Pan Admun Republic of Western Blog

Read on PK_ an article about overtime and long working hours in Hong Kong. Interesting read since it gave a view of why everyone stay late at work. It echo many views from talks with friends when I was in Hong Kong last year.

Working live is different in Canada, at least from what I see. Most people, especially those with family, live a pretty regular life. By regular, I mean 9-to-5ish working hours, supper home with families, work on garden on weekend, etc.... ok, maybe I generalize a bit, but the thing is people here have a life after work; Work is important, but they put emphasis on a balance life style.

From personal experience, I live in Canada and work for a telecom R&D shop here in Ottawa. I am a late to work type, usually back to office around 9:30am, then I stay to 5ish before go home. But from time to time, I got my lab shift in the early evening after 5pm and will stay to 8-9pm or even later. I also work weekend and such sometimes when there is a need and I feel it worth it. At work, we are pretty easy on the 7 working hours part, I'm fine as long as I'm keeping up with my schedule. Probably due to the nature of my line of work, it is relatively flexible at work. I can go to dental appointment for an hour or so during the day, then back to work. Often I go home early, have supper, watch some TV, _than_ drove back to work for a night shift. Also, I could setup remote access to do work from home, but I didn't because I don't want to take works home.

Even those management is flexible, there are cases that people were asked to work longer hours and weekend, even over X'mas (the campus actually suppose to be shutdown). Fortunately, there is OT pay allow is or able to bank the time for vacation. Some people I know may not be as lucky; They got so much work that overtime is almost like expected and a must. But these are not a wide-spread cases that I can see.

Am I a workaholic? I don't think so. I seem still have a life.

I don't know if you know what is fortune cookie. But for most Canadian, it's one of the things attached to Chinese food.



It's a small little sweet cookie comes with your bill after supper, and there is a little words of "wisdom" in the cookie.

So, you asked: "Why this little cookie called furtune cookie? Can it really fortune telling?"

Yes, it can. And it's like this:

Me and Heng had supper after work. We asked for the bill at the end, while having a chat.

(bill arrived, admun picks a cookie.)
...
...
(So, we were talking about some girl and such)
...
Me: "(她) 係你就係你,唔係就唔係" (She is my if destiny allowed)
Heng: "......"
Then I crack open the cookie and see:



So, they know what to tell me! And it also has French on the other side:



Now you know.

And yes, there is no such thing called fortune cookie in Chinese, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.....

The title say it all. A good read with all these discussions among HK bloggers on what is blogging.

Om Malik's Broadband Blog: Blogging 101 - what's blogging, what's not

There was a lot of re-thinking about why I blog recently. I read many posts from many HK bloggers asking the same question. I thought I know what I blog for, but it's getting more fuzzy after all the new discussions. I questioned myself: Am I actually blogging?

There is no doubt that the viewpoint in that TV program is quite narrow. (BTW, thanks to alex for putting it on-line so us oversea can see!) Blogger and blog culture is much wider than what is seen in the program.

I think the other discussion right now is center on whether a "web diary" is a blog. I agreed that if it's just a blog of "oh, I eat today at noon", there is no difference than those who make those "me too" website back in the old days. They put a few random pictures and flashy text, and call it's their homepage..... come _ON_!

A blog should be a voice about the person writing it, in another word there has to be a personality in there. Another way to put it is it should offer some opinion in it, not just a one-liner and than a link and trackback. That's what I follow when I write a post. When I link to a news or etc, I usually put in some of my thought, even if it's not much of it.

A blog can be about a wide range of topic, may it be politics, technology, news, personal, pepsi girl, ranting, and what you got. It's a blog if there are opinion, personality, bi-direction communcation (via comemnts/trackback).

The other thing I found is when you blog for a while, you get that brain struck going on sometimes, and your opinion-over-BS noise radio may raise and you think it becomes irrelevant... No. It does not matter at long as you speak your opinion and keep blogging.

Blog on, guys and gals!

[update]
Hum, just think of that a blog is also defined by the readers it target. A diary usually just target for one person (the writer). But a blog is write to all on the net, or at least a group of people it aims
[/update]

I saw a video clip of driving in fog a while back at littleoslo's blog. Few weeks back I drove to Tremblant one more time to hit the last snow before spring take them away. I was alone on the road 5:30am, the street lights zooming by and the night is passing by me. Then I pull out my camera and....

this
that
more

p.s. Please pardon the background music.....

The dot com was burst in 2000/2001, it was like the end of the world; (Ok, I exaggerated...) Big (and small) companies collapsed one after another, employees getting layoff left and right, the countries are at war, virus is killing people. To some, it's a nightmare.

During the past few years, the economy surrounding the net seem all dry up and will not return for a while. VC money is tight, if there are any. Companies are struggling to still alive and hang in for the storm to past. People is turning every rock trying to find jobs, or have to change career all together.

Now the market is turning around, things are getting better. Money is flowing in (and out of) the net again. Even it's not like back in 2000. People found jobs available.

Another economics cycle ended for yet a new one to start.

New technologies are developed in the past few years, but do we progress to another level? or merely just another incarnation of the same old with new wrapping.

[update]
Second thought, even those it might be a new wrapping..... but it certainly better and improved.
[/update]
A whole new internet? (kottke.org)

Just reading this from Wired. A all-podcast radio station to launch in San Francisco soon.

I saw recently more and more and more podcast going on the net, don't even mention those from the podcasting pioneers. It's not just the bloggers going verbal these days, many on-line/on-air radio outlets also slowly experimenting with this new media.

I am surprice to see podcasting, as a media/distribution channel, is gaining popularity. I thought at first, who want to talk to a recorder and put the tracks on the net, anyway. But I was wrong... there are many of them. I guess there's nothing earth shattering here, as people already saying this for months. But it's interesting to see it grow so rapidly, as it only starts around Oct last year. This thing for sure grows a horn and gain traction.

無驚無險, 又到六點...

Just returned from TO. The weather suckz. It started raining on Friday night and just seem non-step until Sunday.

It's good to catch up with my friends (Claude, Nelson, Fred). Have a good time eating Shanghaiese (A place west of Golden Commerce), Japanese (Sushi Time @ Queen, and some takeout), Korean BBQ (Walker Hill @ #7). Also have bubble tea (technically, I should say "fruit tea") @ go for tea, and chinese dessert @ Hong Fok Tong. I didn't do enough shopping this time, only picked up some batteries for my coreless phone and MP3.... kind of hesitated to buy DVD while I still have a bunch to watch and doesn't know any good one I should get.

Oh, well. This fixed my need for good food for the near future.