Made a mistake on yesterday post about this year's Macworld Expo. I had thought that the (in)famous Steve Jobs' Keynote was live last midnight (Jakarta time) which means we could see what was in the Air for Apple, Inc. Instead, the Keynote was going to live tonight. So, no news about that "There's Something in the Air" until tomorrow.
Image courtesy of Engadget.
Quite probably, for us, Macintosh users, there's a single annual event that most anticipated and celebrated. Macworld Expo. In the next few hours, Steve Jobs - most likely the most celebrated person in anything Apple - would open this Expo with his already 'trademark'-ed turtle-neck and a bottle of water opening, famously known as Steve Jobs' Keynote. There are already various websites that dedicated itself to bring a live, up-to-a-minute report of his Keynote. But of course, as with any other Apple event, the most anticipated news would've been what was inside Steve Jobs' sleeve. Over the year, we've heard about iPhone and Leopard. Now the rumor has it that for this year's Macworld Expo, we're going to see a new ultra-thin MacBook line-ups. The news was still uncertain because Apple Inc. as usual, keep a hush-hush shh-shh about what has going on. But alas, with millions of people attentively ogled for the news relating to the event, some info - best taken with a grain of salt - are bound to leaked. Thus, the image on this post which shown a 'oh-my-god' so-thin MacBook Air. The image also said that Cables not included. According to some sites, the best - though probably unlikely - we could expect is that the new MacBook, besides that it was paper-thin (and enough to made me drool) would featured no cable. That means, Wireless USB! No cable power adapter (inductive charging), and totally completely Wireless Connectivity. If it's true, then i would've begged my girl-friend to buy this new MacBook. And by the way, Apple has already patented its own Inductive Charging which means, that inductive charging, i.e no need to wired the cable to plug into a power socket wasn't that much away from reality.
Disclaimer: This post compiled from various rumor sites about Apple Inc. and thus best taken with a grain of salt.
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Already agreed by many as the most pathetic Golden Globe award in recent history. We all knew about the Writer's Strike that has been going on since .. i don't know .. September? October? . And, even though some studios had settled a renewed their deal with these writers, due to this strike, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has decided to announce this year's Golden Globe Award winners via a press conference. That means, no televised ceremony, no red carpet, no nothing. Anyway, you know the nominees, here's the announced winner.
Best Supporting Actress - Cate Blanchett (I'm Not There)
Best Animated Feature Film - Ratatouille
Best Actress (Musical or Comedy) - Marion Cotillard (La vie en Rose)
Best Supporting Actor - Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men)
Best Director - Julian Schnabel (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly)
Best Actor (Musical or Comedy) - Jhonny Depp (Sweeney Todd)
Best Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy) - Sweeney Todd
Best Original Song - Guaranteed (Into the Wild)
Best Actress (Drama) - Julie Christie (Away from Her)
Best Actor (Drama) - Daniel Day Lewis (There Will be Blood)
Best Screenplay - Joel & Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men)
Best Original Score - Atonement
Best Foreign Language Film - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Best Motion Picture (Drama) - Atonement
Hm, is Atonement really that good? Well, anyway, it's not much of a surprise regarding the winners, given the manner in which the award was held, it certainly not nearly enough sparked the interest in me. After all, when it comes to films, i had already grown passed the award-hype.
Singin' in the Rain. Film Review. On more than one occassion had i expressed my inclination love toward the magic that is musical films. And as hard as i tried to look into the history of the cinema, i was having a considerable difficulties in trying to find any one of musical films that i hadn't liked. Anyway, some (even many) critics had put this film among the top film of all-time. At any length, i won't deny the claim nor approve of it for fear that i won't made a fair assumption given my inclination in favor toward musical films.
And oh, i luuuuuv tap dance. And since Singin' in the Rain collides these two activities (singing and tap-dancing) into one of the utmost enjoyable film i've ever seen, it should've been no wonder at all if i said that this film is at a very least, the best musical film ever made by Hollywood. Although of course, given the premise that this film incorporates two elements that i liked very much to a point where it felt incredulous and ridiculous, such statement would and should be at best, regarded with a grain of salt. However, please allow me to back up my opinion with deeper thoughts than such which i've already said.
