Claire

I haven't yelled about music in a WHILE, so I'm just gonna do that today. (Actual life update: anxiety disorders suck and I'm boring, there, you're caught up :|)

1. I heard this super fun pop song on the radio a while ago, and the DJ was all, "here's the new single from G.R.L., which is a group formed by people who used to be in the Goo Goo Dolls!"

I was perplexed, since none of them sounded like Johnny Rzeznik, but when I heard the song for the second time on a different station the guy was all "people who tried out for the Pussycat Dolls!" and I was like "well that makes A LOT MORE SENSE."

I think this song (and the message!) are gr8 though and I shamefully want someone to do a super literal vid of it.

2. Did I talk about Songs of Innocence? I can't remember. I like it a LOT. I really hope I can finagle a way to see the tour. I basically spent a month listening to this album in rotation with Taylor Swift's Red, Peter Gabriel's So, and the National's High Violet. In conclusion, Claire is a land of contrast. (I'm so predictable.) Raised By Wolves is fucking phenomenal.

3. 1989: also SUPER SUPER INTO IT. Weirdly keep being reminded of Savage Garden every time I listen to Out of the Woods. I don't think it's that it sounds like them, but there's SOMETHING there giving me that impression. I said this to Rachel the other day, but I keep mentally vidding Blank Space to be about the playoffs from the POV of the Stanley Cup. IT WORKS, OKAY. (what's 'shame', precious? :D)

4. Stick and I went to see Sara Bareilles perform in the Cathedral in town a few weeks ago, and she was fucking fantastic. The acoustics were beautiful, the crowd was all on the same level and super into it, and she basically seems like she's From the Internet in a way that made us rly want to be bros with her.

Highlights included 1) the entire room singing "that guy's an asshole" with great verve. In a cathedral. :D 2) her and her adorable bandmate (who opened for her too) turning towards the altar to apologise for swearing in a church. 3) the really lovely dedication she gave before singing "Brave", which was (I'm paraphrasing) to make sure that you were making room in your life for other people to be themselves, and was written when she watched a friend go through trouble in trying to come out to her family.

I thought it was really beautifully put, because she absolutely avoided the (really grating, esp from straight people) thing of suggesting that people should just come out already, and made it way more about 'make sure people around you would feel safe to do so', which I thought was a beautiful nuance. It was really moving. I also want a misandrist vid to King of Anything. I didn't mean for this to be a theme. /o\

5. Xs and Arrows have music coming out sometime soon, so you should all brace yourselves for how much I'm gonna be pushing that when they do. (SO much. They're so great. You should all support them, srsly.) Thick Skin, Thin Spine and Oh Chief (this one was my favourite last time I saw them play.)

6. Really loving the new Empires record, too. How are they so consistently so great? &band;

7. This isn't a music comment but Foxglove Summer just came out, and it was delightful and brilliant and now I'm desperately yearning for the next book already. Ahhhhhh. <3

tl;dr, we're all fine here, how are you?

Oh, wait, actually, here's a better outro: I've been catching up on the 18 months or so of PCHH I was behind on so I'm just gonna straight lift one of their segments. Flist, comment with something (anything!) that's making you happy today, please?

I have really enjoyed reading other peoples' responses to this - it's short enough that I don't get all OH GOD WALL OF TEXT-y to read them. Yay!

The book I am reading: Right now I am about 30 pages from the end of Wild Ride by Jennifer Crusie (not her best. :(), about halfway through book four of the Wolf House, a quarter through a Julia Quinn I forget the name of, a few chapters into a terrible terrible romance novel that we got for 50c, halfway through a cowritten fantasy novel (Kat, help?) about quasi-medieval painters whose paintings become reality which I borrowed from Kat last year and have been using as my emergency book at work (thus the slowwww progress) and last night I had a sudden urge to start rereading Making Big Bucks, so I'm about halfway through that now, too. (It's very short.) &Greenhill;

The book I am writing: Given that if we get our act together properly it's going to wind up being novel length, I'm gonna count our Bandom Big Bang for this one. It's about 30K right now (but kind of... disassembled), and it's - okay, look, it's a Jem and the Holograms AU kind of but MOVING ON, it's awesome and I love it and we really really need to finish it.

The book I love most: A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold. I swear, I would almost want to have temporary specific amnesia just to read this book again for the first time. <33333

The last book I received as a gift: Hrm, I'm not sure. I think it was the Saddle Club books Chris got for me at the book fair? &ponies!; WHAT OKAY I WANT TO HAVE A FULL SET. :/ #mylifechoicesareawesome Oh, actually, I think I got a bunch of Julia Quinn eBooks from Barb since then, come to think. Though I haven't read them yet.

The last book I gave as a gift: The Princess Diaries Guide to Christmas to Chris. ...we are the most awesome friends. :D I think before that I gave someone some Vorkosigan books, though I forget who.

