Beating the Evening Jam

Back in early 2002, when the rain poured down heavily for two days non-stop, I spent four hours waiting for the evening bus home. I waited standing in the rain, under my umbrella, in the long line of people queuing. I couldn't leave my spot, not even to go to toilet. Nobody moved too. Then the bus came, I managed to get a seat. Many others couldn't. The driver encouraged all of us to just go in and stand in the aisle. It was a wet, cold and dark night. Electricity was down due to heavy flood. Traffic was horrible beyond measure. The trip home took another good four hours. We arrived at destination at midnight. And apparently, that bus was the last bus that could reach final station that night. Other buses couldn't make it, they had to spend overnight on the road .. together with the unlucky passengers.

Last Friday, it almost happened again. Only this time, it was a 15-minute rain and thunderstorm instead of 2-day rain. I was this close from running out of my office building to catch my bus home, but the storm was faster. Nothing would survive that thing. So I ended up going back to the office and waited there cautiously, I had planned to run as soon as the rain a bit lightened. When I finally could arrive at the bus stop, through showers, I realized that this was not eight years ago. A short pouring could cause traffic as heavy as it was in 2002. But I didn't want to wait in the rain. I went straight to the building lobby entrance, found an empty spot at the corner and sat on the floor. I waited, wearing my waterproof hooded-jacket, listening to my iPod and playing with my Blackberry. The bus was 2 hours late, I got a seat and it took 1 hour trip to home.

Never would I think I'd be in this situation again two days after. This Monday evening, the next working day from the above mentioned, it was the worst jam of the year. The rainstorm started at 4 pm and lasted for about 3 hours afterwards. I got out of the building early to anticipate the rain, didn't do any good. Still lucky I could get this motorbike-cab rider who was patient enough riding through the rain and leg-deep flood. Though I was wearing my waterproof jacket, it was so cold I couldn't stop shivering. Again, after reaching the bus stop, I went straight to the building lobby entrance and looked for an empty spot to sit. I took my shoes off because it got water in it, and started waiting. Listening to my iPod, playing with my Blackberry, and I got a really good book to read. I also bought my dinner in a box, ate it right there while sitting on the floor. (One lady complimented me on my successful dinner hunting in that difficult situation). When the waiting reached its 3rd hour, I was not the only one sitting at the lobby entrance floor. The bus finally came at the 4th hour. And the trip home took another 2 hours. I reached my home nearly midnight.

So. Looked like I did learn some things to a better comfort from one situation to another. Made the unbearable waiting time bearable to some extend.

(The bus driver suffered worse. I couldn't complain).

Here were the things I did on the 2nd and 3rd waiting:

• Staying warm inside my jacket with hood on.
• Sitting on the floor. I had no shame.
• Listening to Wang Leehom's songs: "Fallen Leaves Return to Roots", "Everything", "Another Heaven", "I Can't Stop Loving You", "The First Morning" and "Forever Love" on repeats.
• Listening to Vic Zhou's songs: "Love is Loving You", "Shattered Tears", "Your Familiar Gentleness", "Suddenly", "A Gentle Goodnight" and "Just for You" on repeats.
• Singing along all songs. Nobody cared. Or if anyone cared, I wouldn't care.
• Reading I'm Stalking Jake! by Becky Heineke for the second time.
• Catching up with all posts from I'm Stalking Jake!, Jake Watch and The Forum.
• Reading tweets on Twitter.
• Re-reading all posts from this blog. Just for killing time.
• Having fried rice I bought from a hawker stall for dinner.
• Drinking lots and lots of water.
• Going for some restroom breaks, of course!
• Googling some unimportant things.
• Enjoying the view of cars parking bumper to bumper on the road, with beautiful red and golden lights around.
• Snapping a self-pics, captioned it and posted it online for the first time on Facebook.

.. and ..

• Spamming Facebook:

I hereby thank:

Waterproof jacket, iPod, Blackberry, ISJ book, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Wang Leehom, Vic Zhou, Becky Heineke, Gyllenhaalics, the motorbike-cab rider, the food seller, the restroom, the lobby entrance, my friends who commented and liked my Facebook status, my family who kept monitoring my whereabout, the bus driver and Litterzone.

Add:
My iPod is designed to accompany me during traffic jam. This playlist is the most effective evening jam beater.

