Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
01 August 2011
So where was I?
Well busying myself outside of blogging, that's for sure. Anyway I've been learning the SolidWorks computer-aided design program so that I can become a Certified SolidWorks Associate. And of course catching up on DVR'd programs and watching some movies. And other fun summertime stuff if I can't work. I'll expand on these and other topics in later posts. Also, there's been a lot of crazy stuff going on with the American debt ceiling and the bitter battle between President Barack Obama, House Speaker John Boehner, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
26 December 2009
So what happened in my month sans any blogging?
- Finals. Out of my 5 classes of fall semester, 4 of the classes' grades were released. Those were all A's. Still pending is my calculus grade.
- On the Saturday before Christmas, I got my wisdom teeth removed and was nearly malnourished the next few days.
- Now that finals are out of the way and I get to fool around and do nothing really until January 26 (when spring semester begins) I've started cleaning out my DVR, which has shrunken from nearly 95 shows around finals time (Dec. 11-14) to just 65 today.
- Hopefully I can find old high school friends when they've still got winter break.
- On Christmas Day, I took a hike with family in Hellyer Park.
- On the Saturday before Christmas, I got my wisdom teeth removed and was nearly malnourished the next few days.
- Now that finals are out of the way and I get to fool around and do nothing really until January 26 (when spring semester begins) I've started cleaning out my DVR, which has shrunken from nearly 95 shows around finals time (Dec. 11-14) to just 65 today.
- Hopefully I can find old high school friends when they've still got winter break.
- On Christmas Day, I took a hike with family in Hellyer Park.
31 October 2008
Everything that's wrong with Evergreen Valley High School
Well, an hour ago I got home from the EVHS football team's embarrassing Homecoming Game loss to Independence High School, 22-21. That came after the EV Cougars were leading 21-14 with about 10 seconds left in the 4th quarter, when suddenly defense slipped up in the rainy weather and allowed an Independence player to score a touchdown (6 points) and a 2-point conversion, thus concluding the game at that. At the same time, we learned that the Juniors got 1st place at homecoming and Seniors 2nd (and of course, Sophomores 3rd and Freshmen 4th). And the Associated Student Body (ASB for short) invested lots of valuable money and had its president testify before the District in its September board meeting for a permit for halftime fireworks tonight. Wow. In a time when the economy is sucking so bad it's under Great Depression status and public schools from Puget Sound to the Rio Grande to the Florida Keys are strapped in cash and raped in the behind by President Bush's incompetent No Child Left Behind Act, it is simply a disgrace for a school that was recently ranked silver by US News & World Report magazine as among the best American high schools and having led the whole damn district in API (Academic Performance Index) to look like this in what's supposed to be the happiest time of the year.
So when I got home, I laid back on my futon and watched a DVR'ed episode of The Steve Wilkos Show, whose title host is a former US Marine, Chicago Police Officer, and security director for The Jerry Springer Show. No, I'm not joking, Wilkos is the bald-headed guy you've seen on Springer since the mid-90s or so. The episode I recorded, "Tragic Tale of 2 Sisters", was from Thursday, about an 18-year-old woman who wanted Wilkos to help her 11-year-old sister stop having sex with teen boys (I'm not joking, it IS the plot of the episode). Steve Wilkos later talks with the sister & parents, who are divorced. Soon it's revealed that the father once sexually molested the older daughter, so Steve didn't let the father see the younger daughter. Meanwhile, Steve also punishes the mother for not looking out for and loving her younger, whoring daughter. In the end, the father is evicted from the stage (in Steve's popular "GET OFF MY STAGE!!!" cry) and Steve gets the mother and children counseling.
Now I'm here all angry about how low my school is sinking. Here's a rough list of everything that is wrong, wrong, incorrect, inaccurate, stupid, messed up, FUBAR, abominable, unbelievable, and silly about Evergreen Valley High School:
1. During the part of the 05-06 academic year when private colleges are asking for letters of recommendation and such, counselors were borderline deadbeat--Steve Wilkos might've beaten them up severely.
2. EVHS has acknowledged repeatedly its over-crowding controversy, but its solution--the off-campus Biotech Academy for 11th/12th graders--was killed late in 2006, thus resuming the bottleneck. This year, the overcrowding got so bad that some students were denied certain classes merely with the excuse that there wasn't enough space. One friend of mine passed the AP Calculus AB exam but was denied Calculus BC for that very reason, yet two FRESHMEN who took a shallow summer calculus I course at community college got in. And while she was repeatedly refused a seat in Calc BC, another student (a leadership student who got a 2 on the exam, a failing score) and another random student were granted space! This is affirmative action and disorganization gone WRONG. I've heard of seniors who were forced to repeat English 3 despite passing it with at least a B just because "oh, there ain't enough space". Yet I know that this year there are students in English 4 who got C/D grades in English 3.
3. EVHS made a terrible mistake by neglecting meritocracy in considering attendance priority. That's why it's more likely that a dirty ghetto kid from the borderline Mt. Pleasant/EV attendance area gets enrolled and eventually wastes our taxpayers' money by repeating Algebra 1 until eleventh grade. At the same time, a rich, hardworking student from, lessay the Silver Creek/EV attendance borderline is rejected because of..."overcrowding". Had EV used meritocracy on its borderline attendance areas, then we'd be chasing after Cupertino and Palo Alto high schools.
4. The ASB has gotten away with childish/just plain silly homecoming and battle themes.
5. An incident in November 2007 where a great mob of students hurled Skittles at each other and at staff members illustrated the students' dissatisfaction that the administration was going all North Korea on extracurricular activities. It took that much pressure for the principal to back off.
6. EVHS knowingly hired registered sex offenders in its arts programs! In November 2006, the drama teacher was arrested for sexual misconduct. Ditto with a former band teacher a couple years later. That teacher willfully allowed a registered sex offender to volunteer at the Band Boosters!!!!!!!!
7. Racism and imbalance is rampant in EVHS's course catalogue. Why can EV provide special ed yet not have foreign language classes beyond Spanish, French, and Vietnamese? Shouldn't we save our API and reputation and harbor off the special ed to Silver Creek/Mt. Pleasant for the sake of our achieving students? Also, EVHS refuses to hire a competent AP Computer Science teacher--the one right now is lying about his 67% pass rate by a HUGE margin, to be honest.
8. Gov.Ahnuld Arnold Schwarzenegger's struggle with the state budget was somehow a tolerable excuse for the school library not to be open before 6th period, but it's almost Election Day now and this still applies. Testimony from many many district parents/students/teachers was not enough either to persuade the district to finalise hours/budget for libraries!
9. I'm still angry at EV for not telling in advance that there'd be only ONE APCS section this year--so I couldn't get in AP English Language, which I planned to be a "backup" in case I didn't get APCS. When I appealed to the APLang teacher, she just gave me a "fuck you" (no, not really) and explained that I should've done the summer stuff. Still--both me and EV are equally guilty of arrogance.
10. EV has no problem with the Gay/Straight Alliance flamboyantly posting pro-gay propaganda throughout campus during "Gay Pride Week" or whatever that is. If a pro-Proposition 8 group were to come up on campus, the ICC would evict them, and if that group were ever to practice their First Amendment rights by posting their opinions in appropriate places, the Thought Police of EV would tear 'em down within minutes. Obviously, EV holds an agenda to brainwash all students with a perverted, blind message of "tolerance for all regardless or whatever" without critical thinking.
Sadly, these are only a few problems. I've got to go to sleep now. More will come later.
So when I got home, I laid back on my futon and watched a DVR'ed episode of The Steve Wilkos Show, whose title host is a former US Marine, Chicago Police Officer, and security director for The Jerry Springer Show. No, I'm not joking, Wilkos is the bald-headed guy you've seen on Springer since the mid-90s or so. The episode I recorded, "Tragic Tale of 2 Sisters", was from Thursday, about an 18-year-old woman who wanted Wilkos to help her 11-year-old sister stop having sex with teen boys (I'm not joking, it IS the plot of the episode). Steve Wilkos later talks with the sister & parents, who are divorced. Soon it's revealed that the father once sexually molested the older daughter, so Steve didn't let the father see the younger daughter. Meanwhile, Steve also punishes the mother for not looking out for and loving her younger, whoring daughter. In the end, the father is evicted from the stage (in Steve's popular "GET OFF MY STAGE!!!" cry) and Steve gets the mother and children counseling.
Now I'm here all angry about how low my school is sinking. Here's a rough list of everything that is wrong, wrong, incorrect, inaccurate, stupid, messed up, FUBAR, abominable, unbelievable, and silly about Evergreen Valley High School:
1. During the part of the 05-06 academic year when private colleges are asking for letters of recommendation and such, counselors were borderline deadbeat--Steve Wilkos might've beaten them up severely.
