张雨绮 - 翻版宋慧乔

姓名：张雨绮 (Name - Kitty Zhang Yu Qi)
Yr. of Birth : 1988
国籍：中国 (Nationality - Chinese)
地域：中国 山东 (Place of birth - Shandong, China)
职业：演员 (Occupation - Actress)
身高：170cm (Height - 1.7m)
三围：35D、24、35 (B-W-H - 35D、24、35)
体重：48kg (Weight - 48kg)

你的歌 - 陶喆

New album 69乐章 is to be released today!!

Toilet Design

This should speed things up and improve toilet efficiency.

Wax Apples

If you walked out into an orchard, picked an apple from the tree and rubbed that apple on your shirt, you would notice that it shined – you've just polished the natural wax that an apple produces to protect its high water content. Without wax, fruits and vegetables like apples would lose their vital crispness and moisture through normal respiration and transpiration – eventually leaving them soft and dry.

After harvest, apples are washed and brushed to remove leaves and field dirt before they are packed in cartons for shipping to your local market. This cleaning process removes the fruit's original wax coating, so to protect the fruit many apple packers will re-apply a commercial grade wax. One pound of wax may cover as many as 160,000 pieces of fruit; perhaps two drops is the most wax covering each apple.

Waxes have been used on fruits and vegetables since the 1920s. They are all made from natural ingredients, and are certified by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to be safe to eat. They come from natural sources including carnauba wax, from the leaves of a Brazilian palm; candellia wax, derived from reed-like desert plants of the genus Euphorbia; and food-grade shellac, which comes from a secretion of the lac bug found in India and Pakistan. These waxes are also approved for use as food additives for candy and pastries. (Now you know why your chocolate bars melt in your mouth but not in your hand…)

The commercial waxes do not easily wash off because they adhere to any natural wax remaining on the fruit after cleaning. Waxed produce can be scrubbed with a vegetable brush briefly in lukewarm water and rinsed before eating to remove wax and surface dirt. (Using detergents on porous foods like apples is not recommended!)

Always rinse your apples with soap and water or with vinegar before you eat them.

袁泉 - 简单的气质

袁泉给人的印象犹如她的名字，清澈如山泉。看似清纯可爱、自然大方。如果说电影《春天的狂想》、 《美丽的大脚》给她带来金鸡奖最佳女配角，《蓝色爱情》给她带来大学生电影节最佳女演员奖，《上海纪事》给她带来华表奖的评委会奖，以及诸多的提名是充分 肯定其演技的话，那么参与话剧表演与走上乐坛给她打开了另一扇事业发展的窗口。袁泉的实力已被大众认可，实在不容小觑。

姓　名：袁泉　　　　
籍　贯：湖北
星　座：天秤座　　　
生　日：10月16日
身　高：168CM 　　　
体　重：49KG
学　历：中央戏剧学院

你被诱惑了吗？

诱惑无处不在，今天，你被诱惑了吗？
　　
没有经历过诱惑的洗礼，一种最严格的定力的测验，就没法鼓起勇气说：我不怕诱惑！又有多少人能象大江从不怕悬崖，烈火见真金？诱惑当前，你可拥有一个真男人的坦荡胸怀、率真态度与战胜自我的信心？

诱惑带来美妙的视觉冲击，它唤醒人们内心已经有的一切，欲望、意志或者道德。只需要一刻的动摇，就足于让你坚持的一切崩溃。值得庆幸的是当你下过水，却没有沉沦，那时，你征服了一切，必能满怀自信的坦然而立。

诱惑是罪吗？一些短暂的诱惑，对某些人来说，不过是令他们觉得自己仍然有魅力而已，并不会动真格，至多只是当做生活的一个调剂。它在煽动你内心隐藏的火，关键在于你内心有多少火。

想来，世界是成长了许多，科技发达，资讯流通。那么人呢？现在开放的世界，无奇不有，诱惑以各种不同的方式陷阱缠绕着我们。有人会怕诱惑，是因为怀疑自己的意志力，因为现在的道德观早已沉陷，甚至荡然无存。

