Cheat Work Thursday

"A SNAKE IN THE GRASS" It was a long wait for the season, and now we are already at episode 5. Post tribal, back at camp, Savage comforts everyone by telling them that Varner is in a better place. The next day, Abi, from thousands of miles away in Cambodia, continues to threaten us, the viewers, that Woo's life is in her hands. At Bayon, Monica wants to save the clams because she needs the supply to last for another 27 days, while Kimmi does not. Oh, Monica. If only you knew. Good line: "No, no pumpkin, no." ~ Kimmi in confessional, both hands on face, trying to calm herself. Spencer's storyline -- him living the island life, complete with music and helicopter shot -- again, is confusing. Where is this going? Speaking of, when I grow up, I want to be Kelly Wiglesworth. I think. Or maybe part of her. The part that is calm and mature and has great body. Huge part, I still want to be smart enough to be rich like Shirin. At the reward challen...

"WHAT'S THE BEEF" Sigh. Varner, the best thing to come out of this season yet, is out. Let's go back a few days. It's not fun to be Woo. He's probably the most drama-free person on the island, but he's also constantly being reminded by Abi that he wrote her name down. Twice. [Insert Woo rolling his eyes GIF.] Abi doesn't even approve of Tasha talking to Woo, "I have a problem when you take someone who just voted for me aside and having conversation with him in private." I imagine Tasha and Woo would rather shave their heads than talk to Abi. It's like managing Joffrey Baratheon. At Bayon, Stephen's storyline is still about the idol that he'll now never find. Back at Angkor, everyone's hungry and miserable, and I feel like giving each of them a hug, even Savage. At the first reward challenge of the season, for the first time, I want Savage to win. I really want them to eat and finally have some energy to weave ...

"WE GOT A RAT" So, Shirin was voted out last episode. I'm more interested in how she made her (by now, I assume) millions in real life actually. She probably made most of them from Google and Yahoo, but how? Help me do the same, Shirin. What do I need to do? Create calendar? Go to work? Surprisingly, I still haven't hated Terry yet. I keep waiting for him to act like a tribe dad, but he hasn't done that yet. Terry's a version of a robot. But the fact that he realizes he's one and he's just trying to get out of his comfort zone sounds acceptable to me. Extra point for that cauldron stirring. Moving on, Mean Probst gathers everyone and splits the two tribes into three. While Savage isn't too excited to start from scratch at the new Angkor, Spencer and connection move on to another level: Survivor God contacts him and tells him that he deserves a new lease of life. He's now at Bayon with Jeremy, Stephen, Kelly, Kimmi and Monica. Quick sum...

"SURVIVOR MACGYVER" So, Varner flipped on his old schools and Vytas was out last episode. The next morning, Varner tells his old school friends that he's back with them, two minutes after he attended a board meeting on who to vote next with the new schools Kelley, Shirin and Spencer. At Bayon, Joe takes the huge target off his back by directing more attention to himself and being more amazing: building hammocks and going fishing for his tribemates. And just by existing, it looks like even the universe is rewarding him with a better, more beautiful white sandy beach than the one at Ta Keo. Alright, the 30-second is up. I'm not watching any more Bayon unless they are showing Keith. So, we're back at Ta Keo. How nervous is Spencer -- while trying to learn about the exciting thing that is chimney from Peih-Gee -- when Abi interrupts and, in a murderous tone, asks Peih-Gee: Abi: So, what's going on, Peih-Gee? Spencer: Wh... what? Peih-Gee: We are bu...

"SECOND CHANCE" I was out of town for almost a week and could not wait until I got back to find out what happened, so I read the recaps first. This is an addiction, I'll take whatever I can get. With Cambodia format, we the fans are bursting with excitement even more. We (some of us?) voted, read and listened to tons of interviews, checked the calendar for filming dates, speculated alliances and gameplay, and maybe have hunted for spoilers and failed. But most importantly, we now know what #crotchframing is. So, the much awaited season starts with the shots of players making the journey to the starting line through the colourful Cambodian village and temples. While I've forgotten a lot of details from past seasons, Cambodia's stunning visual -- from the local shots to the intro montage (dancers in traditional costume, monks in beautiful bright orange), to the intro of the challenge -- has to be one of the best. After a few minutes of reminding everyone tha...

