The Chrome browser's sync and cron functionalities are quite interesting.

I really think cynicism is what every man should fight against. I really do.

I've climbed mountains.

Oh, the Montreal wintry winds. They aren't easy on my ears.

It's interesting that Windows Live Mail, Microsoft Outlook, and Mozilla Thunderbird also integrate, or embed, so to speak, the Usenet newsreader client, which is scarcely irrelevant and defunct nowadays.

I've never really employed the first two of them though. Right from the start, I used web mail, first the Yahoo! Mail, then Gmail. And I guess most young people did a similar thing.

Scalded water is different than boiling water.

And excellence is different from mastery.

(Image from http://goo.gl/5kASq)

Make a point of enhancing your English a little bit here or there everyday.

Some investors tend to anticipate gravies.

Well, it would be surprising or astonishing if there weren't some people like that, wouldn't it? :-)

In certain senses, it is far easier to reach truth in Canada than in China.

One thing that I don't quite grasp is that Western leaders often remonstrate about dictatorship during their official visits in lands governed by what they scold.

Parents are natural scolders of their children who tend to irritate people's limits.

The cron functionality of the Blogger platform is interesting.

I wonder how much resources the platform allocates to it.

Russet sky

A bird showers in the russet sky
A man walks on the refreshing path

(Pic from http://goo.gl/oV5RF)

To sanctify individual rights unleashes lots of potential in a society.

Some people are erring in their career paths.

Well, it's hard not to err, of course.

How is it if we compare the book 'The Catcher in the Rye' with the 2010 Taiwanese film 'Monga'?

Because Google Buzz, the social networking service that Google rolled out in February 2010, is generally considered to be a failure, I am abandoning it for the time being.

It's hard and time-consuming to navigate the social networking landscape, isn't it?

President Obama gets scoldings from all angles.

That actually boils down to one thing: money. Capitalism runs on money.

(Pic from http://goo.gl/qchJ6)

Well. Do you think the current pension crises ripping through the Western countries will also present themselves in China down the road?

It is interesting of the remedy of mutual exclusivity of two or more threads for the race condition.

The file widget is interesting.

The government in a democratic society tends to be scolded all the way.

Don't those politicians in it get discouraged?

(Pic from http://goo.gl/PAahp)

Some entrepreneurial endeavors are vain efforts,

because the entrepreneurs who initiated those are ill-equipped and will remain so.

We have hied for too long on the road of materialism.

Canadian winter is bereft of warmth outdoors.

And it is too long.

The omnipresence of the web has wreaked tectonic shifts in economic and political landscapes of both the developing and developed world.

The world will be becoming more homogeneous, along certain dimensions, such as the adoption of democracy and that of the English language.

Well, well, well. Twitter has facilitated, certainly unintentionally, many political gatherings and logistics across the developing world.

The permeative fluoridated tap water in Montreal looks a little opaque and a little creepy, doesn't it?

Shoot! American governments are engulfed in debts at all levels.

I for one don't like that at all. Many Americans are too genteel to berate their systems of governments. The whole financial situation over there is just very foul! H^^y ^^it.

Many people in the U.S. and Canada will be reminded not to trust any form of government from this moment forward. Not at all.

Keywords: Unfunded liability.

Northern countries, such as Canada, are notorious for their wintry cold snaps.

After having lived in Canada these years, do I want to go to Russia, Norway, Finland or something in winter? Haha. You bet I don't.

'Bundle up and hunker down'. Love that expression.

Well, this is tearing. How can the Tucson murderer possibly plead NOT guilty on the ground of his alleged insanity?

Against the backdrop of the rising of personal blogging, microblogging, and social networking and hence that many individuals have found their voices in the public arena, some journalists' roles have somewhat been replaced, I suspect.

The aboriginal peoples in the U.S. and Canada are descendants of Asian races.

My wild guess is that their ancestors had migrated from Eastern Asian areas via Russia and Alaska to the North American continent, perhaps in their pursuits of Arctic preys.

Take That was a lovely band, wasn't it?

Well, I wish that after so many years, Chinese textbooks have finally changed.

And they are no longer bereft of subject indexes.

People say some real estate agents are full of it.

Somali pirates still are extorting money from international ships.

What a failure of the Somalia state.

Cherish your time. But don't be absurd.

Don't you think French men in their berets look quite good?

(Pic from http://goo.gl/h3O5z)

Some people don't respect others' work and labor.

So they tend to belittle others' achievements.

The wide isles in grocery stores are for paunchy men and women.

And mega companies are for bureaucratic and staid business management, in certain ways.

Some websites are just foul in their appearances.

Gird your loins, Canadians.

It will a tough global competition for work. This country needs to invest more in innovation and productivity enhancement.

Much to the chagrin of some Chinese Americans, their children didn't become high-flying successful people owning mansions.

The majority of native English speakers, in contrast to the majority of ESL learners,

acquired their bases of active vocabularies throughout their childhood family life and their education in primary and secondary schools and universities.

You know what? Why has the Chinese housing market been constantly berated in China?

Why not just marketize it? Hmm...

Some people, especially among the religious people, allegedly foreknow forthcoming events.

It seems that many Chinese immigrants in Montreal are not privy to what is going on in the online life of Mainland Chinese people.

What is left in the wreckage in an online user account if that account gets cancelled voluntarily?

If you are an English learner, no matter how hectic your life is,

keep reading at least one or two pages of text in English everyday. That activity alone, can at least counter or check the natural depreciation of one's English proficiency.

I have swallowed and tasted a slew of books and articles in my past years.

(Pic from http://goo.gl/V3rPK)

The current recession has seen many wrecked careers which were established or budding.

People are scrambling to salvage the wreckage.

Many things will realize before long, and many other things will pass away momentarily.

I personally think that too many people in Canada and China borrow too heavily,

particularly in their house mortgage arrangements, to maintain their capacity of maneuvering the risk of becoming wretches when bad economic times attack.

How come I like much of what British Prime Ministers spoke so much?

Some people spend too much time on expanding their passive vocabularies,

while paying too little heed to enhancing their somewhat wretched active vocabularies.

Article via web - 为什么要重视新闻英语

"
为什么要重视新闻英语 -|Hi－Jo 发表于 2008-6-19 10:44:00


对中级水平的学生，我历来推荐使用音频(包括视频）的新闻英语学习、教学。为什么？

首先是听力训练。英语要从耳朵开始，我不知道已经说了多少遍，也许一些读者已经接受。不接受的，以后也要接受。不从这里开始，只有哑巴英语。

第二，新闻容易获得。有电台，有电视，有Podcast，很多都有下载的段落，而且发音地道清晰。有无文字（transcript)，倒在其次。

第三，新闻有连续性、重复性，对语言学习，尤其重要。

第四，有新颖性、兴趣性，容易引起兴趣和讨论。

第五，相对简单，至少结构上，比较简单。

第六，内容信息量大，单词量丰富。

第七，可以学到知识。时事也好，科技、时尚也好，都可以和社会同步。

第八，用mp3或电脑，都方便复习、模仿的训练。

...

"

- Excerpted from http://blog.zhuhai.gd.cn/user1/elmlab/archives/2008/3553.html (now defunct) in around 2008

- Recycled in 2011

The Chinese proficiency of so many native Americans and Canadians who are not Chinese descendants has become so good and native.

Gee.

(Pic from http://goo.gl/iFaRD)

You know what? All those exceedingly complicated organization and interactions of global economic activities belittle individual efforts and undertakings wretchedly.

Another fact is,

a myriad of young people in the U.S. feel wretched about their prospects. They don't think they have a bright future, in the so-called 'land of opportunities'.

As a matter of fact,

last several decades have also seen the CONTINUOUS DECREASING of median annual real income of middle class American workers. Ah, what wretchedness.

In the U.S. and Canada, last several decades have seen that workers' loyalty to their employers becomes wrecked.

Well, but who was disloyal to whom at first?

Microsoft seems to have been banished from the media spotlight.

Christianity and Buddhism are the two most popular religions that the human kind possesses.

The scriptures of the former were written in ancient times in Hebrew and ancient Greek. And the scriptures of the latter were written in Sanskrit and ancient Chinese.

I don't know much about the two religions. And I know nothing about the above mentioned languages, except for ancient Chinese, to a quite limited extent.

Perhaps some bosses, who still hold Chinese citizenship, of Chinese companies not owned by the government will begin to emigrate overseas momentarily.

Farewell, my friend. Good luck.

Have you ever heard those incantatory hymns sung in churches?

They have real effects on people.

"四依四不依"

"所谓四依与四不依，即： (一)依法不依人。(二)依了义经不依不了义经。(三)依义不依语。(四)依智不依识。（了义经，说示究竟显了之义之经典也。不了义经，谓隐覆实义，而为方便之说，不明了开显法性实义经典。） "

- 佛家语

The timeout functionality of the Chrome browser is interesting.

