Uncommon purity
Unintelligible reveries

Unannounced fruition
Unabashed pride

Unaltered conflicts
Unrelenting doubt

Unequivocal ardor
Unreasonably obstinate
Uncalculated fidelity

Unspectacular normalcy
Undeserved stigma

Underrated strength
Unwavering loyalty

Unrequited passion
Unwavering certainty

Unlocated Grace

Wait, that sounds gay. Let me try again.

When a man and a man really love each other…

Crap, that’s no better.

It’s hard to talk about male heterosexuals who love each other in today’s society. Somehow the formula has been unfairly mutated into Man + Man + Love + ∞ = Gay. There’s very little wiggle room leftover and that’s quite a sad state of affairs to me.

The mere idea of male emotional intimacy is one of the few remaining nuts that our society has yet to even crack. The term Bromance tries its best to soothe people and let them know it’s just two guys who feel so friendly with each other that they don’t mind opening up about anything. But it doesn’t work. If anything, it comes across as a comical, even clownish, term that’s used to pair two goofballs together who don’t quite fit in with the rest of us. It’s one step above Outcasts and synonymous with Weirdos.

I like the hope of one day having a best friend who knows everything about me and vice versa. I also like boobs (on women). Both are equally awesome and one day I hope people come to accept that.

#1 Don’t sell yourself short. Holy mother of God did Learn To Cheat go quickly, which told me something was up. When I initially priced it, I based it on the fact that the site had a lot of potential but hadn’t quite “done anything” yet. It wasn’t ranked very high on Google, I didn’t have any linkbacks to the site, and it was infrequently updated at best. So I labeled it as a Turnkey site and slapped a BIN (Buy It Now) price of $50 on it. I had two people offer to take the BIN within an hour and the guy who lost out countered with $60. What the crap?

Then I stepped back and looked at why people were tripping head over heals to grab it. Sure, everything I said earlier was accurate, but at the same time the potential was huge. It’s the only site of it’s kind currently on the web, so the owner effectively owns the entire niche. The content was all pretty much custom written by myself and user submissions, thus making the text even more valuable. Plus, it was getting a dozen or so visitors from Google each day, proving there was a market for the site since people were looking for it. Some frequent updating, search engine optimizing, and link trades would have made it a nice little site.

It would have been interesting to see how high it might have gone. I’m guessing a few hundred had I priced it accurately and not tried to move it fast.

#2 Don’t forget to promote the auction. I’ll be completely honest here. I was eerily afraid that Facebook would slap me with a Cease & Desist order any day for having a site with “Facebook” in the domain. There are a bunch of similar sites out there, but one (and only one for some reason) got a C&D and it was literally days before I listed FBT for sale. Doh! I soon talked to the fellow owner and he said he had tried to sell his site and it got caught. Double doh…

So when I listed FBT, I didn’t promote it at all here on Shyzer, FBT, or anywhere else for that matter. This certainly took a toll on the end bid, but in the end, I’m pretty happy with what I got. 12 months of revenue is pretty much market standard and that’s what I got. I liked FBT and it had (and still does) amazing potential, but I started to feel like a columnist for one of those trashy celebrity magazines. There’s only so much you can spend writing on gossip and speculation before you 1) Turn into a fanboy 2) Get immensely bored or 3) Become AllFacebook. *shudder*

I’m not afraid to kiss a little ass, but the guy who writes that site is … well, I won’t finish that sentence. Number two was my poison though and the thought of writing anything else about a fucking social network was about as appealing as eating broken glass.

Anyways, there’s no doubt in my mind that I could have gotten more had I been able to promote the hell out of the auction.

#3 Research any potential buyers. Case in point, FBT. The official auction ended and it took me two weeks and many e-mails later before I realized the winner was simply trying to scam me and get the site for free. Fuck him. I re-listed the site privately and ended up finding a major literary institution as a buyer, so everything worked out awesome. But still, had I done my homework ahead of time, I would have been able to save myself two weeks of hassle.

