I am watching the NBA finals this year

This year in the NBA Finals: Cleveland Cavaliers vs. San Antonio Spurs

I say the Cavs should win. The Spurs have won enough already, while the Cavs have NEVER been to the NBA Finals in its history.

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.

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

Don Imus sues CBS Radio; Spider-Man 3; Warriors advance to Second Round; Conan O'Brien in SF

Don Imus Sues CBS Radio Over Contractual Dispute
It was announced a few days ago that radio host Don Imus, famous for his racist remarks insulting the Rutgers University women's basketball team, has sued CBS Radio, which owned the rights to his program Imus in the Morning, as CBS's contract with Imus allowed his program to be controversial and off-color. So I suppose CBS Radio deliberately wanted Imus to utter those three nasty little words just so that they could fire him? That's one of the theories behind the Imus controversy. And just recently, it was discovered that the censors at MSNBC (which used to simulcast the radio program on TV) and the radio stations had the options to BLEEP OUT those nasty words, but chose not to because of the contract! Oh geez. If Imus is still not fired, then I guess we should still deal with all those gangsta rappers whose music is even more offensive than just Imus's comments alone, with all their B-, F-, H-, and N-words!

Spider-Man 3
So far as I've read the critical reviews for the film, they seem pretty mediocre, so I might as well just wait until the DVD comes out. I might see it in theatres given these conditions:
1. The Warriors play the Utah Jazz, not the Houston Rockets, as I would go to Game 1 (Friday, 11 May) to watch Yao Ming play locally, in addition to our GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS :)
2. Regardless of #1 applying, if the Warriors get ELIMINATED from the Playoffs...
3. A significant # of my friends claim they've reasonably enjoyed it
4. I have taken both the AP World History exam and Summer Math Analysis placement exam

Golden State Warriors advanced to Second Round of the NBA Playoffs
Finally I'd like to thank the Warriors for beating the #1 team in the Western Conference, Dallas Mavericks. Depending on who wins the Rockets-Jazz game today, and as I'm typing, the score at the end of the 3rd quarter is Utah Jazz 75, Houston Rockets 67, GSW will face either the Houston Rockets or Utah Jazz. It'd definitely be worth it to go to Game 3 of the Warriors' 2nd round series if it is to be against the Rockets, as I'd be able to see Yao Ming play locally, and Yao is the greatest Chinese basketball player in the nation.

Late Night with Conan O'Brien in San Francisco
All this week, I've been taping NBC's Late Night with Conan O'Brien and watching them after school, as for the week of 30 April-4 May, O'brien has been basing his shows from the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco, CA. All the shows have been locally themed, with O'Brien's monologue focusing on Bay area stuff (like the Bay Bridge collapse and Golden State Warriors), as well as tours of SF and vicinity. They have all been very enjoyable. "LNWCOB" has gotta be the best late-night TV show around, with "Jay Leno" and "Jimmy Kimmel" trailing. O'Brien makes the funniest monologues and skits, especially this week from SF.

Scantrons...

Oh man, I've seen hella scantrons this week...from five days of CST's (California Standardised Testing) and a pseudo-AP World History exam. And then I'm gonna see more on the week of 14 May, as I have the real AP World History exam and a Math Analysis placement test. This is why this month there won't be too many updates. And for your entertainment...

MUSIC I'VE ENJOYED LATELY: Death, The Notorious B.I.G., Beneath the Massacre, Lamb of God, Pantera, Dying Fetus, Slayer, Nas, Eminem, Jagged Edge, Wyclef Jean, Korn, Jay-Z
TV I'VE WATCHED LATELY: local and national newscasts, "Heroes" (NBC), "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" (NBC), "Late Night with Conan O'Brien - In San Francisco" (NBC), "24" (Fox, saw on DVD), "Jimmy Kimmel Live" (Fridays for "This Week in Unnecessary Censorship") (ABC), NBA Playoffs coverage on ABC, San Francisco Giants/Oakland A's coverage locally
Haven't seen much movies lately, but I will watch Indian film "Mangal Pandey: The Rising" (I saw part of it in AP World History)

Spring break; My views on the Don Imus thing

Yikes. Ever since the Bloggergate scandal the weekend after Battle I've not written a blog in like two weeks. Over spring break, I've been studying AP World History like a mofo, memorizing my paraphrased version of Brutus' speech from William Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar", and watching TV and heavy metal videos in my non-studying times. Well, I sure hope that everyone who was offended by my remarks regarding battle knows that I'm sorry and it was simply a keyboard malfunction. Okay? All that "Bloggergate" crap is just silly compared to Don Imus's remarks about the Rutgers University women's basketball team. This brings me to the main point of this blog post: Don Imus's remarks is starting a new debate over acceptable speech. Also...


