Fireblog

2010-12-31T19:24:00.001+07:00

2010 will pass in a few more hours.. What can I say.. Was it exciting? Yes! Was it great? Depends on your point of view. Was 2010 easy? Hell no! One thing for sure is in 2010, my company, Avevo is starting to evolve. Is it for the good? Hopefully so.

Book sales was over the roof this year. Our focus has been the corporate market the last couple of years and although sales spiked, corporates rarely pay in advance and more often than not, disturbingly late. Of course this hampered with our cash flow quite a lot and there were times I thought we were gonna have to close shop. Strategic loans and optimization of order processing was key to our survival in 2010. Learning from past mistakes was a major turnaround as we now have a representative in the US that helps make sure all administrative documents are in order and our staff know the procedures in customs and post office. We can now boast 0% lost packages during delivery.

Mid year, I was contacted by Adhityo Priyambodo, a former business partner back when I worked at Ametis. He asked me to join his startup, which was NgaturDuit.com to support it from the business perspective. This was an exciting new chapter because we had a chance to present the idea at the StartupLokal meetup back in September (check out our slide here). A month later, we partnered with Aidil Akbar and his consultant group Akbar's Financial Checkup (AFC). We spent developing many features as a result of this partnership and we hope to launch them in 2011. The projects in 2011 among others are online consulting, online seminars, games... It's going to be exciting!

We also opened several new divisions in 2010! The first division opened was managed services, also known as maintenance. At the end of Q3, we opened another division which was gaming and mobile apps. Already we have three gaming projects coming up in 2011. Hopefully things go as planned :) Finally, this December we contacted our freelance designer and offered him a partnership deal to join and build a design division. The design division currently already have 3 ongoing projects so it's a pretty decent start.

Not all of our divisions were peachy. Our online recruitment system, Talentum did not do as well in 2010 as it did in 2009. This was mainly because we were not overly active searching for recruitment projects this year. We did get some recruitment projects from referrals, however we hope to move our focus from projects (quick cash) to a steady revenue business model. We are currently in discussion with a head hunter agency to provide and support their IT recruitment system.

Of course, many of the progress could not have been possible without a good partner. On January 2010, a longtime friend and someone I admired business-wise, Harry Kazuya Rasito, joined Avevo as a shareholder. By leveraging Harry's network and resources, we were able to jumpstart or at the minimum support some of Avevo's divisions. Having a reliable partner is also important in the sense that I had someone to discuss problems and get advice from someone with more experience.

Finally, perhaps one of the major changes in 2010 is the location of our office. Formerly contracting a ruko, we have now moved to an office building. It's not in the premium business locations (sudirman, thamrin, kuningan), but pretty damn close. Although the office rent is twice what we used to pay, I think working in an office building is better for us because everyone is now more disciplined and professional. I guess it's the effect of the environment.

There are several other exciting adventures we have planned for next year, but I dare not state them here yet. Perhaps in next year's documentation ;)

2010-05-30T21:01:00.006+07:00

JADWAL PERTANDINGAN PIALA DUNIA 2010

Grup	Pertandingan	Tanggal	Jam
A	Africa Selatan vs Mexico	Jumat, 11 juni 2010	20.15 - 23.30
A	Uruguay vs Perancis	Jumat, 11 juni 2010	24.30 - 04.00
B	Argentina vs Nigeria	Sabtu, 12 Juni 2010	20.15 - 23.30
C	Inggris vs USA	Sabtu, 12 Juni 2010	24.30 - 04.00
D	Serbia vs Ghana	Minggu, 13 Juni 2010	20.15 - 23.30
D	Jerman vs Australia	Minggu, 13 Juni 2010	24.30 - 04.00
E	Jepang vs Kamerun	Senin, 14 Juni 2010	20.15 - 23.30
F	Italy vs Paraguay	Senin, 14 Juni 2010	24.30 - 04.00
G	Pantai Gading vs Portugal	Selasa, 15 Juni 2010	20.15 - 23.30
G	Brazil vs Korea Utara	Selasa, 15 Juni 2010	24.30 - 04.00
H	Spanyol vs Swiss	Rabu, 16 Juni 2010	20.15 - 23.30
A	Africa Selatan vs Uruguay	Rabu, 16 Juni 2010	24.30 - 04.00
B	Yunani vs Nigeria	Kamis, 17 Juni 2010	20.15 - 23.30
A	Perancis vs Mexico	Kamis, 17 Juni 2010	24.30 - 04.00
C	Slovenia vs USA	Jumat, 18 Juni 2010	20.15 - 23.30
C	Inggris vs Aljazair	Jumat, 18 Juni 2010	24.30 - 04.00
D	Ghana vs Australia	Sabtu, 19 Juni 2010	20.15 - 23.30
E	Kamerun vs Denmark	Sabtu, 19 Juni 2010	24.30 - 04.00
F	Italy vs New Zealand	Minggu, 20 Juni 2010	20.15 - 23.30
G	Brazil vs Pantai Gading	Minggu, 20 Juni 2010	24.30 - 04.00
H	Chile vs Swiss	Senin, 21 Juni 2010	20.15 - 23.30
H	Spanyol vs Honduras	Senin, 21 Juni 2010	24.30 - 04.00
A	Perancis vs Afrika Selatan	Selasa, 22 Juni 2010	20.15 - 23.30
B	Yunani vs Argentina	Selasa, 22 Juni 2010	24.30 - 04.00
C	Slovenia vs Inggris	Rabu, 23 Juni 2010	20.15 - 23.30
D	Ghana vs Jerman	Rabu, 23 Juni 2010	24.30 - 04.00
F	Slovakia vs Italy	Kamis, 24 Juni 2010	20.15 - 23.30
E	Kamerun vs Belanda	Kamis, 24 Juni 2010	24.30 - 04.00
G	Portugal vs Brazil	Jumat, 25 Juni 2010	20.15 - 23.30
H	Chile vs Spanyol	Jumat, 25 Juni 2010	24.30 - 04.00

2010-05-28T21:07:00.001+07:00

CNBC Mad Money: Mad Cramer

April 13
Investors shouldn't wait for employment to come back before buying stocks, because there will be many significant moves in the market before then. TARP was a success and we are 6 months away from seeing genuine prosperity.

April 14
Take the money out of stocks, and keep it in cash or equivalents so you can sleep comfortably at night The worst markets make the best buying opportunities, chance to buy stocks at Dow 8,000 is a great opportunity that may never see again. Final suggestion for investing in bad markets is to avoid calling a bottom.

April 15
Bearish barricades were nothing more than canards, fabrications that don’t hold up against the facts of this market. Bad news for the euro and Greece is good news for US. Get in at a better price than you should be able to, on the Dow 12,000 freeway

April 26
It's because of Greece the market is going higher

May 7
Don't buy any stocks until DOW 9000. Dow’s decline was natural result of Europe’s debt and the riots in Greece. Investors should wait for the decline before they buy anything again

May 10
European debt contagion no longer a risk, call to halt most stock buying until Dow 9,000 is off. That’s the new reality, buy stocks now, the crisis is done, this is the real deal, just focus on how oversold stocks are right now

May 12
Pay reductions and job cuts for civil service employees will result in a jump-start in spending in the stronger European Union

May 19
If we don’t see total capitulation in Europe over the next two days, US market’s going to go higher.

May20
It hasn’t come down enough to make buying compelling. We are still not down enough.

May 24
We just aren’t strong enough to withstand a Greek default

May 25
Will the Dow Plummet to 8,260? That's the worst case scenario. Don’t give up, too much good is happening

May 26
When the market rallies, don’t get excited. It’s not sustainable, until we get something definitive out of Europe

taken from http://www.cnbc.com/id/37357274

Reposted a Note from a Childhood Friend in Florida, US…

2010-05-11T08:28:00.003+07:00

Today Mirin and I went to Diamond Village where I grew up. It is a place where the University students can live with their families. We look at the plain two-story brick buildings from over the short chain-link fence. They are surrounded by lawn and trees and winding sidewalks. It is interesting how often my dreams take me back here. It is so different there now.

Many trees, old friends, were cut down.

There are no more gardens of tomatoes and cabbage outside the buildings. The guava trees, which were such a large part of my childhood, have been removed. It is quiet and serious here. No children, as there always were.

The doors are different--dark and heavy. Gone is the old white wooden door with glass slats. I would look through it at night and see a forest of trees with leaves of gold within the patterns of the frosted glass and the yellow breezeway light.

I look at the doorway that used to be mine. The door is just like every other door. Gone, too, is the Halloween sticker I had stuck above the door when I was seven. It was there last time I had come, only a few years ago.

I picture our building how I remembered, with the golden rain tree casting green shadows on the other side of the breezeway, with the parsley my dad grew spilling onto the bricks, with the old door and the mailboxes. Over by the golden rain tree funny bugs would always appear, shield-shaped bugs with black and orange. And people kept their bikes, beside the two steps up, with a rose that bloomed sometimes growing under a window. Behind the bikes were slabs of cement, all broken and in a pile. A skink lived there.

The only thing unchanged is the two-flight stairway leading to the second story, the stairway where older boys would ride their bikes down, where so many of us cracked our heads. It is steeper than I remembered, and the steps seem smaller.
We headed to the old playground.

Gone is the huge old wooden merry-go-round that stood three feet off the ground.
Gone is the old metal slide and the long, dangerous see-saw, and the metal jungle gyms. They have all been replaced by safe-looking plastic creations--corner-less and ersatz.
We didn't see any children. I pause by the old cement barbeque's where an older kid would light things on fire.

We check on the creek that flows beside the playground. Gone is the old wooden bridge. You can't go that way anymore. Someday I will tell Mirin about when my best friend's dad took us on an expedition up the creek and through the sewers. When he tried to lift the lid of a manhole big roaches fell on us in the dark.

The stump of the soap berry tree...

The apartment of the Russian children...

The place where the persimmon tree stood...

The laundromat, where women would gather, where we used to see the woman from Africa who called my brother "Ivory."

The old gazebo, now a building for the mailboxes, where we used to jump off the roof.

We pass the sloping hill in front of my old home, where we would ride my old red wagon, and sometime roll all the way down.
That was how I got my first bee sting, rolling in the clover.

Boonsri's stinky eggplant bushes....
We called them stink bombs. Even after they moved their eggplant bush stayed for so many years. The maintenance men herbicided it again and again, and it still grew back. Finally they removed the topsoil, and it still grew back. It seemed they had finally defeated it, though.

I stop and look at the apartment where I spent ten years. Gone is the avocado tree my father planted from a seed. It once stretched all the way up to the roof. Gone, too, is the holly tree we used to climb, whose red berries I picked for a wreath one Christmas.

We cross the new sidewalk, new when I was 8, that we weren't allowed to write on. Before that we had only a plank of wood to walk across.

As we head out, I smelled a wonderful smell. It was the smell of someone cooking, and it smelled like fish sauce. I was lost momentarily in nostalgia, running home after a long day of playing, hungry and smelling the different dinners cooking through the windows. At least something hasn't changed.

2010-03-05T05:47:00.000+07:00

Been there a couple of times... This song makes me smile

2010-02-06T04:58:00.002+07:00

pillows, cellphones were being thrown all over the place as we were making love. when we finished, I checked my cellphone and found this typed on it:

www.kmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmouupih**********m*******
*************************************************************************************
*************************************************************************************
*******************ml****************************************************************
**m******************************pih*************************************************
*****************************

*************************************************************************************
*************************************************************************************
*****************************************************9k

2009-09-19T05:59:00.005+07:00

let us out!

hmm... finger food

woozy... too much energy drink...

triple threat

father & son chow time

bleeee.... :p

mom & dad wanna get out of the nest

it's 9PM... me wanna zleep

energy drink before going to bed!

last drink before bedtime

curiousity

leave me alone... me zleepy

let's play a game.. ransack api's room!

poser

wanna take an afternoon nap...

2009-07-31T16:24:00.003+07:00

the image was taken from here

2009-07-04T06:07:00.002+07:00

Back to Basic Management-The Lost Craft of Leadership
-Culligan, Deakins, Young-

I am currently reading a revelation book titled "Back to Basic Management-The Lost Craft of Leadership". A book written by three authors, each of whom has had extensive experience in and with management. They bring with them the notion that people are the "X factor" in a business, not the "bottom line". Business is about people management, not just targets and projections, profit and loss. I would like to quote some excerpts of the introduction and first chapter.

(quote)
What we are concerned with is the phenomenon known as the "MBA mentality." This, in our opinion, is a wonderfully simplistic way of looking at the complexities of modern business. Planning is important; organization is important; goal-directed behavior is important; bottom-line awareness is important. But these are only the beginning, because all the numbers and rules are subject to change when you run up against the great variable-people.

Coupled with the growing dependence on"planners" rather than "doers" is the enormous change resulting from the rapid rush into computerization. Here too the emphasis has been on facts and figures which seem to represent a higher truth because they come out of a complicated and expensive electronic brain. How soon we forget the first law of computerization: Garbage in, garbage out.

Since both computers and the "MBA mentality" are largely the province of the young, they have lead to still another problem-a developing generation gap in business and industry. In times of crisis and recession, the essential weaknesses of process-oriented managers and inexperienced MBAs were illuminated. When sales declined and costs skyrocketed, profits and stock prices went down and down. It was then that the CEOs turned to their pragmatic, experienced, people-oriented managers to solve their problems. It was back-to-basics management in full flower.
(/quote)

(quote)
During the past two decades three ordinary letters have been transformed into a magical spell that, like "open sesame," can open the heaviest doors without effort. An MBA has become the key to the executive suite.

Many people assume that an MBA is a certified expert in management. Yet, even the words behind the magic letters do not imply this. Business administration sounds mundane and is a rather static concept. On the other hand, while management sounds fairly mundane, business has long regarded it as a dynamic concept. An administrator presides over a business; a manager leads it.

A principal theme of this book is that this seemingly semantic difference is of enormous significance to the future of business. We have filled the top echelons of our corporations with administrators who preside over the entities they ought to lead. By an overemphasis on process and techniques, we have lost the craft of leadership.
(/quote)

(quote)
This is not to say, of course, that the holder of an MBA cannot be a manager-leader. Theoretically, the percentage of potential manager-leaders among MBAs should be similar to the percentage among businessmen and women with an equal number of years of business experience. In reality, MBAs as a group probably produce fewer manager-leaders because they have to overcome their initial misconception that a business consists of numbers rather than people
(/quote)

2009-06-19T10:48:00.003+07:00

Map of Trattoria

click image to enlarge

Paling cepat, lewat mampang masuk ke Rasuna Said, ambil jalur lambat, belok kiri di Jl. Mega Kuningan. Itu langsung tembus putaran Mega Kuningan, tapi jalanannya agak kecil, mesti pelan2..Putari lingkaran 1/2 putaran ke arah ITC. Lihat sebelah kiri ada Gedung Bellagio / The East (ditandai "X"). Ada tulisan "Trattoria" di sisi gedung. Gedungnya persis sebelum XL building. Kalau kelewatan, putar balik lagi di ujung jalan.

Lebih gampang tapi macet, masuk ke Rasuna Said. Masuk jalur lambat, lalu belok kiri di Prof DR Sutomo (arah ITC/semanggi). Paling enak belok di belokan yang diberi tanda panah pertama. Sebelum belokan ada kedutaan negara Timur Tengah (ada poster besar foto pemimpinnya di tembok rumahnya). Setelah belokan, lurus lalu belok kanan akan ketemu putaran Mega Kuningan.

Jalur ketiga, belok pas di depan ITC Kuningan. Lebih gampang, tapi antara belokan tadi sampai IT Kuningan, biasanya cukup padat. Setelah belok, tetap harus muterin putaran Mega Kuningan.

2009-03-06T07:23:00.003+07:00

The Importance of Sizing Up the Situation

In running a business or going after a project, once you know the particulars and the players and analyzed the complexity and ramifications, you should start to size up the situation. Sizing up means taking a step back and try to look at the big picture; grasping the correlations of each connections and the effects it will create.

An excellent example is the story of Raphael Tudela, a billionaire Venezuelan oil and shipping businessman that started out as a glass manufacturer. Being a petroleum engineer, however, Tudela wanted to plunge in the oil business. Tudela is a very smart executive that once he understands the facts, know what people want, he is able to give it to them.

An opportunity arose in the mid 1960s when an associate informed him that Argentina wanted to purchase $20million of Butane Gas. Tudela wanted to win the contract. He'll worry about how he could get the Butane later.

Here was a man with no oil experience or connection facing competition with British Petroleum and Shell Oil. After a bit of research, he found an interesting information, that Argentina had an oversupply of beef. Unrelated information to some, but very useful for Tudela. He made an offer to the Argentine government "to buy $20 million beef if they gave him the contract to provide $20 million Butane". Argentina gave him the contract solely based on this offer.

He then went to Spain where shipyards were going bankrupt with massive layoffs at the time due to lack of work. Tudela again used this information and offered the Spain government "I will build a $20 million oil supertanker at your shipyard if they bought his $20 million beef". The Spain government was ecstatic and had their ambassador inform the Argentina government to directly ship the beef to Spain.

Tudela's final stop was Philadelphia at the Sun Oil company. He came to them and said "if you charter my $20 million oil supertanker, which is currently being built in Spain, I will then buy your $20 million Butane Gas". Sun Oil agreed and Raphael Tudela was in the oil and shipping business.

This inspirational story proves that knowledge is power and those that can harness it to their advantage can go a very long way.

2009-01-23T13:57:00.001+07:00

Karto kesengsem berat sama Jumiyati, tetangga baru yang tinggal di rumah 3 lantai. Dan dari gayanya si Jumiyati, kayaknya dia juga suka ama Karto. Tapi sayang Jumiyati sudah punya suami.

Ketika suatu hari lakinya si Jumiyati pergi, kedua sejoli itu langsung nggak melewatkan kesempatan itu. Tapi Karto tak mau bertempur tanpa persiapan dulu.

Sebelum ke rumah Jumiyati dipanggilnya kedua sobatnya, Joko dan Bakri. Mereka disuruh mencari sarung. Nanti sewaktu Karto sedang asyik masyuk dengan Jumiyati di kamar yang terletak di lantai 3, mereka berdua harus siap-siap dengan sarung itu di bawah jendela.

Siapa tahu lakinya Jumiyati mendadak datang, Karto bisa langsung loncat lewat jendela dan mereka tampung pake sarung di bawah.

Beres, Karto langsung masuk rumah Jumiyati dan mereka naik ke kamar di lantai 3.

Eh lagi asik-asiknya bermesraan mendadak bel di pintu depan berbunyi. Jumiyati pun langsung berbenah diri secepat mungkin sementara Karto langsung loncat dari jendela.

Jumiyati turun dan membuka pintu depan. Ternyata bukan suaminya, tapi 2 orang pria yang berdiri dengan sikap canggung.

"Mpok Jumiyati ya", kata salah satu pria itu.

"Iya, ada apa nih?"

"Begini Mpok. Tolong bilangin sama bang Karto, sarungnya belum ketemu......"

2009-01-22T12:57:00.001+07:00

Ke Dokter Kelamin

Ada seorang pasien pria berusia sekitar 30 tahunan yang tampak gelisah mondar-mandir di depan pintu peraktek seorang dokter. Entah karena udah tidak tahan dengan sakitnya atau karena tidak sabar menunggu panggilan, akhirnya sampai juga giliran namanya dipanggil untuk diperiksa.

Dokter : "selamat malam ada yang bisa saya bantu?"
Pasien : "iya dok, begini saya ada masalah dengan anu saya. tapi janji ya dok, dokter jangan ketawa.."
Dokter : "baik... saya janji tidak akan tertawa."
Pasien : "baiklah..." (sambil pelan-pelan dia buka celananya akhirnya terpampanglah anunya)

tiba-tiba si dokter tertawa terpingkal-pingkal tidak bisa menahan tawanya melihat anu si pasien yang hanya sebesar pensil 2b.

Pasien : (cemberut) "dokterkan tadi janji tidak tertawa."
Dokter : "oh maaf.... (dengan susah payah menahan tawanya) baiklah, saya tidak akan tertawa lagi. nah sekarang apa keluhan anda?"
Pasien : "begini dok... milik saya ini sudah tiga hari ini bengkak seperti ini..."

