Musicians of the day: The Beatles

I heard Penny Lane at A&W this morning.
Then the radio played Blackbird (big band jazz cover) in the car.
Next, I practiced Lucy in the Sky with Diamond and Hey Jude at home.
Finally, Dear Prudence was played at Boston Market at dinner time!

What a Beatle day!

Topic of the day: slow news day

Techcrunch has stated the obvious (again): it is more likely for Twitter users to follow others then being followed. And TC called the former sheeps! At first I thought I should stop following TC on Twitter. But then, these type of garbage posts are perfect to blog about when I am having my own slow news day (like today!)

Star of the day: Randy Johnson

The Big Unit won his 300th game in the San Francisco Giants uniform today. That is a BIG milestone. He is also one of the few pitchers who has beaten all 30 major league teams! More interestingly, he won his 300th against the team he started with! (Washington Nationals was Montreal Expos) And he has won 2 more games than the Washington Nationals have ever won (since it was moved from Montreal!) as of now.

There are also ~150,000 people who deserved to be the star of the day: the ones who attended the June 4th memorial march in Hong Kong.

Magazine of the day: Guitar Aficionado

With all these book stores (Stacey's, B.Dalton) disappeared near where I work, what I missed the most was browsing through their magazines (the former has a great selection!) Now my first priority whenever I'm in a book store is going through the magazine section. That's how I found this new magazine Guitar Aficionado last weekend.

It is not your typical guitar magazines, i.e., those with lots of instructions, transcriptions, reviews. It is more like other magazines of luxury goods (e.g. watches, boats, cigar......) In fact, it does have sections about luxury goods! The cover piece is about a famous chef who is also a guitar enthusiast. So, you get the idea. I'd say it's an interesting approach. The subscription rate is $24.95 for 4 issues (per year.) I guess it's not a bad addition to anyone's coffee table (which I don't have)

Music of the day: Eleanor Rigby

I have listened to as many jazz cover versions of this song as I could find and I just heard another one this morning on the local jazz station KCSM (this member-supported community station has almost reached its fund raising goal so I hope it survives, unlike KKSF)

This version came from an album called "Work to Do" by Carl Allen and Rodney Whitaker, who lead a group including big names like Vincent Herring (alto sax) and Rodney Jones (guitar) I gotta check out the whole album!

Tech of the day: "Using Prompt Commands" May Be a Sign of Criminal Activity

A Boston College computer science student whose computers, cell phone, and other property were seized as part of an investigation into who sent an e-mail to a school mailing list identifying another student as gay.

What made him suspicious? According to the police, he uses 'two different operating systems for hiding his illegal activity. One is the regular B.C. operating system and the other is a black screen with white font which he uses prompt commands on.' Oh yeah, he also 'jail breaks' cellphones.

DISCLAIMER: every post I wrote regarding Linux on this blog was fake. I only use what the government allow us to use.

每週一噏：封神榜，姜子牙

相熟的朋友都知道我視電視連續劇為「師奶玩意」，其實我亦是一個超級電視迷，只不過主要看半小時一集的處境喜劇及卡通(Southpark, Metalocalypse)

我平均每年才看一套連續劇，國內製作的可算絕無僅有，記憶中只有環珠格格（及風雲）。無獨有偶，最近開始追的封神榜也由林心如主演！

吸引我看該劇的倒不是林心如，而是封神榜原著！那是我小時候最喜歡的小說之一，被書中種種神奇的法寳深深迷倒。這個版本「例牌」亦有更改原著，暫時尚未算改得太離譜。小時候歡樂今宵那個版本不知有否更改原著？當年只看了少少，不過余子明飾演姜子牙實在印象深刻，看到現在這個英明神武（像雄霸！）的劉德凱，有點不慣。

以我從小說中認識的姜子牙，是一個修仙無望，轉為以道術為民服務的「公務員」，助武王伐紂，是師尊交帶他的任務，無需太多軍事才能或神機妙算，只是領軍一路向東打便行；軍中助陣的全是他的師侄，亦無不服從之憂；遇上他本人道術未足以解決的難題，派師侄找來比自己强的師兄出馬即可！總的來說，姜子牙的形象似乎不應太英明神武，不過電視製作人自有他的見解。