drunken 'i love you's on top of the world

Belated Happy Birthday greetings first to

trepkos, whose Spike/Riley opus is an inspiration to all at creating a world out of the unexpected. I hope you had a wonderful day yesterday!

irvine_selphie I hope you had a lovely day too

and birthday greetings for today (albeit rather late on Australian time)

skylee while we haven't both haven't been around LJ, it's always lovely to 'see' and speak with you. I hope you had a nifty, fun-packed day.

As if to make sure your birthdays were memorable, I managed to see English One Day cricket captain Paul Collingwood on Oxford Street yesterday going into Selfridges. He looked very debonair :)

Thanks very much for the birthday wishes. They've been very much appreciated! I had a nice birthday with my friends in Basel - except they managed to come down with a nasty stomach bug toward the end of my stay ... and I managed to pick up on Wednesday and today. Bleurgh. Feeling a bit woozy and weak - but it's a memorable way to bring in my birthday. We will say no more of late Easyjet flights either.
( Nice things )
( Some photos from my trip )
Other than that I managed to watch some of the Mercury Prize awards. I really thought Bat for Lashes would win (I hoped Amy Winehouse wouldn't; it just seems like she needs to go away and have a little rest and not be bothered by a cameraman in her face every second). But Klaxons. Hmmmmm. Surprising.

Also caught the results of the Roddick vs Federer 1/4 final at the US Open. It sounded like a good game, particularly the first two sets. Poor old Andy. Ten losses in a row to Federer. And Roger Federer was born in Basel. Heh.

Finally: RIP Luciano Pavarotti. A big man with a magnificent voice.

Given my lack of interent, almost certainly, over the weekend, I'd like to extend very Happy Birthday greetings to:

pfeifferpack - hope you have a great day on the 2nd

and to

cordelianne - may your day be blessed with lots of dancing which you will come true undoubtedly if you've got my card *g*

::showers you with champagne and good, good times::

( What have I been up to in the near month of LJ-awayness? )

I'm a bit behind en ce moment, so please link me to stuff you've been doing/reading/participating in/enjoying if you want. I'm off again on the weekend to Switzerland (BECAUSE I AM OFFICALLY OLD!) so it will be nice to take something with me while I'm away.

And hey! did you see the amazing photos that redsrule1 posted the other day? Tiny little hummingbirds!

ETA: Why? LJ? WHY? If the photos look skewey to you, they're all posted here. Perhaps I'll come back and clean them up when it's not way past my bedtime...

Huzzah!!!

Yipppppppeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

::dances:: ::dances:: ::dances::

::shimmies:: ::shimmies:: ::shimmies::

::offers up devout and careful prayer and offering to the Internet gods::

Houston, we have a connection....

::big grin::

Just a fly-by posting because I'm sitting in an internet cafe typing this up. My landlord assured me she'd be getting an internet connection, but it seems that by the time I moved in, it still wasn't there. So I'm not really connected at all ::sigh::

If you need to, the best way to get hold of me is probably via email, but I have no idea of the internet situation at work so not sure when I'll next be on LJ. Ack.

I'm looking forward to writerconuk next weekend though!

earth_vexer has an icon community! If you haven't ever come across earth_vexer's icon (which I must admit might make a teensy bit incredulous - her icons are lovely!), I highly recommend and suggest that you hie thee hither as fast as your little LJ legs can carry you to earthvexericons. Her icons are bright and clear and glorious with colour, oftentimes with a very witty and knowing few words making them *just right*. She often makes sumptuous icons of Buffy, Spike, Drusilla and Dawn - but that's not the limit of her powers. She's tried other muses involving music as well. Go go go!

( Yesterday I went to the exhibition )

Anyway, I'm using this icon because it makes me laugh. Why is that? Because I have something to laugh about: I'm starting a job on Monday ... on Monday! which means that I have a few days of chilling/museum going/shopping/London seeing and then I'll settle into the hard work. Yay.

Ha! I completely forgot this! Did anyone watch The Friday Night Project on Channel 4 last night?

It was hosted by John Barrowman and Justin Lee Collins and Alan Carr went to the set of Torchwood - and guess who was making an entrance?

Wonder if it's on YouTube...

