Whoa... It's come to my attention that Dan has posted more than I have this month. Well, fine. So I've been busy. Actually, I haven't, and I really have no excuse at all for not posting on here. Soo.... lets see... got my license on Monday, so I've been driving to school for the past three days. Good times, no more waiting for a ride, I can leave when I'm ready to go instead of waiting, and I can go out to lunch when I feel like it! :-) Sure, parking the Sequoia at Skyview is... somewhat difficult (I can park in any of the six spots next to the band room or anywhere with a plant-island by the driver's door,) but I've enjoyed having a place to dump an extra 10 pounds of books and assorted crap during lunch time. Anyway.... Band competitions start soon, should be an interesting year. Robertson started enforcing the Jazz band tardy policy: anyone who comes in after we've started playing is late, and being late twice is a detention. I seem to remember David Alexander coming in at 6:45 every day last year, so I guess this is supposed to make us be on time. Really, it's just going to make people quit. We'll see how that goes. Yawn. How many of you are still awake after that boring rant? Not that I care or anything! :-D Lets see... now that I'm driving, I take the idiots on the road more personally. The past two days I've been following those idiots who don't seem to care that they're doing 30 mph in a 40 zone. I actually got down to 15 mph in Felida this afternoon, the guy sped up to 25 by the time we got to the railroad bridge in Fruit Valley. Some people shouldn't be allowed on the road. Maybe it's because anyone with an ounce of brain cells can pass the written test, and the drive isn't too much harder. Great. Ok, now on to another school-based rant. English class! As Dan mentioned (wow, not used to checking that site and seeing new stuff!) English this year is a boring slacker class. Yawn. Plus, it's 1st period, so it's really hard to stay awake. Seriously, it's about as challenging as video production, and all we do is sit around and talk. Great class, video production. Chemistry is hard, but interesting. AP History is great, especially since we can eat in there, so I can go out to lunch and bring it back for fourth period. Yay! Ummm..... AP Statistics is a "Hattan class." I think you all know what I mean by that. 6th period band is the same as always. Ha! Someone stole all Josh's valves today, so if you see a bunch of random shiny pieces of metal laying around somewhere, he'd probably like them back. On a final note: Ken, if you're reading this, YOU STILL OWE ME THAT CD!!!!! Well.... that's about all for now, expect another post in the next day or two, I'll try to get back into the habit of posting again. Who knows, one of them could even be funny!

Fine, so it's been a while since my last post. I'm going to announce a new feature today, we'll see how well it works. Blogger just added a "send by email" option. So, if any of you want to get my blog by email, I can set it to forward it to you when it comes into my inbox. Anyone who wants to read this without having to check it, click here! Ok, that's done with. My week has been interesting, I dropped Hook's math class and I'm now taking AP Statistics with Hattan. Should be much more useful, I hear Pre-Cal is basically a waste of time anyway. Unfortunately, that takes me out of web publishing too. So, I didn't have a 2nd period yesterday. I started video production today, but I'm still not technically enrolled in the class. Oh well, still have time. Um... football game and pep-assembly tomorrow, the game is a home game but it's at River Stadium, which makes no sense because I can't imagine anything worse than 500 Skyview kids with little supervision loose at Columbia River in the dark... except perhaps Dan naked, and I actually can't imagine that, my mind won't let me. (Sorry if I gave any of you a bad mental image!) I'll leave you with that thought, while I think of happier, less-disturbing things.

Look at this! That's gotta be one of the best things I've seen in a while. Ok, that's it for now.

Messing with the Spammers
Hmm... take a look at this email!

****
From: "MR RICHARD CARLOS"

FROM:RICHARD CARLOS.
Dear Sir/Madam,
Re:BUSINESS PROPOSAL
I am aware that this business proposal might come to
you as a surprise,nevertheless,I am Richard Carlos ,the eldest son of Puri Carlos from the
Republic of Zimbabwe.
During the current war against farmers in Zimbabwe
from the supporters of President Robert Mugabe,in his
efforts to chase all the white farmers out of the
country,he ordered all the white farmers to relinquish
their farms to the government party members and his
followers...
...However,before the attack and subsequent death of my
father,he drew my attention to the sum of
US$10,000,000,00(Ten Million United States of American
Dollars),which he deposited ...
...so have decided
to move this funds to a more reliable foreign account
since the law in The Netherlands prohibits a refugee
(Assylum seeker)to open a bank account or be involved
in any financial transaction.As the eldest son of my
father,l am saddled with the responsibility of seeking
a genuine foreign account where this fund could be
transferred without the knowledge of my government.
As a partner whom l have entrusted my future and my
family in his hands,l must let you know that this
transaction is risk free.All we need you to do for us
in this partnership is to make arrangements with the
Security Company on how we can come for the
consignment(Funds)from their affiliate office here in
The Netherlands.The office has already given
directives that the consignment be brought to
Amsterdam,and that we could open a non-resident
account where the funds will be moved,for onward
transfer into any nominated oversea account for
investment.
All the necessary documents showing the geniuness of
this transaction,like the certificate of deposit and
airway bill,are all intact with me and would be sent
across to you should we agree on this partnership.My
family has earnmarked 25% of the total amount for your
partnership,5% for any incidental expenses incurred in
course of the transaction and the remaining 70% will
be for my family.
I want you to immediately confirm your interest in the
transaction via telephone 0031-621-436-489 or e-mail
address:rich01car@netscape.net and l will respond giving
you the details of the transaction.
Best regards,
Richard Carlos.