(Pic from http://goo.gl/jAeFZ)

It is said that mobile micropayments will be insinuated, or ushered, into people's daily life in the U.S. and Canada.

Well, Japan leads the league, for years already, certainly.

My impression has been that in the management tiers of big American companies,

every single participant nearly strains every sinew to maintain his position and compete in advancing a career in a vast organization. It's a tough life, actually.

Sigh. I've seen so many people in China having been wrecked by the great changes of the time.

Sigh. Starbucks shops provide darn good coffee, damned good music,

nice view, and friendly staff. How can you resist?

O.K. Now Acer has also jumped on the bandwagon of making Android smart phones.

Two momentary thoughts just popped up in my mind.

1. French girls' visages are so petite in general, comparing with those of the descendants of other European nations.

2. Everyone nowadays is plugged into the internet almost all the time.

Jumping from one specific subject matter to another on the spot is hard for one's mind to do.

Internet Explorer is such a botch.

Blackberry has such a vast installed base.

(Pic from http://goo.gl/slaLP)

However, many people, including myself, are anticipating that base to dissipate gradually.

A myriad of people, including ESL learners and native English speakers, drastically underestimate the amount of time and efforts required to bring one's English proficiency up to speed.

I have a love-hate relationship with, er, time.

Some articles on The Toronto Star are more insinuative than Chinese people can imagine.

Yes, insinuation is an art that many journalists in North America make use of.

I personally think that a sinewy man is more substantial than a muscular one.

Analagously, a scholarly person is even better than an erudite one. Do you agree?

The costs of the government's undertakings,

many of which have become sinews so consequential to citizens' life, are often greatly underestimated by some citizens.

Actually, if you reflect objectively, car wrecks do happen in front of your eyes not very infrequently.

That's creepy.

Article via web - Goldman Sachs to Fine-Tune Business Practices

Lo and behold, Goldman Sachs has restated that

"Our clients’ interests always come first."

See Goldman Sachs to Fine-Tune Business Practices - NYTimes.com.

Every time you make a call, you deal with a conscience.

It's a shocker to me that Bloomberg L.P. acquired the Businessweek at mere $5 million in 2009.

How cheap that price was for a renowned American biz mag. See this Wikipedia entry.

The wrecks of divorced marriages are often not very healthy for children in the long run.

That fact cannot be denied.

Perhaps 25 years down the road, there will be more and more dilapidated houses in the suburbs of Canada's big cities.

文化，即关于人生的思考、探索、与引导。

"喪己於物"

喪己於物，失性於俗者，謂之倒置之民。

《莊子 / 繕性》

Compare 莊子之 "倒置之民" with 佛家之 "倒懸之苦".

中国大陆的富豪们，大量移民加拿大，

看见温哥华的地产价格，太有喜感啦，赶快趁“便宜”买。

温哥华的本地人，看见最近若干年的温哥华的地产价格，觉得极其极其灵异，赶快趁贵卖。

整个的场景非常有爱的说。

你知道吗？会有多少人会逐渐地搬离温哥华？

The Jewish shiva tradition is quite interesting.

The current hype of smart phone and tablet is a prologue of deeper universal computing in our societies.

I for one wish that the European states' debt crises, the harbingers of economic crises, will dissipate.

Social networking and microblogging offer new ways of rediscovering the world.

(Image from http://bit.ly/a184ha)

An acquaintance of mine got into a car accident.

He didn't get severely injured. But his car became just a wreck right on the spot.

A car on the road is really fair game.

People are pruning the numbers of others whom they heed on their social networking websites.

Time is expensive. And attention should be respected.

My ears have become more able to delight in music over the years.

Excerpt - 所謂「國際觀」，就是在這種不斷的漣漪「波及」中逐漸累積見識

談臺灣的「國際化」危機 ─ 龍應台女士


「
...

以香港為例。二○○五年底世貿組織要來香港開會，一個這樣的會議給香港人帶來什麼？世貿會議在這裡開，負責協調組織會議的政府官員，從首長到最底層的小公務員，在與各國政府和代表不斷的來往溝通中，認識了國際的議題，更學到國際應對的技巧。衝著世貿會議，全世界反全球化的組織也動員要來香港抗議，由香港的民間團體負責統合。於是香港的民間團體從統合的運作中又學到了全球性的組織操作，而且在一瞬間就與全世界的反對組織接軌。至於普通市民，由於新聞的炒作，那平常不關心的人對世貿議題會得到多一點認識，平常關心的人更有機會取得第一手的訊息。

　　一次重大的國際會議就像一顆石頭拋進池塘裡，漣漪一圈一圈擴散，整個池子受「波及」，而所謂「國際觀」，就是在這種不斷的漣漪「波及」中逐漸累積見識，逐漸開闊眼界，而且深刻覺得自己是國際動脈的一份子。

幾十年沒有這樣的國際會議，幾十年沒有這樣的國際參與和對話，幾十年沒有這種國際議題的撞擊，幾十年沒有這種國際思潮和辯論的陶冶，也就是說，幾十年被排除在國際社區的外面，你能怪台灣人與世界不同調，你能怪台灣人缺乏國際觀嗎？

...
」


- Excerpted from the web in around 2008
- Recycled in 2011

Vintage music video - 齐秦 - 不必勉强

Lyrics copied from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWwIzQgJic :

不必勉強

作詞：陳昇　作曲：李柏

在每個分手道別的地方　總留一些紛亂的腳印 誰不曾徘徊過　不曾留戀過　將思念藏在未知的重逢裡 在一個淒清寒涼的夜裡　含著眼淚我默默離開你 千言和萬語　無從說起　只有靜待傷痛的痊癒 ＊離開你不容易　想念你不得已　如果你真在意　不必勉強你自己　我不怪你　日記裡太擁擠　只要輕輕把我抹去 在好多好多翻滾的夜裡　我在夢中輕輕呼喚你 想你的笑容　想你的身影　把思念化做蒼白的回憶 每一個淒美愛情故事裡　總有令人傷痛的際遇 不能不想你　不能忘記你　將思念藏在未知的重逢裡 

Rock and roll from Taiwan. Held especially dear by me. Love it immensely.

Sometimes girls love to squeak.

Traffic is gibbering in a lot of Chinese cities.

Lots of headaches.

On every news website or TV program you turn to,

there is a lot of mentioning of Twitter and Facebook. Heed that, my friend.

Without being involved in life struggles, artists don't thrive.

Microblogging services, e.g. Twitter, have come of age.

Before seeing the 1997 movie Titanic,

I hadn't known that the historic Titanic steamship tragedy was the biggest shipwreck at the beginning of the 20th century.

Just how closed we average Chinese children were to the outside world.

Twitter and the likes are considered to be microblogging service,

while Facebook and so on social networking service.

I feel that on average, stripped off monetary issues,

women cast their ideals into their lovers and their offspring, while men cast their ideals into their own enterprises and / or into women.

Gee. There are so many distinct types of drinkware in the Western world.

(Picture via http://goo.gl/IBnSd)

Rocks glass (a.k.a. old fashioned glass and lowball glass), table-glass, wine glass, shot glass, highball glass; mug, coffee cup; and on and on.

Personally I'm fond of rocks glass, table-glass, and mug. :-)

Well, nowadays, workers in their sixties are not done at all.

I would say that for any person, it is consequential of keeping more or less engaged the whole way in many spheres,

e.g. work, family, academic training and self-training, news following, sports, arts, and friendship.

Well, certainly that is not easy at all.

Many public projects are left undone, for keeps.

Ireland has been engulfed in such a deep crisis.

(Pic from http://goo.gl/kjHkB)

(Image from http://goo.gl/ISA4q)

A lot of Dublin's real estate stands tenantless.

Aren't you also always fascinated by palmy boulevards against the backdrop of late afternoon sun?

(Pic from http://goo.gl/vH2YS)

I don't know. I like radio plays more than theatrical plays.

I wonder if the playwrights of them are of different breeds. Just wondering.

Video - Lexmark Genesis Printer - Blogworld 2010 Interview

Within 5 years, Facebook's IPO will be a done deal, I guess.

Very different search capacities among Google's search engines, or search functionalities

According to my own experience, the search box in the top navbar, and the search box gadget provided by Blogger, which is powered by the Google Blog Search engine, do NOT yield complete results at all. By contrast, the domain search simply used on Google's main web page does yield complete and thorough search results.

Average consumers are not done with old-fashioned laptops and desktops, even in 5 years down the road.

Not at all.

Mr. Kevin Page, the current and very first Parliamentary Budget Officer of Canada, seems to be a poor guy in some circumstances.

