all urine contains lithium

... was the title of a poem I created back in 1999, when everybody talked about Lithium. Or that seemed to be the case, in my circle of friends.

'I see you have a new mobile phone over there, Nokia 3330?'

"Yes, and with Lithium battery it is!"

Yes, that particular circle of friends consisted of a bunch of kids turning teenagers.

"Why don't you reply my message, man?" The message was about how cool a particular member of the group band Backstreet Boys was.

'I had to turn off my 3310, the battery indicator showed only one bar left. Lithium, you know. Can't let 'em drain completely before charging.'

At that time our world revolved around Lithium, while at the same time also revolved around the McFlurry ice cream on McDonald's, the newest-cutest-must-buy shoes on Gosh store, the gorgeous boys at school, and Naoko Takeuchi's Sailormoon series. The word Lithium itself sounded crisp, new, hip and so 'in', we kept using it in every conversation without knowing much about it. XD

But today a friend gave some informations about Lithium batteries! I am not a stingy person, I will share with you.

Lithium oxide is used as an active material, and for the other electrode they use a lithium intercalation compound (don't ask me what it's supposed to mean, though). Its predecessor, alkaline batteries, used water as the electrolyte. Lithium can't do this, because a water based electrolyte could react with lithium compounds. An organic compound is used instead.

Lithium also operates around 3.3V. Compare that to alkaline's 1.5 V.

I believe there's more information, but aside from 'most alkaline batteries are primary (not rechargable, as opposed to secondary: rechargable)', I couldn't remember more. My mind wandered to that new fashion item, that trendy cake shop, and that hip shelf that will be a perfect addition to my study corner. I guess the teenager's still there after all.

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ear-piercing

Prettiness is essential in a girlfriend. Another basic requirement for a girlfriend is ability to groom oneself. Cooking skills in a girlfriend is also neat. But the most important thing is, those three girlfriends never meet each other.
-- a joke that circulates on the internet --

My ears were pierced when I was a baby. Now before you scream child abuse, piercing female babies' ears was (and still is) a widely accepted practice where I come from. Most go nicely, but mine were problematic later. It turned out the holes were too high. I couldn't wear certain types of earrings: french backs, lever backs, latch backs.


Pictured from left to right: french back, latch back, lever back.

That's why, at the age of 16-ish, my parents took me to be pierced twice more, both below original holes. These turned out not OK either. The angle of the hole punched on me was not acute enough, it looked bad when I wear stud earrings.

Now there's a war inside my head. One voice says I should go get my ears pricked one more time. The other urges me to wrap it up and call it a day?

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adam lewis' blogger find & replace

Learning English as a second language is hard. Or rather, it isn't, but a lot of my compatriots feel that way. And at the same time, it's sold as a necessary effort. "You need to speak English to travel the world!" How dare be born [sic] in a country where English is the vernacular? It's unfair!
-- Riccardo Orsini's comment on Frederick Bartlett's answer to Why do a lot of English-speaking French and Italians want us, as tourists, to speak their language when we visit their countries? --

So I've been told several times by my Chinese friends that my usage of Chinese commas are wrong. I used '、' instead of '，' on my other blog.


Pictured left: wrong. Pictured right: riight.

Some of them, when I asked, told me the usage of '、' (or dùn hào, 顿号, as they called it) is creme de la creme, which is a way to preserve face. Either they don't know the answer or don't know how to explain it to me in English. Others laid it out in the open that they don't know. Only a few bothered to explain it to me, which I appreciated deeply.

'、' is not your usual comma. It is only used when you list some things, for example: His mother sent him fruits in boxes: oranges, peaches, grapes. This type of Chinese comma can be used between oranges and peaches, also between peaches and grapes.

'，' however, can be used for listing things and other things. So it is safer to use. Hearing that, I planned to correct my writings accordingly.

The problem is, I've been using the incorrect '、' for as many as 75 posts. One post can contain multiple incorrect Chinese comma, too!

That's where Adam Lewis come to the rescue!

By a simple click here and there, all my posts now contain the correct commas. Imagine the relief from having to replace them one by one! :D


But with a poor color choice for user interface.

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