#4 Good customer support / readme files / etc. goes a long way. For each site, I included a custom written html readme file with my contact information and everything the new owner would need in the first couple of weeks to get the site off the ground and running. One buyer was so impressed with the first site he bought from me, he came back and bought up every similar one I had at their BIN. I later learned that most sellers just write a few sentences in a text file and call it adequate instructions.

#5 Writing the listing for a website auction is just like writing a resume. I stupidly focused on the flaws instead of the features of one turnkey site I sold and probably lost about $100 on that deal.

#6 I don’t have it in me to rip people off. It’s not like I ever wanted to either. But when you start selling websites, you inevitably look at similar sites that sold within the last few months and upon doing so, it was clear that half of those sellers were outright bullshitting in their auction descriptions. Sure, I could have gotten double the money had I lied in my descriptions, but I enjoy being able to sleep at night.

All in all, I couldn’t be happier with all the sales I made recently. I’m down to Shyzer, that little freebies site you may have heard of before, and a handful of funny domains with nothing on them but I’m already snatching up domains that I plan on developing over the next few months. The best part of selling all of the sites, aside from the extra cash, was that I learned a ton of lessons firsthand that I never would have embraced had I read them in a book. There’s nothing like a good ole’ dose of “sink or swim” to teach you something!

Just sayin’

Oh, and Happy New Year! I’m pretty fucking excited about things to come – hopefully you are as well!

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.

As if that wasn’t enough, in the next month I plan on launching a new charity website, doubling up HIF, and re-launching an old website that I never fully developed. Plus there’s that whole social and family life that has to be fit in somewhere!

Thanksgiving was quite fun. I got to catch up with a few friends, find out that my little brother is far superior in shooting a gun, and relax a little bit. I’m excited about Christmas as well. This is always one of my favorite times of the year, cold weather be damned. Sitting down to a Thanksgiving dinner with a table full of friends and family and sitting around Christmas morning laughing and joking with everybody are by far two events that I look forward to the most every year. I certainly start to appreciate them more with each passing year as well.

I’ve started to try and be a good friend as well. I sat down back in August during some random Olympic match and made a list of every person I hoped to still be friends with in 10 years. Then I circled the names of anybody whom I’d talked to in the prior two months. I think my list was something like 40 people with only three or four circles. It was a harsh reminder of how hard you have to work at actually maintaining friendships! There are still a few people I need to get back in touch with, especially certain family members, but I’m already pleased with the progress I’ve made. It’s one thing just to call somebody up and say “hey, long time no talk!” but it’s a whole other to actually keep the contacts going from that point onward.

Let that be a lesson, little Gooblings.

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.

However, I also have four or five blogs filed under the heading “Awesome,” which is instead checked every 5 minutes. On the rare occasion that something new is found, the computer equivalent of a klaxon is sounded and my browser automatically loads the page. I only wish I was MacGyver enough to rig a ham sandwich-bearing robot to accompany the glorious occasion.

These sites could be classified as my all-time favorites – ones that have yet to disappoint, who time after time drive me to laud them far more than any healthy human being should, and who literally make surfing the net enjoyable for me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some obscenities to scream while I delete one of the feeds.

I’m not a fan of crotch shots when they happen to me and yet that’s exactly what I felt last night when I read of Fire Joe Morgan’s demise. I’m not going to harp on this, but damn. It was a brilliant fucking website and I’ll miss their insanely rational reasoning and absurd sense of humor. For the FJM virgins out there, enjoy this and this before breaking out the cigarettes.

You can find part 2 here.

McCain’s wasn’t too bad either.

Maybe I’m naive. Maybe I’m drinking the Kool-Aid. Or maybe I’m simply not old enough to be jaded. I want to believe that hope can triumph over fear. I no longer want exclusiveness to rule the land. The idea of knowledge and service and sacrifice all come together to make this world a better place isn’t just appealing, it’s enough to get me out of bed every morning.

Tonight begins the first step of an excruciatingly long, uncertain, and difficult journey. But dammit if it’s not exciting.

