The Forerunner Times

"A life journal by Nathan J. Elias, called under God's grace to be His forerunner and restorer for His glory."

I got an impression of the Death Note movie by a LiveJournal user named nyonyo.

Only click below if you are not afraid of spoilers…

Click here to read more…

As requested by Miss Violette, here’s a match report on that Ita v Aus match.

Watched this match in a local McDonalds since they don’t air World Cup matches for free in Singapore and I thought it would be injustice to watch this match from a laptop in a small pixelated window. Since I am supporting Australia, I thought it would be nice to ask a friend of mine who supports Italy to join in. So I arrived there at 10pm and secured a seat while my friend came 30 minutes later. We shared some idle banters about the lineups and chances. The others can already see the heat building up between us two. A man beside me pointed out that Italy was three times world champions. I don’t need to know that, fat dude. STUFF HISTORY! Lucky you I didn’t stuff you with something like my McSandal for your unwanted opinion.

The match went to a start and suddenly Italy started threatening Australia and Schwarzer came to their defense. This early incident showed where the allegiances of the supporters lie as I am shouting “NO! NO! NOOOO!” when the Italians came close while my friend beside me shouted “YES! YES! YEEEES!”. The people just stared at us and then resuming their oooohs and aaaahs everytime both sides went close, but among all of them me and my friend were the one making the noises constantly and raising the atmosphere. “Go go Bresciano!” I shouted, only to be replied by my friend’s “Come on Toni! Score a goal!”. It continued on and on, and by the half time we were already exhausted and had to refill our strength with something. McSpicy and Choco Sundae comes to the rescue!

Second half brings so much tension for both of us. In a matter of minutes, Marco Materazzi was sent off with a direct red, sending me to jump around and send a hate message to the Italian fans over there “You deserve it Materazzi! Eat that! No Materazzi, no Nesta! Bye bye Italy”. They were silent and speechless, didn’t even look back at me. At this point Australia kept on the pressure and the Italy fans became very silent while I turned on more fire and sent more shouts to the Australian side.

Though it’s 11 vs 10, Italy’s defense was a tough one to crack and Australia’s possession play didn’t help either. They just like to pass and move the ball around to play safe and has no real threat since they’re not attacking forward much. They had their chances yes, but they didn’t seem to bring any danger at all to the Italian sides from my point of view. Nevertheless I still screamed when one of the Australian players barge into the box and made an attempt, while the Italian fans will go aaaaaargh. The match continued in a pretty stale way until the fated 93th minute arrived…

Fabio Grosso (those who’ve read Fantasista manga series will wonder if this is Fabio Castellini who have taken up the last name of Carlo Grosso) made a darted run to the left, tripped over above Lucas Neill who was lying in the floor, and the stupid ref chose to award a penalty. When the commentator said “yes, it’s a penalty!” all the Italian fans stood and shouted with joy, hands in the air, then sitting back again, some looking at me. Wish I could have thrown my McSandal at one of them, but then if I do that I won’t be coming home that night.

Totti stepped forward, and both me and the Italian fans prayed with hands clutched in front of our mouths. I hoped that Schwarzer will be the day’s hero, but sadly, Totti kicks it in to the left top corner. The entire McD shouted. Italian fans shouted with joy while sneering at me - prompting me to really hold my temper and not stuff all of them with my fist and give them some smackdown in the ass. If only I had more Australian fans with me maybe the match would not have ended in peace. Ah the woe of a lone fan. As I walked home, heads down in sadness, my friend teased me all the time. And that night, I cannot sleep, knowing that it will take another 4 years in my life before Socceroos will have another chance at the next World Cup…

It’s been quite a long time since I last saw Beckham with his free kick goal. Since he moved to Real Madrid in fact, I have never seen his free kicks again and I kinda miss him, missing his days when he was on Manchester United, with his Real Madrid move in the end prompting my fandom movement from United to Chelsea. And today, he’s done it again. The phrase “Bend it like Beckham” is not there for nothing. No one can bend it like Beckham. With that free kick goal, England won 1-0 today and will face either Portugal or Netherlands next. Congratulations Mr. Becks, you deserved that goal and you deserved to be England’s captain. Quite old you might be, but your free kicks and crosses are still very damn accurate (just look at that cross to Crouch against Trinidad & Tobago). That other goal you made against Paraguay should have been yours too, not an own goal…

Reality aside… I think they would go home in the next match, no way they can beat either Portugal or Netherlands. Reality sucks and it bites. If they DO win the next match though, I’ll jump up and down and party all night in that England bar…

This entry is an afterthought on Ivone’s post about humanity.

