WTF
I almost spilled the coffee I was drinking when I come in to work today and found out that
Hunter S. Thompson had committed suicide.
There really isnt much more to say.
R.I.P.
The Things You (wish you) Own Will End Up Owning You
I've been lusting after several things for the past week and it's eating me alive. I dont know if it's just me, but everytime I want something that's just been released, no bloody shop in Singapore will have it. And when you call the shops in such excitement and are all ready to give them all your money, noone will take it. Bloody idiots.
This is their first album in like 8 years. I was almost
bubbling over the phone, hoping against hope that Borders (it shall now be known as "bloody borders") will have it. I know it's hard for music buyers to gauge demand sometimes but when it's
Wedding Present's first album in 8 fucking years, you can't just bring in 1 copy. What is infuriating is that the idiots refuse to let me reserve it!! Fine. You wanna play hard ball. I shall call you every.single.day.till the shipment comes in.
Robbers on High Street have been, perhaps rightly, compared to Spoon, but after listening to a few of their tracks, I think they are pretty damn good in their own right. Listening to the tracks made me really want to get the album and of cos bloody borders dont have it; it's not even in their system. With the shipping costs as high as it is, I really dont know how I'm going to get my hands on this. These people are driving me to be a pirate!
I actually hesitated about posting this because it's a limited run EP--the last one
Barsuk is releasing before DCFC skips over to the big boys. I'm so scared that it will be all sold out before i can get it. I guess when it comes down to it, I could live without this but they are offering a limited run of Tshirts too so I definitely need to get this. I'm a easy sucker for things like this. Stick the word "limited" in front of almost anything and something primal inside me will override all rational thinking. It's almost like I'm asking for it.
There's a lesson to be learnt here, I think. To prevent the frantic and ultimately disappointing phonecalls to bloody borders and HMV, I decided to shell out the money to pre-order the Mogwai (Government Commissions) and Yo La Tengo (Prisoners of Love). These are bands that I absolutely can't do without and with cheaper pre-order prices, I decided to go ahead with ordering them (though the shipping costs totally zapped out whatever "savings" I "enjoyed" by pre-ordering.
The Yo La Tengo is almost a mindless thing.
I
have to have it. No question about it. It's a 3-cd compilation (and for the special pre-order price of US16, I thought it was pretty reasonable). From
Matador website: "On March 22, we'll be releasing a career-spanning Yo La Tengo compilation, 'Prisoners of Love: A Smattering of Scintilliating Senescent Songs, 1985-2003' in specially priced double CD and
limited edition triple CD formats."
Ah.. there it is again: the word "limited edition."
The Old and the New
*picture removed*
I found this picture in far worse quality than you see right here. I installed Google's
Picasa the other day and it's really easy to touch up pictures now. Not being very good with Photoshop, I can only do so much with it. But Picassa makes it simpler though I would prefer it if it comes with an adjustable degree of control.
First day of CNY tomorrow. Just had reunion dinner with family and it was pretty alright. Must.practise.smiling.more.tomorrow. I hope it's going to be a short day but it's probably going to feel twice as long. Damn it. I'd go stuff my face with more New Year goodies now.
*btw, I have like 10000 geemail invites. Is anyone still interested?
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday blues now, in dread of the work week ahead. Where did the weekend go?! Ahh I remember sleeping late on both days trying desperately to recover from the previous workweek (Saturday) and rest up for the next (Sunday). Funny how it's never enough. Although it's going to be a short week ahead, with Chinese
bloody New Year, the dread of the bigass Monday still looms overhead.
Ahhh CNY. The good vs the Bad. The money vs the incessant rubbish questions from relatives you only see once a year. The good food vs the incessant rubbish questions from relatives you only see once a year. You get the idea
It always feels like the longest day of the year.
Reading Updates
Coupland's latest,
Eleanor Rigby, didnt disappoint. Though I must admit I didnt have high hopes for it in the first place; one must acknowledge that there's just no going back to the likes of
Life After God and/or
Gen X. The only bad thing is that I finished it in one sitting. I cannot believe myself. I was hoping that it will last at least for a weekend.
Thank goodness the good people at Kinokuniya called me a couple of days later to tell me that the book I ordered, Nick Hornby's
The Polysyllabic Spree has arrived. I have enjoyed most of Hornby's stuff as well (except for maybe How to Be Good) but his latest is actually a really slim volume of collected essays for The Believer. Not that there's anything wrong with short essays but I was really looking forward to something more than 136 pages.
Right now I'm trying my darnest to read the book as slowly as I can, savouring every word. I daren't sit down in my nice reading chair to read it; I have to read snatches of it here and there, mostly on the bus or train. This isnt easy at all, since I'm a relatively fast reader (tell-tale signs of an ex-literature student) but I'm about 1/3 into the book and loving every minute of it.
What I really hate is the period inbetween books. If it was a good book you've just finished, you don't really want to mess about trying to start on another book, which would probably be alright on its own, but not after that good book you have just finished. I'm not sure yet what I'd be reading after Hornby, though it's most probably going to be the new
Murakami. I heard and read good things about it but it's still in hardcover format and that's going to be hard to lug around.
