Anything Goes

寒假開始了兩天半，天氣一直麻麻，雨好像下過不停；星期天連外出的心情都沒有！倒不如做做「功課」：聽聽網上不同版本的Anything Goes，那是我們想練練的一首曲子。這個演出實在出色:


無獨有偶，以該曲作為主題曲的音樂劇會在明年1/8在SF上演，我們算是及時湊興吧！
今天又給我發現了一位出色的音樂劇女演員：Sutton Foster，很喜歡她唱的My Romance。

世界文化展

不是指Epcot Center那種規模的，而是家中小朋友所讀小學二年班的功課，上一次做的是和我家淵源甚深的馬來西亞；今次做的則是關係也不淺的意大利，因為常吃薄餅及意粉之故！看看其他小朋友的展品，其實也頗有趣：
1）越拙劣的越顯得屬小朋友自己手筆；有一個做了立體可動的吊車放在版上，很難相信父母沒有幫大忙。
2）小朋友介紹該國知名人士，政治人物固然正路，但也有一些介紹流行偶像。最搞笑那個介紹美國知名人士三位：Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez及Justin Bieber，並註明Bieber雖本是加拿大人，但現居美國。還有一位日本知名人士只得圖不見名字，可能我孤陋寡聞，在我心目中的日本名人是小澤......征爾（名指揮家）

Splitting a stereo MP3

This is not something one needs to do often but I'm still surprised not many tools and forum posts are about this operation. I could have imported the file into a recording software which would manage the left and right channels as two tracks and pick one to export. However, I found a better solution: the open source software SoX (Sound Exchange) thanks to this post which contains the command to do so.

免費電視

鑑於有線電視收費越來越貴，我家決定停用，其實也不是第一次。雖然我常常看電視，不過也支持這決定；反正我最愛看的NASCAR，本季已經結束。令我好奇的是，數碼電視天線在我家接收力有多强？可以看到那些免費台？記得多年前試過用Analog天線，效果奇差；今天試用數碼天線，簡直是意外驚喜！四大美國台: FOX (2.1), ABC, NBC, CBS (5.1)收到兩個；我家主要新聞來源的本地中文台(26.1)也無問題。此外又有以下新發現:

• 宏星電視(1.9):台灣節目
• KAXT-R1（1.13）：音樂
• KQED World（9.3）
• KBS World （26.3）：韓國
• ICN 26.4：中文
• 華語電視38.2：中文
• NHK World 38.4：日本英文
• KQED Life 54.3

水氹

連續幾天都下雨，陽光乍現，即把握機會出車，出得半小時也總好過無！沿途見一個五歲左右的小朋友穿著雨靴，拖著大人在街上走，小朋友一路踩水氹，十分過癮；我心想為何大人沒有阻止他呢？也許覺得反正穿了雨靴，派上用場吧。連帶想起午飯時和老友吹水，提到擔心小朋友在青春期反叛，可能到時也應該讓他們自己在成長路上穿雨靴踩水氹？

Deception of travel photos

I came across this interesting article while traveling last Summer. Ironically, it's about photos taken at trips usually only showed the good sides of them but not the bad ones and thus unfairly "beautified" them. Even terrible trips resulted in great photos as you could see in the linked article. One of the photos was from one family vacation to Europe. Everyone from that family fell sick during the trip. I felt bad for them. Nevertheless, the pictures said nothing about it. The submitter actually appreciated the talks and times spent with family members together. More power to her.

NASCAR drivers and college education

Not that it matters but I'm just curious who went where. Well, it turns out there is only one active full-time driver with a bachelor's degree in the Sprint Cup, Ryan Newman. He earned his engineering degree at Purdue University and credits his degree in vehicle structure engineering with helping him succeed on the track. He graduated from college in 2001 and was named NASCAR's Rookie of the Year in 2002. It's a little bit surprising to me at first but then I realized most drivers got started young and the season is loooong. They just don't have time to go to college.

Sports highlights: a special weekend for auto-racing fans

First of all, may the 2 drivers (including past winner from HK, 丘永材) passed away at Macau Grand Prix last weekend rest in peace. Formula 1 returned to US after a few years of hiatus and it was extra special to me because this race was in Austin, Texas. Tons of controversies surrounded this brand-new race track in the past few years. Some doubted it would ever been built, let alone having a race in 2012! Also glad to see the final result, which was a pleasant surprise to me: usually it's a boring race when Vettel won the pole and then led wire-to-wire (i.e, led every lap except during pit cycle maybe) but he couldn't do it and was overtaken by Lewis Hamilton, one of the most aggressive and fun-to-watch F1 driver IMO. Now the championship will be decided at the next race with only 13 points separating Vettel and Alonso. Well, championships at all 3 levels of NASCAR have been decided last weekend already. All 3 championship leaders had ~20 point leads entering the last race but nothing was easy. Jimmie Johnson almost pulled it off to win his 6th championship by saving fuel better than the championship leading Brad Keselowski. However, mechanical problem ultimately doomed his quest. Oh well, it proves once again luck averages out. He got some breaks during his championship winning seasons in addition to his superior skills (and that of his crew) Same goes for legendary race team owner Roger Penske. He saw his IndyCar driver Will Power entering the last race with a decent lead in the championship and then gave it away. It's hard to predict then his other driver, Brad Keselowski of NASCAR, was the one winning him the championship this year! Congrat to Mr. Penske for winning his first NASCAR Spring Cup championship after competing in it all these years.

SF下午

感冒未清，今早有點掙扎是否到SF上班，想想之前已休息了一天，還是出出去吧。公司樓下保安跟我打招呼，問我怎麼沒帶pinky，做他們這一行的觀察力真强；當然不是指我的手指而是摺車，我告訴了他因由，重出江湖快矣。同事們去Boulevard慶祝沒有被迫遷到東灣，我為了不把病菌散播推掉了，轉而去foodcourt吃兼聽聽鋼琴獨奏，他彈了Beatles的Norwegian Wood（那個版本編曲不錯），一首Lady Gaga舊作，還有我們的「飲歌」：「六個餐飽」(Tramerai by Schumann)下一站是Embarcadero的商場，買了一些禮物，還有自用的Godiva無糖朱古力；其實一早已買了一堆給媽媽，不過想親自試試味，再買多一點，原來和一般有糖的味道差不多，難怪她喜歡。雖然無糖，但卡路里也不低，而且代替糖的甜味物質多吃會致瀉，所以還是適可而止吧。

Sports highlights: college football upset, CFL playoff and wrecks at Phoenix

The memories of SF Giant's world series victory and celebrations still linger with me (so was that of Sydney Sixers winning the Twenty20 wicket champions league) but the fast-paced world of sports have completely left them behind. The young NBA season has already provided big headlines like the firing of Laker's coach only 5 games into the season. I watched part of the "Upset of the season" in college football: Texas A&M beating the then No.1 Alabama. 'Bama looked so strong all season that current headcoach of fellow SEC conference-mate South Carolina, Steve Spurrier, even claimed that 'Bama could beat the worst NFL teams, which most people including experts like current and former NFL/College coaches and laymen like myself disagreed (unless he referred to the poorly coached 2002 Washington Redskin by him :P.) Still, I thought if they were to be beaten, it would be a traditional power house in SEC, instead, it's the SEC newcomer Texas A&M. As a loyal fan of Texas, of course I dislike both A&M (long time conference rival) and 'Bama (with whom we fought for the college football supremacy decades ago and most recently in 2009) Earlier in the season A&M played a good game against Florida and almost beat them. I was in a big dilemma: on one hand, I don't want to see A&M to be that successful right after leaving the Big 12 conference and proved they made the right decision. On the other hand, A&M needs to be competitive enough to prove that the level of playing at Big 12 is not way below SEC. Oh well, since I dislike both of them, I might as well root for an upset and it happened. I was so glad that A&M's star QB Johnny Manziel didn't emerge last season or he might have ruined the perfect ending to the long time UT vs A&M rivalry.

And I was able to watch more football on Sunday, thanks to ESPN and Firehouse Brewery. ESPN streamed both CFL first-round playoff games (or Conference Semi if you will) My favorite team Saskatchewan Roughriders was an underdog and almost pulled off an upset by scoring a TD in the last 2 minutes and took the lead over Calgary but fell short. The Sunday night NFL game between the Texans and da Bears was a snooze-fest but Firehouse had good beer. 

The great sports weekend ended with the replay of the penultimate race of the NASCAR season (9th of the chase) with 3 drivers still in contention and it certainly didn't disappoint: championship leader (and 5-time former champ) Jimmie Johnson wrecked, on his own, which was a rare mistake made by him and young Brad Keselowski became the new leader again. Clint Bowyer wrecked Jeff Gordon and the latter retaliated and turned into fights between pit crews. Danica Patrick crashed, stalled on the track and turned into a big wreck during the final lap. Auto racing fans shouldn't root for wrecks. However, we certainly won't mind a few fights :P This immediately brought back memories of another Jeff Gordon related fight. I thought it was last season but it turned out to be Nov 2010 when I looked it up (against Jeff Burton) Seems like NASCAR wants Gordon to fight to pump up the TV ratings every now and then but with tight races like this I don't think that's necessary! I did feel bad for Kevin Harvick who won the race but all people could remember and talk about were the ones I mentioned above.

Deleting an area to transparency in GIMP

I played with GIMP a bit to edit some pictures for a photo project. For one picture, I have created a layer with the desired background and needed to remove some unwanted areas on the picture in the upper layer to transparency so that the background would be exposed. Here is how to do it (found the instructions from this post)

If you imported the image or layer from a JPeG (.jpg) file, it will not have an alpha property for that layer.
Use menu: Layer / Transparency / Add alpha channel
Delete will then (by default) make the deleted section transparent.
When you save back to a JPeG, GIMP will paint the background (of the saved image only) white.
Save into an XCF file to retain all of the layers, transparency, etc.

反歧視

諗過帖呢個上FB，不過實會得罪好多朋友，都係低調d算。
有人話香港唔存在歧視同性戀所以無需立法；另一方面，亦有人（有d係同一批人）認為同性戀係不道德。除非係好虛偽既人，否則一定會蔑視佢認為不道德既人喎。

It's deja vu all over again!

Sports fan would know the title was one of the famous quotes by 金句大師 former Yankee great Yogi Berra. I read some of my old posts and found this from 2010:
1) University of Texas football team lost to Oklahoma that year. Same thing happened in 2012.
2) University of Wisconsin lost to Michigan State. Same in 2012.
3) Will Power couldn't win the IndyCar championship in spite of a good chance entering the final race. Same in 2012.
4) US lost to Europe in Ryder Cup. The 2012 version was worse: US had a huge lead before the final day and blew it.
5) Tiequan Zhang will fight again next week, this time with UFC in Macau. Hope he will win again!
6) Last but not least, SF Giants won NL West (and went on to win the World Series)

[Update:  Turned out Tiequan Zhang didn't win in Macau. Too bad, but at least he was competitive in that fight.]

Belle

Talking about the main character from Beauty and the Beast. My daughter used to watch it all the time (of course she has outgrown it already) It's also a tune performed by Gilad Hekselman on the album Disney Jazz Volume 1: Everybody Wants to be a cat.

I came across this album from his discography. I was impressed by his playing when I saw him performed live with Melissa Aldana at the Small's in NYC back in August. BTW, so glad to see the club being recommended by Alex Skolnick (the great metal and jazz guitarist) in his Tweet recently. 

Sports highlight: the Giants did it again

I posted this two years ago when the SF Giants won the world series and I linked to an insightful article written by Peter Gammons. Of course I am linking to his writeup for the 2012 victory here again. Similar to last time, the Giants' great pitching was a key. With Tim Lincecum struggling as starter in the regular season, his move to the bullpen during the postseason by the management was a brilliant one. There were quite a few key hits from unexpected players in 2010, like Cody Ross and Edgar Renteria. In 2012 they have Marco Scutaro and Ryan Theriot. I guess more things change, more things stay the same. The management has proven they know how to run the organization the right way. Even the big contract offered to Barry Zito was vindicated!

