Paolo Granada Lim

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22 Sep 2011

Only By The Night - Kings of Leon
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The first song I heard from KOL was "charmer". Because the video was always up on that channel that plays hard rock songs every commercial break. I forgot the name of the channel. This was around 4th year college.

I really liked Caleb's voice on that song, and I thought they just played hard rock songs. Then months later I heard sex on fire on an internet radio and was surprised. The beat was just addicting.

Use somebody official video

After listening to the whole album once, I was hooked. Caleb's vocals is just amazing. I couldn't stop playing "use somebody" over and over. And the catchy intro of "notion" leading to its angry chorus was just beautiful. Then there's that guilty feeling when listening to "be somebody". Then of course there is the final (and for me the best) track of the album, "cold desert", which all I can say is, this song just hit home. Listening to this album is like having a constant lump in your throat.

This was before the videos hit the streams and the singles hit the local radios. I always hate it when stuff gets into mainstream for fear that it will change their later work, but for KOL's case they still kick ass with their new album.

Notion live at O2 London

Not only do these bastards write awesome music, they are also epic when playing live. I watched their live at O2 London dvd and they seriously sound better than on record. If they come here and play it will be very hard not going to see them. :D

Cold Desert live at O2 London
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21 Sep 2011

Predictably Irrational
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This book made me sad.

Making decisions objectively as it turns out, requires way more effort than we often think. Just when you thought you've been making the right decisions all this time, you're actually being controlled by default fucked-up wirings up in your brain. You feel your thinking is right, but if you take a step back and really think about it, you'll realize with horror that you're wrong. Reading the book is like that saying:

When you see it, you'll shit bricks.

What I worry about is, being so concerned and obsessed with making the right choices will always leave us tired at the end of the day. And I think living a life like that is just sad.

Though maybe it gets easier with more practice, as with most things.

Interesting lines from the book:

Comparing
- We are always looking at the things around us in relation to others. We can't help it.
- We not only tend to compare things with one another but also tend to focus on comparing things that are easily comparable - and avoid comparing things that cannot be compared easily.
Money
- Money, as it turns out, is very often the most expensive way to motivate people.
Ownership
- We fall in love with what we already have.
- We focus on what we may lose, rather than what we may gain.
- The more work you put into something, the more ownership you begin to feel for it.
- We can begin to feel ownership even before we own something.
Opportunity
- In a modern democracy, he said, people are beset not by a lack of opportunity, but by a dizzying abundance of it. In our modern society this is emphatically so. We are continually reminded that we can do anything and be anything we want to be. The problem is in living up to this dream. We must develop ourselves in every way possible; must make sure that of the 1000 things to see before dying, we have not stopped at number 999. But then comes a problem - are we spreading ourselves to thin?
Expectations
- When we believe beforehand that something will be good, therefore, it generally will be good - and when we think it will be bad, it will be bad.
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10 Sep 2011

My workstation september 2011
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A lot has changed with my office workspace in a year. Here is a picture sometime march 2010:

And here is a picture this september 2011:

It's really cleaned up now, and I prefer it that way.
- No unnecessary stuffs lying around. I put on the desk what is only needed. If ever I have stuff that hangs around the desk for more than a month that I don't use, then I remove it. It gives me a lot of room to breathe.
- Removed the stack of books since I usually do my reading at home, where there is less distraction.
- I only use one monitor now because with my tiling manager Xmonad, I find having the extra monitor distracting. Plus its better since there's lesser light on my face.
- I now have less buttons on my ubuntu panel, since I now use Kupfer which makes the need for clicking things disappear.
- I only have one panel left on my ubuntu, the one on top, for the notifications area. The one at the bottom I don't need anymore since I organized my desktop into workspaces so I dont have to check the bottom panel to look for a certain program.
I really like how it's all cleaned up. Having this kind of workspace really helps me focus and keeps distraction away.
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