Would you buy Toyota Prius tagged US$ 58000?

Yesterday I went to a Toyota authorized dealer to ask about Toyota Prius. I'm so interested to get Prius (to replace my 5 year-old car) because its fuel consumption is so low and I'd like to participate in reducing carbon emission. This year Prius is officially entered indonesian market and will have authorized tech support.

I was keeping my hope that the price won't be higher than US$ 27000, but when I received the latest price list, my hope was shattered. Due to little knowledge of the advantage of hybrid cars and corrupted bureaucracy in Indonesia, the price of Prius in indonesia is a staggering US$ 58500!!!
Of course I knew that the car would have been a complete built up but it's from Thailand for goodness sake! It's still just too ridiculously expensive!

By seeing from this case, I don't think the big cities in indonesia will have their carbon emission , from motor vehicles, will reduce in the future. With no effort to urge people for using low emission vehicles, by lowering the price and giving insentive for electric and/or hybrid vehicles, it's only going to get worse and worse and worse.

Even the sermon at the curch can be naive sometime...

Today is the closing of Bulan Budaya or the right translation would be Culture Month, at the church where I am attending. For one month several cultures from Indonesia were introduced and highlighted as theme on each Sunday. I have no comments about it although there were some minor concerns but on today's sermon there was something that disturbs me badly.

During the preach (the theme was about the unity in differences, the country's motto), the pastor suddenly burst with a question, "Who is proud as Indonesia citizen? And those who's not can raise your hand. I see no one is raising hand, so I ca safely assume that we all are proud."
At that point, I felt challenged and almost spontaneously raising my hand. But it was a sermon, why would I do that? It wouldn't make things better and worse, we could have been locked in a useless talk. Nevertheless, it managed to sickens me.
I felt so much intimidated by today's sermon and it didn't give me peace at all. I went home in annoyance and there's a slight regret of not stating my position. Possibly no one will understand it but at least I can tell the truth.
The truth? Yea!!!
That I'm not proud as Indonesian citizen because I believe indonesia is an entity out of naive thoughts, I'm proud of being the world citizen-proud as indonesian citizen is too narrow minded for me, I'll release my indonesian citizenship when I have the chance, I don't believe that indonesia is my place for my end day because my homeland is earth so it won't matter where I die and I never feel like home with institution called indonesia, trust me on that.

Indonesia is almost synonymous with absurdity

When I read Kompas daily today, I notice a large ad (again by the treachery Telkomsel) about submitting your vote (by sending text) to make an indonesian racer, Rio Haryanto, to become the first indonesian Formula 1 racer. Oh well, to me this is so absurd!
Though I didn't doubt Haryanto's talent and skills but if we're talking about Formula 1, he'll need more than that. I'm a Formula 1 fan for a long long time and I realized that this type is racing, although pleasing to international audience, is so much european. Participation from non-european countries are limited to supplying a racetrack, a team and sponsors, but never really a racer itself.

Formula 1 from my eyes is a place for those nations who has the "speed" in their vein. It started in europe so it's normal that F1 can also be said as the byproduct of european cultures. From all champions of F1, most of them are european. I'm not trying to be racist, but if we want to be honest, some things are made this way and like it or not, Formula 1 is one of those things.

Take a look to F1 recent history, we saw Alex Yoong (Malaysia) and Narain Karthikeyan (India). Both were proudly hailed as the first F1 racer of their countries that did not have the "speed" culture as the european and afterwards they got kicked out only after a few seasons due to on and off tracks reasons. These countries like Indonesia doesn't have what needed to produce an F1 driver, the tradition.

I think it's fair to dream but thinking about this stuff? Goodness my fellow countrymen, we are going to have our own F1 drivers, but not now. This nation is not ready yet and may never ready in our lifetime. So please don't waste your money to satisfy this absurd dream, at least after Indonesia or whatever will be left in the future have gained the "tradition" and "speed" is in the vein.

Nevertheless, I wish Rio Haryanto good luck and God speed!

Indonesia?

Today is the 64th anniversary of Indonesia independence day and just like many anniversaries before, I don't want to celebrate or taking any participation whatsoever in the celebration activities. That because since I was aware of myself, I never felt like home in the country called Indonesia. In the later part of my life (and currently) I realized that the facts may have been distorted to legitimize the existence of Indonesia.

