May 21st, 2003 -What a crappy day...
I started out the day thinking that it would be nice; it was a sunny day, there was a helicopter over our school for some reason, and there was to be no homework in math. Alas, the day was to be ruined after school today.
At about 6:00 PM, we were alerted to huge plumes of smoke billowing up from the center of town. Hopeful, I suggested that the school was burning down. However, it turns out that the country store by the same name as our school was burning down. Fire departments from cities around the bay area have come to help out, but they can't seem to stop the flames engulfing the historic building.
Cunha's country store was owned by Beverly Cunha. The Cunha family had run the business for over 75 years. It feels like part of our collective culture has gone up in smoke. They're still fighting the flames as I write this. It's believe that the fire started when hot tar was accidentally poured on the building while the funeral parlor next door was having it's roof tarred.
I'll write more about this as I get more info. Such a sad day...

Andrew Out.

May 20th, 2003 - Oh, nothing important...
Seriously, do I ever talk about anything important. So you won't be disappointed when I ramble on about how I'm not talking about anything important. Man, that's cosmic.
You know what? You should visit Battlefield 1942.net

Andrew out.

May 19th, 2003 - Matrix Reloaded.... hmm.....
Yeah, I saw it yesterday. I wasn't terribly impressed. I mean, the special effects and fight scenes were amazing, but a movie can't stand on those alone. The plot was weak, with some people and scenes that could have been removed entirely with no damage to the overall experience. Unfortunately, Agent Smith has become an odd plot add-on, with no real purpose in the film except to fight Neo in a kick-ass scene where he multiplies himself about 300 times. The funniest moment in the movie is when Neo flies away and there are hordes of Smiths just standing about, walking away dejectedly.
All in all, I was disappointed.

Andrew out.

May 14th, 2003 - We'll never get around to it...
Me and Sean always said we'd make a web comic, with a store to sell T-shirts and other merchandise, possibly extending to coffee mugs. Oh what a glorious day that would be. However, Sean and I have the... unfortunate afliction of... how do you say... never getting anything done. Ever. To prove Shane wrong (long story), Sean is determined to put up a webpage, and I'll probably end up paying for it with the money from my paper route. Once I get out of debt to my parents, that is. My paychecks have been docked for the last 2 months, and I'll probably lose about half next month. But after that, I'll be able to make the meager 11 dollars per month payments necessary to get our own domain name. We haven't decided on a domain name for our site yet... Some names under consideration are "spaceweasel.com", "subsonic.com", and "koons.com". Well, they're not really under consideration, but they will be tomorrow, when I bring them to Sean's pathetically tiny attention (span). Actually, he'll just say that they suck, and eventually decide on a name of his own. Then I'll end up splitting off and making a site of my own, and we'll constantly be bickering about who's site is better. Or we could decide on a joint name. Pssh! Sure. And maybe John Ashcroft will use reasoning and logic...

Andrew out.

May 12th, 2003 - A Renewed Hate of Metallica
You know, I was reading around the web about Metallica, their dropping record sales, and their lawsuit against Napster. Did they ever consider that maybe they were selling less records because they were progressively starting to suck? "No, that couldn't be it! It must be because of pirates! We have to sue the pirates. How dare they insinuate that we may anything less than perfect? I am Lars! Who dares to question me?!"
Seriously, get a life. You have millions and millions of dollars. You could buy and sell Napster. In fact, why not buy Napster, and bann all of your songs from the network? No, then they would have to spend a tiny fraction of their insane wealth, and we can't allow that, not even for the benefit of music.

Down with Metallica

Andrew out.

May 11th, 2003 - Happy Mother's Day!
Go out and do something special with your mother today. We're taking my mom to a new Hawaiian place called Ono's. Other than that, not much to post about. Now I have to go. Stupid math teacher gave us homework over the weekend. *grumble grumble*...

Andrew out.

