Music & Lyrics (but no RomCom)

Time for the year-end music meme! Now, I'm not sure if this is an existing meme or if I've just invented it, but the rules are simple.

1. List the five songs you listened to most often in descending order
   
2. Include four lines from each

Here I go:

Ladyhawke - Magic  
You stayed in my head where I saw you all the time
I didn't think you'd care, I didn't think you'd care
I found you one day with a mouthful of attitude
And you stole me away, you stole me away

Bat for Lashes - Siren Song

My name is Pearl & I'll love you the best way I know how
My blonde curls slice through your heart

And the stars are exploding in your eyes
It won't be long until you'll be running

Ellie Goulding - Guns and Horses

It's time to come clean and make sense of everything
It's time that we found out who we are
Cause when I'm standing here in the dark
I see your face in every star

Fleet Foxes - Quiet Houses 

Don't give in
Don't give in
Don't give in
Don't give in

Bell X1 - Flame

You brought your flame
Into the chambers of my heart
You brought your flame
Where all's been condemned to dark

Feel free to tag yourselves. Allez-y!

My Not-So-Secret Shame

Now Playing: Auletta - Meine Stadt

Here it is, the year-end TV meme of shame, ganked from Indiequill. The rules are simple:

1. Bold all of the following TV shows which you've ever seen 3 or more episodes of in your lifetime.
   
2. Italicize a show if you're positive you've seen every episode of it.
   
3. Highlight new additions with an Underline.
   

Now, I honestly don't know where I found time to watch all these shows. I suppose a future version of me could have come back to the past with time-dilation technology which she lent me to do good works with, I wasted it on TV, she threw her hands up in despair and left, but not before erasing my memories of her and said technology - but the more likely explanation is that I'm epically kamchor. Also, there are some shows on this list that I know I must have watched, but for the life of me I can't recall a single episode. What happened on The Nanny besides Fran Drescher being shrill?

• 24
  
• 30 Rock
  
• 90210
  
• 7th Heaven
  
• ALF
  
• Alias
  
• American Gothic
  
• American Idol
  
• America's Got Talent
  
• America's Next Top Model
  
• Angel
  
• Arrested Development
• Ashes to Ashes
  
• Babylon 5
  
• Batman: The Animated Series
  
• Batman Beyond/Batman of the Future
  
• Battlestar Galactica (the old one)
  
• Battlestar Galactica (the new one)
  
• Baywatch
  
• Beverly Hills 90210 (original)
  
