Meaningless Rants

But no amount of ranting can fully suffice in conveying how I feel about all this fiasco.

A recent study show that driving while talking even with hands-free hand phone is dangerous. OK this is getting ridiculous. You know what that means? It means that talking to someone in the car while driving is dangerous too, something that anyone who ever rides in a car with their friends do.

Come on. In the end, anything that you do while driving is dangerous. However, most of the time driving is like auto-pilot. Have you ever drove in a path that you tread so many times before, and you were occupied with something else like gossiping with your friends in the car, and bar any special incidents you somehow arrive to your destination without you realizing how you could get there? I mean, I do get spaced out a lot when I drive, and so far I never had any accident *knock on wood*.

I do a lot of things while I drive. I talk with my handphone, check the kilometer per liter information continuously, change songs in my iPod, bang my head as I pretend to play the drums while I listen to Metallica, and with my new blackberry (I’m such a trendy whore) I check my location too. In other times I eat burgers and fries while driving. So far still good, though I had a close encounter with a parked car the other day while looking for Celtic Tides in my iPod. I guess it depends on people’s multi-tasking ability to be able to do so many things at once?

In fact, if I don’t do anything else but drive, it’s much more dangerous historically for me. I got into two accidents in my lifetime (three actually, but let’s not count the first one when I rammed my mom’s car into a portal). Both of them happened because I was sleepy. I was sleepy because I didn’t do anything else but drive slowly in a traffic jam. With nothing to do, I dozed off and WHAM. It would never have happened if I was talking on the phone with someone or if I was concentrating in getting some fries from the bag.

Well OK I admit, what I do is dangerous really. Especially with my stupid obsession of checking the gas usage and average speed. Not to mention searching for songs and generally being spaced out while daydreaming or thinking about how angry I am with a lof of people. But I don’t know about this doing-nothing-else-while-driving thing.

Oh, by the way, don’t listen to me at put that damn phone down!

I don’t understand these trendy things going on in Indonesia. Why do people line up for the most banal things? I mean, I saw tens of people waiting in line for tens of minutes to get… Yoghurt? Seriously folks. It’s just yoghurt. Is it such a special tasting yoghurt that it’s worth to wait that long? And then people start asking you, “have you tried Sour Sally yet?” No and I don’t want to bother trying it. It’s yoghurt. Get over it.

It’s not just a recent thing, too. I remember vividly how, around 15 years ago, people were flocking to the newest burger joint to arrive in Jakarta from the US. What burger joint? McDonalds. I kid you not. Hundreds upon hundreds of people waiting in line at the first McDonald’s joint to eat their limp burger with overcooked-thin-burger patty that looks close to being a jerky. Hey, if it’s In&Out opening up here in Jakarta, I’d wait for 2 hours just because the burger’s that good. But McDonald’s?

Well, alright. Sometimes these trendy stuffs are good. Bread Talk do have some nice bread things. But really, when it first opened, I though it was a line for Halle Berry to kiss you silly. But nooooooooooo hundreds of people waiting in line to buy “abon bread.” What is this abon bread anyway? Just a bread with a prodigious amount of butter so that the abon will stick to the bread.

But hey, Bread Talk I can still enjoy. But Krispy Kreme? What’s up with that. It’s just doughtnut. D to the o to the u to the g to the h to the n to the u to the freaking t. DOUGHNUT. And it’s not just any kind of doughnut. It’s the type of doughnut that you’d get if you ever want to feel what it’s like to have diabetes. Seriously, the stuff is so unbearably sweet. If there was no line and I have to choose between Krispy Kreme and Dunkin Donuts, I’d pick the later. But I’m forgetting something: IT’S THE NEW TRENDY THING COMING FROM THE US! So we should all line up to destroy our kidneys, right?

The list goes on and on: Rotiboy, J.Co, Starbucks. The latest, aside from Sour Sally, is Burger King. Well, it’s a step ahead from McDonalds, but it’s still Burger King. But no, I’m not saying that I won’t ever try Burger King. Of course I will. I also go to McDonalds sometimes. I buy bread fro Bread talk. I drink over-priced coffee from Starbucks. I will try Krispy K… no nevermind. Who knows, maybe I will get an ephipany one day and try Sour Sally. But to wait in line for ungodly tens of minutes for yoghurt… no thanks. Besides, if I want something cold, I’d rather get myself Haagen Daaz. I’m such an unrepentant snob.