Is it true that humans are the most powerful species on Earth? True, we might have the ability to go the extra mile. But we also have the frailty of age and even though we might last for 60-70 years, in the latter years we won’t be able to do so much things we could do on our youth. What then, about eternal youth, eternal vigor and immortality? Is it better to be a kindred (vampire) rather than kine (human)? I always wanted to be a kindred in the past days, and maybe a little part of me still desire that, the more reason why I am being a fan of Gackt, who claimed to be a vampire born in 1540 (we’ll see about that). I know that’s just wrong and kindred is a being of the devil, but what’s the reason for me desiring so?

Because I have so many goals I need to accomplish in life. Back then I wanted to make a Life Foundation for Music Ministry, because I saw what happened in my choir where the church had too much intervention and control upon the choir, that we in the end become no more than church entertainers. We are given a very limited space to do what we want, the most we can do out-of-church is visit another church, which are mostly still connected with our church. Dear church elders and leaders, we’ve got so much people out there that needs our touch of love and music, see? But why the heck you never give us permission to do tours and mission trips to the places that needs us? You were only moved when there were B-I-G occassion like the Aceh Tsunami, and yet you send medical teams only. Hello, we also want to touch them and sing them songs of God’s love and strength, yeah?

This is the reason why I decided someday I must make my own music ministry that is church independent. But after talks with some people this seems to be a stupid idea and maybe not what God wants, because by being out of church there will no foundation in this ministry, and although too much control is bad, a form of control IS needed, at least there needs to be a congregation/service behind this.

The second one, which I just wanted to make a few days ago is the Life Foundation for Education. There’s a sad story from a friend of mine, Cynthia, who needs to return to Jakarta halfway during her study period in Melbourne because the costs to continue her education was just too damn expensive. “Okay, that’s Melbourne, of course that’s expensive man!” you might say. But hear this, another friend of mine, which is actually sort of like my daughter (she calls me Daddy =p), a 18-years old girl, has been forced out of high school and now have to work because she has no funds to continue education. The same thing happened to my ex-girlfriend and a friend of my sister, this led me to screaming “Why the heck is education so damn expensive?!”

Of course, we can’t have free education because that will be a pain in the a** for the teachers, they need a living too, so I am going to be the one to pay them (with my foundation) and give free education for student. There is also a problem where the students might get lazy and take it for granted because it’s free, which is when I’ll need to smack them. Or maybe I’ll need to make a decent selection/filtering system to sort out the students which I really need to fund, not just everyone.

See, those are my dreams. How many years will it take for them to be fulfilled? 50 years? 100 years? While I think in my present state I could only hold on for another 30 years or so. 40 is God is merciful. That’s why I wanted to have at least a slight bit of immortality, maybe around 100 years or 150 years, and not just long age because I’ll need to remain at my vigorous youth condition to make those dreams reality, so yes, eternal youth. But is this really what God wants? Why do He made us humans imperfect? Do you know? I’ll let you think and post your opinions about it. I already have my opinion about it saved in my drafts folder. I’ll post it once I see a few comments, or I’ll just post it tomorrow.

To be continued…

After a long hard week of entertaining matches, finally the contenders of the last 16 have been finalized. No Asian power here as both Japan and Korea were knocked out from the group stages. But kudos to the Socceroos, they managed to go through and Stuff History. Yeah, I love those Stuff History ads, they put a new one yesterday when Socceroos go through, “History Stuffed”, finally the old sucker dies, ha! There were some surprises here and there as Czech Republic and Croatia failed to go through while Ghana and Socceroos make it to the next round, and now I am rooting for those two.

