Retail price

When in need of high dosed vitamin C, I usually bought these.

Retail price @ Rp. 6290/bottle.
What a rip off. As a regular consumer of the product. I knew that the price range of that certain vitamin C should have been in between 5000ish (4500-5500max) if you buy it in small booth or retail store. To see that the number showed a little over 6000 is disturbing. Preposterous!

But wait, let's see what the lower shelf has to offer. Oh, what do we have here?

Retail price Rp. 23990 per 6 bottles which makes it @ Rp. 3998/bottle.
Can you believe it? They have the actual ability to sell those things at 4000is price/bottle yet they boost the price for the single selling bottle at 6000ish/bottle. That's 2000 in difference! What a tricky strategy.
Be careful with price tags in SUPERmarkets. You have to be very careful and thorough when shopping in these kind of places. Make sure you're getting the best deal, compare prices, and don't buy those stuff you don't need just because they're having sick promos.

Worth it!

Please, people, stop saying "worthed". It's wrong, just wroonggg.

WORTHED is not a proper English. Go figure.

here,

here,

and here.

Waiting for, Skyrim

Next month.

11.11.11

After Morrowind. After missed out on Oblivion. I shall not pass this one.

Now I must speed up and finish Dragon Age II...

iPhone 4s, not.

Several weeks ago, Apple announced the newest series of its iPhone products, the 4s. Most people, namely iPhone enthusiasts were somewhat disappointed. They were expecting all new iPhone 5 instead of 4s with only several spec upgrades and new (yet improved) features that was already there in the first place.

Not long after the new iPhone was announced, Steve Jobs died. And suddenly people had one more reason to get the new 4s as it was probably the last legacy from its late innovator.

For a moment, I got caught up in the hype. I even considered to get one once its launched. But I came to my senses. I don't really need it. Of course, yes, it's cool. Awesome. Loved the design. Very badass with all its new features and over the edge specs. But then again, bottom line, I did not need it and I kept telling myself that. The money I'll be needing to be spent on the phone can be allocated for something else more essential, like improving my current gaming PC. Okay, it might not sound "essential".

These are the basic specs and upgrades iPhone 4s will have to offer.

Dual-core A5 chip.

Great. The all new chip set will definitely kick the iPhone to a better and neat-o performance. Would really love to see and feel the experience (sliding those on screen menus without much rough transition). But then again, new smartphones with upgraded specs come and go ever now and then, in a matter of months simply to say. So I don't think this is a really significant factor to be too excited about it. Another product will catch up with similar or even more than this spec, probably in the next several months.

All-new 8 MP camera and optics.

This one is neat too. 8 MP camera in a smartphone is realy something. Even my latest Blackberry only hold a 5 MP. Plus, Apple has given awesome software for enhancing video/picture capturing. Again, Apple hasn't given up on becoming the frontline for hobbyist/media enthusiast smartphone. My gadget-freak friend recommend me to get one if I didn't have any pocket camera yet, which I haven't.

iOS 5 and iCloud

New operating system means new features and probably graphical gimmicks. I would really love to see and feel the experience of those stuff. Will it be new and trendy? Or will it be simply the same than before only faster/smoother? Plus, the iCloud function integrates some of the features that come with any smartphones. Apple wanted to make its new product as the most sophisticated smartphone which can manage your personal stuff easily. Combined with Siri it seems quite powerful.

Nevertheless, this is another reason why I should not really get one of those iPhones. Even with my current phone, I don't really put my schedules, appointments, mostly in it. If I have to get 4s simply because I wanted to try its features, it would be quite a waste. I will not utilize it to its maximum potential.

Siri

This may be the coolest features that the new iPhone 4s have to offer. The voice recognition command system. Based on its demo video (if it will really be able to do so), it can identify our voice and respond to it accordingly, with accurate results. It's like talking to your own personal assisstant (robot). It made iPhone 4s looked very futuristic.

