Can You Get a 70 Cents Haircut?

Well, can ya'? Oh, it's not just a haircut. You can also ask for the barber to shave yer Robinson Crusoe beard. You'll also get a cup of icy cold mineral water, a warm towel, and a 3 minutes massage. The whole package for just 6000 rupiahs (about 70 cents), no additional charge at all. Too good to be true? You bet! Maybe the owner's got a bad case of philanthropy.

I've become a regular at that particular barbershop, but everytime I went there, the rock-bottom price never ceased to amaze me. Granted, the shop itself is not particularly comfortable. No windows, no doors, just a 4 x 4 room with two barber seats. Air conditioning is virtually non-exsistent, except for the warm summer breeze and the cloud of dust from the occasional traffic. The shop also has a very dominant oriental ambience, you can easily find chinese ornaments hanging on the wall and on the ceiling (maybe the head barber / owner has some chinese heritage in him, but he sure didn't look like one). The towel was warmed inside a rice-cooker (no score there for healthiness and subtlety, but full points for originality... and humor). But hey! For 6000 rupiahs, who am I to complain.

But the most important part from every visit to a barbershop is and will always be, the result (i.e., how cool my hair looks after barbering). And I can tell you this, the barbers there have never let me down. Except for the time when the barber accidentally cuts my chin and neck. But still... 6000 rupiahs man! It can't get any cheaper than that!

If you guys wanna try, head out to Pondok Kelapa Raya and look for the little pink shop with lots of people queueing (one of them will probably be me...). I always forgot the name of the shop though, sorry.

Cookies, Cookies, and Fortune Cookies

The Fortune Cookie is a thin, crisp cookie baked around a piece of paper with words of faux wisdom or vague prophecy, usually served with Chinese food as a dessert. The message inside may also include a list of lucky numbers (used by some as lottery numbers) and a Chinese phrase with translation. Despite the conventional wisdom, they were actually invented in California, not China. (wiki)

Just yesterday I had my first fortune cookie in years. Was hoping to get a really, really good prophecy. Instead, I got a boring words of wisdom (i.e. "The smart thing is to prepare for the unexpected.").

Yeek, I don't need that kind of thing. What I do need is some precise prophecy to give me some breathing room and hope for a better future. What I need... is this:

Most Expensive Minute!

Ladies and Gentlemen, that was the most expensive minute of my life! Rp 2000,00 is just ain't worth it.

No Longer Waiting!

Work at a marketing company; Get a doctoral degree through a scholarship program; Establish my first company; Settling down with the woman of my dreams and start a family of 4, 5, or maybe 6 (7?) if she's up to it; Buy my dad a brand new E-class; Go on my first vacation with the whole family; Continue living. Those were my dreams. Not anymore it ain't. Now those are my game-plan. My future to-be. My goals.

There comes a time in your life when you can't wait anymore for your dreams to happen. For me, that time is now. Or rather, yesterday. I spent the weekend in Bandung with my parents to visit my grandma. She has this long shelf in the living room full of pictures of her family. At the end of the shelf, there's this picture of me and my family, taken almost 20 years ago. I was still scrawny back then (not the subject of this post, but it's damn fun to write it down). Mom was still slender and dad still has his hair (again, not the subject of this post, but still damn fun!). Anyways, I saw something in his eyes in that old family photo. I saw content, and more than that, I saw pride. Pride for his achievements, pride for his work, pride for his family, even pride for his scrawny 7 year old son who was handsome as hell even back then. *LOL*

Incidentally, I also had a conversation that morning with the old man about my future. Usually it was a very delicate matter for me as it involves my perpetually problematic thesis (1.5 years and still going strong, bloody Hell!!!) but I was in a good mood yesterday, so I decided to humor him. For the billionth time, he asked me about what I wanted to be after I graduate. And for the billionth time, I told him about moving from pure economics (never my cup of tea, mind you, taking pure economics was the biggest blunder of my life) to marketing. And maybe owning my own marketing research company sometime in the future, as well as my very own advertising / design studio. Once again he told me about his life, how he made it from scratch. Oddly enough, though I've memorized his words at the back of my head, that time I really listened.

He told me that I have to make out a plan, a real plan for the future. Not just dreams, no. Everyone has dreams, but not everyone work out a plan to reach for those dream. His words must've struck a chord somewhere in that encephalon of mine, cos I've decided to put my feet down then and there. Enough dreaming! Now is the time to build my stairway and reach for the heavens (intended to be read while listening to Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven") I want to be content in my family picture. I want my son to see the pride in my eyes. So, I'll work for it, even if I have to move heaven and earth. Anyone coming with me?

New Linkin Park Album

Just visited www.linkinpark.com. LP's got a new album titled 'Minutes to Midnight'. The album took a total of 14 months of rigorous studio time. Initially released on summer 2006, the band pushed back the release date to Monday, May 14. The band just finished shooting the video for their first single 'What I've Done', directed by Joe Hahn, which will be released on April 2.

"This was a year-and-a-half long process of really hard work and experimentation in the studio that yielded about 150 rough songs," guitarist Brad Delson told Billboard.com. The band recorded 17 tracks and is now deciding which ones will make the final cut.

The new album was produced by lead singer Mike shonoda and the multiple Grammy award-winning producer, Rick Rubin. 'Minutes to Midnight' will deliver "more of a stripped down, classic-rock, and hip-hop kind of feel," frontman Chester Bennington revealed in Blender magazine. Describing the album as "dark and spooky, poppy, and very melodic," Bennington declared his band is "straying away from a lot of the predictable sounds [it] had in the past [by] using vintage guitars and drums made out of wood and skin for a more tribal sound. It's definitely not nu-metal."

The full track list:
1. Stand
2. Bleed It Out
3. Get Through
4. What I've Done
5. In This World
6. The Little Things Give You Away
7. Hold Nothing Back
8. Over The Top
9. Prommise
10. Real Life
11. Afraid This Time
12. 2.World
13. Until The End
14. Collapsing The Unit
15. We Use the Pain
16. One Perfect Something + Bonus Tracks
17. No Way!

UPDATE:
They changed their genre... I like the old LP better, give me back the old LP... .

You Gotta Check Askaninja.com!

Got ahold of this show last year on itunes. Ask a Ninja started out as an internet video show last year, when the video podcasting hype was (and still is) young and vibrant. It's basically a one man show, featuring a ninja who answers any question (the sillier, the better) that you send to him via email (yeah, modern-day ninjas also use emails: askaninja@gmail.com).

The show always starts with the silly but remarkably catchy theme song (I am ninja // he is ninja // she is ninja too // I am ninja // we are ninjas // und I believe that you are ninja too). You'll get used too it (and grow to love it) each time you saw a new episode.

Next, the ninja will read out an email from a viewer which will also be the episode's theme (e.g: Jason asks a ninja: my wife really wants to know if ninjas need love)

Then he'll answer the question, ninja style. By ninja style, I mean total sillyness. Most of the time he'll say stupid remarks that'll guarentee to tickle your funny bones. Another time he'll make a fool out of himself. But he always maintain that cocky ninja personality, which is actually the soul of the show.

Here's one of my favorite excerpts:

Somebody asked the ninja how to teach his dog ninja skills. The ninja replies:
Just because you teach your dog the skills, doesn't mean that you control how he uses it.
I had a buddy of mine. He taught his dog to be a master of disguise.
Dog ran away.
Three years later, he found out his long time girlfriend
...
was actually his dog.
...
That'll mess you up,
talk about counseling... .
...

The Ask a Ninja Video Podcast is currently sitting on the top ten list on the iTunes comedy podcast category. You can check him out at www.askaninja.com.