THE HIP

A Thinker's Shared Spot of Stories of Living



Saturday, April 30, 2005

Small Place for God

by Eko Prasetyo @ 8:24 PM

Dear God,

Today I visited a place that have a lot of, maybe thousands, people coming and going. It is the Soekarno-Hatta Airport here in Indonesia.
It was Maghrib time, me and my cousin needed to find a place to do our prayer.
We found it, and I was totally surprised. It was so small, only one and a half line (probably just ten) people can fit in and pray together.
How come, in a country where more then 80% of the people are moslems, the authority of the airport can only provide such a small place for your home ?

Forever Hot

by Eko Prasetyo @ 11:40 AM

God, I hate it when you decided to swith the humid, water flooding season that is rainy season with another humid, blazing sun attack season that is drought season (note that I don't use "summer" here)

Not that the changes of seasons change the fact that my room is a heat trap. Yes, people, it's heat trap. Once enters, a heat can be forever trapped inside, creating a physically, biologically, psychologically, chemically, and thermodynamically challenging environment.

Don't mind the latins, they just my way of exaggerating facts


I can't exactly pinpoint why my room has such a physical properties. I have give a theory to my dad that a lack of ventilation on the higher position of the exterior facing wall of my room is the main contributor of the situation. You see, my room have no ceiling. When I see the top of my room, it's that prismatic angle of a common prismatic roof, or to make it easier, it looks like this :



and those double windows just don't receive much wind in a sun blazed day, like today. And if open my door, some more hot winds come inside, originated from a barren hill some 50 meters (roughly 150 ft) away from my home.


My sister's room have the same heat trapping properties, and she have been whining to my dad about her need for an air conditioner (basically, air cooler here in Indonesia, especially in Jakarta). Myself, for the other hands, have been proposing to install a exhaust fan to drive the heat flow out of my room, so that it can be replaced by much cooler air trapped downstairs (yes, people, the temperature differences between the top floor and the groundfloor is crazy, about 2-3 degrees celcius ). He have been refusing, but seems to have loosened up lately. I think that's cool and I think with a few more bragging, I will finally be able to install an Exhaust on top of the wall, facing outside, sucking hot air out of my room.

Let's just hope it will be done in the future.

Hey, a cool breeze just went in, that means a rain is about to come...usually.



Banner Renewal

by Eko Prasetyo @ 8:38 AM

Today I changed the banner of that will be used by Blogexplosion to advertise my blog. I hope It'll impress more bloggers and therefore invites more people to come to my blogs. It looks like this :



So what do you think? Catchy?

Friday, April 29, 2005

Ginger Punch

by Eko Prasetyo @ 9:47 AM

Well, for Javanese, ginger punch is among the favourite drink.
And for my own experience so far (have been drinking it daily) ginger punch can reduce the production of gas from my stomach. Now that I have stopped my habit of drinking coffee daily (but not stopping it altogether), I suspect that coffee is the source of my ailing belly.

What? You don't know what Ginger punch is? Auch, silly me, of course you don't (unless you use to drink "Serbat Wangi" or "Bandrek" or "Wedang Jahe", which makes you someone who lives in Indonesia). For you, my unlucky friend, "Ginger Punch", in essence, is my naming for a mix of juice of ginger with few other spices.
Now, I haven't tasted a "Ginger Ale", so I can't tell if the two are the same.

Thursday, April 28, 2005

Blogexplosion Phenomena

by Eko Prasetyo @ 8:36 PM

Welcome, Blogexploder friends!

I know who you are and what you are : you are a blogger who is participating in a cool phenomena called Blogexplosion, hoping that by leaping from blogs to blogs, you'll get people reaching your own blog and having them read who you are.

Why do I know it?

Cause, friends, that's how I get people visiting my blog :D

And I don't know if you're going to "booooo" me or mock me as a latecomer cause you have been Blogexploding for so long, have been raking millions of credits, have been having your banners displayed everywhere, and have written about how great Blogexplosion is, but I just have to write something about it. Writing is my biggest hobby now, aside from browsing and reading (and playing zuma ). These hobby makes me a person fit for a blogexploder, don't you think?

