Jujur saja, saya sedikit sedih karena ternyata hubby tidak menyiapkan hadiah valentine apa-apa (hiks padahal saya dengan semangat 45 bikinin hubby scrapbook dan beli Pocky ). Yea.. maybe that’s what happen when people got married, no Valentine’s gift necessary! Huhuhu….

Tapi kemudian saya pun mencoba untuk melihat sisi baiknya, ya sudah lah pikir saya, toh tanggal 14 itu cuma satu hari di kalender yang ga penting-penting amat, dan waktu itu hubby juga lagi banyak beban pikiran. Tidak sepantasnya saya sedih-sedih nggak jelas cuma gara-gara Valentine’s day.

Ternyata hubby mengendus kekecewaan ( ya iyalah ! secara semua cewe lain di dunia ini dapet mawar dan lain-lainnya , cuma saya yang engga !! raawwrr !! ), dan tiba-tiba, minggu lalu saya mendapat surprise gift, hubby membelikan saya anting kupu-kupu perak , diimport langsung dari Kota Gede Jogjakarta. Yayy !! Dan hubby bilang katanya ini untuk Valentine’s day yang sedikit dia lupakan ! Yayy !! I love my hubby !

Update lain yang sedikit penting, setelah dengan susah payah mencoba untuk merencanakan kumpul-kumpul dengan gank saya yang manis-manis, akhirnya kami bisa ketemuan dan melahap pizza bareng di CL.Kayaknya emang acara kumpul-kumpul nggak bisa terlalu direncanakan, harus agak-agak spontan, karena kalau di-planning kebanyakan pasti ada saja halangannya. Acara kumpul-kumpul pun diakhiri dengan belanja hadiah buat Icha yang dalam hitungan hari akan melahirkan hihihihiihiii… Apa aja yang kami beli? Ada bottle sterilizer, botol2 dot susu komplit dengan sikatnya, dan baby’s diary. Yay ! Bokek deh…

Last but not least , saya menemukan Ddung kecil di PIM dan langsung saya adopsi ! Dia sekarang bertugas menjaga kunci-kunci saya, kerja yang baik ya , Ddung !

Sekian update dari saya, nantikan kabar-kabar seru selanjutnya haha

Am I too old for these ? >< sigh...

I never dreamt of having a credit card. I never wanted one. I associate credit card with complexity. It looks like a piece of plastic that promises to simplify but ended up adding complexity to your life.

So, clearly, I never had one. I successfully avoided every attempt of luring me into using one: I took a different route when I saw cc (short for credit card, not carbon copy) sales lurking around and quickly hung up the phone when some banks tried to persuade me for having one.

However, it seemed that the furious cc battle among banks have made them desperate. One morning, I received an envelope from my bank, and guess what, a shiny credit card miraculously appeared there! Hey, I never asked for one ! There was a note next to the card, ” Please call xxxxx to activate your credit card.”
So I thought, “that’s easy, I don’t have to activate this card!”.

Three days afterwards, my phone rang. It was from the bank and the lovely lady gladly announced, ” Mam, your credit card is ready for use now. I’ve activated it for you! Your card is a platinum and you can withdraw up to xxxxx million rupiah, you’re also given 50% discount if you’re shopping and dining at xxxxx , there will be no administrative charge for the first year and you’ll get an access to the airport lounge and basically you can live happily ever after with your card. Do you have any question about your card?”
My question was , ” How can I cancel this?”.
But she insisted that I try the card for at least a year.

So I thought, fine ! I’ll succumb to your temptation and see if I can actually do something good with this plastic for a year !

Not long after, Irene told me about her cc woes, how her bank is driving her insane and forced her to pay an amount of money to prolong her cc use to another year. It’s quite funny how they actually rejected her appeal for cancelling the cc ! See, I’d knew it ! Cc is nothing but pain ! Maybe I should really cancel that card now, before they’re forcing me to pay for an extra year!

Why do people think they ‘need’ credit cards ? I know some people have more than three credit cards with them. Will I ever ‘need’ one ?

Wishing everyone a happy, fun, prosperous new year !

The tiger year gets me thinking, how many famous tiger cartoon characters are out there ? I mean, we have lots of dogs characters – Scooby Doo, Pluto, Goofy, and lots more, cats are also kind of overplayed – Garfield, Doraemon (earless, but cat, nonetheless), Hello Kitty, Felix the Cat, etc etc . But what about tigers ??? Isn’t this the right time to get to know them and possibly love them ??

1. Tigger – Winnie the Pooh

I think he’s the best character in Winnie the Pooh. I find piglet unbearable, eeyore depressing and winnie too silly. Tigger though, is always bouncy and full of excitement.

2. Hobbes – Calvin and Hobbes

I always find this duo funny, twisted in many ways. It seems that Hobbes is only alive in Calvin’s imagination because he often appear as stuffed toys when other people are around. Very interesting. Hobbes is the more rational of the two.

