Myspace news blog & a reader's response

(I wrote this back in 4/8/2006, and I'm updating it today)

Evergreen Times - Crimes connected to MySpace have parents, police on guard - Reported by Julie Davis Barry

A-HOLE! This article is pretty ignorant of the fact that everyone's profiles under 16 are privatized. But I guess their point is that there was the option where anyone under 18 can view ur profile if ur profile is private, so a pedophile posing as a minor could get away with looking at youngster's profiles. Besides, if you go down to the last part of the story, a lot of that stuff many of my (safe) friends are doing on Myspace as I speak.

So Ms. Barry, are you trying to say that everyone on Myspace is gonna get kidnapped for posting their stuff (name, photo, school, etc) on there profile! I mean, 99.9% Myspace users have their personal photo on - including minors. And only about 1% got kidnapped. Besides, you didn't notice that Myspace has a directory of high schools from all 50 states? When you're saying that we shouldn't state what kinda school or extraciricular (sorry for the crappy spelling) activities we go to? Wow, my fellow Myspacers, welcome to Soccer Mom planet.

In my view, those things happen becuase of lack of maturity and common sense. Those girls we see on the evening news got kidnapped all because they actually decided to do talk to strangers online without the knowledge of their evil nature. A message to all my fellow Internet users: Just don't talk to strangers online, just communicate with people you truly know in real life on Myspace.

Oh yeah, one more thing about discourageing posting personal photos on Myspace: Since personal photos are the main source of identification on Myspace due to the way the site was designed, your friends won't really know it's your profile without your nagging if you don't have your photo on Myspace. So I do not discourage not putting ur photo online, yet make sure you are hard to find for pedophiles and child aductors. (added today) And now that anyone can set their profiles private, this ain't a big deal no more. News articles like this are OBSOLETE!

NBC Nightly News Video on Myspace Mobile - originally aired Friday 4/7/2006

Once again, Myspace makes controversy on the news, now that its Mobile service has been released. Heck, it's been out since I estimate February or so. NBC reported it as controversial because now that Myspace is available on mobile phones, kids are in danger because it's easier and quicker to upload pictures, comments, etc. on Myspace through a mobile phone because parents are less likely to be supervising. Currently, the service is available only to Cingular customers, according to the Mobile options page on your Account Settings. Even as a liberal, I see this as a danger because people going to schools that ban Myspace on their computers can now find a way to use Myspace on campus and get away with any wrongdoing - IF they use Cingular. So I think that schools should ban people from bringing Cingular phones on campus if they want total safety from Myspace on campus - or ban people from even brining phones with those so called "cell phone jammers" - install those throughout campus.

I suggest to any Myspace Mobile user out there to be careful when using it - use the same safety procedures as you would online. Don't post too much personal info, such as your phone # or home address, don't say anything if you can't say anything nice at all, you know the drill. :-)

Regarding the "ban": and old friend named Paul commented: "These blanket bans won't work. Just like teaching abstinence doesn't work.".

From Battle to Better Things

Well, I'm obviously not going to Battle of the Classes, given the time and date of the publication of this blog entry. That was because all the tickets were sold out by the time I wanted some. So after I finished my spot on the "First Annual Battle of the Classes Pre-Show" today during lunchtime, battle hype was over. All I can say now is that the class of 2009 should at least have done a good job. Hopefully someone will put this thing up on Youtube or somewhere. Now that Battle hype is over to me I can move on to better things like: a chemistry test involving pH and titration (3 April), the upcoming AP World History Exam (17 May), the Summer Math Analysis Placement Test (????), and the SAT's (????) April will pretty much be my time off fun and stuff like that so that I can get on more studying.

In other news, Myspace has recently sued spammer Sanford Wallace for causing all this spam bulletin/comment havoc on the site. Yay! No more bothersome spam for all the worst products America could offer! If I were to refer to those as humor, I'd rather just watch funny web and ad junk featured on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" or "Late Night with Conan O'Brien".

Please, PLEASE don't vote for Sanjaya Malakar on American Idol. He's such a bad singer that even Justin Timberlake sounds better than him! (AND JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE SUCKS!)

