1. THREE DAYS. CANNOT FATHOM THIS. Even though work is starting to fall in my lap again, and I really should do some of it because so much of it is due to my sitting around doing a whole lot of not much, right now my only concern is to keep from falling ill before I have to take off for the trip. Being barred from entering the US at this point is really NOT at all high on my list of priorities, nope. OMG CAN'T BELIEVE I'LL BE SEEING WONDERETTES IN LESS THAN FIVE DAYS ALSDHSADHASLDSA ♥

2. Also, I find it hard to focus these days because all I want to do is be a huge enormous dork and curl up in a corner with my stash of X-Men comics and devour them like the good little nerd I am. Today I tried to explain to my boss why Wolverine doesn't age and has apparently been through a litany of world wars in the recent past. Nerd extraordinaire, that is indeed me.

3. Cheno is a ball of cute, I just had to say. I love that the pay-off to that interview is a nice, long, glorious stretch of Over The Rainbow. Also, I SEE HER IN CONCERT NEXT MONDAY. \o/ The excitement, it is EVERYWHERE!

4. Speaking of which: native New Yorkers, where is there a good place to snag free internet? Do I have to start living in Starbucks? (Is there even free wireless there?) I have my perfectly portable little netbook, so that's fine, but I still need to know where I can go to get net access... in case the friend I'm living with has maxed out her internet time (entirely possible). I'm also trying to figure out what the weather's gonna be like: I'm sure I can easily buy anything I'm missing, since it isn't the absolute dead of winter this time. But I'm guessing I'll need an umbrella at least...

5. MORE of alphabet meme, I intend to FINISH this before I go to NY!! ( F - em - L )

6. I LEGIT TALK TOO MUCH. How is it 2am already!?!? Okay okay OKAY. Bedtime... if I'm not distracted by comics, that is. XD

1. URM. FOUR DAYS. Just four days more, guys - this time, in four days, I will literally be boarding the plane for Qatar New York. OMG. I can't... even BEGIN to process this, it doesn't feel real at ALL. I mean, I have tickets for most of my first week of shows, and at least half of the second week, and I've been planning this for a while. STILL. NOT GOING TO BELIEVE IT, as usual, until I'm actually THERE.

2. In other news, longest, laziest weekend I've had in AGES. We had a full three days off thanks to Labour Day (May 1) falling on a Friday. I had SOME grand plans of catching up on tv (god knows my flist is going to explode when the next House episode airs, and I am FIVE MONTHS BEHIND), or do something a little more productive... and yet, I spent most of it asleep and being lazy. Truth be told, I actually kind of like the sound of that. XD

3. Friday was family day - lunch out for my brother's birthday, at a fancy Chinese restaurant where basically we proved that, genetically, we all have a song playing in our heads at any given moment. Seriously we all just kept... humming out loud during the meal, while scoffing down epic amounts of beef and cod and god knows what else. I came home and napped after that, as I had gone to bed at some ridiculous hour of the morning, and then out for dinner to my aunt's place again. She's doing better after her second round of chemo, not having quite as bad a reaction to it as the first round, so ♥. Then I came home and... spent the entire night flailing at weazel_luv over Wonderettes. GOD KNOWS WHY. (I AM SEEING IT WITHIN THE WEEK, GUYS. ASFHALFHLSDHFLSDHFLSD.)

4. Saturday: I had plans to go for yoga, which were completely thwarted when I got up at 3.30pm (sigh). Instead, I watched X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which I actually REALLY liked. I know it's been critically savaged, for the most part, but I loooved it. Turns out I'm just a huge X-Men/Marvel fandork, I guess, because I just... had the best time settling back into that universe, watching all the characters I love pop up in flesh, blood and celluloid, and... it was just FUN. (I also loved X3: The Last Stand, so yeah, I really am just a huge nerd with really poor taste in movies. I'm not apologising though, these movies make me happy!) I am a sucker, apparently, even for not-entirely-well-wrought romance, and bought into the Silver Fox thing by the end. URGH, ME. No spoilers, however. Let us, for a minute, discuss the masculine pulchritude on display in that movie. ZOMG HUGH. JACKMAN. When I saw the trailer, I KNEW the movie could have been an absolutely god-awful pile of steaming manure and I'd have loved it anyway just because Hugh gets to run all over the screen being sexy and hot and growly omg omg. And that he did, in epic amounts. What surprised me is that I also found Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool ridiculously sexy. SHUT UP. In his six minutes of screen-time, he didn't even bare these, but I was still done. OMG HOTNESS. Now I have to go watch Definitely, Maybe again. I did NOT, however, like whoever played Gambit. Taylor whatever or somesuch? Urgh. Not that Gambit's one of my favourite characters, but... it just didn't work for me. He wasn't anywhere near charismatic enough.

5. During the movie, I had the insanely pressing URGE to delve back into the comics again - now, try to believe me when I say that I really AM far from being the biggest comics dork around. ( I don't think anyone really believes me, do they? )

6. AFTER the movie, to get back to my weekend - I went to a colleague's house for an awesome potluck dinner. ♥ He made chili and corn on the cob, other people brought corn muffins, mashed potatoes, ice cream (I contributed some not-so-great salad that wasn't popular anyway with all the OTHER things on the table), and it was just fun to sit around chatting about... movies, work, anything, everything. Honestly the people I work with are about the only reason I haven't lost my fragile grip on sanity in the past six and a half years I've been at this job. And it's been FAR too long since we had one of these chat sessions, so that was good!

7. Then, on Sunday, I managed to get up in time for my 2pm yoga class: which, although it was the easiest of the easy classes, I almost died in. GOD. I have not been back in weeks, because I've been lazy and the thought of inflicting pain on my really just completely inflexible body didn't appeal. So, being out of practice, that - predictably - became a self-fulfilling prophecy. A+, me. I'm already sore, and am going to hurt like the DICKENS tomorrow. In fact, I was apparently so tired I went for lunch, came home, and SLEPT FOR FOUR HOURS. Straight through dinner on a worknight. EPIC FAIL. That now means, of course, that it's 2.46am and I am WIDE AWAKE. AUUUGGGH.

8. ALSO, YOUTUBE LOOP. AIEEEEEE. Chiefly, there was Alice and Emily belting their faces off in I Will Never Leave You, one of the few times I've SEEN them sing that song unattached at the hip. YOU HAVE TO WATCH IT, GUYS: can we say omigod sexy SASSY belting times a million. 2:31 is legit an ORGASMIC EXPERIENCE, when they belt in opposite directions but sound PERFECTLY in sync, omigod. (ETA: OMG, 0:55!!! How. Cute?!) Then I found Bebe videos, and although she really doesn't have the best voice on her, god I LOVE her sass. She's SUCH a killer Velma, and probably the only person I'd want to see in the role over Julia (that's right, REPLACE IN CHICAGO, JULIA, PLZ). And yay, Bebe singing from Cabaret! I LOVE her line readings more than anything else. Mmmm, dripping with sarcasm and sass. I heart you, Lilith Bebe. ;)

9. And, because apparently this isn't already epic long enough, I figured I should get started on my alphabet meme, or I won't be done by the time I hit NY. To wit, here's the first five letters of the alphabet, accompanied by a lot of flail and a handy Twitter-ready summary for each. ( That would be A-E, in case you didn't know )

10. OMIGOD THAT TOOK FOREVER. Wow, I am going to have to seriously cut down on the time I spend on the next 21 letters or I am going to die. D: I shall now attempt to go to bed at 3.47am even though I'm WIDE AWAKE (damn the nap) and hungry (no dinner). Blaaarrrgh.

