1. I had a bit of a shit day at work yesterday. An example: the harddrive on my computer died. Although our IS team is brilliant, I still lost half-an-hour of productive time that I really needed.

2. So I came home and had two large glasses of rum and coke, which didn't get me drunk (or even tipsy) but did relax me enough to enjoy the fic I was reading.

3. Then this morning I got up, read fic for a while, went back to bed, got up, read more fic, and then eventually got dressed just in time for waffles wot nishtalitha made.

4. I've spent the afternoon reading fic and have just now vacuumed.

5. Now I'm drinking wine—this is a lead-in to the copious amounts of tequila I plan to drink tonight. I think after this weekend my next chance to get really drunk is Christmas. And that might not be socially appropriate, IDK.

6. Have a song: Angel of the Morning by the Pretenders. \o/

7. I'm still really fucking tired.

So, Panic at the Disco have split in twain.

I felt really weird about this all day: like, I don't engage with canon much (and haven't in any of my major fandoms since Harry Potter, which I tripped and fell out of sometime around 2003 or 2004) and I was feeling sad! But I didn't know why I was feeling sad! It was WEIRD!

And then. Like—

1. although RPS has this really strange engagement with reality, where there is an absolute awareness on the part of all sane participants that the X you are reading or writing about is not the X of reality (and this happens with all fandoms) AND there's this sense that reality can't be simply dismissed in RPS fandoms in the same way that film/book/tv canon can be dismissed (or at least I get that sense), so that you can't, say, ignore Gerard Way getting married in the same way you could ignore or rewrite Snape killing Dumbledore. Maybe that's just me. Also I know a lot of people totally ignored or rewrote Snape killing Dumbledore, particularly between books 6 and 7 being released. I hope my point is semi-clear?
   
2. Actually, 5 years is a really long time to work with the same people. And music IS work for these people.
   
3. Also, the making of music is (a) creative, (b) meticulous, and (c) probably bloody frustrating sometimes. It would be hard to work with people who didn't have the same creative goals or visions as you! It IS hard to do work that you're not that into.
   
4. The music business, and most creative industry, requires the participants to at least pretend to be enjoying themselves or what they're doing part of the time. The "I'm just doing this for the money and because I have no other life skills, fuck this noise" line doesn't sell tickets. At least if I am having a shit day at work I don't have to fake it.
   
5. I don't of course know whether any of the Panic members, current or former, were having actualfax Shit Days At Work, like the ones where you cry in the bathrooms or under your desk or eat entire packets of biscuits while glaring at your computer screen and refusing to talk to people.
   
6. But, whether they were or were not, it is generally better to get out of jobs (if you can) before the situation gets so bad you can't face anyone involved anymore, and that does seem to be by and large what they—all of them—have done.
   
7. I really want to know what everyone's going to come up with!
   
8. This is true of both reality and fandom.

So I've been listening to a lot of Neko Case. A lot, a lot. <3

Today a sad thing happened. My latest lot of headphones, which I bought sometime between moving into this flat and Christmas, have died horribly: only one channel works and that isn't very good for anything in stereo. *sadfaced*

The really dumbassed thing: I don't have the receipt, and apparently I paid in cash—which is so entirely unlike me. EFTPOS is pretty much the best thing in the world, my current account has no transaction fees, and nobody in New Zealand blinks an eye when you put a $2 purchase on your debit card. So the fact that I apparently, on or about the 9th of December, had enough cash to buy a pair of decent headphones is FUCKING WEIRD. And now I can't get them exchanged, because of course the shop wants proof of purchase.

So here's hoping tamarillow still has the pair of stock-standard Apple earbuds I gave her when I gave her my old iPod, because going for the next week with no music in my head? A dreadful thought.

I totally don't mean to brag or anything (actually I totally mean to brag) but last night tamarillow and I made the best lemon tart in the entire world ever ever ever—recipe from Stephanie's Cook's Companion, which I would totally be going to get and copy right this instant if only the delicious lemony custardy pastryish food of the fucking gods had not stolen my ability to move.

