Category — It's Haceem and Friends

Yes, it’s that time of the year again…. ZoukOut 2011!

And here’s the line-up:

• Armin van Buuren
• Bob Sinclar
• Chuckie
• Avicii
• Roger Sanchez
• Karizma
• Scratch Perverts
• Ladytron
• Ming
• Eclipse
• DJB
• Hong
• Jeremy Boon
• Aldrin
• Ghetto
• Pfadfinderei VJS
• Donn
• VJ Nakaichi, VJ Numan & Lighting Aiba (Womb)
• Kiat
• Simon Dunmore & Shovell
• Masterpiece
• Gui Boratto
• Funk Bast*rd & Kaye (Cosa Nostra)

I guess it’s time to start practicing some of my signature moves, such as Spinning the Pot of Love, Hitting the Air Drums, Fax Machine, Water Sprinkler, Shopping at Giant, the Running Convict, etc.

Has anyone read Steve Job’s speech that he gave at Stanford in 2005 for the graduation commencement?  Nobody brought it up again until recently when he announced his retirement.  I found it really touching and motivational as well.  When I was reading it again last night, it really reminded me of where I was exactly today, 11 years ago…

11 years ago I was hired as a part-time intern for E-site Marketing, a small marketing company located in Bethesda, MD.  It was my first real job and if I could recall, I believe I was only paid for $7/hour.  At that time, I thought I hit a jackpot (I had become tired of working at restaurants and I told myself I needed a change in my life).  I was poor, extremely poor I might add.  I only had $300 in my savings account (which was my monthly average) and I had been moving from one place to another since I could not afford to rent an apartment (I believe one time I slept in someone’s living room for months since I could not afford to pay for a full-rent).  Even $6-sandwich for lunch seemed very expensive to me at that time.  My school’s vending machines and I had a very special relationship.  Since I could not afford to get a proper meal, I would get most of my meal from vending machines.  I was even able to tell what kind of food was available in which vending machines.  Sometimes two chocolate bars were enough to fill me up for lunch.  It took me a while to graduate from college, and after I graduated, I had accumulated $14,000 school debt (half of it from several credit cards with 25% interest rate).  Yes, studying abroad is not all romantic.  I am not a part of the lucky sperm club and my parents are not even a millionaire.  Everything that we have accomplished is the result of hard work and faith.

Moving forward now, 11 years later, I live in Singapore and still working for the same company that hired me 11 years ago.  The difference is that our small company is now part of Sabre Holdings, a $2-billion company.  My school debt has been fully paid off – I can actually brag about this since I paid this on my own, without anyone’s help (it took me 7-8 years to pay off everything).  I am currently working with the greatest team in Asia Pacific (as well as in the US) doing something that I really love, and have the opportunity to travel anywhere in the world (even though I haven’t set foot in Europe yet, but it will happen soon!).  I can now buy or eat anything I want/like without having to think twice about the price (unless if it’s a thousand dollar watch, then I will still have to think twice about it).  I also feel grateful that I have close relationships with both of our CEO and Vice President – something that only a very few people have in our company.

I do not have any regrets of anything that happened to me in the past.  Things happen for a reason, even when you meet someone, there’s a reason/purpose why your path crossed with his/hers.  Every person that you met serves a purpose in your life.  I never regretted the day when my mom called and told me their savings had dried up and could not pay for my tuition anymore.  I had to move out and lived in a neighborhood which was not quiet safe at that time.  I never regretted the day when I had to move in to someone’s basement and sometimes I would have to sleep with socks and sweater on since the heater would automatically shut off in the middle of the night during winter time.  I never regretted the day when I had to work two shifts at the restaurant and when I got home, I was so tired and felt so much pain in my back that I could not even study/do my assignments.  All of these had happened for a reason.  I do not think I would be here right now if any of these had not had happened.  Just as Steve Jobs said, It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it.  Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick.  Don’t lose faith.

It is all about connecting the dots.  You can only connect the dots when you look backwards, not forward.

Having said that, I think it would be best to let you read his whole speech and hopefully, you can learn something from it.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.