The film, aside from it being from Hollywood, was all about Hollywood during the transition era from silent film to incorporate audio. This transition allegedly become a grim reaper for actors whom even though had enduring a significant fame during the silent era failed to pronounce the acceptable diction required to survive the dawn of the sound era. Such actor was presented by Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) a typical shallow-blond-and-famous actress in this film. She was pushed by the studio as the leading lady and a companion façade to everyone's favorite actor, Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) whose roots and - probably - preferences lies in dancing and singing. In a flahsback scene, Don recounts his journey to fame with his long friend Cosmo Brown (Donald O'Connor) when they clawed themselves up from comedy musicians to where they are now.
It clearly shows that Don can't stand Lina even though he has to manage their united, romantic front to fans who adored him beyond reasons. In one of the adoring moment, Don had to escape from his voracious fans and stumbled upon a lively and honest Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds) who as it turns out had a significant talent in dancing and singing. Don immediately attracts to Debbie, and she would later comes into play to the relationship both career-wise and personal-wise with Don when there arose a need to dub Lina's voice into their first ever talking film. From here on, the film went the right away we all know and totally familiar with. No surprises.
The strength of this film was of course lies in the singing and dancing sequences (coreographed by Gene Kelly himself, among others). One of the most remembered scene of the film, there'd be no doubt about it, was when Gene Kelly, with an umbrella in his hand, grinning happily not unlike that of a teenager just smitten with a first love, singing the eternal song which also become the title of this film under the shower of rains. However, my favorite dancing scene, had you asked me about it right now, was "Good Morning" where Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, and Debbie Reynolds did a trio tap-dancing.
Aside from that, the casts were perfect. Debbie Reynolds, just eighteen when she landed the role able to emanates the energy, innocence and curious beauty needed for the Kathy part. Donald O'Connor had a very magnificent solo dancing scene during "Make 'Em Laugh" scores. And Gene Kelly, should i say anything more about him? The word "Singin' In The Rain" would forever attached along to his name. Forever.
If you like me, had a penchant to musical film, you must give this film a chance. I had a brief argument with my gf about which one is better, "Sound of Music" or this film. She stood with the former, and i stood with this film because this film is about Hollywood, and it was certainly a much lighter film to enjoy than "Sound of Music". Is it one of the best film of all-time? I would again, as with the case of Citizen Kane, refused to answer the question. But, is it one of the best musical film of all-time? Yes, certainly. Not merely one of, but in my opinion, this film was indeed the best musical film of all-time.
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.
A Good Woman. Film Review. A little bit of background before i went into the reviews. I had several stacks of films in my room (around eleven - twelve). Each stack consists of 20 to 40 titles, ordered alphabetically. And a very good portion of it hadn't had a chance to spin into my disc chamber (less pretentious words and more straight to the point, i hadn't seen most of the films i had). So, i had decided to pick-up the first stack and eat through it. A Good Woman (i made a newbie mistake by putting A Good Woman into an 'A' section rather than 'G' section) was the first film of this stack i happened to chose from. And i had really no idea about the film beforehand. Not even who the actors were in the film.
It started slow, but it turns out to be one film that i'd like to suggest if you had a spare time, and had a thing about drama. In my old rating system, i'd give the film a solid three stars.
The film was relatively unknown by the time of its release. However, a year after its initial release, the film was finally seen the light of day. And i had guessed and i persumed i had guessed correctly that the film was just did so because none other than voluptuous white-hot Scarlett Johansson after attained some kind of recognition through her previous Lost in Translation. I was surprised as well when she made her first appearance on this film.