中國式過馬路

早一陣子好友分享其中國經驗，提到過馬路如何混亂；無獨有偶，最近有中國網民在微博發表：“中國式過馬路，就是凑够一撮人就可以走了，和紅綠燈無關。”成為中國網絡大熱話題，皆因大家均有同感。

Texas shootout

Four former Southwest Conference-mates from Texas played against each other on Saturday: Baylor vs Texas, Texas Tech vs TCU. All teams scored 50 points or more. All offense. No defense!

Memories of Yoshi's

Read an article on the Downbeat magazine about the 40th anniversary of Yoshi's. I still remember going to its old location on Claremont Ave in Oakland. And that's where it got started! I guess I qualified as old-timer these days. The most interesting quote came from musician John Santos:

In 2010, we played a show on my birthday at the San Francisco location. That also happened to be the same day the San Francisco Giants won the World Series. The win came just before we went on, so I had the pleasure of announcing that the Giants has won. The crowd went berserk, and we had a party all night. To throw a little numerology in: I was born in 1955, I was turning 55, and my favorite Giants player, Tim Lincecum, was number 55. That night was in the stars. 

香港太太的生活

我係男人都好enjoy睇佢d名貴野。不過,要睇快手！主角丈夫已入稟控告未經授權發布機密資料，向法庭申請禁制令。 條片d配樂有少少批判銅臭，不過單憑內容，呢兩公婆唔似暴發戶，都係百手興家果種，唔會俾人負面印象。

Game 5: Giants vs Reds

I didn't start watching baseball until the heydays of the Cincinatti Reds were over. I like some of their players. I also thanked their current manager Dusty Bakers for the success he brought to the Giants when he managed them. However, when it comes to playoff time and playing against the Giants, my loyalty is obvious. This game got me a bit worried, especially with Mat Latos on the mount for the Reds. This pitcher has a long history disliking the Giants. I still remember he practically accused the 2012 Giants for buying the championship when his own team at the time, Padres, did some upgrades mid-season too. Glad to see him appears in the loser column today!

Parents Television Council's complaint

This sounds familiar: conservative groups in US complained about the more liberal creative people in the showbiz. I still remember many years ago a group led by Al Core's wife targeted the music industry and certain pop/rock musicians for performing indecent/violent lyrics. Of course I was not a parent back then and totally opposed to their campaign. This latest complaint is about the TV show 'American Dad.' The season premiere episode made fun of a Hummer-ish big SUV advertised as a 'C.O.K. Guzzler' (see the caption in this link) As if it's not obvious enough, one of the character suggested added a C to it.

Do I find this funny? No. Will I watch this with my kids? Nope. However, I won't be mad if they watched it. The PTC has made too big a deal of this, IMO.

Interestingly, FOX News also reported this but without the above details. And ironically, the show was shown on FOX. So, did it help defending Seth MacFarlane by omitting the details or not?

He is no less boring even with the help of Citi card

...... that's why I don't like this commercial:

Apparently I'm not the only one who criticized it.

Sports video games

As a guy who is really into sports and somewhat into video games, sports video game is of course something I play (once in a while) Turns out lots of sports stars enjoy them too. Check out this article:

Between games, practices, travel and promotional appearances, you'd think that the NBA's multimillionaire stars would be too busy. But most NBA players say they find time to play video games every day. In fact, the NBA claims that 85 percent of its players are gamers. "I would say I play about three or four hours every night," says Orlando Magic Center Dwight Howard. "I'm a night owl, so after games I'm up till about 4 or 5 a.m. playing video games." "That's all I do," says Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kevin Durant. "If I'm not on the court, I got the controller in my hand." "With the schedule we have this year, I don't get to play as much as I want to," says LeBron James of the Miami Heat. "But whenever I get some down time I play some Xbox." As the NBA playoffs get under way, half the league's players are done for the season, giving them more free hours to fire up their video game consoles. The other half will have extra time off between playoff games, thanks to the league's stretched-out postseason schedule. "I play a little bit, but I played more during the summer," says Rajon Rondo of the Boston Celtics. "This season is so crammed, it's tough." The league's rising young stars aren't immune from the thrills of gaming, either. Ricky Rubio (Minnesota Timberwolves), Kyrie Irving (Cleveland Cavaliers) and John Wall (Washington Wizards), made a pit stop while in Orlando for the 2012 NBA All-Star Game to check out the new "NBA Live 13" game at Electronic Arts' Tiburon studio -- the developer behind sports franchises like "Madden NFL 12," "NCAA Football 12" and the new "Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf 13." NBA fans will have a choice of simulation games next season when "NBA Live 13" tips off against "NBA 2K13." It's been a few years now that gamers, and NBA players, have had no choice in pro-hoops games (outside of the arcade game, EA Sports NBA Jam). "I'm excited they brought 'NBA Live' back," says Durant. "I haven't talked to anybody yet (about the cover). I'm sure I'll get a call here in a few hours or a few days or so. I haven't heard about it, this is my first time. I'm excited." Durant was the cover athlete for "NBA Elite 11," a rebranding of EA Sports' basketball franchise that was canceled because of horrible community reaction to the glitchy gameplay. But he's still up for being on the cover of the new game. "I'm a '2K' person now," says Andre Iguodala of the Philadelphia 76ers. "I might give 'NBA Live 13' a try, but '2K' has taken over the basketball scene." Although a knee injury to New York Knicks sensation Jeremy Lin knocked him out for the season, he's still playable in "NBA 2K12" -- and his gameplay has improved thanks to not one, but two player rating upgrades by developer Visual Concepts. "I actually don't know the exact numbers, but I know for a while I was in the 50s, I believe," Lin says. "I think ESPN had me as the 467th best player out of 500 or something like that coming into the season." Now that Lin has earned a 75 in the game, up from 56 when he was a bench player, he's not focusing on how high his player rating can go. "I'm not really too worried about that," he says. "I don't have a set number or goal, but it's cool to be able to hear about progressing. That's the important thing, is that me and my team continue to improve. As long as we're headed up, I think we're good to go." New York Knicks star Carmelo Anthony is happy for his teammate's player rating upgrade. "It's getting up there," he says. "It should be in the 90s. If I have a chance to play '2K12,' he's definitely in my starting lineup." But not everyone is crazy about their NBA 2K12 player ratings. And yes, they do check out their in-game attributes. "I like some of the ratings, but I feel like some of them could be increased a little bit," says Utah Jazz forward Gordon Hayward. "Defensively, I think they've got my grade a little low. I think they had one of my teammates, Al Jefferson, a better perimeter defender than me. I was like, 'Come on now, that can't happen.' With time, they'll probably increase them, so I'm not too worried about it." Utah Jazz teammate Jeremy Evans, winner of the NBA All-Star Slam Dunk Contest, would also like to see his player ratings in NBA '2K12' improved. "When I play '2K12,' and sometimes I play as myself, I get mad," he says. "It's like, 'I would have dunked that in the NBA.' It's a great game, but sometimes they don't actually make you like you want to be made." Evans grew up on sports games like "Double Dribble" and "NBA Live" on the Nintendo 64 and now plays "FIFA 12" and the "Call of Duty" series. When it comes to video games, some NBA players will try anything. "I played everything...football games, basketball games, baseball games, Donkey Kong, and all of that," says Los Angeles Clippers star Blake Griffin. "Actually, probably my favorite game to play is 'Tiger Woods Golf.' It's always been fun. I've played it for a long time." So the next time you're on Xbox Live, it may just be an NBA All-Star in that game world with you.

American Comics

一直覺得我的童年過得和其他朋友的很不一樣：我沒有去公園和鄰居小朋友玩；沒有看過幾集IQ博士；「公仔書」除了老夫子、加菲貓之外，如龍虎門、中華英雄等等名作完全未睇過，直至大學時代才首次接觸天下畫集，並感受到公仔書的吸引力。出來工作後我還曾在唐人街訂閱天下及龍虎五世好幾年呢。

不過身在美國多年，卻從未接觸美國本地赫赫有名的Marvel及DC公仔書；對於各位superhero(e.g. Superman, Spiderman, Batman)的事跡，皆從電視電影認識。隨著兒子開始接近看漫畫的年齡，作為一個盡責的父親，我認為是時候事先了解下美國流行的漫畫是甚麼一回事。從香港連環圖得來的經驗，知道中途開始follow一套漫畫殊非易事，皆因人物來龍去脈經歷多期發展必定變得錯綜複雜，死過番生幾次不足為奇；美國的漫畫在這方面尤其遭讀者詬病（請看這個攪笑帖）

由於喜愛的女明星Cobie Smulders有份參演The Avenger（飾團隊統籌員Maria Hill一角），我愛屋及烏決定看看The Avenger，在Amazon收加州稅前買入The Avenger Vol.1合訂本，以為可以從頭開始follow，誰知所謂Vol.1也有多本，我仔細查閱維基百科，才發現買的其實是2010開始畫的故事，提到不少Avenger之間過去的情仇，和歹角Kane的恩怨，均不知詳情；總算勉強明白，看完全本。暴力程度和香港的相若，血腥程度則更低，我想讓年青人看看也可以接受吧。繼後的Vol.2不打算追了，反而找到一個給電影迷寫的Avenger指南，下一本可能會看看該指南介紹的The Ultimates。

紐約+華盛頓：音樂篇

在紐約生活的日子一星期去三四場live jazz shows是等閒事，十二年前離開之後此情不再，今次當然要舊夢重温！出發前預先查了各著名jazz club(Village Vanguard, Blue Note, Iridium, Jazz Standard, Birdland)的節目，老實說只有Larry Coryell及Earl Klugh兩位結他手名氣較大特別想看，不過作為全世界爵士樂之都，我深信只要在我以前住的Greenwich Village走走，一定有好jazz。

我們星期日抵達NYC，Larry Coryell及兒子Murali Coryell一連兩晚在 Iridium演出，第一晚rhythm section由Victor Bailey(bass)及Lenny White負責，一看就知勁fusion；就如以下video：


第二晚則和Les Paul Trio的結他手Lou Pallo及bassist/vocalist Nicki Parrott合作。明顯我是去了第二晚，雖然很想很想見識「神級」bassist Victor Bailey，換上一個彈得唱得的靚女也是好事。大部份時間Larry Coryell彈他那支Ken Parker Archtop，比較多傳統jazz jam。正如Larry Coryell說，大家欣賞他們jam野吧：

Watch live streaming video from iridiumlive at livestream.com

還想一提的是，從Broadway進Iridium大門行落樓梯入地庫坐在開揚的大廳，感覺反而怪怪，因為隱約記得以前是上樓梯，場地長型多視線受阻位。上網查查，原來Iridium在2001年（我離開NYC之後）才搬到現址！表演結束後我買點紀念品，是介紹Sunburst款Les Paul結他的書／圖集，找來Lou Pallo為我簽名，他還送我一塊guitar pick。Iridium和結他設計及演奏大師Les Paul有不解之緣，96年至09年Les去世，他逢星期一都和他的三重奏在那裡演出，可說是該地揚名立萬的功臣。我以前一直想找個星期一看Les Paul Trio演出，可惜在他去世後才有此機會。

