To My Lovely Darling

Dear Zoe,

This is your would-be-fiance Dennis. I want to tell you something in written words.

I know I was stupid, paranoid and immature from time to time, but you backed me up no matter what status I was in.

I especially thank you for your heartfelt acceptance of my zero mathematical ability and my forever getting-lost habit; and your soulful support to some of my shaky decisions along the way.

We smiled upon harmony and cried over differences.

After so many rain and shine, we are still tightly bound.

Now, Zoe, listen, I want to be your perfect man.

This kind of assurance comes only once in a lifetime, and I give it to you today.

Dennis

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Make Your Site Faster

How long does it take to load your entire site? How hard have you been trying to make your pages faster?

It's ripe for a thorough enhancement now.

Google recently launched Page Speed that aimed to enhance web page performance. It's a simple tool bundled with Firebug, a well-known Firefox add-on, and tests a site's web server configuration and front-end code. These tests are based on a set of best practices known to enhance web page performance. Like many his brothers and sisters, it's free. Now, just roll up your sleeves and drive your site into a speedway!

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

50 Best Websites 2009

Here at Time magz they have handpicked the best websites in 2009. I personally went through the list and was shocked to find that about half of them were Greek to me. After holding my surprise down I started to check them out one by one.

Among the unacquainted sites, the most impressive one, to me, was Internet Archive. I was sure that I had bumped into this site in the past during my years as a webmaster, but it still amazed me greatly when I tried its travel-back-in-time feature. I especially liked the "Take Me Back" button on its homepage as it kinda felt like you were taken on a time machine and flashed back into digital antiquity. I took some time to review the past of WoWMine.com. Nice work! =)

I'm not going to talk about other on-the-list sites and will let you work out the rest from here...

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

It's Easy to Love, But Not Easy to Relate

To engage in love is easy, but to have or establish a reciprocal relationship is not as easy as pie. Earnest money for the house was placed, but that didn't translate into an eternal ease in any case. There is still a lot need to be discussed and done. Different life styles, habits and interests are all factors that may contribute to an overall argument, or even conflict. How to deal with future difference will be one of the major subjects on our agendas. We should bear in mind, however, no matter how controversial we are today, we will still be tightly bound together tomorrow, because what links us together is not impulse, but true love.

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

It's Yeah Time

Yeah! Remember this day! We've pinned down our target and earnest money will be given to housing agents tomorrow. One of the biggest obstacles in life is now half-done. Of course, a lot of paper work is still ahead but I believe the major part is way behind. (Am I too optimistic?) Hope everything unfolds smoothly and quickly as planned. Pazhou(琶洲), we are coming!

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Chinese Valentine's Day

Me and Zoe wore couple costume yesterday to celebrate the Chinese Valentine's Day, and a gorgeous meal (Sichuan flavor) was one of the highlights in our celebration of the narrowly-known festival.

Everything went on perfectly though we failed to reach riverbank as we planned, but the biggest defeat yesterday was my attempt of sharing some great Cantonese jokes with my darling. I thought the jokes were laughable but they failed to trigger her smiling vein.

Back home, we took some nice pictures using our newly-acquired camera and I will post them up later.

We ended our day in bed at around 23:00.

Something more memorable happened later at night, but couldn't be shared here. (a little secret between D and Z, but I can assure you it's not something romantic.)

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Absolute Drought

I'm here again, with the same old question in my mind - why I constantly failed to keep my blog active?

This question really baffled me. I blamed, in part, a lack of time for my failure to keep the blog in motion, but I knew that couldn't explain my failure entirely. Something other than time has derailed me from my regular blogging. Was anything inside me missing?

Out of a clear sky, an answer flashed into my mind. The writing passion once kindled inside me was somehow put out. But the next question came naturally - why my passion was dead?

I can't tell, at least for the time being.

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Weekly Knowledge Gains

1. Something about the word hazard

The result depends on mere hazard. = 结果如何全碰运气;
hazard a remark = 斗胆进言;
hazard one’s life = 冒生命危险.

2. 万万不是本人所能望其项背(wàng qí xiàng bèi)。项：颈的后部。望见他的颈项和后背。比喻赶得上。

3. 子曰：人非圣贤，孰能无过？过而不改，是谓过矣。

4. put/set something down to something = to explain something as being caused by something else. I put his bad humor down to his illness. We set your failure down to your emotional upset.