1. Again I do not understand how it is almost 2am where does the time go SERIOUSLY.

2. I think I am just inordinately, tragically bad at multi-tasking, however much I'd like to believe that I'm truly awesome at it. I wanted to get around to tracking some of my January audios since I'll be racking up a BUNCH more in May (THREE WEEKS ZOMG), and thought I could at the same time catch up on my book and movie reviews. EPIC FAILURE THERE. I managed to track the FIRST ACT of A Little Night Music (awww, Natasha :( ♥ - also, Vanessa is a LEGEND and I am legit in love with Christine Baranski's sassy mcsassy line readings), write the book review and... nothing. FAIL FAIL FAIL.

3. Which means I am behind on emails and comments and I APOLOGISE to people, I am not ignoring you (well, no more than normal, anyway, ahahaha). Will hopefully get to it eventually. At least instead of getting caught up, I had a good weekend, with movies, friends and SLEEP. (Though not right now... obviously.)

4. I'm on a bit of a movie kick right now. Finally there are films playing in cinemas here that I want to see! Plus I finished my longass book Instance of the Fingerpost (mindbendingly good and so smart that it made my brain hurt from it) and am finally reading movie magazines again. So I'm looking forward to so many films! Can I say, OMG, posters and standees of Angels & Demons going up in cinemas everywhere = inordinatelyexcited!ellixian! I don't even know WHY, beyond the fact that I loved A&D a LOT more than Da Vinci Code and have always thought it'd be far more suited to a cinematic adaptation. I guess I'm a sucker for shiny pretty ads. Also I am a closet Tom Hanks fangirl (even with the mullet from DVC) and would watch him in anything (shut up). OH ONE MORE THING: EWAAAAAAN.

5. So this weekend I saw: ( lots of movies! )

6. Meryl on her surprising newfound bankability: "It's completely improbable, and no one in Hollywood can understand it. Which is so thrilling!" ♥ ♥ ♥

7. Oh random fail from today. I bought a bottle of Coke Zero to bring into the cinema with me - and of course, having MY luck, picked up a bottle that was sealed completely shut. I gouged out a chunk of my ring finger trying to open the damn thing. NOT exaggerating, it hurts like a MOFO when it comes into contact with water. So I brought the bottle back to the store, and turns out EVERY Coke Zero bottle there was sealed shut. WTF defective shipment!!! So I had to trade for something else of equivalent price, and picked Sarsi Light. Which tasted like SHIT so I dumped it after a few mouthfuls. Yuck, FML etc.

8. OMIGOD BETH'S VOICE WHAT IN GOD'S NAME IS IT DOING TO ME. (Never going to stop listening to this song ever in my life, guys, how does someone sound this sassy and incredible and DIFFERENT ASKDFHALDHASDA. I am never going to stop pimping or talking about the awesome 15-second closing note, so you might as well download it if you don't already know what I'm talking about.) In any case, I am starting to plot my theatre schedule. At the rate I am going I will be back at the Westside Theatre, like, four times over two weeks. EXCESSIVE MUCH? Or AWESOME? *cries*

1. As my subject line has it - omigod, you guys. I'm in love and am so eloping to the Bahamas with the object of my affection!! ♥ ( details and phooooooootoooooooos )

2. Not only did I find the love of my life, I also went bookshopping, eeeeek. So much random retail therapy that I'm not even sure I DESERVE, but what the hey! ( today's haul )

3. Urgh, I have NOT taken public transport in a long time - I actually parked downtown and then took a train down to the IT show because parking there would've been a fool's errand and completely insane. Good thing too, I don't think I've EVER seen that many people shoved like flopping sardines into one area. Literally there were POLICE everywhere directing traffic, and setting up detours so that the tunnels wouldn't get too crowded. Manoeuvring in that crowd would have given anybody with agoraphobia nightmares for a millennium. Which is one reason I decided I should NOT leave with just a hard drive. ;) Oh, look, someone took a photo. Let it be said that the crowd I encountered was at least TWICE as bad, this being the last day of the fair and all. INSANITY.

4. Refusing to leave the IT fair meant that I cancelled on a couple of friends - we were supposed to watch a movie. I spent three hours wandering the convention instead (also getting stopped by random insurance people, argh) and my feet hurt SO MUCH by the end. But it's worth it. XD

5. Decided to watch a movie after that, having missed out on sombre Oscar-nominated Japanese fare - Race To Witch Mountain, which was a serviceably silly, workman-like action adventure. I think I have an affinity for The Rock that rivals my semi-crush on Brendan Fraser. Why do I find him oddly charming? I have no answer for this, but I do. A fun but entirely forgettable watch that dragged once more characters were brought into the mix.

6. Did I forget to mention that I totes didn't go into work as I'd planned? I got up at almost 3, decided there was no point going in (I will regret this come Monday) as I was SUPPOSED to watch the film at 1845H. Besides it was one of those gorgeously grey, stormy Sundays. Sleeping in was practically mandatory!

7. So it's been a good weekend - my family friend's big 21st birthday bash yesterday (at which my brother did a very brave thing, I must admit!!) and also Watchmen in the afternoon... which I THOROUGHLY enjoyed as a character study and deconstruction of the superhero myth. How awesomely fucked-up were all the characters, seriously? Those on Twitter would already know that I am OBSESSED with Rorschach - dude with the Rorschach ink stains perpetually wheeling across his masked face, with a penchant for breaking people's fingers and being generally scary/creepy/violent - and now have a crush on Jackie Earle Haley as a result. Yes, the same actor who freaked me the hell OUT as a freaky paedophile in Little Children. Apparently I am a screwed-up individual... and go me for being proud of that fact. XD Anyways. I loved the look, feel and many of the ideas that went into the movie. That being said, however, the plot was totally meh, Dr Manhattan's existential angst and epiphany bored me, and poor Matthew Goode (on whom I have a crush from Imagine Me And You) was a bit miscast as Ozymandias. Also, too looooong.

8. And now, though I want to spend time bonding with my new love ♥, I MUST go to bed. As I have said, I am going to regret the hell out of not going to work on Sunday. AUGH. Wish me luck for the week ahead. :(

1. Another day spent being sick in bed. God, don't even ASK me how sick I would be if I weren't already on antibiotics. Because, when I went back to the doctor at noon (part of the two hours I spent awake all day, I only got up for real at about 7pm at night), I was running a slight fever. Still coughing up green a few hours post-antibiotics. My nose is still completely stuffed-up, my back aches, and I fall asleep at the drop of a hat. This SUCKS. Not that I don't appreciate it, but I can't believe I've been on medical leave for three days now, and will be on MC for another day yet. Other than chicken pox in 2007, this is the LONGEST I've ever been out sick, at work or at school... as far as I can remember, anyway.

2. This doctor - a sleepy-looking woman - said no changed meds for me though. Apparently I'm on pretty strong antibiotics already. If I don't kick this and SOON, I have this nagging feeling that I'm going to spend all my time in NYC/DC indoors when I'm not in the theatre or travelling to the theatre. BUMMER.

3. Today, I decided to blame my current illness and suffering on this epic day of immense suckitude. That was a soft deadline, made because one of my (usually sensible) bosses was going on holiday on Saturday and wanted to clear the draft on Friday. So I busted my ass with it, worked 'til 5 in the morning, and drove back into work by 10 to make sure everything was okay. Clearly, assuming that I could do this as I HAD done this for days on end for a couple of months back in September/October was the WRONG assumption to make. *grumbles*

4. Did manage to get a little flailing in once I struggled awake, however. Just watched two more episodes of 30 Rock, which were HILARIOUS - that whole Jenna as a werewolf-lawyer on Night Court thing cracked me up SO much, even though it totally made me cough right after.

