Forgot to mention in my last post I also bought Matisyahu's "Live at Stubbs" recently - which I really should be listening to more than I have so far. When I played it for the first time, my eyes welled up more than once which surprised me.

I said I should be listening to it more, not because I think his music is so moving that I want to be moved by music I bought with money. I have been so taken by Nicole Atkins's fab voice and catchy tunes that I have really only listened to Matis thrice. Sorry, Matt.

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And speaking of things music like, I picked up Chuck Klosterman's "IV" the other day, and have really enjoyed reading it so far. As someone who has never bought a copy of Esquire nor Spin, I am pleasantly surprised to read the piece on Metallica, which is a bit of a revelation. I picked up the book in the Wanchai' branch of Joint Publishing. Really not the kind of place where you'd expect to find this kind of book but there you go.

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Been pretty busy last week. Did a whole load of reading and paper writing related mundane stuff. Also did three gender sensitivity training sessions. They all went pretty well, and I like the cheques I get at the end of each.

Went to Ikea and bought a new dining table and five plastic chairs. There is nothing particularly wrong with the ones we've got now. They are also from Ikea. But you see, the whole idea about buying stuff from Ikea is that they are so goddam cheap you feel almost compelled to change them every two three years. You feel like, fuckin' hell! this company makes furniture so fucking cheap and look so damn good, you wanna keep handing them your money just to keep them in business. A token of appreciation, like. I'd hug Ikea if it was a person. Or a pet. That's the least I can do.

Most of the furniture we have are from Ikea, apart from the custom made stuff. But what I like most about Ikea are its restaurant and the food it sells. The Dill flavoured crisps are fabulously addictive (the 50% fat ones are REALLY much crunchier than the full fat ones); the blueberry jam tastes good and is MUCH cheaper than what you can get in the supermarches; the ground coffee - again much cheaper and of decent quality. My favourite, though, are these chocolate sandwiched cookies - they are SO crunchy and SO tasty and more importantly, so much fucking cheaper than anything you would get in the supermarkets and city supers. Not to mention the meatballs, the string candies, the shrimp spread in a tube. All fab. All cheap.

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Yesterday, I went to a marketing research place. As a toyota seven-seater owner. My brother's friend's friend works in this company, and they were looking for focus group subjects. He asked me if I would go as they were desperate - so I said yes. I mean, hell yes! I was genuinely interested in an experience like this, as a sociologist.

Anyhowse, it all started and ended pretty much how I'd expected. I got pretty distracted by the moderator, whose sweaty patch under his arms got bigger and bigger as time goes on.

After that we all get $400 each which I immediatly proceeded to blow on Aldrich Pale Ales and chicken wings.