Keep the balls unruffled.

"Machete? That's only good if you want to make a brutal point. It's low tech. Completely unsuited."

Well, that's right. I'm watching 'Machete' by Robert Rodriguez.

Film was good, and crisp story line. Predictable. Good for cult fans of him, like me. I'm wondering, how this guy able to get the funds to finance this sort of movie. I'm not sure about the returns he'll get in doing one. But hey, it's Robert Rodriguez, he's sitting on top there together with Quentin, and a whole other film makers as well.

"With an opening of only an $11.3M three-day weekend, it helps that 20th Century Fox acquired this Robert Rodriguez pic for only $6M. "We always believed the movie would be so strong in the Latino community. After all, it's a Latino director with cachet, a great Hispanic cast, and part of our sell has been that Machete is the first Latino superhero,"

Whenever he's making movie, it makes serious people like me becomes curious. Curious with what he has to offer. Who ever thought of making the first Latino Superhero? I'm sure this idea has been casted gazillion times for the past decades in the community.But no one has the balls to do it, not enough to make the effort to convince people with money, nor a big production studio to support it. Robert Rodriguez did. So whenever I see people rated his movie to B, or with 1-2 stars out of five, or utter the words "Cinematic technique was great but crap storyline"? Better wreck themselves out. They don't appreciate the great length effort he took out to produce one here.

One thing smart about this directors. They tend to take the forgotten actors/actresses into their cast. Who ever thought Lindsay Lohan going to big screen again, doing a semi-epic movie? And Danny Trejo, Danny Trejo. The familiar face behind the scene has his own staring now. That makes me curious. Remember Michael Madsen in Kill Bill? What a comeback!

Ok, it stops here. Continue with the movie.

Millenium Year

We are in the 11th month of the year, another more month and after, we're 1 year older. "Time wait for no man." I could still recall all the things I did last year. Memories are still fresh in my mind.

To review the year, things were not that bad for me. This year I shouldered great responsibility. I was given more work, and more authority. Not to mention to things which I am always answered for. I think I've handled all pretty good except for some few minor glitches here and there, and I always learn through any mistake I made. Next year, I would like to be more aggressive and firm, and would like to learn more about communications to win the 'hearts and minds' of my peers.

Being the youngest in my level tends to be a very hard thing sometimes. But I do feel, the wise are not that wiser anyway. I don't need to heed and bow to what the elders always say. I'm tired of being 'advised'. If we are smart enough, we all can learn from what we've seen and observed. But, out of respect, we still need to show our acknowledgement to everyone.

2011, eleven years passed the millennium. What resolution is there to be achieved this time?

Why English became the language of the world?

Why not French, Arabic, or even Chinese. Well, now, China are getting more dominant in the business world, because of their robust economic growth, geographically large country, and has one of the highest labor capacity in the world. But this was achieved only until a few years ago, when its Government started a reform on its policies and open up its doors to the outside world.

As the world passes through time, English slowly became the dominant language of the world thanks to "the economic, political, military, scientific, cultural, and colonial influence of Great Britain and the United Kingdom from the 18th century, via the British Empire,and of the United States since the mid-20th century. It has dispersed to become the leading language of international discourse, and has acquired use as lingua franca in many regions.It is widely learned as a second language and used as an official language of the European Union and many Commonwealth countries, as well as in many world organizations. It is the third most natively spoken language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish."

Hegemony---

"However, English language hide its existence as a pernicious 'tool' of discrimination that does nothing but widen social disparities. Why do people yearned to become proficient in English and virtually worshipping it ever since it established its superior status among other foreign languages? English is no longer such a harmless thing. It is breeding a discrimination and inequality because people are being "classed" into English speakers and non-speakers. It seems like native speakers and people who have studied or lived for many years in English speaking countries have an advantage over everyone else in the work force and the international scene. This is total 'Hegemony of the English language'."

"Nowadays some local firms (non english speaking countries) are making it as its official in-house language. There are three problems that would stem out of this proposition."

"First, using english as communication would have a huge impact on the local society. People would see this as a proof of the importance of having English skills, and this in turn will reinforce the structure of domination by this language."

"Second, native speakers of English will gain tremendous advantage over their colleagues in all areas of communication, which is bound to breed a new type of language-based social disparity."

"Third, the firms might prioritize foreigners, and what a greater anomaly is there than to be unable to communicate in your native tongue in your own country?"