星期三再出動，目標是位於Village的jazz club Smalls，名符其實小得可以，也甚具傳奇性。記得十幾年前該club沒有酒牌，大家都是自備飲品。收入只靠cover charge，不知是不是這個原因，我走之後幾年便結業。而我知它從新營業是因為爵士結他大師（及老師）Jimmy Bruno早幾年在那裡演出，我們這班學生兼fans都上網看webcast。和以往不同的，現在的Smalls有酒賣；不變的是，午夜過後還有演出，而且之後還有open jam。當年就是我（和很多知音人）常常徹夜不歸的蒲點，今次自然非去不可。色士風手Patrick Cornelius的樂隊演出之後，「午夜場」是女色士風手Melissa Aldana的樂隊，玩modern jazz的女色士風手固然令人矚目，但我更留意的是結他界聲望日隆的Gilad Hekselman（我的老師十分欣賞的校友Kurt Rosenwinkel當年也常在Smalls打躉）整體上演出火花十足。（作為結他友的我對Hekselman彈那支Victor Baker度身訂造的細版archtop亦極感興趣，類似這一支)這場結束後，輪到一眾參與open jam的樂手陸續上場，整晚坐在我隔鄰那位仁兄也是一份子，原來是色士風高手。這十幾年來我的演奏技術進步不大，對這班open jam友造詣的欣賞卻是與日俱增，皆因open jam並無事先訂出曲目，參與的樂手要背熟一大set經常演出的standard，包括head melody及chord changes，有人問我幾時去open jam，我實在不敢想像。(寫這段之時看到一篇相關Q＆A，獲益良多)直到2:45am，知道明早還有節目才依依不捨回酒店。

星期五離開NYC，之前一晚當然「搏老命」也要出多一次。先到Village Vanguard 11點場看新進Vibraphonist Warren Wolf的Quartet演出，無獨有偶，其中幾位樂手都是來自我們之後那天去的DC！鋼琴及bass手似曾相識，認得之前一晚在Smalls的open jam中見過他們上場，這個四重奏組合玩live聽起來比有色士風手的唱片要精采。

散場後再到離我舊居(Sullivan St)不遠的The Zinc Bar，當晚有著名鼓手Jeff "Tain" Watts領軍的樂隊，成員還包括另一位當打色士風手Marcus Strickland。總括來說，NYC四個場地大牌音樂人看了不多，但this and next gen的强手卻看得不少，實在是心滿意足。

有圖有真相

Sports highlights: IndyCar championship, NFL

This was what I wrote about IndyCar last year around the same time: Will Power had the point lead with hopes to win the championship. We all knew the final race of last season was the sad one in which Dan Wheldon lost his life. Will Power was also involved in the same accident and the title went to Dario Franchitti. In the same article I also wrote about 5-time champ Jimmie Johnson not winning that NASCAR race and ended up failing to defend his title. Similarly, this year 4-time champ Dario Franchitti has a down year, who was the major rival of Power. Looks like it's finally the year that Will Power could win it all. On the other hand, his track record on oval, especially for the last race of the season, didn't look good. He crashed 2 years in a row. So, with a point lead going to the final race of the season at Fontana California on 9/15, I was still quite unsure about his chance. Unfortunately, what all Will Power fan worried about, namely, another crash, indeed happened, while he and the eventual champion Ryan Hunter-Reay raced for position. Will Power's car lost control during the turn. Fortunately he didn't get hurt and no other car was involved so basically he lost the championship on his own. The only "saving grace" for IndyCar fan like me was that Hunter-Reay is an American (I also wrote about American not doing well in the sport.) He was the first American winning the championship since Sam Hornish Jr did it in 2006! (Apparently IndyCar was too comfortable for Hornish and he had to moved to NASCAR and endured some hard times there.) Ryan Hunter-Reay really deserved to win. He fought hard after the 2 poor performances late in the season. Even with Will Power crashed, Hunter-Reay still had to move up positions to gain enough points over Power and he did just that. Congratulations to the new champ.

It's September and it also means another new NFL season has started. I have not been a happy NFL fan for a while. However, I still enjoy watching the highlights as most games were still exciting (close games, spectacular plays, etc) It has been a good weekend because:
1) All those talks about 49ers going 16-0 has stopped after they got beaten up by the Vikings.
2) The Cowboys barely defeated the Bucs.
3) On the day former Raider Marcus Allen lighted the ceremonial flame that honored legendary (and controversial) owner Al Davis, the team won one for Al again, beating the mighty Steelers with a last minute field goal. Most people disagree with Davis picking kicker Sebastian Janikowski in the first round but Janikowski has indeed helped the team winning quite a few games. So Al may be right after all.
4) A few other games were also decided by last minute FG, including the Ravens beating the Patriots, the Jets beating the Dolphins (Reggie Bush is not going to be the RB with most yards this season, BTW), the Titans beating the Lions, the Chiefs beating the Saints (I was laughing so hard when the Saint's players cried "Justice! Fairness!" after the suspension of those involved in the bounty-gate was overturned. Going 0-3 is real justice and real karma, man!)

Last but not least, so happy to see the Giants winning another NL West title. They did it with chemistry and without ego.

The unpopular topic in media: poverty

Just read this article about media coverage of poverty when I googled "Almost non-existent" One of the explanation is that

advertisers want to think they are reaching wealthy people, people who will buy the products. They don't want really depressing articles about misery and hardship near their ads.

That's sad. Media is all about advertising $. Not good journalism. 

紐約+華盛頓：購物篇

對兩位女士來說，相信此旅程最重要的商店是American Girl Place，媽媽一早就為女兒預約tea time。如此鼎鼎大名的洋娃娃品牌我是年初才認識，我們特地為女兒（免費）訂閱其目錄，又在奧運宣傳見到那個玩體操的洋娃娃的故事。數層高的店內除了各種洋娃娃及服飾等等商品，還有餐廳、洋娃娃「理髮店」及「醫院」，收費高不在話下。看到這裡生意不俗，對全球經濟信心增強不少。

兩個小朋友另一間至愛商店非"App Store"莫屬，對我兒子而言，紐約這間別具特色地面用玻璃但空間在地庫的旗艦Apple Store和在iOS購App的Store是同一回事。當然有大批Apple fans來朝聖，照片拍個不停。

有Nintendo DS及Wii玩的Nintendo World，對小朋友吸引力比"App Store"僅遜一籌。那裡展示了各年代的Nintendo遊戲機，古老的紅白機至近代的N64一應俱全，讓我們這一代懷下舊。

老牌電視台NBC總部就在附近，專門店賣的包括歷年受歡迎電視節目相關紀念品，例如Friends, Seinfeld, 30 Rock, The Office, Tonight Show, The Voice等等；還有「應節」的Olympics紀念品，我也忍不住手買了一個cycling (road race) 章。

另一個忍不住手的是位於紐約棒球Yankee Stadium的Hardrock Cafe，皆因平日常見的Hardrock Cafe均以城市為名，以球場為名的我第一次見。我們購物之餘還在那裡食午餐，女帶位見我們無法入場內參觀，還幫我們拿相機入內拍了幾張照片，相當有心。下次有機會去睇波，我們會再光顧。

有圖有真相

那些年，我們一起踩的冰

中學時代學年終「大考」考完最後一科，某幾位女同學最喜歡的活動我記得是踩roller（沙田賓士）或踩冰（太古城），順理成章也成為我們兄弟的節目。溜冰在那些年是溝女不可或缺的招數，皆因拉龍時間是拖手良機；被稱為體育白癡的在下，前者能力和後者成功率的correlation相當高，結果自不言而喻；值得欣慰的是兄弟中那幾位溜冰高手也不見得比我成功得多。廿幾年後想不到要為子女「重出江湖」，今天是我女兒第二次踩（上次已是好幾年前），兒子則是第一次。他們當然不知那些年我那個外號，還以為爸爸游水打波無所不能，其實是硬著頭皮戰戰兢兢拖著他們的手來踩，竟然沒有一齊跌倒！這樣踩了一小時總算令他們膽子壯大一點，臨離開前已不用捉緊圍欄，自己試溜。巧合的是，我兒子也碰到「那些年」幼兒班的女同學！記得我小時候父親從未傳授半式溝女招數（游泳不算），他認為不用出招，係獨孤求敗真傳；這一代真是幸福。

紐約+華盛頓：住宿篇

以前在曼克頓Midtown工作，鼎鼎大名歷史悠久氣派不凡的Waldorf Astoria Hotel僅隔兩條街，記得姐姐來探望時就住在那裡，十分羨慕，希望有朝一日也去住住 。可惜Waldorf Astoria「好睇唔好住」，悠久的歷史換來失修的房間，空調窗簾浴缸去水都有不少問題。無論如何，今次總算一償夙願！就地點而言亦的確「無得彈」，subway E train站只隔兩個街口，Grand Central, 5th ave, Rockefeller Center, Time Square, United Nation等等都是走一段路就到。

相比之下，在華盛頓住的Embassy Suite (at Convention Center)可謂意外驚喜，這間中價位酒店我們在其他城市住過幾次，都是一房一廳，這間也不例外，單是房已和Waldorf Astoria面積相若，再加上廳，不但大而且新淨，插頭又多，叉電方便。地點亦是一流，步行廿分鐘可到唐人街及Museum of American Art。不過大家最喜歡的還是每天黃昏5:30-7:30的Manager's Reception:小食任吃酒任飲！以後再去DC，這間酒店必屬首選。

紐約+華盛頓：交通篇

和我的朋友不同，我甚少出外公幹及旅遊，「新」航空公司Virgin America在2007年啟航，今個月我才第一次乘坐，印象十分不錯。雖然有點刻意營造和傳統不同的casual and young feel，但她的飛機內籠及設備的確夠新，自選衞星電視我就未曾在其他航空公司用過；回SF時看了現場直播美國對墨西哥的足球友誼賽（美國隊有史以來首次在該地贏墨西哥！），及德州騎兵對紐約洋基的棒球賽，過足睇波癮！

我在十幾年前數次來往SFO<->JFK機場，在JFK坐過地鐵(Subway)的A Train去midtown，今次下榻位於midtown的Waldorf=Astoria，已計劃好同樣坐A Train。原來2003年JFK建成AirTrain，不只接駁A Train站，還有E J Z Train可選擇。從subway圖可見，E Train應該更快，事實上亦然。美中不足的是AirTrain收費每位五大元，雖然如此，一家人總花費還是比Limo或的士便宜很多。

另一樣差不多廿年前坐過的，是由紐約Penn Station開往華盛頓DC的Amtrak火車。記得那時Penn Station三教九流人士出出入入，今次印象改善不少，雖然警覺性不減。我們預早兩天在網上買票，十分昂貴：三個小時車程成人單程收$150，比德國及奧地利的火車都貴得多了。由大堂到月台，自動電梯欠奉，拖著又大又重的行李，真是一大挑戰。車票無劃位，要四個相連的坐位是Mission Impossible，幸好好心人甚多，肯讓坐換位，我們總算可以一個大人照料一個小朋友。坐定之後倒是頗為舒適，DC的總站Union Station更是極具氣派，離我們在市中心的酒店亦近，坐的士也很划算；雖然坐地鐵(Metro)也甚方便。

第二天一個人去參觀火車站旁的郵政博物館，原本打算坐Metro，卻在站外看見bikeshare站(即歐美逐漸普及的自動租還單車系統），以前從未用過，這次有機會當然一試，縱使比我坐Metro貴一點（單日租車「底價」$7無限次租還，每程租及還時間多於三十分鐘額外收費；我踩兩程都無超時所以只付「底價」$7；而兩程Metro應是$5樓下）總括而言，這個bikeshare系統算易用（有手機app幫忙找車及計劃路線），單車condition也可以接受。

去DC Dulles機場時「臨別秋波」坐的也是的士，皆因問過其他途徑如Shuttle或call車都要$60-$75不等，的士司機說價錢差不多（按跳錶計，結果總共付了$80，比預算多花了點，雖然換來flexibility，始終有點介懷）不過這個的士司機甚為獨特兼有品味，沿途為我們介紹所經景點（如五角大廈）又把收音機轉台至古典WETA，這程的士我整首Pictures at an Exhibition由頭聽到尾，也算難忘經歷。

有圖有真相

紐約+華盛頓：地標篇

美國最多地標的大城市，紐約和首都華盛頓(DC)可算數一數二。我們一到紐約放低行李就直闖聯合國(United Nation)大厦。個人認為聯合國本身看頭不大，只是不到不可；入面不能不做的倒是從聯合國郵局買聯合國郵票寄明信片回家，我在十五年前寄的現在還好好保存著呢。（聯合國郵票只能在聯合國郵局而不能在美國郵局使用）

