Guitar diplomacy

40 years after the historic ping-pong (a.k.a. table tennis for American) diplomacy between US and China, John Kerry wrote a new chapter: guitar diplomacy. Check out this article with a video showing John Kerry playing guitar after his big meeting with Chinese officials. The article also included reviews of his playing by some experts, including THE instructional video guru Esteban! I agree that he played at the level of an amateur who were once a competent player. In any case, that's gutsy.

BTW, this is post #700 on this blog!

More metal. RIP Robin Williams

I checked out the MyRadio feature on Rhapsody today. So it basically plays tracks that I recently listened to, e.g. Overkill's new 2014 album "White Devil Armory" They never disappoint and always stay true to their thrash metal root. That set me in the mood for more metal: Morgengrau's "Extrinsic Pathway" and Pentacle's "Under the Black Cross" Both captured the classic death metal sound and they will be playing at Thee Parkside this month.

This is kinda metal-related: I read an article about Ozzy Osbourne thanking the late Robin Williams for visiting his wife when she got cancer. Sad to see a great actor leaving us.

The MMA Experience

I have been a fan of fight sports for years but I saw my first fight live (boxing) only last year and my first MMA event, Dragon House 17, last weekend. Kezar Pavillion was a small venue and we bought VIP seats so we got real close to the actions. I knew it won't be like watching on TV with many different angles and replays but I didn't miss much of it. 13 fights were on the card. 9 of them were KO or submission. And none of them was boring. I'm surprised by the quality of the fights given these are not big names from UFC. We were impressed by the victory of Robert Prakhantree who was taken to the ground by Alex Uribe but got on top later and ground-and-pounded to win. The Light Heavyweight Championship fight between Marcel Fortuna and Mike Ortega was another good one: Fortuna seized the opportunity to summit Ortega via rear-naked choke. Definitely looking forward to attending more local MMA events.