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.