What?! And they call CU Student Newspaper indecent...

I have just read a message on Books & Writers Community (a forum where I have lurked for quite some time).

It is not a joke...

There's a new subgenre called, ahem... Christian/Inspirational Erotica!!

You don't believe it?? Read the message here.

Unbelievable...

This is a bookstore???????!!!!!!!!!!!!

I really can't imagine why anyone would buy a book here. Hey, it's NOT a can of soft drink, I need to take a look at the book BEFORE I buy... hmm...

I buy books from the internet frequently because I can browse the books and read excerpts before buying, but here with this machine, I don't think I can even get a refund =P if there's something wrong with the book... =P

New Zealand trip + advice??

As some of you might know, I'm going to New Zealand for a short course in mid Jun. Because the trip is mainly for the course AND I don't want to take too many days of annual leave, so this trip is mainly designed according to some HK tours and Charles' suggestions... AND $$$$!! haha!!

If anyone of you have been to NZ, pls give me some suggestions. I also hope this will be useful to ppl who're planning to do trips to NZ, I have spent a LOT of time doing research on this... I may post a bit more details later, maybe after I'm back =)

15/6 Leave HK (Friday)

16/6 Auckland (Saturday)
I'll try to see if I can go to the famous Otara market which is held every Saturday morning!! Otherwise, I'll try to look around the city centre, according to most people, not much to look at around Auckland...

17/6 Auckland again... (Sunday)
As there is not much to see around Auckland, I'm thinking about doing a day trip...
These trips sound interesting... because of the black sand beaches and rainforests... but quite expensive, hmm, so still thinking...
Bush and Beach
Same tour at Viator.com (cheaper!!)

18-22/6 Course (Monday-Friday)

23-24/6 (Sat-Sun)
This is the cheapest and best (in terms of the places covered) tour I can find.
Thrifty Adventure
I'll go to Waitomo caves, Rotorua and Taupo in the weekend.

25/6-29/6 Course again... (Monday-Friday)

29/6 Fly to Christchurch by Qantas at night after the course (Real cheap flight!! I've booked it online on the Qantas website.)
Plan to stay at Cokers (Near City Centre, cheap, with triple room)

30/6 (Sat) Spend half a day in Christchurch, plan to walk around the City centre, e.g. the Cathedral, and then most importantly the Arts Centre, coz according to travel guides, there's a lively craft + food market at weekends! (According to Charles, there's not much to seen around CC, that's why I've allocated so little time there...), then I'll take the bus (Intercity bus) to Dunedin in the afternoon, if you book early you can get 50% off the price!! Super Saver ticket, yeah!!
Plan to stay at On Top Backpackers (Near City centre, cheap)

1/7 (Sun) Spend half a day in Dunedin, nothing sounds interesting from the guidebooks, maybe Baldwin street, said to be the steepest street in the world... hmm.. then I'll travel by Taieri Gorge Railway, then coach to Queenstown. The train seems to be a very famous tourist attraction built over 100 years ago.
Plan to stay at Queenstown YHA, Central (Near City centre, cheap, and near the lake!)

2/7 (Mon) Queenstown to Milford Sound Day tour
This is the CHEAPEST Milford Sound tour I can find on the web, if it's summer, I may consider another one with a longer cruise (much more expensive), but it's not available in winter, so I'll choose this cheapest one. =P

3/7 (Tues) Queenstown
I'll have slightly more than half a day in Queenstown, I don't intend to do any "great" adventure activity, coz I am AFRAID OF HEIGHTS!!
Maybe Skyline Gondola?? hmm...
then I'll take the flight back to Auckland late afternoon, and back to HK directly from Auckland.

HAHA! The best thing about this trip is that I'll get STUDY LEAVE for the course AND 80% of the accommodation+flight+course fee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't usually travel in this "hurried" style, =P but I'm not that interested in New Zealand, and I have NO plans to ever return... so that's why all the hurry... haha!!

How to protect the environment on rainy days?

I bought this umbrella to save all those plastic bags to preventing dripping from umbrellas... This is the second umbrella of this kind I got. I think we should all get umbrellas like this. And if I use a "foldable" umbrella (not sure about the correct English term for it), I usually take a plastic bag with me all day long, so that I can put my umbrella in that bag instead of taking one bag from every place...

I wonder how many plastic bags we waste on one rainy day...

Do you need Viagra?

Well, don't panic, this website has NOT been hacked by spammers. =P

I just read this news report here.

You and I probably need Viagra... NOT for obvious reasons...

The male impotence drug Viagra may be useful for treating jet lag as well, according to Argentine researchers who gave it to hamsters made to feel like rodent globe-trotters.