2. EVHS has acknowledged repeatedly its over-crowding controversy, but its solution--the off-campus Biotech Academy for 11th/12th graders--was killed late in 2006, thus resuming the bottleneck. This year, the overcrowding got so bad that some students were denied certain classes merely with the excuse that there wasn't enough space. One friend of mine passed the AP Calculus AB exam but was denied Calculus BC for that very reason, yet two FRESHMEN who took a shallow summer calculus I course at community college got in. And while she was repeatedly refused a seat in Calc BC, another student (a leadership student who got a 2 on the exam, a failing score) and another random student were granted space! This is affirmative action and disorganization gone WRONG. I've heard of seniors who were forced to repeat English 3 despite passing it with at least a B just because "oh, there ain't enough space". Yet I know that this year there are students in English 4 who got C/D grades in English 3.
3. EVHS made a terrible mistake by neglecting meritocracy in considering attendance priority. That's why it's more likely that a dirty ghetto kid from the borderline Mt. Pleasant/EV attendance area gets enrolled and eventually wastes our taxpayers' money by repeating Algebra 1 until eleventh grade. At the same time, a rich, hardworking student from, lessay the Silver Creek/EV attendance borderline is rejected because of..."overcrowding". Had EV used meritocracy on its borderline attendance areas, then we'd be chasing after Cupertino and Palo Alto high schools.
4. The ASB has gotten away with childish/just plain silly homecoming and battle themes.
5. An incident in November 2007 where a great mob of students hurled Skittles at each other and at staff members illustrated the students' dissatisfaction that the administration was going all North Korea on extracurricular activities. It took that much pressure for the principal to back off.
6. EVHS knowingly hired registered sex offenders in its arts programs! In November 2006, the drama teacher was arrested for sexual misconduct. Ditto with a former band teacher a couple years later. That teacher willfully allowed a registered sex offender to volunteer at the Band Boosters!!!!!!!!
7. Racism and imbalance is rampant in EVHS's course catalogue. Why can EV provide special ed yet not have foreign language classes beyond Spanish, French, and Vietnamese? Shouldn't we save our API and reputation and harbor off the special ed to Silver Creek/Mt. Pleasant for the sake of our achieving students? Also, EVHS refuses to hire a competent AP Computer Science teacher--the one right now is lying about his 67% pass rate by a HUGE margin, to be honest.
8. Gov.
9. I'm still angry at EV for not telling in advance that there'd be only ONE APCS section this year--so I couldn't get in AP English Language, which I planned to be a "backup" in case I didn't get APCS. When I appealed to the APLang teacher, she just gave me a "fuck you" (no, not really) and explained that I should've done the summer stuff. Still--both me and EV are equally guilty of arrogance.
10. EV has no problem with the Gay/Straight Alliance flamboyantly posting pro-gay propaganda throughout campus during "Gay Pride Week" or whatever that is. If a pro-Proposition 8 group were to come up on campus, the ICC would evict them, and if that group were ever to practice their First Amendment rights by posting their opinions in appropriate places, the Thought Police of EV would tear 'em down within minutes. Obviously, EV holds an agenda to brainwash all students with a perverted, blind message of "tolerance for all regardless or whatever" without critical thinking.
Sadly, these are only a few problems. I've got to go to sleep now. More will come later.
19 September 2008
Symphonic band on strike?
Today was a pretty good end of the week, with an easy calculus quiz on integration by parts, followed by the usual 15-minute break, where I got to wish my friend Rachel a happy 17th birthday. All went well until the next period, which was Symphonic Band. The ensemble rehearsed two pieces out of four to be played this 11 December for the school band concert and had been playing them since the week of Labor Day. Most of the days since then, the band has been practicing around an average level, with certain mistakes or anamolies making the conductor stop the band and advise on corrections, which turn out to be usually simple. "That's all you gotta do," he'd say.
But today, 19 September, the ensemble sunk to a new low. Guess what kind of errors happened today? Trombone players were nearly a measure behind, trumpets played too slow, drums were off-beat, and soon the whole ensemble "falls asleep" and literally slows down to ritardando when they are not supposed to. All when I, a mallet player, am keeping my eyes between the conductor and my score and waiting for my turn on the music, having done a competent job all along. Those parts of today's rehearsal sounded so disorganized and chaotic that Soulja Boy's annoying, ubitiquous "Crank That" song even sounds more musical than a high school symphonic band!
So the conductor stops the band and furiously wants to know what has happened with them. He felt that the players were on "last day of school" mode rather than September & "excited for school/concert" mode. Wow. We're really supposed to be superior to the average dumb high school students. Given how much bull$#!7 I had to suffer today thanks to the other morons who were supposed to be concentrating together as an ensemble - two people even lost some of their musical sheets - I feel compelled to turn up Weezer's new song "Troublemaker".
Don't worry, my fellow Symphonic Bandmembers. I've been through your kind of trouble before when I joined the ensemble last year to make up for a lack of performing arts class for my college entrance requirement (both the University of California and California State University systems require "at least one year" of Performing/visual arts type of class) I made a lot of effort to learn how to grip mallet sticks properly and follow the conducting. A year has passed, and I've become a welcome member of the family. But now we need to sink so low as to THIS crappy level - which as I mentioned earlier sounds even WORSE than the most annoying pop punk/emo/pop rap/bubblegum MTV corporate radio pop/MMMBop/Britney/NSYNC/Backstreet Boys/Simple Plan/Good Charlotte/Soulja Boy/Fall Out Boy/Limp Bizkit songs out there?!?!?!?! Maybe now it's OK for Michael Savage to trash-talk about Muslims and the mentally disabled. I think I'll just quit life and start smoking all the marijuana and drinking all the beer/alcoholic drinks I want and fail all my classes and eventually end up homeless/single/still a virgin after high school and spend the rest of my life in who knows where. College sounds worthless. Finding a job sounds meaningless. Everyone is an idiot. My local school district is a run by a mob of brainless drunken bastards for failing to fix a dying softball field at one school yet fixing other stuff everywhere else. MY school does things even worse by denying the right of one of my best friends to attend Calculus BC after having passed the Calculus AB exam
Back to the main topic. For this weekend, we all need to rethink this stupid situation and redeem ourselves and prove that we are all TRUE students and authentically-trained musicians and wanting to be among the best students out there. A CHANGE IS GONNA COME. If not, I might probably start ditching band class and later put the blame on whoever is causing me the most problems there, Barack Obama might lose the election simply because we weren't willing to accept change for the better, the world will decompose into a violent anarchy...OK sorry enough with the insane doomsday predictions right there. But seriously. You and I ALL NEED TO F\/|
PS: I thank all members of the Wind Ensemble, the highest level of band at school, for their hard work and making class "fun" for my other friend Jamie, who advised me on the state of that ensemble today after 6th period ended today. I guess that means that the WE was actually being cooperative unlike the Symphonic knuckleheads.
But today, 19 September, the ensemble sunk to a new low. Guess what kind of errors happened today? Trombone players were nearly a measure behind, trumpets played too slow, drums were off-beat, and soon the whole ensemble "falls asleep" and literally slows down to ritardando when they are not supposed to. All when I, a mallet player, am keeping my eyes between the conductor and my score and waiting for my turn on the music, having done a competent job all along. Those parts of today's rehearsal sounded so disorganized and chaotic that Soulja Boy's annoying, ubitiquous "Crank That" song even sounds more musical than a high school symphonic band!
So the conductor stops the band and furiously wants to know what has happened with them. He felt that the players were on "last day of school" mode rather than September & "excited for school/concert" mode. Wow. We're really supposed to be superior to the average dumb high school students. Given how much bull$#!7 I had to suffer today thanks to the other morons who were supposed to be concentrating together as an ensemble - two people even lost some of their musical sheets - I feel compelled to turn up Weezer's new song "Troublemaker".
Don't worry, my fellow Symphonic Bandmembers. I've been through your kind of trouble before when I joined the ensemble last year to make up for a lack of performing arts class for my college entrance requirement (both the University of California and California State University systems require "at least one year" of Performing/visual arts type of class) I made a lot of effort to learn how to grip mallet sticks properly and follow the conducting. A year has passed, and I've become a welcome member of the family. But now we need to sink so low as to THIS crappy level - which as I mentioned earlier sounds even WORSE than the most annoying pop punk/emo/pop rap/bubblegum MTV corporate radio pop/MMMBop/Britney/NSYNC/Backstreet Boys/Simple Plan/Good Charlotte/Soulja Boy/Fall Out Boy/Limp Bizkit songs out there?!?!?!?! Maybe now it's OK for Michael Savage to trash-talk about Muslims and the mentally disabled. I think I'll just quit life and start smoking all the marijuana and drinking all the beer/alcoholic drinks I want and fail all my classes and eventually end up homeless/single/still a virgin after high school and spend the rest of my life in who knows where. College sounds worthless. Finding a job sounds meaningless. Everyone is an idiot. My local school district is a run by a mob of brainless drunken bastards for failing to fix a dying softball field at one school yet fixing other stuff everywhere else. MY school does things even worse by denying the right of one of my best friends to attend Calculus BC after having passed the Calculus AB exam
Back to the main topic. For this weekend, we all need to rethink this stupid situation and redeem ourselves and prove that we are all TRUE students and authentically-trained musicians and wanting to be among the best students out there. A CHANGE IS GONNA COME. If not, I might probably start ditching band class and later put the blame on whoever is causing me the most problems there, Barack Obama might lose the election simply because we weren't willing to accept change for the better, the world will decompose into a violent anarchy...OK sorry enough with the insane doomsday predictions right there. But seriously. You and I ALL NEED TO F\/|
PS: I thank all members of the Wind Ensemble, the highest level of band at school, for their hard work and making class "fun" for my other friend Jamie, who advised me on the state of that ensemble today after 6th period ended today. I guess that means that the WE was actually being cooperative unlike the Symphonic knuckleheads.