Every generation deserves its Obama. He could turn out to be our Lincoln or he could wind up flopping into the history books next to Carter. Either way, I’m excited. For the first time in my adult life, the leader of my country is somebody whom I trust and respect. Right now, that’s good enough for me.

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.

[via Robert Frusso]

Long story short, one of our TVs had HD capability but we never bought the upgraded cable package since all of the other TVs in the house were analog. Then while waiting for game 6 of the ALCS on Saturday, I happened to figure out that we actually got a few HD channels, but I couldn’t find them. 10 minutes later and I’d stumbled to channel 103.1131 (which makes plenty of sense for a channel, right?…) I thought it was some sort of screw up, but then the picture popped into view and Holy Christ.

I’m not really a huge TV watcher, but this stuff is like crack. I’ve currently got Univision on and while I can’t understand a damn thing they’re saying, it certainly looks good. Are there support groups or anything that I can join?

HIF has taken off beyond my wildest dreams. It was mentioned on The Today Show (still looking for a vid) and CBS’s Up To The Minute last week, as well as a gazillion local radio, tv, and newspapers. My personal favorite local news segment has been KOVR’s Saving with Dave segment, which used some stock footage of some random dude at a computer to represent me. HIF was also accepted into the prestigious 9rules network over a month ago (before any of this media play) and I have to say the day I woke up and saw that it’d been accepted, I practically jumped for joy. It doesn’t bring with it any huge source of traffic or revenue, but it’s an enormous thumbs up from a collective group of creative and talented individuals whenever they allow a new site into their club.

The New York Times might not be knocking down my door for an interview, but HIF’s certainly become a full time gig that consumes my every waking moment. I don’t want to jinx anything though, so I’ll just leave it at that and say that I’m earning more “on the job” training of how to run a big website than I ever learned in the past 5 years combined.

I’m heading to Orlando next weekend. It’s been a year since I’ve had a vacation. I’m trying to come to South Carolina for at least a week come November as well because it’s been even longer since I’ve seen my dad and buddies down there.

Playoff baseball has consumed my every second of spare time to boot. Busted suicide squeezes! Dominant pitching! Second biggest comeback in baseball history! My predictions being far more accurate than I could have hoped! Jaime Moyer pitching while collecting Social Security! The White Sox are no more! Good times all around.

And that, my friends, is everything I’ve been up to lately. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got more freebies to hunt down.

I freaking love the song as well. Best 0.99 cents I’ve ever spent.

Please follow Google’s lead and enable a similar feature that prevents drunken e-mails.

Whoever came up with this idea needs to get a raise. Or at the very least a free case of brew.

National League Division Series

  vs.  

This is essentially Manny versus the Cubs. I’m not sure if Los Angeles has any additional players, but from what I gather the Dodgers sucked until July 31, traded for Manny Ramirez, and then proceeded to win every game for the next two months thanks to Manny hitting a gazillion home runs. Or something like that.

On the flip side, I didn’t think Chicago was that good until recently. I saw them play a bit over the past two weeks and I’m a believer. A believer that Chicago beats Los Angeles in 4 games that is.

  vs.  

Dammit, of course the two NL teams I could root for end up playing each other in the first round. I could go back and forth on this, but it boils down to two things. Who I want to win and who I think will win.

Two of my favorite ex-Mariners are located in this series – the Phillies pitcher Jamie Moyer and the Brewers centerfielder Mike Cameron. Moyer is older than dirt and yet he still makes players half his age look like fools at the plate. Toss in the fact that I (honestly) could probably throw harder than he does and it baffles the mind that he’s still playing. I love Cameron, but it’s hard to top Moyer. Thus, go Phillies?

Yeah, not so fast. I know they’re the better team on paper and they’ve had a chance to rest their starters and the Brewers are banged up and their pitching is a mess and blah blah blah. Milwaukee is hot and in recent seasons the hotter teams have done better than the rested (02 Angles, 03 Marlins, 05 White Sox, 07 Rockies). But then I look at the recent schedule and notice that Philly swept Milwaukee just last week and that’s enough for me. Plus, Milwaukee can only go so far with running CC Sabathia on short rest, right? I think Vegas has the odds of his arm flying off his body during the series somewhere around 48%. Philadelphia beats Milwaukee in 5.

