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. 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. I think people need to write a thesis about the phenomenon of peanut mist. So I've been eating peanuts for the last hour or so - when I cracked the first one open, it kind of sent up a little POOF of mist. What was that?! And don't tell me dirt. Because I've already eaten it. :P

2. HAVE YOU MISSED MY RANDOM?! Hee. It's been three days. Filled with work (yuck), movies (ranging from yuck to yay) and good friends (MUCH yay). Balanced out pretty well, I'd say.

3. Epic work day of epic fail - it's the main reason I disappeared for such ages. Honestly it was terrible. I went out for dinner with my sister and brother at a lovely fish restaurant in Greenwood (mmm, I love cod SO MUCH), and then for gelato (peanut butter & cookies and cream XD) after that, but had to go back into work because something was due first thing the next morning. (Even though I got the draft in on time, my stupid boss took ages to clear it, which makes me BITTER but argh, let's leave that can of worms closed, shall we?) I think the day that I realised I could work throughout the night in time for a morning deadline and ACTUALLY DID SO was a bad bad day for me - because it set a precedent. Once I've done it, staying all night is no longer off-limits, you know? No matter how tired it makes me or how plain stupid it is. Also, I hate that I stayed for HOURS on what should have taken me, like, two hours. WHY SO STUPID AND UNFOCUSED, ME? Grrr. Darn job.

4. So that was bad - but I went home, slept until noon-ish and went in to work. Was in NO MOOD to work, so didn't, and had an epic chat with irnbruise about, you know, awesome movies and awesome actresses (Isabelle Huppert ftw, seriously), among other things, and that was GREAT.

5. Airport after, to send mirime off - it was great having you back, Ka. ♥ And thanks for spotting Julia going to NYC with me. I'm so glad we got to do that together! XD

6. Met noldoparma in Borders after that, at about 9.15pm, figuring we'd have our usual epic chat over dinner/dessert/whatever. AHAHAHAHA. We didn't know what we were about to embark on. I think we stayed a couple of hours at the Borders bistro, chatting over calamari, and then we moved on to TCC (mmm, green tea freeze with red beans!) for QUITE a few more hours... until 3am, by which time we were ready for more food. So we moved onto McDonald's for... supper/breakfast/something, and ended up talking until 5am. If you did the math, that's AN EPIC EIGHT HOURS OF CHATTING. Like, a legit WORKING DAY, guys. We spent all of that chatting about EVERYTHING: politics, philosophy, work, our childhoods, art and fandom and everything ELSE in between, and omigod. Honestly, one of the most epic chats of my LIFE. Thanks for sitting there and picking through my brain with me, J. ;) It was fun.

7. Collapsed at home after that at about 7am, and slept 'til 4.30pm (!!!). Then it was time for a TON of movies: three, to be precise. Let The Right One In was creepily atmospheric, and I'm GLAD I subjected myself to it (I don't usually watch horror/vampire movies except for very good reason i.e., well-reviewed, as this one was, or epic lulz i.e., Twilight). Best movie of the day. Then, Marley And Me. AUGH. The ending made me cry, because it WAS sad, but the film was so manipulative. PUPPY PORN, for one thing, but it just... wasn't well-written, or particularly engaging, and Owen's character seemed SO neglectful to me of his family. Did not like. Third film was Last Chance Harvey - I would watch Emma Thompson in anything, and she and Dustin Hoffman had a nice chemistry. A sweet little film, not AMAZING, but nice. It was like Before Sunrise for the geriatric crowd, and set in the stone-washed loveliness that is London rather than Paris. I want to go back!

8. I decided to pretty up this rather boring entry with a minor pic-spam of my favourite film actresses - inspired by chatting with Leslie about Isabelle - and EEK. It ended up taking me SO LONG to find pictures and put them together. But, worth it.

( I need to go where people are serious about acting )

9. Brunch at 11.30, eek, and then work after that. I'D BETTER GET TO BED NOW.

1. Oh goodness, I'm sleepy. I was sleepy at 10pm, wtf. It's my version of jetlag, I guess - though not quite. If I had had adequate amounts of sleep over the last couple of nights after getting home, I'd be fine. But I keep... lingering online, predictably, which means I've spent the last two days functioning on four and seven hours of sleep respectively. Fail. I'm gonna crash after this (for serious), since it's back to work in a matter of hours. BLERGH DO NOT WANT.