22 August 2008
How will senior year go?
So today I picked up the revised version of my senior year schedule because of an error in class placement. I at least got into symphonic band rather than orchestra (I don't play string instruments; I play only piano and mallets) but did not get AP Computer Science. Which leaves my schedule as follows:
2nd - Teacher's assistant
3rd - AP Calculus BC
4th - Symphonic Band
5th - AP U.S. Government (1st sem.)/Economics (2nd sem.)
6th - English 4 (possibly might change to AP English Language if I can work something out with the counselors)
As far as this goes, it might be a lightly scheduled yet difficult senior year. Besides the complexity of the AP classes, there are other things I must deal with, including college apps, SAT's, and preparation for independent living. After having surfed CollegeBoard.com for the past two weeks, my college lookout so far aims at: San Jose State University, University of the Pacific, University of Washington (in Seattle, not DC), Reed College, Washington University (in St. Louis, again not Seattle or DC), UC Irvine, UC Riverside, and some others in certain areas of the US I'm eager to "temporarily" reside in.
Now that I'm lacking in AP Computer Science yet I still plan on majoring in a computer science/IT-related field in college, the question is: How will I be able to "prepare" myself for my major? I doubt that colleges would want a candidate for such a major who lacked any high school experience in the field. Luckily I still have other academic interests like business and mathematics (I got a 5 on the AP Calculus AB exam!) which I think I might as well advance my interests in in the time to come. This summer I've been exploring Java programming with the APCS homework (which the teacher recommended for ALL the potential APCS students) and the editing of Wikipedia.
Next year, I hope to be able to learn from the mistakes I made the past three years of high school and reverse them so that I can perform better this year, possibly even straight A's (something I so far haven't been able to get to in high school)! Luckily my "light" schedule will give me more time to practice for the SAT's and polish an impressive application - unintentionally increasing my acceptance chances. I've done many more practice problems for SAT thanks to the Princeton Review using a passcode provided in an SAT prep book I bought from Barnes & Noble. The same "learning from my mistakes" philosophy I shall use for SAT and everything else in life.
Anyways, after having picked up my schedule, I went home, had lunch, watched some Inuyasha, and practiced the piano.
And just a few minutes ago, I decided to revisit the Parents Television Council's April 2008 report The Rap on Rap that complained that the impressionable children watching the hip-hop video shows on BET and MTV are being corrupted by images of thug life, gratuitous images of women's body parts, foul language, and basically everything you dislike about rap music. This isn't a surprise given that rap music has always been controversial - even back in the late 80s/early 90s with N.W.A and 2 Live Crew. As a longtime fan of hip hop music I won't deny that a lot of it is morally incorrect. I certainly agree with the PTC's position that those programs are not "kid-friendly" and was quite surprised to notice that a sizable audience of kids age 2-11 watch such shows! But here's the thing: the PTC is an organization that many claim insist that TV be "politically correct" in the field of tradition values and accuse of dubious research, blatant deceit, and inflation of FCC complaint numbers. As I read through the PTC's report (which I've already done a few times) I also have some suspicions. Sure, I'd agree that the average viewer would be offended by much of the content on those shows, but the report doesn't note exactly which videos are "really" offensive and which aren't. The report also includes a table of videos included in the research, which ranged from gangsta rap ("100 Million" by Birdman, "Speedin'" by Rick Ross, "I'm So Hood" by DJ Khaled), rap "ballads" ("Fly Like Me" by Chingy, "Girl You Know" by Scarface, "I Won't Tell" by Fat Joe), R&B (various videos by Mary J. Blige, Chris Brown, etc.) among others. I've already gone on YouTube and previewed two of the "not-so-raunchy" choices: "Superstar" by Lupe Fiasco and "Independent" by Webbie, and I doubt that they'd match the PTC's fear-mongering impression of rap music. Furthermore, as pretty much all the videos shown on BET/MTV were edited for content, PTC freely admitted that its researchers referred to the "uncensored" versions to find out what got muted out - to get around the censors, maybe? As I have far much more to say afterwards, I'll continue this tomorrow.
2nd - Teacher's assistant
3rd - AP Calculus BC
4th - Symphonic Band
5th - AP U.S. Government (1st sem.)/Economics (2nd sem.)
6th - English 4 (possibly might change to AP English Language if I can work something out with the counselors)
As far as this goes, it might be a lightly scheduled yet difficult senior year. Besides the complexity of the AP classes, there are other things I must deal with, including college apps, SAT's, and preparation for independent living. After having surfed CollegeBoard.com for the past two weeks, my college lookout so far aims at: San Jose State University, University of the Pacific, University of Washington (in Seattle, not DC), Reed College, Washington University (in St. Louis, again not Seattle or DC), UC Irvine, UC Riverside, and some others in certain areas of the US I'm eager to "temporarily" reside in.
Now that I'm lacking in AP Computer Science yet I still plan on majoring in a computer science/IT-related field in college, the question is: How will I be able to "prepare" myself for my major? I doubt that colleges would want a candidate for such a major who lacked any high school experience in the field. Luckily I still have other academic interests like business and mathematics (I got a 5 on the AP Calculus AB exam!) which I think I might as well advance my interests in in the time to come. This summer I've been exploring Java programming with the APCS homework (which the teacher recommended for ALL the potential APCS students) and the editing of Wikipedia.
Next year, I hope to be able to learn from the mistakes I made the past three years of high school and reverse them so that I can perform better this year, possibly even straight A's (something I so far haven't been able to get to in high school)! Luckily my "light" schedule will give me more time to practice for the SAT's and polish an impressive application - unintentionally increasing my acceptance chances. I've done many more practice problems for SAT thanks to the Princeton Review using a passcode provided in an SAT prep book I bought from Barnes & Noble. The same "learning from my mistakes" philosophy I shall use for SAT and everything else in life.
Anyways, after having picked up my schedule, I went home, had lunch, watched some Inuyasha, and practiced the piano.
And just a few minutes ago, I decided to revisit the Parents Television Council's April 2008 report The Rap on Rap that complained that the impressionable children watching the hip-hop video shows on BET and MTV are being corrupted by images of thug life, gratuitous images of women's body parts, foul language, and basically everything you dislike about rap music. This isn't a surprise given that rap music has always been controversial - even back in the late 80s/early 90s with N.W.A and 2 Live Crew. As a longtime fan of hip hop music I won't deny that a lot of it is morally incorrect. I certainly agree with the PTC's position that those programs are not "kid-friendly" and was quite surprised to notice that a sizable audience of kids age 2-11 watch such shows! But here's the thing: the PTC is an organization that many claim insist that TV be "politically correct" in the field of tradition values and accuse of dubious research, blatant deceit, and inflation of FCC complaint numbers. As I read through the PTC's report (which I've already done a few times) I also have some suspicions. Sure, I'd agree that the average viewer would be offended by much of the content on those shows, but the report doesn't note exactly which videos are "really" offensive and which aren't. The report also includes a table of videos included in the research, which ranged from gangsta rap ("100 Million" by Birdman, "Speedin'" by Rick Ross, "I'm So Hood" by DJ Khaled), rap "ballads" ("Fly Like Me" by Chingy, "Girl You Know" by Scarface, "I Won't Tell" by Fat Joe), R&B (various videos by Mary J. Blige, Chris Brown, etc.) among others. I've already gone on YouTube and previewed two of the "not-so-raunchy" choices: "Superstar" by Lupe Fiasco and "Independent" by Webbie, and I doubt that they'd match the PTC's fear-mongering impression of rap music. Furthermore, as pretty much all the videos shown on BET/MTV were edited for content, PTC freely admitted that its researchers referred to the "uncensored" versions to find out what got muted out - to get around the censors, maybe? As I have far much more to say afterwards, I'll continue this tomorrow.
25 July 2008
Tabloids hit reality
On June 4, I commentated about the US network news' lack of Tiananmen protest retrospective coverage - largely in part from Barack Obama's victory in the US Democratic Party primaries for the 2008 election.
