Seeing Red: Twilight Tortures

With appendicitis in the air, and living with my brother for the time being, I am utterly at the mercy of my well-meaning nieces. So when they suggested a Twilight screening, my only options were to either:

a)agree to watch but fake sleep through it or;
b)run and hide where they cannot find me (difficult when my top speed is roughly 1 step/2 second)

Needless to say, by the time I made up my mind (B), the DVD has already been popped in,the cookies and milk were a-laying and bloody Edward Cullen was trying to stare his way through the screen.

The first time I had to watch it when it was first released, I believe I went in with an open mind. I also went through the nationwide hunt for books 1-4 with pretty good graces. But I'll be damned if I had to sit through another torture session of Mr. Cullen and his posse keeping the movie going with supposed good looks* and molten stares and rubbish Sweet Valley High dialogue mixed with some fangs.

I behaved myself with my nieces of course but whenever Bella started spouting "I want to be with you forever" or the "Never leave my side", I wanted to throw my milo mug at the screen and yelling "What about your life bitch?! No one can get a BA in Love!"

Edward, all 300 years of him with the physical age of 17 was hardly any better. "I've waited all my life for you," says he, "Vomit," says I.

Real people don't talk like that. And if they do,they are:

a)drunk
b)trying to get laid
c)all of the above.

I should have ripped that DVD from the player and burn all the twilight booksI can get my hands on...
...
...
...
... I really need to get back to work. This is not healthy.

*okay, Alice is pretty cute. Did you see her wind up to pitch the baseball?

Small scrapes

As part of my 'pick-myself-up-from-appendicitis' efforts, I've been seriously thinking about the macbook. What? Don't you judge me. I'm hurt and material things lubricate the getting better process.

So today I gave in a little and went to klcc after my check-up, just to take a look at it again. I should have prepared. myself better against the temptations at Machines. I got sidetracked the minute I hobbled into the store - the Macbook Air (1st gen) was being sold off at a ridiculous price!

The commercials were true; that baby weighs about 3 pounds (who needs a disc drive in this day and age anyway?) and thin enough to slip into a manila envelope.

In fact, the evil salesman did give me a faux manila envelope and I happily carried the Macbook Air around the store in my efforts to convince myself to get it. Until I realized I was acting like a total twat and that if I weren't me, I'd hate me.

I admit, I was very tempted. But I managed to slink out the store, with wallet almost intact - I gave up the air and got myself Mursed as a trade-off. But that's a story for another day.

Score:
Me: 0.5, Temptation: 0.5


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It's not a hospital...

Its hotel+hospital=hospitel
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Small comforts

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Appendix

Got admitted to the hospital yesterday for appendicitis-i swear I flet like dying from pain in the stomach.

Operation was last night as well. The OT(terms I picked up from scrubs were very helpful) is one of the most scariest places to be in. Big lights, the smell of whatever it is, the masked doctors, nurses.

Its all good now. Am very restless. Walking around in by ass showing gown later.


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Bangkok Visit - The Sex Pitch: Economics of a titty-bar

Was in Bangkok sometime back for a Bachelor's trip. [coverline]After the usual tom yam & green curry meals and temple visits and boat rides and elephant rides, we decided to go to a club. 'Lo & Behold, we were tricked into entering a titty-bar! [/coverline]

 

So ahem, back to the point at hand; the economics of a titty-bar. The first time I was dragged to one was when I was in Madrid. There, the drinks were not so cheap and the women even less so. Same deal for the one in Bangkok. It was a weird feeling going in, like visiting a home you had vacated years ago, and finding it now alive, in Bangkok somehow and with strangely-lit furniture. All these bars are essentially the same though, be it in Europe or Asia - The elevated stage, the poles, the shaped lighting, the faux leather upholstery, the smell of airconditioned perspiration and cheap cologne.

To pass the time, I found myself thinking about the economics of the place, and wondering how things had changed since I had last bothered to look. For the uninitiated: your average night club's profits revolve around ladies' drinks, which male guests buy for them in exchange for a chunk of their time, usually an hour's worth. This 60-minute window will usually include just enough fondling and titillating conversation to guarantee another drink, and a third after that. The girls are paid by the number of drinks their guests buy for them, you see. Their cut is usually around 25% of gross, which in real terms means they make about 100baht per hour in a mid-range club like the one we were in. On a really good night (i.e., if they work a full 8 or 9 hours), they make a little under a grand for their trouble, excluding tips. On average though, it's more like 400-500bahts.

