Photographer of Dreams

i love Konata Izumi!!!

2009-08-13T17:01:00.002+07:00

instructions of killing : do it with care!!

2009-08-13T16:39:00.003+07:00

Amused at the title? I bet!!

But if one studies the subject Humanitarian Law, then one would not be as amused. Example : Me.

Humanitarian Law goes as far back to our good friend, Henry Dunant. Who's he? Dude, you definitely need to know a little more about a peace society, because this guy is the guy who propagated such a concept.

Dunant loved peace so much that he even promoted it in times of war! :D So one day he went to this place in the middle of a raging war. As what I have no idea, nor do I have the abilities to rationalize why one would deliberately go to a battle field if one was not a soldier. Someone with a deathwish maybe.. :p

Anyhoo, Dunant went and witnessed the Battle of Solferino. This epic epic battle happened at around 1860s, a time when you and me wasn't even a drop of sperm yet ^^ So in this battle, Dunant saw the major heinousness that one man could inflict to another man, and that it was unbearable that he ran from the battle to look for his mommy, his bottle of milk, and his snuggly teddy bear..

Alrite that's a lie, but he did survive the battle enough to change the world for years to come..

Dunant decided that wars should change.. Even at that time he knew that wars were inevitable (not like those tree huggin hippies who promoted peace in the 60s and 70s. Read : John Lennon) , but he did see a chance that wars could be more human. So this was the birth of the Geneva agreements (NOT the Geneva Conventions, which was in 1945, this happened in 1880s). At the time he thought :

1) That human rights and humanity should be preserved in any condition but especially for countries waging war
2) There should be an organization that aims to induce these principles

Ladies and gentlemen, members of the house (loh!!??) this is how the Red Cross was established. What?? Yes! Dunant is that guy who founded the Red Cross.. Now does this ring bells for you?

Preceding the Geneva agreement in 1880s, the world adopted one of the first treaties that mattered; The Hague Conventions.. Enacted approximately in the 1890s, The Hague Conventions pretty much covered the idealism that Dunant brought to the world; that we would HUMANIZE wars.. Imagine that!

But you know what, as much as it looks nice on paper, that Hague (not Hag) conventions had its weaknesses. It got trumped by the SI OMNES PRINCIPLE.. What is this principle, I hear you ask.. It basically means that this convention only applies to the countries who ratified it! Right, I don't mean to be rude, but if at that time the US decided to (for God knows whatever reason) occupy Indonesia, all we can do is fart, take a shit, and die! There would be no sanctions.. Why? Becaue Indonesia did not ratify the convention.. I mean how could we, we weren't even independent by then! :p

Which is why the world made up another nice agreement; ladies and gents I present to you the Geneva Conventions! Adopted in 1945, The Geneva Conventions have 4 conventions under it (protection to civillians, protection to wounded, protection to shipwrecked, and protection to prisoners of war), then came along with 3-4 additional protocols within the next 20 years or so.

Great thing about Geneva Convention is that it became customary law! Come again? It means that it doesnt care whether you ratified or not, this convention UNIVERSALLY applies..

So this is the development of what is called HUMANITARIAN LAW.. Which is why be careful when someone talks about HUMANITARIAN AID, with HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION, that, my friends, is 2 different things!!!!

But as we all know, as much as it looks nice, its called International Law.. Austin the great legal figure argued that its not really a law.. He means -> NO ENFORCEMENT.. we've seen cases where the Geneva Conventions was violated over and over again.. Who's to sanction? Are you really suggesting countries like Fiji would ever stand a chance in suing the UK for their aid in the Iraqi War? I dont think so..

So, a pea's a pea but a bean is a relief, eh?

a guy named Omar

2009-08-11T09:45:00.003+07:00

first of all, let me acknowledge the economist for the pictures. ahh they might not care that a snobby college student is copy pasting their pictures and writing a n00b article on Sudan..

but oh well..

so there's this guy named Omar, he's currently the dictating leader of Sudan. Heard of Sudan? No? Well not much happened there, like only genocide!

Sudan has always been a multi racial nation, consisting of tribal africans and nomadic arabians, at that time. Friction started as early as when the nomadic arabs moved all the time throughout the whole year in search of water supplies (you can see why this is a problem in Africa :D). Sometimes these people, the Arabs, don't really care who's land they're trodding, so aggression sometimes is resolute to happen.

This social construction was preserved up until the level of governmency. The Sudanese government is an entity powered by the Arabian people. Especially Omar, since he was a dictator and all, that led him to believe that he was able to push people around. The friction between rebel groups to the Darfur administration led to many deaths systematically. This is why Sudan crisis is classified as tragedies of humanity.

Has the security council try to alleviate problems? Oh yes they have had special plennary council meetings to debate about economical sanction. Oh oh but a veto happened. From who? The United States??? Now let's not be prejudice people, it's not all the time they stir problems, as much of an angry state with evergreen thirst for world dominance, it wasnt them. So who? Chinaaaaaaaa!!

China? yes. Hu? Yes,sir. What, Yasser? I thought he was a Palestinian!

Anyhoo, China vetoed the resolution to sanction Sudan through embargos since they have oil investments in parts of the Sudanese territory. Actually most of their oil refineries are located in the neighbouring Chad, but I suppose some of their pipelines go through Sudan. So an economic embargo would also mean loss of Dollars for China. So there goes "UNSC to the rescue!!!" down the loo..

Now you know what it means by a "politicized right" in the security council :)

So, what next? Early 2009, the toothless tiger; ICC suddenly decided not to just dawdle and played with the magna charta for toilet wipes and stood up to take iniciatives. They imposed an allegation to someone!!!

Okay, so that you know. ICC have never allegated someone just for the sake of it. Milosevic in his Former Yugoslavian Tribunal was under the pressures of NATO countries. The Arusha Tribunals probably had been orchestrated by Belgium to prosecute the Rwandan dictators. Even with Pinochet, as weird as that proceeding was, it was the Spanish Supreme Court that released the Arrest Warrant for the aging General as he was having his medical checkups in London.

So, this became a controversy. What next? In international law enforcement, you cant just go barging into other states and nick their dictator. Usually there's this small obstacle called sovereignity. This small thing is what hinders the world from having a supernational body and legal system. Now, states who have agreed to surrender their sovereignity to the International Criminal Court (ICC) must sign the Roma Statute, which came into activation in the mid of 1998 after 50 states ratfied its initial protocols. But some countries chose not to sign this, among them United States, Indonesia, etc. Sudan included.

So the train of thought goes like this; is the values of humanity paramount? if there were any other value higher than human rights itself, what are they? but if human rights shall be the sole goal of a state, what can happen to a state that has violated the very thing that they should aim to protect in the first place. Let alone protecting, what happens when a state IS the perpetrator of crimes against humanity?

Would you think ICC have rights to undermine Darfur to apprehend Omar? Or shall Omar have the last dance hiding behind Head of State Immunity act?

This issue is something to monitor. Why? If this allegation is passed, ICC will then have the power to bring George W. Bush down into trials to demand his accountability for Iraq (including Abu Ghraib etc).. so, interesting, eh?

Surabaya oh Surabaya

2009-08-10T14:44:00.003+07:00

Just came back from Surabaya this noon. I attended the 13th annual Java Overland Varsities English Debating championship.. It's held in Universitas Airlangga.. Surabaya is one of Indonesia's bustling metropolis-es (i think 2nd or 3rd most populated), so it was quite a thrill to be able to visit :)

I took the early train to Surabaya, at like 3 am in the morning @.@

Since I'm one of those people who would be better off not to sleep than to just get 1-2 hours of sleep, before going I decided to just continue with my Sims3-a-thon, which is quite fun.. I noticed that after sitting in front of you computer screen for quite long hours you tend to develop butt cramps.. this i know because the moment i stood up because the taxi's honking its horn up front of the house (i have a neighbour that throws rocks in response to noisy people at night, so you can imagine my immediate reaction) i dont think i can feel my butt as if it fell off.. haha apologies for the pun :D

Anyhoo this is the second time in like 1 week that I took the excecutive train ride to Surabaya, and I personally think it is pretty fine! It's seatings is wide, comfy, much from what you'd get from a budget class plane, but with more legroom and no bumpy turbulence that makes you vomit.. oh and some actually have flat panel screens on them.. You'd probably be raising your eyebrows at my keen appraisal in this, but you must understand I usually prefer not taking trains in Indonesia due to many many cases of unfortunate incidents, and just an uneducated prejudice due to never having travel by trains before.. but point proven wrong! ^^ for those intending to take the bold step like me (first timer in train travelling), do it! From jogja to surabaya is about IDR 75.000 (which is like USD 7 so you can imagine how ridiculously cheap that is :D)

JOVED was fun, competition was pretty good. I'd prefer the food they had in the competition before though, had better composition. Albeit due to my recent eating habbits, it really doesnt matter much what they serve for food, I cant enjoy it as much anyways..

For some who usually judge a competition and receive the title of breaking adjudicators (those who get like in the top 20 marks in the adjudication accreditation), not getting "breaking judge" would be distressing.. But not me hahaha.. This was the first ever competition in which I judges but didnt manage to get into the breaking judge.. I think its fine though, you dont always get to maintain a good rythm of things right? maybe I didnt do so good in the tests, oh well :)

As I'm writing the competition is still running, so no reports on the results yet.. But I am now back in Jogja since I have many work to do, mostly taking care of the online trainings for Team Indonesia *sigh, it will never end*

But overall, another tiring yet pretty satisying weekend in Surabaya.. (above pic is the people representing many different universities from Jogja chanting the usual "Jogja! Jogja! Jogja!" yell before each match - magical group of people)

Hope you've had good travelling opportunities as of late, share them! :D

admiring handicraft sent from the skies

2009-06-30T00:42:00.002+07:00

can I be honest? I used to not care about this thing called "nature", I used to be part of that system that things for granted, and believe that everything runs for itself without us having to pay attention to it.. i was wrong, read on!

I've been spending most of the last 2 weeks at home.. Its a pretty small town called Bengkulu, just on the southern part of the island of Sumatra.. I havent been here in about 4-5 months.. This time this trip meant quite a lot, I am seeing things from a new perspective, I am changing I guess, and one of them is how i see this "hometown" and "nature"..

I've always had a deep admiration towards photography, but I guess that urge to deepen my appreciation towards photography has been widening within the last 3 months, I am intrigued more and more.. What's good about photography is that along with the hunt for that perfect shot, comes the demand to see multiple angles from certain things.. The pictures i attached are pictures taken from a place called "Pantai Panjang" (literal translation; Long Beach), it has never really been a special place for me, i just know it as the "main" beach of Bengkulu..

Why I think this trip is extra meaningful is the fact that I saw things differently now, I talked to a lot of people here and learnt new things; new philosophies in life. But most astoundingly I saw nature differently.. Eversince loving photography and its science, I knew in an instant that capturing nature's best is one of my passions in life, and that made me think; 1) Jeez, God really is the best painter and craftsman ever, and 2) I never knew i could see this beach this way..

I know I am not the only one. I posted this as an album on my facebook, a few people I know who went to the same highschool with me asked; "where is this?" and they cannot believe that this is the beach they've known for years! All right, maybe the photos help, but I think this is astounding, no? I'm thinking more ways to promote this place, because it really is a gem in the roughs..

I agree with the people from Discovery Channel when they said Earth is just an awesome place.. I agree! So how do we make it that way, like, forever? Mars is too hot, Venus is too cold, and anywhere else is simply too far.. We cannot move, can we?

So how do you propose the best way to going green is? Or do you simply not care? And what about your ideas on hometown? good, bad, sour, sweet, bitter memories I bet all exist there.. But I'd like to think; there's no other place like home, eh?

your photo insta-crop fun!

2009-06-22T15:28:00.005+07:00

you might have known of this website for quite a while, i know its existed for a long time now, but i decided to play around with it..

it's just simple fun to twist with and it fills up time haha.. here's 10 templates i tried with using one same photo (so you can see the site's ability to self-edit your pics) with me comments on it :)

"the decline of russia"

"notice why its black and white"

"the guy who stalked Victoria"

"she got her tops in the ALL-FOR-UNDER-A-DOLLAR shop"

"the official sound track for ONE NIGHT IN PARIS"

"children this is what you call garbagism in art"

"Giselle the fashion victim"

"Indonesian scientists have found the tool for trade they used 10 million years ago"

"Girl you are clearly a dumb-blonde"

"the value of this car will decline by about 110%"

website is here, have fun guys :D

cin(T)a; a love triangle between a boy, a girl, and God..

2009-06-22T12:56:00.003+07:00

I was doing some of my emails and reviewing some of the assignments the debating team has sent me, which is quite hard work even when it's done in front of the TV while watching Asian Food Channel in a cooled room ^^; when Joan, a very dear friend of mine buzzed me to remind me about the registration for the World Debating tournament that'll be opened this noon..

After that she gave me a link which i will give to you too at the end of this article (i will also accesorize this article with quotes from the trailer). She said to me to have a look at this Indie feature. For those of you who dont know, "Indie" is not a movie made in India, nor is it about Indians and their dancing and it is definitely not about red Indians of north America (^^;) but it is a film made by a relatively "non professional" crew, but this does not mean its ameteurish, it just means their method of production does not go thru the usual corporate production house system, meaning is usually have minimum funding compared to the commercial movies. But often because it has less contraints (commercially, politically, and stuff) it can be more "honest" to viewers, which is why i like indies when i look for movies or features with content. Commercial films sometimes can be way way too diplomatic.

"it's like Newton's first principle; beauty is inversely proportional to brain"

Anyway, I was excited to see this flick. You know why? Because its Indonesian! I've always been a movie aficionado and i am not ashamed to say that more of my favorite movies are productions made not by my own countrymen. This is not because I'm "bling" or "globalised" or "pompous" but because what i seek in entertainment are rarely filled by domestic movies. Don't get me wrong, when Indonesians make good movies, they turn out SO much better I think than ANY Hollywood (or Bollywood) movie ANY kind of day, we do have cinematography senses! But again, i have no idea why production houses choose to ignore masterpieces like Laskar Pelangi, Denias, Daun di Atas Bantal, etc and instead decide to capitalize on stupid horror features like Sumpah Pocong, Pocong VS Kuntilanak, etc..

"That's why God created Love, so that those who are different can unite!"

So this story is a flick madeby a group of very very talented cinemaphiles. It highlights the cultural normatives in Indonesia. It questions the very core of sensitivity in Indonesia; religion. And it highlight something never before emphasized in a movie; inter-faith relationships. The existence of such relationship is a major debate not only in Indonesia, but as the film emphasizes; its chance of survival in Indonesia is very low, because of the normative value-based society that exists in Indonesia.

"Religion is the cheapest propaganda that has caused countless historical human slaughters!"

What do you think? Is love something you can separate from your faith? Are they equal, or hiearchal? And if so, which goes first? Love, or religion?

"Why did God create us differently if God only wants to be worshipped one way?"

I'm a pretty open person, i think people can decide on any and I'd still respect that. I would be one of those who ultimately defend the existence of inter-faith relationships, meaning that I dont necessarily see that religious difference should kill the possibility of the unity of love. I know this is against some teachings in some religion (I'm pretty sure in Islam it is so) but that's just how i view it. Personally i would try to seek a partner of the same religion, but sometimes we cant choose can we? The heart sometimes makes our choices for us, and if indeed every man was created on earth for a woman, then what makes the possibility of that destiny closed to only women of the same religion? If you relationship does not decrease your obedience in personal faith to your God, i see no problem.

"God loves Cina and Annisa, but they cannot love each other because they call God using different names"

But let's not go too deep into that. Let's go back to that flick. Now as interesting as it may be, I have my doubts that it can ever go up for a screening publicly in Indonesia's cinemas. Why? You see, as free as Indonesia's media is, we're still evolving in the sense that heavy sensors do happen. It is not often that the government completely bans the distribution of a movie but it does happen once in a while. Now this movie is provocative (this is not how i would word it, i would use "enlightening"), because it dares to expose a condition in Indonesia's society, however i would imagine not many elements of our society has an open mind to accept the facts stated in this movie. I dont think our society is as prepared as other societies are to put thei own standards under the microscope. Read my article on Aceh and you can see how this tendency even is omitted to treatments upon human rights violation In Indonesia.. This is what concerns me..

"We have been given the privilege to learn more. Those who know nothing is easier provoked"

So, go see the trailer, read the blogs, and help spread out this Indie, because it does have prudence! We live to love, but sometimes we love to stay alive :)

- trailer here (indonesian with some english subtitles)
- blog here (indonesian)

revenge of the fallen..

2009-06-21T17:41:00.003+07:00

always loved the Transformers franchise, don't see any reason i wont love this sequel

Michael Bay will be directing again, so we can guarantee our buck worth all the booms and bang that'll be on screen :D

Official dates is 24 June 2009, 26th for Indonesia (unless you're a lucky Japan folk who got the invitationals to the first screenings on the IMAX theatres)..

but let's enjoy some pics of the 2009 summer blockbuster, official website here, but great pics, video trailers, and viral marketing here.. Enjoy guys!

Battle among Goliaths

2009-06-19T08:48:00.002+07:00

First I'd like to deliver my courtest to www.calegindonesia.com for the copy of the stitched (sort of) photos of 3 of Indonesia's President candidates for the 2009-2014 term.

I actually don't really favor writing about politics, but a few days actualy watching news (having nothing to do) I observed a phenomena I want to address. But first a little background; Indonesia within 20ish days will have its largest democratic hoolabaloo; the Presidential elections. This election will decide the next President for 5 years to come; and some predicts it will go into 2 rounds, the first round contesting all 3 candidates, while the second contests the final 2 pairs of candidates. For the sake of journalism, here's the names of the pairs for President-Vice President; Megawati Soekarno-Putri - Prabowo, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono - Boediono, and Jusuf Kalla - Wiranto. All pairs containg a composure of either specialists (economy, geopolotics, etc) with elements of non-civillian (military), so that's a first point I want to make about Indonesia's politics. Haven't figured it out yet? Read on..

Last night i think one way or another all the major television companies broadcasted the "Candidate Presidential debate" among the 3 contestants. All right, what was interesting was not the debate per se, which is not the focus of this article, but again for the sake of journalism the theme of last night's debate was "The strategies of implementing Human Rights protection in Indonesia". My focus was people's reaction towards the debate, in which most who commented i observed was people who debate competitively in their universities, and sample is taken from people in my Facebook friendlist.

A lot of them complained about the lack of content of the debate. Some even compared it to politics in other state (most obvious the comparison with American politics). I disagree in these points;

1) The debate did not lack content per se actually. The moderation and panelling of the debate i think was poor. Besides poor stage management by TV One (you have one panelist ask a question but 5 seconds later was cut by the moderator for a commercial break,, amateur stuff --"), the lackness i think was the ability to mainstream the candidates in answering the questions and engage in a debate. This is under a few reasons; the question was about Human Rights, and the panel asked what concrete steps would the candidate take shall they get chosen? -> One, this question lacks gravity, what Human Rights? In what context? And what is the solid parameter of concrete anyways? This parameter question is solid as it's a baseline for the candidates to determine how they answer, the US Supreme Court had a major debacle post elections 2000 over what is the definition of "intent to vote", so asking what "concrete actions" is i think makes sense. Then I think what you must do before advocating a Presidential debate, the candidates and their team must be briefed on what "debate" is. What is stupid is looking at key campaign people PERSONALLY attacking the success teams of the other candidates. That is not a DEBATE, but a reflection of lack of critical thinking and logic, and the thrive of emotion. That's where the problems is.

2) Then i observe some people compared it to US politics. I went berzerk on this notion; i think its absurd to compare 2 different states and their politics. Why? a) Indonesia and United States thrives on 2 different democracies; US is a liberal democracy while Indonesia i not, this is reflected from their National emblem to the way their economy was built b) US adopts pretty much the bi-party electory system, while Indonesia uses multi party c) US's voting mechanism is completely different from Indonesia; US uses an "electoral college" system while Indonesia is "direct vote per voter" d) US influenced from its bi-party system thus has a clear distinction of the 2 political wings; left or right, liberal or conservatives. Indonesia's political system is vague; pay attention to different parties and you'll see similar platforms, just over generalised goals without explaining the specifics based on politic wings. This can be seen obviously that the endorsers of parties do not have specific characteristics.
Why is it then unfair to compare? One, due to the convergence of platforms among parties, if your moderation is wrong then you won't ignite a debate. In a US Presidential debate, you have given issues and candidates would defend the stance of their political wings', this may not necessarily exist in Indonesia, you have a discussion about Human Rights then of course all 3 candidates would endorse the protection of Human Rights, it takes no genious to figure it out. Is this wrong? No it isnt, that's just how our politics is, and that's as democratic as it is.

"Democracy never demanded people make the right choice or undergo the smart process, but it only requires that everything is steered by the people, and that choices made are people's regardless of its quality, because the ability to cast a vote itself is the dreams and pinnacle of democracy"

So i think its unfair to compare 2 completely different states and judge one is weaker than the other. You think US elections are prudent? No, get your facts right, look at the happenings of the 2000 US elections where there were different standards of an "eligible" vote among counties that shambled the counts and made Bush win, and that Gore's appeal was rejected only because of a conflicting time frame, and look at what that choice made? Is it wrong? Not necessarily, it can only be wrong if you see it within relevant variables, not comparing it with a completely different set of variables. Go Indonesia, you're already perfect version of what you are!!

Shots from the Academy, 2009

2009-06-19T00:17:00.005+07:00

Been playing with Fido's Canon prosumer camera while we did that gig in Military Academy and was quite happy with some of the shots i took, so i salvaged it from the camera and did what i call "refugee editing" :D.. Hope you can enjoy them :)

let me know what you think, ok? this is especially due to camera sharing so i cannot have as much airtime as i would ideally have yet, but something IS in the works! :)

Surabaya oh Surabaya,,

2009-06-14T17:26:00.004+07:00

Welcome back to another episode of the Pathetic Travellers!

This will be a solo-pathetism by me, as Sani should have came along but he had to to do some job in the Military Academy (maybe ecchi ecchi stuff,, don't get your imaginations go wild just yet!). In early August as you all know I'll be chief of adjudicators for this National competition, who then will select who the country will fund to go to the Worlds round; in Antalya, Turkey!!! *wants wants* ^^

This time i had to go to the preliminary meeting located in Surabaya (one of Indonesia's major cities, west of Java) with the people from the Office of Higher Education (Indo : DikTi). Instantly i was already imagining a boring meeting like the pics from newspapers of meetings held in the house of representatives with fat-bellied representatives sleeping due to their oversized lunch, overcomfy recliners, and overcooled air conditioners hahaha.. booooooring!