Battle of the Classes: Two Days Left

Man, my life will be so darned busy the next two days...especially when I want to go to Battle of the Classes and a World History quiz coming up. And now I need to pay $10 for a ticket now that Leadership cut out Intermission from Battle due to time constraints. That also means that the "Unity" skit sponsored by the Hip-Hop Club in which I will participate will be performed during lunchtime on Friday 30 March. With temperatures in San Jose climbing into the mid-70s with sun and light eastern winds from the Central Valley, that means back to basketball shorts the next two days...I've been wearing long pants since the weather got colder on Monday.

I would also like to remind Live 105 that Good Charlotte is NOT alternative rock! I was listening to some good alternative music this afternoon on that station when reading today's San Jose Mercury News and I heard an advertisement promoting a Good Charlotte concert! I have loathed that band ever since I quit pop punk back in 2005 and now they want to release another album when pretty much no one cares about them anymore. Benji Madden and his group of clowns should get jobs at their local Hot Topic store or somewhere.

Today when doing Spanish homework and such I watched/listened to "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" (Conan was on repeat from 11/1/2006, according to NBC schedule). Darn yesterday's "Tonight Show" was funny! The "Jaywalking" skit, where Leno interviewed women at Universal Studios Anaheim regarding women in history, shows how ignorant today's society is, given that "Jaywalking" is not scripted. Also, comedian/TV host Jeff Foxworthy appeared on the program describing his new show on Fox "Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader". I fast-forwarded to "Conan" afterwards, which was a repeat from 1 November 2006, and it had a funny moment with Sasha Baron Cohen promoting "Borat" as he was messing around with Conan and even sang a parody song about Pamela Anderson! Finally, Mastodon, one of my favourite metal bands at the moment, played "Colony of Birchmen" to end the program.

Unexcusable Stupidities of America #3: "San Jose: Home of the Most Untalented Music"

U.S.A. (Unexcusable Stupidities of America)
Stupidity #3 - "San Jose: Home of the Most Untalented Music Ever!"
Originally written: 1 December 2006
Updated: today, as the original version I accidentally mistyped as "#2" which I wrote back in July!!!

It's bad enough that my hometown of San Jose and its vicinity must be laden with all sorts of low-life citizens who plague the city. Some of those citizens decided to take up careers in music. The earliest SJ low-life butt-clown who took up a musical career was Frank Feranna, Jr., which most rock fans (except me!) associate as Nikki Sixx, bassist of fake glam-metal band Motley Crue. Then, did you know that Smash Mouth, the band that created the most overrated, overplayed rock song ever, "All Star", come from San Jose?? Yikes. Plus, ever tuned locally to 104.9 (before it became spanish) or 105.3 or 107.7 and heard, "back off, I'll take you on, headstrong, i'll take on anyone, i know that you are wrong"? Well, that band was Trapt, from Los Gatos in the vicinity. And now, guess what, we've got more untalented hack "musicians" who are coming to play in San Jose. I found out about two of them from articles in the thursday edition of the san jose mercury news, and so here they are.

The All-American Rejects
"Hardcore rockers earn All-American status" ~ Shay Quillen
The All-American Rejects were a pop-punkrock band formed in Stillwater, Oklahoma, in 2001. Their self titled 2002 debut album got them a hit single, "Swing, Swing", which I just downright dislike. Until their followup 2005 CD Move Along, they were considered a one-hit wonder. In late 2004, I borrowed their self-titled CD from the library, and I didn't like it. When "Dirty Little Secret" began getting overplayed on radio and Myspace, I became even more hateful toward the band. Things got worse when I saw the video for "Move Along" on KTSF. When I read the article on the SJMN and noticed Quillen labeled these guys "hardcore", I was downright furious. Look, you can logiclaly label AAR hardcore if you read this:

"It's an odd mix: [drummer Chris] Gaylor and [vocalist Mike] Kennerty still play hard-core punk in a side project called These Enzymes." Hmm, that's what I call hardcore! So, do NOT listen to the Mercury News whne they say AAR are hardcore! AAR are only ripoffs of Good Charlotte/Simple Plan/New Found Glory/every other queer pop punk band out there. And these morons are performing with Motion City Soundtrack, The Format, and Boys Like Girls at the Event Centre at San Jose State University this Monday night. Hmm, just got off iTunes, those other bands are also untalent butt-holes like AAR, that's why they get to play with them.

