Sports highlights: the new NASCAR season

Watching NASCAR during the weekend has become such an integral part of my routine that I really missed it during its off-season, no matter how short it is (3 months) when compared to other of my favorite sports (NFL's "on" season is about 5 months!) And an uninteresting Super Bowl made me even more looking forward to the NASCAR season opener: Daytona 500! For 2017, it was extra-special: the top series in NASCAR has changed title-sponsor for the first time since I started watching, from Sprint (the phone company who "inherited" the sponsorship from Nextel) to Monster Energy (the drink company who has already sponsored many auto-racing related events) Since I am a big fan of supercross and motorcycle racing, when I first heard of the news, the first question popped up in my mind was: if the NASCAR top series' name changed from Sprint Cup to Monster Energy Cup, how about the existing Monster Energy Cup, which is an annual supercross race scheduled a month or so before the new season begins? (BTW, I enjoy it a lot as it gives fans a preview of things to come. ) Well, they actually renamed the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series to Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. And the move to the new sponsorship is supposed to be very beneficial to NASCAR: after an incredible rise in the last decade in terms of viewership, advertising dollars and broadcast fees, what went up must come down. The sports was actually at an awkward crossroad: on one hand, the younger crowd found that long races and long reasons in which a few cars and drivers could do so well and ran away with championships were boring. On the other hand, the "purists" or old fans of the sports found all those tinkering with the good old point system and the addition of the "artificial playoff" ruining the sports. I guess it's clear which direction (and demographic) NASCAR is going after getting Monster Energy on board as the title sponsor. Still, I am surprised by the reaction to the "new" Monster Energy Girls at NASCAR: Yes, we have fans that complained about those outfits, being too revealing. Not to me. I am used to watching those Monster Energy Girls at the supercross races (with the same title sponsor!) To be honest, what really got my attention was not them but the new race format! When I watch the broadcast of the first race of the new season I saw it mentioned "stage" and "stage winner" and I was completed shocked! It turned out every NASCAR race is divided into three stages. The result at the end of each stage matters: points are rewarded towards the championship! (The actual system is more complicated than what could be explained in one sentence though) And there would be caution laps after each stage ends to bunch up the field. I see several advantages as a fan: (1) the cars would be more competitive among each other not just at the end of the whole race but also near the end of each stage to fight for those points. (2) Less effect from green-flag pit stops and the related "luck factor" that could change the outcome of a race. I always hate to see a driver who did nothing wrong but got trapped in the pit because of somebody else's accident. Now there are at least two more definite points in the race where cars could pit under caution. (3) the stages are short enough that a car can complete without making any pit stop so one could win a stage without any involvement of pit-stop strategy and pit-crew skills. In a way this is "back to basic." Kinda like the format of the GT races of Pirelli World Challenge that I like a lot. I think this new season had a good start: Daytona 500 was won by Kurt Busch, a former champ who tends to be very competitive but has never won this "Super Bowl of NASCAR" We also had Martin Truex Jr winning the race at Las Vegas but everybody talked about "the fight" instead: Joey Logano's car hit Kyle Busch's near the end of the race. Busch was so pissed that he walked to Logano's pit stall after the end of the race. He fought with one of the crew member and ended up with blood on his forehead! Anyway, I am very interested to see if the new point system will produce a different champion at the end of the season (oh well, anyone but Jimmie is fine. Prefer not Logano too as he totally ruined Carl Edward's in 2016)

Hampton Court

Netflix有一套紀錄片專講Hampton Court這個位於倫敦十里以外的皇宮，早幾天晚上我本來打算看一點兒，第一個入住的國王亨利八世有六個皇后，未講到第二個應已睡著，誰知竟然看完！原本該處主人是國王身邊的紅人主教，多次招待國王在此作客，但醒目的主教知道那裡豪華比得上皇宮，還是讓國王作主人比較恰當。這個亨利八世年少登基，那時既fit又有型，第一任皇后亦漂亮高貴，Hampton Court見證過他們關係美好的日子，不過廿多年來皇后無所出，國王耐性有限，要主教向羅馬教皇申請離婚，教皇不允主教亦無辧法，結果主教在皇上降罪前「幸運地」去世，亨利八世亦因此寫下他在史上最為人認識的一頁：就是反出羅馬教廷，自立英國聖公會！在第二段婚姻期間，他發生了改變他一生的一次意外：為追求刺激進行馬上槍術比賽(jousting)而墮馬受重傷，此傷陪伴其餘生，令他每日疼痛，並性情大變，成為一個暴君！這個第二任妻子被他處死，第三任妻子病死，第四任離婚，第五任紅杏出牆又被處死，而他暴飲暴食，五十幾歲魂歸天國（如果天主承認他教會的話），還有第六任皇后在旁，也算是緣份。

其實Hampton Court還再成為後來兩個皇朝國王的居所，之後入住的威廉三世和皇后瑪莉，夫妻關係似乎比較恩愛，他們的目標是把該處改建為一坐比得上法國凡爾賽的皇宮，不過budget有限，只改建了一半，卻因此令今時今日的Hampton Court成為具兩個時代建築特色的歷史名勝！

最後一對入住的皇帝和皇后的故事也值得一寫：喬治二世和卡露蓮亦算恩愛夫婦，皇帝的情婦也是皇后默許的，後來皇后有足患，動得少食得多難免肥胖，去世時喬治二世竟然宣佈不會再娶！可惜的是這對父母和太子不和，太子妃臨盆一刻，太子決定坐馬車逃離皇宮，去倫敦誕下兒子，此子將來會繼承祖父王位成為喬治三世，當然對Hampton Court全無好感，此後不再有英國國王入住。

「講黎講去三幅屁」出處？

今日我同老友吹水，我笑佢「講黎講去三幅屁」，咁佢問我呢句話既典故，真係問到我口啞啞，咁梗係要Google下，揾到有人在FB度寫：

廣州話「講來講去三幅被」來自這句話—「講來講去三幅被，量來量去二丈四」。過去民間織造業有一慣例，每一幅被的長度是八尺，三幅被即二丈四。這句慣用語現在用作比喻人說話重複，沒有新意。例：呢個上司無料嘅，講來講去三幅被。（這位上司沒有才學，說來說去一個調子）

今次真係鬧交學中文！

New metal from old bands

I read an interview of the founding father of death metal, Obituary, from the Rolling Stone magazine yesterday and listened to their new single from the upcoming album (to be released later this month) I guess that's why I subconsciously tuned into the Music Choice Metal channel today. And surprisingly I listened to a couple of (relatively) new releases from several of my old favorite metal bands, including:

• Overkill, The Grinding Wheel
• Dark Tranquiliity, Atoma
• In Flames, Battles
• Kreator, Gods of Violence

The channel promoted itself as programmed by a real person instead of an algorithm. I guess there's really something to it hearing all of the above within 30 min. My first impressions of these albums range from "above average" to "excellent" I am going to listen to all of them multiple times on Spotify until the verdict is out.

RIP James Cotton

從小就對口琴有一種情意結，十分驚嘆小小一件樂器可以發出如此動人的聲音。在美國迷上藍調音樂，除了結他，口琴算是最重要的藍調樂器，The Rolling Stones的Mick Jagger也經常喜歡露兩手口琴，不過我真正追隨的口琴大師卻不多，只曾在2012年慕名到Yoshi's看James Cotton的Superharp band演出，當晚負責結他的也是高手Elvin Bishop，原來之前James Cotton曾患喉癌，所以唱歌部份已交由歌手負責，但他仍然屢有新作，今天我聽了他13年群星拱照的唱片Cotton Mouth Man來紀念他。
 

雜談莎士比亞

在香港長大及就讀中文中小學的我，對西方文學的認識遠不如中國的，甚麼大文豪數來數去只數得出馬克吐溫、海明威等等小說家，至於會寫詩的，就只識得莎翁，其實他的詩我一首也沒讀過，他的劇也只從電視或歌劇得知皮毛。不過最近他的姓氏在傳媒曝光率飈升，那是因為應屆英超聯冠軍李斯特城剛辭退助他們奪冠的神奇教練雲尼阿里，頂上的新教練就是姓莎士比亞！而英國足球的評述員似乎均飽讀詩書，在莎士比亞剛上任就用了很多莎翁名句來評論李斯特城的賽事。今日李城出戰歐聯十六強次回合，總比數落後一果，我看到李城入了第一球後就轉了台，不敢再看下去。到了球賽結束後，手機上彈出了我足球專家朋友武拿的訊息，興奮地說：『莎士比亞又贏了一仗！今日的莎士比亞，就如同上季的雲帥般創造了奇蹟！上任只有短短的三場，不但三場全勝，每場贏兩球，而且其中兩支球隊是上季歐霸決賽的對伍！』成功晉級八強後，評述員繼續以莎翁開玩笑，指李城如能過關斬將入決賽，那真是一場仲夏夜之夢！

無獨有偶，打開Netflix，竟然向我推介一套（文豪）莎士比亞的紀錄片，原來他的爸爸是製造業商人（懂手製皮手套）也參與本地政治，卻因買入一批羊皮惹上官非欠下巨債，莎翁小時候就見證了家庭這個難關。至於他本人的戀愛史也值得一提：他十八歲結婚，太太比他大八年！相信那個年代頗為罕見。

題外話：我一直以為我讀過莎翁的十四行詩，其實我讀過的是以前中學教材入面的馮至十四行詩之十六，今天重讀頗有印象。

甚麼是博物館？

逛博物館是我生活一部份：出外旅行自然是指定動作，本地的博物館我也每當有空就會去參觀一番。其實很少會思考：甚麼是博物館？或者說：那些是博物館必具的特色和功能？香港西九龍故宮館引發了很多爭議，背後的政治固然令人反感，這個館能為香港人帶來甚麼？也很值得探討，有學者就認為西九故宮館根本不算博物館：

根據西九故宮博物館現有的資料，丁穎茵感嘆，方案與實際的博物館功能有差別。她指出，博物館一般都有自己的藏品。就像西九的 M+ 博物館雖然未開幕，但購買藏品的過程一直進行中。反觀，「故宮館」展品主要從北京故宮借回來，未有提及本館的購藏計劃，「所以香港那個好難叫做『博物館』，只是一個擺放故宮文物的『展覽廳』罷了。」

