Eat of the day: Midnight truffle vs Chocolate Extreme Blizzard

If I have to pick an all time favorite dessert, it's gotta be Blizzard from Dairy Queen. And if I have to pick 1 flavor, it would be chocolate extreme (with brownie pieces, chocolate fudge......) Still, I have been looking forward to new flavors for a while. And I found it this week: a brand new flavor called "Midnight truffle." The funny thing is the poster of "Midnight truffle" looks very similar to chocolate extreme. I studied the ingredient carefully and it turns out the difference is the former has truffle while the latter has brownie. The rest is basically the same. And the winner is...... Midnight truffle!

Musician of the day: Tomonori Nishimura

I was looking for the music of the popular new age pianist Yukie Nishimura and ended up finding this album
Fritilaria
by Tomonori Nishimura. Interestingly this is also new age but at the other end of the spectrum, compared to Yukie's music.

I cannot find any info by Googling his name though. If you know more about this artist, please comment.

Tech of the day: FLAC and MP3FS

The company who owns the patents of MP3 is pushing a new format, MP3HD, which combines both losslessly compressed audio and the original (lossy) MP3 in a single file for backward compatibility (the lossy part is playable on all existing MP3 players) This idea was bashed heavily by Slashdotters. And they mentioned a very interesting alternative: rip your music to the lossless (and open source) FLAC format. Then mount the directory using MP3FS. The files will be "seen" as MP3 (transcoding is performed on the fly whenever the files are accessed) so they could be transferred to devices that could only play MP3. And you could play the FLAC files directly through applications like Foobar2000. No double-ripping and wasted storage!

Topic of the day: how to suppress freedom of speech effectively?

Learn the Hong Kong way: tell the protesters they won't get hired.

Here is the background: Hong Kong government is planning to subsidize companies to hire new HK college grads as interns. The monthly salary will be HK$4000 (~US$516.) This has caused an outrage in the college community because it artificially surpress the wages to a unreasonable level (I made HK$4000 per month as an intern 15 years ago. Does the government think there is no inflation for the last 15 years?) Some students are organising protests because they think the government is only doing this to drive down unemployment and make the officials look good. They would be better off without it.

Hong Kong legislator Priscilla Leung has made some comments about this (link to video in Cantonese) and drew heavy criticism by some HK bloggers. Those blog posts were titled "Leung says protesters won't get hired." Well, the whole context was that Leung worked in a college and was told by business owners not to recommend students who were protesting to them. So, it's not her who suggested to businesses not to hire protesters. Still, she did mention she was against the protests. She indeed suggsted students to accept the low wages for now and expect better things in the future.

BTW, Leung was backed by a church who was (in)famous for its anti-homosexual stance and in return she was against a proposed domestic violence victim protection law to include homosexuals.

Music of the day: Taranta, Estudio

I have not listen to much music during my trip. So of course I have to make up now that I'm back. Found this gem by the previously mentioned Lenny Breau in which you could hear clearly his classical influences:
Taranta.

While in the mood of classical, here is another beautiful track, written by Tarrega and performed by Liona Boyd:
Estudio in E. And it is easy enough that even I could play it (the TAB could be found in Fifty Easy Classical Guitar Solos)

Game of the week: Hong Kong Sevens

It was actually held last weekend and it is the biggest sports event in Hong Kong every year, which is interesting because rugby (or the seven men version of it) is far from the most popular sports in Hong Kong (that honor belongs to soccer) I think it does have its appeal: what other team sports tournaments that feature teams from 24 country could complete in a weekend?

Most importantly, Hong Kong won 2 big matches (against Portugal and Tonga, which was the eventual silver plate winner!) and was the only Asian team that qualified to play for the silver plate. (The top 8 of 24 teams played for the highest honor, silver cup, while the bottom 8 played for the silver bowl)

每週冷飯﹕安樂主義

摘自01年12月15號﹕

早一陣子從朋友處學到「安樂醒」這個新名詞﹕即是早上不用鬧鐘﹐順其自然地起床的意思。靈光一閃﹐覺得這種態度其實可在日常生活很多方面派上用場﹐為了實踐這個想法﹐筆者數月前和友人到加洲優山美地(Yosemite)搞了一個「安樂Camp」﹐包括以下活動﹕安樂行山(不設定任何目的地﹐略為疲倦立即折返)﹔安樂食(任意進食﹐隨時加料)﹔安樂飲(各適其式﹐可醉可不醉)﹔當然還有安樂醒﹐因為基本上整個行程並無特定節目﹐因此全無時間限制。至於安樂駕駛﹑隨意停車更不在話下﹗

想深一層﹐「安樂主義」其實是和中國道家傳統一脈相承﹕無求﹑無為﹐在充滿矛盾和節奏急迫的現代社會﹐這個不失為一個取得平衡的生活態度﹐從個人層面可令人心平氣和﹐從社會層面更可能達致世界和平﹗各位朋友﹐不妨一試﹗

當年順其自然的生活實在令現在有兒有女的筆者感慨良多﹐所謂此一時彼一時﹕
1) 行山不可能設定任何目的地﹐小朋友略為疲倦立即折返。
2) 不能任意進食﹐小朋友食飽方為大前題。
3) 飲酒不可醉﹐否則無人照顧小朋友。
4) 早上不用鬧鐘﹐視乎小朋友何時要起床。
5) 開長途車必須將就小朋友的如廁時間表而停車。

想深一層﹐現在以安樂來形容生活倒是貼切﹐此樂不同彼樂﹐乃係天倫之樂也。