Panic! at the Disco
"Stars Straight Out of High School" ~ Yoshi Kato
I'm not giving out the background of these untalented butt-holes, whose debut album A Fever You Can't Sweat Out is basically an experience as says in the title. I first heard this band's music in July on Live 105 (KITS-FM 105.3) with "The Only Difference...", and I was dissatisfied. Few months later, "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" hit MTV and radio, and that song sucked balls! I went on iTunes to hear the rest of the CD, and now I realised that PATD were yet another crappy Fallout Boy/emo ripoff to screw up our youth! And then, thye're coming to SJ at the HP Pavilion this Tuesday night, with anotehr untalented butt band, Cobra Starship, and a somehow listenabl band, Jack's Mannequin. I'm listening to their album, Everything in Transit, in iTunes now, and I'm just so sad that this talented band would tour with some untalented chili eaters.

Please, support good punk rock and look for these good punk CD's:
- Henry ~ These Enzymes
- Loud, Fast Ramones: Their Toughest Hits ~ The Ramones
- Dookie ~ Green Day
- Everything in Transit ~ Jack's Mannequin

Justin Timberlake
I first heard that he was coming to San Jose back around Veterans Day, his concert on 11 January 2007 in HP Pavilion was sponsored by garbage music station Wild 94.9, which I've first liked in 1998 and trashed in September of this very year. Gosh, JT is so bad that he makes the All-American Rejects sound talented! JT has been a joke since his entry into the music industry with the boy band N'Sync in 1998, 'til their breakup following three instantly forgettable albums in 2002. You thought he was gone for good? EEHH! His solo CD Justified sounded more UN-justified when its release in 2003, when news with his love with another untalented c_nt named Britney Spears spread ad naseum across the country.

By the summer of 2004, we all forgot about Justified and JT-Britney, as they broke up from their engagement. Two years later...

"I'm bringing sexy back, yup, them motherf__kers don't know how to act..."

When I first heard "Sexyback" on the radio in August, I said, "Oh sh*t, JT is back to haunt us all again!" That was one reason I quit listening to wild 94.9, it plays too much BS music like "Sexyback". And now he's gonna come to San Jose, which we should all be boycotting. This leads to my other point

Where have all the talented bands gone?
I mean, Disturbed came to Mountain View back in winter 2005-spring 2006 I believe, not too far away from where I live! And now, with untalented butt-holes All-American Rejects, Panic at the Disco, and Justin Timberlake coming to town, I shall announce also that perhaps the programme directors of the major music venues of San Jose are probably drunk butt-holes too, or the tour managers of the good bands are too lazy, or both, explaining why I could not find any TALENTED bands coming to the South Bay anytime soon. Look at the tour page on GNR's official site! Their last Bay Area stop for the Chinese Democracy tour is 15 December in Oakland! THey already played SF back in the weekend of 15-16 September, and I'm not happy that whoever f*gg*t was scheduling the Chinese Democracy tour didn't include San Jose, who's already got all the untalented music coming to town! Hmm, let's find other talented bands who are currently active in the music scene. Trivium...last played in Bay 27 October in San Francisco, sponsored by 107.7 the Bone. Killswitch Engage - bummer, no Bay shows! Hmm, since I'm forcusing on bands coming to San Jose, i'll just go on hppsj.com, the official site of the hp pavilion, to look up what's coming up. Tommorrow, opera singer Andre Rieu comes to town, and evne though I could care less for opera, I'd rather listen to that than pop punk. In February 2007, Disney on Ice takes over. Most other events are the San Jose Sharks. Then 10 March 2007, is Christina Aguilera, all of her albums are unoriginal forgettable jokes! 28 March 2007: Josh Groban, who's music is boring, but better & more intelligent than Justin Timbleake or Aguilera or Panic! The Event Centre in SJSU is mostly SJSU Basketball games, their oly music is monday w/all american rejects. What other fav music? Hmm, Jay-Z, no Kingdom Come tour yet. Neither did Diddy. Darn, I missed the Who's SJ date from 8 November! So with Lacuna Coil, but they were in Santa Cruz in 30 November! What about Nas, whose song "Hip-Hop is Dead" I'm now hearing on KMEL! Hmm, he kicks it off in New York and Philly in the weekend of 22-23 December...more dates TBD...Hmm, thinking thinking, so overall...here's our overall conclusion...

SAN JOSE DOESN"T REALLY GET ANY TALENTED MUSIC TO COME TO TOWN, WHILE SAN FRANCISCO/OAKLAND/EVERYWHERE ELSE GETS TO, OR THE BANDS SKIP THE BAY! WAHH!!

