Weekly Knowledge Gains

1. 腰间赘肉 = love handles, muffin top, spare tire, midriff bulge, potbelly, paunch.

2. 良莠不齐(liáng yǒu bù qí) = 莠：狗尾草，很象谷子，常混在禾苗中。同义词：鱼龙混杂，反义词：泾渭分明（jīng wèi fēn míng）。

3. 不可企及 = 企：希望；及：达到。没有希望达到。形容远远赶不上。

4. 子虚乌有(zǐ xū wū yǒu)= 子虚：并非真实；乌有：哪有。指假设的、不存在的、不真实的事情。

5. 荒诞不经(huāng dàn bù jīng) = 荒诞：荒唐离奇；不经：不合常理。形容言论荒谬，不合情理。

6. Sheeple is a term of disparagement, in which people are likened to sheep.

It is often used to denote persons who voluntarily acquiesce to a perceived authority, or suggestion without sufficient research to understand fully the scope of the ramifications involved in that decision, and thus undermine their own human individuality or in other cases give up certain rights. The implication of sheeple is that as a collective, people believe whatever they are told, especially if told so by a perceived authority figure believed to be trustworthy, without processing it or doing adequate research to be sure that it is an accurate representation of the real world around them.

7. Working poor is a term used to describe individuals and families who maintain regular employment but remain in relative poverty due to low levels of pay and dependent expenses.

8. At long last = After a lengthy or troublesome wait or delay: At long last the winter was over.

9. 天堑(tiān qiàn) = natural moat = 天然形成的隔断交通的大壕沟

10. 皈依我佛(guī yī) = 身心归向它、依靠它。

Old Word, New Meaning

Literally speaking, when you say 合体, you should be referring to one of these words "unite, combine, amalgamate or incorporate." I did. But my darling Zoe had something extraterritorial in mind. She used the word sexily (凹 + 凸 = 口), maybe she should employ another word to fit the situation, which is 合欢. XD

The First Amateur Movie by Dennis

My Love Will Go On is Dennis' first attempt to make inroads into movie industry. It is a movie dedicated to his love one Zoe. The flick is released on the day of Zoe's trying menstrual flow in efforts to give her a bit of relief, both physically and mentally.

Zoe, hope you like my work. =3

A Trip to IKEA, A Sense of Home

Last Sat. me and Zoe were on a dazzling trip to IKEA. Neither me nor she wanted anything there, the primary goal of the trip was to escort one of her housemates to have a blind date. (sounds exciting? yeah! peeking into other people's romantic life has always been a great thing to do!)

Well, maybe I'd somehow over-expected the experience, the escorting didn't offer me pleasure as I expected. The two newly-met were just hanging around, with the male shooting out professional blah along the way.

At one time, I was shocked by his abundant social and life experiences. And doubt why the gap between us was so tremendous as he was only 2 years older than me. Sense of inferiority welled up at the time of full realization that I was in such a huge lack of life experience.

But all these stuff was not the point.

The biggest gain for me was a feeling of home. Upon entering IKEA, the environment soon raised my longing for a home. (it's home, not house)

The feeling was so real that I was swept off my feet. And I knew that my daring was harboring the same idea. After all, we were designated by destiny to stay together for the rest of our lives. =3

One of The Most Successful Begging Cases in Digital World

How to accumulate fortune in a short span of time except for using some illegal ways? Now I have a new brand-new answer to this question. Ask for money from netizens!

First, it was his 100 yuan per week scheme, and now another stunt by 郁闷昊(Gloomy Hao) was totally beyond my wildest imagination. He simply asked Chinese netizens to donate money to his bank account in an effort to boost domestic consumption. He harvested from his plan a total of 18,198.02 RMB at last.

I'm speechless over the result, and I think it should be recorded in digital history as one of the most successful begging cases in decades.

Happy Birthday to My Blog

Click here to view the first blog entry

Say Goodbye to Kaixin001

What's wrong with me tonight? It seems I'm on a writing spree. Anyway, I decide to follow my nose and write down this piece before hitting the sack.