Dokter akhirnya tak kuat menahan tawanya lagi...

2008-12-14T19:34:00.002+07:00

I have a friend abroad. He's not the monogamous type. He likes to bring girls home. The dumb thing is he sometimes have more than one girl. A regular were Claire and Scarlett. A bit of the twist is that they don't like 3somes. So my bud had to choose one over the other. Scarlett is a bit jealous that my bud chose Claire to the room. She finds me online and started complaining yadda yadda.. blablabla boring complaining stuff.

"she's a slut", "I'm sexier", "why did he pick her over me"..

I tried soft talk.. didn't stop her complaining..
I tried hard talk... got called mean and an asshole.
So I tried getting a bit philosophical...
Scarlett is a typical blond.
Btw, blond jokes are parabolic, but not too far stretched.
lol.

peeeye00 (19:27:52): okay.

peeeye00 (19:28:09): do u know why he likes ur friend more:?

xxxxxxxx (19:29:16): why?

peeeye00 (19:29:34): this is a bit philosophical

peeeye00 (19:29:39): because she is not you

peeeye00 (19:29:43): because you are not her

peeeye00 (19:30:00): because of the same reason, someone else will like you more than her

peeeye00 (19:30:19): because if you were like her, you both would be like everyone else.

peeeye00 (19:30:25): the world would be BORING

peeeye00 (19:31:05): I LIKE the fact that people are different

peeeye00 (19:31:19): I LIKE the fact that I like someone more than others.

peeeye00 (19:31:33): or else it would just be too fucking confusing

peeeye00 (19:31:37): not to mention BORING

xxxxxxxx (19:31:47): too much

peeeye00 (19:32:58): no two person is the same

peeeye00 (19:33:07): which is why some will like one more than the other

peeeye00 (19:34:23): and that is NORMAL in life

peeeye00 (19:35:17): is this making sense to u?

xxxxxxxx went idle at 19:41:48.

I think I bore her to sleep.

2008-12-09T16:24:00.002+07:00

Facebook, 9 Dec 2008

My friend is getting ready for a 3some action at his apt..
His brother's gf is bringin 2 single ladies home for him.. (good brother, eh?)

I may post the story bout it later... this was via fb around 4pm.

Jxxxx
girls r overt
over*

Api
what?
ok
have fun
dont forget to record the action

Jxxxt
what u doin they say ur cute

Api
who

Jxxxt
the girls that r over

Api
how should i know? how do they know what i look like anyhow

oops... 4.30pm. time to go... maybe I'll continue this post later...
lmfao

2008-12-03T09:58:00.002+07:00

What a way to start the week!

The recruitment process was doing fairly well... Not many complaints or questions from the candidates. We had found no problem.. Until it was time to tabulate the data.
On Monday, we found one information was not inserted into the database. This data was quite crucial as it was one of the information to be used to filter the candidates.

So to get this data, we had to contact 1600 candidates that had qualified using other filters. One person is about 10 seconds, so that would be 16000 seconds, or 4.5 hours right? wrong. DEAD WRONG! many people did not pick up the phone and when they did, they seemed reluctant to put the phone down until they ask every single detail. 1 hour and only 60 people called with 45 answers. It was around 6PM when we started to do this.

Find plan B. My wife helped out by looking for a sms broadcast software and finding a way to connect the phone book to the database contacts. I then made a sms format that basically says "we are verifying the candidate data for the XYZ recruitment. Please reply to this text message with the format #name#[required data]#. thank you."

On Monday, we were at the office until 12AM++ doing this. Making sure the sms broadcast worked before daring to leave it. We were a bit edgy because some candidates tried calling the number, causing the sending to pause. We were afraid it might disconnect. Finally got home around 1AM and woke up early to reach the office at 7AM. This is because the report deadline was on Tuesday.

We sent this to all 1600 and received around 1200 responses within 2 days. The next thing to do was to parse the data and update the database. This took a bit of manual labor because some candidates sent the sms using a different number or did not use the correct format. This accounted for about 10% of the responses. It wasn't a difficult job, just takes a bit of time to do.

The whole incident was actually fun, in a way... but unfortunately my cellphone and my wife's had been used as a media for sending the sms so I had been unreachable since Monday night. Because we want to get as much data as possible, it will not be reachable until a couple of days.

A lot of thanks to my wife, coz without her we'd have to manually call 1600 candidates.

2008-11-20T11:13:00.001+07:00

2008-11-09T11:48:00.004+07:00

Click on image.
This is hilarious! Make sure you read the emails..

2008-11-01T06:42:00.000+07:00

Jokes

A man and wife were celebrating their 50-year anniversary, so the man bought his wife a $250 see-through nightgown.

Later that night she was getting ready for bed and realized the nightgown was still in the box downstairs. Walking naked through the house, she passed her husband who said, "My word, for $250 they could've at least ironed it!"

How many Californians does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Californians don't screw in light bulbs they screw in hot tubs.

2008-10-20T08:47:00.002+07:00

Worst Saturday, EVER!

It started okay...
My SO had overtime @8AM so I drove her to SCBD.
I then went to Taman Anggrek to pick up my watch from the repair center.

A friend, HKR, then called and asked to meet for a chat at Setiabudi.
So I went back to South Jakarta and had a lunch meeting.
We discussed business conditions, future plans, future business dreams, and stocks of course.

A small flashback in time... About 2 months ago, I lost my car alarm. Now I use the good ol method of using the car key.

Now back to Saturday... My meeting at setiabudi ended around 13.45. Waiting was a company administrative meeting at Plaza Senayan at 2PM. I got in my car and sped to Senayan. The road was okay and I reached Senayan at 2.15, but Senayan was PACKED! I finally found a parking spot 30minutes later. Feeling a slight exhaust (the night before I also had a dinner meeting till 10PM), I turned off the engine and dozed off. I woke up about 5minutes later realizing I was late. I opened the door, used the central lock, then closed the door.. Realizing that my car key was still in the starter position and my wallet had somehow fell off my pocket and is lying on the driver seat.. Luckily I still had my cellphone.

I called my SO for her spare car key. She did not bring it. So I informed that I would not be able to take part in the meeting, took a cab, and went to SCBD to meet my SO. I asked for cab fare and the house key. Realizing that my car key is dangling at the starter with my wallet and parking ticket in clear view, I asked my SO to "babysit" my car at Plaza Senayan. The drive home and back to PS took about an hour. I arrived back at PS around 5PM and my cell was filled with continuous grumbling from my SO that had to babysit the car along with other chauffers.

I then took her back to SCBD and waited till 6PM. Afterwards I was hoping to go back home, but no.... It was decided that we would look at the edited album and movie of the wedding way out in Pancoran. The whole venture ended at 9PM, which I then had no will nor strength to look at another road. She took the wheel and I finally rested... what a day....

2008-07-31T11:10:00.003+07:00

Buying a Business

I want to make a confession.
I hope this does not make me sound evil haha.

About 1 month ago, a former employee informed me that his friend is putting up his internet cafe / business centre for sale due to personal reasons I will not mention here. The location is very strategic. It is in Waru Street, a neighborhood of Internet Cafes and Game Centres. It has been inactive this last month.

I've looked at the place, brought a relative that runs and understands the Internet business. The location of the cafe is very strategic compared to other competitors. The cabling is also satisfactory. The financial sheets are good enough. Not spectacular, but then again they do not have a fullproof SOP. The only flaw is the computers. They are as old as dinosaurs. He is selling the whole content, which consists of:
1. Server
2. PCs (PIV 1,7 + PIII 800)
3. 2 Aircon totalling 3pk
4. Refrigerator
5. Printer
6. Scanner
7. Tables & Chair
8. Cable
9. Phone
10.etc

I value the items quite low. For example, I need half of the PC but I stated that I would replace them all so I would only value them 1 million for canniballing purposes only LOL. By stating that I actually do not need his items (not true btw), I project to him that his items are valueless.Let's use example purpose only numbers:
The owner asked for 15, does not want to go down. I valued the assets under 9. For cannibal, I am willing to raise the offer to 10.

Here's how I sorta played a little bit, just a teeny weeny bit dirty. I contacted his right hand man. Asked him how much he was getting paid. I told him I would give him a raise and a small profit sharing scheme if I got the place. I then ran by him the valuation numbers one by one. Of course, when the owner then asks for his opinion, he would then answer that my offer is attractive.

Another thing I found out by contacting the building owner is that the business centre's contract actually ran out in June. So time was definetely against the owner. The longer he waited, the less value his business is. He is getting kicked out in August! Now this would not be good for both of us; he winds up with valueless junk, and it would be too troublesome and costly for me to install new equipment from scratch. I am however, unwilling to pay the asking price. Determined to get a low price, I waited and waited until Friday, the owner started calling me. Every 15 minutes or so. Of course I did not pick up the phone. I did not reply his text messages either. Even his right hand man was nervous and buzzed me on YM and texted me whether I still wanted to buy the business. I left them sweating until Monday (28 July) morning. I sent a text offering to set up a meeting. "Unfortunately" he is unavailable that day, or the next. Why the double quote? Because I knew he would not be available. Which was why I asked for that exact time he would be unavailable. This provides a psychological effect that I am willing to negotiate but he is always unavailable.

I asked his right hand man whether the owner reconsidered my offer and he said he agrees to a price of 10! haha. Yesterday the owner called and asked my home address so that he can come over at any time I wish to discuss the price. Of course I would not be interested in having business be brought home, especially if things do not go as planned. Plus, I feel sorry if he had to go from Rawamangun (edge of East Jkt) to Joglo (edge of West Jkt), so I told him to meet me at a mall. Puri Indah Mall LOL! I was taught in negotiation class that to have an edge there are some tips:
1. negotiate at a venue you are familiar with and where the counterparty is unfamiliar with.
2. be in top stamina while the counterparty is exhausted.
3. plan ahead. know what points you are able to lose to make the counterparty feel that it is a win-win situation.

The first two reasons are why I chose Puri Indah Mall. It is far as hell from their place, while it takes me only 20 minutes to get there. I could've picked Senayan (also 20 minutes from my place) but it is too close to his location and I am sure he's been to Senayan haha..

Dont judge me by this article.. I mean... business is business... buy lower sell higher.

2008-07-04T16:52:00.003+07:00

Being a poor guy that needs to get money, I must be willing to put in the extra hours.

11am
(phone call): can we have a meeting today? at two pm.
me: today? wow.. so sudden.. [need the money... so ok]

meeting: 2pm-4pm

mr. xyz: we need blablablabla, hohoho, ahhahaha, hihihi... this is quite sudden, but we need the documents by monday.

me: this monday?? whoa... [i kno i need the money]... ok..

5pm. received a sms
sms: because of "bleep bleep bleeep" I need the document by Saturday 4pm.

Do I need money? yes... T_T

2008-07-03T15:47:00.001+07:00

Bill Gates Email Rant

Sometimes, software isn't so magical. Even for Bill Gates.

PictureFor the opening piece in our series on Gates leaving daily life at Microsoft, one goal was to give a clear picture of the Microsoft co-founder's role inside the company, as a gauge of the impact his departure will have. As part of that, I went back through the internal e-mails turned over in the antitrust suits against the company, looking for new insights into his personality.

Read on past the jump for one of the gems that turned up, showing Gates in the role of chief rabble-rouser. (Original document: PDF, 5 pages.) It shows that even the Microsoft co-founder -- who champions the "magic of software" -- isn't immune to the frustrations of everyday computer users. Keep in mind that this was more than five years ago, so it doesn't necessarily reflect the specific state of things now. At the bottom, see what Gates said when I asked him about the message last week.

---- Original Message ----

From: Bill Gates
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:05 AM
To: Jim Allchin
Cc: Chris Jones (WINDOWS); Bharat Shah (NT); Joe Peterson; Will Poole; Brian Valentine; Anoop Gupta (RESEARCH)
Subject: Windows Usability Systematic degradation flame

I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don't drive usability issues.

Let me give you my experience from yesterday.

I decided to download (Moviemaker) and buy the Digital Plus pack ... so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there.

The first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up.

This site is so slow it is unusable.

It wasn't in the top 5 so I expanded the other 45.

These 45 names are totally confusing. These names make stuff like: C:\Documents and Settings\billg\My Documents\My Pictures seem clear.

They are not filtered by the system ... and so many of the things are strange.

I tried scoping to Media stuff. Still no moviemaker. I typed in movie. Nothing. I typed in movie maker. Nothing.

So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying - where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?

So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.

They told me to go to the main page search button and type movie maker (not moviemaker!).

I tried that. The site was pathetically slow but after 6 seconds of waiting up it came.

I thought for sure now I would see a button to just go do the download.

In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve. It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations.

This struck me as completely odd. Why should I have to go somewhere else and do a scan to download moviemaker?

So I went to Windows update. Windows Update decides I need to download a bunch of controls. (Not) just once but multiple times where I get to see weird dialog boxes.

Doesn't Windows update know some key to talk to Windows?

Then I did the scan. This took quite some time and I was told it was critical for me to download 17megs of stuff.

This is after I was told we were doing delta patches to things but instead just to get 6 things that are labeled in the SCARIEST possible way I had to download 17meg.

So I did the download. That part was fast. Then it wanted to do an install. This took 6 minutes and the machine was so slow I couldn't use it for anything else during this time.

What the heck is going on during those 6 minutes? That is crazy. This is after the download was finished.

Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night -- why should I reboot at that time?

So I did the reboot because it INSISTED on it. Of course that meant completely getting rid of all my Outlook state.

So I got back up and running and went to Windows Update again. I forgot why I was in Windows Update at all since all I wanted was to get Moviemaker.

So I went back to Microsoft.com and looked at the instructions. I have to click on a folder called WindowsXP. Why should I do that? Windows Update knows I am on Windows XP.

What does it mean to have to click on that folder? So I get a bunch of confusing stuff but sure enough one of them is Moviemaker.

So I do the download. The download is fast but the Install takes many minutes. Amazing how slow this thing is.

At some point I get told I need to go get Windows Media Series 9 to download.

So I decide I will go do that. This time I get dialogs saying things like "Open" or "Save". No guidance in the instructions which to do. I have no clue which to do.

The download is fast and the install takes 7 minutes for this thing.

So now I think I am going to have Moviemaker. I go to my add/remove programs place to make sure it is there.

It is not there.

What is there? The following garbage is there. Microsoft Autoupdate Exclusive test package, Microsoft Autoupdate Reboot test package, Microsoft Autoupdate testpackage1. Microsoft AUtoupdate testpackage2, Microsoft Autoupdate Test package3.

Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.

But that is just the start of the crap. Later I have listed things like Windows XP Hotfix see Q329048 for more information. What is Q329048? Why are these series of patches listed here? Some of the patches just things like Q810655 instead of saying see Q329048 for more information.

What an absolute mess.

Moviemaker is just not there at all.

So I give up on Moviemaker and decide to download the Digital Plus Package.

I get told I need to go enter a bunch of information about myself.

I enter it all in and because it decides I have mistyped something I have to try again. Of course it has cleared out most of what I typed.

I try (typing) the right stuff in 5 times and it just keeps clearing things out for me to type them in again.

So after more than an hour of craziness and making my programs list garbage and being scared and seeing that Microsoft.com is a terrible website I haven't run Moviemaker and I haven't got the plus package.

The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind. I thought we had reached a low with Windows Network places or the messages I get when I try to use 802.11. (don't you just love that root certificate message?)

When I really get to use the stuff I am sure I will have more feedback.

When we were concluding our interview last week, I showed Gates a printout of the e-mail and asked if he ever got Movie Maker to work. Gates noted that Microsoft plans to include Movie Maker as part of Windows Live, so people will get the program when they download that online package. The company isn't confirming that officially yet, but's not a complete surprise. See this Wikipedia entry and this related post on LiveSide.net. (Site temporarily down as of Tuesday morning.)

As for the message, Gates smiled and said, "There's not a day that I don't send a piece of e-mail ... like that piece of e-mail. That's my job."

2008-06-24T07:52:00.002+07:00

Currently My Favorite Version

2008-06-18T07:48:00.002+07:00

Stock Cycles from a Bandar Point of View

I love this post. I do not know who posted it because he/she used an alias (JsxTrader), but this is exactly the reason why I do not fully rely in Technical Analysis in stocks and prefer to rely on fundamentals because in the end, fundamentals always win.

*BD = Bandar
*TA = Technical Analysis

---------------------------------------------
Secara UMUM, berikut fase-fase yang BIASA dilewati saham....,

Fase Akumulasi
Terjadi dibottom dalam periode yang cukup lama. Diam-diam BD akan mengumpulkan barang di fase ini dan menjaga agar harga tidak naik dulu sebelum embernya penuh..., caranya dengan memasang OFFER tebel-tebel dan mengguyur saat ada yang coba-coba makan kanan..., VOLUME relative rendah, Aktivitas Trading relative sepi, sekali-sekali akan terlihat vol spike namum kembali melemah.

Fase Mark-up
Setelah ember penuh, BD akan menyiapkan 'Cerita-Cerita Menarik', Riset, Target price, dll.., Selanjutnya BD akan melakukan pembelian supaya harga cepat naik, terjadilah apa yg orang TA bilang Breakout Consolidation..., trader & investor akan tertarik untuk ikut masuk sehingga harga semakin terdorong naik..., jika terjadi koreksi, BD akan menjaga level-level tertentu dengan memasang BID dlm jumlah besar supaya harga tidak melorot lagi..., Saat koreksi selesai, BD akan melanjutkan pembelian untuk mendorong harga naik lebih tinggi lagi.

Fase Distribusi
Saat level yg sdh ditentukan sang BD tercapai (umumnya sebelum harga mencapai level tertingginya), barang mulai dibagi sedikit-sedikit.., karena masalah size, BD tidak mungkin bisa keluar begitu saja karena bisa menekan harga.., oleh karenanya harga tetap dijaga sambil
diam-diam bagi-bagi barang..., saat BD sudah hampir selesai unloading dan harga mulai melemah.., maka BD dengan cepat akan melakukan QUICK SELL dimana sisa barang yang mereka punya akan diguyur ke pasar sekaligus...., TA akan mendetect ini, dimana terjadi peningkatan VOLUME namun harga malah turun.., istilah TA-nya "Volume off the Top"..., terjadilah Reversal.

Fase Mark-Down
BD akan melakukannya SHORT selling di fase ini, karena mereka tau persis harga TIDAK AKAN NAIK LAGI (karena tidak ada yg menjaga).., melihat harga tidak mau naik lagi, investor & trader akan mulai berebut keluar juga.., bisa ditebak apa yang terjadi.., harga akan turun
dengan jauh lebih cepat dibandingkan saat rally.., VOLUME akan meningkat tajam sesuai dengan penurunan harga... (that's why banyak yg mengatakan harga lebih cepat turun dari pada saat rally). Disatu titik, VOLUME akan meningkat secara significant sementara harga tidak mau turun lagi.., alasannya, investor jangka panjang mulai masuk, BD cover short, yang nyangkut tidak mau lepas barangnya lagi, etc...., TA akan 'melihatnya' sebagai bottom confirmation.

Saat harga mulai stabil dan volume mulai menurun..., maka akan dimulai lagi Fase Akumulasi, dan seterusnya.....

2008-06-16T12:23:00.001+07:00

The worst kind of business there is, by Mr. Buffet:

The worst sort of business is one that grows rapidly, requires significant capital to engender the growth, and then earns little or no money. Think airlines. Here a durable competitive advantage has proven elusive ever since the days of the Wright Brothers. Indeed, if a farsighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favor by shooting Orville down.

The airline industry’s demand for capital ever since that first flight has been insatiable. Investors
have poured money into a bottomless pit, attracted by growth when they should have been repelled by it. And I, to my shame, participated in this foolishness when I had Berkshire buy U.S. Air preferred stock in 1989. As the ink was drying on our check, the company went into a tailspin, and before long our preferred dividend was no longer being paid. But we then got very lucky. In one of the recurrent, but always misguided, bursts of optimism for airlines, we were actually able to sell our shares in 1998 for a hefty gain. In the decade following our sale, the company went bankrupt. Twice.