5. Also finished Book 3 of the Stravaganza series, City of Flowers. OMIGOD GUYS. SAKDALDLHDLHALDALDHLADA. Such an epic EPIC fantasy series. I kind of want to go and visit Italy now that I've read these books... I guess I should count myself lucky that I HAVE visited so many of these places, in fact so recently - back in December 2007, when my family took an epic tour through Italy and went to Venice, Siena and Florence, the places all referenced (so far) in the series. (My Goodreads review)

6. Then, while browsing my flist, I came across this on merylstreepfans:



Geez. As if it isn't depressing enough how talented she is, being, y'know, the most Oscar-nominated actress in the history of EVER, Meryl was more accomplished at the age of 18 then I think I ever will be, EVER.

7. I was debating whether to be shameless and decided, what the heck. I need some cheering up. Play along with me? But only if you want to, of course:

THE ICON TESTIMONIALS MEME
MY THREAD HERE!

8. And now, back to bed with me. Please god let me heal faster than this. PLEASE.

9. ETA: ARGH. I don't have photoshop on this computer. BUT. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, lfae, WHEREVER YOU ARE. I hope you have a great one. And I know I should have connected the dots earlier, but HEY. You share a birthday with my brother! XD Can't wait to see you in just over a week!!!

1. And so ends my weekend of EPIC FLAIL. Soon to be followed by a FORTNIGHT of EPIC FLAIL in NYC. Heh.

2. Mayday concert tonight was AMAZING. SERIOUSLY. Every time I see these guys live, I fall in love with them all over again - even if they made me work REALLY HARD for that. As mentioned here, when I went for a full-fledged concert in April last year, attending a concert by these guys is like a CARDIO WORKOUT. Even if you have assigned seating, it doesn't matter - you're on your feet for pretty much three hours, jumping and flailing even through the tender, sweet ballads. So the concert organisers for Sunday's event clearly decided - why bother with SEATS. Everyone who had tickets was just herded into Stadium Green, which is a large expanse of grass right next to the Singapore River. And so tonight, probably a few thousand people rocked out to Mayday (oh, 阿信, how I LOVE YOUR VOICE), beneath a cloudless, moon-lit sky, yelling like crazy people so everyone for miles around could hear. EPIC. ♥

3. Am tracking my audio now - SO amusing, OMG. The quality is actually really good, considering that the concert was outdoors and EVERYONE was singing along like it was a communal karaoke session (that's probably the most FUN part of c-pop concerts, how much PARTICIPATION is expected from the audience... though it makes for less-than-ideal boots). But you can actually HEAR the parts at which I just gave up on a consistently good audio and started jumping around like a mad thing. Hee.

4. Now that I'm planning to see SO many shows and concerts and read and watch movies, I decided to expand my yearly list to include live performances. It's only four days into the new year and I'm off to a pretty good start already! :D This is gonna be an EPIC year for flail. EPIC.

5. OH. I also got my hair cut. And coloured, and styled. FOR FOUR AND A HALF HOURS. Omigod. FAIL. I look like... a China doll or something. I now have a fringe, it's bright red (AGAIN), and... it's CURLED? *weeps* I'm sure at SOME point I should have stopped taking my hairdresser's advice - just as her assistant was about to dump all the brown (it's SUPPOSED to be brown) dye on my head, I had a moment of going... errr, the permed hair is QUITE enough of a difference, thanks. (What even possessed me to say yes to THAT, in the first place?!) And then I chickened out because the dye had already been prepared. And then I just had to suffer through it, because omigod it took AGES to get it all into my hair and then it HURT and made me feel sick. Yuck. And now it's RED. *weeps some more* I'm sure the colour will even out after I wash it a couple more times. BUT. Remind me - next time I get my hair cut, I'm going to stay away from colouring for a while.

6. Finished reading City of Stars. SO OBSESSED with this series, omigod. It's EPIC. From a parallel Venice to a parallel Siena, with winged horses, horse races, and just an AMAZING expansion of the universe from the first book. LOVE.

7. And I think I'm... falling sick again? As in, back into the illness I had all of December? Maybe it's just the lack of sleep from today coupled with the crazy cardio workout. But I'm snuffly, my throat is scratchy and ARGH. NO WAY. Not before NYC. How incredibly SUCKY would that be, seriously.

8. I should SLEEP, obviously, to try and avoid illness. But but but. I'm almost done with audio! Except I just screwed up and have to reload the entire file to fix it. ARGH. Why do I fail SO HARD.

As per the past couple years: goal is 100 movies, and at least 20 books. Please god I can read a LOT more than 20. PLEASE.

Movies
1. The Duchess (3 Jan)
2. 9 to 5 (10 Jan) +
3. Hannah And Her Sisters (10 Jan) +
4. The Philadelphia Story - with lfae and alexia88 in NYC! :D (22 Jan) +
5. Milk (29 Jan)
6. Inkheart (30 Jan)
7. Doubt (31 Jan)
8. Rachel Getting Married (31 Jan)
9. Changeling (1 Feb)
10. The Reader (7 Feb)
11. Slumdog Millionaire (12 Feb)
12. Bride Wars (13 Feb)
13. The Wrestler (14 Feb)
14. The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button (14 Feb)
15. Valkyrie (21 Feb)
16. He's Just Not That Into You (22 Feb)
17. Let The Right One In (28 Feb)
18. Marley And Me (28 Feb)
19. Last Chance Harvey (28 Feb)
20. Suspect X (8 Mar) +
21. Watchmen (14 Mar)
22. Race To Witch Mountain (15 Mar)
23. Detroit Metal City (22 Mar)
24. Confessions Of A Shopaholic (25 Mar)
25. Gran Torino (28 Mar)
26. Departures (29 Mar)
27. Handsome Suit (10 Apr)
28. 17 Again (18 Apr)
29. Anvil: The Story Of Anvil (18 Apr)
30. Revolutionary Road (19 Apr)
31. Wendy And Lucy (22 Apr)
32. Ip Man (25 Apr) +
33. The International (26 Apr)
34. X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2 May)
35. Star Trek [NYC] (11 May)
36. Angels And Demons (30 May)
37. Night At The Museum 2 (31 May)
38. Monsters Vs Aliens (6 Jun)
39. The Baader-Meinhof Complex (7 Jun)
40. The Young Victoria (10 Jun)
41. Land Of The Lost (13 Jun)
42. State Of Play (13 Jun)
43. The Taking Of Pelham 123 (14 Jun)
44. I Love You, Man (20 Jun)
45. Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past (21 Jun)
46. The Brothers Bloom (28 Jun)
47. Sunshine Cleaning (4 Jul)
48. Ice Age 3: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs (5 Jul)
49. Duplicity (5 Jul)
50. Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince (18 Jul)
51. Up! (8 Aug)
52. The Hangover (23 Aug)
53. Food Inc (23 Aug)
54. District 9 (29 Aug)
55. Bruno (30 Aug)
56. The Proposal (30 Aug)
57. Year One (6 Sep)
58. The Time Traveller's Wife (6 Sep)
59. The Cove (11 Sep)
60. Coco Avant Chanel (12 Sep)
61. Gamer (13 Sep)
62. Moon (13 Sep)
63. 9 (18 Sep)
64. The Ugly Truth (19 Sep)
65. Inglourious Basterds (20 Sep)
66. Whatever Works (20 Sep)
67. The September Issue (21 Sep)
68. Finding Nemo (26 Sep) +
69. Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs (3 Oct)
70. Shorts (3 Oct)
71. Fame (4 Oct)
72. Paper Heart (4 Oct)
73. 500 Days Of Summer (10 Oct)
74. Paris 36 (10 Oct)
75. Funny People (11 Oct)
76. Julie And Julia (18 Oct)
77. The Hurt Locker (24 Oct)
78. Coraline (25 Oct)
79. Michael Jackson's This Is It (30 Oct)
80. Jennifer's Body (31 Oct)
81. Love Happens (1 Nov)
82. My Sister's Keeper (1 Nov)
83. Capitalism: A Love Story (7 Nov)
84. Humpday (8 Nov)
85. Amelia (15 Nov)
86. 2012 (15 Nov)
87. The Fantastic Mr Fox (19 Nov)
88. Disney's A Christmas Carol (21 Nov)
89. An Education (22 Nov)
90. The Informant! (22 Nov)
91. Up In The Air [NYC] (4 Dec)
92. When Harry Met Sally [in transit] (13 Dec)
93. Couples Retreat (19 Dec)
94. The Princess And The Frog (19 Dec)
95. Zombieland (20 Dec)
96. Sherlock Holmes (24 Dec)
97. The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee (25 Dec)
98. Avatar (26 Dec)
99.