'Cause, you know, to be a blogexploder, you need to be a blogger, right? And to be a good blogger, you need to write a lot appropriate to the themes that drive you to write a blog. Otherwise, what's the function of a blog?

Now, for me, writing blogs isn't just about, well, writing blogs.

It serves nicely as a mean to train my idea spilling coordination ability. Take, for instance, this particular post. I have to think things that fits the theme "blogexploding phenomena" nicely. How fast I completed this post depends on how fast I spawn ideas on my brain, sorting them out, filtering them, and then finally how fast can my fingers dance across the keyboard, pressing the approprite keys without hitting backspace again and again like I have been doing now. Few hundreds more posts, and I believe my fingers will develop eyes for themselves that will coordinate with my primary eyes (those two that are besiegeng the nose) and thus they'll be helping me writing a thousand words post in under 5 minutes.

It also serves nicely as a mean to train my HTML tags and Blogger's own codes of blog's template composing ability. At first, making a blog hosted by blogger seems to be a simple matter of registering your name, making a name for your blog, and chosing an available template. After you've done doing all of those thing, alakazam, you're changed : from a simple person to a blogger, from a shyguy to one who dare to express himself, from an internet browser to an internet citizen, from a simple, humble person to be a proud element of a coolest revolution ever in human civilization : BLOGGER !

But then you got bored on just posting. You suddenly have the idea of visiting other blogs, and to your surprise, the 10th or something blog that you visited give you a degree of Deja Vu : it has the similar colors, the similar structures, and even somehow similar smells of something that you know much of : your own blog.
In that instant, your ego is annoyed. Your dormant creativity instinct kicks in. What's left of that "I have to be different" drives that you have during your long forgotten puberty force you to look up things up and down, left and right, fore and back, only to bring you closer and closer to reach the one ultimate goal : Your Own Theme of Your Own Blog!

Then you found the Template to your blog laying there in your dashboard, waiting to be touched, given a unique look, a unique taste, a unique smell. To your horror, the template is a mess of intelligible sentences lines, sentences stacked like some kind of worthless blabbering that those geeks friends of yours down at the IT division wrote. And to your shocking realization, you have to be that kind of geek to truly able transform your "common" blog into an "elite-class" blog.

So there's time when you are scouring through the blabbers, learning their structures, learning the meanings of each written words, learning the causes and effects of each letters put there, and when the enlightment shines on you, you come to an understanding : HTML.

So folks, understanding of HTML tags is the key to change, by your own hands and not by paying someone else, the way your blog looks.

And I've learnt a few basic, useful tags needed so far for my blog to have its own unique characteristic. I've removed some images that can slowdown the loading of my blog, I have even learnt how link images to external sites instead of using Hello! Bloggerbot. The next tags I think I need to learn will be the tag to form tables, but that for my other blog, where I display the pages of my comic.

Thank you, friend, if you have read this far and about to continue reading :D

The next one purpose for creating blog for me is to train myself on how to create a written work that can make people read it till the end. It's just like this posting. I believe, if you have read it till this -->word<--- , that means I have been able to make you follow my writing. Hopefully, my skill on writing will evolve to a degree that everyone can enjoy it, that everyone can be impressed by it, and somehow put an element of it into their hearts. For now, This is what my writing skill is all about.

And there's a little commercial purpose by creating this blog. I was hoping I can reap the benefits of using Google AdSense, that comes midway during my first month blogging, but due to my own terrible error on pushing things, I am forever banned from said service.

Then I a word suddenly sprung on my mind, thrown from the back of my brain, like an old, fun, useful toy suddenly drop off the top of your wardrobe : Affiliate.
I zoomed instanly to Amazon.com, hoping that they have some kind of affiliate program, and woilaaa, the have it. So I registered, and suddenly my sidebar turned into a virtual bookstore. There are only a few number of it now, but the catalogue will eventually grow.

