but one that can cause far too real stress and joy. So naturally, I’d ask what their site address was and as time has passed, I’ve received more and more responses resembling something like, “You can find it at www dot livejournal dot com slash users slash shitty pointless site slash I’ll never be going to read it because you just led me to believe you actually ran a website.”

Shyzer has only been around for 34 months and yet according to many companies that track blog history, Shyzer could be considered a father, maybe even a slightly young and cool granddad, of blogs. In 2002, there were only around 100,000 blogs on the Internet. Today, most counts range from a minimum of 20 million to a maximum of 60 million. This amazing jump since Shyzer’s birth can be attributed to the many free and shitty blog services like Livejournal, Xanga, Blogspot, etc. that have exploded into mainstream popularity. On one hand, you might think this is great. More blogs means more information and more content to read. One might even argue that with new blogs competing for a relatively limited number of possible visitors, the quality of writing might improve across the blog scene, resulting in the weak being eliminated in a sort of electronic Darwinian fashion.

The only problem with this argument is that 98.52% of these blogs suck. First off, most of these blogs out there are dead space. People who think I take too long to update Shyzer would be shocked to learn how many and how long the vast majority of blogs out there go untouched. Weeks if not months go by without an update, leading to only helping clog the Internet even more and denying a possible useful username for somebody who might actually use it more than once every quarter. But let’s say you happen to find a blog that is actually updated at least once a week. What are you most likely to find? A) A blog which does nothing but recap in a boring fashion the mundane events of the author’s day. B) A blog which takes itself far too seriously and whose author thinks he or she is an actual “player” on the Internet scene who has some sort of power. Or if you’re really lucky, C) A blog so far learning to one end of the political spectrum that it serves as nothing more than a tool of alienation to 99% of the people who happen to find it.

I’m not knocking the people who actually run these sites. I know some people do option A so that they can keep in touch with friends and family. That’s fine and dandy. Hell, that’s what Shyzer was started for. What I’m taking issue with is people who lead others to think they actually run a fully developed website when they don’t. If you didn’t have to code any of the HTML, you run a blog. (and no points are scored if you’re only picking the color and background from the main menu of your Livejournal.) If you don’t have any subpages, you run a blog. If you don’t own a domain and pay a hosting fee, you run a blog. If 99% of your energy is devoted to typing a post, you run a freaking blog.

And I’m not even counting all the crappy Angelfire and Geocities pages out there, because in all honesty, those are still websites. I will guarantee you that over 90% of any successful website out there started on Angelfire, Geocities, or some other free web hosting company. It’s where new webmasters go to learn, to take their licks, and to see what works and what doesn’t. And they can do it for free. Hell, I know I did back before Shyzer was even a figment of my imagination. The difference between these and the aforementioned free blogging services and that with these, you still are working with HTML or php or some sort of basic webmaster skills. It might not be any more advanced than elementary based skills, but everybody has to start somewhere. So while I cringe when somebody gives me a web address that is painfully long and hosted on a free server, I’ll still check it out, because the Angelfires of today are the Shyzers of tomorrow.

I know this may seem pointless to most people. I know the two words “blog” and “website” may seem interchangeable and that their usage is semantic to most people, but to many of us who actually run a website, the difference is monumental, almost to the degree of insulting. So do me a favor. If you run a blog on a free blogging service, just call it what it truly is; a blog. When you start messing with MySQL databases and pissing away time and energy trying to solve the CSS Box / Internet Explorer compatibility issue, then you can call your blog a website. Until then, stop pissing me off. Thanks.

Is there any worse time for the new Harry Potter to come out than right before I go traveling for two weeks? I think not. I went and bought it tonight (no, I didn’t stand in line right at midnight. I was smart enough to wait until 0100 and then go to Wal-Mart, where they still had 100 - 150 left. I’m already to chapter 5, so I forced myself to put the book down and not start reading again until tomorrow. I don’t want to just fly though this one like I did the last five! In fact, earlier this week I went back and read the 5th one over again to freshen up in my memory what had happened.

However, I’m supposed to be leaving for Charleston in about three hours and I’ve yet to sleep. Something tells me I might not be leaving on time tomorrow morning. Just a hunch. Luckily for me, though, the three hour drive won’t be nearly as bad as I had thought it would be. Why? Because my new iPod arrived in the mail yesterday.