2008-05-22T11:09:00.008+07:00

Pizza, the Italian way… You won’t ever wanna go to Pizza Hut again after this. I will put a price estimate on non-common ingredients.

Ingredients:

For the Pizza:

30gr of Yeast (ragi) or 15gr of dried yeast [Rp.7000]
Sugar
300gr Plain Flour [Rp.15000 per 500gr]
Salt
Olive oil à the heart of Italian cuisine [Rp.25000 – Rp.75000]
Corn meal (maizena) [Rp.4000]
500gr of shredded Mozzarella [Rp.150000] or Cheddar [Rp.35000] if Mozzarella is too expensive
200gr Parmesan Cheese [Rp.30000]

For the Sauce:

Olive oil
Onion
Garlic
Tomato
1 can of Tomato Puree [Rp.15000]
Oregano [Rp.10000]
Basil [Rp.10000]
Bay Leaf [Rp10000]
Black Pepper

All of the above ingredients are available in your local supermarket. Oregano, basil, and bay leaf are easily found in the spices section. Remember that most of the spices are not used once so just consider the purchases as investment for good cooking

First step is making the sauce.

The measurements are what I use. Feel free to add or subtract according to your taste. Finely chop about 4 balls of onion and 3 table spoons of garlic. Heat 3 tablespoons of Olive oil into a non-sticky pan. Put the onions and garlic in. Stir for about 5 minutes or until the onions are transparent, but before they turn brown. Chop about 6 tomatoes. I cut them rough coz I like the texture. In goes the tomato and puree altogether. Let the tomato juice come out. When it boils, put in the oregano, basil, and bay leaf, about 2 tablespoons each. Put in black pepper according to your taste.

Leftover Sauce

Turn down the flames and let it simmer for about an hour with stirs now and then. It is better to use a wooden spoon.

Sorry about the picture. That is leftover pizza sauce coz I only thought about making this recipe after baking the third portion of the pizza ha ha.

What to do in the next hour? Make the Pizza of course!

Put the yeast in a small glass or bowl and add 3.5 tablespoon of lukewarm water. Remember: lukewarm. Not cold, not hot. Mix them together.

Now, with a large bowl, mix the flour with a pinch of sugar and salt. You are allowed to be generous with the salt. Add 250gr of lukewarm water. Just get down and dirty with your fingers. Put the water-filled yeast into the flour mix. Use your hands. If you have a mixer, use medium speed. Add flour if the mix is sticky. After they are one, cover the bowl. About 7 minutes later, the mix should double in size. This is critical. If the mix does not expand, start over. Don’t worry, it took me two attempts to pull this one off.

Flattening the Dough

Break a chunk of the dough. Make sure the size fits your cooking table. Because I was using a cutting board, I had to split the dough into five small chunks. Do not forget to also consider the oven size. Flatten the dough with the bottom part of your palm. If you used to learn karate, this would come in handy.

Stretch! Stretch!

Hold the dough like the picture on the left. It should be vertical like the hand. Don’t mind the background coz I had to place the camera sideways in order to capture the handling position. It should be like as if you were driving; the 10 and 2 position. Just stretch a little bit and let the dough drop itself down thanks to gravity. Do this a couple of times while rotating the dough.

Some of you may not have a rolling pin. I had a rolling pin so I didn’t bother to look for it at the supermarket. When I was about to cook, however, the pin was missing. So I searched for a cylinder object and covered it with soft plastic. It cannot be thick plastic because it will ruin the dough. So… TADAAA!!! My home made “baseball bat” rolling pin was ready.

Batter Up!

Roll the dough using the pin from the center to the sides, rotate the dough a little, and then roll it again. Keep on rolling until you have a round, thin pizza about 1cm thick. Use your hands to touch up the edges. This will keep the sauce from spilling over when cooking.

Preheat the oven to number 8 of your dial. In the meantime, put the pizza sauce on top of the dough and spread it using the back of a spoon. Now this part is important. If you are using mozzarella, cover the sauce with it, then add about 2 tablespoon of parmesan cheese. Glaze the sauce with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. If you are using cheddar cheese, do not put the cheddar cheese on yet.

Put the pizza at the lowest part of the oven (least hot) and cook for 5 minutes. Turn down the heat to number 5 and wait 2 minutes. If you are using cheddar, this is the time to put the cheese on top. This is because if you put cheddar from the beginning, the cheese will dry up and be overcooked.

VOILA! Your pizza is now finished

You can add basically anything as pizza topping. From beef to chicken to seafood to salad. I myself am a simple man and thus enjoy a simple cheese pizza with the occasional green pepper and olive. When in a carnivorous state, I enjoy additional smoked beef or chicken.

So lunch last Saturday was pizza and fettuccine. I will explain how easy it is to make a cheese cream fettuccine at a later time.

2008-05-08T16:21:00.002+07:00

Quote:
Most people go to a cake store and buy a slice because they do not believe they deserve the whole cake. Rich people know they deserve the cake, buys it, and enjoys it. Poor people decides to buy donuts instead, focus on the hole in the center, and wonder why they always get nothing.

2008-05-05T11:57:00.002+07:00

The Biggest Online DANCE BATTLE (on YouTube) !!!

The Challenge:

The Reply:

It just got bigger:

2008-04-24T08:44:00.001+07:00

YOU are the Holy Grail

Libby Adams, Ph.D.

What more common theme is there in trading than people looking for the Holy Grail? How many times do we hear these remarks from traders: “If I could JUST find the right system.” “If the market would just stop going sideways.” “If I could just get the right entry.”

The market goes up—some people are making money while others are losing money.

The market goes down—some people are making money while others are losing money.

How do we explain the discrepancy in results? The market is the market. How does one person make money while another is on the other end of the trade, losing money? Same market. Same day.

Or how about this one: Two people are at the same workshop; they learn the exact same system and buy the same software. One goes out and makes money, and the other loses.

What is the only variable in all of these examples? The individual.

We can’t expect the market to behave a certain way, but we can expect YOU to behave a certain way. The only variable is YOU.

But the definition of “you” is not as clear as some might think. Let me explain. Most people have some awareness of a variety of “yous” that are talking in their head. Perhaps we could call them “me, myself, and I.” Let’s examine these three more closely.

I. The “Big I” (The Scout Up in the Crow’s Nest)

In our “me, myself, and I” equation, this would be the “I”. We could say that when it leaves your body, you’d be considered dead. One of my 28-day course graduates, who was an ER doctor, told a story of a woman who had flatlined on the table. When she came to, she was recounting details of what the doctors and nurses had been doing in their attempt to revive her. The doctor said there was no way these things could have been seen from any vantage point other than floating above the scene.

Many people refer to this “I” as their Soul, Spirit, Higher Self, or Conscience. It is a power source that is invisible and undeniably powerful. An example of how this “I” operates is when we say, “I am happy to return this wallet to the lost and found.” Or “I know that Fred was being rude, but I am going to be the bigger person.” This “I” always takes you along the path of the high road.

If we were to use a ship metaphor, this “I” would be like a scout up in the crow’s nest of a ship who has a broad vantage point and can then communicate his observations to the captain below. This “bird’s eye view” assists the Captain to make good decisions that generate desired results. The ship steers a good course, as opposed to ending up on the rocks.

II. The Conscious Mind or “regular I” (The Captain of the Ship)

In our triad of “me, myself, and I” this would constitute the “me” aspect. We refer to this as your conscious mind. It uses logic and analysis to make choices and has free will. It might be what you call the captain of the ship. You make decisions such as “Should I trade the S&P or do I prefer the Russell.” Your conscious mind is your “decider.” You use this aspect a LOT in trading.

III. The little “i” (Some Members of the Crew Having a Mutiny)

This is the “myself” portion of our “me, myself and I” equation. I write it as “my self”, separating the words. This “separated self” or little “i” is actually a program that has separated from the Big I during our formative years as a result believing faulty and erroneous information. This misinformation might have come from the outside when a parent remarked, “You’ll never amount to anything” and you believed it. From that time forward, this person might not try out for the school play or go out for track thinking" I won’t make it anyway, so why try?"

Another source of faulty information has its origin in our own self-talk: things we tell ourselves. For example, when we volunteered a wrong answer in school and the teacher loudly proclaimed that our answer was way off track, we might have thought “How could I be so stupid?” and decided never to participate in school again.

These programs continue to fire off unconsciously until we do our inner work. That is exactly why Van’s curriculum includes the so much education about trading psychology. Traders need to know how to discern which “I” is pulling the trigger when they trade and what to do if the wrong one is running the show!!

The Holy Grail, then, is trading with the scout and the captain in alignment—that is, the “I and me” in agreement. In our ship metaphor, this translates to the scout shouting down sound information from the crow’s nest followed by the captain making good decisions based upon it. That IS the Holy Grail. You need look no further than within.

The catch is that we must clear out and rid ourselves of the little “i”s steering us into the rocks. It is not useful to hear thoughts like, “What if this is another loser like the last two?” and then miss an opportunity by not taking the trade.

2008-04-02T15:09:00.002+07:00

Yes! We practice SGO (Search Google Optimization)! +grin+

Search "buku impor" -> JuraganBuku.com is list topper
Search "buku dunia" -> BukuDunia.com is list topper
Search "juragan" -> We're #3. #1 is Juragan.com (domain for sale) and #2 is a hosting site for which I have no idea how it managed to be top searched with "juragan" keyword.
Search "buku" -> We are still #3 but hey, "buku" is a very general word so I think that's still good.
Search "dunia" -> Not there yet.. BukuDunia.com has only launched recently and not many articles yet.
The coolest is: Search "juragan buku" -> You will receive: Did you mean: juraganbuku / Did you mean to search for: juraganbuku

2008-03-11T11:14:00.007+07:00

41 State Universities severe ties with the Indonesian Government

41 STATE Universities withdrew from the National University Entrance Test program. These 41 State Universities decided that they would hold their own entrance tests. The reason, they said, was because of financial and budgetary causes. Currently, state universities are not allowed to freely use any money received from test nor tuition payments. Like all government institutions, this is the process of “extracting” what is rightfully theirs:

Students/future students make payments.
University deposits the money to the Department of Finance
University creates proposals of programs that need funding.
The proposals are scrutinized by the Department of Finance
After adjustments and negotiations (taking up time and resource), the funds are given to the university.

This is the basic business model of the government. Let’s say a government institution owns a ship. This ship is rented by a company from overseas. Within one day of receiving the rent money, it must be transferred to the bank account of the Department of Finance. If the institution wants to use the money, they must do the steps above. If the money is needed for urgent matters, then that is just TOO BAD.

So basically, the universities are having trouble getting what they need (money) to grow and expand. They want to sever ties with the government so that they can have easy access to the financials that, in my opinion, are rightfully theirs.

Let’s be a little philosophical now. Keep reading if you want to know my opinion from a philosophical point of view.

Why is our system like this? How come we have to explain right down to the detail about what we want to do, and then provide proof that we did what we said we wanted to do. This type of bureaucracy not only prevents creativity, it is also time consuming and a waste of effort. Not to mention that usually the proposer must use their own money first. It is ridiculous. The root of the problem, in my opinion, is that Indonesians act on a DISTRUST basis. You are guilty until proven innocent. This is in almost every aspect of our lives; from major to minor issues. Let’s compare some things with the western world:

In Indonesia, if you want to use money, you have to explain what you are going to do with the money in details. You have to use your personal money first and then provide receipts to be refunded. If you work in a government, the refunding process normally takes about one month. In USA, you ask for money, explain what you are planning to do with it. The money is given. After spending the money, make a simple report.
Turning left in traffic lights. You are not permitted to turn left on a red light unless there is a sign that allows you to do so. In advanced countries, you are allowed to turn left (turn right if you are in US) in a red light unless it states you are not permitted to do so.
In Indonesia, foreigners must bring a passport at all times. In US you only face scrutiny once, when you enter the country. After that you are free.

This way of thinking is deeply rooted in our heads. We are always suspicious of new things or people. It is now very difficult to find yourself in a “win-win” situation because most people have a mind set of “win-lose”. Or even a “lose-lose” way of thinking. Be honest and ask yourself this: What first popped in my head when I heard of the news that 41 State Universities decided to severe ties with the government? This is a chance for universities to accept bribes? The rich will get educated while the smart and poor will be left behind? Or did you think that this is a good progress in the right direction? Did you think that now universities can start to focus on developing strong curriculum? Small universities will now be able focus on a selected few majors? Is this a chance to develop non developed parts of Indonesia with education so that high-school graduates will not always apply to just ITB, UI, UGM, or IPB?

So what popped in your head? Was it a win-win, win-lose, or lose-lose mindset?
Think about it.

2008-02-27T12:03:00.000+07:00

2008-02-19T17:25:00.001+07:00

The Power of Your Brain

You will need an earphone or good speakers for this to work.
Close your eyes and listen. It is so cool.
I swear its not a prank.

2008-02-19T16:23:00.000+07:00

Hillary Clinton's debate:

My fellow Americans I've spent SIXTEEN years trying to fight for universal health care, EIGHT LONG years fighting for universal health care in the White House, and EIGHT LONG years fighting for universal health care in the Senate... and I have FAILED... but I PROMISE, if you elect me your President... so I can go back to the White House AGAIN where I already worked on this issue EXCLUSIVELY and WITHOUT DISTRACTION for EIGHT YEARS and FAILED, I'll get it done................ my track record on my dedication to this issue............. speaks for itself.

2008-02-11T10:29:00.002+07:00

I will write several correlating posts on several topics.
The first post is about what it means to be The Best in the World.

As some of you may know, I love reading and these posts are gathered from personal experience and learning about them from reading. Confused? Don’t be 
Usually I have an experience first, and then sometime later I read a concept/theory from a book that explains the experience and I am then able to learn from it. I believe that to fully comprehend a concept/theory, you must both learn and experience it. You’ll have a better chance of success if you learn first then experience it, but most of the time it will be the other way around. If you only read, then you will have a know-it-all mindset. If you experience it first, then when you read about it, you will think “oh, so this is why that happened… Now I understand and can change my strategy”. This is why I have decided to share this theory in my blog.

Theory without experience is useless.
Experience without theory is confusing.

#1 What is the definition of THE BEST IN THE WORLD?

In this era, what is the best in the world? The world is now limitless thanks to the Internet. I can search over tens of thousands of online stores to get what I want. The world, from another point of view, has shrunk and is filled with niche markets. There are even niche markets within a niche market. The best in the world is very subjective. It all comes back to the customer’s world. Yes, what you are offering has to be the best in my world, at this exact moment in time. Not yesterday, not tomorrow, but NOW. I want a breakfast that does not require more than a 5 minute walk, with a budget of less than IDR 10,000. That is the best in my world, right NOW. If someone can provide me the best value breakfast in MY world, then I will buy it from him/her. Very simple, right?

If you own a business and you have customers, then you are currently the best in their world. The question is, for how long? Until they learn to use the Internet and find a new best? Or maybe it is until a competitor takes away your advantages and become the best at what YOU DO? If you are an employee, are you the best at what you do? An employee sells their skills to the employer. Are you providing the best value to your company? To your boss? Are you the best compared to your colleagues?

Are you the best at what you do?

Let’s take a step back. Question: now, why would anyone want to be the best in the world? We can be average and still get by. The answer is Easy. The best in the world reaps the highest rewards. The best soccer players in the world play in Europe. The best of the best players make many times the money of average players. It is always the best player that gets the most awards. It is always the best player that receives the most recognition. It is by nature that the best always gets the most.

Some of you may think that it is almost impossible to be the best in the world. I say it’s not. Remember about the world shrinking with the Internet? There are niche markets everywhere on just about anything. Find a market that is WORTHWILE, and be the best in that world.

How do you know that something is worthwhile? If you know that what you are trying to achieve will be difficult and push you to the limit, then that is probably worthwhile. If you’re currently doing something that you think anyone can learn to do quickly, or has a low barrier of entrance, then it’s probably not worth doing.

Think about it for a while as I continue writing the next post.

2008-02-06T11:23:00.000+07:00

This is F*ckin Hillarious!

This may be Matt Damon's Revenge on Jimmy Kimmel joke when he always says "Matt Damon, we're sorry but we ran out of time" +lol+

Here is Jimmy Kimmel. Matt Damon gets really angry.

2008-02-05T08:23:00.000+07:00

Honesty is a Virtue

How many people are honest these days? When some1 asks "how are you doing? how is your business?" Do you answer "I'm miserable, full of stress.. Business is going the drain, chaos is around the corner, we won't survive the year?" Or do you put a smile and say "Everything is great! How are you doing?" Then the answer is another lie, "Excellent! I love my life! I love my job!" Would you believe you could get better results just by telling the truth?

Last week I had a final discussion with a company from Korea looking for a partner in Indonesia. We met on December and hit it off really good. Ready to become their partner/implementor, we treaded the deals. There was one obstacle. We had to buy an initial license. And the price is quite high. double digit G's plus we had to buy servers also (another 5k) .We could not afford it. How do we tell them? Pride was in my way. I had wanted to say "we can't invest that much because there is limited market potential in Indonesia.. blablabla".. But a friend told me, if you want it, just tell the truth. It was quite hard to swallow my pride and say we could not afford it. I wanted the partnership.. And after several moments of pondering how to get that amount of money... Then even though I could get the money, it would still be a foolish thing to do financially.. I finally swallowed my pride and told him the truth.