And I came across mediaplazza.com, the mobile device contents provider. They have some affiliation program too, but it's not universal, so I just put in a banner at the very bottom of my blog.

And finally, the reason why I write blog is because I want to express myself, to channel my creativity, to share my thoughts, to share my emotional swings to something when I can't find anyone near to talk to. Very personal, but that's what Blog is in the essence : personal things shared to the world.

Still here and wondering where the hell is the "Blogexplosion Phenomena" ? You don't mind reading for some more , won't you ? ;)

Now, after all have been done and said, I have a blog ready for the world to see. Months come, I keep on posting : diary entries, emotional outbursts, opinion columns, photoblogs, and all that I know how to post.
And then I come to a realization that no one read my blog but me.

This is when I saw a blogger's praise on blogexplosion.

Blogexplosion, I thought? Hey, I have been a blogexplosion member! I have put a small image of blogexplosion somewhere on my sidebar but have forgotten it. So I decided to use it, tried blogexploding, and finally, like almost everyone else (that includes you, right?), addicted to it.

Thanks God my ISP has repaired my Connection.

Blogexplosion has ways to make themselves very fun, very useful, very effective, and very addictive.

Fun? Yes, basically when using Blogexplosion, you have to surf other blogs to earn credits. And to me, who is a junkie for written words, surfing other people's blogs is a very entertaining, mind opening, resource gathering activity. And I just love being entertained, have my mind opened, and be able to gather resources. That's why Blogexploding was so much fun for me.

And the "exchange credits for banner impressions' is a somewhat fun thing to do as well. It is somewhat an exciting thing to see your own created banner (yes, I create my own banner, and although still very ugly, proud of it) being seen by people. But this option have been giving me only 1 % clickthrough rate at the best. I am thinking of changing my banner, and hopefully I can gain some inspirations on how to make it look like.

And then the last ones are blog lottery and shoutbox (sorry guys, I haven't played texas hold'em up, yet). Blog lottery is an afterthought, putting credits into it when I feel like doing it. Shoutbox is where I occasionally where I advertised my blog "Hey Dude, Come to My Blog".

Very useful? Yes, it is very useful. You simply can use blogexplosion to "force" people to come to your site and be awed (or be flabbergasted, be annoyed, be offended, or whatever be that your site can do to its readers)to it. But to make people come to your blog, you have to visit other blogs. So its a very useful tool to read other people's blogs and take inspirations from them. I have come across a few blogs that I think have the "ooomph" needed to decorate my own blog with.

Effective, isn't it? You got people come to your blog(s),you see other people's blogs and learn from them, you got fun, and you got one more reason to spend your free time browsing the internet.

To me, Blogexplosion has covered every aspects of the experience it offers to make it very addictive. it feeds my needs : to read new things, to have people come to my site, to find inspirations, and to gather resources. And all of these can be done very easily by clicking the right numbers and waiting for another 30 seconds reading the blog you are positioned by it at the time. Do it time after time, and it feels exactly like when I played Zuma the first time : Simple, Fun, Challenging, and ADDICTIVE.

And now, with so many people joining everyday, we can expect it to be more useful, more effective, more fun, and more addictive everyday !!
Although there will be more articles on Blogexplosion in the future, but for now Blogexplosion, I think, is the next REVOLUTION in the Cyberworld together with GMAIL

This has been a very long article, and I thank you for your time to read it !

Here, have a rose as a sign for appreciation



Hope you can BLOGMARK my blog and come again sometimes :)

Worthless Affection ?

by Eko Prasetyo @ 5:04 AM

Man, I woke up empty today.

That girl told me that she already has someone. The other girl is getting married. One more turn cold on me.
How's that for romanticism?
To think that I've been such a helping hand for my friends (advising them on girls, motivating them to do things, giving them poems (to be sent to the their ladies, of course)) makes me feel like I'm such a pathetic hypocrite (do I spell it right?)

