Archive for the 'Review' Category

Perspektif Wimar

Thea June 13th, 2008

The topic discussed in Perspektif Wimar this morning was very interesting. The guest was the chief of Indonesia Toilette Association. Wimar, the co-host (Cathy) and the guest talked about the condition of the toilette in Indonesia.

Maybe it will be surprising for some of us. Talking about toilette in a show aired in the morning? It could seem nothing, but it’s really something. I’m sure we would be reluctant to use dirty-smell public toilette. Therefore, the existence of this association is to raise awareness of healthy toilette and educate people on how to use toilette properly.

I still remember a news about months ago about the poor condition of toilette in Sukarno-Hatta airport. Instead of improved quality, the condition of the toilettes there doesn’t reflect our willingness to welcome the foreign tourists who would visit Indonesia. In fact, our government forges a program “Visit Indonesia Year 2008″. What a contrary fact!!

Okay, let’s move on for a moment. I will focus on the talk show it self. Wimar said to me that it’s only one week left. It means i won’t see his spontaneous-naughty comment anymore. The low rating is the reason why it’s terminated soon. I knew about this last time I met Wimar . Meanwhile I was also informed by him that despite the rating, there’s along queue of advertisment waiting to be aired in the show’s break. Like my comment in his blog, I am failed to understand why we let rating drives what must appear in tv and not. Should this prevails , I can imagine what kind of tv shows what we would have. It must be full of sinetron and kinda of that. It’s saddening.

Okay W, it ain’t an ailment,but a chance to show another breakthrough.

Petite Histoire Indonesia

Thea September 10th, 2007

If you’re kind of people who has less interest in history, you really have to read this book because probably this book will grow your enticement on history, especially Indonesian history.
The author of this book, Rosihan Anwar, is an experted journalist. Starting from his interest in reading history book written by Dutch author about Indonesian in past decades, Rosihan thinks about writing a history book that can enjoyed by people, especially young generation. According to him, history isn’t merely the sequence of date and its historical events. History is beyond that. It’s supposed to be felt lively and meaningful to the current condition.

That’s why as a journalist who has experienced year by year of Indonesian historical moments, Rosihan wants this book can deliver the information of Indonesian history in enjoyable way.

This book comprises of 13 parts, each of it’ s inspired by his own experience in several provinces in Indonesia. An article of newspaper is put an introduction in each part. Just like the first of this about East Timor, Rosihan put an article about the declaration of East Timor, which is just separated from Indonesia.The article was published in Kompas, 20 May 2002. After the introduction, he took the readers past when he visited East Timor, where at the time chaos happened.

Different from history book in common, in this book Rosihan wrote the history with more of human interest touch. As a journalist, he knows well how to convey the history cleverly. Being bored reading history book? No chance, as you may get more interested in reading part by part of this book.

Have u ever known about Cocos island where undersea telegraph cables lied from Eastern Extension Australasia and China telegraph connected to Batavia? In this group of island also, a Germany ship, Eden, was wrecked during he first World War. You can find that sort of story in this book.

Besides, you can find many interesting historical events in daily activity of Indonesian or people in Indonesia in many several years a go. The small stories written in this book really happened in Indonesia. It’s interesting to know that this full-of-human-interest stories are put partly from the biggest major history of Indonesia. Meanwhile, they are actually very close to the history of Indonesia.

In this book also u may find stories about Sandlawood in East Timor, Nazi coup d’etat in Nias, or the story of Prof.Snouck Hurgronje’s friends.

Undoubtedly, Rosihan shows his excellence in this book. It’s very informative, reliable, yet written briefly and smartly which hopefully can make the readers read this book more and more.

Commander in Chief

Thea March 5th, 2007

This is a serial that I recommend to watch. Commander in Chief which is played every Tuesday in Metro TV is a picture on how difficult managing a country is, especially a huge country like USA. And when a woman has a chance to be the first person of that country, many people are in doubt on her credibility as well as her capability to manage things which a man used to do.

Starting with the massive bleeding underwent by the president of America, Vice President McKenzie Spencer Allen, is in difficult situation whether she has to replace the president just in case he has fatal disease. McKenzie is from Independent Party which has no sufficient basis in house of representatives. The president himself who asks McKenzie to step down and plans the spoke person of house, who is Republican, to replace him as the president. However, the plan isn’t realized until the president’s condition deteriorated. Finally he’s dead without realizing his plan. And there McKenzie, takes the pledge to be the first female president of America.

In this movie, McKenzi is described as a successful woman who has three lovely children and happy family. This is probably an ideal description on a successful woman should be. Aside from her career, she’s also a responsible mother who must nurture her children. Such a huge task, isn’t it? In recent age, even Americans still retain such portrayal of how a woman should be.