Speaking of which, you know the latest trendy ****? Blackberry. Yep. As if I need to check emails every ten minutes. Having said that, I won’t refuse if someone wants to give me a piece though.

I haven’t read the newspaper for quite a while now, so I don’t really follow Indonesian news. What’s the use? I only grow discouraged and angry every time I read the madness of Indonesia politicians, and it’s very seldom I see anything good or some really enlightening information.

But anyway, just for the heck of it, I read today’s Kompas. I just wanted to see what Hillary did on her visit here (a visit to a public bathhouse. Hmmm). And then I proceeded to the next pages and… lo! I found something interesting on the fifth page on the lower-left corner. It’s a section called “Spanduk Caleg,” or Legislative Candidate Banner. Well, that name doesn’t make sense - it’s actually a section where our legislative canditates are given a chance to say something about a predetermined topic to show how great they are so that the electorate may vote for them.

Interesting. I’ve been wanting to know who the heck are these people that litter every communities with their asinine posters and banners. So I read the section, and immediately I regretted it. The topic in this issue is: “How to improve the farmers’ welfare.” It’s choke full of generalization that doesn’t mean a thing. Well, to be fair, every one of them is allowed only two sentences or three at most.

However, here’s the worst one from Fathorrahman Khotib of Gerindra party for the 11th Madura district.

“One of the Maduranese’ jobs is agriculture, and I really am from the farming community, so I very much know the steps on how to improve the farming community in Madura.”

Yippi-ky-yay, that’s so reassuring Mr. Fathorrahman.

There’s one Saryono Jahidi of PKB for 10th West Java district that says, “whoever leads must be sure and brave to make Indonesia as an agricultural nation. Therefore there ahs to be a comprehensive agricultural development strategy.” Hmm, aren’t you going to be one of the leaders for the nation?

Eight candidates in the section, and none of them impresses me. Maybe I’m just too lazy to really find out the sources?

Finally, a much better version than that performance at a mall in Tangerang… sad… this kind of song… played in a mall at Tangerang.

Update: I forgot to mention… that accordion… awesome touch - very Xenogears-esque. Kudos to you, Erwin Gutawa.

Red Cliff II is a disaster movie. A cheap kungfu flick. John Woo made a great story into a dumb movie that rips of other movies. What the hell? They had a phalanx - turtle formation with big square shield to protect themselves from flames that could only be made from a napalm bomb dumped with a hundred truckload full of kerosene? That one scene alone killed half my brain capacity. John Woo, stop watching 300 too much. You’re so damn unoriginal. And then again, wouldn’t those guys inside that stupid turtle phalanx box be toasted to death? I mean, aren’t the shields good heat conductor? Wouldn’t that make nice roasted soldiers inside? And how about the hands that hold the shields? Wouldn’t they be burnt black? And the fuel for the kerosene-ignited-like fire? Fish oil? Give me a ****ing break.

Oh, this movie doesn’t deserve spoiler warning. I’m going to ruin it to save you with your money and 3 hours. Don’t even buy the 5,000 rupiah pirated copy some guy recorded from the cinema. I can think of thousands of better things to spend with that 5,000 rupiah. It could make you 5 instant coffee, or maybe a couple of instant noodles. You can even burn the 5,000 rupiah note and watch the fire. It’s much more entertaining.

There are approximately 12,882 things that went wrong with the movie. Like that complete rip-off from Saving Private Ryan. Huh? OK, ripping of 300 is one thing, but Saving Private Ryan??? They have this general making an amphibious assault. Well, still alright so far. But then there’s a soldier beyond the shield line that got an arrow stuck in his leg. So the general went to save him and pulled him to safety. But then there are three more arrows hitting him, killing him. But the general didn’t realize and still made the effort to save him. And then that Tom Hanks character looked back to realize that he’s only pulling half a body. Oh whoops. Wait a minute, where did I mix those two? Crap.

I know that John Woo “doesn’t want to take it all from the Romance of the Three Kingdom novel’ from Luo Guanzhong. That is fine. According to the interviews, he wants to base it loosely on the chronicles, i.e the recorded history. That’s fine. So I guess John Woo basically wants to remake the legend. In other words, John Woo wants to become another Luo Guanzhong. The problem is, John Woo doesn’t have one-tenth of the imaginative and brain capacity of Luo Guanzhong.  And so the legend is laughably remade to accomodate a cheap kungfu flick.