Obviously i was wrong.. Read on..

The story of pathetism starts from my trip back from Magelang (a city 45 minutes north from my city), so after the comfy car ride in the Military Commando shuttle, who dropped me and Heru (me house mate) in the bus terminal, where we parked our motor bikes in one of those overnight parking garages.. After 5 minutes of walking where me and Heru argued which way was north, we reached the garage and lo! It was closed,, i checked the time; 12:30 AM,, *curses!*

so we walked anothe 5 minutes to the main road to get a cab back home *while wishing we had asked the Military Commando car to take us straight home instead of be goodie two shoes*. The bad thing about some of the cabs here is that they refuse to use the argometer (for those who wonder, its those bleeping cute red digital numbers that gets added with every kilometre you ride and automatically calculate your fare,, magical eh? :D) and instead they have a fixed price. Now this is the part where i was thinking of debating with the driver on how exactly did he make these "rates", and what are they based on; distance, terrain of road, weather or what? But before i could do that Heru saved us by finding another cab who was willing to go by the rules *also it was lucky since the debate i nearly waged would've probably cost us our lives, or at least our shame*

While watching movies like Need for Speed, have you ever wondered what it felt like to be in one of those cars? Now i have felt so. Imagine the speed like in the movie, without Eva Mendez or the flashy guy in the movies, downgrade the car by about 180 degrees, add an amazing stink sensation that awfully is close to what fart smells like, and offensive taste of music that makes you shout above "WHY oh WHY did humans invent Music????", and you're there! I thank God every day from that day that our car did not crash, or roll, or skid, or jump, or break into pieces! --"

So by the time i got home it was 1.30 AM, i needed a bath, i needed my bed, i was tired, and i felt i needed a psychiatrist to cure my taxi trauma.. Imagine going to bed with that,,

and wake up at 3.30 AM!!

So why did i wake up at that time? Because my flight to Surabaya was at friggin 6 AM in the morning!

Airports are so peaceful in the morning. I decided to sit nicely in the Dunkin Donuts stall the have there, sip a warm Vanilla Latte, sinking every taste of coffee milk and vanilla blended nicely in one warm mug, while munching into a lovely smoked chicke croissant.. Ladies and gentlemen I am practically in heaven (the way my body was numb from the night before, it actually felt like i already passed away). I observed people, as usual; there was another guy who wore sunglasses at dead dark mornings, there was this guy who jumped up and down because the debris of his cigarette caught his feet, there was a fat dad with a cute teenage daughter sitting beside me talking about which best; to get an iphone or the new Prada bag (yes very substantial compared to talking about petty issues, say AirFrance's recent accident and the loss of lives)

As usual, Lion Air's service and schedule didnt feel really "Lion-ey", felt more like a "Sick kitten" as they were late by like 2 hours due to "operational and technical reasons" - i bet the pilot just forgot where he put the keys to turn on the plane, or say the air crew was wondering where the hell was the left wing of the plane were o.O

Arrived in Surabaya just in time for the meeting. Nice city, not as bustling as Jakarta, and VERY hot my God i was trying my best to look as "corporate" as i can be and the heat just made me look like an out of place bussinessman in the middle of the fish market wondering where to buy meat --"

Meeting was good but i will not bore you to that, this is about the travels..

The way back to Jogja was very pleasant and educating for some reasons.

1) Be careful if you are in Surabaya's Juanda airport. If you don't pay attention to what the people are saying through the loudspeakers then you would think you're not in an airport. The way they delivered announcements make you feel like Sudanese people queing for food in a Red Cross camp, or a PoW about to be excecuted in Abu Ghraib.

2) Before checking in make sure you go to the toilet, for both (number 1) and (number 2). Once you get to the terminals lounge nearly all the toilets dont function. So if you gotta take (number 2) and you dont have enough choice then you can do (number 1) on the green plants they have in there and argue this is the innovative way of watering plants. If you must do (number 2) then pray to God your pants are both super absorbant and not odor leaking. I would suggest Nike's dry-fit shorts and 2 crates of Glade's de-odor products.

3) Check the type of plane you will be taking in your flight. A Cessna means you will be riding a windowless plane using seatbelts and helmets (true story!), a Boeing means you'll do fine but crampy, an Airbus is your best option, and a McDouglass means you must be careful! The last plane i mentioned is coded MD so note this very well. If you are assigned to seat 36D, as entertaining as that sounds (go wilden up your imaginations, there was a curvy lady beside me at the time who facilitated mine :D) that would mean hell. An MD plane's jets are at the rear of the plane, not on the wings like Boeings and Airbuses are. What you get in 36D is not squishy and enjoyfull "double pillows", but you will get a window the is right next to the jet engines. What next? If you're a fan of F1 or MotoGP you might enjoy this, as the sound, vibration and SMELL of the jet engines is not impermeable to by the windows, meaning it leaks!!

4) When number 3 happens, feel free to curse at hand, and spend 70% of your flight standing up, or stay seated but you will have questionable hearing and will need to go with me to a psychiatrist, but for more obvious reasons. Cute, hot, long legged stewardesses is not a help, as they can only offer you "cottons", now i would imagine they at least give you their numbers for compensating all the troubles but no thats not imperative. So what you end up is heart-ache.

So finally i can enjoy the week's end, full of shock and post-trauma of travels. How was your week?

long-live pathetism!!

camera-playing at night

2009-06-06T21:01:00.002+07:00

Very productive article writing night tonite, shows how boring and uneventful my nite is ^^

There's this place in my town called Kali Code, literally translated "the river code" (you read code = cho-day, instead of reading it like it was the title of Dan Brown's book) and me and some pals like to go-a-wandering there, sitting for a few hours (usually midnite) to sip some warm coffee and enjoying the breeze.. its quite a slow nightlife there, just loads of people talking in the outdoors under the starry sky :)

I suddenly remembered last night about a photography trick.. Its partly exploiting the irregularities of the camera at night, its a mix between panning and going bonkers hahaha.. So you put your camera on night mode, if you use an SLR use a slow shutter speed (interestingly you dont need a tripod for steadiness on this one) keep the ISO mid i guess (200-300?), and if you could use a narrowed focus (2.ish) there'e be cooler effects you can get.. In my case i used a stupid handphone camera, so all i can play around with is clicking on the "night mode".. But i found as crappy as this camera is, it apparently could still be played with.. What you do is first you move around your camera (in circles, figure 8s, or whatever, just move it!) then in the middle push the click, and keep it moving (for handphone cameras keep going for 2 seconds, for SLR users as long your shutter speed is).. Make sure you dont point something dark (this only works at nite) if not it'd all be useless --"

then you'd get something like this..

The better your camera is, the better and cooler effects you'll get.. I personally think these are pretty spiffy and entertaining stuff.. So much to play around with when you hold cameras at night.. Start experimenting guys! :)

new room = new me

2009-06-06T20:45:00.002+07:00

People have always said that I'm quite the scruffy person.. That is possibly true.. The last room that i slept in was soooooo open to public that it was messy all the time.. Usually I'm fine with this, but as of late it bugs me a lot >,< (maybe I'm growing up after all! usually i grow sideways ^^)

So after a few times back and forth some shops, i moved to a smaller yet more private room, and got a few stuff, and voila! This is what an average run-of-the-mill student's room look like, with the theme of minimalist (but not due to style, instead due to funds hahahahaha) so anyway, lemme share with you (forgive the awful camera attached to the phone)

Small Cabinet to store some books and clean clothing ^^

More books, me computer, and the screen attached to it :D

Small pot of fragrance-burn aromatherapy, soothing at nite ^^v

A glimpse of one corner

The bed and my lovely plush pillow + bolsters

What do you think? Not to bad, eh? Or still scruffy? :)

dance dance [de]-evolution

2009-06-06T20:08:00.003+07:00

So Nanda and his girlfriend, Tasia as of late loves to go to the game centres, at first i was curious why.. Then i found out Tasia likes to play this game called "Dance dance revolution", for those who don't recognize the game, it's one of those musical beat games like guitar hero or rock band, but quite a lot older than those two, but instead of using your hands you gotta sync the movement of your feet with the music, by stepping on steps.. the fun begins when the rythm and beat gets faster and you gotta do combo steps, that should do you some exercise :D

The other day when i went to the mall to get some bed cover :">, i was attracted to this competition which at the time i was there it was already the finals, so i probably was awed because the ones performing was already the best.. It was a semi-professional competition for those who play "dance dance revolution".. they were simply amazing! most of them were quite young energetic girls, very kawaii laah :D

So i got interested. Does Tasia and Nanda play this good? I mean it was a plausibility, no? So i told them the next time they go down to the game centres, i wanna come, just to watch (or so i thought >,< read on..)

We went to Galeria, a mall just up north a few clicks from our house. I remember this place well since i used to keep hamsters (yes i did T.T) and this mall had a hamster kinda shop in it.. First we went to get some food, and as we're in a mall where they have KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken), we had to eat there. Dont get me wrong, it wasnt because of me, but Nanda's one of those people who is a maniac and can only eat one kind of food.. Nanda's food peeve is KFC, it was amazing how he could finish 2 whole chickens + rice + coke in 10 minutes, and usually when Nanda eats with us someplace else, he would barely touch his food.. Bizzare, eh? :D

After that then we went to the 3rd floor (or was it the 4th?) to the place where they had the game centres.. I thought we were going to go to Timezone, but apparently not. We got into this place called Game Fantasia.. It looked a little shabby and unconvincing but okay whatever, they'd know best as they play here like every friggin day --"

Tasia is pretty good at this game.. She moves quite rythimically and synchronised. Nanda is another story, from his tales I thought he'd be a superstar gamer on this, but no apparently he's still on the level beginner.. So much for being a game guru =.=;

I'm ashamed to say this, but after 1.5 hours of watching them play, and its nearly home time, my boogey night senses are coming alive.. I feel the sudden attraction of things, so i decided to challenge Adi (who also never played this before) for a "dance off".. Maybe some of the people in the game place puked at the very sight of us playing, but I couldnt care less, this is public place, I'll dance the night off and they can puke till death if they want to hahahahaha..

I hit many missess (let me correct that, 90% misses) and i got sore feet from stomping the wrong pads (instead i stepped on the steel brackets >,<).. Out of 3 songs Adi snatched 2 victories, and I lost on this nubie face-off.. I'm still convinced this is because he has a clubbing background and he had a couple more practices than me on the machine :p

I wanna try out posting a video up on the blog, so here's to save the humiliation of loss for me, a video of Tasia and Adi's duet on one of the machines in the game centre.. ^o^

Adi Travolta - Saturday Nights Dengue Fever

lax = relax? hell no..

2009-06-05T09:02:00.002+07:00

I've got this friend who goes to dentistry school, he goes by a funny name; Wokas.. A few weeks ago he told me that there's this tea that can help break down fat in your body.. As i'm in the process of detoxifying myself by loosing some weight, it interests me quite.. I told him to bring it in to me..

Took him a few weeks, but a couple of days ago i finally got hold of a sack of samples of this tea. The instruction says you have to make it with hot water then drink it without adding anything else.. I'm not a superstitious guy, and i believe the only sure way to loose fat is to do tangible things, not drink whatever powdered things they sell to consumers these days, but you know; reduce your meals, do sports, the lot laah..

So i started drinking this tea just for the sake of empirically proving the virtue of what Wokas says about this tea. First attemp i managed to foolishly spill hot water on my hands, hot! T.T but i drank the thing anyway.. On the first day i was still smiling with glee as it seems like it has no effect on me, but lo! The second day, I started noticing a change in my bathroom rituals, and as of last night, the whole day yesterday i had to go to the dunny for like 6 times!! :)) hahahaha.. Waken up this morning at 4.30 by my loved one, to prepare for the Private Law exam i had this morning, already i was doing 2 rounds!! Great mother of earth, i said, this is truly comical..

Now i find from time to time my stomach lights up like a bioautomated blender and starts growling (ogrok.. ogrok.. ogrok hahahahaha).. I can tell you one thing, having a grouchy stomach and have to resist from going to the bladder in an exam is nothing short of HELL!! hahahaa seriously >,<

Wokas tells me to check on my weight every now and then (2 days), and track how much KGs i'm loosing, as this tea can apprently be dangerous, so you gotta see if you're loosing 3-4 kgs in a week you'll be fine but if you're doing 7 kgs per week you gotta stop things for a moment, if not it can be problematic.. I mean, i can't say in terms of medical terminology, and i don't know about you but i'm not ecstatic at the idea of going to the hospital and say; "excuse me i need to urgently see a doctor because i poo continuosly and controllably!!" -> even if the hospital admits you, they'd treat you while putting pegs up your nose, and then you'd have to pray that there's no exception in your asssurance that says it doesnt cover humilliating illness as part of their coverage hahahahahaha..

But really, if you do take teas like this, or even laxatives to cure constipation, don't over do it.. It can be dangerous (which i dont really know what bad things can happen but sometimes i'd imagine if you've poo-ed your bowels out its insides, you'll start poo-ing organs and brains and stuff hahahahaha don't take this seriously^^) So make sure you read the instructions carefully, and obey it, instructions are sticked to the bottle of the medicine not for the esthetics, but to serve a purpose..

I wonder how much of you readers out there that has ever taken this kind of medicine? Any bad experiences? Hope not :)

journalism with context

2009-05-29T12:33:00.003+07:00

From monday this week up until very very late last night i worked as an interpreter on this Training of Trainers for the CoPeJoN - Conflict and Peace Journalists Network. This is the 3rd of their series of Peace and Conflict Journalists training, intended to shape some trainers out of some journalists in Indonesia so that the people from Phillipines didnt have to come down to Indonesia everytime they wanna hava a training.

As a person whos life long dream is to be a journalist specializing in conflict zones, this is a step towards my dream, and i get paid to ^^;

A lot of the materials is highly interesting. I learnt that journalism is as exciting as i thought it would be, yet i find that its un-nerving and complicates beyond my expectations. The participants of this trianing are pretty much hotshot journalists of Indonesia; editor of Jakarta Post, a senior aceh journalist who was once take hostage by GAM in Aceh, a journalist who is a multiple award-winner including nominated a few times for the Pulitzer, and a few other TV journalists. I mean, wow! One day I'd like to be the guy sitting in that trainee's seat, putting on the table my experience and my fat tele-lens SLR camera and discuss about the profounding complications of conflict journalism.. Phew! :)

I learnt that there was a deep ordeal in the face of journalism in conflict. There was this trand they call "traditional journalism" which led to journalistic pieces being non-partial and non neutral, only covering one single aspect of an incident, and problem is most of the angles taken are only exploiting the gore, blood, and violence happening. This is problematic as apparently conflict has many sides to its coin; background, stakeholders, context, etc. Unless all these aspects are explored what you have is a media propaganda.

I sat down had a chat with Carlone, a senior Phillipino journalist who once covered the Mindanao conflict, he said that "journalism is not about showing people blood, its not to judge a conflict, its also never meant to advocate peace. what journalism should be is to cover as many angles as possible from an incident, report it fairly, and provide people the choices so that they can judge a certain problem, and thats how we propagate pressure to the government. we can never cut the people in this process, thats the problem with traditional journalism"..

This is wonderful! I never thought of this before. Its so true, yet so profounding that I never really sat down and thought about it. Have a look at for instance a cover on the news about government evicting people, what you see is the riots, the violence. You never really see in-depth analisys of what happened, why did it have to lead to a physical clash, etc. This is what Conflict Sensitive Journalism is about..

I learnt that conflict is complex, violence is complex. In journalism there's also a triangle, which on the top it has democracy, and on the sides human rights and peace.. these aspects incorporated in a piece of journalism produces quality reporting and voicing the voiceless.. what this creates is a choice for people, the choice to do whatnot.. and to pressure world governments to either change or stick with status quo..

I also learnt throughout the training that there's such a thing called the "2 part geometry" where the tendency of labelling within an article could escalate conflict. There's an analysed piece of journalism from a reporter in Ambon that not only reflects partiality and picking sides, but it squeezes in like 3 different news in one article! Fiasco, eh? The framing of the news is designed so that readers identifies there's a conflict among religions although thats not necessarily the case.. very problematic, aiy?

So i guess there's much to learn for conflict journalism in me side.. How about you guys? You think that the profounding ordeals of conflict journalism is problematic? Or is blood and violence your thang?

FB = FaceBook, or FB = ForBidden?

2009-05-23T12:29:00.003+07:00

I'm pretty sure that if you can read my blog, that means you're accessible to the virtual world. Most of you also have facebook accounts, i'm most certain. For those roaming on the internet and have yet to find out what in the world facebook is, you probably live in grenland, the artics, or China :D click here to find out..

Now for those of you in the majority, especially as i'm reaching out to those living in Indonesia, how do you take the news that some entities in this country are trying to ban facebook and its usage? To those living outside Indonesia, you now know how compromisable the idea of internet freedom is here.. But let me get one thing straight first, I wont be scrutinizing the government just yet, as this is only so far in the form of "statements" made by some institutions.

Today is my resting day after 2 straight days of sleep deprivation. So after cooking lunch with me house mates, i sat in front of our little and cuddly TV to see the noon news, and lo! I saw headlines saying that there were outcries to make FaceBook "forbidden/anthema" (the Indonesian word would be "diharamkan") I was eager to find out why, sure you are to, read on..

Apparently some institutions i Indonesia have been monitoring this lovable social networking site of ours, and they saw that the basic functions of FaceBook was fine, for social interaction, but they also identified that it has its misuses; trade cons, cheatings, soul-mate searching, date searching, and tainting people's reputation. These institutions even claim that FaceBook allows people to cross the religious steps in leading to marriage; as they do it over the net instead of having all these ritual formalities.

Okay, in this light i'm quite indifferent. I guess i'm a guy that both respects values of religion, cultural practices and such. But I'm also a believer that other people's bussiness is, well, other's bussiness.. When i heard about the guy in Japan who made an online petition to marry an anime character because he didnt feel like human interaction was for him, i didnt really support his intentions, but i never condemned him for trying either.

I'm not saying and telling you guys which is right and wrong, I think there's always, at minimum, two sides of a coin, so you may feel differently from me. Thats fine. Questions of practicality however will arise in the future when it comes to FaceBook banning, which i won't bore you with as i'm sure you get the idea. Law has had quite a hard time enforcing legalities of law precedures thru the net, because its well, virtual. The whole dimension of subject, object, nature of crime becomes so vague and jumbled, while most of our municipal law was designed to regulate tangible occassions. This happens almost everywhere. Remember how China had trouble with Wikileaks.org? Proves that there's so much a state can do.

But that's practicalities. What about the foundamental analysis? Look I may be indifferent, but my opinion is of a fragile alliance, I won't be indifferent no more if they decided later on to ban universal use of FaceBook, i mean all i'm doing with my account is to connect with friends, how wrong can that be, in like ANY religion?

Have you Indonesians heard of this news as of late? What about you living outside the country, what are your opinions on this? Is it ethical? It's a free blog to discuss, I wont impart any indoctrinations, dont worry =)

three cheers for sweet love

2009-05-22T00:32:00.007+07:00

For this whole day I've been juggling a many things, i was writing up 3 papers and 1 translation job, and that's enough multi-tasking to make you puke, i would think..

So now that i look at the time, it's 1 in the morning, surely time to stop, for health's sake.. Earlier today just to ensure myself that i wasn't intoxicating myself by working too much, i took a rest, after all my rule of thumb in working is that hard work never killed anyone, but why take a chance? :D

"i'd probably be the first one killed by my own friends if i were to ever ask them to kill people for me for a girl"

While resting, i sat myself in front of the TV. But let me tell you about this TV we have in the house; it's situated in the center hall of me and me mates' frat house, but it's like friggin' 14 inches of screen, so it's a berryberry small TV, and its funny when we all gather to watch a movie together, as we would be like kids in a rural 1960s Indonesia where only one guy had a TV per village and everyone would cramp a rooms to see black and white on small inch TVs and feel really technologically advanced after that. Plus our TV had shitty broadcast receiving as we have shitty antennas (and yes we have two antennas lodged to one TV --"), which now we rely a lot on the internal antenna because the outdoor one wasn't working as properly, and this is sad because me mate Sani climbed the roof like he was MvGyver, installed the antenna but couldnt climb back down like those cats on TV who finally had to be rescued by the firemen ^^

"hard work never killed anyone, but why take a chance?"

Now the movie feature of tonight were "Helen of Troy" (the one with Pitt and Bloom in it, I'm unsure if i got the titles right), an old movie but has good market longetivity (my way of justifying that we're not stuck watching a yesteryear movie :D). But this got me thinking of the thing we all call but never quite understand; "Love". The legend of Troy was that Greece waged a war on Troy simply because Paris of Troy "stole" the wife of Greece's crown prince (I think it goes something like that), which enraged Greece to wage a 10 year Trojan War, involving hundreds and thousands of men, tens of thousands of fleet armada, all because of one single woman, and the fight for love (cuit cuit i feel sick haha). I'm a guy currently very much in love, and i understand that sometimes we do what we gotta do, right? But wow, what happened on that war was sheer lunacy..

"this got me thinking of the thing we all call but never quite understand; "Love""

I then remembered watching an episode of FRIENDS where Ross wanted to make his marriage with Emily work, and that meant ahving to move appartments and no talk to Rachel (okay first of all i think its stupid that the guy mentioned the wrong name at the marriage ceremony). But when his pals thought he was giving up too much, he said; "Sometimes in marriage we have to do stuff, it may be something thats irrational, and sometimes we may not even like doing what we do, but that's sometimes the price we pay"... I agree completely. I'm not boasting, but I've done a lot of things for the woman i love right now (Yotsuba, you know who you are :D) that many friends thought was either stupid, illogical, irrational, acting the goat, and sheer dumb lunacy. But hey, at least i didnt wage a 10 year war right? (besides I'm neither a king nor a prince, so i'd probably be the first one killed by my own friends if i were to ever ask them to kill people for me for a girl ^^;)

"I'm a guy currently very much in love, and i understand that sometimes we do what we gotta do, right?"

I guess everyday we learn new things, eh? Especially about this curious thing called love. I think its continuous learning, this is. Sorry that i write this like a diary, i promise this is the only one, but i still think its worth writing because i believe you readers can all to a certain degree relate to what i say.. Am i right? Cheers for love, eh? :)

berryberry crazy laah

2009-05-20T12:37:00.003+07:00

Why do people like blackberries? Is it because the name reminds them of strawberries, or blueberries, or even raspberries? It's an amazing fact that a new product entry like this can grab so many market in so little time, i mean its only marketed in Indonesia for a couple of moons now..