The founding fathers of the archipelago independence were undoubtedly smart people. They've succeeded in most of their diplomacy missions, they were able to unite their common goal to oust the Dutch that occupied their homelands (note that I say, homelands). It was something that average people will find it hard to accomplish.
But sadly and unfortunately, they were naive. Some thought the occupied territories is automatically becoming one nation as they suffered the same fate. While some thought after independence they could go home to their respective homelands and live as sovereign nations.
Same thing with the blood shed. Some of them are willing to shed their blood for their homelands and some for the unity of the boundaries left by the occupiers.

History tells us that the first, got the upper hand and now we know something called Indonesia. It was, is and always a fatal mistake because you can not assume that since other people suffered the same thing as you, they'll want to have a union or cooperation after the common goal is achieved.
So with this only one thing is enough for me to believe that Indonesia is one fatal mistake.

ps: I also found it absurd that after 64 years of independence, indonesians are still crying "merdeka" (it loosely means, independence) out loud. Merdeka of what???

Thoughts

It’s now my fourth day in Surabaya, accompanying my wife who is expecting our first child. Nothing really much I had in four days since my wife should stay at home most of the time and I don’t feel like going around the city by myself.

This is the longest duration of me staying in Surabaya and felt so far from the rest of the world. To make things further I still couldn’t connect to the Internet from my cell phone, so I’ll need to use dial up or go to internet café. But I managed to survive.

Today my wife had contractions and we’ll see how it goes.

I also have one concern about hybrid car in indonesia. We all know that hybrid cars are made to help reduce pollution from fossil fuel and sold with affordable price and given incentive from the government, but the indonesia government is so genius. They saw all the technology involved in hybrid car and categorized it into luxury item and thus put the tax so high.
The retail price soar high because of that and not many people are encouraged to help reducing pollution from motor car by buying/using hybrid cars. Way the go indonesia!!!

Bomb attack (again)

Another bomb attacks hit Jakarta, that left 9 people dead and several others injured. The bombs brought deaths and horror to Ritz-Carlton and Marriott hotels. For Marriott, this is its second bom attack. I would ask "whatever happened with Marriott Jakarta?"

Normally I would express my anger and condemning the calamity, but now I just don't know what to express and tired to follow any news about it.
Nevertheless, I'm extending my sincere condolences to the victims.

I pray and hope God forgive us all.

A thought and an idea (again)

I took quite sometime lately to pay attention and take notice of other people around my home or in public crowd places. The more I tried to understand, the more I felt like I'm an alien who stranded on earth and trying to live alongside humans. It's just so hard to understand humans and in my case, to understand indonesians.

Two of the common (IMHO are the most fatal) indonesians stereotype are:
1. Most of them are ignorantly walking on a thin line between brave and idiot.
2. Most of them are not interested to move into a more civilized & advance society. Modern indonesians are only skin deep.

So I came up with an idea to film and take pictures of the two things above and put them here. I hope this could be one of not so many efforts to waking up indonesians from stupidity.

Right then, camera stand by!

Transformer: Revenge of the Fallen, my opinion.

OK, I've watched Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen or Transformers 2 on the first day it released in indonesia. It was a perfect day, my wife and I got good seats despite we were kind of late coming to the cinema.
Too bad that perfect day was screwed by the quality of the 2009 most anticipated movie (other than Star Trek that was also a disaster).
So after lots of people told how they hate the TF 2 movie, I think I'll say one or two words too.

I HATE TF 2! It's cheesy and messy in every aspects. There are too many mistakes, loopholes and they didn't give the robots effective roles. It makes me to think that those directors and the writer team were not having deep understanding of the Transformers story.

If the title is Transformers, fine! So the story is about the Transformers race right? But they put too many human interventions & politics in the movie. The role and dialog for the leading roles (that is the robot race!) is so minimal and if I can give a percentage of dialogs in TF 2 it is 70% human-human, 20% robot-human and 10% robot-robot. WHAT IN THE CYBERTRON IS THAT?! Might as well named it Sam Witwicky Adventures rather than Transformers.

