The Mandrake [Published Private Life]

A few days ago, my Son was doing some creative drawing on his drawing book. There was a picture of a girl with empty face. The idea was for kids to draw eyes, ears, nose and mouth on it. Below is the original pix area.

My son did the job, actually. He managed to draw the eyes and the mouth. But, not that quite well. It turned to be some monster girl. I, being naughty father, couldn’t help but making it even worse. So, below is the work of father and son.

Now, I don’t know whether you are now laughing or scared. But, that’s the example of good cooperation: one has the idea, the other just continue (to make it worse). Hahahaha..

We’re celebrating the price hike which will come in the next few days. We’re so happy for this price hike. It’s triggered by the fuel price hike. Imagine, with low people’s purchase power, we have to buy so high fuel price.

There was this email that’s been wandering around the Internet. It’s in Bahasa Indonesia. It contained list of fuel price in all over the world, and the price has been converted to Indonesian Rupiahs. Funny how it seems. It seems like the message is, hey, in other countries the fuel price is even more expensive. You’ve been spoiled by government’s subsidy.

I wonder who subsidized who? Haven’t we been paying taxes all this time? Wherever I go, tax is following. All I see is government officials (whose salary is paid by me and millions of citizens who pay taxes) drive cars more expensive than mine, have cell phone more expensive than mine, wear clothes more expensive than mine. Aren’t we the ones who subsidize all that luxury? Can’t someone do something about it?

For your-highness ministers, please drive Kijang, or ride a motorbike like I do. It will surely cut the state’s expenditure. For your-highness members of the board, please, pay your own electricity bill, like I do.

Oh well, what I’m a talking about here? Life will go on, anyway. We must enjoy the pride of having the most expensive fuel price in the world (in compare to people’s purchase power).

Few days ago, news has it that a male artist had his picture taken (almost) naked. He’s not everybody’s sweetheart. Things would be different if it’s done by a pretty sexy young girl (not like it’s never been done before).

Do I understand art? I believe I do. But, if one tells that nudity is art, then I might be considering taking an art class. Because, that would mean I don’t understand a single thing about art. Why would people push the idea of nudity as art? I just couldn’t get it. There are many ways to express oneself. Why choose nudity? Why can’t express it in colour? In music? In sculpture? Why nude?

Was that a justification of bringing pictures of naked woman (or man) in the public? If that’s the case, then I might as well be just hating art. What’s the difference between naked women in Playboy and in the art gallery? They’re both naked. Different purpose? What purpose? Oh well.. never mind.

The past few days I’ve gone through some coincidences. Those weren’t the first time, though. I’ve gone through many times before. However, the intensity is going high now.

It started yesterday. I was visiting my old friend’s office to send some letter when I encountered my fellow English teacher who’s also a journalist. He had an event to write a journal on in the office building (it’s a plaza where there are many offices in the building). I thought chances were fat I could meet someone I know in that kinda place. But, there I was talking to him.

Having gone back to the office, a friend of mine asking me if I had a sister the one that he knew. Another friend of mine also asked the same question. In turned out that, those two friends joined in a forum where lots of people meet and talk about things, including my sister.

And today, when I went to the embassy, I met some relative from my wife’s side. Really, chances were fat to meet someone there. But, there I was having a short chat with her.

Last coincidence was this. Today I was on leave. I had applied for my leave since last week where I had a plan for doing some thing. But, just on Monday I was told to make an appointment to have an interview at the embassy. The day was joyful. It was a half day leave. So, from morning to lunch time -well, almost lunch time- I was at the embassy. And, by lunch time, I was gone. Woohoo.

Don’t you just love how things fall into places when you least expect them?

No, it’s not right as opposed to left. Nope. It’s right as in well. Now, today I went to the US embassy. I got downhearted when I had to go there. The last time I went there, the administrative folks weren’t friendly. We went there the 4 of us, my colleagues and I. We had been there from, like, 7am. We had to go through all the crazy administration. Bureaucracy wasn’t much, though. It’s the line that we had to queue. Very long. Amazing how many people wanted to go to the US.

So, back then, the administrative young lady, had me re-fill the form, and take queue from the back. And all I missed was one single field.

Today, I went the same occasion. The administrative young lady (different one, cuter, and nicer, hey, if you are the girl and read this blog, give me your number, will you? Haha.. just kidding) had me re-fill the form. Thankfully, she didn’t had me take queue from the back. She just asked me to quickly amend the missing fields. Phew. Thank you, girl. Thanks, God. Thank you for making my day.