What complicates things is that the girls need to convince their guest to buy them a drink first. The sales pitch itself takes time, and usually includes some pre-payment groping to expedite matters. I was pleasantly surprised last night to find that the standard spiel was still there, even after all this time.

It goes thusly (and I swear to god this is probably in some training manual somewhere):

1. Shake hand of guest, or kiss guest on cheek (which rationally, you need to avoid like the plague).
2. Ask guest's name, then introduce yourself. (Khap pun kha...whats your name sir)
3. If it looks like it's the guest's first time, confirm it.(First time sir?)
4. The guest will answer in the affirmative, usually followed by some explanation. The most common is: (We just wanted to try it.)
   My answer was "I didn't even know we were going here! Honest!"
5. The next two questions are interchangeable. Either they ask your age, or where you work. (" You work in Bangkok Sir?" or "How old are you Sir?")
   I've seen a few guys use the age question as an opportunity to pull off a quasi-icebreaker, and answer ("Guess.") The girls have probably heard this trick so many times that they've got canned responses ready for this as well. Usually they'll make a playful game out of alternately guessing, or teasing the answer out of you. I got the work question instead, to which I replied, "No, no just a holiday")

The initial script usually ends there. If the guest isn't into her, the girl needs to either get creative, or move on. These exchanges require some measure of mutual interest, after all. That said, there are also a handful of straplines that they throw around in the middle of the conversation, exempli gratia:

"I've been working here less than a day/week/month"
I've heard this one so many times that I wonder if there are any veterans in this industry at all. (There are, but they usually turn into floor managers or mama sans.) I imagine they use this line to make it appear as if they are new and therefore, innocent, and therefore, gullible, and therefore, worth exploring further.

"I'm just putting myself through college"
I love this one, because it pulls on your heartstrings and it's inspiring. Who wouldn't want to buy a girl a drink, after all, if she was channeling that money into her education?

I got an earful of these and other standard lines of dialogue from the first girl who sat beside me. After about 15 minutes of fairly neutral responses from her audience, she gave up and walked off, leaving me to my drink and my drunken friend who was using me to prop himself up.

What I like about this particular club (at least, if I were in that kind of mood) is how the floor managers were orchestrating things behind the scenes. It's the FM's job to move the inventory in the most efficient manner possible, so they'll generally throw the unpopular girls at you first. Kinda like old fish at the wet market.

Girl #2 appeared next to me within a minute of Girl #1 leaving. This one was only mildly more interesting than the first, and since I honestly hope we had no intention of having more than a few drinks at this place, she didn't make much headway either. After No. 2 gave up, a top-tier girl took her place. This one apparently decided I was a lost cause and worked on my buddy. Also apparently, the couch wasn't comfortable enough for her and decided to sit on his lap instead. No more boring dialogue, just lots of vigorous gyration and heavy breathing. Like an erotic elevator pitch, this girl had distilled her craft down to its most pure form, and from a technical perspective, I don't think a more compelling way exists to sell a guy on something.

I suppose we should've bought her a drink on pure principle: I don't believe honest effort should go unrewarded, after all. But we were leaving and thankfully I never had to cross that particular line.

 

Another thing I like about this place: all of the girls say goodbye to you as you leave. I mean, I knew they were all cursing under the breath for having wasted their time with me, but hell, you can't win every pitch.

 

*It was called Super-Titty if anyone's interested

Start them young.

I did a sheepwoman today, gave a lecture to a packed class at my old uni. It was funny having the lecturers sit back and I was in front giving a talk on my thoughts on advertising. Reality check went on constantly.

It was a fun session though, the hour talk (I talked for 60 whole minutes!), the Q&A, the feel good feeling of corrupting young minds. Maybe it won't be something I'd do for life (stories on marking term papers still gives me the chills) but maybe once in awhile? Won't kick that idea out of bed just yet.

One thing's for sure, smarty-pants students irritate me. There was this one guy who particularly got on my goat. As I was driving back, I realised why it was so. He reminded me too much of myself.



