How to set a background in my Excel spreadsheet and Word document?

That's a question from ams. I gave him a short tutorial using Office 2007. I'm publishing it here as a starter post, hoping in the future I can post useful things for others :P. Sorry, it's a very simple tutorial on a very simple subject :P. Hey... at least it's useful for ams.

MS Word 07
1. Get ready with your document, either you create a new file or open an existing file.
2. Click Insert tab.
3. Click Picture button, the one with a picture of two mountains and a sun... a very familiar picture, yeah? We should sue Microsoft for using our childhood drawing without our permission.
4. Here comes an open-file-dialog. Browse and select an image file that you like as a background of your document.
5. Now, you have the picture in your page. Next thing you need to do is set its Text Wrapping property. You can do this by doing right-click on the picture and clicking Text Wrapping menu or you can simply click Text Wrapping button inside Arrange button group. Then choose Behind Text option.
6. You can add the text you want ON the picture. If you think that the picture is too dominant as a background, you can recolor the picture. All you need to do is right click on the picture, select Format Picture. After Format Picture dialog box is showing, select Picture menu at the left panel, click the button next to Recolor text, click a less apparent cloud-picture-button, and then click Close. If you still don't like it, set the transparency of your pic with your image editor before you insert it into your document.

MS Excel 2007
1. Get ready with your spreadsheet.
2. Click Page Layout tab.
3. Click Background button. Yeah, I know I know, we're gonna sue them for sure.
4. Browse and select the pic you want in the open-file-dialog, then click Insert.
et voila, your background is ready. Btw, don't use the Picture button inside Insert tab because there's no Text Wrapping property in Excel. Don't worry, Background button also use the same two-mountains-and-sun scenery that we love so much.

Cat Spirit

Let it haunt all of you.....>:)
I love the color, though the dead cat we found at our backyard is white :P. I don't know what color is the one slaughtered by the demon dog.

Related stories:
Mysterious Dog
Dear Neighbors,

All The King's Men

It almost be a great movie, but there's something missing, I couldn't figure it out... It's maybe the ending. Why did he shoot him? No strong background, not strong enough. So let me blame it on the bad script. And let me give the praise for Mr Sean Penn, a great actor indeed. I almost fell asleep watching the film and Willie Stark's oration kept my eyes wide open. Stark's smirk, Stark's eyes, Stark's walk, Stark's ... Stark's ..., all about Stark. Only the gestures of his hands that disturbed me. I couldn't help imitating it.

How about Mr Jude Law? I'm really sorry to say, his acting here is kinda plain :((. Sorry... :((. Still, I love his voice when he give the narration. I can capture the emptiness there, the sadness, the nothingness.

It could be a great movie, really...

Mysterious Dog

Sunday morning, while ams and I were working at our backyard I heard some women screamed. "Look! Look! The dog eat a cat."

... 5 minutes earlier.
"Uff! uff!" *a dog, barking*
"Ams... your friend's calling you" *me, smirking*
"Meow! meow!" *a cat, meowing*
"They must be fighting, hihi, it must be funny, oh oh reminds me of cat-and-dog" *me, thinking*
I looked over my fence and I saw a white-light brown dog. I don't like dog but I thought that time, "hmm, pretty cute dog". The owner must've just brought it here for I've never seen it before.

... back to the screaming.
Oh, terrible terrible... I wanted to see the horrible sight but I din't have a heart to :((.
A woman said, "The cat is already dead before the dog eat it. I'm sure of it". I wanted to yell, "No!!!!!!!! I heard its meow before. I didn't think that was a scream for a help, an SOS signal. Huuu, wished I know cat language or dog language". Poor poor cat, I'm sorry I didn't save you at the first place. Oh the spirit of mother cat, you won't be lonely anymore, here comes a new spirit of cat :((. Readers, read this post to know who mother cat is.

And who is the owner of the dog? Why didn't you show up? How awful! I bet you hide inside your house, grinning and thought, "let the dog take care of its problem."
Mind you, it's just an animal! Eating a cat is its instinct. It's you who supposed to give it a collar, not let it out until you're sure it won't bite people and their pet.

... the night after.
I heard howl of a dog, so near, and other dog, rather far. One after another. In my drowsiness I was convinced the one I heard very near was not a dog, but a wolf. And it ran in front of our house. Suddenly it became so quiet, horribly quiet. I was so afraid, hu hu. I had a feeling that this time I was the cat, I was its victim. Hu hu... I woke up and made sure ams was by my side. My foot seek his and touched its skin. I always do it in my childhood, when I was awake in the middle of the night and I was scared, I would sleep next to one of my sisters and made sure I touched their skin, even it was just my foot thumb that touched their skin :P. By doing that, I won't feel lonely anymore. I will feel secured.
Well, when I was sure that the dog has already ran into another area I felt relieved. Strangely, the quietness ended, in fact, it became unordinarily noisy with the sound of frogs and crickets and other night creatures, as if they're celebrating the moment that the demon has already gone.