Well what can you do about it? Convince the organisers of HP Pavilion and Event Centre that their musicians coming to town suck and you want better music! How? Request them on local radio! Write letters to the bands requesting a stop to the South Bay! Do whatever it takes to get a good band to come to San Jose, who's already got too much bad music around here! If you wanna request song on radio: here's some radio station numbers
KMEL 106.1 (hip-hop/R&B) 1-800-955-KMEL (5635)
KSAN 107.7 "The Bone" (hard rock) 1-888-303-BONE (2663)
KITS 105.3 "Live 105" (alternative/modern rock) 1-800-696-LIVE (5483)
Or, write to the HP Pavilion or Event Centre. Well, I've gotta run, as I'll go headbang to the Metalzone on 107.7 the Bone now!

New Year's Resolutions So Far...

Here were some New Year's Resolutions I established around 12/23/2006. If "[x]" is there, it's been passed. If it's been crossed out, it's either failed or modified.
[x] Stop being closed-minded toward certain taboo issues like the civil rights for disabled people and hunger
[x] Stop making up lame excuses not to participate in certain things/hide stuff
[x] Be more socially active as trevor suggested
- Get straight A's both semesters the 2nd semester and beyond
- Get a 5 on the AP World History Exam and Calculus AB exam
- Get enrolled in the AP Calculus BC in 11th grade if i follow what tom told me
[x] Quit being radical toward certain issues and understand that Animal Farm was correct about socialism.
- Become Class of 2009 President, or at least join Leadership
- Become more involved in community service
[x] Become nicer to girls/other ppl in general
- Become the boyfriend to the girl i love right now
- Become better in speaking Mandarin Chinese
- Figure out my job/college choices
- Get a job
Now for my wishes in 2007:
- Before his scheduled concert in 2007, Justin Timberlake will die.
- Ditto for Christina Aguilera and any other untalented knucklehead musical acts
- Nas will come to San Jose or nearby, at least Palo Alto (he'll be in San Francisco in May..darnit!)
- Ditto for In Flames, Slayer, any band on Headbanger's Ball
- Marriage will be defined as only between a man and woman. As for same-sex lovers...well, some other word like "autistic idiots"...
- MTV should start playing real music as opposed to the pop junk theyre playing now and they should drop theyre reality shows
- She will be my girlfriend for life
- We will find out if Tupac really died
- I will get to Calc BC AB by 11th grade

The demise & resurrection of Channel 104.9

Today in 2006 at 9:00 AM Pacific Standard Time, KCNL-FM "Channel 104.9", the alternative rock station of San Jose and the southern San Francisco Bay Area, switched to Spanish adult contemporary. Think of it as the pop music stars of Mexico and Latin America in the styles of artists you could hear on 94.5 or 101.3 locally. This was a heartbreak for numerous alt-rock fans in the San Jose area, who were forced to other local rock stations KITS-FM "Live 105", which also played alt-rock but was based from San Francisco, and KSAN-FM "107.7 the Bone", which focused more on classic rock and hard rock, with their alternative focused mainly on punk or grunge. Now a year later, rock music appears to be dying. Now that the pop stations play less rock in favor of more dance-pop and hip-hop, the alt-rock stations are forced to play "poser" rock bands. Gee whiz, ever since the demise of 104.9, music has sunk into a new low, with Live 105 having to play poser pop-rock bands like Evanescence, Angels & Airwaves, Plus 44, and Panic at the Disco, which I do not consider alternative rock at all. Shouldn't those bands be played only on top-40 stations like 101.3 or 106.5 or 97.3 instead of good rock stations that are suppoed to play only the GOOD alternative artists? After all, 105.3 would never play Good Charlotte or Simple Plan, because we all see them as pop rock, not alt-rock, so why would they play Evanescence, who made money and popularity only from ripping off Lacuna Coil, a TRUE goth band. Gee whiz, what a society we live in today. Hey, at least 105.3 still plays good alternative bands like Silversun Pickups, Plain White T's, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Audioslave, you name it! And they've got a new morning show replacing Howard Stern, called "the Morning Music Co-Op", which features talk, interviews, and songs rarely played on 105.3.