Here are some of my recent development. A piece of bad news is that a storm of pressure is coming from my job. The good news? The storm has somehow helped me quit Kaixin001 cold turkey.

I've been thinking about deleting my Kaixin001 accounts several times in the past, because I thought Kaixin001 should not have occupied more than 10 minutes of my leisure time on any given day, not to mention to be addictive to it.

I have to admit that I had underestimated the addictive features of social networking site. Being enchanted during my naive interactions with a few simulating web-based games was nothing fun. It was no exaggeration to say that I was totally bogged down by those for-the-birds games. My life, as well as my darling's life, were interrupted rudely. The culprit was the magical stickiness of social networking site. Once in, hardly out.

But man with a strong will can conquer everything. I haven't logged in my account for a long time, and I think this trend will continue indefinitely.

Though I tried the new fishing game on Kaixin001 recently in an effort to keep myself up-to-date, I didn't indulge myself into it again. After checking out the mechanism of the game, which was very similar to Happy Farm in terms of game mechanism, I dumped it with no mercy.

In a nutshell, I'm very happy to the fact that I'd got rid of this social networking site by my strengthened will and won back some otherwise lost hours. And my conclusion after a succession of fierce mental battles with the SNS is - human will is king. Do you agree?

Offline Downloading

I was caught by an ad today when surfing internet. It was from Xunlei which said "畅爽迅雷 离线下载". Curiosity pushed me hard to find out what was behind the so-called offline download mode, and from this page(the landing page of the ad) I found the answer.

After some reading I realized that the offline download mode was as simply as that Xunlei first download what you want on the internet and store the targeted file(s) on its own servers, so later you can retrieve it/them from its storage servers instead of downloading those files from internet sources.

This is really a clear way to bill customers as the potential need for this service is huge. Nice move, and let's see if Xunlei would get some bucks by this creativity.

It Always Seems Impossible Until It Is Done

Words can soothe people, especially when someone is down. I was saddened today by the irritating news that house price was going to keep high for an uncertain period. As usual, the first question entered my mind then was when I could marry the one I really love. Apparently, no answer stored in my mind at this stage. It was not because that I thought I was incapable. In fact, my worry has been driven mainly by a sense of urgency. I didn't quite know from where it came, but I thought many factors contributed to that feeling.

I was in a sour mood when a string of words enter my eyelids "It always seems impossible until it is done." It placated my pain instantly like a panacea for my illness.

I'm not a superman, but I know I will not be the one without a shelter. I'll make it.

Weekly Knowledge Gains

1. 忖度他人之心 = cǔn duó = conjecture, ponder, speculate, infer, surmise, contemplate;

2. Three expensive delicacies: 鲍鱼 = abalone, 鱼翅 = shark's fin, 海参 = sea cucumber

3. Higher-level efforts to put a stop to the ingrained drinking habits have met with mixed results.

ingrained = entrenched = deep-seated = firmly established = 根深蒂固的.

4. The company was hemorrhaging capital when it was bought by another firm.

hemorrhage = to lose (something valuable) rapidly and in quantity.

5. 不虚此行(bù xū cǐ xíng) = 没有空跑这一趟，表示某种行动还是有所收获的。= It's been a worthwhile trip.

6. Sexting (a portmanteau of sex and texting) is the act of sending sexually explicit messages or photos electronically, primarily between cell phones.

Advanced Google Analytics Usage

Most of the webmasters out there content themselves with the default Google Analytics(GA) setting, but actually the default configuration is no more than the tip of an iceberg.

I'd like to blaze the path and introduce here a few advanced usage. Keep in mind that by sticking to the default setting of anything, you are only going to see the tip of an iceberg.

1. Use _setVar() to define custom segments by using Google Analytics. And here are various solutions to defining custom segments on your site.

2. Use __addOrganic and _addIgnoredOrganic to further strengthen your Google Analytics referral setting.

3. Use _trackPageview() to fine-tune your Google Analytics pageview report.

These are just a few of a full bucket of amazing functions GA has to offer! Webmasters, let's dig deeper!


