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.

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

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

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

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

I’ve never wanted an eye patch any more than I do right now. And this is coming from a guy who practically idolizes pirates.

Kudos on whoever made the conscious decision to score the hell out of this episode as well.

There’s regular shows, then The Daily Show, then Lost, and then lightyears above everything else there’s Battlestar Galactica.

Holy. Frak.

Nope, for making fun of idiots on Facebook.

I think it’s official, I need to update my resume to reflect my superior verbal bitchslapping skill.

I also need to clear up this whole Ryan Shyzer thing too. It’s the last thing on my massive list of cleaning up all my websites.

Gee, thanks ESPN.

Yes, I still follow baseball and the Mariners more passionately than global warming or politics or my own personal hygiene. But for those of you not keeping tabs, Seattle sucks ass this year. As in last place with the worst league of all major league teams sucking. Everything went right for them last year and they were still only halfway decent. The bigwigs in charge didn’t realize this, of course, and thus they spent way too much money and talent on mediocre players this past winter in an effort to win it all this year. The end result? Us loyal fans trying to hunt down obscure beer from Papau New Guinea due to an offhand remark from Ichiro.

I love my fellow fans sometimes.

Thankfully, ESPN quickly switched to the San Fran - Washington game and I got to thinking. You know, when it comes to NL baseball, I really don’t care what game I’m watching. I don’t like watching AL games when Seattle sucks because every time I see a game between two AL teams, I want the stadium to blow up so Seattle can move up a game on both of them. It hasn’t happened yet, but I’m a patient man.

But with the NL? Eh, it doesn’t really matter to me. In fact, I seem to pick a new underdog NL team to root for every year. I then started to wonder if I’ve actively cheered for every NL team at one point or the other.

Let’s see, there’s been:

- Atlanta Braves - Well, that didn’t take long. I’ve never cheered for the Braves and doubt I ever will. It doesn’t really have anything to do with hating the team, if anything I kinda admire the way the organization was run for the 90s and 00s. But growing up surrounded by nothing but idiot baseball fans wearing Braves hats kinda turned me off from the team forever. Plus, there’s the old story of me unfolding a map and finding the team furthest away from Atlanta to start following many years ago.

In hindsight, I should have used a much different criteria in selecting my team of choice.

- Florida Marlins - Ah, the 2003 playoffs. I remember calling them to win in September of that year and they certainly didn’t disappoint. Most people remember that postseason for the Cubs epic collapse (and unfairly lay the blame on Scott Bartman’s feet), but all I remember is the awesome divisional series Florida won in the bottom of the 9th in Game 5 against San Francisco, somehow surviving the Cubs, and destroying the Yankees. Nobody knew the players on their hodgepodge of a roster filed with nothing more than aging veterans and nobody rookies. Now? Half of them are household names. What a fun team to watch and this year’s version honestly reminds me of their 2002 counterparts. Keep an eye on them this year.

- New York Mets - Eh, I waver with the Mets. I used to like them in the late 90s and earlier this decade, but ever since they started turning into the mini-Yankees in terms of spending, it’s gotten harder to cheer for them. Still, as late as 2006 I’ve cheered for them. The 2006 NLCS was bloody brilliant, going 7 games, the Endy Chavez catch (that video doesn’t do it justice, but the crowd reaction tells you how important / amazing it was), everything. I think that was the last time I’ve really cheered for them, but knowing how Jon Stewart loves them makes it hard to really hate on ‘em.

- Philadelphia Phillies - Talk about coming full circle. I used to hate the damn Phillies, but over the past three years they’ve come to grow on me. Chase Utley is one of the top 5 players in baseball and nobody knows his name. Watching Cole Hamels pitch is a treat, while Ryan Howard swinging for the fences every at bat always keeps you on the edge of your seat. Plus, Jamie Moyer plays for them and fuck if I don’t want him to win at least one ring before he retires. He’s like a current Edgar Martinez, what’s not to love?

- Washington Nationals - See, I lived close to them for two years, but never really got behind them. They’re a team I would recommend to somebody looking for a new team to start following though. You don’t want to pick a team that’s already winning out of fear of being labeled a bandwagon fan and you don’t want to pick a shitty team, so finding that team in middle ground is a little tricky. Sure, there are better options who are closer to being legitimate winners (Milwaukee, Tampa, Toronto, even Oakland or Colorado), but the Nationals have a new stadium, a few budding super stars, and are somewhat fun to watch. Then again, this team is still the Montreal Expos with a makeover, so that’s two so far.