How cheap is the kungfu flick? By the way, Guan Yu was running on top of the shields of the turtle-phalanx formation.

…

OK now that I have cleaned my barf, let me tell you something very disastrous: in an effort to cast more women in the movie (admitedly, the story is very male-centric), John Woo decided that it would be great for Sun Quan’s little sister to run around Cao Cao’s camp spying and befriending a fat idiot - to create a human story of the destruction of war when the fat idiot is dead later with arrows, in a manner curiously very reminiscent to Empire of the Sun. OK, is there no other person in some million-odd people of the Wu country that couldn’t become a spy, so they had to send the king’s own sister to do it? What is the logic in that? She wasn’t sent to seduce, or give false information. She was sent to look around and draw map. Seriously, there’s noone else to send as a spy? I mean, sending a woman spy to an all male camp is itself a terrible idea. But on top of it, that woman is the sister of your king? So what would’ve happens if she get caught? She then becomes ransom? They put a sword on her neck to ask the heroes to kneel before the enemy? Who is stupid enough to think that it will work; that a bunch of generals and kings were willing to prostate themselves to save a general’s wife, or a king’s sister-in-law?

John Woo, is who.

Somehow, in this John Woo’s cheap kungfu flick, Zhou Yu’s wife Xiao Qiao departs to Cao Cao’s camp to EFFECTIVELY DESTROY HER HUSBAND’S MIND AND CONCENTRATION IN THE COMING WAR. Well, no. I couldn’t fathom an iota or good reason why she should leave. Is she sent there so there could be a stupid standoff with swords and someone taking hostage of her? Is she suffering from narcissitic disorder? She wants to be the center of attraction? Yeah, so she distracted Cao Cao with the minutiae of tea ceremony. But even if she wasn’t there, what does a few minutes do? I mean, do the ships travel in five minutes to the other side?

Judging to John Woo’s computer graphics, yes, the ships travel in five minutes. I laughed when I saw those fast speedboats ram Cao Cao’s fleets. Well, most of the ships ramming is realistic enough, but there’s one cut that is so jarring. I mean, if the wind is so strong that it drove those ships that fast, I expect some kind of wave or ripples on the water, and the boats that got rammed rock a little bit. I don’t know, you be the judge. What speed do you estimate the ramming boats to be? Oh sorry, don’t watch it.

Zhou Yu is just another stupid kungfu guy that kills a lot of people. I’m just glad that they didn’t make Zhuge Liang stoop that low. I was worried if Zhuge would suddenly jump and use his skills to make a fiery whip to beat down soldiers. Well, in fact, it was Zhao Yun who got that honor to use his sword and spear to manipulate fiery ropes into whips. Oh, and Zhao Yun is a champion pole-vaulter. And Cao Cao’s generals are all nameless, except Cai Mao and Zhang Yun. And they are ALL DEAD after the battle of Red Cliff. All of Cao Cao’s generals, dead, because Cao Cao doesn’t want to flee. Because Cao Cao wants to see them kneel, as Xiao Qiao is held hostage. You know who I think is smarter than Cao Cao? Mojo Jojo of Powerpuff girls.

Seriously, Mojo Jojo would win against John Woo’s Cao Cao.

But anyway, it’s interesting to see John Woo’s take on history. I mean, I myself would never imagine Zhou Yu to love Zhuge Liang so much and vice versa. I guess that’s what happens when John Woo watches Brokeback Mountain one time too many. Wow, that’s like, what, 10 cms distance between Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang when they talk? I mean, come on, I don’t even talk with my wife that close, and I’m talking about the pre-marriage still-hot era of talking with my wife. And I doubt I would be talking 10 cms with her nose to nose even if I don’t have such a horrendous breath. Now I quote my wife who made a comment when she saw the scene: “is the camera not wide enough?”

What’s up with the meatball scene. What a waste. I could’ve spent those minutes playing one of those stupid Facebook games.

And now I would like to apologize for my post of Curse of the Golden Flower. My standard have been destroyed by John Woo that I now have to say that Curse of the Golden Flower is a good movie. That last scene is still jarringly weird, but at least the movie is quite smart. The intrigue is believable and convoluted enough to be interesting. Curse’s only sin is the computer graphics running amok. In Red Cliff, it’s the whole story and premise running amok.

John Woo is a hack.

I was reminded about this movie when my cousin told me that he was watching it again. It’s a 1997 movie starring Jodie Foster about contact with extra-terrestrial beings, and let me just review it again here: it simply is the best movie and the best story about alien encounter there is.

