20/20+ Chow Lai Mau Music Collection

From the 1980s to the present, Hong Kong lyricist Chow Lai Mau has worked with all the biggest names of Canto-pop and penned countless classic hits which pretty much grew up with me.


In this latest compilation 20/20+ Chow Lai Mau Music Collection, he personally picked 45 of his representative songs from the last twenty years. Chow describes the selections as 20 fans' favourites, 20 songs that gave him different feelings during composition, and 5 songs that he wants to keep to himself.


This great compilation is no doubt a trip down Hong Kong's memory lane with familiar songs from stars of past and present, but sadly, it is missing one of my all-time favourites from Jacky Cheung - 再爱上你 (1991) , it's really hard to find such charmingly pleasant lyrics these days.

没月半弯
亦没醉倒了夕阳
却教这心
重遇你后跳得比风更响
望着晚风
但未禁偷偷窥看
你那风采
仍令我像那天朝思晚想

不理不理曾离别过你
只要只要重头热恋你

再爱上你梦再飞
往事令我依旧在回味
回头仍痴想可
再爱上你梦再起
你让我这心又渐离地
迷失方向谁可一生
长夜伴晨曦依然是你

旧日衬衣
又为你的肩被上
你说你记得
然后已堕进我心胸里躺
望着晚星
才知星光多奔放因再有你在旁
盼望地老天可再荒

回头仍可一世一生
教我爱得心更深
回头仍可相爱相亲
教你爱得依旧动人
无憾后半生
愿一生我俩
愿一世一生相向

Why Christmas Has To Be Merry?

My iGoogle's x'mas countdown timer is showing 27 days to Christmas Day.

"Why is Christmas merry?" I suddenly ponder the status quo with interest.

Personally, is it because all the family is together for a meal and it represents a time of giving, love, or togetherness? Seasonally, is it because we get holidays and we have an opportunity to give and receive gifts or is it because of the good mood that people in general exhibit? Economically, is it because of the boost that results in retailers finally making it into the black? Religiously, is it to do with a baby in a manger?

Anyhow, Christmas this year will definitely mean something different, not that I want it, but it is surely putting things in perspective for me.

The Heathrow Minute & The Spiral Effect

When was the last time you sat on a plane, with seat belt fastened, anxiously waiting for it to take-off safely but can't help noticing the plane upheaval in spirals, feeling insecured?

Only recently, I managed to find out the technical reason for that and that has something to do with the airport I once worked in - London's Heathrow Airport.

Did you know Heathrow Airport currently has the highest international passenger traffic in the world despite they only have 2 runways (one for take-offs and one for landing)? Between 2002 and 2006, the average delay at Heathrow had increased from 16.3 to 18.8 minutes according to BAA with all the four terminals operating in full stretch.

During the peak times at Heathrow, Jets take off as close as 1 minute apart as oppose to other international airports' average 2 minutes! The way they manage that is to make sure flights go in diverging routes and hence, the need to go in spiral movements after they take off. The astonishing 475,000 Takeoffs and Landings a year in Heathrow is probably encouraging other international airports to follow suit.

The time between each takeoff is famously known as the “Heathrow minute,” and to cope with the traffic, it is the job of the folks at the airport tower, i.e. the Air Traffic Controllers, to make sure the jets only take the bare minimum. I have a good friend in London applying for such a tough job, I still think she's insane but I want to wish her all the best and if she succeeds in that career, I will be so proud of her.

Blog It On The Move

This pic - my entree, was taken a minute ago during dinner.
I am trying to send this photo from my cellphone to my blog here.

All I had to do was to send a message to my email account at blogspot.com, attach this photo, add a subject matter and type what I had to type and this should not take more than 2 minutes.

How I adore mobile technology and for now, I am going to enjoy the rest of my dinner.

Feeling Goog-fy

I found myself sticking to using Google's affiliated products more and more (feeling Googfy, as they now call it), so I decided to change my homepage altogether to iGoogle, one that I wanna recommend to you.

iGoogle is an adorable start page tool where I can aggregate all Google resources I use on my online desktop, e.g. gMail, gTalk, Google Search Bar, Google Reader, Google Docs, Google Desktop, Picasa, Blogger, just to name a few.


I am sure you do personalise your desktop apps as it's the first interface that opens on your computer and you wanna keep them nice and neat. I recently felt it is even more essential to apply a technology that drives what I look at everyday online when I open my browser. I virtually don't access my offline apps that sit on my computer that often, as all activities I endure are now seemingly online.