On Wednesday, April 4, a few days before spring break began for us EVHS students, Don Imus used a three-word slur on his radio program, "Imus in the Morning", which was also simulcast on cable news channel MSNBC, that insulted the women for their hairstyles and race. That drew controversy from such African-Americans as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Imus apologized on April 9, some days before both MSNBC and CBS Radio (who owns the rights to "Imus in the Morning") fired Imus. Late last week, Imus also personally met with the Rutgers players who accepted his apology. The new issue of "Time" magazine has its cover story about the Imus incident, titled "Who Can Say What?" It also compared Imus's words to other incidents with racism, such as Michael Richards dropping the N-word during his stand-up routine in November, Ludacris using the B, F, H, and N words in his song "Move B***h", and others. It claims that Imus drew the line on acceptable ethnic speech. Well, here's the thing. If Imus drops the H-word once on his radio program and later gets fired, why can't gangsta rappers like Ludacris or 50 Cent get massive protests from Jesse Jackson & Co. for using the same word Imus used, or even worse, B and N words? Kudos to L. Brent Bozell, founder of the otherwise stupidest douchebag organization in America known as the "Parents' Television Council", for pointing this out in his latest column. I remember listening to pop-rap in middle school whose language was far worse than Imus's little comments. Why can radio stations get away with playing that, yet lose a radio show over a smaller problem? That is just so hypocritical.

And as I continue typing, most new hip-hop on Wild 94.9 (NOT KMEL!!!), BET, and MTV continue to promote misogyny, sex, and defamation of women despite Imus's racist remarks. Tell you what. Why don't you go listen to THESE hip-hop artists if you don't wanna hear repetitive, vulgar uses of the B, H, or N-words? Instead of all your stupid N-word/hyphy crap like Sh*tty Cent, Chingay, Ugly Ricky, or Ludap*ss, listen to: Nas, Wu-Tang Clan, The Roots, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Rage Against the Machine (they're actually an excellent rap-rock fusion band), or any hip-hop you may find on my Last.fm page.

Besides, some people have also formed petitions to try to get Don Imus back on the air ! Mostly, they're either lazy slackers who aren't sensitive to Imus's racist remarks, or they argue that Imus just let the tongue slip and rap videos on BET and MTV are even worse. Well, now that Imus is fired, why don't we go protest BET and MTV for "running raunchy rap videos full of N-words and 'ho' references" (L. Brent Bozell, "The Incomplete Anti-Imus Lobby"? Huh? Vote for a good video like Mastodon's "Colony of Birchmen" on TRL instead of, well, Ugly Ricky!

And today on Dateline NBC, they reported on this thing. Watch from MSNBC Video the whole report for free

Youtube & Copyright

If you've been paying attention to the news lately, you might have heard about Viacom, which owns TV channels like Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, or VH1, suing Youtube for copyright infringement. That meant that three videos on my Myspace page were pulled. To be precise, they were: a segment of the VH1 special 40 Greatest Metal Songs covering Korn's "Freak on a Leash", part of an episode of MTV2's Headbanger's Ball covering the death of former Pantera/Damageplan guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott, and a scene from the South Park episode "Go God Go" where Ms. Garrison taught a screwed form of evolution. Well I understand why they'd remove the Korn and South Park videos. But how DARE they remove the Headbanger's Ball videos! MTV Overdrive has Headbangers Ball dating back only to December 2005, and because Dimebag Darrell died on December 2004, Youtube was pretty much the only way we Pantera/Damageplan fans could re-watch such a tragic event. Now his death is gonna be forgotten just because of corporate greed. If it weren't bad enough for Viacom to be promoting Justin Timberlake on MTV all the time despite his actions in that Super Bowl halftime show in 2004 with Janet Jackson, or removing the music videos from MTV and VH1. Sheesh! But when I was searching for HBB videos on Youtube again, to check if people re-uploaded the Dimebag Darrell videos, I found this: There is going to be a new band established as a joint between members of Pantera, Mudvayne, and Nothingface called Hellyeah. Big Vin Records posted this promo up on Youtube, LEGALLY:

Now I hope that later on they can re-post Headbangers Ball coverage of Dimebag Darrell's death.