30/6/2002
Minor modifications to the site design. Notice the scrollbar colours? Neat hmm? Hmm? HMM?!

Poor ol' me, the World Cup finals are in a few hours' time and I'm not sure where to watch it. I don't have television, and I don't know who would let me watch it with them. I've only seen one game ("!" - or perhaps "no biggie" if you ain't a football fan, in which case I'm not), that match between England and, shit, what was the other team again? That second game of theirs. I suppose I could go to a pub on my own. So sad.

So I've read the whole Sandman collection twice over now. What really caught my attention and subsequently sparked my interest in Sandman was in 1997, when I saw the poster of the picture from 'The Wake' which has the Sandman dressed in white, holding some red flowers (I think they're the ones that grew from the blood of Orpheus which dripped from Morpheus' hand after he killed the former*), flanked by two winged statues holding up a skull in each one's hand (not unlike what you'd do if you were reciting "Alas Yorick ..."). That has got to be my favouritest image from the whole of Sandman. And second to that is the picture of Death from Death: The Time Of Your Life, the one where she has a black leather jacket, crouching down with her head turned to the right and her legs seemingly made out of rod-iron-grill-type stuff. At that time certain situations had me hooked on Despair's ring*, so the images really fit the mood. But it was only in 2001 that I finally bought my first Sandman comic. No, no, not comic. Graphic novel. I repeat, graphic novel. That's what we grown-ups read.

*Wouldn't make any sense to you if you don't know anything about Sandman. Which also means you ain't grown-up enough. Cos you don't read graphic novels.

27/6/2002
"Music Rants"
Been getting in touch with my 'avant-rock side' again. Here's what I've been listening to:

Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation and Murray Street
Silver Apples - Silver Apples/Contact
Neu! - Neu! and Neu! 2
June of 44 - Tropics & Meridians.

A brief respite from the previous week's indulgence in jazz reissues of Brother Jack McDuff's Moon Rappin' and Grant Green's Alive!.

I've been having a nagging backache ever since I moved to my new room. Must've been caused by the moving and stuff. Doesn't help that only a few months ago I was bedridden for a coupla days because of another backache as well. I really need to get around and exercise more. Basically I need to rearrange my life. I have to be honest here - London hasn't been all that for me. I came here with expectations that I was gonna do so much. But I have to say my time in London so far has been one of the most boring times in my life. Thing is, there's only so much that you can do on your own. No more, no less. And my health's been deteriorating, ironically, because of too much non-activity. Perhaps going back to Malaysia isn't such a bad thing after all. Which brings about another issue which I've been giving serious thoughts about, but I won't be talking about that here.

Aah ... lots of planning in the months ahead ...

24/6/2002
Happy birthday to me! You know how when you grow older birthdays don't seem to matter anymore? I mean, not that it really doesn't matter, but you don't get excited about them as much as you would've been when you're 7 years old or something. Anyway, it's been a pretty uneventful 23rd for me, a call from home, went out for dinner with my sis, had a few birthday wishes from friends and that's it really. And it doesn't help to hear that my brother was mugged for his mobile and got punched in the face for it. Fucking idiots. Don't kids have better things to do nowadays than to mug other kids? Whoever you are, here's wishing that you rot in hell with the Nokia 3350 that you just stole and good luck trying to call God to beg for forgiveness. Not that you'll get it, but you can try. You just got a brand new phone for free anyway, so use it huh? Wouldn't you be as bitter as me if the same thing happened to your friend or family?

Anyway, that aside, Happy Birthday again.

Yours sincerely, Benny the anger management course dropout.

19/6/2002
Today's entry is called A RUDE AWAKENING. Because that is exactly what happened today. Look, they specifically said in the letter to me that I should 'arrange to move out of your flat between the 22 and 23 June', so I was prepared to move out by this weekend. But then the hall manager came knocking on my door this morning and told me that my new room was ready and I must move out today. It wasn't that I didn't want to move out, but you just can't come and demand for me to get out by 7 pm tonight without prior notice! After some bickering I gave up and started packing. Sigh ... eventually it took me a good couple of hours to move to the new flat. My new room is strangely smaller (it's not an optical illusion or me being fussy; I can't move the bed towards the window like I could've done in the old room) than the micro-room I had before, and I was now right beside the street so it's mad hot in the afternoon. And it's dead noisy too. And I can't tune into Radio 1 at all! And I haven't got my internet connection installed! MY NEW ROOM IS SHIT!! Times like these require some A Silver Mt. Zion.

Everybody, say hello to avocadojo ("Hello avocadojo!"). Another cool blog that I stumbled upon while looking up for the words 'anticon' and 'singapore'. Don't believe me? Try it here. Check out her 'daily photography' section. I think it's really cool. Immediately after looking at the pictures, I felt like doing the same thing. You know, just get my camera out and start snapping away. But the stuff I took were real shit. It just goes to prove that a good camera doesn't make a good picture. It's the person behind it who does. And the person behind mine is crap.