So, all in all, everything went just great. Although I had to leave home early in the morning, before the sun had a chance to set its ray on earth, and although I had trouble finding taxi from the office to the US embassy, I finished all the process by 10am. Only 3 hours (if you live here, you’d say Only, in another country, you might say ‘3 hours!). When things go right, they go right.

I have been operating computers since I was in high school, since the domination was with MS-DOS6.2. Then came Windows 3.1 and now there are so many Windows family. They have one (among other things) software installed in common: the Minesweeper.

It’s not like I am a fan of the game. But, I play it when I’m bored operating computers and in other vacant occasions. Now, I come to a conclusion that the game has a flaw (like many other products of Microsoft). Observe the screenshot below.

You can see from the screenshot that I need to sweep 2 more bombs from the landmine. That means, 1 bomb for each of area A and B. But, regardless of technique and methods I have learnt, I have to make a guess on which box contains bomb. When I clicked area A, I was saved because I made good guess. But, when I clicked area B, the below picture is the screenshot of what happened.

On the left, is the original screenshot. You see, even if the bomb is placed on the other box, the numbers that surround them won’t change. This is the situation in which you have to make a good guess. I hope those guys at the Microsoft who develops this game notice this and fix it. It’s not a great game, I know. But, when this is the only thing you have for fun at the office, you might want to consider having it as your pal.

I was about to create a post on the coming soon new look on Yahoo when I just looked at this new look on Friendster. It welcomed me with a pop-up message. I think it’s cool, man!

Now, I just read this news that Yahoo! launches test of email upgrade. They say they will have their service to look a lot like Outlook email client. You can drag and drop files and everything. Whoa! The competition has gone so tight with Gmail! And who takes advantage of that? Customers, like us!

Man, I wish this could go on forever. They make war, we make email accounts.

What is language? To me, it’s an agreed mechanism in a nation by which people in the country can communicate/ pass through information to others. Stop.

So, say, if you go to China, you’ll hear people talking to each other, don’t wonder if you don’t understand a single word they say. It’s because they’re using an agreed way of communication (called Hanyu, the national language of China).

Having grown up in a country where English is a foreign language, I feel kind of funny how people treat our own language. They use English and local language interchangeably. Is this a kind of way of life?

I read this article on some online news website. It said that magazines in our country are somewhat deceiving. Headlines are in English, while contents are in local language. On radio, I heard advertisement spoken in English, but then got mixed up with Indonesian. What the..?

We should learn a lot from China. They translate everything to their local language. Even Hollywood movies. I just don’t understand why we cannot use our own national language.

I have a theory. It must be because our people don’t seem to be proud to hold the nationality of our country. It seems to be ashamed to use the national language. Comprehendable. I mean, hey, I write my blog in English.

But, my target audience here is International people. While, the radio show’s target audience is local city folks. Why use English? And in broken English!

So, what languages show us? The proudness to hold the nationality of the nation. So, next time you see some folk from some country, and he/ she doesn’t speak his/ her language to his/ her own fellow country folk, you can be assured that he/ she’s not proud to hold the nationality of his/ her nation.

Who’s Dumbledore? If this question rises in your head, you might not want to continue, because obviously you are not a Harry Potter fan. Okay, so I have finished reading the 6th edition of Harry Potter some time ago. The story tells that Dumbledore is dead. I wonder for a while, why must he die?

Having read all through the 6 books, I have drawn a conclusin that J.K. Rowling is a genius in writing story. She knows how to relate one scene with another, right into the detail. From how come there’s no Defense Against Dark Art teachers that can hold the position for more than one year to why must a powerful wizard must die in this 6th edition.

It’s like this. In the story, it is said that in the end there will be Harry Potter and Lord Voldermort will be fighting until one survive. Should Dumbledore still live in the 7th edition, it will spoil the story. Why? Because Harry Potter will have backup from his headmaster. This isn’t supposed to be like that. So, my wild guess is that there will be full frontal between the two. No Dumbledore on the way.

So, that’s my analysis. Looking forward to Harry Potter 7th edition.

Yesterday, I bought this cheap key chain. It cost only Rp.5000 (that would be something around 50cents, whoa, just like that rapper guy). By the way, it’s a small cute transparent box key chain. It could blink a blue light emitted that cause the key chain blink. It was operated on a three stack round batteries. Cute, very cute.

Alas, this morning when I rode to the office, I lost the goddam thing. Oh well, you can’t have what you have for eternity. But to possess it in one day?! C’mon!

Of course, I can just go to the store and buy another key chain. But, what would be of it? I’m just going to spend the whole of my life buying key chain. Is having a key chain and keeping it is so luxurious that I have to lose it in one day. Anyway, I would like to extend my gratitude to that cute key chain who had accompanied me during my riding bike.

Bye bye, key chain