We are now partners with ARA Networks!

below is the transcript of our chat on skype. Quite long even though some parts of the conversation had to be excluded :)

[1/31/2008 12:14:44 PM] api.perdana says: Good afternoon Mr. Choi
[1/31/2008 12:15:20 PM] [Korean Contact] says: Hi....GOod afternoon...Mr. Api perdana...
[1/31/2008 12:15:23 PM] [Korean Contact] says: How are you?
[1/31/2008 12:15:38 PM] api.perdana says: I am fine, thank you.
[1/31/2008 12:16:15 PM] api.perdana says: My legal guy wanted to ask a question regarding the Partnership Proposal you sent me.
[1/31/2008 12:16:29 PM] api.perdana says: It is on page 4, Partner's Conditions.
[1/31/2008 12:16:39 PM] [Korean Contact] says: OK..Hold on, let me open.
[1/31/2008 12:17:05 PM] api.perdana says: The third item "Initial Order (only for demo, not for selling)
[1/31/2008 12:17:07 PM] api.perdana says: "
[1/31/2008 12:17:16 PM] [Korean Contact] says: Yes....
[1/31/2008 12:17:24 PM] api.perdana says: Could you please explain more on that point?
[1/31/2008 12:18:07 PM] [Korean Contact] says: OK...usually such as Cisco, HP, SUn,,requires partners to purchase their routers or servers..
[1/31/2008 12:18:14 PM] [Korean Contact] says: before the marketing......
[1/31/2008 12:18:47 PM] [Korean Contact] says: And ARA also requires partners to purchase the licenses for demonstration.
[1/31/2008 12:19:15 PM] api.perdana says: Which license is that?
[1/31/2008 12:19:25 PM] api.perdana says: and how much does it cost?
[1/31/2008 12:19:25 PM] [Korean Contact] says: I have never seen any partners to market if the partners don't place initial order.
[1/31/2008 12:19:39 PM] [Korean Contact] says: License is the web cache, PPTM product's license..
[1/31/2008 12:19:53 PM] [Korean Contact] says: ARA is basically S/W developing company.
[1/31/2008 12:20:38 PM] [Korean Contact] says: ARA provides license based S/W and in general partners buy commercial servers and the partners build S/W onto the commercial servers.
[1/31/2008 12:20:38 PM] api.perdana says: Yes
[1/31/2008 12:21:18 PM] [Korean Contact] says: The initial order for Gold partner is about **K USD and **% discount.
[1/31/2008 12:21:31 PM] [Korean Contact] says: Silver partner is about **% discount and **K initial order..
[1/31/2008 12:22:02 PM] [Korean Contact] says: I hope you understand...
[1/31/2008 12:24:45 PM] api.perdana says: the license is quite expensive :)
[1/31/2008 12:24:49 PM] api.perdana says: USD **k
[1/31/2008 12:25:21 PM] [Korean Contact] says: Umh.....
[1/31/2008 12:25:59 PM] [Korean Contact] says: My idea is simple, if the partner don't have any products to market, then I am pretty sure that the partners will not do anything and will move very slowly.
[1/31/2008 12:26:27 PM] api.perdana says: What is the software for?
[1/31/2008 12:26:36 PM] [Korean Contact] says: Jaguar and PPTM.
[1/31/2008 12:26:51 PM] api.perdana says: Yes, but there is no hardware yet.
[1/31/2008 12:27:00 PM] api.perdana says: Or does that already include the hardware?
[1/31/2008 12:27:29 PM] [Korean Contact] says: You choose H/W company on your benefit..
[1/31/2008 12:27:42 PM] [Korean Contact] says: I mean if you have good relationship with Dell, you can choose dell.
[1/31/2008 12:28:06 PM] [Korean Contact] says: or if you have good relationship with Sun or HP, you can choose them.
[1/31/2008 12:28:30 PM] [Korean Contact] says: Basically, ARA provides S/W, partners provide H/W and combine them and sell to the endusers.
[1/31/2008 12:28:43 PM] [Korean Contact] says: This is the basic foreign partnership model.
[1/31/2008 12:29:13 PM] [Korean Contact] says: As always, the prices are negotiable.
[1/31/2008 12:31:48 PM] [Korean Contact] says: (handshake)
[1/31/2008 12:32:31 PM] api.perdana says: I am a bit confused :)
[1/31/2008 12:32:38 PM] api.perdana says: I thought you also provided hardware
[1/31/2008 12:32:47 PM] api.perdana says: like Jaguar
[1/31/2008 12:32:48 PM] [Korean Contact] says: If you want, I can do..
[1/31/2008 12:33:03 PM] [Korean Contact] says: OK let me explain..
[1/31/2008 12:33:13 PM] [Korean Contact] says: 1) ARA provides H/W + S/W to Avevo
[1/31/2008 12:33:30 PM] [Korean Contact] says: 2) ARA provides S/W only + Avevo provides H/W to the customers.
[1/31/2008 12:33:37 PM] [Korean Contact] says: It's your option.
[1/31/2008 12:33:53 PM] [Korean Contact] says: If you choose 1),
[1/31/2008 12:34:18 PM] [Korean Contact] says: then you pay more tax and the appliance(S/W+H/W) price will be high because of delivery fee.
[1/31/2008 12:34:39 PM] [Korean Contact] says: If you choose 2), you will pay less tax and no delivery fee.
[1/31/2008 12:34:59 PM] [Korean Contact] says: I will give you installation CDs by air, and license by email or by mail.
[1/31/2008 12:35:34 PM] [Korean Contact] says: I hope you under stand..
[1/31/2008 12:36:16 PM] api.perdana says: Do you have a list of compatible hardwares?
[1/31/2008 12:37:56 PM] [Korean Contact] says: Yes.
[1/31/2008 12:38:23 PM] api.perdana says: [url censored]
[1/31/2008 12:38:27 PM] [Korean Contact] says: DELL PowerEdge 2950 http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/pedge_2950?c=us&cs=555&l=en&s=biz&~section=specs#tabtop
HP ProLiant DL380 G5 http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF05a/15351-15351-3328412-241644-241475-1121516.html
[1/31/2008 12:38:28 PM] api.perdana says: I thought you sold this
[1/31/2008 12:39:18 PM] [Korean Contact] says: Yes I sold it...
[1/31/2008 12:39:43 PM] [Korean Contact] says: Appliance type...
[1/31/2008 12:40:14 PM] [Korean Contact] sent file "JAGUAR_Spec_080109.pdf" to members of this chat
[1/31/2008 12:41:27 PM] [Korean Contact] says: That sever model is based on Dell PowerEdge 2950./
[1/31/2008 12:45:50 PM] [Korean Contact] says: OK?
[1/31/2008 12:46:30 PM] api.perdana says: ok
[1/31/2008 12:46:54 PM] [Korean Contact] says: So it's good for you..
[1/31/2008 12:47:01 PM] [Korean Contact] says: you have two options....
[1/31/2008 12:47:17 PM] [Korean Contact] says: [url censored]
[1/31/2008 12:47:23 PM] [Korean Contact] says: You can see ARA's partners..
[1/31/2008 12:48:02 PM] [Korean Contact] says: I suggested the two options...but most partners chose the second one, S/W only...they have their own partnership with server suppliers and can buy cheaply..
[1/31/2008 12:51:05 PM] [Korean Contact] says: Everything is clear?
[1/31/2008 12:51:19 PM] api.perdana says: Yes
[1/31/2008 12:51:22 PM] api.perdana says: Thank you
[1/31/2008 12:51:27 PM] [Korean Contact] says: No problem...
.
[THIS IS CENSORED BECAUSE IT IS A DISCUSSION ON POTENTIAL CLIENTS]
.
[1/31/2008 1:33:04 PM] [Korean Contact] says: OK...thanks for cooperation..
[1/31/2008 1:33:19 PM] [Korean Contact] says: Do you think positive about the partnership?
[1/31/2008 1:34:23 PM] [Korean Contact] says: And if you want to know some contact information, you can tell me,,,I can get some contact information by agency...
[1/31/2008 1:34:34 PM] [Korean Contact] says: I wish I can have a good partnership with Avevo...
[1/31/2008 1:35:46 PM] api.perdana says: We are excited for the chance to be a partner. But I have to be honest upfront that I think the initial cost for us may somewhat be an obstacle.
[1/31/2008 1:36:31 PM] [Korean Contact] says: Could you tell me how much is the suitable?
[1/31/2008 1:36:47 PM] api.perdana says: As you may already know, we are not a large company and $**k upfront is quite steep :)
[1/31/2008 1:37:53 PM] api.perdana says: I will have to discuss the matter with my partners before I am able to answer that question.
[1/31/2008 1:38:17 PM] [Korean Contact] says: **K USD??
[1/31/2008 1:38:40 PM] api.perdana says: yes. You said $**k, partner gets **% discount.
[1/31/2008 1:38:50 PM] api.perdana says: That is $**k
[1/31/2008 1:39:36 PM] [Korean Contact] says: **% is the discount for the product...for example
[1/31/2008 1:39:50 PM] [Korean Contact] says: J3K SF800 $**,***
[1/31/2008 1:39:57 PM] [Korean Contact] says: is the list price of the product.
[1/31/2008 1:40:13 PM] [Korean Contact] says: for silver partner the price will be **,*** USD (**% discount) -> higher that I initially thought
[1/31/2008 1:41:04 PM] [Korean Contact] says: but for gold partner the price will be **,*** USD (**% discount)
[1/31/2008 1:41:18 PM] [Korean Contact] says: initial order is **K for silver partner, **K for gold partner..
[1/31/2008 1:43:32 PM] [Korean Contact] says: Hold on, let me talk with my team..
[1/31/2008 1:43:35 PM] [Korean Contact] says: give me 1 minute..
[1/31/2008 1:43:44 PM] api.perdana says: ok
[1/31/2008 1:43:46 PM] [Korean Contact] says: I think I can help you about the initial order.
[1/31/2008 1:49:07 PM] [Korean Contact] says: I will invite your 1 engineer charged by ARA Networks.
[1/31/2008 1:49:41 PM] api.perdana says: invite?
[1/31/2008 1:49:42 PM] [Korean Contact] says: and the initial order will be reduced **,*** USD -> reduced 20%
[1/31/2008 1:49:54 PM] [Korean Contact] says: Yes I will invite your engineer to come to Korea.
[1/31/2008 1:49:59 PM] [Korean Contact] says: Free training..
[1/31/2008 1:50:24 PM] api.perdana says: how long will this training take?
[1/31/2008 1:50:28 PM] [Korean Contact] says: ARA will pay for one engineer for the training in Korea including accomodation and airplane tickekt..
[1/31/2008 1:50:34 PM] [Korean Contact] says: the training will take about 3 or 4 days.
[1/31/2008 1:50:48 PM] [Korean Contact] says: And I can reduce the initial order to **,*** USD,,,
[1/31/2008 1:50:57 PM] [Korean Contact] says: this is the best that I can do for you...Mr. Ap Perdana.
[1/31/2008 1:52:05 PM] [Korean Contact] says: an initial order for J3K SP400 (the original price is **,***).
[1/31/2008 1:52:36 PM] [Korean Contact] says: What do you think?
[1/31/2008 1:58:11 PM] [Korean Contact] says: You are very lucky since ARA doesn't have any partner in Indonesia yet.
[1/31/2008 1:58:32 PM] api.perdana says: Yes, I know.
[1/31/2008 1:58:36 PM] [Korean Contact] says: You can see [url censored]
[1/31/2008 1:58:51 PM] [Korean Contact] says: Two European SI companies gave us proposal recently.
[1/31/2008 1:59:04 PM] [Korean Contact] says: ARA's products are very promising as you know.
[1/31/2008 2:00:14 PM] [Korean Contact] says: What do you say?
[1/31/2008 2:03:54 PM] api.perdana says: Well, the argument my team states is that to make a sale, we only require brochure, product catalog, presentation files, and representative letter.
[1/31/2008 2:06:09 PM] api.perdana says: I am sorry, but I would rather be honest now.
[1/31/2008 2:06:22 PM] api.perdana says: We will give it our best to market your product
[1/31/2008 2:06:43 PM] api.perdana says: But to put that amount of money upfront is heavy for us.
[1/31/2008 2:07:18 PM] api.perdana says: If the brochures and other sales kit were made available, we will gladly cover the printing and shippng cost.
[1/31/2008 2:07:48 PM] api.perdana says: We can work on a tight timeline and provide detailed information on sales progress.
[1/31/2008 2:08:56 PM] api.perdana says: But again, financially, we are unable to make a commitment like that.
[1/31/2008 2:10:49 PM] [Korean Contact] says: ARA only keeps partners who placed initial orders because I always think "no investment, no move"....**,*** USD was the amount even I should persuade my boss...
[1/31/2008 2:10:58 PM] [Korean Contact] says: It was my sincere best...
[1/31/2008 2:12:08 PM] [Korean Contact] says: Ok..then let's talk about the project case by case...
[1/31/2008 2:13:02 PM] [Korean Contact] says: Company's policy is policy....then we can talk case by case if there is a potential customer.
[1/31/2008 2:13:04 PM] [Korean Contact] says: OK?
[1/31/2008 2:13:46 PM] api.perdana says: So, we are still permitted to market your product
[1/31/2008 2:14:02 PM] api.perdana says: And then after we receive a lead, we can contact you?
[1/31/2008 2:14:15 PM] [Korean Contact] says: Yes..of course.
[1/31/2008 2:14:26 PM] [Korean Contact] says: I can send you some brochures soon..
[1/31/2008 2:14:31 PM] [Korean Contact] says: I just trust you...
[1/31/2008 2:14:31 PM] api.perdana says: Okay.
[1/31/2008 2:14:34 PM] api.perdana says: Thank you!
[1/31/2008 2:14:45 PM] api.perdana says: I know its a hard thing to do
[1/31/2008 2:14:45 PM] [Korean Contact] says: when I met you guys at the conference, I was impressed by your honesty..
[1/31/2008 2:14:50 PM] [Korean Contact] says: I like honesty.
[1/31/2008 2:15:13 PM] api.perdana says: Thank you
[1/31/2008 2:15:19 PM] [Korean Contact] says: I usually look at partner's eyes...you guys have good eyes,,,really.
[1/31/2008 2:15:28 PM] [Korean Contact] says: my pleasure...it's my pleasure to know you.
[1/31/2008 2:16:54 PM] [Korean Contact] says: I can give you software list price...
[1/31/2008 2:17:42 PM] api.perdana says: Allright. I will get my marketing team on it right away :)
.
[THIS IS CENSORED BECAUSE THIS IS THE PRICE LIST]
.
[1/31/2008 2:18:29 PM] [Korean Contact] says: There is no table.. -> the table format is gone when pasted on the chat
[1/31/2008 2:18:36 PM] [Korean Contact] says: Table is gone.
[1/31/2008 2:18:41 PM] api.perdana says: Its ok. We can retype.
[1/31/2008 2:19:09 PM] [Korean Contact] says: Hold on.
[1/31/2008 2:20:40 PM] [Korean Contact] says: Do you prefer H/W(+S/W) or only S/W provide by ARA??
[1/31/2008 2:20:59 PM] [Korean Contact] says: provided by ARA?
[1/31/2008 2:22:05 PM] api.perdana says: is there a large price difference if you provide the hardware also?
[1/31/2008 2:22:17 PM] [Korean Contact] says: For you S/W is much better...
[1/31/2008 2:22:32 PM] [Korean Contact] says: you can find a cheap commercial server supplier and you can get more profit.
[1/31/2008 2:23:13 PM] [Korean Contact] sent file "Jaguar???.JPG" to members of this chat
[1/31/2008 2:23:28 PM] [Korean Contact] sent file "JaguarListPrice.JPG" to members of this chat
[1/31/2008 2:24:19 PM] api.perdana says: This is just the software version?
[1/31/2008 2:24:25 PM] [Korean Contact] says: Yes.
[1/31/2008 2:24:48 PM] [Korean Contact] says: I can suggest you **% discount, you can think your margin and sell to your customers...
[1/31/2008 2:25:28 PM] [Korean Contact] sent file "JAGUAR_Spec_080109.pdf" to members of this chat
[1/31/2008 2:26:25 PM] api.perdana says: I think you already gave me that file :)
[1/31/2008 2:26:53 PM] [Korean Contact] says: Oh really?
[1/31/2008 2:27:49 PM] [Korean Contact] sent file "Comparison_J3K_Squid.pdf" to members of this chat
[1/31/2008 2:27:49 PM] api.perdana says: its okay.
[1/31/2008 2:28:04 PM] [Korean Contact] says: And you can see why I'm confident to sell ARA's products.
[1/31/2008 2:28:08 PM] [Korean Contact] says: by looking at this document.
[1/31/2008 2:28:15 PM] api.perdana says: Aah.. this is the selling point :)
[1/31/2008 2:28:36 PM] [Korean Contact] sent file "BlueCoat&Squid_ARA_Comparison_2.pdf" to members of this chat
[1/31/2008 2:28:40 PM] [Korean Contact] says: This too.
[1/31/2008 2:28:59 PM] [Korean Contact] says: There is only one competitor which is called BlueCoat...
[1/31/2008 2:29:12 PM] [Korean Contact] says: and the other competitor is Squid, a free open source code.
[1/31/2008 2:29:22 PM] [Korean Contact] says: Squid is more popular over the world..
[1/31/2008 2:29:27 PM] [Korean Contact] says: and there are no more competitors..

2008-02-04T09:14:00.000+07:00

2008, What's the story? No more glory?

Facts about the Indonesian economy:
1. We have a domestic dependant economy
If we look at our companies, only the commodity companies export. The others mainly market their goods and service in the local market. Oil & Gas is no longer a primadona. It currently only accounts 17% of the whole economy.

2. Government is cutting corporate taxes by 7%-10%
The government is trying to lift corporate earnings from state owned companies to get higher dividend. Specifically for state owned companies, the government will push for efficiency and increase price. This has to do with the 2009 elections. I wont go in to further political details on this issue :)

3. Foreign investment, both FDI and via equity market increases all the time.

2008 vs 1998:
Current property price is worth less than it was before the economy crisis of 1998.

Exposure to US (uh oh.. here comes the "R" word) Recession is minimum because Indonesian export to USA is only 15%. Our main export partner is Japan, China, and India.

Let's talk industries:
1. Automotive: it is growing every year.
2. Property: as stated, property price is still low. Added to the government quest for 2009, property will surely rise.
3. Commodities: coal keeps growing. Indonesia has 300 years worth of coal reserve. With oil becoming expensive, coal is a definite alternative (although frowned upon by Mr. Al Gore). Crude Palm Oil is now turned into biofuel. The impact is gigantic in terms of price. Indonesia is always #1 or #2 (switch with Malaysia) in becoming the highest exporter of CPO. So excellent liquidity there.
4. Infrastructure: as with property, infrastructure will be the focus of the government in 2008 (again because of 2009).

Let's talk about the equity market:
In other countries, the stock market compared to time-based savings (bank deposit, etc) is equal. In Indonesia, money invested in the equity market is currently IDR 35 trillion. Time-based savings? IDR 650 trillion! If just 10% of those people in traditional savings switch to equity-based investments, the equity market will have tripled! Even if you are a dumb investor and buy a bluechip, it is a guarantee your asset will grow 200%.

Let's talk Price Earned Average (PER):
PER is basically the time it would take to break even if you only receive dividends. The global market averages at PER 16x. The Indonesian market is at PER 13x. Still have room to grow.

Let's now talk about stock picks :
Investors... this is for you:
1. Banking: its a no brainer; BMRI (wait for upcoming news :), BBRI (best banking company).
2. Commodity: BUMI (great transportation), AALI (foreign investor favorite), LSIP (foreign investor favorite). Sorry to say, TINS, ANTM, INCO will have limited growth this year unless several things happen (this is another story).
3. Infrastructure: TLKM, INTP
4. Misc Industry: ASII

Traders... this is for you:
SGRO, ELTY, CTRP, UNSP

The market won't be as extravagant as 2007, but we will have a healthy growth. 20%-25% growth is a good bet for me.

2008-01-29T15:50:00.000+07:00

laxo.jakarta: disini kami menawarkan macem" paket
laxo.jakarta: yg mungkin bapak sudah melihat di daftar package web kami
Pee-Eye: yes
laxo.jakarta: mungkin bapak ada yg tertarik ....
laxo.jakarta: soal paketnya..rencana bapak ambil yg mana?
Pee-Eye: kemungkinan residential
Pee-Eye: antara 1Mbps dengan 2Mbps
Pee-Eye: yang ingin saya tanyakan, real bandwidth apakah benar2 1:16?
laxo.jakarta: itu untuk iix nya bapak
laxo.jakarta: kami bisa jamin...tuk bandwidth nya
Pee-Eye: untuk international juga 1:16 kan?
laxo.jakarta: yg 1 - 2 mbpx
Pee-Eye: apakah juga dijamin
laxo.jakarta: yup
laxo.jakarta: soal bea mungkin bapak sudah melihat ya
laxo.jakarta: mengenai bea regestrasi dan depositnya
Pee-Eye: bea?
Pee-Eye: harga itu sudah termasuk PPN atau belum?
laxo.jakarta: belum bpak
Pee-Eye: 512 Kbps (1:16) -> apakah ini berarti speed Up to 32Kbps?
laxo.jakarta: betul
laxo.jakarta: diatas jam 6 sore bisa up 256 1:1
Pee-Eye: nah itu
Pee-Eye: "up to"
Pee-Eye: real nya berapa
laxo.jakarta: kita gak bisa kasih prediksi real nya bapak
laxo.jakarta: intinya itu up to sesuai dgn daftar packages
Pee-Eye: trial testnya berapa lama?
laxo.jakarta: trial test kita 3 hari
laxo.jakarta: stelah pembayaran dimuka
Pee-Eye: trial test dimana mana digunakan sebagai penentu apakah layanannya layak atau tidak Pee-Eye: kalau bagus, baru deal
laxo.jakarta: tp di tempat kami
laxo.jakarta: test trial diberikan,,,setelah biaya registrasi dan deposit dibyar didepan bapak
Pee-Eye: aneh
Pee-Eye: kalau setelah trial tidak jadi, semua biaya dikembalikan 100%?
laxo.jakarta: bentar bapak
laxo.jakarta: kami tanyakan ke pihak yg lebih jelas
laxo.jakarta: gini bapak
laxo.jakarta: kalo stelah trial ...
laxo.jakarta: costumer tidak jadi...krn xla dari kita tidak memenuhi kriteria
laxo.jakarta: smua dkembalikan
laxo.jakarta: tp kalo tidak jadi krn dari pihak costumer sedang kita sudah servise sesuai ketentuan
laxo.jakarta: mungkin uang registrasi* nya angus
Pee-Eye: standar tidak memenuhi kriteria itu apa saja?
Pee-Eye: definisinya bagaimana?
.................. and so on.... and so on....