I've been paying attention ya, to the blackberry craze, and the thing costs like IDR 8.500.000 for the average type, that's like USD 750.. Of course you can get the black market ones for 70% of the price, but i wont go condoning that in here :p I've always been amazed at the market absorption rate of Indonesians, people always complain that they live in hardship over here but once we're talking about consumer electronic goods, i think we're quite comparable to other consumers in other countries (Indonesia is Asia's leading market in electronics, it is also Toyota's biggest market in Asia)

So why oh why do people acquire these goodies? I've been asking around, as i know in countries with 3G, 3.5G, 4G, or even G-String communications technology ^^ they have a specialized network for handheld like these.. In the US i think Palm is a bit more famous in terms of jargons (are palms = blackberry?).. Indonesia is pretty slow i think in adopting these specialized connections, so even if you have a blackberry with tremendous technology like EDGE, 3.5G, and ooooo it has like a screen, a keyboard, and a camera! :D you can't even optimize it, right? Some say that "well its to anticipate someday when we do have the proper connections" well i think only God knows when, and what if by the time Indonesia adopts the technology there's already a newer line of blackberries, ones who can walk and speak by itself? ^^

Is it because of fashionable utility? Is it simply because it looks cool? Maybe so. Is it true that when 2 people are standing side by side both are typing text messages but one holds a blackberry and the other like one of those liberacci style phones you see in scarface where you have to use both hands and your bulging biceps to even holh, would the one with the blackberry look cooler? I suppose so. Not necessarily true in my eyes, but i know some who would say "L'Accord"

And its not as if they have these massive campaigns on the mass media, you still see more bullcrap competition among phone connection companies waging war against one another in seeing who has less 0 digits in their phone rates..

So what is it, eh?
- Technology? Sure but not applicable optimally anyhoo
- Price? You can feed 10 mid economy families for a month with the price of a unit
- Fashion? Sure it looks cool, it's the wave of 2009. But is that it?

Maybe it'd be good if someone wrote a paper on it, it could really be a good basis of a thesis. I dont think i would suit to make one, it has nothing to do with law @.@

But what do you think? Do you own a blackberry? How would you see it from a utilitarian point of view?

Indonesia's paranoia..

2009-05-12T12:28:00.006+07:00

I have to admit that i don't read news much, when i pick up the daily paper on the front porch of the house (i wonder if they throw these papers from the street just like they do in the movies?^^) i usually read the title of the headlines just so that i don't blank stare trying to wake up while sipping my coffee (i love sugarless sumatran black coffee).. That's the thing about me and information, i often only read the information that attracts me, unfortunately most of my attraction is to the graphic advertisements in the edges of the paper (bakaa!)

So the other day when i was dilligently^^ doing my paper assignment for my Humanitarian Law class, i stumbled a very interesting history of Indonesia, its law system, and its paranoia. This is a side of Indonesia I've never heard of. I think it's fine for me to expose this here as the sources where i got this from is over the public internet (External party reports on humanity in Indonesia) so this is not hush hush confidential double-owh-seven stuff n_n

1. I found out this ridiculous fact that although Indonesia has signed the Geneva Conventions, especially the Additional Protocol 3 (Humanitrian protectionism in non-international armed conflicts) it has yet to develop and incorporate a proper set of humanitarian law as intstruments to prosecute humanitarian breaches. Also, in like 1989 Indonesia also signed the UN Convention against torture, yet the only law close to torture that exists is laws against "mistreatment".Unreal!

2. One of the pivoting cases i studied was the happenings of the Aceh incidents, where separatists GAM (Freedom Aceh Movement) wishes to disintegrate from the Republic. These people are what is called insurgents (a group of non state armed forces who has proper line of commando and exercise territorial authority over a certain territory). This usually falls under the Geneva Convention i said above, so both armed individuals and civillians are subjects of the protectionism doctrines that exist. From 1970s to 2005 (signing of the Helsinski Peace Agreement) some 20,000 individuals became casualty to the "atrocities" that happened, where cases of abuse, ill-treatment, rape, casually happened on an every day basis. Happenings exactly like what the US government does also happens here; the apprehension of those suspected to be linked with the rebel groups are taken hostage and thus interogated, sometimes even forced to make false testimonials. Most of the PoW (Prisoners of War) in Aceh were not subjected to fair trial, and there was even a time of paranoia where the National Armed Forces justified their actions to people there by claiming that whoever they impose aggression to is affiliated to the rebel groups. There was this attack on an elementary school that took 59 casualties, which was then tried on the basis of military negligence instead of human right violation; there was even an incident where a witness fleed after allegedly received threats from unknown parties. Insane!

3. From one of the journals i read, there was a tendency in Indonesia's law that occassionaly does not prosecute government official related cases, as there's a paradigm that in the end the state would be disadvantaged, as these cases apparently quite often happens thus it would ruin the credibility of governmenance in Indonesia. I wonder how this is different from the old dictatorship regime led by former President Soeharto that oppressed society and filtered information? And this was a time when there was massacre in Jakarta's northern port and no one else across Indonesia ever knew this happened at the time. And i thought we were in a transitional phase? Agression in Aceh still happens even post peace treaty in 2005, 7 years after the democratic process is claimed to have start!

Women armed division of the GAM forces; Inong Balee

All these years i've judged superpower countries as having silly paranoias, and produce puppet policies. It shocked me to find out my own country was doing this, and i bet some of you knew about this already. What about the others? I still know in some remote areas they even still glorified the old regime. I wonder if they knew at the time people across their province was slaughtered simply because they wanted everyone elese in the country know about the Givernment's rotten closet?

I think we've lots of homework. The scary thing is that this act is systematic, thats why systematic and structural prevention is an absolute necessity. Let's not let history repeat itself..

footnote:
last time i wrote a law article, someone said i didnt have legal sources to back me up, so here it is;
- US State Department, Country Report on Human Rights Practices : Indonesia (2002-2005)
- Official Documents of the Geneva Convention Additional Protocol III 1977
- Amnesty International, Annual Report on Indonesia (2005)
- Journal by Suzannah Linton, Accounting Atrocities in Indonesia (2006)

the truth really is out there

2009-05-11T12:30:00.002+07:00

after the International Law class today, which was the only class for today, i had nothing better to do.. I actually have quite a funny article coming up, yet it's still in the cooks, so i'll throw you some fascinating info that you might or might not have known..

I was browsing the internet just for some references of my next article, but instead stumbled upon what i think is quite interesting. Apparently the smart people of astronomy found in this galaxy called Alpha Centauri (uuuuuu my mind remembers directly to a Command and Conquer game xixixi) there are two planets orbiting a star they named Gliese 581 that might just be the "twin siblings" of our beloved earth.. Read on a quote from Wikipedia i found;

"Gliese 581 d (pronounced /ˈɡliːzə/) or Gl 581 d is an extrasolar planet approximately 20 light-years away in the constellation of Libra. Because of its mass, nearly 8 times that of Earth, the planet is classified as a super-Earth. In late April 2009 new observations by the original discovery team concluded that the planet is within the habitable zone where liquid water, and therefore, life, could exist.

The planet was discovered by the team of Stéphane Udry of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland using the HARPS instrument on the European Southern Observatory 3.6 meter telescope in La Silla, Chile on 24 April 2007. Udry's team employed the radial velocity technique, in which the size and mass of a planet are determined based on the small perturbations it induces in its parent star’s orbit via gravity.^[2]

The team is confident that the planet exists but recognizes that unlikely events could mimic its existence. They believe the issue will be settled by upcoming studies.

Dynamical simulations of the Gliese 581 system assuming that the orbits of the three planets are coplanar show that the system becomes unstable if its component masses are so high as to correspond to an overall inclination angle of 10° or less.^[3] For Gliese 581 d, the upper bound of its mass must be half that of 581 b; that is, 581 d's maximum is 44 Earth masses.^[4] At this mass it must be held together with a central heavy-element core like Saturn and maybe even HD 149026 b."

Now, after reading that, its apparent that there might just be the possibility of inhabitance in this planet. As a movie geek, my mind is jumping from one space movie to another (star wars, star trek, wall-e ^^).. Now I really think that maybe not now, not in my lifetime at least, it's still impossible, but imagine like 100 years, or 1000 years haha from now, people of earth might just immigrate between solar systems and planets, either for tourism, or in the case of wall-e because earth becomes so inhabitable that humans have to move to another planet and ruin the goddamn thing over again ")

But what if that's only the best case scenario? What i think is that if that planet sustains the possibility of living entities to survive, wouldn't there be possibly already existing creatures there? Its only good stuff if we're talking about insects and stuff, what if its like really advanced civilization, creatures with human-like brain but with heads like a cat but teeth like a shark and body like a hamster and can fly as fast as the speed of sound? (hahahahaha) i wonder if they would accept us gladly? I wonder if WE ourselves would be willing to share? If no, wow it'd really be War of the Worlds.. I'm already imagining a galactic republic like the one in Star Wars for soft diplomacy ^^

Maybe for now this is only a fragment of my imagination, but what if someday its true? This takes the notion "survival of the fittest" to a whole different ball game doesnt it? What do you think?

"want a hair cut, sir?".. "no.. i want them all cut!"

2009-05-07T17:24:00.003+07:00

So after waking up pretty late today (me and a few of me mates saw the Chelsea - Barcelona Champions league semis) i had a major headache due to sleep deprivation, went to sleep at 5 after writing the Uno! article, which you can see is a total mess, 50% of what i wrote is completely unintentional and in an unconscious state hahaha

My paper's handed in to my Humanitarian Law lecturer, so that assignment's in the bag, all i gotta do is enjoy the rest of the week off kawaaiiii!!

This euphoria foolishly only lasted a couple of hours when my internet acted the goat again and there was ANOTHER electrical surge!! Seriously it annoys me that i'm actualy starting to get used to it --" it was a nice cool breezy day actually, light rain drops colour the skies today so its fairly nice weather, but again we were bored..

Then i realized something very very impotant yet stupid.. I have no clean undies left! Pretty sure it was only 4 days ago that i went to pick up some clean laundry.. I am pretty sure i have quite an amount of undies yet they are missing! Suspect number one is Adi, i have ocassionaly and randomly found my undies in his room, it freaks me out imagining what its doing there (bakaaaa!!) But after a thorough inspection in his room, it was to no avail, so i suspected the laundry (Sani and Nanda lost a few shirts there, i'm lucky actually to run off only with undies missing)

I'm not a guy who prefers "going commando" (iuwh,,) so i had to get my hands on some fresh undies, so i decided to get some. Finally Adi and Nanda came for the ride. Then that's when it happened, Adi came up with the idea of getting a haircut.. At this point i went to the mirror and lo! i sure am starting to look like a gorilla with all scruffy dense hair, so i l'accord-ed Adi's idea. Nanda also had an unimportant agenda; to cut off his sideburns (nice idea, hot shot --")

I've always been a little spooked out of going or doing things that is a little "metrosexual", i've always found myself feeling that tingle of ickiness relating with those stuff. Going to this hari salon was one of it, i usually go to the simple barbershops down the road, but i've gone once here before, so a second time shouldnt hurt. So we went off to this salon named "Jhonny Andrean"

I forced Adi to go in first, as he looked more suited than either me and Nanda in getting to places like these. I got the second turn after Adi. Okay i should tell you the last time i was here i got a straight hair cut, this time Adi booked me on to have shampooing stuff o.O so there i went looking like the lost idiot that i am, until i find people are waiting to service us in this funny looking chairs that has like those sinks for washing dirty dishes in the part where you put your hair. I suddenly feel like i'm in the "Zohan" movie --"

I changed my mind when i started cursing about the shampooey sessions, it was pretty nice actually, washed my hair with soft shampoo, then relaxed with an extensive massaging session and it's very very reliefing (Adi and Nanda later on curses me for getting longer sessions than they did,, for the same price!!^^). Later on i sat on the chair which the guy started to "do" my hair (rrawwwwr hoekk hoekk haha)

The cut is pretty nice, the whole time i sat i was eavesdropping on this lady sitting beside me who was arguing with her stylist whether it was possible for curly-haired ladies to have a pony bang made,, i wanted to reach out and say "it doesn't matter, you're a little too old for ponies anyways, you're better off with the natural grey hair" but i felt it would be impolite and create unnecessary trouble in the salon, i'm already embarassed as it is actually going here without me picking a fight, so i went back to solitude and silently making comments and giggled on this small old man across me who had his grey hair coloured to shiny black and spiffy brown o.O

The whole process takes about 30ish minutes i suppose, iwas very keen on getting out off my chair as the stylist took off that robe looking thing they put on you. They say its to keep hair sheds out of your clothes but i think it makes me look like a baked potatoe haha..

I gotta say, it costed me IDR 38.000 which is roughly USD 3.20, pretty costly for a hair cut in Indonesia, but i think overall the experienc is well done.. I still feel icky but happy with the hair cut altogether..

What do you think of men going to hair salons?

Uno!

2009-05-07T04:17:00.002+07:00

You remember those days way back when board games were still alive and kickin? I suppose they still are right now, but pretty much things have moved on to more digital pastures. More kids get more and more interested in High Definition gaming these days. When i was in Australia we would play a LOT of board games, from Monopoly, Guess Who, Cluedo, Operation!, etc. It was heaps of fun, opens a lotta room for personal bond and interaction with your friends and family. A lot of these board games have gone digital too, which makes people less likely to enjoy board games as much as they did in the past.

I'm not very good at card games; in fact i only play "Hearts" and "Solitaire" simply because that's one the basic games you get with your XP hahaha.. I've always restrained myself from attempting to understand card gameslike Poker, Blackjack, and the sort. I just don't follow the train of though on card games --"

A few months ago i was introduced by Adi to this game; it's called Uno! (Yes, there'll be a point where you actually shout).. This is interesting game because it has all the nice colours and political exercise in it, i swear t God it does! :)

It's basically a who-can-finish-his-cards-first type of card game, where instead of the usual pictures of royal families in thelaying cards, you get numbers and symbols. Your aim is to take out any of the both; same number, same colour, or both. There's many "obstacles" of playing Uno! such as ; here are symbolic cards that absolutely can be used and misused to violate your peer players hahah..Such symbols like the one with all the plusses means the next perrson next to you gotta take a few cards according to the number you reslease, but then there's other obstacles; stop sign, wildcard, etc.

This game is so much one there was one night in my house there were like 4 buds of mine who played this game from 11 at night till 6 in the morning. Its highly addivtive. Precautions!

I think i might to get one of those decks just to add in on the fun. I suppose any number of people is free to follow the game, but things hit off really interesting in that part.

I'm a bit tired and sleepy, as i haven't got this article all edited and done, sleep deprivation is truly a mad mad crazy man.

What board or card games did you play in the past or currently, cards - decks?

Addicted to electricity..

2009-05-06T20:32:00.002+07:00

If you ever see my facebook page, you'll see a on the left column a couple of lines below my main feature picture a little description of myself and i wrote down that i'm addicted mainly to 2 things; internet and electricity.

This time I'm going to tell you about the last few days where my house went back prehistoric and experienced frequent electrical surges --"

These last couple of days have been quite busy for me, beside college, i'm doing some sort of movie-a-thon and i've been seeing a LOT of motion pictures i now feel a little dizzy (very productive i know hahaha).. I was also busy writing this paper for my Humanitarian Law class about War Crimes in Indonesia, which is apprently very exciting stuff, I'll tell you all about it soon on my next posting, its quite complicated laah ^^

But my headaches as of late was these darn surges, the last 3 days there was always a time when the electricity would die down a couple of hours (bakaaa!!) which disturbs both my paper assignment and my movie-a-thon haha and it would've been fine if it only lasted like 10 minutes but noooooooo these are like 2-3 hour surges T.T

I sometimes wonder, I live in pretty much one of the major cities in Indonesia, and for the 4 years I've been here, this year's electrical surges is quite a lot. I wonder what happened ya? Reduced capacity of plants? Rising production costs? Earth Hour? haha and its not like we have an interactive service with the State ELectrical Company here, it takes ages to get info from them, that just sucks..

Today when things died down we were stuck with playing scrabble and nibbling on Nanda's roast chicken (without him knowing hahaha), i really am addicted to electiricity, everything i do everyday relies on it. What about you? Are you addicted too?

It's amazing isn't it how people in the past have lived with minimum electircity, i guess they didnt have as much electronic gadgets as we do now, but life seems amazingly calm without all sorts of cables running around your room, e? But i cant imagine myself living so, maybe i need to get out more and enjoy the nature rather than being a computer geek all the time ^^

Is electricity in your area troublesome too?

this summer's most awaited movie..

2009-05-04T10:30:00.004+07:00

I'm a long time fan of the Transformers series, eversince its release and n00b looking original cartoon, top the beast wars series. When the movie went out, i was amazed at this movie, the depiction of the bots was amazing, the philophy content was inspiring.. If you're interested to read my review on this movie, go to this link.. Or hasve a look at the official site for more updates on this mega-movie..

When they announced there would be a sequel, i knew this was gonna be about Starscream, who managed to fell himself leaving Megatron to his death in the final battle in the first movie.. This movie's due to be released worldwide this coming summer, 24 June 2009.. I'm sure there's many heavy movies coming out this summer, but this is the one for me, as long as they don't change the lineups of the actors, voice-ins, and director, i'm sure this thing's gonna blast it's way to become a blockbuster box office hit!

So excited, kawaiiii! What's your summer movie ecitement this year?

a trip to the supermarket..

2009-05-03T17:15:00.002+07:00

Today me and my bud, Sani (a fixed cast of the pathetic traveller series) decided to go out to do some grocery shopping. Most of the times i would see this as a little weird, it discomforts both of us that two guys are doing shopping for household needs arguing which detergent to buy, what materials to cook what for dinner, and whether our toothpaste was depleted or not --" But hey, it's a Sunday, the world is good from my point of few, so why not, eh?

Aside from the tender moments (yuck) we spent deciding on our purchase, then hated the fact that we only bought motorcycles instead of a car (i mean who likes to be seen like a fool bringing boxes of gorceries on a bike? o.O), Sani did mention something profounding; "You know when i go to these stores, i always feel guilty that i spend my money to these giant capitalists instead of the impoverished sellers in a traditional market?".. i didnt really have a good answer, so i agreed and say; "Well,, yeah,, uh-huh"

But now that i think of it, it's interesting to write about this.. Read on..

Sometimes when we read books that write about the condescending nature of globalization and how capitalist pigs are ruining micro economy, we don't really relate to our very lives. I can't speak on behalf of you guys, but for me when i read this i just usually nod and that's it, in 5 minutes i'll forget all about this tragedy..

Today i did relate. Which is why i cared enough to write about it, tommorow hopefully i'll do something about it. I bet a lot of you are never striked with that thought. Its a common consumer behaviour for us to be lured by sized, luxury, and moderned things. We don't need to be ashamed, i think it's a human nature. Ask people in marketing and they'll tell you i'm correct in some ways. Big supermarkets, like the one we went to today, superindo, is quite booming. The whole idea of a one-stop shop where you can get anything and everything yet you do it in a more "consumer-friendly" manner is booming. I did a little observation and i found that in this city the rate of a sepermarket or a mini market is quite rapid; Indo Maret, i think still affiliated with Super Indo, is sprouting in every corner of the city. Circle K, a 24-hour minimart franchise, opens 4-5 retails in one single city block (true story, the block near Galeria Mall, Yogyakarta, Indonesia). Amazing? Maybe. Economical growth? Most likely.

Don't get me wrong, i am being a bit hypocritical on this, but at least i admit it. I go to these shops. I like going to these shops. Why? They're clean, they have what i look for in all sizes and brands, and they offer competitive pricing. Its so practical. But now i'd like to think; how many people think alike? A lot, my guess is. I'm no brains in economy, actually quite stupid in it. But i think in the whole idea of supply-demand doctrine, if many shops alike are sprouting, it means that they calculated their chance of survival and sustainability, that means there are buyers. Under the same doctrine, i conclude that the amount of shops is proportional to the growth of consumers or at least potential consumers. Scary!

Why scary? Indonesia is not a modern country yet. We're going under this phase i'd like to call transition. Economists would call it growth. Government people would call it development. Whatever. Thing is, when consumers have started to move on, some merchants have not. This is why there is a disparity in the micro economy; that sellers are loosing their buyers. And they lost their buyers to those who have bigger money, bigger capital to start their bussiness, to make a huge market enterprise that attracts the consumers. These people are called capitalists.

I have the slightest idea whether there have been traditional markets being victimised, but i'd like to think maybe so in the coming years.

Can we do something about it? I don't know. Maybe not. But hey, i think awarenesss is a start.

Have a good one people, cheers :)

mellow schmellow..

2009-05-02T21:44:00.004+07:00

You know what, i've always opposed the idea of watching a Korean made movie.. Why? It basically fits into my fundamental theory of entertainment : a good entertainment is one that is NOT more complicated your everyday life. I think entertainment is supposed to cheer you up, not stress you out (some people may buy the complications just so that it makes them happy how uncomlicated their life is.. not for me it's not)

I've always fertilized this prejudice towards Korean made motion pictures, as from what i learn it always is about tragic romance, the worst kind of all entertainment according to moi. I managed to squash out the habbit of watching Korean thru my childhood.. Lately I've been tempted, some friends managed to convince me that i should give it a go. A few days ago that weirdo Nanda screened for me a movie he just rented; "My sassy Girl" and i was quite impressed, i loved that foolish looking guy who played main actor, and it has an acceptable ending. The other day me and Adi went to the internet cafe to exploit the multimedia database they have and copy it into our harddisk. One of the movies we copied upon Adi's wishes is a Korean one named "Love Phobia".. Later today i was bored and had nothing to do and the stupid internet acted the goat again so i took a risk, i pressed play on this movie.. A choice i now regret --" read on..

Let me give you a run down of what the storyline is like; like a typical Korean romance, the story starts from the childhood years of the main guy and gal (forgive my bad spelling on names, the guy was Ju-Kong, the gal was Ari Dong Song.. peculiar names).. they met when they were in elementary, and this weird girl was a new student who had the weirdest story, that she was an alien from the planet "Elipson" o.O and had a curse that one who touches her would have a bad accident. Later we find that she is an actual alien --" who had AIDS because some stupid doctor injected the wrong blood in her transfusion when she was a baby (talk about heavy plot).. Okay apart from the gooky overarcing plot, i think the stream of the story presented is quite eloquent. In the first half of the movie it was actually funny.

