Cheat Work Thursday

I’m trying to remember what fun TV, movies or books that I’ve watched or read this year. I think it was only Veep. The only two books that I read include A Little Life , which still scars me till today. But I’m catching up on my favourite blogs* -- so, thank you, favourite blogs, for saving my soul. _____ In this soul -racking story, Lee is an apartment janitor and handyman living a joyless, reclusive life in Boston. He receives a call from his hometown Manchester one day, informing him that his brother, Joe, has just passed. What follows are the burial that cannot be done until spring because of the snow, and the reading of the will: Among others, Joe had named Lee the guardian to Joe’s teenage son, Patrick. So, teenagers aren’t necessarily the easiest people to take care of. Also, in a flashback, we are brought back to Lee’s old life in Manchester, where he was married to Randi and had three kids. He lost the latter in a fire after one night of drinking and drugs. The house...

I don't have time to listen to music anymore. I started listening to podcasts about four years ago: a Survivor podcast. I think all non- casual fans know which one. I had no one to discuss Survivor with. So, to finally learn that there was a group of people out there who would unapologetically geek out about the same favourite show as me was kind of great. I listen to too many podcasts now: while doing work, house chores and yoga (nothing more relaxing than listening to podcast hosts ranting); while running; when I go out alone; when I don't want to talk to humans or make eye contact; during commute; before sleep. It's almost like I need to find a real friend or something. So over the years, I did get sucked into Serial, season 1. (Come on, who finished season 2?) And yes, I listened to S-Town this year, which was after I finished reading A Little Life. So things were not grim at all for a while here. Question: Would McLemore approve of this story being broadca...

Last week, while waiting for my car being serviced, I found this fun site,  online.seterra.com . I can now name 50 US states and 35 countries in America on the map. I'm a genius. I should be on Ellen. The questions are, who drew the US state lines, and why many of them are magically straight? How fair was the process? What if someone preferred to be part of Nevada and was already in it, but due to the straight line was forced to be in Utah? What happened to those who had a piece of land that extended from one state to another? Why do Wyoming and Colorado get to be perfect rectangles? And who gave Delaware, Connecticut and Rhode Island such a small space? (Will totally post and brag about it again when I do Europe, Africa and Asia, plus the capitals and cities!)

I found the link to this article A Formula for Happiness via Twitter. I read the first page, and after I realized how many words the article has, I scanned the other two. I know it started with a list of what contributes to happiness and ended with a discussion about passion, skills and free enterprise. Promise (maybe) I'll finish reading it someday. Some excerpts: "After 40 years of research, they (social scientists) attribute happiness to three major sources: genes, events and values." "About half of happiness is genetically determined. Up to an additional 40 percent comes from the things that have occurred in our recent past — but that won’t last very long." "That leaves just about 12 percent. That might not sound like much, but the good news is that we can bring that 12 percent under our control. It turns out that choosing to pursue four basic values of faith, family, community and work is the surest path to happiness, given that a cert...

Photo by Mario Calvo on Unsplash The news channel. I was home early this afternoon, sat on my towel and carpet to exercise, switched the TV on, and since then have been spending probably about 12 hours now tuning in to the news. You know what's on it in the past 20 hours. And, sigh, CNN news channel -- need them, hate them. You know basically how they report: put on a serious, concerned face as if they are about to relay something really mind-blowing and exclusive, frown or scream for effect... only to ask questions almost as good as the rhetorical ones, repeat what they have been saying for the past three hours (that they can still see a helicopter hovering in the air and hear the sound of dogs barking) and offer about 739 assumptions. "Things are dramatically unfolding here. We don't know yet if the dogs are hungry or just bored, but sources are telling us -- and we're using the term 'sources' quite loosely here -- that they are bored. Stay tune...