Yet to what end? Although it's cool, I have to remember that it only come in English language. It probably won't recognize Bahasa Indonesia :D plus, what if it is not as sophisticated as it was claimed? If it don't have the ability to "learn" new phrases and accent, it probably will get most of your voice command wrong. What about its noise dampening? If there are two or more voices around it, will it automatically recognise all of them?

Lastly, this Siri function was not actually Apple's. It was an app for iPhone 4. Apple bought the company that made Siri and then integrated its software into their new product (with improvements). Nice move on that, Apple.

In the end, I am not an Apple enthusiast. I never own any Apple product although, I have to admit, I've always been amazed by how stylish and neat they are. The iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad. Especially for iPhone and iPad. I've always thought iPod was preposterous. Too expensive for an mp3 player. Yet it was strangely difficult for me to find alternative good mp3 players on its era. For those who wanted to buy iPhone 4s, go ahead. I am not trying to tell you not to. It has some cool and awesome stuff wrapped in it. For me, I won't really get it at the moment. Not until my old phone cracked. Because I think it's not a significant leap from its predecessor the iPhone 4 and it won't be a over the edge trend to own one. People will only see it as iPhone 4 and will only realize that it's actually 4s until you show them.

What Would You Do?

When there is evil in this world that justice cannot defeat. Would you taint your hands with evil to defeat evil? Or would you remain steadfast & righteous even if it means surrendering to evil?

- Zero to Guilford

Yesterday and Today

This time, I choose a song title for the post's title because I would like to write something about it.

I have been planning but kept on forgetting to dedicate this song to my friends, namely Ravina and Alien. They are studying abroad, chasing their dreams. I thought that this song would really fit. This is special for you two hihihi...

Dear friends, so long Wasurenai Kurikaesu deai no naka Chiisana kizuato o Ryoute ni kakaeteru bokura Samayou bakari Kono hateshinai sekai o mitsumeru Tabibito yo It's so precious when you have good wishes Open eyes & see inside of your heart It's so precious when you have good wishes Open eyes & see inside of your heart Kodoku to yuu kane no ne ga Inori no kotoba o sasou Sugisaru genjitsu to Yasashiku ikizuku asu wa Anata no subete Yurusu deshou mayou koto wa nai Arukidasou It's so precious when you have good wishes Open eyes & see inside of your heart It's so precious when you have good wishes Open eyes & see inside of your heart Samayou bakari Hikari mezashi arukitsuzukeru Tabibito yo Itoshii tomo yo chikara nakushitemo Kakenukeyou konna jidai o Aisuru hito yo yagate tagai ni Kono machi ni towa o sakasou Soshite watashi wa itsu no hi ka mata Utau darou tabidatsu no darou La la la...

Dear friends, so long -- I won't forget you. As we meet one person after another, We carry little scars In our hands... Travellers Just wandering around, gazing at this Unending world. It's so precious when you have good wishes -- Open your eyes and see inside of your heart. It's so precious when you have good wishes -- Open your eyes and see inside of your heart. The sound of the bells called "suffering" Invites words of a prayer -- The passing reality, And the gently sighing tomorrow to come Will forgive everything, So don't hesitate: Start walking. It's so precious when you have good wishes -- Open your eyes and see inside of your heart. It's so precious when you have good wishes -- Open your eyes and see inside of your heart. Travellers Just wandering around, gazing at this Unending world... My beloved friends, even if we run out of strength, Let's run through these times. My love, let's eventually Nurture eternity in this town. And then, someday, I'll sing again, go on another journey... La la la...

I think this live version does not have the same 'feel' as the original version, but it will do since I could not find and embed the original version to this blog.

note:
Van Tomiko's voice is really unique, you people should also listen her other songs both solo and along with Do As Infinity.
Lyrics taken from http://www.globemoon.net/waftf/dai/lyrics/yesterday-and-today_trans.html

Revitalized

The blog is on its way to be fully revitalized. For the very least, first step on doing that is to constantly writing and posting it here. Such commitment requires great effort, especially when it's coming from me. At least I intend to stick to it. But let's not get our hopes high. It's only entering day two since the revitalization of this blog (which is yesterday).

