Plastic dog kennels look better than wooden ones.

Restaurants in China should begin to adopt the Western notion and practice of customers giving gratuities to waiters and waitresses.

Or some similar form of profit-sharing such as that they get a percentage of the profits.

Alberta, Canada is alleged by some media to possess a proven oil reserve which is 7 times bigger than that of Saudi Arabia.

Someone in Canada must be happily thinking, "release the kraken!"

Although the world is changing increasingly faster and it has created information overload for nearly everyone, you still want to spend time to mark the trends.

Canada's vast energy reserve has been unleashed.

Will this country of 30 million people be blindfolded by that and then only focus on the energy sector? I don't think so.

't is, 'tis, and 'a

It's relatively easy to guess that 't is  and 'tis mean it is, while it's not so to guess that 'a means he.

The most common phenomenon during funerals is the family members break off in their public speaking.

It's moving, especially at soldiers' funerals.

Now I've become a safe pair of hands in the family kitchen.

But I'm confined in Chinese cooking.

Nearly everyone endorses innovation.

But not nearly everyone has the courage to make it.

Peace. Eventually green energies will illume the energetic sky of the human kind.

Since the beginning of the Great Recession, I for one don't like to hear yet some new troubling financial news assailing from yet another country.

Yet it happened almost every quarter.

And, oftentimes, there are other kettles of fish which are worrisome, such as the continuous rise of the obesity rate among North Americans.

Do American politicians especially like to play chicken?

Fracking oil domestically will set the U.S. free from foreign oil dependence.

That prospect is just too alluring for the country.

Is duel and competition among opposing political parties really necessary for democracy?

The winds have unkennelled winter.

A quote

"Tush, child, tush," said the old Frog, "that was only Farmer White's Ox.
-Fables by Aesop

To develop a deep sense of gratitude requires intelligence and wisdom, I think.

Do most rice kernels look very good? No.

Do they taste good with Chinese dishes? Definitely.

A man has to entreat at some point(s) in his life.

I'm not sure if the basmati rice from India we've been eating these weeks is authentic or not.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basmati#Adulteration for the commonplace adulteration of basmati rice.

Roe vs. caviar

The other day, I saw a picture of one sort of Scandinavian "Salmon roe" dish in a posh Globe and Mail style guide. And later that day I saw a written promotional note with a "caviar" dish on it, on a wall of one small and inexpensive Chinese restaurant.

Documentary videos - Witness : To the Last Drop

After having watched the below two videos, I was awestruck by the vastness of Alberta, Canada's oil reserve, as well as the horrible pollution it will potentially unkennel, especially for the lengthy Athabasca River, which is about 1,200km.

Witness : To the Last Drop - Part 1

Witness : To the Last Drop - Part 2

It seems that some native Chinese inhabitants are sick at heart.

A liege is not a liegeman.

The former is a superior of the latter.

There are many things in life which are into the ground, if one wants to really achieve something.

He's a ground.

Scientists say brisk walking can extend one's life by 2 years.

Houses and apartments have been becoming increasingly dual-purpose, as more and more people work from home.

Dogs need to be kenneled and humans need to be sheltered.

Dog rights and human rights.

Canada's energy sector has been bidding foreign investors come and invest. What a phenomenon.

Overlooked should not be the supreme importance of curiosity, which adds zest to life.

While life unfolds for an individual, he understands it more.

And he understands how many headaches there are in life.

Sometime you think the service provided by a waiter or waitress doesn't deserve gratuities, but you still offer them to him anyways.

However, the restaurant probably won't see you again.

Are you fair to the waiter or waitress? Are you fair to the cook who might have cooked you an excellent meal?

In that sense, the waiter or waitress is sort of a salesperson, and he shouldn't have an entirely fixed pay for his work by the restaurant.

Currently I live dual life. One resides in the day, and the other in the night.

In both of them, I stare into the computer screen in front of me.

Will Canada oppose its Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, and denounce the Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (Canada-China FIPA) eventually?

See Stephen Harper defends investment deal with China.

Movie snippet - 警棍實戰棍法（甄子丹 vs 吳京）

What a bout of martial fighting. It's violent and bloody, though.

I don't know why "a plate of soup, a dish of meat, fruit, cheese, and half a bottle of wine" can be considered to be only a "frugal" dinner.

Is it according to French standard? :-)

See Chapter 41 of Maugham's Of Human Bondage at http://maugham.thefreelibrary.com/Of-Human-Bondage/41-1 .

I'm made cringe by the notorious caloric intake of Americans and Canadians, even in a medium-sized cookie which appears to be no big deal, which is in fact 450.