Open source development it is, allows iGoogle to support the use of specially developed "gadgets" to display content on my homepage. The gadgets interact with me and utilize the Google Gadgets API. The Google Gadgets API is public and encourage developers to develop a gadget for any need. So at the end, I can have wicked countdown timers, sticky notes, YouTube channels, and 3 different themes for 3 different tabs appearing on my homepage.

If that's not enough, well I tell you, you can have unlimited number of tabs, now how's that?

First thing first, if you wanna feel googfy like me, you've gotta sign-in for a Google account.

My 9 Reasons To Switch From IE to Firefox

Microsoft's Internet Explorer may indeed still command as your web browser for now, but the "Browser Battle" is definitely on.

Microsoft should be watching Mozilla carefully because Firefox is better than Explorer by leaps and bounds and I will tell you why.

Here's what Firefox has which IE doesn't and basically constitutes to the reasons I ditched IE some time ago.

• Faster Response - A typical webpage loads faster on Firefox than Internet Explorer
• Higher security - biggest factor that inspired me to switch was the constant bugs and fixes IE has
• Tap browsing - too many opened windows = super annoying and slows down everything
• Session Restore - If Firefox has to restart or closes when it comes back you’ll pick up exactly where you left off
• Keeps html formatted - able to keep the html format when copying from a web to txt
• Download Manager - one can pause download and continue it a later time
• Live Titles - As the information on the page gets updated, so does the Live titles
  
• Live Bookmarks - review the latest updates from favourite sites with a glance and a click
• Open source - not proprietary, more secured

There’s a lot to do on the Web and trust me, Firefox 2.0 is definitely making a difference to the user experience on browsing.

England's Valediction to Euro 2008

Good old England only require a draw to ensure qualification for the Euro 2008 next summer, yet they decided to crash out and have a nap.

The Football Association is to meet today, when it is expected to sack England manager Steve McClaren for his failure to lead.


Right now let's hear from Beckham's defend after the defected match and how their hopes shattered by the Croatians.

An Enclave Losing Vitality

I was waiting for a friend yesterday night in Central business district while I took this photo.

Struggling to adhere a name for it. Any takers?

I can choose to call this a representation of one of the brightest cities in the world at night (one which attracted Batman's recent visit); or along the lines of "Hong Kong as a vibrant financial centre". Either one sounds pretty boring and perhaps not applicable any more.

Talking about Hong Kong's financial proposition recently, what swept through every investors' mind is the gloomy financial climate. Can't help but worry about the downward realignment in the Heng Sang Index in the past weeks, accumulating more than 10% drop from 29,xxx level less than a month ago, to the present 26,xxx. What is worse, the critics expecting more bumpy adjustments upcoming.

After all, comparing to the "Ding Hai" effects, the magnitude of fall really ain't that prominent. With relativity and definitions being swifted, and change remains the only constant, I decided to name this photo "An Enclave Losing Vitality". What do you think?

Nothing Like A Nice Cup of Coffee

This is for those seekers after a healthy lifestyle who have foresworn coffee in favour of various tisanes which they believe are better for them.

Other research has shown that there are four times the amount of anti-oxidants in coffee than there are in green tea; for which so much is claimed.

All that stuff about Caffeine is a drug and it's harmful to your body and it has rodent carcinogens....what the heck!

When I am marooned on my boredom, not only will I want a nice cup of coffee but I will know why I want it. An added bonus, will be to enjoy this with someone enjoyable.

Enders' Game

I seldom pick up story books, the novels section never attract much of my attention when wandering in bookstores.

The other day, someone highly recommended this novel "Enders' Game" by Orson Scott Card, claiming it is the best science fiction ever with a captivating plot, suspense overwhelming, once you start reading and won't be able to put it down, etc etc.

Sounds really intriged for a starter, but still not enough to get me to purchase. Not until another colleague told me this is compulsory literature for U.S. Military training material, did it really get me to order a copy through Amazon.

Looking forward to killing time with it, and I shall be able to share my personal comment in here very soon.

The Problem of Pain

If the God Jesus Christ we believe in, is loving and all powerful, why does he let us suffer so damn much?

We all know that while Jesus was a man, Crucifixion is among the nastiest torture and execution methods that humanity has ever come up with and he suffered and died in the most painful and humiliating way possible. I really don't get why God will not take the pain from us, but he had taken the pain upon himself in its entirety.


I have received a weak signal lately that tries to bring an analogy to my myth. It reads something along the line...a good mother lets her children move out when they are old enough. She does this not because they will be safer. She does this because she knows that if she does not let them grow up they will be a shadow of what they should be. They must know freedom and difficulty in order to truly become mature.

Perhaps without the pain and struggle of life, there is no cause for us to improve ourselves?! Seems logical, but I still have my doubts.