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:

生態平衡如走鋼線

剛剛看完一段關於夏威夷生態的紀錄片，原來到當地的飛機輪船貨品，通通都要經受過訓練的狗隻檢查，確保沒有帶來蛇，因為蛇會吃掉鳥卵破壞鳥巢，鄰近關島的鳥類就因此遭殃。而幾種漏網的外來動物，包括綠蜥蝪和迷你青蛙，都是食蟲高手，耗掉不少當地的鳥類的食糧，對後者構成極大威脅。此外，迷你青蛙身體小小，聲量卻極大，旅客往往不明所以被吵醒，正一麻煩友。

Word of the day: propitiate

[Verb]  Win or regain the favor of (a god, spirit, or person) by doing something that pleases them.

Alternative history: spammers became documenters

We're all so annoyed by tons of spam/scam e-mails arrived everyday and won't think twice to put them in trash can. Here is the irony: they actually serve a different purpose than hoping to get some of your money. Their content -- from pleas for sympathy and money to promises of easy fortune -- give an alternative history of the world over the past decade, according to artists Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, both from Lebanon. A video installation, called "A Letter Can Always Reach Its Destination," featuring people reading from scam emails, is one of the five winning pieces of the Abraaj Capital Art Prize unveiled at Art Dubai in March. Hadjithomas said they chose 45 emails to read out for "A Letter Can Always Reach its Destination" from some 4,000 received over the years. "In our work we are very interested in the way you write history," said Hadjithomas. "The scammers chose places where corruption is possible, such as Africa, the Middle East or Russia, and base their stories around real events and conflicts in these countries. "Sometimes they claim to be close to the protagonists of the events, such as the son of an African dictator. "You can read a kind of history of the world over the last 10 years in a different way through these emails. "You can understand a lot about African conflicts, Iraq, Libya, Russia or what was happening in other parts of the world." The video features ordinary people reading emails originating from their own countries. The stories sounds convincing until they mention the $35 million they have, said Hadjithomas. "They are melodramatic stories about people dying, cancer and disease. We chose ones that were well written, even if their English was poor. "Sometimes the stories are not very far from their lives of the people reading them and some were very touching to film. You can be fooled by them for a while."

The inaugural NASCAR truck race at Rockingham NC

Watched the last 20 laps. Not much drama except polesitter Piquet Jr (son of Nelson Piquet) battling Ty Dillon (grandson of Richard Childress) for the 6th place during the last few laps (and eventually passed the latter) Kasey Kahne from the Sprint Cup series won the race. The commentator mentioned Kahne raced last night in Texas and had to rush to NC for the truck race today. Well, it's a bit rush but it's ~1100 mile away and the flight was probably just a few hours. Anyway, the effort is well worth it. He hasn't have much luck since joining his new team this year and replaced the popular Mark Martin. This victory could be a big boost for his season.

Akio Toyoda: Toyota president and racer

Just saw that commercial with Mr. Toyoda driving a NASCAR, his Toyota Camry. That's really impressive. I found from this ESPN article that he's a certified test driver! Such a hands-on president certainly enhanced the image of his company. He gotta know a few things about high-performance cars.

Pitchers named Chen in MLB

Can you believe we have two of them starting two days in a row? Chen Wei-Yin 陳偉殷 started for the Baltimore Orioles yesterday (he gave up his first HR in his first pitch to Derek Jeter, the future Hall of Famer) Bruce Chen 陳用彩 will start for the Kansas City Royals today against the Oakland A's. The only other last name that shared the same honor was Garcia (Freddie Garcia for the Yankees yesterday and Jaime Garcia for the Cardinals today)

Wisdom of Pablo Casals

Found this quote of the great cellist Casals in the book I'm reading, "The Cello Suites: J. S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece" by Eric Siblin:

The more worn a string,
the better it sounds.
And do you know when it sounds best of all?
Just before it's about to break.

It's a bit sad, isn't it? Strings are even more fragile and delicate than relationships.

時代正確的電視節目

香港的電視劇錯誤多籮籮，現今的事物及用語出現在古代，已是司空見慣。其實類似的錯誤在外國電視劇也有出現，就像近期常被報導、頗受媒體重視的Mad men，其中一集用了在該集發生時代之後才推出的歌曲，製作人在接獲批評（應該是試映會的視評人吧？）後即重新剪輯該集換掉該曲，確保正式出街版本不會犯同樣錯誤。如果是香港電視台，慳吝的老闆願意再花人力去更正嗎？相信置之不理居多。

Music of the day

本地爵士台KCSM成朝播黃金年代作品

Wynton Kelly: I Want A Little Girl

Milt Jackson: Ruby
Miles Davis: Just Squeeze Me
Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers: Along Came Betty
Bobby Hutcherson: Bouquet
John Coltrane: I Want To Talk About You


好多ballad，正呀！

Spring Break Trip

This has become a yearly tradition, like it or not. Babysitting the kids at home because they have no school is no fun (which I'm doing right now) That's why we try to take a trip during the break. We downsized from going to HK for a week in 09 and 00 to So Cal for 4 days in 01. This year we further downsized to Central Cal for 2 days. We almost had to cancel it because Maddy had a low fever in the few days prior but she seemed to be up for the trip and it turned out to be a fun and relaxing trip (and Maddy recovered during the trip!)

The first stop was Monterey. We had a seafood lunch at the Old Fishermen's Wharf. I haven't been to Monterey in years (I did go to the nearby Laguna Seca for the world's top motorcycle race MotoGP last year) and forgot whether I have been to its Fishermen's Wharf (old or new) before. (BTW, our minivan reached 66666 miles two days after our other car reached 33333. Of course I drove 66 mph for that mile :)

Next we visited Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Lots of old memory to share with the kids. The most interesting one: a scoop of ice cream at Thrifty costed only $0.39 during our college days (well, according to an elder alum, it was even less: $0.25 at his time!) Now it costs $1.69 thanks to inflation (and the need to maximize profit for shareholders?) And the drug store was brought by Rite Aid. Then we headed to the Splash cafe in Pismo Beach for seafood again! We couldn't have enough clam chowder :D And we spent our night there.

The kids woke up even earlier than the days they went to school! So we checked out early and drove to Solvang, the most Danish place outside of Denmark, an hour away. It's perfect time for breakfast when we arrived at the famous Paula's Pancake House (and it filled up a while after we were there) We loved the Danish pancakes, which were thinner and tasted less filling than the traditional (American?) buttermilk pancakes. Of course, we gotta have some Danish pastries! Fortunately it was a "walking-friendly" city so we spent most of our time walking around the few blocks of downtown, including the Hans Christian Andersen Museum. Andersen was the author of The Ugly Duckling, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Little Mermaid and The Princess and the Pea. We even rented a surrey bike (the two-frontwheel-two-backwheel type popular in Hong Kong) for an hour (costed US$25. I bet it's much cheaper in HK) and burned off some of the calories from the pastries :D Solvang was a really cozy little town and worthwhile to visit. We left after lunch and slowly drove back home.

Link to pictures

And just like last Spring Break, I spent some time on road biking. This time I did a 73 mile loop to Pacific coast in preparation for the Sea Otter Gran Fondo, a 96 mile ride, at the end of this month. Man, what a ride: long, windy and steep. It's a few miles longer than the longest I've ever riden (I did 65 miles for Levi Leipheimer's Gran Fondo last October) and it's also the toughest: 2 long climbs and a few shorter ones. I started by going up Page Mill to Skyline, the 1st long climb, then went down West Alpine to Pescadero Creek Road, which had a short climb before a long downhill and then flat to Pescadero. From there I took Stage Road, which had a few short climbs to Highway 1. It's a short but scary downhill because the wind blew so hard and I felt the bike wobbly. Not to mention cars drove by really fast. (BTW, it's the third time I was on Hwy 1 and saw the Pacific Ocean this week) Finally, it's the ultimate long climb: Tunitas Creek Road. The whole road was ~9 mile long and became steep 3 mile into it. The next 3 miles was especially hard. It just seemed never ending and my leg muscle gave it all it had. Finally I reached Skyline but there's still ~2 miles until the summit. Then it's the familiar La Honda downhill ride to Woodside and Palo Alto. I could barely walk when I'm home. The bottom was sore too. To be honest: it's not that fun but it's not for nothing though: I think I'm ready for Sea Otter.