So, here’s the match roster for the last 16 round, starting tonight:

• Germany v Sweden
• Argentina v Mexico
• England v Ecuador
• Portugal v Netherlands (big match!)
• Italy v Australia
• Switzerland v Ukraine
• Brazil v Ghana
• Spain v France

If you are looking for betting tips, by all means DO NOT follow what I predict there, especially on Australia and Ghana. I tend to follow my heart rather than my mind and now that I loved those two teams so much (who can not love a team called Socceroos? And those teams are the only representatives of Asia/Oceania - well not really but sort of, and Africa). Socceroos might have a chance, a slight chance, and they should put back Schwarzer, Kalac was so damn horrible. As for Ghana, at first I thought they can win, but after looking at Brazil who just returned to form and trash Japan 4-1, well…

As for my main team, England, now Sven is gonna regret it. He only brought four strikers. Two just recovered from long injuries. One is only tall but is a moronic idiot without any skills. And other one is an untested uncapped striker. Now that Michael Owen is injured, he got limited options. Oh well, bye bye England, should you manage to beat Ecuador, you’ll face Portugal or Netherlands, which will send you back home…

Behold, the result after extensive years of research, Elixir of Life!
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What’s more, it got a special herb that can reduce your body fat by 40%!
What do you think? Does anyone want to invest on this great product of the future?

You believe it or not, that was my friend’s presentation for an MBA class 5-minute business pitch. He was so damn convincing and his presentation was so damn interesting that the class applauded him greatly and the lecturer gave him high marks. Seems like impossible is nothing for him. Previously, he, as the leader of our business plan assignment team, made our company a company without any bank liability. While in the real world usually investor’s investments and bank loans are divided 50:50 or 60:40, here we got a company with 100% investor investment. A generous investor I must say. The only problem is that now he’s gone on a holiday to Malaysia and if in the next class the lecturer ask us about the plan we won’t be able to debate, as he was the one who debated so strongly until we all agreed to put zero liability on the plan, although I have explained him over and over that zero liability companies are impossible.

Oh well, what is done is done. My own pitch will come in June 29th and I will be presenting a market expansion plan for Honda CarConnect in Singapore. It is a real company here called Honda Diracc but their market is so limited that me, as a Honda enthusiast, can’t help but feel like I want to change everything in their marketing strategy. Hmm maybe I should really submit my plans to Honda eh?

One more week to freedom. Coming home in July 14th until July 24th.

The World Cup 2006 kicked off last week on July 9 and earlier this morning the first round of matches have been finished. There are a lot of good and interesting games in this World Cup, which SURPRISINGLY came from the no-name teams. England v Paraguay was a boring match and it was very disappointing. France v Switzerland was about the same, what’s with the stupid 4-5-1 formation. But Australia v Japan and Tunisia v Saudi Arabia yesterday will come down into history as big matches. Even the Argentina v Ivory Coast was so damn amazing now I just feel I must to watch ALL the matches or I’ll lose something big.

So. After the first round has ended (and actually Germany played their 2nd game yesterday, won 1-0 and become the first team to book the last 16 ticket), naturally you would ask me who I think would go all the way to the top, right?

After winning their first match 4-0 yesterday against all predictions, Spain become one of my strong candidates to reach the top. Although maybe they still won’t be able to go home with the cup, they will be one of the teams that will go very far. Their midfield played very fluently and their attacks can come up from anywhere. They have strong forwards in terms of Fernando Torres and David Villa, and even Raul is still very dangerous. They still have amazing players in their substitution bench, which didn’t appear yesterday. They are a strong team.

Czech Republic has maybe the strongest attacking line right now. Their 3-0 win showed their magnificent strength and had Koller not been injured, they could have won more. Jan Koller is very strong in the air and also have some good techniques in hand, unlike Crouch. Tomas Rosicky… well, is very sick (pardon the pun). Three shots, two went in and one hit the crossbar. I can’t wait when this boy comes to Arsenal next season, Chelsea v Arsenal is going to be so damn interesting. EPL got Rosicky, Shevchenko and Ballack next season…

I didn’t see the match where Italy played, but the highlight shows they are a good team too. They won 2-0 and was unlucky not to win three with Luca Toni hitting the crossbar. Maybe they can go up to the top this year with Toni. Holland needs to give a hard smack on Robben. While he is very good, he played very selfish. They could have won more than 1-0 had Robben passed the ball around and not latch onto it all the time. Germany was good in the opener, but strangely, with Ballack back they could only manage a 1-0 win, hmmm.

For the Asia/Oceania team, Australia was good, and maybe Korea can also make it to the next round, although there were allegations France and Switzerland were playing a draw on a conspiracy to throw Korea away. With a draw, if both of them draw with Korea and defeat Togo, all of them will have 5 points and everything will be decided by the goal difference. With a 2-0 win against Togo, France and Switzerland can go to the next round. Korea will have no choice but to win one more match, if they lose even once it will be a game over for them.