Last night was the premier in Metro TV. Yet, I’m convinced the story will be interesting. So don’t forget to turn on your TV every Sunday on 8 P.M.

“Siapa Bilang Jadi Karyawan Ngga Bisa Kaya?”

Thea December 15th, 2006

What is in you mind reading the above statement? Being provoked? Wondering? Or what? I was being provoked reading that statement when I saw in an alley of a bookstore. It’s a title of a book written by Safir Senduk. This book I find very useful as it gives smart ways to enable an employee like me to manage salary. Undoubtedly, everybody wants to be rich, or at least we want to be settled with our own money. The question is: can we (or I), employee, be rich? Some say that you won’t be rich if you choose to be an employee. You must to be an entrepreneur first to be so. This book exactly broadens your point of view on managing employee salary so it can generate revenue for us. 

How can this book help you? There are five steps on managing salary elaborated in this book. The first one, buy and posses productive things as many as you can. Hhmmm, what is productive thing? According to this book, productive thing is thing that can generate income for us. Once reading this part, I stared to my room and counted how many of them I had. The example of this such as saving, deposits, reksadana etc. Motorcycle as well as car can be productive things if you rent them to ojek rider or driver, and then you can earn money from them. Manage your expenditure. It’s very important to make priority list on your daily expenditure. It’s much better if we can avoid deficit as it is the root of our financial problem. Put debt paying at the top priority, and then insurance, followed by daily expenditures. 

Watch out with debt!!! Make sure that you know the wise way and time to have a debt. Meaning, you can lend money from bank or maybe your relatives but with certain terms. The lent money is addressed at buying productive things. Then, it’s used to purchase thing that is certainly predicted to be more valuable in the future, such as land or house. Next, you can lend money only if you really don’t have enough cash to but urgent thing, even its value will be less in the future. However once deciding to lend money, be wise on choosing with whom you will lend it and the period on repayment. Fourth, spare your money for the future post. What is future post? It’s a post that you have to be afforded in the future such as your children education expense, pension, business, and vacation or pilgrimage expense. 

The last is save for the rainy day. It’s important to bear in mind the significance of protection. We never know what the future brings. So, be prepared. We may be sick, being fired, or and many things may occur. That’s why the writer of this book suggests us to have insurances. To have more than one type of insurance is much better. Then try to find another revenue generator besides from our existing job. It will be helpful if someday we get fired or our company should meet employee rationalization. Reading this book, to be rich, I bear on mind that the key is managing the salary as wise as possible. It can be applied by sparing it to create revenue and controlling the expenditure posts so deficit can be avoided. To be rich, it’s not about how much salary that we earn, but how much of it that we can spare to facilitate us making money. Written in simple style, this book is nice as well as catchy to be read while having a lunch break in the office. Have a nice reading!!! 

 

 

Deja Vu

Thea December 13th, 2006

Apa jadinya jika kita bisa kembali ke masa lalu dan punya kesempatan untuk mencegah terjadinya sebuah bencana yang mengerikan? Tentu tidak semua orang mau melakukannya bukan? Tapi bagaimana jika kita merasa memiliki keterikatan batin, jauh dari yang kita sadari, dengan orang-orang yang menjadi korban bencana tersebut seolah-olah kita pernah mengenalnya dengan dekat dan seperti mengenalnya tidak dalam hitungan hari?
Inilah yang menjadi inti cerita film besutan Tony Scott yang terbaru, DeJavu. Di bintangi oleh Danzel Washington yang berperan sebagai Agen Doug Scralin, film ini dibuka oleh kemeriahan perayaan Mardi Grass oleh para angkatan laut AS beserta keluarganya di atas sebuah kapal yang berlayar di sungai kota New Orleans. Kemudian kapal terebut meledak dan menewaskan para penumpangnya.
Val Kilmer yang berperan sebagai agen FBI Pryzwarra, kemudian melibatkan Doug Scarlin dalam penyelidikan bencana tersebut. Dalam penyelidikan ini, Doug merasa pernah mengenal Claire jauh sebelum dia melihat Claire di ruang otopsi. Cliare sendiri adalah perpempuan yang tewas dan ditemukan terapung di bawah jembatan tempat meledaknya kapal feri. Menurut Doug, jika kasus kematian Claire bisa diungkap, maka akan terungkap pula dalang peledakan kapal feri tersebut.
Dalam proses penyelidikan, Doug mengetahui bahwa pemerintah Amerika Serikat telah menciptakan alat yang mampu memantau penduduk AS dan segala aktivitas mereka bahkan ketika mereka berada di dalam sebuah gedung atau rumah. Memanfaatkan alat ini, Doug dan para ilmuwan yang mengembangkan alat tersebut mencoba untuk mebongkar penyebab kematian Claire. Alat super canggih itu juga mampu mengembalikan seseorang ke masa yang lalu. Dan dengan itu pula, Doug bersikukuh kembali ke masa sebelum ledakan dahsyat itu terjadi dan mencoba menyelamatkan para korban dan terutama si Claire, perempuan kulit hitam yang dirasakan Doug lebih dekat dari yang dia bayangkan. Itulah yang dinamakan Déjà vu.
Akhir film ini, menurutku menyimpan sedikit keganjilan. Apa itu? Wah ga seru kalo ga liat sendiri filmnya.  Yang jelas film berdurasi seratus menit lebih ini “memaksa” kita untuk berpikir agak keras seraya menikmati film ini. Namun dimikian, film ini juga sangat menghibur, apalagi dinikmati di akhir pecan sambil melepaskan kepenatan setelah bekerja full senin sampai jumat. Oh ya satu saran, nikmatilah film ini di bisokop, karena sensasinya jelas akan jauh berbeda jika kita menyakisakan di televise biasa. Kecuali kalo kamu punya home theatre di rumahJ