Siemens mobile is getting bulldozed. The cellphone company that I have loved and defended and extremely praised for so long has been forced to be sold or closed due to "losing quarters". Now I look like a fool for my Nokia or SonyEricsson friends, praising a dying company.

I have never draw a page of comic for..what, 2 months? Been busy at the office or attacking Telkom lately. Not to mention playing Zuma. And I have been thinking that I has been slipping away from me, my creativity for creating comics. I even losing taste for the idea of concocting stories.

I denied my father's order to move from the company I work now to the Institution that watches the likes of the company I work for. I denied cause I want to go my own way and no longer be under my father shadow.
My boss have been ignoring me, the company has been in trouble and parasitized.
Am I cursed by God for making my Dad furious ?

All that I have been loved for, defended for, praised for, are fading away, slipping fast.

Have I been such a loser lately?

Is this the point where I start anew completely ?

Will this ever be an easy life forward ?

God help me...





Wednesday, April 27, 2005

BlogExplosion : The 50

by Eko Prasetyo @ 4:36 PM

God, I have blogexploded 50 blogs today !!!

Praise God for creating such a liberal Boss !!

Bless you Boss !!

I'm ready for more !!!

Btw, i found this interisting fact...I have to go to purgatory.

What the? What is Purgatory ?


The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!


Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
LevelScore
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)High
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)High
Level 2 (Lustful)Moderate
Level 3 (Gluttonous)Very Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

Blood Spill

by Eko Prasetyo @ 1:29 PM

Dear Diary,

I have done two more things that I have never done before today : writing "Dear Diary" in my blog, and donating blood.

Well, nothing special about writing "Dear Diary", but donating blood is a new, thrilling experience. But in the end, I came out alive and well. (of course you are, idiot. Otherwise they're not going survive long, this whole blood donating things)

So, I donated my blood. Looking for more new things to do.

Btw, these are what the scenery looked like, donation time




and of course, free meals to replace that spilled blood...



...and this card. I am a blood donor. Yay, how many lives will I save?



Well, if I do it 3 months each year, I'll be having my 100th time donation when I am...oh well, count it for yourself, he he he :D

BlogExplosion : Addiction

by Eko Prasetyo @ 9:25 AM

Man, I'm addicted to the blogexplosion.
Being doing it the entire morning.
You may as well do it if you have a blog.

Damn !

by Eko Prasetyo @ 4:31 AM

AdSense is expanding!
And I've been forever banned from the thing !!
Damn! Damn! Damn!

Oh well, that's one lesson to learn from : Don't let greed consumes you....

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Clueless

by Eko Prasetyo @ 7:55 PM

I watched movie together with girls, I am the only boy.
I took a camping combined with mountain hiking.
I gave a girl flower.
I joined a chat room.

I had never done them before I have my own job and my own income.

Why have I done them then?
Simply because I want to catch up with life.
To do things I have never have the courage to do when I was still under my parents wings.
To liberate myself.

And what have been happened lately ?

I asked people to come to a rafting activity.
No avail.
I asked people to come to watch movie together again.
No avail.
I emailed, called, and sms-ed the girl.
No avail.
I acted the way I have been in the chat room.
No avail.

I am now a clueless being.

Clueless and bored.

Boss have been giving me no substantial tasks as other people are busy with their own tasks.

I'm left alone.

Clueless, bored, and lonely.

That's a lethal mix for a man's life.

It's been slowly poisoning my will to move forward and change completely from what I was before donning the title "Engineer"
My new fur is slowly undergoing embaldment.

My old fur is returning.

A completely lonely loser geek.

Cancellation of War

by Eko Prasetyo @ 4:03 PM

Warcraft III that is.
I was planning to play a LAN war with my friends from IT division, but seeing how they are busy, I cancelled the plan immediately.

Time is just not right. I feel awful myself.