The Litigators is lighter than most of Grisham's books. This is not his usual, suspense thriller. It starts when David Zinc, a young but already burned-out lawyer, leaves his fast-track career at a huge fancy firm on a whim one morning. He spends the day getting drunk and finds himself landed at the doorstep of a tiny firm, Finley & Figg, his next employer. It gets funny after the first half of the book, when his new team's plan to win a huge settlement from a pharmaceutical giant falls apart. This is a story about the unglamorous life and work at small law firms. Unfortunate events make good stories. I've also just finished reading mrmrsglobetrot.blogspot.com this week. If you were only to read one travel blog this year, you've got to read this one. This couple started the blog to document their six-month travel after they got married a couple of years ago. The blog is packed with beautiful photos and details of the places they visited -- from fashion to h...

@ Molly_Kats Since it's safe to conclude that I pretty much have nothing to write these days, let's check things that I just found this week -- via internet, of course, because where else do we find new things these days? Libraries? Space conferences? Deep and meaningful discussions with friends? Whenever I need a quick laugh, I'd often go to Ellen's YouTube. From funny monologues, auto-correct blunders and Twitter roundups to kids' videos and hilarious interviews -- they are all handy to suck us into an internet (almost guaranteed, downward) spiral. From Ellen's kids' videos, I'd go to Jimmy Kimmel's (because who stops at just 20?). Then I found Kimmel's White House Correspondents' Dinner monologue, which led me to Seth Meyers' . OMG I love Seth Meyers! Unfortunately, there are not that many videos of his on YouTube except for a number of his SNL work and ESPY monologues: here's 2010 and 2011 . I do think the Trump joke wa...

Hi, all (three of you), It's 2AM here on my bed. I'm in the midst of writing a six-paragraph e-mail for my sister, which she needs tomorrow (today!). Thought I should blog something, reporting what depressing movie I watched this week 🎉🎊. But before that, let's talk about the internet. Last year, I read a lot of travel blogs. They were all exhilarating, making your pulse race reading each page. And this year, I've been reading a lot of art and creative blogs. They are very inspiring* and very kind to the soul too. (*As in it makes me believe that I can be at least half that creative but does not necessarily make me do the actual creating-thing, you know, because that requires effort.) A must-read is oliviaraejames.com. Wherever Charleston is, I want to live there too. I've listed a few of the blogs on my sidebar, but it's not fully updated yet, as there are so many great blogs out there and I'm still exploring. For every one art blog you find, you...

I was shocked when I heard the "S*icide is for M*slims" line on True Blood a while ago. So I went on the internet for reviews and recaps. Many viewers were shocked and found it offensive too. Then I came across this post on Tumblr. I think the author is right, I was missing a point earlier. Quoting a paragraph: "The writers did not write their own sentiments in this line. They wrote their characters. We are meant to be disgusted, just as we were meant to be disgusted at their actions in Iraq. Every moment where two different groups fail to coexist in this show, we are meant to be disgusted." _____ When I was mad with Mad Men in this post , I was taking the show too seriously too. I forgot that sexism and sexual harassment were not challenged and punished 50 years ago the same way they are today, not that they are already two archaic issues by now. I actually continued watching more episodes but was restless the whole time. My blood boiled watching the sce...

Address Is Approximate from sharp & jenkins on Vimeo

"The spelling! How come your friend didn't get arrested already with her spelling?" "What? Everyone understands them." " NOO . And look, does anyone realize how public this is? Since when are we sharing private jokes and stories with our neighbours, and cousins, and ex-schoolmates that we only spoke 2 and 1/2 words to in school? This one, didn't you hear how huge an a**hole he was in school?" "And this was... 12 years ago, right...?" "This girl, and that neighbour... we have never spoken to them all our lives, why are we letting them know the inside scoop now?" " You ---- have never spoken to them." "You are missing the point. Aren't people keeping things to themselves anymore these days? Aren't some of these rants or photos or stories or exchanges... sacred, or something?" "These are just normal photos and conversations." "What happens to private e-mail, SMS and phone ...