3. Tony the Tiger – Kellog’s Frosties

Tony is not very popular in Indonesia, except maybe among children whose parents can afford Kellog’s cereals.

4. Master Tigress – Kungfu Panda

She’s awesome ! I love her skills ! ^^

5. Shere Khan – Junglebook

This one’s evil.

6. Cringer – He Man
I never liked He-Man, so I forgot about this character too.

And Irene said her favorite tiger character was Chester Cheetah from Cheetos, well, he’s not exactly tiger, he’s more like a cheetah. But because Chester is too funny to miss, I’ll include a picture of him here:

Well my point is, I think tigers deserve better ! They are too cute to be missed, I hope we can continue to see more tigers in movies, TVs, everywhere.

In Indonesia, we conserve the tigers by naming three skimpily clad singing-dancing girls “Trio Macan” (The three tigers) >< . They're quite a roaring success.

Happy Tiger Year ! 恭喜发财，万事如意，主里蒙恩！

Well Jakarta, you are what your people are!

I found a very very cool tool called the wewe* calculator. A calculator that checks how selfish and self-absorbed your corporate website. The new rule: you should not use too many “we”s in your websites/brochures/whatever publications or you will risk your company sounding like a rude, arrogant, selfish company.
Instead, you have to write for your readers and address them accordingly, read this to get better picture.
I checked one of PU’s page and the calculator gave me this:

Someone should improve that.
And from now on, everything published by Infinitum must pass the wewe calculator, yet counting “we”s alone isn’t enough to see if what you write will be effective. I wonder if they’ve made a gobbledygook calculator somewhere?

(*) Indonesians: this calculator doesn’t do ghosts check

Finally, someone new and he sings in Cantonese. There is hope in HK music scene after all .
I was wondering why his name sounds like a Moslem’s name, and found out that Khalil Fong’s religion is Baha’i. Out of curiosity , I searched what Baha’i is, from what I read, it seems like a spin-off from the Islamic faith. This religion is prohibited in Indonesia, that’s probably why I never heard of it. Nonetheless, I love this song.

The lyrics (in scarily complex unsimplified Chinese) – I’m hoping I’ll find someone kind enough to produce the romanised version of it and possibly translates it too , haha ^.^

是他也是你和我
同相親相愛也相爭
大家偶遇在人海
你我各留痕
幾許歡與笑
多少愛和恨
那狂潮捲起
燦爛又繽紛
是苦也是甜美
人生的喜惡怎麼分
大家各自尋找
你我心中印
幾許哭與歎
多少假與真
讓狂潮起跌
混合愛和恨
是他也是你和我
同悲歡喜惡過一生

My phone was a Nokia something – can’t remember the series name. It was on sale in Carrefour and I needed a phone that can make/receive phone calls, send/receive text messages and be my alarm clock. Nokia something had all the features I needed, comes in a very very good price too, so without second thought, I grabbed it of the aisle and paid it in the cashier. It was that easy!

I was delighted to find that my Nokia something has nice limited polyphonic ring tones and colours – you see, these features have surpassed my expectations on my mobile phone ^^.  I also love how it has no camera whatsoever. The only downside, it has a highly limited phonebook space so I have been deleting old acquaintances’ phone numbers in favour of newer ones (cruel, i know).

Another good thing about that awesome Nokia something is that I can constantly change its cover! The latest one I had was Donald Duck.

Nokia something has been an object of ridicule among the uber-fashionable Jakartanese because janitors, students, and everyone else seemed to have fancier mobile phones than me. Even hubby believed that I should change my phone. For me, a mobile phone is simply a device that allows me to make phone calls, receive calls, send text messages and eliminate the need to carry bulky alarm clocks! I always thought that if I ever need a camera or mp3 player, I don’t need them integrated to my phone. My other excuse is safety. Carrying fancy cool latest mobile phone in Jakarta, makes you an easy crime target, and it will hurt so much more if you have wasted 1 month salary, surviving only with instant noodles in order to buy that phone!

However, now that the LCD screen is badly scratched I can barely see the display, and I noticed that there’s something very wrong with the speaker. So I thought maybe hubby is right. It’s time for me to embrace a fancier phone. Thankfully, hubby has two phones and he’s more than willing to part with one of them so I don’t have to waste money on a new phone.

Ta daaaa….

Sleek and nice. It’s Motorola V something … haha Thank you hubby !!

Today is mum’s birthday ! If I weren’t such a stubborn and demanding baby, my birth could have been postponed to match my mum’s birthday , then we both will always celebrate birthdays together. Happy birthday mama ! I hope you will always be in good health and wished you plenty of happiness too. And of course, you will always have us to argue and debate about whatever stuffs with you ^^.

Readers, here’s my mum (in red qipao) during our wedding reception:

I always thought Sarah Jessica Parker looks kinda like the younger , Caucasian version of her:

Haha, maybe I was wrong, but whenever I watched SATC and saw Carrie Bradshaw, I got reminded of mum.