Note :
* Registration Fee Rp. 500.000,-
* Security Deposit Rp. 750.000,- ( per site )

2008-01-18T10:28:00.000+07:00

Indonesian Stock Index causes Accidents?

A friend was on a business trip to Riau. As always, I update him on the stock market via sms.

16 January 2008

Sent at 1:48 PM : Mantab ihsg -6.5%!
Received at 1:49 PM: Saya kecelakaan pi, nabrak truk, gigi pth & mata benjol.

It seems his car crashed into a truck, engine was busted. Fortunately he's okay, just a broken tooth and bigger cheeks. Unfortunately a motorcycle (helmet-less) crashed from behind and the rider is currently in critical condition.

by the way, would you believe I dreamed of his accident a month ago and told him:
when in a car in the mountains, tell your driver to be careful. He will be tired or sleepy and going too fast. When he is about to turn, he sees a motorcycle and lose focus and at that moment, a truck (or bus, cant remember) will also be speeding.

I thought it was in Puncak.

Continuing with the sms:

Me: Hah? Serius? Di mana skrg?
Reply: Riau, untung selamat, walau mobil hancur
Me: Saya sdh bilang waktu dulu mimpi, kalo yg bawa mbl suruh hati2 saat belok
Reply: Tempatnya berbukit-bukit & belok-belok
Me: Sudah bilang keluarga? Ada yang patah tidak?
Reply: Gigi saya patah.
Me: Ada motor jga ga?
Reply: Yup, kena efek tabrakan, gara2 nabrak mobil kita dari belakang tanpa helm

2008-01-07T14:18:00.000+07:00

Love Notes..
A few weeks ago, I coached AKLTG (adam khoo learning technologies group). Here are some of the love notes I received from my small group..

2008-01-03T10:29:00.000+07:00

My Handsome Pablo!

Before the bath (look at neck hair)

After the bath (see the difference?)

He now knows his name so I can just call "Pablo" and he turns his head

Called out "Pablo!" during his sleep

2007-12-17T09:53:00.000+07:00

Prisa Adinda
A new guitarist star is born...

With looks like that, it would be hard to stop her.
But hey, if you think its all the looks, check this out

2007-12-17T08:46:00.000+07:00

"The Majority is Usually Wrong"

At first it may be difficult to accept such a statement as fact. So let us pursue the subject a bit. Let us start by dividing the population of this planet into two groups, the minority and the majority.

It would seem that only a minority of the people on this planet have the ability and ambition to study hard, to figure out ways to accumulate wealth, and to raise their standard of living. The majority are apparently unable or unwilling to acquire the knowledge and take the action which would enable them to do the same.

Another difficulty of the majority is the herd instinct which they follow. The desire to go along with a large group is evident among people and animals. This is caused by the idea that there is safety in numbers – to think and act like the majority of other people. Anyone who dares to be different from the crowd is not considered to be "normal."

One of the big troubles with modern society is the conformity of ideas and action. I call it the mediocrity of conformity. Many people are actually afraid to be different – to pursue unusual ideas. But the road to success is paved with unusual ideas, and traveled by unusual people who dare to be different. In our modern society it frequently pays to be unusual and different.

Another trouble with the majority is that they have a tendency to believe what they are told, especially if something is repeated frequently. The majority find it is easier to accept the statements of others than to think for themselves.

The minority, who do not believe what they are told, must put forth intensive effort in their search for truth and knowledge. Sometimes the quest for knowledge is like sailing on an uncharted sea with nothing to guide you except the facts you learn as you go along. The success of your voyage depends on how well you can separate facts from fantasy, how well you can analyze the facts you discover, and how well you use them to reach the right conclusions.

In the stock market, the majority are inclined to believe what they are told in the form of tips, rumors and advice. The minority believe only what they know to be facts, and then reach their own conclusions by analyzing those facts.

Still another weakness of the majority is their disbelief in change. Most people do not expect or prepare for changes in the status quo. They believe that things will continue indefinitely just as they are right now. When the stock market goes up, the majority expect it to continue going up indefinitely. They do not bother to think about the time when the market will change its course and turn downward.

At the same time, the minority know that change is inevitable, and they are looking ahead, trying to figure how to tell when the market makes the change, and planning what actions they will take at that time. The minority know that every bull market has been followed by a bear market, and that every bear market had been followed by a bull market. The successful investor must possess a mind which is flexible enough to accept changing conditions.

The majority of investors are almost paralyzed by their opinions, because it is difficult to change an opinion which is well established. When a person has a definite opinion, there is the danger that he might not be able to change it until too late to take the proper action.

Almost everybody tries to form an opinion of the market. Many investors are constantly gathering information to help them form the correct opinion. As the opinion forms, the investor subconsciously becomes more receptive to the ideas, which help to substantiate his opinion.

There are always plenty of arguments for both sides of a case. Since the equal acceptance of arguments from both sides would result in frustrating confusion, a person must choose which to accept. Frequently a person accepts the arguments which support his own opinion, and he ignores the opposite side of the case. It is human nature to do so. Many people actively consider and publicize only the arguments which will support their opinions. The process is called rationalization.

The majority seem to have an uncanny ability to buy near the top of a bull market, and sell near the bottom of a bear market. Apparently that is the way things must be, otherwise who would the minority sell their stocks to near the top – and who would they buy stocks from near the bottom?

One should try to think and act like the minority, for there is little hope for the success of the majority. There is not enough room at the top for the majority.

Realizing that the majority is usually wrong in their action near the tops of bull markets and the bottoms of bear markets, I looked for ways to recognize majority action at those points I also looked for a way of timing the contrary action to be taken at those points. It would not be enough just to recognize when the majority was wrong. One must also recognize exactly when the majority was wrong enough to take the contrary action.

The words above are not mine. This was a quote from The Haller Theory of Stock Market Trends 1965, by Gilbert Haller. Recently, I have been showing you a few charts on advancing volume and advancing issues. I referred to this as market fuel. Mr. Haller's work only recently became known to me by one of my old time technical friends. He suggested that I read Mr. Haller's book. What I found in this book served to reinforce what I have been sharing with you over the last few weeks about the lack of confirmation from upside volume and advancing issues. As it turns out, Mr. Haller's work was solidly based on the use of volume and advancing-declining issues. Mr. Haller used these indicators to show him when the market was under distribution as is now the case. My point here is that in spite of all the hype from mainstream and popular public opinion the underlying volume and advance-decline work is telling us something else and now does not appear to be a time to be in alignment with the majority. Given that Mr. Haller's work was based on what I have recently been presenting to you as "Market Fuel" plus the fact that I currently have a contrary opinion on the market I felt that the above quote was appropriate. I hope that you are able to find some value in it.

2007-11-22T16:18:00.000+07:00

The New Office

These pictures were from before we moved in. It's more like a small penthouse he he he...

From the front door

It's got a balcony! Bring out the Barb-q!

2007-10-25T11:28:00.000+07:00

Last notes from Mr. DE :

Selama ini posting yang banyak muncul di milis rata-rata adalah rekomendasi untuk beli, namun sedikit sekali untuk posting saham yang boleh dijual. Well, saya coba rangkum beberapa hal yang kira-kira dapat menjadi guide untuk menjual:

Jual saham 2,3 liner pada saat market bullish. Pada saat market bullish seperti saat ini, market digerakkan oleh saham berkapitalisasi besar, artinya fokus market ada pada saham blue chip, akibatnya investor cenderung mengalihkan dana dan waktunya untuk bermain pada saham tsb, sehingga saham 2,3 liner cenderung stagnan, bahkan turun jika ada aksi pemindahan dana besar. Sebaliknya mulai lirik 2nd liner saat market sideways.
Jual saham yang terlalu banyak dibahas/news/rumor setelah naik. Saham-saham yang "lompat tinggi" biasanya setelah itu keluar berita-berita/rumor yang mendukung kenaikan harga tersebut. Well, kita semua tahu berita bisa dibantah dan rumor ada disclaimer. Saham spt INCO & BUMI yang miskin rumor tetap naik dengan manisnya, namun saham yang rame dibahas seperti ISAT (gosip investor rusia) dan ANTM (so many projects, so many good news) malah rallynya tertahan. PGAS sempat tertahan, namun ketika orang mulai bosan bahas PGAS, saham ini justru naik.

Saham yang full rumor seperti TMPI, MITI, POLY malah lebih sadis lagi.
Jual saham yang posisi bid offernya mencurigakan, seperti ini (contoh):

BID	BVOL	OVOL	OFFER
10,000	50,000	3,100	10,050
9,950	4,000	3,200	10,100
9,900	3,000	2,900	10,150
9,850	2,000	3,010	10,200
9,800	1,000	3,500	10,250
9,750	40	25,000	10,300
9,700	30	40	10,350
9,650	10	30	10,400

Terlihat posisi bid vol sangat tebal (50rb lot), namun pada running trade banyak sell dengan lot besar di harga bid. Bid 50rb lot ini dipasang oleh bd untuk "buffer" agar harga tidak drop saat ada klien mau buang barang. Harga dapat dimanipulasi seakan naik perlahan (spt kata Embah, mudah sekali menaikkan harga).

Begitu semua kliennya selesai, bid besar tsb ditarik (withdrawn), akhirnya harga akan turun dengan sendirinya. Bid ini juga terlihat "tidak habis habis", artinya begitu sedikit lagi habis, tau-tau nambah lagi, seakan gak bisa tembus ke bawah. Bid tidak habis karena yang dipasang adalah barang yang sama. Ingat, bd tidak kena fee seperti retail.
Jual saham yang posisi buyer/sellernya seperti ini:

BUYERS		SELLERS
BROKER	BVOL	SVOL	BROKER
AA	23,400	240,000	GG
BB	23,300	10,000	HH
CC	21,200	4,000	II
DD	19,100	3,000	JJ
EE	19,000	1,500	KK
FF	18,000	500	LL

Dapat dilihat jumlah buyers dengan lot merata (20 ribuan), sedangkan pada bagian sellers jumlah lotnya sangat menonjol (broker GG, 240rb lot). Ini menandakan adanya DISTRIBUSI. (berlaku sebaliknya untuk AKUMULASI). Jangan terkecoh dengan naik/turunnya harga.
Jual saham yang naik tidak dengan sektornya atau berlawanan arah. Artinya saham ini sedang tidak in-line (jalan sendirian) dan tidak didukung oleh teman-temannya. Biasanya hanya rally sebentar. Apabila saham ini sedang naik namun sektornya turun, ini berarti teman-temannya sudah TP duluan, sehingga saham ini rentan TP berikutnya.
Jual saham ketika semua orang senang mendengar namanya, dan target-target baru bermunculan. Ini jelas, saham yang terlalu banyak dipegang retail sangat rentan untuk dikocok-kocok. Beda retail dengan bd adalah: BD cenderung kompak (apalagi Bd agen pemerintah :). Mereka sudah tahu barang mau di beli/jual diharga berapa, jauh sebelum harga tersebut bergerak. Sementara retail cenderung egois, sporadis dan emosional.
Jual saham yang tidak mencetak laba. Ini adalah teknik FA, ngapain belanja saham yang emitennya rugi, kaya nggak ada yang lain aja.. Kalau anda kadung kemakan rumor, ada baiknya hati-hati..
Jual saham yang indikator TA mengatakan jual (MA5
Always discount 30% on whatever analyst says. Kalau hasil riset bilang target 10.000 dan harga sekarang adalah 7000 maka selisih adalah 3000. Maka diskon 30% dari 3000 dapatlah 2100. Maka siap-siap untuk jual sedikit-sedikit pada saat harga tembus 7000+2100= 9100.
Alternatif lain: Reksadana saham. Banyak trader yang punya waktu terbatas untuk memantau market namun tetap memaksakan untuk trading. Alternatifnya anda dapat membeli reksadana saham. Istilahnya: "titip duit sama bandar". Nasabah Reksadana adalah BOZZ dan Fund Mananger. Be friend with them.

2007-08-30T12:33:00.000+07:00

NINJA CASTING

2007-08-14T17:04:00.000+07:00

40 Mistakes Men Make during Sex

[very hilarious. continue only if you are aged 18 or over!]

1) NOT KISSING FIRST

Avoiding her lips and diving straight for the erogenous zones makes her feel like you're paying by the hour and trying to get your money's worth by cutting out nonessentials. A proper passionate kiss is the Ultimate form of foreplay.

2) BLOWING TOO HARD IN HER EAR

Admit it, some kid at school told you girls love this. Well, there's a difference between being erotic and blowing as if you're trying to extinguish the candles on your 50th birthday cake. That hurts.

3) NOT SHAVING

You often forget you have a porcupine strapped to your chin which you rake repeatedly across your partner's face and thighs. When she turns her head from side to side, it's not passion, it's avoidance.

4) SQUEEZING HER BREAST

Most men act like a housewife testing a melon for ripeness when they get their hand on a pair. Stroke, caress, and smooth them.

5) BITING HER NIPPLES

Why do men fasten onto a woman's nipples, then! clamp down like they're trying to deflate her body via her breasts? Nipples are highly sensitive. They can't stand up to chewing. Lick and suck them gently. Flicking your tongue across them is good. Pretending they're a dogie toy isn't.

6) TWIDDLING HER NIPPLES

Stop doing that thing where you twiddle the nipples between finger and thumb like you're trying to find a radio station in a hilly area. Focus on the whole breasts, not just the exclamation points.

7) IGNORING THE OTHER PARTS OF HER BODY

A woman is not a highway with just three turnoffs: Breast-ville East and West, and the Midtown Tunnel. There are vast areas of her body which you've ignored far too often as you go bombing straight into downtown Vagina. So start paying them some attention.

8} GETTING THE HAND TRAPPED

Poor manual dexterity in the underskirt region can result in tangled fingers and underpants. If you're going to be that aggressive, just ask her! to take the damn things off.

9) LEAVING HER A LITTLE PRESENT

Condom disposal is the man's responsibility. You wore it, you store it.

10) ATTACKING THE CLITORIS

Direct pressure is very unpleasant, so gently rotate your fingers along side of the clitoris.

11) STOPPING FOR A BREAK

Women, unlike men, don't pick up where they left off. If you stop, they plummet back to square one very fast. If you can tell she's not there, keep going at all costs, numb jaw or not.

12) UNDRESSING HER AWKWARDLY

Women hate looking stupid, but stupid she will look when naked at the waist with a sweater stuck over her head. Unwrap her like an elegant present, not a kid's toy.

13) GIVING HER A WEDGIE DURING FOREPLAY

Stroking her gently through her panties can be very sexy. Pulling the material up between her thighs and yanking it back and forth is not.

14) BEING OBSESSED WITH THE VAGINA

Although most men can find the clitoris without ma! ps, they still believe that the vagina is where it's all at. No sooner is your hand down there than you're trying to stuff stolen banknotes up a chimney. This is OK in principle, but if you're not careful, it can hurt - so don't get carried away. It's best to pay more attention to her clitoris and the exterior of her vagina at first, then gently slip a finger inside her and see if she likes it.

15) MASSAGING TOO ROUGHLY

You're attempting to give her a sensual, relaxing massage to get her in the mood. Hands and fingertips are OK; elbows and knees are not.

16) UNDRESSING PREMATURELY

Don't force the issue by stripping before she's at least made some move toward getting your stuff off, even if it's just undoing a couple of buttons.

17) TAKING YOUR PANTS OFF FIRST

A man in socks and underpants is a at his worst. Lose the socks first.

18) GOING TOO FAST

When you get to the penis-in-vagina situation, the worst thing you can do is pump away like an industrial power tool -she'll soon feel like an assembly-line worker made obsolete by your technology. Build up slowly, with clean, straight, regular thrusts.

19) GOING TOO HARD If you bash your great triangular hip bones into her thigh or stomach, the pain is equal to two weeks of horseback riding concentrated into a few seconds.

20) COMING TOO SOON

Every man's fear. With reason. If you shoot before you see the whites of her eyes, make sure you have a backup plan to ensure her pleasure too.

21) NOT COMING SOON ENOUGH

It may appear to you that humping for an hour without climaxing is the mark of a Sex god, but to her it's more likely the mark of a numb vagina. At least buy some intriguing wall hangings, so she has something to hold her interest while you're playing Marathon Man.

22) ASKING IF SHE HAS COME You really ought to be able to tell. Most women make noise. But if you really! y don't know, don't ask

23) PERFORMING ORAL Sexxxx TOO GENTLY

Don't act like a giant cat at a saucer of milk. Get your whole mouth down there, and concentrate on gently rotating or flicking your tongue on her clitoris.

24) NUDGING HER HEAD DOWN

Men persist in doing this until she's eyeball-to-penis, hoping that it will lead very swiftly to mouth-to-penis. All women hate this. It's about three steps from being dragged to a cave by their hair. If you want her to use her mouth, use yours; try talking seductively to her.

25) NOT WARNING HER BEFORE YOU CLIMAX

Sperm tastes like sea water mixed with egg white. Not everybody likes it. When she's performing oral Sex, warn her before you come so she can do what's necessary.

26) MOVING AROUND DURING FELLATIO

Don't thrust. She'll do all the moving during fellatio. You just lie there. And don't grab her head.

27) TAKING ETIQUETTE ADVICE FROM PORN MOVIES

In X-rated movies, women ! seem to love it when men ejaculate over them. In real life, it just means more laundry to do.

28) MAKING HER RIDE ON TOP FOR AGES

Asking her to be on top is fine. Lying there grunting while she does all the hard work is not. Caress her gently, so that she doesn't feel quite so much like the captain of a schooner. And let her have a rest.

29) ATTEMPTING ANAL Sex & PRETENDING IT WAS AN ACCIDENT

This is how men earn a reputation for not being able to follow directions. If you want to put it there, ask her first. And don't think that being drunk is an excuse.

30) TAKING PICTURES

When a man says, "Can I take a photo of you?" she'll hear the words"__to show my buddies." At least let her have custody of them.

31) NOT BEING IMAGINATIVE ENOUGH

Imagination is anything from drawing patterns on her back to pouring honey on her and licking it off. Fruit, vegetables, ice and feathers are all handy props; hot candle wax and ! permanent dye are a no no.

32) SLAPPING YOUR STOMACH AGAINST HERS

There is no less erotic noise. It's as sexy as a belching contest.

33) ARRANGING HER IN STUPID POSES

If she wants to do advanced yoga in bed, fine, but unless she's a Romanian gymnast, don't get too ambitious. Ask yourself if you want a sexual partner with snapped hamstrings.

34) LOOKING FOR HER PROSTATE

Read this carefully: Anal stimulation feels good for men because they have a prostate. Women don't.

35) GIVING LOVE BITES

It is highly erotic to exert some gentle suction on the sides of the neck, if you do it carefully. No woman wants to have to wear turtlenecks and jaunty scarves for weeks on end.

36) BARKING INSTRUCTIONS

Don't shout encouragement like a coach with a megaphone. It's not a big turn-on.

37) TALKING DIRTY

It makes you sound like a lonely magazine editor calling a 1-900 line. If she likes nasty talk, she'll let you know

38) NOT CARING WHETHER SHE COMES

You have to finish the job. Keep on trying until you get it right, and she might even do the same for you.

39) SQUASHING HER

Men generally weigh more than women, so if you lie on her a bit too heavily, she will turn blue.

40) THANKING HER

Never thank a woman for having Sex with you. Your bedroom is not a soup kitchen.

2007-07-20T15:58:00.000+07:00

There once was a lady who was tired of living alone. So she put an ad in the paper which outlined her requirements. She wanted a man who...
1) would treat her nicely
2) wouldn't run away from her
3) would be good in bed.

Then, one day, she heard the doorbell ring. She answered it, and there on the front porch was a man in a wheel chair who didn't have any arms or legs.

"I'm here about the ad you put in the paper. As you can see, I have no arms so I can't beat you, and I have no legs so I can't run away from you."

"Yes, but are you good in bed?"

"How do you think I rang the doorbell?"

2007-07-16T08:33:00.001+07:00

A man is sitting at a bar one night, wearing a fancy new watch, covered with buttons and lights and dials. The woman next to him says, "Wow, that's a really fancy watch."

