random ramblings

Really cool site.. here
2 Gb of FREE photo storage space plus some advance photo editing tools ONLINE!! You can also log in to your picasa, facebook, flickr, etc album and edit your existing photos directly ONLINE from your web browser… the website interface is really cool too.
Really… is there anything better than this right now in the market? But keep in mind that this is for the average user, like me and you? :p …  of course this can’t replace Photoshop CS3 (which is too complicated for me) but may not be for some people.

Can you identify Polaris (aka the North Star? or BINTANG UTARA) in the sky ? I can !! Hendrik and I have been checking out the nightsky for a few days now haha… and we always could spot it right away..

This is so cool.. if you have 10 minutes to spare.. check this out and learn how to identify the Orion, Polaris, and even Jupiter !!

Wanna learn Chinese ?
check out chinesepod.com 
where you can download free daily podcast on lesson review, grammar introduction, vocabs. etc.

another new found online tool :

The Google 15

will start using it tomorrow morning to log my weight every day …

it’s been so long since my last post.. and i never got a new cellphone (see last post)… in fact, i actually went back to my old-full-of-scratch samsung .. but that’s a long story.. and i’m sure nobody is interested to hear hehe..

just found a new toy on the net..

Google Trends…  google.com/trends

see it for yourself…  if you’re sometimes too free like me and want to know what the world is searching…

hint : you can use comma to compare 2 keywords

Guess which country tops the list for searching "Miss Universe" these days ?  yep.. Indonesia.. of course that’s because the many controversies going on back home about our Miss Indonesia..  she’s pretty.. but she just can’t speak English..  in her interview on the official missuniverse website.. she said that "Indonesia is a beautiful city…"    whaaat ??

just wanna share a cute Korean website I found last week… useful if you’re looking for a cute avatar for MSN or for online boards / forums… hmmm i think can be used for cellphone wallpaper too.

let me show some sample images that I saved from this website …

… prepare for cuteness ..  hehe

here you go….

this one is from Goong, the popular Korean manhwa and now drama

  how pretty is this ??? luv the color and details

and this is from another popular k-drama last year.. My Name is Kim Sam Soon

that is Sam Soon and Sam Shik with the piggy doll in the series

and these are just random stuffs I thought were so cute.. i still don’t know what I’m saving them for.. I just can’t resist

more … there are really countless numbers of these cute dolls in that website

Kawaiiiii ne ? … couples now …

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 !!

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..

Nggak kerasa udah setaun nih gua nulis di blog ini    Didn’t realize it until just now .. I looked back to my early entries.. huehe aneh2 aja yg gua tulis post di sini … kayanya recently mostly cuma ttg makanan sama my weekend stories melulu yak ?  .. 

Btw ini pertama kali nya nulis pake bhs Indo .. maybe I should write more in Indo in the future :p  supaya bisa nulis2 ttg kerjaan .. stress nya kerja.. bos.. coworker dll.. kalo pake inggris agak serem sih apalagi ada bbrp orang kantor di friends list gua hahaha

hehe  ya udah lah ini post about nothing sebenernya cuma mau share some cool stuffs I just discovered on the net..

http://www.glitterkiss.com/

http://glitteryourway.com/

from these 2 websites you can create Glitters like these :

I had fun making them but ran out of words to make … from these two sites you can also find links to many others great similar websites out there.. lots of web goodies.. useful for those who have a blog or a website.