- Chicago Cubs - Okay, I don’t hate the Cubs. But Jesus, do they not have enough fans already? This whole “lovable loser” label they like to play up is starting to make them sound simply like losers. I don’t root against them, but if they ever run up against a team I like, booooo Cubs. Of course, if Mark Cuban ends up buying them, my entire viewpoint will change. Can you imagine him as the owner? They’d be a perennial playoff team within three years. I can’t really count them though, because over the past two decades I’ve certainly wanted them to win it all just so their fans would shut the fuck up.

- Cincinnati Reds - Eh. Whatever, Ken Griffey Jr. still has a small place in my heart, but that’s as far as I care about this team. I think that’s because every impression I have of the TOWN of Cincinnati is crap. Ipso facto, the Reds probably aren’t worth rooting for. That’s three teams.

- Houston Astros - Oh man, this is hard for me. When they traded for Carlos Beltran for half a season back in 2004, I really thought they were going all the way. Amazing pitching, strong hitting, charisma, they had it all. Then the fucking Cardinals beat them in the NLCS (damn good series, though) just so they could be annihilated by the Red Sox. The next year they lost Beltran to the Mets and still managed to make it to their first World Series ever. I’m not going to type too much here, but those 04 - 05 teams were awesome to watch.

- Milwaukee Brewers - I was rooting for them for the first time last year, but that’s about it. They’ve sucked all the way up until then and there always seemed to be another underdog to root for instead. I still can’t really get behind them and I’m not sure why. Extremely young team, newish stadium, power hitters, team named after beer, they’ve even got Mike Cameron on the team now! Seriously, I’m starting to wonder what’s wrong with me. How is I’m marking this team as the fourth on my list?

- Pittsburgh Pirates - By far the easiest team for me on this list. They’ve sucked so much ever since I can remember that I’ve never even had a chance to cheer for them come Autumn. It’s be cool if they decided to win more than 70 games in a season, but until then, I’ll just continue using them as a punchline and tack on numbero cinco.

- St. Louis Cardinals - Fuck these guys. I cheer for them in the early 00s and they lose. I start cheering for other teams and they start to win. They screwed over the Mets, Astros, and Tigers all within recent memory. The Mets deserved to win that series. So did the Astros! Tony Larussa is a prick. They released So Taguchi, whose name was fun to say. Albert Pujols is awesome to watch, but that’s about it.

- Arizona Diamondbacks - There’s a common theme among my teams of choice: they’ve always had plenty of youth and the current Diamondbacks are currently the youngest team in baseball. The 2001 World Series was beyond amazing, but ever since then I really haven’t cheered for them.

- Colorado Rockies - Last year was the year I jumped full force behind Colorado and they got to the damn World Series. I didn’t expect them to be utterly destroyed by Boston like they were, but that’s beside the point. They were a fun team to watch last year and while they’re tanking now and I think they’ll trade their best player soon, they strike me as a team that could follow the Marlins recipe for success. Suck for a few years developing talent, go for broke every 4th or 5th year, then blow up the team and start again. It’s risky, but cheap and proven to work.

- Los Angeles Dodgers - I can’t really think of any time I’ve pulled for the Dodgers. I like how old school everything about them is though. A simple stadium, their name reminds you of when they played in Brooklyn, and even their jerseys are basic. Then again, when you start bringing up jerseys while naming good things about a team, maybe it’s time to move on. VI.

- San Diego Padres - Every time I’ve looked at a San Diego team, I’ve thought to myself “here’s a team that could get into the playoffs and then lose in the first round.” So far, I haven’t been that far off. I did cheer for them way back in 1998 I think it was, when they got to the World Series and lost to the Yankees. I remember losing a bunch of bets back then, all made out of my desire to see Tony Gwinn win a title. Lesson learned.

- San Francisco Giants - 2002 World Series. Before Bonds and the whole steroids thing, back when I hated the Angels (ok, fine, I still do), and during my introduction year to the Mariners Sucking Era Part Duex of my life. I really wanted the Giants to win and what happened? They get within six outs of winning game 6, blow it, and then lose the seventh and final game. See above paragraph in learned, lesson.

Wow, that was far more than I expected to type. So let’s see, what’s the verdict? Ten out of 16 NL teams have had Goob screaming their chants at one point in time, I’m pretty damn good at picking surprising NL teams to get far in the playoffs, not many of them win it all though, and I’m pretty close to being a whore for the league as a whole. Yeah, sounds about right.

