Music: Orion - The Hunter

It was when I watched a drama where the actor looking at the clear night sky and pointed to star constellation called Orion that trigger my memory about a rock band with the same name.

Back in 1984, when I was still in high school and as big fans of heavy slow rock (I collected about 20+ cassette tapes of heavy slow rock compilation), there was one song that I like from one of the heavy slow rock compilation called Dark and Stormy which was sang by Orion, a newly formed rock band. Later I went and bought their one and only album, The Hunter. It consists of 9 songs, two of them are heavy slow rock: Dark and Stormy and Joanne. But, their hit song is So You Ran, you can watch its video in YouTube here.

Read from Wikipedia (read it here) and some web articles about this rock band, it was formed out of boredom of ex-Boston band member, Barry Goudreau, together with one of ex-Heart band member. So, it might be the answer why it only produced one album.

Well, actually their album is not bad and the songs quite nice and honestly that time I was waiting for their next album which never happen. But, it's alright... I still can enjoy their songs - a complete album - in Imeem, here.

GMail - It's 7GB Now..... and still increasing.....

Just for record, as per today 24-Sep-2008, GMail capacity has reached 7GB and it still keep increasing.... but in slower speed.

Wish it can be unlimited storage as Yahoo!Mail....

Music: My Childhood Memory - Boney M, Shirley Bassey, and Led Zeppelin Album Cover

During my childhood - in my early primary school - there are two singers that I remember most, Shirley Bassey with her 'Never Never Never' song (listen here) and Boney M with their 'Brown Girl In The Ring' song (listen here), very popular during 70s era. Sure, it is not because I was fans of them but it was my big brother and sisters were their fans and bought their album so I am too listened to those songs.

I didn't remember their album cover though, well probably they were not impress enough to be remembered. But, there is one music album cover which still fresh in my memory till now. Initially I don't know which singer/band it was, but later I found out that it is Led Zeppelin album cover. Well, it only consists picture, not words at all... but don't know why it can be easily kept in my memory... probably pity on that old man carrying the woods.

Life: World Financial Crisis and Some Memories of Them

This week was a hectic and scary week for financial market. Started with the bankruptcy filing by Lehman Brothers, a prominent and global name investment bank, Merrill Lynch 'surrender' itself to Bank Of America, and AIG liquidity problem were surfaced and shocked the already fragile market and sent the world stock markets to free fall. Then came the rescue from US Fed and Treasury by bailing out AIG and flood the financial market with the necessity liquidity in tandem with the most major countries' central banks. Stock market rebound in a very dramatic way... like a roller coaster!!

Sure there some other big and well-known companies failure before, like Baring Plc, a 233 years institution, which was collapsed in hand of one person (Nick Leeson) in a very risky derivatives trading. Or, the well-known Andersen Consulting (now known as Accenture) lost its reputation and good name due to Enron scandal. And, also Bear Stearns 'swallowed' by JP Morgan Chase 6-months ago due to liquidity issue because of mortgage problem in US market. Big names and reputation can be wiped out in just a very short time when it was not managed properly.

Well, for me, in my over 40 years of life, I have seen quite numbers of similar things happened. Back to the first Asian-lead financial crisis which started with bubble burst in Thailand, it sent tsunami effect to the whole Southeast Asian countries, especially Indonesia which was hit very hard. I witnessed how Indonesian currency, Rupiah, free fall from around 3,000 per US Dollar to at one time hit 15,000 per US Dollar (now stabilizes at 9,200 per US Dollar) and prices of goods increased dramatically. People panic since their money worth much less - even though for some who diligently held US Dollar instead of Rupiah, it meant a huge windfall. Then, businesses struggling and collapsing, so as banks - mostly because they were not managed properly.

But, among all of those bad memories, there was one scene which I still remember very clearly and probably the most famous scene during the Asian Monetary Crisis. It was when Indonesia President that time, Soeharto, had to sign a no-choice-agreement with IMF as the last resort to survive the country from collapsing. The live coverage of him signing the agreement while the IMF head standing with hands folded on his chest (see picture below) - looks like a 'look down' for majority of people who watched it, the sentiment that I also felt that day. It looked like surrender kind of ceremony.... well, indeed, Indonesia lost control on its own monetary by signing that agreement for quite numbers of years until all IMF loans repaid. Such a bitter pill to swallow...

FYI: King Penguin Nils Olav

Source: National Geographic on Animal Photos Weekly.

FYI: Whacky Definitions

Well... got this in email from my friend, kind of twisted definition but quite true...

Here it is:

School: A place where Papa pays and Son plays.
Life Insurance: A contract that keeps you poor all your life so that you can die Rich.
Nurse: A person who wakes u up to give you sleeping pills.
Marriage: It's an agreement in which a man loses his bachelor degree and a woman gains her masters.
Tears: The hydraulic force by which masculine willpower is defeated by feminine waterpower.
Lecture: An art of transferring information from the notes of the Lecturer to the notes of the students without passing through 'the minds of either'
Conference: The confusion of one man multiplied by the number present.
Compromise: The art of dividing a cake in such a way that everybody believes he got the biggest piece.
Dictionary: A place where success comes before work.
Conference Room: A place where everybody talks, nobody listens and everybody disagrees later on.
Boss: Someone who is early when you are late and late when you are early.
Politician: One who shakes your hand before elections and your Confidence after.
Doctor: A person who kills your ills by pills, and kills you by bills.
Classic: Books, which people praise, but do not read.
Smile: A curve that can set a lot of things straight.
Office: A place where you can relax after your strenuous home life.
Yawn: The only time some married men ever get to open their mouth.
Etc.: A sign to make others believe that you know more than you actually do.
Committee: Individuals who can do nothing individually and sit to decide that nothing can be done together.
Experience: The name men give to their mistakes.
Atom Bomb: An invention to end all inventions.