I think things went overboard for me in the last one third part of the movie, where the audience learns about how she's dying and all. So this desperate guy who's not prepared to "let her go with a smile" makes circle crops to call upon the alien mothership to pick Ari up.. Okay i know people do stupid stuff when they're in love but i gotta admit this is probably the thickest act of late i have seen.. Kinda sweet, but artificial.. Like those sugars you consume if you have diabetes; you know its supposed to be sweet, but somehow it just doesnt seem sweet..

The ending scene was too much for me to bear. Just a disclaimer; I DID NOT CRY. I'll admit that there were watery effects in the corner of my right eye, but i will deny till i die upon the claim of cry ^^ In a nutshell, it's a romeo-juliet archetype where they end up not together, there were lots of tears, and the girl gets lifted by her spaceship and return to whereever while the guy ends up selling sushi --"

The tragicness of this movie is only topped by an 8 minute feature named "Kiss Me" where a guy donates his eyes to this girl so she can heal and they still dont end up together. I now have a quite dissatisfied opinion on Korean romance films..

then i end up the night listening to a song Adi played; "Love will lead you back" and "Ayat-ayat Conta" (the verses of love).. nice!

Royal rumble...

2009-05-02T02:39:00.005+07:00

Here's the devastating karaoke pics for the article "Panic at the karaoke"..

"We are family,,, i got all my sisters with me!!!"

These three broke out of the Mental Health Institution

"Do a little dance,, make a li'l loovve,, get down tonight!!!"

Adi was a little drunk and decided to take things jusstt one notch higher ^^

Pictures are gratitudes of Irma and are copyright protected (meaning you have the right to copy it; either the pic or our style.. hahaha uh-rah!)

You may now puke :D

Idiot's Guide to TOEFL tests

2009-05-02T02:18:00.003+07:00

i've done a few TOEFL tests in my day, both the -like and the ITP version, so i'd like to share some useful insights on doing the tests. As usual, i gather this from experience, observation, and my opinion.

- Most important; before doing your TOEFL test, check and make sure you understand correctly the time and date of your test. This sounds stupid but i learned the hard way, and both separately; there was 1 time when i got the time wrong (came 3 hours early o.O) and one time i got the day wrong (a day after the actual tests --"). Do not do this, coming to TOEFL tests is the first key to ACTUALLY getting a score, da..

- Book your tests at latest 24 hours before. There was i time when i became foolish and decided to do a "go show" registering for the test 30 minutes before and i was rejected T.T inefficiency of time, petroleum, and intelligence..

- Choice of seats is like what Donald Trump always says in his Apprentice show ("Location, Location, Location!").. this has multiple uses actually, especially if you go in with a jockey to help you.. make sure you do not sit in one view line from the supervisor's desk, do a diagonal position, but don't choose the very back, about row 6 out of a 10 row map should be perfect :) i do this so that i can still use my phone to chat with people once i get bored waiting for the rest of the time after i actually do my tests hahaha..

- Section 1 is listening. My advise is have a read thru the answers, so you get an imagination of what the question should be like, so its all the easier when you listen to the conversation. Of course you have to understand that the answers is in the book that you receive, a frined of mine (initial "H") once did a test without realizing that the answers you meant to tick is in the book they gave you, he spent 10 minutes wondering how people could choose among A, B, C, or D.. bakkaaaaaaa!!!! ^^

- In section 2, just do what you can and you're sure of, usually this section allocates the least time, and better than wasting your time trying to think it out, leave it, we can finish them later. Do you ever face questions where you gotta pick which underlined word should be fixed and you find that the problematic word is none of the underlined, but the one NEXT to an underlined words?? there's at least one of these everytime i do the test.. touche!

- Section 3 i usually read thoroughly the text, then answer. It's so much easier to look for the answer if you have an idea what the text says. I usually finish all 50 question fast, giving me 30 minutes to spare. This is where i can go back to section 2 and finish off the ones i'm not sure of. Other than that try drawing on the book, or chat with your friends, it helps kill time. I never want to submit ahead of the others as i fear that they will see me as a schmuck.. In these tests you dont really wanna be looking like a smart ass :)

- Concentrate. There was a time when there was this very cute girl sitting in the seat in front of me and i lost 15 minutes of section 2. And no i didnt even get her number so believe its a lost cause, not a worthwhile investment.

- Make sure you have good looking ID cards. I always give out my driver's license (which half of the top part is broken, so i got the same gooky look from the supervisor that i get from policemen in their road searches.. not nice ==;)

Do all that, and you should be fine. Don't sleep to late the night before, you really wanna be fresh. Practice a lot, the patterns of the tests are very similar, so familiarizing is not too bad of an idea. I've managed to keep a stable average of above 630, so my guide above should not be too devastating for ye :)

Good Luck! :D

my most favorite gal in the world..

2009-05-01T02:17:00.003+07:00

30th of April is a very very special day in my family.. On this day we celebrate the birth day of my little sister, Sasha --Safira Diah Pranidhana-- She was born into this world as a healthy baby 15 years ago, in 1994. I'd like to just say that she's always been special from day 1..

As the usual brother-sister relationship, we have many squabbles, even though we're years apart, approximately a 6.5 year difference. In my young years i've had time when i'd be furious at her for rampaging my toys, there were times when i felt she just bugged the hell out of my life, and even when she broke the screen of the PSP i gave her for her birthday, and i've always said a lot of times we're never really close. That's a lie, I'm not that type of brother where i obviously show my love for my little sister, but let's make it clear here that i do, i do very much..

My dad once told me a story that on the days near my birth, a little girl with wavy hairs came to him and calling him in his dreams, that is why at the time he was very sure his first born would be a girl, which is why when i showed up, he was, like, lo! It's a boy.. (my dad used to tell me that i was born with 10 twins and he had to choose 1 to keep and he probably chose the wrong one T.T) so you can imagine how happy he was that 6.5 years later, the girl who came to his dreams finally was in his hands, held tightly. You can say this is probably divine intervention.

Sasha in her early years didnt have much hair, so she would be adorable running round as a baby with a rounded head when other babies her age already had thick hair (you know when babies walk its as if they're on invisible springs *boink boink* cuuuute ^^). She's been quite a cheery girl from the start, she had always had her moments of narcissism (i was least famous compared to her when it comes to running in front of the camera dad was holding), which stays until now.

Sasha is sometimes moody, especially now she's in her teen years, but most of the times a happy person. Now she loves to read, and much like me is addicted to the internet. In her highschool she joins the drumband crew which is quite interesting.

She and I are probably equal halves of our parents, whereas i posses the more quite side of life, and she's just a girl who loves to go wild and have fun. We have very different personalities, and yet huge similarity at the same time. We would spend hours in front of the computer playing "Sims 2" decorating the house, arguing which tv to get our sim, who our sim should date. It's a past time that i assure i get with her everytime i go back home.

This is a momentoe that I made for her on her 15th birthday, and i do pray and wish she'll lead a successful life in the future (so she can help pay my rent and stuff hahahaha). I always said to mum, i just can't imagine being an only child, i think life would be unbearable for me if i know life without the company of this small, sweet girl..

Love you, sis.. Happy birthday :)

decadence in gaming..

2009-04-29T20:05:00.003+07:00

i havent been writing for my HD World chapter, so today i'll be writing about Alienware, a company in high-performance gaming that's in my one-day-i'll-get-it-if-i'm-wealthy list (which is a tremendous list given my small hedonistic perk hahaha)

Okay, so most of you had probably crossed in your lifetimes, one way or another, the idea of video gaming. For some people it's the thrill, for some people it's the storyline. For me its mostly about sheer technological appreciation these days. I've been a gamer all my life, and when i say this i do not in any way impart that i'm very good at it, but i see gaming as a way to channel your stress. Eversince i was in early childhood my parents introduced me to video games, starting with the classic Nintendo (NES --Nintendo Entertainment System). Okay so i wasn't born in the day Atari was still a trend, but nevertheless if i remember Mario Bros, or that Duck Hunting game, i always cherish the moments.

Some of you may have grown out of it. I haven't. I think that's whats compelling about video gaming nowadays, it appeals in categories that spans pretty much all ages. Heck, even my dad still enjoys playing Sim City (from the first version, 2000, 3000, until the recent SimCity 4). And that's not wrong, games are now available that contain the bulk only adults can bear. So in my defense, it's not childish :D

For me now, it's all about the technology. I am always amazed at what mankind can now create. If we remember those games like Mario, or Contra, where you see the guy from the side, then you have a look at the graphical power games like Crysis of Far Cry 2 has, with all its interactive environment. Madness.

A company that i've been eyeing for a while is Alienware. As other hobbies, it takes a serious kind of gamer to appreciate the raw gaming power that Alienware can unleash. And it takes another level of gamer to understand why some would churn out USD 5,000 for a single gaming CPU. But as with other hobbies; it's not fair to be measured by money. Cheap is absolute, but expensive is relative.

"5 grand? On a CPU? Did i hear right?" i hear you say. And no i didnt pull a typo. A service Alienware dishes out is that we can order our CPU online as if it's some ebay stuff. Buying gaming rigs is now like going to the tailor; what processor, intel extreme or AMD Phenom? How many RAMs? Good VGA, how bout crossfire 2 powerful VGAs? Blu-Ray or just DVD burner? The sky's the limit..

Ordering a gaming CPU is like a game itself in Alienware. The fun starts from even before your CPU is delivered to your door. After picking your unique specs, the team at Alienware will assemble, and test-run your CPU to make sure that when you're in the middle of that last chapter level going against the WarShip in Crysis, your CPU doesnt do a David Seaman in 2002 World Cup and flop..

They also have gaming laptops pre-built to suit your needs. But usually one would prefer a PC to use for gaming. More stable is what they say. I've no idea really.

The point of the matter is, if you do have the resources, and you are someone who understands what it means to sink in your thousands into "just" a gaming device, i'd say Alienware should come up in your list of potentials. This is a company who grosses out USD 170.000.000 in revenues annually, that's how trustworthy their market are to them.

If you wanna know more on the company profile, take an easy reading here but if you want to dive directly to seeing the major gaming products in Alienware's lineups, then do click here.

So who wants one high-performance ultra reliable and fashionably cool CPU to go, eh? I do. :)

panic at the karaoke!

2009-04-29T11:21:00.003+07:00

My life lately has been boring, mundane, dull, the whole package laah! So i was quite excited and worried at the same time when the ALSA team from my campus persuaded me into going for a round of karaoke.. i was excited because i've only been a couple of times to the karaoke but i find this a relaxing leisure to channel stress out, and i'm worried because with the ALSA kids coming, there's sure to be a risk on getting kicked out by the employees there, because we're a group of lunatic people who tend to wreck havoc.. read on :)

The lunatic people involved in this story is;

- Me obviously

- Jiwo (you've heard of him before)

- Andit (the guy who wet my matress on the stairs --")

- Meiske (she was the one i thought was drooling before realizing the flood)

- Adi (housemate and the guy who let his room get flooded)

- Lena (specializes in Melayu songs :p)

- Luksi (a girl who likes to scare people while remaining a scaredy-cat herself)

- Irma (Adi's best friend who came from Solo for a one-night visit)

- Nanda (a magical and "special" housemate --Adi's alleged little brother--)

- Tasya (Nanda's girlfriend, apparently doing ice skating lessons in a country who only knows ice as a friend of drinks to cool it)

Okay this isnt the full strength of our lunatic people, but it should've been enough to bring the house down.

Jiwo picked me up and i was surprised that the karaoke thing was gonna be on that day, because no one told me (i would've prepared heavily for it had i known; you know, sufficient rest, vocal tests, fasting, the lot, hahahaha). We felt quite stupid during the journey there, shows just how tropical and undecided weather Indonesia has (we went from the house with pouring down raining cats and dogs, but the other half of the journey was sunny like hell, and apparently people find it amusing to see 2 guys in raincoats in the sunny weather the north par of town was having)..

Upon arrival we find that we were among the last ones to come, all the rest was eagerly waiting for us (it concerns me that the kids are very punctual when it comes to games and fun while in debate trainings it usually an hour behind schedule --"). I'm a person who learns from experience, and i know that when you karaoke, you probably are gonna need lots of liquid, so me and Jiwo stopped by a Circle K shop on the road to get some drinks (i wont be detailing the "drinks" we bought, its just another one of those echi echi plurks :p)..

So we finally managed to book one of those mid-sized rooms they have, with a capacity of like 10 people (i personally consider this very large already.. i mean who goes to the karaoke with like 20 people? The Twilight Orchestra??).. We immediately turned most of the lights out to simulate a wannabe disco ambiance, i had difficulty to see everything else but whatever..

A few observation results of this karaoke place from me and probably lessons learnt for you;

- Don't get a heart attack once you see some of the video tracks playing along with the song, as some songs dont actually have a video track (or either the place don't own the official videos who knows), so they would improvise the video that you see. Women in this case is discriminated, because you either get a video of this chick in bikinis doing some poses on the beach (woohooo!!! kawaiii for the men) or you get a video of a horse prancing around ON THE GROUND as if it just had an ephilepsy(i've no idea how to write the word) attackand was going round and round on the grass. Okay there's one footage of a guy, but he was both old and unattractive, and apparently was doing moves with his hands which he calls "dancing" or "tripping" or "jojjing", whatever, my word for it is "fiasco"..

- Pick your song list wisely. Because of the very very genious list we picked, we went from beat, to a kiddy song (yes! a KIDDIE song! fun nonetheless ^^), to rock.. all without paying attention to art, harmony, and ethiquette.. One, it just sounds like you're in a bad merry-go-round carnival, and two, it depletes your energy.. hahaha

- Don't be easily fooled. Luksi and Andit was doing a duet on the song "Lucky - Jason Mraz and Colby whatshername", and it was Luksi's turn to do the piece, in the first 5 seconds we thought her voice was extravagant! we started applauding and i was thinking of giving her flowers in awe when we realized at a point her mouth wasnt even moving. Curses! Apparently it was the voice of the actual singer. Not so lucky Luksi :D

- Do not let me and Jiwo and Meiske on the same side. We're pure rockers hahaha.. as the three of us was sitting side by side together and as major fans of songs with people banging their heads and shouting and rapid drumbeats and major DJ action, when the others were singing like mellow and love songs we had to stay quiet (since we dont know the song. That is until we started the rock revolution and demanded more airtime on songs that we claim we like and can sing it. This is a bad idea to agree to. We went crazy and at a moment i thought Andit was going to faint listening us basically shouting, not singing.

- Never trust the scoring system. Jiwo apparently had nothing better to do up until a point where he identifies that ALL the songs we always get 90.. This is probably some shitty marketing strategy, so that people dont get embarassed, thus if people thought they did great and have potential, they'll return for another good time at the karaoke. Most do this, some of the rest became so narcisistic they signed up for idol competitions, which is why you see lots of "tragic" singers int eh audition (yep, result of overcomplements from their environment haha)

- If you go with a crazy bunch of people, make sure to lock that room door tightly. Every time i go the karaoke i find at least once or twice the employees take a peek thru the door hatchet. Now for those who is optimistic they might think its because their singing was so good. Fools, its because the employees was pretty sure you guys checked in with 10 people but you're making noises as if the whole Cirque du Soleil crew was in there training the monkeys and elephants to sing in harmony..

Ater two hours of jumping up and down (both physically and in musical notes) vicariously, we were flopped. The room was like an aftermath of the Battle of Ardennes in south France in 1944 or the wrecked Forts of the Maginot line after Operation Barbarossa in the Sovyet Union in 1941. I'm pretty sure the floors were wet because a couple of times our drinks went spilling and i swear i can see a tiny crack on the large flat panel screen on the room hahahaha *run*

I think karaoke is not as overrated as i thought it was in the past (i was against the idea of going for like 4 years until the first time i went, i think they had to issue a restraining order to get me not to come veryday hahaha). It's good for the soul, its good for the bond (no this isnt something you could do alone for reasons i dont think i even have to explain), and its worth every penny, especially since Sunday's jam session was fully financed by Jiwo ^^v *cleterrrrrrr - whiplash*

So when's the next time you're going to the karaokes? Take me us with you, we'll have a blast!! :">

*pics and videos of us there will be up soon as Irma sends 'em to me, hold on your puke for now, you'll wanna puke even more after seeing them hahah*

wet bussiness..

2009-04-27T22:28:00.004+07:00

As the scholar law students that we are (hahaha), my group was dutifuly doing our assignments. Now this is not a subject that's student-friendly, meaning that it takes quite hard work for one to understand as it involves heavy theoritical demands for the students to be able to learn. We were composing this presentation about "Encumbrance Rights" --basically the right that a creditor reserves to take freehold or acquisition upon an immovable object that becomes collateral in a loan agreement shall the debtor fails to fulfill their obligations-- but maybe some other day i'll write you a whole lecture about this hehe.. read on

Now i must tell you that today was quite a bliss, noting the fact that my International Law class was vaccuum (the lecturer is out of town or something for a week.. kawwaiii!! ^^v) which means i could stay in bed a little longer than most Monday mornings. My groupmates came a little late in the day, i'd say 11-12ish, and we rapidly started discussing things here and there. Rain started to pour down, giving us nice cold breezes. At this time me and the boys was in the middle of a very very seriosu heated discussion (about the game GTA IV hahaha), i was sitting nearest to the entrance of my room, the one adjacent to the middle hall.

After 30 minutes of tense argument on which games ruled 2008 (at this time we were taking turns in writing the presentation, so the others just had to discuss on more pressing matters :p), i started feeling wet (now don't start getting wild echi imaginations). At first i thought of 2 possible scenarios; Meiske, a girl member ofthe group was asleep near to where i was sitting so i thought she had drooled hahaha (cleterrrrrr i hear her whiplashes *run*), the other is that i thought someone foolishy spilled water behind me. Tooke me 3 seconds of frantic search for both criminal and evidence of water spill. There were none! I started to feel the floor in font of me and what d'ya know? My house was flooded with water!!

Spent a moment of panic; the usual series of thoughts occured in my mind (wet, my mattress, my pillows, my carpet, the electricity plugs!!!) before i reced to the middle and held up the electric extensions that was there. Along the time i held the thing i prayed to God that i dont get electrocuted, it is not a good time to have spiky burnt hair (tommorow's the presentation and i dont think the lecturer will be impressed if her students smelt like burnt beef ==;).

After detangling all the electric plugs i ran to the middle of the hall frantically looking for the source of flood.. As i ran, i past Adi's (my house mate) room, and lo!! He was nicely tucked on his bed and was surfing the web, then looked at me with puppy eyed innocence (the fool!!).. I gave a panicked howl telling him he was in a flooded room, which in 5 seconds it took him to process my message and started to jump about the room like a war casualty avoiding raging bullets and started to save his electronics (again, the fool --"). At this time water was 5cm high, i felt like a glorified duck..

Having put off the power surge off, my study groups ended this productive noon by becoming housecleaners. We mopped and mopped and mopped and mopped till the water was dry. My matress which i've dilligently heated under the sun a whole day was under a saviour attempt, the logic Andit (a group member) had is that higher places are dryer, later we found out that the water came from upstairs and my mattress ended up wet. Nice >,<

Jiwo, another loony member of the group (whom silhoutte picture you can see in the article "one-size-fit-all in photography") decided to make the house and the flood a theme park ride. Ever seen those ninja movies where the kids in the academy slide from one floor end to another to polish the floor? Jiwo the fool did exactly that, thinking he was in some Aquaman theme park coaster ride or something. Using my pillow too! Casualty number two for me --"

Wanna know the reason that it flooded? The house has quite excellent irrigation system, yet this time it failed us. After going up to the rear balcony, i found that some idiot left a black plastic bag and ended up clogging the drainage. Smart! o.O

So all in all, very very pleasant evening, eh? A day under the sun, an afternoon swamped with assignments, and ending the day with a nice swim.

What lessons learnt can be taken?

1. Make sure to check your drainage system when it rains heavily. Trust me, it works wonders. You can do with some excersise of lighty sweeping the house, instead of ending up with a nasty wet bussiness.

2. If you ever do decide to live with house mates, run a psychotest. This idiocy can cost you a whole evening. And the guy who allegedly did this was not home at the time.. Touche!

Have a brilliant week everyone :)

the men in blue helmets...

2009-04-26T13:13:00.004+07:00

Have you ever seen Hotel Rwanda? If you have, you'd totally get what i am about to write in this article. If you haven't, read this article and you might want to rent a copy the next time you're in a video rental. This is pretty exciting and unnerving stuff.

The film i mentioned above gives you an illustration that is pretty accurate on the happenings of the

Rwandan crisis, peaked in 1994. This is a conflict where approximately 1 million people died victimised bay atrocities and ethnic profiling that happened there. The civil slaughter between Hutu and Tutsi clans are amongst the most gruesome conflicts the world has ever seen, to date.

In that movie also you'd notice a bunch of military looking troops that attempts to assist people there, but you also notice that they're not really waging war. You'd notice that they do have guns and standard military equipments, but you also notice that seeing their behaviour, they're not so far from the other opressed casualties that flee into this Hotel. Ladies and gentlemen, i'd like to introduce them; these are the men in blue helmets..

United Nations have authority to pool up military resources from member states, although their participation remains voluntary (meaning a state can choose to or not to contribute military powers). Upon having the ability to pool up these resources, it does not then imply that UN have their own army, as there is no such no concept.

Peacekeeping operations (the usual term fro the deployment of the troops) can consist of military personnel, but can also contain civillian and journalists. A clear indicator of UN Peacekeeping troops is the contrast helmets in blue that they sport; hence the nick name of the troops are blue helmets.

Now, since it is tied to UN, as a nature of most UN operations, it does pose massive problems. If you read Linda Pollman's book, We Did Nothing, you can see her testifying how the troops in the Kosovo crisis never really managed to do anything, and ended up becoming witness of the atrocity that Slobodan Milosevic did, which resulted in 5,000 ethnic Albanians dead.

Most of the problems imposed within these troops are the nature that they are peacekeepers. They are mostly soldiers but they are not authorized to wage a full scale war and use agression to settle and extinguish the flames of a conflict. Their goal is among them are; monitor the withdrawal of combatants, supervise elections, and provision of reconstruction aid. They are not here to make peace or creat peace, but to provide aid. That means they cannot unleash fire at will, their weapons exist but only usable for means of self defence.

Another problem is support from states of the world. To pool in resources and convince states to contribute military personnell to be under the UN authority takes time, and while that time of negotiation and advocating to countries happen, people die by the day in the conflict zone. It took many moons for the UN to pool in the military power they needed in the Rwandan crisis, and as a result of the prolonging conflict, 800.000 - 1.000.000 lost their lives, children lost their parents, and families were torn apart.