***
Yeah, whatever. Too bad this is one of the oldest email scams out there. However, I'm tempted to use one of my junk-accounts to respond to this moron. Any good suggestions for replies, please post them on egil. Some interesting points: "Dear Sir/Madam" and he's trusting me with his money? *coughbullshitcough* Also, the telephone number is a fake, since there is no city code (the second set of digits) with that series of numbers anywhere in the Netherlands. Again, please suggest good ways to mess with this guy! :-)

First day of School
Well, first day of school today. Wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. Here's a look at my schedule this year:

0 Period - Jazz Band w/ Robertson
Same as every year, except this year we can already play music. Still missing a few people, but hey, it's 6:30 AM, who can blame them?
1st Period - AP English w/ Pike
Still can't tell about this class. So far she seems nicer than VA, but how much will she teach? Can't tell which direction this class is going, just have to wait and see.
2nd Period - Pre-AP SMT Pre-Calculus w/ Hook
Um... what can I say.... this class... is going to be boring.... yeah. He seems to know a lot, but I think it's going to be a lot of notetaking and lecture, which is NOT how I learn math.
3rd Period - AP Chemistry w/ Skoog
This is going to be a hard class. I guess 4 people passed the AP test last year... so it could be interesting. At least Skoog knows what he's talking about, shouldn't have any trouble learning a lot there.
First Lunch
About time! First lunch has several distinct advantages over 2nd lunch, including fresh hot food, friends with the same lunch, and it's earlier in the day (10:35 instead of 11:35) which balances out my early morning breakfast (5:45.)
4th Period - AP US History w/ Armstrong
This is probably one of my most interesting classes so far, just because you can't predict what Armstrong will do next. Sounds like he has a good background in history, and he certainly knows his trivia, so this class should be interesting as well as fun.
5th Period - Web Publishing w/ Darling
This is going to be a fun class, I don't expect a lot of work from it, but hopefully I'll learn a few things about website development and more html tricks to use on my site.
6th Period - Wind Ensemble w/ Robertson
Again, this class is the same as every year. It starts out like band practice, and we keep going. Nice that they have a freshman band this year, although I hear it sucks to be one of the sophomores stuck in there.

Yeah... that's basically what I have for today. I'll do periodic reviews of my classes and occasinal rants too. Oh, here's a small rant to get started with. I have 10 pounds of textbooks! Actually, it's only two books, my Pre-Cal book and my Chem book. I have to carry both of them back and forth to school, and there isn't any in-class book storage. Greaaaat. Time to get a locker, I'm looking at maybe 600 wing. Still, 2 5-pound textbooks... why can't they get a class set, I'm sure there are thousands of copies sitting in a warehouse somewhere. Arrgh. Anyway, a mostly good day today, tomorrow is Friday, pep-assembly and maybe an after-school dance. That's it for now!

Oh, one more thing. Be sure to keep up to date by checking who owes me money *cough...ken...*

Site additions
I added a TagBoard message board, which can be found in the left sidebar below the archive links. Use it or be eternally cursed!

Almost time for school. Oh yay.
Ok, ok... so it's been a week since my last post. My only excuse is that I was way to lazy to post anything good. Yeah.
Time for a good rant. Today's topic: car dealers. Went looking for a car on Monday, and we talked to some interesting people. Here is a sample conversation: Me - "I'm looking for a new Golf GL" Them - "Let's look at a Jetta" Me - "No, I don't want a Jetta, I want a Golf." Them - "Oh, ok. Lets see... we have some in the back lot" we go to the back lot, they realize that they only have 3 of them, and they are all in the higher trim level, which gives a sunroof. Total price difference: $2500. Me - "Hmm... that's kinda pricey for a sunroof, seeing as I live in the Pacific Northwest, isn't it?" Them - "Lets see if we can make you a really good offer on it" It goes on like this for a while. They also have this really great trick when it comes to working out pricing. First they give you something higher than the sticker price on the car and undervalue your trade in by several thousand dollars. When you point out that this is a load of crap, they adjust the prices another few grand toward normal. They try and get you to sign anything and everything, although if they tried to take the other car we would just report it stolen. Who are the police going to believe? I'm sure they hate these people as much as they seem to hate us.
Now, to be fair, there were some dealers who were more helpful than others. The first one offered us the "we'll look for one at another dealership if you can commit to a price." The second one looked at the inventory list and told us that there were none of them on the market. Makes me wonder what would have happened if we tried to go through the first one...
That's about all for this rant, summer went by too fast. Way too fast.