Channel 104.9 I began listening to in summer of 2005. That station introduced me to Nirvana, Queens of the Stone Age, My Chemical Romance, the Ramones, and other real grunge/punk rock bands. The first song I remember hearing on 104.9 was Gorillaz' "Feel Good Inc", and the last song I heard on the station, at 1/1/06 at 1:00 AM, was Gorillaz' "Clint Eastwood". Then nine hours later, I was disappointed to hear Spanish songs on the station, meaning I had to go elsewhere to listen to modern rock. I began listening to 105.3 and 107.7. 2006 was also when I started listening to the New Wave of American Heavy Metal Music, thanks to the Internet and the Friday Night Metal Zone on 107.7, as well as the ocasional metal song on 105.3. Whatever it is, I credit Channel 104.9 for introducing me to real alternative rock away from posers like Simple Plan or Good Charlotte, and getting me into real rock in general.

And I think the demise was planned, contrary to a report on the San Jose Mercury News on 1/3/06 that no one knew until it was too late, as two days after 104.9 changed to Spanish, 105.3 had in a planned manner change it's Howard Stern Morning Show to the Morning Music Co Op, as they'd announced back a week before Christmas. That's what I think, remembering what 104.9/105.3 announced around December 2005, but it's gonna be awhile ti'll we know for sure what happened.

(UPDATE 24/3/2007): On the late afternoon of Feb. 27, 2007, KCNL-FM 104.9 switched back to alternative rock under "Channel 104.9" once again, playing less commercials than Live 105, but apparantly they've now started playing more mainstream rock. Is it just me or is it a sudden corruption in Clear Channel? Right now I'm listening to 105.3 more than 104.9, depending on which songs these stations play. Good thing 104.9 doesn't play poser bands like Fall Out Boy or Panic at the Disco, but I don't understand why they'd play The Fray or Hinder. Those are far too mainstream/untalented/poppy for alternative rock!

R.I.P. Channel 104.9, 1/15/2001-1/1/2006

Welcome back Channel 104.9, 2/27/2007-forever

My First "Real" Blogging Experience

Wow...my first blog entry outside of my regular Myspace account. Wow. I hope that more people will take my blogging seriously if I post here, as one of my friends recommended me to. So now it's a Saturday in late March, after I've done piano lessons, the library, dentist, and dinner, and I don't feel like really doing anything now. I hope you enjoy reading my blogs, which I do post if anything remotely interesting happens in my life or current events now, and I hope I'll have fun as well.

Now, regarding Myspace, I began using it in the middle of my freshman year in high school after I heard a lot of my friends were using it. I used to be a total addict to it, using it like every day infinitely, but nowadays I use it just to keep in touch with friends in the simplest manner possible, not to do all that other [...] like surveys, hardcore designing, attention grabbing, etc. I have a lot of other [...] to deal with in life given that I have to take the AP World History Exam in 17 May and may take Math Analysis this summer. However, as technology continues advancing as time goes on, I began noticing weird [...] in the bulletins and comments section in MySpace. At first, I thought people were doing that [...] on purpose, but then I learned that it was all done by hackers. That had been going on since at least August 2006. Spam on bulletins and comments promoting the most perverted [...] on Earth: pornography, fake free gift cards, fake free iPods/electronics, you name whatever junk you can find on the Web these days. It starts when people seeking free enhancements for their Myspace profiles encounter "Myspace login pages" that are outside the actual Myspace site, and people think it's for real, so they log in with that, and that's how spam gets transmitted. And then some other clowns believe the spam is true and thus their profile gets corrupted as well. Today, when I logged in Myspace, finally, the admin stepped forward with this:
"Latest Update: Mar 24, 2007 3:00pm, PST

I know a lot of you are seeing spam comments on your page. sorry about that! The super nasty ones block your other comments. They also may not be easy to delete. Here's how to get rid of them: from your home page, click "edit profile," then click "safe edit mode" in the top right corner of the edit page. next, click the "comments" tab. from here you'll be able to delete the comments individually.

just fyi, we are in the process of taking legal action against the losers behind this comment spam. bad news is that's going to take awhile because courts are slow, good news is we won some recent cases which is going to make it easy to punish the beejesus out of them. also, we're working on a filter that will stop it from happening altogether.. that should be done in a few days."

Wow, I hope when all this is over with I'm sure at least 95% of the spam on Myspace will disappear.

In other news, find me in Battle of the Classes on Friday 30 March during intermission. You will be surprised.