下一站是帝國大厦(Empire State Building)，它是80年前全球最高的建築物（紀錄保持了40年），911世貿倒下之後，帝國大厦再次成為全市最高。無論如何，它都是充滿傳奇色彩，值得排隊上一上頂眺望紐約市景。

第一天到紐約怎能不去時代廣場(Time Square)呢？黃昏時候我們由酒店行過去，微雨時下時停，在陽光普照的西岸坐慣車的我們要適應一下；不過時代廣場商店林立，找幾家避避雨倒不成問題。

第二天的目的地是自由神像，我們在家預先買了十時由碼頭啟航的船票，以為八時起床時間綽綽有餘，全錯！船票寫著Battery park，我從地下鐵地圖看到Battery park city，找到最接近的車站: 世貿(World Trade Center)，九時四十分出站向那邊走，行了三十分鐘終於見到碼頭狀物體，行去一問，原來自由神像島(Liberty Island)的船不在該處出發而在South Ferry，只怪我們準備功夫不足，我在那裡居住已是十年前的事，而且少去遊客區。South Ferry的名字依稀有點印象，行到那裡剛好夠鐘上十一點的船，幸好我們買了的十點船票依然有效。航程雖短風景卻極佳，下船後可免費使用資訊豐富的audio guide，介紹了興建神像的歷史、挑戰及意義。回航時停Ellis Island，我們下船參觀位於該處的移民歷史博物館，以前坐船移民美國的會先在Ellis Island經過移民局審查（包括體檢），不合格者會被遣返，該地見證了不少悲歡離合。我們再上船，下一站回到曼克頓，5分鐘路程即到Bowling Green，那是股市大好友的「吉祥獸」Charging Bull的所在地；再走上幾條街，就是掌握全球經濟命脈的華爾街(Wall Street)， 之後理所當然到唐人街吃晚餐！

第三天主打Central Park，自稱十幾年前去過，其實只是在溜冰場踩過冰而已，這個跨越幾十條街的中央公園，景點甚多；我們有如劉姥姥入大觀園，連忙上網找推介路線，決定先行"The Mall"，在Bethesda Terrace看那噴水池及湖，美景透心涼。Belvedere Castle不算大，但那窄窄的樓梯也頗有特色；再走一會就是Metropolitan Museum of Art. 不如讓山地車好手Chris Clark帶大家遊遊Central park（有趣的是我們在旅程結束回到灣區那個週末去Oakland看Pedalfest才認識來自新澤西的車手Clark。）

MY BACKYARD CENTRAL PARK: with Chris Clark from Matthew Benjamin Canada on Vimeo.

第四天我們「遠征」Yankee Stadium，早知那天沒有開放接待遊客，皆因當晚上演重量級足球戲碼：皇家馬德里大戰AC米蘭，即使只能在外面逛逛也算是到此一遊吧。這是新落成的建築，外觀相當有氣派；不過外面具歷史性及紀念性的只有Babe Ruth銅像，這方面遠比不上SF巨人隊的球場了。

首都華盛頓的「首席」地標應屬紀念開國總統的Washington Monument，和其他總統紀念碑不同的是，它是唯一的方尖碑(Obelisk)，方尖碑歷史可追溯至古埃及和古西亞亞述(Assyria)。雖然現正在維修中不開放參觀，倒也不太重要，從外看已足夠。

還有兩個值得一提的紀念總統的地標：一是林肯的，另一則是Thomas Jefferson的。前者是傳統希臘神殿式；後者乃模仿羅馬式圓拱形頂建築。

餘下的地標就是第二次世界大戰紀念碑：由56條柱組成，包括了戰後1945年美國48個洲及其他領土（菲律賓當時也是）原來2004年才建成，難怪我全無印象！

有圖有真相

Vacated wins vs forfeits

What's the difference? The reason I'm looking into this is of course related to Penn State's recent penalty for the scandal. I wonder if Wisconsin will get a few more wins in their records because of this. Well, no. Vacating a win of one team does not award the opponent the win. It is as if the game has never been played. The penalty that award the opponent the win is forfeit.

書山學海

個幾月沒有去過SF唐人街，不變的是金門餅家依然在放假，不知是否過了勞動節才放完呢？相信有不少人等買月餅呀！

而那個五毛老祖長駐的街角，諷刺地成了其老板對頭宗教打手出沒的地點。

City College Of SF那副韓愈的對聯好像是新的：

書山有路勤為徑
學海無涯苦作舟

略嫌不夠含蓄，但勝在人人看得懂。

走過Transamerica Tower那個小公園，這邊廂是live blues，那邊廂是太極。

紐約+華盛頓：博物館篇

在我心目中，紐約Metropolitan Museum of Art可算是全美頭號美術館，規模及展品名氣皆無出其右。我們精選觀看最有興趣的樂器收藏部（包括古今歐亞非吹打拉弦樂器）、古希臘羅馬雕塑、印象派油畫、美國藝術（例如Tiffany創辦人的兒子設計的擺設及Frank Lloyd Wright設計的客廳），僅有的兩小時過得十分充實。

兩個孩子都對建築頗有興趣，所以不能不帶他們去去Guggenheim藝術館（那是我們紐約之旅最後一站！）該館主攻現代藝術，大量抽象作品，也有一些印象派油畫；當然，建築物本身就是一件藝術品。

在DC Union Station一下車，就見到郵政博物館(Postal Museum)，我到達DC第二天早上便去了參觀。可算是頗為冷門之選，遊人甚少。該館主要介紹美國郵政服務由殖民地時代至今的發展史；美國地廣民居分散，原來多年前民眾及商業郵購刺激郵政服務發展，其中一種重要商品竟然是種子。另外還展出世界各地的郵票，我就看了香港1862年的郵票。該館商店可供購買的相關郵政產品卻很少，只提供目錄作郵購之用！

DC眾多博物館的「龍頭」要算是Museum of Natural History，小朋友對大蛇昆蟲等等展覽都看得津津有味。我們一同看了一套IMAX 3D電影，主題是北極生態危機：冰川不斷融化減少，改變了當地動物的生活；相當煽情。中學時代訪美印象最深刻的DC博物館卻是Air and Space Museum，那是穿梭機一飛衝天去的年代，今次去最吸引我的反而是Wright Brothers在發明飛機前製造的單車！這些博物館同屬Smithsonian Institution旗下（全部免費入場），SI的informational center形如古堡，也是一大景點。它們位處的幾條街合稱為National Mall，還包括Museum of American History（展品林林總總，總之就和美國歷史有關，例如歷代總統及第一夫人的服裝餐具等等用品，又如美國海陸交通網的發展，還有幾支名電結他，和早年測試重要商業電腦程式語言COBOL的部件-一部把程式由打字鍵盤錄到磁帶及另一部大如雪櫃播放磁帶把程式傳到電腦的器材）還展出一支曾在Baltimore飄揚的大型美國旗及相關史事，據聞是美國歌The Spangled Banner的靈感來源。

展品其實不限於館內，National Mall有幾個館外的雕塑花園(Sculpture Garden)，例如展出現代藝術的Hirshhorn museum外就有艾未未（他在美國似乎頗有市場）創作的現代派十二獸首（題材當然源自圓明園那十二個）至於古代雕塑，可在National Gallery of Art之內看到。作為國家畫廊，當然亦有大量歷代名畫。可惜Gallery東館正在裝修，它和西館的古典式建築相反，充滿現代感，是貝聿銘備受讚賞的作品。

在National Mall以外的Smithsonian博物館就有Museum of American Art and Portrait Gallery，美國藝術部顧名思義，全為美國藝術家作品，部份出自黑人藝術家手筆。總的來說，歐洲藝術界的影響固然明顯，遼闊草原山谷風景畫卻顯美國獨有的特色；最特別的是從藝術角度欣賞電子遊戲的展覽。肖像部則包括美國歷任總統以至體壇樂壇巨星。雖然因為關門時間甚晚而參觀，卻比想像中有看頭，算是意外收獲。

另一極具美國歷史學習價值的地方是林肯總統遇刺身亡的Ford's Theater，該館提供導賞團（免費門票須預先索取）解釋事件詳情。和罪案有關的還有間諜博物館(International Spy Museum)，各種竊聽偷錄喬裝暗殺器材及技術層出不窮，小朋友極感興趣；至於間諜界的名人佚事，大人也看得入神。

不過成人世界最受歡迎的應是印銀紙廠(Bureau of Engraving and Printing)該廠同樣提供導賞團（免費門票亦須預先索取，我們八時半到，還拿到九時半的票，實在不錯）展示印刷、剪開紙幣的詳過程。

DC內部裝修最華麗的建築物則是國會圖書館(Library of Congress)，由志願人士帶隊的導賞團詳細解釋每一處裝飾的意義（例如壁畫展示文明由口述到筆錄至印刷的發展過程），館內的國寶級展品包括一本顧驣堡印刷術製成的完整聖經。

國會圖書館收藏了大量書籍錄像照片等等，不過和美國歷史息息相關的重要文稿原本卻是收藏於National Archive，包括美國獨立宣言、憲法及Bill of Rights；還有英國人要求國王改革的大憲章(Magna Carta)

為DC之旅作結的則是新聞博物館(Newseum)，介紹新聞出版的歷史及相關技術的發展，世界各地新聞自由度，還有展出位於世貿911被炸毀的一截廣播發射天線，以及一段被拆下的柏林圍牆。最好玩的莫過於女兒扮新聞主播，我用$5買下錄像留念。

有圖有真相

Replace split with explode

It has nothing to do with relationship. I'm writting this because I found out the PHP function split has been deprecated (actually for a long time) I didn't know until I saw my browser default page hosted by GoDaddy errored out. I guess GoDaddy just upgraded to a newer version of PHP for everyone last week. Well, for an IT guy like me, I can't leave my page broken, can I? So just like work, I googled for a solution: replace split with explode (I dunno why the developer picked that name. Seems violent to me) which could do the same thing (splitting a string using a given delimiter) Then I found there are other deprecated calls in the code I didn't write (the feed2js library used by my page) and upgraded feed2js to the latest. Problem solved.