Also adding the damage to TF 2 is the appearance of the Autobot twins Mudflap and Skids. Their role is so unimportant and swallow. Apparently Michael Bay didn't learn from the mistake of George Lucas with Jar Jar Binks. I hope as most of the fans are, those two characters are erased and for filling the hole they can put Wheeljack or Sunstreaker.

For the rest of the Autobots, they are so lack of their true character just as in the first movie.

The appearance of the Constructicon is also disappointing. No dialogs and appearance for individual robot. What we see was some construction vehicles suddenly combining into Devastator. I'm sure we all hoped to see a huge Devastator standing straight and charged the desperate Autobots but no. The design of Devastator in TF 2 is so so not up to its 1980s counterpart, instead they made it walking on four limbs just as a gorilla. The worse thing is, they put Devastator just to suck sand and climbing a pyramid and easily defeated by US Navy.

The biggest disappointment is the appearance of Soundwave. It was so out of character and all he was doing for the whole movie is just floating there in space. For the mission he intended to I think it'll be better if they put Laserbeak rather than Ravage.

The writer team are thinking to also put pretenders in the movie (the girl who turned into robot then to girl again until finally dead as robot?) but sadly they got it all WRONG!!! I suggest they take more time to understand what in Cybertron is a pretender shell.

But there was some good scenes like the appearance of Sideswipe in the opening scene, Optimus Prime battling three Decepticons. Yes, that's it. But in overall it is just bad!

It's just too many for me to say and I won't have time to make music if I keep saying about this movie (and J.J. Abrams' Star Trek). So there we have it, my opinion to Transformer: Revenge of the Fallen.

Wildstix's log, stardate 62772.4

Some people on earth considers today is Earth Day, but I think we should expand this idea to a more general and simpler. I don't know exactly how since I'm not an environmentalist, I just knew it.
Today, my wife and I walked from our church to the street food outlets nearby and we saw some people burning the trash. It caused a terrible smoke, clearly polluting the air and in turn it also increasing carbon in our atmosphere. My God! Those people are burning trash right on Earth Day! This is what I meant of expanding the idea.
The earth is getting warmer and it will heal itself, but the healing process won't be nice for mankind. Some say we almost hit the jackpot, some others believe we've hit the jackpot but not yet to the full capacity and we still have time to make it right. I don't know about you scientists, but I think we've hit the jackpot and we're getting its full impact right now.Why?

I live in Jakarta, Indonesia and there has never been any reports of twister or tornado in Jakarta or surrounding area. But in the last four years, there has been numerous reports of twister cases in Jakarta and adjacent area. The latest one happened yesterday.
The twister hit, collapsing dozens of homes and ripped the roof a gas station (I saw the picture). It was not supposed to happen here but it did!

Just ask yourself, where are we right now?

Wildstix's log, stardate 62744.2

Happy Easter! Jesus is King of kings!

My wife and I went to Easter sermon at my church, Gereja Kristen Indonesia-Pondok Indah and we expected a vibrant Easter but what we got is far far far awaay from Easter theme! Jesus forgive me.

It was so gloomy that we thought we are having Good Friday sermon. The liturgy was awfully constructed and the music arrangement was far off from what supposedly energetic and full of joy of Easter. We couldn't get in tune with the sermon since the beginning and I went out several times, just to calm myself. I was upset and angry by the way the sermon goes since I-again-was expecting Easter sermon. Jesus forgive me.

The sermon was entirely misplace and by far, the worst music arrangement for Easter sermon! I don't know much about liturgy but there's a voice deep inside my heart saying "This is not quite". I tried to stay silent but I couldn't help to cried it out. Jesus forgive me if I'm wrong.

The incident of 2009 Easter sermon at GKI PI has risen up a motivation for me. I feel the calling to share my talent for the next Easter sermon music arrangement and if Jesus willing, to share my knowledge to construct the liturgy. Jesus guide me!

Wildstix's log, stardate 62735.1

Today is the election day in Indonesia and my name is not listed in the voter list. What a joke!

I haven't decided wether I will go or not, but I'm planning to make sure that no one is using my name for cheating.

In the next 72 hours, we will see if this election will be a process for the better or a highway to Indonesia downfall. God help us!

Wildstix's log, stardate 62611

I got this article while browsing facebook. It's from facebook group of Indonesia Progressive Society. I'm not saying this group is misleading or something, but I wish they payed more attention before they put this article as introduction.
I actually have seen and read it before, but I think now I should share my constructive thoughts. I'll translate and give my comments beneath it.