• Benidorm
  
• Bewitched
  
• Big Love
• Blackadder
  
• Bonanza
  
• Bones
  
• Bosom Buddies
  
• Boston Legal
  
• Boy Meets World
  
• Breaking Bad
  
• Brothers And Sisters
  
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
  
• Burn Notice
  
• Californication
  
• Castle
  
• Catherine Tate Show
  
• Chappelle's Show
  
• Charlie's Angels
  
• Charmed
  
• Cheers
  
• Chuck
  
• Clarissa Explains it All
  
• Columbo
  
• Commander in Chief
  
• Crossing Jordan
  
• CSI
  
• CSI: Miami
  
• CSI: NY
  
• Curb Your Enthusiasm
  
• Dark Angel
  
• Dark Skies
  
• DaVinci's Inquest
  
• Dawson's Creek
  
• Dead Like Me
  
• Deadwood
  
• Degrassi: The Next Generation
  
• Designing Women
  
• Desperate Housewives
  
• Dexter
  
• Dharma & Greg
  
• Different Strokes
  
• Dirty Sexy Money
  
• Doctor Who
  
• Dollhouse
  
• Dragnet
  
• Due South
  
• ER
  
• Everwood
  
• Everybody Loves Raymond
  
• Extras
  
• Facts of Life
  
• Family Guy
  
• Farscape
  
• Fawlty Towers
  
• Felicity
  
• Firefly
  
• FlashForward
  
• Frasier
  
• Freaks & Geeks
  
• Friday Night Lights
  
• Friends
  
• Fringe
  
• Futurama
  
• Gavin and Stacey
  
• Get Smart
  
• Gilligan's Island
  
• Gilmore Girls
  
• Glee
  
• Gossip Girl
  
• Grey's Anatomy
  
• Grange Hill
  
• Growing Pains
  
• Gunsmoke
  
• Happy Days
  
• Harry Hill's TV Burp
  
• Have I Got News For You
  
• Hercules: the Legendary Journeys
  
• Heroes
  
• Home Improvement
  
• Homicide: Life on the Street
  
• House
  
• How I Met Your Mother
  
• Ideal
  
• I Dream of Jeannie
  
• I Love Lucy
  
• Invader Zim
  
• Invasion
  
• Hell's Kitchen
  
• JAG
  
• Jackass
  
• Joey
  
• Kim Possible
  
• King of Queens
  
• Knight Rider
  
• Knight Rider: 2008
  
• Kung Fu
  
• Kung Fu: The Legend Continues
  
• La Femme Nikita
  
• LA Law
  
• Laverne and Shirley
  
• Law and Order
  
• Law and Order: CI
  
• Law and Order: SVU
  
• Law and Order: UK
  
• Legend of the Seeker
  
• Leverage
  
• Lie To Me
• Life on Mars
  
• Little Britain
  
• Little House on the Prairie
  
• Live At Apollo
  
• Lizzie McGuire
  
• Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
  
• Lost
  
• Lost in Space
  
• MASH
  
• MacGyver
  
• Mad Men
  
• Malcolm in the Middle
  
• Married… With Children
  
• McLeod's Daughters
  
• Melrose Place
  
• Merlin
  
• Miami Vice
  
• Misfits
  
• Mission: Impossible
  
• Mock The Week
  
• Modern Family
  
• Mod Squad
  
• Monk
  
• Mork & Mindy
  
• Mumbai Calling
  
• Murphy Brown
  
• My Life As A Dog
  
• My Three Sons
  
• My Two Dads
  
• Mythbusters
  
• NCIS
  
• Ned Bigby's Declassified School Survival Guide
  
• Nip/Tuck
  
• Numb3rs
  
• One Tree Hill
  
• Oz
  
• Paradox
  
• Peep Show
  
• Perry Mason
  
• Power Rangers
  
• Press Gang
  
• Prison Break
  
• Private Practice
  
• Privileged
  
• Profiler
  
• Project Runway
  
• Psych
  
• Pushing Daisies
  
• QI
  
• Quantum Leap
  
• Queer As Folk (US)
  
• Queer as Folk (UK)
  
• ReGenesis
  
• Remington Steele
  
• Rescue Me
  
• Road Rules
  
• Rome
  
• Roseanne
  
• Roswell
  
• Royal Pains
  
• Sanctuary
  
• Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?
  
• Scrubs
  
• Seaquest DSV
  
• Seinfeld
  
• Sex and the City
  
• Six Feet Under
  
• Slings and Arrows
  
• Smallville
  
• So Weird
  
• South of Nowhere
  
• South Park
  
• So You Think You Can Dance
  
• Spaced
  
• Spongebob Squarepants
  
• St. Elsewhere
  
• Star Trek
  
• Star Trek: The Next Generation
  
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
  
• Star Trek: Voyager
  
• Star Trek: Enterprise
  
• Stargate Atlantis
  
• Stargate SG-1
  
• Starsky & Hutch
  
• Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
  
• Superman
  
• Supernatural
  
• Surface
  
• Survivor
  
• Taxi
  
• Teen Titans
  
• That 70's Show
  
• That's So Raven
  
• The 4400
  
• The Addams Family
  
• The Amazing Race
  
• The Andy Griffith Show
  
• The A-Team
  
• The Avengers
  
• The Beverly Hillbillies
  
• The Big Bang Theory
  
• The Brady Bunch
  
• The Colbert Report
  
• The Cosby Show
  
• The Daily Show
  
• The Dead Zone
  
• The Dick Van Dyke Show
  
• The Flintstones
  
• The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
  
• The F Word
  
• The Golden Girls
  
• The Good Wife
  
• The Honeymooners
  
• The Jeffersons
  
• The Jetsons
  
• The L Word
  
• The Love Boat
  
• The Magnificent Seven
  
• The Mary Tyler Moore Show
  
• The Mentalist
  
• The Monkees
  
• The Munsters
  
• The Nanny
  
• The O.C.
  
• The Office (UK)
  
• The Office (US)
  
• The Powerpuff Girls
  
• The Pretender
  
• The Real World
  
• The Shield
  
• The Simpsons
  
• The Six Million Dollar Man
  
• The Sopranos
  
• The Suite Life of Zack and Cody
  
• The Twilight Zone
  
• The Vampire Diaries
  
• The Waltons
  
• The West Wing
  
• The Wire
  
• The Wonder Years
  
• The X Factor
  
• The X-Files
  
• Third Watch
  
• Three's Company
  
• Top Chef
  
• Top Gear
  
• Torchwood
  
• True Blood
  
• Twin Peaks
  
• Twitch City
  
• Unfabulous
  
• Ugly Betty
  
• Veronica Mars
  
• Weeds
  
• Who Dare Wins
  
• Whose Line is it Anyway? (US)
  
• Whose Line is it Anyway? (UK)
  
• Will and Grace
  
• Wings
  
• Xena: Warrior Princess
  

I think I may have to renounce the material life and live out the rest of my life in a monastery with no wifi or TV reception.

