Indo-lyric: Selamat Pagi (Ran)

English translation:

Good morning

I feel the beauty of the sun's warmth
waking me up from this soporific snooze
Your bright light starts to enter my eyes
and lures me away from the world of dreams

Now I hurry to prepare myself
to start the day afresh
I couldn't wait to see my smiling friends
and welcome this morning anew
and I say...

(Chorus)
Good morning!!
Dew wets the world and starts commencing the day
and I say:

Good morning!!
The birds are chirping and now I'm ready to start the day
Now hurry up prepare yourself to start this day afresh

(Chorus)

Original lyric in Indonesian:

Kurasakan hangat indahnya sang mentari
membangunkanku dari tidur yang lelap ini
Sinarmu yang terang mulai memasuki mata
dan mengusirku dari alam mimpi

Dan kini kubergegas tuk segera siapkan diriku
tuk mulai menjalani hari ini
Tak sabar ku temui seluruh sahabat yang tersenyum
menyambut datangnya pagi ini
Dan kukatakan..

(Chorus)
Selamat pagi!!
Embun membasahi dunia dan mulai mengawali hari ini
Dan kukatakan:

Selamat pagi!!
Kicau burung bernyanyi dan kini ku siap tuk jalani hari ini.
Kini bergegaslah siapkan dirimu untuk memulai menjalani hari ini

(Chorus)

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Questionnaire

Though this is supposed to be a tagged-based post, I still post it with my own initiative notwithstanding. Informations which I assume are to personal to disclose are left blank, hehe.

001. Real name: [Blank]
002. Like it: Yes
003. Nickname(s): Toshi
004. Status: Not married
005. Zodiac sign: Scorpio
006. Male or female: Male
007. Elementary school: [Blank]
008. Middle school: [Blank]
009. High school: [Blank]
010. Hair color: Black
011. Long or short: Short
012. Eye color: Light brown
013. Weight: 55 kg
014. Height: 174 cm
015. Righty or Lefty: Righty
016. Sweats or Jeans: Jeans
017. Phone or camera: Phone
018. Health freak: Nah
019. Piercings: None
020. Do you have a crush on someone: Kinda
021. Eat or drink: Drink
022. Purse or Backpack: Backpack
023. Tattoes: No
024. Do you like yourself? Yep
025. Current worry: [Blank]

THIS OR THAT
026. Orange or apple juice: Apple juice
027. Night or day: Night
028. Sun or moon: Moon
029. TV or Internet: Internet
030. Playstation or Xbox: Never owned an Xbox, hence couldn't compare
031. Kiss or hugs: Both
032. Iguana or turtle: Turtle
033. Spider or bee: Spider
034. Fall or Spring? Fall
035. Limewire or iTunes: iTunes
036. Soccer or baseball: Neither

FIRSTS
037. First surgery: When I was 1
038. First piercing: [Blank]
039. First best friend: Edwin, a classmate in my primary school
040. First sport: Badminton
041. First award: Best primary school final exam taker
042. First crush: first grade
043. First pet: Engkoy, a mixed-colour cat
044. First big vacation: errm.... Indonesia? It hasn't even ended yet after more than a decade.
045. First big birthday: None is big enough

CURRENTLY
046. Eating: Nope
047. Drinking: Nada
048. I’m about to: Go home from French lessons
049. Listening to: None
050. Singing: Corrinne May
051. Typing: only this Blog entry
052. Waiting for: an SMS

YOUR FUTURE
053. Want kids: Perhaps
054. When: Not sure
055. Want to get married: Of course.
056. When: Above the age of 27
057. Where do you want to live: Ideally, Southern Europe
058. Careers in mind: Freelancing and/or anything with steady salary
059. What did you want to be when you were little: a detective
060. Mellow future or wild: WILD!
061. Something you would never try: Smoking, having drugs

WHICH IS BETTER FOR THE OPPOSITE SEX
062. Lips or eyes: Lips
063. Shorter or taller: Shorter, with no more than 10 cm gap with mine
064. Romantic or spontaneous: Both
065. Nice stomach or nice arms: both
066. Sensitive or loud: Neither
067. Hook up or relationship:Relationship
068. Trouble maker or hesitant: Neither
069. Hugging or kissing: both
070. Tan skinned or light: Either
071. Dark or light hair: Either
072. Muscular or normal: normal

HAVE YOU EVER
073. Lost glasses/contacts: Nope
074. Ran away from home: Almost
075. Held a gun/knife for self defense: No
076. Killed somebody: Hmm....almost
077. Broken someone’s heart: Hmm.
078. Been arrested: No
079. Cried when someone died: Yes.
080. Kissed a stranger: Nah
081. Climbed up a tree: Yes
082. Liked a friend more than a friend: Yep

DO YOU BELIEVE IN
083. Yourself: Kinda
084. Miracles: No
085. Love at first sight: Yes
086. Heaven: Yes
087. Santa Claus: No
088. Kiss on the first date: Why not?

