Friday, October 18, 2013

下一代

The more things change, the more they stay the same. 在這個人人上網的年代,原來後生仔女依然喜歡聽收音機!女兒和姨甥女坐我車,要求轉台,一時101.3,一時97.3,好在這個爸爸不太老餅,除了爵士古典,這些台也在preset。其實很好奇她們在家何時聽收音機?還記得以前深夜或清晨都會聽收音機,中學年代開夜車收音機更是良朋,不過那時坐爸爸的車常常都要被迫聽新聞台,爸爸更加不會讓我寫一張清單然後幫我錄歌!

早幾天參觀女兒下年就讀的初中,原來有家政班(教煮食)、法文班、工業班(教木工);在香港受教育的我,當真大開眼界,這樣比起我小時候獨沽一味鋤書的模式確實優勝。

Monday, October 14, 2013

Sports highlights: Red River rivalry, upset Saturday, MLB, NASCAR at Charlotte

The past Saturday of College Football was all about upsets. The most important one to me was the big win by Texas over the heated rival Oklahoma. We haven't won for 3 years! And Wisconsin beat the then-ranked Northwestern later that day. I watched only the OT part of the Michigan-Penn State game. Every time I thought it would have been over after someone kicked a FG and switched channel, I found that it's still not over when I switched back! It's like no one could win the game! Not a fan of either team but I was happy to see the underdog (Penn State) won as well as the other upsets :Utah defeated Stanford (a new PAC-12 team > an "old" PAC-12 team) and Missouri beat Georgia (a former Big 12 team > a SEC team)

We were certainly following the MLB playoff on TV and radio even though no bay area team (no team I root for, in fact) is still in it after the A's went down. The low-scoring St. Louis vs LA game was a nail-bitter but I'm not counting the latter out yet. And Red Sox coming back from 5-0 deficit in ALCS game 2 was a dramatic one. I guess it's deja vu of 2004 (which means the White Sox will win the WS next year. Yay!)

The complete opposite of drama was F1 in Japan. Vettel and his invincible Red Bull machine was passed during the start (surprise!) but he still won on tire strategy. BORING! In comparison, the NASCAR race at Charlotte was much more exciting. I thought it would be a waste of my time to watch when Jimmie "Five Time" Johnson made steady progress and eventually overtaken team mate Kasey Kahne for the lead in the middle of the race. He and his car looked so good. Well, this was not F1 and he didn't do well on one of the re-start and slipped back. On the other hand, Matt Kenseth, JJ's main competitor in the championship chase, didn't do well in the beginning but slowly improved to finish 3rd, one place ahead of JJ and maintained his championship point lead. However, the story of the race gotta be 2012 champ Brad K finally winning his first race of the season, after he failed to get into the championship chase. What made it more amazing was that he recovered from a poor pit stop in which the jack was stuck to (and damaged) his car and he had to serve penalty! Please remind me why I still watch F1 (!? Maybe just because it's on TV)

And the great sports weekend was concluded on Sunday night with Da Boys winning over rival Redskins. Texas rulez.