祖兒 @ Peppermill

認識我的朋友可能有點奇怪，我竟然會去看流行歌手演唱會。其實雖然我很少玩流行音樂，卻是幾個歌手及組合（呼之欲出！）的fans（暗地𥚃也練了不少Beatles），十幾年前看過周慧敏在美生堂的演唱會，及早幾年在牛宮看Twins，都記憶猶新。事實上，爵士樂手吸收當代流行曲原素幾近指定動作，舊的jazz standards大都是那時的流行曲不在話下，十幾年前Herbie Hancock就有一張全改編流行曲的New Standards，近期我常聽Stanley Jordan玩Katy Perry的I Kiss A Girl 雖然如此，我對香港樂壇還是十分脫節，容祖兒的CD在家中勉強找到三隻，但她及Twins之後紅起來的歌手我是完全陌生。這次她在Reno的Peppermill賭場開演唱會，是我第一次看她。除了演唱會外，今次Reno之旅也有很多其他第一次:由Bay area至Reno大約三四小時車程，我並不常去，對上一次起碼是十五六年前的事。沿途經過的Lake Tahoe也去得不多，只是去年特地去過滑雪，但路況極佳，全無積雪阻道。今次在Auburn附近看到貨車雪鍊檢查站的告示，再加上電話地圖指原應尚餘二小時的路程還有五小時才能完成，心知不妙（並極期望是地圖軟件有bug）除了數年前在Toronto，今次是我自UWisc畢業後少有的雪地行車經歷，而要在車軚上雪鍊則是首次（記得多年前和姐姐打算出trip時買過一次，卻沒有用上，現在已經不知放在何處）幸好以前有朋友教路：現在雪鍊可以臨時在路邊買，加上安裝費，合共$80。上了雪鍊只能以30mph慢駛，那還是best case scenario，有一段是介乎完全停頓及5mph之間，亦有些路段因為黑暗加上雪不停打在擋風玻璃導致能見度甚低，兼且路面濕滑，很多車即使可以行得更快也沒有，我算比較大膽，在此情況爬了幾次頭。我們的xB就此度過33333這個里程碑，當時速度為33mph，成個dashboard都是3。過了Truckee之後下山一段，雪鍊令解除，可能因為太晚，路邊已沒有拆鍊服務員。駛了一會我們見有一個highway exit，路肩頗寬兼有强猛街燈照射，當機立斷駛到街燈之下自行拆鍊。我們全無拆鍊經驗，唯有刨刨說明書，還原裝鍊的步驟後，再駛前駛後扭左扭右，拉拉扯扯了幾次才「符碌」把雪鍊拆下，居然完整無缺。拆鍊後全速前進，合計用了八個小時才到Peppermill，路上除了聽了三十幾首祖兒的歌，還聽過七十幾首其他中文歌，十幾首中樂，也算是一項紀錄！原定在演唱會開始前兩小時到達，足夠吃晚餐有餘，變成比開場遲了一個半小時才到（據代客泊車說，主辦單位有鑑於路況已特別推遲半小時才開場）入場時應是勁歌熱舞環節尾聲，但也聽到四首歌；然後是「encore」，祖兒唱了大概六七首歌，

包括一首自己彈結他伴奏（那支Taylor結他當然是好東西，她的open chord也彈得有板有眼），也有我至愛的「逃避你」

逃避你　卻又期待我可跟你做情人
而用情的心可天昏地暗
逃避你　愛是遙又遠得很
而我始終不敢靠近
還是不相信能和你合襯

如共你從沒開始　不會有終結
誰人在意　情在我心的深處不可以停止

還以為太舊的歌她不會唱。雖然遲了，我們也看了一個小時她的演出，十分欣賞祖兒演出認真投入及高水準的演唱，絕對不是交行貨唱夠鐘走人那種。

最後想提的是演出場地所在的Peppermill賭場，老實說，如果不是祖兒在那裡開演唱會，很難想像會踏足該處（祖兒為它帶來不少客人！）因為地點不是Reno最旺地帶，我以前從未聽過此酒店。不過房間以至餐廳食物(早上九點去等buffet開始:)質素不俗，而且比起LV便宜不少，也算相當滿意。我去poker room玩兩手，竟然也贏了一個pot，算是交得最少學費的一次。

總括來說，雖然miss了一小時祖兒的演唱會，有點遺憾；這次過雪山也算是畢生難忘的奇妙經歷（當然，這個和唐唐在梳化的奇妙一刻完全是兩回事）

Android Apk Downloader

幾經辛苦，終於下載到香港討論區個apk(Android app installer)，全靠一個Chrome Extension: Apk Downloader(via呢個帖)

棒球季

因為工作地點關係，常常踩單車經過巨人隊的主場AT&T Park。數個月的offseason感覺相當漫長，昨天卻瞥見場內修剪整齊綠油油的草地，彷彿特地擦得光亮的食檔招牌，自自然然意識到regular season即將來臨。事實上，鄰居的Oakland A's明天凌晨將為今季揭幕：遠渡日本戰Seattle Mariners。

「假鷹爪」與「豬籠草」

香港濕地公園的「春日賞花」活動甚為政治正確，既有花瓣外形貌似鷹爪的「假鷹爪」，又有常見於沼澤濕地的「豬籠草」。

With or Without You

剛才車中收音機聽了U2首With or Without You，本來隻碟剛出時我麻麻地鍾意這首歌，直至Friends這集用了，以後聽親都勁好feel，特別是落雨時，好像現在。

曖昧

FM92.3原來日頭都鍾意播王菲首「曖昧」：

茶沒有喝光早變酸　從來未熱戀已相戀 陪著你天天在兜圈　那纏繞怎麼可算短

在公司茶杯常常剩下沒有喝光的茶，唔止變酸，直情發霉。有時鄰坐同事見到會忍唔住幫我倒左去。

The real drama

As much as I like watching good-looking sexy mid-age ladies on TV, I never really get into "Desperate Housewives." However, a recent story about the drama that happened in real-life, or the court room to be specific, has caught my attention: The set construction coordinator for the show testified he received an e-mail that suggested a "conspiracy to cover up" information regarding actress Nicollette Sheridan's lawsuit against ABC and the TV show's producers. Sheridan accuses series creator Marc Cherry of killing her character and ending her employment in revenge for her complaints against him for a slapping incident during a rehearsal. Definitely more interesting than TV :P

太極千字文

大家可能都知韓國人擅於吸收中日文化元素再加以改良（比日本人用中國文化似乎更勝一籌）在亞洲大行其道的韓國電視劇韓國音樂大家不會陌生；以前地位不及日本的韓國圍棋，也早已青出於藍。韓國卡通我倒是今天無意中發現，channel surfing看了這套Tai Chi Chaser。那些憑著法寶對打的場面相信參考自日本的Pokemon, 爆丸，爆旋陀螺等等。我最欣賞的倒是他們的法寶：那是一千個漢字，每字代表一種神通力量，例如水、球、亂、刺等等。我要向韓國人寫的只有一個字：服！

下雨天

很久沒有在星期五返SF辦公，今天為了拿替補壞掉的公事用電腦而破例，正值下雨天; 連續下了幾天雨，據聞還陸續有來，似乎也是替補反常地在冬季沒有怎樣來過的雨季。大家都不太介意吧，踩單車經過Ferry building/Embarcadero 時，特別有feel, 不自禁哼起這首那些年很喜歡的歌:

作曲：黃良升
作詞：小美
編曲：Blue Jeans
又獨行舊地 遇著攔路雨灑遍地
路靜人寂寞 這痛哭的雨途人懶去作躲避
這雨中失意空間 點點雨似滲出眼淚
我置身失意空間 盼雨水沖去徬徨愁懷愁思心碎滋味
對昨天心已死 只想不記起
遺忘眼裡暗帶著希冀

在某雨夜我心愛別離 置身雨中哭泣作逃避
仍然情深我未淡忘 看見雨點假想她在旁
風急雨下假裝上路忙 那知我心沒法可釋放
仍懷念你一再往後看

愛已碰灰 雨也變灰
深宵雨裡陌路徘徊 孤單的心開著舞會
這個雨天 無言流了淚
急風送陌路人 雨中歸去
夜雨催促歸去

一唱就記起Blue Jeans, 林憶蓮反而想了一會才記起。這麼多年前的歌，到剛剛Google 才知那句不太啱音的歌詞是說攔路雨，而失意空間連續出現兩次，也有點敗筆，有負小美填詞界之大名; 旋律倒是歷久常新。

Music of the day: 打雀英雄傳

今日開車聽收音機，竟然聽到爵士版「月兒彎彎照九州」（英文名為Moon Over the World）！到底是誰這樣別出心裁？那是來自鼓手Akira Tana的同名唱片，鋼琴手則是香港的Ted Lo。記得上月友人問我香港有甚麼出名爵士樂手，我即時答他的就是國際級高手包以正及Ted Lo。來自同一大碟的還有「打雀英雄傳」（英文名是Condor Man）應該買來聽聽，開枱時更好氣氛。

遲來的表揚

昨晚一家人吃飯，談起多年前女兒只得四歲幾時發生的一件事:記得有一次我們準備全家去旅行，等到小朋友就寢，好不容易才把大件小件行李裝好車上，終於可以回客廳休息，誰知車房竟然不知何故被鎖上，我們進不回屋裡，雖知正門也已鎖，小朋友小的太小，大的那個（女兒）也從來沒有應門的經驗，而且可能都已熟睡，不過我們還是過去按按門鐘碰碰運氣。幸虧女兒醒瞓，對媽媽的聲音又特別熟悉，膽子也不太小，竟然走來應門，我們隔門教她如何幫忙解困，平時手無搏雞之力的她，不知從何生出一股力氣，把那個不算易解的鎖打開了！事隔多年想起還是一額冷汗。阿女抵讚！