I think about other alien movies that I know of: Alien, Predator, MIB, X-Files, Independence Day, E.T. Then I figure out that they are not to be compared to Contact. It’s a totally separate level between those movies and Contact. Well, Alien and Predator and Independence Day are simply about kill or be killed. Well, I’m not saying that I don’t like Independence Day, but it’s not to be compared with Contact. Then there’s the comedy - MIB. Then there’s the feel-good Disney-esque E.T. I guess the closest one would be X-Files, but that is also woefully short from Contact.

Unfortunately, my sense of Contact’s awesomeness is probably not shared by most people. My father didn’t like it: he thinks it’s boring, what with all the talking and no alien heads exploding. My wife didn’t have any lasting impression. She does remember seeing the movie, but she only remembers some snippets. So why do I think Contact is such a great movie, so great that I say it’s the best Alien movie there is? Well, let me tell you why in a humongous Spoiler below - highlight to read.

It simply is the most thought provoking movie about Alien contact. It’s not mindless entertainment - it probably is the most realistic portrayal of the possibility of an encounter with an extra-terrestrial being. But then, most of the movie is not about the encounter itself: 80% is talking about the implication and the planning for such an encounter. Consider how the movie portrays the usage of Hitler’s Olympic TV broadcast to send messages back - being the first widely broadcasted signal - and the implication to neo-nazism. I also like what is sorely missing from any alien-contact movies: the question on religious implications of such encounter. The movie portrays the religious conflicts, the extremism, the resistance of the idea of a different intelligent species in the cosmos. Furthermore, the protagonist, played by Jodie Foster, is actually questioned about her beliefs when the committee wants to decide on who to initiate the encounter, and that becomes detrimental because the committee doesn’t want to send someone who “thinks that 95% of the population is delusional.”

I especially liked the climax. I truly think that the point the protagonist’s speechless awe in witnessing the birth of a galaxy, and she said that “it’s beautiful… no words… they should have sent a poet” is one of the most touching line in the whole movie. And then the encounter with the alien itself - with so few words traded, but each are so meaningful. But then, the movie doesn’t end in a Disney-Movie happy ending of a hero’s parade after that. Given a lack of evidence, the protagonist has to confront the Congress who questions her testimony of her journey. And in a very ironic moment, the committee asks her: “so you are telling us to take your words… by faith?” A reversal of her position.

When I first watched it, I had no idea who wrote such a great story. Luckily, now we have Wikipedia and Youtube. I can now see the article about the movie Contact and actually watched again the awesome intro and climax. But then I learnt something from the Wikipedia page: Contact was based from a novel of the same name by Carl Sagan.

Carl Sagan, I’ve heard that name before. I’ve heard in several times in some forums. But I never knew who he was. So, thanks to Wikipedia, again, I checked on his page to find out who he was.

Turns out that he’s a great accomplished scientists. But that’s not why he’s popular. He’s popular because he explains cosmic science in the simplest terms that is accessible to layman’s term. He gives a fresh perspective to the big metaphysical questions that is based on science. And moreover, his quotations are quite lyrical.

“We are star-stuffs harvesting star-light.” - Carl Sagan

Thanks to the wonder of Youtube, even though I missed his TV production for PBS Cosmos, I could watch snippets of them from the internet. I like it when he tried to explain cosmic science. But most of all, I especially love his ponderings, like the “pale blue dot.”

“Think of the rivers of blood spilt by generals and emperors so that they may, in their triumph and glory, become temporary masters, of a fraction, of a dot.” - Carl Sagan

This 3 and a half minute clip should be a must see for all human beings. Every school children must see his Cosmos series. Perhaps then we can get rid of superstitions and actually immerse ourselves in science. It’s my duty to get the full collection and to show it to my kids when they’re around 10 years old.

However, I doubt that this clip could excite 1 out of 100 people. I mean, who cares about the cosmos? I can imagine most people’s reaction in watching this: “So what?” “Apaan sih Yen?” “Speaking of which, have you checked out that new Nokia?” *Sigh* I’m such an irreparable geeky dork.

In case you don’t know what “latah” means, it translated roughly to “so easily startled that it really is ridiculous.” Actually, that translation is not accurate yet. What’s missing in the description of “latah” is that the person being startled would repeat the latest word he or she had spoken, or just any random verb, noun, or adjective. For example, when a glass fall down and breaks into pieces, a “latah” person would then say “eh copot copot copot!” or “eh sapi!” or “eh botol!” or something as asininely stupid as that.