2. And that's CNY over for another year - well, the festivities go on for a couple of weeks yet, but the main part of it, with the food and money and visiting relatives, is over now. There was a massive party at my house tonight, and I spent most of it bonding with my computer. Honestly? People annoy me so much sometimes. Also, my brother took back the laptop he 'gave' me as his new one is, for some reason, worse than this one. Urgh. I was looking forward to multi-tasking by using it while watching TV. I GUESS NOT, NOW. Sigh.

3. Since on occasion most of the time I'd much rather spend time flailing than with people, I plunged straight back into icon-making (visual representations of my fandoms ftw!), and that's what I've been doing all afternoon. Made a ton of Meryl ones, catching up on the stuff I missed while on vacation. I decided to post all my Falling In Love icons because I don't think anicons are gonna happen as I originally intended. I'm too lazy. (Aren't Meryl and Robert De Niro ridiculously hot together though?) I'm also saving up icons for a bigger Broadway batch - I've quite a few (slashy) Wonderettes icons, and I made ten Gypsy icons because hai, photo diary of closing night! Awesome. Also, it makes me a tiny bit less terrified of Patti to see her just waking up, or to see her sprawled on her dressing room floor (presumably stretching, though for a moment I thought she had fainted and was horrified that the photographer was busy taking pictures instead of HELPING her).

4. BTW, this POSSIBLE guest star for 30 Rock? FUCKING ROCKS MY UNIVERSE. YES PLZ. If this happens, I think my brain might very possibly break into a million teeny tiny pieces, and each piece would melt from the awesome. I'M PRETTY SURE I'M NOT EXAGGERATING THERE.

5. If any of you guys happen to be bored, I've some music to flail over. ( videos under the cut )

6. OMIGOD I NEED TO WATCH A MOVIE, GUYS. I haven't watched one in two weeks, I think. Can we say withdrawal?! I didn't watch anything on the flight(s) back since I was addicted to Tetris (yes, I fail hardcore). But! There'll be Doubt this weekend (CAN WE SAY MEGA ULTRA EXCITED?!), and a bunch of other Oscar movies to catch up on. I have a feeling I'll be watching three shows a day on the weekend. Oddly enough, I'm totally fine with that. :D

7. Is Photobucket being a mega-bitch for anyone else? I managed to upload my Meryl icons before the site stopped functioning normally, but man, is it ever being a pain right now. Grrr.

8. The prospect of being at work in seven hours or so makes my heart very very sad indeed. :(

1. I think this pretty much says it all, guys:



♥ Whatever (or even whether!) you celebrate, have a WONDERFUL holiday season! ♥

2. And I DID promise music, didn't I? So here's some Christmas cheer for everybody - some of my favourite songs for the season:

a. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas - The Carpenters
b. I Wonder As I Wander - Julie Andrews
c. O Holy Night - Julia Murney & Max von Essen
d. 平安夜 (Christmas Eve) - Emil Chau

( a little song-related flail )

3. In other news: I... totes overslept for work. And missed most to all of the Christmas Eve party. F A I L. I like how I don't oversleep, however much I abuse my body and have strange sleeping patterns, on a normal work day. On a day when NO ONE WORKS, however, I just... can't seem to get up. I even slept before 2.30, wtf. Sigh.

4. I drove down anyway, for the last part of the party, and picked my cousin up for dessert and to watch Bedtime Stories. Which is... SUCH a random movie. Funny, sure, and fun to watch. But raaandoom.

5. And then I came home, stuffed myself to the gills with leftover ham (soaked in brandy and raisin sauce) and pasta from the Christmas party, while watching 7-8 episodes of 30 Rock. OMG OMG. So obsessed with this show. I actually liked Alec Baldwin BEFORE I saw him play all of Tracy's relatives in a mock therapy session. AFTER THAT I WAS DONE. OMIGOD EPIC. EP. IC. *cries* I did take a break to watch a shit-ton of Emil interviews (I don't think I'll ever be done, he's been on the entertainment circuit for 22 years!) and fetch my aunt and uncle from the airport. But, back to 30 Rock tomorrow, YEEEES.