The researchers said the findings suggested that Viagra could be useful to help people cope with jet lag or shift work. They said the dose needed for such uses could be lower than the one used for treatment of erectile dysfunction.

Viagra interferes with an enzyme that lowers levels of a naturally occurring compound that plays a role in the regulation of the circadian cycle, the body's internal clock, the researchers said.

Jet lag or shift work, I need it for both if it really does work... but whoever thought of this first and actually did a study on it??

And the best tourists in the world are...

Well, the results are not surprising, of course it's the Japanese who won.

What surprises me is that Chinese were not the worst tourists... The only explanation I have is that the world haven't seen enough of Chinese yet...

The best tourists in the world are the Japanese, followed by Americans and the Swiss, a survey based on views from hoteliers across Europe said Wednesday... the worst tourist nation was France, followed by India, China and Russia.

See the whole report here.

Online Communities

This is kinda like the map in the bottom, haha, see how many different "places" I've been to... well, Friendster, Facebook, Windows Live, AOL (yes, because I'm on the Books and Writers Community), youtube, Flickr, Technorati, Wikipedia, Usenet, IRC...

Salary

According to the news today, the annual income of one HKU graduate exceeded a million!!! ARGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!

Me... I'm not going to dream about THAT kind of income. I'm just thinking if I'm gonna get a pay rise, the news also mentioned the "mid-rank" civil servants are going to get a pay rise of 5%, am I going to benefit from that?? sigh... probably not.

Really, is the economy this good now? Or is it just a big bubble waiting for the sudden burst?

Stock Market

With the stock market going up crazily, even Chau Fai is discussing the stock market in his blog...

I don't know where to put the money now, always thinking a huge drop is coming soon...

Any good suggestions...??

Nasir Abbas

I watched the programme 60 minutes about this guy last week. His story is really fascinating... He's a former terrorist turned police informant.

I doubt he's telling the truth about everything in his interviews though... he really doesn't know these people intended to kill civilians, not just soldiers??!!

He's really brave though, I doubt he'll be able to survive for long though, with the life he's leading.

Read more in this BBC report.

The jihadi who turned has every intention of carrying on.

The problem for the police is keeping him alive as he has made so many enemies.

JI's Noordin Top, now the most wanted man in Indonesia, has made no secret of what he would do to Mr Abbas should he ever get his hands on him.

Mr Abbas believes God will protect him.

Stupid Hongkongers (edited)

I found out something impossible today.

I have UNDERESTIMATED the stupidity of HK people!! Really I thought my opinion on them cannot be lower...

Read this piece of news from Ming Pao.

Edited: (I wrote the above during my lunch hour and added something below.)
Here's the same piece of news from Apple Daily.
理 工 大 學 應 用 社 會 科 學 系 副 授 何 國 良 形 容 ， 投 訴 人 明 顯 以 《 聖 經 》 作 為 武 器 ， 挑 戰 當 局 的 淫 褻 物 品 評 審 制 度 ， 從 而 凸 顯 其 流 弊 ， 「 直 頭 係 審 裁 部 門 危 機 ， 今 次 佢 評 《 中 大 學 生 報 》 做 二 級 （ 不 雅 ） ， 完 全 講 唔 到 個 道 理 出 ， 但 係 冇 可 能 都 將 《 聖 經 》 評 為 二 級 ， 到 時 就 要 搵 方 法 落 台 。 」

Read their page and honestly tell me this is what they wanted to do? Is their purpose REALLY this "noble"?? Or just plain stupid?!

And further to the CU student newspaper incident, this is a touching article by 蔡子強. If we all act like this, how much better our world will be?

現在差不多每一間大學，都說鼓勵學生獨立思考、批判思維，但當學生的看法與我們一模一樣時，哪用 大家多作lip service；相反，正正是當學生的看法與我們南轅北轍，與我們不同的時候，校方仍能表現出的尊重和包容，才真正最能體現出我們對獨立思考和批判思維的 真誠，才最彌足珍貴。
我們都愛自己的學生，但當學生飛黃騰達，名成利就時，我們的愛充其量只是錦上添花；相反，正正是當漫天風雨，壓力鋪天蓋地，學生茫然無助時，我們的愛，我們所表現出的承擔，才是學生最需要的。

And back on to the Bible issue again, when we read the history of Israel, we see so much evil, even incest, rape, mutilation of human bodies, and we see God is with them all the way through everything, even though God must be hurt by all these. Can we do the same thing for our family, our school or EVEN our church??

How wise are you?

Usually the tests are about IQ, this test is about wisdom instead.

I got 3.4.

The Good, the Bad and the Undead (No spoilers, well... as far as I can notice.)

