Large Hadron Collider

Yea, yea, I know, it's been almost a week since the first beam in the LHC launched. Yet, the mounting concern of whether what LHC would uncover is some sort of a Pandora's Box refused to deceased and although it's deemed most unlikely, the possibility that the first collision in 6-8 weeks could made a great rift in a time-space plane, fourth-dimension, and even could spawned a Black Hole threatened to cast our beloved Earth into an oblivion, a sure Doomsday, the final existence of humankind.

I spent almost a day on Friday to read about this LHC and its impact almost obsessively. PHD Comics had a pretty cool five part comics that explained this LHC. Wired.com had an article of FAQs about LHC in Twitter format (less than 140 characters) as well as a thorough long article. Wikipedia is of course, another reliable source on this subject. But, by far the most effective and entertaining explanation of LHC surely has to come from this hilarious rap song apparently sung by CERN's scientific members that worked closely in the environment.

Seven Habits of Highly Effective Developers

Found the slide on Scribd.
1. Understand the Problems
2. Use appropriate Tools
3. Strive for SIMPLICITY
4. Keep your code Clear
5. Learn to Debug
6. Leverage what is available
7. Continue to Learn

A Picture Worth a Thousand Words

Via Gizmodo

Missing the Obvious

I went into a silent chuckle after seeing this video.

Random Shorts (12)

Damn, i really missed my muse. I really need to experience good films to inspire me in writing. I had several half-cooked writing though, but none worth mentioned. Even I hated the last several posts of mine myself.

The content of this post would be exactly look like the content of the Random Shorts #10 in which i fired up my iTunes and play 10 tracks randomly. But this time, as an added twist (whoa.. the tension *shudder*) the first track is not randomized.

1. Porcupine Tree - Anesthetize - Fear of a Blank Planet
My first introduction to Steve Wilson's project was through this album even though that i had heard about this project for quite a while and Steve had started the project since the late 80's and had practically shunned every mainstream and pop influence to continue made music like we were still in the 70's. My initial thought was that i had burned a good US$ 9.99 for something i can't really fit into my preference. And how i was so wrong because it turns out that after several through and through appreciation, one of the song in this album, Anesthetize, a 17-minute epic song about the fear of 21st century, about MTV and its cold philosopy, is also one of my favorite song so far. The futuristic back-drop, the gloomy epilogue, and Alex Lifeson as a guest guitarist, provide this 17-minute epic with sobriety and audophile pleasure. Who is Alex Lifeson you say? Err.. stick to your MTV should you asked that question.

2. Norah Jones - Those Sweet Words - Feels Like Home
I remember seeing the video for this song in one morning (you know, where Norah Jones sits in a bar and when the song starts she went to the stage, lights dimmed, and sing the song, karaoke-style. It was sweet, because really, i had always seen her as a homie girl and in the video she looks just like a commoner, almost too shy to actually perform), and immediately went to local store to bought the album the very evening. After all these years, the song still manages to put a shiver within whenever i heard it.

3. Yoko Shimomura - Deep Jungle - Kingdom Hearts OST (Disc 1)
RPGamers only. If you had played the game - and liking it, there's a huge chance you'd fell for its soundtrack because it kinda reminds you of the particular experience. Otherwise, i won't bet on it. In this case, i remembered the music was from the most annoying world in the game. One where i had to constantly timed my jump in order to made that impossibly wide crevasses on a treetops.

4. Green Day - Armatage Shanks - Insomniac
One of only two Green Day albums that i had. I remembered back in 1996/1997, i saw the video for When I Come Around and bought this album (not Dookie, which i bought a couple of years later) and liking every bit of it.

5. Every Little Thing - Kazemachi kokoro moyou - Crispy Park
Love the jazzy part around its guitar solo part. And sometimes, when the mood is right, i could and would sing a long with it.

6. Bon Jovi - Lucky (Demo) - Cross-Road (Limited Edition Disc 2)
Ah! If you're around my age, and never heard of this album or this band during your high-school, then i couldn't even begin to tell you what you had been missed during those glorious years. And i felt sorry for you. Anyway, i had the casette back then when i was in high school, and i just bought the 2 Disc Limited Edition recently on an effort to reminiscence my glorious years as a high schooler, standing on the stage with a guitar in my hand and felt like nothing in this world is bigger or greater than me.

7. Europe - The Final Countdown - 1982-1992
I believe that at one point of every-one's life who had an access to TV in the 80's and 90's would surely had heard and familiar with its famous riff. It was a classic, and certainly the best known single from this Swedish band.

