give a W! give me an I! give me an M! give me a ... it's just too long to spell "wimbledon" by cheerleading, right?

Current books read: Shopaholic and Sister by Sophie Kinsella - music in ear: Scissor Sisters and Dreamgirls

I'm glad that this week world cup reaches his end of non-stop-match days. Today, the last two matches from the game of 16 round will be played. After that, I can concentrate for about two days in following another battle on grass court. The Wimbledon.

This year, I guess I'm rooting for Roger Federer to take the gentlemen's singles, and surprise, surprise.. Anastasia Myskina for the Ladies' singles. YAY!

Roger Federer, from Switzerland, will play a difficult draw. He's facing Richard Gasquet in the first round for example. The energetic Gasquet is one of the few players that has beaten Federer in two past years. Gosh..

But I'm sure he'll pull through. And then I'll have a newly founded respect for him. Plus the fact that he speaks fluent German, French, and English. I mean fluent fluent. I feel ashamed and abashed at the same time.

Anastasia Myskina reached the final in ... Eastbourne? (hehehe not sure) Lost to JHH in three sets, though. Honestly, I think she's the nicest Russian of the pack. Yes, she's a bit hefty in the smiling department, but I still think that deep inside, Myskina is kind-hearted. Plus, her fashion is just .. appropriate. Good to look at. :)

So anyway, Federer and Myskina. And I can't wait to see what Nadal can do this year on grass.

Dreamgirls will never leave you

OK, it's official. I'm gonna watch this super-short-early Dreamgirls teaser like one thousand times a day.

I linked the one which is not edited because the poster, JenCan on YouTube, has posted tons and tons to make you Dreamgirlsified. If there's such a word.

From the preview, I like the fact that Beyonce sings Beyonce, with little or no influence from Diana Ross or Sheryl Lee Ralph. Because that's how I wanted her to sound like. Just sound like her.

Jennifer looks really happy for just being able to revive the immortal role. I'm just so happy for her. Her vocal until now is still being kept from everyone.

But I will keep an eye on Anika. I think she'd blow everyone away..

And no, I'm not mastering the choreography.

Yet.

*beep*

Scheiße!!

Forgive my French. But still, Scheiße!!!

This thing always happens. Always happens. ALWAYS!!

So, recently I'm kinda rooting for these two teams in World Cup, alright? The germans and the swedish. Yeah, I reckon they will meet in the top 16, but who can blame the rules. Yesterday I so wanted Sweden to win so that they don't have to pack their bags earlier.

So the swedes drew, when Germany wins. They will meet in top 16 (what is 1/8 final called in English?). And I was so excited watching it happens. I checked out my gameplan calendar to check it out. When and where.

In the background, we were sitting in the kitchen of General Consulate of Indonesia in Hamburg. Talking how we will be excited to see the opening of "Der Traum von Bali" (The Dream of Bali) exhibition. I got two tickets to the opening!! Because I know the so-called project manager. Hehehe.. Frankly, he should be a role model for every Indonesian.

Back to topic.. After I secured two tickets, I checked the time, Oh, great, Saturday 1500 hours. I can rush to the Germany-Sweden game.

And then it struck me. At 1800 hours on the same day, I have a performance in University of Hamburg (the university that you ITB-Choir sang in two years ago). I will be having a performance at 18 o'clock. In the middle of Germany-Sweden game. The last chance to mis-pronounce while cheering on Ljungberg of Sverige, or huthing Huth.

But on the other hand, who will watch us perform? More importantly .. what will happen during that time? I mean, fuck with all 63 other games. I want to see this one!

OK, now I know how my dad feels everytime I nagged, "Daaadd.. I wanna watch Doraemon. You can read the result from the boxing tomorrow on paper anyway..".

Emotional breakdown starts now.

And, uh, by the way, because I got far too tired, I missed Anderson Cooper's interviewing Angelina Jolie on 360, of course.

morning news

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! Oh my God!

The scream might be a high-pitched-borderline-girly one. But who won't have one after they read this article.

The article naming the latest contestants of Project Runway 3 introduces 15 designers, who one of them is named Michael Knight. That Michael Knight bit caught my eye, of course.

And there is an Ulrike Herzner.. Maybe she'll talk to Heidi far beyond the Auf Wiedersehen!

Hrrrh.. there goes my summer plans..

world cup and ramadhan

Football (since a little boy I have refused to call it soccer) World Cup is like Ramadhan. The month, not the man. You know that we are taught that we shouldn't miss each week of Ramadhan because there are different good things happening on each week. And those good things are reeeaaallly good so that you won't think of missing a week of Ramadhan.

So people who has one of their eyebrows lifted when one of the CNN anchors says, "The World Cup 2006 in Germany .." may ask question like, "Why should and who could stand a month of football?" Not just a month, but 64 games in like 32 days..

Well, you could, if you take the flow of the world cup into consideration.

You see in the first days, we (as the viewers) start to measure up the teams. Some start to rethink their predictions, seeing the first few games. Some of the games are not interesting, of course, especially when two on the bottom from each group meet.

Some days after, for about ten days is my favorite part. This is when some knowledge of conditional syntax may come in handy. If A wins, then if C draws, then B is out of the competition, else we still have to count the goals. And so on.. For the whole time.

I mean we (me and my music teacher) spent for like 40 minutes processing what will happen in Group B if Sweden would have been lost or draw yesterday. And it is only Group B. We can talk hours possibilities for other groups and other consequences of course.