And don’t tell me that it is something innate within a person to be “latah.” No it’s not innate. It’s something conditioned, from watching how friends act and actually thinking that it’s funny. No it’s not funny. It’s annoying. I mean, I understand that people can be startled. But nowhere outside of Indonesia has this “latah” phenomenon that I know of.  So a plate crashed. So what. OK if you’re startled, you can turn your head to look and jump a little. You may even make some exclamation. But then you don’t repeat the last word of what you have just spoken. Can you imagine a British man saying something like this: “So, I understand that you went to Bali [sound of a door slammed] eh Bali! eh Bali!”

See how stupid it is? That’s why you don’t see this phenomenon anywhere else, but Indonesia. Which really proves the point that it’s not something innate, but learned.

I guess it’s part of a bigger problem regarding Indonesian jokes. I don’t know, maybe I’m just a damn arrogant snob. Well, sometimes Indonesian comedy can be funny. But there’s just this one problem: I’ve never seen any Indonesian comic do deadpan. They always laugh at their own jokes. And it’s not just any kind of laugh: it’s the cengengesan type of laugh, which I will not bother attempting to translate to English. And that’s the funny ones I found. A lot of them do “latah” type of joke and they laugh at it themselves, making no point whatsoever.

Tak Perlu Keliling Dunia

To be fair, it’s in a big part her father’s efforts. I’m not sure who composed it, but I assume it’s her father who arranged it. And it’s not exactly 100% original: the arrangement must be inspired by Yasunori Mitsuda or Maaya Sakamoto types. But still, dang….

I don’t know if any gamers who ever liked playing Square’s RPGs like FFIX or Xenogears could listen to this and not like it. *cough* You know, what kind of loon who enjoys Xenogears Creid album would listen to this and still thinks that Mariah Carey’s over-the-top screeching in a bland pop song to be better? *cough*

Citigroup just announced that they are letting go 50,000 staffs. In the mean time, the US automakers are crying as they are threatened with the possibility of bankruptcies. In the mean time, the auto union refused to make any concession. Way to go, better for everyone to die than workers to sacrifice - then again, the executives aren’t known to sacrifice their exorbitant salaries and bonuses.

Obama talked about bailing out the auto-industry and providing reeducation for the manufacture of green-technology products. It’s a great idea to help the workers in the long run, though in the short run they might suffer. However, I have a nagging question: what about the money-shufflers in Wall Street that got laid off by the thousands? What kind of retraining program should they get?

For an auto-worker, I think it won’t be a great seismic shift for their lives and psyche if they went from making car parts to solar panels. It won’t be much of a life changer if a waitress in a Chinese restaurant moves to become a waitress in an Italian restaurant. But there’s a legion of financial analyst, fund managers, day traders, and so on, who created their individual wealth by betting and hedging while providing little added value to the society as a whole. Will there be the same level of need for these types post-crisis as it were pre-crisis?

Don’t get me wrong, I do understand that financial institutions serve a purpose and actually provide value and service needed to the society: they are a great capital allocator - pooling money from people who have more of them but have no idea what to do with them to create return and loaning them to those who actually need money to make investments with good return. Fund managers also allocate investments to companies that perform. Not to mention these institutions’ role as facilitators to financial transactions.

But in the last two or three decades, as the US economy grew by the virtue of debt, there are legions of money-shufflers who played a zero-sum game. They work not to add any value, but to make bets on movements on index. Hedges are made against the movement of the value of a financial instrument, not on the financial instrument itself. I’m talking about the derivatives of the derivatives, the credit default swaps, and so on - financial products designed to game the system, not to create value or good investments. And they probably number to the millions in the whole wide world.

This means that there is a generation of people who only knew about the financial world - who knows the arcane rules of derivatives, the codes on indexes by heart, the slang and jargons that soon might be regulated out of existence or grew irrelevant. Question is, will the same kind of job in the same field be available after the crisis for these legions of money shufflers? How many brain power were, sorry to say, wasted in the game of financial derivatives in these last few years?

Anyway, I’m not sure if this is a big problem in the end - maybe they’ll all be employed back in the finance industry. Or maybe they could become entrepreneurs in the end. Or even if not, maybe they could re-enter educational process. I have no answer to this. Then again I’m just a stupid blogger that rants too much about things that I shouldn’t worry about.