I Finally Met Jake through His Ultimate Watcher(s)

Very few people have noticed that the way I admire actors, or artists in general, is by following their works. Sure, once in a while I do collect pictures and read articles from the net, but that will stop at one point cause I'm a lazy surfer. I'm not really into chasing autographs or snapping pictures together with the actors (that is too difficult to get anyway, so why bother?). I don't give a damn about their personal lives as much as I don't like people nosing on mine (and bless some actors that made it to my list, they're men of privacy). I despise infotainment. I have a very strong ignorance on gossips. I'm the one who can meet celebrities eye to eye and pull an act like I'm not the one who should give any recognition. (Hey, you want to be recognized, please introduce yourself to me).

I value artists only by their works. I chase their movies as many as it's available, and watch them in repeat viewings. I go to their live performances, mostly it's free but I don't mind paying for reasonable admission fees. I do join some fan community, but my purpose is to get insight on the projects. I write reviews or coverage for the sake of my own memoirs, but I have no fear to share, including negative comments, right into the heart of the community (well, sometimes someone needs to bring some senses. I never care if they take those comments personally or not, they shouldn't. As if I care they ever read any of it). I praise easily too, I'm not all negatives.

I mostly am a silent observer. I rarely show my Fan-O-Meter. I love admiring people from a far and below the radar, it's the only way I think I can give them fair judgments and this can make me stay longer. I can be a fan, but all that takes me to be a huge fan is how good they represent their works to me. Constantly.

I'm also known for my unusual taste in terms of favorite actors, since I tend to choose obscurities. It doesn't surprise me anymore to hear people go "Huh?" or "Who?", or just rolling their eyes whenever I mention some actors' names. This apply to Jake Gyllenhaal among all.

And he's not helping either, he has a surname difficult to pronounce and to spell (click here for "tutorial"). So far I've heard only one of my family members who could say it correctly just by single look at Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time DVD cover. *sigh*. Life would be much simpler if the name's Brad Pitt.

Quoted from a Moonlight Mile review:

I find Jake Gyllenhaal to be about the most likable guy in the industry today. He plays all of the out-there, mixed up type characters; but somehow still seems to be one of the kindest of individuals. [.....] by his cover Jake looks like he would be one of the worst actors on the planet, he has messy hair, a rumpled face, and a lazy look to him; but he really is one of the best new-comers to the business.

That should be enough to validate his existence. What else in there to say? He can act, and despite of his rumpled face, he's absolutely adorable. He's a package of irresistible dark chocolates. So I did the routines since Bubble Boy, skipping here and there (man, his filmography is almost way outta my league), until I stopped at Rendition. It stopped merely because he stopped feeding me with his works. It was Prince of Persia that brought him back the second time, and I got carried away. I'd been digging deeper, the way I'd never done before, to catch up with what I've missed. It's obviously different this time.

Then .. I found myself opening a Pandora Box in the form of this book.

The book is a clarification of everything I've experienced as a blogger, a fan and a friend of some loyal community who worship celebrities like there are no others in this universe. It's amusing and frightening at the same time, how I see myself reflected in it. The way the author described the blogging process; when one blog was not enough and how creating/designing a blog seemed much more interesting than filling it in. The way it pointed out the difference between writing for self and writing for others, no matter how interesting or boring the material was. It was all so true. Been there, done that.

I have anticipated what's the book gonna say about the celebrity, the fans and everyone else included in the loop. I've seen people change once stardom strikes. I've witnessed the reality behind deceptive public appearances. I know some celebrities who are terrified (!), insecure and uncomfortable among their own fans. From time to time I hear how far fans (some I know personally) would go for their stars, with or without agenda. Sometimes I'm disgusted, yet amazed to see how PR or publicists work in creating such a persona and images that people - us, the fans - can accept. They manipulate us to see only from one side of the coin. And we gladly accept it, because it will be our fantasy. And for some of us, it's all we want to see.

I've known all these things. Nevertheless, I'm still taken aback by the honesty and hostility it's described in the book. It's a truth-telling about fantasy reveals its naked face, that nothing's always exactly what it seems. It showed the consequences of reaching out to the nearly impossible, which happened to be Jake Gyllenhaal. And his family. And his dogs. (God!)

I won't say the book has crashed or changed all my fantasies of Jake. It gives impacts, yes, it's what good books do. There's no denial. It forces me to look back to where I stood before. To the place of me being a huge fan without even bothering all those craps. The author reminds me of myself sending out those negative comments, bringing me into my senses. And to suggest my reason to write should be for no one else but me. It's a wise book to read and to learn from. It doesn't preach. I love it.

But deep inside I still wish I'd never gone this far. Jake, I'm not gonna change my mind thinking you're brilliant, but you got a LOT to make up. Let's start over with the upcoming Love & Other Drugs. It has better be good, Jake. I mean it!



"This character is stupid, who can we cast? Well. Jake Gyllenhaal."
(Jake Gyllenhaal on playing mostly flawed characters, quoted from The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos).