I first started reading Kim Harrison's the Hollows Series last month with Dead Witch Walking. I didn't introduce much about the series after reading it, coz it's good but not "make-me-crazy" kinda good.

What makes me start to talk about the series now? coz the second book in the series-- the Good, the Bad and the Undead, simply takes my breath away. WOW!

Let me start with the first though.



The storyline is complicated so I won't even attempt to summarise it because I'll either make it dull and boring OR reveal all the spoilers! haha! This is the introduction I found on HarperCollins website:

Rachel Morgan is a runner with the Inderland Runner Services, apprehending law-breakers throughout Cincinnati. She’s also a witch, one of the many Inderlanders who revealed themselves after a genetically engineered virus wiped out 50% of humanity. Witches, warlocks, vampires, werewolves-the creatures of dreams and nightmares have lived beside humans for centuries, hiding their powers. But now they’ve stopped hiding, and nothing will be the same.

On the run with a contract on her head, Rachel reluctantly teams up with Ivy, Inderland’s best runner…and a living vampire. But this witch is way out of her league, and to clear her name, Rachel must evade shapechanging assassins, outwit a powerful businessman/crimelord, and survive a vicious underground fight-to-the-death…not to mention her own roommate!

As I have said before, with the first book, once you got past the initial parts about how tomatoes almost wiped out the humans species (yeah, so human avoid ketchup and are scared of tomatoes =P), it's like a roller coaster ride.

With the second book, it's even better. The plot is better, the action starts from the very beginning, once I picked the book up, I couldn't stop reading. Plots are important, but if it's the most important for me, I would have liked the Da Vinci Code much more. =P (Although I read that book in one sitting, I'll never re-read it again! What's wrong with the Da Vinci Code? Read on...)

The characters become more multi-dimensional (I'm talking about Kim Harrison's book, in case you misunderstand), you can actually see the good and the bad side of everyone including the villains, even Piscary (who's the real bad violent master vampire who raped and killed and mutilated people). Not to mention Trent (the villain of the first book), wow! It's good to know much more about him, and I... like him... (!)

The only bad (not bad I guess, just disappointing for me) thing is the response of Nick (Rachel's boyfriend) to what happened near the end. (See? This is why I told you I'm NOT going to summarise it, coz when I tried not to reveal the plot, I sounded like an idiot.) I liked him a LOT! hmm... but WHY DID HE RESPOND LIKE THAT??!! (I think we'll see more of Nick in the later books.)

(Still don't know what's wrong with the Da Vinci Code?? The characters are like cardboards, flat! Can you tell me, what's his name, I forgot, whatever, the hero of the book is like? Not just stupid stuff like cool, calm, clever, but what he's REALLY like as a person, any special thing about him, other than being the brilliant guy who solved the riddle? And the heroine? Other than being the beautiful woman whom the hero... I'm not going to use that four letter word, not even with asterisks... =P I am going to stop rambling.)

Back to Kim Harrison's books, READ them and you'll not regret it. (The second book is actually more like the early Anita Blake books than Stephanie Plum books, which means it's a lot better for me. =) Yeah, it's like Anita Blake's book, so it's violent. Be forewarned. I think the level is acceptable, even for me who never watches horror movies.)

Added at 1938 (14/5)
Just found this on the back of the third book! Diana Gabaldon is really my fav writer, the comment written by her reflects EXACTLY what I thought about the series. If only I could write like that...

Discovering a new series like this is like finding buried treasure; you want to dig it all up at once and when you open each book, fistfuls of gold doubloons and jewels fall out sparkling into your lap. The world of the Hollows is fast-moving, funny, harrowing and scary, and — the greatest compliment to a fantasy — absolutely real.

Hair stylist

I can never understand why people always say women tell their hairstylists all their secrets, I barely talk to them during haircut, other than about how I want my hair done or how I can take care of my hair...

Maybe it's because I seldom go to hairdressers, so I don't have a familiar hairstylist. (I dislike spending hours waiting.) Now you know why my hair gets so long!! haha! It's lucky I'm a girl, I am allowed to have long hair.

Why am I thinking about this all of a sudden? Of course, it's because I've finally get my hair done today! haha!

For those of you who're telling me how long my hair was, it's just about shoulder length now, and much more curlier than what I wanted... hmm... I think I'm not going to let it down for a while...

Johnny Depp & his family

As some of you may know in the news, Johnny Depp is getting married with his girlfriend Vanessa Paradis.

Just wanna share with you something I read from this article about their upcoming nuptial plans, not about his wedding though, haha. (btw, I am not his fan)

The small town where they live in France seems great! And I have to agree with one of the comments, I like this family much more than the Beckham family. =P And the description is cute.

