denniland.com

In order to respect Carla who tagged me, twice; and to respect my sweetheart who asked me to write my things quite a while ago, I decided to write this post.

Okay, not all of those sentences are true, but the latest. In fact, I am quite bored, I want to write something, but I don’t know where to start since I haven’t write anything for a long, long time, so I guess this is a good material to help me start.

If you have noticed the title, it’s a bit different from what others have done, it says 7 things, not 8 things. That’s because I like the number 7. The items will be listed in alphabetical order. So, without further ado, let’s bring the list on.

7 Things I am Passionate About

1. Computer and video games
2. Food
3. Information and computer technology
4. Movies
5. My family
6. My sweetheart
7. Mystery

7 Books I Have Read Recently

1. Bible
2. Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture — Martin Fowler
3. Ruler of the Land (comic)
4. Shanao Yoshitsune (comic)
5. The Data Warehouse Toolkit — Ralph Kimball et al.
6. The Data Warehouse ETL Toolkit — Ralph Kimball et al.
7. The Pragmatic Programmer — Andrew Hunt et al.

7 Things I Want to Do Before I Die

1. Live a pleasant life before God.
2. Marry her and have a couple of sweet kids and several grandkids.
3. Satisfy my parents’ needs both materially and spiritually.
4. Start and grow my own company, preferably a game studio.
5. Stay (not just visit) in Surabaya, Jakarta, Singapore, UK, and USA.
6. Take my family to visit at least one country in each continent on earth, well perhaps except Antarctica.
7. Write a book and publish it.

7 Things I Have Learnt in These Past Years

1. God does work in mysterious ways.
2. Google is one of my best friend.
3. Humans are full of surprises.
4. No limits in learning.
5. Promises and commitments are easy to make but difficult to keep.
6. Sometimes, even the predictable is unpredictable.
7. True love does exist.

7 Things That Attract Me to My Best Friends

1. Common interests
2. Kindness
3. Sincerity
4. Can’t think of anything else, I guess I am not too demanding of my friends :p

7 Songs That I Can Listen to Over and Over Again

1. Because of You — Kelly Clarkson
2. Dragostea Din Tei — O-Zone
3. Du Qing (White Snake Legend Closing Theme Song) — Gao Sheng Mei
4. I Need Some Sleep — Eels
5. Most Christian praise and worship songs
6. Qian Nian Deng Yi Hui (White Snake Legend Opening Theme Song) — Gao Sheng Mei
7. Suteki da ne (Final Fantasy X Theme Song) — Ritsuki Nakano (Rikki)

7 Things I Say Often

1. Amen
2. Buzz, dah makan?, dah tidur?, lagi apa?, love you, miss you (only to her)
3. Damn, shoot, sial, what the…
4. Double kill, monster kill, triplle kill, killing spree, owning (mimicking the narrator of DOTA)
5. Edan, gundul, sinting (meaning: crazy)
6. Hehe
7. Oh ya? Masak? Mosok? (meaning: really?)

Is it just me, or this site is turning into a love diary or love blog, you name it. And not only my blog, hers too, hehe. Look at her lovely blog. You agree with me, right? I just read her blog last night, three times. And I read it once again just now. And I don’t even start to get bored. She really knows how to delight me.

Btw, to keep things balanced I’ll write some other things unrelated to my romantic life.

Recent Movies

• War of the Worlds
  This movie is deceiving. I thought I would see some kind of Starship Troopers but instead I got Scream. That’s right. This is a suspense thriller movie. You won’t find a real action hero, instead you’ll find an ordinary man (Tom Cruise) trying hopelessly to save his son and daughter (Dakota Fanning) from the aliens deadly threat. Stephen Spielberg, as usual, used a cutting-edge visual and sound effects making this movie as reallistic as possible. If you like thriller movies, you’d love Dakota Fanning’s performance much, like I did. She’s the most talented young actress I ever knew. She could play with emotions so good you would think she’s not acting. I already liked her since her performance in Uptown Girl (with Brittany Murphy). Tom Cruise also performed well in this movie. His fans won’t be disappointed. The only thing I hate about this movie is the ending. Watch your self and you’ll know what I mean.
• Herby Reloaded
  I won’t see this movie unless Lindsay Lohan starred. Yes, she’s the only reason I watched the movie. Nothing special with this actually. Just another children movie about an old car, VW Bug, that had its own feeling and could act on its own.
• Fantastic Four
  Another super hero comic is brought to the cinema. The story ain’t much different from the one you read in the comics. Like other super hero movies, Fantastic Four featured the best visual effect it could afford. Jessica Alba was also another main interest. A so-so movie.