Based on an Oscar Wilde's play "Lady Windermere's fan", the film told the story of an American woman, Mrs. Erlynne (Helen Hunt) whose ill reputation made her no stranger among the wealthy married-women. When her reputation owned her, she went to Italy where she met with Lord Windermere whose newly wed with Meg (Scarlett Johannson). She quickly gains reputation among the gossipers. But was she really what she is? Meanwhile, Lord Darlington seen the possibility of Lord Windermere's infidelity, didn't waste time to jump with the gossip wagon for his own good - he, like any men should, had his eyes on Meg. And there's also a wealthy aristocrat (the ever-venerable Tom Wilkinson)
The essence of the film was that there's a secret that accompanies Mrs. Erlynne's visit to Italy. And the fact that the film left with not all the characters understood the secret made the film stand above most and provided some kind of a reward for my patience. Aside from that, the dialogs were witty and (often hard) very enjoyable to follow. A fact that i found out later that the film's script kept most of the original dialogs written by Mr. Oscar Wilde intact.
As long as i remembered, though i haven't seen many of her movies lately, this is Helen Hunt's most memorable performance. I loved her expression when she did her very last scene with Meg. It was a mere flick of an eye, but my, what an expression. And this said scene which appropriately put at the near end of the film that elevates my general mood toward the film in general. Scarlett Johansson is at her usual self. Her attractive (and not to mention, inviting) persona easily kept her presence memorable. Although told be truth, i haven't seen any difference in the film as with her other roles.
OFCS stands for Online Film Critics Society. These guys, whose names includes James Berardinelli and Scott Weinberg from Cinematical, are at least passionate about movies, publishing hundreds of reviews every year, and as most of their members, if not all, were geographically (and financially) possible to attend prominent film festivals, had their hands to the most rare films which i could only wait for the DVD to be released, thus, made me drooled over their professional occupations and had become the object of my desire for the last several years.
Anyhoo, as one who wishes to pretend that i could be distinguished as one of the film passionate (for disclaimer, i just did this for my own fun and benefits, though of course the idea of watching movies for mere fun and relaxing experience was not entirely true when applied to me. Pathetic as it may sounds, but i had always thought that watching movies were more of a job to me, a job that i really loved that is) i was more interested than their best of the year 2007 nominees than any other similar awards. So, here goes.
Picture
Atonement
Juno
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
Zodiac
Up until now, i haven't really appreciate Zodiac for what it's worth. I might had to check for the film this weekend. Juno is of course has been receiving many hypes over the globe, no chance that it would arrive on local theaters though, as with There Will Be Blood. Seen No Country for Old Men at the Jakarta International Film Festival, really wishes to see more. Hopefully those local cinema's authorities would stop bringing junk films to the theater and start bringing some really good stuffs. A quick look to local theaters' schedules confirmed my suspicion. They still bringing junk films. I mean, who would want to see Alien vs Predator Requiem? If you loved Alien or Predator - which in my case, i stood with Predator. The first one, not the second one - and had seen the first Alien vs Predator film, you'd be insane.. totally insane if you lined up to see the film. Had refused to see Atonement at the Jakarta International Film Festival, and still hadn't really thought of giving it a chance.
Director
Paul Thomas Anderson - There Will Be Blood
Joel & Ethan Coen - No Country for Old Men
David Cronenberg - Eastern Promises
David Fincher - Zodiac
Julian Schnabel - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
David Cronenberg is one of my favorite director. As was Joel & Ethan Coen. However, Mr.Cronenberg's works were less accessible to me than Coen Brother's. Just like the last year (or was it a couple of years ago?) A History of Violence, which in my memory had no chance at all to arrive in the local theater, Eastern Promises which already notoriously famous because of Viggo Mortensen's lengthy fight scene (nude!) wouldn't had any chance to arrive at the local theater. They would still opted for a teenage friendly kind of film. No offense to the teenagers out there, but really, most of our local teenagers here were bunch of loud noises. They are more than willing to spent their parent's hard-earned money to a total rip-off of Final Destination film and cursing (CURSING!) when they seen No Country of Old Men. A contemptuous feeling with solid argument would more than a welcome to me rather than the old 'if it wasn't loud, than it wasn't good' which apparently still held true to these kids.
