IT'S 5.51AM ON A WORK NIGHT. I HAVEN'T SLEPT YET. OR REALLY PACKED FOR MY TRIP. I HAVE, ON THE OTHER HAND, WATCHED 13 EPISODES OF HOUSE IN THE SPACE OF ONE DAY AND AM ALL CAUGHT UP. 5X23 WAS LEGENDARY, GUYS. LEGENDARY. TO THE POINT THAT I MADE A SHIT-TON OF ICONS RATHER THAN SLEEP, BECAUSE I. HAD. TO.

( MORE RANDOM FLAIL - SPOILERS AHOY )

ALSO NOW I HAVE TO PACK FOR NEW YORK WHEN I GET HOME TOMORROW. I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT'S ACTUALLY HAPPENING, BTW, WHAT EVEN IS MY LIFE.

I'M SOOOO LATE TO THE HOUSE FLAIL PARTY, GUYS. I FAIL. HOW DID I LET THIS SHOW GO FOR SO LONG? BUT I'M BACK NOW. So, you know, flail with me if you like? :D

p/s I am sooo behind on comments and checking the flist because I've been busy watching House. Will deal with that when I can, promise!

1. Am I posting from work right now? YES I AM. I don't give a damn. I was gonna post yesterday, but was so crazy shacked I fell asleep in bed... the perils of having a netbook, sigh. Though I guess it's better for me than falling asleep on my chair and waking up all bent and broken just to stagger to bed.

2. MY JOB FAILS SO DAMN HARD. After staying 'til 6.30am on Monday morning, went home and crashed, but went back in at 3pm and stayed 'til 1am. Then I didn't go back in until 1am the next day and stayed until 8pm that day. For NOTHING. There wasn't ANYTHING to write, or anything that I COULD write, and it was a complete waste of my time. I also discovered that what I was hoping to have happen at the end of the year - that would have given me a few months' reprieve from this hellhole - is in all likelihood NOT happening for me. So, you know, FML in every way.

3. I'm STALKING MY MAILBOX SO HARD. Still nothing as yet. Why does my mail not bring me flail, guys? WHY? D:

4. Icon meme from timeofyoursong, because I like icons and I like flail and I like flailing about icons. Let me know in your comment if you want to play:
1. Reply to this post, and I will pick six of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon glee.




( flail ensues )

5. And another meme, because this one looks like crazy fun. I suspect I'm too verbose to be quoteable though. ;) Go forth and play! And let me know if you have a thread too. :)



6. Okay I should stop procrastinating and work now. I don't want to. :( I'll flist properly tonight.

1. HERE'S A NEWS FLASH: MY JOB = FULL OF SUCK. Well, okay, that's not a news flash, it's a friggin' sad fact of my life. But I'm pretty certain I'm never going to get to go home at a normal time again - not for the next week... make that month (year? decade?), anyway. I am very much not looking forward to having even less of a life than I already do. And yet that is what shall happen. Fuckity. I whipped out a four-page paper in a few hours (again earning my stupid boss' five-figure salary for her) and went home at 11.30pm and STILL I'm not done with the work I have to do.

2. Is it any wonder that I actually looked up my vacation quota for the rest of the year? *weeps* Turns out I have 30 days, if I use my FULL quota, accumulated over years of service. How tempted am I to go back to NYC, like, yesterday? Also, I am having a minor Twitter war with curtains and llyfrgell right now, and I want a New York bagel with cream cheese and irnbruise has offered to buy me one if I go back! SURELY THE BEST REASON TO GO BACK TO NEW YORK EVER, Y/Y?!