本人不是專家無資格評論，不過上文介紹北愛爾蘭北部城市德里（Derry）一座直視探討天主教徒與基督教徒衝突的博物館實在相當有意思：

當地民族主義者（天主教徒）與聯合主義者（基督教徒）的矛盾嚴重。兩教教徒居住區域分隔，亦不會互相入侵對方的社區。當要建一間國立博物館，梳理一個地方的歷史時，政府自然要處理人與人之間的宗教衝突，懷著以博物館化解矛盾的意願來建造。建館者設計圓形的觀展路線。起點一邊是「天主教」版本的歷史，另一邊則是「基督教」視點。無論你從哪一邊進入，最終也會繞一圈再出來，目的是要觀眾嘗試理解另一種想法。 以博物館介入政治風眼，叫這座 Tower Museum 遂先後獲得歐洲年度博物館第二位、愛爾蘭及英國年度最佳博物館的榮譽。

作為中國藝術欣賞及愛好者，相信西九故宮會帶來一些我一直沒有機會看到的珍品吧。

世界棒球賽中國對澳洲與仁慈條例

就國際化（或者說和全球接軌的程度）而言，和歐洲各國相比，美國給人的感覺是比較封閉。不說度量衡單位或左軚右軚那些，只講體育，瘋魔全球的足球竟不在美國四大聯盟之列（雖然統計指「英式足球」的美職聯每場平均入場觀眾數目比「四大」的冰球及籃球有過之而無不及，但後兩者每球季場數多得多）很多人批評「四大」自稱甚麼World Championship只是自吹自擂罷了。美式足球在美國以外不算流行：加拿大的「美式足球」球例不盡相同，此外以我所知只有德國的聯盟較有規模。冰球的「世界盃」不如足球那樣定期舉行，其實過去廿年冬季奧運才被視為最高水平及認受性的世界冰球賽；籃球也差不多（奧運>世錦賽）而棒球作為美國最老牌體育之一（被視為國粹！），似乎十幾年前才重視「國際化」，由大聯盟（MLB）牽頭的World Baseball Classic越攪越具規模，多了參與的國家（本屆開始有外圍賽），不過各國的水準仍然相當參差，好幾場賽果都一面倒：最誇張的就是今日中國對澳洲輸0:11要出動「仁慈條例」（我由Mercy rule直譯過來，可能另有正式中文譯名）一向有參與小朋友棒球活動的家長相信對這種球例頗有認識：inning結束時，一隊領先超過十分的話就會終止比賽。中國對澳洲這一場苦苦支撐到8th inning,澳洲再士哥擴大領先優勢至11分，而中國無法取得2分或以上，所以在仁慈條例下比賽結束。原來美國職業棒球大聯盟（以及大學校際比賽）均沒有仁慈條例，前幾年就訪問過職業球員對此例的看法，頗為有趣。

歐洲爵士樂壇

上一期Stereophile雜誌專題介紹Jazz in Europe，原來在美國聽開爵士樂的我，除了在「名牌」唱片label ECM旗下的歐洲樂手，認識的不算很多。其實歐洲爵士界十分活躍，從一年到晚舉行的音樂節可見一斑。該文介紹了好幾位樂手，我當然第一時間上Spotify聽聽：

• Francesco Diodati這位結他手首先吸引到我注意的是他的結他！和我一樣，他也是Fender Jaguar用家！其次令我注意的是他2010年唱片的名字:Purple Bra!相信和碟名無關，但本碟音樂的確給人耳目一新的感覺。只憑聽，可能以為主角是色士風手而不是結他手！也令我想起我在Berklee的結他導師Bruce Saunders的作品，同樣是強調整體性。
• Enrico Rava和前者相比肯定是老牌得多的樂手，和這位小號手合作多次的同鄉鋼琴手Stefano Bollani似乎名氣較大，當年我在意大利街頭也見過Bollani音樂會的海報。隨機抽樣聽了Rava數張唱片（當然少不了和後輩Bollani二重奏的作品），發覺Rava的音樂相當多元化，有傳統的也有不少極具現代感。
• Francesco Cafiso是色士風手，2004年相當年輕的他已參與英年早逝歐洲爵士大師紀念音樂會唱片Concert for Michel Petrucciani，2006年他找來一班紐約樂手組成New York Quartet推出New York Lullaby一碟，玩出十分美國的爵士味道，不過我更欣賞他2015年一套三唱片集，大部份歌曲一反傳統，只得2-4分鐘左右，可謂點到即止！

大家不妨多點留意歐洲爵士樂手作品。

Two Classical Guitars

As I mentioned late last year, I have rekindled my relationship with ShoutCast after many years apart. Audiophile Classical has become my "default" background music channel for my morning routine (and replaced the Music Choice App's "exclusive" Opera channel for reason I am unable to explain) You can't go wrong with their choices. However, sometimes background music does become foreground music and stole your attention away from the routine, like this performance of the Tango Suite.

I tried looking for the above on Spotify and instead I found another collection featuring 2 guitars (yes, it has a few tunes from Piazzolla as well!)
 

天宮圖.幾幅畫

去年想在家中書架找本簡體字書給我兒子讀，卻意外地發現了這本買了N年的米蘭昆德拉小說《不朽》的祖國譯本（當然不能讓兒子讀，莫說內裡勁多性愛場面，內容及思想亦實在太深，我自己也勉強讀得在明與不明之間！）其中最多性愛場面的一章〔天宮圖〕內提到好幾幅畫：

• 普桑 (Poussin) 屠戮無辜
• 霍爾拜恩 (Holbein the Younger) 亞當與夏娃
• 科勒喬 (Antonio Da Correggio) 寓意罪孽
• 哈爾斯 (Frans Hals) 小丑
• 哈爾斯 吉卜賽人

本章主角認為最後兩幅的笑容才算是天真無邪的，其餘都帶著邪惡！老老實實，找以上的連結我真花了不少功夫，自問讀了一點藝術史，以上四位的名字我都竟然未聽過，Correggio的名字尤其難（靠Google查）找！

㼵外話：原來這個中譯本略過本章原著某一節，請看此討論，其實那一節也沒有甚麼特別，箇中原因實在耐人尋味。

親子.單車

大家都知我是單車運動愛好者，家中兩個小朋友十歲前我就多次帶他們踩，好幾次還達十英里，不過隨著他們長大有自己喜歡的活動，反而此情不再，著實令我失望。
上星期竟然連續兩天分別和兒子及女兒踩車！話說兒子放學後在另一間學校有樂隊活動，他懂得如何踩去，卻沒有信心由那裡回家，媽媽耐心打開地圖解釋一遍後，還是不太放心，派我去「陪踩」一次，誰知這次他早放，我未到他已離開，不過在「必經之路」上他很醒目地叫在對面街的我！以後讓他看地圖學路線應該沒有問題了。
之後那一天女兒要去藝術中心交暑期活動的表格，單車車程要20分鐘，我們決定一起踩一次，為暑期作準備；我說她的座位太低，令她不能完全發揮腳力，她不服地說已算踩得快！可能因此決定在回程時show下quali，我跟在她後面竟然有點吃力呢！
我的兩個寶貝真的開始長大了！

Archaeology of Ancient Greece and US Politics?

I found that the "establishments" in Hong Kong these days like to use the term "politicized" whenever their behaviors were (rightfully) criticized. And they like to blame it on US influences. Well, they actually might have a point. Consider a Smithsonian magazine article I read recently about the discovery of the "Griffin warrior" at an ancient Greek site, which gave rise to new theories about the beginning of the Greek civilization (and the whole Western civilization in general) Before its discovery, when artifacts from the island of Crete (which were more well-developed before the mainland Greece did) were found in the latter, historians believed they were robbed by the mainland Greek and moved there. The new theory is that two culture might have co-existed peacefully and influenced each other. And the people at those days might not see a clear distinction between them. This is certainly a plausible theory. However, the author added his comments on how this is related to the current political situation: cultural influences from immigrants are beneficial to our society! Yeah, I think this story is politicized.

爵士樂首張錄音誕生一百週年

那是一百年前的二月廿四日，之前有爵士樂雜誌專題討論，然後又讀了這篇BBC的文章，如此長文真難得有心讀完。老老實實，即如我般沉迷爵士，也未必有興趣一再欣賞這張Original Dixieland Jass Band的唱片，皆因和今時今日我們常聽到的現代爵士相差太遠了！當中扮動物聲音效果更令我嗤之以鼻。個人來說，回溯歷史，值得開始欣賞的，最早期要算是Lester Young Billie Holiday 四十年代的Swing爵士樂。

Borrow magazine from Palo Alto library to read on your iPad

I just figured out how to take advantage of this great service offer to us. Here are the steps:
0. Install the Zinio app on your iPad
1. Visit this PA Library page for digital magazine
2. Click the link for "Zinio for Libraries" Logon with your library card number and your library password
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雪的音樂

早幾天我們四大中佬Twins fans去了Reno看她們的演唱會，回程時路上因大雪，數小時只能龜速行駛甚至完全停頓！結果用了十二小時回家。USB flash drive很多Gb的廣東歌也幾乎要重覆！其實出發前開始聽一集In the Groove, Jazz and Beyond很應景的podcast： Snow blues. 當中兩首有Soprano sax(分別由Joshua Redman, Donny McCaslin負責)的作品更是特別動聽：
Joshua Redman Quartet ~ Second Snow ~ Spirit of the Moment: Live At Village Vanguard
Alon Nechushtan ~ Snow-Flow ~ Venture Bound
巧合的是今天我也罕有地拿了我的Soprano出來練習！

悼念融合爵士結他大師Larry Coryell

Larry Coryell在前幾天去世，老實說我對他的熟悉程度遠不如很多其他爵士結他手，他的Spaces一碟倒十分有印象，皆因那是十分精彩的融合爵士，另一張較新以上世紀中引發全美反種族隔離的民權運動的城市Montgomery為名的作品我也相當欣賞。今天聽了他和Flamenco結他大師Paco De Lucia合作的作品（收錄於Castro Marin一碟，原來算是冷門之作）想起五年前曾在紐約唯一一次看過他和兒子合作演出。

