Of leading men and women in acting circles

The following text is originally lifted from the trivia section of The Jakarta Post dated Saturday, 15 March 2008.

~Compiled from various sources~

• Walt Disney had wooden teeth.
• In the late 1990s, newscaster Diane Sawyer's salary was $7 million a year.
• To help create her signature sexy walk, actress Marilyn Monroe sawed off part of the heel of one shoe.
• Alfred Hitchcock did not have a belly button; it was eliminated when he was sewn up after surgery.
• Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho was the first Hollywood film that showed a toilet flushing - thereby generating many complaints.
• Michael Keaton's name at birth was Michael Douglas.
• When screen lover Rudolph Valentino married Jean Acker, she locked him out of their bedroom, and the marriage lasted only six hours.
• Peter Falk, the actor who played Colombo, has a glass eye.
• One of the many Tarzans, Karmuela Searlel, was mauled to death on the set by a raging elephant.
• Shirley Temple received 135,000 presents on her eighth birthday.
• Long before he gained renown as Pa Cartwright on the TV series Bonanza, Canadian-born actor Lorne Greene made a name for himself as a radio broadcaster during WW2. He was known to Canadian Broadcasting Corporation listeners as the "Voice of Doom".
• Lorne Greene had one of his nipples bitten off by an alligator while hosting Lorne Greene's Wild Kingdom.
• Actor Bela Lugosi was buried, as he had requested, in his famous Dracula cape.
• Actor Sean Connery has worked as a milkman, coffin-polisher and builder.
• Pamela Anderson Lee is Canada's Centennial Baby, being the first baby born on the centennial anniversary of Canada's independence.
• Classic horror film actor Vincent Price almost became a gourmet cook instead of an actor.
• Trying to prevent aging, Charlie Chaplin, Winston Churchill and Christian Dior all had injections of fetal lamb cells. The process failed.
• Paul Newman was the oldest driver in the 1979 Le Mans 24-hour race.
• During their marriage, Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton bought an electric chair for their dining room.
• The first female theatre manager was Mrs John Drew, mother of actor John Drew II, and grandmother of the famous Barrymores (think actress Drew Barrymore). She managed the Arch Street Theatre for 30 years after her husband died in 1850.
• On 4 October 1943, the U.S. Army Air Force announced that Captain Clark Gable was awarded the Air Medal for his five combat missions.
• Jack Palance, while serving in the U.S. Air Corps during WW2, was shot down. His plane went down in flames. While he survived the crash, he received severe facial burns which required major plastic surgery.
• Humphrey Bogart's ashes are in an urn that also contains a small gold whistle. Lauren Bacall had the whistle inscribed "If you need anything, just whistle" - the words she spoke to him in their first film together, To Have and Have Not.
• Entertainers who were boxers in the early days of their careers include Roy Clark, Bo Diddley, Bob Hope, John Huston, Martin Lawrence, Ryan O'Neal and Rod Serling.
• Markswoman Annie Oakley began shooting at the age of nine.
• Annie Oakley had all of her gold shooting medals melted down, then sold the gold and gave the money to charity.
• Martha Jane Burke, better known as Calamity Jane, was married 12 times.

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Witch do you believe in?

The following text is originally lifted from the trivia section of The Jakarta Post dated Saturday, 31 May 2008.

~Compiled from various sources~

• It was believed that an army attacking a castle in the early Middle Ages in Britain could invoke supernatural forces to their aid if they marched anti-clockwise round the castle walls.
• Many superstitions have arisen over butterflies. Sicilians believe that good luck will follow if a butterfly comes into the house and will prevent it flying out again. British and U.S. superstition recommends anyone who needs a new pet of clothes to bite the head off a butterfly.
• Belief in the existence of vacuums used to be punishable under Church law.
• It was once commonly believed that a witch's power could be nullified by bleeding her or by destroying her blood in a fire, hence the practice of burning at the stake. Sometimes uncooperative witches were burned with green wood, which took longer to kill them.
• The horseshoe assumed additional power in the Middle Ages when the fear of witchcraft was at its peak. It was believed that witches travelled on brooms because they feared horses, and that any reminder of a horse, especially its iron shoe, warded off a witch. A woman accused of witchcraft was buried with a horseshoe nailed on the top of her coffin to prevent resurrection.
• The taboo against whistling backstage comes from the pre-electricity era when a whistle was the signal for the curtains and the scenery to drop. An unexpected whistle could cause an unexpected scene change.
• The Cornish people of Cornwall, England, once thought it was unlucky to wash a baby's head for the child's first 12 months of life.
• Tomb robbers believed that knocking Egyptian sarcophagi's noses off would forestall curses.
• If you're missing a cow, legend has it that if you hold a daddy longlegs by its back legs, one of its front legs will point in the direction of the missing cattle.
• Seven out of 10 people believe in life after death.
• Horse brasses were used to protect horses from witches.
• It was once believed that inhaling a horse's breath would cure whooping cough.

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Err..really wide?

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iTunes

I've downloaded iTunes for the sake of my long-awaited gift. And I've filled the playlist with...umm... 6823 songs, which is equal to 26.44 GB.