3. Also, I super hardcore want to go back because llyfrgell watched The Marvellous Wonderettes on Sunday and I flailed about it with her and am now missing the show MORE THAN EVER. I want to see it again SO badly, especially with the original cast, and I'm bummed that Farah is leaving in early March. SAD. :( BTW, new icon inspired by Meredith and meepette - wtf, guys, I really did NOT make the pink & green connection until you pointed it out to me! How perfect is that, though. XD

4. I guess the one good thing about being made almost entirely of flail is that, no matter how depressing my work life can get (and trust me, it's heading in that direction as of today), my fandoms can and always WILL sustain me. SO MUCH AWESOME TODAY.

5. Julia's new hairstyle - or lack thereof - is worrying to me. She needs a hairbrush. Hair aside, however, she looks great in this interview for her Oklahoma production of Tommy. She talks about having been on SATC! XD And then she sings a bit from Tommy here. Again, I feel the need to reintroduce her to the concept of a hairbrush. But I think she is going to be FIERCE as Mrs Walker, who's with me?

6. Here is Reason #5,385 why Meryl Streep is better than you. You know, aside from the 15 Oscar nominations, her sass and her general awesome? She recently said in an interview that she needs to start recycling the expensive dresses she only wears to award shows - and she's gone and done just that: recycling a dress at the BAFTAs yesterday that she first wore thirty years ago, in 1979. WTH, SERIOUSLY. Way to make the rest of us feel like slovenly failures at life, Meryl. Unlike you, I'm going to look like this in thirty years, I know it.

7. The FLAILIEST thing I discovered today, however?? It's Emil-related, of course! I don't think it's FAIR, but his kids have inherited his musical ability - certainly his daughter Anya has a gorgeous voice (and is also gorgeous, which is good for her since, you know, her dad, bless his heart, really isn't). So I happened upon her Youtube channel, and she uploads videos of her singing duets with her dad while he plays the guitar. CUE MY BRAIN EXPLODING. Oh my god, seriously - they harmonise like crazy, and it's KICKASS, and they sound amazing AMAZING together. OMG OMG OMG OBSESSED. Plus they cover awesome English songs, like Two Of Us by the Beatles, and my personal favourite:

Falling Slowly - from Once the movie

SO. DAMN. BEAUTIFUL. ♥ ♥ ♥

8. Right, it's 3.45am. And it's not like I won't have a shit-ton of work to do tomorrow. I'm an idiot. Bedtime.

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. 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. It kind of sucks MAJORLY that I am actually sicker today than I was yesterday. I know I was JUST starting on the illness on Monday, but I was hoping that the meds would be able to help somewhat in preventing everything from going completely wrong. Well... no. Very much no. This is the most tenacious bug in the history of the universe - I pop the antiobiotics (theoretically for 12-hour stretches since I have to take one twice a day) and barely 4-5 hours later, the green gunk is BACK. I'm SO stuffed-up, although the cough isn't too bad, and I have illness aches. Like, my back, and my head at times, and blargh. I was NOWHERE near this ill in December. I guess this is my body's way of going: I warned you in December, didn't I? I CAME BACK ONCE. Well you didn't fix me then. TIME TO DIE.

2. To that end, I spent almost the whole day asleep. Got up at almost noon for lunch and meds, spent an hour trying to figure out a stupid Taiwanese website to buy tickets, watched one episode of Desperate Housewives (WHY IS IT KICKING SO MUCH ASS THIS SEASON??), and fell dead asleep again. Then I got up to go get a new ATM card (the kind that will allow me to draw money overseas, essential for upcoming NYC trip), and came home and fell asleep AGAIN. Proof that I'm really sick? I just got my hands on my brother's old laptop, which means I'm finally typing in the comfort of my bed - and I'm going to finish this post and just go to sleep, because, urgh. Sick.

3. Bright spot of the day: noldoparma and I have Superband tickets! For 7 March 09. TAIWAN HERE WE COME. XD Omigod. Second-row seats in the centre block, though not dead centre as, by the time I figured out the website and its archaic log-in requirements, my ORIGINAL, very awesome seats had been snapped up by someone else. Bah. Regardless! This is going to be the year of flail...

