1756 - 1763 年，英、法两大欧洲强权在北美洲这个 new world 为了争夺国土和经济利益，Seven Years' War 打得白热化。

英国从本土动用超过 5 万的陆军、超过 160 艘 warships 的海军，参与这远隔大洋的 Seven Years' War，和法国陆军、海军在北美洲艰苦对决。

同一时段，中国为大清帝乾隆统治，闭关锁国、“禁海、毁船、禁船、迁界”，完全扼杀航海（见 http://www.tianya.cn/publicforum/content/no05/1/161560.shtml ），真的是不知今夕何夕。明、清二朝，没能与时俱进，框定中国几百年的衰弱落后格局。

It seems that every mass migration of an ethnic group which is forced by another government causes tremendous misery and poverty for that group. For instance, the Acadians were forced by arms to leave their homes in Acadia for other British colonies in North America in 1755.

See The Acadian Odyssey. I read the section "A Day of Great Fatigue" in it.

And this poem Evangeline seems to be powerful and gripping.

When we compare two countries' military forces, maybe there's not much difference on the individual level, say, country A's best sharpshooter isn't that different from country B's best sharpshooter, but it's the organization level and technology level which make all the differences.

It's said that Quebec City has always been more pompous and stuffy than Montreal historically.

Typically a man in his thirties and forties feels hemmed in by his work and family obligations.

I'm not sure if our baby daughter has displayed some trace of providence.

After having been cut off from most people's diets, lard has become a delicate which gets really enjoyed on occasions, ironically.

See this online post: 炒芥兰.

It seems that Netflix, which was the one up-and-coming competitor which drove Blockbuster out of business, has been on the cutting edge of some technological fronts, for instance, recommendation system.

However, it seems that particular company has also been quickly losing customers' hearts. It's even been reported that people think Netflix, along with Kodak, RIM and the like, will not be in existence in 2015. It's that bad for the once renowned pioneering Netflix.

When it rains, it pours.

Untitled

That tree did not know
How to love itself
It only cared about sky
Since it was made by the spy

If time could back flow
It would still not know
But now it loves itself
Softly

You want to be kind. Sometime you have to be a doormat.

I don't know anything about the mechanism of the formation of canker sores.

The racing car was tumbling out of control on the computer screen.

Maybe Canada's welfare system is something like a judo mat, which one can fall back on and so doesn't get completely hurt and then can stand up again and continue to strive. However, some people mistake the purpose of it.

Freedom is an authoritative right for individuals in Canada. How to make good use of it?

Fie on our irritable baby daughter. She's too ungentle sometimes.

My wife and I will have to tame her a bit in the future when she can effectively communicate with us.

Deep inside in China

Around a decade ago, having been restricted by many government policies in China, I was chary of really putting all my energy and passion into pursuing a long-term thinking and career. Essentially I didn't trust there's a real guarantee or something that the gains of my efforts wouldn't be lost because the government could and would change its pervasive policies freely at any time which can be either expected or not expected by me. So I came to Canada when the opportunity presented itself.

Nowadays, it seems that many people feel the same way as I did many years ago, despite the fact that many reported individuals among them are rich but I was poor. See this NYT news piece: Harassment and Evictions Bedevil Even China’s Well-Off.

I can say that I always want to expend the time of my life charily and I cherish that time.

Alack, too much work for the first two years of raising a baby.

Hopefully the workload will be reduced a great deal after our baby daughter becomes two or three. That's been assured by some other experienced parents.

When J frizzled the Cantonese sausage slices, he forgot to sprinkle a little Chinese cooking wine near the end into the frying pan.

Google, whose free and excellent services I had largely enjoyed, have pressed two importunities on me in the recent two years or so. One was that they stopped the development of Google Notebook altogether, the other was that they supplanted the nice sharing capabilities in Google Reader with their Google+ functionality.

I for one don't feel good about that. On the other hand, nonetheless I thank Google for the suave services it had provided at zero financial cost to a typical consumer like me.

It seems that the scouring pads attached on the dishwashing sponges, which are sold at dollar stores, have been becoming shoddier and shoddier.

Equipped with the proficiency of both English and Chinese, as well as the internet, I for one can get information from near and far without difficulty.

That's a blessing.

RIM has completely failed. I suppose it'll possibly get acquired by a Chinese or an Indian company eventually in a few years.

See RIM finds new ways to disappoint investors and Surging RIM sales catch retailers off guard.

RIM's been keeping losing market share in North America, while it's gaining more and more users overseas, presumably in Asia, Africa, and South America. There will be no justification that RIM needs to or has to be headquartered or existent in North America.

Talents must have become wary of getting involved with RIM whatsoever.

Bad don't taste the Peek Freans "Lifestyle Selections" Bran Crunch biscuits.

One's got to learn what good wine, good whiskey, and the like is betimes.

And one shouldn't give cheap wine to others as gifts.