Last night it was still warm and melty; it spent the day in the fridge and so now is cool and tart and. Just. Desserts for the win!

Also my iTunes kind of refused to play any of the songs I've bought off the iTunes store last night, but I emailed the helpdesk, got an actually helpful response, and have fixed the problem by following the steps they gave me. And none of my playlists disappeared! WIN!

I love this song.

Um. I think I had a post in my head. I can't remember.

My flatmates and I have a tradition of going out for dinner before we go grocery shopping each fortnight. Tonight we went to Leuven, the Belgian pub!, and talked about work and abortion and feminism (a little) and whether we wanted to share field mushrooms and sweet waffles as a starter (yes) and it was tastydelicious and by the time we got to the supermarket we were all sleepy and uninterested in food.

Today I bought a new bag, 2 cardigans, a book of poetry by e.e. cummings (for which I blame the internet; someone on my friendsfriends posted a poem of his last night and I liked it), a pair of studs which I have put into the Dannevirke piercing and the cartilage hole I had done over 5 years ago. Behind the cut is a picture of the bag; it's going to be my textbook bag once classes start, as I killed the one I had last year. ( this way! )

Also behind the cut is a picture of my left ear with the new studs and a picture of the solitary badge I have pinned to my new bag—for the record, it makes me smile every time I see it.

On that note, have a song: You're So Vain by Carly Simon—you walked into the room like you were walking onto a yacht; your hat strategically dipped below one eye; your scarf, it was apricot.

We have high-speed internet again - at least, nishatalitha and I do. tamarillow's computer did a massive brainfart when we tried to install the wireless network card. I can't get wireless to work on my computer so still have a very long cable running down the hallway, but nishatalitha is all modern and cordless now. It's very exciting.

GOD. I have missed home!broadband SO VERY MUCH. SO MUCH. I can load more than 1 tab at a time! I can use youtube! I can download music! (Although, I have to be careful about that as our former broadband was unlimited and our cable is 10GB/month with pretty hefty extra bandwidth charges).

Anyway. WOOHOO.

Tentative date for a flatwarming is Waitangi weekend, probably the Saturday night.

Have a song: Israelite by the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra, which I am really enjoying at the moment - jessikast's mum had a CD in her car and this prompted me to buy their 2 EPs. This song makes me want to sing along to it - although I can't hold a tune at all, so I don't.

Tomorrow I am going to Kaitoke in the Rimutakas for some kind of community corporate volunteering planting trees in the wilderness isn't nature grand thing. I'm going to wear my hair in pigtails and stripy socks on my feet (with docs! Whoo!). I have to try very hard to be back in the city by five or so, as we're looking at a house in Wilton at half past that hour. It's all very difficult.

Meanwhile, I have been spending my days at work doing filing and testing and more filing and a little bit of legislation, mostly preparatory stuff for the incoming government.

I think I feel an earthquake. WEIRD. Geonet will tell me soon!

I have been listening to: Arctic Monkeys, George Michael, Sidney Bechet, Pink Martini, Roisin Murphy, the Temptations, and Rihanna. I have been watching: Chuck, Stephen Fry in America, 7 Periods with Mr Gormsby (holy fuck that show is fucked up and AWESOME), and No Heroics.

So today I bought a 8GB iPod nano coloured green. I have called her Lucy. My old iPod, Elspeth, a 2nd gen nano I got from work for christmas two years ago, has a dying battery and a munted pause button, so it was about time to replace her.

The click wheel on Lucy is WEIRD, way less responsive than Elspeth, although I haven't tried to listen to music on her properly yet so we shall see.

Now I have to decide what I want to put on her.