4. I really REALLY don't want to go to work tomorrow. But I fear I must as I'm slated for a whole set of interviews in the afternoon which I THOUGHT I could make it for, but I can't imagine trying to stay upright during the entire ordeal and trying to remain civil throughout. I'll see how I feel when I get up at 7+ in the morning, I guess. Bah humbug.

5. Finally - noldoparma mocked me for taking ages to write a post, as I had said I would post and then go to bed. She's right. The reason it took me so long this time, however, was because I decided to snag an icon meme from fiddlings. I'm pretty sure I've done this in some form or other before, but this one has a handy icon table and is FUN. ( musings on my icons )

6. ARGH, WHY SO SICK. Going to collapse into bed now, sigh.

1. WTF, body. Seriously, WTF. I woke up this morning and the Elphaba cold from hell is back. And I mean, back - there is snot, and it is GREEN. AGAIN. I finished my antibiotics! All of them! DO NOT UNDERSTAND. I guess maybe... since my brother is now down with the exact same cold (we compared symptoms) and I'm still weak-ish or whatever, it decided to come back? Or it was just never really gone to begin with? In which case, do I need MORE antibiotics?! Why was the initial course of meds SO FAILY!? D: So I am snuffly. AGAIN. WUT.

2. That said, it didn't prevent me from coming to work. Where I am now. I'll focus after this, promise.

3. Nor did it prevent me from eating potato chips for breakfast. Sigh. I figure I'm sick already - eating like a six-year-old isn't going to change the fact that the infection is back and I need food in my stomach to take what's left of my cold meds.

4. Urm. Happy things. Posting another batch of Meryl icons made me happy. She is inordinately beautiful. I'm a bit obsessed with this one in particular, because I can't believe how perfect she looked at a press conference. Sure, she had youth on her side then, but how does one explain this, from last month? Sigh.

5. Also, it's Felicity Huffman's birthday (Dec 9)! :D Awww. I think I'll go home and repost my vvv old Flicka/DH/Sports Night icons in her honour. In the meantime, have a grand ol' picspam.

6. I watched Zack & Miri Make A Porno yesterday - aside from one truly horrific scene involving... urm, defecation *cries*, it wasn't AS risque as I thought it would be. Also, not as funny. What's up with that, Kevin Smith? Although I have to say, I still kind of think that JasonMewesisstrangelyhot... is that wrong?

7. This being sick at work thing kind of sucks.

1. GUYS, I AM HOME. XD

2. And since I am home, with the internet at my disposal, apparently I don't do this thing called 'sleep' anymore. It's 5.34 in the morning, y'all. And instead of getting some REST, as I should - since I've been more or less awake since 4am Singapore time on Friday, when we got up to leave for the airport - I've been messing around online.

3. Even though I am SICK. ARGH. I didn't post on Thursday because I spent the entire day nursing a dreadful not-quite headache that had me feeling pretty terrible: even as we went to the Victoria Street Market in Melbourne, caught a flight back to Brisbane, went out for Indian food, met my dad's friend etc etc. I woke up on Friday feeling okay though... and then I got back to Singapore, and the cold/cough symptoms have steadily increased ever since. WTF.

4. I'm not sure how I'll avoid it (since I'm pretty sure that once I actually deign to go to bed and get up, I'll be even sicker than I am now), but I most emphatically do NOT want to be sniffling throughout my audio of the concert I'm supposed to go to Saturday night. Dude. I'm going to see my favourite male singer. I haven't seen him live since 2006. NOOOO. D:

5. MOVIES. Everybody! WATCH BOLT, OMG. For it is ABSOLUTE ADORABLENESS. ( That and other movie ramblings, no spoilers )

6. I'm soooooooo shallow.

7. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, y/y? XD I don't even know WHAT possessed me to make this batch of icons, but well... It was fun. ;) And now I definitely feel inspired to put together a fanmix of my favourite Christmas tunes soon.