An excess of 10.44 GB than what the item could offer to hold.

Apparently, enough for 17 days of nonstop listening without having to listen to the same song twice.

Anyways, I have just listened to Avril's "Slipped Away" and how much it reminds me of the good old Interact Club days in ACS(I). Too bad I flailed it.

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Indo-lyric: Tak Bisa Memiliki (Dygta)

English translation:

Can't Have You

If only
I still have a lot of time
to remain in your side
keeping your heart content

I
will always aspire
to give the best
for you only

But forgive me
my time is temporary

I couldn't have
nor keep your love
Even though my heart loves you, and keeps you here
I don't want you to get hurt
by loving me
please wipe your tears and forget me

Alone
in the limits of my hope
I just want you to be happy
and go on with your life

Original lyric in Indonesian:

Bila
Waktuku tersisa
Untuk slalu di sisi
Menjaga hatimu

Aku
Kan slalu mencoba
Berikan yang terbaik
Untuk kau miliki

Tapi maafkan aku
Waktuku hanya sesaat

Aku tak bisa memiliki
Menjaga cintamu
Walau sesungguhnya hatiku mencintaimu, memilikimu
Aku tak ingin kau terluka
Mencintai aku
Hapuslah air matamu dan lupakan aku

Sendiri
Di batas asaku
Hanya ingin kau bahagia
Jalani hidupmu

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on Chinese astrology and Western zodiac

Having most of my friends who belong to the same age as I am, I don't really put much trust on the Chinese astrology.

Why?

Hell yeah, most of my buddies belong to either the Snake or Dragon year... How on earth could I expect those Chinese astrologers to have an accurate depiction or forecast on us Snakes/Dragons?

Western zodiac is much more dependable, methinks. Only a select group of my friends were also born during the Scorpio days.

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Water 101: Use, sanitation, access

The following text is originally lifted from the trivia section of The Jakarta Post.

~Compiled from various sources~

• According to the World Bank, more than 1.1 billion people worldwide lack access to clean water, and 2.6 billion lack access to basic sanitation.
• The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) include a target to halve by 2015 the number of people worldwide without access to water and sanitation.
• The cost of inadequate water supply and sanitation are high: 1.6 million children die every year from diarrhoea, mainly as a result of inadequate sanitation, water supply and hygiene, the World Bank says.
• In Indonesia, every year about 100,000 children die from diarrhoea, the second-highest cause of death in children after malnutrition.
• Indonesia has 6% of the world's water supply, or 21% of the water supply in Asia Pacific, but the quality and quantity have been decreasing.
• The 13 rivers that run thru Jakarta are polluted by E. coli bacteria - and so is 70% of ground water.
• Only 55% of the Indonesian population has access to sanitation.
• It is estimated that by 2019, there will be 150.2 million people living in urban areas in Indonesia, with water consumption per capita reaching 125 litres - meaning total water demand will reach 18.77 billion litres per day.
• According to the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), water demand by the industrial sector will increase by 700% by 2025, while water demand for housing and food production will grow by 65% and 100%, respectively.
• Tap water is used by 46.6% of urban households and 11% of rural households.
• Rural households are more likely to use unprotected water sources such as springs, rivers and rainwater.
• In urban areas, water access requires a cash outlay as half of all urban dwellers and 42% of the urban poor purchase water, compared with only 15% of the rural population.
• In urban areas, 66% of households have drinking water facilities, such as house or yard taps (including 55% of the urban poor), compared with 48% in rural areas.
• The water supply on Java is 1,750 cubic metres per capita per year, below the minimum standard of 2,000 cubic metres per capita per year. The figure is expected to continue to fall to reach 1,200 cubic metres by 2020.
• Water companies in Indonesia source their water from 201 rivers, 248 springs and 91 artesian walls.
• Ciliwung River is the city's most polluted river, containing between 1.6 and 3 million individual E. coli bacteria per 100 cc of water. Many residents living by the river depend on it as their source of water.

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Or so history would have us believe...

The following text is originally lifted from the trivia section of The Jakarta Post dated Sunday, 29 June 2008.