MY NEW ROOM IS SHIT!!

13/6/2002
Reorganised the structure of the site and added an archive section just so the 'New!' page loads quicker.

I've been trying to think of smart and witty things to say on this blog but I realised in order to write smart and witty stuff I have to be smart and witty in the first place. And I'm not. I marvel at blogs like ineffable. It's got loads of content, but it still manages to capture the audience. It definitely captures me. Perhaps I find it more interesting than other people cos' the author is from South-East Asia, studying in London and listens to cLOUDDEAD - just like me. But unlike me, she's smart and witty.

Been listening to the Tommy Hools Shut Up! - Remixes and Early Works Vol. 1 album and the new Blackalicious. Reminds me of why my first love will always be hip-hop. Both highly recommended! You know it's good if it has the Shtikman stamp of approval.

I still wish that I could work with Spin or something, but if I can't do that, I'd settle for Giant Robot. I love how the magazine embodies and stays true to it's Asian roots but still retains its cool factor. They've got loads of representation from the States, but I don't think there's any from the UK. Perhaps I could fill that role! Then again I'm not exactly representative of being Chinese/Asian in the UK cos' I come from Malaysia. Who cares man, I'm Chinese all the same! Raaa!!!

Some Chinese pride goin' on there, hmm? Not like this though (up yours to all those who knock Chairman Mao!).

12/6/2002
In my opinion, no two sensations combined can make you feel any worse than the sensations of pain and cold. At the same time. The weather in London has been really shitty this week. It's well into June but it's raining and the temperature plummeted to how it'd feel if it was early winter. And it doesn't help to have sore gums, an ulcer in the mouth and waking up shivering, realising that you left the window open on a wet and windy night. It's got to the point where nothing I listen to sounds good. That shows how bad I'm feeling at the moment. Sigh ...

I was intending to update the downloads section with some Ray Barbee music but that'll have to wait.

30 MINUTES LATER ...

Oh what the heck, check out Aural Prostitution for some new goodies.

2/6/2002
I was on the number 29 heading into central London today and I sat at the upper deck behind this English couple. The girl was being overly cute and adorable and she was exchanging a whole lotta nonsensical sweet talk with her boyfriend. I put my headphones on and pressed play on my minidisc in an attempt to stop myself from cringing any further when I heard the guy say this:

"Mmm ... oh oh, and you know what? I wanna fold you and put you in my pocket ... mmm ..."

Eh? Was that supposed to be, what, horny? Enticing? Antipop Consortium began to play soon after. Thank God.

Reminds me of the time I saw this Chinese couple in the tube. The guy had his hair heavily gelled, slicked all the way back, wore a pair of black rimmed glasses, fingers lined with gold rings, tight black pants and a tight white shirt which really accentuated his 'bodily curves'. He had one very-obviously-Prada-clad foot on the seat and the other on the floor and check this - to complete the look he had a mole at the corner of his mouth. I won't even start with the girl.

Hey, you know what they say, you can take the dude out of mainland China, but you can never take mainland China out of the dude. True ...

1/6/2002
Well hey, what can I say, YODA KICKS F**KING ASS! Star Wars was entertaining no doubt, but as everyone else would tell you the dialogue absolutely sucks. Corny love story, bad jokes and bland acting. But YODA KICKS F**KING ASS! Have I said that already?

So what's been on heavy rotation on my Sharp MD micro system? For starters there's the new Danny Breaks album Vibrations. Some heavy, heavy breaks on the drum'n'bass tip. This and the High Contrast album is truly reaffirming my interest in d'n'b after a long hiatus. Also finally got around to getting My Bloody Valentine's Loveless and discovered what the fuss was (and still is) all about. I'm glad I gave Also In White by the Bill Wells Trio a try as well. Pretty good piano-jazz stuff, especially the first tune 'Presentation Piece # 1'.

Now, the Verve Remixed album was a letdown. It was purely hype, methinks. The only worthy tune in my opinion is Tricky's mix of Billie Holiday's 'Strange Fruit'. Other than that, everything else is pretty much loungey, chillout, dancefloor-oriented fodder. On the topic of the man who can never clear the phlegm from his throat, he's got a new best-of compilation out. Get it if only for the track 'Poems'. Originally on the Nearly God side project, it's one helluva head-nod, tripped-out tune. I love the whole sparseness of the song and the irregular interjections of effects. But the best part is the backing track; sounds like he sampled it from world music or something.

Been getting into the whole English post-punk scene too, thanks in no small part to the In The Beginning There Was Rhythm compilation as well as the A Certain Ratio anthology. Check out the drum break in the beginning of 'Choir' off the latter album. Absolutely wicked.

Sidetrack for now, guess what? Typing in 'shtikman' into Google finally brings up my site! Six instances and all but one of them refer to either this site or other occurrences on the web where I used the word as my pseudonym. Hooray!