This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960’s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

I totally can relate to these 7 stages of not doing the dishes.  I currently live with 2 people, and sometimes I feel they literally go through these 7 stages until I decide to take charge by asking them extra nicely to take care of the business, like “Hey dude, I notice those cups have been sitting comfortably in the sink the past 72 hours.  Isn’t it the time for them to return where they belong?” or “Whoaa…what are these?  Dirty dishes, eh?  So when is your highness planning to do the dishes?”

As for myself, I never go through the 7 stages, only the first 4 – good thing nobody complains about it.

I wonder if I should join Facebookolics Anonymous anytime soon..

After reading all the reviews and hearing all the talk about I Love You, Man, I’ve finally decided to get it from Netflix.

The movie started slow and the first few minutes I wasn’t really convinced the movie was gonna live up to its hype; however, next thing I knew I couldn’t take my eyes off of the TV screen and was laughing my ass off every minute. I honestly thought there were some parts of the movie that were kinda close to reality, and there were also some stuff that guys actually say in real life. Check out some of these memorable quotes below:

Sydney Fife: [Nonchalantly] This is where I jerk-off.

Sydney Fife: This is the man cave, there’s no women allowed in here. I got a jerk-off station for God’s sake.

Sydney Fife: Peter, I am a man. I have an ocean of testosterone flowing through my veins.

Peter Klaven: She was very nice looking.
Sydney Fife: Yeah… I fucked her.

Peter Klaven: Do you need a plastic bag, or…
Sydney Fife: Oh no. I don’t clean up after my dog.

Peter Klaven: So what do I do? How do I make friends?
Robbie Klaven: If you see a cool looking guy, strike up a conversation and ask him on a man date.
Peter Klaven: OK.

Peter Klaven: I need to get some fucking friends.

Basically the movie is about the journey of one guy – named Peter Klaven – trying to find a “guy friend/buddy/best friend.” Peter has always been known as the girlfriend-type of guy (which means he’s 24/7 committed to his girlfriend; thus, doesn’t have any guy friends). He is so desperate to find a best friend, he is willing to do whatever it takes to get one – even allowing his mom to set him up with some random guy for a “man date.”

The movie clearly explores marriage, male bonding (a.k.a bromance), and the importance of friends. It is very heart-warming and I definitely recommend it to you all the boys to watch it. By the way, when I said “bromance,” I definitely wasn’t implying anything homosexual. If you don’t know what bromance is, there are a few terms that might help you understand it a little better:

1. A non-sexual, healthy yet complicated love and affection shared by two straight guys
2. A close relationship between two straight guys to the point where they look like a couple
3. The intense love shared between heterosexual males; it’s usually male bonding and invisible to the naked eye (this bond is normally only shared between two males that have a deeper understanding of each other, in a way no woman could ever realize) — Thanks to Urban Dictionary for this description which I think is very accurate
4. Man crush (but with no sex involved)

After understanding this “bromance” concept, I’ve finally come to the realization that there has been a lot of bromance going on amongst my buddies – which I hadn’t really noticed before. In fact, I once have had some bromance moment with one of my best friends as well. So without further ado, I’d like to mention a few people here whom I think are really embracing bromance and are even willing to kick it up a notch:

• Multi Nasution and Rizky Arbali
  They were the epitome of bromance. I think they were the first bromance that I had ever witnessed before. They were roommates in college, they would cook together, go shopping together (even go to the same stores), share closet space, hang out on weekends, dress alike, etc. I mean they both were straight like an arrow, but damn.. They definitely took bromance to the next level.
  Bromance Level: Pretty high.. Higher than the Statue of Liberty

• Ping Aje and Hendra DJ
  They don’t dress alike, they don’t look alike, and they certainly don’t smell alike, but they’re inseparable like the siamese twins. In fact, one time I played poker with them and when Hendra lost his chips, Ping would kindly take half of his own stack and share it with Hendra. I mean whoaa.. That is definitely some serious bromance.
  Bromance Level: Somewhat high.. Can be higher on Poker night