(This is like the third version of these predictions I’ve written. At first I had Milwaukee winning this, beating the Cubs, and then losing in the WS. Now I have them losing in the first round. Let this be a lesson for anybody who is thinking about using my predictions as a guide to gambling.)

American League Division Series

  vs.  

Repeat after me: You don’t win the AL East without being good. You don’t. You can’t. Not in this century. So to everybody thinking that Tampa is a fluke, they’re not. At the time I’m writing this, I don’t even know who they’ll be playing seeing as Chicago and Minnesota are still playing tonight. No offense to the AL Central, but it doesn’t matter either way. Tampa beats Chicago in 4 or Minnesota in 3. That said, seeing Ken Griffey Jr. playing in the World Series would put a giant smile on my face.

  vs.  

First off, let’s take a moment and enjoy the fact that the New York Yankees aren’t in the playoffs this year. Ahhhh. There’s nothing quite like gloating, huh?

On paper, the Angels are a better team than Boston, right? Better record, far more rested, they have home field throughout the playoffs, the Mariners finished more than 40+ games behind them – and yet I’m still not sold. Their hitting is downright finicky. Their OBP (on-base percentage, which factors in hits and walks) is 19th in the league. Slugging (total bases / at bats) is 18th. They’re 25th in walks, a stat where Boston, Chicago, and Tampa are 1, 2, 3.

Long story short, their record is so good simply because they played the majority of their games against three shitty teams! I honestly don’t even think this will be close. I wanted to say Boston wins in a sweep, but I’ll toss Los Angeles a bone and say Boston wins in 4.

League Championship Series

  vs.  

Philadelphia’s lineup is freaking stacked and yet every time I watch them, it seems like their 3-4-5 hitters are going 1-10. And which Myers is going to show up and pitch? Hopefully not the one that sucks. Because he really sucks. Badly enough to blow at least one of these games and help Chicago beat Philly in 5.

  vs.  

Boston is a good team, Tampa is a good team, whatever. I want Tampa to win this and I’m blatantly going to favor them for no reason other than desire when I say Tampa beats Boston in 6. I know damn well this is just a passionate pick, but whatever.

World Series

  vs.  

I want to pick Chicago. I really do. But this is the fucking Cubs we’re talking about here. Something’s going to happen like it always does and Tampa wins in 6, thus ensuring that Cubs fan worldwide cry themselves to sleep for another winter.

[link to vid]

Is there anything better than seeing two old guys yell obscenities at each other?

[via zefrank]

11 Dominicans
6 Puerto Ricans
5 Venezuelans
3 Japanese
2 Mexicans
2 Canadians
1 Panamanian
1 German
1 Nicaraguan

That’s the combination of foreign born players on the World Series rosters last year for the Boston Red Sox and the Colorado Rockies. Neither of these teams have an especially large contingent of foreign players either. In fact, some teams in this year’s playoffs have significantly more.

In fact, MLB’s public relations department not only keeps tabs on all the foreign born players, but routinely lets us know how global the game has become. Case in point:

Of the 855 players on rosters at the start of the season, 239 were born outside the 50 states, the commissioner’s office said Tuesday. The percentage dropped to 28.0 from 29.0 last year, when it was just off the record of 29.2 set in 2005.

There were 3,356 of 7,021 minor leaguers born outside the 50 states, with the percentage rising to 47.8 percent, up from 46.2 last year and 45.1 in 2005.

Not only is it 30% for the pros, but almost every other player in the minors calls some other county home!

It’s called the World Series because the world’s best players usually end up playing here in America. Teams are scouting in Asia, Latin America, and the rest of the world almost as much as they are in Florida and Texas. For every Oklahoman farm boy and California surfer dude on a team’s roster, there’s a good chance the guy sitting next to them in the locker room speaks a first language other than English.

So if you’re uneducated about baseball and enjoy being punched in the crotch, please go ahead and keep repeating that same stupid line this autumn. Otherwise, please shut the hell up and go enjoy some baseball.