Don't get them wrong, it's not like the UN does not realize the flaws of their peacekeeping operations. The Brahimi report was issued in the year 2000 to evaluate the humanitarian operations the UN have been conducting over several conflicts of the world. It does impose remedies for the UN to rectify the situation, and there is pressure for the UN to start implementing the mechanisms proposed in the Brahimi report in future operations, circa 2010.

Conflicts is never an easy thing to settle. But as hard as it is, it is still the responsibilities that UN carries in their mandate to bring world peace post world war 2. We live in crucial years here, dear readers, and it will be interesting how the UN tries to change the way it works, how they settle problems in the future. Because the worls is dynamic, its always changing, and it is the flaws of the UN in being conservative and traditionalists that makes them loose in the race for world peace.

freerice.com

2009-04-25T17:24:00.004+07:00

Ever thought that you spend more and more time on the internet day by day, ever realized that as other forms of human indulgence in the world, access to the world wide web has become "addictive"? I sure do. Since morning till the minute i write this article, my internet experienced a system failure, meaning that i couldnt hook up to the web for the first 8 hours of today. About 1 year ago this would have been fine, and I wouldnt even bother talking about it like it was something big. But today i felt my addiction to this luxury. To be completely honest remembering last week's hectic weekend (read "the things i do..." and "fiasco at the airport") i decided that i should have a simpler week, a sort of "quitter" week. So this weekend would've my couch potato day (a day where i sit in front of the monitor and surf all day long ahhaha). This obviously failed, and i was pretty grumpy.

I'm pretty sure you people who actually do have time to log on to the net and actually read blogs, then open mine, you do have excess time on the net (implying not that you're wasting my time, keep reading my blog haha but just saying you probably spend quite some time on the virtual network). You probably share my griefs today.

This friend of mine, in the Red Cross, introduced me to an interesting website, in which now i pass on to you, lucky readers you ;) The website's called freerice.com (also works if you type in freerice.org). Now this is not your everyday facebook or myspace, it's actually something different in philosophy. This website is maintained by the United Nations World Food Programme (UN-WFP), and it's only a baby; 2 years old. The UN-WFP wanted to kick start an internet campaign to fight world hunger; a problem that may be for us seems a little far fetched, but believe me in the depth of countries like Malawi, and a large portion of Africa, is an actual imminent threat of death. Famine is a problem, and this website has worked sort of like a panacea (Greek mythology's God of healing).

It's displayed in nice greenish themed layout with the background of grain rice "plants" (i'm sorry i've no clue what to call them haha). This website is nice since it attracts people to donate, and what better way to capitalize on basic human nature; where you can give to others without actually compromising something from your own pockets (look i know this is a rude way of saying it, but you can't deny it's true in most cases). So what must we do in the name of nobility in this site? We must play! So you can keep doing this for 24/7 straight depending how noble, unemployed, or sad you are, as the website gives you a word in which you choose the correct synonim of it (closest meaning to -red). You can also change this with other subject questions apparently, your choice. For every answer you get right, you donate 10 grains of rice to UN-WFP's program. You might say "pffft, some contribution.. 10 grains??". Let me play with your statistics; there's around 10-20% of world population that are accessible thru the net, that makes it roughly 500 million people, if every person every day plays once, and gets just one question right every time, you'd have 5 billion grains of rice per day, in a month you'd have 150 billion grains of rice, and in a year you'd have (let me put in the zeros to show you the figure) 1.800.000.000.000 grains of rice (1,800 billion). You can figure out how much that is in metric tonnes, but it does sound a lot don't you think? Helping another human eating a plate of rice every day is already noble, but imagine feeding a whole country? Below you can see statistics of this program so far from year to year, compared to the amount of grains donated.
So how does a single click translate to 10 grains of rice, you ask me? Well, this website uses the "google adsense" system just to give you an illustration in a nutshell. Donators, sponsors, good samaritans, philantrophies helps this program obviously, but for corporate interest, it's like an ad-click system on a blog, for every click the blog owner gets an incentive from the advertisee, in return they see their corporate logo on the web. The economical scheme makes sense.

"a simple click of a mouse is the difference whether that poor girl in africa eats or not tommorow.."

The beauty of this programs is that it takes advantage of so many elements to make it work, they get to buy the rice from sponsors, who get advertising benefits on the page, and we get to donate, and have fun at the same time.. Ingenious!

So, ever thought that donating is hard? Ever thought that you'd have to compromise a lot to help others? What if you can do it all for free, while you're waiting for that movie to download? All it takes is one click, and this website up to 2008 have gathered 1 billion grains, enough to feed 50,000 people per day for a year. Is one click really too much of a price to pay? I don't get paid to write this, i just think that its ridiculous that no as many people that can join and help is doing so, and my only merit is that; now you know.. click!!

one-size-fit-all in photography

2009-04-24T21:58:00.003+07:00

it's usually vertically correct, but i thought i'd spice things up a little :D

see the picture above? besides the fact that the model is ethically wrong, and the fact that it might make you puke or faint or worse; kill yourself.

Don't. This is a good example for what i have to say, read on..

In photography, there's many styles of capturing a moment. There's a whole culmination of lighting, apperture, focus, ISO, angle, etc. The model or subject of the piece is also relative upon its beauty, and what people would like to call "photogenic".

This article is true upon the statistics that i believe myself, and please understand this is not a mockery, but a mere result of observation. 80% of profiles in facebook, friendster, myspace, or whatever other "networking" sites available on the web has this; a picture taken like the example above. Pretty much you hold a camera, and you pan it towards yourself, usually a bit lofty in position, and you make a wide smile. This will result in a photo that has an angle that covers a large portion of the upper hemisphere of your head. My statistics also show that in more profiles than not, females have at least 1 picture using this style. And also more often than not, it is a "comparative edge" of their profile, meaning they put it on as their primary picture.

Why you ask? I have several theories;

1. There was one photo with this style decades ago, looked good, everyone suddenly had to have one

2. It actually is a style of photo, and i need to learn so much more about photography (maybe i'd call it "narcisism")

3. Through an impossible sheer of coincidence everyone has photos like this without knowing the fact that other people, actually millions of other people has the same style (unlikely, i know, this one's a bonus answer hahaha)

4. People generally feel this kind of photos focuses a lot on the upper hemisphere therefore can pardon the misfeits of someone's looks

There's many things to analyze this phenomena (i'm sorry i couldn't answer why people do this; human phenomenons are truly inpredictable o.O). But at least we know that photography definitely is a trend, it influences people, it has style, and if its good, like fashion, the next day people will be wearing it. We also know that photography does unite our taste, in a worl of globalization people are throwing themselves to be different, but in this case people actually look all alike (style-wise). I get more fascinated with photography by the day.

"Camera ready, ready, pose, click!!!"

Now, altho there's a universal agreement that photos using this style is "good" and "attractive" and "hot", doesnt always work folks.. have look at my picture, used it to show how it can have devastating implications given the wrong model/subject. Do puke now if you want hahahahaha

I was thinking, if you don't fit the style of this photo, you can try and experiment with the model of "silhouette". Like such :

This works regardless how you look, only that you gotta find the right lighting background. Take it at night, use night shoot (if you use slr, try; ISO 400, apperture 1/30, f 2.8) to get a dark pic of your object and exploit the light source behind it.. hahahaha i'm joking

"Its not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you - Batman/Bruce Wayne"

But still i think people do have rights to self-express and they're all fine by me. It just makes me wonder in awe, because this style is so common it enters into my attention span, and i'm a pretty ignorant person! Cheers, have a good weekend everyone :)

the most precious possession for a man..

2009-04-24T13:51:00.004+07:00

At the Singapore Botanical Gardens, 2008

If seeing an actual statistics of the world, what i'm about to say might not be true; i really believe i was born as one of the most lukiest men on earth (okay i don't know if lunatic people can survey and stat the ranks of the lucky people in the world, so my stats are valid hahaha). I think that every person in this world has their own parameters of "luck", but i'd like to think if there are people who love you for who you are, and that affection is pure; you can give yourself a pat on the head and consider yourself one club with me :)

I'm lucky because i was born into this family. I'm the firstborn from the couple; Djonet Santoso and Titiek Kartika (my Dad and Mum). I have a smaller sister; Safira Diah Pranidhana, and i have an older step sister; Riayati. I love them all. I think our number is just right, which is why when i hear friends who have big families i can imagine my sheer confusion of how to handle such relations with so many family. My parents are both lecturers in a state owned university in the small town of Bengkulu, south western tip of Sumatra island, Indonesia..

My parents both studied their masters and doctoral degrees out of the country; the Netherlands and Australia. I've been observing a lot how my family operates and observe how other families work, and i happen to believe our long stays abroad do have a significant effect of how my parents raised me and my sister, i also believe that the way we think is a little different than the stereotypical Indonesian. I see that my parents are a lot democratic in many ways.

"A man can only be a real man if he spends time with his family - Don Vito Corleone"

One day Dad promised that once i enter the age of maturity, he'd give me more freedom to decide. I'm very happy that he delivered, gradually i'm given more freedom to think and express myself in everyday life. Decision making, when it comes to my life, is something that 90% i take, and they impose that i will be the sole bearer of the consequences of my actions. To some people its overwhelming, but not to me, as a regular growing boy i was naughty here and there, done bad things in the past, but nothing significant to actually ruin my future. I think the key to wanting more trust from their parents is if you can answer yourself can you be trustable; would you steal from a jar of cookie you're not supposed to open even if no one's watching? If you can answer yes, then i dont believe you'd have much trouble.

I think this article can never substitute the feeling of gratitude that i believe me and my sisters share. I'd like to always think that, in the world statistics, we're only a puny number; 1 out of 5 billion people of the earth, and whatever we do is just a tiny ripple in the open seas. And i think it matters most in the world if you can come home to people that makes you feel not just a number, but you actually matter, that even though there's 5 billion other people that fits the definition of "human", things would just never be the same without your pressence. I think that's important, most important actually.

So, when was the last time you hugged your mum? When was the last time you had that father to son talk with your Dad? When was the last time that you realised you're lucky to have them? If you havent, i can tell you you're missing a lot of things. Because you know what? It's cold out there, and there's probably a lot of people that would come to you and offer you their jacket, but it's not a lot of people that has a jacket that fits you exactly, and that when you wear it you find in the pockets a toothbrush, some warm snacks, and a note saying "you'll be fine, we're right here.. love, mum-dad"

So, when was the last time? I hope the answer isn't "yesterday" or "5 minutes ago".. i hope your answer is "there's no last time, i'm still doing it" :)

a bunch i'd like to call family

2009-04-23T18:52:00.002+07:00

On the eve of 4th April 2009, JDF (Jogja Debating Forum celebrated it's now annual 3rd JDF Awards. A small background, JDF was established in the midst of 2003-2004, formed as a union to unite debaters in Jogja, Indonesia, together. At the time Jogja teams felt the need to be one in competitions. It usually has it's weekly gatherings on Saturdays, late evening (although lately it has been dying out a little in terms of its weekly thing). We travel to competitions together, we eat out together at times, and we produce t-shirts at times, to show our identity. It's been home since day 1 i joined them, and things haven't changed much from that day.

3 years ago, a co-founder that calls by the name of Iponk initiated that we need something more, the people in JDF has given the union a lot, and its time for JDF to return the favor. JDF Award is where members gather, inviting along as many nubies as they have to socialize them, then grant awards to debaters (rookie of the year, team of the year, debater of the year, etc), then finally elect the president.

It's a good thing that JDF can manage to cling on into this "tradition" for 3 years now, remembering that we have issues of people not being so active anymore in the JDF gatherings. This fact is sad, and the new president must address this, this is simply a problem of organizational culture.

Besides that the 3rd awards this year was fun; it was held in our frat house, we kinda turned the middle hall to an improvised dance floor (which peopla ended up sitting in --"), invited an exotic cart that contains food and drinks and stuff. As alcohol and the sort would cause too much problems with the neighbourhood we stuck to simple good ol' Indonesian delicacy like tofus, soybean cakes, rice, ginger tea, etc (like an "exotic" version of a free flowing bar laaah:D).

We also had live music that played around 20-25 songs in accoustic, which was pretty nice. For most the party ended at 10-11, for some others who went on, lasted till 2-3 in the morning hahaha.. it was good! :)

I was dripping with sweat at the time having to help monitor the event for Agung (ex-President), so when the guys hit it off for the late session i was close to faint and decided to call it a night, that it until at 3 one of the guys woke me up and dared me by taunting i didnt have the balls to play "Counter Strike" over the local network. So, in order to prevent my pride and modesty, I came online and played with them till 8 in the morning. It was quite a blast (a little geeky, i know, but we're very proud of it hahaha)

I just hope JDF can maintain this rythm, i hope it doesnt die down simply to the low animo of the members. Like the cosa nostra of Italy, we've grown quite close to each other, and when my actual family is quite far away, it's nice to have a home to come to even though we're not blood related.. JDF Rocks!

Idiot's guide to all-you-can-eat

2009-04-23T09:46:00.003+07:00

Based on my own experience expertise before my current carb diet ^^v this is a comprehensive to guide to how you can all conquer the challenges that is posed when you enter an all-you-can-eat restaurant.

What you must remember;

- Pay up front, don't let the house take advantage of you by then claiming "i'm sorry sir this is an all-you-can-eat-but-pay-per-meal restaurant.. the scumbags

- This is a mission. This is not your everyday meal, not "just another lunch". But you have paid a lot, and you don;t want the house to win. Beat capitalism by being more capitalists! hahaha.. This is you against them, this is war!

The guide;

- Plan your trip ahead, do not go without planning less than 24 hours ahead.

- Go with friends. Besides the fact that if you go alone, you'd look like a stupid hermit, briniging friends can help kill time in the "recess" sessions. Don't go with a person you like romantically, they'd think you're a glob if you eat a lot, and if you keep yourself from expressing freely, whats the point? Remember, this is war, not a theme park ride.

- Make sure that you "vaccuum" your stomach (this is why you plan more than 24 hours before). I usually go at early evenings, and not munch a single thing from morning, so thats about 12 hours (it really depends on how much you wann rip them off hahaha). But you can still drink a few, or eat very very little snacks; stomach are muscles too, so if you warm up before, they can stretch better and have bigger capacity.

- When you park your transportation, make sure you park closest to the entrance door; this is useful for after the meal, as you would be bulging with food, long walks in the carpar will make you vomit.

- When you pay, make sure to use as much change as possible, this will help lighten your wallet. Every little thing helps for the journey home.

- The choice of seating is also an art. You don't want to be too close as you still need to exercise your body by taking advantage of the commute between table and food parlour. But you also don't want to be too far, as you'd end up having too much fun in your conversation with friends you;d forget about your mission. You really wanna look for a place that has ideal walk lengths, yet still you can smell the aroma of the food to keep your appetite up.

- Start with light food. You may take some veggies, but keep the mayo down (it's full of fat, you'd fill up too quickly) and if you must take the soup, but pay attention; don't take the bread slices with you and see the type of soup (some soups are highly concetrated, you'll fill to soon, corn cream soup is a good example; it is a nemesis, don't take it). Fruit is a good idea, but oh God don't eat it with the fla, that's just idiocy right there.

- The order of the food shall be like this; very light/starters - heavy - light - heavy- light - dessert - extra dessert - drink (you are free to repeat the heavy - light sequence as you please, this is your war, not mine)

- If you drink, DO NOT drink soft drink (besides its bad for your blood sugar, the soda is filling), i have heard that some all-you-can-eats preserve their soda for a few days; and although this does not reduce quality of fizz and taste, it does give more soda complexion in it, so be careful. Juice is fine, but have lots of water. If you want to enhance this process even more, drink warm liquid. They say that cold drinks disturb the process of extracting food in your system, which leaves residues of fat and stuff, we don't want too much residue.

- Avoid eating food that contains heavy fiber in nature, such as; rice, mash potatoes, breads. They, again, fill you up too much. Ice cream is a good idea, but for dessert, eating them in between meals is sheer lunacy.

- Take breaks between meals, let yout stomach digest and manage the room in it. This is where bringin friends come in handy. This "recess" time you can have light drinks, light fruit, etc.. give 10-15 minutes per "recess".

- Be as relaxed as possible, have fun; comment on other people, hit on ladies, do calculations if you had this kind of bussiness would it be profitable or not. Don't stress yourself out.

- Don't go to one single restaurant too often, it'll bore you as the food choise is usually stagnant. Once every two months should be fine.

So that's that then. This is only for people that looks to gain as much returned value as possible, as usually these parlours is a bit costly. Some of you might say, having these rules just hinder the fact that you're there for a good time. I'd agree, which is why this guide only applies if you wanna wage the battle against the food house. I myself let my expression freely, as i eat a quantable amount anyway hahaha

But my real suggestion is; avoid these place as much as possible, don't make it a hobby. I think it's already a default mistake that i have enough resources to write a guide, meaning i used to go a lot. Keep healthy, be fit, eat only what is necessary. All-you-can-eats are all overrated anyway.

Just my two cents :)

A walk down botany lane

2009-04-21T09:38:00.002+07:00

This time i want to talk a little about my walk in the Singaporean Botanical Gardens, end of 2008, with my family on our annual holiday trips. I'll be posting some pictures taken using a cheap-ass camera with macro mode on, and i'll be taking of my usual macho, gung-ho suit off (hahaha) as they are pictures of flowers..Okay, let me give you a little illustration on where this nice gardens are; I've been to Singapore a few times but it doesn't mean i know the streets well, but what i can tell you is this garden is a lot like New York's Central park when it comes to location. It's a few bus stops from Orchard Road, so you can imagine that when you arrive at the bus stop and see the gates of this garden, you can see all around it are city landscaping; shops, sky-scrapers, huge roads, etc. I've been to the botanical gardens we have in our country (Bogor, Western Java, Indonesia -red) and it has been ages since the last time i was there so forgive me if my memories of it is faded, but what i can remember is the gardens that we have is uninteresting, it lacks maintenance, and the infastructure like the buildings, facilities, or simply overall cleanliness is just appalling, there's no way one can really appreciate it. Because my theory is such; nature is all about purity, it's about going back to basic, without traces of human civillization; now how can you enjoy the show of nature in a garden that has garbage here and there?

Singapore is a small state, this i say in terms of land mass. But as a state, it's one of Asia's tigers. The one thing that always fascinates me about Singapore is that on

a map its right next to my country, just a few clicks north-west of Jakarta. But on the day that you fly from Jakarta and then land in Singapore, it just feels like you're in a whole different continent, it feels like the 1.5 hour trip seems impossible and that you've gone far far away. I'll explain why; since i was a kid i've already started to question; what don't we have that developed states have? Now as complex as this question is as a 10 year-old i came with a simple answer : it's probably because of geography, that our place is warm all the time all people want it just to sit under a tree, enjoy the breeze and fall asleep. Don't get me wrong, at that time i was backed up by a saying; Indonesians sweat when they eat, not when they work (i don't agree totally to this, i don't really discriminate work, i just sweat all the time hahaha). Okay, so i was convinced because it is about location.

The more i aged the more my eyes opened, i had access to information

i didnt have 10 years ago (okay so i'm a little old, when i was 10 internet access is not like it is today; there's an internet cafe every 10 steps). So when i put my foot on Singapore, i was amazed! Am i right that this country here is right next to ours? the difference is just ridiculous. Public facilities and the effectivity of it is usually my indicator to judge a state, and Singapore's public infastructure is simply stupendous.

Most amazing woman in the world; Mum!

Back to the botanical gardens. It's pretty huge, to circle it takes about 4-5 hours, and you get a whole mixture of nice green views; trees, well-cut grass, there's an orchid house, there's a green house, and right in the middle i think they have this huge lake with some food stalls around them. If you happen to get there, don't purchase the hot dog; it's way to huge and plain unless you put tonnes of sauce, ketchup, and mustard on it.

Another thing that bugs me is that when i see a lot of the plants and living organizms that they have in the garden, i realize that this is not something we don;t have in Indonesia, i'd say 80% if the stuff is available in Indonesia. Why can't we do this? We have lots of orchids, why didnt we think of making hybrid orchids and naming them after hot shot figures of the world? Isnt this a nice strategy to both attract people to see and to seal good diplomatic relations? I found one hybrid named after the later Ibu Tien (Indonesia's second First Lady, wife of the late President Soeharto), and it's just great that they preserved her name forever in the form of a hybrid orchid. The gesture is very splendid. Entering the greenhouse i'm more convinced; it feels like i'm back in Sumatra, this is exactly how it feels in the SUmatran jungles; the plants, the stream, the humidity, etc.

I'm appalled and nonplussed at the same time. I realized then that it doesn't really take a lot for a state to excell. It's really about paying attention to little things, because in a country people are little, so paying more to little things means great things to the people. And a state i think is only as good as it treats its society. It's not really about the potential of a state, it's about the perseverance of the state to prove itself. Singapore in Fukuyama's quadrant of state classification would be in area 2 (or 4 i forgot) where it has both strict legal ruling and a strong enforcement. Their people are hardworkers, creative, and possess a comparative edge despite their small geographical land mass.

Indonesia is no worse actually. We do have what it takes to excell. But the question is do we have what it takes to take the right steps towards health, wealth, and wisdom? We will see. Maybe all hope is not lost after all...

Playing around with photo editing..

2009-04-20T19:47:00.003+07:00

As part of my huge curiosity towards photography and post shoot editing, just a few minutes ago i started playing around with Microsoft's photo editing software.. Apparently its fun!

I played with the coloring, level of hue and saturation.. Suddenly had an idea to make the pics i took in black and white so it adds more realism to the actual reference pics in the internet.. The results are nice, i just need to see more parallel pictures so i can adjust the contrast with the saturation of the pictures.. Woohoo more experimenting!

Below is an actual picture of a King Tiger in the P4 Workshop Regiments

Below is a picture i took for editing

Pathetic Traveller - Fiasco at the Airport!

2009-04-20T15:21:00.003+07:00

Okay, so this article is a continuation (the second part) from the article "the things i do.." (so if you haven't read that one, look for it in the archives of this blog, if you have, read on..)

After the magical Saturday that i had noting that a lot of the things i planned and how i imagined would go went pretty much as planned. It was beautiful.. You'd know by now that after that Saturday, the next day i should be continuing my obligations as ALSA's 4th DCA. My plane is once again the all-time famous emerging rookie airliner; AirAsia!!! I've been using much of AirAsia's services; my annual holidays to Malaysia and Singapore have used this airliner the past 2 years. So far in my eyes they have a clean slate of record.