RIP Mr. Coryell

歷史之謎：冰島維京人定居格陵蘭後又消失

小時候沒有讀太多西洋史及地理，對Greenland（格陵蘭）及Iceland（冰島）兩個"big land"認識甚淺，總之就是荒蕪加冰凍。原來在地圖上兩者是鄰居：均位於Scandinavia以東。從國家地理網站讀到一篇文章指住在冰島的維京人曾於十世紀左右殖民格陵蘭，但其後抵逹的歐洲人卻完全沒有發現這些維京人的後人！該文章的結論如下：

400 多年後大環境不利下卻適應不及，支撐殖民地的農牧、狩獵、貿易體系全面崩潰，我們對這段過程的了解仍很有限。

期待將來史學家對此有更多發現和認識 。

It's OK to like Smooth Jazz

The title of this post actually came from an article by uDiscoverMusic. Obviously it's a reaction to many jazz snobs thinking it's NOT OK to like Smooth Jazz. I happened to be NOT one of them though. While I agree traditional jazz is certainly a "higher" form of art, it requires a great deal of musicianship to play smooth jazz well too. My saxophone (online) teacher Eric Marienthal is a good example of musician who excels in both genre. Anyway, that article was a good read for those who are not familiar with the origin, the pioneers/superstars and the history of the genre. I am already very familiar with it but I did learn from it a new player: guitarist Tyler Reese. I enjoyed his album a lot, which actually reminds me less of smooth jazz but more of the instrumental albums by the "shredders" (think Vinnie Moore or Stu Hamm) in the late 80s.

Bright Lights, Cool Minds

最近因為某種不明原因，看的電視節目、讀的書和參觀的展覽不約而同地有著微妙的連帶關係。從Netflix看到的英國BBC一連三集紀錄片Bright Lights Brilliant Minds:每一集主持人介紹他認為廿世紀三個西方史上重要年份及城市組合，分別為：

• 1908維也納：那一年在維也納，對多位來自不同範疇的專家藝術家及政治人物，均是一個重要里程碑，心理學家佛洛依德發表他的戀母情意結理論，音樂家Schoenberg創作無調性音樂，包括前無古人的二號弦樂四重奏（後半部加入人聲），畫家Klimt畫了他最著名作品Kiss，但那個浮華的表面其實暗藏危機：例如該市貧富懸殊，妓女數量極多。而希特拉當年嘗試考入藝術學院不果，最終踏上從政（或成魔）之路。該年波斯尼亞新納入奧匈帝國，亦正是第一次世界大戰的導火線（費迪南大公在當地被暗殺）
• 1928巴黎：這一集講及該年代最耐人尋味的新藝術思潮：超現實主義（Surrealism），那是令我最著迷的現代藝術派別，Dali的畫作別具震撼力。原來該派的誕生源於一位作家Andre Breton，這位「祖師爺」後來又把Surrealism散播到墨西哥以及北美洲。看完這一集不久，我就有幸在史丹福大學Cantor美術館參觀一個超現實主義如何影響各地各年代藝術及藝術家的展覽。那個年代的巴黎的確和美國相當有關係：美國作家海明威、音樂家Gershwin及Cole Porter都在那𥚃取得成功，很多美國人和他們一樣帶著美金在當地自在消費，不過隨著美國股市崩潰（大蕭條），一夜之間富貴化為烏為的美國人唯有紛紛回國。
• 1951紐約：該年聯合國選擇在紐約成立總部，標誌著西方文化政經重鎮從那時開始由歐洲「搬遷」到北美洲，爵士樂及Beat文學那一年在紐約發揚光大，Thelonius Monk及Jack Kerouac分別發表其名作，而瘋魔萬千影迷的巨星如馬龍白蘭度及占士甸均在那年代學習方法演技，也就是周星馳在喜劇之王一片提及的史坦尼斯拉夫斯基影響所生的一派。在看此節目之前我剛巧讀了"The Birth (and death) of the Cool"一書，正正就是討論以上提及的各種演藝文學文化（所謂「Cool」的態度）如何主導著美國潮流（包括電視電影廣告等等）達數十年之久；其「沒落」只是近十幾年的事。其實亦僅是反映風水輪流轉，任何誇張的事物總會回歸基本務實之路，直至下一浪來臨為止。

人類之源？

因為讀過好些科普書籍，大概知道哺乳類動物（包括人類）可能是由海洋生物進化而成，不過進化過程中有甚麼生物呢？最近科學家在中國找到一化石，指該奇形生物可能是其中一員，亦是已發現中最古老的。除了歷史台，香港生果報也有報導，不過該文的焦點是此生物進食及排洩均用同一洞／口（報章水平和讀者掛鈎，怪不得它，在下也不能免俗地邊睇邊罵！）

From my living room playlist

Like a lot of people, I am the type of person who cannot stand absolute silence. While in the living room, I often turn on the TV and it's quite easy to find a semi-interesting program on US cable TV with tons of channels. The alternative is of course listening to music. That's usually my "accompaniment" for breakfast time. I alternate between the Opera channel from Music Choice (iOS app exclusive channel) and the Audiophile Classical channel from Shoutcast. And if nothing is good "on the air", I can always count on Spotify, on which I have setup a bunch of playlists: one for Alto Sax, one for Metal, and a very special one with violin music only (which I could play when other family members are there too!) I am listening to this playlist just now and it was the first time I listened to "Prince of Clouds," a double violin concerto composed by Anna Clyne for this album and performed by Jennifer Koh and her mentor Jamie Jaredo. In fact, the whole album featured 4 pieces of double violin works, starting with the seminal one by Bach. I like this "concept" a lot! I hope someone who do a "Three x 4" using Beethoven's Triple Concerto as its model!

Now my goal is to listen to enough classical music on Spotify that it will create a Daily Mix for me (we have 3 family members listening to the same account at different times. 1 playlist is Cantopop. 1 for "US" pop. 1 Metal and for some reason Spotify made 2 jazz mixes for me)

電影馬拉松

近年很少去戲院的我在去年底竟然去了三次！看的包括Da Vinci Code作者Dan Brown小說改編的Inferno（前年去意大利時一直在讀）, 源於漫畫人物的Doctor Strange, 以及迪士尼破紀錄地賣坐的動畫Moana。承接這道戲癮，今年在家中試用Netflix，又看了一大堆新舊戲：

• The Magic of Belle Isle：這是一套有點超現實的電影，皆因劇中有一段老年黑人男子同中年白人女子愛情故事，發生在底特律附近一個不差的社區。不過由老戲骨Morgan Freeman飾演該男子又作別論，角色是一位才氣橫溢的作家（及前職業棒球手因傷殘轉行）女主角則是出道時以飾演「艷女」聞名的Virginia Madsen，近年也成為演技派。作家因喪妻意志消沉避世於該地，三女之母則在辦離婚中，幾個聰明伶俐又有奇想的小朋友和老人家互相啟發，總算讓人看得心頭暖暖。
• A Mile in his shoes：這也是一套勵志式電影，以飾演電視版超人聞名的Dean Cain在片中的角色是一支半職業棒球隊的領隊兼球探，在開車前往物色球員途中抛錨，意外地認識一名農村少年，該少年有自閉症但特別擅於投擲水果，領隊視他為棒球投手可造之材！在相當保護其子的父親不太情願的情況下，領隊把少年帶入球隊，其才華得到發揮，當然亦招妒中詭計，但總算在挫折中成長。
• Captain America 3 Civil War：本片的主線是Avenger成員分裂互揪，因為各國政府認為他們屢次闖禍，必須受約束，以Iron Man為首一派同意，以美國隊長為首一派則反對。這個主題在動畫及漫畫我均已看過，所以不感陌生，反而覺得真正大戰來得太遲，原來已是電影尾聲！當然埋下伏筆拍下一集了。
• Arrival：本帖多套電影中這套最為出色。女主角是一位語言學家（想起老友妹妹！）透過同外星人接觸，受他們語言影響了思考，學會預知未來的秘技。到結尾觀眾會發現全片情節並非順序發生，實在巧妙。值得一提：電影改篇自得獎科幻小說Story of your life，作者是美國華裔Ted Chiang（姜峯楠）
• Horrible bosses：片中三位波士豈止horrible，簡直就是變態！Kevin Spacey飾演一間企業高層，下屬為搏升職被「駛到盡」卻不獲公平回報；Colin Farrell飾演一間生產商的二世祖太子爺，父親是良心老闆但急病去世由他接替，他在公司胡天胡帝亂炒下屬；Jennifer Aniston飾演一個脅迫下屬和她做愛的中女牙醫。這三個組成的卡士實在有來頭，其實主角是要向他們三人報復的下屬，演員的名氣遠遜其「波士」，本片笑位頗多成績不俗，相信令三位男主角「升價」不少。
• Jaco：去年提過這套關於低音結他鬼才Jaco Pastorious的電影，將另文專述。

書法在香港招牌

在香港的日子，家住得遠，又喜歡常常周圍去，花在坐車的時間實在不少，幸好不用自己開車，所以可以隨意欣賞街景。近年醉心書法，發現香港街上店舖招牌的字體變化多端，實在很有觀賞價值！原來隸書行書甚至草書也很常用。當然，從小學和寫的楷書是主流。近年這些招牌上所用的字體成為了話題：領展旗下的店舖招牌「被統一化」，早年常用的「北魏楷體」被換為「黑體」。以下摘自中文字體設計師許瀚文接受《香港01》的訪問：

小店所用的「白底紅字」為北魏楷書，是世界有名、香港獨有及廣泛運用在商店和招牌的中文書法風格，對於北魏楷書被換走感到可惜。許以圖中「永記辦館」為例，指原有招牌的北魏楷書感覺神氣、有精神而靈活，在本土香港人眼中與辦館小店形象更為配合。 許瀚文補充指，北魏楷書筆劃誇張明顯，字的輪廓鮮明，辨識度極高；加上店舖招牌風格能否讓顧客留下深刻印象至為重要。許指，雖然新更換的黑體有簇新感，但黑體四平八穩，無甚驚喜；缺乏性格之餘，亦失去北魏楷書的靈活感。