May 9th, 2003 - Short bursts of inspiration, followed by cobwebs
My paper about Stalingrad is coming along simply swimmingly. I promise I'll never use that word again. But it is coming along nicely. The things that these men had to go through were horrible. Freezing cold, disease, constant hunger, death lurking around every corner. Sounds like school. Just kidding. I don't even want to joke about things like that. I figure if I write a paragraph per day, I could make a long paper (it's due by the 30th). But I know I won't. I can't write in sustained bursts. I write huge amounts when I become inspired, and then nothing for several days. Oh well. I just hope I become inspired enough for a paragraph every day. I have to get back to work on the school newspaper. I'm writing this from an iMac in the journalism classroom. Soon they'll discover me. AHHH!!!

Andrew out.

May 8th, 2003 - I'm bored
Not much going on today. Raining outside. I can't think of anything to write my articles on for the school paper. Any suggestions? Send em' to me!. It would be much appreciated.
I'm excitied about the upcoming expansion pack to Battlefield 1942, "Secret Weapons of World War II". It's featuring way more new weapons, vehicles, and maps than "Road to Rome", which was actually rather dissapointing. After playing the Desert Combat mod for a week or so, it was too slow-moving and low tech. I'm slowly weaning myself off of DC, so that I might appreciate RTR a little more. It'll be a long, hard, recovery, but, with the help of my friends and family, I'll think I'll be able to do it... *sniff* ; )

Andrew out.

May 7th, 2003 - *Update! This is a hoax!!*
Hey people. I just read about the "iLoo" on CNN.com. Those crazy freaks at MSN are developing a public toilet for use in England. It will have water-proof (good idea) plasma screens and keyboards inside the toilet, and a "Hotmail Station" is mounted outside the toilet for the people waiting in line. I don't know whether this is a good thing or not. I know that it's good to be connected and communicating, but I also know that most people log their reading time on the loo, so this may cut back on some people's reading time, which is not a good thing. Yeah, I've already devoted far too much writing time to this subject.

Andrew out.

May 6th, 2003, - God will kick you in the head
Was reading The Bible today. Pretty cool, actually. Especially "Revelations", where John tells everyone about how God is going to kick them right in the head. Genesis is good, too, with the creation of the world, and everything.
On a decidedly less righteous note, I've also been playing the "Unreal II" demo quite a bit. I guess it's okay to blow the face off of Skaarj, cause God, aparently, didn't make Skaarj. Call it a Holy Crusade, but I'm determined to rid the universe (or at least my hard drive) of any Skaarj that may be hiding in the crevases. ("Onward, Christian Soldiers" plays in background)

Andrew out.

May 5th - Happy Cinco de Mayo!
Break out the beer and sombreros, cuz it's Mexican independence day. Call me ignorant, but I have no idea who they're independent of. All I know it that there's a ferris wheel in the rec center parking lot and cheap roast beef sandwhiches at the IDES hall. Mexico should become independent more often.
I have little time. Writing this from journalism class computer, and it's only a matter of time before I'm discovered.

Andrew out.

May 2nd, 2003 - I hate Avril Lavigne

Seriously, I really hate her. She's an idiot, and I hope she dies. I hope she dies good. She's "critically aclaimed" because she's a "punk" and "writes" her own "songs". Am I using too many "quotation marks"? Yes. Yes I am. Anyway, she's not punk. I know plenty of people who are punk, and a lot of people who are no-talent posers, and with this knowledge under my belt, which, I might add, is blue, I would have to say that she falls into the latter category.
You can tell she writes her own songs, because they all suck. She doesn't even have a nice voice. She has a carbon copy voice of every 20 year old aspiring actress/musician. You could dub Mariah Carrey OR Jennifer Lopez OR Celine Dion OR Michael Jackson over her songs, and no one would notice. Well, maybe not Michael Jackson. I'm not saying that he's not a no-talent poser, or that he's not a woman. But I'm relatively sure that he's older than 20. I mean, he has a kid. And a monkey. But once again, I've strayed pathetically far off-topic...
So, in closing. I would like to restate that I hate Avril Lavigne, and you should too. Why? Because I say so. And I'm from MTV. And since MTV is cool, it, by association makes ME cool. So, therefore, if you want to be cool, you have to do what I say. Okay?

Andrew out.