8. Okay, seriously, ILL. FAILING TO BREATHE. Argh. (But, new tag! XD) I wanted very much to get back to yoga, but at the rate I'm going, I'll just have to spend the weekend in bed catching up on House (GOOD, because apparently I missed A LOT in not being around to watch/download 5x09!!) and comments and movies. TOMORROW. FOR NOW THOUGH, BEDTIME. SERIOUSLY.

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. Man. I practically spent the WHOLE DAY at work today yesterday FLAILING. If I wasn't flailing, I was sleeping, since I only managed to get to bed at almost 5am. *cries* I am such a lemming. And made of so much FAIL. Or is that FLAIL? Anyways. It was GOOD TIMES. And WORTH IT. Thank you guys, seriously, for flailing WITH me. That's always the best way to indulge in flail, and it was seriously the most fun I've had in EVER.

2. Tomorrow, in celebration of Julia!flail, I promise a NEW Julia fanmix - I need to put all my favourites of her newest songs on a CD for my car anyway, so I'll share my latest compilation with everyone. In the meantime, timeofyoursong sneakily found a NEW version of this adorably dorky picture. ( It's so adorkable I couldn't stand it. SO. MOAR ICONS. )

3. Also! I promised tamoshan this a loooong time ago, but was a spaz and KEPT FORGETTING to bring my CDs home. But! I finally remembered. Now - I USED to think I had a particular thing for female soprano voices. (See, for instance, my flail over Julie Andrews, Cheno and Winnie Hsin.) Of course, Julia happened, and she is pretty much as far from a soprano as anyone can get. But then I FORGOT. HELLO KAREN CARPENTER. I ADORE HER VOICE. Seriously I adore it. I don't think there are enough words to express how much I love it - how rich, pure and simply GORGEOUS it is. She had beautiful, exquisite diction, and I can't help but lament the fact that she basically starved herself to death and robbed the world of the opportunity to listen to that voice of hers for decades more yet. It's a tragedy, is what it is. Anyway - I had a minor flail period (I seem to have these frequently, y/y?) for the Carpenters last year, so went out and bought every one of their albums I could FIND. Especially to get my hands on Karen singing rarer tracks. So here are some of my FAVOURITES of the songs Karen has sung - and I REFUSE to give you guys the old chestnuts like Yesterday Once More or Top Of The World. Nope, these are covers. ( AND THEY ARE FUN TIMES. )

4. Urgh. Work is going to suck tomorrow. There isn't anything to DO, I think, but we're moving offices over the next week, I haven't packed at ALL, and even though we have a three-day weekend (Monday is a public holiday), I have this feeling I need to go back to work. At least on Monday. *cries* FAAAAIIIIL.

5. BUT I AM DETERMINED TO FLAIL THIS WEEKEND. I shall watch ALL the episodes of House and PD I've missed, and fit in movies and other random theatre (yeah, some local company is putting up The Wizard Of Oz, and my dork of a brother wants me to go, so). I WILL DO IT. Even with the fail of going back to work. YES. *determined face*

6. ETA: There's a cinema here that's STILL showing Mamma Mia at, like, practically regular times. Five screenings a day. *weeps* I WILL BE STRONG. I WILL NOT GO A FIFTH TIME. I WILL NOT.

1. DUDE, I AM SO HUNGRY. SO. HUNGRY. I mean, noldoparma and I had dinner at NYDC, which usually involves HUGE AMOUNTS OF PASTA AND ICE-CREAM MUDPIES, which it did - my baked pasta came with TONS of cheese and Italian ham and mushrooms, and our mudpie supposedly had Bailey's in it (couldn't taste any of the alcohol, wtf). So I shouldn't be hungry? Oh, except that dinner was... maybe eight hours ago now? *cries* But I can't eat or even drink milk because I'm supposed to run to the doctor for a routine blood test tomorrow so I have to fast. ARRRGGH.