8. Kelly Clarkson - Where is Your Heart - Breakaway
For a reason, i found that i liked her album only for its 5 first tracks. This song is track #7 in the album. Yawn..

9. Queen - Put out the Fire - Hot Space
Just all right.

10. Muse - Hysteria - Absolution
When Muse did a concert in Jakarta, i bought this album together with "Black Holes and Revelation" to help me decide whether i would like to go see the concert or not. I was, however, ran out of ticket.

Random Shorts (11)

The update rate for this blog has been so agonizingly slow of late. I had no excuse for it, but i was indeed has been away for a couple of weeks. I went out of the island for a week or so, and went on a training immediately after. Thus, when i got back in the office, the work things piled up nicely on my desk which effectively forbade me to doing even a small update. Added to that, the film industry wasn't much talked about subject in these months. Alas, i was quite surprised that for two weeks i've been away and the very first thing i did when i was back is to check the local cineplex schedules, i don't feel like going to a movie nor was i missed anything important during my absence. I opted to dig my collection instead and spent almost an entire weekend for a Star Wars Episode I through VI marathon. And i feel geeky right now.

Further, probably due to the long travel - although i've been very very careful in handling it, as always - i've got a hairline crack on the corner left of my MacBook's palm rest. The first noticeable damage for 15 months. Well, i've been planning to buy a 17" MacBook Pro anyway so it doesn't really matter. But at first, it was annoying.

In the working world, I'm sure that someone has pointed it out, but it was my first experience. In my office, everyone has their own laptop. And regularly, every two years, these laptops were renewed and with every renewal, the first and foremost request from every user in my office was to completely migrate their emails from the old laptop to the new one. I usually delegated these menial tasks to my subordinate. Because really, it was his job description after all. However, he was called in sick in the last couple of days, so grudgingly, i have to do the migration myself.

If i could say so myself, I've been quite successful in influencing others to loathe Microsoft Vista and Microsoft Office 2007. My recent experience further established the fact that in terms of portability, Office 2007 and Vista won't get any recommendation from me. Even so, since the latest laptops were usually pre-installed with Microsoft Vista, i don't recommend my users to downgrade to XP - it was actually due to my general reluctance to waste my precious time to deal with the task. It was either use it or shove it. Another thing that my users often had a concern with was the Office 2007. Many times a day i got a call on my extension complaining to me (as if i was the one responsible for the creation of Office 2007) that they couldn't open a Word or Excel file a colleague sent them because the origin files were written and saved in an Office 2007 format, and all they've got to open the file is an Office 2003. Compatibility issues that therefore, i urged my users to use Office 2003 instead or if they insisted to use Office 2007, to save their documents as an Office 2003 document format. But yesterday, as i've said earlier, i experienced another compatibility issues involving these 'cutting-edge' technologies.

Everybody here, uses Microsoft Outlook (of course, everyone but me) to read their emails. And since everybody loved to keep their two-three years old emails whatever laptops they were using, it was usually their first and immediate concern regarding with the migration. It turns out that i can't import the emails to a Vista machine had i imported it to Microsoft Outlook 2003. At some point in the import process, the green bar of progress was just stopped, and sometimes the Outlook simply crashed. I spent most of my days dealing with the issue. Re-exporting doesn't worked, and reboot doesn't worked. The only solution i hadn't tried was to drop the laptop from a height. But i highly doubted that it would worked either. By chance, i found out that in the same machine, using the same previously exported emails, importing it to Microsoft Outlook 2007 worked flawlessly. Compatibility issues, friend.

Granted, Microsoft made its software, and software only. They left the implementation of the hardware on which their software runs to other parties and if there's a compatibility issues, that was more or less, acceptable. Unlike Apple with its Mac OS X, of course. They built the software and the hardware. Therefore, if a Macintosh machine runs an OS X shown even a little less reliability than they were normally known for so far, i would be the first to suggests that you should buy a WIndows machine instead. But of course, i'm using a Macintosh machine, and would planned to do so in an unforeseeable future which is a rather long word for saying, "incredible".

Had Microsoft built their own hardware, we might not have these issues every too often. But then again, we have a reported thirty percent failure rate for the XBox 360.