Who am I pulling for this year? Well, Moyer doesn’t have many innings left in his shoulders, so I’m still sticking with the Phillies for the time being. Of course, I wouldn’t mind seeing the Marlins or Diamondbacks slipping into the playoffs. Who knows, there’s a lot of baseball to be played. Maybe later this week I’ll write a post on how exactly the process of picking a rent-a-team works.

It’s weird though, because even if Philadelphia won it all this year, I’d be happy for about 5 minutes and then turn off the TV. It’s not the same kind of passion when you’re picking a rent-a-team to root for. It’s fun, gives you a reason to stay more than moderately interested in the sport, and even helps you learn about other teams that you’d normall pay no attention to. But you’re not a diehard and it almost feels like you’re practicing all the cheering for when your own favorite team starts winning.

In my case, that projects to be around 2027. Fucking Mariners.

“About time.”

Goob: KISS HER!

I can’t say anymore, I’ll ruin something amazing for too many people.

EDIT: Well, yes I can. From TWOP: Laura finally [edit for spoilers] —unbelievable. Mary McDonnell, I don’t care that you’re older than my mother, you are brilliant and beautiful; let’s make out.

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

I just had to get that off my chest.

After finding both this and Fire Joe Morgan recently, I’ve really starting digging their style of writing. Watching the systematic dismantling of anything with wit, sarcasm, and the occasional foul word is both highly entertaining and delightful.

Seriously, every spoiler-free article and headline talked about how fulfilling and complete the final season and specifically episode was. I couldn’t find a single negative response to it and in doing some hasty research, I couldn’t find much against the show in general. Here was a show on HBO which critics and fans alike loved and which had been running for the past six years or so. And I’d never fucking heard of it!

I’d been burned by an HBO show before (FUCKING SOPRANOS SUCKED ASS!), but I finally broke down and watched the first season during the tail end of March.

Last week, I watched the final episode of the fifth, and final, season.

One of the top 10 shows of my lifetime? Most likely.

The beauty in the show is it’s realism. The good guys have huge flaws. The bad guys aren’t 100% evil. This isn’t some episode of 24 where all the bad guys speak in a Russian accent and Jack Bauer is God. This is real, where the good guys don’t always win, the bad guys don’t always lose, and sometimes you forget who in the hell is on which side much less who you’re “supposed” to be rooting for.

I told my brother it was like LOST, but in the real world. Everything everybody does screws over somebody else. The police, judges, lawyers, businessmen, politicians, dope dealers, crack addicts, children, teachers, dock workers, and everyday citizens all affect one another. If you think LOST weaves character stories together, you ain’t seen shit yet.

If you’ve already seen every episode, then please feel free to click the “more” link below. Otherwise, go watch the entire first season (their seasons are only 10 or 12 episodes long), become hooked, watch the rest of them, and then come read what I’ve written below.

And just in case you’re too fucking lazy to click on the link above, here’s a short recap from Wikipedia to let you know what the hell you’re about to get yourself sucked into.

The Wire is an American television drama series set and produced in Baltimore, Maryland. Created, produced, and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon, the series was broadcast by the premium cable network HBO in the United States. The Wire premiered on June 2, 2002 and ended on March 9, 2008, with 60 episodes airing over the course of its five seasons.

Each season of The Wire focuses on a different facet of the city of Baltimore. They are, in order: the drug trade, the port, the city bureaucracy, the school system, and the print news media. The large cast consists mainly of character actors who are little known for their other roles. Simon has said that despite its presentation as a crime drama, the show is “really about the American city, and about how we live together. It’s about how institutions have an effect on individuals, and how…whether you’re a cop, a longshoreman, a drug dealer, a politician, a judge [or] lawyer, you are ultimately compromised and must contend with whatever institution you’ve committed to.”

Despite never seeing great commercial success or winning any major television awards, The Wire has frequently been cited by critics as one of the greatest television series of all time. The show is recognized for its realistic portrayal of urban life, artistic ambitions, and uncommonly deep exploration of sociological themes.

Central to the structure and plot of the show is the use of electronic surveillance and wiretap technologies by the police—hence the title The Wire. Salon.com described the title as a metaphor for the viewer’s experience: the wiretaps provide the police with access to a secret world, just as the show does for the viewer.