I really love this song by the Killers. There's such poetry and heartfelt sentiment embued in every line.

( The week has been a bit topsy-turvy. )

In the meantime, I went to an exhibition at the Barbican called Panic Attack: Art in the Punk Years. ( It was quite interesting )

As ever, I'm around but not really at the weekends. Have two more interviews on Monday - so wish me luck!

Happy birthday kassto!! Hope you had a lovely day, filled with lots of fun and cricket.

If you haven't already, yourlibrarian would like you to fill out a poll on how often you read fanfic.
Clicky boxes! You know you want to!

Wishing amybnnyc a very happy birthday - wherever you are, whatever you're doing I hope it's super special for you, sweets

I just ate a whole tub of Sainsbury's Organic Low Fat Blueberry yoghurt. Not sure if this is a good thing.( bitsnbobsnhobsnnobs )

Two nifty posts that I should pimp: earth_vexer's post of BtVS/White Stripes/pretty flowers/OMGBlurloveBlurloveBlurlove icons and shapinglight's essay on the Powers that Be vs the Senior Partners.

It's incredibly nice to see spikefan back to LJ again :)

Happy birthday to calturner too!

Still no HP for me, though, the world really is rockin' to the Hogwarts themetune at the mo'

In case you haven't stumbled across this by another way, I'd recommend reading aycheb's essay on girls and fairy tales and mothers and all sorts of other intriguing things in the Buffyverse - Reader, I destroyed him. Fascinating stuff.

I'm not inside the hype of Harry Potter fever like a crazy fangirl ... though I can appreciate how exciting/exhilarating/bittersweet it must be for those of you who are; or disappointing, depending on whether you know about the reviews already out there and the other stuff swirling around the internet – but I’ve certainly read, heard and seen a lot of it... ( though into the non-HP void, go I... )

Mercury Prize nominations are up - and I guess I'm shocked that Arctic Monkeys are nominated again, just for the sake of "Really? Again?" I did enjoy the album, but I guess their debut was really all about the zeitgeist. Hmmm. I love Jamie T's album so that's exciting - and Amy Winehouse, well, I think I'm slowly coming around to preferring her first album.

Obvious omissions? Well, Bloc Party for starters. I love, love, love Weekend in the City and I'm sad that the music press seemed to have dubbed them as dour and boring ::sigh:: What about The Good, The Bad and the Queen? And, even, say, the Fratellis?

Still, it's an interesting enough race to have my interest piqued.

( In other news, )

How is everyone else?

For the last two nights, I've had the most enthusiastic dreams. The first was a rather inflamed, shall we say, dream that took place on the set of Gilmore Girls with both Dean aka Jared Padalecki and Jess aka Milo Ventimiglia being there. Except, confusingly, it was sort of like a future-GG, and was set in New York. Sadly I wasn't participating in any of the flagrant stuff - but still I'll put that one down to femmenerd *g* The second was also rather exciting because I was sort of a very hip rock singer in a totally hip, rocking band a bit of a mish-mash between The Gossip, Metric and the Long Blondes. And U2 showed up at our gig - and I gave Bono a peck on the lips. Ha!

Anyway, I went to see Becoming Jane on the weekend. (That Wikipedia link has some wonderful shots of the clothes and stills from the film.) Ahhhhh - James McAvoy-love. ::ahem:: ( Very waffling thoughts on Becoming Jane - complete with spoilers )

New Zealand is going America's Cup crazy with excitement/sleep deprivation at the moment - though it is rather exciting. I just doubt that the rest of the world is noticing the blip ;)

Before I head off to bed, to read and get warm, thought I'd just pimp one more thing:

the_wild_iris wrote two interesting reviews of AtS 4.1 Deep Down Wesley and Lilah and Lilah at work that you might enjoy.

Thought I'd just point out wisteria_'s post on the New Zealand comedy duo Flight of the Conchords (and their HBO TV series). If you don't know anything about them - I hope you soon will!

This is really exciting, because they're such a funny, funny, funny act, very talented and great singers AND I know one of them by 1 degree of separation. (Though, to be fair, that's the way things tend to work in NZ...)

Happy Birthday kathyh! I hope you have a fabulous day! ::throws streamers about::