Scaffoldings in My Garden

by Eko Prasetyo @ 4:49 AM I live in a row of homes that are attached to one another. We share walls. About two months ago, the next door's home began an expansion project. It expand the house on the backside and upside. Soon, my lawn got messy from their cements, sacks, cigarette boxes, and debris. One day the foreman came and I asked them, rather furiously, to order his men to clean up my lawn. One month ago, when I came home, I found that the labors from the next door's home expansion project had erected scaffoldings on my lawn, since they need to do something to the heightened wall of that house. The problem is, nobody told me about this and I got furious and asked the labor who ordered them to erected the scaffoldings. They told me that their foreman ordered them to do it. I asked them why didn't the foreman ask me first. They said because no one was at my home. Then I asked them again would it be polite to erect something on someone's lawn without the owner's permission. They said no. I said pull down the scaffoldings and they did it. I said clean up my lawn from your cements and they did it. Two weeks ago a new foreman asked me whether they can re-erect the scaffoldings or not and I said no. Not without compensations. Yesterday the foreman and another guy give me a letter saying that they will clean up any mess caused by the erection of the scaffoldings. I said letter or no letter, scaffoldings or no scaffoldings, IT IS THEIR OBLIGATION TO CLEAN UP ANY MESS caused by their project. There is no mention of compensations of using my lawn on that letter, so I gave them the letter back. The lady who sold me my house then called me and asked me what's the problem, and I asked her back: would you let someone put a scaffolding on your lawn, without your permissions, and without you being compensated for it? She said no, and I said that's the problem. I also said that my water tandon has not been fixed, my walls has not been repainted, and my garden lamp has not been installed, not to mention the cover for the drain hole on my bathroom has not been installed yet. And yesterday my ground floor's ceiling was leaking. So there. The problem have not been resolved yet. What do you think? Would you be furious if someone erect a scaffolding on your lawn without you being told and compensated for? | My Alter Ego | Blogroll Me! | 1 blogger comments | | |

Pickpocket on The Door

by Eko Prasetyo @ 5:28 PM Jakarta is truly a beast that feeds on the greed of the rich and desperation of the poor. It inhales their hopes and kindness and exhales a mood of gloom. I have known Jakarta since 1990, almost 20 years ago, and Jakarta back then is the same as Jakarta now: unruly, choking, and exudes excessiveness while proud of being vainglorious.  It's been a while since I am in touch with the low way of lives of Jakarta, live of Metromini, smokers at every corners, and of flooded street and criminals on every spot. These are my two horrendous experiences when doing so. One: I almost got rob by the "Door Stoppers". These pickpockets and robbers in neat costumes of shirts and long pants and good shoes do their operations using the fact that a metromini (that orange bus that you see everywhere in Jakarta) has two narrow doors that people can use to get out. Two of these Door Stoppers will block each door when someone has signaled that he wants to go down. They will block this (or these) passenger(s) with every reasons possible. Their friends will then pickpockets or open the zippers of their bags while the passengers panic. You need to bulldoze your way out of the bus if this kind of things happen to me. I did it as soon as a man blocked my door and repeatedly telling the driver to keep on going while I want to go out of the bus. I then knock the bus roof hard and bulldoze my way out through the man. I found my bag's zippers half open. Thanks God nothing was stolen. Two: I hate smokers, and I hate smokers who SEE that there is a no smoking sign around and STILL SMOKE ANYWAY! God, the IQ of those stupid smokers. You can find it everywhere in Jakarta, even in AIRPORT, and even after the good officers herd them to the smoking areas. I hate smokers, they are the cause that the earth is heating up! I still hate Jakarta | My Alter Ego | Blogroll Me! | 1 blogger comments | | |

I Am A Celebrity

by Eko Prasetyo @ 6:30 PM For this year alone, I have been in local newspapers (by local I mean provincial wide) THREE TIMES! The first two are related to photography, and the last one was related to the fact that I spoke in front of 200+ petroleum engineering students, giving them some education, freely. What have I done to deserve this spotlight? Surely something, right ;) ? Wohoo! I am celebrity! | My Alter Ego | Blogroll Me! | 0 blogger comments | | |