紐約+華盛頓：飲食篇

既不是食家也無甚食神，不過出外旅行總會比較放縱，食得好一點。隨著年紀漸大兼有家室，倒會吃得比較小心，避免太過刺激的，反正SF或香港差不多要吃甚麼 有甚麼；更重要的是啱小朋友口味，總不成餓壞他們！所以今次之旅晚餐差不多一半是他們吃慣的中餐及日本菜： 

NY 鹿鳴春: 這是當年我在曼克頓生活年代逢親友探訪必去的酒家，例牌要等位。想到這裡，不是因為馳名的蟹粉小籠包，卻是之前一晚吃pizza，兒子沒有幾多到肚，夾硬逼不是辦法，如此旅行也太掃自己的興，唯有找家稍為接近他平日口味的，果然奏效；而我們在星期一未夠六時去到，尚有枱（但要搭枱）$33埋單，更重要的是人人吃飽。

NY Cafe Zaiya: 這其實是一個時代廣場附近41街與日式minimarket相連的餐飲部，日式飯及烏冬便宜得來又啱口味。

DC 台山酒家：我們光顧了兩次，外賣炒河炒飯，味道尚可，闊闊的河粉賣相有點怪，而且價錢不菲，大概比SF貴三四成。為了照顧兒子口味，不能太計較。其實我寧可吃對面Fuddrucker's（唐人街及附近店舖建築全有中文招牌，它的是「全世界最好吃漢堡」）拿外賣回酒店，職員以為我是外賣仔，「好心」地教我叫住客到大堂取貨好了，我說我住在此，反而教她尷尬。

DC 中國拉麵店：被門口師傅表演拉麵吸引，點了炒麵、小籠包和窩貼；炒麵不錯，後兩者味道和味全急凍版差不多。

DC Hooter's：當然吃它的雞翼，女兒則點了mini-burger。女侍應都穿著其著名制服，不過SF那間的漂亮一點。

其餘多餐都在博物館或景點的昂貴food court解決，乏善足陳。反而有兩餐從supermarket (NYC's Morton Williams)買Roast beef sandwiches，相當不俗。

最正的一餐在Theater District的意大利餐廳Becco，頭盤是炸魷魚，多得可作兩個孩子的正餐有餘，另外點了（一人）三款任吃pasta，一個檸檬雞，位於紐約黃金地段，該餐價錢不算貴。

有圖有真相。

籃球低手

廿幾年未掂過籃球，事實上當年培正體育堂教各種運動，我都興趣不大，尤以籃球為甚！不過舊年返培正晶社加冕見校友對老師的比賽，想想我們禮社三年後不知何人出賽，可能我現在練定到時可當個大後備呢？想還想卻無實際行動，直至今日。因為要兒子增高，加上他的大哥哥好朋友又是籃球好手，成功推動他打籃球，但我這個籃球低手就要出動陪太子打波，唯有把以前阿Sir傳授我僅餘的記憶盡力施展。打了半小時，不知有否耗掉剛才吃那杯雪糕新地的一半呢？

Samsung Galaxy Note Ice Cream Sandwich update

This is ironic: I have been waited for the official ICS release for G-Note since the beginning of the year, months before I bought the phone. I couldn't wait longer and pulled the trigger 2 months ago. Finally, AT&T and Samsung release the update last month. Yet, I'm still on the old version of Android. Why? As usual, OS upgrade almost always resulted in complaints about worsen battery life, for any smartphone I know of! Check out this post. It's scary but not TOO bad. I guess I'm going to take the plunge soon.

Musician of the day: Michael Pedicin

Normally my morning commute ended ~9am but it got pushed to 9:45-ish recently because of the start of the new school year. So I got to listen to the part of KCSM (local jazz station) broadcast that features guest interviews. Today's guest is a really interesting one: jazz saxophonist Michael Pedicin. First of all, he grew up in a musical family with his father Mike Pedicin, being an early pioneer/sax player/bandleader in a different genre, rock'n roll. (Think Bill Haley) In his mind, they are not really related musically. He discovered the jazz greats like Cannonball and Coltrane on his own (yeah, same for me) Second, he went to Med School (and quit because he needed to gig with the likes of Maynard Ferguson. Who wouldn't anyway?) and eventually got a degree in clinical psychology. So he's not only talented in music but also in academics! The few tracks of his band played by the DJ were quite interesting. All of those tunes were played by Coltrane before and I could hear the influences. (Well, Coltrane has played many tunes and who isn't influnced by him?) Michael Pedicin will be playing at Yoshi's SF tonight. I think it will be a great show.

Who is the longest-tenured player on the A's current 25-man roster?

If you follow A's talk on the radio like I do, it's a well-known fact that Kurt Suzuki was the one, well, before he got traded at the beginning of the month. After I watched another A's victory on TV last night, I'm curious to find out who the current one is and found the answer here. As the article mentioned, he is better than most people (including me) think.

Nostalgic Greenwich Village

During my recent trip back to NYC, I tried looking for all those places I used to hang out often in the village. Found a few of them. Also learned that many have been closed, including one of my favorite coffee house/bar with live music: Kavehaz. It seems that it moved from SOHO to Chelsea after I left and the Chelsea location has also been closed. Here is an article about Kavehaz (scroll to the bottom).

冷飯重温: 1998 Euro 豬仔團 trip

Because of my recent trip, I dug out what I wrote for my first trip to Europe (10/8/1998 - 10/16/1998) It was hosted on Geocities which was taken out of service by its parent Yahoo.

Day 1 - London
This is actually day 2 on my itinerary 'coz I spent a day on the flight from SF-NY-London. I arrived in the morning and faced my first problem: finding a place to have lunch. Fortunately there's a train station nearby. I went to the food court and ate at the only fastfood joint where I couldn't find in the States: (McDonalds, Pizza Hut and Burger King had invaded most of the places I visited) I had a sandwich made of French bread (i.e. the really hard bread) and I had this kind of sandwich for lunch most of the time during this trip.

I visited the Tower of London in the afternoon. These towers were built by various emperor of England to defend against foreign invasion. The oldest one were 900 years old. They have witnessed many historical events, including the rise and fall of dynasties, kings and queens during the long history of England. The jewels of the royal family, including the crown jewel of the queen, were displayed there. And the famous London bridge is right next to the towers.

I took subway (called tubes by the local people) to Leicester Square, which claimed to be the hippest place in London, in the evening. It was very crowded, and surrounded by places like Odeon Theatre (where I witnessed the premiere of the movie "Mulan" in London), Fashion Cafe, Capital Radio Cafe (where I had dinner. They have a in-house DJ and DJ booth. Pretty cool) After dinner, I walked to the famous Soho area, which was full of bars and restaurant. It's a cool hangout place.

Day 2 - London
I took a city sightseeing tour and visited St. Paul Cathedral (where Prince Charles and Princess Diana was married. Many famous historical figures, like Winston Churchill and Duke Wellington who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, were buried there), St. James Palace (the official residence of Prince Charles), Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey (where Princess Diana's funeral was held) and most importantly, Big Ben!

I visited Windsor Castle, the largest inhabited castle in the world, in the afternoon. It was also 900 years old. It was magnificent both outside and inside. The interior was luxurious: decorated with paintings, tapestries, furnitures, chinas. I went to Soho again this evening to attend a jazz show. That was a cool jazz club with good atmosphere.

Day 3 - London, Dover, Calais, Brussels
I left London for Dover, a port at South England and took a cruise ship across the English Channel to Calais, France. The ship was big and comfortable. The scenes along the cruise was beautiful. It was an enjoyable experience. The "dummy" tour (i.e. the guided tour) officially begun in Calais. The tour bus took us across the border to Brussels, Belgium.

Day 4 - Brussels, The Hague, Amsterdam
I had a brief city sightseeing tour around Brussels, the capital of Belgium as well as European Union, in the morning. There were not much interesting places, except the Atomium, which is a building that looks like an enlarged molecule: with interconnected balls representing atom and containing restaurants inside. It was built for World Expos in the past.

I left Brussels for the Hague, Netherlands in the afternoon. It's the city where the Netherlands government resides (it's not the capital though) The Peace Palace, i.e. the international court, is in Hague. Then I went on to Amsterdam.

Day 5 - Amsterdam
The tour guide brought us to the first tourist trap of this tour this morning: a diamond "center." Amsterdam is supposed to be famous of diamond. We were shown a little bit of the diamond polishing process.Then we were brought to a room with sales trying to sell us diamonds after educated us with knowledge of diamond sizes and cuttings. They locked the door of the room for about 15 minutes. So we were literally trapped! I wonder who'd buy things that require careful examination and consideration like diamonds under such circumstances. Well, there are always people fall to these traps otherwise these places wouldn't survive.

Then I visited Rijkmuseum, which showed a lot of paintings of Dutch artists, including the famous Rembrandt's. Too bad the Van Gogh museum was under renovation at that time. I had a cruise on the canals of Amsterdam and it is one of the highlights of this trip. Netherlands is a country built on top of water. A third of the country is actually under sea level. Dutch reclaim the land by extracting water from the land using windmills. So water is an integral part of Dutch life. Most of the canals in the city of Amsterdam are constructed, only a few of them are natural. People uses the canals for transportation. The canals also provide spaces for living: there are house boats every where along the canals. Some of these house boats actually seem to be pretty comfortable to live in. There are lots of classic looking buildings, some dated back to 18th century, along both sides of the canals. It's a beautiful scene. A interesting note: some of these old buildings are tilted because wood posts were used to support the building when they were built in the old days and they become rotten by water as times goes by. People living inside need to deal with sloped table surfaces as well as floors. I enjoyed this cruise a lot because of the beautiful scenes as well as the knowledge I gained about the life of people living in Amsterdam.

Day 6 - Amsterdam, Cologne, Coblenz
The tour left Amsterdam for Germany in the morning and began the journey into the area along the river Rhine. The first city I visited is Cologne. One of the most famous thing about Cologne is, of course, Cologne the man's "perfume." The name of the famous brand 4711 actually came from the house number of the place where it was first manufactured. However, what impressed me the most about this city was the Dom, a old Gothic style catholic church. It looked magnificent. The next stop is the German Corner. It is the place where the river Rhine and Moselle meet. I stayed at a small and old yet beautiful country side motel on the river bank near the city Coblenz that night.

Day 7 - Coblenz, Trier
The Rhine journey continued on Day 7. I had a cruise on the river: there were lots of old castles along the river. I was told that the interior of most of these castles were not preserved as they were converted to hotels or prisons! What a pity. One of the landmark I saw during the cruise was the Lorelei rock, which was associated to a legend of mermaid. It was not really special. Then I arrived at the city Trier in the afternoon. Trier has a very long history. It was established by the Roman emperor Constantine as the capital of the western part of the Empire about 1900 years ago. I visited Basilika, the palace built by Constantine. It's a huge hall now became a church. There were also other remaining of buildings from the Roman era, e.g. a bath place, where the Roman people took bath (people did not have private bathroom those days) and an amphitheater, where the Roman watched the cruel games of man fighting against animals and each other. It is also famous for being the birthplace of Karl Marx, the father of communism.

Day 8 - Trier, Paris
I left Germany for France this morning. On the way to Paris the tour took us to visit a winery, specialized in champagne. I was surprised by the large amount of money and effort the winery put into the guided tour (which feature a Disney like train ride around the cave) as well as the decoration of the cave where the wine was manufactured. I wonder how much of these costs were added to the price of the champagne. I arrived at Paris in the evening. Then I went to a cabaret show, which Paris is really famous for. The girls at the show were pretty. The music was good. It was very entertaining.

Day 9 - Paris
I took a city sightseeing tour this morning. I saw the landmarks like Notre Dame Cathedral, Louvre and the glass pyramid, the Renaissance style City Hall, Concorde Square, the Eiffel tower, Arc de Triomphe, and lots of other classical style old buildings. I was simply stunned by the beauty of these buildings. It is difficult to describe the beauty using words.

I visited another palace this afternoon: Versailles. It was built in the 17th century and modified many times since and it was the residence of French Emperor Louis XIV, XV, XVI. I was amazed by the luxurious look outside. I was even more amazed when I saw the luxurious decoration inside! Like Windsor Castle, it is heavily decorated with painting, tapestry, furniture, gold painted ceilings. It also has lots of sculptures of emperors including Napoleon and other famous people (e.g. the scientist Laplace) The most magnificent sight in my opinion is the hall of mirror with the chandeliers. It was fantastic.

I went to a jazz club, Duc Des Lombards, and saw the performance of the Ricardo Del Fra Sextet. They played great hard bop jazz. I was glad to see that the place was packed with fans. The atmosphere was great. I guess the jazz scene in Paris must be alive and kicking.

This is the end of my Europe trip. It was a great experience.

Bonus coverage: Day 10+ - New York
I stopped by New York City on my way back home from Europe. I've been attracted to New York City for a long time because of its sports and music scene. I went to an ice hockey game, New York Rangers vs. Edmonton Oilers, at Madison Square Garden, which claims to be the most famous arena in the world. The arena and the crowd was not really special but the game was exciting (Rangers 3, Oilers 2.)