~Compiled from various sources~

• Crude oil was drilled for in ancient China. In the 6th century it was recorded that hollow bamboo rods were driven into the ground in search of brine to provide salt for cattle. In the process, they also came across natural gas and flammable petroleum, which they used themselves or sold for fuel.
• In the great fire of London in 1666, half of London was burned down but only six people were injured.
• All of the cobble stones that used to line the streets in New York were originally weighting stones put in the hulls of Belgian ships to keep an even keel.
• The United States have never lost a was in which mules were used.
• Since 1896, the beginning of the modern Olympics, only Greece and Australia have participated in every Games.
• February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
• The roads on the island of Guam are made with coral. Guam has no sand. The sand on the beaches is actually ground coral. When concrete is mixed, the coral sand is used instead of importing regular sand from thousands of kilometres away.
• In the Dutch province of Twente, people live on average half a year shorter than in the rest of the Netherlands.
• Madrid is the only European capital city not situated on a river.
• A person born in Los Alamos, New Mexico, during the Manhattan project (where they made the atomic bomb), had there birthplace listed as a post office box in Albuquerque.
• Robert Kennedy was killed in the Ambassador Hotel, the same hotel that housed Marilyn Monroe's first modeling agency.
• City Ordinance No. 352 in Pacific Grove, California, says that it is a misdemeanour to kill or threaten a butterfly.
• Nauru is the only country in the world with no official capital.
• South Africa is the only country with three official capitals: Pretoria, Cape Town and Bloemfontein.
• Welsh mercenary bowmen in the medieval period only wore one shoe at a time.
• On the morning of 10 August 1813, residents of Saint Michaels, Maryland, having been forewarned of a British attack, hoisted lanterns to the masts of ships and in the tops of the trees. The height of light caused cannons to overshoot the town. This first known blackout was effective and only one house was struck and is now known as the "Cannonball House".
• Although you sometimes hear that Ferdinand Magellan was the first person to go around the world, he never did. He led the historic voyage that left Spain in 1519 with five ships under his command, but Magellan himself was killed in the Philippines by islanders in 1521. One of his ships completed the around-the-world trip, arriving in Spain in 1522 with a crew of 18 - but without Magellan.
• A dog was killed by a meteor at Nakhla, Egypt in 1911. The unlucky canine is the only creature known to have been killed by a meteor.

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Having Mom as a barber

Regarding having someone unprofessional as a personal barber, I’ve had a traumatic experience. It happened during my primary school days when I was 10 or 11 years old.

It had been months since the last time I had had a haircut. Mom had admonished me times aplenty to go to the barber, yet I was too lazy to visit it myself.

Then she suggested me one evening, “what about… if I cut your hair instead? What do you say?”

I agreed with Mom without giving any thoughts, thinking that it was a totally harmless thing to have.

On the next morning I went to school as usual. What gave me off to a total embarrassment was the time when my homeroom teacher saw me that morning and said loudly to the class, “Toshi! Did the rat chew on your hair??!”

And he laughed.

The entire class laughed too.

I crimsoned and buried myself to the ground.

Soon I found myself rushing outside to the toilet’s mirrors to take a look at what my hair looked like.

Hmm… There’s nothing wrong with my hair, I said to myself.

But wait a sec.

After second thoughts, there WAS something deeply amiss here.

Ah, geez. My hair was cut unevenly. Either sides were not tidily trimmed, with the evident “rat-chewing” traces….

That was the first and the last time I had allowed my hair to be cut by my Mom... and any other untrained barber as well.

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Plans for this year

January isn't over yet, hence I still have my chance to make a resolution...

And here are my plans for the year of 2009:

   

1. Attend daily French lessons starting from mid-February

2. Make my preparations to take JLPT level 2, regardless of what my level 3 grades say

3. Pursue my Bachelor's degree, at last!

4. Continue my piano lessons so that I could play Mozart and Tchaikovsky by the end of the year.

5. Devour books written by Robert Kiyosaki, Barack Obama, Paulo Coelho, Jodi Picoult, John Grisham, Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Friedman, and Malcolm Gladwell. Make a plan to consume at least 4 (four) books/novels every month.

6. Gain height by at least 3 centimetres.

7. Visit Bali at least once.

8. Be a library member in Japan Foundation

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Jakarta has no commercial airports of its own

Indonesians, take heed!

After years (or perhaps decades) of you being familiar with the capital Jakarta, do you realise that Jakarta does NOT have a commercial airport of its own?

What you thought of as your so-called "Jakarta's airport" (read: Cengkareng/Soekarno-Hatta), is as a matter of fact Tangerang's airport, located 20 km west of Jakarta...

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Can Toshi become the President of USA, too?

Seeing Obama clinching his victory as to become the 44th president of USA last November, my family got into this conversation below.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mom asked my Dad, "So... What about our Toshi? Can he become the president of America too in the future?"

Dad quickly denied it, "Nah, I believe that's not possible"

I was thinking that Dad was referring to my lack of my leadership skills when he continued, "It's because both of Toshi's parents are Indonesian citizens"

I grappled with the fact for a while, and tried to rebut it, "but Obama's father was..."

"A Kenyan citizen, yes, but his mother was an American. Obama could become nominated as president because one of his parents is an American national"

"But what about Arnold Schwarzenegger? He is the governor of California now, right? I thought both of his parents were Austrian citizens"

Dad glanced from his paper, "Well yes indeed. You could become a Governor or Senator too, if you'd wish. But don't ever dream of becoming a president... That's just not possible according to the American constitution"

I pondered to myself, and checked what kinds of similarities do I have in common with Barack Obama. Well, here they are:

1. Obama and I are natural-born American citizens.

2. Obama and I have a mother who can speak Indonesian language fluently.

3. Obama and I have spent at least four years in Indonesia.

4. Obama and I have a strong emotional affinity with Indonesia.

5. Obama and I are members of the Democrat Party of USA.

6. Obama and I have a father who is NOT an American citizen.

7. Obama and I have at least one other individual in the family who is an American citizen.

8. Obama and I have family members who possess faith to either Christian or Muslim religion.

 

Gee, it's just too bad that I couldn't become the next president of USA too... But becoming a Senator of Florida or Governor of Oregon would do too, I guess.

