The Devil's in the Detail

While on the topic of food, in Bukittinggi Delvi and I had lunch at a Sunda restaurant.

I love Sunda food - I reckon it would go down a storm with hip westerners - it's such a fresh smorgasbord of a cuisine.

In any case Delvi told me how the local Minangkabau never really got Sunda food and the restaurant was mostly empty.

I chuckled to myself. West Java and West Sumatra seem so similar to this person that lives on the other side of the planet. It reminds me of my Korean pal who told me (straight-faced) that Ireland and Germany were pretty much the same.

Minang Asli

I went to a restaurant called Minang Asli in Queens last weekend.

I surprised myself at how excited I was to eat Indonesian food.

My date and I had...

1) Pempek Palembang. Is there any other type of Pempek?

2) Sate kambing. Which was translated as lamb satay. I am not sure whether it was a translation error or whether they were trying to fool the Westerners - or maybe they were trying to fool the Indonesians (suspect goat meat is hard to find in NYC).

3) Nasi goreng with ikan asin - fried rice with small salty fish.

It was all delish and I was so happy. So much better than the last time i went to an Indonesian restaurant in Queens - Upi Jaya. Although I should really go back to Upi Jaya and make sure it's not as good. Then I'll also go to Minang Asli to be doubley sure which is best : )

Eleven Years of Erlang

Nice article about my fave programming language.

Century Bank Fallout Article

SBY smelling of roses?

Wild and Whacky Stuff in Indonesia

When people ask me about Indonesia I want to tell them about the bizarro, whacky mind altering stuff (at least to the average Westerner) that happens over there.

So the list could include something about how the Minangkabau is a matriarchal society - I need to learn more about Minangkabau culture!!

How the Timorese rever chickens (at least I think they do).

Or how everything can be eaten with a chocolate and cheese topping.

Any ideas?

Doing a Bono

Every so often my pals and I argue about Bono.

The question is should you dislike him or like him for his promotion of causes. Are Bono and the like vainly trying to prove their worth and greedily self promoting themselves? or are Bono's efforts a net positive?

In any case a pal of mine asked me to promote her charity a little after I made my yearly donation. Why not eh? But to avoid any risk of doing a Bono, I am gonna dredge up some embarrassing story as a confessional ying and yang thing.

Over the past few years I have been supporting POTA. Lieke runs the charity. It's a Christian charity and although I like to think of myself as a strictly kosher atheist - Lieke is deeply passionate about helping the less fortunate in Indonesia.

She has lots of stories. When you hear these stories they draw you in and you feel part of the story.

They're better if you hear them from Lieke in person, but one of them was about a Christmas party they gave to some poor kids. KFC donated all the food. Everything was going well. Lots of fried chicken (Indonesians love fried chicken!!) and good times had by all. Thing was Lieke noticed one boy (or was it a girl?) that wasn't eating his KFC. She was sort of dumbfounded as all the other kids were eating away.

Lieke went over to the boy and asked him why he wasn't eating. He told her that he wanted to save his KFC so he could bring it back to his siblings back home and share it with them.

~~

In New York we don't do KFC we do fried chicken from trendy brunch places and cool divey bars.

~~

Now for the yang.

Last night I got hammered. Made a lot of lewd jokes. Then went on to interrogate this girl (with whom I am semi obsessed) about her ex.

That is too fresh. Let me dredge up something else.

How about the time when we were coming under huge pressure from a hedge fund client of ours. These guys are huge. Their risk was out of whack. I was newly arrived in New York, and was getting phone calls from big wigs.

So anyway, it was getting late and I was trying to figure this out and I had to call up our tech support people. The guy who was supposed to be on duty went home early. I got onto him on his Blackberry and went through him, I was fuming.

A week later it turned out his kid was diagnosed with cancer.

Moon Cake

I was Chinatown this morning.

I ate three quarters of a moon cake - apparently you are only ever supposed to eat one quarter at any one time.

Stomach troubled ensued - lesson learned!

An Indonesian Prisoner

I proposed to an Indonesian girl before. It didn't work out.

However paying $50k to the Indonesian government to marry an Indonesian is a bit steep.

Breathing

I have finally realised how much breathing correctly can help you when you're working out.

Not sure what the mechanics are, but it seems to help a lot!

Probably the most Xenophobic Country in the World(?)

Is Japan the most xenophobic developed country in the world?

Judging by the number of refugees they allow in every year they probably are.

Mirror of Pride and Pain

I heard this great quote about how countries teach history:

"It's a mirror of pride and pain"

It's true, and not all that encouraging eh?

School's Out / In

I remember the number one reason for getting off school in primary school was frozen pipes, leading to a lack of water and probably heating.

That and a sprinkling of snow - Ireland rarely gets much, so everything comes to a standstill when we get a smidgen!

It looks like these students are a hardier bunch.

Reaffirmation

When I tell people that I love Indonesia people often look at me as if I have two heads.

I like seeing Indonesia getting a bit of good press.

If nothing else it means I am not stark raving mad.

New Year's Resolutions

I am giving up beer and the Beatles for 2010. It's gonna be one hell of a year!

Worthwhile-ness

me: well doing anything worthwhile involves a bit of masochism...

look at me and indonesia for example : )

Hanum: haahahhahahahahahhahahahhahahhahahahahahhahahahahahahahaha

That Time of Year Again

It's cold and I am in a retrospective mood (along with many others).

Snappiness

One of my pet hates on Facebook is that people only *ever* show the best sides of themselves.

I think the blogosphere is populated by a slightly more deranged sort, which makes for a good read.

~~~~

In any case, I feel bad tonight. Cos I snapped at one of my gym's receptionists - quite a minor 'snap' - but a 'snap' nevertheless. It's one of New York's posher gyms - I pay a fortune for the monthly fee and a personal trainer and yet they call me 'Jonathan' all the time.

(What a horrific malformation of my name! : )

Why? Cos they haven't bothered to correct it in their system, even though I have brought it up tonnes of times.

There's nothing worse than fake personalisation that get's your personal details wrong!

I will apologise to the receptionist once I see her again. She'll have probably forgotten, but nevertheless (also she's pretty cute, any excuse to strike up a conversation!!).

Sissy

You have got more bodyguards than you can shake a stick at - and you're afraid of being assassinated by terrorists - when you should protect your people getting blown up by terrorist bombs.

Your party has a majority in parliament and have just won a landslide presidential election - yet you are afraid of some sort of political coup when you should be joining your people and rooting out corruption.

Who are you? The biggest sissy in Indonesia of course - the Indonesian president - SBY.

How could this bloke be so effing paranoid and feel so sorry for himself while at the same time there's so much his people need him to do!?

Embryonic

I just bought the Flaming Lip's Embryonic album - it's gotten rave reviews don't you know! (I say this, because as I am listening to it for the first time I don't 'get' it - hopefully it's another Bends or something?)

You know you're becoming old fart when you can't be bothered to surf around and download a pirated album but you surf around for the cheapest legit download.

So here's how much it cost at various sites:

1) iTunes: $11

2) Amazon: $10.49

3) WalMart: $10.00

4) Lala: $7.99

No wonder Lala's just been taken over by Apple. That Lala price translates to E5.50 - a far cry from the 15-18 Euros you used to have to pay at HMV for new albums.

I wonder whether I could've found it any cheaper though - if I looked longer than 10 minutes...

By the way, those who say the music industry is dying are off their rocker. MP3s are purer profit to record labels than CDs ever were.

How you will Probably Die

[Link]

Happily I have never had suicidal tendencies.

Weird how different races and sexes have such different deaths... Are our lives /that/ different?!?!