6. Also! Meryl gave a rather legendary press conference for Doubt which was translated into a million articles and soundbites across the web. Finally, some bright spark found a full audio of this interview, together with transcript. WAHEY. Because there's nothing I like more than listening to Meryl speak, unfiltered and just... unguarded. Laughing and being snarky and awesome. Also, it gives MUCH needed context to her apparent good cheer vis-a-vis a purported Mamma Mia sequel, thank god.

7. Now I'm off to bed. Have a lovely lovely day, everybody. Much turkey and presents and good wishes to y'all. :)

1. It's almost Christmas! I feel like I should have uploaded music for everybody - in fact, I probably WILL get around to doing that tomorrow, as a kind of Christmas eve celebration of awesome. I'm a bit lazy to do that tonight though.

2. Mainly because I am currently RIDICULOUSLY excited to be seeing Next To Normal in a few weeks' time. This interview with the incomparable Alice Ripley popped up on my Google alerts and pretty much made my evening. She talked about so many things! The new production, Side Show, her upcoming DC show (which I would so go for if I weren't going to see A Little Night Music in NYC instead...) plus, she fangirls Brian. A+, Alice, I approve. XD

3. So now I'm back on an N2N kick. VIDEO OF NEW PRODUCTION:



4. Oh wait, I lied about not having anything else to flail/ramble on about. I think know I've been horrifically remiss in flailing about Julia's November Joe's Pub concert. Mainly because I was overseas at the time, and then other fandoms got in the way, and well, I suck. So I decided today to just listen to the concert all the way through at work. Good god almighty. GUYS. I've flailed about it before. I KNOW I have. But if you trust my taste at all (and dudes, if you're STILL reading my LJ after this time, you must to a certain extent, right?), you HAVE to listen to Julia sing Sara Bareilles' Gravity, because it is ASTOUNDING. Does anyone have good to okay photos of this concert? I neeeeed to make album art for my iPod, and I can't remember where (or even if?) I saw good photos from this.

5. Meryl = ♥ Again, as always, why so articulate, Meryl? *sighs*

6. Oh god, HOLY BELTING OF AWESOME, ALICE.

7. Christmas Eve celebrations at work tomorrow - which means epic amounts of food and no work done, which is aces in my book. I'm due to take care of my cousin in the afternoon, as his parents are only returning from Japan at midnight. I shall take him out for lunch (if I can still eat after inhaling turkey at work) and watch Bedtime Stories. WUT, NO JUDGING. I don't think I can convince my cousin to come watch me weep over Hugh Jackman's sexiness in Australia for three hours straight. So Adam Sandler it'll have to be...

8. I think I'll... go and watch some more 30 Rock now. I watched the Seinfeld episode from Season 2 just now and died of LOL. OMIGOD TINA. She is almost criminally adorable. Also, my disturbing crush on Alec Baldwin continues. I think I should just go with the flow. Also the ship, because eek. Jack/Liz!! XD

9. I'm still downloading music, in between distractions. You guys are all AMAZING. Fanmixes to follow - probably as massive Christmas gifts to the flist. :D

10. God, I am boring as fuck these days. I apologise...

1. GUYS. ( JULIA. MURNEY. 16-MINUTE INTERVIEW. THAT'S RIGHT. )

2. I've just spent... far too long working out my show schedule for NYC. Is 18 shows in 13 days excessive? *weeps* On an impulse and at the last minute, I bought two tickets for my sister and myself for the closing performance of Gypsy, after they unceremoniously announced that its theatre is shutting its doors two months ahead of schedule. FAIL. And now I've got a huge albeit still tentative line-up of other shows planned and it's INSANITY.

3. There's also new Meryl video, but it's taking forever for Youtube to upload/process it today. OH WAIT, IT'S DONE. Awesome. Thanks much to pdt_bear for ripping it and sharing! ( Meryl on Doubt - including her thoughts on Cherry Jones )

4. Now I have some diabolical cough of extreme evilness. It's not constant, and sometimes I feel as if I'm imagining it and am... just, I don't know, playing at being sick so I don't have to do other things like exercise. And then I go into paroxysms of coughing, and life quickly becomes a whole lot less... fun. I coughed my way through a looong work meeting today, and also through family dinner.