Well...

It takes time to build up a received political process framework.

When defending the national interests of the U.S., the American legal system seems to be so powerful.

A great contradiction

It seems that Ayn Rand's moral philosophy, which has remained quite popular in the U.S. since the 1940s, doesn't square with the famous John F. Kennedy quote "my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."

Canadians read a whole lot of books.

Constantly reading.

Vintage music video - 风雨兼程 - 程琳

Lyrics copied from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b26cmL-w9a0 :

【風雨兼程】 3分49秒

今天你又去遠行

正是風雨濃

山高水長路不平

願你多保重

記得那年初相識

也在風雨中

風濃雨濃情更濃

祝你早成功

來也匆匆去也匆匆

就這樣風雨兼程

來也匆匆去也匆匆

就這樣風雨兼程

明天我也要登程

伴你風雨行

山高水長路不平

攜手同攀登

還是常言說得好

風光在險峰

待到雨過天晴時

捷報化彩虹

Introduction copied from http://goo.gl/GjVjf :

风雨兼程

词：王晓岭　 曲：季承、晓藕

...

作曲家季承简介

1965年毕业于中央音乐学院作曲系，师从苏夏先生，原任中国人民解放军军乐团创作室主任，一级作曲家。 主要作品1、 交响诗《秋收起义》（获1977年全军第四届文艺会演优秀创作奖）；序曲《万岁，伟大的祖国》（获1979年全国文艺会演二等奖）；序曲《希望》（获1994年团优秀作品奖）；《骑兵团进行曲》（获1991年全国进行曲比赛二等奖）；管乐小品《苏醒吧，森林》（获1990年全军调演二等奖）；歌曲《风雨兼程》（获1985年“歌曲”晨钟奖）。

作曲家晓藕简介

晓藕，原名严晓藕。王晓岭、季承和晓藕曾经是八十年代流行歌坛的创作“铁三角”，王晓玲负责作曲，季承、晓藕作曲。严晓藕原为中国人民解放军军乐团创作室主任，中国音乐家协会会员，中国电视音乐研究会名誉理事。 1945 年出生，陕西澄城人，大学时学习钢琴专业。 1973 年任军乐团专业创作员，凭自己的聪明和勤奋，把数百首音乐作品推向了社会。并突破了进行曲的程式，充分发挥不同乐器的音色，甚至把声乐与管乐宏大的音响交织在一起，用一种乐曲取得不同的效果。她的执着追求迎得了社会的赞誉，部分作品获全国性大奖。代表作有《万岁，伟大的祖国》 、《 光荣的凯旋》 、《 三个小伙伴》 、《 思乡》 、《 庆丰年》 、《 赞美》 、（欢聚》 、《 前进吧！战友》 等及盒带专辑，还为 10 多部电视片谱写音乐，她的不懈精神，报刊曾详细的在《 音乐家介绍》 栏目里作了报导。

词作者王晓岭简介

王晓岭，词作家、一级编剧。北京军区政治部战友歌舞团团长，中国音乐家协会理事，中国音乐文学学会副主席，全军高级职称评委。 主要歌曲作词有：《当兵的人》、《让我们舞起来》、《阳光路上》、《风雨兼程》、《祖国赞美诗》、《军中姐妹》等。曾获解放军文艺奖多种奖励，三次荣立二等功。

演唱者程琳简介

程琳六岁开始学习拉二胡，八岁登台演出，十二岁考入海政歌舞团任二胡演奏演员。十三岁一曲《小螺号》传遍祖国大江南北，迅速成为中国歌坛年龄最小的新星。

演唱者龚玥简介

...

有爱。

I'm glad that China has reached out its publicity hands to the society of the U.S.

I hope that the 'extra large, extra red beachhead in Times Square' will gradually become a fountainhead of China's assimilation into the Western world.

My ignorance is a mote in my eye.

Is the gradual decline of Microsoft a portentous sign for Intel?

I wonder how well policemen write.

(Image from http://goo.gl/midS4)

Even constables are required to render written reports oftentimes.

Is it always a good thing to make students constantly on their mettle?

Blogger doesn't provide any gadget for sharing to Douban.com , up to now.

Social networking websites help people thresh out significant news and information from noises, in unprecedented ways.

To Microsoft

If you've done with that Bing search engine thing, can you please take a long careful look at the social networking arena and do something significant in there post-haste, for your own good?

Software programs, including web services,

really should regard memory economy. A bad example is Adobe Flash Player.

Some consumers don't understand companies. And some citizens don't understand the government.

Different orientations of the two parties involved in each above case.

Consumers and customers in China have become so subtle.

They can really understand and discriminate products and services.

幽冥处世。

The Chrome browser's image rendering engine seems interesting,

especially when it's rendering favicons.

Tweets on Twitter are just ephemeral.

I don't like that nature quite a lot.

Every single country is earnestly looking at the U.S.,

whose economic recovery, which will go potentially faster than expected, will spill over into their own economic growth.

For some top-notch Bollywood flicks, people wouldn't miss them for the world.

Slumdog Millionaire, a 2008 movie, was a good example.

Mr. Hu Jintao must be in the fray on a lot of issues with Mr. Obama right now. Face to face.

Swiss bankers must have become nervous wrecks these days.

I suspect that Russia will quickly become a fountainhead of technological innovations.

(Pic from http://goo.gl/ztdXL)

Americans always do things post-haste, don't they?

The building of the strong hand of a country is consequential.

Consider the case of Somali.

The usage of chemicals in foodstuff should be in accordance with the government regulations.

So the government bears the brunt of being a diligent watchdog.

Firefox has been called 'venerable'. :-)

Chinese descendants are the whole world over.

I like French fries quite done.

McDonald's sometimes doesn't provide that kind of fries. Well, that's for my benefit. :-)

I suspect that without acquiring a foreign language,

monolingual native Americans and Canadians will be done for, in terms of their professional career prospects, in twenty years.

Oh, do I hate the memory leak problem of the Adobe Flash Player on my computer.

Even their current Flash Player 10 consumes a larger and larger chunk of memory and doesn't give it back. Hasn't Adobe learned the art of give and take, yet?

At least two products of Adobe, which are the widely disliked Flash Player and Adobe Reader, have been becoming increasingly outmoded. I wish websites to quickly get rid of the Flash Player by 2013. I pray.

It seems that all in all, Baidu.com's blogging service is not up to par at all.

Every edge cutting takes / wastes time, while it enriches life and sharpens mind.

I enjoy edge cutting, but I don't enjoy the loss of time. What a conundrum.

When, when can I have some time to spend on learning about religions?

I really want to get wind of Christianity and Buddhism.

Trade tit-for-tats among countries are always a considerable cause of concerns.

Montages are so vivid to look upon.

Chilled to the core

Check out this piece of news of Jan. 17th, 2011: Woman’s cries ignored as she freezes to death: Police.

And this: DiManno: Freezing death not a sign we’re cold-hearted.

Quote from the second above article:

In this case, “I’m not saying she should have been let in, but people should have at least phoned 9-1-1.”

Another local resident, George Cheang, had difficulty believing that the victim’s cries would have been ignored. He was awakened about 3 a.m. by “yelling or arguing,” Cheang told the Star. “I thought it was a family argument or perhaps some partying or drinking going on.”

So he went back to sleep.

“They can think what they want to think,” Cheang said of the police claims that the victim’s beseechings fell on deaf ears. “Neighbours always say ‘Hi’ to each other and we often borrow from each other, things like tools.”

Residents of the heavily Asian Rosewood community meet regularly to discuss the importance of reporting suspicious behaviour. Said one neighbour: “We watch over each other.”

I would say people, including myself, are chilled to the core. Oh, that Scarborough neighborhood.

Real-life experience and enlightenment tends to make people have second thoughts.

Bill Clinton has been such a rainmaker.

'Drill, baby, drill'

I just did a double take on Sarah Palin's viral slogan, 'Drill, baby, drill'. How come it seems to have a sexual implication with it? Ah, baby, it's so gelivable.

The home stretch

The home stretch of the democratization of alternative-energy cars seems to be bringing down the costs of building them to an affordable level for consumers. Once that is finished, I am afraid that day will see the beginning of the end of the Mideast's oil countries' prosperity.

Chinese puns have been prospering on the internet.

Music video - Liu Yang River - Composer: Wang Jian-zhong

I like this version more than the one below.

Politicians and statesmen are so busy ratifying international economic treaties here and there.

Well, it's somewhat sad to see that Facebook has entirely vanquished the imagination of the media and that of the investment world.

The Western pop music has branched out so many moieties along the way.

I don't grasp that people wager their hard earned money on lotteries.

The web is seized of benefits and detriments.