Random Shorts (10)

The idea of this post is a total rip-off from one of my favorite blog, Patrick Walsh. He is around my age, and one hell of a writer (well, because he IS a writer after all, one of Cinematical's staff, several newspaper and magazine articles about films to his credit, currently working on a television serie, had an IMDb entry, and if i'm not mistaken, had a film prepping sometime this year. Soo, in a way, i was kinda envious and kinda look up to him). Anyway, the idea was this. Fire up your iTunes (or what is it called? err... hold on... damn! i couldn't remember, it's on the tip of my tonuge.. what was it? Argh! Win.. um.. Win.. er.. Winamp! Ah, yeah, that's it! Winamp!). Soo.... it's either fire up your iTunes or that Win-thingies of yours, play it randomly, and name the first ten tracks that came out of it.

...

If anything, it should be sufficient as a filler to my usual Random Stuffs whenever i had absolutely no idea of what to write. Just like today.

1. Heart - Magic Man - These Dreams: Greatest Hits
Had i stretched my imagination thus far, i would be convinced that this song was a bluesy-twin to Crazy for You, also by Heart. However, i liked Crazy for You better.

2. Every Little Thing - Sure (Are You Sure Mix) - Eternity
Rrrrigggghtttt, never liked the song.

3. Queen - Las Palabras De Amor - Hot Space
Not among my favorite, but also not among my oftenly-skipped song.

4. Dream Theater - The Big Medley - A Change of Seasons
Ah, the memory. I bought the album back then in 1997 right at the very evening when my second brother was born. It was also the very first Dream Theater album that i bought. And fit to its title, the song was a medley of six classic songs covered by Dream Theater. Back then, the only recognizable part of this song for me is when they did a solo from Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.

5. Pain of Salvation - Spirit of the Land - One Hour by the Concrete Lake
This Swedish band, as far as i know, were always made their album a concept-album. This song was a 30-seconds intro to the album. The riffs would be repeated in various parts of the album. Great band, but of course, to listen to a concept album, one need to dedicate themselves thoroughly to listen to the entire album.

6. Queen - Play the Game - The Game
I louuve this song. "All you have to do is fall in love... and play the game".

7. Helloween - Before the War - High Live
This is the very first song that introduces me to the band. This song, and this album. Not my favorite, but once in a while when i needed a head-banger, this song was one of THE perfect tools to facilitate the need.

8. Queen - Who Needs You - News of the World
This song had a beach feels to it, and i love to put myself into believing that i was actually a Freddie Mercury's reincarnation and sing-a-long with it. Loudly.

9. Megadeth - Amerikhastan - United Abominations
Not my favorite Megadeth's album, not my favorite's track. It is one of those my oftenly skipped songs.

10. Helloween - Electric Eye - The Time of the Oath
A B-side to the awesome album of The Time of the Oath. My 2nd favorite album from the band after Better than Raw. It features a very very familiar riff that reminds me of the golden age of glam metal where ripped jeans, long hair, and leather jacket was 'in'. In a momentary quick glance, the song (probably because of the familiar riff) also reminds me to one of Power Metal song which sadly, i couldn't recall at all.

Random Shorts (9)

Yep. It is inevitable. With slow months in films, expect me to post a rather frequent random shorts.

Arsenal wins! Well, i'm not exactly an Arsenal fans, i was more happy to see Milan lose on their own ground. Oh, don't get me wrong. I used to be one of the AC Milan fan, but as the time grew, i see more and more people expressed their fanatics in excessive, i stopped being their fan. Oh, sure, Kaka is a tremendous player, and so was Gattuso, but when we're talked about the team in overall, fans were always involved. And i rather stay away from these fans for the time being. Further, i had always hated any soccer game whenever the lesser team wins. And if you asked me, performance-wise Arsenal was better than Milan in both legs of the match.

Anyway, my MacBook started to show some signs of aging and extended use not by much though, considering that on the peak of the day, i'm opening iTunes, Safari, several Adobe Reader, NetBeans, Mail, Scrivener, Transmission, TextMate and DbVisualizer all at once. But still, another Gigs of memory should helped and i rarely (read: never) had a free-space of more than 2 Gigs, added to the fact that i haven't restarted it for more than five days. Anyway, Apple said that i should retain 80% of my battery life after 300 cycles. I'm at 298 cycles now, and my battery health is still clocked in at 99%. With many news about the dysfunctional battery on the MacBook line all over the world, should i felt lucky as the one who spared the defected component? I guess so. Finally, a fan-boy rant on using Mac OS X, i found that going back to Windows, even if it's a Windows XP, was a painful experience.

I still want that MacPro though, and a 30" Apple Cinematic Display for a total of US$ 5000.

Random Shorts (8)

It's March now, and it's a pretty bad month for films. I had no interest in going to cineplex for the last couple of week, and quite confident that there won't be any interest enough to lure me out of my chair and went to the local theater probably as far as until May.

