BELLAMYBUDIMAN

Today was a literally long day for me. I went out to Karawaci at 9 AM, gone back home by 4 PM, went out again to Sentul for the concert at 5 PM, and I just got back home around 1.30 AM. Hell, I’m at tomorrow right now! But it was all worth it, and seeing Jamiroquai’s live concert in person should be considered as one of the unforgettable moments.

Today’s concert started out late, when they said that the concert starts at 8 PM, well no, Dimi was performing the opening act at that time and the real concert starts at 10 PM, and it spans for two hours straight with ten songs.

While listening to Jamiroquai’s CDs or MP3s is something that we often do, seeing them perform live is even sicker than I ever imagined. The band played everything flawlessly as if you’re listening to a sound loop. Manual sound loop. With two background singers, there are only eight of them but they manage to shake Sentul City’s Convention Center with a scale that’s off the chart. Too bad they didn’t play out Virtual Insanity, but as long as my all time favorite driving song—Cosmic Girl—is played, everything is just perfect! It is too bad, though, that we’re not allowed to bring cameras inside (WTF!) and I was only able to take photos from my iPhone.

On a sidenote, I met a plentiful of friends and old friends there, including Mande Austriono, Marthin Nayoan, Andira Pramanta and family, Steny Agustaf, and saw Pandji’s face on the big screen LOL.

This is definitely the best concert I ever attended, the atmosphere was splendid, we had really great fun. And Yero, thank you for the birthday present!

In my entire life, I’ve never been a constant donator for any organizations. And I mean any. Tonight, however, I think I made myself a bold move. Earlier tonight, I was on my way in to Kafe Pisa for a dinner with my friends. The second I stepped in the fence, a guy stopped me. To be honest, I thought he was one of Kafe Pisa’s employees and it took me a few seconds to realize that he’s from WWF, and that he’s trying to explain one of their programs.

The explanation took around 2-3 minutes. The guy asked me if I participated on the Earth Hour, and continued on explaining that every single year, Borneo lost an area of its forest with the equivalent size of two islands the size of Bali, we’re losing plants over there, the climate’s temperature is rising (which we can feel nowadays), as well as a few other concerns. Long story short, WWF needs IDR 76M each month to help nature conserve itself. And yes, they’re asking for a donation.

I have only a brief moment to decide, and I thought, why not? It would probably cost me some part of my monthly fuel and cellphone budget, but I guess in the long run, it wouldn’t hurt. I’ve always wanted to help people conserve nature, and I think helping WWF to do this would be a good decision.

See it this way. I’m just being realistic, we’re living in a God-forsaken and shit hole country with nobody seems to care on what’s going on with our own nature conservation, and if we want to make a difference, there are only a few options, with the first one being that, helping the United Nations do their bidding. Second, relying on our government or some other bogus organization to do this with the risk of you-know-what-will-happen-to-your-money. Third, we can help by directly being volunteers ourselves, but of course most of us wouldn’t have the time. Fourth, we can give some money to those moronic college students (I am still amazed with how they call themselves “intellectuals”) who seem to appear with cardboard boxes and asking for donations on every traffic light in Jakarta, every time there’s a disaster or whatever happened. And finally, fifth, we can invest on those idiotic and brainless legislative candidates so they get themselves elected, and hope that they will bring a difference with the environment. Heck, I suppose even monkeys can do their jobs better.

By all means, I don’t mean to brag, but I think if we’re going to make this work, it’s going to need all the help we can give them. I’ve made my choice, what’s yours?

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one with a harsh rant. A lot of people are protesting the less-than-spectacular nature of Lippo Village. And replying to one of the letters in mind, Mr. Gordon Benton — the Senior Executive – Architect, Urban Planner of PT Lippo Karawaci, Tbk. — said (unedited quote from the UPH’s Alumni Mailing List):

Dear P’xxxxxx,

You will get an answer from TMD, mentioning that Peter Freeman has already resigned and left suddenly, and that a Town Manager replacement will be appointed shortly. We hope that communications with the Residents and Commercial interests in the town will soon be reestablished to the previous level of efficiency.

