Happy Birthday My Baby

ps I love you very much.

It’s been a weird time – Big Kev and John Spencer died, the Oprah episode with Felicity Huffman was on (and I could not love Felicity more), my father convinced my mother to come down for his mother’s 90th birthday, and at our annual day of Christmas shopping and movies, my friend’s car broke down and we sat of a roof top car park for hours waiting for the RACQ so I had time to compile my music list.

Also have just been to a pub in Wynnum (Brisbane’s Wynnum rather than the other Wynnums out there) to see the Rogue Traders – they are not on the list but they can have their own gush (I have mentioned before that you should get their album and I stand by this). It was hot and the place was full of fuckwits, as a result I have a new collective noun for fuckwits – a Wynnum of fuckwits – but the Rogue Traders rocked and I am more than a little in love with Natalie

Woodface - Crowded House

Tapestry – Carole King

August and Everything After – Counting Crows

Breakaway – Kelly Clarkson

Garbage – Garbage

Stunt - Barenaked Ladies

Listen Without Prejudice – George Michael

The Spirit Room – Michelle Branch

Runaway Horses - Belinda Carlisle

[These would be the things that my parents or extended family listened to or sang around the house when I was growing up and I guess they are just things that I love unconditionally and have never had to be objective about (I don’t plan to scrutinise them too much now either – would not like to have to see if they withstood the examination).

I guess in summary these songs cover a few things in my life – my early interest in music that I discovered of my own accord rather than just listening to my parents records and tapes (and the days when I would stay up all night to watch Rage and lived for the top 50 so I could tape the songs I liked - in my case onto video rather than cassette ;) ), the time I spent in hospital and when I had to come down here to live and, and probably of most influence, school dances (we may not have been able to do many things well at NRHS but we had some killer school dances) and many 100% Hits Tapes (oh how excited I would get when each of these came out and I would buy them regardless of what was on them)

[Clearly I have a bit too much to say as I had to split this because I went over the word limit

[We can consider this as reflections on years spent at a repressed girl’s college but there was a fair bit of partying and there were some v fun moments and eventually (towards the end of my third year) there was alcohol.

[The rest of the list as it was too big to fit in one post..

[Which basically consists of things post uni years

[Musical Theatre Propaganda

Well I guess we both know that I have this small interest in the theatre and while I know you can’t fathom the world at all it is important for me to try and share it with you.

[Soundtracks and Others

I had to find a way to include the other random playlists that I made so this is an effort to explain the other things.

I do tend to buy a lot of soundtrack albums (basically because I am a merchandiser’s dream) and while I am not able to include my favourite (because for the life of me I can not find my Scream Two soundtrack – it must be in my house somewhere, I can find the case but not it – and it saddens me greatly that I can’t share ‘The Swing’ with you because I really, really, really love that song) I fell better about being able to include a few others.

As mentioned, this has not been the greatest of weeks for me - for those who don't know, I have been sickly poorly (and for the record I have decided that I have consumption, every man and his dog seems to be claiming to have Avian Bird Flu so I feel that I should kick it old school with my hypochondriasis) I remain fairly miserable on the illness front and it's making work hard but I have had to go cause I have had functions in the evenings that I want to attend. [And if I didn’t do that I never would have ended up at the art gallery that night being socially awkward – I would be socially awkward if I ran into unexpectedly at a public event nowadays but it would be for v different reason)

So anyways amongst all this I have had the BEST night tonight and given how crap I had been feeling I think it's possible that these people should be bottled so that others can use them in this way - I saw Kelly Clarkson tonight but before I get to the awesomeness of her (and since it doesn't matter now as I probably have zero cred) I need to talk about the support act (which helped make it such a great concert) - Rogue Traders - fan-fucking-tastic, so, so good - in fact so good that I am thinking that maybe I should start watching Neighbours (which, when I stopped watching, Paul had never left - god I am old) as I am totally in love with Natalie - their album also rocks so if you don't have it, you should. Ok Kelly herself - so much better than any Idol my country has produced (or is likely to produce in the next week or so, cause I so know that Emily is going to win and make me hate Idol [she didn’t and so my Idol love continues]) - so much fun, so much energy, so sweet, so funny and in the future I think I am going to require all the acts I see to be jumping around so enthusiastically that they hit themselves in the face with a microphone (something which only made me love her more cause I would totally do that) and cause their lip to bleed and then just keep right on going (that's the kind of level of commitment to entertaining me that I am looking for, especially if afterwards you are going to tell everyone what a dork you are). At least if I can't talk tomorrow the inflammation of my throat will be due to singing and screaming all night rather than due to my TB so that's nice too.

[This concert predated My December and how I can’t wait for her to tour again so I can hear her perform stuff from the latest album she is apparently going to be in the country soon but not doing a tour :-(  I know a lot of people don’t like My December (Mark Holden went so far as to describe ‘Never Again’ as the song that nearly ruined Kelly Clarkson’s career – pretty much confirming to me that he is an idiot and that I would be much better equipped to be an idol judge) but I think she gets better with each album. I had to add a little about My December cause I wanted you to know that I love ‘Maybe’ and while I think that it is a bit of a stalker song I happen to think that “Yeah I’m hard and life with me is never easy to figure, to love, I’m jaded but oh so lovely” could describe me!]

[What follows in a combination of three posts probably done over the space of 6 months - I apologise the the format of the Chemistry one differs form the others - I thought about changing it but had a very Homer-esque "Whatcha gonna do?" response to that thought"]

My little tribute to Girls Aloud - Which might as well be labeled “My little tribute to [my internet friend] seeing as my knowledge of them would be limited to one song if not for her – Still I gave her the world (or at least the wonder that is Firefly and Serenity) so I think it was a fair trade.

Have been meaning to tell [my internet friend]  how impressed I am with her recommendation (I realise that this sounds kind of dubious but, while I love [my internet friend]  and think she has awesome taste, there is the issue of the ‘Gentle Country Drama’ [aka the fact the she likes McLeod’s Daughters which is about as difficult for me to palate as RN) that is always a cause for concern) and was going to email her about this as it is probably only really of any interest to her but when I was looking up more Girls Aloud stuff to buy on Amazon I came across the Amazon reviews for Sound of the Underground which were very unfavourable (annoying songs, bad lyrics, every copy should be torched, if you buy this CD it will ruin your life…..) and I got all indignant and as always, my indignation forces me to foist my opinions on the world at large (or you know, on the two of you that read this).

I should point out that at this stage I only have two Girls Aloud CDs [are memories - what a sad time in my life that was] which is quite an effort as they were not easy to track down in my little town so it’s not like I am an expert but more stuff (including DVDs) is on order.