May 1st, 2003 - I hate the RIAA

Yeah, I know. It's been a while. So sue me. Anway, I was elated last night when I saw that the RIAA website was getting blasted with a denial-of-service attack. It serves them right, the filthy animals. For those of you not in the know, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), is adamately against peer-to-peer filesharing, and has about half of congress in their pockets, which in turn results in ridiculously unconstitutional bills being presented to the floor, bills that would allow organizations like the RIAA and MPAA to hack into P2P user's computers and even possibly plant viruses. I guess that big music/movies still haven't learned what the general public has known for years: you can't defeat the P2P users. There are millions of us. Even if every single P2P network was destroyed (which will never happen), people will still trade music on CDs and in e-mail. We will never be stopped! VIVA LA REVOLUTION!!

Andrew out.

April 30th, 2003 -If this is piracy, call me.... a freakin' pirate, I guess...

Today I want to talk about peer-to-peer file-sharing. For those of you who don't know, peer-to-peer file sharing is a system used to share files (mostly music) directly between 2 or more computers without the need for a connecting server. All that is needed to use "P2P", as it is sometimes called, is a computer with an internet connection and one of the dozens of free P2P programs floating around the web, the most popular of which being "Kazaa".
The programs and networks that allow users to access a P2P network have come under heavy legal fire from organizations like the RIAA, and the "Big 5" labels (EMI, Sony, BMG, AOL Time Warner, and Universal, I think), due to the swapping of copyrighted materials on these P2P systems. After the fall of Napster, no peer-to-peer network has been foolish enough to keep an index of all of it's songs on a central server. Now, there is no clear establishment for the music industry to take legal action against. Kazaa is spread out all across the globe, hiding it's software headquarters in an eastern European nation notorious for brushing off international copyright agreements.
Because of these circumstances, the music industry would have to sue about 20 million people worldwide, including yours truly, for participating in the illegal swapping of copyrighted music and video. But before you say "Awww, you poor multi-billion dollar industry. What can we do to help?", you should hear my and many other P2P'er's justification for doing this horrible, horrible thing: When you buy a CD, you pay a minimum of $15, right? Do you know how much it costs the record labels to have a CD ready to ship out, case, booklet and all? Maybe $0.75. That's over a one thousand percent profit for every CD you buy. Now you tell me which is more outrageous; people putting a small dent in a multi-billion dollar industry, or you shelling out $15 just so big music can make a +1000% profit?
And just when you think that the industry can't be any stupider, they somehow manage it. Not only has the industry attacked the system that P2P users use, but they've started attacking P2P users themselves. Great idea. Attack the people who you're trying to get to listen to you. Why not just shoot yourself right in the face? It would be faster, and a lot less painful. A particulary insulting slap to P2P users came in the form of several hundred fake mp3 files placed on all of the major P2P networks last week. While users thought that they were downloading a Madonna song, the file is actually completely silent, except for the first few seconds, which is a recording of Madonna inquiring "What the fuck do you think you're doing?". Lovely. Madonna's affiliation has been quite clear for some time now, and many of her P2P using fans have let it slide, but this was such a blatant personal attack that many of her fans have threatened to boycott Madonna and any other artists who cooperate with the RIAA. Amusingly enough, just hours after these files started appearing on networks, Madonna's website was hacked an defaced with obscene messages and images, including a marriage proposal to a "Tech TV" news anchor. Well, that's what she gets for hanging out with that kind of trash. But I digress...
For those of you who aren't into file-sharing yet, I encourage you to stop paying for the music industry to screw you, and start screwing them back. A simple search for "P2P" on download.com will reveal a plethora of delightful programs, all of which probably have lawsuits pending. I highly reccomend Kazaa or Limewire. So go! Get out there! And don't let those RIAA goons push you around!!

Andrew out

January 25th, 2003 - Years are good things
Happy New Year!! A bit late, eh? Well I've been very busy. My school's annual week-long trip to Washington D.C is coming up, and I finally raised enough money to make the final payment. $1600 is a bit steep, even for airfare and tour payment. Today I got the form that lets you choose your roommates for the hotel. In any case, it should be fun. All the people who've taken it say that it was the highlight of their middle school years. A lofty standard for it to live up to, and I hope it does.

Other then that, alls quiet on the western front. All I can say is, thank God for three day weekends...