=+=+=+

Group komunitas musik progressive rock di tanah air. Sebagai wadah agar lebih mempererat silaturahmi dalam menjalin hubungan sesama pencinta musik cerdas ini.
The nation's progressive music community group. As a place to strengthen relationship of fellow fans of this particular "smart" music.

"smart" music? This is too subjective and music should not be viewed this way. So other music are not smart? To compose a 3-chord-song will need all the intelligence of the composer and I'm sure not all people are able to do this!

Apa itu Musik Progressive?
What is Progressive Music?

a. Beberapa bagian (atau seluruh) lagu dirangkai dalam satu tema/ konsep
a. Some parts of (or entire) song are arranged into a single theme/concept

b. Badan lagu terdiri dari beberapa bagian. Setiap bagian dapat mengandung melodi, tekanan emosi, tempo, dan atau tema yang tidak saling berhubungan
b. The body of the song comprising several parts. Each part could conceive unrelated melody, emotion (dynamic), tempo and/or theme.

So far so good

c. Tempo lagu yang tidak mengikuti pakem 4/4. Bisa 3/4, 6/8, 4/5 dsb.
c. Song tempo which doesn't follow the 4/4 standard. It may be 3/4, 6/8, 4/5

Hold on here! Tempo is 4/4? Pardon me, but whoever wrote this article is definitely need to learn more. Tempo doesn't equal time signature!
Tempo is beat per minute, tempo 60 means 60 beat in a minute, 120 means 120 beat in a minute and so on. Time signature is to specify how many beats are in each measure (bar) and what note value make one beat. 4/4 means 4 beats of quarter note in one measure. (You can also easily find this definition on wikipedia).

And the 4/5 thing? I assume this is a typo, but just to make sure, there is no such thing as 4/5 time signature!

d. Menggabungkan lebih dari satu jenis musik (pop, rock, jazz, klasik, etnik, dll)
d. Merging more than one music genre(pop, rock, jazz, classic, ethnic, etc)

Although this is commonly right, we must also keep in mind that all known music genres are created by the industry, so that we would gain correct understanding when we are listening/performing a music.
Oh please, don't ever consider jazz as music genre, it won't fit!

e. Tidak mengenal improvisasi karena improvisasi dibakukan dalam struktur lagu, sehingga pada saat dimainkan ulang komposisi tetap utuh seperti semula
e. Does not recognize improvisations because it is fix written into song structure, so when it re-performed, the composition will stay intact as before.

Excuse me, I strongly object with this criteria! As one form of contemporary music, improvisation is crucial and without it there will be no advancement. I've watched some of the "guilty-as-charged" prog artists live performance and all of them, once again, all of them are making improvisations to their music on stage, even on the written solos!
This point suggest that there is a thing such as written improvisation. If improvisation could be written, then it wouldn't be improvisation, it would be written solo.
I suggest to omit this point as it is totally absurd!

f. Suara manusia tidak sekedar menjadi vokal, melainkan juga berfungsi sebagai alat instrument
f. Human voice functioning as an instrument as well as vocal

I totally agree with it!

g. Durasi rata2 yang melebihi durasi lagu single (diatas 4 menit)
g. Average duration that longer than single song duration (4 minutes)

Another misconception. While the idea is correct, they missed on the concept of single song. Single is commonly released as a "appetizer" for the upcoming album and for promotional purposes, never exceeded 5 minutes duration. So it's a misplaced comparison.
It should be, "Average duration is longer than of generally 4 minutes song"
The fellow who wrote this should learn more about music industry

h. Tema yang umumnya tentang mitos, fiksi ilmiah, lingkungan, keagungan sang pencipta, kritik sosial, dan lain sebagainya selain roman percintaan dan problema hidup sehari-hari
h. The main themes generally about myths, science fiction, nature, creator's awe, social critics and others, apart from love story and real life situation.

I have no objections on that

So there you have it! I hope my thoughts could share a positive efforts in introducing progressive music to wider society.

Wildstix's log, stardate 62544.1

Starting from this post I'll be using another method of stardate. The rest of the stardates on previous posting will be changed accordingly.