So for dinner tonight I had a slice of banana cake with cream cheese icing and a bowl of gingernut icecream and a honey lolly that tamarillow gave me when I asked her very VERY politely and now I am TWITCHING WHEE and I have to go to bed soon so I can get up and go to work in the morning and I have a test on Friday and an assignment due on my freakin' 25th birthday which is pretty fucking shitty if you ask me but not as shitty as the time I graduated from university for the first time 4 days after I turned 20 I was pretty pissed off about that let me tell you and let me tell you something else: I still am. WHEE.

Secret: I love this icon. But I always feel bad about using it for main posts as a lot of people will have it show up on their flists and I don't want any of those people to think that I think that they're all sluts, either singularly or as a collective. It's like those tee-shirts that say "fuck off"; I always think those people are ASSES. But WHAT THE HELL, right?

There is Alanis Morissette on my ipod at the moment, and Blondie and the Pretenders and the Pixies and, uh, FOB and PatD and a whole lot of random pop and some world music and some classical and a little opera I don't think there's any jazz but there is some Bollywood. Including a song called Dard-E-Disco, which translates to "Pain at the Disco" or "the Pain of Disco" - I forget which - and every time I hear it it makes me think of PatD and then I LAUGH. The movie it is from is FANTASTIC and I will buy it someday.

I keep buying classical albums! This week I bought an EMI compilation called 100 Best Baroque (6 discs! I've no idea if it is the best of baroque or if the artists on it are the best they could be, but whatever. Whatever) from Borders and a Gilles Apap album (Music for Solo Violin) off iTunes. There's this dude called Philip Glass who might be a composer or might be a violinist and I have a track by him (composed by him? IDEK) off another compilation album and I really like it and now I am thinking maybe I should hunt him down. Off iTunes, because that way I do not even have to leave my desk.

I kind of want to collect some opera, but I don't even know where to begin. I've got lots of musicals and a little operetta, but I want some hardcore oldschool opera (and, okay, that phrasing is hilarious in my head). But I don't know who the composers to watch out for are, or who the singers to watch out for are! Dilemma! If I pick something bad it could put me off for ages!

I got my hair cut this morning and now it is all choppy and short(er). nishatalitha and I were meant to take the cats to the vet but there was a pet emergency and our appointment was cancelled, so we are going next week instead. Then tamarillow and I went to see Mamma Mia! again, which was even better the second time. And I bought crappy romances from Arty Bees.

In the Oh, Wellington files: this past couple of weeks we've had a lot of rain. It's been awesome; I've been roaming round in my pink docs gleefully splashing through puddles and then bragging about it, much to the amusement of everybody who is forced to endure my company. What is not awesome is that our access path had a bit of a slip down near the bottom, and now there is this—uh, not a hole? But a bit by the side that used to be path and is now air, almost a foot wide and maybe a metre long, with a traffic cone perched on it and leaning on the now-shaky railing. It's a bit dodgy. WCC knows about it, so hopefully at some point they will come and fix it. I guess given that there were slips in Aro and Roseneath that destroyed entire backyards we're not a high priority though.

First case law test on Wednesday. I do not understand that obiter dictum shit.

Have a song: Agala Im Susa by Gilles Apap.

—which is to say, I have spent my entire weekend wearing either my nightie or my trackpants and a hoodie, and at some times—mainly late morning—all of these things.

I have not left my house. I don't think I've even gone outside. It has been brilliant. Also I have done laundry and made fudge (which I then ate) and chocolate cake (which is in the oven RIGHT NOW, in preparation for me having tasty things to take for lunch tomorrow). And I played computer games, and I read romance novels and fanfiction, and I crocheted a little and watched NCIS and talked to my flatmates, and I slept.

Sleeping is perhaps the best thing about weekends, or at least letting myself sleep in until I naturally wake up and then getting up and bumming round on the internet and then going back to bed with my iPod is perhaps the best thing about weekends.

Have a song: Oh Happy Day by the Edwin Hawkins Singers.