2. Why I just don't GO TO BED so I can sleep away the hunger is beyond me.

3. Oh I know. It's a little something called FLAIL. *rolls eyes* Seriously. I ended up watching Meryl's entire interview on Inside The Actor's Studio, which I'm pretty sure I've watched before, but hey. Always good to relive the awesome. This part is my favourite - she talks about how she had a nervous breakdown when her Irish accent coach was on set ALL THE TIME for Dancing At Lughnasa (which, randomly, I kind of half-watched in a Malaysian hotel room a few years ago at 3am in the morning) - 3:28 ftw, "I didn't know why I existed". LMAO. And her bitching about not being able to remember her lines, which she NEVER DID... until menopause hit. XD Also, OMG. IRISH JIG AT 6:10 FOR THE EPIC WIN. Then the QUIZ. I love the quiz. (7:54 for her daughter's favourite word. XD)

4. So I've been trying to restrain myself from going to see Mamma Mia for the FIFTH time in cinemas - and then I discover this! Such a GOOD copy of the movie online, considering that the DVD isn't out yet! SQUEE. Those who haven't seen it can go watch it noooooow.

5. Randomly, I have stupid little zits all over my face because I missed my facial a while back because of work. ARGH. Must my job destroy even my skin!?!? *cries*

6. Watched Burn After Reading today - not one of the Coens' best, I must say. The cast was brilliant though. Especially Brad Pitt. I don't think I've ever seen him been quite so out-and-out spazzy. As a commentary on stupid people doing ridiculously stupid things, I guess the movie worked. But it didn't work quite as well as, say, Fargo, which certainly had that as one of its underlying themes.

7. Then, HMV with noldoparma and her brother! I bought the first season of 30 Rock on DVD, FINALLY. XD And also Falling In Love, because... well, it might be a lesser entry in both their canons, but it's Streep and De Niro. Got to be worth a watch, right?

8. I was talking to alexia88 about XF and the dodgy fanfic I wrote back in the day. Like, from FOWLEY'S POV, ZOMG. See here. I was kind of horrified to realise that I wrote that in 1999. NINE YEARS AGO, OMG! *cries*

9. Finally. I have an icon meme I've been meaning to do. I snagged it from someone but never had time to do it, then passed it to lanafromoz who ended up doing it before I did, WTF. So I have to get caught up:

Look at your userpics list. If you have fewer than twenty icons, post them all. If you have between twenty and fifty icons, pick every fifth one. If you have between fifty and seventy-five icons, pick every seventh one. If you have over seventy-five icons, pick every tenth one.

List them on your journal and tell everyone exactly why you have it, why it's interesting to you, the keywords you use and what significance it has.

( 10,000 words )

10. Phew, that took ages. It's now 5.30 in the morning. O_O I was supposed to yoga tomorrow, but think I'll have to pass, since I have to run to the doctor's, put in a few hours at work, and then I REALLY want to see Alan Rickman in Bottle Shock and I can't imagine watching a 9.30pm show after a 6pm yoga class. D: God. Need to stop being so lazy and sleeping at such faily hours. Never going to happen though. *cries*

1. Want to guess what time it is? HA. DON'T BOTHER. I'll just tell you: it's 7.36am. WHO FAILS AT SLEEP?

2. It feels like ages since I've posted, even though it's been barely... a day and a half? There are things I must do - like flist a bit and reply to comments and do this icon meme that lanafromoz took from me that I haven't even DONE yet, heh. But. SLEEP FIRST, AND SLEEP SOON.

3. The reason I'm awake this late? Well, aside from the fact that I took a nap from 6-9pm, and also headed out for another late-night supper/bitching session with noldoparma, it's because I decided I needed to STOP MAKING MAMMA MIA ICONS. So I finished the batch and have now posted them. I realise the only reason I ever end up posting anything at xitian is that I've finally decided that I NEED TO GET MY LIFE BACK. Posting means I will STOP MAKING ICONS. Urgh. In any case, 100 icons = DEFINITELY TIME TO STOP, Y/Y?