Terminator Salvation (2009)

Well, let me start off by countering all those spiteful movie reviews for this installment. I don't know why everyone is shouting at it. This movie is fine with me though I'm not a hardcore fan of terminator. The flick is largely watchable and the special effect is cool enough to thrill my bone! I will give it 7 out of 10!

Weekly Knowledge Gains

1. But how, pray tell, do you "notice" something that happens when you're asleep?

pray tell = please do tell

2. 非主流 = alternative culture, non-mainstream culture, 90后 = after-90s'

3. Cybersquatting is the practice of registering an internet domain name that is likely to be wanted by another person or organization in the hope that it can be sold to them for a profit

4. 单败赛制 = single-elimination tournament，双败赛制 = double-elimination tournament

5. cut loose

• if a person or organization cuts loose, they separate themselves from another person or organization (usually + from ). She cut loose from her sponsors and decided to try to fund herself instead.

• to behave in a way that is free and relaxed, especially when you are enjoying yourself. After a few glasses of wine everyone just cut loose and started dancing.

6. Boxer Rebellion = 义和团运动

朽木不可雕

I was labelled 朽木, though it was not the first time I was called so. Among a pile of emotions arisen at the time of the word hitting my eardrum, sadness somehow dominated. I couldn't pretend I was fine. And I'm sure no one can. The hard fact was that such a labelling did have a huge impact on my ideology, and I will never do it to my kid(s). At one point, I was saddened and I felt completely helpless. It's piercing. It's devastating.

I'm not psychologically weak in general, at least I don't accept that if you regard me as a weakling in mind.

Also, I'm not a paranoid and do not like to shield myself from criticism. I love criticism and would accept gladly. To me, imperfection rules, because I know I'm not a saint.

I learn from this a new way of treating people - never fire words on impulse as words are sometimes your ammunition to kill people.

My Life

It's kinda ridiculous to write a topic like this, as the "my life" topic is internationally known to be written for the most part by those who have achieved something big in their lives. Though I have magically achieved a "big belly" in recent years, that's never something I'm proud of.

Now at the age of 27, I feel an urgent need to pick up again those treasurable memories from the one-third of my passing life.

I have virtually no memory of my babyhood and my life in kindergarten. Don't ask me why, they are just completely out of my mind.

As a pupil, I was very naughty with average grades in my class. I met my best friend during pupil days and my dad used to escort me back home everyday after school. These are really good old days, except I got punished every now and then by different teachers for various bad acts!

When I grew up later as a student in junior high, I started to become an underachiever. T_T Not because I was not studying hard, but the environment as a whole did not permit the slightest existence of good students. Fighting abounded in my class, and teachers were scared to enter the classroom, not to mention students. I got the worst of it by studying among the biggest band of gangsters!

After graduating from my junior high, I started to reorient myself out of the amiss rails. I remember the days when I worked extremely hard in university library. I lived on English vocabulary indeed. And that's when I met the best intensive reading teacher on earth, who showed me a way to conquer English.

The next few years were kinda dull as I worked for UE, where I met a spiritual leader Eric and a consolidated team, dubbed as ET team.

Then my world transformed somewhat, thanks to the careful nurture of my darling Zoe, who has a dream of turning me from a wordmonger to a wordsmith, someday, somehow, in the coming future.

Late Night Grunt

I want to ensure her a simple but cozy life. That's all. I may not be able to offer you extravagance, but I try very hard to lessen your worry about shelter and food. I may not be mature enough at the time of writing this post, but I push myself to maturate on a daily basis. I'm very weak at math, logic and orientation at present, but I attempt to make up those by diligence.

All in all, I just want to be a good man who can take good care of his soul mate in my limited life. I know it's easily said than done. But I will tough it out.

I hate brawl and misunderstanding and kinda quick-tempered at times. But I'm nice in nature.

Words are nothing in this material world.

But I still want to say,

I will try my best to make our world beautiful.

Weekly Knowledge Gains

Racial profiling is the inclusion of racial or ethnic characteristics in determining whether a person is considered likely to commit a particular type of crime or an illegal act or to behave in a "predictable" manner.