The nearest book on my desk: Lololol I don't have a desk atm. The closest book to me right now is Making Big Bucks which is in my bag, since I'm at the flat having stopped by to do some being-a-grownup after having fed and petted both kitties at their respective houses.

Okay, link from Frog, cos this is too cute not to pass on. This is possibly the most adorable thing ever.

I have not actually got anything to post about other than this: since the people who look like they can manage Arts and Crafts day all appear to be free all weekend and thus didn't narrow it down at all, I'm gonna unilaterally declare it to be on Friday - turn up any time after 10am! Let me know if you need a lift! - and that way we have two days after it to recover from oversocialisation and so on. :D *wins at plans*

Now, back to fighting with websites who crash when I try to give them my money. Le sigh. (Dear the NZ Dollar, please stop imitating a really high thing in a really strong gravity field. Owwww. Love, me.)

And my copy of Sloppy Firsts arrived today, so I think I will be ditching teh internets in about eight tabs time so I can go read that and kick back, yaaaay.

++ Box from DDD on the table for me when I got home from work this afternoon. Promptly chucked my evening plans and dove headfirst into Empire of Ivory. Keep having to stop reading to flail at various points.

+ Got to work pretty much on time this morning! (This was, uh, doubtful, as tired + DLS + cold and rainy day = do not want to leave nice warm bed.)

- Guy who was offered position that has been vacant two months? Turned it down. (Okay, in reality this is -------, but right now the next thing is annoying me to a far astronomical extent, so.)

--- Got seconded to copy video camera footage to avi for my dad's work. Thought "whoo, if this works I can finally rescue and upload the Rachel Luttrell and David Nykl from last year!" So far? It no work. So far? It is coming teeth-gnashingly close to working but without quite getting there. I am getting a mite testy.

(But, okay, let's face it: BOOK I HAVE BEEN WAITING AGES FOR, plus incoming A Dog's Breakfast SOON, plus get/together inflicted a wild and raging desire to start watching Torchwood and Dr Who seriously upon me, so, in conclusion, fandom will save me from technologically-compelled hair-tearing. I hope, anyway.) *trudges off to make attempt number five, with added swearing*

Hee. The cat is asleep on his chair, and mum's asleep on the couch. ( Because she was out dancing all night. )

I just got in from running a bunch of errands - my muskrats pictures are now all printed properly and ready to go into albums, \o/, although I wasn't expecting mum to be home when I got in, which meant I got sprung at the door with them and she wanted to see them even though she'd already seen them on the computer. And of course, the printed ones? Were not in the pre-vetted order the computer versions were. Hi, I just had to explain to my mother why I had a photo (okay, four) of unhurt holding a collage with a giant cock in it. *facepalm* Let's just say it's lucky I decided NOT to print a couple other photos. HEH. And I bought like six books (someone, for the love of god, do not let me buy any more books for at LEAST two weeks.) and lunch at Burger Fuel and a coffee and went into the monogram place and arranged a Thing, so we shall see how that works. Oh, and last night i got bored and did a test run with the purple hairdye. I think it came out okay?

And now I really should suck it up and tidy my room, but baaaaaah. *apathy like whoa*

( Ahahaha, way to forget to post my original point, self. )

I got my hair dyed and trimmed (yay!) and the hairdresser was very nice and I don't think it was (*touch wood*) disastrous, so... yay. And now the internets are dead (seriously, people, skip 20? For 24 hours? *is torn between being grateful and being worried about where you all ARE*) so I really really REALLY should do one of the eight million things on my to do list (gosh, this line should practically have its own theme song I say it so often *shame*) which is stressing me the hell out and... I just so can't work up the energy. ( Cut for blah. )

*runs around in little panicked circles*

We're all fine here. How are you?

Hi, all. We're going with the sort-of-notes format (edit: or, okay, apparently not. sorry?) again because, well, despite the fact I've been online for less than five hours today (shut UP, it's a Saturday! I am normally online for much longer on the weekends! Quit judging meeeee!) I can hardly see the screen at the moment (stupid tiredness, stupid eyes, stupid brain, etc), so:

But, firstly! Most importantly! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MELISSA! *smooches you* I hope you had a good day - it sounds as if you did - and I'm glad your family were wonderful for you and that work went okay and you got to speak to so many friends. Much love, as always, and I hope to have a chance to snug you in person again sometime in the near future. Cheers, darlin'.

* * *

~I finally went to the mall today. I've only been putting this off for, uh, a month? Maybe a month and a half? ( My location is... bookshop! )

( Okay, I had to lj-cut a lot of this because it's short but it looks REALLY LONG when posted. Um. Please bear with me and read it anyway, I swear it's not all (or even mostly) fannish. )

And, lastly, we come to the point where I am going to take shameless advantage of you talented and knowledgable folks (yes, I am buttering you up for a reason, but it also happens to be accurate!) and have a short sharp round of Help Me Obi Wan FriendsList, You're My Only Hope!:

1. Does anyone have reccommendations for (preferably) desktop-based software (or some kind of firefox or gmail plugin, maybe?) that functions as a daily calendar/reminder type of thing? I don't know if I'm describing this well, but I am basically after something that will pop up or that is very easy for me to remember to look at daily that will tell me things like "this is X's birthday" or "I did/must do Y!" on such a day. I mention this firstly because I have SUCKED with birthdays this month so much I cannot even express it - I was late for Sunny and Mel and I forgot to ring Nicole entirely - and I love the semagic reminder feature but obviously, a) not everyone has their birthday listed on LJ and 2) there are non-birthday reminders I want as well!