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Indo-lyric: Seperti yang kau minta (Chrisye)

English translation:

To become like you wanted

I apologise that I couldn't
comprehend the meaning of your fury
to read and understand what's within your heart

* forgive me who has
enterred the lives of both of you
trying to find a gap in your heart

Reff:

I know I couldn't
become like you wanted
but as long as I'm still breathing
I will try
to become like you wanted

repeat *

repeat Reff

I know that he's the only one who could
become like what you wanted
but as long as I still have my soul
I will always aspire
to become like you wanted

Original lyric in Indonesian:

maafkan aku tak bisa
memahami maksud amarahmu
membaca dan mengerti isi hatimu

* ampuni aku yang telah
memasuki kehidupan kalian
mencoba mencari celah dalam hatimu

Reff:

aku tahu ku takkan bisa
menjadi seperti yang engkau minta
namun selama nafas berhembus
aku kan mencoba
menjadi seperti yang kau minta

ulangi *

Reff

aku tahu dia yang bisa
menjadi seperti yang engkau minta
namun selama aku bernyawa
aku kan mencoba
menjadi seperti yang kau minta

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People and their precious dogs

The following text is originally lifted from the trivia section of The Jakarta Post dated Sunday, 5 August 2007.

~Compiled from various sources~

• Police dogs are trained to react to commands in a foreign language.
• "Seizure Alert" dogs can alert their owners up to an hour before the onset of an epileptic seizure.
• An estimated one million dogs in the USA have been named the primary beneficiary in their owner's will.
• Each day in the USA, animal shelters are forced to destroy 30,000 dogs and cats.
• 94% of pet owners say their pet makes them smile more than once a day.
• 70% of people in the West sign their pet's name on greeting cards and 58% include their pets in family and holiday portraits.
• Before leaving their homes, one-third of pet owners turn on a radio or TV to keep their pets company.
• Some 39% of pet owners say they have more photos of their pet than of their spouse or significant other. Only 21% say they have more photos of their spouse or significant other than of their pet.
• Researchers studying what dogs like to eat have found that the appetite of pet dogs is affected by the taste, texture and smell of the food, and also by the owners' food preferences, their perception of their pet, and the physical environment in which the dog is eating.
• At the end of the Beatles song A Day in the Life, an ultrasonic whistle, audible only to dogs, was recorded by Paul McCartney for his Shetland sheepdog.
• Scannon, a black Newfoundland Labrador, accompanied Lewis and Clark on their Louisiana Territory expedition.
• Josephine, Napoleon's wife, used her pug Fortune to carry secret messages under his collar to her husband while she was imprisoned at Les Carmes.
• The energetic Lucky, President Ronald Reagan's first dog, was sent off to the Reagan Ranch after dragging Nancy Reagan across the White House lawn one too many times. Lucky was replaced by the more docile Rex. Rex was treated to a lavishly decorated doghouse, which included framed portraits of Ronald and Nancy. Stranger still, actress Zsa Zsa Gabor was called upon to dedicate the pooch's new structure.
• President Franklin D. Roosevelt's most famous canine companion was his scottish terrier, Fala, who is part of the Roosevelt Memorial in Washington DC. But during Roosevelt's 12 years and one month as president, 11 dogs lived in the White House. They included a bullmastiff, two red setters, a retriever, a bulldog, a Llewellin setter, a sheepdog, and a German shepherd who tried to rip the pants off the British prime minister.
• In Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus' loyal dog Argus is a greyhound.
• According to ancient Greek literature, when Odysseus arrived home after an absence of 20 years, disguised as a beggar, the only one to recognise him was his aged dog Argus, who wagged his tail at his master, and then died.
• English poet Lord Byron was so devastated upon the death of his beloved newfoundland, whose name was Boatswain, that he had inscribed upon the dog's gravestone the following: "Beauty without vanity, strength without insolence, courage without ferocity, and all the virtues of man without his vices."

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More than just raising the dead

The following text is originally lifted from the trivia section of The Jakarta Post dated Sunday, 8 June 2008.

