29/5/2005
Yeah, so it was my last week at work. I have finally left my writing job at PC Magazine Malaysia and will begin work with my dad soon. Even though I've been telling people that I feel quite indifferent about leaving, I have to admit that it is a bit, well, strange. Not having to wake up on Monday morning to drive to work, no gadgets to play with, no figuring out where to have lunch for the day. Will certainly miss getting door gifts and lucky draw prizes from attending tech events though (not as if I had a lot of the latter anyway). So what's next? Nothing much really. Hopefully I'll finally get around to visiting London. It's about time I did!

Common's Be is really, really good. Thanks in no small part to Kanye West. I think the both of them make a really good pair. Like Premier and Guru. Pete Rock and CL Smooth. Madlib and MF Doom. I've been having that track 'Go' on constant rotation.

The Further Adventures of Lord Quas, on the other hand, is a bit disappointing. I wish Madlib was a little less liberal with all his weird samples. It's fine if it underscores the track, but having Mario Van Peebles and other odd dialog samples cutting in and out throughout 50% of the whole album can get a bit tiring. 'Bus Ride' especially. Thankfully there are stellar tracks like 'Closer' and 'Fatbacks' to balance things out.

I just found this corny little thing I designed during my second year in uni. Was going through one of them morbid phases. Bad memories.

16/5/2005
For the moment I'm using a test machine from the office, hopefully I can manage to sort out a new notebook by this week. Which, contrary to what I said earlier, will probably end up being another Dell; no one else offers as much flexibility in system configuration. And it's cheaper than most. Will definitely get the 3 year warranty this time.

Anyway, Mass Distraction Sessions Vol. 8 is ready for download (head on over to Aural Prostitution). Similar to Vol. 7 - more jazz, more hip-hop, cos that's what's I've been playing these past coupla weeks. Haven't been listening to much indie rock actually. Haven't been keeping up with Pitchfork, so I'm not aware of any new bands either. I need to buy the new Quasimoto album. And the new Common. The new Prince Paul is pretty good. Oh, and Koushik's Be With.

Here be poem:

My arm's better thanks.
Work tomorrow. Again!
This PR girl I met, she's gorgeous. Man.
Gotta figure out how to see her one last time while I can.*

*Cos I'm quitting my job soon.

9/5/2005
In the past two weeks a couple of things have been mysteriously failing on me. First, the tripod in my office broke, so I can't take proper product pictures. Then the camera that I normally bring out to tech events died (the flash wouldn't fire). Now, the fans on my notebook aren't working, so I have to resort to working in an uncomfortable position directly under an air conditioner at full blast. If I were to work anywhere else my notebook would simply overheat and stall.

So it's either I get my fans fixed or it's a good excuse to get a new notebook. The DVD drive stopped working a long time ago anyway, so it'll probably be the case of the latter. Either way, I won't be able to do much until I sort this thing out – no surfing, no IM'ing and, worst of all, no downloading music. Mass Distraction Sessions Vol. 8 is ready by the way, but I won't have the time and mood to upload it until I get my notebook fixed. I probably won't have the time and mood to do anything at all.

And my arm hurts and I just moved to a new office and I'll never buy a Dell again and life sucks.