+: not in cinema

Books
1. City of Masks - Mary Hoffman (1 Jan)
2. City of Stars - Mary Hoffman (4 Jan)
3. City of Flowers - Mary Hoffman (7 Jan)
4. City of Secrets - Mary Hoffman (25 Jan)
5. Last Watch - Sergei Lukyanenko (11 Feb)
6. An Instance Of The Fingerpost - Iain Pears (15 Apr)
7. The New House At The Chalet School - Elinor M. Brent-Dyer (21 Jul)
8. Jo Returns To The Chalet School - Elinor M. Brent-Dyer (23 Jul)
9. Gillian Of The Chalet School - Carol Allan (26 Jul)
10. The New Chalet School - Elinor M. Brent-Dyer (27 Jul)
11. The Bettanys Of Taverton High - Helen Barber (28 Jul)
12. The School At The Chalet - Elinor M. Brent-Dyer (31 Jul)
13. The Mysterious Benedict Society - Trenton Lee Stewart (31 Aug)
14. The Princess Diaries - Meg Cabot (11 Sep)
15. The Mysterious Benedict Society And The Perilous Journey - Trenton Lee Stewart (25 Sep)
16. Montmorency - Eleanor Updale (26 Sep)
17. Montmorency On The Rocks - Eleanor Updale (5 Oct)
18. Soon I Will Be Invincible - Austin Grossman (15 Oct)
19. The Magicians - Lev Grossman (28 Oct)
20. Percy Jackson And The Lightning Thief - Rick Riordan (31 Oct)
21. Percy Jackson And The Sea Of Monsters - Rick Riordan (1 Nov)
22. Percy Jackson And The Titan's Curse - Rick Riordan (2 Nov)
23. Percy Jackson And The Battle Of The Labyrinth - Rick Riordan (3 Nov)
24. Percy Jackson And The Last Olympian - Rick Riordan (7 Nov)
25. The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman (14 Nov)
26. A Song Of Ice And Fire (Book I): A Game Of Thrones (21 Dec)
27.

Theatre
1. Cinderella (3 Jan)
2. Billy Elliot [NYC] (10 Jan)
3. Gypsy closing show [NYC] (11 Jan)
4. Mamma Mia! [NYC] (11 Jan)
5. A Little Night Music benefit [NYC] (12 Jan)
6. Next To Normal [DC] (13 Jan)
7. West Side Story [DC] (14 Jan)
8. Next To Normal [DC] (14 Jan)
9. In The Heights [NYC] (15 Jan)
10. Chicago [NYC] (16 Jan)
11. Hedda Gabler [NYC] (17 Jan)
12. Wicked [NYC] (17 Jan)
13. Pal Joey [NYC] (18 Jan)
14. Mary Poppins [NYC] (18 Jan)
15. Forbidden Broadway Goes To Rehab [NYC] (19 Jan)
16. Shrek [NYC] (20 Jan)
17. The Marvellous Wonderettes [NYC] (21 Jan)
18. August: Osage County [NYC] (21 Jan)
19. Will Ferrell in Farewell America: A Final Night With George W Bush [NYC] (22 Jan)
20. Sleepless Town (12 Mar)
21. The Winter's Tale (28 Mar)
22. The Importance Of Being Earnest (29 Mar)
23. If There Are Seasons (24 Apr)
24. The Marvellous Wonderettes [NYC] (8 May)
25. Exit The King [NYC] (9 May)
26. Everyday Rapture [NYC] (9 May)
27. Rooms [NYC] (10 May)
28. Why Torture Is Wrong, And The People Who Love Them [NYC] (10 May)
29. Next To Normal [NYC] (12 May)
30. 9 To 5 [NYC] (13 May)
31. The Marvellous Wonderettes [NYC] (13 May)
32. Rock Of Ages [NYC] (14 May)
33. Guys And Dolls [NYC] (15 May)
34. Accent On Youth [NYC] (16 May)
35. The Toxic Avenger Musical [NYC] (16 May)
36. Irena's Vow [NYC] (17 May)
37. Mamma Mia! [NYC] (17 May)
38. 9 To 5 [NYC] (19 May)
39. The Marvellous Wonderettes [NYC] (20 May)
40. Hair [NYC] (20 May)
41. Next To Normal [NYC] (21 May)
42. Blithe Spirit [NYC] (22 May)
43. God Of Carnage [NYC] (23 May)
44. Mary Stuart [NYC] (23 May)
45. The Marvellous Wonderettes [NYC] (24 May)
46. Own Time Own Target (17 Jul)
47. The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare by the Reduced Shakespeare Company (31 Jul)
48. Sing Dollar! - The Musical Comedy About Money (7 Aug)
49. The Crucible (13 Aug)
50. The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (14 Aug)
51. The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee [Aspen] (18 Aug)
52. The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee [Aspen] (19 Aug)
53. The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee [Aspen] (20 Aug)
54. Broadway For Suakus: Lust But Not Least (15 Oct)
55. Singapore Men's Chorus: Sing Out Loud On Broadway (25 Oct)
56. Victor/Victoria (13 Nov)
57. Duck And Dive (14 Nov)
58. Finian's Rainbow [NYC] (27 Nov)
59. Wishful Drinking [NYC] (27 Nov)
60. In The Next Room: The Vibrator Play [NYC] (28 Nov)
61. Dreamgirls [NYC] (28 Nov)
62. Ordinary Days [NYC] (29 Nov)
63. Rock Of Ages [NYC] (30 Nov)
64. Salvage [NYC - reading] (1 Dec)
65. The Marvellous Wonderettes [NYC] (1 Dec)
66. Ragtime [NYC] (2 Dec)
67. A Streetcar Named Desire [NYC] (2 Dec)
68. A Little Night Music [NYC] (3 Dec)
69. Love, Loss And What I Wore [NYC] (4 Dec)
70. Fela! [NYC] (5 Dec)
71. Memphis [NYC] (5 Dec)
72. Ragtime [NYC] (6 Dec)
73. Next To Normal [NYC] (6 Dec)
74. Winter Wonderettes [Laguna Beach] (8 Dec)
75. Winter Wonderettes [Laguna Beach] (9 Dec)
76. Mamma Mia! [NYC] (11 Dec)
77.