Without further a due (I still get a small kick out of that)…

HOLY SHIT! YES, YES, YES, AND MORE YES. THAT’S HOW YOU DO A FINAL SEASON!

I’m honestly having trouble trying to process all of the information right now. In fact, if you just watched all five seasons in a short span like I did, you’re probably having even more trouble digesting it all. By the way, did you notice all the throw backs in the final few cut-scenes? I loved the random, show of a chess board. D’Angelo deserved better.

My favorite characters overall? Carver, Bubbles, Omar, Lester, Daniels, Bodie, Sydnor, Pryzbylewski, Bunny, and McNulty. Seriously, how the fuck can you not like ANY of them? When I look at them as a whole, I see one common thread: Competence. Go figure, with my absolute love for the trait. Good or bad, each and every one of them was amazing at what they did and I can respect that.

Watching Bodie and Omar get killed was rough. I kinda saw Bodie’s coming, but Omar! FUCK! I LOVED him and I’m pretty sure I was meant to.

On the flip side? I almost cried when Bubbles was sitting down to dinner with his sister upstairs. After watching him for five seasons, I wanted him to get clean more than anything else. Seriously, a nuclear bomb could have gone off in those final seconds, vaporizing all of Baltimore minus Bubble’s house, and I probably would have been okay with that.

Herc? Templeton? Levy? Clay? Hey guys, guess what? FUCK YOU! ALL OF YOU!

I loved how Michael was the heir apparent to Omar. I loved how Chris and Weebay took the fall like true soldiers. I loved how Sydnor is the new McNulty. I love how it foreshadowed Marlow getting absolutely fucked by being unable to leave the street. Most of all, I loved how McNulty and Lester and Daniels and Greggs and Bunk were all able to stand by their convictions, respect one another for it, and all come out smiling.

Nothing changes though, does it?

Let’s go back to the people I love, though. First off, Carver. Honestly, did ANYBODY grow more over the course of this show than he did? Come on, I dare you to find somebody to replace Carver with the “Most Growth” award. During the first season, he’s bowing to Hurk’s peer pressure and stealing drug money. By the final episode, he’s not only learned how to do police work, but he’s actually evolved into giving a shit about the work itself.

Omar was the shit. Seriously, he could have killed everybody on the show and I still would have loved him. But that wasn’t Omar, he wouldn’t have done that. He had a mother fucking code, a strict honor, and he stood by it. He knew the rules of the game and he never strayed from his convictions. There’s something to be said for that. Hell, he wasn’t even greedy. He knew there weren’t many options in life for a guy like him and so he took the highest path he could. I can respect the hell out of that.

When Bubbles tried to hang himself at the end of season 4, I just about lost it. When he sat down to dinner upstairs, I finally did. How could you not love Bubbles? I can tell you, if I was in the same shoes he was in season 1, I don’t know if I would be able to climb out of them. Every episode he was trying to better himself, even if it was only by pushing a cart around town and selling toilet paper. There were only one or two things I absolutely wanted to see before the end of the series and Bubbles coming upstairs was at the very top of that list.

I like to think that Lester, Greggs, Bunk, and McNulty all remained friends. I think they would have, especially given the police sendoff McNulty received and the way him and Lester forgave Greggs. They all did what they thought was right, whether it be breaking the rules to get a crime solved, standing silent by a good friend, or calling them out on their bullshit. Yet in the end, they all kinda looked at each other and saw only respect for one another. That’s downright cool.

Same for Daniels. He overlooked and covered up for a lot of things, but he finally drew the line at juking the numbers. Good on him.

I hated seeing how only one of the “kids” made it out of the hood with Bunny, but again, you gotta admit that’s the most realistic way it would have gone down. I think seeing Dukie swindle Presbo and then become the new Bubbles was the worst. Here’s to hoping he at least has the same outcome. Presbo only being in the last episode of season 5 was a travesty, but I liked how he had grown into a true teacher.

I gotta say I didn’t see the Sydnor being McNulty’s clone coming, but after I saw it…well, yeah, I buy it. Sydnor ate a lot of shit during his days, and if you remember, he was a hot-shot up and coming that Daniels begged for in the first season. After the homeless murders, he’s been around the block a few times and knows how the game is played. Lester and McNulty taught the boy well and while I wouldn’t have predicted it beforehand, I totally buy him filling McNulty’s shoes.

