Canada's pending big oil pipeline projects have been clogged by some disagreements with the U.S., to my vague knowledge.

What clogs the economy? Politics. On the other hand, what facilitates the economy? Politics again.

Looking back, we now know that RIM's launch of Playbook tablets was just piling Pelion on Ossa.

RIM has just recorded its first quarterly loss since its fiscal year 2006 or so. (See http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/wire-news/analysts-cut-rim-price-targets-after-qtly-loss_687013.html .) For a big company of that size, having a quarterly loss isn't a big problem in itself. But it's a tremendous problem for it to lose more and more of its competitiveness quarter after quarter for multiple straight years, as well as slide from being profitable to losing money, while its successful competitors, i.e. Apple, Samsung, etc., have been getting higher and higher profits during the same multiple straight years.

People would think, if RIM doesn't sell itself as soon as it can while there's still a narrow window open for it to do so, then the guys who actually run it must have lost their senses.

To empower is the opposite of to hamper. A capitalist country, coupled with the social fabric of democracy, is apt to be a case of the former.

Intrinsically, Canada is an equal society. At least, money is equal here, with whoever holds it.

The problem for small businesses is that their owners see many impending opportunities, but they don't have enough resources to be involved. At least that's the case with me.

I lean to my computer on the desk. Hour after hour. Day after day.

How many hours of mine have been leaned into the screens? That's my life and my world.

"Not only you have a good memory of faces, but also you have a good memory of voices," J said to the smiling owner of the little Greek restaurant.

Some people working in the Wall Street are quick dead in the moral world.

With more and more Chinese entering the league of finance, there will be more quick dead in the moral world. That's a sure thing.

Just some gibber jabber of mine.

Vintage music video - 大地（粵語） - Beyond

下面是我在 YouTube 上面能找到的 3 個最好的完整版本。
















我在網上粗略地搜索了一下這首歌的創作背景。貌似其創作於 1987 - 1988 年，發佈於 1988 年。

歌詞：

大地
填詞：劉卓輝
作曲：黃家駒
（演唱：黃貫中） 

在那些蒼翠的路上
歷遍了多少創傷
在那張蒼老的面上
亦記載了風霜
秋風秋雨的度日
是青春少年時
迫不得意的話別
沒說再見 

回望昨日在異鄉那門前
唏噓的感慨一年年
但日落日出永沒變遷
這刻在望著父親笑容時
竟不知不覺的無言
讓日落暮色滲滿淚眼 

在那些開放的路上
踏碎過多少理想
在那張高掛的面上
被引證了幾多
千秋不變的日月
在相識裡共存
姑息分割的大地
劃了界線 

回望昨日在異鄉那門前
唏噓的感慨一年年
但日落日出永沒變遷
這刻在望著父親笑容時
竟不知不覺的無言
讓日落暮色滲滿淚眼 

回望昨日在異鄉那門前
唏噓的感慨一年年
但日落日出永沒變遷
這刻在望著父親笑容時
竟不知不覺的無言
讓日落暮色滲滿淚眼 

回望昨日在異鄉那門前
唏噓的感慨一年年
但日落日出永沒變遷
這刻在望著父親笑容時
竟不知不覺的無言
讓日落暮色滲滿淚眼

至於歌詞的含義，我粗略地搜索了一下，不管別人怎麼說，我沒有任何依據、獨立地猜測作者意指香港將於 1997 年回歸中國大陸。『日落暮色』意指英國，這個曾經的『日不落帝國』。

另外，我深深嘆服於在這首歌裡黃家駒、劉卓輝的創作，實在是光芒四射。紀念黃家駒。

Currently I have treble roles: web development, sales, and marketing of my itsy-bitsy biz.

When in a sleeping bag after being bathed and in her crib, our toddler daughter often still wants to stand up and walk up and down. However, she's impeded. Man, but she tries hard. :-)

Many Californians must have gotten traumatized by the fact their towns and boroughs had gone bankrupt. My goodness. How many people think governments are not trustworthy?

In news TV and videos, I'm used to seeing provincial premiers in China hold meetings with their guests in photogenic halls apt to be decked in golden color.

By contrast, I'm also used to seeing Stephen Harper, the Canadian Prime Minister, hold meetings with his colleagues, rivals, and underlings in plain halls and common rooms.

Well, that says something, considering that the GDP (PPP) of Canada is about triple the average self-styled GDP (PPP) of a Chinese province.