5. Why would Facebook launch a stripped-down version of its website? = 精简的 = trimmed-down

6. Crowdsourcing is a neologism for the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people or community in the form of an open call. In Chinese, it is called 众包.

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

R-rated Mcdonalds Ad

It's not easy to transform an oral sex photo into an impressive Mcdonalds advert. I have to admit that this is one of the greatest creativity ever seen. You rock, mop.com!

Posted via web from Dennis & Zoe

Videos That Rocks

Incredible Crystal Ball Art

Bicycle Lift

Posted via web from Dennis & Zoe

Facebook Buy Out Friendfeed

This is an old news.

Facebook is one step ahead of Google this time. After failing to put Twitter into its pocket, Facebook acquired Friendfeed last week in a dramatic buyout. We'll see another "bouts of boxing" bewteen Facebook and Twitter in the upcoming months, and it's still too early to say who will have the last laugh.

But in fact it's kinda meaningless to talk about Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed or even Google Blog right now as all these impressive services are completely inaccessible in China, thanks to a set of preemptive crackdowns ahead of China's 60th anniversary.

Does it make sense to suppress information flow by making everything online inaccessible? Don't make too low an estimate of our collective intelligence. You are beaten, GWF!

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Autopost & Photobucket

Two different tips.

First I found the Autopost feature at Posterous was outstanding! It works 100% as it claims - one post, and you're done! I'm really looking forward to an autopost service for Chinese blogsphere, which would, without doubt, save me a huge amount of unnecessary labor.

Secondly, I've been looking for a substitute for Flickr since the image hosting site was unreasonably blocked in China. (God knows how long the blockage would last!) Luckily today I found a stand-in. Photobucket is a great place to store and share your photos and videos. Free and powerful! It should absolutely be one of your(if you were a Chinese) must-use web applications.

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Weekly Knowledge Gains

1. End of Message or EOM signifies the end of a message, often an email. The subject of an e-mail may contain such an acronym to signify that all content is in the subject line so that the message itself does not need to be opened (e.g., "No classes Monday (EOM)").

• EOM = End of Message
• NRN = No Reply Necessary
• RP = Reply Requested

2. In telecommunications and software engineering, scalability is a desirable property of a system, a network, or a process, which indicates its ability to either handle growing amounts of work in a graceful manner or to be readily enlarged.

3. The term Internet meme (pronounced /mi:m/) is a phrase used to describe a catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly from person to person via the Internet.

4. sucker punch, rabbit punch = an unexpected punch or blow.

5. 瞠目结舌(chēng mù jié shé) = 瞪着眼睛说不出话来 = to stare dumb-founded.

6. Astroturfing(草根营销) is a term for formal public relations campaigns in politics and advertising that seek to create the impression of being spontaneous, grassroots behaviour. Hence the reference to AstroTurf (artificial grass) is a metaphor to indicate fake grassroots support.

7. 铤而走险(tǐng ér zǒu xiǎn) = to up the ante, to risk danger in desperation; to make a reckless move; to be forced to break the law.

8. 窘困(jiǒng) = very poor; hard up; hard pressed.

Posted via email from Dennis & Zoe

Housing Agent & Online Marketer

After dealing with a bunch of sinister housing agents and a prolonged overtime, I'm now totally drained. I don't mean to stain anyone but I have to say all the housing agents I met in the past were of utmost badness. They tried to fleece us in any way possible so I've therefore developed an internal dislike of them. How should you guys try to take our money out by using some dishonest approaches? I make money by hardworking, but you make money by "hard-deceiving."

But as an online marketer, I've caught countless overseas customers by various guiles, and now I think it's time to pay back my sin. Be it a housing agent or an online marketer, their goal is the same - to max out their profits by all means.

Midea Creative Ad

This is an ad that you can remember for life. Midea takes advantage of an abnormally-shaped building to promote its product. Very creative!

Midea fun is blowing a building out.

Posted via web from Dennis & Zoe

All I Need is U

The most creative fuck I've ever seen.

Posted via web from Dennis & Zoe

Japan is Rocky

Today I learned from Google news that Japan was struck by a 6.6-magnitude earthquake, one of many remarkable Japan-located tragedies in the year of 2009. As usual, the news was scattered with a string of miseries - traffic halted, houses collapsed, people displaced, injured or even killed.

