So what's new with you ?

Am away from work along with the rest of the other 20 million or so other Malaysians ( Not a number I plucked out of nowhere, check out http://www.statistics.gov.my/english/frameset_keystats.php , makes me feel really backward because we didn't have access to all this info when I was a student trying to do my primary school projects and I often had to look up outdated stuff in encyclopedias in the days before Wikipedia and before everyone from your favourite bakery to your distant grandaunt had a presence on the Internet.) who are enjoying the long Deepavali-Hari Raya break. Was supposed to be away on holiday but something came up at Kat's office so we scrapped it at the last minute. So I've got nothing exciting to report unfortunately.

The haze , a perennial affair here in Malaysia courtesy of our Indonesian neighbour's forest fires in Sumatra, is still quite bad. They've been cloud-seeding again to get rid of it but doesn't seem to be helping. It's not the worst haze ever but definitely this year's haze has been the longest lasting. It'd driving Kat nuts and her sinus has been acting up.

Seen anything worth seeing recently ?

I'm not sure if watching the haze or rather watching the haze and not seeing anything else beyond the severely reduced visible range of 500m counts as something worth mentioning. Urmmm....seriously though , no I haven't been watching anything recently , but I can tell you what I want to watch sometime soon ?

Been meaning to watch Howl's Moving Castle but haven't gotten down to it yet. The Prestige looks reasonably worth watching but can't seem to convince my girlfriend to watch it with me at the movie theater so it looks like I may have to get a VCD from the friendly neighbourhood pirate. Oh any also, I've heard quite a bit about Nightwatch, this Russian vampire flick that makes me want to hunt it down once I get the time.

Read any good books lately ?

Have just finished Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things. ( Check out www.neilgaiman.com for more info)Decent stuff. It's a compilation of various short stories or prose. Some of them are misses but in general there are more hits as you would have come to expect from someone of his writing calibre.I am particularly pleased that he did a "novella" sequel to American Gods that featured the protaganist Shadow. I am not complaining but it would have been equally interesting if he decided to do an entire story on some supporting character instead. Or did he already do that with Anansi Boys ?

So what are you listening to currently ?

I've just gotten a copy of Thom Yorke's Eraser. (Check out http://www.theeraser.net/Stage2UK/ ) It's not that bad but I was expecting something different and not Radiohead all over again, what with the synths and looped samples. Makes me want to go hunt down Johnny Greenwood's earlier solo album, Bodysong, which apparently was a big departure from the usual Radiohead navel gazing fare.