• Ricky Posumah and Joshua (a.k.a. Enno)
  Even though everyone knows there’s some serious bromance tension between them, but both of them wouldn’t admit it. Well I think Joshua would. They both grew up in the same area back home (Surabaya – the capital of East Java), so obviously they speak Javanese pretty fluently. Sometimes when they speak Javanese to each other, none of us would understand all the things that come out of their mouth. It’s like they’re speaking greek. They go clubbing together, hang out every weekend, go culinary trip around Washington, DC together, etc and they always watch each other’s back. There’s definitely some bromance between them whether they want to admit it or not.
  Bromance Level: Sometimes high, sometimes low.. Depending on Ricky’s mood swing

• Myself and Reza Kadir
  Hahaha as I said before, I once experienced some bromance when I went home (to Jakarta) a while ago. I’d like to call it a bond of mutual respect towards each other and a deep understanding of each of our essential manliness. It was bromance with style.
  Bromance Level: High, but not too high, but can be higher after 2-3 drinks

• Melvin Andrew and Remy Hendra
  Ahh these two guys.. They’re like a fork and a knife, a pencil and an eraser, a piece of paper and a paper clip, a deck of card and poker chips, a BlackBerry and the BlackBerry Messenger, Thomson and Thompson, etc.. They always stick together no matter what. Aside from them being real siblings (Melvin is the older one), they really embrace bromance and take the brotherly love to the highest degree.
  Bromance Level: Like an ocean tide.. Low during the day, high at night
  

• Myself, Yala Mahendra, Farid Tirtosudiro, and Agung Adhitama
  Years ago we took a bromance trip to Bandung, stayed at Yala’s humble abode, and ended up watching lots of uhm “the birds and the bees” educational videos (thanks to Vivid Production for making all those epics, we truly learned a lot). It was definitely a bromance trip to remember.. Good times, boys. I’d probably put you guys in my will.
  Bromance Level: Kinda low but still strong.. Like the Incredible Hulk strong

• Fajar Simamora and Peter Pangaribuan
  Back in grad school, they had love and hate relationship. They would constantly tease each other and sometimes they could be very mean towards each other, too. However, I believed they did that out of love and respect. I sensed their bromance level was getting higher and higher every time they met. Although they never showed it in public, but behind closed doors, I’d imagine Fajar pat Pete’s back and said “Come on brotha.. You can do it. You can definitely tackle this exam tomorrow. I believe in you.”
  Bromance Level: All time high only when behind closed doors

• Adyatama and Melvin Andrew
  Melvin had his own key to Ady’s apartment. Enough said.
  Bromance Level: It was reaaaaallll high.. But got lowered after Ady moved back to Indo and got married

Haceem’s Movie Rating: 5 out of 5

I just wanted to give a shout out these following people who just graduated from college/grad schools last weekend:

• Jeremiah Hendra
  Graduated from George Mason University with a bachelor’s degree in Information Technology
  Comment: It’s about goddamn time man!  Thought I would never see you in cape and gown. After $40K of tuition, endless power naps in class, hundreds of dollars spent on vending machine snacks in school, hours and hours spent creating cheat sheets, you have finally graduated! Very proud of you son. Congratulations on having completed enough hours being bored in school to begin being bored at work!
• Nuy Mahadewi
  Graduated from GWU Law School
  Comment: It is true when I said I’d recommend grad school as a way to avoid a real world for 2 to 5 additional years. Glad to know that it was your one and only reason to attend the law school hahaha.. So what’s next? A master’s degree in fashion merchandise perhaps?
• Qiki Piasasty
  Graduated from GWU Law School
  Comment: Congratssss Qiki! Please don’t leave DC without calling me first; You know my number. You know what, I think 4 of us have to do dinner first before you leave DC and go back to the never never land. You, me, Wibi and little Wibi. Yes, Chucky Cheese is optional.
• Chris Huynh
  Graduated from George Mason University with a bachelor’s degree in Health Science, Health Administration & Policy
  Comment: Congratulations, Chris! I don’t know much about health science or health administration but since you’re the only person that I know graduated with that degree, so I guess I’d say whoa that’s awesome!
• Rabin Hattari
  Graduated from George Mason University with a doctoral degree in Economics
  Comment: When you have become a minister of finance in Indonesia or a deputy minister for Bank Indonesia, don’t forget to hook me up! Facebook wall/message is only a login away, so please keep in touch! Hahhahaaa…