FYI: Some Jokes - Teacher & Kids

Got these jokes from my friend today, just want to share... quite funny.

Here it is:

TEACHER : Maria, go to the map and find North America ..
MARIA : Here it is.
TEACHER : Correct. Now class, who discovered America?
CLASS : Maria.
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TEACHER : John, why are you doing your math multiplication on the floor?
JOHN : You told me to do it without using tables.
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TEACHER : Glenn, how do you spell "crocodile?"
GLENN : K-R-O-K-O-D-I-A-L
TEACHER : No, that's wrong
GLENN : Maybe it is wrong, but you asked me how I spell it.
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TEACHER : Donald, what is the chemical formula for water?
DONALD : H I J K L M N O.
TEACHER : What are you talking about?
DONALD : Yesterday you said it's H to O.
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TEACHER : Winnie, name one important thing we have today that we didn't have ten years ago.
WINNIE : Me!
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TEACHER : Glen, why do you always get so dirty?
GLEN : Well, I'm a lot closer to the ground than you are.
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TEACHER : Millie, give me a sentence starting with "I."
MILLIE : I is...
TEACHER : No, Millie..... Always say, "I am."
MILLIE : All right... "I am the ninth letter of the alphabet."
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TEACHER : George Washington not only chopped down his father's cherry tree, but also admitted it. Now, Louie, do you know why his father didn't punish him?
LOUIS : Because George still had the axe in his hand.
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TEACHER : Now, Simon, tell me frankly, do you say prayers before eating?
SIMON : No sir, I don't have to, my Mom is a good cook.
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TEACHER : Clyde , your composition on "My Dog" is exactly the same as your brother's. Did you copy his?
CLYDE : No, teacher, it's the same dog.
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TEACHER : Harold, what do you call a person who keeps on talking when people are no longer interested?
HAROLD : A teacher

Life: My Old Days Reading

Like many people, I love reading. It is source of unlimited information and a way to keep me up-to-date and learn many things in my life. Different from many years ago, where computer and internet words not even born yet, nowadays most of things can be read in website and online publication.

My reading habits started with children magazine of my time. Then, I started reading newspaper as my father did. I did follow day-to-day news and quite knowledgeable of what happenings in the world.

Like other kids, I also like comics. But, I just read selectively, my favorites are Adventure of Tintin & Snowy (of course with Captain Haddock with his curses, genius but weird Professor Calculus, and the dumb & funny Thomson & Thompson), Smurf (with its funny sentences containing 'smurf'), Lucky Luck (he shoots faster than his shadow! and of course his funny horse Jolly Jumper), and Asterix & Obelix (with that nonsense drink that make them so powerful for a limited time). I only bought couple of them, the rest just borrow from friends... well, I came from simple family so not enough budget to buy things considered 'luxury' for me at that time. Wish I have such collection of those comics... it is still fun reading them.
I read in the news that Steven Spielberg is preparing to make a series of movies on Adventure of Tintin. Great... I'll watch it then.

For novel, I read Famous Five - story about 5 kids' exciting adventures - which is very popular that time, Agatha Christie's murder mistery novels (with its famous detective, Hercule Poirot - with his brilliant little grey-cells brain - who died in the last novel after he made himself a murderer to stop a smartest murderer), Sydney Sheldon's The Other Side of Midnight, and Alistair McLean's James-Bond-like adventure novel (e.g. Guns of Navarone, Nuclear in Carribean, etc.) where the lead character in his novel always experiencing die hard kind of experience. Most of the books, I borrowed from my school library.

I stop reading those books since high school, probably due to more and more study materials, especially during university time, and worse now because of internet and online publications. The only books that I read only computer related books that I borrowed from library. I didn't read novel anymore... would prefer watch them on TV, DVD, cinema, or online.

With virtually unlimited source of free information available online in internet, why should I bother buying a book or magazine or newspaper?

Korean Drama: Wedding

Different from typical Korean Drama which exploits fate and destiny, too much and perfect co-incidence, ill one side love, ill characters, intrigues, dirty tricks, cinderella-kind-of-story, and so on, "Wedding" offers a down-to-earth, real and simple story about two persons who met, attracted to each other, then decided to get married, experiencing jealousy, hurts, arguing, just believe in own thinking, perception and point-of-view, selfishness, and secrets.

Nice thing about this drama, it has no ill character (if any, non-intentional), just act as per normal and really depends of the nice storyline, good and meaningful conversations, plus beautiful poem quotes. It really look like J-Drama that I used to watch, rely on strong, interesting, and meaningful conversations plus characters conflicts & interactions. I like this kind of drama because I can compare, reflect, and even learn something from it.

The lead actor/actress, Ryu Shi Won and Jang Nara, fits nicely into the leading role characters. Good choice though.

As usual it has nice theme song, and unusually, it quotes a beautiful poem (I still searching from which book it was quoted and who was the writer, please do let me know if you have information about it...).

Here it is: (as quoted from the drama subtitle)

When the sunlight touches the ground, I miss you
When the shadow of the moonlight slowly climbs up, I miss you
When the dust finally settles down, I'd see you
Meeting in the deep night, I still can see your shadow

When the waves crash, I hear your voice
As everyone falls asleep in the midst of quite forest, I hear your voice
No matter how far, I'd be by your side
You'd be by my side, When the sun sets and the stars shines

Ah... If only you're by my side