ANSWER TRUTHFULLY
089. Is there one person you want to be with right now: Of course
090. Do you like someone: I only like those who don't stab me behind my back
091. Are you seriously happy with what you are in life: Most of the time, yes

LASTS
092. Received/sent text message: Dear D
093. Received call: Dear D
094. Call made: Dear D
095. Person(s) you hang out with: Dear D, my 2nd Dear D, Buana, Sis R, Duli, Citra Agustine

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Dead and definitely gone

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

~Compiled from various sources~

• Henry the VIII executed some 72,000 subjects. His favourite method was boiling people to death.
• The ashes of astronomer Eugene Shoemaker were put aboard the 1999 Lunar Prospector flight and was "control" crashed into a crater to give him a moon burial.
• Only four U.S. states are on record as having never engaged in a lynching - Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont.
• William Kemmler was the first person to be executed in the electric chair in 1890, at Auburn Prison in New York. It was a disaster. The executioner had to administer several rounds of electricity while Kemmler kicked, seared, smoked, thrashed and convulsed, finally dying after eight minutes. An autopsy showed he literally cooked to death, from the inside out.
• Lethal injection was first used in 1982. Three separate drugs are used, starting with a barbiturate that knocks the victim out.
• When John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, it was not a federal felony to kill a president of the United States.
• Singer Steve Goodman had his ashes buried under the home plate in Chicago's Wrigley Field.
• An eternal flame lamp at the tomb of a Buddhist priest in Nara, Japan, has been tended to and kept burning for 1,132 years.
• Utah and Ohio are the only U.S. states that still can execute by firing squad.
• The first drive-in mortuary in the USA was opened in 1968 by Hirschel Thornton. While the deceased rested behind a glass wall, those wanting to pay their last respects could drive by without having to get out of their cars.
• From the 1850s to the 1880s, the most common reason for death among cowboys in the American West was being dragged by a horse while their foot was still caught in the stirrups.
• Tens of millions of people died of smallpox but now there are only two live samples of the virus left in the world. Both are in sealed test tubes; one is in a lab in Moscow and the other is at the Centre for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The last reported case of smallpox was in 1978 in England, when the virus accidentally escaped from the lab.
• The leading cause of death among military personnel in peace time is drunk driving.
• Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, CA is the largest in the U.S. - 1,200 acres in four parks.
• Crematoria ovens heat typically to 1,100-1,300 F and will burn up a 180 lb. man in about an hour and a half. There are always bones and chunks left; everything is then ground up, and those are the "ashes" you get back.
• The word "mausoleum" comes from the memorial tomb of Mausolus, who died in 353 BC. When he died his wife had him cremated, mixed his ashes with water, and drank him.
• The tradition of funeral wreaths originated from the belief that the wreath would encircle the spirit of the dead and keep it at bay.

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Big dogs, small dogs, dumb and smart

The following text is originally lifted from the trivia section of The Jakarta Post dated Tuesday, 26 August 2007.

~Compiled from various sources~

• The border collie is the smartest dog, the afghan is the dumbest.
• The ridge along the back of the Rhodesian ridgeback is made up of forward-growing hairs.
• The Irish wolfhound stands 75 to 90 cm at the top of the shoulders and weighs 45 to 55 kg.
• The labrador retriever was once called "St John's Newfoundland".
• Although human noses have an impressive five million olfactory cells with which to smell, sheepdogs have 220 million, enabling them to smell 44 times better than man.
• In 1804, Australia issued a proclamation ordering the destruction of all dogs except greyhounds and sheepdogs.
• The dalmatian dog originate from Dalmatian coast of Croatia.
• Dalmatians are born pure white; they don't start getting spots until they are three or four days old/
• The dalmatian is the only dog that gets gout.
• Inbreeding causes three out of every 10 dalmatians to suffer from hearing disability.
• The chihuahua stands 15 to 22 cm at the top of the shoulders and weighs only one to three kg.
• The dachshund is the smallest breed of hunting dog. It is low to the ground, which allows it to enter and manoeuvre thru tunnels easily.
• The cocker spaniel is the smallest member of the sporting dog family.
• The pug is one of the oldest breeds of dog, having flourished since before 400 BC.
• Pugs were kept as pets at Buddhist monasteries in Tibet.
• The pug was the official dog of the House of Orange in Holland after one of the breed saved the life of the crown prince; the dog appears in the effigy of the monarch over William's tomb.
• The wrinkles on a pug's forehead were thought by the Chinese to resemble the character for prince.
• Though called Mopshond (to grumble) in Holland and Carlin in France, the name "pug" probably comes from the dog's facial expression, which is similar to that of the marmoset monkeys that were popular pets of the early 1700s and known as pugs.
• The sled dogs running in Alaska's annual Iditarod race burn an average of 10,000 calories daily.
• Every known dog breed except the chow has a pink tongue. Its is black.
• Chinese crested dogs can get acne.
• The Basenji does not bark but makes yodelling noises.
• When a wolf howls it is either marking its territory, telling other wolves to stay away, trying to find a lost wolf from the pack or looking for a mate.
• Jackals have one more pair of chromosomes than dogs or wolves.
• More carnivorous than other hyenas, the spotted hyena eats everything but rumen contents and horn bosses of biggest antelope. Bones, horns, hooves and even teeth are digested within 24 hours.
• The spotted hyena spends a large part of day lying down, the rest hunt and foraging. It can travel up to 40 km/day.