However, I just came upon this BBC News article today that reports on the Beijing News tabloid getting banned from mainland Chinese newsstands after it dared shed light on Democracy by posting a photo from the 1989 Tiananmen protests. So apparantly the free-speech-granted ABC, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC, and NBC didn't say anything about the massacre, but the Communist-censored Beijing News could?! How ironic...in a real world the exact opposite would've happened...apparantly the same darn thing happened to the state-run CCTV too
Back home in the red, white, and blue, during the dog days of summer with about 30-35 days left until school resumes, I've been dividing my days between studying, slacking, the Internet, and the Idiot Box. During the daytime, the local channels show all sorts of "Tabloid talk shows", such as Jerry Springer and Maury. Those types of programs are for me just guilty pleasure but not really my regular taste...they ain't "must see TV" compared to quality, actually "entertaining" stuff like CSI, The Office, or The Simpsons.
On Thursday, local Fox station KTVU re-ran an old Maury episode from May 2008, titled "You're 14 and Having a Baby, Your Wild Ways End Today!" - pretty much all Maury episode titles read like a New York Post or National Enquirer headline (even his occaasional "clean" episode like his "Most Talented Kids" shows...with all the exclamation and question marks) As you might've predicted or known, that episode was among his countless "wild teens" episodes that feature teen girls who engage in sexually devious behavior. One girl featured had a baby at age 11 and repeated the 6th grade twice, and another girl was a sex & drug addict who failed 8th grade twice! Luckily, Maury Povich at least knows how to be morally correct, as he talks to the girls in a serious, concerned tone and invites motivational speakers/counselor type people like D. West, Raphael B. Johnson, and Harvey Walden to fix 'em up. After show, the girls go to "rehabilitation" places like an AIDS treatment facility (for the third-time 6th grade student) or even the Monmouth County Correctional Facility (for the others).
Later that day, I tuned to local PBS station KQED to watch The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. It was the first time in a while I actually saw Lehrer host his own show; in many previous times I watched Newshour other substitute hosts like Ray Suarez or Gwen Ifill. Thursday's edition had a story about a reform school district down in New Orleans that serviced "overage" students...yep the same type of students I saw on Maury earlier that day. The story featured...a 19-year old woman who failed 12th grade twice (mostly due to failing the Science section of Louisiana's high school exit exam...here in California we take only English & Math in our exit exam). If her situation isn't bad enough, wait till you hear in that story about a 16-year-old boy who failed eighth grade twice; the reporter also asserted the existence of overage sixth- and seventh-grade students.
Whether in Communist China or Free-Speech America, "edgy" journalism like tabloids can ocassionally be eye-opener despite being general eye candy. It really depends on what the tabloid is covering, usually smearing public figures such as celebrities or politicians. But sometimes they're willing to cover where the MSM simply is too cowardly to go.
However, I just came upon this BBC News article today that reports on the Beijing News tabloid getting banned from mainland Chinese newsstands after it dared shed light on Democracy by posting a photo from the 1989 Tiananmen protests. So apparantly the free-speech-granted ABC, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC, and NBC didn't say anything about the massacre, but the Communist-censored Beijing News could?! How ironic...in a real world the exact opposite would've happened...apparantly the same darn thing happened to the state-run CCTV too
Back home in the red, white, and blue, during the dog days of summer with about 30-35 days left until school resumes, I've been dividing my days between studying, slacking, the Internet, and the Idiot Box. During the daytime, the local channels show all sorts of "Tabloid talk shows", such as Jerry Springer and Maury. Those types of programs are for me just guilty pleasure but not really my regular taste...they ain't "must see TV" compared to quality, actually "entertaining" stuff like CSI, The Office, or The Simpsons.
On Thursday, local Fox station KTVU re-ran an old Maury episode from May 2008, titled "You're 14 and Having a Baby, Your Wild Ways End Today!" - pretty much all Maury episode titles read like a New York Post or National Enquirer headline (even his occaasional "clean" episode like his "Most Talented Kids" shows...with all the exclamation and question marks) As you might've predicted or known, that episode was among his countless "wild teens" episodes that feature teen girls who engage in sexually devious behavior. One girl featured had a baby at age 11 and repeated the 6th grade twice, and another girl was a sex & drug addict who failed 8th grade twice! Luckily, Maury Povich at least knows how to be morally correct, as he talks to the girls in a serious, concerned tone and invites motivational speakers/counselor type people like D. West, Raphael B. Johnson, and Harvey Walden to fix 'em up. After show, the girls go to "rehabilitation" places like an AIDS treatment facility (for the third-time 6th grade student) or even the Monmouth County Correctional Facility (for the others).
Later that day, I tuned to local PBS station KQED to watch The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. It was the first time in a while I actually saw Lehrer host his own show; in many previous times I watched Newshour other substitute hosts like Ray Suarez or Gwen Ifill. Thursday's edition had a story about a reform school district down in New Orleans that serviced "overage" students...yep the same type of students I saw on Maury earlier that day. The story featured...a 19-year old woman who failed 12th grade twice (mostly due to failing the Science section of Louisiana's high school exit exam...here in California we take only English & Math in our exit exam). If her situation isn't bad enough, wait till you hear in that story about a 16-year-old boy who failed eighth grade twice; the reporter also asserted the existence of overage sixth- and seventh-grade students.
Whether in Communist China or Free-Speech America, "edgy" journalism like tabloids can ocassionally be eye-opener despite being general eye candy. It really depends on what the tabloid is covering, usually smearing public figures such as celebrities or politicians. But sometimes they're willing to cover where the MSM simply is too cowardly to go.
19 July 2008
Back from vacation
My first blog in about 15 days huh?
Anyway, from the 11th to late 17th, I was out on vacation in a bus tour to the Rockies, in case you couldn't find me online (AIM, Facebook, Myspace, wherever). The tour visited Salt Lake City, Yellowstone Naional Park, Grand Teton NP, Mount Rushmore Natl Monument, and Devil's Tour Natl Monument, among other places. It was a great six-and-a-half days to escape to rural USA and experience the good earth. The bus driver also provided great entertainment as he sang good songs while on the road...my mom said he has potential to be on NBC's America's Got Talent!!
It was an extremely valuable opportunity to be able to visit Yellowstone, which my parents visited back in the late '80s, with all the hot springs, geysers, forests, and wildlife. I was there Sunday and Monday, staying in a small cabin room in Canyon Village without a television or land-line phone (I'm not kidding). A majority of the other places I stayed overnight were small towns in the "middle of nowhere" America if I wasn't in SLC.
For me it was hard to believe that there actually were Chinese-run Chinese restaurants in Idaho and Wyoming - possibly the chinese population there is due to the Gold Rush and the use of Chinese immigrant workers back in the 19th century to construct the Western railroads. The food there was at least competently made.
If you (at least if you live where I live) want to know what I saw for the majority of my vacation think about the eastern San Jose foothills and imagine if they replaced everything around you.
Anyway, from the 11th to late 17th, I was out on vacation in a bus tour to the Rockies, in case you couldn't find me online (AIM, Facebook, Myspace, wherever). The tour visited Salt Lake City, Yellowstone Naional Park, Grand Teton NP, Mount Rushmore Natl Monument, and Devil's Tour Natl Monument, among other places. It was a great six-and-a-half days to escape to rural USA and experience the good earth. The bus driver also provided great entertainment as he sang good songs while on the road...my mom said he has potential to be on NBC's America's Got Talent!!
It was an extremely valuable opportunity to be able to visit Yellowstone, which my parents visited back in the late '80s, with all the hot springs, geysers, forests, and wildlife. I was there Sunday and Monday, staying in a small cabin room in Canyon Village without a television or land-line phone (I'm not kidding). A majority of the other places I stayed overnight were small towns in the "middle of nowhere" America if I wasn't in SLC.
For me it was hard to believe that there actually were Chinese-run Chinese restaurants in Idaho and Wyoming - possibly the chinese population there is due to the Gold Rush and the use of Chinese immigrant workers back in the 19th century to construct the Western railroads. The food there was at least competently made.
If you (at least if you live where I live) want to know what I saw for the majority of my vacation think about the eastern San Jose foothills and imagine if they replaced everything around you.
29 June 2008
My own summer - I love it!
(apologies to fans of Deftones, a band that I also like, regarding their song "My Own Summer (Shove It)", one of my favorite metal songs ever)
Summer so far has been greatly lawless for me. The third week of summer is beginning, with just a few days to go before we Americans celebrate our 232nd year free from tyrannical British rule and as an independent nation. Yippee! Also on the 11th I'm leaving for a week up in the Yellowstone National Park and some other places in the Rockies.
The first two weeks, I admit, have been a bit unproductive. My average daily wake-up is usually at 9:30-10:30am, and sleep usually 11-11:45PM, the same late-night timeslots when I've had to sleep during the Junior Year of Abominations (especially AP English Literature). During the day, my usual activities: TV, workouts, reading. Nope, I've never done anything majorly "social" this summer yet; hopefully I can do so on Independence from Britain day - hell, school has been over for about 18 days, and I still express pedantic obsessions (yes, "pedantic" is an SAT word, look it up in a dictionary if you've been playing too much Super Smash Bros. Brawl).
