Friday, September 29, 2017

NASCAR in trouble?

Readers of this blog all know that I have been a big fan of NASCAR for several years. I probably started following the sports when it reached its height in popularity and witnessed its decline in recent years. I won't blame the NASCAR bosses for their efforts to reverse the trend. Critics actually think they tweaked the rules for the championship too much! For example, stage points and playoff points were introduced for the first time this season to encourage drivers to be competitive not just for the win of each race but also in the middle of it. I guess the goals of these rule changes are (1) having multiple (4) drivers eligible to win the championship and (2) encouraging drivers to win races instead of just accumulating points. It's hard to argue against that, IMO. However, with no such "playoff" system, IndyCar's championship battle almost always come down to the last race anyway. Unfortunately, as this article pointed out, there are just way too many distractions happening in NASCAR right now. The following video shows one of them: young phenom and championship contender Chase Elliot's car was caught "cheating" with illegal modification to give the car an advantage:

Monday, September 25, 2017

寒磣

讀書學中文!今天繼續閱讀上個月才找出來,買了多年的「新書」《雪梨!村上的奧運日誌》,其實早在四月去雪梨之前就應讀。譯者張致遠用了一個我不認識的詞語:「寒磣」來形容一間酒吧,我想他的意思是:醜陋;不好看,又或者是有點寒酸的味道?