5. On which I have one comment: it must be NICE to be filthy rich. I now have an ENORMOUS, gorgeous, lavish basket on my bed filled to the brim with... I haven't even looked inside yet, but I imagine goodies of every sort. I find that to be... kind of crazy as a Christmas gift, but wow.

6. Oh, I lied about having just one comment. The soup at dinner tonight deserves a special mention. ♥ Omigod - Buddha Jumps Over The Wall, which means delicious soup double-boiled over EIGHT HOURS: apparently six chickens were used, as well as pork, abalone, mushrooms, TWO kinds of fish maw (because one wouldn't do, clearly), and I'm missing all the other herbs and ingredients, but OMG. Orgasmic experience in soup form. TALK ABOUT INDULGENCE.

7. OH AND. mirime's home. XD YAY. If only for a day before she disappears with the rest of my family to Japan, leaving me behind *weeps*, but hey. It's still nice to have her back. ♥

Dear self:

1. 6.30pm is really NOT an acceptable time to be JUST WAKING UP FOR THE DAY. *sighs*

2. Happy things are good! Many happy things are even better. :D Dinner at Aeryn's yesterday: tagliatelle (which looked like fettucine) in a light creamy mushroom ragout with smoked salmon and salmon roe. ♥

3. Midnight movie: City Of Ember, good but not great. I just love being in a cinema though, doesn't even matter what I'm watching. ♥

4. And finally: FINDING THIS. Literally I have been obsessed with finding audio/video of this since I heard Emil sing a rendition of this live in 2005. And now I've FOUND IT. It's him, singing 領悟, one of my FAVOURITE songs and one of the most difficult, angsty songs written for a female ever (i.e., a pretty damn random cover.) So my life has kind of been made. ♥ ♥ ♥



5. You really need to get caught up on comments. GET ON THAT.

6. Off for dinner now with my family to celebrate my cousin's birthday. Life really IS pretty awesome right now. XD

... but I've been away aaaaages in interweb-time and I figured y'all have missed the flail. SURELY YOU HAVE!!??? FOR I HAVE A LOT TO FLAIL ABOUT.

All I can say is:

1. THANK GOD my dad has decrepit old bones, more decrepit than mine. He used the internet while I was in the shower and then promptly fell asleep, while my considerably younger brother and sister went out drinking. Since I am old but not THAT old, and also averse to social interaction/mingling, INTERNET TIME FOR ME. AND FLAILING FOR Y'ALL.

2. My sister's screening was SO FUN. *weeps* My sister is TALENTED, y'all. I'd share her clip, but I can't because it's not uploaded to youtube yet. It's one of my favourites from the night (almost two hours of mini-clips by animation students throughout her university), some of which were SO professional. EEEEE. GET A JOB AT PIXAR, mirime, and support my theatre habit!!! ;)

3. CAPSLOCK FLAIL TIME. ( MISSED ME, GUYS???? )

4. The cat just leapt over the armchair and then onto the floor and now it's staring at my feet. *weeps* Do not want to get scratched, aieeeeeeee!!!

5. OMIGOD. LIFE IS KIND OF AWESOME RIGHT NOW. WICKED TOMORROW. :D

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. Fuck I really really NEED to stop eating chocolate. Also, I had bought myself dinner (couscous and grilled vegetables) and was finishing it off when my brother - freshly done with mandatory military service and apparently now a fledgling cook - brought me samples of HIS dinner. Fried pork slices coated in a cereal/breadcrumb mixture of his own concoction. So now I've eaten way too much all day. SIGH.

2. It's only 1.19am but I'm really going to try and head bedward. (Yeah, all your reactions are similar to the one in my icon right now, yeah?) Honestly though. I was TERRIBLE at work today. Aside from the times when I was chatting with weazel_luv, I was sleeping or almost sleeping and ARGH. No wonder I managed to survive on no sleep on Sunday. FAIL, ME. So I'm gonna try and sleep a little more.