After doing my last post last night, all I have done was simply redesigning the layout of the blog. I wanted it to be, at least, awesome enough and eye catchy (especially to me) so I wouldn't get bored looking at it. And of course, with the purpose to arouse my writing intention everytime I look at it.

So there was the general layout. I did not want to waste too much time picking on the general idea of layout for the blog. So I basically chose from any available basic template provided by blogger and my choice fell to this Awesome Inc template with generally dark-but-neat settings.

Second is editing the blog title. This one consumed most of the times. I needed to think of a new title for the blog since I was going to start all over again yet not quite from scratch. I needed something that represent the spirit. After a long consideration, and of course, trial and error with several different titles, my pick goes to the phrase "This is NOT Star-Crossed Melodies. Why that? Well...

Some of your probably know (although, you most probably wouldn't know) that I had this old blog titled Star-Crossed Melodies. It was domained under the flag of Friendster. I had that blog for quite a long time. As long as this one, if I'm not mistaken. But I posted mostly there in the past, and the posts there were, mostly, well, let's just say that if you want to dig the dirtiest dirt out of me then that blog might have been the right place to look.

But, alas, that blog is no more. As of several months ago, I decided to delete my abandoned Friendster account without fully realizing that the blog was contained within the account itself. So there it was, when I tried to revisited that blog, it was no more. And I realized at that moment, "Ooh riiight, I deleted my Friendster account. So it's only natural that the blog went away as well."

There you go. Since that old blog of mine is officially no more, this blog shall carry on its legacies. Thus the name, "This is NOT Star-Crossed Melodies" in memoriam of the old Friendster's "Star-Crossed Melodies".

Next was the blog description. I basically wanted to put random quotes for the blog's description. So as I browsed the internet and stumbled upon this wicked quote by Emperor Charles di Britannia, I copy-pasted it to be my newest blog's description. My plan is to make the blog's description section updated every once in a while so that I will not get bored with the quote :D

After that came the banner image. My first thought was to put something medieval or group of characters as its background. I had quite a difficult times finding good picture of medieval-ish banner. At that moment, my thought caught the idea of Skyrim, the incoming RPG game due this November. So I started looking some image based on it. Most images I found were that of some warrior (namely Dragonborn) which was quite unsuitable for a header banner image. But then I found this image of dragon with some landscape and I tried to make it to fit the header of the blog. And so there it goes, the theme of the header image background is actually from Skyrim which is the dragon of the north. I put such header image since Skyrim is going to be released sometime around 11-11-11. So until then, Skyrim's theme would probably be dominating my blog.

That's it. I should probably edit some more layout and design for the blog as well as thinking of what to write next.

Le Fuc!

My oh my,

I have just revisited this old blog of mine. Yes, I haven't been here for quite some time now. For ages to be exact. My last post was March 2010, and my post before that was in 2008! Can you believe that? :))

Anyway, I have abandoned writing for quite so long and now I would really like to start it again. Because, as I read it in some article, one way to keep yourself smart(er) is by writing every day at least 750 words per day. I tried it starting several months ago. Wrote just about anything that came to mind, with disregard of topic or main idea. Just write, anything.

It was quite fun. But it only lasted for 5 days. Didn't even get into a week. Turned out, doing 750 words per day for the first three days was easy enough. The fourth day I was beginning to lost ideas and didn't know where to start. So I abandoned it once again.

Of course, in order to keep "being smart" and becomes smarter every day. Like it or not, I must write. So, I decided to try and continue this previously-abandoned blog and revitalize it. I was thinking about making a new one with new names but I guess it's going to be too troublesome. I don't really need fancy features and gimmick anyway. As long as it publishes my writings, so be it.

My first several posts might or might not be meaningless and unimportant. Bear with me. Since I'm just starting over after quite a long time. I, of course, will try to improve it progressively. I hope this will shall never wane. Welcome, the rest of 2011. Onwards!