Diwali - the Office season 3 episode 6

Oh, my God. You soooo have to watch the Office season three episode six titled "Diwali". It's HILARIOUS! Even more hilarious if you're Indonesian. See, one of the skit in the beginning of the episode is Jim starts to bike to work.

He says to the camera that he does it, somewhat inspired by his current boss, Josh. The camera then cut to Josh walking into the Scrampton office in his hotter cycling outfit. Jim then goes on saying that cycling is better for the environment, saves him some money, is a good exercise, bla bla bla. He says that he now knows that it also makes him really sweaty for work. *giggle*

When he sits down, his colleague, Karen, who sits behind him, says, (and I'm not paraphrasing) "Nice basket."

I laughed so damn hard, only to realize that it wasn't so damn funny. It should be though, for my fellow Indonesians out there.

Go see it. Where else you can see BJ Novak in Indian shirt. So cute. Err ... the shirt is.

PS: Basket is an Indonesian slangcronym for basah ketek, translated literally to wet underarm, a.k.a eww!

knocked down by Knocked Up

It is one of the AFI's top 10 movies of 2007. It garners a ton of positive reviews. It was a movie with the hero I like but not necessarily I love.

But I still think that Knocked Up is the most terrifying movie I've ever seen.

Why the praise? Because they all live in LA, that is why.

*shudder*

And yeah, it was a knock-off. Don't knock me out with it. And no, I won't end this post with a Knock Knock Joke.

recent crush

OK. All right. Calm down. Chill out. Don't judge me. Stop it.

But I just heard of The Sartorialist like a couple days ago. I mean I think I've read about The Sartorialist either in German GQ or in GQ, but I don't know if they have a blog. Dang!

All right! Shush!

And yeah. Of course like most people, I fell immediately in love with it.

My favorite so far? Summer Bold, East Hampton, August 2007. Definitely something that I try to achieve these days. Including that bottled water in hand. Second favorite? 21st print, New York City, August 2007. Not (yet) something that I try to achieve in the mean time (tee hee), but pleasant to look at. Love the shoes.

Next. Live and Let Loose a.k.a. yeah, if I live in Italy or wherever coastal and go out to see some friends for breakfast on a breezy morning, I also will look like the guy on the right with different shades of color wearing the pants from the guy on the left with matching shade of color.

Last but not lost. Fabrizio in Detail, Milano. It's amazingly brave how he opts to tie his shoelace. I did more or less the same thing with my cargo pants some months ago, I didn't really know how I ended up looking that day, since no Scott Schuman running around. I left those laces out most of the times these days.

(I admit that I browsed heavily only on the warmer months since they are the most applicable in Indonesia. But seeing how cold it can be on this rainy season, is it time to go out in layers?)

And what I love most from the blog is not looking at the styles, actually. Eventhough it is a very pleasant thing to do. I love reading the comments section more.

Now, I suddenly find it necessary to observe closely those "END OF YEAR SALE! - UP TO 70%!" ads on local newspapers and use them "wisely" OR to alter some of my (as Andrea of The Devil Wears Prada put it) "stuff" in my closet. Dayum.

new year's eve's resolution

Bumping Without Love to top 5 without having the urge to check Zac Efron's hip thrusts on DVD (again).

Bumping Find Your Grail to top 10 without having my neighbours complaining about my poor impersonation of the ever awesome Sara Ramirez's, to name a few, "Gra-a-a-a-ail" on 1:45.

Must be achieved before the clock strikes 12.

Wish me luck.

no, I am not anti-Malaysia and this post wasn't meant to spark that kind of tone in this blog either

Some months ago, I read an opinion column in The Jakarta Post about the unimportance of tourism marketing of places in Indonesia. The writer suggested Indonesia to just preserve the lavishly beautiful sites that it has and spend more budget in improving the quality of facilities and human resources (affordable English course and complimentary hospitality trainings might be useful) supporting the sites. Extravagant advertisement was simply not needed, as places in Indonesia will speak for themselves. The only thing to do is to have good impressions etched deeply to the heart of the visitors.

