Stop, Marv, Okay?

Superheroes has always been a thing to me.

Especially they who are under the red flag of Marvel.

There are tons of them. With diverse superpowers. Made my childhood like, gangbanged in a superhero fantasy, sent me off to my adolescent phase hoping to witness the live-action movies of each hero—and my dream came true. As Spider-Man, X-Men and Fantastic 4 all invaded the screen and satisfied my lust.

Then some others came. Some that weren’t much of my favorites: The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America. I initially didn’t really like them as much as I had this weird obsession towards X-Men or Fantastic 4 and, to make it worse, their movies turned out to fail me too. The Hulk was too dark and serious, Iron Man was too destructive –plus I finally realized something: what so superhero about Iron Man? He’s just a weakling covered with irons made by money, and Captain America was… There was nothing wrong with this one, I simply just started to get sick of Marvel’s newer heroes.

Then. To make it all the worst, all of them were PROUDLY joined forces. With a bunch of more heroes I had no interests in, and some others that I didn’t even know! No Wolverine, no Mr. Fantastic and their companions, why should I be excited about these things?

Marvel indeed got me bored but then, who am I really?

The world liked what they did so, HEROES INVASION began.

They succeeded on so many levels. Ever since, they kept planning sequels back-to-back in tight schedule like a barbaric animal, recreate stuff, getting all cluttered and, ugh, it’s just too much for me! Although obviously, it’s nowhere near “too much” for everybody else in this universe because, as you know, they never stop demanding more and more hero tales.

I kept holding back. When my friends kept talking about new hero movies and stuff, yes, I kept holding back. I stopped updating about Marvel’s newest shits if it’s not about X-Men or Fantastic 4 –yes, I even got sick of Spider-Man I didn’t watch any of those “Amazing” series crap. I lost count of what sequel it was for Thor, for Captain America, I didn’t even have interest in “Age of Ultron”!

Yes I kept holding back, until I finally reached my limit.

Spider Man that’s just too young, and Fantastic 4 with black Johnny Storm?

Seriously, this has got to stop right now, Marvel.

Pic of Peter and his underrated cast is from here, while Johnny's from here.

I’m a fvcking OCD person, for God’s sake. I brought this matter long ago when Chris Evans played both Johnny Storm and Captain America and I was all raging in disappointment about it.

Enough with Spider-Man, will you!? First of all, this new Peter is just too young. It disgusted me. Then knowing the fact that now there are three Peter Parker’s in total, it’s not nice at all! I know, maybe you’re following the path of Batman –or, James Bond?– that has more than one actor for each role but… It’s somehow not just working for Spider-Man ;(

And black Johnny Storm… What the hell—go to hell, Marvel. You fail me, you fail many of your sharp and critical fans but most annoying-ly, you fail Stan Lee. It’s not about this new actor is black, ew, no! Drop all those racism shits. It’s just, c’mon you know that Johnny Storm is supposed to be white and is a biological younger brother to Susan Storm. So stop being innovatively nonsense, and quit making such unnecessary changes—and please, go to hell of Human Torch’s flame on.

And here's the worst thing. With Peter and Johnny initially being best bud, there will always be this big chance to make Spider-Man | Fantastic 4 movie. If that happens, and Marvel uses the current casts instead of Jessica Alba and the gang plus Tobey Maguire, well, I knew it for so long that you've been conspiring to ruin my OCD senses, Marvel.

Pic's from here.

Oh look how much I’ve complained about this.

Don’t get me wrong because I know more than anyone else in my circle about Marvel’s license share things. Some go with FOX, some with Sony, but why—you have all the rights to monitor everything and stop those studios –and YOURSELF– from overdoing those stupid changes.

Sorry but I’m not one of those people you gladly get benefits from. This has been a fiesta for them so-called superheroes geeks but seriously, for me, and hopefully there are some others who feel this way too—this is too much, and has gone too far.

I lost Fantastic 4. And I lost them in such failed reboot. Well who am I to talk, the film is not even released yet—you know what, I’m not talking about quality because this version could possibly be better and much more entertaining, who knows? I’m instead just talking about how too soon these reboots are made. And with some useless digression—oh I’m done talking.

Dear Marvel,
I sincerely hope you never get your license back for X-Men.

And dear FOX, please,
Don’t ruin my beloved X-Men franchise just

Don’t. Ever. Reboot. X-Men.

Hi There, Pluto

Everybody seems to be talking about the outer space right now.

Well, I don't want to miss it then, because inserting #Pluto will lead people to this blog so--lol no, kidding. I sincerely want to join the talk, because space thing has always been one of my childhood fetish.

All picture of Pluto in this post, belong to NASA's Instagram.