For example, today, 7 days in, only three teams are ensured to advance to the top 16, only 4 teams were certain to kiss their dream to continue the competition goodbye. We can still talk about other possibilities for other 25 teams, which may result in a permutation that I refuse to do by head.

We connivingly thought that Paraguay will give Tri and To advantages so that Sweden would be out. Huahhahahaa..

Week 2. Honestly, who wants to miss the games in the top 16 and after? Maybe he does, but I won't.

I know, I may be the last man in your friends' circle to talk about football anyway. But no harm done in trying, right?

OK, gotta go getting some rehearsals.

something to read between commuting hours..

Ten Questions for the man..

The book written by the man..

The man's show blog..

Any review or YouTubed caps reporting Rufus Wainwright's last night concert.

But in the meantime..

Current books read: Can You Keep a Secret by Sophie Kinsella - huahahahhaa..

it comes, i see, and me likey!

It's here, mate! And currently, it is my favorite toy. So far so good, still installing navigation shift from mouse-based to pen-based in my brain.

comparing How Deep is Your Love?

Current books read: Bulletproof Web Design von Dan Cederholm. I hink I start to get the hang of it - music in ear: George Michael's Greatest Hits

Yesterday, I confessed to a random chatter (hehehe) that I thought Bee Gees' 'How Deep is Your Love?' is an unbelievably beautiful song. The reason is: Because it was so detailed.

My opinion was that the song was full of emotion (hey, that's another title!), all sung correctly. And then the Bee Gees' sounds are fairly distributed throughout the song. I mean it isn't festively decorated by the falsettos.

And then the dynamic and the tempo was on the money. It makes the song soothing, favorable to rock to, and still have the feeling of that 70's disco song.

And after a while of blabbing, the chatter told me: "I thought you were talking about the one from Take That..!" :-o. In all fairness, Take That's version did steal my attention back then. And I listened to it like 300 times during its glorious time. And because of that my knowledge of the song was totally ruined.

You see this morning I found a chance to drop by (again) to one of my favorite places on earth: YouTube. And the first video that I googled YouTubed was Bee Gees singing How Deep is Your Love?. And it turns out, that the lyrics are slightly different.

I just found out today (TODAY!) that the lyrics were supposed to be .. "How deep is your love? I really mean to learn". While Take That sang it "I really need to learn". and how about those "I feel you touch my hand in the pouring rain" as opposed to "I feel you touch me in the pouring rain?" Scandalous! Heheh..

But anyway, Take That's version introduces a slower tempo, which makes the song less dynamic and Gary Barlow sound so medok. Just watch and listen to it. And of course Take That sings everything much whinier.

But until today, I kept singing with when the "When I fall .." part (1:33 and 2:31 on Take That clip) comes along. Hahahah..

When I faaaaall...

He's (not) a manny?! (Said with a pint of Chandler Bing. Wonder what are Chandler's creators up to these days. Not working on Joey, right?)

Let yourself be confused.

Roland Garros, the semifinals

Current books read: Bulletproof Web Design von Dan Cederholm. It takes much longer because it's in German. :(( - music in ear: Dreamgirls ps: can't wait for the movie

Oooh.. I really can't wait to see the semis! Can't wait, can't wait, can't wait.

Just look at the names on the women's singles. And if everything went right and by the book, we will have the top four seeded players in the Men's Singles semi. I wish I could see Hamburg Masters Organizers' faces if Ljubicic were through today.

So in the meantime, GO NADAL! GO LJUBICIC! But after that, GO FED!!

As for the ladies, Vaidisova is totally surprising. But I'm for Kuznetsova to win their SF, and then Clijster on the other match. To take home the title, I haven't settled on anyone. More towards to Clijster, though.

In the meantime, remember the last time I blogged "What Would I Do?"? If not, here I remind you. One of the lines was written as follows: Once I was told, that all man get what they deserve. And damn, Phoebe Buffay! Because of her I kept singing it this way: Once I was told, that old man gets what they deserve.

OK, I have to go. I have a risotto to make. Or Bake.

hey big spendor

Hmm, this week is definitely going to be the week in which I will spend most money in a week. It's because of these things.

First, Frank and Tanja got back from the USA. If they found the time to buy me The Mole 1st season (a reality show which is hosted by the one and only Mr. Anderson Cooper) DVD, that means I'm out twenty bucks. I don't know if I should count the currency or not.

Second, cheap brand Augencreme, or in English eye cream (hmmm.. is this even correct?) costs around 9-11 Euro. And cheap brand Nachtcreme, or in English night cream costs around 8-10 Euro. I have no idea how those things are gonna work, I just told that I should try some. :-o BTW, If those thing are bought in Douglas, I don't know how much it'll cost.


3rd, I am the highest bidder in eBay for a thing that I had wanted since I knew that that kinda thing existed. It's a second-hand Wacom Graphire 3 Classic Graphic Tablet, that if it's bought in Wacom official store, it will cost me 56 Euro, without the mouse. With the mouse, it'll be 93 Euro. :-O. I got very lucky on eBay that day: my biggest competitor didn't know how to bid accordingly on eBay. I won by 22 cents only. Hahahaa.. And I got to pay some 60 Euro including the mouse. Yes! But that means I have to pay for it.


Fourth, I kinda fixed a date to cut my hair. And this time, it would be done by a friend of mine, which is also a professional hairdresser. I don't know how much he's gonna charge me for that.

Last, and definitely the least, I still wanna watch X-III, The Omen, and M-i-III in no particular order. And I should pay two tickets for The Omen.

Maybe this weekend is the right time to file bankruptcy .. to my mother. :)

Luckily I don't have any World-Cup-related expenses. Yet (?).