One of the must-see thing in New York is of course the famous Broadway musicals. I saw Jekyll and Hyde at Plymouth Theater. The songs are beautiful. Another thing that New York is famous for and what I'm most interested in is jazz. New York is THE capital of jazz. Lots of jazz musicians are working and living there. Most of the famous jazz musicians choose New York City as one of their tour stop. I think you can find one or more big name jazz musicians playing in NYC every night! Many legendary and prestigious jazz clubs, like Birdland, Village Vanguard, Blue Note, are in NYC. Many jazz masters, including John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Bill Evans have played and recorded live sessions at these clubs. I went to Village Vanguard to see the Lou Donaldson Quartet. I also went to a newer jazz club (any place is new compared to those legendary clubs) called Iridium, which books many big name musicians as well, to see the Pat Martino Quintet. The clubs were typical. The music was great. I visited the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown in upstate New York. It has exhibits about baseball history and it also displays lots of memorabilia items like gloves, bats, jersey...... from legendary players. It was a wonderful experience for a baseball fan like myself. This is the end of my vacation.

2012 Euro Cycling and Art Trip

I have been back from this trip for 4 days already and spent most of my free time blogging it. It's finally finished and published:

Prologue
Munich
Salzburg
Wachau
Vienna
Epilogue 1
Epilogue 2

Hope you enjoy reading it. I certainly will in a few years when I forgot everything :P

Squeaky disc brake on a mountain bike

I have been biking for many years but I can't say I'm familiar with bike maintenance (I'm as lazy as you could imagine when it comes to maintenance.) Mountain bike and disc brake are especially new to me. My 2 month old bike started squeaking when I squeeze the brake. It sounded really scary and I worry about not having braking power when I need it the most: going downhill on narrow trails. I wonder if I did something wrong with brakes (misaligned it by accident?) but it turns out disc brakes just need more cleaning than the V-brake and C-brake that I'm used to. Thanks to this article. I didn't even use rubbing alcohol but plain water and it worked like a charm.

Fantasy Symphony Contest

I am no stranger to fantasy sports, in which I handpicked a sports team to compete with others' teams. And I am pretty good at identifying lesser known talents, especially in football and baseball. However, when it comes to fantasy symphony, I'm no where near these guys. You might ask: what the heck is fantasy symphony anyway? Well, I just learned this term yesterday from the Stereophile magazine. Each fantasy player pretends to be in charge of a symphony orchestra and comes up with the program for a whole season (of 7 concerts), which cannot include works of the top 12 most popular composers (e.g. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms......) The editors have picked, subjectively, the winning programs. If you like to challenge your musical taste like I do, you should start listening to some of the pieces from these programs. Some are really "ear" openers!

週末派對

聽起來就像青春片的名字，卻是我們這幾天的寫照，心境青春即可！第一個是西式：其中一位賓客是小提琴家（也是我們當晚弦樂三缺一重奏一位成員的老師），承蒙她指點了我們一二，一首貓王金曲總算玩得成個樣子；另一位是她從事樂器交易的男朋友，聽了不少他游走國際的趣事。第二個是中式：舊同事主人家兩位是青島及揚州人，嚐嚐揚州菜，再聽聽揚州話讀唐詩，十分攪笑！一席話題倒不止於唐詩宋詞，總之就是大江南北。最後一個是運動式：在泳池慶祝太太放大假，之後當然大吃一場補充消耗了的能量:)

Hard rock 101

I was listening to FM 96.5 on the car radio while taking my son to camp. It played its slogan: "Lite rock, less talk" after a Kelly Clarkson's song. My son asked me the difference between lite rock and hard rock. I figured it'd be easier to explain with an example so I switched to the next station on the preset: 107.7 and surely it was playing Led Zeppelin. Enough said. 

好想藝術

香港電台電視部實在太多高水準節目，我每次飛香港在機上必睇，今日在香港電台app的podcast部份又尋到寶：《好想藝術》剛剛看完第五集其中一節：日與夜，講的是畫家海潮的一天。

The Youk is the Man

I bet Red Sox managment has some regrets about trading Kevin Youkilis away to the White Sox. Man, he helped the Sox winning a few games since the trade less than 2 weeks ago! Red Sox was swept by the 3rd place A's while White Sox just swept the 1st place Rangers. I've been able to follow these games thanks to my newly paid subscription to MLB.TV :)

MLB.TV Premium tips

Like every service, good ones or bad ones, there are always a few tricks to maximize your experience.

One big attraction of MLB.TV Premium (compared to the "basic service") is the ability to stream on mobile device using the At Bat App. There are actually two favors: At Bat 11 costs $9.99 while At Bat Lite is free. I was a bit confused. Turns out I could use the free version for streaming.

Next issue has to do with streaming in Web Browser (Chrome, fyi) on my PC. My internet connection does not have enough bandwidth for HD. I'm not too crazy about it anyway. I tried sliding the quality bar to the lowest and it kept resetting back to highest and the video kept buffering. In addition, it kept nagging me to use Nextdef (a browser plugin) I decided I couldn't do worse so I installed it. Now I have another slider that goes from "Standard" to "Nextdef." Once I slided it to "Nextdef." The quality setting would stay at the lowest, finally!

MLB.TV Premium

MLB.COM好勤力日日send e-mail俾我終於奏效：MLB.TV Premium這個棒球賽streaming服務，半季減價到$79.99；另一誘因係MLB.TV Premium可在新電話上用At Bat App觀看，我抵受唔到誘惑落左搭。

睇左幾場好波：星期五晚Mets出knuckle ball奇人再贏Dodgers，星期日Brewers在最後半個inning憑對方失誤險勝D-back。

The magical 1967

I just found out:

• The Velvet Underground and Nico 
• Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band 
• Are You Experienced 
• Born Under a Bad Sign 

are all released in 1967. What a year!

New phones on Olympic years

It seems that I'm replacing my phone about every four years. My previous phone was an iPhone that I bought around Beijing Olympics. I bought my new phone, the Samsung Galaxy Note, just before the London Olympics. My phone before the iPhone, a Sony Ericsson W800i, also lasted ~4 years. I don't think I'm qualified as a "gadget" guy that a lot of people think I am based on this frequency.

Anyway, the more interesting question is: why did I switch from iOS to Android? Well, updating a jailbroken iPhone was a tedious process and I only did it once so my iPhone was running iOS 3. I wasn't able to install any new App from the official or unofficial App Store anymore. I might run into the same issue with Android. Who knows? I'm like the people who vote for a candidate from a different party because of poor performance of the last one. You just hope it'll be better. 

So, what were my top priority action items after getting the phone?
1) Sync contact from iPhone to Google
Android is tightly coupled with your Google account (well, everybody has one, right?) Basically the address book and calendar on your phone ARE the ones in the "Cloud" associated with your Google account. All I needed to do is to open iTunes and sync the contacts to Google. I think not every contact went through but it seems to have taken care of the majority.

2) Sync Yahoo Calendars
iPhone's builtin Calendar app allows you to sync with many different provider that uses CalDAV, including Yahoo. Not so for Android. There are 3rd party app that is supposed to work but I'd rather not risk my money. The solution? Export my existing Yahoo Calendars and import to my Google Calendar and stop using them for good. Yeah, it's more like a workaround. (Google has cut off yet another source of traffic to Yahoo!)

3) Add music
This is easy: connect the phone to any computer using USB and simply copy the files to any directory on the memory of the phone. The phone will automatically scan for the new files.

4) Customize ringtone
Once I have music files on the phone, I could open my Contact list and simply assign one of those files as the ringtone for a particular contact. However, I might not like to use the beginning of a song as the ringtone, for example, I prefer the chorus part in the middle of a song. For this, I downloaded the free app Ringdroid and pick the part I like. Ringdroid saves it as a ringtone file. (I think internally Android OS uses a particular directory for ring tones. It's hidden to un-rooted phone like mine) I wonder why the app is not banned by the phone companies who wanted to squeeze more money out of people. Some are willing to pay $3+ for a ringtone.

5) Whatsapp
It relies on your Contact list/address book. The only thing I changed is its Notifications setting: I turned off "Contact Ringtone" so that it won't play the ringtone of the person who messaged me. I'm confused 'coz I thought I got a phone call.

6) Cangjie input
I downloaded this popular Chinese input method app. I could have made it my default input method because when I type English, it will try to translate and I could pick either the Chinese word or the English word I typed. So it works for both Chinese and English without toggling "modes" like the other Chinese input method app (Go Keyboard) Its prediction is pretty accurate too. However, the reason it is so accurate is that it has generated statistics from keystrokes collected from user. Yes, it did warn user about it. I don't want my keystrokes to be collected all the time so my default is still the Samsung one.

Here is the list of other free Apps I downloaded. I learned about them from my Android tablet experience.

• Color Note
• Blogger
• Apple Daily
• Discuss(香港討論區)
• Rhapsody
• XiiaLive Lite
• Pandora
• cBook
• SpeedCar
• AirPenguin
• Google Drive
• HKBN 2b

SlingPlayer is not free ($29.99) but I gotta take advantage of the big screen! In fact, the 5.3 screen is the reason I chose it over any other phone. The newer Samsung Galaxy S3 is supposed to have better spec (and running Android 4 aka Ice Cream Sandwich already) but I couldn't resist the BIG screen.

認真失威

IndyCar因為天雨遲左開場，到NASCAR Nationwide開場都未完，ABC電視台決定將前者掟去ESPNEWS台，轉為播後者。
IndyCar堂堂北美頂級open wheel賽事，竟然要讓路予只是次級房車賽的NASCAR Nationwide，認真失威。
其實IndyCar都幾好睇，不過太多非美國人當道，難怪美國人不支持。更不幸的是，Indycar似乎前路頗為坎坷：原本安排在青島舉行的賽事被取消（無端端學人想打入强國市場作甚？真的活該）少了該場，就低於贊助商所要求的場數；另一方面，贊助商合約還有三年才完成，有消息指IndyCar已在找下一手頂上的贊助商，實在有點耐人尋味。

陰晴不定

對上一次出三藩市辦公，已是十幾天前的事！今早離家時陽光普照，還在考慮穿不穿短Tee，不過深知三藩市天氣不能低估，感冒初癒，還是著件長袖Polo比較穩陣，果然，在SF一下火車，即見烏雲密佈，就像昨天電視直播SF Olympic Club上演的US Open高爾夫球大賽；踩車途中還覺點點雨粉撲面，決定不要「蛇」得太遠，就在Alcatraz Landing掉頭向office算了。

波係圓既

揭幕日氣勢如虹的俄羅斯，竟然臨尾香，只能再講一次伍晃榮名句：波係圓既。其實，民主思想的發源地和獨裁統治的佼佼者的對決，我比較傾向支持前者。唉，誰說政治和體育可以分開呢？

收放自如的熱情

家中兩個寶貝去年暑假最沉迷的是Pokemon，電子遊戲及figurines玩過不停，讀得最多的也是Pokemon指南。去年開學後當然繼續沉迷，我們於是嚴重告誡：只有週末才能玩，學年轉眼過去，他們也倒真夠定力，一個月只玩它一兩次。我還以為他們對Pokemon熱情不再，已經outgrown了？原來不是，一放暑假，兒子便把他的寶貝傾巢而出，他的熱情真夠收放自如，成年人也屬少見呢！
令我想起一位常常睇波的老友，觀看賽事過程當中他固然極之投入，但結果塵埃落定之後，從不見他為愛隊落敗而沮喪不已，或因愛隊成功而喜形於色。
其實近年自己多隊愛隊受挫（例如曼聯，UT，UW都僅敗）相對而言，不甚喜歡的如車路士，Kings，Cardinals，NY Giants等等就成功奪錦，的確不是味兒；不過想深一層，自己的愛隊之前亦屢獲佳績，似乎也無需為一時失敗而介懷。看看歐國盃看台上那些弱隊擁躉，很多都做到勝固欣然敗亦喜，真的是為了能夠參與而高興，實在值得學習！
到有一天能對愛隊的熱情收放自如，也許可以試試如何對人也能如此，現在只能以一句「我是熱情的rock友」來解嘲吧！

What he does for a living

Today I read an article in American Airline's magazine about Metallica's drummer Lar Ulrich getting a side job as an actor in a movie about the Spanish Civil War starring Nicole Kidman. At this point in his sucessful career he could pretty much do anything he likes (including making music that suck badly with his band coz they made enough great ones to justify that.) The most interesting quote though, was when asked about his future acting plan, he said, "Actually all this music and acting isn't even what I do for a living -- on days like today, it seems my full-time occupation is driving children around." So both Ulrich and I have something in common in addition to making rock music!