Should I Quit My Job?

Hi95, I'm a coward... I hide the explanation of level 69%. It's 4 points higher than Joey's but it's basically in the same level ;)).

Your Job Dissatisfaction Level is 69%

Your job is a total bummer, and probably the worst job you've ever had. Your co-workers stink. Your boss is a jerk. And your company is probably in trouble. Think about finding a new job quickly, even if it's just a not-so-great transition job. You've got to get out of there as quickly as you can!

Should You Quit Your Job?

NH Dini's La Grande Borne

It's the latest episode of "Cerita/Serial Kenangan" of NH Dini, firstly published at the beginning of this year. It tells us the dark episode of Dini's life. She almost lost her spirit of life after she got a bad news about her lover, "the captain". Her misery brought some illness to her body. The health treatment and also the pain in her heart made her almost neglect Lintang and Padang who, meanwhile, were growing into self-reliant children.

I admire the way Lintang and Padang were brought up. Padang went to Trans-en-Provence from Paris by himself when he was only six years old! Of course his mom escorted him to the train and somebody was waiting on him at the destination station. But still, it's very young :P.

Now I'm waiting for the next book in this series. Lintang and Padang have become my favorite. Emm, I'm really sorry, Bu Dini... it's not that the story of your own life is not interesting for me anymore but would you put some more stories about them in your next book, please :">.
Bu Dini, I hope you stay healthy and continue telling us the beautiful story of your life.

Sayangku-Cintaku-Manisku (My Darling-My Love-My Honey)

(Special Name for Dearest One, episode 1)

That is one of some special calls we use in our relationship. Again, I remind you, Ams and I is not a romantic couple. We use the words as a teasing. But after for a while, it will be irritating only when ams use it in front of other people. As far as I can remember, it happened twice. Once, in front of his colleagues. The second, in front of his mom.
The one with his colleagues made one of them blushed, the others pretended that they didn't hear it. And I just scowled, imagining they said to themselves, "jadi pengin malu."

The second made his mom laughed and said to me, "Nggilani yo". O yeah mom, your son is definitely silly and ridiculous. I only gave a wry smile. Possibly his mom said to herself, "jadi pengin malu", :((.
And I, I never have enough courage to use that call in front of others.
Now, I will tell you where that call came from. It started when srilas watched Fenomena. It's a TV show. Mostly about sex-related lifestyle, like prostitution, triple-x massage, gigolos, and similar stuffs... Sometimes they had an informant in their studio, had the informant spoken out the stories of his/her dark world. Usually they set the light very very low so the audience cannot see the face clearly, and they edit the informant's pitch, make it lower or higher, make it sounds either like the chipmunks or patrick star :*.
But the one srilas watched that time was an on-the-road edition. With hidden cameras, their crews went to a street with a lot of hookers on its side. They slow down their car and the hookers started approaching them. One of the hookers said, "why don't you drop in... c'mon, sayangku-cintaku-manisku...." Ha95x srilas thought it was very funny, the way the hooker seduced the crew.... One love-expression word was not enough, she used three expressions at once. She even used the word "ku"(="my")... my oh my! And the way she recited it... as if they're one single word. Ha95x.
She told her husband about it later, and he also thought the same way. Unfortunately, it gave him an idea! After laughing for a while, he called srilas with that funny words. Hu hu hu, of course she got mad. But if you know srilas' husband.... You'll know that the more annoyed srilas get the more excited he is, so he do it again and again and again...

Oh somebody, help me.

Dear neighbors,

It's true that we don't stay at home so much. It's true that we're such a bad neighbor, we don't give enough effort to mingle with you. Looks like we love the companies too much 'til you can't meet us in the daylight. "But where are you on Saturday and Monday?", some of you ever asked me that question and I already told you, :"> I'm sleeping while ams's working. Hi95x.
We're sorry for being so anti-social. Still, that doesn't mean that you have to be so mean to us... Hu hu hu.

That banana tree grew in your backyard but the leaves and the fruits are over our backyard. It was no problem with us to clean up its drying leaves that turned into a monster at night, waving its hands and rustling when the wind blew, disguising a man inside its shadow, hiiiii... But we didn't have any intention to clean up the fruits as well. We were glad that you picked them. But why oh why did you leave the remains of your tree at our backyard? You think it's a garbage dump?

And we know that our fence is covered with ilalang. We've tried as best as we could to conquer the mighty ilalang but there hasn't been any significant result. We know it doesn't look nice. But why oh why you spoiled the view even more? Again, you think our fence-side is a garbage dump? Once, you leaved some coconut stalks there, and now you dump some dirt. WT*?