計我話：這位許生實在太客氣了！這個黑體不止無驚喜，根本就是死氣沉沉！「輸入」電腦文字處理時使用（就如現在在此ipad打字），排得整整齊齊，也算合適，但「輸出」讓人觀看就毫無美感了。想不到我這個觀點有專家同意！此文引述字體設計師陳濬人：

電腦字體主要用作輸入內文，放大變成標題跟字款本身的設計原意有所不同，變成招牌感覺更是奇怪。

陳並指北魏體能夠盛行因夠實用，「起筆收筆都很誇張，比較鈍和倔，回筆很粗，令字體挺拔突出，最重要是遠距離亦能清楚看到。」

其實這些書法招牌出自何人手筆，傳媒也有查究，上文介紹了（內有多圖，包括不同字與字體的例子，其中一個有張又有蘇，正是我兩位寫書法的老友的姓氏！）多位「街頭書法家」，寫這張蘇記的是華戈，而當年很多北魏體招牌出自名家區建公，另一位多產的書法家則是精於隸書的謝熙，根據百度：

1952年，他旅居香港，對索書者，有求必應，從不高價取值。故他的書法於50年代中，便已遍布港九商市及文化單位。如惠康、永安，大元等公司，國際、嘉麗華酒樓、新鴻基地產、通亨銀行等招牌大字均為先生所書。

這單爭議令我對魏碑體增添了不少興趣！魏碑既有楷書也有隸書，例如前秦廣武將軍碑就很有參考價值。（經友人指出，作為五胡十六國之一曾經實力強橫的前秦滅亡後才有北魏，不過似乎該時代的作品也被統稱為魏碑）

中文課本插圖出錯被學生發現

話說人民教育出版社一本教科書有一幅關於宋朝知縣的配圖，圖中知縣衣裝為紫色，一名小五生指出應為青綠色。北京藝術博物館文物專家胡桂梅解釋：

按宋代服飾制度，只有三品以上才能穿紫色服，七品以上綠色，「書中的官員如果是縣令，應屬八品，按宋代的服飾制度，應該服青色而不是紫色，小朋友說得有一定道理。」

出版社應該對該學生寫個服字！

當在街食重平過街市買返黎煮既時候

你就會懷疑：喺街外食既究竟係乜野材料？雖然餐館入貨有volume discount，但又有燈油火蠟喎。舊年在台灣西門町及各大夜市的確食得好過癮，但睇完呢篇文，真係有啲保留。

得罪人多稱呼人少

寫另一帖時無意中看到一則祖國名咀在美國開車藏槍藏毒被捕的新聞，比較有趣的是此君經常出口傷人，例如批評演員徐崢「演豬挺像，演人挺囧」（前半句指徐崢在《春光燦爛豬八戒》中扮演的豬八戒，後半句指他在《泰囧》中的角色），令徐崢相當尷尬，但也不能不讚他的口才／文筆呢！此外，他又說春晚（春節晚會）的觀眾都是農民，「我根本不屑上春晚的舞台，春晚的觀眾都是農民，我不想讓那麼多農民認識我」Well，有很多港星倒是恨上春晚得不得了呢。

Jazz saxophone music recommendations again

Can't stop listening to good jazz sax!

- Troy Roberts: Tales and Tones
I actually wanted to write about his 2015 album, Secret Rhymes, since 2015 but never got to it. Well, he has already released another one, for 2017 :) If you enjoy hard bop, he really nailed it. And you can't go wrong with Robert Hurst on bass and Jeff "Tain" Watts on drums.

- Western Jazz Quartet: Free Fall
Speaking of high quality post bop, one should listen to "Free Fall," inspired by a jump from the edge of the space to fall at 843 mph and break the sound barrier. I thought the "west" in the name refers to, well, the west coast but it's actually Western Michigan (yeah, the same school who lost to Wisconsin at the Cotton bowl this new year!) They are the resident jazz quartet at the school.

- Florencia Gonzalez: Between Loves
Last week I wrote about the interesting interplay between alto saxophonist Kris Allen and his tenor player Frank Kozyra. If you enjoy unison/harmonized horn playing, you should definitely listen to this one, with a "triple horn attack" (sax, trumpet and trombone) This reviewer thinks they sounded bigger than they are (almost like a big band) and I couldn't agree more.

Music and politics

香港近年經常有人說不要把事件政治化，也有人說在社會發生的事和政治不可分割，以下所講發生在美國一事相信就見證了後者。美國著名搖滾樂手「波士」Bruce Springsteen一向被不熟悉音樂的外國人誤以為是大美國主義者，連他唱的名曲也名為Born in the USA！其實相反：該曲正正批判退伍軍人不被美國社會及制度善待，也有其他作品關於藍領勞工階層遭遇的不公；是不折不扣的liberal政見人士，當然不支持候任美國總統杜林普！杜林普上台慶典自然不會找到波士來表演，不過演出名單卻有一隊波士的cover band（我想中文可稱此樂隊為專演出波士的音樂的致敬樂隊）他們解釋主辦單位早於數年前已和他們簽約，本來不想事件政治化，只想履行合約，其實支持及反對者都有；不過最終決定毀約，已有賠毀約金的打算，因為波士不會同意用他的音樂去慶祝杜林普上台。

作出這樣的決定，又引起更多議論紛紛，不少指他們在整個派對只是小角色，有更多大牌歌手樂隊；也有人認為，靠波士的音樂揾食，還是順順他的意比較好吧。無論如何，我覺得他們出來講這幾句有百利無一害：相信面對輿論壓力，主辦單位不敢要求太多毀約賠償金吧。政治這東西，不是想避就避得到的！

Jazz saxophone music recommendations

It has been a while since last time I wrote about the saxophone music I have been listening to. These are some good ones I listened to in the past few years:

- Kris Allen: Beloved
This CD is recommended by my favorite Podcast: "In the Groove - Jazz and Beyond, by Ken" as Kris Allen is a Hartford musician local to the Podcaster. It got my attention as Allen is an alto player and I was totally into alto lately. And I found this album interesting immediately because it featured 2 sax (Allen on alto and Frank Kozyra on tenor) but no piano (actually no chordal instrument at all) and I could see the challenge (which he explained here) It's worthwhile to mention the rhythm section provided great support and was recorded well.

- Antonio Arnedo: Travesia
This jazz album is also piano-less but it does feature a chordal instrument: guitar played by the highly regarded Ben Monder. Arnedo played some very beautiful and sometimes haunting soprano here. 

- Bill Bruford's Earthworks: A Part, yet Apart
Bill Bruford is probably more well-known as the drummer of the progressive rock band Yes. However, he has also been playing jazz for a long time (saw him with his fusion group Earthworks at the Knitting Factory in 1999 and so impressed that I bought their "The Sound of Surprise" CD later on, which was the release after this one) And I particularly enjoy the tenor and soprano saxophone parts on this album, played by Patrick Clahar.

- Reggie Codrington: Always in Motion
Well, this is another detour, to smooth jazz. Saxophonist Codrignton is definitely not a big name you hear often like Dave Koz, Marion Meadow or Everett Harp but this is one high quality smooth jazz album with the "classic" smooth sax sound, beautiful playing on soulful ballad and energetic on funky tunes. Judging from the varieties of old and new artists on Smooth Jazz channels (like Music Choice provided by cable) and podcasts, I think the scene is actually quite healthy, contrary to what the "smooth jazz hating" music critics would like to portray.

Coin show

My mom loves collecting stuff like stamps and rare money (paper or coins) so I learned that from her when I was a kid. I don't have as much enthusiasm though. So my collections have grown just a tiny bit from those days. And I got some nice additions from the first coin show I have ever attended last week as I took my son there to fulfill his requirement for a boy scout merit badge. And it was his lucky day: one seller was very eager to teach us some basics of collecting and while we were there one of his customer bought 100 $1 coins that worths $1800 and suggested the seller to give one to my son. We also learned from him that 1921 silver dollar is known as a Morgan dollar, and it contains real silver (the amount of silver itself worths ~$13 today) Nowadays coins do not contain any precious metal. Another beautiful coin I saw there that I would like to collect but too expensive was an Indian head $5 gold coin. It worths ~$420 today with ~$300 of gold content.
Then we checked out another seller's interesting paper notes. He showed us some special US dollar that was stamped with a Hawaiian brown seal. Those notes were released to the Islands after the Pearl Harbor attack as a counter-measure: all notes were replaced there with the stamped notes just in case the Japanese put in some counterfeits to screw up the system (like what they did in Asia during WWII)
Before we left, I visited a seller with many inexpensive foreign coins. Since I don't really have much knowledge, I randomly pick the ones with designs I like and bought 11 for $4.
It was fun.

Update: my son and I both entered the show's prize draw and my son was so lucky to win a buffalo nickel in mint condition!