Sunday, 18th April 2009. I woke up at 7, and promised to myself that after updating the blog, facebook-ing, and checking KasKus, i would start ironing my clothes. Fido spent the night in the house as he was consulting with me for his ITP TOEFL test, so by that time he's already left for FE UGM to do this test..

At that peculiar morning i was busy interacting with people thru the world wide web. Called my dear friend Nonie who was in a sorta crisis, then had a chat with Gabriel and challenging him to a LAN Company of Heroes duel once he lands from the US, it was very very productive morning laaaaahhh hahaha..

You should know that my plane, as it says on the e-ticket (e-ticket means you copy paste the itinerary shown on the website after you've paid for them, then copy into word and print it all by yourself.. they say "e" stands for internet related, i think it states for "economic" or in javanese it would be "elek") is at 1245 hours noon, so i'm pretty laid back, no rush, i thought. At 1000 hours i started ironing my clothes, and since i'm a big guy, ironing makes me feel like those guys who warm and smooth the ice on a hockey ring.. At 1100 hours i was packing, made sure my music player was charged, and i bought a book with me for easy reading (actually to help me doze off on the plane and later on the bus)

You should know that I'm typically a punctual guy, and that means i have this nerdy fashion of calculating distance, traffic density, and the time necessary to get to a place. I believed that if i reached the airport by 12 i'd still be fine (usually so). I spent the last 15 minutes checking whether i left something. So Heru took me to the airport; stopping in a supermarket to get myself some undies (i've no idea why but my undies are always dissepearing, my suspicions lie with Adi, it seems to make sense if he had these kind of fetishes) and perfume (the entire UII delegation boys only had 1 perfume, and i refuse to smell the same like them, its just horrid)..

We reached the airport around 1205 hours. At that time i still had time to joke around with Heru. Shortly after i said my goodbye, then he left. 2 seconds later the announcer at the airport shouts "AirAsia flight to Jakarta has just departed" i misunderstood the word "departed" with "landed" for about 3 seconds until i realized what was going on (sheepish, i know, but it happens at times). What goes thru my mind is that i run inside and steal one of the cars in the landing strip and somehow throw my shoes at the cockpit windows so the pilot can stop and let me in. Overacting, I know, but in emergency situations come emergency state of thought..

Immediately i ran (panicked) through the entrance doors, the security there was very astute, they idenfied the signs of frantic/insane passenger on my face (widened eyes, weird facial expression, sweating like a cow, and most obvious i was running) so they let me thru directly. Now normally i'm a good samaritan, an obedient civillian, so i usually pass the x-ray whats-its-name gates with calm, cool and confidence.. But this time I can't relax, my bloody plane's starting to taxi down the runway.. I in the future will propose to the FAA that in cases of emergency, the suspicioun of terrorist passengers should be lifted (let's face it, if you plan to bomb a plane, you'd be well planned, and there's no way terrorists would be in my position, only a lousy one would be late for a plane) and that priority should be given to the careless and obnoxious passengers like me.. But noooooooo, i still had to pass my bag thru the x-ray thing (look, i know that in some movies you see terrorists assembling the bomb in the plane so they can pass the security with raw harmless looking tools, but seriously, i will slap the person that tells me you can make a bomb using 2 clothes, 2 shorts, a pair of sandals, 1 perfume bottle, 1 body splash bottle, and 3 underpants!!!!).. so that just took 10 seconds of my precious emergency right there.. touche!

Once i finally reached the check in desks, no one was there, apparently AirAsia has a policy to leave late passengers alone and fall to their doom.. Nice! This view is even worse than the view of the butts of the baggage loaders you get in T3 Soekarno-Hatta, and no the toilets in this airport has nothing to be proud of --"

Frantically i texted Heru with the last drops of energy in my mobile (i left the charger in Jakarta T.T) telling him to take a u-turn and come back to the airport. I felt lost with anger, loneliness, and despair. Heru came 10 minutes later and helped me ask around. Two notes on this information gathering;

1) The clerks in the AirAsia desk are such bums, the locket says "closed" but there was a guys there, and because this is urgent we thought he'd have some solidarity. But noooo, he ignored us while pointing to the closed sign. I'm pretty sure he was probably playing solitaire or something..

2) The ladies manning the information desks are real cuties aren't they? It's a good strategy to grow the habbit of asking within Indonesians, although it seems a little unethical but it works. I promise to myself to always prepare a question for the ladies in the information desk everytime i have bussiness in the airport..

Okay, so all hope is lost. Although the plane left about 30 minutes early, every passenger is supposed to be in the airport 2 hours prior to the flight, and my mobile was dead remember? So even if they called there was no way i could've known.. From any point of view this was my bad..

To make things worse, I called my CA in ALSA.. She was understanding, but she also told me that even if i get to Jakarta by train, I'd arrive on Monday (10 hour trip), and I'd be no use since apprently if i didnt judge the preliminaries, i'm not eligible to adjudicate in the elimination rounds..

7 years.. For 7 years my career in debating hardly has any taint in it, and now it does. I realize i was unprofessional; i didnt help out a lot prior to the competition, i skipped 2 days of the competition to return to Jogja, and now i can't even make it till the rest of the tournament. I know now how lousy I can be professionally. I suppose i try to see it on a positive note, I still think this is all worth the trouble. I blame no one but myself.

Apparently, the Pathetic Traveller not only finds travel stupidity in the journey, but it can also be in the form that even before the journey starts i manage to make a fool of myself.. hahahahaha

Birth of the King..

2009-04-20T13:44:00.003+07:00

Here's some updated pics on my latest work..

Have been painting and repainting, coating, and washing, and drybrushing, etc etc

and then there were none...

2009-04-20T10:55:00.003+07:00

Continuing the awesome tale of the three musketeers and the gigantic mutant rat, where i left you off the story, we lost round numero uno..

But the words of Confucious inspired us; it is only within true champions that the harder they fall the faster they stand. Uh-rahhh!!

After the first epic battle the Anti-mouse division faced vast depletion of energy, courage, and logistics. The troops faced motivational problems; how in the world did 3 members of the human race just lost against a puny rodent? Imagine David vs Goliath, but there were 3 Goliaths, and 1 David.. and we still lost.. P.A.T.H.E.T.I.C. yep that was our middle names; Aditya P. Rakhman, M. Fikri P. Pido, Heru P. Pamungkas.. We tried to assure ourselves this would not look too bad in our Curriculum Vitae (Organizational experience : Waging War against Rats, Status : Participant, Achievement : Great Loss, April 2009)

So it was time for bed (or so we thought so).. I was busy being the vigilant journalist that I am writing a live update on the 3rd Persian War (the Rat was an arabian sewer Rat... not^^) on this blog when i started hearing sounds.. I thought it was Fido up to something nasty in the bathroom.. As a friend of course I tried to stay out his way, whatever he was doing, i try to have good thoughts hahaha..
Anyhoo, the noise became stronger, and after a while, i don't believe Fido could've stayed that long doing his "thang", so I became more suspicious. Went out to the middle hall where the remains of the aftermath of the first encounter still showed.. And lo! There's that wretched mouse strolling as if singing "the sound of music" tippy-toeing into that space under the stairs again! Feeling the need for a full force backup, I called Fido (who apparently was in a closed room with Heru.. i tried not to let my imaginations go too wild) who came out immediately..

I told him where the suspect was, and before we had time to prepare our rackets, mops, helmets, dynamo torch, etc the beast looked out of the space and saw us. We saw it. There was a split second moment where between man and animal we were having a cold stare-off, trying to see if either of us wins in the psywar that happened. Okay, that was over the top.. The next second the Rat started running towards me.. In the time of 2 seconds there was hundreds of kilometres of multiple thoughts, strategies, tactics, and scenarios going thru my mind.. I wanted to kick it, but apprently my brain does not so it doesnt send the electrical message to my feet to kick, but instead to jump and avoid it. It was 1 second moment of personal shame for me that i lost to a Rat when Fido who was behind me also didnt manage to kick the Rat and also did a beautiful jump avoiding the Rat (tomorrow we're auditioning at the Moscow Royal Ballerina for synchronised dancing). I was relieved to know it wasnt only me that acted the goat and became a sissy..

After i fell asleep, at around 0400 hours in dead morning, Fido woke up and saw the Rat once again as if to mock us (this time it was singing "oops i did it again").. So this time Fido made a cunning strategy (which is either due to intelligence or due to the fact that me and Heru was sleeping and he didnt dare to face the thing by himself) to "trap" the mouse in the space and locked the thing till morning..

So morning finally came, and after general field briefing and mapping out the exit strategies for the rat, Fido guided us to his man-made trap.. Heru the Gold miner once again entered the hole (he's beginning to feel like Harry Potter, i'm uncle Vernon and Fido is aunt Petunia).. Fido was about to feel proud of himself when after 10 minutes of careful excavation, and lo! Rat wasnt there.. Curses we didnt expect him to have learned the dissaparating skill from the Ministry of Magic..
Once again our motivation went down like a week-old soybean cake.. That is until Heru shouted from the garage (again, with German subtitles, this time i imagined he had that funny moustache the Fuhrer used to wear).. So like Gestapo ransacking the hideout of Anne Frank, we ran immediately to the garage and plotted a closed room murder (if suddenly sleeping Kogoro Mouri came, we'd obviously be prime suspects). Indeed the Rat was there, hiding among our shoes (I'm pretty sure it was Nanda's shoes).. This time we used more sophisticated tools, last night we were cavemen from the mesolithikum era, now we use wooden sticks from the neolithikum era..

"This is sparta!!!!"

It was me that finally made the first contact, this time using Adi's Adidas sandals, i kicked the thing like David Beckham was unleashing his bender free kicks.. It went back among the shoes where Fido and Heru frightened the thing, it went out again and this time WHAM! I scored a headshot, one knock on the head and lo! RAT'S DOWN RAT'S DOWN.. Fido made a both late and inaccurate throw at the rat with his stick.. He is a truly sad army general.. --"

But hey, this time WE WON..
justice have prevailed.. the hunter has become the hunted. the loosers are now the champions.. we all held our hands high up in the air and shouted "Yataaaaaa!!!!!" like Hiro Nakamura would do..

Round 2 was ours, it was a split decision since it took us a total of 2 attempts, but yet it was a convincing 8 margin win, with a knock on the head..

301st Anti-Mouse division posing with the dead enemy (to make sure you don't confuse Fido with the Rat, the Rat is the one circled with red)

This is a good day to be alive..

Rattaterrorism

2009-04-20T00:37:00.004+07:00

Tonight was the night when the endless contest between man and animal (in this case rodent -red) takes yet another place. Reporting live from the crime scene today where me and Heru, 2 out of 5 of the Pitik Fraternity, assisted by a guest star from Luwuk, the famous Fido himself..

In the animated feature Rattatouille we are given the image of a rat who's really smart, kind and has a strong sense in cooking. Well, i gotta tell

you that today we faced a different breed of rats, apparently the peace co-existence between humans and animals in the house has broken loose, rats have infested the house and they're trying to send us a message through terrorism (people call it pest infection, but this is war!!). Because we're f

ans of Mr. Bush, we will not stand down against such threats, we will not negotiate with the scum of the universe, and justice will prevail!

We've kinda felt this annoyance since the night before actually, where i woke up in the middle of the night and find my pillow was walking by itself, i blinked my eyes 3 times and waved my hand in front of it to make sure i'm seeing right, then i touch the pillow and lo, there's a gigantic rat underneath it, the thing just flustered away (i'm no kidding, it's nearly as big as a guinea pig/hamster)..

Heru is apparently jumpy, so his encounter with the rat is a lot funnier than mine, believe me he jumps and shrieks (yes, shriek! that high pitched shouts girls make, in mangas it is usually expressed with "kyaaaaaa!!!!"). Fido's encounter is even funnier, he was using one laptop in the other room and kinda had a "face to face" moment with the thing hahahahaha.. bottom line is we're all kinda disturbed in a way..

So after my plane disaster this afternoon (a story for tommorow), Fido decided to stay the night again in the Frat house to keep me and Heru company (a guy and a girl in one house all alone is infidelity, but 2 guys in a house is rather creepy and disgusting, so we thought a menage trois is more saucy.. kyaaaa)

When me and Fido came home from dinner and a chat at Agung's, we find Heru locking himself in a room, it seems that he was working on his thesis, but then he said that he saw the mouse running into that trapdoor under the stairs, so me and Fido are convinced that was probably why he was in the room all locked up. Sissy!

The first time we kinda inspected this little space under the stairs, nothing happened, no sounds, no signs of movement. So we left it at that.. Heru started playing CS upstairs, Fido was doing something suspicious in Adi's room, while I was busy utilizing Fido's prosumer camera taking pics of my scale model..

Members of the mouserjagger 301st Anti-Mouse Division

The one time Fido suddenly shouted, asking us to gather, and dramatically points at that same space under the stairs, claiming he saw he rat run in there. At this point, he was like an army sergeant and he should've had German subtitles; "Achtung Achtung! Zer ees a mousze in zat phlasce" (Attention Attention! There is a mouse in that place).. i was about to run to the back to get the Nazi flag we had when i was snapped back into reality..

Okay, so this time we definitely hear noises and saw movement. Like the brave infantry th

at he is, Heru started to clear out the space so that we can usher the mouse out. No avail. As we are all academicians and educated people, we resolved to intelligence; smoking the thing out with burning paper (this is intelligence based on cavemen standards). So we did, and I'm pretty sure my insurance doesnt apply if we managed to burn the house down (can't confess we made the fire or we'd be in jail i don't think the insurance people would be convinced that we were casualties of a crime that a rat did). I had the iniciative to blow the fire with some mosquito reppelant, it worked wonders and created cools sound effects..

After a lot of burning things, it looks as if any normal living entity would've died either from the heat or the lack of oxygen (burnt o2 will result in pure co). We were kinda hoping because o

f both, overkill is an art. After taking some inspections, crime scene investigation, and forensic photography, we were convinced that the thing had lost, we had won, and justice has been supremed.

The pride only lasted for about 5 minutes ><

and Heru took our weapons of mass destruction (a house mop, and my tennis racket). This time we cleared even more things out, and lo! The rat is still moving. We were nonplussed!

Heru once again acted like a gold miner in South Africe and entered the hole, pushing out the rat. Fido came in as a substitute player, using his anti-terror helmet, and Heru with his ballista shades,we finally managed to get the rat out. This is where some funny things happened. Fido was starteled due to the surprise, Heru started jumping up and down making sure his lovely legs ain't touched by the rat, and i was too amazed at seeing the sheer size of the thing to provide an imminent attack (we were about to hit it, before this we checked and made sure rats aren't protected under the Geneva COnvention on the protection of soldiers in war). But okay, due to slow response, the rat fleed, i ran and chased it to the corner of the kitchen where the washing machine used to be. I was pretty sure i cornered the thing, then Fido and Heru came and we were about to read the mouse the Miranda rule ("you have the right to remain silent, anything you say and do can and will be used against you!!") when we realised that there was a hole for piping in the corner.

The mouse got away..

In the night which we thought we won, we have lost. Round 1 goes to the rat, unanymous decision, with a margin of 4, it was a clear victory.

This isn't over, rat..

ICRC in conflict mediation

2009-04-19T07:23:00.003+07:00

Eversince i've had my eyes opened about the world and the issues, political intrics that revolves among nations, and the idea of conflict resolution, i've always had this idealism of helping the world in making itselft a better place to live in for people.

I've talked a little about this organization, I've mentioned that in the aftermathof the Battle of Solverino in the 1860s, Henry Dunant resolved that the world needs an organization that can ensure protection of people and their rights in war.

ICRC is the oldest form of Red Cross in the world. Now it divides its work with IFRC --the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies-- where ICRC handles humanitarian operations in conflicting areas, and IFRC handles humanitarian operations in areas of disaster.

In International Humanitarian Law, there's an element of conflict among states that is called "protecting powers". These are labels for states or international humanitarian organizations that are 3rd party to a conflict among states, meaning that their neutral pressence is merely to provide humanitarian assistance, that includes; setting up camps (safety zones, neutral zones), advocating dispute settlement, and ensuring/supervising that the values of humanity in war is pretected.

An interesting mechanism exists in choosing the "protecting powers" in a conflict. Basically each parties of the conflict compose 2 lists; one is 3-4 states that they want as their protecting powers, the other list is the states that they ban as the protecting powers of the nemesis state. ICRC helps out in this process, goin back and forth among the parties to ensure communication. I'm pretty sure there's a deadline for this process; a couple of weeks if i'm not mistaken.

This is definitely complicated, especially the fact that each party to the conflict has some kind of "veto" ability upon the choice of the oppsitions' protecting powers. If after all the negotiations and list making fails, ICRC will be taking part as the protecting power for both state in mediating the conflict.

This intrigues me. ICRC has 7 basic principles that it thrives to uphold; impartiality, neutrality, humanity, universality, independence, voluntary service, unity. In a world of conflicts with criss-crossing conflicts of interests, it is highly profounding to me how things work, how does ICRC stick to its 7 basic principles? How can an organization that upholds impartialy and neutrality from states when a large portion of its operating funds are fueled from money incoming from donating states?

It's my mission in life i guess to find out. That and exposing more of the actual happenings in a conflict zone through the world of war journalism (which i'll be writing about soon).

a song that repeats itself in my mind all the time

2009-04-19T07:20:00.002+07:00

AEROSMITH - I don't wanna miss a thing

I could stay awake just to hear you breathing
Watch you smile while you are sleeping
Far away and dreaming
I could spend my life in this sweet surrender
I could stay lost in this moment forever
Well, every moment spent with you
Is a moment I treasure

I don't wanna close my eyes
I don't wanna fall asleep
'Cause I'd miss you, babe
And I don't wanna miss a thing
'Cause even when I dream of you
The sweetest dream will never do
I'd still miss you, babe
And I don't wanna miss a thing

Lying close to you
Feeling your heart beating
And I'm wondering what you're dreaming
Wondering if it's me you're seeing
Then I kiss your eyes and thank God we're together
And I just wanna stay with you
In this moment forever, forever and ever

I don't wanna close my eyes
I don't wanna fall asleep
'Cause I'd miss you, babe
And I don't wanna miss a thing
'Cause even when I dream of you
The sweetest dream will never do
I'd still miss you, babe
And I don't wanna miss a thing

I don't wanna miss one smile
I don't wanna miss one kiss
Well, I just wanna be with you
Right here with you, just like this
I just wanna hold you close
Feel your heart so close to mine
And stay here in this moment
For all the rest of time

Don't wanna close my eyes
Don't wanna fall asleep
'Cause I'd miss you, babe
And I don't wanna miss a thing
'Cause even when I dream of you
The sweetest dream will never do
'Cause I'd still miss you, babe
And I don't wanna miss a thing

I don't wanna close my eyes
I don't wanna fall asleep
'Cause I'd miss you, babe
And I don't wanna miss a thing
'Cause even when I dream of you
The sweetest dream will never do
I'd still miss you, babe
And I don't wanna miss a thing

Don't wanna close my eyes
Don't wanna fall asleep, yeah
I don't wanna miss a thing

German Pz.Kpfw IV Ausf.F Fahrgestell

2009-04-19T00:52:00.003+07:00

German mortars i love, and i love the fact that the Germans had to go a long way to operate their giants..

Just a short article before i sleep, this is my next kit that i wish to acquire (hopefully they still have it in PnPs Jakarta..) in the pic you can see the actual Morser Karl Gerat 040/041 lined up in action to blast through the fortification of the Maginot line around 1941-1944 (Part of Operation Barbarossa i think)..

I already have the main kit of the massive mortar gun, all i need is some crew men, but most importantly to add coolness to the base later on if i have the loader too, the Munitionstrager. Here's some more pics of the kit, this lovely 1:35 kit is manufactured by Trumpeter, so this will also be my first Trumpeter (previously i have the Tamiya and DML manufactured kits)

So excited to see whether i can manage to have this one by Tuesday or not ^^v wish me luck!

The things i do..

2009-04-18T22:07:00.003+07:00

I'm pretty sure you people have done crazy things, i'm convinced that a lot of you have sacrificed things just to prove something, especially when its to that person that matters..

This is therefore a classical story, but i just thought i'd share mine, and the things i do..

Let's not mention names, just for the sake of privacy and stuff.. And no this isn't an episode of the Pathetic Traveller, but apparently when i travel alone i still find that stupid things happens to me.. so here goes me and my story..

I couldn't publish this anytime sooner, because for the last 1 month i've been cooking a plan, a plan to throw this girl a surprise party, and it's not just an everyday party that we're used to (at least that's how i see it)

Credits goes to 2 of her close friends, and 1 of mine, which without them this story would never be able to be written right here right now..

My surprise for her comes a little late, about 24 hours late actually, 1 day after the actual birth day.. I don't mind, i believe that people need space and she probably had plans of her own in this party, which you will read later on that i found this to be true actually.. I planned to throw a surprise party, but not in a hotel, not in a fancy restaurant, not in my place, or her place, but in an orphanage.. Yes, i plotted that this special event will be held in an orphanage with around 50-60 kids.. I feel that there's no better way to share your happiness than to share it with those whom cannot enjoy happiness on an everday basis..

I find out later that this plan criss-crosses with my pledge to help out the team in ALSA E-comp *curses*... i know that because of campus i've been abandoning a lot of my work for ALSA, and i do know that added with me skipping 2 days of the competition would definitely blotch my professionalism, and my reputation in debating. I am sorry to the team in ALSA, but this is just something that i can un-do, it's one of those things that you'd just do even if you know it kills your name, but you also know that you're less of a person if it doesn't happen.. more or less how i felt about this..

At last after offering my resignation and selling Sani's name, they decided better to give me the luxury of the time off.. So if you must know this is my itinerary for in between 15-22 April 2009;

- 15 April flew to Jakarta, stayed a night in Sani's place, departed 1345 hours from Jogja

- 16 April drove to Depok, where UI Campus is, worked from 0900 to 1800 hours accrediting judges from Universities all over the country. 3 hour recess, at 2100 hours i continued with motion designing up until 0300 hours, 17 April.

- 17 April, at 0025 hours i slipped for 5 minutes out of the night session to make sure i send her a birthday sms, then continued to work till 0300 hours. From 0300 to 0400 hours had a chat with an old friend about life hahahaha.. at 0400 hours my cab leaves for the airport, got onto a plane on 0600 hours, arived in Jogja at 0700 hours.

- 18 April, from 0900 to 1300 hours prepared the surprise. Event ran from 1400 hours to around 1600 hours.

- 19 April, 1245 hours is my flight to Jakarta, continue my duties for the ALSA e-comp team.