Couched their protests in diplomatic language.

couch = fo word in a certain manner; phrase:

Blogs for example, particularly the ones that deal with non-technological and non-scientific subjects, tend to be inaccurate, uninformed and parochial.

parochial = provincial; limited in perspective

For these reasons blogging represents retrogression in the standards of public discourse.

retrogression = the act or process of deteriorating or declining.

Ninety-two percent of the respondents to a Sina.com survey thought that the measure was daft.

daft = foolish; stupid.

Why should their human rights be so inconsequential and worthy of neglect?

inconsequential = lacking importance.

If we allow terrorists to disrupt our lives to that extent we're just playing into their hands.

play into one's hands = to do something that gives someone else an advantage over you, although this was not your intention.

On one hand, they wanted the Uygur mobsters to be "braver" and make "bigger" noises. On the other, they are again feigning innocence to swindle sympathy out of the uninformed overseas public.

feign = to give a false appearance of; to represent falsely; pretend to.

Google Chrome OS vs Windows 7

Google is obviously not resting on its search engine laurels. Months ago when it launched its browser product Chrome, we knew that was just the beginning of Google's boundless ambitions. And here it comes, news from Google says that it is going to work out a new operation system called Google Chrome OS for desktop computers before 2010. It is said that the new OS will be developed with only the basic functions, so you will not see any fancy things out of this newbie. Those who love whimsical stuff will be truly sad this time when all the tawdry will be gone. To computer users, the new OS is just 1-2 years away and means a new blood will soon be injected into this perennially monopolized market, but to Microsoft, it indicates a new and fierce battle for OS market share will soon be launched, by another formidable IT giant Google.

Let's sit back and see who is going to have the last laugh.

Ethinic Conflict in China

I don't know the authenticity of this picture. I hope it is a fake. Quoting from one of the western media "Thousands of Chinese, many wielding sticks, clubs and knives, marched today through Uighur neighborhoods of the northwestern city of Urumqi chanting "blood for blood'' and singing the Chinese national anthem."

I was stunned hard by the news of ethnic clashes in China. Hope all the ethnic and religious battles would come to a complete halt and never be repeated in the scope of world.

My Community is On Fire

Last night when everything seemed running as ordinarily as you could imagine, something terrible broke out with a start. At around 20:00, a cloud of black smoke billowed out from nowhere, and soon nasty odor was pervaded in the air. I scurried out to balcony to see what was going on but saw nothing except a hazy curtain of night.

In the distance, shouts were heard. Though I couldn't get the words clearly, I smelled a rat. It didn't take me too long to realize that there was a fire in our community. Very shortly, fire engine and ambulance were there.

The whole experience was new as me and mom hurried to pack our stuff in case an evacuation was needed.

However, it turned out that the fire was not serious enough to call for an evacuation alarm and the firefighters put out the flame in split-second.

The smog dispersed minutes later and we went back to our ordinary life. Another minutes later, the whole thing was erased from my mind as I sat down in front of my desk reading literature written in ancient Chinese. For what? Because to me the ancient Chinese literature was more horrible than fire!

What's S13?

Thanks to the strictest digital censorship on earth, netizens in China are always on a feverish move to find ways to spoof Chinese censors. S13 is just one of the latest examples showing the intelligence of Chinese Internet users. It is a nice twist to SB, initials of a Chinese phrase that means idiot, designed to avoid online censorship. This is how a new word has been coined by collective intelligence. And no doubt, we will see more of these as collective intelligence is always in action among the online bunch.

The 1st Anniversary

It was our 1st anniversary but since I didn't have a cozy access to internet yesterday so no blog entry was registered. The day went on pretty like any ordinary day - no special arrangement, no festival extravagance. But it was not perfect. The only stain was that we were deceived into a crappy restaurant by an open-air ad and was forced to enjoy a trashy meal. Besides that, we had quite a good night. Filling with happiness and bliss, we spent a couple of romantic hours to review what we had achieved in the past year. From complete strangeness to visible intimateness, we've walked a bitter-and-sweet path for a full year.

Though it's not obvious, we are now down the road leading to the 2nd anniversary, a road strewn thick with felicity and prosperity.