五月十五

月圓之夜，天上一輪銀盤，燦如火炬，冷若冰霜。海面鱗光閃閃， 明月彷彿近在眼前，遠方高樓華燈為之失色。美景如此， 當可解憂。

水馬

國家領導人來港愛下榻我寫字樓附近的酒店，森嚴的保安對我等蟻民帶來莫大不便。胡錦濤來港，前天上班看見街上巨大的水馬，立刻盤算翌日該怎麽繞道而行才能回到辦公室。

警方也是好樣的，竟然在巨型水馬中間開了一扇門讓我們通過上班，但警察已把附近團團包圍，如臨大敵。同事賭氣地說：“不如戒嚴啦。滿地都是水(水馬需用水注滿)，途人滑到誰負責?”頗有同感。

思歪

思歪未上任已醜態百出、信譽破產，還要讓他就職嗎？

普羅米修斯

星期一回家吃晚飯，飯後與弟弟聊普羅米修斯的劇情，研究到底發生了甚麽事。那討論雖算不上興高采烈，但也饒有趣味。一齣電影能引起觀眾茶餘飯後的討論，未嘗不是一種成就。

後話：幾天後弟弟仍樂此不疲，說："昨晚同朋友談論普羅米修斯，原來在＂異獸戰＂第二集已經有交代人是外星人獻給異形繁殖的祭品，而＂鐵血戰士＂中的外星人會用異形來訓練戰鬥能力。" 他認為以其他電影解釋這電影完全可行，我說那跟比較小李飛刀和打狗棒哪個厲害沒有分別。他說還可比較血滴子和降龍十八掌。笑死。

極速

洗衣機壞了，洗洗停停、洗洗停停。終於忍無可忍，今天午膳時以極速買了一部新的。厲害。

燭光晚會

地鐵上遇到不少去維園參加五三五集會的人，有穿着帶標語的上衣的沉默的成年人，也有身披黑衣興高采烈的少年人，一時之間不知該作何想。

3G mobile surfing solution in France – Orange Mobicarte “Internet Max”

I am currently in France.  And since my stay in France this time will last for more than two weeks (April/May 2012), I had explored about 3G surfing on mobile phones. I thought I would record my solution here and perhaps someone might find it helpful some day.

Of course, I didn't invent a solution. Rather, I followed what is said on this webpage -

http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2011/07/unlimited-mobile-3g-internet-data-in-paris-on-my-android-phone.html (this guy’s writing is quite interesting by the way)

The only things that I have to add are -

1. It didn't seem possible to get the Orange Mobicarte sim card at the CDG airport. I had a few hours to spare waiting for my train so I walked around the airport train station and a couple of terminals (2A and 2F) and could not find any Orange shop. You can get SFR and other sim cards as well as Mobicarte credits at the Relays, though. Actually when I asked if they had a Mobicarte sim card a shop assistant tried to sell me another brand (“You want a sim card? This is a sim card. Orange? No Orange.”).

2. I got the Mobicarte sim card from the first Orange shop in Aix-en-Provence I came across (there are a lot of these shops in this and other cities). There was one English-speaking shop assistant so communication was relatively smooth (this was very good luck). Because I was a foreigner the shop assistant let me test a dummy sim card to see if my phone could receive the signal. Then he did the registration (he made up some info such as my address) and activated the sim card for me. The startup kit cost 9.9 euros and included the sim card and credit of 5 euros which could be used for phone calls and SMS. I then had to buy and activate the "Internet Max" option - mobile surfing on cell phone for 9 euros per month. So I had to top up some more for the plan (I bought 10 euros and got credit of 12 euros to be used in one month). The shop assistant told me that “Internet Max” covered data of 500 MB per month, not unlimited data. I asked the clerk to handle the purchase of the internet plan for me. He tried but then realised it was not possible until my registration got through to the main system or something, which would take up to 2 days. He did tell me how to do it step by step, which was more or less as described in the webpage above.

3. My attempts to purchase the internet plan kept being denied until about 8 am the next morning (a wait for about 15 hours). After the successful selection of the “Internet Max”, option (it was option 4), I was told by the phone message that the activation of the plan could take up to 48 hours. But by noon that day I found that 9 euros had been deducted from my credit balance so I reckoned that the plan was good to use. That was about 19 hours after the purchase of the sim card, which was far better than the maximum waiting time of 96 hours/4 days. I am now surfing quite happily and it feels great.

4. The confirmation SMS on the subscription of the internet plan did not come until about 1130 the next day.

5. I didn't knew it but changing the sim card has not affected the use of whatsapp messaging at all. There was no need to uninstall/reinstall/reconfigure/reset the app in my phone.

I hope the above info would be useful for someone.

Aix-en-Provence (中文叫甚麽？)

城市小小，
噴泉處處，
精緻美麗懶洋洋。
涼風習習，
陽光猛烈，
正好度假。
找一個清靜小廣場，
喝一杯冰凍大啤酒，
嘗試講法語。
侍應聽得懂，
Très bien。

無常

因工作認識一位教授，年紀不小，但還蠻有活力，他在二月一個研討會上的總結還歷歷在目。上星期二開會時他只說了一句話，我抬頭看他只覺得他的眼袋比平常還大，好像有點疲倦。豈料昨天收到老闆的短訊說他過世了，驚訝得叫了起來。人生到底無常啊。

但弟弟說無須驚訝：這回事人人有份，永不落空。

八達通

在一個相當意料之外的卡片夾子找到我的陳年個人八達通卡。卡的生效日期是1999年11月，上面竟然還有一幅已經面目模糊的照片。啊，彷如隔世。

心想不知這卡還能不能用，拿到港鐵站去嘟一嘟，才知道裏面竟然還有130元，於是一次過把這餘額用完了，然後打算把這卡的自動增值中介轉到一家有1%現金回贈的銀行，再次重用這卡。