Empty Rising

by Eko Prasetyo @ 3:10 AM

I have been torturing myself to get my weight down. It's been working nicely. Slow, but nice and steady. For that I'm happy.
But not for the bad mood I have everytime I wake up in the small hours, realizing that my stomach has been revolting all night, and it gets worse everytime I woke up. And I have less energy to wake up immediately to fetch something small in the fridge. Not the mention the anxiety everytime I wake up and the first thing that comes across my mind are the girls that I have been having crush on but seems have been gone far from reach. Man, how they are special !!
But enough of ladies, there are plenty of them around (but still, the special ones are rare and far apart...), return to my weight problem.
Yes, I have felt this tantalous amount of anxiety, boredom, lack of spirit, etc, etc. Every bad mood associated with lack of motivation.
I have realized long ago that food is the source of my good mood, the starter of my motivation. But since I came to a realization that I look totally awful when overweight, I have developed this sense of eating less and less, especially rice. I have been psychologically full whenever I have eaten any small amount of rice. Sometimes, I skip rice altogether and drink a lot of water after eating some fruits.
I wonder If I can keep it going for four more kilograms (that's roughly 8 pounds for you Imperials)...

Monday, April 25, 2005

Change

by Eko Prasetyo @ 4:45 PM

I don't know what has happened in my office, but ever since I come home from my company Petroleum Field, things changed in the office. It feels like what once has been an almost unified chat culture of the youths has turned into an idle bluntness. I don't know if it's true, but it seems I'm the only one left fighting in the chat room. No one pays attention to my joke anymore.
Wonder if the chat room ended up as just an automatic congragation of installed chat app that pop up every morning. Well, it feels like it.
I don't know if things can change to what it is used to be.
I don't know if a written rampage of a moved woman has been the cause all of this numbness.
I can't believe that my absence in the main office because of two weeks in the field change things a lot.

Fat Skimming

by Eko Prasetyo @ 4:24 AM

Man, it's not easy to return to my pre-high school leanness. I've been skipping dinner, and my weights has been recessing quite slowly, and downright sluggish. Not to mention the first days of doing it when I have the tendency to overeat breakfast because I was so hungry in the morning. Now I have the habit to eat less for main meals, and unable to digest a lot of meal like I used to.
I wonder, how many lack of deficiency syndromes I now have ?
When will I pass out due to lack of energy ? Actually, I don't have to worry about passing out due to lack of energy...my job have never been a demanding one
Now I know the feeling of those who wish to reduce weight but have a somewhat non-satisfying result.

Sunday, April 24, 2005

Love Is

by Eko Prasetyo @ 1:59 PM

Love is the purest
when comes from the heart

Love is the warmest
when given by sincere hands

Love is the fullest
when shared together

Love is not submission,
it is true elevation

Love is not addition,
it is multiplication

Love is pain
to be healed by sharing

Love is happiness
to be shared joyfully

Love is nothing
except if it is everything

Love is in its true meaning
if you wish no return when giving

A whore and 60 cops

by Eko Prasetyo @ 11:58 AM

60 cops raided a social police base on a fight to liberate.....a whore.

They even tore the base inside out.

That's pathetic.

Pathetic

The Installation of Men of Fates

by Eko Prasetyo @ 9:55 AM

Vatican has chosen a new pope, Pope Benedict XVI. He is the leader of a world of Catholics, whose population has reached 1 billion and more.

U.S.A has chose their president, George W.Bush, who many sees as a leader installed by voters that come from the conservatives and populations of church faithfuls.

They can both claim that God has chosen them to be installed into their respective seats.

To me, it is a sign that factions of the world are preparing for a hardened assaults.

The new pope, Pope Benedict XVI, or the world has previously known him as Joseph Ratzinger, is a very ultra-orthodox church guy. From what I've read, this new pope is both open minded and strict man of the cloth. He already assaulted a legislation that approve homosexuality (good for him), and one way or another, told churches to "return to true path taught by god"

George W. Bush, in the other hand, is the representative of a very HUGE industry of petroleum hoarding and the industries that have grown symbiotically with the petrodollars. But the part of industry that supports him and he supported back with a blind eye (and directed thinking) is one that harms the world most : military occupation of the second largest pool of oil reserves in the world.