Actress
Julie Christie - Away From Her
Marion Cotillard - La Vie En Rose
Angelina Jolie - A Mighty Heart
Laura Linney - The Savages
Ellen Page - Juno
Actor
George Clooney - Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis - There Will Be Blood
Emile Hirsch - Into the Wild
Frank Langella - Starting Out in the Evening
Viggo Mortensen - Eastern Promises
Supporting Actor
Casey Affleck - The Assasination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem - No Country for Old Men
Philip Seymour Hoffman - Charlie Wilson's War
Hal Holbrook - Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson--Michael Clayton
Javier Bardem has been getting the nods for Supporting Actor literally everywhere. Understandable, when he could really turn the audience into gasping whenever his character appears on screen, that accentuates his showmanship.
Supporting Actress
Cate Blanchett - I'm Not There
Jennifer Garner - Juno
Kelly MacDonald - No Country for Old Men
Saoirse Ronan - Atonement
Amy Ryan - Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton - Michael Clayton
Again, another film that won't be coming this side of equator. But rumor has it that if you're not a fan of Bob Dylan, don't see I'm Not There. I'm really not a fan of Bob Dylan. In fact, as far as i know of, i had never heard any of Bob Dylan's song.
Original Screenplay
Kelly Masterson - Before The Devil Knows You're Dead
Steven Knight - Eastern Promises
Diablo Cody - Juno
Tony Gilroy - Michael Clayton
Brad Bird - Ratatouille
Adapted Screenplay
Christopher Hampton - Atonement
Ronald Harwood - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Joel & Ethan Coen - No Country For Old Men
Paul Thomas Anderson - There Will Be Blood
James Vanderbilt - Zodiac
I skipped the technical nominees as they were not yet become the area of my expertise comfortable zone.
My favorite shopping mall in Jakarta is Plaza Indonesia. First, because it's relatively less crowded than most, if not all, shopping mall in Jakarta. Plaza Indonesia was indeed designed only to the 'haves', a socio-group where money was rarely an issue. Despite the immediate evidence, there were in fact many rich folks here in Jakarta. Students and average salary man such as myself would feel a little bit out of place here. Just like a dirty little spot of dust, uncleanable yet utterly visible upon a beautiful girl's face, which otherwise as smooth as a baby's butt. Second, and probably the only reason, and has been so for as long as i remembered, Plaza Indonesia had three import book stores. And the fact that it only took me seven minutes to get there made it even better.
I followed a strict path, an never altered path, up to a point where i could reenacted the path effortlessly even if you draped a fold of cloth upon my eyes, when i visited Plaza Indonesia. It was straight to the basement level from the entrance, browse through Askara - the first book store -, then out, follows the smells of bread emanates from the BreadTalk's booth, took a left turn in front of it and enter Periplus - the second book store. Then, out, back upstairs a couple of level, making a moment's stop at one of the Apple authorized reseller store, passed the DairyQueens' booth then another level upward to arrive at the third book store, Kinokuniya, then went home or crossing the road to get to Blitz Megaplex for watching movies. If you asked me about how to get to a Louis Vuitton's or Gucci's booth, i wouldn't know shit about it. Because really, aside of the fact that i only went to Plaza Indonesia to buy books, spending millions on a woman hand-bag or a pair of pants has yet passed into something reasonable in my mind.
Having these book stores really comes in handy. As a mere consumer with a solid understanding that i don't have any money-tree grows in the backyard, i could easily compared prices and came out with the cheapest price most of the time. Just like yesterday when i had this urge to bought Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men which was a basis for what probably ended up being my #1 film of the year 2007. So i went to Askara, snatch a copy of it, look for the price tag, and astonished to see the price of a whopping 157 thousand rupiahs. The advantage of Askara was that none of the books were plastic sealed which allow me to browse through the content of the books before buying. I decided that the price was simply too much. So i bolt out of the store and went to Periplus. This is where the books' price usually cheaper than its competitors albeit with relatively limited choices. I had to climb a small ladder in order to get the Cormac McCarthy's book from the shelf. It was the only copy left. I look for the price tag, and pleased to see the price. A sixty-five thousand rupiahs cheaper than Askara's price tag. I hadn't bothered to check the price at Kinokuniya, because in exchange to its vast collections, the books' price at the store were generally higher than the others. The only times i went to Kinokuniya was when i want to bought the latest copy of Japanese One Piece manga, or if i was certain that i can't find the book i'm looking for at the previous two book stores.
