restoration

I have not written anything almost a year now and I seriously have forgotten how grey my blog was. So many things have happened. For people who are close to me, know that 2013 is a life-changing year for me. It was probably one of the most difficult year to get through. But on the other hand, it's also the year I began to realized how blessed I have been. 

I have nothing yet to blog, but I promise to write more often. I went two weeks ago, that's probably going to be my first entry after a long hiatus. I can hardly wait for that!

Happy Sunday!

don't call me botak, unless ...

Okay, do not judge me based on this photo above. Not only that I look ridiculous, I also look a bit over-weight. The initial idea of the photo was to challenge myself to lose some weight and blog about the whole thing. I was going to take the before-after shot. Then this other idea came up and I thought this photo kind of represents it, so voila, that's the whole story. 

Almost two years ago, I decided to shave my head. I remember telling myself that it was a crazy idea, but at that time, I assured myself that it's going to be liberating, which it is. Some people give up eating meat, I gave up having hair. It's just that simple.

Unfortunately, I live in a society that probably is not familiar with a completely shaved head. I cannot begin to tell you, how many people have use my hair absence to deliberately mock me. I have been called shining-head, egg-head, golf-ball to the most vicious and offensive one, botak (translated as bald).

Okay, let me try to explain to you why it's offensive. You probably remember that Gwyneth Paltrow - Jay Z - Kanye West incident a year ago? When Paltrow joked around using or referring to Jay Z's song which contains the N word (you know which word I'm talking about, don't you?). Jay Z, Beyonce and (probably) Kanye were extremely upset and offended by Paltrow due to that usage of N-word simply because she's white. 

The same thing applies to my situation. Despite the fact that I am botak, but to have someone who is not, calling me that is very insulting. For me it's equally offensive as Paltrow using that N-word. 

However, I'm a man with a big heart. I forgive and forget. So I forgive you, crazy super-drunk mas-mas at Pluit who almost made a song of my baldness. 

I also forgive you, you little brat at Grand Indonesia last weekend, who probably was there for your first time ever. I forgive you for pointing your index finger at me and calling me "om botak". 

I hope in the future once this post published, being bald is no longer unusual, but it can be considered cool and trendy. 

deux mille treize

2012 just ended. Despite the fears of Armageddon, it's actually a great year. By the end of year, Facebook has this apps, which (I think) its purposed is to help you review what has actually happened for that one year period. Considered it as a scoring chart, I must admit that I didn't do well. HAHAHA. So here are a few highlights from my 2012 Year in Review according to our beloved Facebook:

1. I added 41 new friends this year. For your information, in 2011, I added 106 new friends, so that's a sign how anti-social I was last year.
2. I liked 39 new pages. Again, it shows how desperate I need to hang out and start drinking beer or something.
3. The rest of the Year in Review page shows the peak of events that I recorded (with photos, or comments). Most of them are farewells. 2012, despite its greatness, is also the year of parting with so many great friends at work.
4. I must not forget the insane trip I decided to take last June to Hong Kong - Malaysia and Singapore with Billy, my nephew. It was so rewarding. In a way, the trip has made me learn being a better person.
5. And weddings, which I didn't attend. BUT .. I noted that so many of my friends' lives changed significantly (of course, without my presence, I'm a douchebag, I know).
6. I know how to swim and drive!!! Isn't it great??

And for the new year, 2013, like Madonna's movie career, it's a mystery, but I have hope (for the year, not her career .. KIDDING!). I have not shared many personal things with others, but sometimes I wonder, what if I do. I mean, most of the time, I forgot what my resolutions are. Maybe it's best that I put it out there, so I can have this tiny reminder which will bite my ass any time soon. So here they are:

1. This might be a bit vague, but my first resolution should be having more compassion towards life, mine and others and be more responsible with my actions and my words. 
2. There is something about time that has troubled me for quite sometime and for a person who lives in Jakarta, time is always an issue. I mean, we spend like at least 3-4 hours a day being caught in traffic. Not pretty. So I learn, I should be more wise regarding time-spending. If I have to be caught in traffic for hours, I should have learned how to spend those hours wisely. In short, be wise with my time.
3. Friends, I always say how much I appreciate good friendship, but I also notice that I haven't participated much in some of my friends' lives, so I decided to invest more time in my friends' lives.
4. See the world, well, maybe a part of the world. I haven't had any trips planned yet for next year, but I have a few places that I really want to visit.
5. Also self-actualization should be part of my resolutions, I have some interests to learn a few things, which I will share with you here.
6. I was going for number 6, but then I heard this thunder sound outside my window. I assume it's a sign that 5 is enough.

So well, I'm super-excited like fireworks that we are in 2013. Do you know that it's also my 6th year blogging? I'm terribly touched knowing it has come so far. I can't thank you enough for a very wonderful friendship. Ready for another round? Buckle up, Toto! Here we go.

essentially living

I'm probably the last person anyone would ask for beauty tips or fashion tips or anything in that department. I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a bit behind when it comes to the newest trend in fashion. But I'm not trying to be a smartass, I just want to share some of the things that are essential for me and sometimes they (some of them) create little joyous moments to my tiny life.

I must also warn you that I'm not endorsing any certain brands. So if I did mention some brands, I'm not selling them or anything like that (yeah, like they'd pay me! HAHA). I just want to point how I enjoy certain things in life. Talking about brand, the truth is I don't even believe in brand, but I believe in being comfort, being decent and sometimes being my unique self. 

One minute oatmeal

Okay, I'm not being philosophic here. I just want to point out the first essential in my life is that one minute fix of breakfast I've been having for the last two weeks. Yes, that tasteless plain not pretty meal we all call Oatmeal. I know, at some point I complained about my weight, but the truth is I believe it's a healthy meal and I owe it to myself to at least have one healthy one out of three. 

Water and ice water

This one is classic. We have heard so much about the advantages of water and how one must drink at least 8 glasses of water. They're all true and there are times when I suffer from dehydration, my body becomes unbalanced, weak and my skin becomes irritably dry. 

I also have this new ritual every morning and night. After I brush my teeth and wash my face with soap, I usually take a bottle of icy water (which was stored in the fridge) and sprinkle my face with the cold water. Although it's not scientifically proved, but I believe it can decrease our facial pores. HAHAHA. Yes, I too can have silly ritual!  

Coffee, coffee and coffee

Like Lorelai Gilmore, I am too a coffee drinker. I usually limit myself to not more than 2 cups a day. But there are days that I could have at least 3 cups. Mad mad day, I say.

Eau de toilette 

Let me tell you that I'm a big fan of L'Occitane, although there's a big fat chance I might have pronounced it wrong. I love the smell of their products. This L'Occitan has been my latest favorite. It has that edgy smell of pepper or some spices mixed with some grass or flowers. I know it sounds so stupid, but I love them. 

I have a few friends who think that using products of L'Occitane does not make you look classy. The truth is I prefer to go for L'Occitane or Bodyshop product than those fake Bvlgari or CK perfumes. At least, I got them from an official store. #JustSaying. HAHAHA.

Hair shaver - Being bald

I have shaved my head for more than a year now and it will continue be my style until I die probably. This has been a dilemma and some of my friends have been so openly against it. All I can say that it's a commitment and I shall not back off now. To all of you who think I look horrible, it's not that bad, really.

E-paper

I LOVE e-PAPER! I read my Kompas either at work or at home with my PC or my tablet. I never bought printed newspaper since Kompas introduced the electronic version. Beside Kompas, there are Media Indonesia who also uses the same format. I enjoy reading HuffingtonPost online as well. 

They're flat, aren't they shoes?

I don't know exactly what they're called, but they're extremely comfortable. I love these flat shoes. I can walk tens of blocks wearing this shoes. I probably can run marathon in these shoes, well, maybe not. 