And then we’ve finally got McNulty. In the very end, I don’t know what he ended up doing with himself. I’m glad he got out of police work altogether. He was okay after the Barksdale case ended (kinda) and I think the only true way to get away from the thrill and the rush of police work was to get out of it all together. I honestly can’t see him doing a damn thing else, but then again, I never foresaw a lot of things on this show. He was a great character though, doing whatever he pleased and damned the consequences. Plus he looks just like my Uncle Mike, which is kinda weird.

It’s tough trying to recap 50+ hours of television and dozens of characters in one post. I just wanted to get this all out of my system for my own benefit. I basically just sat down and pounded all of this out in a few minutes and now that I have, it feels good - almost like I can accept that the show is truly over.

There are only a handful of shows that are so well written and put together that I actually give a rat’s ass about the characters and story. Kudos to The Wire for nudging their way into the group.

I actually read about the Sweden fact at least a year or so ago in Time or Newsweek or something similar. The fact that this is still such a big problem is downright shameful.

The List Project

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.

The first video is the unedited clip, followed by the “dance remix” that hit the net only a few days latter, before finally getting to the hilarious sketch comedy bit I just watched.

Oh yeah, there’s some bad language in there.

EDIT: Colbert is always funny.

Anyways, here’s a really cool video I found recently. It’s one of those that looks easy since it’s so clean, quick, and smooth. Yet since I know how hard it is to edit and manipulate video files, I can only imagine what a bitch that was to create.

Ohhhh. Let the drummer kick that.

I still think let the drama kid die makes more sense.

I thought about starting my own team and trying to recruit people from Shyzer and HIF to play, but then I said to hell with that and joined some random team (Team Sweater Vest) that I felt bad for since they didn’t have many players. If anybody else has a Twitter account and loves interacting with goofy and creative people, come on out and play.

I’d originally written a paragraph or two of it for a post here on Shyzer, but that never amounted to much. Go figure, huh? Still, I like it so much that I’m reproducing it here below since I question y’alls ability to click a link and read something on a secondary site. They say write to your audience and I’m pretty sure most of y’all are idiots!

——-

Seeing as how it’s already late in the evening here on AdamJCohen.com and nobody’s posted, I’m guessing today was my day to start things off for the guests posts. Some might say it’s a bit irresponsible of me to forget to do something I’d promised to do, but anybody who knows me is secretly applauding the fact that I didn’t forget outright! I’ve always had a problem with commitment, in that I commit to things and then think my job is finished.

So who am I? The name’s Goob (seriously) and I run a personal site and a freebie site among countless others. You know that friend of yours who always has way too much on his plate and starts 10 new projects every month when he doesn’t even have time to finish one of them? Yep, that’s me.

Adam and I have known each other for about two years, despite not having met in person yet. Hopefully we’ll be able to remedy that far sooner than later. When he asked if I would mind doing a guest post on his site, I couldn’t help but be a little honored. Sure, we’re not talking about the New York Times calling me up and asking if I’d write a cover story for them, but still. To be asked to write something is always an honor.

As I sat down to type up a post, I hit the proverbial brick wall in record time. (quick side note, I think we can stop calling it a “proverbial” brick wall. It’s just as freaking frustrating and annoying as a real one.) What the heck was I going to write about? I’ve run Shyzer for over 5 1/2 years, which leads to a lot of topics already having been covered. When you think about what I said earlier regarding my absolute lack of commitment to anything else in my life, it puts the site a little more in context. How in the world have I kept writing for so long?

Then I got to thinking about my writing itself. Newsflash: it’s not that good. Sometimes my writing comes off as if a drunk five year old was at the keyboard. I tend to ramble and create run-on sentences, which then helps to fuel my desire to use too many commas, kinda like right now. I think prepositions are perfect for ending my sentences with. And at the very least, I absolutely love starting my sentences with a conjunction.

So why in the heck do I even bother to write?

I can’t speak for Adam or anybody else beyond myself, but deep down it’s because I love attention. There, I said it. For me, writing isn’t quite the altruistic activity that I wish I could claim it was. It’s me creating something out of thin air and then feeding my ego when people read it. Whenever I fill out a job application, I write in that I’m a recovering comment addict. It’s like crack. Every few hours, I’m checking my sites to see if somebody’s commented, what they’ve said, what they think, on and on and on…

You know, maybe that’s why no company every returns my calls!