For a person without a firm values system in place, doubts tend to him and prick his mind-set.

The first two development stages of my English learning can be considered to be over and done with.

Oh, New York, New York. It houses two slick major print media - The New York Times, and The New Yorker.

(Pic from http://goo.gl/VUt59)

(Image via http://goo.gl/PScxM)

(Pic from http://goo.gl/evnoC)

New York, an indisputable centre of sophistication.

Reading a text leads to reading oneself.

Conservative Party's recent campaign video - Rising to the Challenge

I'm not affiliated with or inclined towards any specific political party of Canada. But this recent campaign video, which is on CPC's YouTube channel, is interesting to watch:

Sarah Palin's accused her critics of libeling her.

You can see people's reactions here: http://goo.gl/uMPa5 .

Homeboy, do what you do.

Getting an appropriate community is consequential.

Classical English literature, as well as the Chinese one, is gnomic and labor-intensive to penetrate.

Historical stuff, too. Just in a different way. It requires different background knowledge, that is.

Do you like British puns?

How much work a reader puts in is usually proportional to how much thought an author put in his work.

Monty Python is quirky and innovative.

I did double takes on their pieces of work.

Why do some young people like psychedelic clothes?

It is said that John Lennon had written trippy lyrics during one period of his life.

('Lennon playing with The Beatles in 1964 at the height of Beatlemania'; Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lennon)

I for one like the music in his song "Imagine".

Some topics have been focused on in movies and songs ad nauseam.

And they tend to turn me off in the first place.

I don't quite understand how the troupe of The Black Eyed Peas have come to such a huge stardom.

Music video - Coldplay - Yellow

(Lyrics are already embedded in the video.)

In the core spirit of the law must be that an individual's right to justice cannot be forfeited.

James Patterson's fictions are not high culture.

But he, or his surrogate authors, can output some fine sentences. For one thing, "Chairs scraped as everyone scrambled.", as in his work The 6th Target. Love that snug assembly of the 5 words.

So many occupations are being long gone. Blacksmith, tailor, shipwright, and so on.

Those work looks quaint.

Heraldry looks intriguing.

Below is an example, the coat of arms of Canada:

(An image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada , which is copyrighted by Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada)

The historical compacts between the English Canadians and the French Canadians seem interesting.

Let's "smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge", in this 21st century economy.

Human beings have combated poverty for so long.

Then we know poverty is a relative thing instead of an absolute one.

I would say the Gmail app on my Android phone is a primitive yet very trustworthy Blogger client, in a certain way.

台湾艺人徐若瑄貌似日文会话能力很好的样子

台湾艺人徐若瑄（Vivian），出生于 1975 年，于 1995 年至 2003 年间在日本发展其个人演艺事业。2010 年在东京影展亮相，貌似日文会话能力很好的样子。

东亚各地区，包括日本、韩国、台湾、中国、香港，的文化产业的互相融合已经比较深入了。


P.S. 我蛮喜欢日文的。但是不可能有时间深入学习。想念日本饮料ing。

Sunshine fills my heart with natural joy.

Time unfolds one's wisdom.

Abundant splendid congenial sunshine.

Perhaps Facebook will be finished in ten years?

I was finished with Twitter about a year ago.

The hoopla around it may have been blown out of proportion.

Taken literally, the surname 'Kidman' is an oxymoron, isn't it? :-)

组织英文倒装句，有时候有点难。

Interesting is the half joking adoption of the pseudo French pronunciation of 'Targét', as in Target discount stores, by some customers.

Is Nicole Kidman comparable with Marylin Monroe in some ways?

(Image from http://goo.gl/8Sazi)

The recent change in Tunisia is very surprising.

Many other governments must have been studying it very closely. 你懂的。

Lesson: The problem of high unemployment among young people is too important to be ignored by a government.

Now Arizona seems to have earned a reputation of a "bigotry" state.

The potential overload of Facebooking will become a liability.

Windows actually is a time-tested consumer OS.

Don't just trash it.

When we learn the English language, we are concomitantly absorbing the cultures and values it embeds and conveys.

Subliminal advertising is everywhere.

Should we like that or hate that?

Wow. Italian even sounds more beautiful than French does, I feel.

Freedom sometimes can be surreally terrifying.

That boils down to that we human beings are afraid of making bad and consequential choices. So, freedom demands capability from a person. Someone else has put it in another way: "freedom means responsibility".

There must be a lot of geo-military pacts in existence among countries.

An interesting example would be between India and Russia.

Who wouldn't like impromptu Heineken lagers once in a while?

Young people love with their eyes.

The forms of human beings are made by god. Even youngsters, male and female, can naturally appreciate them with human eyes.

On the other hand, everything man-made, tangible and intangible, needs a person to appreciate with his mind's eye. That is where sophistication comes in. Gee. I think the name PhD, "Doctor of Philosophy", can be replaced by Doctor of Sophistication. SoD that is. That would be a better name. :-)

Just some jibber-jabber of mine. :-)

Some films, and texts, which look truthful harrows me significantly.

For one thing, the 2010 Taiwanese flick Monga. Below is its official trailer:




From time to time, truth unsettles human beings enormously.

In this hectic life, an activity is hard to be picked up again once it is broken off.

It's very apparent that the once red hot MySpace has been dying.

Adieu, MySpace. Peace.

Facebook still has a way to go to acceptable handling of its users' privacy issues.

I for one am surprised that Sarah Palin, of all American politicians, has gathered a national clout.

I had begun to read the Newsweek around three years ago.

Then I was finished about a year later. I felt it sort of too political for me.

Humans' organization is sublime.

Now it's been moving towards online, in an understated and sublime way.

We tend to swear by something because we don't know better.

Flavors

Coffee, strong coffee.
Python, free Python.

Java, Sun Java.
.NET, ASP.NET.


P.S. If you're not an IT person, don't worry at all if you don't understand this little poem of mine. :-)

Oh, I love the slick web design of The New Yorker website and its exceeding favicon.

Below is a pic of their slick paper mags:

(Pic from http://goo.gl/VUt59)

If legit gun usage could be guaranteed in the U.S. ...

In countries like the U.S., Britain and Canada, public politicians must have known that they would become fair game, when they started out at the beginning.

The Economist is the baddest British mag.

我觉得“被和谐”这个词极其有意思。

恩，和谐的社会与被和谐的社会是很不一样的。

The maelstrom of information streams can be maddening from time to time.

Tush, at least half of all the songs churned out every year have no effective cultural values.

Poetry illumes people's hearts.

The other month, I walked in a coffee shop and sat myself down.

Then immediately I noticed several men not far from my table. They were mostly in their sixties. And they were talking about stocks enthusiastically.

I personally think they were kind of playing with fire, at their ages, they shouldn't expose their retirement moneys to the risks of laymen playing in the volatile stock market. It's better for them to leave their retirement moneys in the hands of professional investment managers who they would VERY CAREFULLY choose.

It's interesting to see that people assailing each other happens all the time at the top political level of Canada, i.e. in the Canadian House of Commons.

Well, the business of politics is not for the faint-hearted.

Entreating wolves not to destroy lambs predatorily only wastes time.

Don't let ignorance take hold of you. Will ya?

Unfold yourself with others.

The largely sunless long winter in Montreal is capable of making people sick at heart.

Of course not today. I love you, sun grandpa.

The niubility of Larry Ellison, the CEO of Oracle, knows no bounds.

The testimonial he put out for The Economist is as follows:

I used to think. Now, I just read The Economist.

http://ads.economist.com/the-economist/testimonials/

Man, that, is the most niubi magazine testimonial I've ever seen.

Can RIM forge an alliance with some complementary company in order to gather speed and strength?

張九齡《感遇》十二首第一

“

欣欣此生意

自爾為佳節

”

--節錄自張九齡《感遇》十二首第一（唐詩三百首），當作於開元二十五年（737）

張九齡，盛唐最後一位寒士宰相，於開元二十四年（736）罷相，貶荊州長史。從此士族朝臣一統天下。


My random thoughts: meritocracy, U.S.A.

Google 与 豆瓣，补充和加速知识环节的传播，功德无量。

Vintage music video - 齐秦 - 蜉蝣

(This version has better sound quality than the one below, especially around the time point of minute 2:29.)