政治不正確的謎語

最近學了這個謎語（猜一字）：
一个日本人，拿了一把刀，杀了一口人，流了四点血。

似乎是來自內地，而且相當政治不正確。 

我教我兒子這個經我sanitized的版本:
太陽熱辣辣，一刀切個瓜，快快咬一口，跌出四粒核。 

殺人變做切瓜，雖然謎底沒有「瓜」，不過本來也沒有「人」呢。

拍拖鳥

一直不為意家門外有一棵生滿小小白花的樹，直至今早踩車，回家時見一對不知名小鳥（麻雀大小但身白頭淺綠）拍拖來開餐，我不想破壞這對情侶的氣氛，想跟它們說樹是阿公種的，我不介意它們慢慢食，無奈不是Dr. Dolittle，一行近準備入屋就嚇走了它們，希望它們之後繼續浪漫吧。

Collegiate Gymnastics

Most of you know that I'm a huge college football fan. Rooting for my Longhorns and Badgers every season. Well, I actually enjoy watching a lot of college sports other than football, like baseball, hockey, lacrosse but the only game I have watch was the Texas Longhorns vs Rutgers Scarlet Knights football game in New Jersey, until this Sunday: the whole family went to the Pac-12 Women Gymnastics competition between Stanford, Arizona and Cal. I could see the appeal to the family. For one thing, it's easier to appreciate than football with all those rules. The girls were young and pretty. Nothing to complain about that! The best thing though is that even the most loyal fans to one school did not root against other teams. No boo-ing when anyone made a mistake. That's definitely more kid-friendly. (Even though they will change for sure when they grow up.)

Live at the Village Vanguard

This is sort-of a follow-up to yesterday's topic of music podcast: I found that NPR is streaming some Live concert at Village Vanguard online, e.g. Fabian Almazan Trio With String Quartet In Concert Interesting!

Classical music podcast

I listened to WGBH's podcast a lot last year but for some reason they stopped releasing new episodes so now I'm looking for alternatives. Just found this Maestro Independent Classical Spotlight

形式vs意義

今早讀過明朝萬歷皇帝要面對一大堆形式多於意義的繁文縟節，今時今日作為凡夫俗子的我們亦不能倖免。此話何來？今天學校「慶祝」Read Across America Day，召了各位家長回校到課室和小朋友一起閱讀半小時。平日大家開車回校只是送子女上學便走，今天都要停車，為了應付此事，我們又要提早出門；至於不能出席的家長，就更感guilty。其實這裡的虎媽督促子女閱讀，每天也不少於半小時吧。

Do we need more Com. Sci. students?

I mean, in Western countries. The reason I'm asking is that the creators of the $35 Raspberry Pi computer said they are building this new programmable machine for a new generation. "Each year we had fewer and fewer students applying, and most of them hadn't really done much more than write a web page," Raspberry Pi co-founder Eben Upton told CNN. In the long term, he hopes the computer will generate an additional 1,000 engineers in the UK each year. I guess it's a good thing to have more software developers locally to drive down the salary. Hopefully low enough such that companies don't need to offshore their development jobs.

A special wedding

What made it special?
It's at a golf course in Pleasanton. Golf course is a popular choice in the States but it's the first time I've been to a wedding at one. It's kinda cold watching the ceremony outdoor though. The flower girl was shivering!
The banquet's theme is bicycling. A tandem bike was on display. And the name of the tables are all famous biking routes like Old La Honda, Crystal Spring, Tamalpais. Guess what the name of the head table was? The road I rode earlier that day: King's Mountain! The bride explained the appearance of the tandem bike in her speech: their relationship grew with it. She felt secured to follow her man in the front. What a moving speech!

First day with new laptop

To me, the name "laptop" has always implied being bulky. I prefer calling my computers "notebook" instead. However, my new computer has a 15" screen so I reluctantly have to accept calling it a "laptop" It is a replacement of my netbook that died last week. It's amazing how I used an undersized and underpowered computer as my main machine for nearly two years. I'm looking forward to a better computing experience with a dual-core CPU and much more screen real estate for multitasking! And it's one of the very few <$1000 computer equipped with Nvidia 3D Vision. Let me share with you my first day experience.

First time starting up didn't seem to take that long. It needed to create user account/directory/desktop. 

Usually I hate computer manufacturer bundling a whole bunch of unnecessary software but it's nice to have Chrome preinstalled already. I just need to fire it up and get the latest update.

Next, I installed Rhapsody's desktop client (for sync-ing subscription music with my players. Yes, I still have standalone music players instead of relying solely on smartphone or tablet. It's easier to sleep with standalone player without worrying about breaking it or draining the battery!)

And I need Audacity for recording homework assignments for music lessons. The beta version works on Vista and 7 (This one comes with Win 7 Home Premium 64bit)

To watch SlingBox streaming on PC, the company now only recommend using the web-based client. I have nothing against web-based client usually. However, I prefer to use a desktop client for Sling because once in a while when I started the web-based client, it requires mandatory updates that takes a while to complete. Man, I just want to spend a little bit time watching a little bit TV!

To view QuickTime streaming video in the browser, I could obviously install QuickTime from Apple but I hate how Apple tried to bundle everything with QuickTime so I opted for QTLite. It has the QuickTime plugin for Chrome (and Firefox if that's your cup of tea)

The biggest attraction of this laptop is its support of 3D Blu-ray. When I put in one, I thought a player would open automatically but nothing happened. So I looked at the preinstalled software. There's a Toshiba Video Player. Tried it but it complained watching DVD requires another player, which didn't make sense at all because my disc is a Blu-ray. Then I tried BD Player. And it is a shortcut to Corel WinDVD (didn't know Corel got into this business. I knew Corel from the Corel Draw software) which works with "normal" Blu-ray disc but I could only see poor "double visioned" video with the 3D Disc. I found a Start menu item for Enable 3D Vision. Turned out it hasn't been enabled yet and I need to do a bit of setup while wearing the 3D glasses. Even after that, the playing of 3D Disc was still bad: lots of big squared "pixels" floated around especially when there's movement. I was so disappointed and not sure whether it's the disc, software or hardware that cause the problem. Fortunately I dug around and decided to go to Toshiba's support site to look for some sort of update (maybe video driver or player?) and found a Corel WinDVD update hidden "between the lines" (literally, under the Toshiba Video Player update!) Once I updated, I started it and followed the recommendation to update its keys (I think it's for decrypting Blu-ray, not the software license) Then I rebooted and kept my finger crossed. Viola! 3D Blu-ray on my laptop! (BTW, 3D video clips from Nvidia's website worked too, even before this update. Watched Joe Satriani played his guitar in 3D. Oh well, I have seen him live quite a few times :P)

The last thing I played with was Bluetooth. I'm familiar with Toshiba's Bluetooth stack. The first time I used Bluetooth audio with a computer was on my old Libretto from 7 years ago. I vaguely remembered lots of hacking was involved. Apparently it has improved after all these years even though it's still not trivial: I clicked on Bluetooth COM on my control panel and went through the steps which seems to enable the whole stack (getting the Bluetooth icon in the bottom-right corner of Windows bar) Then I tried adding a new connection. It recognized my BT stereo headphone when I put the latter in pairing mode. I chose the A2DP profile but connection failed. I realized the headphone has already connected to my phone so I disconnected that and retry and it worked this time. I got to enjoy a few tunes from Rhapsody wirelessly :D

Looking forward to having more fun with it.

太陽能電筒?