Concerts
1. Mayday promotional concert @ Stadium Green (4 Jan)
2. Upright Cabaret @ Joe's Pub [NYC] (11 Jan)
3. The After Party [NYC] (16 Jan) <-- not REALLY a concert but I'm counting it because it was in NYC XD
4. One Wakin Live In Singapore (7 Feb)
5. Superband Live In Taipei [Taiwan] (7 Mar)
6. Indigo Girls @ Mosaic Music Festival In Singapore (16 Mar)
7. Kristin Chenoweth @ City Centre [NYC] (11 May)
8. Julia Murney @ Feinstein's [NYC] (18 May)
9. Stefanie Sun Live In Singapore (The Answer Is) (11 Jul)
10. Superband Live In Singapore (18 Jul)
11. Superband Live In Malaysia (1 Aug)
12. Beth Malone @ Theatre Aspen (16 Aug)
13. Mayday DNA World Tour In Singapore (28 Aug)
14. Aimee Mann Live In Singapore (29 Aug)
15. Dianne Reeves Live In Singapore (12 Sep)
16. Ronald Cheng X William So Live In Singapore (3 Oct)
17. David Hyde Pierce & Michael Feinstein @ Feinstein's [NYC] (4 Dec)
18. Curtains Up Concert For A Cure [NYC] (7 Dec)
19. Lea Salonga Live In Singapore (16 Dec)
20. Three Good Men Live In Singapore (19 Dec)
21.

1. MY WORK IS MADE OF FAIL. LET ME TELL YOU HOW:

a. Just found out today that I'm going to have to work on the first day of the new year. Yes, JANUARY 1, 2009. I will be in the office. BY MYSELF. I'm pretty sure about this, as my boss wants a draft to reach her by Friday, and I have to clear the damn thing, and the person who has to write it... well, hasn't started RESEARCH yet. God. I like how I already know 2009 is getting off to a drastically bad start, and it's not even 2009 yet. If I took this as an omen of how the next year is going to be, I think I might cry.

b. I just got sent a notification that I have another e-learning course that I have to complete on my own time. BEFORE the new year. WTF. HATE TIMES A MILLION.

2. I shouldn't complain, I guess, as I've spent the better part of the last three months skiving off at work - I do SOME work, I do, but honestly I spend so much of the day now just sitting around sleeping or trying not to fall asleep. FAIL. Still. What a way to end/start a year, huh? Sucky.

3. AT LEAST THERE'S NEW YORK.

4. At least there's LOTS AND LOTS OF FLAIL, I should say. So much awesome coming up - I'll be seeing the touring production of Cinderella, with LEA SALONGA, EEK!!, on Saturday night. And if things work out, I should be watching MAYDAY in a mini promotional concert on Sunday. And then I just need to live through the crap of another five days at work, before it's on to two glorious weeks in NYC/DC. Where I will be completely, epically theatred out. Then, when I get home, Chinese New Year, Doubt opening in cinemas and EMIL CONCERT all happen in rapid succession. Can we say A++++++++ awesome?!?

5. I shall cling to everything in point #4 and try not to weep to my sad self as I trudge into work on Jan 1. BAH.

6. Except, I HATE stupid eBay traders who do not answer their emails quickly. Fuckity. The Mayday concert on Sunday is a free gig, and noldoparma and I got lazy and couldn't be bothered to go line up for tickets yesterday. Instead, we're acting like salaried adults and have been stalking eBay. Well, I FOUND this guy with TWO auctions - two tickets each - at a respectable price, and exercised the buy-it-now option. Except I'm pretty certain this idiot of a seller is new to eBay and might have put up two auctions by accident. And he's not ANSWERING me on that so I can go and buy other tickets if I have to, dammit. GRARGH. Everyone please send me good auction karma??

7. Omigod, Twilight Watch AKLHFOAHSDLADHASLDHAS. SO. EPIC. I've ripped through, like, over 200 pages today, in between work and whatever, and I LOVE IT. It's tipping into historical fantasy fiction now, bringing in the creation and crumbling of the Soviet state into the entire narrative/universe, and OMIGOD. Pop cult fantasy vampire fiction at its most awesome. XD

8. I shall go read some more, and also maybe watch 30 Rock, before bed. I have resolved to slack off and enjoy life until Jan 1, when I have to put my nose to the grindstone. STUPID JOB. URGH.

1. I have a sneaking suspicion I might be narcoleptic. I shall have to test this theory by actually getting regular amounts of sleep at night to see if I still fall asleep at random points in the day, but wtf. I slept quite well and quite a lot the night before and still I was COMPELLED to sleep throughout the day at work. WTF. Is it because I have no pressing work to do? Or the fact that the new office is as cold as the Arctic and I'm hibernating? I DO NOT KNOW. Need to stop sleeping like that in plain sight though. It's AWFUL.

2. Family dinner - my younger brother cooked his cereal-breaded pork meatballs thing, which was yummy - and then we watched embarrassing home videos. OMG. Like, EMBARRASSING. I was such a shameless camera whore as a kid. :P Although, mirime, I have to say you were one of the most adorable children in EXISTENCE. I spent the whole time squeeing at how cute you were!

3. AND NO, NONE OF YOU IS GOING TO GET TO SEE THIS. :P

4. It's wrong to be as amused by one of my own icons as I am with this, but: It started with someone in a forum pointing out that Meryl's glasses in this photo are ridiculously similar to a certain Mr Potter's. I ran with it thereafter, what can I say. *weeps at my patheticness*

5. I started reading again! Granted it's hardly great literature as it is the 30th book in the by-now ridiculously tired and punny Xanth series by Piers Anthony (is it the 30th? it might just as easily be the 35th or some outlandishly huge number like that), but these books always make me happy. They might be silly and fluffy and pure fantasy - at least the later ones, the first nine still remain some of the best, most imaginative books I've ever read - but it feels like coming home. It feels like my childhood. ♥

6. No iTunes meme 'til tomorrow. I be tired and have not the energy to be uploading songs just now.

7. I still want to be in NYC on Nov 24. Someone going for Julia's concert, please promise to, like, come straight home and post the setlist and FLAIL VERY LOUDLY IN CAPSLOCK for me, yes? YES?

1. WOW. I have basically... just sat here and inhaled a TON of Hershey's chocolate kisses. So not good for me. *weeps* I found a bag of the dark chocolate ones that I brought back from New York in June but never got around to, you know, giving to other people. So I guess I'm gonna be eating them. ;)

2. I'm pretty amazed at my ability to survive an entire day on just over two hours of sleep. I wound up getting to bed at about ten past nine IN THE MORNING, and then getting up at 11.30 so I could shower before meeting my friend for lunch (yes, I was late). And unlike at work, I didn't feel the need to doze off throughout the day. Probably because I'm not doing soul-suckingly boring things like reading and filing or whatnot, but whatever.

3. Here's a little story about HOW MUCH I FAIL. After lunch, my friend and I were going to see the new Bond movie - so I collect the tickets, note that it's cinema 10, and herd said friend in the direction of the huge lighted 10 sign in the corridor. We settle in our seats amd start giggling about the cheerfully cheesy trailer advertising some brainless Emma Roberts movie... and REALLY GETTING INTO IT, because I may be ancient, but I still love fluffy chick flicks like that. But then someone who works for the cinema - he had the t-shirt and everything - came over and asked us nicely for our ticket stubs. TURNS OUT I HAD BROUGHT MY FRIEND INTO THE WRONG THEATRE AND WE WERE JUST WAITING FOR A TOTALLY DIFFERENT MOVIE TO START. *weeps* I'm just amazed that the people whose seats we were so rudely occupying hadn't come right up to us and told us to GFTO - they actually contacted service staff, wtf! I'd have just demanded the idiots in my seats to LEAVE. I'm glad we were alerted to being in the wrong cinema though. They were showing some stupid local animation movie based on a literature text we all had to do in secondary school. The trailer = DIRE.