Lyrics copied from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4JdevTzSvA:

【蜉蝣】 4分04秒

作詞：齊秦　作曲：齊秦、黃大軍

＊在風中　就這樣停止不動

讓笑聲　丟入蒼茫一片

當太陽停留在模糊的地平線

是否現在開始走出舊日的隱痛

＊在雨中　就這樣停止不動

讓自己，丟入蒼茫一片

我並不願執著在你來去之間

為何無法看透躲在命運裡的捉弄

△究竟我應該屬於哪個感情世界裡的蜉蝣

除了你還有什麼？

男人，少年时在世界之中找自己的理想，长大后在理想之中找自己的世界。

(Image via http://goo.gl/1QA2V)

理想，自然是每人各有不同。

说真的，更好地“糊口”也算是理想的一种吧。

说起来，最有吸引力的世界要算是“自己内心理想（的）完美映射”了。

Optional: 那个，是关于一段或长或短的 “我很丑 可是我很温柔” 的行程。行程的长度与格局，因人而异。

For a person, a system of values guidelines are pivotal.

1.6 capital punishment

In 2009, the legal processes of the U.S.A. sentenced the 70-ish Mr. Bernard Madoff, the infamous Ponzi schemer who had forged stupendous financial results and fleeced his investment clients around $18 billion all the way, to an imprisonment of 150 years.

150 years of prisoning roughly equal to 1.6 capital punishment, given the life expectancy of a typical American of his class.

Sometimes freedom tastes bitter, and sometimes it tastes delightful.

I guess that depends on what you do with it.

咖啡馆，就是应该有疗伤系的内涵。

A person's independence is inevitable during his university career.

The process of that is subtle and aloof, and largely unassisted.

I had two Arab classmates.

One was from Kuwait, and the other from Jordan. I kind of enjoyed those moments of their company. I kind of miss them.

Cyprus is an intriguing country with a population of around 1 million, which is a comparatively highly educated people.

A company over there manages to export allegedly genuine Russian vodka, which is made in Russia FOR the Cypriot company, to Canada.

I am ignorant about the Mediterranean.

Why did I begin to love products 'Made in Germany' so much?

Exceeding quality.

Should the working class Americans spend some time on learning about foreign countries and acquiring foreign languages in lieu of getting familiar with domestic rock bands?

Maybe the cultivation system of the PUBLIC primary and PUBLIC secondary schools of the U.S.A. is really a big excruciating failure. I know, I know, education of minors unavoidably involves some disciplining, which sort of counters the individualism and freedom that Americans, inherently governed by Anglo-Saxon values, cherish greatly. It is a conundrum.

Northern Africa, including Morocco and Tunisia, has always looked and felt very exotic to me.

View Larger Map

Those countries have European flair, as well as Arab flair.

Some pervasive media tend to be pernicious to the core, in certain senses.

I don't know why. I've just suddenly fallen in love with the sound of the word 'laugh'.

:-D

Italian sounds so delicious to my ears. :-)

I'll be all ears for it.

Time is fast, because we are slow. That is what our entire life is like.

Gee, a thought has just dawned on me after I put down the above sentences: Wasn't that an idea in Einstein's Theory of Relativity? :-D

The canon of great literature is pivotal.

Students tend to be undersold in this harrowed modern world.

In some ways, parents in China are lieges of their children.

At the same time, in some other ways, they are dictators of their children's lives.

Life is complicated.

A person's responsibilities towards his family shouldn't lead him all the way

to the engulfing, overpowering, and consuming selfishness towards other human beings, in the long run.

The mojo of keyboard shortcuts on laptop and desktop corresponds to the mojo of voice control on smart phone and tablet.

Google's web services and Apple's iPhones have been democratizing them, respectively, till now.

The de facto resegregation, which seems to be happening in the U.S., can lead to dangerous consequences further down the road.

Many issues in the software world are moot.

Every one of us more or less likes communicating with fellow human beings.

And that is embedded in human nature.

Not too many Chinese immigrants in Canada are able to conduct masterly thinking, until now.

LSE and King's College London (KCL) are especially held dear by me, among the excellent universities located in London, U.K.

On a related note, I've just gotten to know that Virginia Woolf had attended KCL for some years. And, you can take a peek at Shakespeare at King's.

UCL is actually so prestigiously strong.

Some Chinese only know about the cachet of U. of Cambridge and U. of Oxford.

However, UCL, as well as a few other universities located in London, such as LSE, LBS, Imperial College London, and King's College London, which University of London, a seemingly very loose organization, once included or still includes for many years, is so top-notch in their academic pursuits and strengths.

The usability of douban.com is not as excellent as that of Google's web services.

Details do matter.

Will Dell throw its hat into the ring of smart phone competition?

After all, it's already been churning out tablets.

Some people ignore news nonchalantly day after day.

The fluidity of capital is accompanied and facilitated by that of workers' mobility,

that of real estate markets, that of interconnected transportation infrastructures, and that of global telecommunication of videos, audios and texts which are manifested in English in this internet era.

However, the complexities and obstacles in those forms of fluidity seem to be boundless too.

HTC has been forging ahead with its excellent foresight.

Its decision to maneuver from Windows Mobile, the predecessor of Windows Phone 7, to Android in around 2009 was very smart.

By the way, its slogan "quietly brilliant" is poignantly catchy, isn't it?

Some men live a sorry life.

Every once in a while, they get paid, then they get laid.

Some women live a sorry life.

Every once in a while, they get laid, then they get paid.

Happiness is to be found, and to be made.

And you can substitute the word 'happiness' in the above sentence with 'love'. :-) Have a good day.

Some Chinese university profs seem to have sold their academic souls very early on.

Precocious materialism.

Constricted by the evolved system, individual Americans shouldn't replicate the traditional American dream.

Don't you think so?

The idea of democracy is far easier to propagate in this internet era.

Is the U.S. government going to lean on some more large companies in order to put out the wild fire of Wikileaks?

Is it wise or dumb for Apple to close off much of its code?

In their controversial handling of Wikileaks, Amazon.com and Paypal ran the risk of being abhorred and abrogated by some customers, from those moments forward.

Americans and Canadians believe in and rely on legal processes.

Yeah, a true legal system's due processes. Hmm.

So governments which employ or utilize extralegal means are not to be trusted.

Webcasts consume almost all the bandwidth of the worldwide internet.

The worst spots of internet traffic jam must be coffee shops and tech meeting rooms. Well, your home network is your oasis.

See this article and also take a look at the sorrily thin Steve Jobs: Wi-Fi Overload at High-Tech Meetings - NYTimes.com .

Article on NYT - Tablets, Compared

A slick comparison of the leanest ones: Tablets, Compared - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com .

The technologies and innovations which Russia is able to create nowadays can run deep.

Probably greatly deeper than I thought few years ago.
Unfortunately, that nation has oftentimes been ignored by Western marketeers.

Move over, the Mideast oil.

Here comes the tar sands oil and shale oil.

Keywords: alternative energy, new energy.

Anglo-Saxon is hard to crack.

I thinkth so. Dost thou agree not?

The most popular microblogging service in China seems to be too closed in some senses to be for their own benefit.

Here it goes: http://t.sina.com.cn/ .

I wonder why.

The monotony of familiarized office work can deprive a person of his imagination, in certain ways.

It's received that Shakespeare makes use of iambic pentameter.

It's about sounds, my friend. Iambic rhythm it is.

It can be hard to use meter to drive a poem forward to a listener's ears.

Pieces of English writing which taste like Anglo-Saxon are delicious to my eye.

My mind loves savoring them.

For a person with a native Chinese cultural and language background, mastering English takes a very lengthy way to work out.

That's the "inconvenient truth".

I've gradually begun to appreciate the mojo of Canadians' comparatively lenient temperament.

Don't say it's boring. It's just about being understated.

Life in this information era is a litter of usernames and passwords.

Some people in the workplace tend to get their own back on their enemies.

The same tendency manifests itself in the rounds of tit for tat between countries. To retaliate is human nature.

Oh, I love the Oxford University Press, albeit I'm not into the university itself very much.

The same goes to The MIT Press and MIT. Speaking of MIT, who doesn't hate spending multiple years on "drinking from a fire hose", kind of in a forced manner, anyway, except geniuses?

Rumors have it that HTC is planning a launch of tablet in early 2011.

See this: HTC Tablet rumours: what you need to know.

It's reasonable for me to anticipate that their tablets will be finer than Samsung's.

The fray between the family of laptop and desktop and that of smart phone and tablet will be interesting to watch.

Mr. Peter MacKay, Canada's Minister of National Defence, seems to be a graceful gentleman.

Once again, lenient gun ownership laws of the U.S. have been blamed in the wake of the very recent gun-shooting massacre in Tuscon, Arizona.

However, widespread gun ownership and lenient laws governing it may be one of the main reasons why the U.S. is capable of being a great nation. That is, civilians RESERVE the power and forces to tame the elected government, as I heard.

But, that is a very very subtle and controversial issue that my little mind, which is untrained in Political Science, cannot handle.

From time to time, I've been deeply impressed by Westerners' respect for equal rights of individual human beings, poor or rich, minority or WASP,

against the backdrop of my background of being brought up in China.