又有多少人能无所顾忌，相反的，欣赏着诱惑的精彩？它不是逼人就范，也不是让人追逐，它无非是在那挑逗着你，寻开心罢了。

人们应该感谢春风拂脸，波澜扰心。设想一个没有红唇斗艳、眼神带钩的世界，那该是怎样的闭锁压抑，如同一个人失去梦想，他的内心一定是干涸的。花花世界，有它独特的美。能感知到诱惑还证明你有一颗不僵化的心灵，且比别人多了一分享受生活的快乐。

诱惑又何尝不是人们花花世界存在的一种方式。一座教堂门前草坪上立着一块牌子，上面大书：“如果你对诱惑厌倦了，请进来。”下边用红唇膏写着另一行字：“如果不厌倦，请打电话XXX号。”天使是相对应魔鬼而圣洁的，所以不要害怕诱惑，诱惑是为人们内心正邪两种力量较量而存在的。

男人不排斥诱惑，从某种意义上是对女性的尊重。一个好男人似乎一生下来就挣扎在抗拒各种诱惑当中，而且百炼成钢。

诱惑无处不在，今天，你被诱惑了吗？

Typhoon Morakot

As Typhoon Morakot left Taiwan on last Sunday, it left its mark with record rainfall, widespread flooding across Southern Taiwan, forcing thousands of people from their homes and ravaging bridges, roads and buildings.

The worst reports of flooding came from the counties of Kaohsiung, Pingtung and Taitung at the country's southern tip.

Continuing heavy rains have hampered rescue operations in mountainous villages, where hundreds of people are still thought to be stranded. Having been through crises of Katrina and China’s Sichuan earthquake, people are cognizant of the pressing problems of shortage of water, food and medical supplies, which are coupled with obstacles of transportation.

Over 20 bridges have been destroyed, proving more devastating than the 921 earthquake. The loss of these bridges, some of which provide the only corridor to secluded villages, means that rescue missions will be slowed.

On one hand, many Chinese are still be compassionate and generous to the rescue cause. On the other, isn’t there enough indications that global warming is even more pressing than the global economic crisis? Shouldn’t there be a more concentrated effort to counter the effects of global warming and in the mean time be better prepared for natural disasters?

All in all, it is depressing to listen to the news still focusing so much on what an exciting week this will be as financial indicators may suggest the worst of the economic crisis is over. Since when have human lives taken a second seating to material needs? Meanwhile, all I can do is offer a little financial token of my prayers for those unfortunate.

Jennifer Love Hewitt - They call her love

Birthday: February 21, 1979

Age: 30

Height: 5'2
Measurements: 36, 26, 38
Birthplace: Waco, Texas

Hometown: Los Angeles, CA

Canadian construction employment dropped by 18,000 in July

Daily Commercial News: Employment in Canada declined by 45,000 positions in July, with construction employment decreasing by 18,000, bringing total losses in that sector since October to 120,000, according to numbers released today by Statistics Canada. The national unemployment rate remained unchanged at 8.6 per cent, as fewer people participated in the labour market. There were increases in retail and wholesale trade jobs (+24,000), while employment in manufacturing was little changed in July. Most of July’s employment losses were in Quebec (-37,000), as well as in Saskatchewan (-5,000) and Newfoundland and Labrador (-2,800). Employment was little changed in all other provinces. Employment in Ontario edged up in July as continued declines in construction were offset by gains in the services sector, StatsCan said. Since the start of the downturn last fall, employment has decreased by 2.4 per cent at the national level, with the largest declines in Ontario (-3.3 per cent), Newfoundland and Labrador (-2.8 per cent), British Columbia (-2.7 per cent) and Alberta (-2.4 per cent). Nationwide, young people bore the brunt of the downturn, with employment in July among those aged 15 to 24 dropping by 38,000 and by 23,000 among women aged 25 to 54. Since the peak in October 2008, employment among those aged 15 to 24 has decreased by 205,000 and by 201,000 among men aged 25 to 54. July’s unemployment rate for students climbed to 20.9 per cent, a 7.1 percentage point increase from July 2008. This was the highest July unemployment rate for these students since comparable data became available in 1977, StatsCan said. Employment among private sector employees fell by 75,000 in July, bringing total losses since October to 436,000. But this was offset by the number of self-employed, which increased by 35,000 in July. Since October, self-employment has risen by 75,000, mostly in finance, insurance, real estate and leasing; professional, scientific and technical services; and “other services,” StatsCan said.