One of the IT guys at work complemented me for my fine hand in logging helpdesk calls today: I describe the problem and explain why it's problematic and what (I think) is causing it and give specific examples, and if it's an issue with the xml program I create test documents showing the errors. Apparently this is not common. And here I had been worrying that I was too vague when logging calls, which I have to do all the time as our brand-new, purpose-built system is kind of... buggy. And stupid.

I own an umbrella much like the one in this icon. The fact makes me happy, even though umbrellas are entirely pointless in Wellington (rain without wind almost NEVER happens).

Also I am downloading music from the iTunes store: Roisin Murphy, the Killers, that song by Maroon 5 and Rihanna. Recommend me stuff, people, I'm entirely sick of almost everything I have.

I spent all of today in a meeting for the pay in employment and equity review committee, of which I am part. It was interesting, in that the mix of people on the committee is good and some of the discussion was worthwhile. But the person running the session - someone from the dept. of labour - was kind of repetitive (we'd had another session a couple of weeks ago) and talked a lot in management-speak: all acronyms and generalities and the impression of giving concrete detail when in fact she was referring to procedure that she had no intention of (or couldn't) explain.

I also was forced by the tragic circumstance of my beloved headphones dying suddenly in the night to go to the Sony store, where I bought new headphones - so weird! but cool! but weird! - and entrusted the burial of my old pair to the shop dude. $90, and they've got a weird extendable cord.

The song I'm listening to is oddly cool - flutes! Rap! The flutes could be recorder, though, I don't know. It is, according to itunes, a mashup, which would explain it.

I have characters in my head all of the time, see, and they say things like: "No! I am not advocating for you to do a revue consisting entirely of Fleetwood Mac covers! Sort out your own life dramas, honestly. *sigh*" It'd almost be enough to make me write fic again, except that I can't think of any way I could work that into a story without it being a bandom Mary Sue. And Mary Sues are awesome fun IN MY HEAD, but I don't think that makes them readable for other people.

Um. Tonight tofulope came round and we looked at a lot of websites devoted to modest clothing - some of the sites were really cool, and some were clearly designed by people who had no knowledge of how html or whatever they were coding in worked, and thus were almost impossible to navigate and also terribly ugly. There was also one site which made dinging noises whenever you scrolled over a link - as tofulope said, definitely My First Website.

Still haven't tidied my room. Have four more days off and then back to work - that really doesn't feel like very long.

Hi, jessikast!

I got the card you sent me and it is the tackiest, awesomest card in the history of ever.

ILU!

<3

Your BFF

(seriously. MS Publisher templates. B&W printer. Admittedly a better font than MS Script, but NOT BY MUCH. *glee*)

Also I have been listening to the new PATD album and there are songs - that's right, plural - that I like. I think only two I really like at this point (Folkin' Around and I Have Friends in Holy Spaces), but I love them A LOT. I definitely like this album a lot more than I liked their first, and I am now considering actually sitting down and trying to properly listen to the entire thing (which. I don't really DO that; normally I fall in love with one or two songs and kind of ignore the rest of the album until I'm sick of them).

Also also I have organised to have next week off work in order to spend my days reading fanfiction, gaming, and. Trying to write an actual (short) academic essay: in preparation, I grabbed the suggested secondary sources from the work library. It's kind of awesome not having to fight with the other 700ish students doing the course for the uni library's probable 4 copies, one of which is bound to have been missing for three years.

Today was payday, and so today was shopping day: I put my favourite black heels in for repair, bought a pair of red flats (I totally intended to buy black shoes but none of them were cute. Not in the whole of Wellington), went to see a film in which a lot of people died and I got sad, and used my Borders 40% off coupon to buy six CDs (the maximum allowed). So far the shoes are comfortable and the CDs are great, so I am well pleased with myself.

Also I bought flashcards. This is intended to be a study aid, presuming I get off my ass and study tomorrow. Which I will, for I am an organised and productive person with goals in life. GOALS.

