Following the multitudes of accolades and Emmy nominations this show has received, I became more and more curious. Finally I started watching Mad Men early September and finished the first season just a couple days ago. I’m happy to report that they really do live up to their hype, though I can see how it’s not for everyone since it isn’t as action-packed and full of twists like most other TV shows these days. Mad Men was instead subtle, almost mundane, surreal and very otherworldly.

One of the things that stood out from this show is that it was set in Manhattan of 1960′s. They’ve been given a lot of credit for portraying life very accurately during that era, and while I don’t know exactly what that means, they introduce each element naturally as the story progresses. Throughout the show we were reminded how women receives different treatment, how smoking was very common and widely accepted, and how driving under the influence wasn’t looked down upon. A lot certainly have happened over 50 years…

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 days

My Nintendo DS has been sitting there collecting dust ever since I got my new lover (the blackberry), but I picked it back up when the long awaited release of this game finally arrived! and I have to say, it’s pretty impressive so far. The graphic is one of the best (and smoothest!) I’ve seen in DS games so far, and more importantly it stayed true to the other Kingdom Hearts games in terms of game play and the general “feel” of the story. Very pleased with Square for being consistent!

Mae – Suspension

Kat introduced me to this song a few months ago, and it has really grown on me. Definitely song of the moment!

Food!

You’d think I should be bored of taking pictures of food by now, but nope! I love food-pics ;) don’t read my blog when you’re hungry! you have been warned.

Bakmi GM, a popular noodle franchise here in Jakarta. I’m not too fond of this type of noodles but they are good, I suppose. I got the chicken noodle with special GM sauce.

Ordered a rice dish from Sushi Groove, instead of… you know, sushi. I think this one was burger with egg over rice. It was just ok. I should have gone with Sushi.

One of the things we ordered during a late night culinary adventure with my friends. So good!

went to eat at Duck King at Pondok Indah Mall with a bunch of people. very good food. my favorite is the tofu dish on the lower right corner!

close up of the tofu… omg, it was SO GOOD! i absolutely LOVE this type of tofu!

one of the many trips to Sour Sally. This one was right after I collected my adsense payment, so I thought I’d treat my mom to some frozen yogurt. she chose pinkilicious with pink mochi which i think makes a really cute (and yummy) combo!! such delicate colors :)

Other Random Non-Food Related Pics

Went to Pacific Place with friends.. took pics with the current decoration (their mall decoration changes every so often). it was her idea I swear!!

You are probably wondering, “wtf are those people doing on top of a MOVING BUS in the middle of MOVING traffic??”. yeah, exactly. I don’t know either… but it happens a lot here.

Introducing… my new lover, the Bold. Ain’t he a beauty?

I finally downloaded a few wallpapers today! I absolutely love this wallpaper. In fact, I’ve been using the same one for my desktop :) It’s called “Bokeh” by Kol, and available for download at deviant art. For my blackberry I increased the saturation a little because I like the colors to pop more.

A very rare shot of quiet streets in Jakarta. This is taken in front of Pacific Place, a popular mall at 6PM, during the holiday I mentioned in the previous entry. Trust me, you won’t see this on any other normal day!

Hello Echo. How are you feeling?
Did I fall asleep?
For a little while..
Shall I go now?
If you’d like..

As I mentioned before, i’ve started watching Dollhouse. I have been meaning to give it a try since I was such a fan of Joss Whedon’s previous tv project, Firefly, which was prematurely canceled by FOX despite spawning a group of devoted fans (who call themselves “Browncoats”).

Well, JW definitely did not disappoint with Dollhouse. As of today I’m exactly 3/4th done with the first season (which only has 12 episodes). So far, I think it’s totally worth watching! The way the series is built, there is bound to be a new story on each episode and it gives viewers enough to continue.

Dollhouse has already been given the green light for another season with 13 additional episodes, so this won’t be another case of short-lived Firefly!

Oh yeah, Eliza Dushku is pretty hot. no wonder she made Maxim’s top 10 this year. and i love the opening title for this show. very pretty!

I thought I would document my weekday daily grind for those who might be interested:

• 05:45 AM Alarm rings, I hit snooze
• 06:30 AM Finally wake up, eat breakfast, put on clothes etc
• 07:15 AM Go downstairs and get picked up by driver. Sleep in the car.
• 08:30 AM Get to office, work work.
• 05:00 PM Get off work, get picked up by driver. Play DS in car.
• 07:00 PM Finally home, eat dinner, watch TV etc.
• 08:30 PM Freelance work if I have any
• 11:30 PM Sleep. repeat.

I added my latest tweet on the left hand side using the nifty Twitter widget! easy to style and light weight. I like it. No need to install a wordpress plug-in. Also made the links on the left to have a little 3d effect when you hover your mouse over them.

I started watching Dollhouse yesterday, Joss Whedon’s newest TV project starring Elisha Dushku. I’ve only seen the first ep, but so far I find it quite promising and a shame that it might not be picked up for another season… (has it been decided yet?) why is it that whenever Joss makes something good *cough Firefly* it gets canceled before even completing a full season?

Anyway, I’m off to resume watching the rest of Ugly Betty!

I hadn’t expected it to be an April Fools joke since it’s about a day early for that, so I read the article with delight and “oooh”‘s and “aaah”‘s for the excellent-sounding browser from Microsoft (!). I thought, “wow, Microsoft finally did something about their crap of a browser? AND they actually thought about us designers / developers who have to deal with cross-browser compatibility? surely this cannot be real!” but believed it anyway, cause hey… it’s Smashing Magazine!

it wasn’t until i read further down in the comments that I discovered the article was a hoax. and along with it comes my hope crumbling down for IE ever being a browser of choice for me.