Our baby daughter's bedtime is relatively late.

A bachelor pad doesn't necessarily equal to a studio apartment.

One day, E told me how Bill Gates' mother, who sat on IBM's board, helped him become what he became and everything.

I never buy that sort of thinking. Look, there have been many people who sat or are sitting on the board of IBM or whatever big company, but their children didn't establish a Google or an Apple.

The magnitude of Bill Gates' achievements can only be done by himself, not by the help of his mother or whomever.

Linguistic conceits can drive and direct readers' train of thought.

Corn bread, as well as oat bread, tastes good after having been toasted.

I've been spending my time providently. Spending one's time consumptively is uncultivated folly.

Many entrepreneurs regret they have introduced outside investments, especially IPOs, into their companies. So all budding entrepreneurs had better be wary of taking outside investments.

In the early New France, essentially there were four forces in its economic life: the fur traders, the fishermen, the seigneurs, and the habitants.

I don't like the information sources whose authors lard their social media updates with a lot of which music they listen to and so on.

I would say that the cooks at many Chinese restaurants in Montreal are not professional enough at cooking. They aren't decently trained, either by others or by themselves.

Take me to the mat if you want.

Having been a Chinese Canadian, I must have not been close up to China any more in terms of what interests me.

The streets are shrouded in rain mists.

HP makes quite decent consumer products. I suppose it tries its deep best at every price point at which it meets consumers.

That's goodwill.

I like the feel of the overcast weather in this fall which has been appearing often lately and which is slightly bright due to the sun behind the clouds.

有些人，永遠不會說 “對不起” 的。他們的心胸寬廣程度，大概是一輩子永遠不成長的。

希望我的心胸不是那樣地不成長。

I'm not sure if the genre of biz news mags can stand up to the justification of its existence in this era. For instances, Forbes' website appears horrendously cluttered and ugly, Fortune isn't quite deep, and The Economist doesn't feel as sharp as it should.

By contrast, it seems that The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Wall Street Journal can bring better information and news than the above mentioned biz mags. In my current perception, these three news media from New York City are authoritative and interesting.

A lot of things are amiss in life. You've got to right the wrongs or tolerate them.

The soft pads of cat's feet feel pretty likable. :-)

Some Chinese people tend to base their thoughts on conjectures instead of on facts.

I'm against that attitude.

The St. Lawrence river was the transportation highway of the fur traders in the early New France. They strewed their footprint from there.

Many years ago, for multiple months, I had my hair frizzled. And I looked better wearing that hair than wearing my natural hair.

Perhaps I'll get my hair frizzled again and just have a change.

Why do Americans importune women public figures to be relatively good-looking?

It seems that women who aren't as good-looking as Hilary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Meg Whitman and so on don't stand a chance to establish themselves in public arenas.

On the other hand, Angela Merkel, the current Chancellor of Germany, wouldn't be a successful politician if she were an American who wants to pursue politics, I guess.

There lies the difference of attitudes toward women public figures between the U.S. and Germany.

Video - Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1, by Elgar

The companies which make writing pads and the like must be seeing their significant decline coming, thanks to the popularity of tablet computing devices such as iPad.

I increasingly feel that Google botched up the Google Reader thing. Many people must have been seeking a viable and reliable way out like I do.

One tends to form a lot of unshaped ideas during interactions with others. But he can only make them clear in alone moments.

Is every Chinese immigrant in Canada working as a software developer a journeyman developer?

也許對世上的某些人物來說，華麗的過往是營造出的、亮麗的 resume 是造作過的。人，不如抱殘守缺，虔肅示真。

Just a small piece of my writing about a trivial event in life

J parked the baby cart with his baby in it on the pavement between D's door and the public pavement. Then he rushed to the basement window of D's house to get the baby's shoes which D was holding out through the window. D's telling J about the cart, "it's rolling. It's rolling." J ran back with a few steps, with the shoes in his hands.

In the "Arial" font, it's virtually impossible to distinguish the capital "I" (as in "Ink") from the lower-case "l" (as in "letter").

Tokens of goodwill and friendship tend to be always cherished.

J made slight mouths when the dentist was working at his teeth and gum.

I was a rank beginner in cooking about eight months ago. Now I create delicious Chinese dishes.

As a consumer, I tend to be chary of signing contracts, forms, and so on without first having perused them. Oh, the fine print just gets me. I give up in the face of it, like everyone else, and just trust the perusal to the government's regulations which are supposed to protect consumers.

You've got to be capable of discerning and appreciating people's scruples.

The winter's first snow. In the white, easy winds blow.

I'm not sure if the "Robinhood" Quick Oats are actually a type of oatmeal. By the way, the taste of them is not bad at all if you add a little honey into your bowl after the heating.

Update: No, they are not the same thing, although very closely related. The oats are the raw food packed in the bag, while the oatmeal is the food you get after having boiled the oats in milk or water and you eat it hot.

