Just some quickie updates for the past few days, so as not to have it all pile up and end up with me abandoning this journal out of laziness (which is how I came up with the title, y'know):
- Thursday evening/Friday morning: Did some work but figured there was no way I was going to get it all done in that state of mind, so me and Halief went to Plaza Senayan for the first time in, like, months. Hung out at Coffee Bean with the Malesbanget guys until closing time, and a spur-of-the-moment decision led to a late-night karaoke session which ended sometime around 2 a.m. Of course I still had to get my overdue work done, so when we finally got home (just before 4), I went straight to work until sometimes around 8.
- Friday: The
djakarta! work was done, and all I had to do was the last of the
Golf Digest articles. But first I had to get some shut-eye, seeing as my brain was about to explode. Managed to finish at around 3, went to sleep again and woke up in the evening. Around 7, went to Aquarius Pondok Indah to buy the
Linkin Park: Live In Texas DVD/CD for Halief's birthday. Had some money left over, so I bought the
Phantom Planet: Live At The Troubadour DVD. This is another DVD that falls in the "rather head-scratching" category. Only seven songs, around half of them are from their
new album, which at that point hadn't been released yet. I dunno, maybe it was a stop-gap teaser of some sort for fans. Anyway, I bought it because it was quite cheap (which lessens the "rip-off" factor), and their show in Jakarta was one of the most unforgettable gigs of my short concert-going life. Bit of nostalgia there. The DVD featured their new drummer, the replacement for
Jason Schwartzman, who left during the recording of their album to become a full-time actor. So far he's made some pretty good movies (I've only seen
Rushmore, but he was also in
Spun), so if his career really goes nova, I think that autographed album sleeve will be worth quite a bit, plus I'll have something to tell the grandkids...
- Saturday: Spent the daylight hours at home, going nuts on IRC because I really hadn't chatted much for the past week due to work (but for some reason I'm always able to find time to post on the
Malesbanget message board or fill in this blog). Gossip aplenty, long chats with Nadya and Tasha...my fingers are aching now. Later on went to dinner with the family as is the usual Fadhol family birthday tradition. Halief had this place in Kemang in mind, but as it turns out it was booked for some occasion, so we ended up in Tamani Kemang instead. Oh well. Very generous portions, except for the beef lasagna, which is what I ordered. Got home in time to catch the end of the first half of Tottenham-Liverpool, but unfortunately the team was having a stinker (especially Igor Biscan) and ended up blowing their good start to this year. The defence was a puzzler:
Jamie Carragher and
Steve Finnan are fit again, Riise and Otsemobor are also available. So why the hell did Houllier go with Henchoz and Traore as full-backs? Henchoz's not the quickest of players and is more suited at centre-back, while Traore is Traore. They should've just dumped Biscan and Traore, move Henchoz inside, and put in two out of the four other full-backs. Instead, it pretty much caused the loss. It's decisions like this that make me feel guilty about being sympathetic towards Houllier. I'm no manager, but even I could tell that wasn't the ideal defence. No grounds for claiming injury-related weakness. D'oh. In the words of a friend, "Biscan and Traore are Houllier's threesome buddies, that's why they get to play." At least Manchester United lost. To Wolves! Hahaha. Of course, this half-smirk will disappear if Liverpool slip up at Wolves as well.