幸福唐人街

今天午飯時間因為開會推遲至一點，尚有餘暇快快「踩」一轉唐人街，踩到新香港，只見門口一個聲勢浩大的中樂團在演出（就是圖中這班）中阮裝上pickup出Pignose amp（我家也有一隻），認真夠特色！經過金門餅家，還在放假；於是到天后廟街找上次那家抵食麵包舖，原來叫幸福餅家，名字取得很好呀！

Music of the day: Piano Trio by Anton Arensky

Boston's public station WGBH has been making great podcasts of classical music for years. I felt so bad that it stopped releasing new episodes some time last year and couldn't really find any alternative to it. Fortunately it's back! I'm listening to this one from last month. Beautiful piece.

莫批鬥

陶傑被稱為「才子」，老實說，我對他很多論點不敢苟同，只覺得語出驚人死不休，早幾天他寫的算是例外：

當中國官方也加入圍剿一個人的時候，不管是誰，如果你有一點政治觸覺（或者尚有點人性），即使你本來很討厭這個人，但此時也要停一停，想一想：此一跡象，是一個臨界點，不要加入眾聲的喧嘩，反而，要沉默了。 其次，至目前為止，只是住了幾天總統套房，租了豪宅，沒有貪污千億，英國人是他的師傅，但他沒有把至少八十億託一個英國人轉移海外。身為一名中國官員，有人早就指出過了：他的清廉品格，已經十分高尚。

家長活動停不了

臨近學校暑假，小朋友的「大型」演出活動無獨有偶都排在今天舉行：今早先看了一場娛樂性頗高的音樂劇；中午是扮演歷史名人，女兒扮的是紅十字會創辦人，她的同學有一個扮海倫凱勒（不過她不聾也不盲），有一個扮女神槍手Annie Oakley（回家查查才知她事跡），有一個滿頭白髮的愛因斯坦，還有一個拿著Mac鍵盤扮Steve Wozniak，Wozniak是另一姓氏劃掉後改上的，不知原本是不是扮Steve Jobs？傍晚中文學校還有一場歌舞。各位要上班的家長如果全部出席簡直搏炒。

五月

原來上星期我寫了本blog第五百個帖，剛剛才發現，值得慶祝！「重奪」00zine.com網名好像只是幾年前的事。這個五月也真的過得超快，在寫每月的支票時特別覺得，也可能因為短短數週藝術史課就教了千幾年埃及希臘史吧。公眾假期外又放了幾天假，和親朋好友聚聚，真是快樂不知時日過！

情趣

剛才在交通燈位遇見一位踩單車阿嬋，寒暄了兩句，我們都覺得實在太大風了，她說她和丈夫打賭她出車期間會下雨，如果輸了會買他半打cupcake。結果？她丈夫待會應該要出車消滅那些cupcake了。（估計她職業是對冲基金經理。）

睇卡通學中文

說的不是教育電視正正經經那種，而是打到七彩的「太極千字文」其實是我介紹我兒子看的。片中人物各有寫有漢字的特異功能卡，兒子為了了解劇情，不停抄下不認識的字來問我。最難的字我也不懂，只見他把門字入面的部份寫到「一嚿嚿」，把我嚇了一跳！

Sports highlights: F1, Tour of California, baseballs

I have been rooting for both Bay Area baseball teams: Giants and A's, for years. The A's have the "Money Ball" genius Billy Beane as its GM and was able to discover talents at great bargain which translated to lots of success for a few years in the last decade. Compared to the A's, the Giants seem much less capable of good acquisitions. They had signed quite a few over-the-hill and over-valued players in recent years. However, with a bigger budget and a fanbase that is willing to pay and fill up the ball park often, the blunders didn't hurt them as much as one would think. If I remember correctly, the Giants have more good seasons than the A's recently, not to mention that magical 2010 season that they win it all.

During the past offseason, the Giants seemed to have addressed their weaknesses and acquired a few good players. On the contrary, the A's have traded away a bunch of their stars for unproven players. Critics thought that Billy Beane has lost "it" and they seem to have given up on this season just to wait for relocation and a new ball park. That's what I thought too. I had high hopes for the Giants while not expecting much from the A's. Man, we're so wrong. Billy Beane was right again! The star closer he traded away is currently on DL and had zero contribution to his new team. On the other hand, the newcomers like Josh Reddick and Ryan Cook have performed admirably. I still remember looking up who the A's got from the Andrew Bailey trade and found a completely unfamiliar name: Josh Reddick. Well, he has hit 9 HR so far. Much better than I expected!

It's always a dilemma when they play against each other. I tended to root for the underdog in the series. However, since the Giants underachieved and the A's overachieved, both have nearly identical records entering the series. In this case, all I can root for are good games!

It has been a busy week for me as evident by the low volume of posts I wrote. I took a day off to follow the riders of Tour of California, the top bicycle race in US, at its Stage 3, between San Jose and Livermore. Even though the riders just zoomed by us in no time, it's really not about watching the race in the strict sense 'coz the atmosphere was awesome.

Another race that definitely worth watching was Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix, won by the underdog driver with the underdog team, Paster Maldonado from the Williams, beating out 6 other former champs (Alonzo, Raikkonen, Button, Vettel, Hamilton and Schumacher) Also worth mentioning was that Lewis Hamilton started from the last place (24th) and finished 8th, which was another amazing feat. He was the original polesitter instead of Maldonado but he was penalized for breaking the rule for fuel level (too few) in his car.

The Williams team winning it was specially a feel-good story. The telecast mentioned the last F1 winner from this team was current NASCAR driver Juan Pablo Montoya, whose F1 days seems ages ago. From this NYTimes article:

Williams is the third most successful team in Formula One, behind Ferrari and McLaren. But it has not won a championship since 1997, and had not even made it to the podium — the top three finishers — since the Singapore Grand Prix in Sept. 2008.

4 letter symbols in NASDAQ

When every news media started talking about Facebook's IPO and the symbol rumored to be FB or LIKE, I thought it has to be the latter, not the former, because I thought NASDAQ had a rule that all symbols have to be 4 letters. I am a lazy investor and have been a big fan of NASDAQ 100 ETF (which was a bad idea) I still remember its name went from QQQ to QQQQ when it started being traded at NASDAQ itself. This post from WSJ confirmed it happened in Nov 2004. However, just found another article from 2007 that NASDAQ has dropped this restriction!

Happy B-day my friend!

Here was the song list:
- Schumann: Traumerei  (Excuse Trio)
- Bach: Gavotte in G minor (Maddy)
- Beyond: 真的愛你 (鄭老柴)
- Beyond: 海闊天空 (鄭老柴)
- Happy Birthday (Excuse Quartet)

 

N無作家：戇居咪戇居囉

What a coincidence! This is a nice follow-up to the post about Mr. Sendak earlier today

From 爽報:

「背棄了理想，誰人都可以……」在香港講理想，與賺錢無關即歸類為「不切實際」，但80後青年張培基（Allen）偏愛發文字綺夢，每月埋首寫3,000 多字小說，再自資出版單張紙的《特寫》小說月刊，然後企街逐張派。一人公司仍自封「市場拓展經理」，別人笑他嘥錢兼戇居，但Allen心頭海闊天空：「戇居無罪呀，我發展到渠道可以輕鬆自由寫作，有理想，比起買樓買車更開心。」

He might not succeed but he has dreams and no one could take them away from him.

RIP Mr. "Where the Wild Things Are"

From CNN:

Maurice Sendak, author of the classic children's book "Where the Wild Things Are," has died at 83. Former President Bill Clinton called him the "king of dreams." Sendak grew up to take a few night classes but largely taught himself as an artist. He is best known for "Where the Wild Things Are." It tells the story of a boy named Max who dresses in a white wolf costume and escapes his life at home by sailing to a remote land, where he discovers wild things who roar their terrible roars and gnash their terrible teeth. The book stirred controversy when it was first published in 1963. Many librarians initially feared it would disturb children, but it has become a timeless classic well-stocked in bookstores and libraries around the world. It was in the news again when President Obama read the story to children at this year's White House Easter egg roll.

Formal education (especially the forced fed type) alone wouldn't produce greatness. It's the ability to think outside of the box. Don't be afraid to break out of the norm. I thought his book was weird too but he had my respect. Mr. Sendak is indeed the king of dreams.

The Costco Craze: Inside the Warehouse Giant

睇緊呢套講Costco既紀錄片，介紹佢地co-founder/CEO，原來係一個七十幾歲老人家，成日巡舖，業界封佢零售橋王，認真掂。 同其他公司相反，佢地舖頭一類產品特登賣少d牌子型號，等顧客唔駛左諗右諗變左唔買，我去到Fry's，就成日都係左諗右諗變左唔買。 又特登唔掛貨品指示牌，等顧客盲頭烏蠅亂走，睇多d結果買多d唔等駛野。 仲有，佢地markup特別低，因為賺每個會員每年幾十蚊會費都賺到笑。

久違了的士德頓街

今天沒有帶午餐，考慮過去吧睇歐霸，不過美國主流有線台都沒有直播；於是決定去行街覓食，想試試的印度truck不知所踪，一路行上唐人街，以為會頗熱，卻寒風撲面，只穿T恤的我顯得單薄。誰知唐人街金門又放假，再去很久沒光顧過的小巴黎（越南包馳名），原來成個block已經為建鐵路站而清拆！想想已有大半年未行過士德頓街，連豐澤在這裡開了「分店」（或總店？）也不知。

總算在書局望了一些雜誌連環圖封面，在影碟店看了一會免費電影（李連杰主演的，Google了一會影碟封面才知寫甚麼戲名: 「龍門飛甲」是也），最後在橫街Waverley的餅店買了雞批+蛋撻+老婆餅，今餐合共$2.35。那個蛋撻才$.65，比金門的便宜三成有多，味道當然有段距離，不過今天想幫襯後者亦無「門」呢（未到七月，金門未放悠長假期吧？）可能看武俠片看得熱血沸騰，回程時已不覺涼。

同場加映：一對癡情白人中（或老）年情侶旁若無人親熱。

單車安全日

學校今日單車安全日，其實不是所有小朋友都可以騎單車往返學校及屋企（例如住得遠或下課後要坐保母車到after school）一眾家長開車把子女單車搬出搬入，運動量可能超過踩車了！當然，對環保是零幫助。

出師不利 後遇貴人

I went biking with my buddy on Sunday. This was the 2nd time we decided to ride up King's Mountain Road. Last time he couldn't make it because he stayed up too late the night before and I had an uneventful solo ride. I wasn't optimistic that he'd show up this time but he did and it turned out much more eventful than I wished for :P He actually rode past the intersection we were supposed to meet so he made a U-turn and he dropped his bike. Not a good sign :( Indeed, his chain fell off when we shifted gears for the steep King's Mountain. His bike has been having shifting problem for a while and that drop probably worsened it. We saw that the front derailleur was jammed into the front cogs and the chain itself was bent. We tried fixing it and the best we could do was making it barely ride-able (with horrifying metal grinding noise.) Obviously we had to turn back. After a while, a car got passed us. The driver slowed down and talked to us. He told us he's a bike mechanic and offered to help. We're more than happy to accept! He took his screwdriver from his trunk and was able to pull out the jammed derailleur and thus stopped the chain from grinding with it. Next, he wanted to fix the chain but he didn't have the chain tool. Fortunately I have it with my bike all the time (thanks to advices I got from other experienced riders) He took the few bent links off the chain (and I got to learn how to use that tool!) Now the bike was in a much better shape even though it's far from 100%: only the middle cog is useable so most of the lower gears weren't available. We were really thankful to this fellow and asked where his shop was so that we could spread good words. Turned out he didn't even do this for a living. He just lived nearby and he's an enthusiast who like to help friends and neighbors fixing their bikes. Now we're pretty sure we could at least got back to my buddy's car. However, he got ambitious and wanted to finish what we started: riding up King's Mountain. I was very skeptical 'coz it's challenging even with all the gears intact. I offered to switch bike with him but he refused and I understood. After all, bike is like GF for some. You get intimate with it. To show my support, I decided not to use the smallest cog as well. And we made it up King's Mountain like that!
Congrat my friend! It's your first Cat-1 climb. :D

Lucky vs Unlucky

MLB Network just showed stats of 2 pitchers (probable starters in tmw's matchup):
CC Sabathia (NYY), ERA = 4.58
Bruce Chen (KC), ERA = 4.23

Difference between their W-L record = 6 games!