Starting on Monday the 23rd I joined cross country training. I think I will be improving my running over the course of the training, but I'm doubtful about going to the team. But at least going to the team = enhancer for college apps.
On Thursday the 26th, I got my SAT Subject Test scores back. Spanish = 520; US History = 690 (I thought I'd get a 750 on that one!!). So now is crunch time for me: October 4 =retaking SAT I (first attempt on May 3 was a 1990); November 1 = retaking US History and possibly the English Literature test if I get a 3 or below on that test.
Saturday the 28th, spent the day at the library, home, watched some TV, edited Wikipedia, slept too late again.
Sunday the 29th, went to lunch at Chinese restaurant with family, went to Barnes & Noble trying to find a copy of Chris Matthews' book Hardball in the political books section (actually its called "current affairs"). No luck, but I did reserve it at the library. However I did find some interesting political books there:
- The Real America by Glenn Beck, host of his self-titled program on talk radio stations nationwide and on the CNN Headline News channel. I borrowed his other more recent book An Inconvenient Book, which has some pretty funny and intelligent commentaries to issues in America such as political correctness, global warming, and poverty. One part of Real America I did read was Beck's take on abortion, which he supports only for women in the most dire conditions (such as rape or any other disgusting extramarital B.S.). Now I have to tell you, although I'm a liberal, I have to say that Beck is arguably one of the "smarter" conservatives (unlike [coughcough] Ann Coulter/Rush Limbaugh/Bill O'Reilly) who actually tries to use his brain. The part about the "women in dire needs" in the abortion debate is rarely uttered by any right-wing commentator I've heard. Thumbs up Beck! The other chapter I looked through was one on "Celebrities", with the typical conservative belief that Hollywood has...well...a liberal bias! Basically, the simplest explanation for that would be it's a more comfortable opinion against Big Entertainment...unlike some of the more extreme rhetoric pushed by groups like Parents Television Council.
- The Death of Right and Wrong by Tammy Bruce, who considers herself on her own website one of the most bizarre political positions I've ever seen: "openly gay, pro-choice, gun owning, pro-death penalty, voted-for-President Bush authentic feminist" and "lifelong Democrat". Yes, you've seen all those normally conservative/Republican positions back there...and the vote for Bush...and the dreaded long "F-word" (generally conservatives opposed feminism)...and then the word "Democrat". However, I have read another similar book by a "conservative democrat", A Deficit of Decency by former Georgia Sen. Zell Miller. In the book, Bruce condemns what she considers sex education and its "robbing innocence from kids", vulgar rap music in the popular culture, and other travesties such as moral relativism. But Bruce's book also discussed two other issues that I became so interested in that I looked them up online once I got home:
-- In 2002, a student of Lakeland Community College near Cleveland, Ohio nearly failed a criminal justice class for not wearing a pink ribbon for "Gay Pride Day". Although Bruce has confirmed she is, err, of the "other" sexual orientation, she opposes "LGBT pride" type of stuff as she believes that sexuality is a private matter. This sort of opened my mind a bit: ALL "oppressed" minorities have been known to hold "____ Pride" events for their respective groups over the years, including black pride dating back in the Civil Rights Movement era. Then I was thinking to myself: "It's really the anti-gay conservative's fault that the LGBT community needs to hold 'pride events' yearly: Because they need to push for tolerance!" If conservatives had grasped a hold of reality and accepted that sexual orientation is indeed genetic then there wouldn't have been as much "LGBT Pride" to begin with. I do accept that sexual orientation and genetics have a close relation, but I personally prefer heterosexuality. Speaking of which, Bruce also speculates what would've happened if the college ever held a "Heterosexual Pride Day": All hell would've broken loose! Similarly, I've always wondered why "minorities" (such as gays/blacks/Asians/other non-white/straight people) are allowed to express "pride" but for majorities (white in America) there's a taboo?
--Also Bruce brought up a 2002 controversy regarding the 9/11 (Patriot Day) commemorations in the University of California-Berkeley. She complained about how two students requested white ribbons instead of the usual red/white/blue to express dissatisfaction of President George W. Bush's handling of post-9/11 domestic policy. What i didn't find in her book (maybe because she ommitted it for a stronger argument?) was that UC Berkeley chancellor Robert Berdahl quickly countered that the "unpatriotic" celebration was NOT a campus-wide thing!! If it was indeed ommitted, then obviously it shows her bias - which the liberal group Media Matters for America has documented.
- And Jack Huberman, the liberal author of the hilarious 2006 101 People Who Are Really Screwing America (a response to conservative Bernard Goldberg's 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America) has a new book for 2007: The GOP-Hater's Handbook - let the title explain itself, Huberman finds every reason to trash disgraceful, lying Republicans!
After B&N, went home to study SAT vocabulary, chill, watch Gossip Girl and One tree hill.
gnight
Summer so far has been greatly lawless for me. The third week of summer is beginning, with just a few days to go before we Americans celebrate our 232nd year free from tyrannical British rule and as an independent nation. Yippee! Also on the 11th I'm leaving for a week up in the Yellowstone National Park and some other places in the Rockies.
The first two weeks, I admit, have been a bit unproductive. My average daily wake-up is usually at 9:30-10:30am, and sleep usually 11-11:45PM, the same late-night timeslots when I've had to sleep during the Junior Year of Abominations (especially AP English Literature). During the day, my usual activities: TV, workouts, reading. Nope, I've never done anything majorly "social" this summer yet; hopefully I can do so on Independence from Britain day - hell, school has been over for about 18 days, and I still express pedantic obsessions (yes, "pedantic" is an SAT word, look it up in a dictionary if you've been playing too much Super Smash Bros. Brawl).
Starting on Monday the 23rd I joined cross country training. I think I will be improving my running over the course of the training, but I'm doubtful about going to the team. But at least going to the team = enhancer for college apps.
On Thursday the 26th, I got my SAT Subject Test scores back. Spanish = 520; US History = 690 (I thought I'd get a 750 on that one!!). So now is crunch time for me: October 4 =retaking SAT I (first attempt on May 3 was a 1990); November 1 = retaking US History and possibly the English Literature test if I get a 3 or below on that test.
Saturday the 28th, spent the day at the library, home, watched some TV, edited Wikipedia, slept too late again.
Sunday the 29th, went to lunch at Chinese restaurant with family, went to Barnes & Noble trying to find a copy of Chris Matthews' book Hardball in the political books section (actually its called "current affairs"). No luck, but I did reserve it at the library. However I did find some interesting political books there:
- The Real America by Glenn Beck, host of his self-titled program on talk radio stations nationwide and on the CNN Headline News channel. I borrowed his other more recent book An Inconvenient Book, which has some pretty funny and intelligent commentaries to issues in America such as political correctness, global warming, and poverty. One part of Real America I did read was Beck's take on abortion, which he supports only for women in the most dire conditions (such as rape or any other disgusting extramarital B.S.). Now I have to tell you, although I'm a liberal, I have to say that Beck is arguably one of the "smarter" conservatives (unlike [coughcough] Ann Coulter/Rush Limbaugh/Bill O'Reilly) who actually tries to use his brain. The part about the "women in dire needs" in the abortion debate is rarely uttered by any right-wing commentator I've heard. Thumbs up Beck! The other chapter I looked through was one on "Celebrities", with the typical conservative belief that Hollywood has...well...a liberal bias! Basically, the simplest explanation for that would be it's a more comfortable opinion against Big Entertainment...unlike some of the more extreme rhetoric pushed by groups like Parents Television Council.
- The Death of Right and Wrong by Tammy Bruce, who considers herself on her own website one of the most bizarre political positions I've ever seen: "openly gay, pro-choice, gun owning, pro-death penalty, voted-for-President Bush authentic feminist" and "lifelong Democrat". Yes, you've seen all those normally conservative/Republican positions back there...and the vote for Bush...and the dreaded long "F-word" (generally conservatives opposed feminism)...and then the word "Democrat". However, I have read another similar book by a "conservative democrat", A Deficit of Decency by former Georgia Sen. Zell Miller. In the book, Bruce condemns what she considers sex education and its "robbing innocence from kids", vulgar rap music in the popular culture, and other travesties such as moral relativism. But Bruce's book also discussed two other issues that I became so interested in that I looked them up online once I got home:
-- In 2002, a student of Lakeland Community College near Cleveland, Ohio nearly failed a criminal justice class for not wearing a pink ribbon for "Gay Pride Day". Although Bruce has confirmed she is, err, of the "other" sexual orientation, she opposes "LGBT pride" type of stuff as she believes that sexuality is a private matter. This sort of opened my mind a bit: ALL "oppressed" minorities have been known to hold "____ Pride" events for their respective groups over the years, including black pride dating back in the Civil Rights Movement era. Then I was thinking to myself: "It's really the anti-gay conservative's fault that the LGBT community needs to hold 'pride events' yearly: Because they need to push for tolerance!" If conservatives had grasped a hold of reality and accepted that sexual orientation is indeed genetic then there wouldn't have been as much "LGBT Pride" to begin with. I do accept that sexual orientation and genetics have a close relation, but I personally prefer heterosexuality. Speaking of which, Bruce also speculates what would've happened if the college ever held a "Heterosexual Pride Day": All hell would've broken loose! Similarly, I've always wondered why "minorities" (such as gays/blacks/Asians/other non-white/straight people) are allowed to express "pride" but for majorities (white in America) there's a taboo?
