1/14/17

What to expect and collect in 2017?

It has been interesting weeks so far. For some reason, this starting of the year collection has been pretty tight and right. At least for entertainment side, watching The Great Wall has been somewhat quite entertaining - sure the reviews are not great, but I still entertained watching it on theater. TV series - well, Sherlock season 4 definitely helps. Entering the third and final week of the season next week, TV series is looking quite nice so far.

I want to talk besides work and study - so let's just head straight to the COLLECTION stuff. I'm talking action figures, die-cast cars, plastic models, statues, comic books, et cetera. I personally have something on mind this year.

Last year is pretty much dominated by Marvel universe and Star Wars universe action figures. At least I thought it was. Looking back 2016, starting with Deadpool on early 2016, followed by Captain America Civil War and X-Men by summer, and closed with Rogue One: A Star Wars story. So, I'm pretty sure that merchandising at least for Q3 and Q4 are dwindling on sales.

Maybe it is or it is not - what I'm pretty sure is that 2016 peaked on summer and it has been pretty downhill from there. I personally am not eager with the Rogue One, as I have perceived it with skepticism and thought that the Rogue One thing is just another one of Disney campaign on milking the Star Wars universe merchandise.

I love Star Wars, and I'm a sucker for their merchandises - but looking at Rogue One and how they releasing the Stormtrooper design and AT-AT walker, plus some new characters, I just thought that it seems pretty much if I started to collect it all AGAIN. And since I have a new project to start this year, I instead looked for something valuable to collect during that Rogue One campaign, and ends up only collecting K2SO. There are some story when I hunt for K2SO figure, which started as buying the Lego K2SO figure - but then I have to sell it, since it doesn't really reflects my joy when I purchase it. Personally, looking at the Lego K2SO figure doesn't really show the uniqueness of K2SO slender figure. It just looks like a tall figure. Instead I found the Black Series one, and sell my Lego to buy the Hasbro version - and I'm pretty happy with that choice.

In anyway, it started to get me thinking that this year I have to be more wise on purchasing what I wanted to collect. So this year, I'm focusing my collection to one particular series. It may not be the best, but I wanted to collect it - and in the end, collections are meant to satisfy your curiosity of the item. So - what to collect this year? I particularly have one series in mind - and I guess it is sync with what to release in movies by this summer :) I will reveal it later - I still need some researching to do, and I hope you will find it intriguing too.

1/3/17

Here's looking at you 2017

As mentioned on my last post - 2016 was bad. But then, maybe I was a little too quick to review. Well, let's do a little flashback.

2016 - the year of monkey in Chinese lunar calendar. I don't really have anymore follow up after that actually - since I'm not INTO zodiac thing. Maybe it is just worth mentioning or something - anyway, I don't really knew if my Chinese zodiac sign is in affect with that year being a monkey year - maybe it is, maybe it is not.

Maybe we should just get right into the fact. Let's see from the global scale to micro scale. That way we can really see how 2016 is happening from top bottom. We can see the large scale that has been in the international news, until personal stuff and trace whether or not it actually relates between external news information to the aspect of my mind. We can see if I am way too moody, or there actually less to celebrate about 2016.

Global scale - let's see, there is war going on in middle east, terrorists group has been invading cities. The residents are either leaving or being held as hostages or prisoners, or even forced to be recruited. Bullets are either in magazines, walls and land, or bodies. Local government helped by international aid has been helping each other to try to occupy the invaded city. Even if succeeded, what's left of the city are just too much left in ruins.

Lots of bombing in Europe, Africa, Middle East and other part of the world. Bombing that was launched in bomber aircraft, until one placed in public area inside of some kind of packages. Terror has been relentless.

Lots of public area shooting too. Schools, bars, disco, and even churches - of course some has been due to insanity or depression, and some others are for idealistic proclaims of a group.

And then celebrities deaths - most Hollywood stuff, some musicians. Either by natural or unnatural cause.

Disaster all over the globe - one particular that just happened in the last few months in Italy. Lots of victims, destruction.

Wow - even just writing the global stuff already made me depressed. I'm not even reach U.S. Election yet. Speaking of which, ever since the election, stock market has been fluctuates up and down in unpredictable manner. I am Indonesian, so now maybe I goes into the more regional news here - my savings has been dropped significantly - some panics actually withdrew all savings because they're just too afraid they will lose it all. At this moment, I try to look other area to invest, to which at some point everything just went down (foreign exchange, gold, oil, silver, and even real estate - maybe not real estate, but it is too late to take action by that time).