And to my surprise, a typical portion of dressed salad contains more calories than its commonplace sidekick, a typical hamburger. Gee.

Since around 3 or 4 months ago, I've been pretty sure that RIM would inevitably decline greatly.

But I'm almost always curious over how things are going for it. So almost every week, I briefly check online news about it.

That behavior of mine shows that curiosity and cues from an individual's surroundings leads to finer granularity of knowledge.

Shun sycophants.

For consumers, the choice of mobile computing devices used to be a duel between Apple's i-products and Google's Android. It's no longer the case.

We've been seeing so many powerful contenders very quickly assemble onto the scene. Microsoft is the one with the most potential, I think. However, I'm not sure how many consumers will be capable to appreciate the alleged excellent values of Windows 8 and Windows Phone operating systems, and perhaps more critically, how many developers will be willing to follow the leading of Microsoft platforms. And that's the most difficult problem for MS, as well as the factor of how well Google will perform with its formidable arrays of deep products and services. Besides, Apple's fanboys will always be there and be highly influential.

Gratitude is one of the characteristics which distinguish between good people and those who're not good enough, I think.

"White space" has become such a widespread biz jargon.

But what're the differences between it and the well known and well worn "Blue ocean" jive?

What's the moat around your business?

You want to be thrifty, but you don't want to be frugal.

Compared with Google the formidable innovator, Microsoft has been releasing key new products at a glacial pace.

Sigh.

They both are long-time friends for me as a consumer. But the latter is always apt to be greatly more trusty than the former, IMHO.

For the past a few days and nights, my wife, toddler daughter, and myself have been plagued by gastroenteritis.

I used to keep forgetting the right spelling and pronunciation of the word "granularity".

Ontario's Premier, Dalton McGuinty, prorogued Ontario's parliament.

And that has caused even more criticism against him.

Gigantic is the industry of making and selling knits and wovens.

Do nearly all the "he" (high efficiency) detergents suds less than regular ones?

The Trudeau family name carries so much cachet in Montreal and Canada.

Does living in the country in Canada infer frugality?

Almost, I think.

Many youngsters in Montreal are not thrifty.

That life habit will cost them handsomely down the road.

Well, I didn't know that the English word "cereal" can roughly equal to "grain".

Rice, wheat, barley, and rye all belong to the category of cereals. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cereal .

And granola is normally considered to be one type of breakfast cereal.

If one wants to understand the reasons behind the great concerns of the U.S. over Iran and the Somalian pirates, he must understand the strategically important choke points of Strait of Hormuz, Persian Gulf, Gulf of Aden, and Red Sea.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_of_Hormuz
and
http://maps.google.ca/maps?sugexp=chrome,mod%3D0&qscrl=1&q=the+Strait+of+Hormuz&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x3ef7184c25840e51:0x3d7b86ccdd367e5a,Strait+of+Hormuz&gl=ca&sa=X&ei=vPWFUP0Zk7_RAf6IgKAC&ved=0CJ8BELYD .

I saw a U.S. Air Force jacket, which is of the sort that bikers often wear, last night.

The style of that jacket looks good, with Chinese words on the back.

Montreal's mafia mogul, Vito Rizzuto, had been arrested for racketeering, loan sharking, and murder some six years ago, and then was released from a U.S. prison lately.

He had been considered to be the most powerful mafia boss in Canada. And he's returned to Canada.

It has profound consequences on Quebec's society, considering the ongoing police investigation into the close links among Quebec's construction industry, mafia, and some Quebec politicians.

Facebook isn't very satisfying. Which social networking website is gonna whup it?

Who can mollify the Americans who've seen their prosperity dim?

A president who can create decent-paying jobs.

Kaboom. I've stumbled on the PowerShell on my Win7 machine.

Well, natural rubber latex is, natural.

But hospitals and people have been running to escape from it to hypoallergenic latex-free alternatives.

See http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/reporter/index.html?ID=4148 .

If I followed the instructions on the detergent bottles and only added a cap of the detergent, the washing water in my portable washing machine would never be sudsy enough to convince me that it would give a proper laundering.

Many Chinese have lived through abject poverty.

What an era of have-nots.

It seems that thrift is the one thing which is hard to get by the people born with a silver spoon in their mouths.

Conscious people know to avoid fawning, towards others and towards herself.

I know a widower whose condo got burned down.

How life's misfortunes can hit again and again, especially when one's old.

Poncho is different than raincoat.

The local Unibroue beers aren't bad at all. Nice.

Heck, a Release the Kraken underwear.

See http://www.jinx.com/p/release_the_kraken_boxer_briefs.html .