Now my eyes are on England, the team I’m originally supporting, but disappointed me in the 1-0 game against Paraguay. Let’s see if they can win against Trinidad & Tobago tonight. With the way Shaka Hislop played in the last match against Sweden, it looks like it would be very hard for England to get a win. If they win, though, they will follow Germany ensuring a place in the next round. Peter Crouch, please MAKE YOURSELF USEFUL or I will kill you with my own hands!!! Sven, be sensible and do not play Rooney until it is absolutely necessary to do so. We wouldn’t want him to be injured again, would we? Besides, if he gets another injury, Sir Alex Ferguson is gonna kill you for sure Sven, he’ll chase you wherever you go with the Red Devil’s trident…

Can England do it? Hope so, because I bet for them on this game…

Update (16/06/2006): England 2 - 0 Trinidad & Tobago :: Crouch (83′), Gerrard (91′)
Don’t get cocky, Crouch! You did nothing and you played miserably on this match, missing that easy shot earlier. It’s all thanks to Beckham (the Man of the Match)’s superb cross that you managed to score easily, you didn’t even need to run or head hard, only jump a bit and it’s in, it’s a damn pinpoint pass. And Gerrard’s goal was a real screamer. Good thing England won. I was throwing f-words and d-words at Crouch when he played horribly in the First Half. I’ll remember that miss, Crouch!

Well, after failing to make an agreement for them to change their presentation topic (read post on “Black Cat and Way of Life”), it has come to this day, the presentation day where we must face-off and use as many means necessary to edge out the other team from the competition. When we arrived, another team was already prepared to present, and my teammates told me to rush to the front and connect the laptop to the projector as soon as the first team finished. Since we both present the same topic, they believe that the first team to present will get a definite edge, as the other team can’t speak the same way as we do, lest they will get lower grades for no new ideas.

Actually, with “that old lady” in the team, I was afraid if I do that, it will create a ruckus in the class as she’s the type that will not give up that easily, and I was afraid I would not be able to restrain myself properly from anger and physical attacks if that really happens. Those assault images are already playing in my mind though, so if she really tried to go against me, who knows what might have happened. As expected, as soon as the first team finished, two of they team started to walk to the front, but I ignored them and connected my laptop to the projector as soon as possible while calling my teammates to go to the front of the class. I was a bit surprised (and relaxed) to find out that they actually stayed back and didn’t wish to fight against us for the presentation slot and finally went on to take slot #4, but that’s okay and that’s good for us. Maybe the relationship between our teams will be bad after this, as I’ve already lost several friends in that team (they don’t want to talk to me again), but that’s a price to pay, can’t really take all sides in life, eh?

Anyway, the presentation itself went smooth for our team. We tried to make the presentation fun with storytelling and a neat video, the class laughed a bit when we presentate, so I guess we succeeded in entertaining them, and my team feels that overall it was a job well done. The other team also presented nicely, focusing on a different aspect instead. While our team tried to simplify things, chose to balance things, explain things in a nice and simple manner and didn’t really go to the depth (since this is an MBA class anyway not MIT), they went on to focus on the examples and current uses which was like 15 items or so, went on with naming the company and the likes. While that is good, I feel that they should have used a more general approach, like “explain how it is used” rather than “who uses it for this and that”. That’s my opinion anyway as my team used that approach and it went nicely for us.

Other teams have started to hate the old lady. She asked nonsense questions to team #3, which was also our friends’ team. During the break they stated how pointless are her questions and statements, somewhat trying to look intelligent and up-to-date with the world but most oftenly clueless and miss the point. Like asking things about the U.S. government when it’s actually not the proper question to ask to team #3. Good thing they didn’t get angry and answered her with “Why don’t you go ask the U.S. government instead, ma’am?? We’re here to discuss the technology and yes, EVERY technology have their weaknesses!”

Well, what is over is over. I’m happy with my current team and I hope I will be able to stick with them in the next classes, unlike my team who dumped me as soon as the previous class was over. I hope there won’t be another battle like this in the future… it’s tiring you know. Let’s try to also finish that Business Plan assignment then, we got only 1 week left and we haven’t even started. It is for 50% grades so if we screw up on that one, we can say goodbye on our “pass” grade. Let’s hope we won’t fail anything this semester…

Lately, I wanted to get another hair coloring, since last time I had a brown dye was 2 years ago and now the color has fade off and gone to black. I saw some very interesting model with Gackt’s hairstyle…

Model 1:

Model 2:

Personally I like model 2, the color and the hairstyle is better and I think that can suit me. But of all people that I asked, everyone agree that my face doesn’t suit both model 1 and model 2, hahaha. I know I’m not that handsome guys, but can’t blame a man for trying to be better, yeah?