The monstore in my closet

Because of my petite figure, it's not easy for me to find the exactly fit tees. But I have found this cool local brand (I think they're actually from Bandung) who produced shirts in my size. I love, love monstore. Not only they're very comfortable, they're quite artsy. 

Hats for my head

At first, I wore hat because I found out that no everyone can cope with me being bald. So I thought hat might tone down their reaction a bit. Yes, it's probably only in my head. But then, that prejudice (if you want it call it that) has turned into a fetish. I love buying and wearing hat. I love my bowler, my fedora and my beret. The only head piece that I might not wear in public is those mickey ears probably. 

bowler hat's new home

Finally, I settled in to a new home. Well, I don't want to say much about it since I don't actually have to change my zip code. So pretty much I still live here in the north side. We of course, hired this cool mover company (not sure how if that's what they are), which helped a lot during the process.

But to get things going, to reorganize and rearrange the whole house is simply not an easy task. Not only that it's not easy, but it's also time-consuming. Let me be very honest, I'm not a fan of moving, or change for that matter. I'm the kind of person that needs time to adjust, although I must admit I enjoy exploring new things, I also want to be secured. To plan is the keyword here, people.

So Yesterday, at around 3pm, where everything's pretty much at where they should be, a friend texted me and asked how the moving's gone. I simply replied, "My wi-fi is working, so I'm pretty much home." HAHAHA. Yes, I'm the victim of the vicious cyber world.

Anyway, that's a joke. I'm just glad that everything's going to be okay (soon). This is my first post from the new headquarter, and (fingers-crossed) many more to come.

Happy Sunday!

the rocky 2011 and the hopeful me in 2012

Modern English has been rocking out "I Melt with You" on my stereo for a few rounds now as I have been staring at my computer screen with thoughts and words running around my huge head. Anyway, it's the first day of the year 2012 and here I am blogging. It's a productive year, I surely can tell you that!

At first, I felt that 2011 was a very dark and rocky year for me. Like, two weeks ago, my friend asked this out-of-nowhere question about whether I was (we were) happy. Honestly, I still have not been able to answer that question. I mean, at that time, of course I was extremely gleeful, hanging out with my fabulous mates. But I don't think I could describe my sentiments toward the whole year as a happy one. 

Then, as I was trying to remember a few highlights of the rocky year, I was brought to an understanding that it's not actually that horrible. Well, there are some good memories though. Here they are (I have altered them a few times, HAHA):

1. I got mugged which caused me quite a lot of financial loss. I seriously tried to make this point sound funny, but somehow it ended making me sound like a loser. However, the accident did teach me to indulge myself more, since I was often reluctant to spend money for me. So, it's a good lesson. 
2. Remember back in April, when there was this dispute with the MPAA regarding the movie tax which left us with no Hollywood movies for 3 - 4 months. All the available options were pocong and kuntilanak. So I can confidently say that's a very dark time for our cinematic history.
3. It's not easy to bring back all these memories of what happened in 2011, but this new layout of Facebook helped a lot. According to my Facebook, I added 106 new friends in 2011, which might be a small number for most of you, but trust me, it's a lot! 
4. My commitment to shave off my head was one of the big decisions I made also this year. I think it's going to be how I look for the rest of my existence. Although I must admit I am often offended when people call me "botak", which describes who I really am. But somehow, I find it offensive. I don't know why, maybe it's their voice tone. 
5. The delightful wedding of two of my high school friends, Asnih and Effendi. I cannot even put in words how sweet they are (yes, they are sweet!) and how wonderful the wedding was. Also my colleague, the always gorgeous miss Detty's wedding in November. And to friends with new babies this year: Lisa, Hana and Ernih. What a joy!
6. Bleki, the amazing Bleki was missing in March 2011 but then miraculously found. He was taken care by one of our neighbors in Pluit and this good person put out brochure in order to find the owner of Bleki. It's so rare and it's not something people normally do. God bless that woman.
7. It's also the year I returned to twitter and tweeted more than 5000 twits in 6 months. I was opinionated apparently. 
8. A break-up.
9. Farewell to my awesome boss, Bu Jenny and some good friends at work.
10. To be introduced to Ramen Hakata Ikkousha, which has been officially my favorite dining place.