~Compiled from various sources~

• In 1355, when King Pedro of Portugal was crowned, he dug up his mistress to have her properly honoured as queen. Loyal subjects bowed before the decorated corpse ad had to kiss her hand.
• After the death of her husband, poet Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley (author of Frankenstein) kept his heart wrapped up in silk until she died.
• President Abraham Lincoln was so distraught over his young son Willie dying, he had his coffin exhumed twice so he could look at him again.
• Napoleon reportedly killed over 1,000 people with a cough. In 1799, he was deciding whether to release 1,200 Turkish prisoners of war when he coughed and said, "Ma sacre toux!" (my darned cough!) which sounded to officers like "Massacrez tous!" (kill them all!). So they apparently did.
• Paul Revere was the first person to ever identify a body by dental records. He recognised the dead man because of work he had done joining two teeth together with silver ware.
• The most expensive funeral was that of Alexander the Great. It would cost more than $600 million in today's money. One of the reasons was the building of a road from Babylon to Alexandria, big enough move a jewel-studded hearse the size of a small building that was pulled by 64 horses.
• Pope Johan XII died at age 18 after being beaten to death by his lover's husband.
• Benjamin Franklin's kite-flying experiment was a success. Not so for the next person who attempted the feat. Trying to repeat the sentry-box experiment, Russian physicist G.W. Richman was killed in St. Petersburg in 1753 when a "pallish blue ball of fire, as big as a fist, came out of the rod" and struck him in the head. Richman died instantly from the lightning bolt and became the first martyr to the new age of electricity.
• Franklin was once considered a traitor. Mobs almost burned down Franklin's house during the Stamp Act crisis. When the hated taxes were first enacted, Franklin, in England on official business, bought tax stamps for his newspaper. When word reached Philadelphia, the citizens were enraged. His wife fortified herself in an upstairs room of their house, which she filled with guns and ammunition.
• The last words of Thomas Grasso, executed in 1995, were: "I did not get my Spaghetti-O's, I got spaghetti. I want the press to know this."
• King Cambyses of Persia (525 BC) marched 50,000 troops into the desert to attack Amun, on the Libyan border. A sandstorm of epic proportions boiled up and buried them all.
• Theodore Geisel (better known as Dr. Seuss) was caught with alcohol in his room when he was a student at Dartmouth College and severely punished. Years later, the college awarded him an honorary doctorate.

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That fatal "Truth or Dare" question

It's a risk that when you play "Truth or Dare", you would either risk embarrassing yourself, or prepare to do anything awful.

It doesn't work well both ways though.

I myself usually prefer to have the "Truth", since it does not require as much risk as the latter... Though in the case below, I was utterly embarrassed.

There were a lot of people involved in the game, and I had to answer it in front all of them.

~~~~~

Ah, I lost.

By then it was my Sis Melody's turn to do the forfeit for me.

"So, T... Truth or Dare?" she asked me with a cunning grin.

"Truth", I answered my usual reply.

So she blurted out, "Ah! Now tell me.. what's the colour of the underwear you're wearing today?"

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When neither could speak English, speak your own tongue

Below is a particular scene from my Vietnam tour back in January 2005 with my classmates. It serves as a good example for you whenever you visit any particular place where none of the locals have any good command of English language.

~~~~~

I heard Li Xing, my PRC Chinese pal, trying to make a bargain for packs of coconut candy with the Vietnamese villagers... in Mandarin language.

After he had purchased the sweets, I asked him, "How could you speak Chinese to them? Did they understand Chinese?"

"Well... Of course not", he laughed me off.

"So... Why didn't you speak English to them?"

"Don't you notice, T? They didn't understand English very well. So it doesn't make much difference whether I spoke English or my own language to them"

I saw the logic then.

When I myself tried to bargain the coconut candies earlier on, I had done my best to simplify my English so that those Vietnamese villagers would understand me...to no avail.

I should've spoken Indonesian language to them instead.

And combine it with sign languages too.

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When God is playing with the "water taps"

You know, it gets kinda pissing off to have this kind of season...

Rain and sunny weather intermittently present themselves upon us the residents of Jabodetabek (Greater Jakarta) area.

10 mins of rain one moment, 30 mins of sunny weather the next, and soon we find ourselves drenched wet with another hour of rain.

Gee. What a sickening season.

I just wish it would stop.

I don't really care about the annual flooding in Jakarta actually (because I'm never affected, hahaha).

But it's still a sickening season notwithstanding.

There's no dry-cleaner at home, and due to the absence of sunlight, we couldn't manage to have the clothes hung to dry... So the dirty clothes have to be sent to a laundry service (which are unsurprisingly busy with loads of customers these days).

There's no longer 24-hour service for the laundry service.

They could only manage to finish the clothes by Sunday, which is a waaaay long time to go.

Gee, I have to wear my clothes with caution too.

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Indo-lyric: Mimpi (Anggun)

English translation:

Dream

In blackness and the dark of the night
I stand here resisting loneliness
Here on this beach
millions of memories have been buried
Dashed by the viscous waves
covered with coral reefs
that could never be repeated

Whitened face, limp and pale
scarred, with a wound in heart
Your eyes open a story
of a true love tainted
Erase all hallucinations
eliminate the only hope
Where else, should we look

You rely on, the burdens of your shoulders
You sowed the seeds of love, yet emotions

[Reff:]
Bouncing far, flying high, with your dreams
Sleep asound within sea of emotions
After I am conscious, you're already far away
Leaving dreams, with endless boundaries

There is only this yearnings possessing my chest
As if a promise have flown high
carried away with the flow of love, aflame

[Reff]

Original lyric in Indonesian:

Dalam hitam, gelap malam,
ku berdiri, melawan, sepi…
Disini, di pantai ini,
telah terkubur sejuta kenangan
Dihempas keras gelombang,
yang tertimbun batu karang,
yang tak ‘kan mungkin, dapat terulang

Wajah putih, pucat pasi,
tergores, luka di hati
Matamu, membuka kisah,
kasih asmara yang telah ternoda
Hapuskan semua khayalan,
lenyapkan satu harapan
Kemana lagi, harus mencari

Kau sandarkan, sejenak beban diri
Kau taburkan, benih kasih, hanyalah emosi

[Reff:]
Melambung jauh, terbang tinggi, bersama mimpi
Terlelap dalam, lautan emosi
Setelah aku, sadar diri, kau t’lah jauh pergi
Tinggalkan mimpi, yang tiada bertepi

Kini hanya rasa rindu, merasuk di dada
Serasa sumpah melayang pergi,
terbawa arus kasih, membara

[Reff]

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Tintin, bookish, and street smart

The Tintin movie is bound to come out next year (2010).

