The discovery started quite innocently enough. While I promise you that it is not a narcissistic action on my part so much as it is one of pure curiousity and research, once in a blue moon I'd "Google" my own website to see what others had linked to myindo.com.

It was not until I reached the 2nd page of the Google search results that I found this link to The Jakarta Post website and saw my name and website in the Google excerpt.

(If you don't already know, The Jakarta Post is Indonesia's leading local English newspaper.)

You know that feeling when you've stubbed your toe against the door and you're just agonizing with pain? Well,... I didn't feel that. Come on now, stay focused.

My heart instead leaped out from my chest and landed into my glass of Vanilla Coke. Myindo.com cited in The Jakarta Post? Why, oh why?? Oh bestill my carbonated drink-soaked heart!

Feeling wretched with excitement, I clicked on the link to The Jakarta Post website from Google which brought me to an article about...

Harley-Davidson motorcycles??

I assure you there was no mention of my name nor website in this Harley-Davidson article.

I then remembered that The Jakarta Post website has this odd content management system in which URLs to articles are recycled to reflect the latest news. Meaning, a link in today's Jakarta Post web article will show a different article the next day, even though the link name is the same. I know this through my constant usage of the Jakarta Post website. It's a pretty annoying feature when you're sharing a particular Jakarta Post web link with friends - if they're late in opening the link by a day, the story is no longer what you wanted them to see.

(If what I just explained reeked of technogeekism, forgive me. I will quickly enroll for "Nerds Anonymous.")

But I was clever (clap clap). I pressed the "Back" button on my Firefox browser to return to the Google search page and clicked instead on the "Cache" link of the result.

This "Cache" link points me to a copy of the actual article that contained the search phrase "myindo" when Google first captured it.

It is just amazing to me how Google literally stores every piece of web page history there is out there in this black hole vortex that is the Internet.

Google makes a perfect husband. It remembers everything.

*Click.*

The page loads.

A-hah! An article about Teh Botol on The Jakarta Post, published on 3 September 2005. What gives lah?

I skimmed through what seemed to be a write-up on the ever glorious history of teh botol, the tea drink that every Indonesian literally thrives and writes poetry on (plain ol' water ranks number two, I swear).

Guess what an Indonesian man would choose on a hot day:
A) An achingly beautiful woman naked in a swimming pool, or...
B) Teh botol.

Come on, this is a no brainer.

You forgot what teh botol is? Let me remind you:

a.k.a. Lovely stuff!

Then there was this paragraph, so nicely inserted by TJP reporter Evi Mariani:

A personal revelation about my first exposure to Teh Botol during a trip to Jakarta in 2002 had made it into a Jakarta Post article this year!

Hey! :-D I'm a foreigner ke?? Hehe. Sometimes to Indonesia I don't feel like one.

At this point I'm blushing slightly as it just seems a bit too funny. Feeling more like a drunken monkey. Drunken with teh botol!

That quote above is outdated however.

You can now get Teh Botol in Malaysia (since 2003), though not as widely distributed, but it is available from selected areas where the Indonesian community flourishes. E.g. grocery stores located near a campus with a known Indonesian student population (think Sunway and Cyberjaya).

Thank you Evi Mariani. Whoever you are. It is a nice feeling to be cited on a subject matter that is dear to my heart!

I do not know if this article made it into the print version of The Jakarta Post. If you have this edition of the newspaper (Saturday, 3 September 2005), will you let me know, kind readers of Myindo.com? Or better yet, send it to me in Malaysia? I'll reward you in kind! :-)

Read the full Jakarta Post article by Evi Mariani:
Local preference for tea puts Coca-Cola in cold sweat

Related articles:

An Eye-Opening Trip to Jakarta, Indonesia! (the article from which The Jakarta Post cited).

MyIndo.com Recognized by Indonesian Embassy