On a bright side, with plenty of non-weekend holidays this month, i think i had an idea of how to spent my time. I've made a simple promise that i'm going to leave this office before 2010. The simple hard truth with this company is, the more i learned of how things worked in this company, the more i felt hatred and discomfort of working here. And probably, given the pace of how things get worsened, i won't even made it to 2010. The future looks grim to this company, every steps they made, leads this company further to an abhorred failure and a losing competition. I won't go into details further than i had to. But one thing certain, i'm keeping my ears and eyes alert to a single most biggest client that this company had. Once this client had their very own network up and running, then it's only a matter of counting days before this company was forced to reduce expenses and employees. And of course, i need to think of my exit strategy should the day is looming closer. All those free time would gone to think of this exit strategy.

Well, first thing first though. Right now, all of my energy (and especially my money) went to my marriage plan.

On the implication of the need for an exit strategy, i had thought to take a full advantage on my sleep deprivation. On a normal working days, i usually slept for 5 to 6 hours. A not so long time ago, i used to sleep after three a.m and not really waking up before noon. I had disciplined myself to waking up (and stay awake) at six a.m every working days no matter how bad my last night's sleep was. It worked so far. Even though that i still granted myself a luxury for waking up fairly late during weekends, for the last seven months, i've never arrived at the office after seven a.m.

I'm an old school boy who thought that sleeping for eight hours daily is necessary. On the contrary, i found myself more exhausted on weekend than i am on a weekdays. I had taken light off it, attributed to an imagined fact that i had a sleep deprivation in the weekend only, although it sounded ridiculous. Until yesterday, when i read my favorite online magazine, Wired, i found this article about how to cheat on the need to sleep, hence, maximizing the quality rather than the quantity of sleep. Reading through the article, i stumbled upon another article about Dymaxian Sleep. On the article, the inventor - if we could say so - said that deep sleeping two hours a day is plenty. Hm, that was an interesting theory. After reading it, i decided to try it myself. I'm gonna tell you how's it going to be.

On the other note, the Internet was as you know it, had been down for the last couple of days, therefore i had just watched the last week's top 20 in American Idol season 7 only last night. Commenting on the guys, i had no favorite. Michael Johns gets no more vote from me, i found that he never really gets to where he sings Bohemian Rhapsody instead, he goes ever down hill from there. David Cook was too cocky, and somebody destroyed my all-time favorite Queen's song, Killer Queen, and i was more annoyed to the everyone's favorite, David Archuleta. Never liked the song Imagine, anyway. Shortly, none of the guys impressed me (except probably that dude with guitar). On the girls side, my my, Carly Smithson sings my favorite Heart's song. And she sings it very very very well. I'm officially convinced now that she's indeed the best voice of the herd. Brooke White was tremendeously beautiful. I really really fell in love with her eyes. And any girls who can sing and play guitar, gets my vote. Amanda Overmyer sings another one of my favorite song from the era, Carry on My Wayward Son. And to my dismay, she overdid the song. Never liked her in the first place anyway. As with the elimination, the only regret for me was to see Alexandrea gets the boot. I would rather had her in top 12 than Asia'h, or Kady, or Amanda. I guess in this kind of show, camera time, or how much the camera spent on you still holds the key factor to gets a vote. At this point of the show, i don't care which of the guys would gets the boot next. As for the girls, as long as Carly and Brooke made it to the top 12 which i think it would be rather impossible otherwise, everybody else was fair game.

Random Shorts (7)

Random TV ramblings.

Ever seen TV series lately? I'm not really a fan of a TV serie. I believe that i had pointed it out quite often that i can't really commit to stick to any TV episodes for more than several episodes let alone several seasons. So yup, Lost, Heroes, or whatever TV series that people had said that they were good, and would give nothing to missed its single episode hadn't really caught my attention. Heck, i'm not even finished with Lost season 1 and Heroes season 1. Alas, i had my share of TV series. Deadwood, for instance. Awesome Western, awesome cast, an R-rated series that doesn't think highly of itself (see: Heroes). But i just only seen the first season and never really stepped further than that. Dexter, is another. Another R-rated series about murder, another one that doesn't think highly of itself. And i've been planning to sit through for another season (season three). Pushing Daisies, is another, but probably won't go further than season one. Given if, the writers after three months strike decided to back to work on its next episodes.