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Safety while crossing the streets

As admirable as his intentions on using the pedestrian bridge to cross, I don't think Dumbo can squeeze through.



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Thai getaway: LCCT

Are you kidding me?? Where's the air bridge???

(The last time I flew out on air asia, tony still had access to KLIA)
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Greener Pastures: The Handshake

Put 'er there pardner

I’ve been re-reading a bit of Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink recently, where he talks about the phenomenon of, among other things, thin-slicing. Thin-slicing is essentially just a fancy word for that notion that you can glean a significant amount of information from minutiae, often unconsciously. I was reminded of this recently while musing about the miracle of the handshake.

On my first week at Greener Pastures over the past week, I’ve gone to nearly 2 dozen meetings, and shaken over 3 dozen unique hands. Many of these hands belonged to CEOs or VPs (new guy being introduced and all that) or people who would just as soon shake my hand as spit in it (and not in a good way either). One of these hands belonged to a VP pegged to takeover Greener Pastures when/if the current boss leaves. Another belonged to the curator of a gallery in the city centre. And another belonged to a 4th floor boy. The rich, successful types usually shake hands in very similar ways, because they’ve done it so many times that it’s become reflex.

The general process is to grasp, pump, squeeze and release, but the timing of the release and the amount of squeeze you exert is crucial. Why is it crucial? Because people thin-slice you on the basis of your handshake.

Because there is a very specific way to properly shake someone’s hand, there are myriad erroneous ways as well. My personal peeve is what I like to call the lembik-shake, which is where the guy just slips his hand into yours and lets you do all the work. No pump, no squeeze. Just the barest hint of a grasp, a pause, then release. This is how women in polite society shake hands. I'm of the opinion that when a guy shakes your hand like this, it basically means that he wants to be treated like a lady.

Recently, I’ve noticed the lembik-shake employed more and more by blowhards, which is surprising because you’d expect these types of people to have very forceful handshakes.

Instead, they place their clammy hands in yours and wait for you to shake, then proceed to bore you to death with their own personal illusions of grandeur. Thankfully, I know that the best way to handle a blowhard is to pretend you’re impressed. (It makes for amusing stories to your friends afterwards.)

On the other side of the spectrum is the samson-shake, which is often used by people who feel they have a lot to prove, and thus try too hard to show (irrelevant) physical strength. These guys squeeze hard and try to see if you’ll wince. I’ve seen this mostly from guys with crappy jobs. They usually have a big shit-eating grin on their face when they do it too.

Another variation is the eternal-shake, i.e., the guys that won’t let go. This is due to inexperience more than anything else, and I’ve learned that you shouldn’t really read too much into this one. (On the other hand, the very fact that the guy you’re shaking hands with is inexperienced might be enough to get a good idea of whether he’s lying to you or not.)

The trick about reading these hand-shakes is to keep it in context. For example, the VP had a samson-esque handshake, which confused me until I realized that it was probably because he was twice my weight. He looked right at me when he gave the squeeze too, and you could tell that it was a very subtle test. The only thing to do at that point is squeeze back, otherwise, I’d be marked as a lightweight.

Why do I put so much thought into these hand-shakes? Well, I’m obsessive about details, by nature. But the bigger reason is that a person’s actions don’t lie quite as well as his words do, and I need every bit of help I can get figuring these people out.

NB: Re-reading this, it's quite a bitchy-whiny post. I think I'm having withdrawals from breaking up with my ex-boss.

Day 4: Training in Greener Pastures

Day 4 of training. Yesterday I risked losing the tie and keeping the jacket on. Today I dug out the old agency attire(black shirt, black pants and black campers) and tested the water. So far, so good.

4 down, 12 days to go. I'm resisting the mindshift (success). I'm also trying to hold my peace and not roll my eyes too much(not so successful)



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#25 meme

Kudo & Idlan: Since you both insisted, I'm doing the meme. Sorry, no computer at the training in greener pastures so can't access the funkier facebook capabilities on the 'berry. So I am emailing the post here. I did all 25 too!

1. I speak 2.5 languages - Malay (fluent), English (kinda fluent) Spanish (.5)
   
   
2. I try to do something awesome everyday - today I broke the high score on crash bandicoot kart.
   
   
3. Everytime I do an accent; french, italian, british, chinese, whatever, it more often than not ends up sounding Indian.
   