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on the creation of Hindu-based and Buddhist-based political party in Indonesia

What I have noticed from Indonesia's democracy is the lack of either Hindu-based or Buddhist-based political parties...

While there are numerous examples of Islamic-based ones (PBB, PKB or PPP to name a few), Protestant (PDS), or even Catholic (PKDI), why are the Hindu Balinese or minority Buddhists not represented yet?

As a true blue pluralist (note: I am neither Hindu nor Buddhist myself), I am looking forward to the creation of both political parties for the 2014 elections.

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Why I don't tweet

Despite the fact that I am one of those netizens who surf the internet on a daily basis, I don't think that I'll ever have the incentive to tweet (i.e. post your regular updates on Twitter).

Nah, tweeting simply shows how unpluggable (i.e. unable to disconnect your life from the world wide web) you are. And that, in my holy opinion, is so uncool.

I myself do take some pride on having been able to unplug from my chatting messengers (e.g. I have not logged in to my Yahoo! messenger nor MSN for nigh over a month by now), because at least I am now able to spend less time in front of the computer and finally, detach myself from that Geeky image which some people say I was endowed with.

I have nothing against Twitter, really.

But I just think that updating my public status on Facebook is already a sufficient alternative... Do you not think so?

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Don't dream it's over

This Sixpence none the richer's song reminds me of Australia. Nah, it has nothing to do with déjà vu... I have not even been to the country yet!

Rather, it reminds me of an Australian tourism advertisement I used to see often in Singapore's Ch5.

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Indo-lyric: 9 Perempuan (Pizza)

English translation:

Nine ladies

You're one of the nine ladies
who have been mine and not forgotten
because only you who always give me love

and my life feels void without you
I shed tears when I don't see your smile
though we're no longer walking together

Explain to the world, that you
used to be my lover because of affection
let them now that you're a loyal lady

And I destroyed your life bcoz I
was too jealous if you're not on my side
though I have closed my mind now

Reff:
I wanna kill myself
who have been to easy to let you go
I wanna feel sorry but it has happened
those tears have soaked the earth

Original lyric in Indonesian:

Kau satu dari 9 perempuan
Yang pernah kumiliki dan tak terlupakan
Karena hanya kamu yang selalu memberikan cinta

Dan hidupku terasa sepi tanpamu
Menangisku bila tak lihat senyummu
Walaupun kita kini tak lagi jalan bersama

Jelaskan pada dunia, dulu kamu
Menjadi kekasihku semua karna cinta
Biarkan mereka tahu bahwa kamu wanita setia

Dan hidupmu kuhancurkan karnaku
Terlalu cemburu bila kau tak disampingku
Walau ku kini menutup jalan berfikirku

Reff:
Ingin kubunuh diriku sendiri
Yang terlalu mudah melepaskanmu pergi
Ingin kusesali tapi telah terjadi
Air mata itu membasahi bumi

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Can water get stale?

My query on the title may sound absurd to you...but in case you have not noticed, those branded water bottles sold on the supermarket (i.e. Aqua, Vit, etc.) does have an expiry date.

Gee, I am lost.

Why is there an expiry date on the bottle? I mean... I know I do not excel on Chemistry, but we only need to question the common sense here.

Why do they inscribe an expiry date on a water bottle, for heaven's sake?