4. I've also decided that I'm going to be all restrained and NOT watch Mamma Mia again in the cinema. Especially since I JUST went again, for Viewing #4, with my aunts on Saturday afternoon. They had a grand ol' time, I must say, which is great. :D But I have now watched Mamma Mia once a week for the last month, which is, shall we say, a tiny bit excessive. I think I shall just be good from now on and wait for the DVD. I CAN DO IT.

5. Oh, MUSIC CRACK! You know who has a truly gorgeous voice? JASON DANIELEY. ( yes, he's one of the reasons I went to NYC in June )

6. Wow, that was FLAILY. Anyway - I watched the VP debate on Friday, because I was WORKING SO HARD that day. :P I'm not going to get into my thoughts on that, but this sums it up pretty well:


From AdennaK
LOLOLOLOL, Y/Y?

7. Okay okay okay. I should sleep. SLEEEEEEP. O_O

1. I don't know WHAT time zone I'm living on anymore. Maybe on NYC time - because it's 11.39am right now and I haven't been to bed yet. O_O

2. That being said, I stumbled home yesterday after work and switched on my computer... but couldn't stay upright. I crashed in bed at 1pm and got up at just after 7pm. Craziness. Tried and failed to go for yoga, and instead met noldoparma for another marathon bitching session about the crappiness of our jobs. *sigh*

3. I've since spent the last... errrr, ten hours or something fangirling 9 to 5. It is wrong, very very very wrong, to like a musical this much while it's still in its OUT-OF-TOWN TRYOUTS. I know this. And yet I cannot help myself. I've made a shit-ton of icons that I've posted to commemorate opening night. ARGH. I WISH I COULD SEE THIS SHOW.

4. Speaking of shows I wish I could see? FOLKS IN NYC. TOM KITT IS GIVING A CONCERT WITH HIS FRIENDS - BY WHICH I MEAN ALICE, JULIA AND ALSO AARON TVEIT. October 6 at 11.30pm at Joe's Pub (see here). I'm hyper-excited about this, because it means, YAY, TOM KITT. I HEART TOM KITT. Also, Alice singing N2N songs, and maybe Julia will sing She Goes again! OMG. How incredible would that be?! And why don't I live in NYC yet, dammit? *cries* (Thanks for the heads-up, Beth!)

5. I plan to spend this weekend recovering from the last week of epic fail by just flailing quietly at home... well, mostly anyway. I'll stay in and watch House and Evita today, and I'm going to see Mamma Mia again tomorrow! \o/

6. OH GOD I NEED TO STOP MAKING ICONS AND GO TO BED.

1. ARGH IT'S 4.18AM!

2. I blame this on my icon-making SICKNESS. I know I just finished a batch - and spent all weekend on them too - but I HAD to make icons of Julia from her Lowdown-Down performance and so... ARGH. They're here. I FAIL TOTALLY AT GOING TO BED.

3. I watched Step Brothers - OMG. That movie was on about 17 kinds of crack. Will Ferrell and John C Reilly were just... INSANE. I fully understand why the film earned an M-18 certificate here; there were some really grossout moments when I was literally watching the show through my fingers and I was kind of mortified that my almost 50-year-old boss was THERE WITH ME. It's okay - she's ridiculously cool for her age and loves wacky stuff like this. BUT STILL. When Will Ferrell kept referencing his pubes or his mangina, I was, like, OMIGOD SITTING HERE WITH MY BOSS, YO.