Although Depp is not fluent in French he happily converses with the locals, few of whom speak a single word of English. Lily Rose, who is bilingual, has been heard many times correcting her father.

The actor has cited his children as a primary reason for his flight to France, saying he wanted them to 'grow up in a very simple and calm environment, where everything is not about the next movie or the next success'.

The doting dad added: "I love the simple things: the sunrise, the trees, the countryside. I can take a ride into the village and have a coffee with my girl, and people say: "Hello Johnny. How are you?" I'm not looking around for the paparazzi.'

Chinese U Newspaper? Porn?? (edited)

I have to say I haven't read the newsletter, I have just heard about its contents on the news, so if I get anything wrong, please tell me.

It didn't enrage me like some other CU graduates... While I don't think the content is appropriate for a student newspaper, I can understand why they would include such stuff and then refused to apologize.

The media in HK is like "thief shouting for thief". Newspaper who's got much more "perverted" content than the newsletter said the content of the student newspaper was "perverted"...

Added comment:
(My further thoughts AFTER ACTUALLY reading the articles) I think the questionnaire design is not that much of a problem, though I don't like the wordings, I think if the wordings are put in the "written" form, it'll be more acceptable. However, what on earth did the student newspaper become? A "Mrs. B Mailbox"??? And those letters sound fake as well... and the worst of all, it's not done in an very good style, I think a discussion on sex can be done well, NOT in this way... Some of the articles (on the Mingpao link) are acceptable in a student newspaper, but not all. I agree the line is difficult to define.

Choy So Yuk

I have never liked Choy So Yuk.

I could never understand why she could have a Master Degree. Hey, back in the 70s (unlike today), even Bachelor's degree is a rarity, she must have been real smart to get one, though I can never see any sign of intelligence in her... In all the election forums, she never seemed to be able to comprehend the questions from her opponents, and even if she understood, she would answer in stupid ways... =P

Surprisingly today she went against her "comrades" in DAB =P on the discussion about the preservation of Queen's Pier. Well, I found something in her that might make me like her a bit. (Albeit just a tiny bit.) She's not just the dumb Fujian follower in DAB.

THE FOOTPRINT QUIZ

Check this out!

If the world is like me, it needs 1.4 planet =P HAHA!

Personality

Are good self esteem and strong personality desirable? Before today, I would have said yes, whatever the circumstances.

Rest assured, I am NOT talking about myself. =) Nothing happened at work today, not for me anyway.

What happened today?

An assistant who failed her probation test, not because of inability, but because she annoyed some of her supervisors (women of course) but speaking her mind, arguing with them when they told her something wrong... sigh... I guess I feel bad about her coz I'm exactly like that =P (One of the supervisors was mentioned in my previous post.)

What's the difference between us? well, our ranks...

sigh... why is it assistants are always expected to be meek and obedient? I'd rather be with honest, outspoken people than people who pretends to agree with me on everything...

Graffiti

In Hong Kong, what you normally see on walls are either nothing, "FxCK" or "XX loves YY forever" (& various variations of either of these two themes =P).

If you have visited Europe (I think America as well, though I've never been there) before, you must have seen great graffiti on walls, bridges, and everywhere.

I watched the Pearl Report today, apparently talented graffiti artists are hired by various companies like Nike to design everything from shoes, toys to video games & films, and earning millions of dollars... WOW!

The Pianist

The Pianist will be shown again on TVB Pearl tomorrow at 9:30pm.

I always tell people I don't watch this sort of movies. This "sort" meaning the sort that makes me unhappy.

Surprisingly, I liked it when I first watched it.

The movie is based on the true story of a famous Jewish pianist, Wladyslaw Szpilman, surviving the Holocaust. I'm not sure if I will re-watch it tomorrow, it's definitely heavy stuff. If you have never watched it before, I strongly recommend you to watch it tomorrow.

The movie was described like this in one of the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. I don't know how to describe my feelings on the movie better than this. "A portrait of hell so shattering it's impossible to shake."

(btw, seldom seen a movie being rated so high on Rotten Tomatoes =P)

Facebook

Rachel just invited me to join Facebook.

Just kinda interested in what this is all about, I guess it's something like Friendster. But according to something I read on the web, it's like the number one popular website, even more than youtube!

I could not find any friends on Facebook other than one of my cousins.

And still can't find anything special with Facebook... =P

If anyone of you is in the Facebook network or Friendster network, please add me. =)

(btw, I just remember I'm also on the multiply network, I joined years ago invited by dyspy, but no friends there either. haha!)

At World's End

Pirates of the Carribbean 3 coming!! on 24/5/07. We can order tickets online NOW for cinemas in Hong Kong... so early... here... (Of course, I would NOT order online, so expensive... $75 for a ticket at AMC on the first day...)