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Earth and its Surroundings

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

~Compiled from various sources~

• A full moon always rises at sunset.
• Each unit on the Richter Scale is equivalent to a power factor of about 32. So a 6 is 32 times more powerful than a 5. Though it goes to 10, just over 9 is estimated to be the point of total tectonic destruction (2 is the smallest that can be felt unaided).
• In 1883, the explosion of Mount Krakatau put so much dust into the earth's atmosphere that sunsets appeared green and the moon appeared blue around the world for almost two years.
• The volume of the Earth's moon is the same as the volume of the Pacific Ocean.
• The red giant star Betelgeuse has a diameter larger than that of the Earth's orbit around the sun.
• The Earth-Moon size ratio is the largest in the solar system, apart from Pluto-Charon.
• The most common substance found on earth is water.
• It would take 829,000 kilolitres of water to cover 2.5 square kilometres with 30 cm of water.
• The Amazon rain forest produces half the world's oxygen supply.
• 71% of the earth's surface is water.
• 97% of all the earth's water is ocean or sea.
• 2% of the world's water is frozen in the polar ice caps and therefore unusable.
• Only 1% of the earth's water is suitable for drinking.
• The amount of gold dissolved in the oceans is nearly 10 million tonnes, which is about 180 times the total amount of gold dug in mines in the entire history of humanity.
• About 10 million bacteria live in one gram of soil.
• If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.
• Dinosaurs lived on Earth for around 165 million years before they became extinct.
• About 450 million years ago the South pole was situated where the Sahara desert is now.
• Only 55% of Americans know that the sun is a star.

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There's a lot to being busy as a bee

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

~Compiled from various sources~

• The blood of a honeybee never clots.
• Bees maintain a temperature of 33 ºC in their central brood nest regardless of whether the outside temperature is 40 ºC or -40 ºC.
• Honeybees can fly up to 14 kilometres from their nest in search of food. Usually, however, they fly up to three kilometres away from their hive to forage on flowers.
• Honeybees are entirely herbivorous when they forage for nectar and pollen but can cannibalise their own brood when stressed.
• A bee can travel 6.5 million km at 11 kph on the energy it obtains from 3.785 litres of nectar.
• The average bee can travel up to 24 kph.
• Honeybees navigate using the sun as a compass, even when it is hidden behind clouds - they find it via the polarisation of ultraviolet light from areas of blue sky.
• When a queen bee lays the fertilised eggs that will develop into new queens, only one of the newly laid queens actually survives. The first new queen that emerges from her cell destroys all other queens in their cells and, thereafter, reigns alone.
• An average bee hive has 30,000 to 60,000 bees living in it. This population is easily maintained by a queen laying 1,000 to 3,000 eggs on a single day.
• The first week as an adult worker, honeybees clean the hive. By the second week, they feed the young. The third week, they make and repair wax cells in the hive. By the fourth week, they have begun guarding the hive, and finally, they will visit flowers for pollen and nectar from the fifth week until they die.
• The queen bee lives for up to two years. The drone, whose only job is to mate with the queen bee, has a lifespan of around 24 days and has no stinger. Worker bees - all sterile females - usually work themselves to death within 40 days, collecting pollen and nectar.
• Only about one drone, or male bee, in 1,000 gets to mate with the queen bee in a given colony.
• Male bees remain in the hive, their only mission in life being to fertilise the queen bee on her maiden flight. After they have served their function, the males are not allowed back into the hive but are left outside, where they starve to death.
• Honeybees are sometimes called "white man's flies" because they were brought to North America by European colonists.
• Although bees' wings seem too small to enable flight, their rapid beats of over 100 times a second allow them to move forward, backward and up and down.
• A queen honeybee can control the flow of sperm to fertilise an egg when she is about to lay an egg.
• Honeybees have an unusual genetic sex determination system known as haplodiploidy. Worker bees are produced from fertilised eggs and have a full (double) set of chromosomes. The males, or drones, develop from unfertilised eggs and are thus haploid with only a single set of chromosomes.
• Bees can see ultraviolet light.
• Bees do not hear very well through air, but they have sense organs on their legs that help them hear through solids.
• To sting, a bee uses 22 muscles.
• The brain of a worker honeybee is about a cubic millimetre but has the densest neuropile tissue of any animal.
• Honeybees have hair on their eyes.
• A bee has five eyes, two large compound eyes on either side of its head, and three ocelli (primitive eyes) on top of its head to detect light intensity.
• Bee experts say honeybees are totally blind to the colour red.
• In the Spanish Pyrenees, when a beekeeper dies, each of his bees is splashed with a drop of black ink.

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Is God male?

Questioning the Theos' gender may turn out to be a vain attempt to pore over thru scriptures and reopen an aeons-old time-wasting debate by various religious leaders, moderate and fanatical alike.

But answering God's sex is not that hard, I say. It simply comes down to what language we are having...is it gender-sensitive?

Take heed people, we are using English here.

If you're asking whether God is male, then yes, He is male.

His female counterpart in English would be called "Goddess"

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If tomorrow was the end of the world...

There is only one thing I would do:

Get married

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Which school subject is more important... Maths or Language?

My Maths teacher at my former school once reprimanded her student whom she caught doing his English homework in the middle of her lesson. He told him, "I suggest you stop doing your Maths, young man... Maths is a subject more important than anything else you could take, don't you know?"

Then during one of my English lessons, another student quoted what my Maths teacher said to our English teacher regarding the importance of Maths beating any other subjects. He rhetorically quipped to the teacher, "Madam, how important is studying English actually? Maths is more important, you know..that was what Madam [Math's teacher name here] told me.."