美國開國功臣逸事

今日看了一段紀錄片，講NY哈林區有間古蹟大宅，由美國開國功臣Alexander Hamilton所起。話說他是律師又係政治家，總統華盛頓很賞識，找他當首任財政部長。該片說他心地很好，由於自己出身寒微，很樂於扶貧。某日有位Maria Reynolds女士來訪，說她被丈夫抛棄，和女兒生計成問題，希望Hamilton打救。Ham哥當晚就拿錢去女家，乾柴烈火就燒了起來，起初相安無事直至Reynolds先生寫信多次勒索他，每次US$1000, Ham哥最終拒絕就範，對方真的爆料，Ham就寫作篇長長認錯之，然後得到太太和國人原諒，但幾年之後Ham和對頭（當時美國副總統）決鬥死於其槍下！

Women at NASA

作為2017年首帖，當然要寫點振奮人心的東西。很多電腦外行內行人都聽過史上第一位程式員是十九世紀的Ada Lovelace女士；但上世紀四五十年代美國還是嚴重性別及種族歧視的年代，太空總署開發太空人升空探險的計劃，負責運算及編寫電腦軟件的人員，竟然是女子組，更有多位黑人女士，那是上月帶小朋友去看電影從其中一條電影預告片中得知，老實說，有點難以置信；在History channel網頁看到更多詳情，對她們有更深的敬意。如果業界和學術界有心推動女性加入科研行列，實在應該多提此事啊。

Car commercial sends wrong messages to kids

I think this has become Lexus' yearly tradition, i.e., commercials showing families getting luxury vehicles as X'mas gifts. I guess that 1% of the Americans could really afford doing that. Not sure if that's the only American population the company is going after though. As one of the 99%, I am kinda pissed. But then it got worse: this year's commercials are about making their kids to ask Santa for cars for the parents. Looks like the "target" audiences are not as rich as before and needed financial help? Let the kids get their own presents from Santa, OK? One version of the commercial is particularly bad IMO: the kid bargained so the parents allow him to request an "add-on" pet dog for himself. And I am not the only one who think this is bad. (Yeah, I dislike the Apple commercial too. Too fake)

No cappuccino on Starbucks menu

I have been a Starbucks shareholder for years but I didn't drink coffee until early this year so they rarely get my businesses except a frappuccino once in a long while. As a self-proclaimed cool dude of course I am anti-mega-chains and pro-local-business so I am still not getting my coffee fix from the likes of Peet's and Starbucks (I think its stock does fine without my contribution) I did tried Peet's cappuccino once ('coz my daughter gave me a coupon) but I found its foamed milk too firm and didn't mix with the espresso much. A few days ago I need to get online and my best bet was the Starbucks at Truckee. The place was ideal: large table and plenty of power outlets. I actually did my stuff for 30 min until I got a break and of course I needed to do the right thing: order something! (Well, the line has been long with tons of tourists coming in and out anyway) I thought it's time to try Starbuck's capp but I double-checked the menu when it's my turn to order and I couldn't find it! Why why why? Well, I did find the closest thing, which is latte. Of course I expected more milk in it but the whole drink tasted more like milk than coffee. Definitely not my thing. Then I had to go online to find out why there is no capp on SBUX's menu! I figured this is significant enough to make the news. I still don't know why SBUX cannot hire all those baristas capable of making perfectly well cappuccino at the local coffee shops. Maybe not hiring them are good for the profit margin? I'm fine with that and I would just try Flat White next time if I really need to. To all coffee-drinking readers of this article: please keep getting your coffee from SBUX! That's my kids' college fund :)

廣東話正字時間

早幾日我在另一個blog po文要寫岩巉兩個字，唔識寫後者，當然揾Google打救，揾到呢篇文：廣東話最緊要正字 岩巉還是岩蠶？佢講其餘嗰幾個字詞都成日唔識寫／打：

1. 「搲」爛塊面
2. 瞓「捩」頸
3. 心「悒」
4. 頭「耷」「耷」
5. 黃「黚」「黚」

抄左落呢個po，第日就有得"reuse"了 :)

冬大過年

今天是冬至，在美國已很少在正日慶祝，雖然每年都會聽到「冬大過年」這句說話，卻從來沒有考究何解，而事實上做冬只食一餐大餐，過年有團年飯開年飯甚至人日也有藉口食大餐，過年舞龍舞獅派利是燒炮仗，怎會比冬至「小」呢？今年終於從早前在FB add了的史檔學到原因：這其實是中國古代農業社會的傳統，農民生活耕作和天氣息息相關，所以陽曆的廿四節氣（冬至是其一），影響反而比陰曆的新年更大！古時社會上上下下包括帝皇都隆重慶祝冬至，之後那天官方有假放。

Top jazz 2016

又到年尾，又到各大樂評媒體發表全年最佳作品的時候，這幾年在FB added爵士鍾情的頁（同名網上電台節目由香港有料音樂人鍾氏兄弟主持），讀到不少和爵士樂相關文章，就全年最佳作也有兩篇：HuffingtonPost這一篇可算十分「直接」：列出碟名，唱片封套圖像，再加音檔連結，老老實實，不少樂評寫一大堆無甚意義的文字：旋律優美，節奏感強勁，成員合拍之類，倒不如讓讀者自己聽下評斷好過！榜上大家相信都耳熟能詳的名字包括Orrin Evans (piano), Warren Wolf (vibes), Shirley Horn (vocal), Julian Lage (guitar), Fred Hersch (piano),部份他們的新作我已從其他podcasts聽過亦十分欣賞。另一個榜來自Jazzwise Magazine，作為一份爵士雜誌，他們的樂評當然更詳盡，包括交待創作背景等等，此文介紹的新作中，我相當喜歡John Scofield的Country for Old Men,   Sco玩fusion及straight ahead瓣瓣皆精，玩country 自然也難不到他，其實鄉謠味真不太重，借題發揮意義較大，不過Sco倒是cover了我唯一喜歡的鄉謠歌手Shania Twain的You are still the one。此外EST Symphony一碟我也相當喜歡，不是太刻意爵士化或古典化，值得一聽再聽（可惜Spotify沒有全碟）該雜誌對Charles Lloyd and the Marvels一碟評價麻麻，樂評人尤其不喜唱片公司無厘頭加插一首格格不入的Norah Jones主唱作品You are so beautiful（歌本身也不壞）其餘的作品都相當Charles Lloyd, 即是新派得來不致過份前衛。聽了少許Jack DeJohnette/Ravi Coltrane/Matthew Garrison三人合作的In Movement，頗為欣賞他們挑戰高難度，一來色士風三重奏從來我都覺得少了一件chordal instrument較為單薄，二來有Ravi父親John Coltrane及Rashied Ali珠玉在前，藝高人膽大值得支持。

Top metal 2016

It's that time of the year so a "rock (but also tons of pop and other genres)" publication like the Rolling Stone magazine of course has to write about their 20 best metal albums. I might not agree with their choices (as my taste of metal is kinda narrow) but still appreciate the effort. It's always good to learn about the new bands/albums out there. And several well-established bands have released albums in 2016 that I wasn't aware of, like Megadeth's Dystopia and Meshuggah's The Violent Sleep of Reason. Both are at their usual high standards with great guitar parts. Of course, the biggest release has to be from the biggest metal band in the history of music: Metallica! The first single was actually quite enjoyable. The rest are actually not bad too but the vocal still reminded me too much of the black album and thus do not measure up to their best (Master of Puppet, And Justice for All)

Not all "big enough" bands that had new release in 2016 made the list though, e.g., Death Angel's "The Evil Divide" and Testament's "Brotherhood of the Snake" (even though I am a huge fan, gotta admit this is not among their strongest works)

There are surely plenty of thrash metal diehards like me. This article talked about all of the above thrash bands' new albums. I learned quite a few things. I also learned that T-shirt with 80's Thrash band logo and album designs have become some sort of retro fashion trend this Summer while visiting the H&M store in Hong Kong. Testament's Alex Skolnick wrote a post to ridicule Kanye wearing one. Yeah, wearing tee of bands that you don't listen to is kinda lame.

咖啡世界

開始飲cappuccino不經不覺已是大半年前的事，在屋企及公司附近的Blue Bottle及Philz自然是最初的選擇！前者的Bella Donovan味道相當balanced討好，我更喜歡dark一點點的Giant Steps(當然，作為John Coltrane忠實fans的我非試不可）而Philz的decaf dark French及Jacob's wonderbar 兩溝的味道對我是百喝不厭。花心的我當然不能滿足於僅僅喝兩家咖啡！這幾個月每月都有新發現：Napa Oxbow market內的Ritual coffee, SFMOMA內的Sightglass, SF Mission/Valencia的Fourbarrel, Palo Alto Cal Ave 跑步用品店Zombierunner內的咖啡檔，以及南灣Campbell的Barefoot, 皆各有特色。
特別想推介Walnut Creek downtown 附近的Pacific Bay Coffee Company, 在這貴租地區一杯cap賣$3.5一點也不貴，而且播smooth jazz網台好好feel，老板見我會說廣東話多談了幾句，他告知賣咖啡關鍵是炒豆，一般咖啡店賣所謂一磅豆只有12oz, 因為25%水份在炒時流失，但Pacific Bat就賣足秤16oz， 我買了他的espresso blend，有機會會再光顧。

Oakland artist collective tragedy

年尾傳來一單令人十分悲痛的新聞，就是屋崙「鬼船」大火。該處本身正式用途其實是貨倉，但二房東分租給不少藝術家當工作室及住所之用，亦有時舉行小型音樂會，今次火警發生時正是，因此死傷人數如此之高。據報導，該處被間成兩層，樓梯用木板搭成，防火滅火裝備不合格，裝修又像迷宮一樣，不少參與音樂會的觀眾就算不是被困在二樓，也因為不熟內裡格局而找不到逃生之路。其實市政府也曾接過關於該處用途成疑的投訴，只是例行公事地去看看，無人開門就不了了之。
除了物業安全監管，是次慘劇引起其他多個值得討論的話題，包括小眾電子音樂人表演場地難找，就如今次音樂會的主角，藝名Golden Donna的男樂手來自Wisconsin，其作品由小型唱片公司出品，靠本身或公司的能耐，要找個正規表演場地有難度，老實說，從YouTube找到的視頻可見鬼船攪這類音樂會氣氛實在不錯，可惜卻有安全問題。而灣區高昂的租金對低收入人士，包括一眾藝術工作者越來越不利。一方面，灣區人才濟濟，造成一個刺激創作的氛圍；但另一方面，無法負擔住所／工作室的租金，只有離開這裡才能解決問題；實在可悲。

如心化石公園

最近這次香港之旅雖然極短，也算是達到每次都要發掘新地方的目標：如心化石公園說騎呢的確有點騎呢，說是hidden gem卻也名付其實！大家應該估到和已故傳奇女商人龔如心有關，正是位於荃灣如心廣場（坐巴士常常見總站在這裡，今次是爸爸帶領首次到訪！）提起化石，相信大家首先會想起恐龍那些已絕種動物，我也是！但如心化石公園展示的是植物化石，想深一層，遠古動物會變化石，植物又何嘗不會呢？其實也很有美感值得欣賞，看看此文介紹。

警訊影帝

在FB看到有人介紹警訊的演員，其實我很少留意，原來近年有一位常常飾演騙徒之類的角色，人稱警訊影帝！請欣賞其精彩演出:

娛樂性實在豐富，片中音樂勁好feel！我老友說這類摩登粵曲可在YouTube找到:search鄭君綿，梁醒波，鄧寄塵; 他特別介紹一套摩登滿天神佛。

Sports lowlights: the "bottom" revealed by Dzeko

I am not a big fan of World Cup Qualifiers as that means the European pro-league won't play that week. Some of the games from last weekend were alright but nothing would top this: Dzeko pulled off his opponent's pants. Here is the video:

Shoutcast streaming

I am official back to using OS X for personal computing last week. Previously I had a (white dual USB) iBook that gradually became so obsoleted that its only usage was listening to streaming radio at night. Eventually I completely stopped using it. My new Mac reminded me that was actually a very good source for streaming music. And it took a while for the memory to come back to me: the website was ShoutCast.com! For example, this Sax4Ever streams pretty good smooth jazz. For traditional jazz, I would go for TheJazzGroove.com or JAZZ.FM91 (CJRT-FM).