Yes, CC is 3-0 while Chen is 0-3.

World Trade Complex

This name is "grand" and reminded me of the World Trade Center in NYC and Hong Kong, all landmark buildings. Well, this was a pic of World Trade Complex in San Francisco. 


It was just demolished last month as one of the construction projects along the Embarcadero water front. The projects were off and on. They were originally part of the plan for America's Cup (the top yacht race in the world) hosted by San Francisco in 2013 but not anymore. Another related project was the closure and rebuilding of the nearby lot I park every day I go to work. That's why I followed the development closely. It is the cheapest parking lot in the area. It will be missed when this happens. The latest rumor is that the Golden State Warriors want to built their new stadium on it! Here is the irony: all these plans (or abandoned ones) are related to Oracle and Larry Ellison. Oracle has a team participating in the America's Cup. And currently the Warriors play in a stadium that Oracle has the naming right.

Musician of the day: Norah Jones

I have listened to Norah Jones' music (who hasn't?) and I have of course listened to the great Sitarist Ravi Shankar. And I just found out Jones is Shankar's daughter. I guess musicianship does run in the family.

伸張正義&消費主義

今日國際勞動節連續做了兩件有點矛盾及諷刺性的事。Lunch break踩車去到Justin Herman plaza看看有無示威抗議活動，見到一班單車友整裝待發，並邀我加入聲援大遊行，支持弱勢社群，應當義不容辭，於是跟大隊浩浩蕩蕩踩到Westfield購物中心，有一大班該處員工支持工會活動，支持99%。

加入行列踩回Montgomery街，又有另一活動抗議1%：

 有人在馬路塗鴉；

有人大合奏國際歌。

那裡有個熱狗檔，都是99%份子，生意好像特別好。

雖然我自稱良心份子，一樣不能免俗，對部份奢侈品及活動趨之若鶩，例如遊船河。本來就喜歡船的我，每當有郵輪停泊本市，都會特地去觀摩一番。今天就有一首相信是駛往Alaska的埋岸（也霸佔了一半我平日泊的廉價停車場，我被迫幫襯另一個較貴的）

Why Did Obama Ever Win (the 2012 election) in the First Place?

Here were some opinions gathered by a journalist from 8 people in the Southern states. (Yeah, they didn't like Mr. Obama)

Cupertino公共圖書館

今天有一小時要打發，決定走路由Daiso去奇華，只花了十分鐘!幸好途經Cupertino city hall 暨圖書館，入去逛逛，原來相當有氣派:樓高二層，電腦顯示屏全是新貨色，中間一個大如水族館的熱帶魚缸，多個擺滿中文書籍雜誌的書架。有點詫異的是，部份新竹市送贈的舊雜誌竟然是honor system (任人帶回家)我看了一會，再到英文雜誌區，結他以至模型火車雜誌一應俱全，難怪書局要關門大吉。

Home Style

Boston Market招牌寫住Home Style Meal，尋日經過，我個仔好質疑：佢點知我屋企乜style?我嘗試用average home, typical style既概念黎解釋，我諗佢唔明。

Music of the day: Brandenburg Concerto

Got an e-mail titled "J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos: The True Story‏" Sounds like reality TV, huh? Well, I've been reading about "The True Story" behind Bach's Six Cello Suites so naturally I find this interesting too.

永遠站在雞蛋的那方

作為一個村上春樹的擁躉，竟然在他說了這番話三年後，才從《蘋果日報》專欄文章間接認識。該文指出：

村上春樹在獲頒耶路撒冷文學獎時說「在高大堅硬的牆和雞蛋之間，無論高牆是多麼正確，雞蛋是多麼地錯誤，我永遠站在雞蛋這邊」，這幾句往後成了扶助弱勢對抗強權時常被引用的金句。 

可能有點難解，還是看看他說話的背景及上文下理才行，以下節錄自台灣《天下雜誌》418期09年03號:

村上春樹於耶路撒冷的英語演講辭「永遠站在雞蛋的那方」，道出個人應有的道德勇氣、與對體制霸權的深刻反省，隨即被國際媒體競相轉載，更超越文壇，在國際政治、人權組織間引起廣大迴響。 [他說:]誰是誰非，自有他人、時間、歷史來定論。但若小說家無論何種原因，寫出站在高牆這方的作品，這作品豈有任何價值可言？這代表什麼意思呢？轟炸機、戰車、火箭和白磷彈就是那堵高牆；而被它們壓碎、燒焦和射殺的平民則是雞蛋。這是這個比喻的其中一層涵義。更深一層的看，我們每個人，也或多或少都是一枚雞蛋。我們都是獨一無二，裝在脆弱外殼中的靈魂。 你我也或多或少，都必須面對一堵名為「體制」的高牆。體制照理應該保護我們，但有時它卻殘殺我們，或迫使我們冷酷、有效率、系統化地殘殺別人，是我們創造了體制 。 我寫小說只有一個原因，就是給予每個靈魂尊嚴，讓它們得以沐浴在陽光之下。故事的目的在於提醒世人，在於檢視體制，避免它馴化我們的靈魂、剝奪靈魂的意義。

的確，這是一個有風骨的文人，和只懂奉承當權者的哈巴狗不可同日而語。我對他的敬意又深了一重。

Musicians of the day: Turtle Island Quartet

Just found out two members left and have been replaced. I'm not too familiar with their music but as a jazz and string quartet fan/player, I'm interested in the story.

Here's an interesting quote from the founding member David Balakrishnan:

...The premise of the group requires string players with professional level ability in both jazz and classical music traditions. Such players are still in short supply, even in today’s world with so much more awareness and interest in alternative string styles, 27 years after the formation of the quartet. Those that do possess this extraordinary combination of skills tend to be mavericks, not necessarily well suited to the unique demands of life in a string quartet, where everyone basically plays the same instrument.

It’s hard to stand out, and why else have the audaciousness to leave the classical tradition, usually in your early teens, and venture into the relatively uncharted waters for string players getting off the page if you don’t have a chance to really strut your stuff, make a name for yourself as an individual?

Almost impossible to do in the context of being in a string quartet.

Fortunately our quartet doesn't have the same problem :P

Violinist Mads Tolling was one of the member that left. I've actually been to his show with his own group (not string quartet) at Yoshi's before and enjoyed his own music a lot. I've also listened to two of his CDs. He The two incoming players both have impressive resumes though. I've listened to violinist Mateusz Smoczynski on Last.fm before and liked his style of jazz. The new violist Benjamin von Gutzeit has performed with another famous jazz violinist Mark Feldman so he gotta be good. I'm curious to hear what the new group sounds like. Also made me want to listen to their old recordings too.

Grammy Criticism

I started this post two months ago right before the award show and really wanted to finish it soon or it will be so outdated and irrelevant. I read a few articles back then about the jazz category. Basically, the criticism was that the choices were too conservative. It seems like only big names won, for example, Chick Corea this year. This article mentioned a few non-big-name jazz musicians that should have been nominated. (BTW, here is an interesting discussion of this article among trumpeters) As a jazz fan that'd love to see diversity and new artists to grow in this genre, I had to disagree with them though. I felt that these writers sounded like they have to write some alternative opinions to distinguish themselves. Music appreciation is subjective and personal, even more so for jazz. I found most of the music mentioned very good and award-deserving, whether the artists are big names or not. Does the award committee have to favor the lesser known ones? Furthermore, the non-big-names mentioned included Donny McCaslin, Matthew Shipp and David S. Ware. All are actually quite famous among serious jazz listeners.

Grammy's classical awards don't seem to suffer from the same conservative problem though. Look at the list of winners: it is full of modern (more avant-garde and less well-known) composers and piece.

Sea Otter Classic Gran Fondo

Gran Fondo means large group bike riding, which is a European tradition that became popular in the States in the recent years. You might recall I participated in Levi Leipheimer's Gran Fondo in Santa Rosa last October. They had 3 routes: the 103-mile Gran route was so popular that its registration was full within hours it opened. We rode the   65-mile Medio route there last year and it was a great experience. This February I received an invitation card for the Sea Otter Classic Gran Fondo in Monterey (probably because I subscribed to the Bicycling magazine) I successfully convinced two other friends (and myself too) to ride their longest route, a 96-mile one (see below) I hope they won't be mad at me after the ride yesterday! The route was really not that great: most of the climbs had practically no shade and some measured that it was 100 degree on the road yesterday. I was bothered by the sweat flowing down my eyes as much as the steepness of the climbs. My head band was soaked 5 minutes after I tried drying it every time. And the organizer probably thought they're designing the route for Tour De France instead of a recreational ride by finishing it with a 3-mile climb! I guess there's a reason why this event is far less popular than Levi's. I chatted with other participants and we all agreed it's crazy to have that climb at the end. And I found out there were <600 participants (Levi's had several thousands) In fact, I just checked the result and it listed ~350 participants did the climbs and ~300 finished the whole route.


Find more in Monterey, CA
Enough bitching and moaning. Here are the details of the ride: it started (and ended) at the legendary race course Laguna Seca (the same course I watch the top motorcycle competition in the world, MotoGP, last year) The first 50 miles from Salinas to Soledad and Arroyo Seco were pretty much flat with just 1 climb. I was averaging 15 mph and only stopped at the 2 scheduled rest stops (The 2nd one was at the cozy little Zabala Vineyards.) I read the map and the guide before hand and knows about the long climb at the 50 mile mark so I found a tree and took a break. The next 10 mile was a gradual climb up about 1000 feet, which was quite manageable other than the heat. Then it came the big one: 800 feet in less than 3 miles. A few of the participants gave up at that point. I felt that I could still go. My biggest fear was dehydration and overworking my heart. Fortunately the volunteers were really helpful and helped me refilled my water bottles a few times. I monitored my heart rate closely and stopped whenever it's too high. I made ~5 stops for this 13 mile climb and eventually made it to the summit. It was 2:30pm when I arrived at the rest stop 1 mile from the summit. They were almost wrapping up since only a dozen riders were behind me. Some fellow riders just waited for support vehicle to pick them up there. The next 20 miles was mostly gradual downhill. And the wind was blowing gently in the valley terrain so it was quite comfortable and allowed us to recover. The guide and the map mentioned there was another intense 3-mile climb at mile 83, the Laureles Grade. Again, it's mostly shadeless and windless. I don't think it's more steep than Old La Honda road (our benchmark and frequent training route for climbing) but the road was long and straight and thus looked scarier than it really was. Cars drove by rather fast though and lots of broken glass scattered on the road. I took a break at mile 84.7. After another 0.3 mile of tough climb, it got less steep and eventually it's the top of Laureles Grade at 1278 feet high. The next 2 mile or so were some long and straight and thus fast descents. And I was back to Hwy 68, real close to the starting point, Laguna Seca. Even though the guide didn't mention it, I knew it was on the hill so a climb is inevitable but I didn't realize it was not a small one. In fact it was a 3 mile long category 4 climb! I almost got a leg cramp. I sang my favorite SPS songs and cursed maybe a few dozen times before I completed the ride. Here was the reward: