Do you know where’s the nearest coffeshop?

It was around half to eleven PM. The dark was just approaching and I was about crossing the street when all of the sudden a car stopped right in front of me. A blonde girl on the driver seat smiled from the car window. While she’s rolling down her car window, she shouted:

“Meneer! Blah blah blah blah blah ?”
“What?? Sorry but I don’t speak Dutch!”
“I said, do you know where’s the nearest coffeshop*?”
“Oh, I’m not very sure, but you can try the centrum. Just drive straight and turn left”
“Thanks!”

For those who need a little bit enlightenment, coffeeshop in Netherlands means a place where we can smoke the cannabis for personal consumption. After she drove her car off, I smiled and wondering how people were still desperately craving for a painkiller even in the middle of the night. Ironically, 6 weeks ago in the hospital in Amsterdam I refused to use a painkiller although the nurse said that I’m entitled to have one. Stupid me. I was too afraid I would get addicted to it. As the result, two hours later I cried and begged them to give me one when they were starting to put the plaster onto my injured leg.

Anyway, back to that girl. Why would she think I know such a place? I think that means it’s time to cut my hair ..

Filed under: Life

Twittering Our Life

Ever since social networking applications had influenced our lives, I started to question people including myself. Have we become more extroverts? Or people are just basically extroverts. The only difference between us and people 100 years ago is that in this Internet era, we have the tools to express our extrovert-ness.

Now I’m going to reminiscing my Internet social life transformations since the year of 2000. So far I remember, I started my extrovert-ness by a creating personal website complete with its guestbook in a simple PHP scripts. Then only in few years, people invented a new word. “Blog”. Of course then I was immediately becoming the part of it. Started that time, the inventions of what they so called social networking applications – or I’d prefer to call it self-promotion services – has never been stopped until now. Say Friendster, Multiply, MySpace, Facebook, etc have become a part of millions people’s life including ours.

Nevertheless, few weeks ago I just created myself an account in a micro-blogging service called Twitter. Actually, I’ve heard about this guy before. But since I had enough with social networking services, I always refrained to sign up. I thought, someday people will get tired of all this things and we will end up by only sticking to one big powerful social networking application. Besides, what’s so cool with writing post in only 140 characters? I’ve been doing it for years in my IM or nowadays Facebook.

I was wrong. Eventually people are so dynamic and we always search what suits them the most. According to Wikipedia, in just two years time Twitter has gain popularity worldwide. I become more interested on Twitter since it’s supported by huge amounts of 3rd party applications. Here’re some few examples:

Tweetr
Twitter desktop client for Mac/PC

twitter@twitter.com
Twitter GTalk account, which enables GTalk users to post their updates via IM.

TwitterMail
Twitting by mail.

Tweetie
Twitter client for iPhone

TwitPic
Share photos on twitter

And so many more in http://www.squidoo.com/twitterapps

I’m pretty sure that soon it’ll be a new word in our dictionary after “google”.  So later we can say, “Hey would you twit about your honeymoon experience ?”

- Yes, you can follow me twitting at http://twitter.com/rnugraha. -

Filed under: Life , social networking, twitter

Solving Unfinished Loading on Yahoo Messenger for Mac Beta 3.0

It’s been months that my Yahoo Messenger for Mac 3.0 Beta always got stuck in loading friend list while actually my friends can see me online. Today, I stumbled upon an online forum telling me that to solve it is simply by following steps below:

• Go to /Users/<your user account>/Library/Preferences
• Trash all yahoo.messenger3.*.plist files
• Start your Yahoo Messenger v.3 Beta

It’s working again!

Filed under: Mac , Mac, problem, yahoo messenger, ym

It’s started by ..

So, I broke my leg today. Well, it’s not totally broke off, but I had quite a big fracture on my right lower leg.

How the hell did it happen?

I’m pretty sure that it’ll be the most FAQ of my next 12 weeks life when people see my plaster casted leg. In short, this afternoon I bought an in-line skate, tried it out somewhere near a lake in Amsterdam just after rain, slippery road, steep slope and you can guess what happened next. The lesson learned, when you’re so bored with your life, don’t buy a rollerblade.

Well .. shit happens, right?  At least, some of my been-there-done-that list were finally tick marked. First fracture, first time taken by an ambulance and first time had a feeling that insurance is actually paid off. Oh ya, as my praise that summer was finally approaching, I wore pink t-shirt today. Does it has something to do with the accident? I dunno, I think it does. So, another lesson is learned. Don’t wear pink when you’re rollerblading.

After spending almost 3 hours in the hospital, I went home by a cab to my place with 4 nice souvenirs. A casted leg, a pair of crutches, a doubtful thought about how the hell am I going to spend the rest of my life like this, and a taunted greeting from the cab driver himself. “Enjoy your summer“.

“Don’t worry .. that’s what friends are for” is the sentence that comforts me – at least on the first week. I’m pretty sure that on the second week my friends will start to think that I’m just a spoiled boy who just wants too much attentions.

I like the fact that technology means efficiency. Instead of an ugly negative slide inside an A3 sized envelope,  the hospital gave me the X-ray result in a CD. Actually, I was kind of hoping it would’ve been more sophisticated. “We have tagged you on the X-Ray result in our Facebook account“. Nah, too much day dreaming. Here’s the preview:

My Tibia Fracture - The X-Ray result

Nice, eh?

Filed under: My Broken Leg Diary

Radio of Indonesian Student Association

For those who miss home country’s tunes, let’s tune in

http://si-ppi-2009.com/player/.

This internet radio was established by Indonesian Students Association in Germany. Today is their premiere broadcast and Rein, the announcer who’s also a good friend during my college time asked me to participate in sound checking. Here’s some of our conversations:

Filed under: Life