The problem with TV series is that they tend to relies on its viewer that often they retained the previous seasons' experience. That irked me. Whenever, say, i stumbled upon a twelfth episode of Lost season three, having only seen several first episodes of season one, i would completely lost. Literally. In order to really enjoyed the experience, i would have to look for the previous seasons. A complete waste of time if you asked me. That's why i prefer independent TV series, a comedic ones that in order to enjoy a single episode, you won't have to attain a knowledge beyond its basic set-up. Friends, for instance, you'd only need to know all of its six characters. The Simpsons, is another, where you'd only need to know each of the member of The Simpsons family. And reality shows. To merely commit to single season for a reality show? I could really afford that.

I've been eye-ing for two reality shows these days. Survivor season sixteen, Fans vs Favorites, and American Idol season seven.

Survivor is always my favorite reality show. I mean, better than average host (Jeff Probst), engaging games, tribal councils, and girls in skimpy bikinis? What's there not to like? But, for sixteen seasons, i could count only two seasons where i follow through its episodes for the whole season. Survivor sixteen has recently sent its third contestant home and for three episodes, it gets better. In my book, an episode of Survivor is at its best when you don't know who is the name of the contestant that pulled out from the votes. And for the last two episodes, it did just that.

American Idol claimed to had its best season so far. Previously, i never really get into American Idol before its best six, or seven. And for the previous six seasons, Kelly Clarkson is the only Idol winner that i really did genuinely like. I had her first album, by the way, to show how much i liked her. For the seventh season, i had my ears on since the first episode. Alas, there's only four contestants so far that were my favorite so far. Brooke White. Her pale-complexion, framed by a pale yellow curly hair, her casual sense of style (not too skimpy, not too sexy, just ordinary), and her clear blue eyes won me over right since the day one. My girlfriend had this question mark above her head when i said that she was my favorite. Apparently, she didn't quite like her as much as i do. Or she's simply jealous. Carly Smithson. Flatly, the consistently best voice of the herd (well, probably because that she has a considerably more camera-time than any other contestants. Only time would tell wether she was a really the best voice of the herd. But, this far, i would said and let it be that way). Ramiele Malubay and finally, Michael Johns. Anyone who could sing Bohemian Rhapsody, or any other song sung by Freddie Mercury, and didn't prompt me to frown my eyebrow would get my vote. By default.

Random Shorts (6)

I spent almost an entire evening reading Hanung's blog regading his next film, Ayat-Ayat Cinta. The film has seen and missed many deadlines. I'm not entirely keen on any Indonesian film schedule so i had really assumed that the Valentine's day's slot at February 14th - which rather unappropriate really, considering the breath of this film wasn't exactly inlined with Valentine's day - but then, it was slated for February 28th, 2008 instead. Further look into the various forums informed me that this wasn't the first time the film had seen a pushed date. Anyway, that is what led me to Hanung's blog. A versatile director, if you asked me, and the only director who had the distinction of being the only Indonesian director whose one of his film i legally owned the DVD.

Ayat-Ayat Cinta was adapted from a book with a same title, this book is supposedly a highly popular book and effectively translated into 'hip', 'pop' and 'you-are-not-cool-if-you-had-not-read-it-yet' nowadays. Especially with a film coming up. This is not a review of either, anyway, because i had no interest in the film whatsoever. Somehow, the film's promotional poster irked me, rubbed me in a wrong way, and i had simply decided that i won't lose or missed anything by not seeing this film. Call me a simple, but i think that in a way, for me, film is like a food. You need to fall in love with it at a first sight before you decided to take a bite.

I was mostly oblivious and ignorant when it comes to Indonesian author. I had tried, several times actually, to read some works that were deemed prominent by many and meet a certain standard to get acknowledged by the public (Dee, Ayu Utami, and Andrea Hirata, for example). None impressed me. The only author that i was rather interested in was Eka Kurniawan. And he doesn't even get mentioned by many. His works were rather surreal and slap-in-your-face that almost, ALMOST remind me of Seno Gumira Ajidarma. I'm not a critic, by the way, i just read a lot, and knows what i like and don'ts. So probably, some of you won't entirely agreed to the comparison i just made. But, let it just be like that, okay? Let just agreed to disagree.