Then my English teacher told the class, "Well class, pen is still mightier than ruler, you know."

I could not agree more.

It's not that I have a tendency to dislike Maths here, but for you Maths-lovers (or Maths-experts) out there; take heed:

No matter how advanced you have studied your Algebra or Geometry or Trigonometry, you still need a decent grammar in order to make yourself acceptable to the society at large. You would still need to learn language in some detail in order to write a book, present a paper, or teaching in class with a good grammar and grasp of vocabulary.

On the other hand, those linguists or philologists do not need to study Calculus in detail in order to make a literary criticism, do they? Just being able to add, multiply, subtract, and divide would be sufficient for them to make a living... Lingo-experts do not need to play on numbers (apart from managing their monthly salary or taxes, of course)

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Indo-lyric: Jangan pernah selingkuh (Angkasa)

English translation:

Don't you ever cheat

please don't be dishonest
please don't hurt me
if you love me

please don't tell me lies
please don't stab me
if you do have affection for me

Reff:
without knowing my mistakes
without knowing my sins
you do as you will

don't you ever cheat
don't you ever go with another
if you really are my love

uhuuuuuuu [8x]

don't you get close to me
don't you flirt with me
if you keep on being like that

throw away such attitudes
throw away all your egoes
bcoz I don't like it

repeat Reff [2x]

uhuuuuuuuu [8x]

Original lyric in Indonesian:

jangan kau dustai
jangan kau sakiti aku
bila kau cinta padaku

jangan kau bohongi aku
jangan kau lukai aku
bila kau sayang padaku

reff:
tanpa ku tahu salahku
tanpa ku tahu dosaku
kau berbuat semaumu

jangan pernah kau selingkuh
jangan pernah kau mendua
bila kau memang cintaku

uhuuuuuu [8x]

jangan kau dekati aku
jangan kau merayu aku
bila kau terus begitu

buanglah sifat burukmu
buang semua egomu
karna ku tak suka itu

repeat reff [2x]

uhuuuuuu [8x]

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on having movie subtitles

A friend of mine who happens to be effectively bilingual on Indonesian and English once complained about Western movies screened on theatres with an Indonesian-language subtitle.

He said it slightly distracts him from enjoying the entire movie fully.

Ah.

As an effective speaker of both Indonesian and English myself, I disagree with him to a large extent.

I personally think that having subtitle does indeed add to my enjoyment in watching the movie, particularly because it helps me to notice certain things I might have missed or misheard in the first place.

On "mishearing" them, I am not referring to my lack of proficiency in either languages. Of course not.

It does not matter whether it is an English movie with Indonesian subtitle or Indonesian movie with English subtitle (The first time I watched the legendary Ada apa dengan Cinta? in full was in a Singaporean channel, with English-language subtitle).

On the other hand,I do not mind on having no subtitles at all. It is just a matter of having them as additional options.

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The things people do

The following text is originally lifted from the trivia section of The Jakarta Post dated Friday, 24 July 2007.

~Compiled from various sources~

• Being unmarried can shorten a man's life by 10 years.
• People who have never been married are seven and a half times more likely than married people to be admitted to a psychiatric facility.
• There have been cases of people dying from paper cuts. The paper cut gets infected, and without proper treatment a person can die from the infection.
• Drinking water after eating redices the acid in your mouth by 61%.
• Since 1958, there have been nearly 100 cases of women who are allergic to male sperm.
• There have been about 30 reported cases of people who are allergic to water.
• "Soldiers disease" is a term for morphine addiction.
• According to German researchers, the risk of heart attack is higher on a Monday than any other day of the week.
• Over the same period of time, women who read romance novels tend to have twice as many lovers as those who don't.
• According to the Kinsley Institute, masturbation is more common among white-collar workers than blue-collar workers.
• Women with a PhD are twice as likely to be interested in a one-night stand than those with only a bachelor degree.
• On average, 20% of women who live with their boyfriends have another sex partner.
• According to the Kama Sutra, a mixture of camel's milk and honey will keep a man erect night and day.
• The longest bout of hiccups lasted 69 years.
• If your are right-handed you will generally process emotion in the right hemisphere of the brain.
• Wearing headphones for just an hour could increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.
• Blood sucking hookworms inhabit 700 million people worldwide.
• Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.
• A person will die from a total lack of sleep sooner than from starvation. Death will occur about 10 days without sleep, while starvation takes a few weeks.
• If you are locked in a completely sealed room, you will die of carbon dioxide first before you die of oxygen deprivation.
• If you go blind in one eye, you'll only lose about one-fifth of your vision but all your depth perception.
• The only time human population declined was in the years following 1347, the start of the epidemic of the plague "Black Death" in Europe.
• Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour and if you yelled for eight years, seven months and six days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
• The sound you hear when people crack their knuckles is actually the sound of nitrogen gas bubbles bursting.
• Between 75-90% of primary physician visits are due to stress.
• Undertakers report that human bodies do not deteriorate as quickly as they used to. The reason, they believe, is that the modern diet contains so many preservative that these chemicals tend to prevent the body from decomposition too rapidly after death.