3. I am totes phoning it in at work these days though. I don't even know why I bother anymore. I would like very much to contract a non-fatal, non-painful, non-debilitating illness that would require me to be at home, in bed, for a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, I used up THAT karma, and didn't appreciate it then because it meant missing out on Ian McKellen doing Lear and the Seagull live. YUP. MY LIFE SUCKS AND I ALREADY HAD CHICKEN POX LAST YEAR. :P That being said, I DID spend those two weeks watching House i.e., it was awesome times.

4. AND OMG GUESS WHAT?! I'm SO PROUD to be a Singaporean today!!!!!! YOU KNOW WHO CAN RECITE MY PLEDGE? Chinese mega star Gong Li! (Yeah, I'm being sarcastic, but hey, it's a sight better than having Fann Wong represent us in Hollywood, no?)


Yup. Randomly enough, she's now a Singaporean.
This was FRONT-PAGE NEWS in our local paper. Above the fold and above an article promising financial relief to deal with, you know, the GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS. I like our priorities.

According to that article, I was apparently upset that she did not turn up for a ceremony of some sort back in August. Wish I'd received THAT memo. I think I was too busy dying at work...

5. And now, sleep. I'll post an iTunes-ish meme tomorrow. I bet you all can't wait for that. :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. I really don't have anything substantive to say today. Spent all day being sleepy at work. What is this fail. Had dinner with the family. Which was - good, as always. Popiah and seafood mee sua by my dad's gf: she should cook for us ALWAYS.

2. I really need to STOP writing epic movie reviews when I am three months and 16 movies behind in my reviews. SERIOUSLY. ARGH. How is this productive in any way!!

3. I promised: Julia singing Almost Like Being In Love with... two other people. (As always, MANY thanks to the master for sharing!)

4. Because I have been stalking staring at browsing far too many photos of Meryl: ( I'm pretty sure developing a ship based on PHOTOS is WRONG WRONG WRONG )

5. And that's it. I genuinely think I'm going to bed before 3am for once. Tired.

1. Surely - SURELY - it is wrong to be hungry now even though I had the unhealthiest thing for dinner (a Chicken McNuggets meal, if you're wondering)? Okay, granted that was almost five hours ago now. EEK. It's 4am. I don't see how this is going to end well for me at work tomorrow today. As it is, yesterday? I woke up at 8.15am. The time I'm supposed to BE AT WORK. O_O

2. At least it hasn't affected my productivity! Another six-page paper, this time in about four hours, and OMG OMG, with MINIMAL changes straight through my boss. WELL DONE, ME. I'd be even more proud if I weren't thisclose to wanting to kill myself instead. :P

3. Stayed at work late and then drove down to the new terminal to bid N farewell as she heads back to Dublin. It's nice to live in a country where you can drive from end to end in under 30 minutes, y/y? (At my speed, that is. At a more normal speed, it probably takes about 35-40 minutes.) I must say our new terminal is GORGEOUS.

4. I am not going to subject your flists to the fact that ( OMIGOD I AM SO OBSESSED WITH MAMMA MIA )

5. I really. REALLY. want to watch Prairie Home Companion now. (I love how my Meryl flail always gets awakened every time a new movie of hers is released. JUST WAIT UNTIL 'DOUBT' COMES OUT LATER THIS YEAR.) I have the DVD. THIS WEEKEND. When I shall also watch House and Pushing Daisies, AIEEE.

6. I fail at comments. D: I will catch up tomorrow, I promise. Right now, I need to sleep.

1. HAI IT'S 5.25AM. WTF. And my Saturday actually got off to a kind of normal start too - got up just before noon, which is pretty good considering that I left work only at 2am! Now that's all screwed-up. Clearly a normal sleeping schedule is not something I am genetically capable of maintaining.

2. Great GREAT day though, first in a long while. I met N for lunch - we were SUPER CLASSY and had Pepper Lunch in the new J8 food court before we went to see Mamma Mia... YES, AGAIN. For me, anyway. Which makes Viewing #3. And it still makes me soooo happy. It's been ages since I've done this with a movie; I think the only other ones I've seen more than three times in the cinema are House Of Mirth (because Gillian pwns, kthx) and Chicago (because... I liked CZJ in it A LOT?). Would watching Mamma Mia AGAIN next weekend if it's still screening be excessive? Whatever - it won't be as excessive as the fact that, today, I AUDIO-ED A MOVIE. Yes. FAIL. Anyway: below the cut are the movie versions of the songs... because you know what? They ARE different from what's on the soundtrack...