   
4. My books are a joy to me (and a pain to khaylis since I leave em lying around in stacks)
   
   
5. I have absolutely no issues with re-reading a book over and over again.
   
   
6. My favourite electronic thing in the whole wide world is the iPod (and I am gleefully rub my hands about how idlan has sucumbed to it. Creative Zen konon)
   
   
7. The first iPod I owned was the 20Gb 3rd Gen. The latest I have is the 8Gb Nano. In between I've had the mini, shuffle(stick of gum version) and the 30Gb iPod Video.
   
   
8. My new year's resolution this year are: make new friends, burn no bridge & do the dishes more often.
   
   
9. I used to do that "ba-da-bum" hitting the drums after I make a joke. I have since been broken of that habit.
   
   
10. I love Penang-KL-Barcelona-Madrid-London. Sometimes not in that order.
    
    
11. I have a wedding date ZOMG
    
    
12. My idea of a holiday is lying down on a beach somewhere, reading a book and generally doing nothing. Topless babes optional.
    
    
13. I have this thing for watches. Swiss+Automatic, in that order.
    
    
14. I'm a Very morning person. My eyes pop open at 8:30, and I can roll around for a maximum of 10mins. Then I bounce out of bed. (Most people find this irritating for some reason)
    
    
15. Which in turn makes me susceptible to feeling tired in the evening. 4pm naps are a must on weekends. Sometimes weekdays too.
    
    
16. I use the blackberry (its a lifesaver) but I still think the iphone trumps it twice over.
    
    
17. I'm really not all that good with numbers.
    
    
18. I don't smoke. After a meal, I have a piece of chocolate instead. (What, its good for the heart)
    
    
19. I love hotel breakfasts! (Re: #14)
    
    
20. I tell people I'm a jamak (Jawa+Mamak)
    
    
21. Like Joey, I'm an ass man.
    
    
22. When I first got back, BHP was a new station. I asked my big bro about this and he said the hungarians bought some shares in british petroleum, hence BHP. I believed him for 2 whole months.
    
    
23. I make a mean pasta goreng kicap (to the horror of certain italians I know)
    
    
24. I picked up golf. Fun. Though the concept of hitting a stationary ball is still quite alien to me. And strangely, the ball doesn't get hit sometimes when its not moving at all.
    
    
25. I have a problem with long sleeved shirts. They're buttoned up till 11am at the very most then I start rolling 'em up. Rimas.
    
    
26. I like meme's. Its been awhile since I've done one.
    
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Do you want to go to the seaside?

The beach was fun but way too short. Must make an effort for Perhentian or Phangan again this year.
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True Love Awaits or an Ad guy's take on finding your Soulmate

One of the advantages of being in an advertising agency is the amount of data available to channel our thoughts and help us work. For example, according to Nielsen, there are 730,000 potential instant noodle eaters in Malaysia and The Star(daily excluding Sunday) has a readership of 1,079,000, with 65% of those numbers from Klang Valley alone. The trick is to use those numbers to the benefit of our clients.

A recent chance listen to some sap song on the radio about having soulmates got me a-thinking; if "Soulmates" do exist*, what would be the most effective way of finding them, and how would we target them to induce a sale - in this case quantifying the odds and increasing chances to be with the soulmate.

So, using publicly available data, I've done up a communication plan with specific calculations to answer the problem. For the sake of argument of this discussion, we'll have the following ground rules**:

1. Your soulmate exists and is somewhere in this world. No need to waste time thinking the universe royally screwed you over by having your soulmate born in 2B.C. Let's all assume fate gave you a fighting chance.
   
2. Your soulmate is of the preferred sexual orientation. Why bother otherwise?
   
3. Your soulmate and you share at least a common language. How would you communicate otherwise? Body language doesn't count.

