not for the insomniacs

I didn't sleep well last night. In a good way. I saw it coming, when it came it sucked, but I deserved it, I think. But it was because of something good.

See, back then in my senior year of high school, I always put my alarm to go off at midnight. Reason: I want to watch Newsradio. At that time, between all the other comedy series shown at midnight in Indonesia (including later, The Ellen Show, Murphy Brown, but not Friends. Friends was shown Sunday afternoon.), I connected the best with Newsradio.

The only problem was, after waking up for thirty minutes, laughing, most of the times out loud, I could not go back to sleep immediately. Adrenaline rush? Endorphin drunk? Happiness high? I think a combination between those three. Sometimes I'd lay in front of the TV for 2 hours not going back to sleep (but of course you have to know that at that time, I went to bed like 8 at night, and fell asleep no later than 9).

Learning from that, I always carefully schedule my watching comedy series schedule, so that it won't interrupt my sleeping pattern.

I succeeded to do all that until last night, when I have The Office season 5 DVDs in hand and deliberately decided that I could not wait any longer to know the story between Jim and Pam before I will finally see the grand wedding (Oh my God! Wikipedia editors already changed Pam's last name to Halpert!). So I prepared my dinner, sat on the couch, and started the first double episode. And then the next one. And the next one. And one. And before I knew it, I was drawn directly into putting the next next and next discs and started a marathon.

The marathon lasted until a wee bit after midnight. Fun times.

iTunes knows me so well

Hell to the no!

But at least it is not "What I Did for Love."

it was once said that Roger Federer ...

... kept winning because he was really nice, making people not want to beat him.

So, how about the also really nice Rafael Nadal this year, then?

However, congratz to these amazing players. It's always entertaining to see them both.

your broadway weekend

Wanting to see that Australian Women's Finals this afternoon with having nothing to do while waiting? Starting to rummaging through YouTube and stumble to some awesome videos that will keep you busy? Oh. Is it just me?

Well, at least, I think these two videos below are exemplary. One, is a modern twist of a classic (my favorite) number from a classic (my favorite) musical: "What I Did for Love", from A Chorus Line. Sung by Mary J. Blige, a smorgasboard of my favorite things.



But wait. This second video is even better. A classic twist of a classic number from a classic musical, sung by one of my favorite actors/people in the world. Sunset Boulevard from Sunset Boulevard by John Barrowman a.k.a I still can't believe that he is not as famous as he could possibly be.



I just love his boyish and playful timbre.

Enjoy!

on commitment and letting go - WordCamp Indonesia 2009

Each of the top 75 American Idol 4 contestants had to stand in front of Randy, Paula, and Simon singing their choice of song without any back up whatsoever. Before they started singing, they had to say the things they learned that week. If I were one of them, and if the week was last week, I would have said, "This week, I learned about commitment and letting go," as last weekend, I attended WordCamp Indonesia 2009, a forum privately organized by Valent Mustamin.

The forum gathered WordPress freaks from all over the world quite literally and figuratively. There were bloggers, developers, designers, theme designers, end users, publicists, marketers, educators, from Indonesia, Malaysia, and the USA. Well, alright. From Indonesia, Malaysia, and one from the US.

Throughout the whole two-day event, there is only one thing in- and exhaled by every single one people at Erasmus Huis auditorium: Commitment. I have never seen such strongly committed group at an event before.

It is only fair though, since one of the reasons behind the thriving of WordPress is its committed community. Initially conceived as a technology to automatically convert a double prime into a double quotation mark, WordPress grew to be a (if not the most) potential tool that reshapes how the people use and develop the internet.

It looks like that commitment is also hailed by the WordPress co-developer, Matt Mullenweg, who flew thousands of miles to see us, and generously shared some behind-the-curtain peek on WordPress' history, present, and future. He also informed us that Indonesia, a country with less than 10% penetration of the internet, is actually a strong force to be reckon with at Wordpress.com. Cool.

He and other speakers that include Romi Satria Wahono, Nanda Ivens, Nukman Luthfie, and a number of panelists, also shared their experience in dealing with WordPress, conveying a second lesson for me: letting go.

Matt shortly explained that letting go the feeling to control everything (in other word, delegating) was one of the keys to his success. Nanda implied that we need to start moving forward and letting go the complete cover-up of anything said about us or our products.

Romi let us know some of the techniques that he uses to use blogging as to educate his students. Nukman pointed out that letting go some closely guarded internal information and loosening the membrane to our customer was the point of new marketing, while the panels were letting go the sense of exclusivity of their projects, so that we were able to learn from them.

All and all, the highlights of the event was when Matt admitted that he is a typography freak, which for me, answers a LOT of questions to answer why I am so drawn to WordPress. I told him, that WordPress got me at "Hello," he wittily corrected saying that WordPress got me at "Howdy." Of course he's right.

It is also fair to say that we were all starstruck by the man behind WordPress, who is very real and approachable. I coyly apologized for being late to realize that it was his birthdayweek, and wished him happy birthweek. To that, he responded, "Oh, thanks and no problem. I intended to make it my birthmonth anyway."

Now we have as many as 7 American Idol winners already and are on our way to find number eight this year. But for the moment, last weekend, our American idol was standing right before our eyes.

At least mine.

PS: Other blog posts about WordCamp Indonesia 2009. Mostly written by bloggers much higher than my caliber. (Please feel free to add yours too in the comments section if I had not read/noticed yours).

A Thank You Note from Valent Mustamin.

Pitra had a chance to have dinner with Matt and others on the second day.

I took Kuncoro's infamous picture!

While wongkito took insanely creative pictures.

Even Matt recognized the popularity of crowd pleaser Ndoro Kakung.

The luckiest, yet deserving attendee: Rivermaya who won both the bonus on the first day and the grand door prize on the second day.

Rara is excited (or shocked?) that there's gonna be another WordPress update soon.

The other former Indo-Hamburger (but much more famous) in the room who was up till 3 but ready at 9. Respekt.

F from Bloggingly beat me to collecting review links from other bloggers.

PPS: Picture(s) will come up soon after I found my cell phone's USB cable. Gah!