秦俑之希臘影響

一直沒有想過，為秦始皇陪葬的兵馬俑，構思以至製作技術，竟然有外國勢力參與的可能性！

最近英國BBC製作的一套紀錄片中，有英國學者推測希臘乃係該外國勢力，該片又引述一位中國學者指秦代已有人來往歐亞，中希文化交流有其可能性（不過她並不認為有足夠證據顯示希臘人有直接參與製作，該片有誤導成份）

有趣的是，如果把不同時代的中國陶製人像排在一起觀看，的確可見人的姿勢表情及高度，秦俑和以前及以後皆頗大分別！

Sports highlights: 2016 World Series

昨晚的Game7是Cubs vs Indians為爭奪總冠軍終極一戰，我認為是繼多倫多Blue Jays Joe Carter以一支全壘打奪冠以來最緊張刺激的一次！雖然我看巨人三次奪冠及白襪那一次也相當肉緊，但那是加入個人感情，不夠客觀。

由於我不算是兩隊的fans,  Game1前我的願望是打到Game7 再加時；本來在Game4後Indians以3-1領先，形勢大好，Cubs看來無力還擊，卻又一場一場追回；Game7 更一度領先5-1!  又以為塵埃落定，誰知皇牌Closer Chapman竟然在8th inning失準讓Indians扳平，結果真的加時。不過10th inning就分出勝負，由Cubs打破108年的宿命。108年前的世界到底是有多久呢?古典台出的帖指出，那時作曲及指揮家Mahler尚在生！繼紅襪的多年宿命被打破後，無獨有偶，今次Cubs同樣是由紅襪轉投的總經理Theo Epstein領導下打破宿命。他的下一個東家會是Indians嗎？

地鐵新站

最近在FB 那些舊香港及歷史專頁看到不少地鐵最早期通車的廣告及通線圖，原來是乘著何文田及黃埔兩個新站通車之勢而貼。因為就讀的中小學校關係，算是在何文田長大，其實往返學校均甚少坐地鐵，而是以巴士火車居多，而新的何文田站比旺角及油麻地站更遠離母校！倒是有出口到高山劇場及愛民邨。而月台至部份出口的梯級是破紀錄地多！據稱比廿五層樓還多，而100毛的盤菜營子及東方昇兩位搞笑行樓梯拍live,  竟也有超過四萬人觀看！包括區區在下。下次有機會我也一定會試行。

荒謬世界香港篇之選擇性執法的城管

這幾天在FB頗引起回響的一則新聞，是一位從事清潔工的老婆婆，因為在街上倒水違法，被食環署職員票控。其實，執法人員依法辦事，本來無可厚非；不過很多網民同意，這種個別例子網開一面比較合情理，而且食環素來選擇性執法，從來不會票控同樣在街上小便的強人（和清潔婆婆同罪），或者阻街的水貨客推銷員；即使市民投訴也往往不受理。

古代女石像

近幾個月我的帖數大幅下降，實在有點慚愧，我的藉口是齋寫體育和音樂（加少許時事）寫得有點悶，其實有一個我常看的課題我比較少帖，就是歷史！我在FB like了電視歷史頻道專頁，因此讀到不少相關文章，值得介紹。例如這篇講及最近在土耳奇考古學家發現了一個有8000年歷史的古老女石像。

一看其模樣，我就想起早幾年在奧地利由維也納沿著多瑙河踩單車經過Willendorf看到歷史上有名的Venus of Willendorf，那是來自20,000年前，歷史久遠得多，而且十分明顯地和生育崇拜有關。今次土耳其發現的神像對雕石技術需求較高，身體特徵更為精細。不過有專家指未必是生育崇拜之用，亦有機會代表族中地位較高的女性，被神化也有可能。

電動方程式

我想香港人算是對賽車頗有熱情，會特地飛去大馬星洲上海的車迷不少，也出產過多位車手，不過在香港舉辦的賽事可謂絕無僅有，年前一級方程式開拓新市場加入多站亞洲城市，當年香港當局卻完全不見積極爭取，我想其實未必無機會。國際賽車聯會兩年前舉辦資源需求相對較少的第一屆電動方程式，據聞香港賽車界有打算申辦，不過當局仍然安全至上，即是不搞賽車不用封路不會死人就最安全！老實說，我對這個無甚往績可參考的新賽事的吸引力的確有點懷疑，攪不成eprix就算罷。不過看過電視轉播數輪賽事，我開始改觀：車手級數一點不弱，很多曾經是F1車手，競爭相當激烈，第一屆贏得總冠軍的畢奇仔相信頗多fans，第二屆我沒有太留意，轉眼間已是2016年十月，原來香港已成功爭取，更是第三季首站！Formula E賣點是在全球最出名大都會市中心地帶鬥車，香港這條賽道絕對夠級數，雖然賽前車手都認為真正能扒頭只有兩個彎位。而事實上正是如此！第一屆冠軍畢奇仔排頭位出賽一直領先，另一位熱門第二屆冠軍Buemi則耐心伺機在上述彎位扒頭。而世界房車賽WTCC冠軍Jose Maria Lopez指自己賽房車的經驗可能幫助不大，此言亦應驗：他在彎位炒車導致原本領先的畢奇仔要減速閃避，結果後者只能以第十一名完成賽事。 提起Lopez和WTCC，早幾年澳門大賽車是WTCC其中一站，不過去年WTCC放棄澳門，澳門也立即找到新辦的TCR房車賽頂上(其實TCR的前景比WTCC似乎更為光明，後者的多屆冠軍車廠Citroen已宣佈退出!)順帶一提，澳門大賽車還有另一項精英車手及名牌跑車雲集的FIA GT World Cup賽事，去年冠軍Maro Engel除了今年會捲土重來，也在香港eprix出賽，另一位eprix參賽車手Felix Rosenqvist也是澳門常客兼F3冠軍，熱切期待2016澳門大賽車！

Sports highlights and lowlights: WCH2016, Ryder Cup, October baseball, and football

Last time I wrote about this year's World Cup of Hockey, the 4th team of the semifinals was not determined yet. It turned out to be the Russian edging out Team North America (who would have got through if they could have won their last game in regulation!) Team Europe upset Sweden during the semi while the home team Canada did their job with Russia. The final was a best-of-3 between Europe and Canada. Canada took Game 1 and Europe led most of game 2 and looking to tie the series only to see 2 late goals by Canada to win the cup. It was an awesome tournament from start to finish!

Another international competition was the Ryder Cup. US was the team with home field and we certainly took advantage of it with a huge margin for the victory. However, it was not without controversy: the brother of Danny Willett of team Europe wrote about poor behaviour of US fans before the event, which Willett claimed to disagree before the event (and agree afterwards!) And the Willett's were right. I think it's too much to heckle players on the opposing golf team. This is not football/soccer afterall. Speaking of heckling fans, a funny story did came out of this: during the Ryder Cup practice round, a US fan made fun of the European players' inability to sink a putt. The players offered $100 to challenge this fan to make the long putt and that dude made it! That $100 note with the autographs of those players certainly worth more than $100 now.

Of course, for the local sports fan, the biggest deal was whether the 2016 SF Giants could make it to the playoff! If anyone could still remember how the season started, the Giants was the hottest team in baseball entering the All-star break. They seem to be able to win games that they shouldn't have won. Well, it seems like the "mirror image" after the All-star break: all players were in one slump after another. Starting pitching was not that great anymore. The bullpen was unreliable and the batters had trouble hitting the balls and getting runs scored! It was a torture to see they losing all those games they led at some points. We dropped all the way from NL West 1st place to fighting for the 2nd wild card! Anyway, it came down to the final series about the Dodgers. The way I saw it was that if we couldn't finish the season in convincing fashion, there's no point getting into the playoff (because of losses of other wild card competitors) And the Giants rose to the occasion! The first game on Friday started out close but the Giants jumped to a big lead and a win. We scored free tix to the 2nd game which feature 2-time Cy Young Clayton Kershaw vs ... well, Giant's rookie pitcher Ty Blach. I thought we were doomed but man I was so wrong! Blach matched Kershaw inning-by-inning with both teams shut out, until Pagan hit a solo homer. Then the Giants put 2 more runs on the board while the bullpen did a nice job keeping a clean sheet for the win. Sunday was the last day of the season and the Giants must win to retain the 2nd wild card and they did exactly that (and kinda spoiled Vin Sculley's last broadcast of his legendary career, who did an inning for the local station for this game)

The SF football fans were not as happy though: the 49er wasted a 14-0 lead at home over the Dallas Cowboys team that was hated by lots of their fans and fell to 1-3 for the season while the "crosstown rival" which was also the laughing stock for more than a decade, the Oakland Raiders, won another close game away at Baltimore for a 3-1 record. Oh yeah, Stanford was hammered by Washington on Friday night. I actually cared more about the Wisc-Mich and Texas-OkSt games on Saturday. Too bad both of my teams lost!

For fans of Manchester United like myself, tying Stoke City 1-1 felt almost like a loss. They barely beat their Europa league opponent from Ukraine 1-0 (scored with a mis-kick by Rooney fed to Ibrahimovic for a header) in mid-week as well. Seems like their huge victory over reigning EPL champ Leicester City the weekend before was just a fluke! Nevertheless, a 3 game unbeaten streak is way better than the 3 game losing streak before this!