*Note: This is a personal interpretation on I'm Stalking Jake!. Others' may vary.

Twilight Saga: My Theories

I have some theories about Twilight Saga:

1. RPattz and Taylor, these hunks are gorgeous. Eventhough they cannot act, they're the ones that brought the characters to live. Like it or not, girls are holding to their existence so they could see Edward Cullen and Jacob Black in tangible way. (It's blurred when they say Team Edward and Team Jacob, do they mean Team Robert Pattinson and Team Taylor Lautner??). Be jealous, guys .. be very jealous. Cause you've got serious competition since girls tend to forget everything when they cross path with these two -everything including losing their mind, ignoring their boyfriends or husbands, calling Kristen a bitch just because Bella didn't want to choose (who can, anyway?). More likely it will lead into endless cynicism from the losers. I do believe some ego were bruised pretty bad. You can ban vampires and werewolves from your life, but do not forget, they're immortal. And so are the Twihards. Be reminded that this is imagination without limit. Better not putting yourself into misery of not knowing the reason why the saga roars.

2. The books are marketed for young adults, a.k.a. teenagers. Outside the target (read: adult men or women, critics, or some of the unusual teens, who claim to always have their feet on earth consciously) .. is accepted, but not expected. Teenagers love sweet romance and handsome characters. Their behaviours are notoriously extreme to whatever they believe in, for all the things they can dream about. Stephenie Meyer wrote the books based on her dream, you go figure. Instead of creating dark coffins and bloody fangs, she created sparkling vampires and the gentlest of werewolves. And a triangle love story between the mythical creatures and a human girl .. damn, she fools us all. No wonder the books irritate many people. It's all so perfect, it's impossible.

3. It's very tricky for the movies to live up to the books. But for the fans, it's irresistible nonetheless. They're willing to forgive any shortcomings because they just love it as it is. When the movies turned out bad in the eye of critics, who the hell care?? Even the critics who gave bad ratings - fans or non fans - watched the movies too, didn't they? For those who don't understand this, let me put it this way: Watch & Comment. (Not the other way around, or do the ugly Comment & No Watch At All). Do not say that the directors, actors and everyone involved in the production had no burdens in making the movies as best as they could, to materialize thousand dreams. Probably some of you have already read this.

So my point is:

I could only write down three points.

.. And in case anybody gets a little curious .. I am 30% Team Edward Cullen, 30% Team Jacob Black and 40% Team Bella Swan.

I Can't Stand Softcopies

I was in desperate needs for a good reading. It's been quite a long time since I bought the last book. So I went to the bookstore and did a quick browsing.

"Quick" was not exactly the right word.

I spent one hour. Picked up a book from a rack, read the back cover, put it back to the rack. Repeat. From comedy to romantic. From business to leisure. I chose one book, I thought it would be a fun read, but then I hesitated. Didn't feel promising. In fact, I felt all books hated me on that day and they didn't want me to buy them.

Didn't I tell you I need something to read?

And then you would suggest me to find something on the net instead. It's free, and I could find thousand of topics right there, awaiting to be discovered.

But, have I told you that I hated browsing?

I know I can find everything on the net. Well, almost. Come to think that I have to turn on my computer, have to sit straight on the chair, hands and fingers steady on the mouse, so many layers of pages to click on, have to wait for pages loading (and not to mention when the connection was cracking up, oooo the wait, it's killing me. Recently I have a habit of falling asleep in front of my computer, waiting for a page loading) and my eyes are easily getting tired. I can't find convenience on the net.

Of course, those don't apply to me while reading Litterzone.

(Cheers, baby).

Back to the book browsing. I found The Naked Traveler books. I've heard about it before and somehow I knew it would be good. Travelling is always an interesting topic for me. But then, the books were literally published blogs (writer is a blogger). Kinda tick me to look it up. Perhaps I would end up getting it free from the net after all. Could save me around 100k. Argh, too many considerations.

So I opened The Naked Traveler. Whoa. Lots of things to read. And it has moved to the new location here, which is also crowded with posts. Omigod, how would I ever finish reading the blogs? I only could stand 30 minutes opening random posts. I fell asleep in front of the monitor. Again.

That's it. I made up my mind. I bought the hardcopies.

Now I'm happy. I can read them anywhere, anytime. While queueing for the bus, waiting for the elevator, queueing for food, in a car, on a bus, on the bed, on the sofa, on the floor, in the toilet. Sitting, standing, laying, squatting. And when I fall asleep reading, at least I will be on some cozy places, in a pretty comfortable position.