We are all aware of the traffic problems, made worse because of the coming motor racing through the streets of the town. Every day we are experimenting with the traffic, which is often quite unpredictable, and doing our best to solve each crisis as it arises. For sure there will be congestion over this weekend, but I hope that everyone will be understanding and limit car travel to the minimum. The Gerbang Timur will be opened tomorrow, which will allow students and residents to come from Sepong Toll, BSD and Gading Sepong and enter LV without going through the CBD and the racing area. It is planned that all this will be signposted.

We all hope that you and all the townsfolk in Lippo Village will see the international exposure of our town on the TV screens around Indonesia and the World as something wonderful for Indonesia as well as our lovely small town. Thank you for your information, and we hope that we will keep the inconvenience to you all to a minimum.

With Regards,

Gordon Benton

Notice the words marked in bold? Yes, he actually wrote that, I kid you not. As of now, we all should start reminding ourselves constantly that the Sep… I mean Serpong Toll is now the Blowjob Toll, and that during high traffic, there might be Pay-Per-View sex clips, which you can watch if you’re bored. What would Lippo Village develop next? Porn movies?

For the last several weeks (or perhaps months), Lippo Village’s traffic has been like tomorrow’s the end of the world. The culprit? Well, of course, the construction of the circuit. Yes, that circuit, the one A1GP bailed out on some time ago because of Lippo Village’s incompetence in racetrack constructions (Yes, Lippo Village, the A1GP would need an entire complete track to be able to race there, not something that looks like a junkyard). If I’m not mistaken, a valid race track must be ready weeks before the actual venue. Supposedly the venue is a go, which will be held this Friday, 6th of February, today is 2 days before the venue, and the track is not even finished.

When I got home today, I was stuck for like 10 minutes just to circle around the boulevard and get in to the tollroad. Seeing the opposite traffic, I can’t see clearly, but I think it spanned for at least a couple of kilometers.

The way I see it, with the price of immense and almost uncontrollable traffic, they are probably trying to pace up the construction for the GT Car Championship that’s going to be held there this Friday. Yes, the GT Car Championship, there, with that kind of asphalt. To be honest, if you see the current track’s condition, I don’t think you would approve it even for the local Bajaj fun race. And when people push a construction like that, chances are something is going to go awol.

And that’s not the only thing. When I walked out after teaching my class today, and went on to go to the mall for lunch, I saw this:

And if you look closely, you’ll notice that this is probably someone else’s BMW photo they grabbed from the internet (or from a stock photo CD at the local pirated software shop) and mashed up with sponsor logos with no consideration of a real-world perspective at all. It’s like someone did this under five minutes. Look at how the sponsor stickers and distortion doesn’t even line up with the car’s lines nor shadows. And worst of all, the BMW logo on the car’s hood is mirrored. So now it’s called a WMB. And they call this “World Class Action”. How exciting… All I can say is meh.

With that humongous banner in mind, as a conclusion, the way I see it (for the second time), it’s as if they really have to get something going because A1GP bailed out on them. It’s like having a venue with no preparation. I’m not even sure if by the time the track is done, there will be enough time for health and safety inspections. Maybe, somewhere there, someone said, “Oh shit, the A1 left us! We got to have something going! Fast!” And behold the GT Car Championship. I just can’t imagine the traffic and the hell that’s about to break loose this Friday. If you can help it, you might want to try avoiding the premises this weekend.

And oh yeah, one more thing. You can’t actually cross the road and go straight to the mall anymore now. Since they are “constructing” the track, you are now required to take a right turn, and cross the 5-lane (or 6?) road and risk yourself on getting hit by those pesky angkots, and then walk up the small pathway that has turned into a pedestrian body-bumping centre, next to the police station.