( the winner takes it aaaaaaaaaall )

3. AND THEN, I did normal things. Like go for yoga instead of nap, and go for a huge family dinner - N is on her way back to Ireland for school on Thursday, so we ate and watched movies and hung out in her honour. :D The food was incredible: it was supposed to be sukiyaki, but it turned into a huge Japanese steamboat dinner. We just kept cooking wafer-thin slices of beef and pork in simmering sukiyaki sauce. Mmmm. Also salmon and tofu and beanspouts and udon and OMG. Then we had gorgeously flaky apple turnovers for dessert. SO YUMMY. XD

4. Also, Singapore has gone F1-barmy! So many of my friends and family have gone for the heats or qualifiers over the last couple of days. The final is later tonight... and entire chunks of the country's roads are cut off and dedicated to this. Crazy - I can't imagine how being packed into the bleachers like sardines on a warm toasty night like yesternight could've been preferable to watching it live on StarWorld from the comfort of one's house. Especially since it's unlikely the cars will spend more than three seconds in your vicinity anyway. But what do I know.

5. I was retagging some entries and came across this epic post full of epic flail. My goodness, I've had a LOT of fandoms, haven't I? Reading the post made me soooo happy and nostalgic. Also, I've decided it's a good way to *ahem* kick off Cocktoberfest in a couple of days' time... stay tuned. ;)

6. Suddenly I have too many things to do today, and it's already 6.10am, argh. Sleep, obviously, is key. I want to go for yoga. I need to watch House. And Woody Allen's new movie. Also I have icons to make. AND I'm supposed to meet people for tea? I think? Clearly all these things take precedence over studying for the GREs. ARGH LIFE. WHY DO YOU PWN ME SO. :P

7. Last, but not least, THANK YOU, GUYS, for your comments here. Seriously. They made me feel so much better after this week (read: six years) of utter fail at work. ♥

8. How is it that I've been writing this post for an hour? It's 6.22am, ARGH. O_O

1. Busy busy weekend! Kind of. It was gorgeously rainy all of Saturday, and I couldn't drag myself out of bed when I was supposed to. I DID manage to get up though, eventually...

2. In time for bowling! My family and its attendant mass of cousins and friends is having some kind of weird family sports tournament thing - I am incapable of contributing for the other sports (football, pool, what have you), so I decided to turn up for bowling. Not that I'm any good at this, but at least I've bowled before and have not been known to be thoroughly incompetent at it. We wound up bowling three games in total, which was fun - I managed to get my score above 110 on the last two games, which was nice since I haven't played in probably four years.

3. After that, YOGA! And OMG, YAY. It FELT like an easier practice today - I think it was, the instructor was very focused on the breathing and chilling out in between poses, so it didn't kick my butt as much, and I'm not aching now the way I was after the first two sessions. Which is good. I feel less broken and don't dread going into the studio as much as I did after the first torture session of fail.

4. Then, dinner back home with the family. Mmm, beef hor fun from Geylang. LOVE. The one thing I'd miss like crazy if I moved overseas again? (Other than my family, of course...) FOOD IN SINGAPORE, OMG.

5. And finally, my first extended viewing of some Olympics sporting events! We watched the gold medal match for women's volleyball - I only knew to look out for Logan Tom because of your flail, Robin, but she's SO GOOD. Then the entire rhythmic gymnastics competition. GOODNESS. The things the human body can do! I got a bit flaily over the bronze medallist Anna Bessonova - fuckity. She was amazing! And deserved a better score on all her events, in my opinion. Plus, she's SO PRETTY. OMG, so bendy. And after that, we LOL-ed at the synchronised swimming event, because it's just the randomest, funniest sport to watch ever. Aside from the fact that all the girls look like drag queens because they have SO much makeup piled on to ensure it lasts through the routine, it's just... DUDE, ESTHER WILLIAMS, YOU KNOW? I must say Spain and Russia were INCREDIBLE though.