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

I hope the feds aren’t tapping my phone.

After being turned down for countless jobs, learning far too much bad news, and being stricken by what medical professionals can only describe as Bubonic Plague, Ms. Luck decided to part the dark clouds of gloom and smile down upon me.

Last week, the November edition of ShopSmart magazine hit newsstands (yeah, I know November is two months away) and Hey, It’s Free was surprisingly mentioned as one of it’s top seven money saving sites on the Internet. (page 34!) For those of you who don’t keep up to date with the Freebie World, this is akin to an athlete being profiled in Sports Illustrated. The only way this could have been better is had they done a full page spread on HIF.

Words can’t express the amount of pride and validation that has bubbled up within me thanks to this surprise of surprises. My first national print mention! I’ve sunk more blood, sweat, and tears into that site than any other project in my life – including most relationships. At the very least, the bump in ad revenue and countless local news mentions was a lovely bonus.

And yet on the grand scale of awesome news learned during the month of September, that ranks a distant second. You might be wondering what possibly could top such a wondrous occasions? Did the Seattle Mariners offer me a job? Did Barack Obama ask me to join his foreign policy team? Even better.

Try finding out that I’m back on my mom’s free airline passes. For a year. Minimum.

Let that sink in for a moment.

I CAN FLY FOR FREE TO PRACTICALLY ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD FOR ANOTHER YEAR!

I really don’t know how to put this to people. I’m a traveler at heart. I’ve spent the last three years of my life helping out my family and there’s no better thing in this world that I could be doing. But I can’t wait to get back out there on the open road. I’m at my best when I’m moving with the tide, flowing from here to there with no regard for the unforeseen.

World, here I come. But first I need to hit up New York. And Spartanburg. And Louisville. And Orlando. There are a few people I need to visit.

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?

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

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

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

Yeah, I hate that.

People love virtual Yes Men.

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

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

Austria – missed
USA – correct
New Zealand – missed (I screwed up though, I knew that was a NZ accent)
Hungary – missed
Australia – correct
Lithuania – missed
Belgium – correct
USA – correct (and got the Chicago bonus)
England – missed
Canada – correct
Spain – missed
Scotland – correct
England – correct
South Africa – missed
USA – correct
Germany – correct

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EDITED EDIT: I love this photo.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Angela, get ready!

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

Lucky for you, free viewing is now available through Hulu (of course, that happens THE DAY AFTER I buy the season pass on iTunes, but whatever). There’s no telling how much longer it’ll be offered for free, so get in on it while you still can.

Act 1
Act 2
Act 3

They’ve just announced plans to do a 4th act, so hell to the yes for that! I never thought I’d enjoy a musical as much as this.

Now let’s break this down. In the span of 25 messages or so, we get the following headlines:

Cindy McCain Talks About Her Boobs
Brett Favre Signs With Vikings
Mandela Found Dead on Birthday
California Serial Killer on the Loose

Who are they targeting with these?! On my list of people I want to hear and/or see talk about their boobs, Cindy McCain is at number Eleventy Billion, right between my mom and Barbara Walters.

Favre signing with the Vikings is obviously tailored towards me, but why in the world would I want to read something about that? My first reaction to such a headline would be to vomit in the nearest trash can, not open the damn e-mail. And what do they expect me to do upon realizing it’s just spam for a Viagra knockoff? Feel so relieved that I want to rewards myself with a prolonged erection?

Mandela dead on his birthday? What the hell? Why drag the name of one of the world’s most respected men into this debacle? Although I’d be willing to bet most people think he’s already dead, so what percentage of the public would this be effective on? 10%? Lower?

And finally, the serial killer running amok is a nice page out of the major media playbook. “Tonight at 11, tune in to find out what will likely kill you and your entire family before dawn. Also, Skip brings you the latest sports highlights and Phil has the weather!” Lucky for me, I don’t live anywhere near California. So unless he gets a wild hair up his ass and decides to go on a roadtrip, I think I’m safe.