我們這個年代的人很多都聽過電影《國產凌凌漆》中這件經典攪笑道具，不過現實世界的確有這件產品，並讓不少發展中國家國民受惠。靠貯存太陽能供電給LED照明的電燈，令他們節省不少燃料費，更不像燒火水般排放CO2污染環境。

總統紀念日長週末遊記

寫完標題，首先想起的是『總統琴行』一曲，然後才是『紀念日』。首先慶祝的倒是女兒的生日，吃從Baskin Robbins 買來upgraded再upgraded 的雪糕蛋糕。接著參加了小朋友以前保母的派對，臨別依依。晚上看久別三個月的NASCAR 看得津津有味。星期天決定外出玩足一天，想了一陣子，否決了Napa(品酒), Point Reyes (觀鳥), Monterey broadwalk（遊樂場）, 還是老地方:金門公國吧。為免『執輸』，九時左右便去了鯉魚門醫肚，邊吃邊看林書豪大戰努域斯基(上屆NBA 總冠軍)，林每一次遠射，上籃，被foul，都是扣人心弦的轉播焦點!之後直闖金門，務求在十一時科學館開門前到達，其實我早已準備好單車，在難找車位的公園，泊車泊得老遠亦不礙事。

我們兵分兩路，對科學館興趣不大的我去了對面受歡迎度稍遜入場劵便宜得多(前者$35vs後者$10)的De Young 藝術館。De Young 一般將展品分於兩區:一為常規展品，二為需另加錢觀看從外借的『名器』例如兩年前從巴黎Musee d'Orsay借來的一批包括梵高等印象派名家作品，參觀人數激增，記得當年我們去看，人山人海。昨天De Young並無特別展覽，難怪人流較少，但絕非門堪羅雀。新展出的一些作品頗為發人心省：探討人性的負面，包括戰爭及破壞環境；前者有Stephen De Staebler木乃伊一般的人形雕塑，後者則有Jason Walker一隻形似吞下燈泡的藍鳥的茶壺。看完一批抽象主義畫作，想起De Young的入場券也適用於三英里外的Legion of Honor藝術館。你說我cheap我也不否認，$10元看兩館的誘惑實在太大！從金門公園到34街上Legion of Honor有段Category 5斜路，用我帶去的3 speed摺車上不算難也不算易。Legion of Honor的『常規』展品似乎也是一般水準，有點幸運看到最後一天展出從羅馬借來的Bernini's Medusa雕刻；更幸運的是適逢Ariel Ensemble表演室樂，從近距離欣賞Mendelsohn的弦樂四重奏實是樂事。回到金門，在De Young的Cafe像遊客般吃個不算貴得過份的late lunch後，和兩個反斗星踩了一會單車，是時候訓練下他們上斜下坡的能力了，不經不覺已是五時，到中餐館斬點料回家作晚餐，結束了我的長週末。

The day after the day after Valentine's day holiday

I don't know what it is officially called but my kids' school indeed have today, tmw as well as next Mon (President's day) off. So I have no choice but to take a day off with them as well. To prepare for this, I slept for 10 hours on the Valentine's night. Then the "celebration" began on Wednesday with a dinner at the Sushi boat restaurant nearby (it's the first time my son has been to one, unlike his sister :P) And a 3+ hr TV marathon afterwards: 1 documentary (about female orgasm), 1 episode of sitcom (How I Met Your Mother), 1 episode of cartoon (Transformers Prime), 1 motorcycle race (endurocross: an man-made obstacle course within an arena), 1 kickboxing match, 1 Rugby Seven final (the one just played in Las Vegas. What a dramatic finish!)

After a good night of sleep (no need to wake up early to make breakfast for kids), I decided to cycle with the kids to Stanford, which easily killed off 3 hours (2 hour round-trip ride + 1 hour lunch) Then I had some free time for myself. My activity is usually very predictable: either biking or golfing. I chose the latter (at my favorite 9 hole: Sunken Garden, where my buddies and I spent a lot of time way back). I try to play at least once (even if it's just a 9-hole course) per year. I shot a birdie at a Par-3 today! (Haven't done that for years :P Not that I played a lot) The "big finish" was supposed to be a visit to the Triton Museum in Santa Clara. I did go but it was a brief visit. Long story: anyone with any museum experience has probably seen some areas in museum being closed off to prepare for new exhibitions. And probably was curious what it looks like when an exhibition is being prepared. Well, for a small museum like Triton, when it needs to change to new exhibitions, it either closes off the whole place or let visitors see the "secret." And Triton did the latter. So I spent 10 min walked around and saw old exhibition pieces that were taken off lying on the floor and new pieces still wrapped waiting to be hanged up! Not a bad finish of my day off.

Guitar Heroes

This is not about the video game (which I indeed played) but an exhibition with the same name in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met). It will end on July 4th and it's unlikely that I would see it in person. I did browse through the collection online, including John Monteleone's Four Seasons: a set of four archtop guitars. Even though I didn't see the real thing, I was able to hear them via Anthony Wilson's album: Seasons, which contains the suite written for a performance of these 4 guitars at the Met by 4 top NYC jazz guitarists from the new generation, plus other pieces played live at the same concert.

「新遮」

在讀書時代在女人街買的一把縮⻣遮，左爛右破，竟然用到去年Spring Break；終於買了一把替代品，那是有防風吹反功能的新設計。但買了差不多一年，只試過幾次毛毛雨也打開它過一過癮，卻未曾經歷任何真正考驗！今早終於有一場夠大的雨讓它派上用場。雖然我不喜歡被雨水沾濕（特別是近年多了踩單車），倒也不介意今週下點雨，讓這裡喜歡滑雪的朋友享受下真雪；也算是上天為薄命的Whitney Houston流點眼淚吧。總之不要下太多，令上山之路太難行就好了。

Music of the day: Folk Art by Joe Lovano

I can't believe this album went completely under my radar when it was released in 2009. Fortunately Stereophile magazine mentioned it recently. Lovano was backed by a new band (including bassist Esperanza Spaulding,.before she won her Grammy ) and he wrote new tunes (all of them) on it. I just listened to this ballad "Wild Beauty" which lived up to it's title. Lovano's ballad always impresses me.

The RAZR Fit Driver vs. The Bellagio Fountains TV Commercial

This is a cool commercial. A lot of us are familiar with that lake. Having a golfer hitting a ball over it with a new driver is a great way to promote it for sure. I wonder if he did it so perfectly with his first shot though.

Keep on rockin' in the free world

Just read this story about Apple's ambition to improve the fidelity of music downloads has diminished since the death of founder Steve Jobs, according to singer-songwriter Neil Young. The most interesting part though, was that Young embraced illegal music downloads. "Piracy is the new radio," said Young, whose music has long had a rebellious streak. "I look at the Internet as the new radio. I look at the radio as gone."

I can totally understand. A lot of musicians made money from live performance (the drinks and the merchandises) Their cut from "legal" download or CD sale were small. I heard that some musicians signed contract that doesn't even include the cut from download, i.e., the record company keeps all of that.

The Chairman and the controversy

"Chairman" is the name of a food truck I saw at Folsom and 2nd St in SF the other day. Definitely a flashy sounding name! I didn't try the food though so don't know how good it is. I did google about it afterwards and found that it was involved in a controversy: the truck was originally named "Chairman Bao", which is the same as the top-selling item by a NYC shop called Baohaus (another great name BTW) Baohaus' owner was really upset that someone took that name. Looks like the truck owner gave in and changed the name! Not sure who to side with on this one but I guess both party should be happy that lives go on.

Contador banned

"This is just a very sad day for cycling." I'm quoting pro-cyclist Andy Schleck here and I agree with him (for me personally, it's more sad yesterday because I got 2 flat tires during my ride) For a casual cyclist like me, watching Alberto Contador climbing up hills like they are nothing was simply amazing. To me, he's superman. Oh well, using banned substance tarnishes his reputation forever. Just like my other favourite sports star Barry Bonds. Andy Schleck who finished 2nd to Contador at 2010 Tour De France will likely to be declared as champion instead. What if the same happened to US Sports? USC should have been taking away their football national championships on the years that Reggie Bush played (And the Heisman he won should have been given to Vince Young!) How about New England Patriots' "spygate"? Are they guilty of cheating by spying other team's practice during the years they won the superbowl? How long will the curse of spygate lasts? Patriots have lost 2 superbowls after that controversy already!

二月了

除夕開party的記憶猶新，原來眨下眼2012年已過去了12分之一！整個月好像沒有做過甚麼，事實上有半個月是活在jet lag之中，認真過份。由去年十月底萬聖節開始的holiday mood，好像一直無停過；農歷新十五將至，還等著和一些朋友吃開年飯呢。跟著情人節又到，之後又有Spring break，暑假還遠嗎？

Open house

It's open house at my kids' school again. Obviously it happened at normal class time, which means regular working hour for those parents with day jobs. Fortunately the American society values family activities highly. Not sure how working parents in Hong Kong could do the same though. Today I saw the digital white board in action for the first time. We should have one of these at work! Well, I guess my company has to cut cost to pay my salary so I could pay tax to school district so they could spend on fancy gadgets. That's how money moves around.

In the 3rd grade classroom, there is a list named "Ways to choose books." #2 item on the list is: "cover looked interesting." And #4 is: "interesting title." Now you know how to be a successful book writer! The outside is as important as the content! I guess these apply to how people choose phones too.

Another poster teaches how to deal with boring moments. #1 thing to do is keeping your body and eyes turned towards the teacher. Yep, that also works when you're with your wife or boss.

The last revelation is what our next generation want to be when they grow up. Doctor is still the most popular choice in spite of the ongoing medical reform for which reports claim doctors are going bankrupt. A few wanna be teachers. The most ambitious one wanted to become the best tennis player in the world. Good lucky girl! Just need to adapt to the grunting standard in the future :P The one that's really puzzling says he wants to "adlt". He either just wanna be an adult (hopefully without too much effort) that doesn't care about "u" or an auditor.