4. Quantum Of Solace! Was fun, insofar as relentlessly dark, violent movies can be fun in a totally perverse way. There are next to NO moments of levity in this film. And not that I can judge since I... errrr, haven't seen any Bond movies all the way through beyond Casino Royale, but this one FELT more Bond-like to me (based on the reading I've done about the franchise in magazines and stuff) despite the complete lack of dodgy humour. (Aside from the name of Agent Fields... which you only discover in the credits, mwahahaha.) Casino Royale felt like BOURNE, not BOND. This one, at least, went a little crazier with the conspiracy theories and wacky megalomaniacal villains rather than get all super-poncey about the Bond origin story.

5. Today I also felt a ridiculously strong URGE to just READ again. I haven't read properly all year - I've managed to sneak in some fantasy and kids' books around the edges, but mostly I've not had time for recreational reading outside of work and the interweb. I strolled through a couple of bookstores today though - I love just BROWSING, don't you? - and so suddenly wanted to be stuck IN a book, just living that world and those characters and argh. I resisted buying anything new, because god knows I have enough unread books scattered around my room. But I'm going to READ something, once I'm done with my current issue of Empire. I'll get to read when I go to Melbourne too! :D

6. On a related but decidely silly note: is anyone else here a book dork who actually... um, totes judges books by their covers? *weeps* If I have the pick of the same book with different covers, odds are I'll pick the one that I find prettier and more aesthetically appealing, even if it means a small price differential. But it also means I just... won't buy some books I DO want? Like Cornelia Funke's Inkdeath, which completes the trilogy - I WANT IT, and I don't even mind that buying the hardcover would mean it doesn't match my paperback copies of the other books. But the paper it's printed on is annoyingly smooth photocopier paper, so I feel like I'm reading a textbook rather than a NOVEL. So I'm not buying that until it comes out in paperback. :P Also, I will never buy this sulphurous edition of A Lion Among Men because it's so YELLOW. The American edition is SO MUCH PRETTIER, AMIRITE.

7. Yoga again. TOUGH instructor today. He made us jump around like frogs, up and down our mats, WTF. O_O Why do I do these things to myself I will never understand.

8. Christmas has come to Orchard Road (our main shopping district). There are Christmas trees and decorations everywhere already. Although, randomly, I think it's only in Singapore that you can walk down the street and have someone playing an er hu version of Yesterday Once More, wtf. I live in a weird, weird land.

9. I am deeply concerned by the fact that I JUST posted a batch of 75 Meryl icons yesterday, and already I have nine new ones. Not to mention the almost 30 I have from Falling In Love which I'm not posting until I'm done spamming the heck out of that movie. (Seriously, how can I resist? Look at the PRETTY!)

10. And now I'm DEFINITELY going to go to bed, before 2am (or about 2am, anyway), since I don't even know how it's almost 2am and yet I'm subsisting just fine on less than three hours of sleep. It must be the chocolate. :P

1. Yay for a lazy weekend following on a lazy week - I haven't slept as much as I should (OMG it's 4am *cries*), and I haven't watched ANY of the TV I was going to watch, augh. But... urm, at least I got to rest and chill out a bit?

2. Watched Blindness with a friend on Saturday - I really liked it. Not an easy movie to love, and it certainly wasn't perfect by any means (I would have liked to kill the voiceovers at least ten times over)... but it was intelligent in fashioning a dystopian world in which everyone goes blind (except for one woman), quite harrowing to sit through in places, and Julianne Moore - as always - was phenomenal. I do not understand how this woman does not yet have one, two, twenty Oscars. (Okay, because that might involve her getting an Oscar for Benny & Joon, so let's stick with one or two.)

3. Then I went to experience LOCAL THEATRE OF FAIL with my elder brother. He badgered me into watching The Wizard Of Oz - based on the movie with deleted songs (like The Jitterbug) added back in - and I figured I should put my money where my mouth is and support local theatre or it will never take off the way I would like for it to do. The production wasn't... dire. There were some interesting bits, and I kind of had a crush on the dorky Australian actor who played the Tin Man. But it still felt a bit painfully amateurish (it wasn't supposed to be), and... well, I had to duck out at interval and listen to Julia sing The Wizard And I to steel myself to get through the second act. *weeps*

3a. (A gripe: My brother EXPECTED me to record as he forgot to bring his own recorder - yes, I have converted him, ha ha - and then INSISTED ON TALKING throughout the show. Why oh why oh WHY does he keep doing that?! He should KNOW that recorderS pick up AMBIENT NOISE, that's what they are MADE TO DO, WTF. Good thing my battery died. :P I couldn't be bothered to bring fresh batteries and it wasn't a show I'd want to KEEP anyway.)

4. I went to bed at 7am on Sunday but managed to get up and actually meet people for lunch! Mmm, aburi sushi. I love me some sashimi, but when it's done RIGHT, half-seared fish is the way to go. ♥ We had a good long chat, which was nice - I hardly get to see these two friends, and I've literally known them almost half my life. It's crazy how work keeps you from meeting up, even though one of these friends works in the SAME BUILDING as me. Insanity.

5. And then I was supposed to do SOMETHING - watch a movie and/or tv, go for yoga... and I wound up flailing and taking a two-hour nap instead. WTF ARGH. Good thing noldoparma asked me out for dinner at the last minute to distract me from watching Mamma Mia for a FIFTH time (I swear, the temptation has been STRONG this weekend). MORE Japanese food (I could subsist on this forever) - unagi (eel) and asari (clam) kamameshi (claypot rice). See here - man. Why so yummy? BTW, I love how Singaporeans clearly have nothing better to do at meal-times than take pictures of their food, since I didn't have to look hard to find a picture of exactly what I ate for dinner last night. Mwahaha. Book shopping with ridiculous discounts after (I have lots of kids' books now - including Neil Gaiman's newest, as well as the new Xanth paperback, as I am a dorky completist that way), then dessert.

6. And why was I FLAILING, might you ask? Not that I ever really NEED a reason, but the simplystreep.com forum has been down since the beginning of October due to bad spamming issues, which has criminally prevented me from getting at Meryl flail and pictures. Today, for some reason, I was FINALLY able to register, so I swooped in there and POSTED LIKE A MOFO so they can't cut me. And then I went through SIXTY PAGES OF PICTURES posted by the people on the forum because it's better than going through the 10,000 pictures in the image archive by myself. (RIGHT?) Found a shit-ton of new gorgeous photos (predictably, icons have already been made), and one of my ABSOLUTE favourites is my new icon - SO. EFFING. BEAUTIFUL. AMIRITE. - but the one I liked BEST, after looking through a couple hundred photos...?


AHAHAHAHA. DORK. ♥ ♥ ♥

7. Finally, everyone NEEDS to watch this video - because Perfect is one of my FAVOURITE Julia songs ever (EVER EVER) and it's such a treat to get to WATCH her perform it live. She acts the crap out of it and it breaks my heart, is what it does. It's SO. SAD.

8. Okay. I'm going to bed now, even though my younger brother and his friends have been playing Rock Band for the LAST FIVE HOURS (no lie) and they're clearly practising the same ONE song OVER AND OVER AGAIN. It's a public holiday on Monday, but I'm going into work anyway because I can't keep up with everything otherwise. But I also plan to go for yoga and... err, watch a movie. I have a free voucher that I HAVE to use tomorrow... and there's nothing to SEE but High School Musical 3. *weeps* So I guess that's what it'll have to be...??