Moral of the story, despite its small collections, Periplus is my favorite book store in terms of price. Further, there's a Periplus book store at Juanda International Airport, Surabaya which has become the main attraction for me when i had to wait for my flight all by myself.
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.
It happened almost every year in our local TV stations. The retrospective of the year's past which amusingly, as far as i know mostly consists of likes such as 'Dumbest Celebrity 2007' or 'The Hottest Celebrity Couple in 2007' or 'The Nastiest Break-Ups in 2007' (unanimously featured the bickering in marriage between Maia and Dhani) nowadays. From what i've seen, these celebrity's mishaps retrospective largely outnumbered any other 2007 retrospectives held by our local TV stations by far. These celebrities were virtually no more than exotic beasts behind a cage, fed and maintained by the media for people's general amusements.
Another TV regulars that happened almost every year was the predictions. Made by 'famous' clairvoyants whose names weren't actually heard prior their respective predictions, these people went soared into an instant fame. And our media feed them like a zookeeper. They are after all, still the main attractions come this time of year.
Predictions are silly. Especially if it comes from these 'clairvoyants' who only claimed that they are actually genuine clairvoyant and sanctified by our media. In my opinion, hwoever, these 'clairvoyants' had nothing to lose whatsoever. They could say anything about what would happened in the future, and still they're getting paid, and attained instant fame and almost sure - though false - 'credibilities' that would lure some ignorant fools with penchant about supernatural things and money to spare to actually paid them to talk about things that these ignorant fools had really wanted to hear in the first place. Knowing what was these people had wanted to hear, is actually the art and the true ability of these people, i give them that. But it's all more of phsycological ability rather than supernatural ability. For instance, had i given a chance to act as one of these 'clairvoyant', i would say that our President would be assassinated sometimes in July. Come July, when our President really was assassinated, televisions, newspapers, all of the media would replayed the footage of me making the predictions, and i would be famous and rich. However, if our President was granted a long age, re-elected at the next election, no one would remembered that i ever made such false predictions. Further, there'd still a fair chance that the media would contacted me again to made another predictions next year.
I believe that there exists some kind of supernatural ability in a way or antoher among people. However, i believed that if those who claimed that they possessed these abilities were going public, they had proved themselves that they were pretenders. The true clairvoyant, or ones possessed with supernatural abilities won't reveal themselves. And had they decided to put their abilities for sale, you won't stumbled into their names unless you know how to ask a right people a right question. Their names would be whispered not very much unlike that of a never-fail-assassin for hire.
It's my personal opinion anyway (that these famous paranormals were no more than pretenders). However, i personally known a person who had one of these supernatural abilities. And as far as i know, i was one of the only three persons alive to know about what he's capable of. Thus, i've got a firm justification of my presumption.
At first, i laughed at his face when he refused to see any horror films. Especially Indonesian. It took me a while before i had really learned that he could see something we, human being, normally couldn't. He said to me that he had somekind of a guardian angel who follows him wherever he goes. Pinched him when he misses his pray time, and suddenly appears when he least expected. He told me how he hates what he's capable of and willing to put just about anything in exchange for it. He said that he could sometimes sense when someone is about to die. In some cases, where the death of one his relatives were involved, the death would visit him ephemerally to say goodbye right around the moment when the last breath was drawn even if they were miles apart. Further, he loathes funerals. As sometimes, after attending a funeral, the death (if he deserved it) would visit him in his dream all bloody and crying comfirming to my beliefs that there's indeed a such thing called grave punishment by God through Munkar and Nakir. Therefore, he avoids Indonesian horror films like one avoids a deadly virus. He said that he never really knows the look of his 'guardian angel'. And he was afraid that had he seen Indonesian horror films, he would imagined a face to his 'guardian angel' and thus magnified the being from an ephemeral being, translucent, almost believable as an imaginatory being, a projection of an uneasy mind into a physical being, a more real than a mere imagination, no more a fairy tale, but whose being was perpetual and could be physically felt.
You might think that he was lying, and what he had told me has been his fruit of imagination only. But i don't think so. I may not a perfect judge of a character, but i don't see the benefits of lie in his case. And when i heard him recites his experiences, i'm at a point where i was certain that for the love of God, he doesn't lie.