As predicted, as the Olympic projects approached full completion, there will be less and less demand for construction works.

Recently, there has been so much discussion about the HST coming out next July, those in the construction industry has reflected their priority to rush projects to be completed before. the HST dateline So after next July, there will be huge drop in both construction employment as well as real estate prices.

One good thing for developers if they can complete the project before next July, they can pay off the GST first at 5% and hold off till after HST is in place to put up the properties for sale at either the price before tax adjustment or at a higher price. Either should benefit the developers.

Kate Beckinsale - Do you believe in serendipity?

Name : Kate Beckinsale
Birth Date : July 26, 1973
Birth Place : London, England
Height : 5'7
Weight : 120 lbs
Measurements : 34,32,32

Alyssa Milano - The Sexy Charmed

Name: Alyssa Milano
Nickname: Lyss
Birth name: Alyssa Jayne Milano
Birth place: Brooklyn, New York, USA
Birthday: 1972-12-19 (Age: 36) (Astro Sign: Sagittarius)
Weight: 53 kg
Height: 1.57 cm
Measurements: 85-60-88

The miracle

On the day, my daughter was born, the heavens began to cry. As people rushed in frenzies in and out, I lay shivering and sweating in between the contractions. I didn’t fancy giving birth on a packed rush-hour commuter train racing along at 60 miles an hour, but sometimes, you are left with no choice. Vancouver was experiencing the hottest summer in recorded history. Keeping cool is hard when you’re pregnant and have a built-in, always-on central heating system of your very own, so I had been taking the subway more often than the bus for air-conditioned comfort.

Of course when I say ‘comfort,’ the term is relative. I suffered hugely from heartburn and other digestive woes all through my pregnancy. I was half the size of an aircraft carrier by my fifth month. My due date was August 8 and I worked right up through the last week of July which entailed a daily two-and-a-half-hour commute back and forth. As my pregnancy progressed, just getting to the station in the morning became an ordeal. I began to feel a growing sympathy from overweight people. Shifting my bulk up the station stairs left me huffing and puffing. The looks I got from my fellow commuters make me want to find a hole to hide, my self-esteem falling to the pits. As early as March, the check-out ladies at our local supermarket began wondering aloud whether I was expecting twins, or maybe triplets. By April, people began giving me their seats on the train, jumping to their feet with looks of great concern; occasionally I got those “Not near me, lady” stares. By May I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat more than a few mouthfuls at a time, and had to pee every thirty minutes. As June crawled and sometimes stood still, July finally arrived, bringing even more oppressive humidity and extreme heat. Walking even short distances became ridiculously arduous. Towards the end of July, comfort was a distant memory.

As it happened, I was barely conscious when I went into labor being tired, hot and utterly miserable. My stop was still an hour away when my labor had started. A concerned commuter who is a nurse, asked me if there is someone to call, I told her to let my husband know I was in labor and GET THE HELL over here!! But despite it all, I felt brave.

The good thing about being in Vancouver is people are nice and compassionate, well mostly. Through the pain, there were more and more people gathered around hoping to help. The subway attendant called for the ambulance and medics were soon crowding around me. I was determined for no epidural anesthetic, natural means no pain relief. A kind medic lady stood by my side and held my hand. At one point, she gently extracted her fingers from my death grip and let me dig my nails into her forearms instead. She stood mutely when a contraction took me, and mopped my forehead with her free hand. The look of compassion on her face as I winced and groaned offers the much needed pain relief and comfort. When I saw her the day after my baby was born, she had long pink welts on her slender forearms where my fingers had gripped her.