Just impressed.

That's where self-esteem, assurance, and confidence largely stem from.

Some buildings on American and Canadian streets look ratty.

By comparison, China's big cities have many more buildings which look more modern than North American cities nowadays.

However, how will the buildings in Chinese cities and North American cities look like in fifty years?

The eclectic Android phones seem to be going to win out,

while iPhones allegedly tend to too often drop calls due to their touchscreens' hyper sensitivity.

Macbook is a showpiece of elegant industrial design.

Starbucks shops, as well as Second Cup shops, play damn good songs.

You don't want to lead a life largely driven by desires.

You want a life largely driven by poetry.

Some people are naturally very good at impersonating.

Did you watch the wedding dance of the impersonation of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" MV dance?

Myriad adults and children in the developing world have been bringing vast proportions of their energies and time to bear on the task of English learning.

I don't quite understand why Montreal's Chinese immigrants don't act on that imminent task.

Peace of mind seems too elysian to have in these turbulent economic times.

The invention of nuclear weapons and their proliferation are very crazy things that the human kind has ever done.

Public figures should take up the cause of diminishing them.

Before you decide to go to a new place and live there,

crane your neck and look around better. And think twice.

(Image via http://goo.gl/foBAm)

A life at a new place is not necessarily a better life, in the long run.

Animals spent most of their time on foraging for foods.

Are men different than them?

We just have better houses than they do. :-)

Tempers in Israel seem to be a little frayed.

Keywords: Palestinians living and working in Israel.

Check out the pimped out Nike website:

http://goo.gl/EPOGU

Investors have lost their trust and confidence in the American stock market.

So they've been running for the hills. To where? To the emerging markets.

The Zeitgeist - the breakdown of trust between employers and employees,

and the breakdown of trust between investment companies and investors.

Sometimes I'm too rapt with English learning.

I don't dislike falsettos.

Phil Collins has a husky voice.

I don't really understand how consortiums can go well all the way.

Freedom is living according to your lights.

Yes, according to your own lights.

(Picture via http://goo.gl/y0f8z)

I gather that the relatively recent outburst of creativity among the people in China is really stupendous.

(给力啊。)


Further down the road, it will be interesting to watch how the China nation bridges to the outside world, excluding Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, emotionally and intellectually (Come on, don't you think that being familiar with popular Western music, flicks from Holywood and Europe, and Harry Potter yarns and the likes does NOT run deep and invoke much real-deal profundity in a society?), given that it has already done so economically and partly financially.


(有爱啊。:-)

Higher education which is hard to scrape through is the most rewarding one, in certain ways.

I don't really understand why people still keep trying and trying to scrape into the financial industry.

Its heyday is gone. And people already working in it have been trying to break away from it for various reasons.

Forage grass is different than lawn grass.

Analogously, people founding companies are different than people working for companies.

These years of very deep economic crises brought Americans their reckoning.

Just don't live beyond your means. So for those lending agencies, such as VISA and MasterCard, how well will their businesses go?

Here's a caveat everyone should consider.

If you go abroad from China, which skills will enable you to compete in a foreign job market? If you go the opposite direction, then which skills will enable you to compete in the unique Chinese job market?

Article via web - Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior

Here's an article on WSJ: Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior. My opinion of Yale Law Professor Amy Chua dropped some notches after having skimmed that essay of hers. Perhaps I was being too judgmental.

Living in Canada is very dissimilar to living in China.

Just totally different experiences.

死宅的软件工程师。

(Picture from http://goo.gl/IeQqv)

中国未来的经济发展与社会发展

Keyword: 权贵资本.

Mr. Tony Blair, an ex Prime Minister of Britain, likes G and T.

(Image from http://bit.ly/b2Eode)

But he was a Prime Minister of a land which produces the best whiskeys in the world. Now we know that men really differ in their tastes.

My ignorance knows no bounds.

TV programs and movies tend to be cheesy sometimes.

What has happened to the Canadian way of life over the past several decades? And why?

People eat jejune diets day in and day out. They lack exercises. They don't sleep enough and hence feel tired day after day. They don't save enough for retirement. And their children don't have appropriate jobs available when they graduate from university.

Gee. This anomalously constricting way of life sucks. Something must be done.

Since the social networking websites now constitute an ever larger chunk of the information sources that people make use of,

how can the veracity of the information be assured?

When the young people in China engulf themselves with Eminem's music,

(Picture via http://goo.gl/vgeyv)

do they really understand the indelible scars in and the social context of it?

I can sympathize with elders.

Significant changes in the society and economy can rack their lives. No wonder they don't like changes.

Many elders' behavior sends an unequivocal message:

they still prefer newsPAPERS and TV much more than the internet and they somewhat fear the internet, computer, iPhone and the likes. Well, now you know to which generation this world belongs.

Music video - Coldplay - Viva La Vida

Lyrics: http://goo.gl/O4mHN .

The helpful Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viva_la_Vida .

Gee, British alternative rock...

The bombing foray into South Korea by its North counterpart has wreaked such a systematic preparation for war on the southern side.

I hope the war will not break out.

How exactly did Mr. David Cameron scrape into the post of British Prime Minister?

I am curious about that. And I for one admire his fantastic communication skills.

Club 8's song "Western Hospitality" has equivocal lyrics.

I really think that flush toilet is one of the best achievements of engineering.

Do rowdy teenage boys crowds know how scary they look?

Over the years, I've become impatient with refrains in songs if they're not poetic.

The rich beauty of the English language is pertinently alive in the U.S., while that of the Chinese language is not alive in mainland China.

I am sorry to discover that. And I am happy to look forward.

Photography complements text in rendering feelings and thoughts.

That sour note in the air signals that Nabob "Traditional" coffee isn't top-notch.

(Picture from http://goo.gl/ysQwb)

Holiday shopping forays into the U.S. are so popular among Canadians.

For some, life is a journey to cruise past. And for others, it is a course to scrape through.

How come many hip hop songs' lyrics tend to be a little raunchy?

Anyway, freedom of expression in artistic activities.

This global economy seems to be cobbled in times of crises.

How come so many mavens work in and contribute to the U.S.?

Indeed, the United States of America is blessed.

During tempestuous periods, patience and constancy might be the most powerful helpers.

2010年度值得关注一下的两部热门的华语电影

姜文作品：《让子弹飞》
与
台湾作品：《艋舺》（这部映画貌似有些深意在其中）

At my level of English proficiency, perusing The Economist is still an uphill scraping.

The major reason behind that is that I lack the sufficiently cosmopolitan knowledge about Europe, Latin America, world politics, culture, European languages, and so on, which many people in this world in fact possess.

Anyway, all's well that ends well.

Aftertaste

(Picture from http://goo.gl/ysQwb)

Aftertaste is what distinguishes first-tier and second-tier coffee for the most part, say, Starbucks' "Caffè Verona" and Nabob's "Traditional".

Analogously, is aftertaste what discriminates good work and bad work? Also, is it what differentiates a good life led by a man and a not-so-good life?

Hmm.

The countability and uncountability of English nouns are arid.

Under the seemingly calm faces in Canada, how many people are just scraping a living in this era which gets an earful of "financial crisis" and "debt crisis"?

Frictions fray people's nerves.

I don't know. Certain parts of the Western Europe seem to have been paragons of elegance.

No wonder Americans always like to learn European languages.

Now that Facebook has vanquished most consumers' favor,

how long is it going to retain them?

Sometimes bunglers tend to have bigger ambitions than professionals do, because the latter have more experience of this rule: reality checks.

(Picture from http://goo.gl/tQcPA)

I for one don't know and can't fathom how much pretense and humbug financiers put on, even when they are dealing with people's retirement money.

And, as for those so-called "financial advisors", many of them merely are SALESMEN of financial products. Their "ADVICES" you take not, my friend.

I haven't been closely following the reporting on the causes of the current financial crisis.

Has there been a cogent explanation beside the sub-prime mortgages?

Do you want to become a maven?

What do frayed jeans indicate?

(Image via http://goo.gl/4purZ)

Stuff worn by time and your own activities can be claimed as solely yours. Of course, you can expend extra dollars and buy that pair of frayed or ripped denim off the shelf.

I wonder if Mr. Bill Clinton's reputation was really scraped by his Lewinsky scandal.

He still seems to be all influential in American political scene.

How many foreign secret emissaries are there in Canada? And how many ones are in each country?

(Image from http://goo.gl/G1DFh)

Espionage, especially industrial espionage, has never really ceased its existence since the end of the Cold War, I heard.

Humble succor shines glorious humanity.

Dogs gnaw bones

Dogs gnaw bones
Cats smell fish
Humans look for things heartfelt

How come almost everything needs scrambling for in the People's Republic of China?

Law and order, please.