"Y'know, I just realized that..."

Now Playing: Ratt – Round and Round

So there I was, minding my own business, when Rishi takes it upon himself to tag me. First the guy told me who died in OotP, then this? This means war, man. *shakes fist*

But then I thought, “If I had to learn stuff in 2006, why should my blog readers get off scott-free?” Thus, without further ado, 2006 in Epiphanies, Realizations and Lessons Learnt:

1. Having all four wisdom teeth removed really isn’t that big of a deal - Seriously. You know how people are all, “OMG, the agony!!! It was horrible!!! THE PAIN!!!” and then you get all freaked out, and you almost decide not to have the surgery done, but then it’s too late to cancel? It didn’t help that a passing acquaintance (really, I’d just met her) felt the need to share the story of her friend who went into hospital to have her cancer of the mouth operated on, but who died of a hospital-acquired infection. Also not helpful was the knowledge that some people are actually non-receptive to pain medications such as percocet. So the night before the operation, there I was, tossing and turning, imagining myself dying of a horrible infection (damn you, pseudomonas!) without the least painkiller-induced respite. Imagine, therefore, my surprise, when the whole thing went off well, and I hardly even needed any pain meds, just a few days spent recuperating at home with an icepack to the face.

2. I may not be a dog person, but I absolutely cannot stand to watch movies where bad things happen to them. It’s pathetic, really – I cried everytime I watched the trailer for Lassie! The movie itself would probably have me bawling in the aisles, sobbing about that poor dog.

3. There are some people with whom it is useless to argue. While I’d like to be able to take the easy route and say that most of these people are conservative / right-wing ideologues (Varsha Bhosle, Bill O’Reilly, Christie Blatchford), the truth is liberal / left-wing ideologues can be just as overzealous and screechy and blind to the possibility that there can be truth beyond their narrow ken.

4. I LOVE the angst. All my favourite TV shows serve it up in dollops. Grey’s Anatomy? Angsty. Supernatural? Hot AND Angsty. Battlestar Galactica? Subsists on Angst and Octagons. Veronica Mars? Noir with angst. Doctor Who? Long-running angst. My favourite movie of the year, The Prestige? Existentially angsty. Angst – the flavour of the future.

5. Doctor Who is the show that never ends. It only just struck me this year, and frankly, it’s rather off-putting. Who wants to watch a character who can just keep going and going and going (for atleast 3 more actors?) I mean, I know it’s a long-running show and a hugely successful formula, but don’t people want closure on the character?

6. I’m a Christmas Carol purist. I grew up listening to Jim Reeves & Andy Williams at Christmastime, and anyone else just sounds like an interloper to me. One notable exception is Josh Groban, whose rendition of O Holy Night is just melt-inducing. Here, have a listen.



And now I tag Hemlyn, Stephen, Beth and Maja for a bout of reminiscence. Enjoy!

Melancholy in a bottle

Now Playing: Simple Minds - Don't You (Forget About Me)

Tagged by Hem -

I am thinking about...
escape.

I said...
more than I ought to have.

I want to...
write better.

I wish...
I’d grown up the way I thought I would when I was 15.

I miss...
the way I used to be.

I hear...
the rain on windowpanes.

I wonder...
what matters now.

I regret...
quite a lot, unfortunately.

I am...
giving in to my more melodramatic instincts.

I dance...
like I’m trying to get it out of my system.

I sing...
only at Church and karaoke. God gave me this voice, so he can’t complain, and my friends should have known better to take me to a place where microphones and Celine Dion songs are available.

I cry...
quietly.

I am not always...
happy to be laughed at.

I write...
contrivedly.

I confuse...
what people say and what they mean.

I need...
to get out more.

I should try...
exercising my muscles/exorcising my demons.

I finish...
books I’m reading very quickly, but put everything else off. (just like Hem!)

I infect, I mean, I tag eM, Cale, Rishi, Beth & Salanth.

Ficlet!

Now Playing: Ivy - Feel So Free

So I finally get around to spreading the meme Hem tagged me with ages ago. Honestly, I'm such a procrastinator about some things, and yet so prompt with others. Do you see me waiting to spread my cold germs? *gets buried under onslaught of pointy things thrown by people who have caught colds from me*

So here's what you have to do: write a short story in 55 words or less - a ficlet, really! I tag Vince, Chris, Mary, Purva & Ali - but everyone else is still welcome to have a go. If you are of the blog-deficient sort, feel free to use my comments section.

Here's my stab at the thing (first posted in Hem's comment section):

Wolves At The Door

There was no escape from this, she thought, more with resignation than with despair. It was time to end things. Cold steel would finish the job utterly and finally.

She took a deep breath, picked up the scissors and began to cut up her credit cards, one by one.

To the WordCount!Mobiles, people!