The tremendously cold wintry air always is capable of making up a streak of desolation for the night streets littered with yellowish lights emitted from the lofty street lamps.

We use Infants' Tylenol to try to relieve our toddler daughter from the fevers caused by her current Hand, foot, and mouth disease, which is a human illness and not to be confused with the infamous Foot-and-mouth disease, an animal illness.

Tylenol doesn't contain aspirins. It seems that Tylenol is more popular than aspirins in treating fevers because the latter tend to irritate the stomach while the former doesn't. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tylenol#History.

I don't have any knowledge about the following topic.

But my guess is that the most essential distinction between enterprises and public interest groups is not about for profit or not for profit. It's that the individual clients of enterprises pay at least the total costs of the consumed products and services to enterprises, while the individual clients of public interest groups do NOT pay them at least the total costs.

Throughout the outbreaks of labor disputes in Canada during this recession, we see that unions have been greatly hampered and weakened by the ever relatively increasing bargaining power and freedom businesses and organizations possess, in both the private and the public sector.

It seems now marks the beginning of the end of labor unions as we know them.

Can you hear the deep howls of grief and regret in people's hearts? Can you see those via their behaviors?

I think the font of Georgia Italic looks elegant.

Music video -【掌聲響起】- 鳳飛飛

Oftentimes, a software developer's hobby of speculating in the stock market blocks his way to enhance his own professional skills in his off-hours. I've seen it on quite a few people, both young and old.

Everyone only has 24 hours in a day, 365 days in a year, and 45 or so years in his career(s).

No matter how other people treat one, he shouldn't be churlish. No, he shouldn't.

At the end of the day, how some others treat you reflects what sort of people they are, and how you treat them reflects what sort of person you are.

象我目前这种极微小企业，产能不足，令人扼腕叹息。

I saw a Rolls Royce dealership. Man, how their cars look like antiques.

Let the will push through the pain points and do not allow anything to hinder the progress, however slow and gradual.

Brahms has a piece of requiem music which lasts 1 hour and 15 minutes long. Gee.

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAnUk6MxXQ0 .

It's disappointing to see friendship and goodwill get profaned time and time again in this world.

But there are always people worth their salt in that regard. And they are the ones who shine and stand out.

The national motto of France is "Liberty, equality, fraternity", which is thought-provoking.

By contrast, its Canadian counterpart is "From sea to sea" (see http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/a-mari-usque-ad-mare), which is, well, not quite thought-provoking.

China has been such a hot market pursued by many foreign companies.

However, as one who was born and grew up there, I'm not sure if some sorts of bringing home of the inherent inefficiencies and risks of its economic and political systems will happen in the future.

Personally I think the late Aveos bankruptcy case is a pendent one, waiting for the federal government's cash insertion into Air Canada and telling it what it should do and precisely which suppliers it must choose.

See http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Aveos+blames+Canada+financial+ills/6323534/story.html .

Once you have a baby, you feel powerless in front of the strewment of your twenty-four hours, no matter how hard you try and scramble.

Feeding her, bathing her and dressing her, so on and so forth, each of them all takes a good chunk of your time. It's bittersweet in that sense.

Nonetheless, don't get discouraged by my whining here. A kid is a must-have for anyone who doesn't want to risk miserable old-age life and who wants to experience a full family life and its sweetness. Highly recommended.

I don't know if I should completely like the typographical design of NewYorker.com .

Being unaffiliated with any particular religion, I'm used to unconsciously linking "freedom" to secular freedom. You know, freedom of speech, freedom of choice, things like that.

However, I stumbled upon the Wikipedia entry on Yonsei University (延世大學), one of the prestigious SKY universities in South Korea. And the web page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yonsei_University#Christianity) states:

Yonsei University is a school founded on Christian principles and purporting to "produce Christian leaders with the spirits of freedom and truth".

Well, what do "the spirits of freedom" mean in Christianity?

The gradual ageing of the Canadian and Chinese societies impending, I guess I'm not sure what will happen 20 years down the road.

U. Q.'s original intentions of joining J's startup were doubtful, or even evidently dubious.

All the same, if we objectively evaluate the case, U.Q. isn't suitable for a tech startup, furthermore, he's likely not suitable for a startup in any business field at all. Because, he's gotten no growth during the past five years or so, and it's probable that he's got no growth potential in him for the future.

Besides, maybe even more pivotally, things which U.Q. had done and hadn't done brought home to J what sort of person U.Q. is.

Can you believe that around half of Americans and Canadians who married have gone, are going, or will go through divorcement, which is naturally traumatic for most people, at least once in their lifetime?