This is why I prefer books to e-books. I prefer page turning to page clicking. I need to hold the books. (Perhaps it's got something to do with my sense. I like to touch things. Never can get enough only by seeing things. If I were Midas, I would be damn rich).

Though I found out that The Naked Traveler books don't have beautiful pictures. The blogsite and the website do, I can take it. It's for the good reason, the books won't feel redundant. I can always look up for the pics on the net and back to the book to continue my reading.

It's a good read, indeed. I'm content for the moment.

My Stupid Boss .. Continues ..

Suatu hari, di kala kita duduk di tepi pantai
Dan memandang si Boss di lautan yang dikejer-kejer hiu ..

Baca buku yang kedua ini, gue jadi mikir .. ini beneran ya? Lha .. si Boss itu sureal betul sih. Kok di dunia yang indah ini ada ya mahluk seajaib gitu? *lol*. Anyway. I love the book. Brighten up my days.

It's Mat's favorite too. Karena ilustrasi bukunya lucu. Jadi tiap kali dia ambil tu buku (yang pertama juga sekalian), trus dia pilihin halaman yang ada gambar-gambarnya, dan dia minta gue ceritain deh. Jadilah ngedumelnya si Bu Kerani dan kedodolan si Boss mampir ke telinga MatMat (yang pastinya udah gue revisi dan di-improvisasi sebisanya). Presenting: My Stupid Boss - Toddler Edition. Bwahahahah.

And what I like the most .. always the reference of my beloved vampire.

Boss: Jadi ini adalah staf saya di Surabaya. Ini Pak Sugi, jago jual-beli tanah loh dia. Calo gitu laaaah .. tapi nyatutnya kebanyakan nih dia!! (muka Pak Sugi langsung kusem kayak keset kaki). Ini Suyoto, dia orang listrik di pabrik saya di sana. Eh Yoto, kalo perlu beli apa-apa barang listrik, suruh ibu ini aja ya. Pokoknya perlu beli apa-apa, minta sama ibu ini ... (enak aja lu ngomong, duitnya mana??). Nah kalo ini Yogi, desainer kantor saya di sana. Dia yang akan desain ruangan kantor nantinya. Dan ini Edward, dia arsitek. Bukan Edward Cullen loh, hahahaha ...

Gue: (Cape deeeee .. lu kata lu lucu kaleeee ..)

Boss: Edward Cullen iku sopo toh, Pak Sugi? Cewek-cewek pada sibuk ngomongin dia begitu loh ..

Pak Sugi: (bengong dan roman mukanya kayak berpikir keras) Wah .. saya kurang tau, Pak. Mungkin Yoto tau.

Yoto: Saya juga kurang jelas e, Pak. Orang cabang mana, Pak?

Gue -----> Terjun bebas!

New Year = New Blog, Book & Nails

New Blog

Look at my new blog look. At first I only wanted to try some templates, but I accidently clicked "SAVE", so there my last template was lost. I took it as a hint to change it all over instead though it's so troublesome. How could I fit 2 sidebar contents into 1 sidebar only? So I inserted some videos here, some links there .. and scattered some pictures in the blogs. And then I found out the photobucket video links didn't work. It went well before, probably it was bad connection or bad browser, so I left it as it is for a while (note: if you catch the bad links, please kindly notify me).

New Book

I bought "My Stupid Boss". Well, you know tomorrow I have to get back to work. Thought this book could give me some inspirations (hey, I'm not complaining on my boss here).

"Please God .. please stab my Boss repeatedly. Or please send that Iraq guy to throw his shoes like he did to the Mister Former President. Tapi khusus untuk Boss aku, lempar kulit duren lho ya .. Or sent 2 vampires to suck his blood out of his vein also can. You might ask 'Why 2 vampires?' Oh, because knowing my Boss very well, he'll irritate the 1st vampire sampek tuh vampire nangis kabur. So the other Vampire will do the finishing job!"

Two vampires? Er .. Edward and Emmett? Who got irritated and who got to kill the Boss?? Huahahaha.

My favourite chapter is "Impossible We Do! Miracle We Try!". Totally chaotic.

New Nails

I got mine from Nail Pia @ Supermal Karawaci UG#102. Butterfly and flowers. I found the design from mags and showed it to the nail artist. She said she could try, but there was no metallic dark blue nail polish available. So I got two coats of dark purple, and by trial, coated one more time with pale blue glitters. Result: my nails color looks like the color of Nokia 6110 Bunglon. Chameleonish .. it's blue! No, it's purple! No .. it's .. pretty!! And the artist painted the white butterfly and flowers on it. Wasn't exactly the same as in the mags, but I'm happy!!