I wrote a note about another evil thing happening in indonesia prog scene, catch it here

Wildstix's log, stardate 62540.9

Academie of FarSide, this is the band that I formed sometime in 2003 and since then it has been the focus of my works. I worked hard to make this band exist and going, composing music that would push the envelope, taking us in one global effort to advancing music further.

Unfortunately I live in a world where music is regressing rather than progressing. Nowadays, there are almost no more music that bear the trace of advancement wether that of mainstream or independent music industry. That's on a larger scale.

In a smaller scale, which is the music that I do and the place where I stay, it's even worse. In progressive music context, I was hoping we could get some strong supporters among local prog fans. I came up with new concept and approach in prog music, melting every piece of music influence into prog realm in hope it will be a fresh prog music. So then, what did I get?
Total rejection from local prog fans! Most of the older prog fans (let's call them seniors) just dismissed our efforts, saying we're not prog enough. I tried to tell them that we are doing music, not only prog. But I guess their ego wouldn't admit that there's another horizon in approaching prog music.
I thought their opinion won't have specific impact, but I was wrong. Being undermined for years by prog fan seniors, my former band mates started to feel that our efforts are useless and their faith in our music dwindled. They even put a blame on me for everything.
(I knew Academie of FarSide will sink forever if I don't act quickly, I took a painful decision to reform the band with new members)
Meanwhile on the other side there are some copycat prog bands that are (ironically) getting supporters from local prog fans. Even some of the so called senior fans endowed their support and endorsing to those copycats....what is this? A psychological war?

I don't really give a damn to the situation, but I must admit that rebuilding Academie of FarSide without having anyone to convince the new members about the full potential of the band, is like trying to freeze hell.
I have my true friends backing me up and I really thankful God put them there.

Dear Lord, until when You are going to let those copycats rule???

Wildstix's log, stardate 62539.2

I'm sure you all know about the israel-hamas conflict and all the reactions. During the conflict I strongly believe that instead of supporting or condemning the conflicting parties, we should look deeper into the matter. I often heard people (especially from superficial muslim organization in indonesia) always condemning Israel and blindly supporting hamas. Only a handful of them realized-just as I do-the main concern in every fighting, the common people.

Today I read a news about a Palestinian farmer who had his land and buildings forcefully taken by hamas fighter as their so called fortress. After the conflict, he have lost his home and waited for the empty promises of hamas (de facto governing the Gaza strip) that will give him cash to rebuild his home. Other people also share the same situation, they were afraid to reject the using of their homes as weaponry hideouts by Hamas gunmen because they will be accused as supporters of israel and as the consequence, their homes are now no more than ruins as the israel forces targeted their homes as military targets.

I always dreaming of mankind to go to the final frontier further, exploring the distant stars. But with all of the above still happens, I'm not sure we are ready-as human or society-to embrace the bright future.

The beginning of the end for Indonesia music industry?

A friend of mine forwarded me an interesting email from FORMUSIK_INDONESIA on Yahoo groups. I feel like sharing it here...
The email was written in Indonesian and I've translated it so every non Indonesian would know what is happening. Also please take note that the topic is about Indonesian music industry and TV stations.

The email was written by, known only by his user name, Mr Blend Rock.

Did you know that record labels are sharing the revenue from RBTs to TV Stations as they put the Template on their artists' Video Clips?
(...you knew this for sure...)

Did you know that sometime ago all major record labels has been called to see one of the TV Stations director just because their payments to the particular TV station were IDR 2 million less? (about US$ 200)
The deal is, record labels can put the RBT Template on the video clips of their artists when it is broadcasted but they have to share their RBT income to the TV stations. According to Rolling Stone indonesia, the RBT income of one particular major record labels is IDR 40 billion per year (approx. US$ 4 million).

Did you know that TV stations in Indonesia are competing viciously one another for music show? (Surely this is no more a secret)

Did you know that a band, that once had platinum, was denied-while on the way-to appear in a TV show on a particular TV station? Why?
Because on the same day, half an hour before, the band just performed on the same type of show on a competitor TV station. Wow?

Did you know? That TV stations are selling their slots for music show in huge nominal to advertising agencies. Reasoned they must pay a considerable expensive fee for the music artists appearing on their show? (The information is provided by one of the advertising seniors who have worked in the field since 1992)
It's so irony and contrast with the payment received by musicians/artists when they're asked to appear on TV stations.