Back to baseball, the playoff has officially started today with the AL wild card game between the O's and the Blue Jays. The latter was kinda like our 2nd home team since we have family there. And they advanced with a 3-run homer by Edwin Encarnacion in the bottom of 11th. It did look like the World Series winner by Joe Carter! (That's the most memorable HR in my 25 years of experience watching baseball)

古董電腦續集

早幾個月讀過TechRepulic介紹博物館收藏的古董電腦後帖了一文，該站可能有位編輯是古董電腦迷（又或者當日無其他新聞可寫），前幾天再接再勵介紹，這一批是仍被使用中的陳年舊機！當真見證著西方諺語If it ain't broke, don't fix it! 該文還串了蘋果電腦一下:蘋果高層指使用五年前的電腦是很悲的事！

2016 Grand Prix of Sonoma

For us racing fans in the SF Bay Area, there are 2 race tracks that feature major races: Laguna Seca (Monterey) in the South and Sonoma Raceway in the North. The latter seems more high profile these days with the top 2 of US Motorsports: NASCAR and IndyCar both race there, but the former was not without its classic moments too. I am glad to have the opportunities to go to several races: MotoGP (Laguna Seca), NASCAR and IndyCar and enjoy the great atmosphere. In the past few years I had become a fan of Pirelli World Challenge (wrote about it in this post), of which the races last ~50 min and pit stop for tires/fuel were not required. You might think races like these are easier for the polesitter to lead from start to finish but it's actually not the case. Even though the leader enjoys the clean air, he could still not manage his tires carefully enough and be caught by the following cars. Thanks to tickets from my bro, I got to watch the WC's 2016 stop at Sonoma last Sat (IndyCar was actually the "headliner" but the "main event" happens on Sunday. Still, we watched the IndyCar qualifiers and saw the eventual winner of the race and the season championship Simon Pagenaud winning the pole in convincing fashion. The 22 team was just strong, most of the season. )

My daughter and I arrived at the raceway ~10am and took our time to walk around visiting the booths. And was able to catch the autograph session from the WC drivers. We got to meet these young and legendary drivers, including multiple championship winner Johnny O'Connell, Pat Long as well as the young gun Austin Cindric (son of Will Power's team strategist Tim Cindric) They all raced in the GT class. O'Connell fought Cindric for the whole race and passed the latter for victory on the last lap!

The 2nd WC race of the day was for the GTS class. In addition to the more "conventional" Ford Mustang, Porsche and Aston Martin Vantage, there are also many more "exotic" sports car you normally won't see, like Ginetta, KTM X-bow, Sin GT4. The top 3 were battling each other for most of the race. And former champ Lawson Aschenbach has to start from the back because of his absence during qualifying and had to fought his way up to the top 10 lap after lap.

WC lived up to my expectation and some more. I am looking forward to the season finale at Laguna Seca next month!

World Cup of Hockey 2016

北美四大體育/聯賽中的冰上曲棍球是我最喜愛觀看的比賽之一,而四年一度冬運,頂尖球員為自己國家全力爭勝,可觀性極高!捷克由綽號Dominator的守門員及另一位名將Jaromir Jagr領軍奪金那一屆,我印象尤深;以Sidney Crosby為主將的加拿大激戰美國奪金一役,亦算經典.其實NHL職業球員能參與奧運,始於1998年那一屆,在此之前他們能參與的國際賽,是加拿大盃(1996年改為世界盃),這世界盃在2004年也舉辦了一次,停了十二年今年終於舉辦第三屆!基於全球有頂級實力的國家其實不多,就以2014冬運十二國的比賽為例,多次出現勝負相差五或六球的一面倒比數,今屆世界盃八隊中找來六個實力最高的國家,再加兩隊"明星隊":Team North America由美加U23(該歳數或以下)球員組成(主辦機構靈感當然來自奧運足球),Team Europe則是由除俄羅絲瑞典芬蘭及捷克四國外的歐洲球員組成.八隊可謂叮噹馬頭.Team North America一班初生之犢表現尤為矚目,而其有型的球衣據報相當好賣,現場觀眾很多年輕人穿著!

目前四強中三個席位已由加瑞歐奪得,美國兩戰兩敗,實在另人失望.餘下賽程越來越緊張精彩,熱切期待!

欲知天下事，記得睇FB

這幾天靠FB 讀到以下幾則新聞：

1）著名爵士口琴家Toots Thielemans去世，享年94。我曾經有一陣子每天彈他膾炙人口的名作Bluesette, 是當時唯一一首我練習的3/4歌曲。作為爵士樂及口琴雙重愛好者，實在感到惋惜，今天下班一於大聽特聽他的唱片。還有鋼片琴大師Bobby Hutcherson，也於上星期過身。

2）有人回帶到2012年，指Usian Bolt當年在接受記者訪問時，運動場奏起美國國歌，Bolt即示意暫停，待歌播完再繼續，Bolt其實是牙買加人，對別國國歌同樣尊重，可見其為人甚有教養。2016奧運，除了Lockte講大話之類的醜聞，更多的是體育精神被展示，大會特別嘉獎兩位在賽跑時同跌倒，然後互相扶持過終點的女跑手。而『水神』Michael Phelps在蝶泳敗給新秀Schooling(our fellow University of Texas student!)後，叫記者多點訪問後者，亦被視為有風度的表現。

3）加國某網站登出一文，標題是黑膠碟買家多為中年loner, 再看內文，其實是部份（七成）黑膠碟買家接受調查時表示喜歡獨處，我覺得兩者不完全相同，有點微妙的分別：喜歡和朋友聚會的，也可以喜歡獨處呀，就像我！

Strange Radio Experience (again)

U2's "In the Street of No Name" was playing on the radio just now while I was flipping through my "commercial" email account. And I saw this: "Guitar World's October Issue Featuring The Edge is Here!"

Metal Mayham

Once upon a time you could listen to and watch great metal music video on TV. That's the late 80s and early 90s when MTV was still about music instead of reality shows all day. The best segment of video came from "Triple Thrash Threat" during the show "Headbanger's ball" Of course that's a long gone era. Still, I have been able to watch some good old metal videos from the show "Metal Mania" on VH1 Classic. I guess that reflected the revival of interest in metal this decade. I haven't been channel-surfing for a long time but I just did last night and found VH1 Classic has become MTV Classic with special focus on the 90s. And the "new" channel has a show called "Metal Mayham" (with an 'a') I couldn't find any info about the show on the net. That "episode" started with Metallica's "Fade to Black" (Not a bad choice!) Then Testament's "Practice What You Preach" (I've listened to the song a thousand times but have never seen its MV!) Followed by Anthrax's "Time"! I guess the channel paid a tribute to "Triple Thrash Threat"! After that, it's hair metal with MV from Twisted Sisters, Quiet Riot, Ratt and White Lion. Then a very unusual choice from Living Colours (Vernon Reid's guitar never disappoints) And also a real "Classic" moment with a track from the Dio-era of Black Sabbath. Looking forward to other episodes.

(Side note: I am writing this at a tire shop waiting for service. The classic rock channel is on. Rocking with ZZ Top right now. \m/ )

Baseball legends

I watched a bit of the Marlins vs Giants game today and would like to write about 2 legends on the opponent: Ichiro Suzuki hit a ground rule double in the 9th inning (but Casilla didn't allow anyone else to get on base and saved the 1-0 game for the Giants. Yay!) That's Ichiro's 3002 hit. (He hit the 3000 milestone last weekend) Another legendary hitter was not a Marlin player, but their hitting coach, the former Giant Barry Bonds. He got ejected arguing with the umpire today. That's his first ejection (as a coach, obviously) Not sure if he made a big difference but this team has certainly improved a lot from last season and is a contender (currently holding one of the wild card) So glad to see the Giants finally won a series (against a contender too!) after their long long slump since the all-star break. Well, they will be the co-leader of the NL West for at least another day. 

Letter opener and cycling

I watched a bit of the Olympic's Men Time trial on the really really early TV broadcast. None of the other "contenders" had started at that time. US cyclist Brent Bookwalter did and he slipped and crashed very soon after his start while crossing a tricky pavement. I guess there was really nothing else to show so it was replayed over and over and over and over! Then I head to work and rode from the train station to office. Just when I saw the pavement and reminded me of Bookwalter's incident, I started hearing weird clicking noise from the rear wheel! Shifting up and down didn't help. After I got into the office, I flipped the bike over and finally saw what's wrong: a piece of metal wire got into the bottom rear derailleur pulley (that small "wheel" thingy. I just learned its name) The only "tool" that I could find at the desk was a metal letter opener, which was actually very useful. I used the sharp end to pry out the wire, which broke into pieces and I got all of them out eventually.

Here is a bonus cycling related story, from the Olympic time trial: a few slots opened up at the last minutes (probably because of injuries at the road race?) Namibian cyclist Dan Craven was invited to fill one of the spots. He took part in the road race earlier and that's the only bike he had. No time trial bike for him. He was in a dilemma but finally accepted (after consulting his followers on Twitter!)  knowing that his time won't be good. He did finish last. At least what he was afraid of, i.e., getting passed by all the guys started later than him, didn't happen. It's good to have the spirit to participate anyway. That's what sports is about!

隸書入門

我們從少學習書法,十之八九是從楷書入手,事實上我們日常閱讀的書籍,基本上都是楷書,可惜規規矩矩的寫從來都不適合我.最近再次迷上書法,發覺喜歡行書篆書的我,似乎也不必局限於以楷書入門,隸書也是一個極佳選擇.

乙瑛帖就是一篇適合隸書入門者臨的帖.

古董電腦

音響迷中有一派喜歡玩和聽古董音響,通常是把上世紀中出產的音響系統的部份元件,例如號角掦聲單元,或真空管等放到新組合使用,也有人修理原汁原味的舊機來用.