--Also Bruce brought up a 2002 controversy regarding the 9/11 (Patriot Day) commemorations in the University of California-Berkeley. She complained about how two students requested white ribbons instead of the usual red/white/blue to express dissatisfaction of President George W. Bush's handling of post-9/11 domestic policy. What i didn't find in her book (maybe because she ommitted it for a stronger argument?) was that UC Berkeley chancellor Robert Berdahl quickly countered that the "unpatriotic" celebration was NOT a campus-wide thing!! If it was indeed ommitted, then obviously it shows her bias - which the liberal group Media Matters for America has documented.
- And Jack Huberman, the liberal author of the hilarious 2006 101 People Who Are Really Screwing America (a response to conservative Bernard Goldberg's 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America) has a new book for 2007: The GOP-Hater's Handbook - let the title explain itself, Huberman finds every reason to trash disgraceful, lying Republicans!
After B&N, went home to study SAT vocabulary, chill, watch Gossip Girl and One tree hill.
gnight
05 May 2008
The early bird gets the worm
Just a few minutes ago I was registering for the SAT Subject Tests in Spanish and Biology for the June 7 administrations, whose deadline was tomorrow (May 6). Unfortunately I learned a pretty damn bitter lesson from registering at the last minute: although my first choice was my home schooL (evergreen valley) apparantly all its testing spaces were full so I got bumped over to my 2nd choice, Andrew Hill, which is a bit further away from where I live. Lesson learned: Plan your SAT/ACT registrations WELL in advance to guarantee that you get your local/closer school's test site!
In the meantime, sometime after the AP Exams are over I'll be writing about the Parents Television Council again, specifically on their latest report (some say would be mind-rotting garbage) The Rap on Rap, a content analysis on rap music videos shown during daytime hours on the cable networks BET and MTV. Now, I need to go back to studying American History and Calculus.
In the meantime, sometime after the AP Exams are over I'll be writing about the Parents Television Council again, specifically on their latest report (some say would be mind-rotting garbage) The Rap on Rap, a content analysis on rap music videos shown during daytime hours on the cable networks BET and MTV. Now, I need to go back to studying American History and Calculus.
23 February 2008
When I was gone...
So this is pretty much my first blog I've written since August 2007. New year of 2008 has come, with only 10 more months of the wicked presidency of George W. Bush and the predicted entry of good old Barack Obama, the first semester passing me by with sand and fog, the writer's strike coming and going, the death of Benazir Bhutto, the upcoming 2008 Summer Olympics in my beloved Beijing, China (I have extended family there), the sequel to Virginia Tech over at Northern Illinois University, the winter storms in China, and loads and loads of other things I could write a lot of blogs a day about that I don't want to include here.
In the past week weird things have come up on my cell. For some odd reasons I've been getting odd calls on my cell phone. I went on google to look 'em up. One of 'em was from a Vietnamese woman living in Milpitas who dialed the wrong number I guess.
But things get worse. I've been getting calls from places like Phoenix, AZ and Newton, MA about "car warranty expiration" when hell, I don't even own a car! Google this. Found a site 800Notes.com that led me to this. Look up suspicious phone numbers there.
The reason why I haven't been able to blog? Due to the fact that I take 3 AP classes...as I've repeatedly mentioned ( I guess in my humble memory) Calculus AB, English Literature, and US History. So far I think I am dong better in them, after a pretty unstable first semester. Lately I've been getting tutoring for Calc AB after struggling with Applications of Differentiation, and since then my grades have improved. I will take the SAT test in May 2007, a couple weeks or so before the AP exams. I have also gotten tutoring in that class, specifically for the writing section and speculatively in the critical reading. I just took a practice SAT today and got 2050. Some genius I am! :) My goal is at least 2200, or if I kick a lot of ass, then as far as 2400 I can go. Well all I can say for myself is to be more careful with the problems and make sure I check every single damn word they say.
I know that the SAT has been criticized a lot due to it's "anti-intellectual" attitude and lack of scope within the brain...that's why some American liberal arts colleges have dropped it in favor of bigger and better things (a.k.a. Your Brain). As far as the Essays go, Massachusetts Instituete of Tech writing diretor Les Perelman has claimed that common "cheating" techniques to get a high scores on the essays like 10 or 12 (the scale is 12) include making your essays uber LONG. Plus, Perelman has a valid point that the writing in the SAT essay pretty much defeats "good" writing you do in AP English classes or wherever that makes you polish it like a shiny new car. But I defend the SAT essay, while I do agree that it ain't as great as, say your AP Lit analyitical essay, at least it tests your ability to make a good argument, through good evidence and structure and proof. I think I'll be able to do well on it, since my tutor recently commented that my writing has greatly improved since the first time we met back in January 2008.
In coming months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds, microseconds, and specks of dust, here's a list of topics I will be writing about:
- Politics as I hear from theliberally biased news media...from both the Democratic/Republican sides of course...or at least i HOPE i stay balanced.
- The upcoming agenda from moronic self-appointed "morality" groups like the Parents Television Council and American Family Association to destroy the first amendment in the name of fundamental 1960s family values that many of us can think beyond. You'll be seeing in the coming times how cranky and foolish these hypocrites are, with the EVIDENCE of course (I promise not to spin)
- Of course, my own life, including my dreams, favorite TV, books, movies, friends, school, and the whatnot.
Now excuse me when I go back to watching PBS' presentation of the BBC's adaptation of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice"...
In the past week weird things have come up on my cell. For some odd reasons I've been getting odd calls on my cell phone. I went on google to look 'em up. One of 'em was from a Vietnamese woman living in Milpitas who dialed the wrong number I guess.
But things get worse. I've been getting calls from places like Phoenix, AZ and Newton, MA about "car warranty expiration" when hell, I don't even own a car! Google this. Found a site 800Notes.com that led me to this. Look up suspicious phone numbers there.
The reason why I haven't been able to blog? Due to the fact that I take 3 AP classes...as I've repeatedly mentioned ( I guess in my humble memory) Calculus AB, English Literature, and US History. So far I think I am dong better in them, after a pretty unstable first semester. Lately I've been getting tutoring for Calc AB after struggling with Applications of Differentiation, and since then my grades have improved. I will take the SAT test in May 2007, a couple weeks or so before the AP exams. I have also gotten tutoring in that class, specifically for the writing section and speculatively in the critical reading. I just took a practice SAT today and got 2050. Some genius I am! :) My goal is at least 2200, or if I kick a lot of ass, then as far as 2400 I can go. Well all I can say for myself is to be more careful with the problems and make sure I check every single damn word they say.
I know that the SAT has been criticized a lot due to it's "anti-intellectual" attitude and lack of scope within the brain...that's why some American liberal arts colleges have dropped it in favor of bigger and better things (a.k.a. Your Brain). As far as the Essays go, Massachusetts Instituete of Tech writing diretor Les Perelman has claimed that common "cheating" techniques to get a high scores on the essays like 10 or 12 (the scale is 12) include making your essays uber LONG. Plus, Perelman has a valid point that the writing in the SAT essay pretty much defeats "good" writing you do in AP English classes or wherever that makes you polish it like a shiny new car. But I defend the SAT essay, while I do agree that it ain't as great as, say your AP Lit analyitical essay, at least it tests your ability to make a good argument, through good evidence and structure and proof. I think I'll be able to do well on it, since my tutor recently commented that my writing has greatly improved since the first time we met back in January 2008.
In coming months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds, microseconds, and specks of dust, here's a list of topics I will be writing about:
- Politics as I hear from the
- The upcoming agenda from moronic self-appointed "morality" groups like the Parents Television Council and American Family Association to destroy the first amendment in the name of fundamental 1960s family values that many of us can think beyond. You'll be seeing in the coming times how cranky and foolish these hypocrites are, with the EVIDENCE of course (I promise not to spin)
- Of course, my own life, including my dreams, favorite TV, books, movies, friends, school, and the whatnot.
Now excuse me when I go back to watching PBS' presentation of the BBC's adaptation of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice"...