I can't stand any sound of something scraping on a piece of paper at all.

Too abrasive for my conscience.

I admit that Facebook baffles the hell out of me.

On the surface, Facebook web pages tend to be almost full of nonversations and frivolous stuff. I haven't been able to bring myself to invest really sufficient time, which must be a lot, in discovering its true worth for me. So I'm as disoriented and bamboozled as the author of this article: Facebook Plots its Future: Will it Be Our Overlord?

Mr. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook which is a private company valued at US$50 billion by Goldman Sachs, has allegedly vowed to donate half of his wealth to charity.

So, in essence, his money follows the suit of smart money and noble money.

That is a great American tradition. And that, showcases that the United States of America is a GREAT nation, a "kingdom on the hill", although inevitably with its own glitches and shortcomings. God bless it.

Vintage music video - Casablanca - Bertie Higgins

Lyrics: http://goo.gl/8QN1X .

I guess I'll slowly watch few flicks whose cast includes the famous beauty Ingrid Bergman, who was the main actress in the above classic movie Casablanca, in the coming years.

A mind set takes a long time to forge and construct.

But it seems easy to lose. So put it to use, I urge you.

Dimensional English

Short, long. Narrow, wide. (Two dimensions.)

Ditto. Low, high. (Three dimensions.)

High, short. (For describing people who are three-dimensional)

Isn't that amazing?

Being impressed is hard to come by, sometimes.

Yet working hard can make the moment appear and come off earlier.

Tastes whose acquirement cannot be supported directly, or even indirectly, by money are the ones which are the most valuable.

Relatively low boredom threshold shouldn't be cultured in an individual.

(Image via http://goo.gl/F2gKv)

And to counter boredom, weapons that can be employed and engaged consist of interest, emotions, determination, assurance, and feelings.

Sophistication comes not easily. And achievement too.

Can women scrape with their decorated fingernails when they occasionally need to?

Just a frivolous or stupid question of mine.

On the threshold of a new day, more working and thinking awaits me.

How high is the threshold of business survival? And how high is that of business innovation? Answer those two questions with ____.

Nicole Kidman's pale and alabaster complexion is one of the reasons why she is very well received.

And, you can take a gander at this brief video news - Nicole Kidman debuts as producer in Rabbit Hole.

Men need provisions and slumbers.

Those, are the first tier of restrictions on men.

Rounds of offers and counter offers have become such a hallowed custom.

It may not be efficient.

The economy looks ready to really recover with fears still hanging.

(Image via http://goo.gl/zTDSd)

I hope I am right.

So many laymen and tinkerers have tried hard to be prophetic in stock markets or about lottery numbers selection.

So I guess everyone of us is a sorcerer or sibyl at heart. :-) No wonder that the Harry Porter series sell so well.

Articles via web - 医生之死谁之过? etc.

All below is copied from the internet.

"""