Behind ( the cut is a picture of my new shoes. And also 2 pictures of my cat. )

I was productive this evening and managed to make dinner and dessert, which is good because I have leftovers for breakfast and lunch tomorrow morning: chocolate pudding to start my day and deviled sausages on rice for lunch. I also read a couple of books, did laundry, did a lot of dishes with the flatmates, watched a little tv, and got my hair done.

Last Thursday I went out drinking after work with people and got home at 1.30am. The tequila went down nicely and Friday wasn't entirely a dead loss, except that five hours of sleep are not enough. I've spent quite a bit of this weekend catching up on that, and I think I've learnt that maybe I just shouldn't go out late on work nights. Maybe.

At some point I should probably re-load my iPod. Except, wah, then I'd have to take stuff off it. Maybe it's time for me to look at getting a bigger one... the 80GB ones are about $350 and the 160GB ones are just over $500, so. So maybe after we move. And my overdraft has gone. And my bank loan has gone - it's less than a week's pay now! Including my overdraft, my total owings to my bank are less than a fortnight's pay! Yay! Of course, I'm about $30K in the hole thanks to my bloody stupid student loan, but the IRD handles that.

I've got another 50 icons to add to this account now: fun times!

I am making a playlist called "Woe is fucking me" and filling it with things like Death of a Clown by the Kinks. *pathetic*

It's just been one of those cranky sort of days where I woke up in the dark and felt bitter about it and kept hallucinating that it was Thursday - and it isn't, and this is a sad and tragic thing - until I came home, ate a bowl of ice cream for dinner, failed to summon the courage to play Civ IV properly, read a book, and collapsed into the creation of a playlist I'll probably never listen to while talking to friends on msn.

Question: if you were putting 1 song onto a playlist titled "woe is fucking me", what would it be?

Instructions: Open up your iTunes and fill out this survey, no matter how embarrassing the responses might be.

How many songs total: 19230
How many hours or days of music: 52.2 days
Most recently played: Snakes on a Plane (Bring It) - Cobra Starship
Most played: Swanee - Jeanne Baxtresser [though I lost all my playlists when I transferred all my music onto a different hard drive late last year, including my stats: it was a tragic day]
Most recently added: L'impatience du grant Heron - Le GRRIL

Sort by song title:
First Song: A - Barenaked Ladies
Last Song: *** - Regina Spektor

Sort by time:
Shortest Song: Flip Strings (sound effect) - Kill Bill I
Longest Song: Give Me Cyborg Love disc II - CPI

Sort by album:
First album: A - Turzi (although it's not a complete album)
Last album: 98 Degrees and Rising - 98 Degrees (before I get into the massive list of things which have no album).

First song that comes up on Shuffle: Groovejet (If This Ain't Love) - Spiller

Search the following and state how many songs come up:

Death - 26
Life - 151
Love - 900
Hate - 32
You - 1790
Sex - 47

If my broadband were not (a) crap, and (b) also shared by my two flatmates I would upload music all the time - I like sharing! Sharing is caring! Or, I could make you a mixtape (but, like, on CD!): if you're interested, leave a comment with your name, address, and musical likes/dislikes and I will mail you one. Comments are screened.

One of the nice things about my cough being a lot more contained now is that I can consume dairy again - I tested this on Friday with a double chocolate frappichino from Starbucks, and given that chocolate icecream has made me cough for my entire life (I keep eating it anyway) and I didn't cough more than usual I figure I am good to go. This mainly means I can drink tea again, which I have missed A LOT in all it's sweetened, milky deliciousness. My flatmates both quite like fruit infusions but I'm not so keen: if I want something fruity I'll have a hot blackcurrent cordial, ta muchly. It's been a great pleasure to be able to go look at our many black teas and pick one.

I took all the music off my ipod this evening and reloaded it from scratch. This is a scary thing: I even created new playlists and all. But now it's a little more organised, and this makes me happy.

Civ IV: Beyond the Sword continues to be awesome awesome, even though I've no idea what I'm doing with my spies yet. :D I'm just saying.