Anyway, as i was saying, the book was a highly popular. The comments on its sleeve pompously making a statement that the book simply outsell Harry Potter, among others. And if you knew me at all, the more things get popular, the less i was interested. My girlfriend, out of her curiosity that everybody she knows were talked about it and highly anticipated the film, took a book from one of her co-worker and, an avid reader she is, she read the first chapters, randomly picked the middle chapters, and read the end chapters. That's how she read books, anyway, to actually decide wether it is worthy to spend her time to actually read the book. She mocked the book, stripped it by its spine and literally laughed at it. And of course, since you know that the book was supposedly to made you cried, to get laughed at wasn't exactly be a good sign. Maybe it's just my girlfriend's taste. She doesn't really liked a story that was too descriptive, nor was she really into a sort of drama that tried too hard to conceal and prolonged the inevitable and supposedly twisted-ending. But, hey, it's your words against hers. Should be easy to see whence my allegiance lies. After all, it further confirms my suspicions that the book wasn't really up to its hype.

Finally, as much as i respected Hanung and sympathized with the ... challenges he faced during the shooting of this film, i think that it is safe to say that i won't be in any line waiting to see this film. Because from what i had read from his blog, this film faced many obstacles that i believed has marred Hanung's original envision of the project. Granted, his passions were palpable, and that should count on something. But of course, it'd still a long shot to convince yours truy here. Unless, i really had nothing else better to do when the film hit the theater widely.

Anyways, the recent trend of Indonesian films were seemingly heading into the right direction. Sure, we'd still too many teenage screamers or 'tear-jerkers-wannabe'. At least too many to my liking, but it would seems that we should see some improvements along the way. Ayat-Ayat Cinta probably, probably one of the first of these improvements. Some friends of mine who had seen the film was really satisfied (though, i'm still not interested). And surprisingly, Love (a film, titled 'Love', released recently, appropriately at the Valentine's Day), based from what i heard from my friends at the office who had seen the film was a surprisingly a felt-good film that features some memorable performances. Well, of course, since my friends at the office were mostly female at the age of 25-ish, that shouldn't be counted. Then there's this film called "Babi Buta Yang Ingin Terbang" (The Blind Pig that Wishes to Fly), and then further back, there's a film called "Fiksi" (Fiction) which credited as written by Joko Anwar. If anything, i would keep an eye on the Indonesian films, though not necessarily excited about them. Yet.

Random Shorts (5)

It's Friday! And believe it or not, i luuve Fridays. I mean, how can you not love Fridays? We had two consecutive holidays immediately ahead and the fun starts almost immediately after you check-out from the office. That is, of course, applied if you're one of the white-collar worker with a very much pre-deterministic daily working hours, just like me. Further, i was epsecially enthusiastic with Friday beause my daily-work activities were dull, numbing, and sucks. Well, it still is the easiest job i've ever did, and since i just recently had a 'promotion' (my monthly-stipend prior to the 'promotion' was already far than enough to get me through the month with sufficient savings), it wasn't exactly a good conscience in my soul had i complained.

Anyway, my Friday nights were usually a caffeine-induced gaming sessions or film sessions. This week, i had planned to screened - you see how pretentious, and self-important i was? Using the word screened - several Oscar-esque films, Michael Clayton - whoah! Finally! I had seen the first thirty minutes of the film, and i decided that i would need to rewind the film. Tilda Swinton is great, by the way. And George Clooney was in his tired and detached look which i adored more, way more than his usual flamboyant look -, Away From Her, La Vie en Rose, and Eastern Promises. And i still had several books to finish, several projects hobbies to shape-up. Whoa! No sleep for the wicked.

On Saturday, there's a new film arrived in our local theater. Jumper. It's a film about "that guy who could teleported". I've read the book, review here, and liked its character, and in various parts, could found a small attachment to him. I've read the synopsis of the film, read several reviews, and rather pessimistic with the overall outcome of the film. First off, the film was action-oriented. I had pointed out in my review that in the book, the third and final act of the book was action-oriented and i don't like it. I never liked Hayden Christensen anyway, Sam L. Jackson was a bit overused if you asked me, his film choices of late weren't among my favorites. But of course, comparing to the alternatives, (P.S I Love You, insert -any-recent-Indonesian-films-here) we obviously had the clear winner over which film i should seen tomorrow.

Sunday, of course, Sunday is a sleep day. Have a nice weekend.

Random Shorts (4)

This week begins with a bang. The death of the longest President ever reigned in Indonesian's history, Mr.Suharto, had taken up almost every slot of TV programs (news or not) for a couple of days in the wake of his death for a couple of days. I was on the road during the moment of his death, and notified by my girlfriend about the event by phone. She was deeply mourned the loss, and i had a great time mocking her for that.

Granted, he was no saint, and not perfect (and what man does?), and had his flaws, but in his long history something good are bound to attributed solely to him. Further, in a quick and simple thinking, i'd say that most of Indonesian citizens would be glad to recount the economically strong and rapid developing country that is Indonesia. Illusion or not.