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Tales of the rich, the famous and the infamous

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

~Compiled from various sources~

• Billionaire recluse Howard Hughes' original fortune originated from his father's invention of an oil drill bit capable of boring thru subterranean rock.
• The three largest land-owners in England are the Queen, the Church of England and Trinity College, Cambridge.
• The German Kaiser Wilhelm II had a withered arm and often hid the fact by posing with his hand resting on a sword, or by holding gloves.
• A golden razor removed from King Tut's Tomb was still sharp enough to be used.
• One of the patron saints of Dublin, St. Kevin, was known as a hermit during the 6th century.
• Mata Hari, who was executed by firing squad in France in October 1917, is probably the most famous spy of all time. Yet in fact she was not Oriental, or even a spy. Mata Hari was the stage name adopted by a plump, middle-aged Dutch divorcee named Margaretha McLeod who had left her alcoholic Scottish husband and opted to become a dancer in Europe. The evidence of her alleged espionage on behalf of the German Kaiser was based merely on her being mistaken for a known German agent, Clara Benedix, by the British in 1916.
• Stalin was only 162 cm tall.
• Stalin's left foot had webbed toes, and his left arm was noticeably shorter than his right.
• Louis IV of France had a stomach the size of two regular stomachs.
• Artist Constantino Brumidi fell from the dome of the U.S. Capitol while painting a mural around the rim. He died four months later.
• A person from the country of Nauru is called a Nauruan; this is the only palindromic nationality.
• The first woman executed by the federal U.S. government was Mary Surratt. She was hanged 7 July 1865 for conspiracy in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
• Martha Jane Canary, aka. Calamity Jane, had 12 husbands.
• Swedish confectionery salesman Roland Ohisson was buried in a coffin made entirely of chocolate.
• The cruel (and somewhat Mad) Roman Emperor Caligula once made his horse a senator.
• Henry Ford was obsessed with soybeans. He once wore a suit and tie made from soy-based material, served a 16-course meal made entirely from soybeans, and ordered many Ford auto-parts to be made from soy-derived plastic.
• When Thomas Edison died in 1941, Henry Ford captured his dying breath in a bottle.
• The first known doctor was Imhotep, an Ancient Egyptian who lived 4,600 years ago. After his death, Imhotep was made a god.
• Eric II, king of Denmark, died in 1104. He was known as Eric the Memorable. No one remembers why.
• English naval hero Viscount Horatio Nelson chose to be buried in St Paul's Church in London rather than in the national shrine of Westminster Abbey because he had heard that Westminster was sinking into the Thames River.
• Famed British writer Ben Johnson (1573-1637) was buried upright in Westminster Abbey's Poet's Corner because he died in debt and could not afford a proper grave site.
• The youngest pope was 11 years old.
• More than 20 popes and more than 80 saints have been named John.
• Moses was 120 years old when he died, according to the Bible.
• Catholic Popes who died during sex: Leo VII (936-9) died of a heart attack, John VII (955-64) was bludgeoned to death by the husband of the woman he was with at the time, John XIII (965-72) was also murdered by a jealous husband, Pope Paul II (1467-71) allegedly died while being sodomised by a page boy.

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Pictures in my iPod

I already have some of my most precious pictures uploaded onto my iPod nano. I love them.

Oh and by the way, does anyone realise that today is Friday the 13th, too? This month's calendar is nigh identical to last month's.

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on Plunging blog popularity

My blog popularity is plunging. I really need to blog more often. Gah.

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When it's all over

You wondered whether I still love you or not.

I think you know the answer well, dear.

You could get thru this, I know you could.

Of course, it would be great if things had worked out differently for us. But it would be better for our own sake if we stop hoping in the impossible.

There are several things in life that we cannot fathom now, hence all this pains.

But I believe that God has a better plan for you. You are destined for a better plan than this, and I know you'll thank me one day. Perhaps a year from now, five years, or ten years down the road?

 

 

Now I want you to know something, in case you haven't realised.

The happiness I gain from being with you did not start on 1st of January 2009.

No, it started waaaaaay before that. It was from the moment I finally felt grateful to have known you back then, May or June 2008 methinks.

I don't regret at all at having known you. Neither do I regret for having been in a relationship with you.

Despite all the pains I have gotten, your existence gave me some of the most unforgettable memories in the last several years.

I still remember the first day we went out for ice-skating in a little-less-than-perfect detail.

I could recall well how silly you look when we played bowling with our two pals.