Since 2011 was quite out of the rail, I decided to really not care so much about what I must achieve in this year. Although I have a few plans made, some good traveling plans (yes, you shall read them here), some good new acquaintances, reconnecting with some old friends, a new project at work which I'm quite excited about, plan to learning new stuffs and certainly be healthier. 

So, let me raise my glass and cheers to: a healthier life, a job we love, new and old friends, many great opportunities, good jokes, good movies (Prometheus in June 8, btw), good food, a healthy faith, good coffee, wonderful trips, roasted green tea (yes, Sisca!), Tom Cruise, Billy Crystal hosting the Oscar, freebies  (o yeah, sir!), budget airlines (I'm cheap, what can I say?), iPhone 5 and twitter!

Happy new year 2012!

my 7 favorite apps for ipad

This is probably my most subjective post by far. Come to think about it, can a blogger be objective? Really? But when it comes to things one like or dislike, there is no rule saying who can or cannot be subjective. It's a free world and everyone's opinion should be appreciated. 

You're probably thinking what I'm babbling about. Actually I'm again talking about making a list and this time it has something to do with a friendly device of mine, which I named Ripley (taken from one of the coolest fictional characters on the silver screen). See the picture above and yes, I look strangely weird. And again yes, I named most of my devices. My iPod's named Chopper, Chihiro for my flash-disk storage and for my Blackberry, it was The Material Girl, probably because it's the only song I have in that phone which automatically is its ringtone.

Anyway, enough about my craziness! I'm going to share with you the 7 applications for iPad which I personally like (currently, since Apps Store releases like 50 new apps each day) and they have successfully made me want to stay home all night. Please notice that the order of the list does not imply degrees of fondness.

Discover by Cooliris
Discover is a reference apps which acquires articles from Wikipedia. Each day, the apps picks one certain article and send it our devices.The coolest parts of the apps are we can actually refer terms that we might not be familiar to other articles and so on. Having Discover on Ripley makes me feel extremely smart and knowledgeable.

Editions by AOL
Almost like Discover, Editions is sort of like a magazine that makes us the editor. We decide what we want to read and the order we want to read it. The articles are from various of sources. Everyday the apps create a magazine based on our preference, even personalize it with your friends' birthday if we connect Editions to our Facebook. We can also share the articles we enjoy reading to our Facebook or Twitter account. I like Editions probably because of the nice layout although there are many apps that are quite similar (such as Yahoo! LiveStand).

iBooks
Yes, I know. I know. iBooks is just probably one of so many apps that exist for reading books. It's not even the first apps of them all. However, I must say that (again, subjectively) it might be the best of them all. The smoothness of page turning, the supports it provides to help you enjoy your reading such as reference, highlight, note-taking and bookmarking, it certainly make my reading (should be) much funner. I own more than 40 books and honestly I haven't started (or worse, finished) any of them yet.

Flipboard & Showyou
If your iPad does not have Flipboard or Showyou, you need to click on that Apps Store and start downloading. Like Discover and Editions, both Flipboard and Showyou acquire videos from many sources, includes your own twitter and facebook account (videos your friends posted), and many respectable channels. There a few channels in Showyou which I have spent many nights watching. Most of them are short movies, short animations and news.

EA's Monopoly
The first time I installed this apps, I stayed until 3am playing Monopoly. It's extremely addictive and fun. We can play the game alone against the computer or we can play it with our friends (maximum 4 players). I had to relearn all the rules all over again, but trust me, I have never been so mesmerized by any board games as I was by this apps. Now me and my friends have another board games to play when we are bored.

Domino's Pizza Hero
Graphically stunning. It is a bit silly if you seriously think about it. It doesn't make you any smarter or anything, but it was fun to pretend cooking pizza. And actually it's not easy! The pizza manager, I must say is not the easiest boss to please. He never likes my dough and how I arranged my toppings. Gee, I'll never be promoted (and Alex, it's only a game!).