6. ( This way for some LOLZ )

7. It feels very very wrong indeed that I haven't watched a movie this week. There's NOTHING - absolutely NOTHING - playing in cinemas that I actually want to see though. BAH.

8. 5.55am. ME FTW. I have a lunch appointment at 12.30pm, argh - I sure hope I can wake up for it!

1. MACHINES OF FAIL ARE FIXED. Here's hoping, anyway. I took the half-day off work and brought the car to two workshops - thank goodness the guy at the official Mazda dealership was nice enough to tell me that I could get a patching job done considerably cheaper elsewhere, and so I did that. For just over $50 as opposed to $450+! I kind of had to sit in the middle of a neighbourhood industrial estate and read a book for an hour and a half while I waited for said patching to be done, but well. Better that than having to go two entire working days without wheels AND pay nine times more for that dubious privilege, Y/Y?!

2. The tech guy also came and fixed my computer - hopefully - and diagnosed it as a RAM problem without my having to tell him that. I couldn't anyway, as I was having a late lunch outside when he turned up at my house without prior warning.

3. OH MY GOD, MY FAMILY OF FAIL. So I got home from the mechanic's at about 6.30pm and decided to take a nap, for once, just before family dinner. I crashed on my sister's bed as there's all manner of junk on mine, and woke up quite a bit later. I heard everyone's voices outside but figured that dinner hadn't started yet... WRONG. THEY ATE DINNER WITHOUT ME. They thought I wasn't at home and had gone out for a run or something, even though MY CAR WAS IN THE DRIVEWAY AND I WAS SLEEPING IN MY ROOM. They actually looked inside and everything (or so they claim) and NO ONE SAW ME. There was NO FOOD LEFT. I ended up eating, like, a peach and a ton of cashew nuts and drank tea for dinner. THANKS, GUYS, ILU TOO. My family is so awesome. :P

4. I am currently SO ADDICTED to the song Fancy, OMG. Thanks for that, Julia Murney. I have all five versions by you playing on a loop on my iTunes right now.

5. IDINA. lissie_pissie asked if I had Idina's album I Stand and whether I could upload it, and I was, like, OMG OF COURSE. And since I did, I'll share it again with y'all. This download contains ALL the acoustic songs that have come out with the various versions of the album that have been released, so bluebonnets, you might want to snag this to help in your burgeoning Idina/Wicked flail? XD

6. Speaking of Idina. And Julia. OMFG HEARTBREAKER. ASDJALDJALSDJASDASDA.



7. I finally posted the Next To Normal icons I've been making over the last couple of weeks. I figured if I didn't stop now, I never would. NO MORE. NO. MORE. (Yeah, right...)

8. I'm never leaving work again, fyi. I'd better go to bed now because the next few days are going to be very looooong ones indeed. *sadface*

1. I'm not feeling TOO bad right now, but god - about an hour ago, I just wanted to curl up in bed and sleep. SO TIRED. I don't even know why; I've not been doing very much at work these days (thank god for that). BAH. This does mean that I'm actually going to do the unprecedented today: once I'm done with this post, I'm going to bed. YES THAT'S RIGHT. BEFORE 2.30AM, MAYBE. GASP.

2. Went out for a HUGE vegetarian (vegan, really) dinner with the family, as my aunt has quit her job and is heading off to Taiwan next week to serve in a mission over there. I tell you, if I'm ever going vegetarian, it will have to be in Singapore/Asia. Goodness gracious me, the THINGS they can do, the magic they can make, without eggs or meat! We had, to all intents and purposes, vegetarian sharks' fin, fish and beef rendang, among other things. It was insanely good even though it was probably all yeast and tofu.

3. You know what made me happy today? This made me happy today:



4. And finally! I snagged this meme from doctors_girl as I thought it was a really fun, easy way to find out more about all YOUR fandoms and celebrity crushes and whatnot. XD I've changed some of the questions, just for kicks. So please, indulge me! I intend to indulge myself...


5. And now, bedtime. Ooh, and to start reading The Sweet Far Thing, mayhaps. YAY!

6. But wait. Brian d'Arcy Shrek. OH. DEAR.