But it is a fact.

I don't know how fastidious French people are with what they wear on them. But I know they look elegant.

Sometime when I watch public interments for Canadian soldiers in news videos, I have a strange thought that the cold fact is those obsequies are for the alive to observe, not for the fallen to, and the dead is dead.

Very subtle feelings and threads of thoughts are amenable to being aroused by reading literature.

From a point of view of personal and familial gains, Bill Clinton hadn't been born as a person of social standing, but he made the Clintons a family of some estate. He's a remarkable man.

Personally I don't think the Verdana typeface looks good.

A calm lake surface doesn't betoken all the currents and sways underneath. A calm life doesn't betoken all the activities busily happening in one's mind and intellectual world.

Making Chinese dishes at home is finicky, hence time-consuming. It's true at least in a Canadian kitchen.

Some of RIM's ads displayed on mobile phones seem to be inept.

For instance, one small ad in an Android app reads "Introducing the Playbook OS 2" close to a text icon of "Blackberry Playbook". Period. Well, that one is almost like an antic. What are the product's benefits to consumers, which is supposed to be the message the ad should convey? Gee.

Oscar Wilde wrote the following in his "A Florentine Tragedy": "And the dumb river shall receive your corse and wash it all unheeded to the sea."

I'm not very sure if the adverb "all" describes "wash" or "unheeded".

Reflecting on U. Q., now I know he's not diffident at all.

Many established business people only gave snatches of their time to D, an entrepreneur, who had had a pipe dream. And maybe most importantly, there was only himself in that pipe dream, other flaws of D aside.

One of my acquaintances once told me that all WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) wrestling matches, which mostly look antic, are fake and prearranged.

It's said that the famous The Devil's Brigade, the very first modern official special force which was a joint unit of American and Canadian military, fordid many German forces in their covert attacks during WWII.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil's_Brigade.

Usually it's the very deep and subtle personal thoughts and preferences which make one travel along a certain line of life journey or another.

For instance, assume one can really freely choose, if he prefers equality to equity, then he goes with Communism or something alike; if his preference is the other way around, then Capitalism is his cup of tea.

So in that aspect, every individual should consider very deeply about his own intellectual system, so to speak. Put it another way:

"The unexamined life is not worth living."
-Socrates

:-)

D and E are difficult to play ball with. That's their own choices and their own fates.

Sigh. RIM has been forced to compete against Apple, Google, and Microsoft. RIM is out of its league.

When you see maimed and killed American and Canadian soldiers, you wonder for exactly what those troopers fight, and for exactly what the democracies they represent fight.

Here goes a short video about the famous The Bunghole liquor store in Salem, MA, U.S.A.

The guy cheesily said that the T-shirt No. 5 is the most popular with ladies. :-)

Traditional publishing has transitioned to web publishing. Traditional typography has to web typography.

If base motives are what's driving the Wall Street, then the society and government should reign it by all means and don't give it even one chance to become a monster.

It seems so to me for now. After the Europeans landed onto the continent of North America, the trauma for First Nations people has lasted till this day, because the cultures of the First Nations were sort of too primitive to accommodate or blend with the then European cultures.

Of course, that thought of mine is too naive and primitive for the matter which must be quite complex. Nonetheless, I write it down.

Under the current education system of China, there are a lot of essential elements missing.

For one thing, young students don't get to consider death the leveller, which is among the few ultimate things. Entering a university as elite as possible and gaining a job as high-pay as possible seem to be the only things which the system fosters on students' minds.

Some Chinese people are apt to be perennially amenable to speculation trends in the society. That's playing with fire, as well as not being constructive, I'm afraid.

When I was very young and in China, my gorge rose when I thought that my entire life would be expended in a very confining system which belittles personal choice and personal efforts.

Of course, China has changed dramatically. But that was my youth and my then potential life.

I don't know why all the fashion models walking on T-platforms keep that universal glassy look on their faces. There must be some deep reasons for that in the fashion trade.

I've done things which I'd wanted to do, thanks to the societal environment by courtesy of the Quebec province.

The Arial typeface seems to be becoming the de facto font of websites.

I've never seen a pretty cooking oil flagon. Should oil makers make it look more appealing?

You pick any established entrepreneur, and I can tell you that he's gone through many purgatories yet he's carried on, bearing his persistence and vision.

For some years, I had been snatching at almost every moment to enhance my English proficiency.