I can’t recall when exactly this interest began. It’s pretty blurry either because there was once a TV quiz show which characters explored the universe to solve questions provided in all nine planets or maybe because, Sailor Moon? Can’t tell, really –maybe Sailor Moon.

Pluto, turned out to be my favorite. It was the furthest one, making it the coldest too, it took 250 earth years for the planet to orbit the sun, it was the smallest kid on the block until finally, it sadly was reclassified and excluded from our solar system’s planet list. Oh and of course, never forget the fact that Pluto was also the name of Mickey Mouse’s beloved pet dog –I think I even knew this Pluto way earlier than the planet Pluto itself.

Years after, the former planet still got me mesmerized. After almost 10 years of being forgotten, in the last two days Pluto brought its fame back to the table.

You might now, of course, know that NASA’s New Horizons probe just flew by Pluto yesterday, giving us all a closer look to the outcast sibling. It just blew me away of how far the spacecraft had traveled 3 billion miles through space, spending 9 years in total to finally be able to get close to Pluto it’s just—crazy.

And speaking about closer look. I remember how distorted the pic of Pluto was, when I slowly observed every single detail of each planet on my physics module. Now, the figure taken by Hubble’s telescope has transformed to something we can’t just stop looking at—oh, that heart figure, I wonder what kind of creature resides on that area…

Left is NASA's, right is Hubble's.

Oh and speaking about heart. I found a super interesting article on Buzzfeed, collecting how people see the heart shape with their eyes. Some said it looks like a sloth, Snoopy, and even a suspended bear head –critical way of thinking by the way! But what caught me in awe, was when somebody claimed that Sailor Pluto had long known about the heart shape.

I love coincidences.

Haha.

Practically, this post is just a compilation of interesting facts I found uber-necessary to be shared. Because I adore our solar system, I adore Pluto and how mysterious it is –or ‘was’, to say the least, and this is just a momentum I couldn’t take for granted.

Thank you, NASA.
You didn’t just answer our wonders.
You also brought our lonely away cousin

Back to our big family

Body Full of Sins

"There’s no such thing as pure human.
As each and every single one of us
Are always under those deadly sins.”

Just today I realized how I am actually covered with negativity. It’s normal, nothing wrong with that. But when three out of seven deadly sins came right at you on the same damn day, still think you’re not an apprentice of evil?

Gluttony

You know I got a job already. It comes with good money, good side benefit, complimented with good bosses and co-workers. But I don’t know, I’m still on the stage where I can’t just stop looking for something else. Something new, and probably something better.

This morning there was this offer as an interpreter for joint exercise of Indonesian and American army. Okay. Being an interpreter sounds so~ interesting. But that’s not it. The job will be in the middle of the woods, keeping up with both armies doing their exercises to always bridge their communication! Shit man, in the middle OF THE WOODS! With ARMIES! Could it be any more interesting!? I really don’t care where in the world I’ll be placed—I’m with armed men, remember? Even tigers teaming up with apes and crocodiles can’t touch me.

But of course, I couldn’t take it. The joint exercise is next month, and by that time I’d only be working on my current job for four months only. Do you think I could just resign for that super-exciting-out-of-the-box-one-thing-I-never-think-I-would-ever-do offer? I wish I could.

Envy

But wait. If there’s one sin I’m greatly dying to get rid of, it’s envy. This brat has the worst effect on me. I don’t just envy people I know—I envy people I don’t even know, or ‘better’ yet, people far-far away that actually deserve to get what I envy them about.

So to distract about the army thing, I browsed news on the internet. About this young skinny singer whose overall figure looks a lot like me. One thing led to another, I ended up at his Wiki page, only to find out that he’s in a relationship with this musician I’VE LONG BEEN A FANBOY OF. I felt like a monster truck hit me in my chest. For normal people, this could be just so-so heartbreaking moment. For me with this irrational amount of jealousy, plus the fact that he looks like me makin me like "how the hell could he get it and I'm just here, browsing the internet about his life?" - I swear the first thing that came out of my mouth the next second I found out about this thing was: “I hope your relationship never works.”

But of course, I couldn’t do anything about it. It’s a life apart of mine, in a place afar of mine, and hey—it’s a celebrity universe and who am I? Do you think I could just fly up there, track where they are, ruin their relationship and build a good one for myself? I wish I could.

Wrath

Things didn’t go emotionally better for me as by the end of the day, I had this big argument with a friend from abroad. Long story short –because believe me you don’t want to keep up with the drama, we had this smooth long-schemed plan we’ve been dreaming about for a year, and all of the sudden he was out of reach and ruined everything.

