It’s been a while since the last blog.

Part of which was contributed by the fact that Blogger has been acting up ever since the quake in Taiwan about a month ago and partly due to my own laziness.

Thankfully, I think I’ve made this post just in time to keep to my promise of a minimum of one blog a month. Didn’t say anything about the quality of the blog though. Ha.ha.

So what’s new with you ?

I’ve finally swapped jobs. I am now working in the KLCC area doing some consultancy work. It’s not exactly rocket science but I am glad to have a change of environment. I think if I had to hang around my last job for any longer, I would have gone bonkers.

Then again, the new job location is a lot further from home than I’m used to and the fact that I’m no longer field based means that I can no longer have the flexi start times that frankly I’ve become accustomed to having.

I’ll be traveling to Holland for a conference sometime next week as part of the new job. Hopefully, it won’t be too cold and I won’t be too lost figuratively and literally.

So been listening to anything new lately ?

I’ve been keeping up with some of the local music scene. Earlier this week, I went to a gig at Laundry @ Curve featuring Lied, Citizens of Ice Cream and Furniture.

http://laundrybar.blogspot.com/

I think it is great that Laundry is making local music so much more accessible by having these sort of performances for free in a pub/bar setting in a popular shopping complex but at the same time, there are a lot of casual bystanders who happen to wander in and looky-see , instead of actual music fans who would come specifically for the music.

This brings me to the next venue I went the following night: KL Jam Asia at Desa Seri Hartamas. The first great thing about this place is get this : No smoking allowed ! This is fantastic news for non smokers like me who end up smelling like a bloody ashtray every time I go for these sorts of gigs.

I was supposed to be there a bit earlier but I missed most of the bands but I managed to catch Furniture again and Azmyl Yunor and the Sigarettes.

I’ve appended the myspace pages for the bands below and some short commentaries.

Lied : To be honest, I wasn’t so crazy over this band. Very goth but also very manufactured. Interesting but only if they try something a little different.

www.myspace.com/lied

Citizens of Ice Cream: They had some new songs to their line up. Not too bad. Check out my review at one of their earlier gigs. Still quite funny because they still get the “Huh, no words one arr this band?” from the audience.

www.myspace.com/citizensoficecream

Furniture: I quite enjoyed this band. The music sounds fresh. It’s a mix between twee pop and post rock. A lot of distortion driven tunes and wispy falsetto warbling but in a good way, which is why I went for their second gig the following night. Now if only I could get a hold of one of their albums.

www.myspace.com/earsofa

Azmyl Yunor and the Sigarettes : The music sounds very Americana at times but the lead singer Azmyl is no doubt a very seasoned performer who has no problems striking up some banter with the audience. I didn’t like the music all that much but I liked the style though. He had this whole pseudo soulful selamba mat rock thing going on.

www.myspace.com/azmylyunor

Watched any good movies lately ?

I finally got a hold of Borat : Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan ( Phew-That was a mouthful ) a few weeks ago. Sasha Cohen is a genius. A sick twisted type of genius but still very clever nevertheless.

http://www.borat.tv/

The odd thing about the movie is that I think it was funnier because I watched it in small measured doses. I had to watch the DVD in 2 or 3 parts as there was always something interrupting me but I think that sort of helped because I would have probably O.D’ed on the whole audacity of it if I watched the entire movie in one sitting.

Read anything new ?

I am about to start Paul Ormerod’s Why Things Fail sometime soon , probably on my long plane flight next week. I have long since given up the Neal Stephenson Quicksilver Trilogy.

I have however found this fantastic website that has a lot of scanned and translated manga so I have been gorging myself on Naruto and Deathnote.

http://media.unrivaled.info

Anything else interesting to add ?

Probably next time. I’ll try to snap interesting pics of Amsterdam and the Hague when I’m there to (hopefully) spice up this dreary little blog.