Filed under: ramblings
just came back from Patty’s place … dun think she was expecting us hehe.. she was frying some bakwan jagung when we arrived 
this was just posing for the camera… the bottle in the last picture was already empty
PS.. hate my upper lip .. hopefully hopefully it won’t stay like this forever.. hope not !
Filed under: music & film
I watched several k-dramas at the same time in the past couple of weeks… I always searched for the outtakes (they call it NG-NoGood Clips) and music videos of dramas that I am watching on youtube and I was surprised to find out that all of the episodes are actually available there too.. with English subtitle! How great is this ? Of course the quality is pretty poor.. but it’s still watchable.. and I guess this is good news for those people who just want to watch it once and don’t intend to collect or keep the dramas..
hehe youtube was just a new kid on the block just a year ago.. but now it’s already worth millions…It just secured a $11 million funding.. Check out these articles on BusinessWeek and Forbes. It’s amazing how a simple idea of making a website to share / stream videos could turn out this big. I should have thought of this idea .. Why didn’t I ? .. hehe anyways… back to k-drama
Oh! Pil-Seung Bong Soon-Young Good one. Funny, fast-paced, there’s no boring moment in the whole 16 episodes. Yes I didn’t hit the FF button this time. I think this is really an underrated drama, probably because the casts are older ? This is not a romance drama, and that’s probably why it’s such a refresher for me. It’s also different from other k-drama because the main focus of the story is from the guy’s point of view. Of course there’s still some love relationship but it’s not the focus of the story. Typically the main guy and the main girl in the story always love each other but have to overcome lots of problems from a 3rd party, right ? But here, the girl from the beginning and throughout the series likes the other guy ? And the other guy is not a villain type character either.. he also loves the girl.. so who should we support as we watch this ? hehehe. But again, the focus of the story is not the romance. It’s about a regular joe who suddenly finds himself as the heir of a big corporation, and about his struggles to run the company and to be accepted by his employees. Oh, at the end of each episode, there is a short clip of the “back” story of the different characters of event shown in the episode.. I had good laughs watching this one. Here’s Link to the youtube playlist.
Love Letter – this one is a melodrama.
hehehe I got teary eyed just halfway through episode 1. I’m not done watching this one yet… I think this one might be too slow for some people at some parts.. but I still think this is a good one to watch.. It’s about an orphan who was saved from his abusive aunt when he was young by his priest uncle and then was raised at an orphanage / Catholic church. Since then he dreamed of becoming a priest himself. But after he grew up there’s a girl who likes him… and he likes her too. So it’s about choosing between his love for God and for his childhood friend. Only recommended if you like sappy dramas or if you could use a good cry hehehe. Here’s the link to youtube playlist.
Only You – this is the last one .. I am also still watching this. I found this because I was looking at Jo-HyunJae’s profile and found out he did this drama. I liked him in Love Letter :p and now I like him even more after I see him here. hehehe. This one is about a girl and a guy who met in Italy and had a one night stand, the girl got pregnant but the guy never knew about it.. 6 years later they met each other in Korea .. the girl is a cook and the guy is a restaurant owner/manager and then the story goes.. Okay so the storyline is very “average” hehehe.. But I still am very into it because of the handsome face . I find the actress very pretty too. She’s nicknamed the Barbie Doll of Korea. Link to youtube playlist.
Filed under: ramblings
This time I don’t have much to tell. Hendrik kept saying how I look different and he kept telling people that there’s still swelling in my face .. hahaa let’s hope so.. What if this is it ??