My point being, there's such thing as supernaturals, i believe it, and i believed that there were actually some humans 'gifted', granted some kind of taste into these supernatural thingies. But, as far as i'm concerned the genuine 'gifted' humans wouldn't want to run about proclaiming what he's capable of or commercialized them. And like the case of my friend, he would simply wanted to be free of such 'gift'.
So we arrived at our predetermined time of year. An idea tossed by society, sanctified by industry, and made eternal by (our) habits, this time of year is where we marked the very last few numbered box in our calendar, or preparing for a (probably) knock-yourself-out end of the year party. All in all, like it or not, i believe i wasn't very far from the truth when i say that each of us would spare several minutes of our precious time invigorating our accomplishments, failures, and whatever passed as an evaluation in our moments recently passed.
I was indifferent to a new year's celebration. Well, not so much anyway. I still thought about it, contemplating the events twelve months back, and making an half-serious, half-subconscious lists that could be well thought of as targets. But, if i ever passed my new year's eve with partying through the night, fireworks, and chanting counting down the seconds, i had entirely forgot about it. I believe i haven't had such experiences. Merely because, i valued my solitude more than any, and loud noises, many unfamiliar faces were rather stepping a little bit too far into my comfortable zone. I had plans though for this year's new year's eve. Plans that involved learning a tad more about Android (probably, heck, hopefully, could came out with fresh ideas), contemplating Coen Brothers' films and probably dedicated the first week of 2008 with blog entries about each film's retrospective, probably a Venti cup of Cafe Misto at Starbucks (which given my general distaste with strangers, could be well dusted and buried), and most likely just sit in my room with a paperback in hand (let's not forget the ephemeral yellow pad notes). One thing for sure though, all of these plans doesn't necessary involved any other person other than myself. My colleagues planned to go to Bandung which if you asked me, a very very very bad idea. There's not enough open road in Bandung that could contain all the cars with 'B' letter on its license plate that would infested Bandung starting from today. So, i had opted to not have any plans instead.
The year that had passed seen some of my earlier ideas come to fruition, seen several paths paved up nicely for the taking, but some disappointments were also due, bridges crumbled, events that made me cringed in agony when i remembered it, events that made me smile in silent gratitude, and more so, prominent than any other pinnacles of memory in me, events that made me want to shout angrily at myself for the incompetence. Overall, i could very much say that i had made some kind of progression into my previously aimless life. Not much, not very much, probably a single stone i thrown down into a pit that would later become the very foundation of my dream house. Insignificant, but it's a first step. Just like some old wise guy whom name i hadn't cared to remember - he's probably Chinese, but couldn't tell - said that every journey begins with a single step, and so my life has entered a new phase where i just took a single concrete step toward the fabled destination.
Okay, that being said, i've only got one plan for the year 2008 that i would like to reveal publicly through this blog, which is getting Married. Oh yes, i've GOT to get Married this year. With capital 'M'. It's not as easy as you may think, because we (me and my gf, naturally) had to paid for the event by ourselves. Ah, well..
Anyway, happy new year.
Sigh. The very last few days has been very very hectic. More so because the year's end approaches, thus, every single item that was scheduled to wrap off in 2007 should and has to finish before a relatively long holiday which in my case, started tomorrow. Which further means, that this blog won't see any updates until December 27th, 2007.
Anyway, i had been working in various different companies for what? Three years and five different companies. Yet, this marked the very first time i was eligible for year's end bonus. My first ever year's end bonus, by the way. I had agreed with my manager about my performance in this semester (which lies somewhere between Good and Exceptional) and my report has been filed to the Human Resources whom will later settled on how much (usually, it was somewhere between two and three times of monthly stipend) each employees would receive as his/her respective semester bonus. It was probably one of the benefit of working in somewhat governmental company. But is it something that i really really want? Despite the pluses, i found myself longing for a little bit of comfort. A comfort provided by writing several thousand lines of codes. Meaningless words with colorful blue and green (depending on your IDE, of course) but magic none the less.
Whiner.