Now, for you... neighbors who don't have banana trees at your yard. It's fine for you to get some banana leaves from our backyard when you need to make lontong, arem-arem, pepes, etc, but please bring the stem along with the leave or else you should put the stem at some proper place, either our garbage dump or yours or other neighbors' if they don't mind.

And then, for you... who have childrens. We know we have some mural at our walls. Cute, ain't it? Po, Tingky-Wingky, Dipsy, Lala... they remind us of our joyful childhood. But, let us tell you here... our home is not a playground. Oh, don't blame us for having that mural. You know it's not us who painted it. Hey, don't get us wrong, we like children a lot, especially children who don't throw away some litters at our front yard.
Okay okay... your children can play there. Your chicken and cats can play there, eat there, and do anything animals do, although it's so noisy when the cats do that thing... What??!!? It's fighting! :P
For you who have the cats... Please do notice if one of your cat is missing. It's probably dead in our backyard :((. It's enough to use it as a playground, don't make it a resting place too. Oh, cat spirit... don't haunt us, don't you know that it is ams who bury you? We don't want to adopt your child as ours, so we leave your child outside, hoping somebody would take it, sorry... :((.

Last but not least, our frontyard is not a place for gossiping, especially about your own neighbor, more specifically about a neighbor who want to sleep peacefully in the weekend, a neighbor who owns the frontyard. What? Sure it's me!!

We're completely aware that this place is not ours, we only rent it. But we think, it won't hurt you if you give us a little more respect and privacy.

Thank you.

Special Name For Dearest One

Eeew, I almost vomit just writing that title... 'dearest one'? Huek... Who's that supposed to be? Of course ams :x.
Ams and I are not a romantic couple. We hate being romantic. We often make fun of each other by being romantic, err.. correction: by pretend to be romantic. We're giggling everytime we saw (what supposed to be) romantic scene in the movies, specially in all those sinetron, and together we say, "Jadi malu sendiri" (help me with the translation here, guys... :P).

This morning Joey asked me, "what is ams exactly? Is it an abbreviation from some words?" Ooo, not at all... I told Joey what 'ams' is, but I won't tell you here. If you're really want to know it, then ask me personally. Isn't it a big secret Joey? Hi95x.
Joey's question leads me to my old idea about writing a series (of blog posting) about special name we used in our relationship. But that's not starting today.
I'm writing this post just for the sake of Valentine day, 'dearest one' is soooo Valentine, right?

Pandeglang Trip and Kitchen Tragedy

Last weekend Ams and I roamed around Pandeglang by motorcycle. Our route was Cilegon – Serang – Pandeglang – Pari – Menes – Jipit - Labuan – Carita – Anyer – Cilegon; something like 200 km. Can you imagine how exhausted we were?

Too tired, I almost collapsed in our kitchen afterward. That night, we were too worn out to go buying some food but too hungry not to eat. There’re only one potato, three eggs, and cabbage in the fridge and inspired by the food we ate at alun-alun Pandeglang, siomay, I decided to made “siomay minus siomay” :P. I thought it was simple, just boiled all those stuffs and made the sauce. Turn out it was not that effortless because I made the peanut sauce from scratch. The heat, the hunger, the despair made me so weak, I yelled, “Ams!! I cannot take it anymore. Go wait for this potato’s done by yourself, I need to lay down.” He was doing a schedule that must be delivered immediately but he hustled going to the kitchen because he wouldn’t mess up with a hungry srilas. O yeah, she’ll be as sensitive as girls on their PMS.

He he, I made the food voluntarily at first but as my clothes became wet from my sweat and seeing ams stayed cool while doing something with the computer (I doubt he was doing the schedule, but I was wrong :P), I thought, “hu hu hu it’s so unfair… this sacrifice is just too much.” So I yelled again, “Oh, I won’t even eat it!!”
I was so sleepy at the same time. It was no longer my eating hour, 10 PM, and usually at 10 PM I tend to ignore the hunger and try to sleep instead. But as he started eating I crept out of the bedroom and said, “May I eat one egg, please?” Here I tell you the fact: need only one egg to tame the hungry srilas hi95x.

About the trip itself… there’s a mountain that caught my interest. It’s just a small mountain, or maybe it’s just a hill, a big one. The forest on its side is pretty thick. There’s no sign of people track, even though at its base there’re some villages with beautiful terraced rice field. I hardly believe there’s such place in Java. People cut down all the trees typically.
Is it a conservation area then? Does the rhino live there? Oh no no, it’s not Ujung Kulon :P, or some tigers maybe? Or is it a sacred place… a place where some spirits live… Uuuuu, uuuu… the mist that covered its top made it even scarier.