We really didn’t do anything special. Probably the most relaxed weekend I’ve ever spent in Austin. Lots of time spent inside the house.. sleeping zzzzzz. We only went out to eat and then a couple trips to Home Depot because Hendrik had some work to do in his front and back yards. Picked up compost, dirt, etc. Oh.. we stopped by Barnes n Noble ( somehow we always ended up in a bookstore each time I am there ) and he bought me a book on "Teach yourself Korean"
He really really wanted me to "learn" and do something useful in my free time hahaha.. He said I’m too "nyantai"… well of course nyantai comparred to his crazy schedule… (fulltime job ~50 hrs/week + 2 kendo practice + 1 chinese lesson + group meetings + studying + weekend classes) Since I’m so into k-drama these days I might as well get something out of it… Well months ago I already started some readings on Korean language .. I even wrote about it in this blog… but then after a week or two, I lost my interest well not completely.. I’m still keen on learning it, but I just kinda got lazy learning it the serious way…
Filed under: ramblings
It’s been 3 weeks since my surgery.. I think it’s preety safe for me to post pictures now 
My upper lip area is still a little swollen.. the area around my nose / mid-face is also still a little bit numb. My upper gum is still VERY numb. When I brush my teeth, I can’t feel whether I’m brushing the teeth or the gum.
Anyways to people who didn’t know me before, I probably already look normal from every angle ..
I took pictures daily during my first week .. but I think they’re too scary for the public hehe.. so I’ll just give you a glimpse of how I look in the hospital.. that was the morning after my surgery.. and then the next 3 pictures were after 1 week, 2 weeks, and 3 weeks (today). I went
So here goes… 
How different do I look from before ??? Between last week and this week, my upper lip swelling has gone down a little. My mom and brothers said I look VERY different.. thoughts ? Please comments hehehe
But remember. … I’m still recovering I still have a long way to go… The doctor told me that it can take up to 9-12 months for a "final" … I certainly hope so. I am not liking this upper lip right now..
here’s my pic last year for comparison…
I’ll post before after pic of close-ups of my teeth later when I’m done with braces.
Filed under: geek
Check out the next generation of MSN Messenger.. it’s got a new name : Windows Live Messenger.. for the last few months you have to get an invitation to try this out .. but now it’s open to everyone..
Click here – just sign up, download, and install it.. use your regular login & password of course.. unless you haven’t already an account.
They have a blog dedicated to the development .. check it out to see what new features it has .. It’s still BETA though.. so it might still be buggy
If you’re gonna stick with the current version of MSN Messenger for a while.. try out this neat trick I just learned.. See how I have a cute little ducky on the lower right corner of my messenger window ?
You can do this with the regular MSN .. Get your favorite gif file ( still image or animated, up to you.. as long as it’s in GIF format, JPG doesn’t work ) .. rename it to LVback.gif and drop it in C:\Program Files\MSN Messenger .. log out and log back in your messenger and tadaaa it will show up as your background !
Btw.. what’s up with all the advertisements in Friendster now ? They’re everywhere.. so irritating !!
Filed under: geek
I finally got it done.. after going through all the documents and typing them all of the numbers into Taxcut. It took me approximately 4 hours last night.. equaivalent of half day of work .. and all that just to find out that in the end I still owe the Fed $869 and Indiana state $200 !!!! Last year I only owed a total of about 1/3 of that and I already was pretty unhappy .. I guess we have to look at this from the other side.. I only had to pay this much in taxes only because I did earned substantially more money than before
Actually the first part of tax filing was easy.. if I only have just one source of income (work), then I would still get about $500 refunds… then I have to include all the interests I got from my savings account, and then hassle begins when I had to enter every single stock purchase and sale transaction for the whole year, plus I had to double check with all the paper statements that I had. As I entered each stock profit that I got, I watched my refund$ dropped and dropped until it became minus .. -_-
Hendrik’s not done yet .. his situation is even much more complex since he’s a home owner, plus a student, and he had more expenses that he can deduct ( lawyer fee for his greencard application, etc. ) .. actually it means he might get a good refund this year but all that paperwork is not fun at all.
I found out that next year I can deduct my medical cost for my surgery and also I have to remember to get receipts this year when I donate stuffs.. I only had receipts for cash donation last year, and it’s really not much, so I ended up not claiming them. Another thing is I plan to claim my brother as my dependent next year (for 2006) hahahaha.. so I can deduct his tuition cost…
We started using a tax software to help preparing our tax filing 2 years ago, and there’s no turning back. With this much complications, there’s no way I’m gonna do this the traditional way on paper manually.
After I was done, I got several different reports .. like a report comparing my case with the average American in the same tax bracket.. how much money i avoided in tax by investing it in 401k .. and then a report of my numbers compared to last year’s… and this graph .. summarizing how my income is divided, how much really did I get to take home ?