Thanks, says the guy, "It's the cutting edge of technology. I can telepathically ask this watch anything I want to know, and it'll answer me, telepathically."

"Rubbish," says the girl.

"No, it's true," says that guy. "Look, tell you what, I'll prove it. I'll ask it if you've got any panties on."

The guy scrunches up his eyes for a moment, as if concentrating hard to talk to his watch, then opens them and says, "Nope, it says you haven't got any panties on."

"Well, it's wrong," says the girl, "I do have panties on."

"Damn," says the guy, slapping his watch, "it's an hour fast!"

2007-07-11T15:34:00.000+07:00

Indonesia vs Bahrain, the highlight

2007-07-03T08:07:00.002+07:00

Zeroes... Heroes with useless abilities

2007-06-26T13:42:00.000+07:00

What my mp3 player is playing over and over and over again:

Everything lyrics by Michael Buble.

You're a falling star, You're the get away car.
You're the line in the sand when I go too far.
You're the swimming pool, on an August day.
And You're the perfect thing to say.

And you play your card, but it's kinda cute.
Ah, When you smile at me you know exactly what you do.
Baby don't pretend, that you don't know it's true.
Cause you can see it when I look at you.

[Chorus:]
And in this crazy life, and through these crazy times
It's you, it's you, You make me sing.
You're every line, you're every word, you're everything.

You're a carousel, you're a wishing well,
And you light me up, when you ring my bell.
You're a mystery, you're from outer space,
You're every minute of my everyday.

And I can't believe, uh that I'm your man,
And I get to kiss you baby just because I can.
Whatever comes our way, ah we'll see it through,
And you know that's what our love can do.

[Chorus:]
And in this crazy life, and through these crazy times
It's you, it's you, You make me sing
You're every line, you're every word, you're everything.

So, La, La, La, La, La, La, La
So, La, La, La, La, La, La, La

[Chorus:]
And in this crazy life, and through these crazy times
It's you, it's you, You make me sing.
You're every line, you're every word, you're everything.
You're every song, and I sing along.
Cause you're my everything.
yeah, yeah

So, La, La, La, La, La, La, La
So, La, La, La, La, La, La, La

2007-06-26T11:26:00.000+07:00

Is a picture worth a thousand words?

Let us calculate..
A text file has 1 byte for each character. So a thick novel, with 1,000,000 characters should take about 1MB of space.

Have you counted your email size? A normal e-mail (minus headers & antivirus codes) would take up about 1KB (1,000 chars).

Now pictures..
In a computer, each pixel comprise of three primary colors (red, blue, green).
Each pixel requires 3 bytes.
This means that if you use an average monitor (1024 x 768), you would take up memory:
1024 x 768 x 3 = 2,359,296 bytes!

An average color picture can take up space between hundreds of KB to a few MB.
How many characters does that equal to?

I guess we should now change the term to "a picture is worth a few million words" :)

2007-06-13T08:19:00.000+07:00

MC for
Study Meeting on SMEs' Productivity for International Trade and Competitiveness
12-15 June at Bidakara Hotel, Jakarta Indonesia

Some time ago I had been asked to MC this event.

The participants are prominent members of the small business community and government officials from countries in Asia. There are 18 participating countries and when I looked at the positions, they are either a director of company or a finance director of a bank, or a director from government officials (dept of commerce, industry, etc).

Last week on Thursday, I had an emergency call telling me to go to the ministry’s office. Again it was a recording session. Many of our ministers are not fluent in English (meaning they speak zilt English). So when they have a speech in front of international audience, their subordinates contact people like me so that I can read the script, make grammatical corrections, then record the speech. yes. I actually talk to a microphone and my voice is recorded. The minister then listens to the recording and tries to mimic my intonation, pronunciation, etc etc. Its not as easy as it sounds. I have to record several copies, fast speaking, then medium, then slow.

Anyway, yesterday was the 1st day. The opening at the ministry office was a success. It was my 1st time as an MC. The Indonesian govt officials said to one another (I heard this later) “its just like in the TV”… They thought I was from the department of foreign affairs. It felt good getting approvals from people. The minister finally realized that it was my voice on the tape. Yes, he does not know whose voice is on the tape. His subordinates do not tell him. I think its because of the need to have leverage. The minister only knows that what he needs is provided. Does not matter how. This arrangement works fine with the subordinates. This way the minister is dependant on them. Anyway, I also received several congratulations from the participants saying the speech was very good.

After reading the participant list and looking at their fingers, quite a few of the business ladies seem to still be single. One in particular, from thailand, is very beautiful. Also very intelligent on the fashion sense. With a black suit and long pants, she would be the image of the business woman definition. It is no wonder that many of the guys (some very old) try and hit on her. It was very entertaining to watch these old geezers try hehehe…

As the most beautiful woman at the event, she had the task of giving a gift to the minister so I had to get the name correctly. Her name was [censored] (read: [censored]) so I got the chance to start a conversation. I asked how to pronounce her name. Smiled, thanked her, then went back to my seat.

On the bus going back to the hotel for the main meeting, I chatted a little bit more with her. With a lame line I said: “hello, I was just wondering… did I pronounce your name correctly?” “Yes, it was correct “[censored]”". “Well, thank you. I’m glad.” Turn my back and sit again.

A few moments later she asked me "do you know a place to have a massage?"
"massage?"
"yes, traditional Indonesian massage. In Thai, traditional Thai massage is very in right now. I would like to try a traditional Indonesian massage."
"ok, i'll see where you can go to find such a place."

That is the pre-event events
I will post the main events in my next post.

2007-06-06T07:52:00.000+07:00

TMPI = Tempe = Taman Makam Penjudi Indonesia

Looking at the graph, you can see there is a significant increase of tempe's stock value in the last 3 months. The big players have been very careful in raising the stock value with an average of IDR200 per day. A minor setback was, raising a stock's value from IDR200 to IDR2,700 in 3 months cannot be overlooked by everyone. The mailing list was full of questions on why this stock just keeps on rising.. What novices fail to recognize was that there was no fundamental explanation on why this stock just keeps on making records after records of stock value.

These novices kept on thinking that the price is too high now.. wait till it drops. Buy on weakness, was the theory used. But that never happened. Tempe just keeps on movin along.. Suddenly, there was a talk of "retail" stock investors joining forces to buy this stock and at least help maintain the price level. These Indonesian retail stock investors gambled and as shown on the graph, bought so many shares (transaction volume doubled) on March 31 which caused the stock value to rise from IDR2,800 to IDR3,250.

With bluechips and most second liner stocks moving down or sideways, a blue colored stock rising 16% raised more eyes. After the weekend, on June 4, more gamblers joined in and Tempe again rose to from IDR3275 to IDR3,925 (+20%!). The mailing lists at the end of the days was filled with questions "is it still ok to buy tempe?". The majority said "still good". So yesterday, the bullish buying continued and tempe opened at IDR4000, reached IDR4650 by noon.

The news at noon proved to be decisive. There was gossip that TMPI was about to be taken over by MTDL (metrodata). TMPI wants to stock split at IDR3000. The last and final news was the JSX administration stated that investors should be cautious because Tempe's rise is abnormal since there had been no real fundamental information to backup the bullishness.

With that, in 1 minute (yes! one minute!), TMPI became Taman Makam Penjudi Indonesia. The stock nosedived to IDR 2,950. The effect to those gamblers was like a head shot. By then, the system automatically rejects any bids (this is the proper policy when a stock rises/falls to much). So people were panic selling trying to cut loss. This ended at IDR2,950 because of the autoreject policy.. Those that bought the stock at noon and had meetings, then came back to the office surely cried.. Try explaining to your family that you lost 50% in 1 minute. Very very cruel.

All I can say is THANK GOD I RARELY PLAY WITH micro stocks...

2007-05-29T10:14:00.000+07:00

RUPSLB

2007-05-23T08:21:00.000+07:00

Thank You, Firefox 2!

Read more for the detailed explanation of firefox's feature...

Firefox 2 contains a built-in Phishing Protection feature that warns you of suspected Web forgeries, and offers to take you directly to a search page so you can find the real Web site you were looking for. You can test the Phishing Protection feature by browsing to this test site.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Phishing?
Phishing is a form of identity theft that occurs when a malicious Web site impersonates a legitimate one in order to acquire sensitive information such as passwords, account details, or credit card numbers. Phishing attacks usually come from email messages that attempt to lure the recipient into updating their personal information on fraudulent, but very real looking, Web sites. More information on phishing can be found at the Anti-Phishing Working Group, and there are a number of examples and resources available at the Wikipedia Phishing page.
How does the Phishing Protection feature work in Firefox 2?
Phishing Protection is turned on by default in Firefox 2, and works by checking the sites that you browse to against a list of known phishing sites. This list is automatically downloaded and regularly updated within Firefox 2 when the Phishing Protection feature is enabled. Since phishing attacks can occur very quickly, there's also an option to check the sites you browse to against an online service for more up-to-date protection. This enhanced capability, and other Phishing Protection settings, can be configured in Firefox's Security settings.
What information is sent to Mozilla or anti-phishing partners when Phishing Protection is enabled?
When Phishing Protection is used in default mode, no information about the sites you visit is sent to Mozilla or anti-phishing partners. Rather, sites are checked against a local list that is downloaded to your computer and updated on a regular basis. When sites are checked against online anti-phishing services such as Google, the address of each web site you visit is sent to the online service over a secure SSL connection.
How do I use the Phishing Protection feature?
Phishing Protection options can be found on the Security preferences pane. On Windows and Linux, go to Tools > Options ... > Security. On Mac OS X, go to Firefox > Preferences > Options ... > Security.

You can test to see if Phishing Protection is enabled by browsing to our test site. If Phishing Protection is turned on, a warning dialog will appear.

The "Get me out of here!" link will back out of a suspected phishing site and redirect you to the Firefox Start page. The "Ignore this warning" link will allow you to continue to the suspected phishing site.
How do I report a suspected phishing site, or what if a warning appears on my own Web site?
In the Help menu there is an option to "Report Web Forgery..." which will bring you to a Web page that you can use to report a suspected phishing site, or to submit an incorrect forgery report.

2007-05-08T10:51:00.000+07:00

you handsome schmuck, you....

2007-05-02T09:12:00.000+07:00

Amazon is human after all...

Our customer ordered 5 items, 2 from Amazon USA, 1 from UK, 2 from JP.
Her name was Nissa and located at bogor.

The ordering process was normal, the status of our order was also correct (item, shipment, address).. That's why I was bewildered when yesterday a loyal customer, nida, called me and said she received a package that she did not order.. With her address in kebayoran baru-jakarta, this was quite annoying. We plan to pick up the item today and redeliver it to bogor.

I think this is also a first experience for Amazon because our contact was also bewildered and forwarded the information to their shipping department. Well the good thing was both parties laughed the problem out (I managed to make a joke out of it) and Amazon fully refunded the shipping cost as compensation for our extra shipping efforts.

so... Amazon is human after all...

2007-05-01T12:25:00.000+07:00

This dude is so funny... This song will knock your socks off...

Click below for the lyric of the song.

Well I Got Home and the door was locked
And I tried to ring the bell
I found a little bitty note that she had wrote
Telling me to go to hell
I crawled in the window got inside
She kicked me in the balls I cried
Called me a name said I lied
Kicked me again I thought I died
Took my clothes set em on fire
And hit me with her curling iron
I tired to block it with my watch
And then she kicked me in the crotch again
Yeah today's the day my wife met my girlfriend
Well I tried to tell her but she didn't care
Things weren't what they seemed
She had a pan on the stove full of boiling water
And my nads would soon be steamed
I tried to run scream for help
She hit me in the nerts with a Rhinestone belt
It was like nothing that I ever felt
I thank god I wasn't wearing a kilt
She grabbed a bat from beneath the bed
She swung it once and she missed my head
She reared back swung again and
Then she hit me in the twins again
Yeah today's the day my wife met my girlfriend
Yeah today's that awful day,
Now my boys won't be the same
Yeah today's the day my wife met my girlfriend

2007-04-26T17:11:00.000+07:00

The "Buffolo Theory" of Beer..

A herd of buffalo can move only as fast as the slowest buffalo. When the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first.

This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members.

In much the same way the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, we all know, kills brain cells, but naturally it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first.

In this way regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine.

That's why you always feel smarter after a few beers, and that's why beer is so GOOD for you!

2007-04-25T14:12:00.000+07:00

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

2007-04-25T13:19:00.000+07:00

You are The Emperor

Stability, power, protection, realization; a great person.

The Emperor is the great authority figure of the Tarot, so it represents
fathers, father-figures and employers. There is a lot of aggression and violence
too.

The Emperor naturally follows the Empress. Like an infant, he is filled with enthuiasm, energy, aggression. He is direct, guileless and all too often irresistible. Unfortunately, like a baby he can also be a tyrant. Impatient, demanding, controlling. In the best of circumstances, he signifies the leader that everyone wants to follow, sitting on a throne that indicates the solid foundation of an Empire he created, loves and rules with intelligence and enthusiasm. But that throne can also be a trap, a responsibility that has the Emperor feeling restless, bored and discontent.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

2007-04-25T12:20:00.000+07:00

GOOGLE RANKING (www.googlerankings.com)

Cannot look at google's rank because I do not know the juraganbuku SOAP API link.

1. Keyword: Buku Impor

Position: 1 JuraganBuku.com - Menjual Buku, CD, dan Film Impor dari Amerika ...
JuraganBuku.com - Indonesia's largest seller of import books, DVDs, and CDs. Toko Online yang ... How to Order You can either browse our store directories or search the item you want to know.
Check MSN™
Time: 0.83 seconds

Position: 1 JuraganBuku.com - Menjual Buku, CD, dan Film Impor dari Amerika, Inggris, Jerman, Perancis, dan Jepang
Toko Online yang menjual Buku, CD, dan DVD dari Amerika, Inggris, Jerman, Perancis, dan Jepang. ... .com - Menjual Buku, CD, dan Film Impor dari Amerika, ...
Check Yahoo™
Time: 1.51 seconds

2. Keyword: juragan

Position: 8 JuraganBuku.com - Menjual Buku, CD, dan Film Impor dari Amerika, Inggris, Jerman, Perancis, dan Jepang
Toko Online yang menjual Buku, CD, dan DVD dari Amerika, Inggris, Jerman, Perancis, dan Jepang. ... Imported Books - USA. Imported Books - UK. Impotierte Buecher ...
Check Yahoo™
Time: 2.63 seconds

3. Keyword: buku import

Sorry, Your site was not within the ranks in MSN™'s results (keyword:buku import)
Time: 0.85 seconds

Position: 5 JuraganBuku.com - Menjual Buku, CD, dan Film Impor dari Amerika, Inggris, Jerman, Perancis, dan Jepang
JuraganBuku.com - Indonesia's largest seller of import books, DVDs, and CDs. ... © 2007 JuraganBuku.com - Menjual Buku, CD, dan Film Impor dari Amerika, Inggris, ...
Check Yahoo™
Time: 2.56 seconds

4. Keyword: impor

Position: 13 JuraganBuku.com - Menjual Buku, CD, dan Film Impor dari Amerika ...
JuraganBuku.com - Indonesia's largest seller of import books, DVDs, and CDs. Toko Online yang ... How to Order You can either browse our store directories or search the item you want to know.
Check MSN™
Time: 1.32 seconds

Sorry, Your site was not within the ranks in Yahoo™'s results (keyword:impor)
Time: 1.03 seconds

5. Keyword: buku

Sorry, Your site was not within the ranks in MSN™'s results (keyword:buku)
Time: 75.00 seconds

Position: 18 JuraganBuku.com - Menjual Buku, CD, dan Film Impor dari Amerika, Inggris, Jerman, Perancis, dan Jepang
Toko Online yang menjual Buku, CD, dan DVD dari Amerika, Inggris, Jerman, Perancis, dan Jepang. ... © 2007 JuraganBuku.com - Menjual Buku, CD, dan Film Impor ...
Check Yahoo™
Time: 1.00 seconds

Hmm... looks like SEO could be improved...

2007-03-01T14:07:00.000+07:00

What people told me about a client I am currently handling who seems reluctant to pay:

1. That bank is like that..
2. Haha you didn't know?
3. There was a project that they paid 1 year after implementation..
4. There is a project that they haven't paid yet although it had been completed a year ago.
5. Whoops... hehe that sounds like bank xyz alright.. I finished my work on 2004 and was paid on July 2005.

Darn... should've done a better background check...
Turns out BIG != Professional.

2007-02-27T18:47:00.000+07:00

Joke of the Day

One day avant-garde violinist Malcolm Goldstein, US Ambassador to Spain Eduardo Aguirre, and television's Tony Danza were on a jungle vacation together when they were caught by a tribal group.

Before they were about to be executed, they pleaded to the Queen of the Tribe for mercy. She said, ''Get me something good to eat. If I like it, you will be freed.'' The three men looked at each other and agreed. They then went into the jungle to look for some food

Malcolm Goldstein was the first to come back. He came up to the altar and offered grapes. The Queen tasted one and immediately spat it out. She ordered her servants to shove the rest of the grapes up Malcolm Goldstein's ass. The servants did their duty, and left Malcolm Goldstein lying on theground screaming.

Eduardo Aguirre was the next to arrive with some yummy apples. The same thing happened to him, but curiously he laughed as the apples were shoved up his ass. Malcolm Goldstein was shocked. Here he was with grapes up his ass howling in pain, but Eduardo Aguirre had several apples in his ass and he was laughing. He asked him ''What the hell are you laughing about?''

A laughing Eduardo Aguirre replied ''Tony Danza's coming back with a watermelon.'''

2007-02-13T11:26:00.000+07:00

WOMEN'S ENGLISH

"Yes" = No

"No" = Yes

"Maybe" = No

"I'm sorry" = You'll be sorry

"We need" = I want

"It's your decision" = The correct decision should be obvious by now.

"Do what you want" = You'll pay for this later.

"Sure, go ahead" = I don't want you to.

"I'm not upset" = Of course I'm upset you moron.

"We need to talk" = I need to complain.

"You're so manly" = You need a shave and you sweat a lot.

"You're certainly attentive tonight" = Is sex all you ever think about?

"Be romantic, turn out the lights" = I have flabby thighs

"This kitchen is so inconvenient" = I want a new house

"I want new curtains" = and new carpeting, new furniture, new wallpaper, etc...

"I heard a noise" = I noticed you were almost asleep

"Do you love me?" = I'm going to ask for something expensive

"How much do you love me?" = I did something today you're really not going to like

"I'll be ready in a minute" = Kick off your shoes and find a good game on TV

"Is my butt fat?" = Tell me I'm beautiful

"You have to learn to communicate" = Just agree with me

"Was that the baby?" = Why don't you get out of bed and rock him until he falls asleep

Answering the question, "What's wrong?"
"...The same old thing" = Nothing

"...Everything" = My PMS is acting up

"...Nothing, really" = It's just that you're such a jerk

2007-02-08T10:57:00.000+07:00

David Blaine..

Some time ago I happened to catch his movie on tv.
I saw the episode where he stayed several days underground buried alive with no food.

I then remembered the stories of my late grandfather about his grandfather (my great great grandfather). In those days, people had powers (sakti) and my great2 grandad practiced his powers by burying himself for 40 days and 40 nights with no food nor water. I forgot the name of this activity (i'll ask my dad if i remember). Anyway, he stayed there buried alive with no coffin. He only had a string hung up a tree. Everyday someone would tug the rope and he'd tug back to indicate that he's still alive.

Sounds like a tall tale? I would think the same if I had not seen with my own eyes what powers my grandfather had. My cousin also has these powers but it seems that the powers diminish slightly with every generation. I once asked my grandad why this was so and he told me it was because the powerful gurus are afraid that their students will have greater power than him/her. So usually the students are each given partial powers.

And now these powers are dissapearing with each passing generation.

What does this blog have to do with david blaine?
Dunno :p

2006-10-31T17:01:00.000+07:00

Miing and Agum Gumelar..
I've just recently found out that they are brothers... hahaha... notice the resemblance?

2006-10-31T16:47:00.000+07:00

Sutiyoso for president.....