With these specific rules/assumptions,we can calculate the maximum potential soulmate candidates by multiplying the population of your chosen language by the percentage of your preferred sexual orientation. Let's call this the Soulmate Index (SI)

As an example***, my chosen language is English (1.5 billion native and non-native speakers) and my preferred sexual orientation is straight female. The global gender ratio is about 51:49 in favor of men, so I multiply 1.5 billion by 0.49, which would be roughly 735,000,000. I would then reduce that number further by 2% to get my SI (which is the alleged gay ratio, very important this), leaving me with 720,300,000 straight English-speaking females. If you were a gay male, you would multiply 1.5 billion by 0.51 and then again by 0.02, giving you a much smaller SI, at only 15.3 million.

Okay, now that we have established the product problem, let's see how we can make the sale. So, the likelihood of me meeting my Soulmate is roughly 1 in 720,000,000, and what we’re going to do over the next few paragraphs is work out just how “likely” that is. I’m a 28-year-old Malaysian, and have a life expectancy of 74 years. That means I’ve got a potential for 46 more years of searching for that blasted soul mate of mine. Let’s be more micro, and calculate how many days that is:

(365 days * 34 common years) + (366 days * 12 leap years) = 16,802 days to go

For a fighting chance at this, let’s tack on the past 10 years of my life as well, or since I turned 18, ie, legally capable of having sex with my soul mate should I meet her marrying & losing myself in my soul mate’s eyes forever.

16802 + ((365 * 8) + (366 * 2)) = 20,454 in total

Big number & days are rapidly going by. We can express all of this very simply by saying that if I want to meet my soul mate and I am unlucky enough to have had to meet every single person in my entire SI before I finally meet her, I would have to see 720,300,000 people over 20,454 days starting when I turned 18. (35,216 people per day, or roughly half of the sitting capacity at Old Trafford)

Very discouraging. Let’s do some quick math to work out the problem some more.

I’m sitting at KLCC as I write this, and there are easily 30 other people in and around this place with me. I’ll walk to the car later to go back and there are another 60 people who would be in my way. Later tonight I’ll have dinner at the Pavilion since I need to fix my watch, and will come into indirect contact with about 100 or so different people. If I were taking public transport, I’d get on to a the LRT car with 50 other people all mashed up against each other.

Depending on how much you move around, you come in to indirect contact with about 150-200 unique people every day. Possibly even more than that if you really pound the pavement. That means that without drastically changing my lifestyle, I will see about 4,090,800 people over the course of my life or about 0.56% of my SI. Expressed in more practical terms, my chances of finding my soul mate at any point in my post-18 year old life is about 1 in 200.

Isn't that depressing? Very. 20 years ago, that would be pretty much all she wrote too. But these days we’re fortunate enough to have a way to connect with thousands more at any given moment, ie, the internet or the social networking sites. You have twitter, contacts all around the world from work and studies, facebook, which in turn highly increase the the chance of coming in contact with more people Your own numbers will be differ of course, but the point is that we’re able to cheat the odds by making ourselves really visible online and offline. In fact, if I assume that my soul mate is a straight female who speaks English and has Internet access, my SI is reduced even further. There are 1.4 billion people on the Internet, 430.8 million of which speak English, and 206.8 million of which are probably straight females. Now my chances are about 58:1. If all that sounds a little fanciful, it’s really not. I mean seriously, what kind of cosmos would give a Soulmate that didn’t use the Internet in this day and age? That would really be cruel.

One way to look at the 58:1 ratio is: if I had 58 times to relive my life, I would cross paths with my soul mate once (and here's to hoping one of us didn't screw up karma-cally and end up as a dung beetle). That sounds incredibly sad, so here’s another way to look at it: if you took 58 other guys with similar soul-mate indices as me, only one of us would find our soul mate. I like the sound of that a little bit more, but I’m not entirely sure it’s the right way to look at the numbers (or any less depressing)

The trick here really is to make yourself as visible as possible online and offline so as to reach as many people as possible. Joining social networks and generating online content is the new-school equivalent of taking yoga classes or joining photography clubs in order to meet new people, and it’s a lot more cost-effective too. The idea of course is not to stop looking.

I'm all written out now.

*I personally don't believe in the concept of a Soulmate. I believe in Compatibility.