So there.. for those of you wondering how much are we taxed in the US ? you can see from the graph above .. Well.. I’m so glad this is done..
Filed under: music & film
My Everything – Glen Fredly
cruising when the sun goes down
i cross the sea
searching for something inside of me
i would find all the lost pieces
hardly feel deep in real
i was blinded now i see
* hey hey hey you’re the one
hey hey hey you’re the one
hey hey hey i can’t live without you
reff: take me to your place
where our heart belongs together
i will follow you
‘coz you’re the reason that i breath
i’ll come running to you
fill me with your love forever
promise you one thing
that i would never let you go
‘coz you are my everything
you’re the one, you’re my inspiration
you’re the one kiss, you’re the one
you’re the light that would keep me safe and warm
you’re the one kiss, you’re the one
like the sun goes down coming from above all
to the deepest ocean and highest mountain
deep and real deeep i can see now
repeat *
repeat reff
link to video on youtube
Filed under: ramblings
For the first time in my 7 years in Indiana (*sigh* it’s really been THAT long).. I am observing Daylight Savings Time, simply meaning that I lost one hour of sleep this weekend. I haven’t changed the clocks in my apartment, but my computer and cellphone’s already changed automatically .. so for the next 6 months the time difference between here and Bandung is 11 hours .. jadi 9AM in Bandung = 10 PM here.
This weekend I did not step out of my apartment at all. What did I do ? Sleep, tv, movies, and internet, the usual. I know it’s pretty pathetic ^_^ I was thinking of driving up to Purdue to visit Tin2 for the last time. She’s going home for good today. In fact her plane already departed from Indy airport a couple of hours ago .. But I changed my mind about driving up there at the last minute. I asked Meggie what plans they had for the weekend and I already figured they must have a full plate, since it’s her last days here. In Meggie’s words "Tin2 kan celebrity ci, jadi ya of course lah banyak acara" .. yeah and plus it would be too sad for me to have to cook bubur over there since I still can’t eat outside :p Eating out (Kokoro, Hana, etc) has been one of the main reasons for me to keep visiting my old campus But good thing I didnt go out because we had really really bad thunderstorms and heavy rains for hours yesterday and I wouldn’t want to be out on the road in that kind of weather.
Another excuse was that I had stuffs to do. I was planning to get my tax return done.. but u-uh, still nothing yet. Both Hendrik & I are procrastinating to the max in this matter :p Some people I know already receive their refund checks weeks ago, and we haven’t even installed the software yet (been using TaxCut the past 2 years). Well it’s probably because for the past 2-3 years we always ended up owing some money. Therefore we do not have the excitement to get this done asap -_- all that work for having to pay more tax.. or get almost nothing back .. but we’re planning to get this done tonight.. cross fingers..
Back to my boring weekend.. I watched 2 indo movies .. Cinta Silver and 9 Naga. Thanks to Kimpeng for uploading the first one ..he posted the direct download links in his blog. He said that he might post more in the future and maybe we should open a distro for indo movies since he now has access to a lot of them hehehe.. an Indonesian resto in Atlanta is selling homemade copies of indo vcds.. haha
My thought on Cinta Silver was it was not bad, watchable lah haha but nothing special.. well the story is a little different than other indo movies that I watched recently (mostly, maybe all of them were teen movies – ABG style). The actress, Luna Maya, I thought was very prety… but what’s up with the actor ? I didn’t find him attractive at all.. hehehe The OST was very good though.. now I can’t get "You Are My Everything" by Glenn Fredly out of my head…
And for 9 Naga.. I think I saw its posters and ads when I went home last December .. it looked pretty promising and it turned out ok too hehehe.. the pace is a little slow and the Malay subtitles were a little annoying :p but it’s kinda fun to watch how some Indo words were translated into Malay. The word "bencong" was used quite frequently .. and it’s translated as "bapuk" … hehehe so don’t say "Bapuk lo !" to a Malaysian because it can be interpreted differently :p
Both movies I can recommend to overseas Indonesians who miss home .. but don’t expect too much out of them