"Legendary investor Warren Buffett turns 80 years old today, and he isn't slowing down a beat. Instead, he is likely to take on more work in the coming year while the ball starts rolling on his closely guarded succession plan. 'I plan to work past 100 but to do so I may have to learn to think outside the box,' Buffett tells Deal Journal. Buffett has no intention of stepping down simply because he loves his work." ~ Seacoastonline.com,  30/8/2010. Full article here . I hope whatever I do from now until I turn 200 or die, - I'd enjoy it and do it because I choose to. - it'll make a difference, in a good way, no matter how tiny, to at least the people around me. - I'll still be physically and mentally active and healthy. Image (and moar funny pictures: lolcats

So I did not have any guests this weekend. It was raining. I did go out for a total of 4 hours in the past 48 hours. I opened my Facebook page, which was solely created for the Farm Town. They gave me 100 lottery coins today. I have not been farming for almost two months now. If you've never tried the game, I'm not sure if you should believe all the good stories you hear. I was reminded of this again immediately after opening it. It always freezes my PC. I still only have that one neighbour who was kind enough to send me a blue bunny (I sent him back a donkey). There was another person who offered to be my neighbour when I told him that I didn't have enough. For people who don't play Farm Town, we need neighbours to earn trophies and permission to employ, and we need eight of them! I was trying to figure out how to add him as a 'friend / FT neighbour' and lost him without his e-mail. Now how on earth do people claim to have thousands of Facebook friends? I als...

For someone who doesn't need a database to manage her friends because there are only six of them have a Facebook account, I'm thinking Twitter could be fun. It's just like blogs but shorter. Maybe I'll finally learn how not to be long winded. So to my four super awesome blog visitors, *drumrolls* find me at _____ (_____ is unfortunately too long, which is a bummer) but with no tweet yet. It's not easy to convert from being long winded to compressing things into one sentence overnight I tell ya. I may need some time to process this, though. I'll come around eventually, I think. Just like blogging, which took me three weeks waking up at night, wondering if it was a good thing to do.

Over the weekend, 1) I tried to transfer a couple of huge files that I have on my PC to another storage drive and failed miserably. So, my PC is running slower and slower. It's ancient. I bought it from an antique store. 2) I started reading another addictive, every-working-girl-must-read blog, Working Girl ... ... from which I learned about polyvore.com! Why didn't I know about this site sooner? Every reason I watch Project Runway and played Jojo's Fashion Show is on Polyvore: clothes -- pretty, pretty clothes. I couldn't help but spend the next few days after that staring looking at people and thinking, ''How can I polyvore (a verb) this person a new style?"

One thing I've been trying to learn in recent years is to keep my composure in the midst of tough times or when I'm in a hurry or busy etc. During those times, I'd like to answer each call from the people that I care about with undivided attention and offer them clever solutions or a cheer if they need any. I'm not entirely trying to do this for them; I mainly am doing this for myself. I don't want to accomplish (or let's admit it, usually not accomplish) an assignment at the end of the day, go home and realize that I've just let someone that I care about down a few hours ago. It's easier to be a nice person in a less demanding situation. It takes a more conscious effort when it's otherwise. So here I am, sipping hot tea alone in my room, trying to find peace, staring at my printer which today woke up with yet another sulky mode. In front of me is a pile of my work papers and my PC with a list of materials that is stuck, cannot be printed for tom...

I spent hours over the long weekend reading about Gaza and trying to figure out why my blog label didn't work while playing Bryan Adams' Summer of '69 hundreds of times. So apparently, some HTML codes were missing from my template, but it's all ok now. I think. I've also been busy digging through the very hilarious startingoverat24's and clevergirlgoesblog's archives. I'll put up my reading list soon. Some time ago, during one of my looong-lunches-to-coffee-to-dinner-LIFE-IS-GOOD-HERE-IN-THE-COFFEE-SHOP-LET'S-NOT-GO-HOME-EVER with a friend, we talked about two people* with something in common expecting two countries to get along while they themselves can't even be in the same room for five minutes. *Might or might not be real people we know / in-laws to each other / one of them is that friend's husband / one of them is that friend's father / one of them is not from here. Referring to other little issues in our own lives, perhaps ...