12 July 2007
More evidence of the Free Ozzfest Ticket scam
(you need to click the image to see the whole thing)
Woo hoo, so those in Seattle who wanted free tickets had to go out-of-town to pick up free tickets - to miss the Second Stage acts and be possibly late to the Main Stage. What a joke. Get your tickets for free and miss practically half the concert. If you've seen my Myspace page lately, if you see the "SCREW YOU OZZY OSBOURNE" thing, you know what i mean. I think we need to file class action lawsuit against Ozzy & his greedy War Pigs. In fact, this isn't the FIRST time Ozzy's been involved in crap. Tommorrow, possibly, I'll blog about all of Ozzy Osbourne's controversies.
But I've seen the Ozzfest Seattle photo gallery, and I guess that the Seattle metalheads must've gone out of their minds just to get tickets. Maybe they got them through promotions by Ozzy Osbourne's new cd "Black Rain", buying Monster Energy drinks, or going on Stubhub. I don't know. Certainly I'm not going to the Mountain View ozzfest, as I'm pretty sure that Live Nation will mistreat me and the other fans as they did to Seattle.
The "free Ozzfest" thing seemed too good to be true at first. And now we've all realized that we were right of our first impression. It's not fair that untalented mainstream "recording artists" like Justin Timberlake or "tours" like Wild 94.9 Bomb (Chris Brown, T-Pain, Bow Wow, Danity Kane, and all sorts of pseudo-hip-pop rappers) or Project Revolution (emo/poser rock like Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance, Taking Back Sunday, H.I.M.), can organize well, yet tours of REAL recording artists like Ozzfest can't serve their fans well. I hope that Ozzy goes to rehab and makes a better Ozzfest 2008. I'd rather pay for tickets and get good seats than get "free" tickets for a crappy seat right before show time or halfway into the concert.
Woo hoo, so those in Seattle who wanted free tickets had to go out-of-town to pick up free tickets - to miss the Second Stage acts and be possibly late to the Main Stage. What a joke. Get your tickets for free and miss practically half the concert. If you've seen my Myspace page lately, if you see the "SCREW YOU OZZY OSBOURNE" thing, you know what i mean. I think we need to file class action lawsuit against Ozzy & his greedy War Pigs. In fact, this isn't the FIRST time Ozzy's been involved in crap. Tommorrow, possibly, I'll blog about all of Ozzy Osbourne's controversies.
But I've seen the Ozzfest Seattle photo gallery, and I guess that the Seattle metalheads must've gone out of their minds just to get tickets. Maybe they got them through promotions by Ozzy Osbourne's new cd "Black Rain", buying Monster Energy drinks, or going on Stubhub. I don't know. Certainly I'm not going to the Mountain View ozzfest, as I'm pretty sure that Live Nation will mistreat me and the other fans as they did to Seattle.
The "free Ozzfest" thing seemed too good to be true at first. And now we've all realized that we were right of our first impression. It's not fair that untalented mainstream "recording artists" like Justin Timberlake or "tours" like Wild 94.9 Bomb (Chris Brown, T-Pain, Bow Wow, Danity Kane, and all sorts of pseudo-hip-pop rappers) or Project Revolution (emo/poser rock like Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance, Taking Back Sunday, H.I.M.), can organize well, yet tours of REAL recording artists like Ozzfest can't serve their fans well. I hope that Ozzy goes to rehab and makes a better Ozzfest 2008. I'd rather pay for tickets and get good seats than get "free" tickets for a crappy seat right before show time or halfway into the concert.
11 July 2007
No ozzfest or rock the bells for me :[
Bad news:
- I have two big math tests tomorrow.
- Rock the Bells, the hip-hop concert tour that'll be in San Francisco on Saturday 8/18, sold out by last week.
- After a month of the free Ozzfest 2007 tickets being offline for unknown reasons, LiveNation.com suddenly put up $75 premium seats tickets online! That's what happened when I visited Livenation.com/ozzfest (where I should have redeemed my free ticket code that I was emailed on my request) and then when I clicked "special offers available" to try to get my ticket, it took me to a page to "buy premium seats", and then I was lead to LiveNation.com, where tickets cost $75. So the "FreeFest" ticket thing was pretty much a joke, I conclude, unless Live Nation changes their mind real quick.
So I'm stuck this summer with Math Analysis and AP work. Oh well, at least I can spend the night of July 19 doing homework while all the hardcore fans are breaking their eardrums and jumping around. At least I have plenty of hip-hop and heavy metal music in my MP3 player and hard drive.
To be clear about the Ozzfest tickets, here's what happened. Earlier this year, tour organizers Ozzy & Sharon Osbourne announced that Ozzfest 2007 would be free in response to the ever-increasing ticket prices for most major musical concert tours. June 12 was when they'd start giving out free tickets, requiring fans to register on Ozzfest.com for a secret code to redeem online so that they could print out their tix from home. I did that on June 12, discovering oddly that the codes weren't redeemable at the time. So the rest of the month, I waited patiently. When July came, they still weren't available free, yet "VIP" packages were on sale. Finally, today was when the ticket prices were increased $75. I suppose this is the last straw. Now through July 19 is not enough for me to arrange transportation and stuff to Mountain View after summer school on 7/19 to see Ozzfest. It was a great opportunity to do so, as I don't have math class Fridays. I don't know who to blame more: myself for not signing up for free tix on time, Ozzy & Sharon Osbourne for being greedy, or what else? Maybe they added the $75 because their budget was getting maxed out? What happened?
Regarding Rock the Bells, since most of the featured artists I haven't heard of or I've frequently listen to before, I don't care about going to that concert. Same with Ozzfest - the only Ozzfest '07 bands I currently like are Static-X, Hatebreed, Lamb of God, Nile, and Ozzy Osbourne. I despise 3 Inches of Blood for ripping off Iron Maiden, and the rest of the bands I've never even heard of. But Chtonic is particularly special, as they are from Taiwan; I'll try finding their music this weekend. Through TicketMaster.com I have confirmed: Rock the Bells 2007 in San Francisco is SOLD OUT as of right now. Darn. Now I gotta go study for my math tests.
- I have two big math tests tomorrow.
- Rock the Bells, the hip-hop concert tour that'll be in San Francisco on Saturday 8/18, sold out by last week.
- After a month of the free Ozzfest 2007 tickets being offline for unknown reasons, LiveNation.com suddenly put up $75 premium seats tickets online! That's what happened when I visited Livenation.com/ozzfest (where I should have redeemed my free ticket code that I was emailed on my request) and then when I clicked "special offers available" to try to get my ticket, it took me to a page to "buy premium seats", and then I was lead to LiveNation.com, where tickets cost $75. So the "FreeFest" ticket thing was pretty much a joke, I conclude, unless Live Nation changes their mind real quick.
So I'm stuck this summer with Math Analysis and AP work. Oh well, at least I can spend the night of July 19 doing homework while all the hardcore fans are breaking their eardrums and jumping around. At least I have plenty of hip-hop and heavy metal music in my MP3 player and hard drive.
To be clear about the Ozzfest tickets, here's what happened. Earlier this year, tour organizers Ozzy & Sharon Osbourne announced that Ozzfest 2007 would be free in response to the ever-increasing ticket prices for most major musical concert tours. June 12 was when they'd start giving out free tickets, requiring fans to register on Ozzfest.com for a secret code to redeem online so that they could print out their tix from home. I did that on June 12, discovering oddly that the codes weren't redeemable at the time. So the rest of the month, I waited patiently. When July came, they still weren't available free, yet "VIP" packages were on sale. Finally, today was when the ticket prices were increased $75. I suppose this is the last straw. Now through July 19 is not enough for me to arrange transportation and stuff to Mountain View after summer school on 7/19 to see Ozzfest. It was a great opportunity to do so, as I don't have math class Fridays. I don't know who to blame more: myself for not signing up for free tix on time, Ozzy & Sharon Osbourne for being greedy, or what else? Maybe they added the $75 because their budget was getting maxed out? What happened?
Regarding Rock the Bells, since most of the featured artists I haven't heard of or I've frequently listen to before, I don't care about going to that concert. Same with Ozzfest - the only Ozzfest '07 bands I currently like are Static-X, Hatebreed, Lamb of God, Nile, and Ozzy Osbourne. I despise 3 Inches of Blood for ripping off Iron Maiden, and the rest of the bands I've never even heard of. But Chtonic is particularly special, as they are from Taiwan; I'll try finding their music this weekend. Through TicketMaster.com I have confirmed: Rock the Bells 2007 in San Francisco is SOLD OUT as of right now. Darn. Now I gotta go study for my math tests.
02 June 2007
The last two weeks of school and beyond
So as I speak, the Cleveland Cavaliers are leading the Detroit Pistons by 10 points in game 6 of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals held in Cleveland tonight. If Cleveland wins the East, I will watch the NBA Finals this year, otherwise i wouldn't becuase Detroit vs. San Antonio in NBA Finals this year would mean a repeat of the 2005 finals. In the meantime, I am continuing to study Algebra II, Chemistry, and Spanish for my actual finals while I watch the Cavs on a pirated stream of CCTV-5, the Chinese state-run TV station that carries the NBA in China, since I don't get cable at home. Grr! Why do all the NBA playoff games that don't air on Sunday have to be on ESPN/TNT? Just because I'm among the minority of TV viewers these days who doesn't have cable!