Crazy? Maybe. Necessary? Definitely.

Arriving at the airport at 5 in the morning on the 17th, i find that the cab drivers a little upset for some reason (which i found out later because that i fell asleep on the cab and probably snored, and that before falling asleep i forgot to give him money for toll fares and stuff so he had to take it from his own pocket) so with unease and guilt i gave him extra fares, which then he smiled *me growls* least the guy is happy, I'm on a mission and i don't need a person cursing me with bad luck.

Then i noticed people was looking at me with mocking looks. Apparently i decided to only wear a tee, shorts, sandals to the airport, and people somehow judge that violates like some unwritten ethic code or something. Okay, i don't need this, so i went to the toilet to change. Remember this toilet? At noon you'd see men offloading baggage, but at this time of hour you only see the dark. Okay that's a nice change from the noon views but it still ain't helping, people should be guaranteed that when they pee, they have lovely views, at least thats a slice of happiness we deserve. Went out with changed clothings; semi-formal clothing, jeans, and my air force 1 sneakers. I walk out with confident which then dropped drastically when the cleaning guy knew i changed and passed a snigger at me *curses*

Let's fast forward this a bit; in a nutshell i met some loud group of chinese women out for holidays, met some guy who for some reason were wearing sunglasses at 5 in the morning, then nearly missed a flight because i sat on the wrong waiting zone.. i was sleep deprived, the flight attendants were not nice, and i was alone.. so i slept the flight thru.. Landed in Jogja and AirAsia had a dangerous landing, nearly jumped up again upon landing and into my doom.. Let's skip that part ><

The rest of the day was only catching up with sleep at home and went to the orphanage to lock the rundown of things. At that night, my friend Agung was having his birthday the day before, so he took me and Heru, my room mate, to this seafood place.. Upon arrival we parted with Heru for a while as he's off to sell some goodies.. After getting a table, this conversation happened

- "Dit, i think i saw **** (locked her name, remember) inside.."

- "Oh, yeah?" (thinking of greeting, but decided not to) "Well, lets leave her alone, order in shall we?"

- Agung is extraordinarily quiet, so i had time to think [Wait, she isnt supposed to see me here!! If she does all my plans will crumble to the ground!!!]

What happened next was stupid, we plotted a plan how i can survive without being noticed (seriusly the squid hotplate is too good to pass). So i hid in Agung's car, foolishly enjoying music, realizing one of the guys in the group of friends with her, felt a little uncomfortable with that but who cares. 1.5 hours ladies and gentlemen, 1.5 hours i was trapped like a duck waiting for her group to go.. and when they finally left, the electricity in the place passed out.. Nice..

The next day (earlier today actually), i was busy preparing this and that, ordered food, picking up a cake and prayed the whole journey that it didnt become melted or squashed (imagine a 25-30 cm diameter cake bought by motorcycle), then worked with my friend and the orpahange ids and had a little audition in singing "Happy birthday"..

All in all, I think things go according to plan neatly, and I'm happy. To see that expression on her when she saw the kids was holding out to her a cake with candles on it and the symphony of the imrpovised orchestra of orphan kids singing the happy birthday song with fun and sense of unity as their sole capital of synchronization, for me it meant the world. I have invested lots, I have spent time, i have depleted my energy. But to see the smile carved on her face throughout the event, it makes the pain i had to endure unfelt. There's only certain people who can draw up what i felt today doing this in the composition of descriptive sentences, and i am not one of them, so i wont try.

Tommorow i will be heading back to Jakarta. As dreamy as things are today, it all must come back to reality, i need to face angry people tommorow, but at least i'm facing them knowing that today i'm a man who accomplished a mission.

This is my story. This is what I do for those who are significant in my life. What's your story?

Pathetic Traveller's - Euro Pathetrip

2009-04-18T08:42:00.005+07:00

(DRUMROLLLL....) JRENNNGGGGG JENNNGGG JENNGGGG JJRREEEEENNNNGGG ploink ploink (tune of "Final COuntdown" playing) SHOOOOBIDUBIDUMMMMM LALALALA TRALALA TRILILI YOODDLE-III-UUUWWWW (lights, sound, fart.. ACTION!!)

We're back!

From the nasty tales of the journeys of two impoverished students of Jogja, we present to you another product of Vivid Productions.. In this episode of the "Pathetic T

raveller", I will be presenting montage of photos from our euro pathetrip.. the uncen

sored version hahaha.. you know how people say that pictures can talk thousands of words, well we think pictures can also display stupidity!! In this first part, you will see how the kickass duo cope with new environment, cold temperature, and all round hill-billy-ness (popular slang in Indonesian is "ndeso"-red)..

we're almost pretty convinced we look pretty cool in this winter dress-up..

this is us wondering why in God's good world did we ever dare to even sign up for this competition..

i can almost swear Sani has NOT been drinking in the gala...

This is where the brave duo stalls in front of an XXX ADULT STORE arguing and pushing each other on who should enter the store first.. wish there were more of these stores in the old country!!

We thought this could be good for a part of a promotion campaign that UCC can do --that is if they want their students to all resign--

These pictures are copyright protected, any illegal take over of this right will given reward as these pictures contain toxic level of stupidity and we really dont want them..

Okay, that's enough for today's episode, we'll be back from more euro and ALSA actions!!!

The lens assasins - world of photography

2009-04-18T07:02:00.003+07:00

When playing games that's themed and tied upon the arc story of an assasin, the stereotype of person you see is that calm, careful, observant, eagled eyed person that in a blink of an eye analyzes his situation and makes split-second decisions with

satisfying results.

I see that people who's really into photography share this trait; hence the title of this article..

I've come to realize that in this matter i do not differ to much from my Dad, in his years in college, he used to go out a lot into the nature as a mountain climber (this is not the part in which i say me and Dad are alike). Since those days he was fascinated with nature, with the beautiful painting that God created on the canvas normal people like you and me call earth. This is one of the fueling factors of why he loves ph

otography. Now, what you must know is that he doesn't come from a richie rich family, so there were limited restrictions in which he can channel this hobby. Nonethelesss the passion runs in his veins, which apparently thru the wonders of genetics is bequathed down to me.

It took me a long time to realize that i love photography. And i must impose here that me loving something does not mean i'm good at it. It just means that everytime there's something that correlates to it, i get that sparkling tingle in me that just sky-rockets my sense of curiosity.

As you probably know from my Madurodam and King Tiger scale model that i love model kits, things in miniature has always had an interest in me; back then in Australia it was model trains, now it's model tanks from the German World War 2 campaign.

Anyhoo, if you see Agung's Junk Yard page

he wrote something about how the hobby of a modeller does not stray far from photography, and if you see the thousands of modeller forums in the web you'd realize that photography is a vital element in modelling; the right lighting, focus, apperture, lens adjustment, background,

can really do a difference in escalating tha value of your work..

I'm not sure whether you're going to believe me or not but the pic i post in your left is actually a miniature scale, not a shot of some random dude's house. You can see how the use of focus on a single object and given the right lighting, this modeller is able to capture a moment in which his work seems very lifelike; this is probably the zen of scale modelling, when people see your work thru photography and inside them rages a battle of that question we always want to hear' is it real or is it a scale model?

This is the time when i admire the sense of the pro photographer. Like movie directors, they already have an imagination of what the picture or motion picture looks like in their heads, and the objects, camera and pther paraphenelia is simply his brush, oil paint, and canvas. Belissimo!

Photography i think is a specialized hobby, meaning that you either know everything or nothing at all about it. I hope that someday i become the former. A real pro. I kinda feel that i have the senses on what to shoot, how to do it. I just need flight hours to sharpen the blades of my senses hahahaha..

Photography rules. Period.

Pathetic Traveller's Big Day Out

2009-04-18T00:28:00.003+07:00

Okay, so some of you may now, but most of you probably don't. Between the dates of 15 April to 22 April 2009 I'm helping out UI (Universitas Indonesia) in their annual Law Faculty Debating Championship (ALSA E-Comp), and that means making trips to Jakarta prior and post competition.

In this year's e-comp i sit in as the DCA --deputy chief adjudicator-- which means that i help out in motion design, adjudicators' accreditation, and room allocations, etc etc.. it's not simple work, i do feel guilty i haven't really been maximum in my work before d-day as campus demands have been quite a spoonful for me :-/

Sani (you're starting to hear this guy's name a lot, not that it's because of some other peculiar reason! but simply we are involved in activities which the consequences are travelling together; thing is, nothing ever goes right around the "pathetic travellers") will be featured in this blog.

In today's episode of the never ending series of the "pathetic travellers", the mighty duo is taking on the big rotten apple; Jakarta!

I start having that query uneasy feeling when before the trip Sani mentions 2 things;

- "Dit, we're picking up my car in Eastern Jakarta. The thing is i've no clue on Jakarta.."

- "Our AirAsia plane will be landing in Terminal 3 in Soekarno-Hatta airport"

ring-a-ding-ding, my mind goes.. hmm, it does kinda tingle.. problemo numero uno is that Sani wants me to co-drive this car with him, and we have to cross all the way from East Jakarta, thru Central Jakarta, to South Jakarta, and go a few more clicks south to Depok, where UI is.. Jakarta may be one of the most frighetning places on earth for me, because the thought of getting lost is even more possible in this city more than any other in the world (this applies to me, sampling uses 1 case where my mum and i lost contact on a train in Jakarta and she had to pick me up 3 stations later.. this never happened to me ever, not before that incident nor after it.. so my statistics are valid)..

ring numero duo; did i hear right that AirAsia is landing in Terminal 3?? Okay, this is nopt my first time flying out, and there's always only been 2 flight terminals in that airport. So what's this T3 thing? Cold sweats is washing down my spine *gulp*

to fast forward the story (we went to the airport, debated on getting the new edition of The Economist or not, argued which flight attendant is most cute, cursed myself since my plane seat didnt work if i laid back on it it'd fall down to the back and i dont think the guy behind me would find it funny if my face appears on what was his magazine 2 seconds ago), we arrived in this T3, and voila! It appears to be an expansion for the airport.. Place was lovely, brand new, the toilet had a design that when you pee you get to see men loading off baggage.. nice, could've given us views of trees or lovely ladies, but no *sigh*

after a whole night panicking how we would get to Jakarta's central station the next day (to pick up the devilish university debate team), we decided to nick the map Sani's uncle had.. He was in the driver's seat and i was his loyal navigator.. kawai!^^

Although I have read Allan and Bar'bara Pease's book "Why women can't read maps and men never listen", I find a factual error on the facts stated in that book. I can't read maps also! As part of the male sub-race archetype i made all sorts of reason to Sani; "this map is outdated", "it's the government's fault they had poor urban planning" etc etc..

Still it doesn't really help when you're entering a state of "lost". I often hear National Geographic's jingle for every traveller; "Let's get lost". They obviously have never been to Jakarta.

Isn't it ironic that we got lost in our own Capital City of the state???

It's a good thing that we found our way back on track. Initially we thought we were participants of that show, The Amazing Race, having being lost and all, and we were thinking of paying someone to drive ahead of us showing the way hahahaha..

After around 1.5-2 hours (i'd imagine normally it takes less than that long), we found our way.. yay! Only to find that the train the kids was taking was late 30 minutes *curses**bangs head on monitor*

It may seem that this adventure is caused by our stupidity, but as part of the FAA regulation on reality shows on blogs, it is our obligation to provide you some moral sense within the story; cities should be comprehensive, and its not asking too much because the level of comprehension that people have upon its city is parallel to the level of influx of visitors upon the city.. and this is the capital city for cryin out loud, not some hobo hillbilly places in the middle of a jungle!

How can people have that slogan "Visit Indonesia Year" when the tourists don't even know how to get to places. Holidays = stress reduction. Not the other way round. Another prove of the weak links of this country, wants to bite off more than they can chew..

Japanization

2009-04-17T18:15:00.005+07:00

For the past fwe years, well the years that i start paying attention to what happens in the environment around me, I've been paying attention to things that influences the nevironment around me.

I've been noticing lately on the cultural heritage of Japan. This country is a state that is very rich in both history and culture. from the historic events of the culture of samurai, to the Meiji Restoration, to the aftermath of World War 2, to the fact that they closed their state from global economy in the name of restructurization and managed to rebuild their economy in 30 years, there's rarely any other state that is rich in history like Japan.

Look, as good as Japan is they haven't been good samaritans all their lives. The Tokyo Tribunals is a testament of the atrocities that Japan did in the Far East Asia, that includes my country. A lot of the world's society have been talking about whether Tokyo should issue out a public

formal apology as a repatriation to those individuals that became the casualties of Japanese violence.

But let's part with all the history lessons (i am now a little freaked out as i feel like turning into that history teacher i had in highschool which in my opinion should be listed as a National Historical artefact hahaha)..

In the country that I live in, Indonesia, the remains of Japanese has

not gone 100%. From food, to comic books, to literature, to cartoons, to movies, to doujins and hentai and JAV hahahahaha Indonesians LOVE the JAPANESE.

I personally love to see Japanese Idols *blush blush* on Danny Choo's lovely website. But this is not about my puchi puchi perks.. ^^

I can't avoid my fascination towards Japanese culture. I'm astonished at the fact that nearly EVERY cultural products of Japan is appealing. From the most simple things of how they assemble their food, how they wear clothes both traditionally and moder, to their music, and works of art, is all compelling!

Indonesia now is even pursuing to apply Geothermal technology to power our electricity; something that Japan's big in! Samuel Huntington might say this is "clash of civilizations", Phillip LeGrain might say this is "the beauty of globalization", but Aditya Rakhman says this is "Japanization"!!!

Now I'm not implying that this is bad, per se, I'm just stating it from what my observation goes. I'm actually trying to question would we ever be like that? Can we promote ourselves as much as the Japanese to the world?

Is our culture "sell-able"?

Profounding. That's what I think of the question. Antagonists to globalization like Naomi Klein or Noam Chomsky might be in critics towards the concept, but i'd agree with LeGrain when he says it's inevitable, people say globalization is the wave of the future; its shiny and brand new. We say it's been here for years, and the existence of non-tariff agreements around regionals around the world proves this. This is also something that Friedman pretty much acknowledges in both "The World is Flat" and "The Lexus and the Olive Tree".

The challenges of today is not making the best product, but making a distinct product.My friend Sani and his theories of "comparative edge in sales" is not merely hocus pocus, it's pretty much true. Now states are pressured to find a thing they can sell that no other states produce. The Japanese has that, no other person in the world wears kimonos and eat sushis and drinks green tea othe than the Japanese.

Would we ever be able to say the same for our blangkons? Would people ever long for the Padang food. Again, I'm not denying that no one does right now. But when you're in a food market and there's a Japanese food stall right next to an Indonesian food stall, it's usually the Japanese one that's bought by lots of people.

Profounding? Yes.

Impossible? No.

Indonesianization. That's the new wave. The only wave we need to make actually.

Zimmerit - Simplicty in great functionality

2009-04-15T09:56:00.004+07:00

One of the challenges of being a tank, whatever war you're in, is the fact that your sights are limited. This even applies for Tanks as huge and as sophisticated as the German Koenigstiger in the World War 2. The axis have always faced difficulties agains soldiers from the allied companies when it comes sticky bombs, or attachable mines.

The Krupp war factory in Essen, Germany, tried to tackle this problem. One of the ways is to invent the Zimmerit coating for their tanks. What is Zimmerit?

As the picture above, you can see how there are parallel horizontal lines/grooves in the body of the tanks. This coating aims to create an area surface that is not smooth, so that sticky bombs or magnetic mines simply fall of due to their weight and rattles of the tank. This coating was applied in many of German's battletanks from August 1943 - September 1944 (around the times of the Ardennes expansion).

This invention is one of those things that i like to call ingenious. Its simple, yet its application is very very useful. It creates that ideal distance between the bombs or mines to the hull. Imagine King Tiger II's thick armor added with this coating. Scary!

European cuisine dancing in the tounge of an Asian

2009-04-14T15:21:00.003+07:00

Let's start with the premise that i'm an eater. I love food, i love to eat. I basically eat all (except eggplant, and too much caviar) forms of cooking.

I see cooking as an art. So let's start talking about the art of cooking in Europe. My sampling is of course subjective (this is after my blog not yours haha) and through my experiences of entering the lands of gold, gospel and glory.. I lived in Europe once, yet maybe at the time my juvenile tounge hasn't got itself comfortable with certain stereotypes of food, which unfortunately for now it has a mind of its own and can decide what's good or not :p

You see me and a mate, Sani (I've mentioned him before) was on this debating tournament in Cork (not cock, mind you!), about a 5 hour trip from Dublin, Ireland (people there pronouce the country as "eirann"). Of course besides the scenery and the lovely caucasian girls that i admire in the winter symphony, one of my adventures was to taste the delicacy of their food once again (debate was simply an added bonus.. i mean torture)

However this time I'd have to say i was neither singing nor dancing having taste the food they have over there. Don't get me wrong, I still think in many ways its still an artistic form of the human creation (then again in art you have those abstract paintings that makes your head tilt and say "hmmmmm" while trying to understand whether the painter meant something or was simply throwing blobs on canvas :Peace:).

Okay, so let's start with breakfast; while most of the food at breakfast was free, for some of the time i had to spend 10 euros on a single breakfast (coming from a country who 80% of its population eats off less than 1 euro every day, this is drawback numero uno for me). Breakfast is usually plentiful and brawny; the casual eggs and ham, with a side of bread, jam, butter, and orange juice (still puny compared to what US people eat for breakfgast though -hey that country's mentioned again --"). This I find neutral, i guess bulky breakfasts with meat is something i cannot argue. Debating people would call this "truistic" or "non debatable". Nerds.

Moving on to lunch. This is where moi finds most problematics with. I understand that most Europeans are "on-the-go" people, yet i come from a culture that once Europe had, like the Gaelic people who enjoyed good slow times relishing their food until the Romans come and old Obelix has to smash them with his Menhir (okay getting a little outta focus here.. moving on). The lunch is very distinguishable; simple sandwhich with salami, or plain salad (which seems very much like simple chopped vegetables thrwon into one plate for me). So there's this lecturer from another university in Indonesia whom despise we resent very very much, she bought Indonesian chilli sauce! Praise the madam praise the madam smooch smooch.. So that saved our lives. To add to the note, pepper and salt is used by me very much in lunch times, I'mnow thinking of researching the amount of salt and pepper consumption Europeans have for lunch times, triple compared to breakfast I'd imagine.

To end this, we'll go to dinner. This part of the day is most relieving for me. After loosing 3 rounds of debate, a nice warm fat steak is enough to comfort me again. I'd say its still in the plain side of taste, however. But at breakfast i don't long for lunch, and at lunch i crave for dinner. One of the best meals we had at the time was in this boutique Thai restaurant, which was lovely. Actually not too lovely, but combined with 7 days of bitter weather and food complications, this was practically a paradise for our taste buds. Yet, our community back at home would smack us in the arses if they knew how much we'd spent that night for a decent meal.. 80 euros!

You must understand this is not a mockery, but its more of a testimonial of how a lost, impoverished Asian dude finds the everyday meals of a whole different continent from way back home. I still appreciate European food. Yet next time I'll be sure to bring more herbs, stackloads of instant noodles just in case..

There's more stories from Europe, which in later episodes i will name "Tales of the Pathetic Travellers" credits to myself, Sani my mate, and Europe for giving us a blast of an experience! Bravo!

Awesome might hidden within perplexing beauty

2009-04-14T11:49:00.005+07:00

Unlike Agung (whose blog you can see posted on the right side of this page), i don't collect that many figurines. This is due to some reasons; i don't know why but the figurines that i crave for is always VERY VERY EXPENSIVE (simple really, maybe because they indeed are that good), second thing is unlike Agung the otaku, i dont follow that much anime/manga (just doujins ^^ kawwaaiiiiii hihihi), so my reference for characters who are good if "figurized" is not that many either..

But one day i stumbled upon this lady over here.. Now i don't know if i can spell her name correctly, but it goes something like; Ryogi Shiki Gurannodou..

I don't really believe in love at first sigh, romant

ically speaking. But i do believe in the concept when it comes to product purchasing. This figurine i fell in love with instantly. As a normal member of the male sub-race of humans, it's only natural right that even for figurines I'd go for the opposite sex characters. But this time it's not only because that she's a woman. Truth be said i haven't the slightest clue in whic

h cartoon this person is in. But what i do know is that she is a culmination of a depiction of women that i very like to idolize..

It's not that i'm being a gung-ho guy being selective of women. It's just that i can't avoid the fact that i love the illustration of Ryogi. She in that beautifully made kimono, holding a samurai, and by the looks of it she's not holding that sword just for the sake of fashion, but she actually seems good at the art of the blade hahahaha..

And no don't start assuming that i fantasize stupid things about her, however i just like it when people illustrate that wonderful combination of feminism with power. I like it when women display their strength but they do it gracefully. I'm not profiling, but i just believe that men and women both have archetypal nature they cannot avoid. Men are scruffy breadwinners, while womendo things gracefully in every step they make in every breath they take.

I come from a background that builds understanding towards women, and their status in the society. And i thinks its just cool that this illustration of a woman who is powerful, yet is able to maintain the beauty and sense of mystery upon herself.

Absolutely magnificent. For now i don't have this figure, I'd like to very much in the very near future. It's around USD 75.. So obviously for me its no small matter.. But don't worry Ryogi, someday you'll defend my room from the evil scum of the galaxy.. hahahahahaha

Madurodam - the smallest city in Netherlands

2009-04-14T10:18:00.003+07:00

My childhood in most parts of it was fulfilled with memories that i very like to cherish for eternity. You should know that the character developments of me myself was bricked by many layers of various cultures. This time i will tell you a slice of Netherlands, a nice quaint, little country which i used to live in for 4 years, in my preschool days ^^

As you know i love the world of scale modelling. All this time i've been wondering why does it seem that although i'm a newbie in the world of serious modellers, the eagerness of scale modelling seems to root deep within the veins and blood of me. As it turned out, as i trace the history of my world travels, i remember of a lovely place called Madurodam --a leisure theme park that reprises a miniature city-- i can't remember where exactly that is, but in the Netherlands i only lived in the Hague and Amsterdam so it must've been in among those two cities.

Aside from the lovely coin food installments in the Netherlands, Madurodam have always carved within me wonderful insights. This city is pretty much like the Disneyland of the Netherlands. The thing about common theme park nowadays is that it's pretty much a use of a one-size-fit-all concept, meaning that you go to one of these place, then you've gone to all of them. They have standard rides, similar layout, pretty much the same colour themes. It also is much better than video game based them parks, i've been to Sega World in Sydney, and i can tell you that bloody hell it has nothing to do with Sega!!! I personally think its odious..