To tell the truth, my pity was arisen. And the next moment I reconfirmed myself the answer to why Japan had been so aggressive in history. Japan has been trying to protect their nation from being eliminated entirely by mother nature, through countless brutal battles towards other countries. To say Japan would disappear someday overnight is not a scary story and I think the risk is so real that every one in Japan can feel the sting.

Of course, no reason whatsoever could justify Japan to invade other civilizations, as it is highly condemnable to transfer your tragedies to your neighbours.

Personally, I don't want Japan go hell in the short run as it is one of the biggest quality AV producers in the world (or you can ignore the "one of") . And I'm sure a majority of male simply live by its AV products, not to mention a bevy of gals who want to get a sneaky peek at Japanese porns at every possible occasion.

Keep your fingers crossed, folks, and hope that Japan stays fine.

Should High Heels be Banned in Workplace?

This is yet another attempt to revive my writing passion. Apart from the Weekly Knowledge Gains, there has been few original posts these days. My blog was kinda like a board for copy-and-paste only, which was disconcerting to some extent. Further worse, the realization that my English skills were on the wane really scared me off my pants. It's not hard for me to come to a quick conclusion that I should re-sharpen my pen on a fine-grained whetstone ASAP. Based on my recent awareness, I have decided to write something in relation to my daily consumption so as to keep my English at a presentable level.

Here I go. The first piece written with a sole purpose of regenerating my English battery.

It's very interesting to see a bunch of British senior officials debating furiously on how to limit stiletto heels in work place, instead of poring over on bigger stuff like ways to revitalize the already-reeling British economy. The male group claimed that wearing high heels in workplace was inappropriate, and high heels posted a great threat to the health of women's feet.

The proposal was ridiculous no matter how you sliced it. I think it's a personal choice for any woman to choose whether to wear high heels or not in any situation. And the most amusing part was that it was a bunch of male officials who engaged in the proposal, not a single female participant was involved.

One female countered the proposal with this funny line "I can't imagine these officials debating a motion about how tightly men should wear their ties."

It's quite unwise for men to intervene in women's business, and I think the British officials should just let the sleeping dog lie, if they don't want to get themselves in an upcoming battle on sexism.

Another Week Has Gone

I drew this blog title from MJ's widely-known song You Are Not Alone. Every Sun. Zoe is stuck by a sense of unwillingness. After a two-day recess, both me and Zoe have grown to be a bit unwilling to return to work life (a pair of escapist?). Thinking of that easeful life would soon be replaced by hectic life is something that makes us distraught from top to toe. But as what MJ vocalizes in his song - you are not alone, we are indeed not alone among a sea of working poor/slave.

A working revolution is needed, right now, right here.

Weekly Knowledge Gains

1. 脍炙人口(kuài zhì rén kǒu) = 脍：切细的肉；炙：烤熟的肉。脍和炙都是人们爱吃的食物。指美味人人爱吃。比喻好的诗文受到人们的称赞和传讼。

2. 山魈(xiāo) = demon in mountain

3. The casting couch is a euphemism for a sociological phenomenon that involves the trading of sexual favors by an aspirant, apprentice employee, or subordinate to a superior, in return for entry into an occupation, or for other career advancement within an organization.

4. pull one's weight - do one's share in a common task; "Bob has never pulled his weight, and we all have to work harder to make up for his laziness."

5.  虚位以待(xū wèi yǐ dài) = 留着位置等待。

6. The lawsuit was completely without merit = 这桩控诉完全是无理取闹。

Usage of Courtesy

If you were a heavy surfer of English site, it would not be rare for you to see pictures on news item with a line courtesy of (someone's name) beside/below them?

The line courtesy of someone in fact indicates that the photo is provided for free by the mentioned person and credit should go completely to that person.

Class over, thank you. =)

158/42 is hatched

The name is final. 158/42 is something on which we decide to put our efforts and energies in the upcoming years. Here I'd like to quote one of my favorite sayings again - it always seems impossible until it is done. Rome was not built in a day, so does a brand. It may take years to nurture, to bear fruit. But so what? The most important point is - we are sure we'll enjoy what you do along the way.