4. Also!!!!! Everyone on my flist should know by now that I have spent the last TWO MONTHS waiting for Mamma Mia to open in Singapore. Because this country is made of frakkin' FAIL and refuses to bring the show in at the same time as the rest of the world. Anyway, I thought it only opened NEXT week, so had booked noldoparma to watch it on Friday. But then turns out there are sneak previews all weekend! \o/ So now I have tickets for a Sunday evening screening of Mamma Mia. OMG OMG I CANNOT WAIT. SO EXCITED. XD

5. I'm going to EXPIRE at work tomorrow. Good thing I intend to spend the morning attending a seminar - mainly because, for some strange reason, Sebastian Tan, whom I mildly fangirled over here, is performing. WTF, WORK. How did you become randomly cool and employ people I want to SEE? It also means I can doze off in the auditorium and not focus on work. HOPEFULLY.

6. FUCKITY. I need the new Entertainment Weekly evidently. OH HUGH LAURIE YOU ARE SO HOT. Also, I am befuddled by all the rumours and whatnot about Lisa Edelstein being pregnant. Eh?! Star magazine is hardly the most reliable of sources - I should know, I used to read it regularly, LOL - and apparently her rep has denied the story? IDK. AS LONG AS POTENTIAL EDELSTEIN!BABY DOES NOT CAUSE THE SHOW TO JUMP THE SHARK, KTHX.

7. Why the fuckity FUCK am I still awake, OMFG.

p/s vertical_chaos, I'm sorry, I GOT SIDETRACKED TODAY, ARGH. Will get cracking tomorrow later today, I promise!

1. I'm supposed to be in bed - WAS supposed to be in bed - but have kept hanging around online for some reason unbeknownst to me.

2. Awww, RENT. Farewell posts have started to pop up all over my flist, and so I figured I might as well join in. It IS sad and the end of an era, isn't it? Whatever you might say about the show getting tired, and it no longer being as relevant or as electrifying as it used to be: there'll always be a place in my heart for this show. I remember seeing it for the first time ever in London, back when I was in college. Maybe 7-8 years ago now. I remember not understanding very much of the dialogue: mainly because I'm deaf and the lyrics just tumbled over each other in such a confusing way. But I remember loving the music, and the story, and the characters, and letting that just wash over me. I will never have the visceral connection to this show that so many Rentheads have, but I DO love it, and it still speaks to me in a way not many musicals have. I'm glad I saw the show again when I went up to NYC in June, so that I can say: you know, I managed to catch RENT before it left its original theatre and ended its 12-year run, and that's good enough for me. (Here's my audio from that performance, if anyone's interested.)

3. Went to bed at 7am and managed to get up in time to meet my friends for a CRAZY expensive champagne brunch at the local Ritz-Carlton. The food was ah-mazing: I think I ate, like, seven oysters, tons of foie gras, lobster and seared tuna and just so much dessert. Oof. I didn't even really eat dinner after that, because seriously we just ate non-stop from around 1pm 'til 3.30pm or something. That's the one thing I love about Singapore - not that it's great for my waistline, but OMG. Eating as a national past-time. Gotta love it.

4. Wait, I lie. I had dark chocolate Maltesers (ARGH, NEED TO STOP), and then my younger brother turned up in my room and offered me part of the snack he was making for himself - canned tuna and cheese on toasted portobello mushrooms. Om nom nom nom. (Which totally deserves to be its own tag, given how often I talk about food on here. And so it shall be.)

5. I've been making icons all night. O_O Because I'm compulsive that way and needed to finish my Idina/Cheno ones before I allowed myself to stop and go back to, you know, DOING OTHER THINGS. LIVING MY LIFE. *weeps* I need self-control, is what I need.

6. Work is going to be made of EPIC AMOUNTS OF FAIL tomorrow. So I SHOULD be in bed. I'm not, however, because I am retarded. GOING NOW, I swear it. I apologise for being boring.

7. Edited to add, as I am clearly not in bed yet: I'm a little bit perturbed that __grobanites includes Idina as an interest and not the woman whose lungs of titanium produced the G-sharp at 2:20. WTF, dudes. FAILCAKES. EPIC FAILCAKES. (OH GOD, I haven't watched this video in ages. HOW INTENSE IS THIS PERFORMANCE. I might have just proposed marriage to that G-sharp. SQUEE.)