George W. Bush victory attained during the 2004 election, many has said, was able to be achieved by the help of voting church faithfuls. Many has chosen him because he was displayed as a man of church, of good family value (to think that his twin daughters has caught drinking alcohol while still underage), and opposition of the values that the "other side" has chosen to promote for many years.

He lied about the weapon of mass destruction. He lied about his true reason to occupy Iraq. He let sons of Sam's Army got nailed each day. He admitted then that the USA and its goon can't found any WMD in Iraq. His men brings more chaos to Iraq compared to when Iraq was under Saddam Husein. The same can be said about Blair and that bald australian guy. They all are liars.

But both Pope Benedict XVI and George W.Bush has risen to power by the help of Churches.

Will Joseph attack Dubya because of his lies ?

Will Dubya told Joseph to shut up and just do the candles ?

Ever wondering why Berlusconni's Italia was such a supporter of the invasion when there are peace broadcasting holy ground right inside their home ?

Ever thinking that the Anglicans and the Vaticans are at silent dogmatic war lately ?

And with the tension built among the Mongoloid races, the world has never looked so ready for a World War, even if it is an underground one.

Ah, the world that was so peaceful when I was a boy was peaceful because I know nothing.

Natural Beauty of Cidahu

by Eko Prasetyo @ 7:53 AM

About A month ago (now, that's a long-long time ago for a blogger, right? blame my ISP for that) I had my first mountain hiking in my life.

The place is called Cidahu, and it is a very beautiful place. The air is cool and fresh, the water is crystal clear and chill, and the scenery is, of course, very beautiful.

You can check for yourself !

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Saturday, April 23, 2005

Body Counts

by Eko Prasetyo @ 8:29 PM

Now that my Internet connection is up and running, I think a part of my life has returned, and some burdens have been lifted off, thus some kind of returning of familiar feelings and liberation of minds have occured.

And I can back to my old things of having headlines streamed to me by the way of RSS newsfeeds.

Oh, the feelings of reading that there have been body counts somewhere in Iraq daily. The feeling that I've lost for 2 months now...thanks to that less than dirt customer service of my ISP.

How come there are still body counts in Iraq after all that liberation made by U.S.A and the installation of a new government ?

Obviously, dissatisfaction plays a large role here.

Dissatisfaction because their liberty are taken and smothered by the boots of American rangers and the thread of their tanks ?

Dissatisfaction because they have lost the powers they have had for long ?

Dissatisfaction because they have finally learnt that the reasons to invade their lands have been proven to be a substance-empty reason ?

We, the observers, can't know exactly, but we can feel dissatisfactions are the initiatiors and drivers of their wraths.

Where has it been ?

by Eko Prasetyo @ 4:51 PM

Man, my cousin said that the technician who fixed my internet connection - who is, obviously and must be, came from the ISP - claimed that he had never heard or never have been given any instruction on fixing my connection.
So, where have my complaints I have been giving for 2 months gone ?
I think I need to make a sort of published journal on this matter.

Really, the ISP need a good spanking, H.A.R.D !!

Am I Cursed ?

by Eko Prasetyo @ 3:35 PM

Sometimes, I believe, that God has ways to nullifies the result of my efforts on doing something without any sense of mercy.
Like this one : I had complained about my internet connections for 2 months without any significant results, and all of sudde, in one day, my cousin had able to tell the ISP people to fix the things.
And it was fixed and running. Bummer :C
And then today, I cancelled my long weekend vacation trip because of a mispurchase done by the broker that has been appointed by my company, and today, I was hoping I can find them in their representatives cubicle implanted in my office today (it's saturday, mind you, and yesterday was a holiday, and found that they are not available.
So much for sacrificing my vacation. Geh.
But I do believe that in every failure there are things to be learnt.
So, WHAT ARE THOSE THINGS THAT I SHOULD LEARN ABOUT, DEAR GOD ??

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Motto