Quote taken from Hurriyet:

With the agreement of Herge's wife, Fanny Rodwell, US filmmaker Steven Spielberg plans to make a trilogy of cartoon movies, the first expected out next year.

Ah, one of my favourite animations ever!

I just can't wait.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Meanwhile, there is this new rubric on The Jakarta Post called "Street Smart", which I assume to be the replacement for Simon's regular column (he had migrated to the newbie English-language newspaper in town, in case you people haven't noticed).

Street Smart is to be written regularly every Sundays from this week onwards.

Lovely.

As the writer, Kartika Jahja, puts it:

....and I will be littering your lovely Sundays from now on.

Yes, I am your average Indonesian girl. Born and raised in Jakarta with all the stereotypical upbringing that has been the subject of many politically incorrect jokes.

Lovely.

Have a look at her very first article there, which is an interesting insight that chafes at our daily urban life in Jakarta. Mainly targeted for expats, yet it could provide a giggle or two for fellow Jakartans too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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For you booklovers out there, have a look at Matt's blog. A voracious reader, apparently.. A graduate of comparative literature, almost every single one of his blog posts discusses books and reviews them (as of today, he has made 177 book reviews.. way to go!).

The number of books I have finished reading in my entire lifetime has just numbered 50 in Anobii (excluding comics), hence there are still 127 more tomes for me to devour if I want to catch up with his pace.

Gee.

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When it's all beers and skittles

The following text is originally lifted from the trivia section of The Jakarta Post dated Friday, 22 February 2008.

~Compiled from various sources~

• Beer, as all alcoholic drinks, is made by fermentation caused by bacteria feeding on the yeast cells, then defecating. This bacterial excrement is called alcohol.
• In 1962, Iron City beer was the brand used to test market the concept of tab opening aluminium cans. By 1970, over 90% of all beer cans were self-opening.
• Centuries ago in England, pub visitors used a novel innovation that enabled them to get their beer served quickly. They used mugs with a whistle baked into the rim, the whistle being used to summon the barmaid. It has been suggested this practice gave birth to the phrase "wet your whistle".
• During the European Middle Ages and the Renaissance, beer was often a nutritional necessity and was sometimes used in a medicinal setting. It could be flavoured with almost anything, from the bark of fir trees to fresh eggs and thyme. Everyone drank beer, including children.
• Most saloons were owned by the breweries by the 1900s. The bartenders earned US$10 to $15 per week, with Sunday bringing in the most business.
• Beer was not sold in bottles until 1850; it was not sold in cans until 1935.
• Pennsylvania outlawed free lunches in 1917 to prevent taverns from giving free sandwiches to customers who bought beer to drink with them. This led some shopkeepers to sell sandwiches and give away the beer.
• President Theodore Roosevelt took more than 500 gallons of beer with him on an African safari.
• The world's strongest beer is Samuel Adam's Triple Bock, which has reached 16% alcohol by volume. To obtain this level, however, they had to use a champagne yeast.
• There is an Egyptian beer, called bousa, that is brewed from millet and has been a favourite drink of many for over 3,000 years. Modern Ethiopia has a version made from wheat.
• One brand of Chinese beer reportedly includes in its recipe "ground-up dog parts".
• Germany serves beer ice cream in ice lolly form. Its alcoholic content is less than that found in "classic" beer.
• A beer lover is called a cerevisaphile.
• A labeorphilist is a collector of beer bottles.
• In Bangladesh, $5 will buy a beer or a first-class train ticket for a cross-country trip.
• In the mid 1970s, Australians were the third biggest drinkers in the world (behind Germany and Belgium). Now they don't even get into the top 10.
• If a young Tiriki man offers beer to a woman and she spits some of it into his mouth, they are engaged to be married.
• Among the Bagonda people of Uganda, the several widows of a recently deceased king have the distinctive honour of drinking the beer in which his entrails have been cleaned.
• The Chagga people of Tanganyika believe that a liar will be poisoned if he or she consumes beer mixed with the blood of a recently sacrificed goat.
• Beer is mixed with saliva and blood for a drink that is shared when two Chagga men become blood brothers.

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Not so much to beef about... the docile cow

The following text is originally lifted from the trivia section of The Jakarta Post dated Saturday, 4 August 2007.