帝王之路

皇帝有座山，叫做皇帝山；上山果條路，就係King's Mountain Road；這條路在灣區單車界薄有名氣，僅稍遜於附近的Old La Honda Road（OLH），卻比後者要長，在MapMyRide屬Category 1 Climb，難度不低。
早幾天（住老遠的）同事說起會去，我亦有此意。昨晚大吃大喝，也夾了一會Canon，不忘叫培正老友今早一起上King's Mountain Road消滅點卡路里。六時起床匆匆出車，天仍全黑！倒是小事，最難頂的是雙手涷到僵，真後悔沒有戴上次熱到全是汗的fleece手套，到Sand Hill Road時已比原定時間遲了廿分鐘！正不好意思，但竟然不見老友，連忙取出電話check check。老友留了VM說昨晚飲太多所以肚痛不能出車，時為7:20am，雙手幾近全無知覺，內心掙扎要否打退堂鼓？邊掙扎邊踩，不久就到Tripp Road及King's Mountain交叉點，向左走向右走？再check email，見同事回覆confirm晚點會來，大家在路上見吧。此時有點騎虎難下，想想再過一會應更暖，而上山的風反而不如下山般勁吹雙手，加上面子攸關，上！後來也覺得這是明智決擇：天氣好得不得了，山上風景宜人。之前的折騰盡拋諸腦後，不當一回事了。(BTW，最後也沒有碰上應比我踩得快的同事們，唯有立此存照:P)

十五分鐘，陰與晴

今早早餐後望望窗外，無雨但灰濛濛。內心掙扎了一會：是否出車呢？按早兩日的觀卦，似乎不宜出，但觀望態度很快被搏一搏心態蓋過！馬上全副裝備上身，一踩到街口，即見濃霧籠罩，感覺頗為不妙；但出了車就很少回頭，開燈硬著頭皮上吧。幸好十五分鐘後，天氣豁然開朗，踩到上山，不但霧已散，雲也剩下不多，實在是踩單車的理想天氣！難道有時真要信信gut feeling，衝一衝再算？

Good books 好讀 2011

閱讀一向是我的頭號興趣（雖然花在看電視的時間亦不少，但我媽媽好proud的說她兒子之所以近視是因為小時候太多時間在光線不足情況下閱讀！）去年尾開始讀的是入選好讀網世紀百强的白先勇《台北人》，尚未讀完，容後再談（題外話：記得那些年追女仔扮文化人就是送她一本白先勇作品）之前寫過This is Your Brain on Music的讀後感；今次也介紹一本小說、一本音樂書。

小說是近年我追捧的日本推理小說作家（作品包括《白夜行》《嫌疑犯X的獻身》）東野圭吾的《使命與心的極限》。日本推理小說的案情佈局奇詭不在話下，不過其真正特色是借奇情剖白人性及社會現象等等，這本小說是最佳示範：本來各不相干的名醫及電機工程師，但作者就有本事巧妙地把他們拉在一起，探討醫者醫德，大企業社會責任等等。

另一本則是我在2010年第一次買的Amazon Kindle電子書，Tim Brookes寫的《Guitar》。 讀了年多才讀完，倒不是因為內容欠吸引，只是書在電腦電話入面，通常都是在無法上網的情況才會打開解悶。其實對於結他迷是一本相當有趣的書：本書的形式是兩條主線梅花間竹，一是結他幾百年歷史，由發明講到今時今日；二是作者本人訂造一支結他，專訪師傅製作過程，由零開始講到完成。兩者我都讀得津津有味；雖然聽結他音樂多年，有很多細節還是令我大開眼界。

風地觀

今日初三赤口，本地無車公廟，要占卦，唯有DIY，找來三個洋紫荊香港一元，起了一課，得風地觀：盥而不薦，有孚顒若。全卦均無變爻。僅一個「觀」字已經很有啟發，明顯就是要抱持觀望態度，謀定而後動。

Warrior (the movie)

One "behavioral change" for me in the past decade is definitely that I watched much less movies. Most of the movies I watched are at movie theater to bond with my kids (ok. I mean killing time when they have breaks from school :P) There are very few movies that I really want to watch instead of spending the precious 1.5-2 hour on other more "worthy" activities. For 2011, the must-watch movie for me was the Transformers: Dark of the moon. (and to a lesser extent, 那些年，我們一起追的女孩) However, there are occasions that watching movies was the best thing to do. You know what I'm talking about? Taking a long flight of course! I would not have been to the theater or even borrow from the library for the 2 movies I watched during my flights between US and HK! However, to my surprise, they turned out to be very entertaining. I picked Warrior near the beginning of the flight and I fell asleep quickly. Nevertheless, I gave it another chance when I woke up and I glad I did. You might think it's a typical movie about fighter, who begun as an underdog and became the unlikely champion eventually. Warrior is kinda like that except the story has 2 main characters who were fighters. So each of them had his unique backstory and obviously they can't both win so the ending was still a suspense. A couple of interesting points:
1) these 2 are MMA (Mixed Martial Art) fighters instead of the more familiar boxer (i.e., Rocky) I am a huge MMA fan and this is the first MMA related movie I watched. Of course there were many fights in the movie. Those were pretty good fights.
2) The school Physics teacher turned fighter theme actually happened in real life: Rich "Ace" Franklin was a Math teacher before he turned professional fighter. (He has a Bachelor in Math and a Master in Education!) I read that another movie will be made based on Franklin's life story.

The other movies I watched was Captain America. Again, the plot was your good old superhero vs superevil but it was still fun to watch the superhero struggled in the beginning (being used as a promoter of the US government bond propaganda) It's ironic.

Day 1 of the year of Dragon

In the age of Facebook, everybody posts greetings to others regarding Chinese New Year. I'll try to write some other feelings on this blog post instead. To be honest, there isn't really much CNY atmosphere here in the Bay Area unless you try hard to look for it. This New Year day is a Monday so it's a work day for me. I won't have anything special to do if I take today off anyway. However, I was told that it's a Chinese tradition to take off New Year day. The purpose is to prevent one from working all year long! Well, there's something new to learn every day! And my Chinese New Year resolution is to try updating this blog more often. For some reason it gets pretty good traffic so I gotta put up something new more often so as not to disappoint my readers!

My Android 4.0 Experience

As I mentioned in my previous post about my Android tablet, my plan was to upgrade it to 4.0 after using it with 2.3 for a while. I found the post about Android 4.0 beta on the forum on Teclast's official website and there's a link to download the RAR file. Un-rar the file and it contains instructions as well as binaries for the upgrade.

So, what do I like about Android 4.0 (beta)? To be honest, this doesn't seem to be a "must-have" upgrade for the time being (However, I could imagine a few years down the road, new apps won't run on 2.3 anymore. Just like a lot of iOS app these days requires 3.1 or even 4.0 or above.) The browser seems smoother and supports tabbed browsing (it's harder to switch between opened "windows" in the 2.3 browser) In addition, it doesn't require another app to turn on Airplane mode like 2.3. It is part of the "Settings"

The biggest problem with this beta upgrade though, is that it doesn't include the Market (where we download Apps) The closest "replacement" for the Market is freewarelovers.com. I found quite a few APK (App installer files. Simply double click in File Manager and it will install the corresponding app) I got other APK by Googling. And here is what I have installed:
-Youtube
-Chinese News Online
-PalmBookReader: 直讀中文(cBook) for some reason doesn't work even though I found its APK. This is its replacement.
-Amazon Kindle
-Rhapsody: it is the official app for the music streaming service. At first, playback always fails after playing a few seconds of each track and will skip to the next one. The problem kinda went away after I checked the box Advanced Settings->Disable track pre-loading
-Pandora
-GoKeyboard: this is the input method that replaced "Baidu input" that came with the tablet originally on 2.3. Not an exact replacement though because it uses Cangjie (倉頡) instead of hand writing recognition.
-XiiaLive Lite
-Facebook

Hopefully Teclast will release an "official" non-beta Android 4.0 upgrade that includes the Market in the near future. In the mean time, I'll keep using the beta (unless there's an app I need so bad that I have to revert back to 2.3, which could be done by downloading the firmware from Teclast)

A few good Apps

Talking about Android Apps here, this is a followup to my previous post. I've tried many free Apps in the past 2 weeks, a lot of them are just so-so or simply doesn't work, here are a few useful ones:
1) BBC News Reader: an "unofficial" BBC News app that could download articles for offline viewing.
2) CNN News: another "unofficial" app that works offline
3) Chinese News Online (HK): this app offers many different Chinese newspapers.
4) MoboPlayer: this is for playing back video in MKV format, which the built-in movie player cannot handle.
5) XiiaLive Lite: this is for listening to free streaming radio from ShoutCast. To make it work, I have to change Settings->Advanced Users->Internal stream engine from 'Off' to 'On' though.