Most people buy residential houses by the means of mortgage of twenty years or so. Is it provident? Maybe not.

The Boston Marathon is the oldest annual marathon in the world, also one of the best known ones. It's said it's the hardest one too.

Well, doesn't Boston host the two hardest universities too? Harvard and MIT; especially MIT.

Z cravenly or selfishly refused her husband's request to ask her to tell her relatives that they would not visit them because her husband felt tired.

It seems that too many teachers/staff at 7-dollar daycare facilities in Montreal are too authoritarian towards kids. The don't respect the children enough.

Apple has swept the world with its iPod, iPhone, and iPad, back to back.

Now, outside Apple, there are iRobot, iCoffee, iCar, and so on. Will there be iMat, iBed, iMattress, and iWall?

Gee. I just want to live in the world. I don't want to live in an iWorld.

Samuel de Champlain is called the "Father of New France", which means father of the French Canada.

For now, two aspects, or events, in his life intrigue me. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_de_Champlain#Murder_of_the_King
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_de_Champlain#Marriage .

I don't know if the depiction of "cosmopolitan Germans and mostly avaricious, bestial Czechs" is somewhat true as cited in the below NYT movie review.

See To the Victors, Vengeance.

Entrepreneurship exacts risk tolerance and patience.

Did the ancestors of black people get their hair frizzled under the African sun thousands of years ago? Maybe.

Sometime I'm driven crazy by our baby daughter's importunate whining and crying.

I can only hope she grows up quickly.

Much of the software technology is about the portage of information.

Some people can remember what happened when they were three years old. Compared with them, I just have oblivion.

All the cordless home phones sold at Jean Cotu are made in China. Even Siemens phones.

I've been making friends with Chinese cooking. Man, what a delicious world if you can do it properly.

Personally I think that the nouns/adjectives with an "ese" at the end feel pretty if we only consider their sounds. For instances, "Viennese", "Vietnamese", "Chinese", and "Lebanese".

Abraham Lincoln lives posthumously in people's minds.

People say he's a great man.

I'm currently reading the poem O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman, which was published in his Leaves of Grass.

When one's stressful, he sometimes has one or more abscesses on his gum or the skin area a trifle above his lip.

Apple's biggest enemy probably is its very own authoritarianism over outside software developers.

It's not quite good that the West garrison Iraq, Afghanistan, Lybia and so on, which are crucial oil countries on the Earth.

But it's not quite bad that the West eventually withdraw their military and establish the so-called "free trade" with those countries.

My wife and I have fatted our baby daughter. How much striving, coping, and devising it has taken.

I feel more simpatico with open software systems.

As a consumer, I don't feel that I'm on top of Google's services any more, no matter whether they're free or not. Google can change the ways they are however it likes.

I think that in terms of the amount of care our baby daughter needs, 5, 15, and 20 months of age mark the turning points. After each of those points, the amount of care she demands decreases significantly than before.

Now she's about 21 months old, and she still commands lots of being taken care of. Now you know the first 5 months following her birth were hell for my wife and me. But I've never regretted it.

Libraries in Montreal need to be repurposed.

People read far less physical books now.

Some young men panhandle unapologetically in public places. Are they mentally ill or something?

European manor houses look really historical.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manor_house .

I feel Facebook is a little too authoritative. I mean it's a little overbearing.

Rank seems to be the percentage of Canadians who live pay cheque by pay cheque.

The "O" glyph of the Opera browser feels quite sleek.

Maybe melancholy is too depressive. Maybe only love can make one overcome it.

As more and more private, both domestic and foreigner-owned, factories move from coastal China to the main of China, finally, market economy begins to develop in the latter.

我走在陽光楓樹微風秋意裡。

深秋的聲音光色一路輕輕響亮著。

I attended G's Spring Convocation of Concordia University in 2004. An old Hong Kong businessman, who presumably sponsored the university, burst into tears when he spoke about how he even hadn't been able to complete his elementary school because of the invasion of the Japanese military during the WWII.

It's Okay for him to burst into tears in front of thousands of people. But it's not very fine for him not to restrain his private emotions at all. Nonetheless, it's sorry for us to know he had lost his childhood and formal education to the war.

The notions of 'general Providence' and 'special Providence', as in Christianity and Judaism, are too profound to be ignored.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_providence .

Eventually, I'll return to Asia if opportunities present themselves, I think.

I don't know what's the magic with the direction of west.

You know, the old Europe went west and found the American continent, Japan and Asia have sought to learn from the West, and in the modern history of the U.S. and Canada, going west seems to always look appealing.

It's apparent that the Conservative government of Canada purposes to establish Canadian power in the northern territory.

How will the U.S. behave in that vast area?

For aught I know, almost all progresses in one's competence are done in his own private thinking and practicing.

Personally I'm fond of the atmosphere of the Starbucks and Second Cup rendezvous.