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.