The contractions were taking on the intensity of a five-alarm fire, the sweat was rolling off me, and for some reason all I could think about was slave mothers having their babies on slave ships. How horrible it would be to go through such pain only to have your baby snatched away from you. I wasn’t worried. I was in agony; I didn’t have room to be worried. Get this baby out! I had begun to holler. I would scream in the middle of a contraction, then grow quiet as the pain faded, I was laughing at myself, at the whole messy, chaotic, incredible business of having a baby. Every contraction produced a flood of water and blood – I couldn’t believe how much stuff I’d had inside me. Much of the time I was too busy wondering where the hell the father is and in a desultory and haphazard manner, trying to follow the various conversations of the medics around me. One of the conversations discussed the wisdom of installing a dishwasher in a small kitchen. God Damn, I am having a baby!! It was surreal: hairdressers and dishwashers – then they’d suddenly enjoin me to push! Harder! – Oh Mary – we can see her head! She’s got dark hair!

‘I am in hell,’ I told room in general. ‘Hell, hell, hell, hell, hell!’ ‘Oh hurry up and get her out, oh hurry up and get her out, oh hurry up’ – Even to myself I sounded like a drunk. Save your energy for having the baby – enough talking! It was at this point that I decided that I must get into a squatting position. After screaming out, the medics decided to humor me, two of them grabbed one arm each and both of them managed to heave my bulk into a sitting position; I took it from there. Good! Now take a deep breath and push! There comes a point in labor when, although you know intellectually that your ordeal will have an end, your own self – your whole identity – becomes consumed by pain and that end is almost beyond fathoming. Squatting there, my whole body engulfed in wave after wave of shuddering torment, I felt as though all time had stopped. Nothing in the world mattered to me more than getting that baby out. I wasn’t me anymore, either: I was just so much sweating, heaving, oozing flesh. A great hulk of pain, a throbbing, pulsing pod desperate to expel a bloody mess. In fleeting moments of clarity, I remembered how women I knew with babies had laughed and said about their labors, ‘Oh, it isn’t so bad.’ Yes it bloody hell was!

Now push! Then there was a whoosh and an explosion of pain and I saw my baby shoot out into the medic’s arms, a slippery fish, pink and wet. ‘A girl!’ they shouted superfluously, and suddenly I was desperate to see her: Show me! I kept calling out. And then I was holding her in my arms. Even as I held her, though, I saw her begin to turn purple and struggle for breath. At least, someone knew what they were doing; the pediatric help was so fast that I hardly had time to panic: in seconds she had cleared my baby’s nose and before my eyes, I watched as purple faded back into healthy pink. My beautiful baby never cried once – not even when she struggled for breath. She just lay quietly in my arms and seemed to take in her surroundings.

In my wardroom, that night, I was still blaming John for not being there. ‘I’m sorry, you do know its not easy to catch a moving train and find out where exactly you are.’ Excuses. But at that moment, I couldn’t be angry at him. She was so beautiful, laying in my arms.

‘See if she’ll nurse!’ someone advised. Our families has gathered to share our joy. As I drew her close, I could tell she was hungry. Everybody oohed and aahed as she went for broke, latching on with all the eagerness of a terrier, sucking with little growls of contentment. ‘What a clever baby!’ they all agreed, and I felt a moment of intense pride. And relief too. Overwhelming relief.