** If you do not agree with these, do your own calculations. Or you know, don't read anymore.

*** Not that I am looking of course. I said EXAMPLE.

Camper-holic

No really, try 'em

When I shop for shoes, I’m usually looking for something that’s a little off the beaten path. I like my shoes to be a little funky, conversation starters, the kind of shoes that get noticed on the street and most importantly, comfortable! That’s why I love Campers. They're everything that I ever wanted in a pair of shoes. I've got a few pairs lying around (literally) and they are the best pair of shoes I have ever paid good money for. A bit on the high side but I've not had to a pair ever go down in comfort levels nor break on me, ever. (take notes Converse!)

Now, how do I find a pair that will be borderline acceptable in Greener Pastures? Bloody HR policies *mutter mutter*

"We all laugh at the Chuck Taylors' behind their backs"

Sign o' the times

I really don't see Malaysia being visibly affected too much by the Global Economic Slowdown just yet. Malls are packed, fancy diners are chock-full of people, there's just as many cars on the roads and job cuts are all abroad.

But today I saw the first signs of things to come; When CNY is next week, and an ad agency only gets one (1) hamper that cost RM80 from a supplier, you know things are just swirling around waiting to be flushed down the toilet.

Disconnecting

not quite..

I've cleaned up my desk, packed all of my personal items in a big box, shredded documents, took out the trash. Funny how much junk accumulates over 3 years of setting up camp.

Packing everything was especially difficult. Each item has very distinct memories to it. The letter opener given to me when I was in Tokyo, little paintings from Kyoto, the Japanese fans, small Japanese metro stubs, Autumn Feelings -the painting given to me for my last birthday by a client, my books on communications, pictures of us going out when the agency first started out, little post-its with notes over the past 3-years, and more.

I've also untethered the 'berry from the office calendar and email. That at least gives me some peace and quiet, though I don't get as much email anymore anyway. As Khaylis said, my last day may be this Friday but I've checked out a long time ago.

T-minus 3 days and counting.

Southpaw drivin'

Part of my responsibilities* at home is to make sure the Pajero** doesn't die from lack of use. Which in turn will cost us 400bux for a new battery, a wobbly drive to the petrol station to fill up the tyres with air and a scolding. Which means we (I) have to drive it around over the weekend to keep it in shape.

Driving the Paj isn't a problem. Nice enough car. Sure, it drinks petrol like mother's milk but there's that sense of Rawr everytime I accelerate. But, I'm still relatively lazy to take it out for a spin more often.

The problem comes from it being a beast of a left-hand drive 4WD. Driving it requires a physical and a mental effort. Amongst the issues I have with it:

1. S t r e t c h i n g to pay toll/get a parking ticket and having that moment where I swear I slipped a disc. Thank god for Smart Tag (when I remember to bring it lah). Having a co-pilot is also highly recommended.
   
2. I keep banging my left hand on the side every time I want to shift from P to D to R to whatever.
   
3. Overtaking. 'Nuff said.

Having said that, there is one thing that makes driving it all worth it. Picture this, you're in the middle lane and a car overtakes on the fast lane. As the car is speeding by, it slows down and a ashen-faced driver looks in all striken. A left-hand drive car in Malaysia looks like the car is being driven on its own! It's like Christine got re-incarnated as a Pajero.

It's the little things that makes it all fun. Hee.

*Among other but not restricted to: Watering the plants (ini sungguh penting), making sure there's ice in the icetray, taking the trash out, trying to make sure the dishes doesn't pile up (personal 2009 resolution this) and doing the laundry.

** Useless knowledge: Pajero in Spanish = wank. In Spain the Mitsubishi Pajero is the Mitsubishi Montero.

Smart Playlist: Most Played songs in 2008

I love Apple. They simplify everything for me.

Situation: I'm having a hard time uploading songs into the new Nano. If possible, I want everryyything in. So instead of making the decision myself, I am delegating it to iTunes.

Playlist formula: Highest Play Count + Range from 1 January 2008 - 31 December 2008+ Limit to 2000 songs =Songs to be transferred from ye ol iPod to the new one. (only 607 songs came out though)

Et voila. A full iPod to take around.

And speaking of music, in no particular order, here are my favourite singles of 2008:

Chairlift – Bruises
These guys got the big break when El Jobs used them for the new nano-chromatic TVCs. The apple iPod ads are a real jewel in introducing new music (It certainly worked wonders for Feist). Plus I've always had a thing for Indie bands with girl lead singers.)

Feist - Mushaboom (Postal Service Remix)
Okay so this wasn't released in 2008. Ben Gibbard's eclectic remix + Feist's lovely voice, a great combination of jazz+indie rock+bossa nova landed her the top played artist in my iTunes. Mushaboom the original was great but the remix just gave it that extra liveliness and fun to make it great.

On another note; Kudo, she sang La Même Histoire on your Paris Je'taime soundtrack.

Pete and the Pirates - Knots
This band from Reading cuts through the clutter with the KISS formula. Awesome debut album. They remind me of The Kooks , with a bit more distortion & wah-wah built in. Worth a download listen!

Kings of Leon - Sex on Fire
Hands down, "Only by the Night" is my favourite album in 2008. I first heard the KOL when they released "Because of the Times." That album was hard to top by they did it somehow w

MGMT - Kids
Dancey. These guys sports one of the best/catchiest riffs in a song ever. They also look like a bunch of treehuggers who hopped in a time machine to play in 2008. What's not to love? (Note: the youtube link featuring the Thundercats/Gene Simmons hybrid is a band endorsed unofficial video)

Other releases I really enjoyed this past year included the Brendan Canning-led Broken Social Scene album, theRacounteurs Raconteurs’ Consolers of the Lonely, and the Dodos’ psychedelic-folk album Visiter. A lot of year-ender lists also rank The ‘59 Sound and Fleet Foxes very high as well, although I never got as into either of them as I was expecting. Still, they’re all worth checking out if you want to get a preview of what other bands will be sounding like in 2009.

Now, please excuse me while I add covers into all in the songs in the Nano. 200-odd songs to go!

Quickie

As mentioned before, I'm slowly warming up to the idea of micr0-blogging via twitter. The issue (as pointed out by a bright-eyed rocket scientist) is that my name is on the twitter panel on the right. I suppose I'll have to take it out sooner or later.

Speaking of which, last week Twitter was a victim of phishing scams. Several prominent names like Barack Obama, Rick Sanchez and Brit Brit got hacked. Check out the what the wiley bugger did with Britney's Twitter. Hilarious:



Lastly, heard Lily Allen's version of Womanizer ?(credit to Khaylis for high-jacking my speakers to let me listen to it) Lovely slower-beat, proper Brit-ish enunciation and a whole lot sexier+less skanky than Britney's.

Shit I actually have to do proper work today. Woe is me.

#1

Thanks to an (almost) infinite amount of time at work now - I have opted that it is best to part ways with the current Slave master and move on to Greener Pastures - I have started blogging again.

Prior to this, I have tried everything to fill in my daily timesheets; 9 hour internal meetings (A new thing. Usually at Chili’s Bangsar during happy hour for 4 hours which makes it a mathematical miracle), 9 hour reviews (the internet is a big place), 9 hour Recces (Bangsar, Pusat Bandar Damansara, Mont Kiara), 9 hour of new talent review (lots of live concerts & stand-ups on youtube), 9 hour courses (I highly recommend @GoogleTalk & Ted) etc etc; Sounds fun but too much of a good thing and all that jazz is apparently true.

To sum it up, I.am.Bored. A far cry from the hair-tearing-working-weekends-not-enough-time-in-the-world before.

So here I am, blogging again. Welcome to my new online real estate. A few things to try out this time around.

1. Not use company names at all - From the above-mentioned free time, I have trawled the ‘Net looking for clues to what to expect at Greener Pastures. You’ll be surprised with the amount of dirt I dug up. I now virtually know of quite a number of people, what’s down with office politics, who’s who and who are the cool kids in school. This could get Nasty.
   
   
2. People - Not use my name, your name, everyone’s name. Ditto reason. Anyone have a preference of nicknames or can I just make things up? (Friendly-warning to not use names here.)
   
   
3. Micro-blogging - I didn’t warm to the idea of twitter before as I didn’t see the sense of paying 15cents every time I wanted to update it. But with twitterberry it is all good in the hood. Plugging into twitter is like plugging into the Internet itself. Everything that goes on in the planet (and on other planets) can be found on Twitter. It’s about as fun as when Blogs first exploded. Be careful the overload of information though.

Now, all I need to do is iron out a few more kinks in this blog and off we go.

Stay fresh, beetches.