What a fantastic adoption of the great meme.

It seems that in many Hong Kong movies I've watched over the years, rooftops appear in them often.

Are those scenes a beacon that Hong Kong people crave for hard-to-get space?

Are most cheap things inevitably shoddy? At the end of the day, you get what you paid for.

Watching stand-up comedies is a good way to amuse oneself.

碎波秋水，青葱节气已过。

If to demand bribes is customary in a country, then what sorts of people and businesses want to conduct business in that country?

And do the business clients and average consumers lose in that country? And what do they lose?

Music video - Gangnam style - PSY

With the ascendance of the formidable Samsung, South Korea seems to have soared beyond its peers among the Four Asian Dragons, business-wise, pop-fashion-wise, and pop-culture wise.

Here comes a recent spectacularly popular MV - 江南區 style:



And here's the English translation of its lyrics:
http://www.kpoplyrics.net/psy-gangnam-style-lyrics-english-romanized.html

Thrift is one good characteristic that Chinese descendants are apt to have.

Let's hope the ongoing sweep of spending on credit cards in China won't change that thrift much.

When RIM began to lose the U.S. market, they handed their company to fatalism. It's that straightforward.

No offence, a Blackberry sold in Indonesia does't mean the same thing as a Blackberry sold in the U.S. Not at all.

See http://beforeitsnews.com/science-and-technology/2012/09/dismal-rim-sales-in-us-as-meaningful-number-of-stores-sell-zero-blackberrys-2468960.html .

Once I heard a British to mimic the affectation of some sort of British posh accent.

It intrigued me.

Many Montrealers choose to amuse themselves with reading books or e-books for some time day in, day out.

That's good. That's much better than the alleged situation in China.

RIM has only been giving its naysayers more and more fodder during the recent 6 months.

Cooking has become one of my habitual activities.

Maybe opprobrium on GE is surfacing, because it's probable that the once splendid giant company's biz will grow no further.

U.S. Election 2012 has been red hot.

At work is a gigantic democratically political machine. At issue is how much responsibilities belong to the government and how much to the individuals.

The bonanza of mobile computing is so fast and furious.

Bouts of cyber espionage, allegedly from China, get Western countries to be very concerned.

Canada's intelligence agency, CSIS, has come out and warned the government and the public for several times already.

Country-level politics seems to be very complicated. Much much more complicated than the province-level politics.

The titan-silver color is silver-gray.

By the way, I think titanium camping mugs look cool.

Time is always short. But is life long?

Quiche is a sort of custard pie.

And it's usually considered to be a sub-type of tart.

Delicious. The French have so much culinary know-how.

Barack Obama is a deft politician, isn't he?

And his opponent, Mitt Romney, is a very rich guy who was also born in a rich family, isn't he? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney#Heritage_and_youth .

And see the consequences of the notorious "47 percent" words by Mitt Romney here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/brutal-new-obama-ad-features-mitt-romney-and-the-47-percenters/2012/09/27/8fc96b6c-08b0-11e2-a10c-fa5a255a9258_blog.html?tid=pm_opinions_pop .

Who do you think the middle class people with good sense would vote for? And who do you think the lower middle class Americans would vote for?

Romney has already lost.

Grant's Law in British Columbia seems to be working for preempting gas-and-dashes.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_station#Canada .

Are China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong always apt to be strongholds of tribalism, comparatively?

Young high school students who feign that they have done the required readings may be wasting their own time and opportunity to really strive and get immersed in the marvelous worlds created by those chapters and words listed in the required readings.

On the other hand, do the prestigious high schools have to assign so much readings to their students?

Life is short and time, even for young people, is invaluable, I understand.

It appears that the Italian cuisine has got a very strong presence in Canada.

Gourmet coffee, pasta, panini, ..., you name it. They are almost everywhere.

And I love the way Panini taste.

Divinity (i.e. 上帝) is different than Karma (i.e. 因果报应).

For that matter, Christianity is different from Buddhism.

Still there is a lot of mojo for working in the famous Google dojo.

There are some jerks who do some unexpected things which enrage you. Sigh. This is life.

Mr. Z's eyes were sizing J up grimly, during the initial moments of their first meeting.

Pringles potato chips were developed by P&G. And Dr. Fred Baur designed the packaging can of them.

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

Gee. All those inventions that have gone into the American food industry which produces so many sorts of unhealthy food.

Melon Sangria has roused my interest in punches.

Obliviousness to the future is the one thing many people have.

Along that dimension, there are two sorts of people: the haves and the have-nots. I for one wanna be a have-not. :-)