1. OMIGOD I SHOULD BE IN BED IT'S 3AM.

2. I stepped on a LIZARD. Just now. *weeps* I hate hate HATE house lizards. HATE. Usually they scurry away. Why did this one insist on getting underfoot?! SO. GROSS.

3. OMG YOGA. I decided that after yesterday's stress-out/flip-out, I should go for some nice, gentle classes and chill out. So I eschewed hatha in favour of (1) restorative yoga, which they said was great for people who were just recovering from the flu etc, and (2) gentle flow - which sounds nice and simple and basic, right? That's what the class claims to be, anyway. Well, (1) wasn't too bad. I couldn't do a couple of the poses, but I didn't hurt like crazy afterwards and I did feel nicely stretched and relaxed. (2) - OMG. If by 'gentle flow' you mean 'sadistic series of evil poses meant to KILL YOU SLOWLY', then the name is bloody accurate. *sobs* I didn't expect to be quite so pwned by that class but I WAS. Tomorrow I'm going to ache all over AGAIN.

4. Tomorrow = made of FAIL and also WIN. Why? I have to give a lecture to what I'm sure will be a bunch of stupid IDIOTS who think they know a lot but actually don't. I can fake it well enough, but I HATE public speaking with the passion of a thousand suns. But, win-wise, I DO get to watch Wall-E at night, finally. FINALLY. I can't believe it took such AGES for this show to open in Singapore. (Three weeks yet to Mamma Mia, ARGH.)

5. HUGH LAURIE IS SEXY TIMES. OH GOD. I couldn't resist making a new icon out of the gorgeous. *points at icon*

6. Speaking of icons. So, even though I got home late and really need sleep, I decided to mess around with animated icons with all the awesome videos from yesterday. My anicons are pretty boring because I've made them in the same way ever since I discovered how to make them. Not anymore, however - apparently I am now moving on. Here's my first rough attempt at something different:

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. weazel_luv is a LEGEND.

2. Why, you might ask? Because she managed to rip and upload the following video for anyone who's not a member of the fan club and is not currently living in the States. This isn't tagged, so hopefully it'll stay up long enough for all of you to see it. OH GOD IT'S GORGEOUS. THE HAIR. FLAIL FLAIL. (BTW, vid stops at about 2:28, but that's the fault of the video on the streaming site.)



3. FLAIL. weazel_luv, YOU ARE A ROCK. STAR.

4. BTW, since this entry isn't locked - people who friended me for my icons, I've set up a brand new icon journal at xitian. Come join me for ever more insanity, one 100-square pixel box at a time! :D

1. I HATE DURIANS. STUPID LOCAL FRUIT. I hate that they are in season and that they stink to bloody high heaven and that when I went for a facial today, they were having a DURIAN FAIR on the ground floor and it was all I could smell ANYWHERE. WTF NO.

2. Fell asleep during a work meeting - well, dozed off for a couple of seconds a few times. When I was seated directly across from my boss. Who noticed. GOOD TIMES. :|

3. Either I fail, or perhaps I forgot, but Kristin Chenoweth is recording a Christmas album! How awesome is that going to be!? EXCITED.

4. I AM GOING TO WATCH XF2 AT 3PM TOMORROW. THIS IS A MERE 13.5 HOURS FROM NOW. FUCKING FLAIL. ALSDHASJLJADLJASLDJLSA. Edited to add: I HAVE TICKETS I HAVE TICKETS I HAVE TICKETS OMFGXF2!!!!

5. New batch of Julia icons - mostly from her recent benefits and such. Hardly any anicons this time; I'm actually having fun with colouring and text (yes, text!) instead. Since I seem to be posting a new batch every three weeks or so, figured I'd better do so now before EVITA. ;)

Teasers
[35] Julia Murney icons


Plus another wallpaper! :P