1. POOL OF FAIL. I somehow managed to finish all my work at a perfectly respectable hour of 6.30 in the evening, and drove down to the pool all ready to, you know, actually EXERCISE again. I didn't, unfortunately, as I was informed that there was some kind of 'chemical imbalance' that meant the pool was under maintenance. BAH.

2. I wound up driving home and taking a long walk instead. (What's up with me this past couple of weeks - I can't bear the thought of actually going RUNNING. I think I'm just lazy.)

3. Good thing about walks though - and I suspect this is why I've started to prefer walks to runs - is that I can read while I'm walking. Well, technically, I SHOULDN'T, because the path is hardly well-lit at the best of times and I will either go blind or smash into something. Bah, I didn't let that stop me though. I raced through Rebel Angels, the second book of the Gemma Doyle trilogy, and actually finished the WHOLE THING FASTER THAN I EVER THOUGHT POSSIBLE. OMG OMG. I WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT. AND I WILL, UNDER THE CUT. I'll white out the spoilers, just in case, and people might want to avoid comments if they don't want to get spoiled. Also, people who come flail with me: I haven't read book 3, though I will be correcting that SOONEST. SO NO SPOILING ME FOR BOOK 3, MMMKAY.

( Rebel Angels - a twist in the tale )

4. Busy week planned ahead - family dinner tomorrow night, yoga trial on Wednesday, EVITA on Thursday, and a play and IDINA on Friday. FUNTIMES. XD At least they're GOOD plans, rather than, you know, the ones I usually make i.e., no plans so I can be back at work at a moment's notice. :P

5. BED! Before 3.30am, perhaps! Gasp!!

1. I am a lazy bugger. I woke up at... well, almost 5pm, shall we say (in my defense, I went to bed at 9am), and had all kinds of plans to run or skate or sign up for yoga classes. Suffice it to say that none of THOSE things happened. Instead:

2. I'm a big book dork and spent $130 at the Kino book sale. :D All on kids' books, because we have long ago established that I am six and therefore really grown-up. But I'm so happy with my haul! I have the entire Gemma Doyle trilogy now, since it comes so highly recommended by llyfrgell, and also pretty much the whole Adventure series by Enid Blyton. Also, I had this HUGE wave of nostalgia when I spotted Anne of Green Gables on the display shelf - as part of its CENTENNIAL EDITION celebration, OMG. Then I realised I had absolutely no frickin' clue where my entire series of Anne books had gone to, and that I'd probably thrown the lot away. So I bought the full set of all eight books. O_o Pleased with my purchases, but OMG, when am I going to find the time to READ them all?!

3. I am obsessed with N2N and NEED TO STOP MAKING ICONS. OH GOD. I know this. But I can't stop! It's so addictive! *weeps*

4. I love Empire. It's the only movie magazine - UK edition - I read religiously, and it makes me happy. And dorky. Not to mention the fact that the August edition, which I've only just got around to reading, has a huge splash interview with David and Gillian. WIN. Here's my favourite bit from that interview. When asked to pick a favourite XF moment, Gillian had this to say:

1. FIVE DAYS TO GO! I'm staring at my schedule now trying to decide where and when I can fit in shows, and am currently, like, WHOA. If everything works out, I'll have seen thirteen shows in NYC in the space of nine days. O_O

2. OMG. MY HAIR, RIGHT? IS, LIKE, RED. SDKFJSLDJLASDA. I did not realise this when I left my hairdresser's today: in the light of the shop, it looked fine, and pretty much what she promised me (basically, a dark brown base with violet highlights - which I thought would be interesting). Now that I'm home, and looking at my hair in the mirror? The highlights are RED, OMG. There's no other word for it. I don't think it's hideous, per se, but OMG HAVE I MENTIONED IT'S RED? This is insane! It isn't quite as jarring as the time I coloured my hair a couple of years ago to something resembling a lion's mane, as my friends described it - vaguely orange/blonde highlights on a fairly light brown base. Talk about eye-popping. Oh dear. OH DEAR. At least I really like the cut. I'll have to get used to the colour, I guess, LOL.

3. And since my hairdresser admonished me to not wait six months until I go back again, which I always do, I guess I'll just have to go get this colour fixed in three months' time or something. By which point the colour would probably have been washed out and I'd be PINK or something. :P

4. I did at least manage to finish reading Inkheart during the FOUR HOURS I was getting my hair done though. (THIS is why I go back once every six months, for serious.) Yay, first book of the year! It was a fun read, and felt like quite a cinematic novel - so now I really want to see the movie!

5. Have some Youtube spam. I am an idiot and went searching for more Mamma Mia stuff even though the movie only opens here in friggin' September. Also, I've not been watching Britain's Got Talent, but before our newly regular "cook-in" dinners today, my family friend showed me a video of George Sampson street-dancing during the semi-finals to a funked-up version of Singin' In The Rain, and it was AWESOME.

6. RED. *weeps*

1. I AM GOING TO BE SPAMMY TODAY. Because I feel spammy. Lots of spammy goodness.

2. I'm actually feeling not too bad work-wise - I spent waaaaay too long chatting with *ahem* weazel_luv but still managed to get through the masses of work I had on my plate, and managed to leave early enough to actually do some exercise for once. Which was nice, though now I'm aching all over. Why?

3. Because I went skating, for the first time all year, I think! I'm glad I persevered and skated my usual five laps of the track by the huge drain near my house - it started to drizzle, kind of, halfway through the second lap, and I was all, like, I'm not going to be out here to be roasted by lightning while on skates. But it never amounted to much more than a drizzle, so... it was good. Tiring, but good. Also? Guess who is a loser? I realised after I'd put on my skates and guards and everything and left the house that I had my shorts inside out. SIGH. SO CLEVER. It was night-time though, and I wasn't about to change just because I apparently don't know how to put on clothes even after almost three decades of practice, so. HEY. IT WAS NIGHT-TIME. PEOPLE COULDN'T TELL THAT I AM AN IDIOT.

4. Oh god IDINA MENZEL. *sobs a bit from the awesome* I've been waylaid by other singers since - quite obviously - but Idina was the first and gah has she ever been reminding me recently about how amazing she can be when she trots out that high belt of hers. I'm just a very little bit obsessed with her high notes in I'll Be Seeing You, which she performed for PBS' Memorial Day concert yesterday (go here to watch both songs.) And I keep forgetting how much I ADORE Where Do I Begin. Plus Idina looked gorgeous at the concert - her hair, GAH, so old-school Hollywood!! *flails a bit* Ah Idina. Why must you pwn me so.

5. I HAS NEW MUSIC CRACK FOR EVERYBODY! I promised people some Gavin & Sarah!


6. I need to stop comparing original recordings of Broadway songs to Julia's versions. Spread A Little Sunshine from the Pippin OBC just came on, and it's a fun, trilling version - but it doesn't quite have... erm, Julia's verve? Anyone who's seen her belt the living daylights out of the song and... errrr, sex it up but good should know what I'm talking about!

7. I've started reading again! YES. I love to read. Love it. But work has been so crazy this year that I've only managed to read magazines outside of work all year. FOR SERIOUS. SO STUPID. But really, no books at all, nada, zip, zero. So this weekend, when I couldn't find one of my magazines and finished another one, I started on Inkheart by Cornelia Funke. Yes, a kid's fantasy book, don't judge. It's good so far, though I'm only a fifth of the way through. And of course, being the movie fandork that I am, I had to go hunt down cast info for the upcoming movie. I APPROVE. Helen Mirren as Elinor? That should be awesome. :D I'm less pleased about Brendan Fraser as Mo, though I don't even dislike him - am mostly apathetic towards his career. Shall give him the benefit of the doubt, however. Plus, Andy Serkis as Capricorn? NICE. I haven't even encountered Capricorn in the book yet, and I'm like, dude. Andy Serkis is creepy enough for ANY VILLAIN. ;)

8. iTunes, OMFGWTF? Michael Crawford singing Reflection from Mulan is both a little bit gay and a lot weird.