Forex Fellowship

by Eko Prasetyo @ 2:06 PM I don't know what to write, but I want to write something, so I write this post.  Let's see, what should I write.... What about my 77%+ loss on Forex last Friday? That is, boys and girls, the result of a forex trader being greedy gambler. When I was being a technical trader, I can change 1.1 to 6.6 in 2.5 months, but when I was a gambler, I changed 1006 to US$ 237 to in a blink of an eye. Ladies and Gentlemen, if you are forex traders, don't gamble. What's next?  What about Fellowship? This D&D styled fantasy game is the closest you can get on facebook to playing pen-and-paper styled RPG. It has unique playable races: Faun and Undead. Really, UNDEAD! As in people who has died and decided to be alive again. They are around, normally unliving among the people. One of them even decided to become pharmacists and can be found selling healing potions and magic scrolls. The others are standard Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs. The classes are thieves, mages, knights, warriors, clerics, and hunters. The quests are basic of one single type: monster killing. Looks boring, but strangely this type is addictive to me. I guess fighting and making strategies are two things that can be combined to please me. Try it. it's good.  Another game that is built upon Fellowship engine is Underworld. It feels the same, but using mafia-type characters and quests as its world. And oh yeah, I have updated comics on my little project. Tales of Vanima Forest, A Present:Tales of Valeshka, and White Dragon are updated. Thanks for your visit there. | My Alter Ego | Blogroll Me! | 1 blogger comments | | |

The Regression of Soesilo Bambang Yudhoyono

by Eko Prasetyo @ 5:53 PM Once an icon of Indonesia's renewal, Soesilo Bambang Yudhoyono has been slowly regressing into an icon of continuation of the old regime of Soeharto. He bowed down to the wishes of USA, he protected the donors of his party from the trial for corruptions, and he began to lay foundations for his dynasty to rule Indonesia by raising his son into prominence. His act of quickly kicked out of office two vice chairmen of the Corruption Eradication Comission, Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra, after they were forcefully captured by the police due to charges and quickly installing his own people to replace them showed that SBY wants to put this important Comission under his thrall to be molded as he pleases. His concerted effort together with Chief of Police and General Attorney quickly ignited a resistance force from 1.3 million of Indonesian facebook users. A man formed a group to support Bibit-Chandra and in two weeks, 1 million people joined the campaign, triggering a media circus of Chief of Police explaining his men acts with stupid logics and legal mumbo-jumbo. During this media circus, the General Attorney also acts like they are sure that Bibit-Chandra accepted a bribe because they have proofs: parking tickets and photos of the cars parked in the supposed place of bribe taking.  One public hearing of some recorded wiretap later, Chief of Police and General Attorney had their collective face smeared by Anggodo, little brother of Anggoro (the chinese taipan who bribed so many people he exiled himself to Singapore, the country that protects corruptors). Anggodo clearly, on some wiretap recordings, can be heard ordering police officers, notably Head of Police Criminal Investigation Bureau, the things he would like to have them write. Soon Anggodo got tangled into the media circus and turn it into a cesspool of lies, deceits, disgusting oaths, and bare stupidities. And what SBY did was washing his hands off the case and told an ad-hoc "verification comittee" to see to it and give recommendations and then left to enjoy sucking uncle sam's balls. Even after the comittee gave him some recommendations, SBY didn't do anything but gave speech that give absolutely no clear indications on what he wants to do. SBY, once again, washed his hands off. He need to stay away from his failing efforts to rule CEC and focusing on evading another potential bomb: The Century Bank Bailout. 6.7 billion rupiahs, roughly 600 million dollars, was poured into a cancerous bank who had shown no good intentions to be healthy and got robbed by its own owner. Said to be done to prevent "cascading failure of economic system", it was shown that the monetary authority had severed several of its own rules to help this stupid bank.  There are rumors that those 6.7 billion rupiahs were sapped through labyrinthine process by Democrat Party's treasurers to be used as their campaign money. If this process got proven, then SBY will fall along with the entire Democrat Party. SBY swore his innocence and has been dodging this accusations for weeks, without actually giving out proofs of his innocences. The former governor of Bank Indonesia, now Vice President, had said over and over again that during the turbulent world financial crisis (and surprisingly healthy Indonesia's condition), Century Bank's ailment need to be cured instantly. This didn't sit well with Financial Auditor Authority of Indonesia who found inconsistencies and omissions done by Bank Indonesia in regards of this sick but favored Bank. If SBY shows no clear acts for both Bibit-Chandra and Century Bank problems, his rule might be seen as tainted and Democrat Party could be well join the Pariah rank of PDIP and Golkar. That if SBY has not been doing black ops to ensure Democrat Party victory in 2014. | My Alter Ego | Blogroll Me! | 0 blogger comments | | |