A while back, I stumbled across a site chock full of awesomeness. Started during the writer’s strike last year, it’s aptly titled Why We Write and for the most part featured pieces by the writers behind well known TV shows and movies. Some of the newer stuff has been written by average Joe’s, which I tend to ironically not find interesting at all, but the earlier stuff on the site is well worth a read.

One of my favorite pieces is by Bill Lawrence, the creator of Scrubs. “I don’t write because I couldn’t do anything else. I’m a bright guy, I could hold down a number of jobs. I could run a hat shop. I don’t love writing. Nobody does - it’s worse than fishing.” - Haha, so true.

How about the guy who writes Jeopardy questions for a living. Or answers, whatever. I didn’t even know Jeopardy had any writers. I never even bothered to question where all those answers came from every day. For all I knew, Alex Trebek just made them up on the spot every night. Maybe Will Ferrell was covertly feeding him the answers. Turns out it’s nine guys whose only task is collectively coming up with 14,030 answers every year. There are far worse ways to make a living in my book.

My absolute favorite, though, is Damon Lindelof’s entry. It’s not often that I have an epiphanic moment. Learning that there were other people out there who thought the same way I did was such a moment though. So there are other people out there whose imaginative mind takes over far more often than it should? Sweeeeeeet.

And that’s when I realized that I don’t write for the feedback. I write because I love to create things. I write because if I didn’t have such an outlet, I’d most likely be the crazy guy on the street corner wearing a tinfoil hat and screaming about the approaching apocalypse. I write because it pleases me.

One of my biggest influences is a man named Ze Frank, who has created hundreds of different games, videos, and written posts on his site over the years. I once read that he taught a class where he forced his students to create something every day for a month. They bitched and they moaned, but after 31 days everybody had created 31 objects, be it poems, songs, arts & crafts knickknacks, or what have you. Not a single person failed to thank him for the experience.

There are so many things we could complain about these days. People are too demanding, too wasteful, too ignorant, too… well the list goes on and on. But I think one thing we rarely realize is how complacent we’ve become with the limits on our creativity.

We get up, go to work, come home, grab a fast meal from McDonalds, and veg out in front of the TV for a while before starting the process all over at again. That’s no way to live and while I might take the alternative to the extreme (no day job! No home! No responsibilities! Woooo!), there’s still a part of me that can’t help but feel we should all create a little more in our daily lives. Even if it’s just office supplies attacking us.

And just like that, the brick wall lies smashed in a million pieces at your feet. At least until tomorrow, at which point I’ll begin the battle all over again. Hmmm, maybe my life isn’t that different than everybody else’s after all.

Oh, crap, I forgot Adam told y’all I’m supposed to be funny. This post hasn’t been hilarious at all, especially for my standards. Way too much reflection and self analyzing! Ok, um…poop. Heh heh heh, that word is always funny. Until (hopefully) next time, folks!

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

The only thing is people have no idea what they’re doing once they go to Google.

I think I’ve written about this before on Shyzer, I’m not sure. I distinctly remember mentioning once how God-awful Clay is at Googling something. I’m mentioning it again simply because I still find it hilarious. If he’s looking for the phone number of a local pizza joint, I’d fully expect him to go to Google and type “pizza call ring ring hello” and then wonder why he’s getting crappy results. But I’ve come to realize that he’s not alone. There are plenty of other people out there who don’t know how to converse with a search engine.

Take for instance the pizza scenario. If I wanted to ask you the number of the local Papa John’s, I’d say something like “hey, what’s Papa John’s number?” and you’d know instantly what I was talking about. Yet try asking Google that very question and you’ll get anything but the local phone number. For some reason, people in 2008 still don’t grasp the differences between asking a human and asking a computer the same question.

For those of you scoring at home, the correct way to ask Google that question is to type your zip code then the business name, so this would be “12345 Papa John”

In other awesome Google news, Shyzer is #3 for “Somebody please punch the free credit report guy.” I love that.

Turns out the guy writing those LP guides made it all up.

A Lonely Planet author says he plagiarized or made up portions of the popular travel guidebooks and dealt drugs to supplement poor pay…Thomas Kohnstamm, who has written a book on his misadventures, also said he didn’t travel to Colombia to write the guidebook on the country because “they didn’t pay me enough,” The Daily Telegraph reported.

“I wrote the book in San Francisco [California],” he is quoted as saying in the Telegraph. “I got the information from a chick I was dating — an intern in the Colombian Consulate.”