I had prepared to write something thoughtful about it. And probably had came out with a decent post about it. But, simply because i can't squeeze a time to actually sit and wrote it down, i had totally lost the train of thought and his death was mourned by one blogger less - of course, i wouldn't thought that it would be missed much. I was bemused with how the media drive the opinion toward the deceased. Shortly after his death, a montage of news was showing his accomplishments that all of his faults (if any) that has been the main subject of his overthrown from the presidential chair in 1998, and ensued for almost ten years afterwards seems irrelevant. That's the power of media. You want to kill a man's career? It's easy if you ruled the media.

Just the other day, my President Director personally returned his Vaio TZ-series (running Vista), because it was too-slow. He reverts to his old Pentium III (!) ThinkPad running an XP. Damn! Talk about technology. His Vaio TZ-series is not the only one in the office that runs in an unsatisfactory manner. There are at least two more unsatisfied customer in the office. One practically annoying problem i found with Vista running on Vaio is somehow, the Internet Explorer can't run a .NET infested script properly. My office had a web-based portal application that builds primarily on .NET and Microsoft SQL Server running in an Windows 2000 server. Everyone in the office should and would access this portal time and again. Hence, accessibility is a prime issue. Before these TZ-series arrived, no complaints were ever issued regarding with this portal.

I had compared the Internet Explorer settings in my Toshiba with ones in the TZ-series. In short, i had tried to emulate as close as possible every security settings in my Toshiba with this troubled TZ-series. The result, i still could run a portal application with a default security setting, standard add-ons, standard anti virus precaution in my Toshiba. But not with the TZ-series. The only solution that worked was to put EVERY Internet Explorer's security setting in the TZ-series at its lowest AND JUST THEN it could run the portal application. All i could do is just shake my head. Sure these Vaio looks cool, weighs a nay, and taut a steep price. But, if it couldn't run a Microsoft .NET powered web application with Microsoft SQL Server running on a Microsoft Windows 2000 server, executed through Microsoft Internet Explorer running under Microsoft Windows Vista properly without a heavy tampering, why would you spend US$2000+ to it? Might as well donated it to an orphanage.

Hm, the problem probably resides in Vista. But Microsoft had claimed that Vista is running more safely than any other Operating Systems out there. Yea, right. If by safe you mean i-don't-want-to-run-this-web-for-it-runs-a-safe-script-because-i-was-too-lazy-to-actually-work-on-it-and-instead-said-to-you-that-this-web-is-not-safe.

Random Shorts (3)

Earlier this year, Warner Bros has announced that they would shortly went to Blu-Ray exclusive later this year. Many believed that this would be the death sentence of HD-DVD thus ending the so-called Format war. Yesterday, Toshiba (as one of the remaining supporter of HD-DVD) retaliate by cutting the prices of the HD-DVD hardwares it owned. Amazon also slices off 50% of the HD-DVD titles on their shelf. I believed that HD-DVD will go down, but apparently it won't go down without a fight. If Apple loads its newest MacBook (Pro) and MacPro line with Blu-Ray, then that would be the nail in the coffin for HD-DVD. Why does it matter, you say? Well, i wanted to buy one of those next-gen media player for quite some time but with the war ever raging on, it is wiser for me to wait at the sideline and see which side came out as a winner. Since apparently Blu-Ray will win the war, i've been eye-ing the price tags on the Blu-Ray player. And oh, Sony PlayStation 3 as well. Blu-Ray format was suggested by Sony, incorporated in its PlayStation 3, whilst HD-DVD format was suggested by Microsoft, incorporated in its XBox 360.

Earlier this year, there's an interesting article on MarketWatch about the inevitable death of printed media swept in a swift of broadband internet. It's sad but it's truer than true that we could easily get faster, better, and more reliable news from the Internet rather than from weekly or monthly printed issue of a magazine. The fact was also mocked at the latest The Simpsons episode (season 19 episode 9 or 10, i forgot which). And yesterday, a saddening report came from England where it's reported that "The Sun", for the first time in 33 years had its lowest circulation in a history with only less than 3 million copies a day. This report indicates that it was indeed inevitable that the printed news (magazines, newspapers, and stuffs) would bow down for an exit anytime soon. I believed that unless the magazine relies more on a photoshoots and pictures rather than newest update around the globe, such as that of National Geographic or Playboy, the death of a printed magazine was indeed inevitable.