I loved the day I broke fast together with you and them after going to the movies in Grand Indonesia.

and I cherished the days I had to wait for you asking me out in the weekends.

 

If you think that our being together was a right thing, I could see the logic now. And I couldn't agree more.

Our relationship was correct in the sense that both of us could learn something from it, that life may not always go in the way we want, no matter how much tears we have shed to gain them.

 

Hence I want to thank you for various things you have made available for me..... 

for keeping up to my whines till late at 1AM.

for always showing me a tough smile to me although your own world was falling apart.

for staying loyal in my side when my world was falling apart.

for persistently showing me such loving warmth even when I was mad at you.

for going into such great lengths to avoid hurting my feelings.

for buying me those memorabilia just to carve a smile on my face.

for convincing me that I'm not the worst person in the world.

for having that cute smile on your face.

for having those pretty eyes (yes, I do like yours too!)

for being so hardheaded when it comes to NOT taking pictures.

for giving me a reason to smile in the morning and find you waking me up.

for being the first person who asked me out to the movies and ice rinks in years.

for making the year 2008 less painful than it should have been.

for being the first person on earth who wished me a happy 19th birthday.

for being the only person I chatted with during the turnover of year 2008-2009.

and for being half of my life, once.

  

  

Yes, let's end it with a smile.

At this moment I could promise you one thing.

For as long as I could remember your full name, until our teeth fall out and our hair fade into grey, I'll forever be there for you...as a loyal friend.

I'll never ever leave your side as a friend and brother and confidant; anytime you wanna share your laughs and tears I'm always available... You have my number, right?

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Indo-lyric: Kisah klasik (Sheila on 7)

English translation:

Classical story

Shake my hands, perhaps for the one last time
We chat about the memories that has passed
Embrace my body and wipe my tears
We are moved as if this is our last meeting

Have a good time
bcoz we're gonna miss this day
one day later, a classical story for future generations
have a good time
bcoz we will be proud of this time in our olden days

Till we meet again my friend
I wish we'll always be
a classical story for future generations
Till we meet again my friend
I wish we'll always be
a classical story for future generations

Have a good time
bcoz we're gonna miss this day
one day later...

Perhaps my whole body still yearns to be with you
perhaps my soul still thirst for your smiles

   

Original lyric in Indonesian:

Jabat tanganku, mungkin untuk yang terakhir kali
Kita berbincang tentang memori di masa itu
Peluk tubuhku usapkan juga air mataku
Kita terharu seakan tidak bertemu lagi

Bersenang-senanglah
Kar'na hari ini yang 'kan kita rindukan
Di hari nanti, sebuah kisah klasik untuk masa depan
Bersenang-senanglah
Kar'na waktu ini yang 'kan kita banggakan di hari tua

Sampai jumpa kawanku
S'moga kita selalu
Menjadi sebuah kisah klasik untuk masa depan
Sampai jumpa kawanku
S'moga kita selalu
Menjadi sebuah kisah klasik untuk masa depan

Bersenang-senanglah
Kar'na hari ini yang 'kan kita rindukan
Di hari nanti...

Mungkin diriku masih ingin bersama kalian
Mungkin jiwaku masih haus sanjungan kalian

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Black is the new colour

Black...

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The mighty river horse

The following text is originally lifted from the trivia section of The Jakarta Post dated Saturday, 14 June 2008.

