Iostars.

A few people have asked me what does Iostars mean. I've been using that name for pretty much all my accounts on the internet: email, Friendster, eBay account, Amazon account, etc. I came up with that word when I made my first email account, like, 12 years ago (gasp!). I don't know, it just clicked, so I kinda stuck to it ever since then. It's really a combination of two words: Io and stars. A lot of people often mistook the capital [I] for a low-cap [L]. Why Io (read: ai-yo)? Well, at first I chose it because I just like the sound, but today, that word has become an embodiment of a string of coincidences in my life and around the world revolving around the number four/4 and the planet Jupiter. So here they are, I took the time to write these down for you inquisitive mind, you!

- Io is the name of the innermost moon of the FOUR Galilean moons orbiting Jupiter.

- It's also the FOURTH largest moon in the Solar System.
- The symbol of the planet Jupiter resembles the number FOUR (see below).
- Jupiter is one of the FOUR giant planets in the Solar system consisted of gas. The others are Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
- My favorite character from my favorite anime Sailor Moon is Sailor Jupiter, and she's the FOURTH member of the original five sailors.

- My father is the FOURTH youngest child in his family.
- I am the FOURTH child in my family.
- I was born on the FOURTH of September.
- The month September is one of the FOUR Gregorian months with 30 days.
- And last, but NOT least, the name of the Prophet Muhammad SWA and my one and only God, Allah SWT are written in FOUR letters in Arabic alphabet.

I think there are a few more, but I can't seem to remember them right now. Hmm, I guess I'll add them later. I added in stars after Io because, well, a moon is practically a star. I made it in plural form to make it sound nicer.

So there you go, explanation of the word Iostars. Some of you might think that I overstretched it a bit with some of the facts above, but bah, who cares? It's still pretty neat, huh? Admit it! lol

Transformers: all flash, all noise, null substance.

Just got back from watching Transformers today, and uh, well, to put this bluntly: it sucks. Let's get to the pros first: I love watching the stuffs get blown up. True, the child in me jumped in delight whenever there were explosions and buildings obliterated. I love seeing gigantic robots smackdown, blew up, and pretty much went to extreme overkill trying to reduce each other to a pile of scrap. That's why I love the destruction-happy Terminator 3. But seriously, the actions happened so fast in Transformers I literally only saw blurs in the screen and was left wondering, "what the hell's going on now?" The adult in me felt like he badly wanted to grab one of those colossal robots by the legs and throw them at the screen. There's no need to use your brain when watching this, folks. This is typical American movie at one of its loudest and worst (I guess that pretty much explains it all). The story is absolutely ridiculous, devoid of any class, substance, or heart. Some of the scenes and characters were completely pointless. One scene shows a guy (an army guy) sliding underneath one of the evil bots shooting grenades at it. Oh! The bravado! Americans are cool! What is this, a military ad? The acting, script and writing were atrocious. Plot holes the size of robot fists riddled the whole story. Shameless marketing placements abound. Nokia. eBay. Panasonic. Apple. The Army. Hummer. Pontiac. Cars. Cars. Cars!! The characters (oh my God...) were incredibly nauseating, so cliched and stereotyped. In fact, they were so annoying that I left the movie disappointed because pretty much all of them survived in the end. I kept praying that one of them would get blown up by a stray missile, sliced in half or crushed to death underneath one of the robots' feet, but unfortunately, they never happened. In fact, no one really dies on screen (which goes to show the movie's attempt in reaching out its mechanical arms to kids and toddlers audience). The only saving grace is really the main guy, Sam Witwicky (hold on. Sam who??) played by Shia Lebouf. And oh, Bernie Mac (the car seller guy) was pretty entertaining for the 5 minutes screen time he was given, eventhough I had a hard time understanding what he said. By these "characters", I was referring to the human, flesh-and-blood characters. The robots are another story. Not surprisingly, my heart went out entirely to the evil bots (called the Decepticons) because they're absolutely badasses compared to the good bots. And because (surprise!) they didn't talk and spew as much irritating pop references as the good bots do. Some of the good bots (okay, okay. Autobots!) acted like 14-year old punks rather than coming across as tough, noble giants. At one scene, the evil head honcho recovered from a rubble in a fight with some wounded men lying near his arm. He scoffed, "Disgusting," then flicked his finger at the nearest guy, sending him flying across the street. My thoughts exactly.

Despite the bad overweighting the goods, I will still buy the DVD when it come out, though. The adult in me might have walked away in disgust, but the brainless child in me is cherishing all the mayhem he had witnessed. What he could make out of it, at least.

That damn bird.

Today, while I was YM-ing (Yahoo Messenger) with my sisters in my room, a very unexpected and totally annoying thing happened to me. It must have been around nine in the morning or something, the weather outside was pretty chillin' from last night's big rain, with rather dark clouds and moderate wind. Since I love letting in air into the apartment, I opened up the balcony door and returned to my room. Not long after that I heard a peculiar sound coming from the living room. "Meh, probably just the wind," I said, so I ignored it. Big mistake. Shortly after, I heard a fluttering sound heading into my room, so I looked up and stared as a small bird (apa sih bahasa Inggrisnya burung gereja?) flew into my room and perched itself on my window. "What the hell...?" I kept staring at it to see what it would do. Apparently, the poor wee bird was extremely confused, as it fluttered this way and that, trying to find a way out of my room, and it tried to fly out my window, which was impossible because it was closed and equipped on the outside with a... apa sih bahasa Inggrisnya kawat nyamuk? I growled and then got up to get the broom. When I got back I swung at it a few times to drive it out of the room, and I could see the bird going "Oh, shit" as it panicked and flew around haphazardly as it tried to find its way out (if only it would flew out of the room...). After one minute of swinging and cussing, I succeeded only in cleaning my broom of the dusts it had accumulated and sending, oh, probably thousands of unhealthy microbes into the air inside my bedroom. My patience running thin, the bird finally flew out of the room and I closed my balcony door, went back to my room and observed sullenly the carnage my broom-swinging had wrought. A lot of my things were covered in dust, I sighed and then noticed something on my bed sheet. I looked at it and went "AAARGH!!" Apparently, I scared the bird so badly it crapped its pants on the way out. Not long after that, I heard another sound from my living room and went to investigate it, and saw the exact same bird perching on the ceiling fan. It mustn't have got out the first time. I went "YOU!!", and then opened my balcony door and grabbed my trusty Broom-o'-Death(TM). But before I was able to do anything to it, it flew out the balcony and out, out into the free, free world!

That bird will probably have a ball telling its friends of the experience it had in my apartment.

True, I love a little taste of nature here and there around me, but NOT in my bedroom! And especially NOT on my bed sheet!! Oh sure birds are cute, but you wouldn't think so if it had ruined your morning and sent you on an unplanned-trip to the laundry. Ah, well. I'll probably have to adapt a more gentle approach the next time.

Oh, and go watch Ratatouille. The rats are cute.