On the Monday following the last day of school, June 18, I will begin summer math analysis classes at Evergreen Valley College. However, I still have that class through Friday, July 20, meaning I can't go to Ozzfest this year (Ozzfest stops near San Jose in Mountain View on Thursday, July 19) At least not for the "free" promise that promoter Ozzy Osbourne has promised - as if I were really to go after summer school ended, I'd have to pay for round-trip tickets to other areas that get Ozzfest after my summer school ends, e.g. Los Angeles, Denver, Phoenix (ugh not 100+ degree weather!), Detroit (haven't been there since '96), or New York! Grr! I hope some good ppl will post Ozzfest highlights on Youtube or somewhere. But if I'm good at school and in the summer, I can at least go to the San Francisco hip-hop concert Rock the Bells, which will feature Rage Against the Machine, Wu-Tang Clan, the Roots, Nas, Talib Kweli, and more. That concert will basically want Wild 94.9 fans to cry uncle.
As far as grades go, all I gotta say is that if I work hard, I'll get straight A's this semester.
On the Monday following the last day of school, June 18, I will begin summer math analysis classes at Evergreen Valley College. However, I still have that class through Friday, July 20, meaning I can't go to Ozzfest this year (Ozzfest stops near San Jose in Mountain View on Thursday, July 19) At least not for the "free" promise that promoter Ozzy Osbourne has promised - as if I were really to go after summer school ended, I'd have to pay for round-trip tickets to other areas that get Ozzfest after my summer school ends, e.g. Los Angeles, Denver, Phoenix (ugh not 100+ degree weather!), Detroit (haven't been there since '96), or New York! Grr! I hope some good ppl will post Ozzfest highlights on Youtube or somewhere. But if I'm good at school and in the summer, I can at least go to the San Francisco hip-hop concert Rock the Bells, which will feature Rage Against the Machine, Wu-Tang Clan, the Roots, Nas, Talib Kweli, and more. That concert will basically want Wild 94.9 fans to cry uncle.
As far as grades go, all I gotta say is that if I work hard, I'll get straight A's this semester.
26 May 2007
Remaining school & Summer Plans
With Memorial Day weekend approaching, many of you may be thinking of summer now, as there are only 14 days of school remaining. Indeed, I have a lot of cool stuff to do over the summer. They include:
1. I will take Math Analysis at Evergreen Valley College this summer, a combination of their courses "Math 21" (Precalculus) and "Math 22" (Trigonometry). If I get at least a B in both these courses, then I can take AP Calculus AB in my junior year.
2. The summer will also introduce at least two concert tours coming locally in the SF Bay Area. (Screw you, Jokin' Timberfake.) The concerts that I am especially looking forward to include, as I know right now: On Thursday 7/19 in the Shoreline Ampitheatre in Mountain View will be the FREE OzzFest 2007, the 12th annual installment of the heavy metal music tour founded by lead singer of founding heavy metal band Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne. Hopefully, I can keep my grades up this year and in summer school so I can go there. However, this will technically be considered a "school night" given that summer school will end on 7/27, so I hope maybe a delay might let me go there. If I can't go to Ozzfest, then I can attend the Rock the Bells hip-hop concert, headlined by reunited rap-metal band Rage Against the Machine and hardcore rap group Wu-Tang Clan. It will be held in the parking lot at McCovey Cove on Saturday 8/18 at noon. The focus of the concert will be on hip-hop, as most of the other headliners are alternative hip-hop acts, and the headliners are hip-hop in some way. The guests include Immortal Technique, The Roots, Cypress Hill, Public Enemy, Nas, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, and many other true MC's who you might've never heard of from Wild 94.9, BET, or MTV. (106 KMEL does play mostly mainstream hip-hop, but dedicates weekend evenings to the obscure but juicier stuff) That is at least gonna keep me happy this summer if I can't go to ozzfest.
3. I should start going out more often, including for working/community service. I'm considering working for the Lunardi's at Evergreen Village Squre, and volunteering at the Evergreen Library and other places.
4. I recently read in the San Francisco Chronicle about the 40th anniversary of the "Summer of Love" of 1967 being celebrated by the "hippies" there. Thus, maybe I wanna create my own "Summer of Love", maybe i should find a girl before the end of the year and do all sortsa crazy stuff with her in the summer of 2007, 40 years after masses of young people in SF and elsewhere began freedom of social lives.
But remember, I did say there were 14 days of school left, so I need to work on my AP World History presentation where I act as Harry Truman giving a "farewell" speech to American tv viewers, and study for finals for Chemistry, Algebra 2, and Spanish. Indeed, I'm not sure if Mr West will give us an English final exam, but I will expect a final project
1. I will take Math Analysis at Evergreen Valley College this summer, a combination of their courses "Math 21" (Precalculus) and "Math 22" (Trigonometry). If I get at least a B in both these courses, then I can take AP Calculus AB in my junior year.
2. The summer will also introduce at least two concert tours coming locally in the SF Bay Area. (Screw you, Jokin' Timberfake.) The concerts that I am especially looking forward to include, as I know right now: On Thursday 7/19 in the Shoreline Ampitheatre in Mountain View will be the FREE OzzFest 2007, the 12th annual installment of the heavy metal music tour founded by lead singer of founding heavy metal band Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne. Hopefully, I can keep my grades up this year and in summer school so I can go there. However, this will technically be considered a "school night" given that summer school will end on 7/27, so I hope maybe a delay might let me go there. If I can't go to Ozzfest, then I can attend the Rock the Bells hip-hop concert, headlined by reunited rap-metal band Rage Against the Machine and hardcore rap group Wu-Tang Clan. It will be held in the parking lot at McCovey Cove on Saturday 8/18 at noon. The focus of the concert will be on hip-hop, as most of the other headliners are alternative hip-hop acts, and the headliners are hip-hop in some way. The guests include Immortal Technique, The Roots, Cypress Hill, Public Enemy, Nas, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, and many other true MC's who you might've never heard of from Wild 94.9, BET, or MTV. (106 KMEL does play mostly mainstream hip-hop, but dedicates weekend evenings to the obscure but juicier stuff) That is at least gonna keep me happy this summer if I can't go to ozzfest.
3. I should start going out more often, including for working/community service. I'm considering working for the Lunardi's at Evergreen Village Squre, and volunteering at the Evergreen Library and other places.
4. I recently read in the San Francisco Chronicle about the 40th anniversary of the "Summer of Love" of 1967 being celebrated by the "hippies" there. Thus, maybe I wanna create my own "Summer of Love", maybe i should find a girl before the end of the year and do all sortsa crazy stuff with her in the summer of 2007, 40 years after masses of young people in SF and elsewhere began freedom of social lives.
But remember, I did say there were 14 days of school left, so I need to work on my AP World History presentation where I act as Harry Truman giving a "farewell" speech to American tv viewers, and study for finals for Chemistry, Algebra 2, and Spanish. Indeed, I'm not sure if Mr West will give us an English final exam, but I will expect a final project
24 March 2007
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.
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
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.
20 January 2006
3.67
Yep that's my gpa...
2nd period - Physics (Mr. Miller) = B+ (89.5%)
3rd period - Health (Mr. Cheadle) = A-
4th period - P.E. (Mr. Quinet) = A
5th period - English 1 Accelerated (Mrs. Knoop-Troullier) = B
6th period - Geometry (Mr. Advincula) = A
7th period - Spanish 1 (Ms. Landeza) = A-
so my dream of getting 4.0 GPA all in HS life is shattered. I coudlve got a B in English but a C in the final got me down to 85gain. In the meantime, Yahoo Sports just reported that the fan who got accused of harrasing NY Knicks forward Antonio Davis "will drop threats of a lawsuit if the couple says it's sorry". Davis is suspended the next five games after he went in the stands during a game against the Chicago Bulls Thursday evening to confront 22-year-old Michael Axelrod, who he thout was harassing his wife Kendra. Davis and wife refuse to apologize to Axlerod. You know what the best solution is? Both parties should apologize to each other, and then just shurg it off. What morons. Gosh, when has the NBA enterted such a culture of violence and immoralism? I remember last year when Ron Artest was suspended for the season for the "Basketbrawl" incident with Ben Wallace. Earlier in 2002 Kobe Bryant got in a fight with a guy in the Chicago Bulls. What in the NBA bothers me the most? Shaquille O'Neal and his "ching-chong" joke to Yao Ming. That offendes me the most because I'm Chinese, and that joke defames a Chinese-American player who has proven that no matter what your race in the NBA you can always be a good ballplayer.
Meanwhile, I am seeking to beef up this Myspace a bit. Once I master HTML, I'll add the live stream of a radio station i listen to - possibly 107.7 the bone or wild 94.9, in order to promote those stations to more people, including those outside it's listennign area. And, I wanna post some pics here. So watch for more beef and stuff on my myspace.
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