~Compiled from various sources~

• The hippopotamus got its name from the Greek word hippoptamos, which means river horse.
• The hippo was considered a female deity of pregnancy in ancient Egypt, but is no longer found in that country.
• The hippo is the third-largest living land mammal, after elephants and white rhinos. It can weigh as much as 3.5 tonnes.
• The hippos' hide alone can weigh half a ton.
• A hippo can open its mouth wide enough to fit a 1.2 m tall child inside.
• Few animals can open their mouths as wide as a hippo can - they use this ability to scare away other animals.
• Hippos can turn their ears in the same direction at the same time.
• A hippo can run faster than a man.
• The hippo will often turn backside to an enemy and let dung fly. This is done to show confrontation or even superiority.
• Most hippos live 20 to 30 years, some of them settling down in one area for their entire life.
• The hippo's gestation period is just eight months.
• A newborn hippopotamus does not move, so its mother pokes and pushes it until it does.
• Hippos are born underwater, and nurse underwater too. The mother puts her head underwater and boosts the newborn to the surface to breathe. Then the baby goes under again, finds a nipple and suckles, instinctively folding down his ears and closing his nostrils. Every 20 to 40 seconds, he bobs to the surface to breathe and swallow.
• Adult hippos can stay under the water for five to six minutes whereas a baby hippo can only stay under for 20 seconds.
• Despite all their adaptations for life in the water, hippos cannot swim or even float.
• The hippopotamus is a pachyderm. Many people think that "pachyderm" means "elephant", but the word literally means "thick skin" and is used to describe any thick-skinned animal, such as the elephant, rhinoceros and hippopotamus.
• A hippo in dry air loses three to five times as much water per square inch per minute through its skin as a man does.
• Hippos have to stay immersed in water for long periods of time because their skin is very thick and is subject to overheating and dehydration.
• With very thick skin, especially over the back and rump, the hippo is almost completely hairless, with only a few bristles around the mouth and the tip of the tail.
• The hippo's skin can be five centimetres thick in places.
• People once believed that hippos sweated blood because their skin secretes a sticky pink fluid that protects the animal from dehydration, sunburn and possibly infection.
• At night the hippos graze in nearby grasslands, consuming 40 kilos of grass per night.
• When hippos fight, they toss water at each other, make a variety of sounds at each other and swing their massive heads at each other.
• Mother hippos have been known to kill lions and bite crocodiles in half in order to protect the young.
• A hippo has a three-chambered stomach: the parietal blind sac, the stomach and the glandular stomach.
• With the long, razor-sharp incisors and tusk-like canines, the hippo is well-armed and dangerous. Their canine teeth and incisors grow continuously, with canines reaching 50 centimetres in length.
• Hippos have a set of built-in "goggles" - a clear membrane covers their eyes for protection while still allowing them to see when underwater.
• Newborn hippos often climb on their mothers' back to rest.
• DNA results show that hippos are actually closer linked to dolphins and whales than to other hoofed animals.
• Around the 18th century, hippo tusks were used to make artificial teeth.

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on being next-in-line

We were on our ride home together when I asked her, "Hey I'm just wondering..."

"Yea?" she glanced at me.

"Who's your closest guy? Well, apart from him of course"

"Oh"

Then she fell into some small thought and answered, "You. Well, there are actually the two of you; but the other guy is studying in Florida right now"

"Oh yeah, that guy you told me the other day?"

"Yep", she nodded.

"So that means that..." I feigned some pondering for a while and came into a conclusion, "So....on being your guy, I'm next-in-line right now!"

We laughed it off.

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A page from romance novel?

I was confiding a bit of my personal feelings and recounts over the last few weeks to Bayu (Duli's brother) when he interrupted.

"Toshi. Frankly speaking, sometimes I actually envy you"

"Why?" I asked.

"Listening to your (love) story feels like reading a page from romance novel... if only I could have a story like yours"

I chortled, and replied him with my honest answer, "Dude. The very fact that you're still single and not provided with any choice at all gives you a better chance of hitting the exact 'match-made in heaven' when you finally meet one later"

"Amen to that, T! Hahaha people sometimes say such things to appease me, but I guess that's probably closer to truth, eh?" he grinned.

"Yes, it is. And anyway, I don't see myself as a lucky beneficiary at all. Oh geez Bayu, couldn't you see? Either way, being forced to choose between the lesser of two pains still hurt me eventually. In the end, I'll either hurt myself, hurt someone else, or hurt both of us."

"Hmm you think so?"

"Yep", I nodded and smiled at him, "Consider yourself luckier than me, dude"

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Indo-lyric: Mutiara hati (Memes)

English translation:

Pearls of my heart

All this time we've been happy
sharing happiness between us
I've given all my love
filled with magic the entire time

The melodies of your song to me
the softness of affection in my heart
you exhale the breath of my life
you're the pearl of my heart

everything feels more realistic
we tear out the eternity of love together

The melodies of your song to me
the softness of affection in my heart
you exhale the breath of my life
forever we're inseparable

As true as my love for you
as pure as my affection for you
you're the only one in my life
you're the pearl of my heart

Original lyric in Indonesian:

Sekian lama, kita bahagia,
berbagi keindahan,diantara kita…
Kuserahkan, seluruh cintaku…
penuh keajaiban disetiap waktu…

Senandung lagumu untukku,
lembut mesra dalam hatiku…
kau hembuskan nafas hidupku,
Kau Mutiara Hatiku…

Segalanya, semakin nyata…
kita rengkuh bersama abadinya cinta……

Senandung lagumu untukku,
lembut mesra dalam hatiku…
Kau hembuskan nafas hidupku,
selamanya takkan terpisahkan…

Setulus cintaku untukmu,
semurni kasihmu untukku…
Kau Satu di dalam hidupku,
Kau Mutiara hatiku……

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of things acquired and lost

by Toshi

written on Monday, 2 March 2009

 

Indeed, one loathes this to happen
even the angels are displeased

Yet one could clearly sight
that some things are just meant to be

What's written between the lines
say, one could feign not to decipher it

However the oracles have spoken
with this room split open

One does not even have to toil and wander
taking things slowly yet persistently

A full celestial orbit has spoken its truth
the hill could not crumble that easily

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