My wrath, is not like what you think of: exploding, violent, rude—no. My wrath is the one you don’t want to deal with: silent treatment. Think you can handle that? No, if it also comes with maneuvers that can stab you from the back, making you hurt even worse than when you hurt me from ruining my plans. However, no matter how hurt he ended up to be, eventually I was the one who suffered the most. Vengeance is sweet, for the first seconds. But guilt that comes after that, lasts forever.

And of course, I couldn’t change what has happened. I told him that I now have zero interest to keep on doing what we planned because in fact, with all these jobs I have now, I actually can’t. Do you think I could just travel back in time to forgive, let go of everything and enjoy smooth life as it was back then? Oh, I wish I could.

Huh. Human.
We just can’t get enough.
Body full of sins, secrets, selfishness.

“There’s no such thing as pure human.
As each and every single one of us
Are always under those deadly sins.”

Which in my case,
I think I have seven…ty

Rebirth, Again

In the last two Ramadans,

I've always felt like, you know,

A little bit too carried away.

As I realized that I became too busy and I started to slowly lose my childhood Ramadan rituals, I felt like I'm now far from doing my best on the holy month. So that's why reaching the end, I always begin to feel this discomfort and extreme sadness of the fact that my month is about to leave, again.

Today was the last Friday for this year's Ramadan. Since last week I had this plan of wearing my signature koko outfit for the last Friday, giving the thought that I wouldn't be meeting this day again until next year. It wasn't a necessity tho, because wearing koko is really not my thing. But I don't know, I felt like I had this urge for myself to MUST wear that.

So I just followed where my guts led me. I went to the office looking all muslim-ish, my bosses were all like "well, Amin, you look awesome in that!" and my co-workers forced me to "you have to wear this again on the last day of Ramadan, and I'll join you!" and it brought up my day. I knew I would do that for a reason.

But that wasn't it. That, wasn't just it.

Hours went by, and I suddenly recalled a thing.

Today was my Hijri birthday.

I was all psyched about that. Because unlike last year, I finally remembered that I have two birthdays. And eventho I was the only one who recognized this special day of mine -of course, who else would bother about my Hijri birthday? I'm pretty sure they don't even know theirs, I really enjoyed today a lot. Because I got to celebrate my second birthday, again.

To sum it up, I had an awesome day well spent at basically, everywhere. Nice atmosphere, nice mood. Then it led to a meaningful last Friday prayer for this year's Ramadan, and I got to close today with some good old pals I haven't met for a long time. After all it's just another great birthday I felt this year. And it was a blast, again.

"I knew I would do that for a reason."

The plan to wear koko, yes.

I knew there was something good behind it.

And starting from this year on, I promise that

I wouldn't take my Hijri Birthday for granted.

Ever again.

شكرا

Assalaamu 'Alaikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh
Please don’t be such a peeve, I’m in the state of divinity right now.

Salaam, brothers and sisters. It’s the second half of Ramadan, and I haven’t even written a word regarding this holy moment. So before things go further, let me be a saint and wish us all the happiest Ramadan Kareem throughout the month, and days forthcoming.

Actually I have nothing to say.

I mean, no topic I want to discuss with you –or in most cases, with myself– nor issues I want to mock, no. I came here clean, no negative vibes and such. Instead, like every other year, I’m here just to wonder about… How time did run so fast and now it’s the 15th day of Ramadan already. Plus how it flashed so quick, that last year’s Ramadan felt just like a blink.

It felt only like yesterday.

When I woke up every single dawn so easy for suhoor, giving the fact that I was still unemployed and I could sleep on until like 10. And my one year old fat cat was still a –fat– kitten, still got her three siblings around and ganged up meowing us like pains in the ass. And oh, of course, the memorable World Cup that had me super active in blogging –crazy sweet memory, I swear.

And each day I spent, was to look for vacancies, waiting for my book to be released, and worked my ass up to get editors’ attention. Those hard days were really over the top. Much of a stress, and pressure, I would do anything to NOT get back there.

But I enjoyed my vacant time. Wasting every single second with my family, figuring out what I really wanted to do in life, having the best –litter box cleaning– time of my life and for that, I would do anything to DO get back there.

Because my job now got me really busy. I’m actually living double—triple life with more than one jobs so, no wonder. Leaving weekend as my only time to have buka puasa bersama moment with my family. And my cats, they’re getting too handful. Shitting here and there, breeding here and there. Plus the fact that neither World Cup nor Premier League is on now…

Oh well what did I say!

Despite what I just mentioned,
Whatever happens, I’m so grateful.

Those are just minor obstacles that I’m facing. Compared to what I earned and what blessed me, I should’ve always been grateful. Beyond just grateful.

That now I have jobs, healthy cats,
Significantly growing career in travel writing
And most important of all—family I can have meals together with.

“Therefore, which is it
Of the favors of your Lord
That you deny?”