Music of the day: And I Love Her

So, which cover version of this great Beatles' hit am I talking about? It's jazz guitarist Pat Metheny's version from his new album "What's it all about" just released this month. I heard it on the local jazz radio station KCSM this morning. What a surprise! I thought the days of discovering new CDs by listening to "traditional" radio have gone. Aren't we all rely on the new online media/channels/services like iTunes and Pandora? I don't think so. From my experiences, these services tend to recommend stuff I knew already or I'm not interested. For example, after I listened to Katy Perry, I'd get recommendations for Kelly Clarkson and Lady Gaga, who aren't my cup of tea. After I "favourite" Joe Pass, I keep hearing, guess who, Joe Pass! I think "hand picked" recommendation still has its place this day of age. I recently read that Pat Metheny said "A big chunk of early jazz history was largely improvising using chord tones and improvising around the melody. Those are two valuable entry points" I definitely hear a lot of the latter.

Sports highlights: Congrat to Dallas Mavericks, the new NBA Champ

I gotta admit I'm not really a basketball fan but as a sports junkie I do follow NBA news. After all, basketball is probably the second most popular sports in the world (next to football) and US (next to American Football) My favourite NBA team is the Houston Rockets (watched legendary center Hakeem Olajuwon and coach Rudy Tomjanovich winning 2 titles in the 90s) but I'm happy to see the other teams from the great state of Texas winning the title as well (like the Spurs did it 4 times in the past decade) Now the Dallas Mavericks have joined the rank of NBA Champ as well. I guess I'm in the majority rooting for the Mavs because (1) LeBron James is the most hated sports star in US after his move to Miami. This bitter comment he made says it all (see the responses here) and (2) players like Dirk Nowitzki deserves a title (just like David "The Admiral" Robinson did it with the Spurs)