我喜欢的洪昭光语录

人一定要活出智慧，这智慧就是把健康放在第一位，有一个好心态，然后再去奋斗。

生活本意是享受，有劳有逸慢生活；

生命本意是快乐，自然自在原生态。要像心脏一样工作，行云流水；像蜜蜂一样生活，轻松快乐；像婴儿一样睡觉，无忧无虑；像老子一样思考，顺应自然。

要想健康100岁，关键在中年，对工作要出力出汗不出血、拼脑拼劲不拼命。

中青年人正处在压力最大的时候，要把握好"三驾马车"：事业重要，家庭更重要，健康最重要。事业可以重头再来，家庭失败从头再来很痛苦，而健康没了就什么都失去了。

健康就像空气，最重要却很少有人意识到。

努力是对的，但要有底线，把握好尺度。

医疗并不等于健康，医疗需要高风险、高科技、高投入，健康却很简单、很容易，收效也很大。现在很多医生守在医院里，不舒服了也不去看病，只能说明对自己的健康关爱不够。

生命就像艺术品，损坏容易修复难，

不是与自然和谐了，工作就不勤奋了，恰恰是生活规律的人，成就最大。

洪昭光特别推崇季羡林老先生在90多岁时写的一本书《病榻杂记》。老先生提出，人生有三大任务：人和自然的和谐，人际之间的和谐，情感、思想和身体的和谐。

医生之死谁之过？

医生之死谁之过？
读过郑建国医生的故事，我为他难过、惋惜，但不感到奇怪，只是深深地为医生这个职业悲哀，医生的天职是救死扶伤，但却救不了自己，医生之死谁之过？
据研究70%的疾病与生活方式有关，看看医生的生活方式吧，最基础的健康生活方式应该包括合理膳食，适度运动，充足睡眠，心理平衡。
首先说说膳食，如果不值班可以在家吃饭，但大多数医生不住在医院，时间仓促只好简单解决，如果值班比较麻烦，医生大多是24小时值班制，按规定中途不得离开病区，如果离开就是脱岗，出事负全责，几年前某外科，早上7时许医生下楼打饭约5分钟，一患者心跳停止，患者家属状告医生，虽然此前患者心跳停跳几次但都抢救过来了，如果医生在，患者可能活，为此医生付出沉重的代价。患者死了，医生也觉得怨，也很自责，不吃饭也许是对的，其他的行业值班24小时，总会给1-3天补休，可医生值班24小时第二天至少上午要正常上班，外科医生还要手术，下午休不休还要看有没有事，下班前还要到科室查房，这个制度不知从何而来，但必须执行，早饭敢随便吃吗？8点上班了，医生都来了，总可以吃早饭了吧，希望不要被领导看见，否则上班时间吃饭一年的早饭钱就上交了吧。中午好多医院提供值班免费午餐，晚饭只有请医院周边小馆子送点饭菜，偷偷在值班室吃了，否则有碍观瞻，影响医院形象。你绝对不敢走开，因为患者将生命都交给了，你还去吃饭。这样的值班制度对患者似乎有利，但对医生不知是否合理？现在手术多，经常接台手术，手术结束也就下午了，两台手术间隙请人能买个盒饭那是很好的了，质量不谈。如果是大手术那就靠你自己的储备了。饮食的均衡合理就不谈了。
谈谈运动，早上不可能，白天上班不可能，只有晚上，多少次下决心晚上运动半小时，但每周有一天晚上科室大查房，因为白天没时间，有一天晚上医院学习（现隔周一次），值班1-2次，回家吃饭后做在沙发上就睡着了，老婆经常抱怨跟你说会儿话都难。
谈谈睡眠，很多医生，除了临床工作，还要做科研写文章，因为这些都和晋级、晋升挂钩，敢充足睡眠吗？
谈谈愉快的心情，目前医生的生存环境好不好先不谈，客观的说，医生长期接触大量患者，看到患者痛苦的表情，绝望的神情，极端的恐惧，死亡的威胁，还要看着患者死亡，这些都是严重的恶性负面刺激。这样长期的负面刺激得不到宣泄，如何能有愉快的心情？心理如何平衡？
就这样生活方式，医生怎能健康？
社会对医生有很多误解也严重影响医生的健康：
误解一：医生的工作环境很好，天天待在干净的病房里，实际医生必须面对脓、血、便、病变的脏器，这些都含有细菌、病毒、致病微生物、对人有伤害的致病物，记得伟大的国际主义战士白求恩是怎么离开战场的吗？手术中感染。还记得非典时期多少医生倒下了，他们是如何倒下的？就是在医院工作。现在这些危险消失了吗?没有。国内外都非常重视的医院内感染，难道只传染患者不传染医生吗？大家都说医生得病难医，现在应该知道为什么了吧。有这样的误解，也可以理解我每月的卫生津贴15元，交警好像是几百元。
误解二：医生工作轻松，在人们心目中医生还是穿上白大褂，带个听诊器，做在那儿悠闲问一问看看一看，实际上现代医疗技术的发展，时时刻刻在考验医生的脑力、体力和心理承受能力。一天手术下来，小便都尿不出几滴，想一想那是什么样的强度。
误解三：医生收入高，工资大家都知道，医生唯一特殊的就是有15元卫生津贴（每月），红包不知道谁敢收，吃回扣、拿提成那是违规的，我所知道很多医生的房子车子是靠爱人靠家庭买的。医院为了方便病人看病，开展周末门诊，又不影响平常门诊，规定医生周末看门诊不补休，给于补助4元（人民币），值24小时班也会发值班费的，金额5元（人民币），中午手术超过13点补助牛奶1盒（半斤），想通过正常行医发财没门，想发财当医生是不可能的，很多想发财的医生都离开医院了，病人那么痛苦、都要死了，敢说赚钱打死你，医生就应该清贫吗？
误解四：医生就应该是天使，否则就是白狼。令人崇敬的天使般的医生有，令人讨厌的白狼医生有，但在医生这个群体中都是极少数，大多数都是平凡的人，上有老，下有小，在自己的岗位上兢兢业业工作，履行自己的职责，养家糊口，为生存拼搏。
误解五：医生懂医，身体好，医生怎么会得病。知行合一才有效，光懂有什么用，只能对别人有帮助。
误解六：医生不应该休息，今年春节前到物管处交费，说道放假，突然旁边一人质问道：你们还放假？唉，只有笑笑说：医生为什么不放假？每次长假都不可能完整休过，连双休日都很难完整休过。医院领导每次都非常重视节假日值班，但值班后的补休不会有人过问，所谓的加班工资，双倍工资不知那位医生拿过。
误解七：看病难、看病贵都是医生造成的。实际上医疗费用的高低医生能影响的比例很低。所有药品、器材、服务价格都是国家定价，大处方有多少，乱检查有多少，正规医院很少，为什么说感冒照X线片就是乱检查，因为医生怀疑是肺炎，可病人不理解。做手术查艾滋病、乙肝等，病人也不理解，很多病患者一来治疗就要求根治，可能吗？沟通的道路还很漫长，人们对疾病的了解还有很长的路要走。
社会及管理者缺乏对医生的关爱，医疗机构对医生缺乏人性化的管理和使用，目前医疗机构的管理者只强调以病人为中心，片面强调医疗的特殊性，强迫医生奉献的医疗运行模式，比如住院医生24小时负责制，二线班医生不得离院，经治医生每日查房，随叫随到，急会诊15分钟内到达，医生24小时值班制等等，这些制度都很对，但忽略对医生的支援，以透支医生的健康、剥夺医生的权益为代价，对于医生病人的利益高于一切，那医生的利益有谁来保障，医生的健康谁来负责，二者本来相辅相成，为何走向对立？医生是不是劳动者？不知是否受劳动法的保护？医生之所以受到重视是因为"健康所系，性命相托"，但为什么只有要求、索取，而不给一点宽容、理解、关爱。社会及管理者缺乏对医生的关爱是一个重要方面。
过度拔高医生的思想境界，古今中外都有很多伟人及医学家，为医生提出了非常高的各种要求，说明这个行业的重要，这个行业的崇高，近代有为了医学事业终身未嫁、终身未育的伟大医生，有每次治病如履薄冰、如临深渊的医生，有人民的好医生华益慰等等，他们是我们学习的榜样，特别是现在对医生要求更高，除具有专业知识、技能、良好医德，还必须具有人文知识、伦理、法律等知识，还必须具备哲学家的美好品质，不追求名利，有一位老专家说："有志从医者要有足够的心理准备，为了患者的利益，常会加班工作，打乱个人安排和家庭生活，而金钱和名利却不能成为追逐的目标，医生应该自问能否永葆奉献精神，否则会充满矛盾、懊恼和不悦。"但这种理想中的医生还不多，现在职业性的医生比较多，能把本专业干好已经就不错了，当然即使你做到了，也未必得到社会的承认，从心理学角度讲这种长期付出得不到回报必然会产生失衡。报据统计大多数医生的孩子不愿学医，很多医生也不愿孩子学医，优秀的医生转行的也很多，在目前就业压力下医生来源不成问题，而优秀可能成问题。
医疗机构过度宣传与媒体不负责的负面宣传，一方面过度提高对医学的期望，另一方面增加了对就医的恐惧。
过度强加社会责任，例如病人无力承担医疗费用，医院每年都有大量欠费，而医院又将此费用强加到医生头上，每个医生每年都要承担这些费用，想一想公平吗？目前医患关系紧张，医疗投诉不断，只要患者投诉，不管医生是否有错，先把医生拿来从快、从重处理，有理也说不清，都是你的错。如果有医疗差错、医疗事故，天价索赔，很不得吃你的肉，喝你的血，医院也把责任推给医生，现在一些大医院已经不愿作风险大的手术了，真不知是祸还是福？医生的肩膀能承担起这些过度强加的社会责任吗？
当前医生的生存环境相当不好，每日如履薄冰、如临深渊，一只脚在医院，一只脚在法院，患者的眼睛和摄像机盯着你，管理者的眼睛和相机也盯着你，胆敢越雷池一步，将给予你刻骨铭心的惩处，法院还要求你证明没错。医生的工作是奉献的工作，回报应该是社会的尊重，医生已经失去职业带来的快感，再好的思想道德，再过硬的心理素质不知能坚持多久，失衡将给医生、患者和社会带来严重的后果，生老病死是每个人都要经历的，而这个过程都需要医生的帮助。
医生的猝死不知能否引起社会对医生生存状态的关注？

为什么穷人治病花钱多

长期在临床一线工作,常常见到一些家庭贫穷的患者,医生也非常同情,千方百计为患者省钱,当治疗结束后算算花费却比治疗同样疾病的有钱人花的更多,为什么?
1、发现晚,就诊晚,确诊晚,有效治疗晚。
2、不信医生信偏方。(希望花小钱治大病,那得运气相当的好啊)
3、到处看病,重复检查。(希望寻找便宜的医院,实际上医疗费用是政府定价,同级医院问样方法治疗问一疾病费用差不多。)
4、不能及时决定采取决定性治疗。(不懂医学,只听道听途说,常听到某某说要怎么怎么医,你问某某懂医吗?答:不懂。没钱更害怕花钱也是个原因)
5、心存侥幸。(可能医生搞错了,都这么不顺了,怎么还会得这个病)
6、能拖就拖。(过一天算一天,终于到了过不下去的这天,怎么办?)
7、不买保险,没有应对突发疾病的措施及经济准备。(没想到买,没钱或有一点钱,怕买了自己没用上可惜,真得病了他还是很后悔的,很多人还是买的起)
给点建议:
在国家和政府还不能为大家提供免费医疗自己又挣不到很多钱的情况下,这样做可能要好一些:

1. 通过电视、书、杂志等学一医学科普知识,养成良好的生活方式,70%疾病发生与生活方式有关,争取少得病。
2. 有病及时到正规医院看,而且要看出人结果,争取早期诊断。
3. 正规治疗。
4. 要有防范意识,存点钱或买个保险,一辈子不得一次病不容易啊。

"""


- Copied from http://cdzhangguohu.blog.sohu.com/rss in around 2008


- Recycled in 2010

云淡 风轻。

“
长风几万里
吹度玉门关
”
- 李太白


“
唱一首歌  叫作生命
却不知生命为何
”
- 词 / 曲：齐秦

To discern and thresh out quality stuff demands sophisticated minds.

A capitalist society is not necessarily a mercenary society all the time.

Capitalism, in essence, is just a way to organize production, for my money.

Shout-out - I've finished the fiction "For Whom the Bell Tolls"!

I've finished my first read of Hemingway's novel, "For Whom the Bell Tolls"!

I've been reading the fiction for more than one year. It was a difficult uphill path to tread initially, I'd admit, with great loads of new words, especially the one-syllable ones, which Hemingway was a master on. But gradually the reading became more and more engaging and interesting for me.

Hemingway, the well-known Nobel Laureate in Literature, obviously wrote quite well. It should be better to read him instead of some emotional yarns. This work of him, For Whom the Bell Tolls, is a famous war novel. I highly recommend it.


All in all, I've done this reading project all right! And it definitely serves as a milestone on my way of improving my English language skills. And now it's time to party and celebrate it!













- Initially posted in July 2008
- Slightly revised in January 2011

I don't like the contrivance of fine print on documents quite much.

We must take heed of it, yet it is printed in extraordinarily small fonts.

If governments didn't belie, would the world be a better one or a worse one?

Not lots of people really understand that Microsoft's trek has a soft tale and Google's has one too.

(Image via http://goo.gl/aik01)

It is harder to thresh out quality stuff from the pop culture than from the time-tested yet quaint culture.

The popularity of reality shows certainly indicates that there are so many armchair adventurers in this world.

Yes, armchair experiences mark so many aspects of our modern life. Of course, you can substitute "armchair " with "tele-". :-)

The porosity of artificial boundaries among subject matters can be facilitated by comprehensive undergraduate education which exposes fundamental and leading-edge Science, Arts, and Engineering knowledge.

(Image via http://goo.gl/rJpKr)

However, can rigor also be stressed at the same time?

Maybe Westerners tend to be more inclined to share than mainland Chinese do, till now.

Hollywood 和 Bollywood，有相当一部分内容，就是以东西方群众所喜闻乐见的形式，讲述一些道理。

(Picture from http://goo.gl/YQ6yR)

额，客观的讲，东西方群众所喜闻乐见的形式，有比较大一部分就是钱、权、暴力、性爱、和 amusement。

额。有时候，我想脱离好莱坞。:-)