Games

Games were always some parts of me. I used to spend 50-70% of my spare time playing games. But recently, I didn’t play games a lot. I found something much more interesting, spending times with my girl. But I still kept my Ragnarok Online (RO) business rolling and playing once in a while, especially in the War of Emperium events. Unfortunately, my guild, Anarchy, had a very hard time. After securing the Best Guild Record award, it became worse and worse. Guild members moved out to other guilds. Some leaders stopped playing for a while, etc. But life must go on, so after a few bad weeks, the rest of the guild members decided to join Istana Bunga (IB), one of the legendary guilds in idRO Fenrir. Anarchy Guild won’t be resurrected for mere WoE, but will be suspended until the upcoming Ragnarok Indonesia Championship (RIC) and Ragnarok World Championship (RWC) events. Good luck to all of us.

I know I’ve been pretty lazy lately, but my last blog is three months ago? Haha. I am surprised myself. Wew, I don’t know when I write my next blog then. Another three months or even next year. I really need some motivation here. Can’t really remember the things happened in the past three months, but here are some of them which I can still remember. Better write them quickly before I forget them completely:

Memorable Events

• Mom’s Elementary School Reunion
  I went with my mom to her elementary school’s great reunion in Situbondo. Mom didn’t socialize a lot when she was in the elementary school so she didn’t make many friends. But Mom had a very close friend back then. Unfortunately she couldn’t come to reunion. So sad since Mom had been waiting for the reunion with her best friend after more than 20 years. The last time Mom saw her was in my parent’s wedding party. Be patient Mom, there will definitely be another chance.
• My Birthday
  Hmmm, what did I expect? Can’t remember. Maybe I didn’t really expect anything. At least, early in the morning, Mom and Sis called me. A greeting card was sent from the church several days earlier. And, as usual, my colleagues celebrate my birthday with a candle on a cake, a present from Vebby—the yummy Papa Xous, and a usual photo sessions, nothing really special actually. But thank you guys, at least some of you remembered my bday :p .
• Long Vacation (My Dad’s Bday)
  I take a full week leave last June and went to my hometown, Jember. A total refreshing. Eating all day, sleeping all night, playing games, watching DVDs and TV, and other pleasure-giving things. Btw, I encountered another house renovation here. It means that the house was in a great mess and full of stuffs and building materials. I hope it will already be finished on my next visit. Also we celebrated my dad’s bday that week. Not really a celebration though, but at least my sis bought him a bday cake. Happy birthday papa.

Memorable Movies

• Kingdom of Heavens
  The movie about Crusade. It beautifully mirrored the conflict between European Christians and Middle-Eastern Muslims happened on the Holy Land of Jerusalem. Full of moral lessons. If you like historical movies, this movie is highly recommended.
• Starwars Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith
  IMO, the best episode of all Starwars installments. It has the deepest and greatest story line. It uncovers most secrets and tragedies. It is also the most emotional Starwars episode.
• Batman Begins
  This is more Spider-Man than Batman I think. Unlike other Batman movies, Batman Begins is not a full length action movie. Instead, it’s a bit more drama. Batman Begins tells the story of little Bruce Wayne whose parents were killed by a robber. And how he grew up as nobody, but someone who sought justice by his own way. Later it tells how young Bruce was found and trained by a dark Ninjutsu Clan to be the clan leader but later turned into a secret hero. Casual Batman fans won’t be disappointed though since Batman Begins also features top of the art action scenes. By far, this is the best Batman movie according to my opinion.