He is planning to step up for the presidency battle. Would he get your vote?

2006-10-30T16:39:00.000+07:00

.... and we're back!

After a successful month of fasting where I lost 4kg, I have managed to hold back during eid al fitr and gained just 3kg! :p

Of course the week-long holiday came after and I had to brutally face off all of the cravings and gained only 1kg.

Well that's that... A month of fasting erased by a week of holiday...

2006-10-23T22:27:00.000+07:00

Against All Odds!

Wow! We won the contract!

A roller coaster ride filled with luck, a bit of cheating, and financial strategy.

About 1 year ago, there was a tender we joined half-heartedly because we found out that it was supposed to be "rigged". It turns out the "winner-to-be" bid much too high over the proposed budget. The client then decides to use a MS Excell based application which was free. This was a legit and proven application. What happened next could only be considered as luck.

Someone close to upper management saw the Excell-based application and thought that the users developed an Excell application for their work. He then spread the word and it reached upper management, specifically the IT department. The IT department boss was furious and want a "real application". Thus a couple of months ago we were suddenly called and given a RFP. Another surprise was that they wanted the source code, thus tripling the project value than what we expected last year.

At this point we decided to go for broke and spent time to develop what was wanted in the RFP. It was risky but proved to be a key move because other vendors showed up with their version of the application and explained their concept of what would need to be revised and modified. We showed up in the initial clarification of the RFP with our version of the application and when it was time for a demo the next week, our application had a complete makeover in accordance to the RFP. This gave an excellent impression on the judges that:
1. We were serious and want this project.
2. Our application is robust shown by the major changes done in a week.

The grading was normal; 70% technical, 30% financial. As expected, from the technical aspect we got the highest score. This was classified information so it was hard enough to find out the standings and we didn't get info on the points. During this time, we also snooped around to find out the budget and how the financial aspect would be graded. We got the budget value although at the time the info wasnt 100% reliable. We also found out the habit of the financial person in charge. It was to be a bidding war.

As we got ready for the financial bidding, we were a bit down because we had underbid below the budget informed (about -5%). Another stroke of luck came our way because there was a slight change of scope:
1. Add modems to the bid
2. Legal aspects of the source code. They wanted exclusivity and we would not be allowed to resell the software elsewhere.

Although the second point is easily evaded in software practices, we thought it was the perfect chance to raise the bid. We then bid 37% higher than the budget informed. This is part of our financial strategy. This is so we can freefall the bid in the bidding war. To get a view on how much we changed the budget: If the budget was 500mil, we went from 475mil to 685mil! very significant. As expected, the competitors bid around 15% over the budget. With the above example, it would be 575mil.

Then came the day of the bidding war. The rules were simple:
1. Vendors were given 15minutes to write their bid on a paper and hand it to the panel.
2. If any vendor bid within the budget, the bidding will be stopped and the total points will be counted. If the vendor that bid within the budget had the highest technical points, then the bid is over and the vendor wins. If the vendor does not have the highest technical point, then the top two vendors (tech+finance) moves on to the final round.
3. If no vendor bid within the budget, there will be another round of bidding.

We all sat in a round table and of course i chose the seat closest to the judge. he had scribbled on a piece of paper and i pretended to focus on my Mac whereas my eyes squinted at the paper (skills learned from my cheating days). I saw three numbers: 52, 34, 16. My brain started clicking and i guessed those were the technical scores! yey we got a 52 out of 70! That means a maximum score of 82, 64, and 46! The third vendor is out of contention as our points is 52. I had to get a maximum 65 points or 13 out of the last 30. That would be easy.

Bidding wars usually happen by vendors cutting costs little by little. This is quite dangerous because opponents can guess how low you are willing to go.. And just as expected, the other vendors cut about -5% of their initial bid. As for me, I dropped -37% and went for the contract value limit. Since we had the highest technical points, the bidding session ended with the other vendors going home empty handed =)

The euphoria is still felt and it feels GOOOOOD.... hehehe...

2006-10-23T22:23:00.000+07:00

Can You Maintain JuraganBuku?

juraganbuku.com is doing excellent! with minimum (almost zero) marketing, we have more buyers than we expected. our account credit never makes it past halfway into the month and we have to keep on circulating the money. we plan to open links to amazon.de and japan very soon. amazon has offered to develop an integrated system for us to make it easier to maintain buyers, orders, and payments. we already have a solid customer base and several customers (especially corporate buyers) pledging spendings of tens of thousand USDs.

so what's the problem? there's no one that focuses purely on maintaining juraganbuku. in the beginning we thought sales would be mediocre and myself and several others could manage it. with orders off the roof, its getting out of control because we have to manage communication with amazon, with the customers, we have to maintain the system, upgrade the system, maintain the website, financial management, and the list goes on and on..

with a major contract deal for avevo only a signing away, my time for juraganbuku will be evermore divided. so im planning to rent an apartment or house as a base in jakarta (we currently still do not have a base in jakarta at the moment) and hire someone to maintain juraganbuku. the jobdesc would be but not limited to:
1. Marketing and promoting the site on the web
2. Maintain communication with amazon.com
3. maintain communication with customers
4. monitor the financials

since its launch, ive found that the most satisfying part of juraganbuku would probably be:
1. customers notifying their gratitude and satisfaction of the service.
2. old friends buzzing me on ym saying things like: "hey! i heard the juraganbuku site from my professor at XYZ university. isn't the site yours? wow i cant believe the owner of juraganbuku is a friend of mine!"

okay the last part does bloat up my head, but i cant help putting a wide grin on my face and feel lifted when that happens.

2006-10-23T22:22:00.000+07:00

Death dreams..

Since three weeks ago, ending on last week, had been quite scary.
I keep on having death dreams. every day.
Not of me, but I see people die in my dreams.
Sometimes its just one person dying normally, and other times its a gruesome death of tens of people in a traffic accident at a major highway in Central Jakarta. The scary part of the dream is that I dont just witness their deaths, but i can feel their deaths. i can feel the pain and suffering they faced just before dying. And as always with dreams like these, i wake and pray that they are just dreams and not another premonition.

2006-10-23T22:20:00.000+07:00

Sleep and Drive

A definite no-no. But i do it so regularly that its very scary.
I actually sleep when i drive at night. Ive slept on the freeway from Pancoran till close to grogol once. The latest? I slept while passing a busy 10pm saturday nite ITC Permata Hijau crossroad. I woke up right at the middle of the crossroad and stepped on the brakes. The light was luckily green and i stepped on the gas again. how lucky can u be?

2006-09-15T17:18:00.000+07:00

very funny...

"the only thing you need to know how to do on windows is this: Start > Run > cmd > Type ‘format c:’ … then install Linux and choose KDE as your desktop."

2006-09-12T19:22:00.000+07:00

Its DONE!
Just put a down payment for an apartment :D

ok so its not exactly a deluxe suite..
and it wont be complete until mid 2008...
but at least its a start! :)

2006-09-12T19:04:00.000+07:00

How do you get a raise and a promotion at the office?

Here's a secret on how to do it fast:
the conditioning:
be dilligent and go to the office every morning and be in time for one month.
always look busy.

and here's the secret:
after that month, take a few days off without a leave. not in a row though..
take 1 day off almost every 2 weeks. and dont forget to make lame excuses such as "family reasons","sick in bed", etc.. also take half a day off.. go to the office after lunch..

the point of these actions is to provide the illussion that you are doing interviews for another company. if you play your cards right and have a small discussion about your future career at the company, the raise and promotion may just be waiting around the corner :)

2006-09-12T18:31:00.000+07:00

My brother just entered Faculty of Economy, majoring in Accounting.
The university entrance fee is so fucked up these days.
My brother's entrance fee is IDR 10million. My faculty (computer science) now rakes 25million per student. But that's not the worst of it.

Several days later, parents were asked to come for a parental meeting. Of course everyone knew they were going to be asked to relieve some more financial assistance. But i think what shocked everyone was how the begging was done.

Students that were "financially challenged" were asked to go to the front of the room and beg for money! Was the phrase too harsh? Ok. You judge. Here's what happened:

Student A comes forward and states that he comes from a poor family and cannot afford the tuition fee required by the university. He states that he was still there that day because of financial assistance. He asked the parents present to be generous and help him and others like him. And then student B comes forward and does the same thing. And then student C, and so forth. How cruel and unethical is this?! Just thinking about it disgusts me. The university has no creativity at all on how to raise funds. Can u imagine how the parents of the student would feel if they were present?

2006-08-10T12:17:00.000+07:00

How unlucky can u b?!

Around 10am, the stockmarket had a small tumble.. the usual penny-profittakers trying to make a small gain.. the stocks i own was doing ok.. they were holding their own..

Suddenly the internet connection on my notebook disconnected. Network cable unplugged. WTF?! everyone's PC had the same problem. After strolling around, checking cables and switches, we were all dumbfounded because nothing seemed to be wrong!

Then i went to the toilet and saw the electrician's closet by the elevator was open.. I looked around n found the electrician at the back. I asked the electrician what he was doing and he said "just dusting n cleaning the cables..". "Did u by any accident unplug any cables?" "no..". He then went back in the closet and i returned to my desk. and Voila! the network was normal again -_-"'

That wasnt the only surprise... in the several minutes i was disconnected, my stocks value fell to -IDR 100.000. @#!$#@!@#?!@#!!!!!!

2006-07-26T13:26:00.000+07:00

I am officially bored....
got nothin 2 do....

2006-07-24T17:54:00.000+07:00

I Am A: Lawful Good Human Bard Ranger

Alignment:
Lawful Good characters are the epitome of all that is just and good. They believe in order and governments that work for the benefit of all, and generally do not mind doing direct work to further their beliefs.

Race:
Humans are the 'average' race. They have the shortest life spans, and because of this, they tend to avoid the racial prejudices that other races are known for. They are also very curious and tend to live 'for the moment'.

Primary Class:
Bards are the entertainers. They sing, dance, and play instruments to make other people happy, and, frequently, make money. They also tend to dabble in magic a bit.

Secondary Class:
Rangers are the defenders of nature and the elements. They are in tune with the Earth, and work to keep it safe and healthy.

Deity:
Oghma is the Neutral Good god of knowledge and invention. He is also known as the Binder of What is Known, and is the Patron of Bards. His followers believe that knowledge reigns supreme, and is the basis for everything else that is done. They wear white shirts and pants, with a black and gold braided vest, and a small, box-like hat. All priests of Oghma are known as Loremasters. Oghma's symbol is a scroll.

Find out What D&D Character Are You?, courtesy ofNeppyMan (e-mail)

2006-07-19T08:41:00.000+07:00

EUREKA!

Ive just had a EUREKA!
Last night i dreamt of a fun business idea.. A wacky invention that would help lots of students get better grades while at the same time make me rich (of course!).

The dream told about the development of the invention.. I had a grand design and entrusted the realization to someone else. When the time to launch came, the end result was very dissapointing. The physical form of the invention was completed, but it could not fulfill the requirements I wanted... and thats when i woke up.. around 5am.

After waking up, the idea was still ringin on my mind so I thought about it... Realizing the dream was too far fetched and impossible, I tried to think of other methods to get as "far-fetched" as possible in realizing it... at las I finally got an idea on how to realize "the idea" :)

As usual with my ideas, the next step consisted of asking questions such as how can I make it profitable, how would I minimize the cost of development, and how to make it acceptable to the public, especially students with limited resources.. In the midst of the excitement I managed to design a concept that would allow students to make money(quite a lot actually) in the process :)
A small perfect economic model with supply and demand! anyone can become the supplier or customer.. how exciting!!! :p

Now Im researching all of the possibilities of this idea.. Its Eureka and euphoric moments like these that I really cherish and enjoy life.. So today I brought my "Book of Thought" to the office to scribble down the idea and concept.

2006-06-29T13:57:00.000+07:00

(gritting)
[the customer is kiing...]
"yes sir..."
[the customer is always right...]
"of course sir..."
[the customer is kiing...]
"i understand sir.."
[the customer is always right...]
"thank you sir"

(close phone)
"dumbass."

2006-06-26T17:30:00.000+07:00

It's a bit late, but.....

JuraganBuku.com is breaking sales records by the week. Its not yet running at full speed, but it surely is moving faster than expected. This is mainly helped by good reviews in the internet by those that receive satisfactory services by our Customer Support. By making a corporate bank account at BCA with a "beautiful" number, we hope JuraganBuku will start to sprint. Wish us luck! :)
Avevo has just signed a large contract (by our standard of course :p) last week for a project in one of the government institutions. The projected time is 3 months.
Avevo is planning to hook up with an overseas IT company (from europe) who is interested in an idea i had some time ago. I didnt think it would be followed up, but Its now up to marketing and negotiation skills.

Dont want to start counting the eggs before they hatch, but i cant help from getting quite excited. Just wish us luck!

As for personal issues, I am tired. I dont mean tired emotionally, but physically tired. Because my office is at Kuningan, I arrive at home around 8pm (normally) just to not get caught in a traffic jam.. Then watch d world cup at 10pm, take a short sleeping break and watch d world cup again @2am.. Sleep a bit for an hour an wake up at 5am. Leave for office around 6.30 to get 2d office b4 8.30am.. and the day continues.

Another thing.. i have too many bank accounts with no money in them haha.. Ive had BNI since before college. I opened up a Lippo for my stocks (the stockbroker company has a partnership with Lippo). I opened up a Bukopin account because I wanted to buy stocks from the Bukopin IPO and having a bukopin account increases the chances of getting the stocks. And last but not least, u gotta have a BCA nowadays. Transfers to and from my company's bca bank account would be much more convenient. That said, 90% of my money are invested in stocks (and they've been getting quite a beating lately huhuhu).. The unexpected stock exchange bust the last couple of weeks has been a real drag.. From that experience, I even took a trading course (pretty costly hiks) to help increase my knowledge of stocks..

Well, its almost 7pm so i gotta get outta d office n head home!

2006-06-14T13:06:00.000+07:00

My Secretary doesn't know Who's Boss..

Btw, about the genies at my house, theyr gone now. The king apologized and promised not to bother us anymore. but the story is long so i'll save it for later when i have time to write again.

Okay.. back 2d topic :)
my secretary doesnt quite know who's the boss.as a project manager, i have 12 staffs; 10 engineer, 1 sales, 1 coordinator. thers bound to be many reimbursements, budget management (petty cash, telephone voucher, etc), schedule management, reports, etc. so a secretary is necessary..

day 1:
sec: do u have the planned schedules for the engineers? may i copy it?
me: ok, here (i gave her my usb).
sec: u insert it (pointing to the backside of the cpu located under her desk).
me: -_-"'

day 2:
me: sec, could u photocopy this 10x.
sec: could u do it urself? im quite busy
me: (quite stern) no, im very busy. please do it as soon as possible. i need it for the project.

day 3:
sec: pi, my PC's broken. it suddenly died. could u fix it?
me: (after checking) the processor's busted. take off your hardisk and put it in xyz's PC for now.
sec: i dunno how to do it. u do it.
me: (actin like a boss, sees an engineer passing by) abc, could u remove this hardisk and put it on that PC. thx.

day 4:
i had to take over several of her work coz she types so slow using 11 fingers hehe..

she's learning now though.. not as much of a nuisance anymore although sometimes still puts on an annoying face when asked to do some work

2006-05-27T21:37:00.000+07:00

-- Last log for 2nite --

Its 9.15pm
After testing their strength, the two paranormals decided not to continue. they called another friend as another backup. we rescheduled the exorcism to monday night. the proceedings are expected to last one whole night. here's a recap of what happened tonight:

7.30 they tried looking at the genies. one of the paranormals, mr. nawawi was possesed by a "kuntil anak".
after deciding they would not be capable of completing the task, we drank green tea to help strengthen ourselves. they first prayed and mr.nawawi was again possessed, this time he laughed and his faced altered. we were later toldthat that was mr.nawawi's "talent". being possessed.

after having a chat after the proceedings, the conclusions are:

the house is filled with genies in every room, two of them specializes in imitating the form and voice of my mom and dad.
the genies are very clever. they said our area is filled with genies, but hid from the paranormals. normal (lower class) genies usually do not hide and some are mischeavious. the ones that inhibit our house are strong, clever, and mischeavous. they had to be forcefully called to appear.
this supports my theory and what happened to me:

there is a genie that is big and black. it likes to cover light (my 1st attack).
there is a big lizard-like genie that crawls (my 2nd attack).
i think (cant be 2sure) the genie that last possessed mr.nawawi is the same genie that possessed me.

my mom and i have "talents" also. this "talent" is inherited from my mother's lineage.. genetics if u will. from my great grandpa, grandmother, mom, and me. my brother takes after my dad so he is not "sensitive" to these things. they say that you can tell whether someone is "talented" by looking at the shape of their eyes. and mine is positive.
my talent is that i can hear. the paranormal said all i have to do is cup my hands over my ears and ask God's permission and i will hear what genies are saying. im not surprised. i often hear voices from my room at night but i always assumed they were people's voices.

here's a cool fact: those present during exorcism procedures do not go hungry. three grapes and a drink and ur full. its a side effect, they say. the first thing in my had was "hey! a new diet method!" :D

-- end of log --

2006-05-27T20:03:00.000+07:00

Its 8pm.
the paranormals tried looking at the number of genies in the house. after 30minutes of almost throwing up, being thrown back into their seats, and moaning in pain, my worries were realized. the house is filled with genies. it's like a kingdom. the house itself is covered with strong powers. now theyr gonna check to see whether a genie is inside me at the moment.

-8.05pm, api logging off-

2006-05-27T19:06:00.000+07:00

Its 6pm on saturday, may 27 '06.
in approximately 5 hours from now, and exorcism ritual will take place in my house to get rid of genies (jin) that lives in the large bamboo tree (over 2 storeys high) in the back. this is what has happened so far constructed in a linier timeline:

a couple of years ago, before my parents bought the land where our house now stands, 7 evil genies that lived in the bamboo tree were caught and cast away. Our former chauffer had the task of driving the genies to their (hopefully) final destination. "they were very heavy. the truck i drove them on could barely move", he recollected.
when we bought the land, we were told about the genies in the bamboo.
the construction workers were often "bothered" with door knockings, window rappings from empty rooms during the construction of the house.
when we moved in, the first thing i noticed was that even on a wind-less day, the bamboo tree kept on swaying.
about 2 weeks after completely settling in the house, a genie attacked me. It attacked twice during the night and i had to be on my highest guard to defend myself. this genie had a dark aura and uncharacteristically sent shivers down my spine.
a couple of weeks later, a genie showed me its form. i think this one was different from the one that attacked me. it gave me an alarming feeling, but not as dark as the other one. it crawled on the wall and moved over the door, blocking the exit. it watched me for some time. i pretended i was unable to see it. when it crawled to another side of the wall, leaving the door unguarded, i jumped off my bed, opened the door right away, and sprinted downstairs. thankfully it didnt follow me down, and i felt it move from my room back to the bamboo tree. i looked at the clock and it showed two hours after midnight.
after a long time, a genie attacked me. i still do not yet know which one, or how it did it. the last two experiences, i felt the genie's aura and woke up fully alerted. this time it caught me by surprise and i was not prepared. it was around midnight and i started laughing out of nowhere. i couldnt control myself. i was possesed. i started talking gibberish and sent an sms to a friend explicitly claiming that i was crazy. i regained control of myself not long after. but it was the embarassment of trying to explain to the friend about what had really happened.
the following day i came up to the tree and insulted it. i was saying things like "come on and face me if u dare, stop sneaking up and using sissy methods". if u saw me, u'd probably think i was crazy +lol+
i was never bothered again. but my family were still bothered.
a genie immitated my father's voice and spoke to my mom when he was out of town on an assignment.
last sunday (may 21) night i attended a wedding. around 8pm, my parents heard the floor being knocked from my cousin's room (my cousin lives at my house) which is exactly above my parent's room. the knocking became louder and at 9pm, my parents couldnt stand it and got out of bed with the intention of scolding my cousin. boy were they surprised to find my cousin watching tv downstairs. the 2nd floor was empty.
the next day (may 22) i was very tired and fell asleep very early (around 8pm). my cousin as usual was watching tv downstairs. suddenly he and my parents heard a loud noise (again coming from my cousin's room). i didnt hear anything coz when i sleep, i really sleep hehe. my cousin recalled it sounded like someone fell in his room. my parents went out of the room coz they thought my cousin fell or something. that was the last straw.
my mom searched for paranormals to get rid of the genie(s). it turns out one of her staff has such abilities. when told of our house's location, the paranormal exclaimed that the genies in that area are very powerful and he needed to bring several friends as back up. we were told that the exorcism will be performed saturday night from 11pm. the proceedings should end from 2 to 6 hours depending on the genies' strength.
for a long time now ive had major headaches. i never thought this correlated to the genies until i found out that everyone had been experiencing throbbing headaches. it turns out my parents went to several medical checkups to find out what was the cause but they never found anything wrong. the paranormal said that regular headaches occur because the genies often pass through our bodies which produce headaches as a side effect.
this afternoon my mom and i bought several food items to help the process. during the exorcism, we are not allowed to sleep. we have to eat grapes, dates, and klengkeng (wats d english word?). these fruits will provide us with strength to repel the genies. we must also be alert and never blank out to keep the genies from entering our mind and taking over our body.
the paranormal called and said he could only find one friend to help. he is currently on his way to check out my house and the genie to see whether the 2 of them are sufficient to complete the job.

from what i can tell and feel, the tree may be full of genies. a cousin had this problem once. he had a tree where a kingdom of genies lived. there was a king and all.. the whole package. there were practically hundreds of genies that lived on his tree and it took a very powerful paranormal to get rid of them. just hope our problem is not as serious or dangerous. wouldnt want bamboo sticks flying into the windows.