Jazz in the City (Nice to be Listened)

Thea October 20th, 2006

Tergerak untuk nulis review ini pas baca sebuah majalah wanita yang memilih album ini sebagai choice of the week. Personally speaking, i totally agree with that magazine’s choice. Album Jazz in the City merupakan kompilasi dua puluh lagu-lagu bernuansa jazzy yang pernah ngetop di Indonesia. Lagu-lagu yang ada di album ini pernah populer di tahun 80 an sampai lagu-lagu yang populer di tahun 2000 seperti Feeling Good nya Michael Buble ato High and Dry nya Jamie Cullum. Buat aku, lagu-lagu di album ini paling enak dinikmati sambil tiduran dan baca buku…hhmmm such heaven:). Aku suka semua lagu-lagunya tapi favoritku adalah A Love That Will Last nya Renee Olstead (ring back tone ku)dan Besame Mucho yang dinyanyikan oleh Rosa Passos(aku suka lagu ini sejak kecil karena mama sering banget nanyi lagu ini). Oh ya..suara indahnya Basia juga bisa kamu nikmati di lagu Water of March lho!!!

Hell Yeah

Thea January 1st, 1970

Itu bukan umpatan lho!!! Melainkan buku yang baru aja aku baca. 

woooowww…..this book is defenitely different with other biographies i’ve ever read. aku dah pernah baca beberapa buku biografi, tapi yang jelas ini bener-bener beda. The smart witty Wimar Witoelar digambarkan oleh bahasa penulis angkatan sastar wangi, Fira Basuki. Kalo kamu termasuk orang yang agak anti baca buku-buku sejenis biografi, mungkin bisa mulai dengan baca buku ini. Bahasanya bener2 enak, ga bikin bosen, dan banyak potongan-potongan wawancara Wimar dengan tamu2nya di acara Perspektif (yang dibredel pas zamannya orba). Aku sih seneng banget baca-baca biografi soalnya kita sering dapat inspiring experiences dari orang2 yang ditulis di biografi itu. Kita bisa nyontek step-step sukses dari mereka. Belajar dari kegegalan dan keberhasilan mereka. Satu biografi lagi yang aku suka itu Autobiografinya Hillary Clinton(dia nulis sendiri). Bahasanya bener2 enak….ceritanya mengalir dengan halus. Apalagi kita bisa tau dalemnya White House pas zamannya Clinton. Ternyata pas Clinton jadi presiden, sempet ada yang namanya Hillary Land. itu adalah kantor Hillary dan staf’militannya” yang strive buat social welfare. Tapi kalo buku ikni diterjemahin ke bahsa Indonesia…wah ga janji deh. Paling ga bakal seasik versi aslinya. Kalo sempet aku mau nulis reviewnya.

Back to the Hell Yeah. Buku ini dibagi ke beberapa bagian yang mengajak pembaca untuk lebih dekat mengamati proses metamorfosis Wimar dari (yang katanya) kepompong sampe jadi kupu-kupu ato ugly duck mennjadi beautiful swan:). Diawali dari cerita masa kecil Wimar…perjalanan hidupnya yang menurutku kayak journey karena dia adalah anak diplomat(sempet nyesel kenapa aku ga nyoba ngelamar deplu ya?!?!?!)yang pindah dari satu negara ke negara lain. Trus kisah masa remajanya yang disesalkannya karena ga pernah ada cewe yang mau sama dia (poor you Wimar!!!) Sampe ceritanya waktu jadi Jubir Gus Dur.
Principally, buku ini highly recommended deh!!!! Tunggu review berikutnya ya:)