Besides, originally Gackt looks like this!

Makeups and hairstyles works wonder huh? So I wonder why it’s not possible for me to do the same? For those who know my real face, come on, give me a suggestion. Although in the end maybe I’ll just go to a good hairdresser and ask him for advices for hairstyles that suit my face, not just going to a plain hairdresser who will just do what you ask and can’t give you any suggestions at all… though it’s expensive, ugh!

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor.
For if they fall, one will lift up his companion.
But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up.
Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm;
But how can one be warm alone?
Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him.
And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Taken from the Book of Ecclesiastes IV vv. 8-12

Well that is one passage that bothers me and is right now very unsuitable for the Singaporean way of life I’m in now (though maybe this happens not only in Singapore). It seems like it’s very hard to find a good friend, moreover a true friend in this kind of environment. So much for the “friendly learning environment”, everyone in here seems to be kicking down others to attain grades. It’s not talking about right or wrong, it’s more about being human, being social and understanding the feelings of each other, looking at every matter from a neutral standpoint and not going into a bias in deciding matters.

So, the story happens to be my team and one other team actually chose the same topic for our next assignment. Of course if there’s two teams working on the same topic both of them will find it hard to get full marks. Debate quickly surrounded on “who wrote the topic first”. One of my team members said that when he wrote the topic, the other team hasn’t written this topic, so the other team should give up. Truth is, there was no actual proof and other eyewitness, as there is no indication of when the teams wrote their topics, as we can submit it anytime we want in the topic list paper without having to write the date. I tried to speak about this, but the others in my team simply said that they believed what our teammate was saying, “I trust you lah” and all that. It’s so darn easy to trust others when things are in your favor, huh?

The talk was not going smooth either, there were all five of my team there present, but only one girl from the other team who was not the debater and we won’t lose to anyone type, so she reluctantly agreed to think about it and ask her teammates. I was going to offer help if they change their topic, as a form of friendship, consolation and responsibility, but the others stopped me and said “Dude, it’s not the matter of helping or not. It’s the matter of who wrote it first”. They thought that I was going to give a trade-off like the “if you’re willing change your topic I will help you on it” kind of thing. The truth is it wasn’t. I was just trying to help and provide them with a topic I already know well so they don’t have to start from zero again (it was only one week from deadline). In the end, I can’t do anything and was powerless to do anything, so I silenced myself and worked.

Later on, the other team’s “lady boss” (you know, the woman from my ex-team) shows her never willing to lose attitude and says they won’t change topics no matter what. So in the end of the day we will just have to compete, tackling each other for the better grades, there will be a winner and there will be a loser, no thought about that win-win solution we’ve learned so much in the last semester at all in the Human Relationship (so what the hell did they join that class for?).

Personally, I can’t take this anymore. I know these things also happens in the real workplace but the way things are, I can’t take it. Am I too soft? Is the world really about the survival of the fittest? No love? The best form of partnership here is a team, it’s like everyone else outside your team is your enemy. And that lady boss’ attitude clearly shows that. If there’s a class where the lecturer choose the team composition and in the end she end up in different teams with her former teammates, she will say “Now we are enemies”. I know maybe she’s joking, but that kind of joke shows what kind of attitude she has.

I can’t take it anymore…

Even Train Hearnet the “Black Cat XIII” - a bringer of bad luck with his gun Hades, who was a loner assassin who never smiled and had no mercy, finally realized his errors and changed his ways after meeting Minatsuki Saya, a bounty hunter who told him of a carefree life like a stray cat. 2 years later, Heartnet, being a bounty hunter and a stray cat himself now, decided that it was not good to be alone, so he partnered with Sven Vollfied, an ex-detective with a special eye. They became very good friends and it brought a great change to Heartnet’s life, now he’s smiling more and he’s changing his principle. “I am not fighting to kill people but to protect people”, that’s what he says. He’s now more willing to get along with people and give a helping hand, compared to the previous life where he was a cold and heartless murderer.

Is peace so hard to find now in the real world that you can only find it in manga books?
Is peace only an illusion now? No more loving kindness? No more tender caring for each other?

So much for world peace…