We brought nothing from the trip, although there were lot of manggis displayed along the way, together with some durian, petai, banana and cempedak. Durian at Cilegon was disappearing but we still could find it in a large quantity at Pandeglang.

- cold day, the sound of my empty mind -

Loser

It's overheard in New York:

Frat boy #1: Dude, when do you graduate?
Frat boy #2: Like, next year, man.
Frat boy #1: How long have you been in school, man? Like, five years, right?
Frat boy #2: Anyone that leaves college in less than five years is a loser. It's like someone who leaves the party at 10:30 -- things are just getting started!

He95x. I'm not a loser! Are you?

Btw, I really want to have that kind of blog... but overheard in Cilegon? It's just a small city and I'm not moving about so much here.
Okay, what about overheard in the office? Won't work too... Hi hi hi, there're only two person in the IT room, that's including me. Maybe I'll overhear lot of interesting stuffs if I do what my general manager suggested. One day he asked me, "Why are you always stay in your room? Don't you get bored?" ...grumble, grumble, grumble inside but big smile on my face. He told me then, "You should wander around the factory sometimes". Oh! He just doesn't know that I'm wandering at a bigger world than the factory, :P.
Actually I've ever tried to stay in the coating area, I was looking around and thinking, "What is this? I know nothing about this. Okay, I should ask someone". Then I asked my friend, "What is that (...black, greasy, dirty...) thing right there doing?". Not a word from his mouth, only a frown. He was looking at me as if I was a creature from outer space, not an intelligent one. So, next time I go there again and also to other areas in the factory, I'll make sure I already have a degree or certificate or whatever on mechanical thing, I'll only be a dummy otherwise :|.

Hmm, maybe I should create overheard at home, :D. It will contain the conversation between me and ams, me and myself, me and things he95x....... sounds interesting?

- clear afternoon, sound of the uncoiler -

FAQ

Why a new blog?

As I mentioned in my previous blog I want to have a blog with a layout I can play with. I’m a “tableless geek” wannabe 8-}.

Why do you decide to use the same blog service as the one you used a long time ago?

I take Joey's recommendation. In Joey we trust.

So, why don’t you just update your old blog?

I feel that my old blog is just like my worn-out clothes. I don’t want to throw them away from my closet, yet I don’t want to wear them anymore because… well, because they’re just too old.

Why srilas?

“Why do you use ‘i_lalang’ as your yahoo-id?” just before I created this blog a colleague of mine asked. I just smiled. Actually I’m kind of bored with that question. Years ago I might answer, “I don’t know… I just picked out the id from my friend’s suggestion”. The friend here is Hilda. Just about a week before I created a yahoo mail id, we, Hilda and I, went for a walk at some plain covered with ilalang. We thought it was beautiful… Well, I always think that spread of blooming ilalang is beautiful unless it’s in my own lawn :P. But I didn’t choose i_lalang because of that reason, simply have no other idea, that’s all.

Same thing here. Before I created this blog, I was chatting with Gary about an actor I like recently, Silas Weir Mitchell. He’s the actor who plays the role Haywire at Prison Break. I wondered if he’s a real wacko or he just acts really really good for that role. I read from imdb that he’s a smart and hilarious person so I think he must be a real good actor. Better than Wentworth Miller :P. Hi hi, come on girls, don’t be mad at me…

The name Silas is very familiar to us, Gary and me, because we liked to talk about the role Silas in Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code. Gary has a big sympathy for him while I don’t :P. Apparently it bothered her so much…. she named me srilas then :|.

So, when blogger asked me what blog name I will use and after three attempts are failed… once the name srilas came across my mind I just typed it and I clicked continue… et voila… srilas.blogspot.com. Remember it, add it to your google reader, bookmark it, set it as the homepage of all your browsers, tattoo it on your skin--specially you... Wenworth Miller fans or Guy Pearce fans--, spell it three times a day, paint it on your walls, and… update your link to my blog…. wait, I don’t think there’s somebody out there willing to link their blog to mine hu hu hu. O yeah… only a couple of great persons do that ;) thank you….:P

Yeah, srilas.blogspot.com… be quite, I can read your mind! But no worry, I also think that that URL sounds ridiculous. Grrr… Gary!!! I swear I’ll mention your name a lot here and it will always with a nasty grin at my face every time I type your name.

Now that I’ve explained it to you, don’t you ever ask me why I choose srilas…. or i_lalang.

You said you want to play with the layout, so why do you still use a template?

That's a tough one... All I can say is... just wait and see. Although you probably must wait for a very long time :P.

Are you an English native speaker?

Certainly not... :P So, feel free to give some correction about my language :">.

- night, the sound of cricket and frog -