2006-05-17T14:22:00.000+07:00

Recent photos from my visit to Taman Mini Indonesia Indah particularly Taman Burung and PIPTEK. PIPTEK is so cool.. spent almost the whole day there playing with all the neat experiments like a little kid haha...
* all pictures used a 1mega pixel cellphone camera

Tried takin a picture from a distance, didnt get a good result.

Tried to get a close up, but he wasnt in the mood.. u can tell by his "kiss my ass" attitude.. -_-"'

Hey! Ive lost weight! +grin+

Watch as i suck the electricity with two fingers

this large electric ball requires a little more effort...

2006-05-08T10:59:00.000+07:00

Maskot

I saw the movie wit my gf @Planet Hollywood last saturday nite.. we wer planning 2c MI3 but both studios wher the movie was shown was sold out. I saw the Maskot movie commercial @Metro TV the day b4 n thought "hmm.. mayb its time i gave indonesian movies another chance.. besides, this movie seemed different than the usual indonesian lame love-themed movie"..

and boy was i wrong.. another wasted 50k on an indonesian movie.. it would have been an ok film if u disregard the storyline.. i mean the acting wasnt bad, some scenes were funny.. but since the storyline/script is the backbone of every movie, it was just a waste of money. the beginning was almost promising, with a funny opening scene.. then the story unfolds.. a journey to find a sacred chicken. -_-"'... yup. a chicken.

the chicken is supposedly on a river which lies between two mountains called "the breasts of the earth".. i was expecting some sort of expedition of mountain climbing, hiking, rafting, and such.. but none of the expected happened.

and to make the movie worse, the ending was bad. really really bad. i would like to tell u the ending, but i dont wanna take away that special feeling when the movie ends n u've just left the theatre. u kno.. the feeling like u wer robbed.. robbed of ur time and money 2c a movie that does not correspond to any logic or reasoning.

I'd really like to be able to support indonesian movies, but how much more bad scripts after bad scripts of movies can I endure b4 i lose my sympathy?!? final comments: ok acting, ok shooting location, just plain bad script.

2006-04-24T22:52:00.000+07:00

Senayan Place
&
Tiara Lestari

Senayan Place somehow sounds awkward. If it were my choice, I'd name it Senayan Palace.. sounds so much cooler :p

anywho.. I went there sunday afternoon with my girlfriend. Our main objective was to see the Tiara Lestari from Sensual to Elegance show and to checkout the new place. The mall/plaza (wats d difference between mall n plaza btw?) was very high-class. The architecture was pretty cool. The tenants were also high-class. High-class boutiques, restaurants, and bakeries.

Btw, the Tiara Lestari show was pretty weak. The pictures were printed on poster paper and glued to a frame. Honestly.. I have posters with better frame jobs than some of the pictures there. Im not complaining about the pictures. The pictures were ok.. It was the presentation that was weak. I think the word "crude" best defines it. I bet everything was done at the last minute (so indonesian..).. Tiara was also not as charming as i'd imagine her to be.. She wore a green kebaya. About her hair.. Either she didnt have a good hairday or she just tried out a new salon coz her hair wasnt as fluffy as it was when she was on Kick Andy-MetroTV. Ok enuf bout Tiara.. my comment is that it is an ok exhibition. the photos were good, but the presentation was standard. so dont expect somethin out of the ordinary bout the exhibition. They have 5 more days to make it much more presentable :)

Back to SP... the place was nice.. a bit small, but nice.. the overpriced clothing makes visiting the place ideal for window shopping only.. The best place (out of the few shops opened) was the Bali Deli. The place was kewl.. The sandwiches a bit overpriced but still reasonable n the dining tables are comfy.. but just as i was in awe about the Bali Deli, i was dissapointed that it was yet again another expat-owned place "borrowing" a local name. The Bali Deli supermarket was awesome though.. It had some very premium grocery items. The pasta section is complete, the fruits are organic. The price is quite competitive to those of other supermarkets such as Indofood, Hero. The only thing missing is the wine collection, plus I couldnt find any chip-dip! :( but other than that, other premium items such as meats, chocolate, salad dressing, italian pizza/spaghetti sauce, and other premium sauces are complete..

The Senayan Place is a nice place (see how the name is awkward?:p) and I cant wait to take a peek again when all the stores are open.

btw i think i was the first guy to take a dump in one of the toilets hihihi...

2006-04-24T12:38:00.000+07:00

THE ARISTOCRATS!

no nudity, sex, or violence. just plain obscenity.
winner of best documentary at the sundance festival, this is a hillarious, must see documentary.

The Aristocrats is a classic joke that has been told for over 50years. It is a joke told by comedians to other comedians. It is one of the most (if not THE MOST) obscene joke there is. It consists of a perfect joke structure; it starts with an opening, the joke content, then ends in a two word punchline. The opening is what makes the joke special. It takes the listener to the beginning of the "roller coaster", giving them hope. And the geniousity is the content; its an open-ending content meaning the joke teller gets to put in anything s/he wants in the joke, putting as many obscene stories as possible so disgusting it is unimaginable. The listener is then on the roaller coaster.. It escalates as the story continues. The longer the story is, the higher the listener's coaster travels. And just when joke ends, the listener is at the peak of that hill and is so hysterical that s/he is laughing at all the dirty descriptions given by the joke teller that s/he is ready to explode and is expecting such a climax ending to the long travel uphill. Then the ending is so insignificant, such an anticlimax that it just ends in boom. And because of the insignificance of the punchline, the joke is so funny! This is a rare joke where no matter how obscene, disgusting, or racial the joke is, it doesnt offend people.

And here's the joke. The contents below consists of VERY VERY obscene material so please don't click the link below unless ur sure u want to continue. Make sure you are over 21yrs old and please make sure you haven't just eaten something.

A stage show agent in Las Vegas was just about to leave for home after a long day at the office. Just when he was about to open the door, a man barges in and says "sir! boy do I have the perfect act for you!". The agent, annoyed, says "no, no.. Ive seen em all. Besides, its my time to go home". "Please sir, just one minute. Im sure u've never seen this one. Its a family act where my whole family participates". "A family act, huh...? hmm... ok u got a minute, tell me what its about". "Tell u? Why, I can show u right now." and with that the whole family enters the agent's office. He brought his wife, a 10 year old daughter, 7year old son, and their pet horse.

The man then starts to strip his clothes off. His wife and children starts to do the same. They then start to piss on the floor. Then the wife lies down on her back while the husband squats just above her face and starts to crap in her mouth. The shit was just right; it wasnt the hard kind of shit nor the watery, dhiarrea kind. It was a perfect mixture of the two so it entered her mouth with a sloppery slip slop splaat kind of sound. The man then explains that this perfect mixture is acquired by eating lots of fibre and no meat for the last two meals before the act. He was very skilled with his shitting techniques.. He is experienced so his aim was always on the spot. He uses his attuned ears to listen and calculate where the shit lands in the throat of his wife so he knows when there are still spaces to fill.. and he fills them up all the time.. His son was doing exactly the same to his older sister, but not yet as skilled as his father as he still gets some shit on his sister's lips. But u can tell that he was a fast learner at this. So they start filling up shit in those throats until they fill up. The ladies then gargle the shit in their mouth. It was a beautiful sound u kno.. its like gargling using a mouthwash but it had a sort of heavy texture in the gargling.. They gargled till the shit sounds very very smooth.. it was like a blender.. They then start throwing up mixing vomit and shit on the piss filled floor. The whole family then starts to slip and slide on the piss, shit, and vomit all at once mixing them good.. it was like slish slosh slish slosh slish sluush all accross the floor.. when all four of them were covered in the piss shit and vomit, the father then goes to his wife and fucks her.. he fucks her real hard and good.. the son does the same to his sister.. they just fuck and fuck and fuck... after they finish, the father then switches with his son. the father gets his daughter to bend over as he fist fucks her ass. there was blood everywhere.. where does the blood come from, u ask? well if put the image in ur head of a full-grown man having big hands.. and i mean big fuckin popeye hands, fist fuckin a 10 year old girl with a little teeny tiny asshole, then u'd see, wudnt u, how there wud be pints and pints of blood. so as he was fist fuckin his daughter, she was screamin like it was the end of the world.. he didnt care less.. he just kept on fist in fist out fist in fist out until her face was so pale and her body became limp. While this was happening, the mother was on top of her son and doing the twirling-merry go round. and now this is where the horse comes in.. he starts to ass-fuck the boy.. and if u thought the little girl had it rough, u should see the boy.. I mean, he had his mom doing twirls on top of him and a horse stickin a "baseball bat" in his ass.. he was screamin a loud shrill... I mean this was a really fucked up family.. And then these two groups joined together.. it was beautiful.. i mean, its hard to explain.. they made so many shapes and patterns that it was just hard to comprehend how they managed to do it. at one time the horse was fuckin the mother while she licked her son's ass and the son was given a blow job by his sister. Dad at the time had his cock in his daughter while his head was fully inside the horse's ass. They just went at it again and again... it was just a wonder to behold.. Suddenly they all stopped and started giving pleasure to themselves.. the agent's door then opens and an old lady (the agent was later told that she was the kids' grandma) enters riding an old red bicycle. She circles the room a couple of times and parks the bike in the corner. She walks to the center of the room, sits down, and closes her eyes. Either that was a cue or by vigorous practice, they all came on grandma.. It was a horrendous mess. She was fully covered in white juice and was slimy everywhere.. and i mean EVERYWHERE! They made sure they didnt leave any drop of juice left and kept on pouring it on grandma.. As that ends, they all stood up and took a bow.

The agent was gaping dumbstruck. he was shell-shocked. After a few seconds he clapped slowly and said "wow.. what an act... that is ORIGINAL! what do u call urselves?"

The man then answers "The Aristocrats!"

hehehehehe....

2006-04-24T12:28:00.000+07:00

In the Presence of Greatness

The ANUGERAH Business Review 2006

- Sentra Mulia Hotel-

Friday, April 21, 2006

I was fortunate to be given the opportunity to attend the Awards at Hotel Mulia last Friday. As a partner of Business Review, I, on behalf of Avevo Dinamika, was given a free invitation. Unlike the BUMN Awards (also held by Business Review) last year, the Anugerah Business Review Awards was very high-class. Held at the Hotel Mulia Ballroom, the invitees were from the Upper Management (Directors and Commisioners).

I was truly humbled being in the same room as the Directors of United Tractors, Wijaya Karya, Telkom, ANTAM, Holcim, ASTRA Otoparts, Bukit Asam, Bank NISP, ASKES, Angkasa Pura, Bank Mandiri, Waskita, Gajah Tunggal, Oracle, General Electric ( the amazing Mrs. Hermian Retnani Sarengat) and so many more directors and CEOs of various State Owned Companies and Emmitents.

The event wasn't just a lame award ceremony, but there were also high-quality discussions. The topic of the first discussion was Good Governance with speakers from CEO of Telkom, Wijaya Karya, and ANTAM. The second discussion consisted of speakers from CEO of Wijaya Karya (again), Bank NISP, and Pegadaian. These two discussions were moderated by Mr. Tonny Roland Silitonga. The last discussion was moderated by Mrs. Hermian R. Sarengat (CEO of GE) with speakers from HR Director of Wijaya Karya, Telkom, and United Tractor with the topic focusing on HR Development as a key success factor in global competition.

The discussions were several degrees above my level and I just couldnt help being overwhelmed with awe. They really are remarkable people. The awards itself was not as dramatic since the winners can be guessed. With 13 categories, Telkom closed the evening by winning the Best Corporate Award. No matter how dirty or how bad their image is, they still hold 80% of the market of telecommunications in Indonesia despite competitors popping up. Their strong fundamentals and witty policies can be reflected by the rise of the value of their stock which has increased 5 folds in the last 3 years.

2006-04-13T06:45:00.000+07:00

What a party!
*again, some names r aliases

Callista's b-day was on d 6th of April.. Meet her once n u'd kno she was an arian haha..
anyway, since the 6th was on a thursday, she had d party on sat.nite.. she gave me the notice on sat.mornin.. the party was 2b @ barbados cafe around 9.30pm..

Around 8 I was on the road n I called hari whether he was comin 2d party n he said he was @a hotel in mampang n asked 4a lift. as he walked 2 my car, i saw he brought his gf.. "hm..wat r u 2 doin in a hotel?" he answered "a friend opened a room n we wer just visiting.." YEAH RITE!

anywho.. callista then called n said ther was a change o plans n d venue was moved 2 Dizzie Lounge.. I was a first timer there since the place is relatively new.. A R&B disco-bar.. When we arrived around 10pm, ther wer already lots o people ther.. most o them from SMUN70 haha.. liquour was already pouring with an almost empty whisky bottle n beer bottles.. the music was ok, but rarely my taste so i rarely went to d dance floor.. i was amused by:

hari's mixing of all types o liquor haha.. he kept on calling the waitresses askin 4bottles after bottles of all sorts of colors n just mixed n passed d drinks around.
the girls.. some sober, some half drunk, some very drunk... some in normal clothes, some in tight dresses, n some in skimpy dresses.. all danced wildly 2 d music.. dini was unstopable, callista kept on movin tho she was barely able 2stand, lia was just hot, n others i shouldnt mention hahaha..

the party was cool, but i had 2ditch outta d place b4 2am coz i had plans 4d next mornin :(
oh well.... next time.. next time...

2006-03-24T19:49:00.000+07:00

Several Movie Lines I've Watched Lately
(since its from my memory, i dont think its correct word 4 word..)

Jane Austen's PRIDE AND PREJUDICE*
->this is the classic P&P.. the 6hour long miniseries, not the remake played by keira knightley.. speaking of the beautiful goddess keira.. she finally got topless on "Domino".. hooraay... :p ups, back to the movie lines...

Jane: Dearest lizzie, be serious... How long have you loved him?
Elizabeth: It has been coming on so gradually, I hardly know. But I believe.. It must have been from my first seeing of his beautiful grounds (house/land) at Pemberley (a town).

HITCH:
Do not lie, steal, cheat, or drink. But if you must lie, lie in the arms you love. If you must steal, steal from the bad. If you must cheat, then cheat death. And if you must drink, only drink in the moments that take your breath away.

AFTER THE SUNSET
[Max finds a "bug" planted by FBI agent Stan and with his girlfriend teases him]

(Knock knock)
Max: get the door, honey.. i wonder who'd knock at this hour..?
Wife: dats my special surprise for u..
Max: what surprise?
Wife: u kno... a girl.. to help u "warm up"
Stan:(listening from his hotel bathroom, while drinking champagne) ooh u lucky dawg...
Max: do I know her?
Wife: yes, u do..
Max: who is she..?
Stan: yeah, who is she? (chuckling to himself)
Wife: its.... Staaan's Mom!
Stan: (shocked) spits out his drink..

MYSTIC RIVER
"I sometimes wonder if this life is real.. If we're really adults.. Sometimes I think that Im still that 10 year old boy and this is just a dream in my sleep of how we'd turn out as adults"

DREAMER
Damn u Dakota Fanning... u got me choking almost in tears...
"You are a champion. When you ran, the ground shook, the sky opened, mere mortals parted. The way of victory. And you meet your owner in the winner circle. Where he put a blanket of flower on your back."

2006-03-24T19:21:00.000+07:00

Resto/Cafe and Book Idea

The last few weeks of my boring life I rediscovered something... My head used to be filled with so many ideas and i would fill my "book of ideas" daily.. but ever since the mid-development stage of Talentum, my head blocked out any ideas i had as i was too concerned with deadlines and things not going as planned..

now that im free (wont be long though), ideas start popping in my head again.. like a really cool restaurant concept.. or a book idea.. or a special vehicle safety equipment.. i just thought of the resto idea yesterday and i gotta say dat was a special "bright-light" day.. the idea was so simple and just plain cool +grin+.. so any1 wanna open a resto/cafe, gimme a shout.. i'll share my idea n we can b business partners hehe ;p

another idea was about a book. i havent quite polished the concept, so i dunno whether it should b a trilogy or just one giant book.. when this idea popped, my 1st instinct were:

find a writing partner.. at least some1 that knows how 2write damn well better than me..
find a publisher n share my idea without it being stolen..
if i wanted to write a trilogy, how wud i copyright the 2nd n 3rd book b4 it was written.. how do u copyright a title b4 it is written..
implementation..

i got this book idea around 9pm n got xcited.. so i called and sms-ed lots of people in my phonebook.. even those i rarely called.. i kno when calling an old friend ur supposed to sidetalk first.. hello, how r u.. blablabla... but i cudnt helpit! so i called people n said "hey.. this is api... how r u doin..?" "oh im fine.. how r u..?" and i'd answer "im fine.. btw, do u like to write, plan to write or is currently writing a book?" hehehe... anywho... i found a co-writer hehehe... lets get ready 2work, ndin! :p

2006-03-10T10:04:00.001+07:00

My life, currently, is BOOORIIIING.......!!!

Got no activities..

When Avevo started, there were so many things to do.. Make an account, finish administrative work, have regular meetings, finding employees, and so on.. and so on..

But now... My company's main product (Talentum) is completed and is now in the marketing/selling stage.. When the product was being developed, I would busy myself by reading designs, read codes, help bugfixing, and terrorize the programmer(s) with deadlines hehehe...

Now its in the marketing stage and I have little competence in that field. Besides, Avevo already have marketers that make the phone calls, setup meetings, etc.. And thanks to my position in Avevo, I am only allowed to go to meetings with potential clients if the person we're gonna meet is mid/upper management.. AND EVEN THEN I do almost nothing in those meetings.. Either the marketing or COO does the presentation and answer questions.. My role is wear a suit and tie with polished shoes, enter the room, shake hands, trade business cards, and sit pretty.. and maybe when im lucky i can answer one or two technical questions that the marketing might not be able to answer..

Avevo now have 4 products:
1, Talentum v1. status: completed
2. Banking Money Changer apps. status: completed
3. E-commerce (cant say wat it is.. still secret :p). status: in development*
4. Mobile apps. status: 70% complete**

* The e-commerce application already has a PM and programmers.. so I cant meddle n put direct pressure on the programmers.. huhuhuhu :'(
** The mobile apps also already has a team of developers n d product is almost completed.. The other 30% is from the business and legal activities.

So now what are my activities? Well now I just make phone calls and meet people, go to seminars, join organizations, etc... to widen my connections.. Those activities are fun.. I really enjoy them.. But they take so little of my time to do..

Until about a couple of weeks ago, I was swamped with activities.. now, 70% of the time I'm idle.. and I just cant stand it!