~Compiled from various sources~

• Today's cattle are descended from two species: wild aurochs - fierce and agile herd animals that populated Asia, North Africa and Europe - and eotragus - an antelope-like, Asian forest creature.
• At least 10,000 years ago, cave men raised dairy cattle.
• There are an estimated 920 different breeds of cows in the world.
• In an average herd, there is one bull to every 30 cows.
• Cows can live 25 years.
• Cows spend six hours a day eating and eight hours chewing cud.
• A cow chews its cud 42,000 times a day.
• Most cows chew at least 50 times per minute.
• Cows clean their noses with their tongues.
• A cow's heart beats between 60 and 70 beats per minute.
• Cattle can hear lower and higher frequencies better than humans.
• Cattle have almost total 360-degree panoramic vision.
• Cows eat eat 40 kilos of food a day.
• Cow's teeth are different from humans'. On the top front, cows have a tough pad of skin instead of teeth. They have eight incisors on the bottom front and six strong molars on the top and bottom of each side to grind their food. Cows have a total of 32 teeth.
• Bulls are colour blind, therefore will usually charge at a matador's waving cape no matter what colour it is - be it red or yellow.
• A cow stands up and sits down about 14 times a day.
• Cows can detect odours up to eight kilometres away.
• Cows drink 130 litres of water a day - the equivalent of a bathtub full of water.
• A cow produces 200 times more gas a day than a person.
• The age of a head of cattle can be determined by counting the rings on its horns.
• Cows - that is, mature female cattle - can have horns. There are several cattle breeds in which the cows have horns. To name just a few: the Danish Red, the White Park and the Texas Longhorn. Likewise, cattle without horns can also be bulls. The Angus and the Red Poll are examples of breeds that are hornless, be they cow or be they bull.
• Most cows give more milk when they listen to music.
• The average dairy cow produces about 35 litres of milk a day.
• There are approximately 350 "squirts" in four litres of milk.
• The Holstein produces the most milk of all breeds.
• It is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs, because a cows' knees can't bend properly to walk back down.
• The Moscow Circus has a troupe of dancing cows that dance to Russian music and play football.
• Old cows in India have their own nursing homes.
• A bison can jump as high as two metres off the ground.
• A newborn buffalo's mother rubs it with her tongue to make its blood flow properly, which is what she painstakingly does until it stands on its own.

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The gentle giant of the animal kingdom

The following text is originally lifted from the trivia section of The Jakarta Post dated Friday, 8 February 2008.

~Compiled from various sources~

• Most elephants live in the grasslands of Africa and in the forests of Asia.
• The elephant is the largest terrestrial animal on earth.
• The elephant is the largest land mammal.
• The elephant is the second tallest member of the animal kingdom - only the giraffe is taller.
• Elephants stomp when they walk.
• Elephants sleep standing up, sometimes leaning against a tree or another elephant.
• Sometimes baby elephants lie down to sleep.
• Elephants poop 25 to 35 kilos in one day.
• The average elephant lives 70 years.
• An elephant can be pregnant for up to two years.
• An elephant's trunk contains more than 50,000 muscles.
• The elephant feeds for about 16 hours per day, and sleeps for the rest.
• Elephants are the only animal with four knees.
• An elephant can smell water more than four kilometres away.
• An elephant may consume 225 kilos of hay and 225 litres of water in a single day.
• All elephants walk on tip-toe because the back portion of their foot is made up of all fat and no bone.
• African bull elephants have 1.5 to two-metre penises.
• Elephants are sensitive fellow animals whereby if a baby complains, the entire family will rumble and go over to touch and caress it.
• Elephants cool off by fanning their ears. This cools the blood in their ears that then goes to the rest of their body and cools them off.
• Elephants love water and are very good swimmers.
• Elephants can't jump.
• Some male elephants can grow to be four metres tall - more than twice as tall as many human adults.
• Elephants can weigh as much as a school bus - between 4.5 and 6.5 tonnes.
• The trunk is nothing more than an elongation of their nose and upper lip. Besides being used for breathing and smelling it is also used as an appendage, much like an arm or hand.
• Elephants are capable of pulling up to 11.5 litres of water into the trunk to be sprayed into the mouth for drinking or onto the back for bathing.
• Their trunks have two-finger-like projections at the tip to manipulate small objects and to pluck grasses.
• When elephants travel, they walk very quietly in single file. Young elephants are led by the older elephants with their tails.
• They can run 38 kph for short distances.
• According to the Guinness Book of Records, the biggest elephant ever recorded was a male African elephant from Angola that weighed over 10.5 tonnes.
• An elephant's trunk has two finger-like projections at the end that can be used to pick up food or other things, to pluck berries from a bush, or to probe and examine objects.
• An elephant makes a trumpeting noise with its trunk if it feels threatened.
• The tusks of a male elephant, or bull, grow longer and heavier over the course of its life, reaching over three metres long and over 90 kilos.
• It is not uncommon for an elephant to favour one tusk over another, and for the favoured tusk to be shorter than the other tusk.

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on Dressing (not) to kill

Whenever I visit any place (be it a course or my sister’s school) without the intention of meeting any friends/relatives, I always dress not to kill.

I simply wear plainclothes.

And when I say plainclothes, I mean that I don’t even bother to wear jeans or long pants. I simply wear a T-shirt, shorts, and sandals.

Sign of disrespect?

Nah.

Rather, I don’t care how I look like when I visit any place where there is NOBODY there whom I know personally. I don’t give any freaking damn on what they say about me, since I’m not going to meet them again anyway.