2. KAT DO NOT READ THIS ONE, OKAY? Can people rec me really good Jack/Daniel? Please? Because I can totally see it, and I want to read it, but for whatever reason I am apparently inordinately, horribly picky about this pairing and so far have only read like three fics TOTAL that actually work for me without making me twitch or sidle away going "...nah". Just, you know, whatever your favouritest fics are. That would be lovely. Thank you. We now return you to your regularly scheduled LJ. Unless I think of something else, anyway. <3

In conclusion? Vala/Cameron/Daniel. Because yum.

Not reading or replying to anything yet because I just got home and dinner is, well, ready but- Chris? Mission accomplished. :) Want to come over Saturday night and do the usual routine? Also, I would like to take a moment of "I rule" not just for finding the book for Chris, but for the fact I can go into a library I haven't set foot in for at least three or four years (and thank fuck my library card was still okay to use and didn't have a billion dollars of fines because I read fast but I SUCK at returning books) and within two minutes have a random book about gay boys in my hand. *wins at gaydar* Also, well, since I was there and already left work half an hour late I collected a bunch of random stuff to read as well because, uh... me. And books! OTP! *g*

And then I had to sit in the car in the carport for five minutes because I flipped onto Hauraki as they were playing Baba O'Riley and so I had to flail a whole bunch. The end.

(In theory, tonight there will be photos. In practice, I will probably be gleefully whacking stuff onto the yet-to-be-named!pod and Courtney? Thank you again so so much for the Swell Season. You are the BEST. And Lissie? I think I forgot to say - thank you so much for putting random good stuff on said pod, as I actually li stened to a bunch of it on the plane.)

though, having said that, i stumbled (literally, thanks bean bag) into bed and then couldn't sleep for an hour, go me. (copper, Ray, sloshing. /personal reference) anyway, filling it out from the bare bones bullet points i was working off and fixing the tenses to make it today-consistent. (okay, wait, i lied, it's still very rather bullet-point-y.)

so. so! yes!

Liz pretty much... made my day, yesterday. I guess that's all I need to say. It was a major good-squishy moment. *love*

And, Shan, Jilly-- you guys got another mention in the national newspaper here, I've rescued the article to post it unless of course you are both completely drowning in evidence of your internetwide hawesome and don't need more clutter. ;)

Also, oh my god, how much do I LOVE the internets that I have new SGA within, like, six hours of it airing. (No spoilers/reactions in this post, though, for anyone worried.)

( all points of the compass (and the flist) at much more length )

AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!! CHRIS! NEW KAGE BAKER RELEASED IN, LIKE, TWO DAYS! CANNOT STOP USING CAPS! OMG WANT NOW.

...bugger. This means I am going to have to place an amazon order, doesn't it? Because not even Borders gets her in, especially not on time. Which means I may as well order Veronica Mars at the same time, which means my plan to bribe myself by not being allowed to buy books or dvds until I have my email sorted is going to shrivel and die. Okay, I'm not allowed to WATCH it until I've dealt to the email. Right.

I say that like the fact I finished the GRR Martin this afternoon (and oh god, how much did reading the Vast Bits Near the End Where Nearly Everyone Nearly Kicked It SUCK when I had to keep stopping reading and go back to doing actual work) hadn't already rendered that plan null because must find out more NOW. Hi. I lose at patience.

Wait. I stopped flailing long enough to read past "new Kage Baker" and it's apparently a sort of collection jobby. Which, okay, not bad, and the other one she did was good too, but... crud. I thought it was the new Company novel. Sigh. (WHICH IS DUE IN SEPTEMBER SQUEE. Okay, now I'm done.)

Am way worn out by work - we've had a bunch of heavy things to test and also I stupidly took more than one wheelbarrow weighing about three times what I do out to dump today and owww. I am so not butch enough for this, dudes. And it's Wednesday night and I have no spare tapes left, which means I am occupied watching Attractive and Interesting People (Plus Victoria) Solving Crime and, er, yeah. Planning to ingest massive amounts of caffiene tomorrow and start tackling things. No, really this time. *less-than-threes*

Oh, and re CSI? This Superman subplot is hilarious for all the wrong reasons. *flashes back to Buffy and the arguments about what colour kryptonite was what*

And, to finish up: Calvin and HobbesHalo Quite amusing, I felt. Figured some of you guys would appreciate too.