November 15th, 2002 - I like cheese
Hey, I'm writing this from my volunteer job. All's quiet on the western front, and the baseball season just ended. I'd like to re-iterate that you guys all suck. I guess the novelty of my site has worn out, like a funny hat. It's not funny the next day.
November 1st, 2002 - I hate you all
You guys suck. You haven't answered my poll or signed my guestbook for at least 2 months, and no one's ever e-mailed me, AFTER BEING REPEATEDLY WARNED!! A good sidenote, my site's been picked up on a recent web crawl by google, so if any of you happen to accidentally hit "megabyte800" (like I know so many of you do), this site will be the.... 56th up there, but that's beside the point; it's Google! Anyway, if you guys have desperately been trying to reach me, but just haven't found one of the, oh, 50 links I've left laying around the site let me hook you up.Seriously, I'm lonely...... Seeya next time!

October 26th, 2002 - You could disregard this post.... if you want to get leprosy...
I actually have some interesting things to say in this entry, which will be a first. First of all, I've started posting stuff on a site called deviantart.com. Here's my best work as of yet. There's some other stuff I did, too, but it's really stupid.
Anyhoo, the other important thing is that I came up with the German version of "Baby Got Back":

Hitler got back, and I cannot lie
you other Nazi's can't deny
that when the fuhror walks in and caps you in the face you've insulted the master race
you SIEG HAIL to save your ass
he's gonna throw you in an acid bath
cause when the man gets pissed somebody's gonna die, and you hope he just lets it fly.

all lyrics, beats and other pointless crap copyright of Andrew Jurado and Sean Cameron, 2002. All rights reserved, bitch!

October 14th, 2002

Great news. I stop writing blog entries for a few weeks, and some guy goes all crazy about it and starts shooting people in DC. In all seriousness, this is not funny, and this has to stop. This is a very unusual case, and as I'm writing this, it's just a couple hours after the sniper claimed his 9th victim. It's men like this that make this world a horrible place. And the worst part is, he probably has military training, which kinda puts the police at a distinct disadvantage. I only wonder how long it is until he targets a police officer and really gets people pissed off. This will be a man-hunt of epic proportions, and the only way this man will ever escape the long arm of the law is to stop the killing now. I stop writing these things for two weeks....

September 20th, 2002

You know what's weird? I haven't written a blog entry from my own computer for about 3 weeks. This time it's from a PC in an Intel sponsored workshop in an affordable housing complex where I volunteer. Last time it was from my 5th period class's laptop. Not much to report in the last few days; baseball game coming up tomorrow. We;re playing Foster City. We'll probably get killed bad, but oh well. I don't think we have a very good team this year. Not many egos, but not much talent either. Whatever. Like I said, all's quiet on the western front. If YOU have anything interesting going on in your life, drop me a line. Seeya next time.

September 18th, 2002

Sorry I haven't gotten to write lately. Been pretty busy with school and baseball and stuff. Don't even have time to get a haircut. I'm starting to grow a fro, and I hate it when that happens.
Anyhoo, to the point: I hate habbos. Seriously, if you've checked out my friend Sean's site, you know what habbos are. Habbo's are little people that you control in what it like a chatroom, except stupider. It's completely flash based, which means lots of annoying crap that you shouldn't have to deal with; you have to click on the exact spot on an image to get to the link, there is no feedback when you click on something (you just have to hope it does what you tell it), and the fact that the entire idea is so stupid it makes me want to throw my fist through the moniotr. And this is the part that really gets me: this stupid website actually charges you if you plan to spend any amount of time there. You have to buy credits to get your own room and furniture. It's only a pathetic amount of money; like a cent per credit, but you have to ship the change to the UK. Why even bother, when you could just go to a regular chat room. The whole thing is beyond idiocy. It's the kind of thing that I'm sure the terrorists hated when they attacked us. Hey, if it was up to me, I wouldn't have cared about US military bases in Saudi Arabia, or the desecration of a religion: I would have blown something up just out of hate for this STUPID WEBSITE!!! I would give a link for everyone to see just how stupid the site is, but then you would only go there and get hooked on it, and make me feel really stupid, wouldn't you? Yeah, I know how you are. What makes you so special? Huh? Yeah, that's what I though: no answer. Pah!!

By the way, on this page of the blog, I decided to do what I should have done on the first page: This time I'll put the latest entry on the top.

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