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Indo-lyric: Cinta bertahan (Acha Septriasa)

English translation:

Love stays here

life that goes on
feels light when I go thru it
bcoz you're with me, on my side

the love that seeps more deeply
feels stronger here
bcoz you've strengthened, purified

you and I conjoin
traverse thru life

reff:
this love will always stay here
it won't subside after ages
you've turned sun into colours
unite hearts and believe

this love will always stay here
deeper day by day
you and I will materialize
this dream into reality

repeat Reff

Original lyric in Indonesian:

hidup yang sedang berjalan
terasa ringan berjalan
karenamu di sisiku, di sampingku

cinta yang kian tertanam
terasa berat bertahan
karena kau menguatkan, menyucikan

kau dan aku bersenyawa
mengarungi hidup

reff:
cintaku ini akan bertahan
tak akan habis menembus jaman
kau buat mega menjadi warna
satukan hati dan percaya

cintaku ini akan bertahan
semakin hari semakin dalam
engkau dan aku bisa jadikan
mimpi jadi kenyataan

ulangi Reff

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Indo-lyric: Untukmu Selamanya (Ungu)

English translation:

For You Always

I could never understand
what am I feeling now
the anxiety in my heart at this moment
I'm still thinking of you
even as you're already with him
I never stop thinking of you

Reff:
it's impossible...
to replace you with her
it's unthinkable...
for me to avoid you

it's impossible...
to love her in your place
it's unthinkable...
for me to move away from your heart

Reff 2x

it's impossible...
to love her in your place
it's unthinkable...
for me to move away from your heart

Original lyric in Indonesian:

tak pernah aku mengerti
apa yang kini kurasakan
kegelisahan hatiku saat ini
ku masih merindukanmu
walaupun kini kau telah bersamanya
tak pernah mampu kucoba lupakanmu

Reff:
sungguh tak bisa …
ku mengganti dirimu dengan dirinya
sungguh tak sanggup…
aku berpaling darimu

sungguh tak bisa…
ku mencintainya tuk melupakanmu
sungguh tak sanggup…
aku berpindah dari hatimu

Reff 2x

sungguh tak bisa…
ku mencintainya tuk melupakanmu
sungguh tak sanggup…
aku berpindah dari hatimu

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Hate white choco

I just realised how much I hate white chocolate.

A lot of kiddies love it, they think of it as an equivalent for candy!

Yuck.

Being too sweet isn't everything, apparently.

Sometimes having perfection in your hands does not guarantee that you're gonna be happy with it, because contentment could only be found when there is the right mix between the sweet and the bitter.

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Settled and over with

If December 2008 was the month of questions, then January 2009 is the month of answers.

Finally today, I've settled everything with my parents.

Everything about where I'm staying, what I'm going to do for the upcoming year, and where I'm going to continue my studies.

I'm going to send an e-mail explaining them all to all my close friends, a.s.a.p.

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Quotable utterings of the famous (Part 2)

The following text is originally lifted from the trivia section of The Jakarta Post dated Saturday, 15 March 2008.

~Compiled from various sources~

• "I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as thought it had an underlying truth" - Umberto Eco.
• "Be nice to people on your way up because you meet them on your way down" - Jimmy Durante.
• "The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good" - Samuel Johnson.
• "A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both" - Dwight Eisenhower.
• "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them" - Albert Einstein.
• "Basically, I no longer work for anything but the sensation I have while working" - Albert Giacometti (sculptor).
• "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident" - Arthur Schopenhauer.
• "Many a man's reputation would not know his character if they met on the street" - Elbert Hubbard.
• "There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life" - Frank Zappa.
• "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away" - Antoine de Saint Exupery
• "Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome" - Isaac Asimov.
• "If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe" - Carl Sagan.
• "It is much more comfortable to be mad and know it, than to be sane and have one's doubts" - G.B. Burgin.
• "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action" - Auric Goldfinger, in Goldfinger by Ian Fleming.
• "To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance" - Oscar Wilde.
• "Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens" - Jimi Hendrix.
• "A clever man commits no minor blunders" - Goethe.
• "Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they're yours" - Richard Bach.
• "A witty saying proves nothing" - Voltaire.
• "Sleep is an excellent way of listening to an opera" - James Stephens.
• "The nice thing about being a celebrity is that if you bore people they think it's their fault" - Henry Kissinger.
• "Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance" - Will Durant.
• "I have often regretted my speech, never my silence" - Xenocrates.
• "It was the experience of mystery - even if mixed with fear - that engendered religion" - Albert Einstein.
• "If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough"
• "Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal" - Henry Ford.
• "I'll sleep when I'm dead" - Warren Zevon.
• "There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread" - Mahatma Gandhi.
• "When you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you" - Friedrich Nietzsche.
• "The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, they finish by loading honours on your head" - Jean Cocteau.
• "Everyone is a genius at least once a year, a real genius has his original ideas closer together" - Georg Lichtenberg.
• "Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it" - Henry David Thoreau.
• "While we are postponing, life speeds by" - Seneca.
• "Fill what's empty, empty what's full, and scratch where it itches" - the Duchess of Windsor, when asked what is the secret of a long and happy life.
• "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win" - Mahatma Gandhi.

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