Finally, there are a few games I like:
- 麻將天下
- GoldMiner
- SpeedCar
- AirPenquin

聖誕書展2011

今次是連續兩年逛大眾書局攪的書展，地點同樣是在灣仔的會展，不同的是去年收入場費，今年則是免費。另一點有所不同，我認為比去年做得較差的是書籍分類，記得去年少部份是以出版公司分成一個個檔位，大部份書還是按題材類別來排，所以我輕易找到要看要買的單車書及音樂書。今年卻全部按出版公司來分，個別題材如旅遊要逛足每一檔才看得全。去年我買了四本書，今年？零！除了找書難，可能也和收入場費與否不無關係。

那麼這是否一無收穫？我又不覺得。記得數十年前香港和美日台相比，被認為不存在甚麼閱讀文化，書店一般都把書排得密密麻麻，工具書參考書經典作品再加一點通俗讀物就是一切；還記得爸爸說，和香港人不同，坐長途機的外國客都是人手一卷，外國機場書店生意很好。今時今日，從書展及書局可見，香港人感興趣的題材廣泛了很多，已培養出健康的閱讀文化。今天讀了介紹腕錶、單車遊青藏等書，均是本地作品，水準甚高。

一千港元樓下Android tablet使用報告

雖然不是Apple fans(對於此品牌過份及不合理地受歡迎簡直相當反感)不過一直以來卻是Apple iOS的用家。皆因在美國比Apple便宜很多很多，但功能夠用的電話及tablet，十分難找。回到香港情況很不同，一下機就看到由Twins做封面的E-Zone，介紹一千港元左右的7吋Android tablet。結果我買了最平，$899的Teclast P76ti，之後一期由官恩娜做封面的E-Zone正是用這部機示範升級Android 4.0。我已計劃升級至4.0，不過還是想使用2.3一段日子，將來可以作比較。

使用Android我是零經驗，一開始最不解的是最頂的Status bar，那些icons不是每個按下去都有用，每下載及安裝完App後出現的icons又不會自動消失，Googled才知可以把這個bar向下拉顯示icons代表的notifications，可按Clear清除 icons及notifications。另一個問題是輸入繁體中文，三個預裝的輸入法均找不到如何手寫並出繁體，想從Market安裝倉頡輸入法也找不到合適的。結果還是從預裝其中的Baidu輸入法入手，選取了常規設置中的簡繁轉換，即可手寫出繁體！（本文有一少半是在該tablet上手寫的）

尚未有解決辦法的問題還有一大堆，最嚴重的是battery life流失得頗快，不過幾小時已跌破15%出Notification，在Notification可打開Battery Usage，顯示75%用於Cell standby，問題是這是一部全無流動電話／上網功能的tablet，根本無需費電力於Cell radio之上，更麻煩的是除了該Notification無其他途徑打開Battery Usage！第一樣改的是關掉所有Mobile network的Data相關選項，下一步是嘗試幾個不同的App/widget，包括Juice Defender, NoBars, Battery Widget, Free Power Widget。Battery Widget能顯示Battery Usage頁；而Free Power Widget則可以將機轉至Airplane mode。雖然如此，電池還是流失得比期望中快，更令我失望的是Cell Standby維持在75%左右。

最後想提的問題是有些知名App，例如Rhapsody及QR Droid等，均無法在Market找到；即使裝了Market Enabler這個任用家選擇不同國家／電訊公司對應Market的App，還是找不到以上。裝了幾個免費QR Code Scanner都不能使用，可能和這部機只有一個前置鏡頭有關吧。

短短數天，也發掘了不少好App，讓我介紹／表揚下吧：
1)MapDroyd：可下載各地地圖，在機上離線(offline)使用。
2)ColorNote：簡單易用的寫note軟件。

至於Facebook, Yahoo Mail, GMail, Hotmail, Google Docs, YouTube, Amazon Kindle這些官方App，基本上都符合對那些公司的期望，沒有太多驚或喜。

東涌逸東村來回迪欣湖

「唔踩唔知身體好」繼年初在香港和老友踩單車來回大圍及大尾篤，年尾再接再厲，原班人馬encore轉戰歷史遠不如吐露港悠久的東涌逸東村來回迪欣湖路線。其實此路線比較起上次的要短，對單車技術要求亦不高，只是最後有一小段斜坡，其難度及挑戰性在於路線很迂迴曲折，不是一條單車徑踩到盡，幸好有心的發燒友把發掘出的路線透過網站（本連結）公諸於世，包括沿途拍照，圖文並茂（租車店本身亦有照片），大家既可以按圖索驥；更可以預先下載座標數據至GPS。當然，好勝的我們不願完全依賴前人，走點冤枉路又算得甚麼？

不過我的好勝心比起驚青感還是有所不及，事前曾盡力記憶路線特別蹊蹺之處，無耐歲月不饒人，能記得上的實在有限，迷路自是少不了。

該網頁作者說他邊踩邊拍照，共花了六小時；我們則是邊踩邊吹水講古，亦花了六小時！（其中一秒望到蒙嘉慧，我見到鄭伊健隨其後，所以頗為肯定那是Yoyo）

讓我也分享一點點經驗吧： 1)第一個關鍵，就是要走中石化油站旁那條極不起眼，勉強算是路的路。
2)到達那條橋，只能爬上，推，再爬下，低頭推車穿過橋底，最後再爬上；用勁抬車吧。
3)見到欣澳站，要使用和汽車相同的路線入迪，要踩馬路，見到第一個迴旋處，轉入迪士尼的方向和迪欣湖相同；到第二個迴旋處，迪士尼的方向和迪欣湖完全180度相反，請注意。

Music of the day: Dusty Porch by John Williams

This John Williams is not the famous composer (most well known for his movie soundtrack), not the famous classical guitarist but an acoustic blues musician. I am trying to learn as much as I can about acoustic blues and found his album Dusty Porch on Rhapsody. He has the classic acoustic blues sound.

Music Evolution

I have been reading a new book called "Raggin' Jazzin' Rockin': A History of American Musical Instrument Makers" and watching the documentary "Metal Evolution" recently. It's true that when you think you know a lot about certain topics, there are actually so much more than you don't know. I have listened to drums/percussions in rock/jazz/classical music all these years and just learned that cymbal was originated from the Asia Minor area years ago (i.e., modern Turkey) and was related to the goddess Cybele. The famous cymbal brand Zildjian is the last name of the Turkish alchemist, Avedis Zildjian. He applied his alchemy knowledge into making the loud sounding cymbal. Classical composers started making use of this instrument and its unique effect more and more. His descendents emmigrated to the States and worked with jazz drummers like Gene Krupa to make cymbals suitable for their needs and thus had a big impact on jazz music. I'm still reading the book. The other chapters are about other American instrument makers like Steinway, C.G.Conn......

Before watching "Metal Evolution", I've never thought of the connections between metal and classical/blues/jazz. Most metal fans know Black Sabbath was the forerunner of metal but I'm not sure how many people know the first few notes from their song that bears the same name as the band, Black Sabbath, were inspired by a theme from "Mars" of Holst's "The Planet" suite. Bruce Dickenson from Iron Maiden and Rob Halford from Judas Priest both said they got the high pitch singing and those dramatic moves they made on stages from opera. Also, virtuoso like Paganini could be considered as forefather of metal guitarists. Just like blues, a lot of metal music is based on riffs. And those screaming from blues men paved way to metal vocal. Finally, Bill Ward (drummer of Black Sabbath) cited hard pounding jazz drummers like Buddy Rich as his influence. Looking forward to the rest of the series.

Highlights of the weekend: music and sports

The weekend was officially kicked off on Friday night when my daughter's piano recital started. I enjoyed her performance as well as other students'. It really reflected their dedication to music and the effort they put in. I had an early start on Saturday: biking Hillsborough with my buddy. We tried a new route: we turned into Polhemus Rd from Crystal Spring, then rode up Bunker Hill Rd. It was rather steep and we loved it. The only setback was getting a flat tire (and fell), not on the hill but on the bike path back to Foster City! Fortunately I got help from my buddy. BTW, he also shared some of his wisdom during the ride: we talked about high efficiency was causing job losses in the States. Then I told him my frustration with the cable company: I went there twice to get the faulty cable box replaced and still couldn't get one that worked! He said it was a good thing. I've helped the economy. The inefficiency was the reason that service center needed so many staff! 真是聞君一席話，勝讀十年書。

It's band practice night on Sat. I spent a few hours the night before to prepare by making a drum track for "Black Hole Sun" using WinMMA. We made some good progress that night. Really looking forward to the upcoming recital.