9. Still hooked on Desperate Housewives. Tornado double-bill ftw!! I shall now log off - before 1.30am, shock horror! - and watch an episode before bed. :)

10. LAST THING. My scroll button on my mouse has stopped working for Firefox. Why the hell! It works for everything else in the computer, as far as I can tell. Just not for Firefox, which is driving me batty when I try to scroll through my flist. Flist: any suggestions on how to debug this!?! Apparently shutting down and restarting Firefox works, who knew. :p

I was tagged by lfae! This is SUCH a fab meme and so fun to do - I've tagged people, but ALL of you should give it a go. ;)

Create an image of nine things you currently really like, explain the things, and tag six others so they can share some inspiration and positive vibes too. - ETA: I cheated and made it nine things I REALLY love, not just currently... or I'd have a rather different meme result, like Julia Murney, Idina Menzel, Julia Murney, Wicked, Julia Murney etc...!! ;)

1. It's 5am, OMG. I told myself I was going to bed early. EARLY, dammit. (By which I usually mean 2am, but whatever.)

2. The meds are working, sort of. I can confirm this because, when I take them, I am considerably healed. I don't cough as much or as spectacularly - phlegm is kept to a bare minimum - and because three (count 'em, three) of my meds all cause drowsiness, I've been sleeping like a baby elephant at random points throughout the weekend. This is good.

3. However, I was mistaken to think I was properly on the mend - it's just the meds giving me that false impression, unfortunately. This I know because I am currently at the tail end of one med-popping cycle (i.e., I'll be imbibing the pills in a matter of minutes), and they've all stopped masking my very real, still-right-there-under-the-pretense-of-improved-health illness. I am now coughy again, and the green gunk in lungs was apparently only temporarily banished. FAIL. I am iller than I thought. ('iller' is a word in a post that is made of spam.)

4. In the spirit of nostalgia: anyone else here ever read the Chalet School series by Elinor M Brent-Dyer? This is probably my one true book fandom - I remember writing fanfic at the age of ten or something, before I even knew what fanfic was and that other people did it too, about the characters in this series. Throughout my life I have gone through bouts of extreme crazed fangirliness for these books (usually when I've procured shiny new ones in the 62-book series - yes, 62 books, all of which have roughly the same plot but never cease to amuse me anyway!). And while I was cleaning up old Gilmore Girls fic for reposting, I realised I had CS fics on my hard-drive that I'd posted on a CS forum during one such fangirly craze in 2005 - not to mention an unfinished crackfic and one of the longest WIPs I've ever written. I SO DO NOT NEED ANOTHER FANDOM RIGHT NOW - but re-reading these fics, and seeing how I consciously aped EBD's style of writing (a fun exercise, to retain the same slightly stilted, British air while making it your own), really makes me want to finish up the ones languishing in my computer, dammit. Hmmm. Maybe I will. I'll probably re-post those old CS fics here too, for my own amusement if for nobody else's. ;)

5. So: is the writer's strike over or not?!

6. Welcome to ropo, krispyxf, giddygeek, starhud5 and nut_meggers! Good to see you guys here! :)

7. *uses Olive icon because it is made of LOL-WIN*

As of 11 Aug 08:
I've had the same goals for the last couple of years - watch at least 100 movies, read at least 20 books. lfaelfae told me that I should totally post my lists, since she and Lana and Alex have been doing so. OKAY.
I have doubts that I will hit 100 movies by the end of the year. I'm doing pretty well, I think, but man. There's NOTHING I want to see from now until the end of August. I COULD just put a DVD on, I guess, but dude. What about FLAILING ONLINE, HMMM?
And I had had fears of not even reading 20 books this year - a very moderate target, I know, but I was pretty sure as of a month ago that  I wouldn't even hit five. For some reason, I've just not been up to reading much this year. Blame it on work, flail, what have you. But now that I've started again, I'm, like, why the hell did I stop!?!? And maybe I will hit 20 by year's end - I'm on a kids' fantasy kick right now, which makes for easier and faster reading than, say, BILL CLINTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. (Which I enjoyed, don't get me wrong. But man. 1,000 pages of text like this took me AGES.)

Movies
1. In the Valley of Elah
2. National Treasure: Book of Secrets
3. Eastern Promises
4. I Am Legend
5. Elizabeth: The Golden Age
6. American Gangster
7. Dan In Real Life
8. Michael Clayton
9. The Darjeeling Limited
10. Cloverfield
11. The Savages
12. 27 Dresses
13. Mr Average
14. Grease
15. Grease 2
16. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (x2)
17. Away From Her
18. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
19. Atonement
20. CJ7
21. Gone Baby Gone
22. Kung Fu Dunk
23. Juno
24. No Country for Old Men
25. Persepolis
26. There Will Be Blood
27. La Vie En Rose
28. Charlie Wilson's War
29. L: Change the World
30. August Rush
31. The Spiderwick Chronicles
32. Grace Is Gone
33. Be Kind Rewind
34. Horton Hears A Who
35. Becoming Jane
36. Semi-Pro
37. The Bucket List
38. I'm Not There
39. Street Kings
40. Definitely, Maybe
41. The Other Boleyn Girl
42. The Wizard of Oz
43. Iron Man
44. Harold & Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo Bay
45. Nim's Island
46. Wilde
47. Made of Honour
48. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
49. Sex and the City: The Movie
50. Baby Mama
51. Mad Money
52. Fargo
53. Out of Africa
54. Wanted
55. Get Smart
56. Penelope
57. Kung Fu Panda
58. Hancock
59. It's A Boy/Girl Thing
60. Hellboy II: The Golden Army
61. Red Cliff
62. The Dark Knight
63. X-Files 2: I Want To Believe (x2)
64. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
65. Journey to the Centre of the Earth
66. Mad About English
67. Wall-E
68. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
69. Step Brothers
70. Mamma Mia (x5!)
71. Vicky Cristina Barcelona
72. A Prairie Home Companion
73. Burn After Reading
74. Bottle Shock
75. Blindness
76. High School Musical 3
77. Falling In Love
78. Tropic Thunder
79. Heartburn
80. Where In The World Is Osama bin Laden?
81. Quantum Of Solace
82. The Bridges of Madison County
83. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
84. Il y a longtemps que je t'aime (I've Loved You So Long)
85. Sex Drive
86. Ghost Town
87. Bolt
88. Four Christmases
89. Body Of Lies
90. Cape No 7
91. City Of Ember
92. Zack And Miri Make A Porno
93.  Twilight
94. Nick And Norah's Infinite Playlist
95. Yes Man
96. Bedtime Stories
97. Australia
98. The Visitor
99. Seven Pounds
100. Manhattan

Books
1. Inkheart - Cornelia Funke
2. Carnation of the Upper Fourth - Elinor M Brent-Dyer
3. Inkspell - Cornelia Funke
4. A Great and Terrible Beauty - Libba Bray
5. Rebel Angels - Libba Bray
6. The Sweet Far Thing - Libba Bray
7. The Island Of Adventure - Enid Blyton
8. Stork Naked - Piers Anthony
9. The Thief Lord - Cornelia Funke
10. Hollow Tree House - Enid Blyton
11. The End of Mr Y - Scarlett Thomas
12. Night Watch - Sergei Lukyanenko
13. Day Watch - Sergei Lukyanenko
14. Twilight Watch - Sergei Lukyanenko

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