Kohnstamm has worked on more than a dozen books for Lonely Planet, including its titles on Brazil, Colombia, the Caribbean, Venezuela, Chile and South America.

Bravo, Frommer’s. Not only do your travel guides suck, but they are worse than the musings of a plagiarizing drug addict. He could have written about his drugged up hallucinations of magical unicorns mauling evil zombies and ninjas and Frommer’s STILL would have sucked more as a travel guide.

How that company stays in business, I’ll never know.

Early verdict? Not all that bad, but certainly nothing fun to look at.

Things will be back up and running correctly by Thursday. Until then, just watch the videos in the posts below over and over.

I’ve always loved stop motion videos. The only problem is 90% of the ones you find are beyond crap because the creators were too busy to take enough photos to make the video look realistic. You can’t have a stop motion chase scene with ten freaking photos, people!

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

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

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

Oh, and the Mariners still suck. Good times.

Free MLB Extra Innings!!

Free MLB Extra Innings!!!

If you have Comcast of DirectTV, you have until April 6th to watch as much baseball as humanely possible. For Comcast, the channels are up around 770-790 and you should be able to catch at the very least two more Mariners games before the free trial is over.

Of course, you could also just watch the massive marathon of Battlestar Galactica being shown on SciFi right now. Hell yeah!

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.

A tense political stand-off ensued with conflicting versions of events. Three days later, the UN initiated Operation Paul Bunyan.

A convoy of 23 vehicles raced up to the tree unannounced. Sixteen men armed with chainsaws jumped out under the protection of two armed platoons and a 64-man special forces company.

Cover for the operation was provided by 20 utility helicopters and 7 cobra attack helicopters. B-52s circled overhead, escorted by F-4 and F-5 fighter planes, while the aircraft carrier Midway waited on standby near the shore.

The tree was successfully chopped down.

If you’re not reading Where The Hell Is Matt, you obviously have no appreciation for travel nor excellent writing.

Fuck you, CBS.

I could sit here and tout a countless array of argument as to how inept the current heads of television are. I could mention how TiVO and iTunes and bittorrent and DVR aren’t factored into Neilson ratings. I could reference the great YouTube debate or link to all the thousands of words I’ve written here on Shyzer mentioning how much money they’re losing every day they refuse to recognize the new ways of media consumption. But it’s all been said a million times before by just as many people.

Jericho was one of the few character driven shows on TV that didn’t employ a trite and vapid setting of doctors sleeping with each other or lawyers standing up for the common man. No matter what CBS wanted the show to be, Jericho understood that no matter how fantastic the story line was, the sci fi was only a setting and not a story in and of itself. The fact that shows like LOST and Battlestar Galactica have the same understanding only further exemplifies the type of company Jericho kept.

The bottom line is Jericho not only had a proven rabid fanbase, but had a handful of brand new episodes at a time when television was starving for new material. From two months, as the writers strike dragged on and every show had exhausted their supply of fresh material, CBS had the opportunity to move up the release date and showcase Jericho against the crap that every other network was scrambling to pump out. Instead, CBS not only killed an early release, but buried the show at it’s historically worst time on it’s historically worst day. They never wanted Jericho to succeed this second time around and in effect had no qualms about giving their fans a giant “fuck you.”

Yet I’m not pissed. These past seven episodes were beyond perfect. In ten years, we’ll casually laugh at how stupid we were in the past to have so many open-ended & slow driven shows. We’ll remember that it all started to change when shows like BSG and LOST not only refused to let the networks renew them for countless seasons, but demanded they be ended on their own terms - amazing ratings be damned! Networks will realize how successful these types of shows are, how much better written they are than the average show. Along the way, one network will finale realize the goldmine that is TV on Demand and suddenly shows will no longer be canceled due to poor Neilson ratings alone.

And then we’ll remember that show that not only came back from the dead because of it’s fans, but that managed to squeeze an entire season into only seven episodes. And we’ll remember how fucking awesome that show was and how long before it’s time it truly was.

Thanks for every damn episode, Jericho.

“Roslin promotes Adama to admiral. He promotes her right back.” Hahahaha.

We’re less than two weeks away from the fourth and final season of the best show on television. In case you’ve forgotten what’s been going on, here’s a hilarious and well made 8 minute video of all the previous Battlestar Galactica episodes and movies.

Months later, Waynus broke it, but it was still under warranty and thus replaced. The world was still awesome.