There were 2 championship events on Sunday (both are outside the 4 major US sports) NASCAR's Sprint Cup season concluded in Miami. Before this last race, Tony Stewart trailed Carl Edwards in the championship standing by only 3 points. And it was all about these 2 guys in the race. They finished 1-2 and Stewart won the championship. The last 10 "playoff" race of the season was really exciting to follow. I enjoyed this season. (Of course, it helped when it's not Jimmy Johnson winning the championship again)

Next, it was the MLS cup final between LA Galaxy and Houston Dynamo. This is the type of final I enjoyed the most 'coz would be happy to see any of them win. Of course I was a bit happier when the Galaxy won. This could be David Beckham's final MLS game. At the end, star power prevailed: Beckham and Keane assisted Landon Donovan to score the lone and winning goal. I also want to mention one more championship event on Sat (that I didn't watch) It's the President's cup, the USA vs International team golf competition. USA clinched it when Tiger Woods won his single match. It gave me a glimpse of hope that the old Tiger will be back. This post is special because it's likely to be the last one automatically sync from 00zine to Facebook Notes. Facebook will be turning off the RSS sync functionality on 11/22. [Update: it "missed the boat" and never made it to FB]

Music of the day: Worlds Torn Asunder by Warbringer

Found this on Rhapsody Editorial:

This Cali neo-thrash quintet finds some tasty dynamics amid the machine-gun playing, exclamation-point yelling, and gallows humor of their third album.

Sounds like good old thrash metal to me.

Sports highlights: Breeder's Cup, MLS Playoff

I know we're in the middle of the college and pro football season but the most high profile game: #1 LSU vs #2 Alabama was a snoozefest. I'd rather write about 2 not-quite-mainstream events from the past weekend. First, there was a horse race, the Breeder's Cup, on Saturday. 'Game On Dude' was in the front for most of the race but Drosselmeyer came from behind and outside to beat it by a neck. Even more interesting was the back story: winning jockey Mike Smith was the ex-boyfriend of the jockey on Game On Dude, Chantal Sutherland. She is a former model and part time actress, and she would have been the first female rider to win the race. Then were semifinals of Major League Soccer in US on Sunday. I usually dislike any team from LA but Galaxy is an exception, thanks to David Beckham. They played against Real Salt Lake Sunday night, around the same time as Sunday Night Football. I had both games on and actually paid more attention to the former. So glad to see they won and going to the final, with an assist from Beckham and a goal from Robbie Keane. Their opponent in the final would be Houston Dynamo. I don't mind either team winning it all (the current Houston team was moved from San Jose originally)

Music of the day: the pop songs that my daughter knows

The Chinese channel was showing a Taiwanese drama and was playing its theme song, which is basically a generic "adaptation" of current US pop music. I asked my daughter "doesn't the chorus sound like Firework?" (Katy Perry's hit song from last year) She thought about it a bit and agreed. Then she told me the song Dynamite (which I don't like) was also very popular. I said "don't you think the verse of this song also sound like Dynamite?" It was one of the moment I felt I was so connected to my daughter and her generation.

Music of the day: 楊雪霏

一個可能令人想起台劇偶像的名字。她那散發著藝術家氣息的外表，對我來說可比擁有天使面孔（可能是人工）的台劇偶像吸引得多。楊雪霏是中國第一位進入音樂學院的古典結他演奏家，十四歲那年在馬德里演出包括Rodrigo的名曲時，Rodrigo也是坐上客！結他宗師John Williams亦欣賞楊的演奏，送了兩支他的結他給她和她就讀的音樂學院。兩年前她來SF演出我因事忙不能出席，幸好今年她重臨SF。音樂會上半部包括大家耳熟能詳改編自Bach無伴奏小提琴的Sonata No.1，幾首西班牙名家作品，包括她十四歲那年在馬德里演奏的Rodrigo作品。下半部亦同樣由舊至新，演出改編自Chopin的兩首waltz，難度奇高；新的則是巴西風：bossa nova大師Jobim以及紀念Baden Powell的作品。可見她的風格十分廣泛。我今年只看了一場古典結他音樂會，算得上貴精不貴多。

Music of the day: Bay Area Thrash

I had a post about my 1990 experience earlier this month and I'm writing another one again :P Those years were indeed special to me. I learned about my favourite bands then, e.g. Metallica, Testament, Slayer (yeah, there were some non-metal bands like the Cure, Depeche Mode and Pink Floyd) I could still remember my first metal concert, Slayer and Testament, at Austin City Coliseum 20 years ago. I headbangged all night and the neck was sore the next day :P I tried to catch Testament's concert whenever I can in the last 20 years and I've listened to every album they released (I haven't done that for any other band, not even Pink Floyd and the Beatles :P) I guess it's because of their consistency: they released a new album every few years (except 99-08 when the vocalist Chuck Billy was recovering from health issue) and they stick with their original root and never abandon their fan base by selling out like Metallica did (I mean, it's OK to experiment. OK to have a fun album like Garage Days but songs from Loaded are just lame. Even the most commercial album of Testament sounded heavy) I went to Testament's concert at Warfield last night and it was special (yeah, every concert is special :P) because it symbolized the revival of thrash metal, at its birthplace (SF Bay Area) no less! The opening bands included Death Angel, who also hailed from the Bay Area like Testament did. (BTW, they closed their set with a song, Relentless Revolution, which was indeed a reflection of our time)
Even though Testament's co-headliner Anthrax was not from the Bay Area, they talked about the heydays of thrash metal when they had concerts at Kabuki (now became a restaurant) in SF. Of course, the Warfield Theatre had its share of fame in thrash metal too: Slayer's classic concert video was shot there. If I remember correctly, this was the first time I saw Anthrax live. I actually had bought only one of their album, State of Euphoria from 1988, on a cassette (heavy metal on cassette was hard to find in HK. I didn't listen to any Testament and Slayer until my dad bought me a CD player. My classmate's older brother recorded his LP of Metallica's And Justice for All... for us.) I gotta admit I didn't enjoy Anthrax at first but a US$5 cassette was a lot of money to me and I'm willing to listen to it a few times before I put it aside forever (It's sad that in the US$0.99-per-MP3 era, music doesn't get 2nd chance) Even after a few times, I only liked the song Antisocial, which was a cover version ironically. (Yes, I learned the word from this song) I sang the loudest when Anthrax played Antisocial last night! It's also a reflection of our time: the lyric is all about greed of the riches. They are the ones that are antisocial! (BTW, the original lyric by Trust was in French and was even more critical of the dehumanizing pace of modern life and work in large cities.)
These guys are not afraid of speaking the truth and that's why I am a thrash metalhead for life!

[Update: I was wrong about the first time seeing Anthrax live. I forgot I saw the Anthrax with John Bush as vocalist live at the Roxy's in NY back in 2000]

Sports lowlights: Goodbye Dan Wheldon

I have been following the IndyCar season all year long. It was an up-and-down season for me because I hoped to see Will Power successfully challenged the 2-time defending (3-time overall) champ Dario Franchitti. Will Power had a good lead during the 1st half. Then he had a bad stretch until Franchitti suffered the same fate. Power regained his lead after the last few road courses and lost it again on oval. The race at Las Vegas on Sunday was supposed to bring the whole series to a new height by having yet another title decided on the very last race of the season. Unfortunately, 2-time Indy 500 winner and former series champ Dan Wheldon died from a 15-car crash during this race. He was a well-liked fellow on and off the track. It was a great loss of the motorsport community. For a skillful driver like him, it's strange that he didn't get to compete the full schedule of IndyCar. While he wasn't racing, he worked as an announcer for IndyCar broadcast and also helped testing the next generation chasis. Ironically, this new chasis tested by him and will be used next year is supposed to be safer in the sense that it is harder for a car hitting the end of another car and got airborned (which cause Wheldon's death) The chasis will be named after Wheldon. And he will surely be remembered by motorsports fans. RIP.

巨星隕落

我想大家都知我指的是Steve Jobs，他去世後，連日來一大堆人吹捧他為天才甚至偉人，略嫌誇張。不過以他的星級魅力，稱他為巨星，絕對實至名歸。雖然我不欣賞他公司旗下大部份產品，但一部Apple][就已贏得我對他一份尊敬。今早踩單車我特地繞道到他家憑弔，街邊已放了防止泊車及禁止汽車駛入橫街的圍欄，相信周末場面會更墟冚。以前我們為蘋果日報寫矽谷手記專欄的日子，必定會寫這單大新聞。想不到今天竟然倒過來被蘋果日報記者採訪！

My Rodeway Inn Story

Most of you knew that I've recently participated in the Levi Leipheimer's King Ridge Gran Fondo, a biking event in Santa Rosa. Thank you all for your support and advices. What I'd like to share in this post though, is a little story about the motel I stayed at before the ride (Santa Rosa is 3 hours from where I live so I decided to stay at a motel nearby the night before instead of getting up at 3am in the morning to drive there from home :P) The budget (i.e., cheap) motel chain has very special meaning to me even though I've never stay in any Rodeway Inn before last weekend. The story went way back to 1990, the year I came to University of Texas for undergrad. My family has decided to allow/sponsor me to study in US a little bit less than a year before. When I got admitted to UT and decided to study there, it was only 2-3 months before the school started (Aug 1990) Almost no one in my family and circle of friends knew much about studying in US and we pretty much prepared the whole thing on our own, based on the info/suggestion from the foreign student office of UT. Regarding housing, I found out I had way passed the deadline to apply for domitory so that was out of the equation. Foreign student office recommended me to contact the Hong Kong Student association (HKSA) immediately for help with temporary accomodation (e.g., staying at one of fellow student's place) There was also a list of motels in case I couldn't get any help. That was the days before internet was popular. I had to write a letter and mailed to the address of the chairman of HKSA. I got no reply before I boarded my flight so I was prepared for Plan B (take a cab when I touchdown to the first motel on the list, Rodeway Inn Austin)

View Larger Map In fact, I've practiced what to say to the cab driver and the motel reception in my head many times on and before the flight!