Then they all left us. We lay there in the dark room, my baby and I. For a blissful minute or two, everything was wonderful. I lay there, listening to her tiny infant snorts, stroking her dark hair, counting her fingers and toes. But slowly I began to be aware of a pain that started off as an irritation, then gradually got worse. This was altogether different from a labor pain in that it was not of a cramping nature. It was a searing pain, like a knife slicing through me. And in no time at all it had gone from irritating to painful to agonizing. Suddenly I found myself screaming again and yanking on my call-button for all I was worth. I hugged my baby to me with one arm, afraid that the pain would get so bad I would either drop her or send her flying. As the nurse rushed in, I pointed with my free hand – Down there! Hurts! The nurse took a moment to examine then – as if from far away – I heard her shrieking for help. A doctor came running.

Hours later, when I came to, they told me that I’d had a haematoma. That a blood vessel had burst in the ‘birth passage’ and I had lost a great deal of blood. ‘You were lucky. If you have had anaesthesia, you might have died. The pain saved you.’. There John was, beside me, hugging my baby with one hand and holding my hand with the other.

Jamie Chung

Birth Name: Jamie Ji-Lynn Chung
Birth Date: April 10, 1983
Birth Place: San Francisco, California, USA
Claim to fame: As Herself in MTV's reality show "The Real World" (2004)
Profession: Actress
Height: 5' 6" (168 cm)
Measurements: 30-25-35

Hot markets - History all over again.

Some of you may be confused what in the world is happening - aren't we supposed to be in one of the worst global recession ever faced?

As it turns out, the flow of liquidity (by printing money like toilet paper) is so powerful that it propels stock prices higher after each correction. Basically what is fuelling the run-up is the ability to borrow at next-to-zero interest costs in US dollar to punt regional markets.

Not to forget that as the greenback weakens against all major regional currencies, foreign exchange gains are quite substantial as well.

Many would draw the connection to Japan when it slashed interest rates to zero to fight deflationary pressures a decade ago. The end-result was a multi-billion dollar yen carry trade, as traders borrowed in the low interest yielding Japanese currency to make huge bets in emerging stock markets.

Now, with the Fed also slashing interest rates to almost zero, the greenback has replaced the yen as the new carry trade currency.

Well, print all the money you want, there will be consequences. People seemed to have forgotten all about the dangers of hyper-inflation, once again falling foley to the ludicrative paper tradings. The economy hasn't yet recovered from the implosion of risky investments that led to the worst recession in decades and already some of the world's biggest banks are peddling a new generation of dicey products to corporations, consumers, and investors.

In recent months such big banks as Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase have rolled out newfangled corporate credit lines tied to complicated and volatile derivatives. Others, including Wells Fargo and Fifth Third are offering payday-loan programs aimed at cash-strapped consumers. Still others are marketing new, potentially risky "structured notes" to small investors.

Banks once again making dangerous loans to borrowers who can't repay them and selling toxic investments to investors who don't understand the risks—it sounds awfully familiar, doesn’t it?

Lenders typically tie corporate credit lines to short-term interest rates. But now Citi, JPMorgan Chase, and BofA, among others, are linking credit lines both to short-term rates and credit default swaps (CDSs), the volatile and complicated derivatives that are supposed to act as "insurance" by paying off the owners if a company defaults on its debt. In these new arrangements, when the price of the CDS rises—generally a sign the market thinks the company's health is deteriorating—the cost of the loan increases, too. The result: The weaker the company, the higher the interest rates it must pay, which hurts the company further.

While the lenders stress that the new products give them extra protection against default, the opposite is true for companies. Managers now must deal with two layers of volatility—short-term interest rates and credit default swaps, whose prices are affected for reasons outside their control.

Corporate borrowers also have to deal with higher fees. With corporate credit remaining tight, banks increasingly are steering borrowers to the CDS-linked loans and many companies have little alternative. As such, banks are raising their rates for credit lines across the board.

Then you have big banks turning to payday loans, whose interest rates can run as high as 400%. Historically the market has been dominated by small nonbank lenders, which mainly operate in poor urban centers and offer customers an advance on their paychecks. Their argument is they offer a valuable service for those who need emergency cash.