There are many-many-many apps that are equally excited, beautiful and important. Unfortunately I have no plan to write an extremely long post, but you can look it up if you're in the same circle based on these 7 apps. Well, they are: Apple Trailers - for viewing the newest movie trailers, The Collection - which is a must have apps for all fashion designers, Yahoo! Into, Apple's GarageBand, Noteshelf.

Oh gee, I cannot stop. Anyway, I'm pretty sure you too have your own favorites, please share them! I would appreciate that. Thank you.

akhir pekan dan teh dari sisca

Saya sudah dari tadi duduk di depan komputer memandangi layarnya dengan berharap pada satu kesempatan, semangat saya tiba-tiba membara dan kemudian memotivasi semua organ motorik saya untuk berkreasi. Hati boleh berharap, namun kenyataannya setelah 1 kali sarapan, 2 potong kue, 1 cangkir kopi, 1 episod Masterchef US dan 1 film dengan durasi 100 menit, Nowhere Boy (yang mana adalah film yang baik), saya masih belum dapat disebut produktif.

Kembali ke film yang sempat saya tonton dalam usaha saya menjadi produktif di hari Sabtu ini, Nowhere Boy bercerita tentang kisah nyata masa remaja John Lennon. Tanpa bermaksud mengorelasikan segala sesuatu di sini, saya teringat salah satu kutipan dari Lennon yang lumayan popular, yaitu: "time you enjoy wasting was not wasted". HAHAHA, iya ini usaha saya untuk membenarkan aksi saya menikmati mendungnya Sabtu ini dengan tidak melakukan apa-apa. Hey, dolce far niente!

Sebenarnya saya berencana untuk keluar rumah dan menikmati keramaian di pusat belanja di dekat rumah, tapi apa daya, rasa malas ini kuat sekali apalagi didukung dengan mendungnya langit Jakarta siang ini. Selain rasa malas, jerawat sebesar jempol juga menjadi alasan yang kuat kenapa saya memutuskan untuk menempelkan pantat di rumah saja. Lagipula berjalan-jalan sendiri di akhir pekan akan seperti misi bunuh diri. Lalu kenapa saya tidak mengajak teman-teman saya untuk berjalan bersama? Alasan sebelumnya, yaitu jerawat sebesar jempol. HAHAHA. Dilema, dilema!

Oya, beberapa hari yang lalu, saya menerima hadiah-hadiah kecil (maklum hadiahnya banyak) yang mahal sekali dari sahabat baik saya yang terkasih, Sisca. 

Sebagai sesama peminum teh, saya mendapatkan 5 bungkus gula dari Gulaku dalam kemasan dengan corak Bali yang sempat membuat saya berdecak kagum dan sampai saat ini masih tersusun rapi di atas printer saya. Tidak rela saya pakai. Kemasan yang menarik ini kembali mengingatkan saya akan indahnya, beragam dan berwarnanya pulau Bali. Dalam konteks apapun perjalanan saya ke sana, saya selalu mengalami pengalaman-pengalaman yang menarik.

Nah selain gulanya, tentu saja saya juga mendapatkan tehnya. Teh yang diberikan oleh Sisca adalah teh dari China yang harganya mahal banget! Saking mahalnya, saya sampai saat ini masih belum rela membuka bungkusannya. Teh daun yang dalam bungkusan kedap udara itu bagi saya seperti seonggok emas, yang konon menurut Sisca hanya perlu sedikit untuk menghasilkan segelas teh. Jujur, saya masih tidak rela membuka bungkusannya. Mahal, bu! HEHEHE.

Yah, kalau Sisca, sang pemberi, membaca artikel ini, terima kasih, sekali lagi terima kasih!

Yah sudah, selagi  langit masih mendung dan hujan belum membasahi bumi, saya mau jalan-jalan dahulu yah. Nanti kita bersambung lagi. Eit, selamat berakhir pekan!