Welcome To Crazy Town

I have nothing left to say really. I’m happy again, who knew it would take so little to undue so much emotional damage. Eh I’ll think of something to write eventually. But for now I’m content just being content

My body is tingling and I question what I have become.

I question the truths I was taught and dwell on the damage I have already caused.

In a blur the line of justice is deformed and in the confusion I maim that which I care about.

But then, did I ever care?

I would hope so.

I still question it.

How many of you use the internet? Now a days that may seem like a stupid question. We do everything online, from emailing a professor your late homework to buying groceries. Most colleges even prefer you to apply online, instead of printing out tons of paper and mailing it off to them. Ok so that’s how we use the internet here in the United States, but what about countries like China? Imagine yourself a student there and you wanted to do a report on western culture. So you go onto Google and you do a search. Chances are, little to no information will come up in the results. This is because the Chinese government blocks a lot of websites to prevent it’s citizens from obtaining much information about the world outside of the country. According to a recent study done by two students at Harvard Law School showed that out of 200,000 websites, about 20,000 were blocked. Most of these sites contained information about politics, news, entertainment, health, and commerce.1 The government wants to be selective about what it’s people can or cannot see. You’re probably thinking, well China is communist. That kind of stuff only happens in places like that. In actuality you’d be very very wrong. In fact, you yourself may not be seeing the full picture. In May of 2008 when the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5252, a telecommunications law that did not provide adequate protective measures net neutrality. I believe in net neutrality. What is net neutrality? Net neutrality is the belief that, “ Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet.”2
The culprits behind limiting what we can or can’t do online are the very ones providing us the service. Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, all these companies have been accused of and caught blocking the trafficking of certain digital media. An article by Adam Liptak of the New York Times, showed that Verizon had not allowed Naral Pro-Choice America a pro-choice group a five-digit “short code.” Such codes allow people interested in hearing from businesses, politicians and advocacy groups to sign up to receive text messages.3 In August of 2007, AT&T censored a live webcast of a Pearl Jam concert because the lead singer criticized President Bush. In May 2008, both Comcast and Cox Communications were caught blocking users from connecting to bit-torrents such as LimeWire. People who shop online could be forced to only buy from an online market place that has ties to the ISP. For example, AT&T could slow down how fast you can access the iTunes store, even making it so slow that it doesn’t load. They could do that to all music services except one that they own. If you bank online, they could push you toward a bank they favor, and if you want to brush up on some politics they could choose to only display information of whichever candidate they approve of. As it stands now, the ones who provide gateways to the net have too much control over what gets accessed and what doesn’t. Net neutrality would prevent these companies from illegally filtering information. They would have to allow open access to all websites regardless of whether or not the company agrees with the site’s views.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Verizon’s Ivan Seidenberg said, “We have to make sure they don’t sit on our network and chew up our capacity. We need to pay for the pipe.”4 Seidenberg’s statement is echoed among the other internet service providers or ISPs. What may just seem like a slippery slope argument, could become reality. If net neutrality does not pass, ISP’s could start charging based on what websites you access, in a payment plan very similar to how you only pay for certain TV channels. If you wanted to use sites like Youtube or Google, you’d have to pay for access to those sites, and for the package that would let you load them. Many small businesses who use the internet to advertise and sell around the world would not be able to keep up with other businesses that can pay to have their site load faster and to have it pop up at the top of every search engine. Bloggers and social networking sites would die due to the cost of reporting news and uploading pictures and music. This would destroy sites like myspace, facebook, livejournal, and today. There would be little to no citizen journalists and people will be left with only the large corporate-owned media outlets like Fox news.
With the filtration of content, comes the infringement of Constitutional rights. The first amendment protects the right of free speech. That covers written and spoken word, but it does not necessarily digital expressions, this is the argument taken up by the Bell companies on the issue. However since the Constitution is an ever evolving document, it is implied that all form of speech are protected. By restricting what information people can find, and by silencing anything that opposes their agenda, the ISP’s are actually violating the 1st Amendment. By blocking those pro-choice text messages, Verizon effectively prevented widespread distribution of information that was not a threat to anyone. Yes, there are those who will say that abortion is murder and that is fine, but sending out information about abortion is not the same as shouting “fire” in a crowded theater. By only displaying certain political candidates, ISP’s could effectively control who runs, gets nominated, and elected to positions of power in government. I don’t know about you, but I would rather not have that decision made up for me.
Before my speech I bet none to very little of you knew about the net neutrality hearings going on in Congress right now. Or that our very own President Obama supports it and made it one of his issues during his campaign. We should not end up like China where what we can access and do is controlled by a small group of people.
Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, states, “The neutral communications medium is essential to our society. It is the basis of a fair competitive market economy. It is the basis of democracy, by which a community should decide what to do. It is the basis of science, by which humankind should decide what is true. Let us protect the neutrality of the net.”5 Please, don’t let choices be made for you. Support net neutrality and leave the control in your hands.