Political haywire also happen in Indonesia - there has been rumored of political war between parties. It is like Alien vs Predator slogan - it is their war, and we're the victims. So yeah - it is gloomy.

Into personal thing. I lost my business. I lost my job. I lost contact with business connection. I lost contact of friends. I lost track of my research. I lost hope.

So yeah - I am feeling pretty much depressed right about now. And now we loo into more good things. This time bottom up. I try looking for personal thing that cheer me up or helped me up, and look if the effect can actually affect my mind perceiving the external.

I played lots of games - and knew my favorite one. I laid back much now, and try enjoying stuff I couldn't enjoy much before. One particularly - I've been enjoying Heroes of the Storm. Yes - I Know there's Dota2, and League of Legends, but IDK - HotS just seem more relaxed for me. It actually helps me to express out my emotions (frustration and joy, sometimes just snicker laugh knowing I've been defeated but it seems okay).

This year I've also get back to my love of picture-taking-moment, and I've just recently get back to Facebook again. I've been solid cut off with social media for 2 years now. I left them because of too much negativity - but recently I learned to filter out information I wish to take in. So, instead of looking at stuff that boils my anger, I learned to let go of it. It also helps that I now use youtube to learn basic Tai Chi move. I do it to control my breathing - not to do some martial arts fights or anything. It actually helps controlling your emotion, and also helps to set goal for your daily activities.

Another thing is I learned to control my savings and investment. I learn to withdraw quick, even if the agent or broker says to hold off. This is good - I learn to take control with no outside interference. Now I am learning a lot in all of the investment option that is available to me. My objective now is to listen more, communicate more, and gain information effectively to gain a knowledge in a right manner. Capitalism is evolving - and the new capital worth gain now is the network. And that is my mission this year - less tool acquiring, more network gain.

Into regional or national stuff - economy looks gloom. And at this point, I was like 'feh - we'll see'. See, now I'm trigerred and maybe it's because I've been looking for something right in myself, now the outside news really not affecting me much. There's an investment report by JPMorgan Chase that basically rated Indonesia's obligation investment from OW (Over Weight) to UW (Under Weight), which drops 2 levels and skipped Neutral altogether. How it looks in the future is still unclear, but recently it kind of explains all foreign investor fund withdrawal from Indonesia. In accordance to that report, Indonesia's finance minister cut off all work contract with JPMorgan Chase according to some news I read today. For me, it is a good thing - since now, we can focus on local resources to develop some commerce and businesses.

There's lots of news going on around - and I think it all differs on how we look at it. I believe now is not the time for depression or joy. I think it is time for a realistic measures. After all that, one thing real now is not the hope for winning, or the fear of losing - instead it is the WILL TO FIGHT. I believe now we have to be in motion, be productive, and gather any measure of productivity as we can. Imagine we're cooking a steak - even with all the preparations all perfect, once we started cooking, that's the time to be in motion and adapt. At that time, we may thought that this will be a good steak, or burnt steak - but what real is how we in motion looking at the steak, sprinkle the salt and pepper, flipped the steak, until we rest the steak. At that time, we will never knew if we are winning or losing, but the FIGHT is on - and at that moment, we adapt with the situation. Should we flipped now? do we need more salt? is the fire too big? is it rare, medium, or well-done?

Looking forward to 2017 - I think we should remember these things. BE IN MOTION, FIGHT WHILST LOOKING FOR RESOURCES, and ADAPT TO WHAT YOU EARN. Winning or Losing are just the end of the game - but while the game is still on, we need to do those three.

2017 - BRING IT ON.

1/2/17

Year 2017 - will it be another 2016?

I haven't write in long. Why?

Just to summarize all things happen in 2016, it has been one of the bad year for me. Everything doesn't seem right, everything just seems off - one thing gained doesn't actually paid off the losses. And I'm not talking about Hollywood celebrities death here - it is sad to have lost talented actors and actresses, but it's not actually losing a close relatives to me.

2016 just feel off. Nothing seems to be on the course. Everything just seem going abruptly out of the track. Once its off, there's nothing to set it straight on the track again. It's just losses. And the price to pay is expensive, sometimes it is irreplaceable. 

Well - I'm one of the people who actually can't wait for it to be over, but then once it is over - I realize there is still homework to do. No planning can help this time, just action. The end result maybe good or bad - but at least, the hope is that there is an ending.

I've seen facebook statuses like these "Happy New Year 2017, please be good". I may not the only one who looks for some redemption this year. Maybe it is not redemption. Not even salvation. Maybe in 2017, all we looking for are just closure.