Late night fruit snack: orange and apple Each time I'm five minutes into my exercise, I'd make a vow to never touch those evil chocolate cookies and fries again. I promise that I'll only have lettuce for breakfast for the rest of my life, or for a week first. This TA leg workout is too much. F this exercise thing. I'm going the watch-what-you-eat route. It's how much calories you take and the type of food that matters. Then comes next meal, I know that I'm not going to live on veggies alone. I know that I'll have those pisang goreng, those Tim Tams, those fries, delicious, delicious fries eventually. I swear to God I'll run 5km the next day instead. Which is clearly easier. Just an hour of pain inconvenience but with a long list of benefits: calories burned, metabolism rate increased, energy level increased, cardiovascular health improved, toxins reduced or something, etc. The cycle continues. It's a series of emotional abuse. _____ T...

Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash Men are lucky. They usually look better without makeup. I took the train the other day. My four main requests to God every time I take the train are simple: - Please make it a safe journey. - Please make it pleasant. - Please don't give me a ticket for parking my car by the roadside. - Please don't let me bump into someone that I know when I'm wearing selipar and no makeup. So I bumped into someone that I know, worse, a client the other day. I'm glad he didn't scream in horror when he saw me and my unwashed hair because I almost did. I hope he'll still believe whatever I say the next time we have a work meeting. I'm embarrassing, but I'm also vain. Speaking of hair washing, it's quite a scary experience for me these days. Only because it's important, I'm reporting this to you: I'm growing my hair back. It's chin-length now. It's in its least friendly phase, so I got it rela...

It's probably harder for me to relate to Becky now that shopping is no longer my main motivation to keep breathing, but this is a friendship of 15 years. I'm catching up. (Will update as I go along.) WEDDING NIGHT A standard Sophie Kinsella book will usually have one neurotic protagonist -- a female, clearly -- and one very-sure-of-self male: a knight in shining armour . The feminist in me cringes at the constant need for the females to be rescued. But fortunately, Kinsella's leading male characters are usually not that annoying, and often the female characters will save their own day in the end. However, in Wedding Night, we have three neurotic protagonists! Two females and one male . Not only is it good to finally have one neurotic male, but also we women are winning yet again; there are more of us in everything! Still, there is another male in this book, shocker, who is the typical very-sure-of-self-successful type. But, of course, we are ok with that. It's...

Just like that, Jon Snow, who is totally half-Targaryen (come-on, he is), was viciously stabbed at the end of Game of Thrones S5 because these people will never catch a break, and Veep S5 was over. But we'll be ok, we can watch True Detective for a while. So we are at episode 3 now and the tone remains for season 2: gloomy shots, depressing score, sad songs, tortured characters, questionable hairstyle, and moustache you wish never existed. If there is one small window of joy, it is in the opening credits. All I can think of while watching it: we should be able to build those 10-lane multilevel highways on SimCity BuildIt. Let's discuss the characters: Frank Semyon (Vince Vaughn) I tried to have an open mind for two episodes, and that's it. I can't do it anymore. I'll let you know if I change my mind at any point. But for now, he's Vince Vaughn. I'm sure he did have dramatic roles before, but I've never seen them, so I'm sorry I missed tho...

Photo by Kym Ellis on Unsplash I think your life is 'light' if you are on the right track with it. Similar to how I feel about meditation in this post . Everything else -- letting go, trimming, living with less etc -- is secondary. But let's focus on the secondary. _____ I have several e-mails. Two with my real name are for work, people I know and Google Play. And a few others are for social media accounts etc. One of the social media ones receives a lot of spam in recent years, and I'm increasingly bothered by this. So I'm starting to think about where else have I left this e-mail that attracted so much spam. How many online accounts do I have? I was shocked to learn that some people have 50 online accounts. Who are these people? And that was before I found out that some others have hundreds! I can't possibly have that many, right? It still feels a lot by my standard, but I can't possibly have more than 10. So I traced my steps. E-mails; on...