I do not count this as a post,

I simply needed a place to store an idea. I doubt it will ever be seen by the ones I want it to be seen by. But I post it not as an attempt to reach them, but rather a general utterance. So if you happen to see this, I’m sorry I did not wish to offend. It is an explaination of multiple things. They aren’t explicitly stated here but to those who know what to look for everything will be revealed……

Pauline is probably the sweetest person I’ve ever met in my entire life. She always knew when to be goofy and when to be serious and she could always make me smile no matter how bad things got. She is spontaneous and we could talk about anything for hours at a time about nothing. She never took anything too seriously and was very laid back.
We shared running. We used to go out together on runs that would go for several miles, exploring every place we could.
I met her randomly one day, I always liked telling that story. At the beginning of my junior year before school had started, we were having summer cross country practice.
The person running our practice (Lisa, who lives in SF and goes here and I have known her for forever) had to go off somewhere that day so I was in charge. I decided we needed a vacation and we should all go to great america. That day we were all ready to go when a green car pulls up and out jumps a red headed girl wearing a blue hat, white shirt, and black shorts. She comes out to me over on the track (I was making sure nothing was taken out) and asks if this was Cross Country. I told her this exactly, “Um yeah it is, but you picked a really bad day cause we are all leaving to great america right now. Soooo bye……”
And I just kinda left.
That was the first time I had actually spoken to her and that’s the story we would always tell about how we met. How I ditched her for and amusement park and we would laugh about it. In reality we had met several months earlier. In my sophomore year I missed school one day because I was waiting for the cable guy. I decided to go to the britton middle school track practice and play tag with them. She remembered me as the crazy high school that made them play games and I remember her as the crazy little red head who was a pain in the butt to catch.

Being with her, made me feel like I had no troubles or worries. The world felt perfect somehow. I was so in love with her.

The title of this post is based off the song, “Swing, swing” by the All-American Rejects. There are a lot of memories connected to the song, can anyone tell me why or what they are? Or the reason I never play it on my itunes or sing it out loud? If you could answer any of those questions congratulations, you know me better than 90% of my friends. You see very few people actually know me, the real me. The psychotic, neurotic one that pathologically lies to get what he needs or wants. I make up stories, ideologies, philosophies, even attitudes toward certain things depending on who I’m with or if I care about their feelings. I am very rarely myself, even among people I consider to be good friends. I think it was Rebecca Devillez that put it best, “If Armando is loud and hyper everything is good but if he’s quiet, you should be very careful”. Who knows my life? Who knows me best? Who knows me at all? That is my question to all of you.

So looks like I’m the last one standing on the blog front. All my friends got bored or couldn’t be bothered to continue. I decided I will post sporadically (like I don’t do that already right?), but they will be shorter posts most likely. Somehow I’m really busy yet I manage to play my Xbox everyday. Nothing new to report this week, I’m going to the mall with Marissa and Stevanie on Friday, getting Fallout 3 tomorrow, and making a movie in about an hour on Thursday. A somewhat packed week if I do say so myself. Oh well, this blog has yet to pay out and I’m just stubborn enough to keep going until I get my $50. I could buy a bunch of things on craigslist then.

So another night another party I guess. Am I the only one of the gang that hasn’t gotten shit-faced wasted in the last 48 hours? Quite possibly, seeing as there are two people passed out in my room right now, and the rest of them are all partying up in another friend’s dorm. So here I sit, watching over two of them while the rest are off killing their brain cells. Even some of them who I used to respect for not doing this sort of thing have become a huge disappointment to me. It’s irresponsible on everyone’s part. I pity them, for in my eyes they are pathetic…..

Tonight started off ok, then fell down a slope a bit. I decided I needed sometime to myself so I went out to the track. At 1am. In a karategi and shorts. While I admit I wasn’t exactly dressed for a San Francisco winter night, I wasn’t bothered by the cold. Once there I started to walk around the track, breaking down the things that had been cluttering my mind for a while. I questioned who I was and what I stood for, and in the end I felt clean. I felt as if someone had washed away years worth of caked on filth and had shined me up. It was amazing, I couldn’t help smiling my entire way back. I think I may have even had a spring in my step, that’s just how much of a good mood I was in. The track was always my place to sit and think about all my ideas, problems, and beliefs. I knew I had to go to my thinking spot, I’ve had to for a while now but I’d been putting it off. I feel great, although a little hungry (lol), but other than that nothing can get to me now.

I am trying to re-enact the Red Paper Clip trade that ended up with a guy getting a house.

While I’m not aiming for a house, I am wondering how far along I can get. Also I’m starting with a giant rubber duck.

Wish me luck.

Seeing how easy it is to become an internet sensation, we’ve decided to start uploading videos up to youtube about random things. Our first (and only at this point) video is just Albert, Sam, and I in one of our average dorm conversations. For now we are just filming at random moments and putting them up, but if anyone has any ideas or anything they’d like to see send in suggestions! Who knows, the next viral video may have been your brain child.

Other than that, nothing new to report. I may sell my Wii, but I have yet to find a buyer (although someone did offer to trade a Xbox 360 Elite). At this point it’s up in the air.

That’s all for now, so see you next time folks!

(Be sure to check out the videos http://youtube.com/user/wireman1990)