And finally, I've been prepping for reviews to these following films:
- 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
- Platoon (1986) - It gets better every time
- Raising Arizona (1987)
- Superbad (2007)
- The Evil Dead (1981)

Random Shorts (2)

This is where i degraded myself into when i yet again, violated my commitment to provide a daily update to this blog.

Just found out that for some reasons, my download rates where way way faster with my own MacBook rather than with the company's provided Toshiba (running Vista).

Just bought my wedding ring (hooray!) and a set of jewelry for my girl-friend, finally settled on a date of our wedding, made a down payment to the venue for the grand occasion, and pray that nothing befouled our future plan.

Somebody attacked our mail server and thus rendered our mail useless for the greater period of the day. Our guy at the network services and maintenance division are currently working out for the solution. None had worked so far tough, and who gets to blame for the accident? Of course, us. Though mail server was never ever put under the jurisdiction of our division.

My former office-mate told me that they're currently heading the Ruby direction. Well, good luck guys. Come to think of it, even if i had only worked at the said office for a short 4 months (the shortest period of work i've ever committed), that office was still the best place - in terms of working environments when no money was involved - that i've ever worked at.

The company's general stakeholder meeting is looming ahead. One thing certain about that meeting, we'd see a new Board of Directors in the company and could be the key point in me for making any decisions regarding my future in this company. Another thing from that meeting that wasn't certain yet but certainly has become one of the prominent hope of me and fellow employees nowadays where of course, yearly bonus. If anything, it would certainly helped the financing of my wedding. One could only hope, though, one could only hope.

Random Shorts (1)

Some things that had happened around me today.

Had initially planned to do some morning jog. But when i woke up, it was raining outside and i figured that i would look stupid had i jogged through the rain. Went to the office at 7 a.m, and practically shivering through the early hour. Hadn't seen any sun for the whole day, and news has it that there were some cases of flooding in various area in Jakarta happened already.

We (me and my gf) had finally picked a date for our wedding. Just the date though, we still had to look for the venue's availability on that date. Further, we had our eyes on one and only one venue that would become the place where we're going to hold our wedding. Therefore, if the venue is not available on that date, it's going to be a big problem. Anyway, the date was Thursday. Odd, eh?

According to Javanese custom, my gf had a strength of 16 and i'm only 12. Does it matter?

My first working day at 2008. Spend the most of the day, backing up the application's data for the year 2007, put them somewhere safe, and started each application with zero data. Not exactly the brightest job in the world, but at least it's well paid.

Just learned that one of my friend at my former office was just married, and another one was just broke up with his girl friend for three years. Never thought that they would break up, but you never know.

Blogwalkings. Amusing myself with some film-related blogs which incidentally consists of 'what's hot' and 'what's not' in 2007. At cinematical, it was agreed that the year 2007 was the best year in film since 1999. On the contrary, James Berardinelli said that it was the worst year in film for the last several years. I stand with cinematical. It has been a good year in film this year, at least, easily better than 2006. I used to think that James Berardinelli was a reviewer whom taste and reviews generally agreed with mine. For the last couple of years, however, i tend to disagreed with him. A lot. Is it because i need to look for some other reviewers whose reviews best reflected my general taste? Or is it because i had developed some solid sense in me when it comes to writing reviews? I sincerely hope that it was the latter.

Gotta Love Batman

You gotta love Batman and Warner Bros. for pulling yet another magnificent marketing stint regarding the next Batman films, The Dark Knight. There's already a website for The Gotham Times and the supposedly Batman's next super-villain, everyone's favorite, Joker was at it again with his own version of The Ha Ha Ha Times. If anything, this marketing stint makes me even curious about wether Heath Ledger would be able to shoulder the responsibility of being everyone's favorite villain, Joker. Because really, if we see these marketing stints Warner Bros. has been put us through, it's natural to expect that the Joker would be some kind of mind-fuck freak. A Joker that doesn't hesitate to kill, and laughing while doing so. Brrr... can't wait. Really.

I've Got to See This

This is probably my most wanted film that i wish to see in the year 2007. Ever since i heard of its conception and limited screening in various horror festival via the good guys at Cinematical, i've been on a close watch to the film and had a considerable expectation that the film would be screened at Screamfestindo. Tough luck. But, maybe, maybe, the guys behind Screamfestindo had a keen sense as well and put the film in a Surprise movie. Now, that is when i would rightfully said, more than ever, "it made my day". The image shown here is the second poster of the film, and i liked it way better than the first one. So much that i had decided to dedicate this whole day's post to express my desire to see this film.

Here's a keyword to what the film was about, vagina dentata which in itself consists of two individual widely known items, vagina and dentata. Go figure.