Did you know? That No.1 Rating for TV stations that currently held by a particular private Indonesian TV stations, one of the main reasons is, its music program had a big impact in increasing the rating.

Did you know that either that TV stations, record labels, artist managers and musicians/artists are in fact in need one another?
But why in reality the musicians and their managers, ever since the beginning of music show in Indonesian TV stations, are never considered as working partners? (Only God knows why...)

Something about Japanese music...

Well, I got this bugging my mind…

We all know about j-rock or j-pop or whatever they or we call it and though I’m not a fan to the genre but I did notice something out.

I’ve listen to every kind of music since I was little and that also includes Japanese contemporary music (in this case J-rock & J-pop). The booming of anime industry has made the genre gaining more attention and fans; in turn the J-music industry blooms as well.

One thing that I learned this far, after listening to cheesy but legendary theme song of Lionmaru to the theme songs of the latest Japanese movie or anime (and some of the latest Japanese mainstream music artists), is the vocal characteristic whether female or male, rock or ballad, IS ALWAYS THE SAME!!!

I found this because my wife and my oldest niece are big fans of anime and they continuously watch it. Sometimes I was around and at first I enjoyed the music, but after a while I got fed up. I don't even want to hear the sound from the movies.
I then tried to find out the thing that makes me so fed up with this particular Japanese product and found it.

If you don't believe me, try take sometime to listen to the Japanese mainstream artists. I'm sure you'll find the same freaky thing as I did.

A little note to the anime...I grew up with anime and other Japanese life action movies. Back then the stories are deep and interesting. Nowadays anime doesn't have that and the writers are now busy to make twist after twist after twist. In the end the stories are damn boring and to remedy that they inserted one or two jokes in some important scenes. Aawww, c'mon guys, you're better than that!

where's the anime that I once knew???

F@#k Up Education in Indonesia

Oops, almost forgot that now I have a blog in my hand…

Anyways, last week the whole family gathered at my parents place to celebrate my niece 11th birthday. As usual as the family gathers, we had all sort of topics flying around the conversation, from what music project I recently work on to the talk about education in Indonesia.
I found the education topic very much interesting because we all experiencing the horror of the latest Indonesian education. Not directly but through our children (I don’t have a child yet but I think of my nieces and nephews as my children as well).

The picture of the putrid of Indonesian education can be seen from the primary levels. My niece and nephews are in their elementary levels and from what I heard and saw I could tell that in the next 10 years, Indonesia will harbor a massive increase of psychopaths.

I believe as well as Einstein does that imagination is the most important thing before knowledge. It is proven by our modern life. So the primary levels of education should encourage younglings to build and explore their imagination and creativity that will make them easier to learn other things, such as math, science, etc.
But this is not happening in Indonesia; the elementary schools (and sadly the parents too) always regard high grade and having brain for numbers or science are the ultimate goal and they think that all the children are GENIUSES WITH MATH!!! That is very absurd! Once in a while an Indonesian kid won the Physic Olympic or Math Olympic, well good for them, but we can’t generalize it to other kids. This is also what’s happening in private schools. They forced second grade students to swallow subjects of higher grade, THAT’S INSANE!!!

Not to mention some people who saw the business opportunity from the chaos. They are competing to open a “Bimbingan Belajar”. It’s a place for students to get learning guidance, some sort of private instruction. BUT, business comes first and what supposed to be a private instruction, they wickedly made it into a class and put the students, sometime up to 45 to 50, packed together. Their evil does not stop there, instead of helping the students to understand the subjects, they just giving the shortcut to solve the equation and hints of how working on a massive national exam. My God, that’s so evil! One “Bimbingan Belajar” puts a sign, “Program Super Intensif”, that means they have a super intensive learning guidance program. What on earth is that? The word intensive alone has already explained the situation and now they said super intensive? Of what? Shortcuts? Hints and tips? Without imagination and creativity the kids will become either zombies or monsters. Now that how wicked is the education system in Indonesia.

Also I heard that we are celebrating 100 years of “Kebangkitan Nasional”, the national uprise…well tell me, have we risen yet or have we fallen into a deeper coma…