It was also implied on that article that the gesture of advertising was started by people involved with tourism in Indonesia after they saw a heavy campaign of tourism from its neighboring countries, especially Malaysia (does Truly Asia ring a bell?) and Singapore.

Oh, I was too about to fall victim to one of those ads when I voiced my urge to visit Singaporean Sentosa Island, to only be told by a frequent traveler: Ancol is much better!

Now fellow Indonesians, be proud that you can claim Lombok as your island. Because despite the extension of Visit Malaysia Year, New York Times has named Lombok as one of its 53 Places to Go in 2008 without any Malaysian sites in sight.

In the meantime, the inclusion on the list has somewhat validated the point suggested in the Jakarta Post column whose author sadly I no longer remember. It was a female expert in tourism with a western name if I may recall. If only the tourism people really see this. But for now, I really just want to know how the only tourism experts I know react to this.

By the way. I can already conceived a marketing campaign for Lombok in my head. And yes, it involves surfboards. Dang!

PS: To those who wonder where I stand on those alleged thievery, I can only say, this may happen when you take things for granted. By "this", I also meant cheating spouses.

big bold beautiful Edna Turnblad

Three years ago, the Hugh Jackman said in his Tony's Best Leading Actor in a Musical acceptance speech, "[Peter Allen of 'The Boy from Oz'] is just like the best role I have seen for a guy in a long time." If by "a long time" he meant a year, he hit the jackpot with that sentence.

For what it's worth, I believe that Jackman's predecessor, Harvey Fierstein who won 2003 Tony for the same category has THE best role for a guy. Ever.

Famous female impersonator Fierstein starred in a musical called Hairspray based on a 1988 cult movie of the same title. His character is Edna Turnblad, the lead character's mother. Yes. Mother. Originally in the movie, this role was written for a famous transsexual, Christine Jorgensen, but rewritten and later played by a famous drag performer, Divine.

I was unlucky enough to not know how Fierstein or Divine belted the role. I can only imagine how Edna in their hands. But because I was lucky enough to live in the era where things like YouTube (and its unbelievably generous users) has been invented, I happened to have a chance to check out generic version of Fierstein's performances which can be reached within a click in my bedroom.

37.5 Megabytes (Oh, my heart. I hope I didn't send my speedy usage off the roof again) and three musical numbers later, it is so easy for me to compose that sentence I wrote in the second paragraph.

Fierstein's Edna is a hybrid of theatrically comical, adorable, familiar, and of course hysterical. His body of work is amazing. Check out those three numbers that I talked about and see how he emulates Edna's insecurity, romantic side and fabulousness.


Now if you haven't been living under the rock, you must have heard of a more current musical movie adaptation of Hairspray released earlier this year. In this movie, The role Edna went to the hands of the famous John Travolta (Yes! I survive writing a sentence without any condescending tone for the man). I won't bother to write a paragraph telling you all how Travolta did it, but Fierstein he ain't.

Like most successful Broadway hit, Hairspray is then re-produced in West End. Fasten your seat belts kids, because the actor cast as Edna is none other than Michael Ball. Yes. The Michael Ball. The Michael Ball whose "My place is here. I'll fight with you.." in Les Mis shattered my heart. I can't wait for the videos of his performances featuring his curvaceous figure (Oh, yeah, he is) and his dimples surface in YouTube. Oops, spoke too soon.

So Michael Ball, one of the most expensive actors in West End, has performed anything from Jesus Christ to a woman. Based on that sentence he's like only the most awesomest performer on earth, methinks.

In the mean time, I'm still gonna breathe more aerosol than air. And yes, I still think that Fierstein is the best Edna. (Though it's such a joy to see how Michael Ball had so much fun on stage and fooled even his hardcore fans)


PS: In (You're) Timeless To Me, Fierstein performed the number with then 73-year-old Dick Latessa. All I want for Christmas is wanna be half like him when I am 73.