More big banks are getting into the market just as a recent flurry of usury laws has crippled smaller players. In the past two years lawmakers in 15 states have capped interest rates on short-term loans or kicked out payday lenders altogether. The state of Ohio, for example, has imposed a 28% interest rate limit. But thanks to interstate commerce rules, nationally chartered banks don't have to follow local rules. After Ohio limited rates, Cleveland-based Fifth Third, which has 400 branches in the state but also operates in 11 others, introduced its Early Access Loan, with an annual interest rate of 120%.

On the investing front, big brokerage houses, including Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and UBS, are selling new forms of debt instruments called "structured notes". Structured notes are essentially derivatives for small investors—and they make sense for some. Basic structured notes let buyers benefit from the growth in stock, bond, or currency prices while offering some degree of loss protection. Yet many of the latest iterations are highly complex and may not compensate for all the risk. Buyers without the financial experience to evaluate risk should best stay away .

The new debt investments offer attractive rates, sometimes guaranteeing double-digit returns for the first couple of years. But when those teaser rates disappear, investors face huge potential losses over the life of the instrument, up to 15 years. The prospectus usually states a trend or historical support, but as the recent market turmoil has shown, historical patterns aren't always reliable. Need I remind you about Lehman Brothers and Long Term Capital?

Those with the deep pockets will once again be heading for real estate thus explaining at least why the Vancouver market which is overheated is still standing strong if not climbing.

Meanwhile, summer is entering its last stretch. Soon, it will be winter again.

OC man charged with modifying video game consoles

LOS ANGELES - A Southern California college student has been arrested on federal charges that he illegally modified video game consoles to enable the machines to play pirated video games. The U.S. Attorney's Office says 27-year-old Matthew Crippen was released Monday night after posting $5,000 bond. The California State University, Fullerton student who lives in Anaheim is accused of modifying Xbox, PlayStation and Wii consoles in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents got a tip from the Entertainment Software Association and searched Crippen's home in May. He was indicted on two counts by a federal grand jury. Crippen faces 10 years in prison if convicted and is scheduled for arraignment on Aug. 10. Attempts to reach Crippen for comment were unsuccessful.

Well, if you can't stop people from selling mod chips and putting jailbreaking/modiying instructions online, maybe just to deter that one or two extra people from commiting such crimes that hurt profits and mega corporations, the law need to set an example out of this kid.

Otherwise God help us, we have gamer pirates running amuck amongst us.

Knowing

I have been plagued by bad movies lately and perhaps I had to take responsibility for putting too much trust in Nicolas Cage's acting.

The star's latest, "Knowing," starts off mildly ridiculous, ascends to the full-blown ludicrous, and finally sails boldly off the edge of the absolutely preposterous. Throughout it all, Cage's grim sense of purpose stays in place, as does his hairpiece. You have to admire such dedication amid apocalypse, even as you're hooting through your fingers in disbelief. ~~ Boston Times ~~

Cage plays a Boston-area astrophysicist and single dad named John Koestler - works at MIT, lives in Lexington. At the 50 year unearthing of a time capsule, his young son Caleb (Chandler Canterbury) retrieves a document with nothing but a series of numbers. John miraculously sees meaning in the randomness, deducing that the 50-year-old piece of paper has correctly predicted every major disaster between then and now, down to the dates, number of victims, and geographical coordinates. And I mean talk about random, he just look at the numbers and suddenly "Eureka!!".

Logic would probably tell you that if you want to confirm whether the numbers predict deaths, you would be wanting to avoid the coordinates there indicated. But not Cage, the relentless curious rushed through burning fire and risked his life in a freak subway accident and still couldn't affect the death number predicted, which leads me to question whether the attempted rescue was also predicted. Anyways, there are moments of where the CGI saved the day by keeping the audience glued, otherwise the plot is as predictable as the sun. Whoops, did I give it away?

Anyways, I almost got the blue-ray version of the movie which would have made the apocalypse section even more spectacular. But otherwise, there is little reason to waste good time and money on this movie. 5 out of 10 for keeping me awake to the end.