I hadn’t realized how much I relied on my iPod for entertainment until I no longer had it. While up in Minnesota, it somehow broke after being in Waynus’ hands for under 60 seconds. I don’t blame it on him….but come on, it can’t be coincidence. Either way, I tried in vein to fix it for a few days before giving up and sending it back to Apple for a replacement. I’ll admit that it only took six days from the time I sent it until the time I received my replacement, but I still was without an iPod for at least 10 days or so.

I probably listen to my pod anywhere from three to seven hours a day. Once I wake up and get dressed, I always slip my pod into my pocket and slide my headphone around my neck. Anytime I walk, say, to class or throughout a store, the headphones are over my ears. Any time I’m sitting at the computer talking or working on Shyzer, the headphones are over my ears. Hell, whenever I’m driving, the headphones are over my ears. It’s become a habit that I had no desire to break. In fact, the only times I’ve found that I can’t listen to music is when I’m reading or typing something.

Yet when my pod was gone form me, I was at a loss. My music was no longer right at my fingertips. If I wanted to hear some Blink or Coldplay or David Gray, I had to find a computer. And not just any computer, but a computer which I actually had the songs downloaded to. And then once I had found this mythical computer, I had to actually stay within hearing range of this computer. What kind of Neanderthal way of listening to music is that

I love music. It plays a central role in my life and better defines me than most people realize, which is half the reason I’m still working ever so diligently on Shlyrics. No, that section is not completed yet. I’ve only got one final part to complete, the one part which I had initially thought would be the easiest but have soon found to be the hardest. I’m now at the stage of actually trying to explain just what each song means to me and that is a far more difficult task than I thought it would be. But I’m getting it done, song by song.

When I listen to music, it of course mirrors my mood and state of mind. But it also does much more than that. You can learn a great deal about me by looking at the music on my pod. You can tell what generation I belong to by finding those hit songs that were popular when I was a kid. You can tell what artists I like most by finding those with the most songs on my pod, thereby deducing what type of music I like best. From there, you could guess at what kind of moods I like to be in best by listening to those artists and seeing what type of songs they sing. You could see the weird and random and sometimes foreign music that I have on my pod, which would reflect my love for learning and embracing new ideas and concepts. The list goes on and on.

But for me on an everyday level, I’m just happy to have my pod back. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some Australian music to listen to. Nothing like a dose of Art of Fighting, Thirsty Merc, and The Living End.

Oh, and hopefully they’ll have internet connection at the beach, because where I’m going is fairly secluded. If not, then I’m sure I’ll find some other way to post…

Well, I’ve finally made my way back to South Carolina after spending a fantastic week in Minnesota with my family. Sorry I never got around to driving those ten hours or so to see you Stan. I’m now sitting in Waynus’ room using my old computer and trying to get used to the new house that my dad moved into. It’s about a mile away from the house I grew up in and it’s odd being so close to so many old memories.

I finally got in touch with my bros earlier today, which turned out to work in my favor since Jeremy’s bachelor party is tomorrow night. The fact that Jeremy’s total nights of bachelorhood are now limited to two still blows my mind. Friday night is the rehearsal dinner and then Saturday is the actual wedding. I’ve already gone through a bunch of the First with my friends. First friend to have a baby. First friend to die far too early. And now, First friend to get married and buy a house. I’m still trying to think of what other Firsts I have to go through. First friend to get divorced? First friend to move to another continent? (I might be racing Elton on this one.) First friend to, uh,…be convicted of a crime? Hell if I know. I can’t think of anything else.

There was a brief moment the other day where I felt like I was falling behind on things. I’m in no hurry to get married, in no hurry to start a family, in no hurry to even settle down in one place. I’m still trying to move to another continent for Christ sake. Thankfully, that moment only lasted roughly 3.2 seconds, but it felt like forever. Of course, I’m not out trying to avoid all of these things, but I just don’t feel as if I should be trying to do them because “it’s the right time.” I’ve just never worked that way. Who says it’s the right time? What pattern or expectations are we supposed to be following here?

Hell, I can’t even conform to a set pattern in my every day life. Kinda like good ole’ Mao Zedong.

Ha, bet you didn’t see that one coming. I still remember coming across the following passage last year while reading one of my textbooks for a Chinese History class. “Mao Zedong had no concept of time. He ate when he wanted. He slept when he wanted. He worked when he wanted. He never allowed his life to be dictated by a clock.”

