Seriously? Of all the things you could grab you pick that?

Ahh, KL. Back here for more work stuff; we've set production time for our magazine at two weeks, and hopefully we can cut it to one by the next ish.

I can actually see myself living here. I never thought of myself as a KL person, but there seems to be so much more life here. Penang is so blek these days, with highrises popping up at the least appropriate places. At least you expect highrises in KL. The people I work with are smart and friendly, and traveling around the city is so much easier with a GPS it almost feels like cheating. Though one time I followed the GPS's route from Tropicana to Solaris Mont Kiara, and I found myself in the North-South Highway, looking at a helpful signboard telling me which direction Sungai Buloh was.

Cons of permanently moving to KL (if that ever happens, which hardly seems likely at this stage) is of course leaving friends and family behind. Yeah, you can make new friends, but starting over from scratch has never been easy, at least for me, and I'm pretty shit at meeting new people. Which... would pretty much be the same scenario if I ever move back to Melbourne, come to think of it. Goddamnit.

Pros of temporarily working in KL: Company puts you up in a hotel, albeit a cheap one, and you're working more or less unsupervised, not in a dusty cubicle all day while dealing with endless meetings and office politics. There's a bit more pressure with that lack of supervision, but it's also very freeing.

Cons: the hotel I'm staying at is THE WORST GODDAMN HOTEL IN KL. I mean, there are at least two lamps that aren't working due to power socket failure, a front desk and room service centre that take forever to pick up the damn phone, and housekeeping is, arggh. I'm still too pissed off to be coherent. I found one of my brand new books a little mashed. Oh, and one day I bought some instant cup noodles for supper, left them in the hotel in a plastic bag by the corner, and when I came back later that night from work THEY WERE GONE.

Motherfucker. I have half a mind to fill in their customer review questionnaire. You know, the one that they'll just ignore in the end.

Had dinner with Zai and his wife Ulfah last week. I think it was the first time I'd seen them in person since... shit, their wedding a couple of years ago. Their daughter was born around this time last year. They looked like they hadn't slept in years. Suckers. Kidding, lovely people.

KL. Sigh. Decisions, decisions...