So, how come I said earlier I've never stayed at Rodeway Inn? Well, it's all because of the curiosity of one gal named Angel (Hello if you read this) It turned out the chairman was out of town and never get to read the letter. His apartment was subletted out to another dude. Angel was his girlfriend and saw the letter lying around his apt, a few hours before I arrived. For some reason (sixth sense?), she thought it might be a good idea to open and read the letter in case it has any importance (maybe because it's addressed to HKSA) They decided to help but they didn't have a car so they called another dude (nicknamed 周昌) and 周昌 arrived literally seconds before I got off the plane and heading to the taxi stand! So instead of taking cab and staying at Rodeway, I was picked up by fellow HK student and stayed at their place. Not only did I save some money, but also I got a ton of advices from them. They were so kind to even take me around to look for long-term apartment. I'm still thankful to their help after all these years.

Bye Ozzie

Referring to former Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, who is expected to be "traded" from Chicago to Florida Marlins. As a White Sox fan, I'll miss him for his rants (Ozzie always has something to say no matter right or wrong) Any manager who could lead a team to win the World Series gotta be pretty good at it but I also think it's time for the Sox to part way with Ozzie. Ozzie's way has proven not working in Chicago in the past 2 seasons. Looking forward to an improved Sox in 2012!

Music of the day: Dr. Sun Yat-sen

I would have never heard of this opera if its scheduled performance in Beijing was not cancelled. Well, why did it make the news headline? This work was actually sponsored by the Hong Kong government and commissioned by its cultural department to commemerate the 100th anniversary of the revolution in China that led to the demolition of monarchy. You would think such an "official" piece must have passed all the political censors. Surprise surprise! Now I really want to hear it (maybe on CD or DVD?) The cast of the performance in Hong Kong (next month, not cancelled :P) will include the #1 tenor in HK, Warren Mok. And the story itself seems interesting (a love story in disguise!) enough.

Sports highlights: Football, NASCAR Championship Chase #1, last IndyCar race in Japan

My Texas Longhorns had a down year last year. Losing to UCLA at home was a low-light. Fortunately we won the rematch this year convincingly. Coupled with a few upsets at the top, Texas has finally returned to Top 20. I know it's a long road for us to climb all the way back up but this is good progress. Our new QB is Colt McCoy's brother. I hope he's the real deal. There were actually quite a few Texas-California matchup this weekend. Another big game was of course Dallas Cowboys visiting 49ers in SF. I didn't have too much faith in Da Boys based on the poor performance last season as well as this season's opener. On the other hand, 49ers were supposed to be improving. And the new coach Jim Harbaugh, who had success in college, certainly brought the team some positive vibes. I was so glad to see Cowboys overcoming adversity to beat the Niners.
I didn't watch either game though. My only available time was spent on the 2 races. First, IndyCar in Japan was expected to be the race where Will Power could finally overtaken the point lead from Dario Franchitti and this was indeed the case. And this was actually indirectly affected by the earthquake earlier this year! When IndyCar races at Twin Ring Motegi in Japan, it usually races at the oval track rather than the road course (Yes, Motegi has a special design that features 2 tracks). However, the oval track was damaged by the earthquake so the race was held on the road course instead, where Will Power usually performed well. In fact, he won the (Mario Andretti) trophy for being the best IndyCar road course driver 2 years in a row! Now there are only 2 more races left this season. I still think Franchitti has a better chance to win the overall championship because he outperforms Power on oval more than Power outperforms him on road courses. And both races left are on oval :(
There are nine more races left this season for NASCAR, after the 1st race of the chase completed on Monday (it was postponed from Sunday because of the rain) Just when it looked like Jimmie Johnson was gonna win and had a good headstart for his sixth consecutive championship (BORING!), there was a caution (It almost seemed like all cautions benefitted JJ but this one didn't) Tony Stewart got to the front and won this race that was decided by fuel mileage. JJ actually ran out of gas and got a bad finish. I was also glad to see that Dale Earnhardt Jr. got on the podium and improved his position in the championship chase from last to 6th. Can't wait to watch the next race!

Musicians of the day: Arch Enemy

I've recommended their music before. I'm a big fan but this post is beyond music.

Arch Enemy has joined forces with the worldwide human rights organization Amnesty International to help raise awareness of social injustices around the world. Amnesty International booths will be present at many of the upcoming dates on Arch Enemy’s headlining US tour, “North American Khaos 2011,” to hand out flyers and accept fans’ signatures in support of the cause.

Arch Enemy vocalist, Angela Gossow, stated, “We have invited Amnesty International to join us on the ‘North American Khaos’ tour to help raise awareness for defending human rights, freedom of speech, and saving lives. We are living in very extreme and turbulent times and it is important to take a stand. We hope one day everybody is allowed to freely say what they think, that no government has the right to punish and kill those who do not conform and that those who are oppressing the masses will be brought to justice. It will be a long and hard struggle, but it’s a goal worth fighting for. The metal scene is non-conformist, alternative and revolutionary – We know how to practice what others preach. So let’s go out there and support the cause!

Here is the link.

Greatest guitarists of all time

I have been hearing this term a lot lately because the local jazz (and a little bit blues) radio station is planning for an all-day tribute to B.B.King soon. It keeps mentioning B.B. as the #3 Greatest guitarists of all time. So I got really curious and wonder who else would be on the list, especially #1 and #2. (I googled and found that "the list" being referred to was published by the Rolling Stones magazine in 2003) I could easily think of Hendrix being #1. However, who should be between Hendrix and BB? To me, Clapton, Eddie Van Halen, Jimmy Page are all great guitarists but I won't put them higher than BB. I thought of Wes Montgomery or Paul McCartney. (BTW, George Harrison was #21 on the list. I should have thought of him as the representative for the Beatles. Sir Paul's main role was bassist and certainly belongs to the Top 10 bassists of all time. He did play lead guitar on a few Beatle's songs.) So, who's #2 according to the magazine? Duane Allman (of The Allman Brothers Band!) I gotta admit I don't know enough about Southern rock to tell whether he deserves it or not but this choice was definitely controversial (e.g. this post)

While researching the topic, I came across a post regarding top overrated guitarists. This list has Slash on #5 (I agree. Both him and Axl Roses didn't do much after Appetite for Destruction) and Jimmy Page on #1. The latter was a bit shocking to me but that writer had a point: Led Zeppelin's biggest hit, Stairway to Heaven, might not be all that original.

Sports highlights: IndyCar at Sonoma

I watched the NASCAR race at the same track (Infineon) earlier this year and I thought I watched enough live racing this year. I hate to admit this but I enjoyed watching races on TV more than live because TV has better coverage of the race and has different angles. It was a pleasant surprise when Infineon raceway sent me a free ticket to the IndyCar race as a gift (maybe because of me attending the NASCAR race?) When I arrived, I actually got to choose my seat and I just told the ticket lady to give me a good one. My seat was at Turn 9, which was indeed about as good as you could get at Infineon (even better than the grandstand where you can't see the uphill battle at the first turns.) There were a few things notable about this race: (1) it's the last IndyCar race for Danica at Infineon before she jumps to NASCAR next year (and I don't expect her to be racing on a road course that she's not good at next year for NASCAR too)

Danica didn't do well during the race and got lapped. (2) it's the first IndyCar race featuring a Chinese driver, Ho-Pin Tung. His day was not bad until he crashed near the end of the race.

It was actually a kinda boring race. The Top 5 starting cars ended the race in the same order (in fact, the order almost remained the same throughout the race other than during pit cycles) The race was similar to the one last year which #12 Will Power also led from the beginning to the end. I was glad that the winner was the driver I rooted for.

My week in Maui

0 post here for 2 weeks! Well, I have not abandoned my 00zine blog but I have been busy blogging over at http://bigmaui.blogspot.com/ Please check it out.

RIP Jani Lane

From the biggest hit song of Jani Lane's old band, Warrant:

Heaven isn't too far away
Closer to it everyday
No matter what your friends might say

Lies that bands tell

That's the topic of a blog post by Alex Skolnick. To be honest, I would not have read it if it's not written by Skolnick, who is my guitar hero (He plays lead in the legendary metal band Testament. And BTW, he also plays jazz) I'm glad that I read it because it's insightful, coming from someone who has been in the music business for so long. What he said makes a lot of sense: bands craft their image carefully and always show you the side they want you to see that would advance their career. I mean, it would be strange if that's not the case!