Now I’m not saying I’m going to lead a country through a Communist Revolution, but I wouldn’t put it past myself. I’ve never been able to follow The Clock and I’ve never understood why more people aren’t like me. Because of my sleep pattern, I’m called a combination of lazy, slob, bum, good-for-nothing fool, and my personal favorite, somebody who is out of touch with reality. I don’t have a set bedtime. I don’t set an alarm unless I am forced to be awake at a certain time. I’ve never set my meals to any set schedule. I wake when my body wakes. I eat when my body says “hey retard, feed me,” and I sleep when my eyes close. It’s as simple as that.

What’s that you say? You have a job? Well good for you! Some Most 99% of people will let a clock dictate their lives for money. I understand that I’m in the minority when it comes to people who would rather take a less paying job in order to be able to call their own shots. I’d much rather take a lower paying job that allowed me certain freedoms than a higher paying job that would lock me into a routine. A freelance ANYTHING would be the perfect job for me, at least for the next 10 years or so. As long as I can make above the poverty line, have freedom to move around, and enjoy every day to the fullest, I’m an extremely happy man.

Life is only as enjoyable as you make and allow it to be. If there’s one thing I wish I could get people to listen to me about, it would be how much more they could be getting out of life. Stop worrying so much folks, realize that happiness comes not from bigger TVs or cars, and start marching to your own beat. I promise you won’t regret it.

Per Stan’s request, I’ll try not to wait a freaking week to upload the next batch of songs. Maybe the fact that one of his songs made the list will make him happy.

60 - Collective Soul - Perfect to Stay
59 - The Matrix 2 - Burly Brawl
58 - Stan Gable - The Goob Song
57 - Art of Fighting - Reasons Are All That I Have
56 - Aerosmith - Janie’s Got A Gun
55 - Remember The Titans - End Theme
54 - John Mayer - Why Georgia
53 - Final Fantasy 7 - Ending Theme
52 - Trans-Siberian Orchestra - A Mad Russian Scientist
51 - Final Fantasy 7 - Aeris

My time remaining is Australia is drastically low. It’s currently Thursday afternoon, I leave Newcastle Tuesday morning, and fly back to the states Wednesday afternoon. The only thing that runs through my head when I think about these is:

I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave.

There is so much here that I want to stay for. But I’ll save my sappy post for right before I leave, because I don’t want to get all emotional right now. I’ve already written most of it, cried once or twice, and tried not to think about it. Which is why, starting last night, I’m going out in true Aussie fashion. Neri and myself managed to get a bit inebriated. The escapade continues tonight seeing as Hannah finishes with her exams this afternoon. Tomorrow night we’re going out for one last night on the town, followed by Saturday’s gigantic Farewell Bash for Dutchy and Luke.

Sunday will be spent thanking God that I’m still alive and apologizing to my liver. Monday will see me wrapping up my affairs here and Tuesday it’s off to Sydney. So, if over the course of the next week, updates are sparse or slightly influenced by alcomohol, please forgive me. I’m just wanting to make sure I enjoy my last week in Australia.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go find some grog.

21 comments on the previous entry? I must say that is certainly Kick Ass.

If you’re squeamish when it comes to the ocular region, I would suggest skipping the next five paragraphs. You’ve been warned.

A few days back, I was sitting here typing when my left eye started to twitch with the all too familiar feeling of having caught a piece of dust between my eye and contact. I closed my eyes and swirled them around in a circular motion for a few seconds to try and reset my contacts, but it was useless. Whatever I had stuck in there was going to need some tears to flush it out and so I again closed my eyes and started to rub on the outside of my eyelid. After ten seconds of this, the rubbing coupled with the pain was enough to trigger my tear ducts into action and viola, I had a misty left eye. As I opened my eye and blinked in an effort to regain focus, I noticed something was off. The contact was not in place.

I could immediately feel it up behind my eyelid, but again, I wasn’t worried for this happens every so often anyways. The best way to remove it is to again close your eyes and move them in a circular motion. Since your eye is curved to begin with, the movement in one direction sweeps the contact down and when you open your eye, it hanging right there for removal and cleaning. So, I got to sweeping and was met with pitiful results. The contact was still behind my eyelid, but somehow it had moved further up and, I swear to God, almost behind my eyeball. I could literally feel it in the top corner of my eye, almost directly above my nose and this is around the time where “Oh shit, what the hell is going on” mode kicked in.