ANYWAY! GREEK has started their new season!! i’m quite excited :D it’s my only guilty pleasure other than Gossip Girl, so don’t hate. i’ve missed Casey, Cappie and the rest of the crew

i wasn’t very fond of Meteor Garden, but i did follow Hana Yori Dango. I even got N into it :D and we used to watch it together all the time, the entire series till the very last movie special. I was so fond of the japanese drama, that when Anna informed me the korean version is out, i just had to check it out. at first i had my doubts since the first episode started off slow and a bit draggy… my #1 hate about most k-dramas out there. i ditched it halfway through the first episode, but decided to pick it up again. and boy, am i glad i did. this drama just never gets old! the story is quite exciting and very chick-flick-y, which i’m sure you can read anywhere on the net if you are at all interested to find out.

anyway… the korean version. first of all, i love how the story didn’t stray too much from the japanese version, which i assume also wasn’t too far off the original manga (i never actually got to read it). i think the girl, Jandi, is really adorable and energetic, but not to the point where she becomes annoying. the F4 casts are very charismatic and likable. i just love their choices for Jihu and Junpyo, the two F4 members who became romantically involved with Jandi at some point of the story. i guess what makes this story so popular is exactly this. Jandi, a poor average girl, being caught in the middle of Jihu and Junpyo, both very wealthy, endearing and very handsome boys. which girl can resist a story like this? and after that was done, when Jandi realizes that her heart belongs to Junpyo, she still had to fight his mom, the CEO of the most influential company in the country, who was against their relationship. all the while, Jihu was always there for her in a sort of adorable, older brother sort of way. i just love them all!!

the show is currently (i think) up to 17 episodes out of 24 so far. i get KBS world but they air a bit slower than the actual KBS, so i’ve only watched it up till episode 10. I can’t wait to see the rest of this drama! :) even though i already know what’s going to happen, it’s still exciting to see the story being played out by different casts.

Anyway, here is a picture of a flower bouquet Nico gave me this weekend. It’s very pretty and smells really nice. i feel so appreciated, thank you :) *kiss*

and here is my first attempt at RAW shooting. i was a bit hesitant at first as RAW files take up about four times more space than JPEGs, but now i love it! this one’s not a special picture or anything, but it shows how shooting in RAW totally solves the white balance problem i’ve been having with my pictures. my pictures tend to show up yellow due to the lighting in most indoor areas.

one of my favorite kpop artist from a couple years ago, BoA, made a debut in the US yesterday. i actually bought her digital single to show support. that was my first time buying music online, ever. it’s only 99 cents and it’s a good gym music!

so yesterday i worked out for about an hour. i scheduled my day around Gossip Girl thinking there wouldn’t be enough time since I usually get home at 6pm, eat, then i would need to digest my food before working out. then i found out Gossip Girl was actually at 9pm, so i became all happy cause i wouldn’t have to rush as much. i got to the gym around 7:30 and left at 8:30ish, hoping there would be enough time to shower before Gossip Girl…

well, not so much. turns out Gossip Girl was at 8pm as i originally suspected -_-. good thing there were torrents out already.. i watched the ep right after i got out of shower :D

anyway, about Gossip Girl…. Serena’s dress from the dean’s party = DO WANT!!

i did a bit of research to find out they are Jackie O Cutout Dress by Black Halo. ummmm yeah, at a whoppin $325.00, i don’t think i can ever justify getting it *lol

Well, I continued to think that the Disney Channel have gone down hill with their current boring shows. That is, until I saw Wizards of Waverly Place. The show is still in the first season and has not been receiving much attention yet. The show is so funny, smart, and blessed with a very talented cast, all around entertaining for both adults and kids! I like it so much that I’ve been trying to download the episodes that I missed on as well as trying to catch reruns on TV. I guess that I will be a Disney regular once again :)

Other than that, I’ve been addicted to micro-blogging. For those that don’t know… micro-bloggng is blogging with limited characters (250 characters, I think?) kind of like a Facebook status update. I started out with Twitter, but their service has been so spotty these days that I moved to Plurk. It’s fun once you get a community going on. :)

ETA: this post has been corrected by Nico sensei, who threatened not to buy me lunch if i don’t fix the blog -_-

I went to sleep early last night. like, super early. i passed out at 8 and woke up this morning after 4:30. that’s a lot of sleep o_o! i was running on 4 hours of sleep the night before because i had to wake up early. 4 hours of sleep used to be sufficient, but alas i am a college student no more.

anyway, i’m waiting for GRΣΣK to download so I can watch it this morning before my day officially begins… meanwhile:

i saw this at Universal Studios when i went to watch Iron Man with Nico. are you kidding me? i just HADto take a picture in front of this. X-Files!! July 25!! I want to believeeee :D

Iron Man is an awesome movie by the way. like i kept saying everywhere, there is not one single boring moment which is a pretty big deal for me considering i get distracted easily and would wander off if the movie becomes boring (too much dialog, fighting scene gets too long, etc)

soooo my most recent guilty pleasure is the TV show GRΣΣK. it’s one of those light happy-go-lucky fluff show where they have a “problem” that comes up on the beginning of ep and quickly resolved by the end of the ep. it’s just fun to watch. i guess it IS an ABC family series after all. i find it interesting that they are filmed all over UCLA though mostly around north campus area. Bunche Hall becomes their dorm area and the psych department building becomes engineering.