The above was quoted and summarised from the interview with Yukio Tsuda for Asahi Shimbun (Japan's local newspaper). He is a professor in the Nagoya University. He is an opponent of the "hegemony of English" as well as a proponent of linguistic pluralism and the concept of "Ecology of Language". He believes that domination of English is tantamount to linguicide and that addressing the problem of linguistic hegemony is crucial to the development of "human and cultural security".

I guess he has his points there, and they all are well worth pondering.

Direct Hit

Lately, I've been juggling things between life and work,and I've completely neglected this space. Well, as usual, Sunday is always the best day to catch up with things and to finish up the draft of this post that I've started last Wednesday.

I was flicking through my cable on saturday night, when I stumbled into this movie called 'The Squid and the Whale'. How could I missed this movie? Not knowing of its existence even though it has been released for 5 years ago.


Who the hell is Noah Baumbach? Brilliant piece of script. I think this movie would be the closest thing ever made on the painful reality of having a divorce. The hardship felt by the children and parents seems absolutely real and the script was really a direct hit. Except for some twists in it which may not be a common happening in real life, it's a freaking good movie. I'm not sure what makes my cable to show this award winner of 2005 Sundance Film Festival. Usually, it's always been those out-tossed box office movies. I guess it's because of Jesse Eisenberg, who is currently having a premier movie which is been shown around the world, was in it. Yeah, the guy who portrayed the Facebook creator, Mark Zuckerberg, in 'The Social Network'. People here are going nuts over the release of 'The Social Network', which I think is far from reality and freakingly overrated.

I am now in the midst of ordering a used DVD of this movie from Amazon to add it to my collection. In the meantime, I'm gonna dig more of Noah's work.

The Kaleidoscope Effect.

What a perfect saturday it has been. A weekend out with family and friends. So many roads to explore, so many things to talk about, so many information to process. Food glorious food. I'm having too many things to digest.

I'm not worrying about what goes beyond the line that borders this feeling. The anger, the suffering, the reckoning and the mocking from this world are far beyond reach.

I hope it stays this way at least for a day in a week. I hope we all could feel the happy bit part of our lives.

Check Your Head

'Excuse me, I think I almost lost it.'

SNAFU lately. Last few days was hectic. I was juggling between work and life ("I know you have one too"). It has been one of those days where you wish that Friday was only an hour away. Situation where, after you have finished up your responsibility at work, only to find another one when you reach home. I know our responsibility in life stays there forever and we could only seek 2 days a week of comfort away from work. Weekend is such a bless.


I've been going through some music videos in Youtube recently, and it has been a bit of walking down my memory lane. Music is a powerful thing. When you listened to an old tune, your mind brings you straight where you were in the past. I could still feel the steering wheel of my mom's old car, a no 'power-steering' Datsun, heading up to my college in Subang along the Federal Highway route while listening to Duncan Sheik's "Barely Breathing" on radio. That song recalls me right at that spot, whenever I listen to it. I could also remember listening to Beastie Boys "Body Movin", while heading up for a night out at a club in Eastin Hotel (gosh, can't remember the name) years and years ago.

Music and memory recall. A search from the net showed that many studies have found that music aids the storage and recall of information in the human memory. "The rhythm and melody of a familiar song provide a structure for 4 learning new information, a distinctive memory record, and effective retrieval cues".

Well, whatever it is, I think it is worth taking a walk down in Youtube sometimes.

Aperture-Priority

The sun was shining through the sheets today. What a beautiful day. Furthermore, it was my off day. Voila.

I thought it might be a good day to take the camera out. Everybody wants to be an amateur photographer these days. I used to be too crazy about it the last time. I was a fan of 35mm and vintage cameras. Bought things through the internet, mostly off Ebay. I got one Soviet-made camera, which was shipped off from Poland for a mere USD5 dollars. It was during the height of my University days. Lomo LC-A was crazy as hell those days, but I just could not afford it. Even until today, I think the price is not worth to be paid for that camera. These cameras can do wonders with their so-called Cold War era lens, but the task to find a good film developers (not sure this is the right word) is quite tough. As for going digital, I got my first digital SLR, through a second hand shop. A beaten down second hand digital SLR camera that stayed with me till today.

Today, I took my quality time as a shutterbug. I don't really know when I would have this chance again. The perfect weather, the ample time, and the great ambience.