I dashed to the mirror and began lifting my eyelid, trying to figure out just what in the world was going on. This, my friends, had never happened to me before and I wasn’t too thrilled with the idea of a contact going MIA and floating around my insides. I stood in front of the mirror for a full ten minutes rubbing, swirling, and scratching and got nothing. The water works were going in full gear by this point as I had effectively irritated the living hell out of my eye, turning it into a molten fireball of redness. I could no longer feel the contact whatsoever, but I was certain it never fell out. Still, I dropped to my knees and searched the ground for a bit to make sure. My fears were soon confirmed as I found no trace of a contact whatsoever.

So here I sit, five days later, and I still have no idea what happened to that contact. From time to time I can feel a little pinch in my nasal passage, similar to the feeling you get when you have a mild cold. I swear the contact is still back in there and while I may be no medical doctor, my guess would be that it can’t be healthy for me. My guess is that one day far down the road I’m going to be blowing my nose and out pops a little contact. If so, you can expect many cool pictures and a complete recap.

And I swear to God, if one more person makes a “can you see your brain?!” joke, I’m gonna stab them with a blunt spoon.

Anyway, new batch of songs are up. Listen, enjoy, and stick around to see just what in the hell these things are for.

80 - Boxcar Racer - Letters to God
79 - Bruce Springsteen - Streets of Philadelphia
78 - Bruce Springsteen - Dancing in the Dark
77 - Dashboard Confessional - Remember to Breathe
76 - Craig David - Fill Me In
75 - Dave Matthews Band - Grace is Gone
74 - Jason Mraz - Tonight, Not Again
73 - Shania Twain - You’ve Got a Way
72 - Marshall Tucker Band - Long Hard Ride
71 - Marshall Tucker Band - Take the Highway

Phase One of Operation “Come on Goob, get at least 51% in all your classes so you pass!” is complete. In a span of 56 hours, I was awake for 51 of them. Going that long was much more easier than you may think, as long as you don’t mind putting up with the purple ninjas that arrive determined to kick your ass around hour 39.

To make matters worse, Stanley opened up a brand new site while I was in the middle of writing my first essay. Few of us remember Stan’s original site, Revenge of the Nerds, but on contained some of the best and wittiest writing the ‘net has ever seen. After letting his hosting and domain expire, Stan gave up the blog world. Until now. I highly suggest checking out Circle of Jerks, for if you enjoy the writing here on Shyzer, you will appreciate CoJ, especially when you consider that I am going to be contributing to it on the side! So go, check out CoJ, and let us know what you think.

Which finally brings me to my last point. While talking to Stan for countless hours about his new endeavor, it made me continuously want to go and start work on one of my two new sites. However, one major thing holding me back is the lack of a domain name, so I’ve decided to enlist the help of those here on Shyzer. One of the sites I am working on (and want to launch in the next week) is a site that not only walks people through all the freeipod offers out there, but gives people a place to discuss them on a message board. Kind of like a much more extended version of the post I made last year about getting a free ipod. But like I said, I was at a loss for a domain name, so Stan and I tossed a few ideas around. He came up with a pretty damn catchy slogan (which I am afraid of saying here. I don’t want anybody else registering it!) that I am almost positive I will purchase. But before I drop $25 on the domain names, I want to make sure there aren’t any others that perk my ears.

This is where you all come in. I am going to post this and hope you all can come up with a few catchy names. Remember, it’s for a site that is going to walk people through all the freebie offers out there, so something like getfreestuff.com would be great. There are just a few guidelines, though. A) It can’t be too long. I don’t want something like comehereforsomegreatfreeinfo.com or anything like that. I want it to be short and catchy. B) It has to be available. GetFreeStuff.com would be great, but sadly, somebody else ordered it. You know what? Don’t even worry about checking to see if they are available or not, I’ll handle that. You just comment with anything you might think would be great. And finally C) any catchy phrase or word will be considered. Even though, for instance, shyzer.com says nothing about a free info site, if I heard it, thought it was memorable enough, and saw it was free, I might buy it.

I’ll be explaining further just exactly why I’m making one of these sites, but trust me, I have high hopes for it. So if anybody can think help, I would appreciate it. If not, no worries, and I’ll go register Stan’s idea in the morning. Thanks everybody.

Want to legally download a movie for free? Go to this website and enter in your e-mail address for a coupon code that you can use for a free movie rental from movielink. Then, once you do so, go into your internet setting and erase your cookies and repeat the process over using a new e-mail address. So far I have about 20 codes and they are all good through August.

The coupon is for a 24-hour rental only, but hey, they’re freaking free. Plus the download speed is incredible. I’m currently downloading a movie at 1000 KB/sec.