Now that activity can abate since my English has reached a certain level and I can treat it as a side project. It had been an outland journey.

Java used to be my favorite runtime, when I was in school. No more.

And the acquisition of it by Oracle didn't help it in my eyes.

One of the worst scenarios for this world in the coming years would be that an international war between or among major countries breaks out.

If that really happens, the world economy which has been sluggishly climbing out of the mess of the Late-2000s Financial Crisis will be traumatized again, deeper in troubles.

Let's wish it won't happen. Knock the wood.

Sarah Palin published a memoir titled "Going Rogue" in 2009. What did she mean by that book title? Gee.

I've stumbled on a 2010 movie which intrigues me.

"A fanatically devout knight and his small band of church-hired mercenaries" went "to a remote, pestilence-free village" to find out why the black death plague didn't affect them at all.

Here goes a well written flick review on NYT: Black Death (2010).

In a biz deal, the two parties involved are the supplier and the procurer. From the supplier's perspective, it wants the deal to be fair, but it may not really care very much whether the deal is truly equitable or not.

I never thought that the modern flush toilet was invented as early as in the 16th century.

There are two interesting tifles about it.

One is that the forerunner of it was called Ajax. Web developers beware, Ajax is something like toilet. :-)

1596: Sir John Harington (born 1561) published A New Discourse of a Stale Subject, Called the Metamorphosis of Ajax, describing a forerunner to the modern flush toilet installed at his house at Kelston.[7] The design had a flush valve to let water out of the tank, and a wash-down design to empty the bowl. He installed one for his godmother Elizabeth I of England at Richmond Palace, although she refused to use it because it made too much noise.[citation needed] The Ajax was not taken up on a wide scale in England, but was adopted in France under the name Angrez. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flush_toilet#History

The other piece is that in the era in which it was invented by Sir John Harington, "life in England during the 16th century continued to be distinguished by a stench no modern nose could easily sustain."

“Even in the goodliest and stateliest palaces of our realm,” John Harington wrote in 1596 about his invention of an early flush toilet, “still this same whoreson saucy stink.” 

http://tv.nytimes.com/2008/03/28/arts/television/28tudo.html

By the way, it seems that on the other hand, the traditional Chinese society and mentality have quenched technological inventions and advancements so much. One example is that it seems no ancient Chinese had been involved in the evolution of the inventions of flush toilets.

There are many weapons which root from very ancient times. Cudgel is one of them. Baton (a.k.a. truncheon and nightstick) is a similar one. Specifically, cudgel has got more military war flair with it.

Search for "cudgel" on:

http://www.ehow.com/list_7320442_weapons-used-egyptian-wars.html

and

http://www.hinduwisdom.info/War_in_Ancient_India.htm

and

http://rtw.heavengames.com/history/civs/ancient_africa/armiesancientafrica/ .

And then see the images at http://www.google.ca/search?q=cudgel&hl=en&safe=off&prmd=imvns&source=lnms&tbm=isch&ei=8M1JT-CSDcHu0gH_u-SuDg&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=2&ved=0CA8Q_AUoAQ&biw=1280&bih=675&qscrl=1 .

Here goes a pic in which there are batons hidden in the back:

(From http://goo.gl/bZxKb)

It's so hard to locate the complete changelogs of some open source software projects, if they exist at all. What boo-boos for the projects.

Sexton is such a popular last name that I begin to marvel if sexton was among the top occupations in the ancient times in the West.

I wonder whether there are profound effects left on people's mentality about and perception of the stock market by the trauma of this Late-2000s financial crisis.

Canada's economic prospect, particularly that of Alberta, is galled by the potential irreversible damages to the environment by the production of tar sands (a.k.a. oil sands) in the province.

See this piece of news: Oilsands pose 'significant environmental and financial risk' to Alberta, says PCO.

It may be more common than one thinks that a person appears easy-going but he's actually not amenable at all.

E's ignorance and self-centeredness, or selfishness, stir arrantly, time and time again.

Dictionary.com claims that "people who can define Kibe may know 45,520 words".

(See http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/kibe.)

It knows how to flatter me. But I refuse to accept the compliment.

If you think about an area's functionality, you get impressed by its complexity. For instances, the unphysical arrangements of snow removal and the physical sewer system. It's a lot of work.

Montreal's Mount Royal is actually only a hill called "Mount" by courtesy.

I used to think Google is nearly perfect.

Not any more, since it cancelled the "Shared items" thing in Google Reader and supplanted it with Google+.

But Google has retained some classiness here and there, still.