Last year, it started acting goofy and would no longer work. I then discovered that I could freaking spank it and it would magically work again. The world remained awesome.

Then last Christmas, it bit the dust and completely crapped out on me. Spanking was no use, paying to have Apple fix it was beyond absurd, and the world suddenly sucked.

A friend of mine recently pointed out that you could open up the iPod and fiddle with the insides. After searching around Google for a while, I came across hundreds of comments and blog posts by people who swore that sticking a business card inside the iPod would fix it. I was a bit skeptical, but it made sense on the surface. The iPod uses a traditional spinning hard drive and after years of jostling and bumping around, the outer casing loses fractions of an inch worth of pressure. Suddenly the drive won’t spin and the iPod won’t turn on.

So I set to opening up my iPod this morning. I worked on getting the backing off of it and despite what most on-line tutorials say, the initial removal is a bitch and a half. It’s specifically build and designed not to come off, but after a while I got it off. I ripped one of my HIF cards in half, folded it up, stuck it on top of the hard drive, put the iPod back together and…

The fucking thing works like a charm now.

Something that costs fractions of a penny just fixed a hundred dollar piece of technology. 10 years ago I never would have been able to do this. I love the Internet. I’ve gotten three or four iPods for “free” since getting this first one, but it’s held a special place in my heart since I got it for free all those years ago and now I can synch it up with my Macbook Pro and listen to it for another few thousand hours. I’ve also got an idea for a new website, though in my current state I don’t think that’s anything to be proud of.

It’s a contest I’m holding over on Hey, It’s Free for a few people off the forums, but if anybody here on Shyzer (all three of you!) want to join in on the fun and try to win a little cash that I’m giving away, feel free to sign up and play. You have until tomorrow morning before the tip off of the first game to get your bracket in.

Don’t worry if you know nothing about college basketball either, because none of us have a freaking clue over there

Yahoo group: http://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/t1/group/157337/
School: South Carolina
Group Name: HITF B-Ball Tourney

If you don’t have a yahoo account already, it’s free and easy to make one. Though who doesn’t have a Yahoo account these days? Feel free to comment here or on the freebie forums if you want to follow along in all the friendly trash talking we’re sure to commence in.

I shit you not. He called me Mister. Goob. Shyzer.

The conversation didn’t last long, as he didn’t appreciate the fact that I wouldn’t give him my correct info after telling him the info he had for me was incorrect. Apparently I was “struggling a old man who is dying and it’s not nice or kind.” Darn it, I hate to “struggle” senior citizens. It’s always hard to look yourself in the mirror after doing so.

I’m assuming he simply pulled my info from one of my domain WhoIs listings, which have my cell phone number and last name as Shyzer. I’m not sure if he sincerely believed my name was Goob Shyzer, but it took everything in me not to burst out laughing when I heard it come out of his mouth. If you’ve never heard a scammer call you by such a name with the seriousness of a doctor telling you a loved one has just died, then you haven’t lived.

I really hope he passes my number around to his buddies and I start getting more phone calls, because this could easily become my biggest source of entertainment.

Their iReporter feature shouldn’t even exist. “Got a camera? Then send us your photos and we’ll show them to millions!” During any given news segment, the Youtube to professional cameraman ratio of video clips is somewhere around 90:1. Now they’ve reached the point where they find somebody’s Myspace page and use it to write an entire article.

Suddenly, apathy is quite appealing.

I hope I never do anything newsworthy. Just imagine the shitty article they could write about me just from using Shyzer. God help us.

[via ZeFrank]

Thankfully, I now have proof of his idiocy.

I’ve been on a real “nobody understands the Internet” trip lately, what with this and the other posts I’ve made this weekend. Everywhere I turn, I keep seeing people who either simply don’t get how to use the Internet or people who view it as sometime trite. Thankfully, their ignorance is providing fodder for me here on Shyzer.

I’m just happy Mr. Dumbass Costas is on the other side of the fence, because I’m not sure what I would have done had I realized him and I actually agreed on something.

I completely agree with the video, though. As opposed to some of the far out videos I’ve posted on here before, this one takes a pretty fair assessment of the future to come. Just as I’ve ranted and raved against businesses that have yet to figure out how to harness the Internet, I think it’s pretty clear that any individual at this point who doesn’t know the difference between a wiki and a widget is a step behind the pack.

At the same time, it’d be nice if they referenced their facts at the end of the video………

–

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 thi