Sports highlights: football and more "football" plus some auto racing

The first football game I watched on the new Xfinity X1 box was the Monday night game between the Cowboys and the Redskins. Da Boys haven't won any game without Tony Romo as QB for a long time. The last game with Matt Cassel as QB on Thanksgiving against the Carolina Panthers was disastrous. I didn't have high hope for them against the division-rival Skins. And there wasn't much action: tied with 3 FGs each 'til late in the 4th quarter. Dejean Jackson fumbled a kickoff return near their own endzone and the Cowboys seized the opportunity to score a TD with less than 2 min left. Then the Skins marched down the field and Jackson scored a TD to tie. Only to see the Cowboys' kicker Bailey kicked a long FG with seconds left to win the game. What a win! And the 4-8 Cowboys was just one game behind the first place teams (which are all other NFC East teams) Unbelievable. Even though I still have low hope on the team winning the division or making the playoff, it's good to see them having the fighting spirit with such a horrible start after Romo was injured in week 2.

Last weekend was mostly "reserved" for watching college football as several important conference championship games were played on Saturday, which would decide who got in the 4-team national championship playoff. For SEC, #3 Alabama vs #18 Floria. For ACC, #1 Clemson vs #10 North Carolina. For Big 10, #4 Iowa vs #5 Michigan St. For Pac 12, #7 Stanford vs #20 USC. And before all this, there was an unimportant Big 12 conference non-championship game between Texas and #12 Baylor in the morning. So glad to see the Longhorns upset the Bears. They got to a quick start which was proven too much for Baylor to overcome. Well, maybe beating Oklahoma earlier in the year and this win saved coach Charlie Strong's job. Not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing for the 2016 season. However, the team started several younger players in this game and they did pretty well. We'll see.

Next was the Bama-Florida game, which actually started out much less exciting but eventually Bama showed its strength (and the Florida offense wasn't able to do much) And the next 3 championship games all started ~5pm PST! I ordered take out at 4:30 so I won't miss any action :) The Iowa-MSU game was dominated by the defense with the teams trading FGs. The #1 team looked vulnerable against UNC's offense. And USC initially couldn't do anything against Stanford. I was hoping all 3 games would have been decided ~7:30 so I could head to a concert by the local orchestra. However, the teams went back-and-fro and I stayed instead. The last minute TD by MSU was an exciting one (even though I'd rather see Iowa to win) It would have been quite interesting as far as the national championship picture is concerned if UNC upsetted Clemson: who should get that 4th spot? Maybe Stanford leapfrogging Ohio St? Or maybe UNC leapfrogged them all? Well, it was a moot point though. My prediction: another national championship for the Bama (beating MSU and then Clemson) When is Nick Saban gonna leave Bama for Texas? Maybe after winning another one?

The weekend actually started with the other type of football: I woke up at 6:30 to watch Bayern Munich losing to Monchengladbach (can't believe I spelled it correctly the first time!) I am a fan of Bayern but don't mind the result too much as this is only their first loss of the season. Next was the boring 0-0 draw between Man United and West Ham but I was happy to see the defending champ Chelsea suffered another loss, this time to the newly promoted Bournemouth! How low can they go? :P Anyway, the biggest soccer match of the week to me was the MLS cup (yeah. I care enough to record it while attending my kid's orchestra performance) I have been rooting for the Portland Timbers since they beat KC in a thrilling first-round playoff game (Tied 1-1 in regulation. Tied 2-2 after OT and the PK shootout was decided by two goalies shooting against each other!) They got the best start ever against the Eastern conf champ Columbus Crew in this final because the Crew's goalie failed to clear the ball cleanly in the first minutes of the game. And they never surrender the lead since then. Congrat to them!

Speaking of champions, it's sad to see that owners of the San Jose Sabercats, the reigning Arena Bowl champ, has decided to quit the business. I hope another owner pick them up before next season.

While I was preparing for switching to X1, I binge-watched many recorded shows on my "old" DVR, including some Formula E, Pirelli World Challenge and AMA Endurocross races. Congrat to the 3 respective champ of 2015: Nelson Piquet Jr, Michael Cooper (WC GTS division) and Cody Webb.

Tech of the day: Slingbox and Xfinity X1

It's deja vu all over again! I wrote about configuring the Comcast remote in Slingbox in 2010 :) I just upgraded to X1, Comcast's latest and greatest internet-based TV set top box, as a reward for signing a 2-year contract (and "locked" into a lower rate than the "regular" rate of $150+ for cable+internet as the "discounted" rate has expired at the end of my previous 2-year contract) The hardware installation is easy: I just swapped out the old box with the new box they delivered to my doorstep, literally. However, no channel above 719 (i.e., stuff I watch, like ESPN, which was showing MNF Cowboys vs Redskins) was available. We had to call Comcast support and have 3 of them looked into this (the last guy seems to be a Tier 3 who knows more about "the code" needed to get those "preferred" channels going) The last hurdle was to reconfigure my "ancient" Slingbox. According to "official" Slingbox support, I could configure my Slingbox's on-screen remote control via the web app on watch.slingbox.com. When I accessed it on Chrome, it says the setup is only supported on Firefox and IE. My PC doesn't even have Firefox. However, on IE the web app was stucked with "Locating slingbox" prompt forever so I finally gave in and installed Firefox. And the web app does work on Firefox (with extension installed) and I got to choose a model of my set top box, which is an Arris XG1-A (according to Comcast.com) and not available as a choice. The only choice seems appropriate was the "generic" Comcast X1. Fortunately Comcast is pretty good with remote control compatibility between different versions of their boxes. (As a side note, I could have chosen Comcast X1 from the unsupported desktop client but the way to confirm in that setup assistant was using the "Power" button, which was disabled)

荒謬世界香港篇之電視台又無糧出

我的一位不相熟的FB朋友是我中學師兄，也是一位藍絲，倒不算是大問題，比較有趣的是他經常comment on亞視揸fit人葉家寶的博客post，令我除了從港聞之外多了另一個渠道認識這位近年曝光率甚高的傳媒人，也是我的老師兄（和王晶黃杏秀同屆）一直以為葉是亞視CEO，原來該職位數年前已懸空，葉的official title是高級副總裁兼執行董事，主管市場營業部，該部門應該負責出糧吧。事實上，他也是在去年亞視欠糧風波後才廣為人識，曾發起一人一萬入股救亞視（其實此舉有法律問題）最近又因欠糧一事被檢控及罪成，雖無需坐監但被罸款。網民反應不一，有些指他為虎作倀抵罰，也有人同情他只是打工，做了老闆的代罪羔羊，為他感到不值。個人意見傾向後者（當然也因為一場師兄弟有點biased）事件並未告一段落：亞視又再欠薪，葉家寶在其博客公開他已向亞視辭去執董一職，以免再負上刑事責任。從維基百科得知，葉家寶從事香港傳媒界多年，資歷深厚，似乎是有料之人，非亞視以前那些靠裙帶關係掌權者可比，他總算為建制派作出一點犧牲，前途應不成問題。比較令人感到遺憾的是曾經屢有佳作的亞視淪為笑柄，明年更將失去廣播牌照！究竟亞視永恆的神話能否延續？大家且拭目以待。