EDIT: I just checked my spam folder again and found these two nuggets of awesome: “Bodyguards Positioned Outside Jolies Vagina” and “Senator John McCain Wishes To Have Sex With Model Heidi Klum; Others” – HAHA. The mental image of the first one totally makes it and the second one only turns awesome with the addition of “others.” Oh come on, tell me! I feel like it’s that news tease all over again!

Five brownie points to whoever uses the title to figure out what country the job is located in.

All I can say is I’ve added “create a fake website for use in a hostage rescue operation” to my list of life goals.

Story | Photos

Anyway, I used iTunes for the first few dozen songs I bought. What did I get? A ton of 128kpbs music ensnared by DRM. Nightmare, let me introduce you to Goob and his six computers running three different operating systems all synced with various iPods. You two are going to be great friends.

Then I found Amazon MP3. Better quality (256kbps), DRM-free, and cheaper to boot! I love my Mac, iPods, Apple tech support (I was sent a brand new Macbook battery last week, which is a whole other post altogether), and pretty much the entire efficiency package of everything Mac-related.

Yet Apple needs to realize that sleekness and ease of use are no substitute for superior product and cheaper prices. Just ask Wal-Mart.

Boo iTunes, Hooray Amazon MP3 (even more so if you drink Pepsi and save those codes under the bottle caps).

I think we’ve basically established that all I post now are funny videos and the occasional long-winded post. And you know what? I’m totally cool with that.

[via EatPes and ZeFrank]

Where’s Matt? Home Depot. D.C. Ghetto? Lost… Found. !Chong! Dinner. Reminiscing. Great people. Hookah. Darts. Last call. Blueberry muffins.

Headache. Farewell… Praan. Coffee. I have to what? Chauffeur. !!Boom!! Rock solid. Greasy khakis. Abysmal instruction. Manly success. Delayed. Starbucks. Delayed? Brotherly chat. Delayed!?! Finally. 3am empty roads alone. A Distant Sadness!

When you troll through sites like Song Meanings and actually take the time to read the lyrics to your favorite song, you kinda start to realize that sans music, the words aren’t that clear in their meaning. In a sense, it’s succinct poetry.

You could walk into any high school English class, replace their poetry books with Dylan lyrics, and they’d have just as much trouble trying to figure out what the hell was being said. If you ask me, that’s downright awesome.

I often carry around a notepad and pen wherever I go since my memory has already checked out for greener pastures. (Can you get Alzheimer’s at 25?) The only downside to the notepad is there’s not that much room to write on and I’m a freak for writing and editing something 10 times before it’s “finished.” Yet that’s simply not possible with a tiny sheet of paper.

I’ve always liked writing dramatic poems mainly because it allows me to be as longwinded as I please, yet offers the added challenge of creating a gazillion rhymes. But even this form isn’t optimal for trying to jot down a story on a scrap of paper no bigger than a toilet paper square.

What’s become of my journal over the past few years is a novel in and of itself, but lately I’ve been writing entries that cover days in the fewest words possible, thanks in part to my free time with nothing but the pen and notepad. I usually stick to a 25 word maximum, but 50 is another good limit if you’re trying to recap the entire weekend. And the thing is, when you go back and reread it weeks later, it’s still usually pretty damn good at bringing back memories you’d initially forgotten.

It’s pretty damn fun, to boot.

The poem at the beginning of this post was from my past weekend. It’s pretty transparent, which is why I picked it for Shyzer. If you’ve got a few minutes, try recapping your day in a few words and see how you do. At the very least, you can then say you’ve written a poem.

That’s the first one I found, but I soon discovered this next one. Prepare for a healthy dose of Awesome.

I’m sick of people stealing my work, be it writing or photos. But I don’t think I have the right to complain about it until I’m completely and utterly free of committing the same crime.

And to be honest, I think I’m pretty much there. About damn time. Commence the bitching about theft…now!

The next one i asked was, “What is shyzer.com?”
They said, “Shyzer is a blog written by a 25 year old in Virginia, who is widely regarded as being ‘awesome!’”

Damn straight.