Madurodam i think is unique as it blends the kind of

ambience you look for in a leisure park, and that it appeals to all generations. Kids may come for the image of a "toy wonderland", teens might be going for that mixture of toys and the lookout for the opposite gender, adults maybe go for the fascination for the architectural archetype reflected in the buildings, and elder people maybe just wants some quiet and peace.

It also attracts people who used to hold position in the Public Office to excersise their sense of post-power syndrome by being larger than the people in the city (let's not spoil it to them that the little people

ain't actually people, they're just models.. so shoosh! hahahah)

The only thing i regret about Madurodam is that my memories of it is fainted. Its blurred. Maybe it'd be nice that one day i get the opportunity to revisit the Netherlands and maybe enter Madurodam again..

Imposition of Campus prerequisities

2009-04-14T00:28:00.004+07:00

As some of the 2008 class in my Faculty is taking this course as one of the many prerequisities of Graduation in my campus, i thought i'd write about them before i go to sleep today.. haha

Look, i know that there are some values and/or habbits that a Campus would like to impose for their students to imprint. I agree that in many ways these values are important. However what i don't agree is the idea of imposing it as a prerequisite of graduation,

In mine, there's numerous of these hullabaloos. One of them's a "Basic Course on Islamic Leaderhsip" --this tcourse takes like 10 days!!!!-- one word comes to my mind as i write this; gullible. I didnt attend the one they had in my year, so about a month ago i followed a session of this course, just so that in the incident that one day i wanna graduate, this silly little thing doesnt become a thorn hurting my graduation.

The copurse is simply days full of classes where the Campus tries to imprint (my version of the word is "to indoctrinate") students in the values of leadership, and cross refference it with Islamic values. I'm what most people like to call a "liberal Moslem" so forgive me if what i think hurts you and your views on your faith (i just think faith is a vertical relation with God, and what you do must not be because of your horizontal affiliations with other HUMANS). But i think this course is just weird, it's just classes, most of them delivered in a boring yawny way, and at the end of the day i don't think even 20% of the students who took the course understood why they had to sit and listen and try not to fall asleep (hahaha) since 7 in the moprning till 10 at night. What monstrosity is this?

One of the facilitators filling in proudly declared that this course is not only the one of its kind in Indonesia; but also the world!!!! It took me hours after trying to figure out why the nice gentlemen was so proud; this i cannot comprehend till this very day. I just think it creates unnecessary suffering i cant believe any Human Rights commission doesn't tackle the campus for doing so for years!

Students (most of them) sees this course not as an value added thing, but just another obstacle that they need to pass, just a milestone. WHile i think what the campus is trying to deliver is important, yet they packaged it wrongly. Education ultimately fails when people who takes education is for granted; that when you ask them why they took this, its either "i had to" or "i dont know"

I'm not against the concept or thought altogether, i just don't agree with the execution per se. Students in tertiery education should already have an idea of what they're gonna do with their lives, so why the need to indoctrinate? a jerk who goes to this course will stay as a jerk. period. So if they feel the need, they're gonna come to the course without obligatory approaches. (okay, to be honest i dont believe anyone would come by free will if they still do it they way they do it currently -so fix the system!)

Thats where most education in Indonesia fails. It's goals are full of grandeur, but when it comes to implementation; there's little to be proud of, they forgot to put a relativity line with whats most important; the characteristics of their pupils. Education only works if people comprehend, and people comprehend if they have willingness, and willingness you get if they know why they need to learn it, and not simply because of threats.

Education is not gonna work by force, it needs understanding. Period.

Drops of tears for Sudan

2009-04-13T16:38:00.004+07:00

I've always been fascinated with conflicts that happens in Africa. Not that i personally approve it, but it's interesting the ability for humans to cross violate the idea of humanity itself. And Africa has one of the worst records of crimes against humanity in the world.

Sudan and the humanitarian crisis that happens there is an everlasting structural conflict that happened even from the 1970s. As we all know the ethnicity division in Sudan is twofold; the Arabs (who hold governmency) and rebel Africans.

There's lots of versions of how the conflict started but that does not matter much this time (another story in another time hahaha). The most tricky element of the conflict is that it is structural, and this i think is the hardest conflicts of all.

We know how hard it is for International world to touch the domestic squabbles of a single state; due to restriction, sovereignity, etc etc.. Structural conflicts is most tricky because the Government is part of the problem, so International aid will most likely face difficulty in penetrating and trying to help.

Just to fill you in with the numbers; since the 1970s, an approximate of 2.5 million people have been ilisted as IDPs --Internally Displaced Persons-- and from that number a further 200,000-

400,000 is listed as dead. US Scretary of State at the time (2004is I think) Collin Powell stated that the Sudan crisis is the worst humanitarian crisis of the 21st century.

Even Sudan can surpass the massive atrocities that happened back in 1994 in Rwanda, and 1992 in Sierra Leone. Question is; what can we do?

This is where things enter the game of politics. UNSC --United Nations Security Council-- wishes to impose sanctions in the forms of embargo for Sudan, however Sudan and the neighbouring state of Chad is a field for oil excavaton. China has investments there, so obviously they vetoed the UNSC resolution. ICRC --International Committee of Red Cross-- can only post up tents to help out with those 2.5 million IDPs in the area.

The ICC --International Criminal Court-- could no better either. They tried to prosecute the perpetrators like the leader of the Janjawid (rebel groups that hire infant soldiers, one large rgroup in the conflict) but to no avail.

I can only watch this conflict, it engraves massive sadness in me that there's not much that a single individual like me can do to make a change.

What can we do? So far as legislation and advocacy goes, not much. At least care, at least try to understand that when we can enjoy ourselves on the internet there's thousands of people there that cries wondering where the next meal would come from, where their dads are, where their kids are, etc etc..

Start caring, start crying for Sudan

Counter Strike and the concept of gaming longetivity

2009-04-13T16:09:00.004+07:00

Eversince me and few mates decided to become house mates (a sorta frat house wannabe hahahaha), we realized that since we used a router to shoot wireless fidelity (wi-fi) signals to our coumputer, that there was now an open opportunity for multiplayer gaming.

Just so you guys know i'm big on multiplayer games (not meaning that i'm good at it per se, i just say that i love the idea of multiplayer gaming). When i worked in the Federation (another story for another day) since i had the resources nearly everyday i go to this gamehouse in my town, and in those days i play an average of 3 hour sessions (up to 8 on weekend nights) of Gears of War (abbreviated GoW).. it's bloody fun i tell you, the idea that you play not only a "bot" or "AI" and actually conduct social interactions with your nemesis (be it in form of psy war, or complementing, whateva) is brilliant! I love it I love it I love it..

Anyhoo, back to the Pitik Frat House boyZ haha.. Just to keep the games within range of our rigs and connection, we decided to drop modern day games like Crysis, or Gears of War (back then when i played everyday, it was on the 360 you see).. Sani (whose blog you can access in a menu on the right) pitched the idea of Counter Strike, a simple game that i know has existed from when i was like elementary.. It's sort of when i talked about blogs, it's like skiing to me (read post on blogs! :D)

All right, i gotta admit that at first i kind went pffft pffft iuw iuw why can you still see humongous pixels on the screen as if like seeing massive pimples on Nanda's tomato like face (another one of my housemates).. but hey, there's gotta be a first for everything, even for things as simple as farting, so i did (not fart, but played!)..

Hey, i am now ashamed to say that i'm ADDICTED!!!! (imagining x-zibit running out pinching the shoulder part of my tees saying you've been pimped!) this game is an FPS (one my least favored types --First Person SHooter for those blind to the jargon--) but yet it's intriguing, especially since Sani (who have played since he was in junior high) is quite a few levels in terms of gameplay for me.. so it has the "fun", and "challenge" appeal for me, 2 things that tend to wear off from game nowadays..

This is why CS is pure genious, its basically start, buy guns, run, look for enemies, shoot, depending how shitty you are you either die or live to die 5 seconds later hahahaha.. anyway, i read an article on product longetivity and that law of economics on diminishing return (blah blah blah how there's a maximum point of goods usage before people's interest wear off and it becomes shitty in sales blah blah blah) that Nintendo uses; so they developed the Wii not to target just gamers, but even non-gamers to become gamers, by creating an HUI --Human User Interface-- that appeals for everyone. I thought hey that's kinda true, the true value of video gaming entertainment is not only about realistic graphics (where when you shoot opponents using 1200 x 1900 pixel setting you can actually see people's pimples falling off their face if you shoot them.. yech!) but its about gameplay.. If you're not a gamer before, there's no reason for you to pick up a SIXAXIS control, or a 360 control, as most of the games were sequels, using buttons similar to previous games and they're complex.. Wii and CS countered that.. simple concept, simple controls, yet everlasting appeal..

Simplicity in complexity.. that's absolute genious!

Pre-Emptivism in Contemporary International Law

2009-04-13T12:13:00.003+07:00

In the developments of International Law, a recent dynamics developing is the idea of pe-emptivism.. What is pre-emptivism?

Again, as an angry state, United States is the main wager of the idea of pre-emptivism. This is a concept that basically proposes that in the name of self-sefence, states are allowed to conduct "peventive" actions. Meaning that upon intelligence information of a POSSIBLE threat, states allows themselves to make the first move in preventing that harm, by attacking the possible source of threat.

Can states do this? In International Law, it all depends on who's doing it haha.. If we want to analyze international regulation and customary (for comprehension on "customary law", refer to my previous post on the Si Omnes clause), pre-emptivism isn'nt actually regulated in detail. However, it can be inferred that it does not reflect the permissible circumstances of "self-defence". In international law, there are basically 3 pivoting references for regulating self-defence of a state;

1) United Nations Charter, article 51; a state could only wage aggression on another state in the name of self defenc upon imminent threat, and that it must undergo the consent of the United Nations Security Council.

2) Carolina Case; this basically happened in the end of 1890s, the turn of the century. At the time Canada was under the ruling of the British empire, and there was some rebels that fought against them. These rebels one day fled south to an island that's in-between Canada and the United States. The community in the bordering state of United States had incentive to help these rebels in terms of logistics, so they supplied the rebels with supplies, crossing the straits using a ship named SS Carolina. The Brits saw this as an imminent threat (because with logistics, the rebels can stay alive and therefore can keep threatening the peace of the empire), so they one day burned down this ship, killing 2 Americans, in the name of state self-defence. US and Britain went into trial, in which the court then decided to favor the US and stated that self-defence may only be viable under the circumstances that : the threats are real, it is imminent, with spread, and apparent. Up until now this case is still used as the precedence of self-defence cases, so it holds a universal value.

3) Nicaragua; you'd have to google this yourself because i don't really remember what happened here hahahaha..

As you can see, pre-emptivism isn't really reflected here; the idea of a preventive action does not show permisiibility here. Pre-emptive involves a lot of assuming, precognition, and prediction. It's complicated when India is gearing up their nuclear missiles but isn't actually threatening anyone, but on the other hand they do have political squabble with Pakistan over the bordering area of Kashmir. Yet India claims no threat but at the same time they test their missiles in an area very close to the borders of Pakistan. Can Pakistan see this as a threat? In the rules of law, no. In pre-emptivism? Plausible.

The rule of law internationally is a bit old-fashioned in this way. Because in the regulation it is stated that imminent threat means that the opposition is gearing up their troops, in an attack stance right outside their border. Urm, this is nice and all, but we've gone way past the ages of Colonial wars.

This is where International Law is tested. It again must evolve with the demands of International condition. This is where US plays benefit, where there is a loophole in the law, they take benefit.

God save us..

Santorini Island

2009-04-13T01:36:00.003+07:00

Maybe it'd be a good addition to write about my header's picture..

That, my friends, is a picture taken at night time of a place, a wonderful place called Santorini. It's an island in Greece, and it's beautiful as beautiful can be..

This island have been featured in some of the movies that i like, actually; Sisterhood of Travelling Pants 1 & 2, and Mamma Mia! (i'm pretty sure its Santorini, it has similar landscape). This mediterrainian beauty lies in the southern coasts of Greece, and is located in the amazing Aegean Sea.

Not only is Santorini a feast for the eyes, it also is a treasure vault rich in history and myth. It is said that the Islands surrounding the area was where Troy once existed, a kingdom popular in modern culture especially movies for the Trojan Horse, which happened in the 10-year Trojan War, which involved tens of thousands of men, battling a fleet of 25000 armada cruises. People also said that

comparing with Plato's description, it is possible that Santorini and its surrounding was once where Atlanta lies, the legendary island of

wisdomous and an ideal society.

This Island to me is very special. I love the views, i love the secret

s it posses. It has become the dream of this dreamer to one day have a holiday (or honeymoon ^^) in this island. My life wouldn't be complete if this lifetime i don't get to see Santorini directly.

This place happens to be a dream for one other too, one that perhaps i'd like for that one to come along with me, shall the time come, someday, in the future. I don't need to mention names, you know who you are.. :)

Dora -a small name for the biggest gun ever made-

2009-04-12T17:32:00.004+07:00

I've always been fascinated with what the Germans made during the World War 2 to equip their arsenal to battle against the Allies's army..

One of the craziest military project to date, i think is the Schwerer Gustav 80 cm railway gun --it has a cute nickname; Dora ^^;--

Dora, as most mortar based guns that the Germans made, was built intended to blast through heavy barricades, usually in the form of forts, campsites, etc. This gun was specifically made to blast through the Maginot Line forts for the campaign in the West. However at the time of the expansion, this gun is still in development in the Krupp factory. Even in the expansion to the Soviet (Operation Barbarossa), 1941, this gun was still in development.

To give you an illustration of the sheer mammoth size of this gun, i posted an artist's rendering of the massive thing. You can see from the picture that this thing compared to actual humans is like a five or six storrey high building! very massive, yet very inefficient. Why? because it takes 6 full weeks to assemble --a very long time considering wars change rapidly in terms of location, and remember this gun is railway based, so it needs tracks!--

To operate this massive gun, it takes 1,420 soldiers under the command of 1 Colonel! Jeez, that's like a whole bloody squadron right there. The shell of a single Dora is 80cm, it's about 4 meters high! (largest shell on earth), and Dora can fire it within a maximum range of around 25000 meters.. Germans are ambitious yet loony bunch of people when it comes to waging wars LoL..

The funny thins about this weapon is twofold; the name Dora was taken from the engineer that planned this monster --a man named Gustav-- he named the weapon after his wife; Dora! the second funny thing is that this weapon was only made twice, the first managed to fire around 48 shells as tests.. the actual one never fired one, because as it was deployed, German troops lost the battle in the area, and Dora was confiscated by the Red Army hahahahahaha

so all that money and effort for nothing eh? but still very impressive, i can't imagine what would go through my mind if i saw that long barrel pointing upwards (firing position) and i was a Soviet soldier in Fort Maginon.. run!!!!!!!

Si Omnes Clause

2009-04-12T16:43:00.003+07:00

This is actually part of my subject matter in a class in Campus (yes i'm back into schooling myself now^^)..

The Si Omnes clause was a clause in the Hague Convention that was signed around the end of 1890s. Let me give you a little background; eversince Sir Henry Dunant went back from witnessing the Battle of Solverino (18-something i cant remember but its in Italy n_n), he saw how massively destructible wars can be upon humanity.. He concluded that the world needed to address this concern, and he produced 2 claims; the world needs a body that ensures and protect humanity in war, and that the world needs a written rule that protects humanity in war..

His first claim is the background of the establishment of the ICRC --International Committee of Red Cross-- and his second claim was reflected in the Hague Convention --later replaced by the Geneva Conventions--. Hague Convention exploded the fathom of humanity in war, that even in conflict zones that should regulate protection (for civillians --women children specifically--, etc), however the trumping factor of Hague convention was that it applied the Si Omnes clause --a clause that states that the treaty only applies for parties that ratified the treaty. I dont know about you, but this is terrifying. Imagine a conflict where one of the parties ain't party to the Hague convention, that literally translates that in that war, anything and everything is both permissible and excusable, including torture, victimizing civillians, taking hostage, etc etc.. I think this is partly due to the fact that maybe at the time the idea of humanity in war hasn't evolved yet as a customary principle (international law's main source is customary values --values that all nations believe in--, meaning that the jus cogen nature of that value itself is the bargaining power for a regulation to actually become enforcable internationally), so that it cannot force binding power to states to adhere to the convention.

I personally thank God that the world came to its senses, starting in 1929 with the First Geneva Convention, which then in 1949 evolved even visual; Protection of the wound, sick, shipwrecked --for soldiers, civilians and Prisoners of War (PoW)--. The world sees Geneva Convention trumping the Si Omnes of the Hague, as now under the current convention, every nation is obliged to adhere to the rules of engagement of war even if the enemy is not party to the convention. So human rights are even more protected.

I agree if some is still testing this convention. But i say thats whats profound about International Law, the level of vagueness and lack of enforcable power gives room for Oppenheim and Austin to debate a debacle that runs even till this day.. is International Law really a law?

My opinion is that at least we have a better starting point nowadays; at least the convention of humanity in war actually is heading the right direction this time. Imagine if US did what it did in Afghanistan, where the Taliban is not party to the Geneve Convention? What would happen? Gross violation of human rights.. in short; a fiasco!

This is why i wrote this, because i'm thankful that Si Omnes is no more..

Yotsuba&!

2009-04-12T15:55:00.005+07:00

I've loved comics in the past. My childhood was filled with the wonderful drawings and silly stories of comics. I live in Indonesia, and most comics available here are Japanese-made comics, so that's pretty much the category of comics that i read.

I'm not really into superhero comics, or action comics, or legendary kung-fu comics. No offence but my definition of entertainment is those in which the stories narrated is not more complicated than my actual life. This only applies to comics though. I'm a hard core fan of complex novels and non-fiction books on world issues. I also like action movies to maximise my speakers hahaha..

Anyway, it saddens me (yes, sad) that i haven't really been in touch with this world. Ever since coming back from Australia back in '99 i haven't really found a comic that i really like (well, like in sense of want-to-buy like) .. that, my friends, has ended..

I found this comic reffered by Agung ( a fellow debater and scale modelling enthusiast). At first the comic just seem stupid, yet it becomes more intriguing per episode.. it's called Youtsuba&!

So far the've printed 7 comics of Yotsuba, very few remembering the person who made it started the thing back in 2000.. Yotsuba doesnt have a main arc of a story, it just tells episodes of the daily lives of Yotsuba (a little, but very curious girl), her adoptive father, and her neighbours (three sisters).. It's packed with full of pure stupidity, fun, yet inspiring.. It even have issues like global warming and stuff.. Every story tells what Yotsuba learns by the day, and how she sees things from her innocent, young mind.. That's why the series is called Yotsuba&!, because every episode is titled Yotsuba @ .... ! (... is a short nutshell on the episode --i.e. Yotsuba&Global Warming!)

I also like this comic because Yotsuba reflects an actual person in my life. A girl, whom the curiosity, sense of fun, and rich soul of Yotsuba i find in this adorable, cute, girl that i like. I even use Yotsuba as the name on the ID of her phone number in my mobile ^^v

I think what appeals me to collect this series is the fact that its a comic that combines intelligence, pure comedy, and wisdom. The illustrations are attractive, the stories are simple, yet it's not just another story for the sake of it. Each episode builds Yotsuba, and we can actually see how she implements her newlyfound knowledge of the world.. Simply fascinating, so fascinating that i actually acquired the figurines from the series.. You can see from the pic that i have all 7 published series, and 3 figurines (yotsuba, danboard, and miura --one of her friends).. I also have an e-version of the doujin (wont tell you what that means, but for those who gets it, shoosh!) called "Pretty Neighbour"

Highly recommended serial.. a story about the complex world of reality as seen by the eyes of a simple girl.. a 8.5/10 i would give (the minus 1.5 is the fact that i have to spend money in order to collect it LoL).. For those who have access to my place is welcomed to borrow them for enjoyful reading..

Tamiya 1/35 King Tiger, production turret

2009-04-12T15:06:00.004+07:00

I'm pretty new to scale modelling, so obviously there's hundreds of new things for me to learn. Currently one of my projects is constructing the King TIger, used by German army in the 2nd world war. Plans are to make the Tiger in sort of "at rest" condition, with technicians from the Krupp factory examining an engine malfunction on the Maybach engine of the Tiger. I also used Tamiya photo-etched parts for the grill and gunsights, just to add little fashion to it..

above is a shot of the rear grille, after primed then added 2 layers of Tamiya Dark Yellow

above is the Maybach engine used to propell the movement of the King Tiger, scaled to 1/35 size, will be displayed under the opened rear hatch which you can see in picture 1. This part has actually gone thrugh painting, yet i have not the camera to take pics of it ^^ it's painted with primer coating, then with parts of metallic gray, titanium silver, and weathered with oil stains to emulate use..

above is pretty much the parts, after little details are glued on.. you can see the upper hull, lower hull, turret, and turret house..

It's currently not done yet, but i will update once things are progressing and i actually have a camera ^^v

The idea of bloggin in my perspective

2009-04-12T14:50:00.003+07:00

Blogs to me has always been like skiing..

i know it exists, i know it's fun for most people, i know (as other activities or hobbies) it can be addictive, and i know it can actually increase your appeal to others, depending how you use it.. yet i've never actually managed to get myself to seriously blog.. and interestingly, my experiences in blogging is very much like my experiences in skiing, i've done it only once but then i fell shamelessly in front of the instructor, and never got myself into trying again.. but my last blog didnt experience any fall, it's just that i forgot my password hahahaha.. but maybe if this one lasts, i'll have another go at skiing.. boom de ya da!

The phenomena of blogging i think have existed even from the early innovations of the internet. It's partly a product of human nature, i happen to believe. To socialize, to create networks, to express oneself.. interestingly with blogs is that we all get a corner of our own, which sometimes in real life we don't (which is nice, yet cliche). The appeal is, i think, universal (in the sense of someone to start blogging). The range could start from any age, any gender, any profession, whether you're a shy or a narcisist, every one can blog! i just think that deep within ourselves we're all painters, longing to draw a picture that reflects the very happenings of our lives, who we are, what we do, and stuff. Blogs are merely a canvas, that like i've said, not everyone can buy in real life..

People say blogs are for those who cannot express themselves in reality which is why they've gone online instead. I think that's just virtual insanity. Maybe there are people who express themselves better through written words (like me :">) but maybe even "people's people" (referring to people who are socialites) use blogs to update people on them, or whatever.

I guess that's what i can think of. Wanted to write about blogs as the premier article because it's relevant.. hahaha