不過電腦迷收藏古董機的不知又有幾多呢?相信大部份玩家追求速度和新功能,就算舊機有甚麼特別好用軟件或好玩遊戲,多數可在新機使用,大不了來個emulator!例如我很想懷舊一番的倚天中文系統, CP/M, 或Karateka


至於更古老的,多得有心的博物館收藏有歷史價值代表著一代最先進科技的產品,此文介紹了多部被收藏及還可以工作的古董電腦(雖然其運算能力不及你的電子錶)

港澳台遊記:飲飲食食篇

今次回香港因事去了港島好幾次,姐姐提起西環那裡有潮州菜館德記,難得爸爸同行,一於架忌冷食潮州菜啦!潮州人煲潮州粥煲得不爛(媽媽最拿手),連不甚欣賞這傳統的我,也對德記的蠔仔粥讚不絕口,皆因蠔仔又多又飽滿,蠔仔煎也是.之後一次去北角就幫襯了也有潮州菜如蠔仔粥的太平飯店,鵝片啖啖肉,正!而首次幫襯的譚仔三哥的米線也不錯.
澳門一日遊其實飲食的選擇超多,不過我們一心懷舊想追尋兒時風味的葡國菜,在氹仔的木偶和小飛象選了後者,雖然食完感到名過於實,也不算太失望,馬介休球前菜不俗,只是那個扒刀也切不開的羊排實在太失敗,我想餐廳也同意,所以收回沒計單;卻錯過了新濠影匯沒有人等位的鼎泰豐!在威尼斯人意外發現安德魯葡撻,作為下午茶最好不過,晚餐則是foodcourt的大利來豬扒包,麵包和扒一如以往有水準,只是大家貪新忘舊,其實不用排長龍也是好事.
廿幾年後重遊的台灣,美食處處比起港澳有過之而無不及,真是無法抗拒了.下機不久就和司機談起牛肉麵,廿幾年來我一直懷念我心目中全世界最好吃的,是以前爸爸司機介紹在桃源街的一家,當年資訊沒現在發達不算超級出名,和很多人提起都沒聽過,最近Google一下,才發現桃源街老王記現在大大有名!雖然如此,今次的司機也有其他更欣賞的牛肉麵,後來他送我們到西門町的酒店,下車時告訴我桃源街牛肉麵就在1 block之外!我匆匆check in 放下行李,就立即去幫襯,店還是當年的老樣子,每塊牛肉依然切得恰到好處,入口軟硬適中,無論紅燒或清燉,味道也是和當年一樣正!講完老王記,美食和老字拉上關係的,還有各條老街例如九份十分淡水都有大量當地特色美食,真是眼闊肚窄，試不得太多！台中勝興車站的老街以客家菜為主,我們幫襯了一次和菜午飯,梅菜扣肉食過不少,龍鬚菜就是第一次,有營養也好味.
在台灣吃地道麵有牛肉麵，飯則有魯肉飯，司機帶我們到這家排隊排出街的，似乎是台北No. 1,幸好食客都是匆匆食完就走，等了一會就有位，加個滷水豆腐，才是幾美元。
曾受日治的台灣當然流行日本菜,我們遊過陽明山,去地熱谷之前,司機帶了我們去一家温泉拉麵,麵的口感及湯的味道甚佳.
我們住的酒店既在甚麼都有的西門町,理所當然在附近解決了好幾餐晚飯(老王記光顧了三次)及早餐(街邊檔的飽點,蚵仔煎及蘿蔔糕),馬辣火煱亦值得一去,雖然沒有因為任食而暴食,任飲的台灣啤酒也只喝了兩三杯,但其肥牛及手打花枝實在美味.西門町除了有好吃的,也有好喝的,包括蜂大咖啡,及北回木瓜牛奶(不過半糖淡了點,還是要正常糖量才是以前的味道)

另一條特地去食的是司機(旅遊書也有)介紹的永康街,那家牛肉麵是他心頭好,但排到出街那條隊實在太長了,所以我們改食高記上海菜,來個真的東坡肉.我想鼎泰豐水準也是差不多吧.

最後當然不能不提夜市,小時候最喜歡逛士林夜市,其實主要為了看日本流行樂有關商品多於為食,今次只去了台北的饒河街夜市.及台中的逢甲夜市,畢竟兩個美國小朋友不太習慣掃街當晚餐,雖然見他們己努力融入:)兒子吃雞腿卷吃得津津有味!

Sports highlights: Euro 2016, NASCAR at Kentucky, IndyCar at Iowa, Home run derby

I think it's blessed to be a soccer fan these days, even if you live in USA. This year we witnessed the amazing rise of Leicester City, the Cinderella who went from surviving to contending and eventually winning the most competitive league in professional soccer: The English Premier league. They clinched the championship in May. Soon followed by the UEFA Champions League final, which was won by Real Madrid but Athletico Madrid fought hard too. Then we had Copa America started in USA (in fact, right here in Santa Clara) in early June. And 1 week later Euro 2016 started in France. To be honest I didn't quite follow the qualification that much and only found out (1) France was the host and (2) Holland was NOT in it. My prediction was France winning it all (well, they did make it to the final) I also knew Argentina won't have any trouble making it to the final of Copa. I had to miss quite a few games because of traveling. I did manage to watch the penalty shootout between Argentina and Chile via my Slingbox. I guess the curse of Maradona's hand ball is still in full force. Don't feel sorry for Messi though. He has his fair share of glorious moments. And my vacation ended before the semifinals and final of Euro 2016 so I was able to watch the full games. (Still wish I could witness the triumph of Iceland and Wales in the earlier stages. Both teams feature mythical character lookalikes: Thor and the Monkey king :P ) As a supporter of Germany since forever, it's sad to see them losing to France on self-inflicting wounds (Schweinsteiger's hand ball resulted in a penalty) There's even more drama at the final between France and Portugal. When Cristiano Ronaldo was hurt and got replaced at the 25 minute mark, I thought it's over: just like the Brazillian Ronaldo becoming a non-factor last time in France. Well, for some reason the French couldn't take advantage. And Portugal played like they'd rather keep the tie and wait for penalty shootout, and was successful at that. And just like Leicester City, it was the unlikely hero Eder who scored and won the game for Portugal (and Ronaldo "the acting coach") Eder received a ton of criticism during the tournament. He was an underachiever who started his career promisingly in the Portuguese league. He almost played for the Hot Spur but ended up with Swansea instead where he didn't get to play much and was moved to the French club Lille, where his hard work was appreciated by the coaches and was a good fit to their system. I guess his experience scoring against opponents in the French league helped! Overall speaking, it was an OK tournament, which would have been better if there was more offense. It would be another 4 years until the next time they play the highest level of soccer in the world. Well, it will be a short break until we have the Olympic soccer tournament. And the European leagues will resume too.

The one sport that get little coverage while I was in Asia was NASCAR (I did accidentally find out Tony Stewart won our "home" race at Sonoma) Glad to be back and the first Sprint Cup race I watch featured a nail-biting finish: the leaders were all in fuel saving mode and Brad K was able to last 'til the end to beat out Carl Edwards for another victory this season. There was no fuel saving at the IndyCar race in Iowa. Josef Newgarden's No.21 car was simply good. No one was able to catch him, not the current points leader Simon Pagenaud, multi-time champion Scott Dixon nor the recently-got-hot Will Power, who ended up finishing 2nd. Well, this result made the overall championship a bit more competitive and interesting.

It was also worthy to write about the MLB Home Run Derby: my favorite teams combined have one participant: the defending champ Todd Frazier, who did make it to the final but lost to Giancarlo Stanton, who was predicted to win by someone from my son's baseball camp. You would probably agree with him if you have witnessed his beautiful and consistent swing. Stanton hitting those 61 HRs in one night was special for us baseball fans.

港澳台遊記:寶島風情篇

網誌是不能不寫的！何出此言？雖然廿幾年前去過台灣多次，爸媽帶我到過多個名勝，但那時去完就算，現在已不記得幾多。今次台灣之旅，遊過許多名勝，必須立此存照！

抵台第二天我們的重點是遊九份和十分。司機先帶我們到基隆市台灣北岸，觀賞南雅奇岩，石上的紅色來自蘊含的鐵質，這些礦物質也是陰陽海奇景形成的元素。向山方向走，可見日治時期遺下的銅礦，附近就是黃金瀑布，我們略過黃金博物館直接前往九份老街，全街商店林立，我們買了高山茶及手製毛筆；小食多不勝數，我們幫襯了黑豬肉腸，芋圓及肉丸，當然少不了在極具代表性的悲情城市梯級拍照，我本來不明白這個山城緣何悲情，後來才知同名電影背景是本地人和外來統治強人衝突的228事件，今時今日的香港人相信很有共鳴。離開九份前往十分，中途停了一下以貓招徠旅客的貓村（又名猴硐），十分有兩樣最出名：在吊橋另一端的十分瀑布，以及放天燈的十分車站，都是港片拍台灣常出現的景點。

之後幾天繼續精彩：陽明山是我唯一記得小時去過的地方, 小油坑可觀看火山噴氣的景象，我卻全無印象！只是令我想起之前的夏威夷之旅。而淡水以羊駝（alpacas)為生招牌的草泥馬咖啡（草泥馬是網民為取代粗口而創作的代詞，說成羊駝）又令我想起以前在Pacifica常見到的駱馬（llamas ）店內那隻羊駝多次把我的衣服當作食物！附近的漁人碼頭倒不太像三藩市那個，這裡肯定沒有情人橋。淡水老街又是以小食為主，那酸梅湯甚有名氣。

除了以上提過的十分和猴硐車站，我們也到過充滿歷史意義的台中勝興車站：那是舊時台灣鐵路一個高點；如果說這車站顯示人們下決心的毅力，附近的龍騰斷橋可算相反：展現了大自然無情的破壞力！

講了這許多名勝,其實還未開始提到台北市內的呢!一個我以前肯定未去過的,是對上一次遊台之後才落成的台北最高地標101,地下數層是名店,那些國際品牌不算特別;不過89樓的瞭望台,和各地高樓的相比,算是玩得較為過癮,皆因該處相當寛敞開揚,那個天氣不錯的星期六遊客也不致多得你擠我擁而急於離開,觀賞台北市四方的景致,實在心曠神怡,我們打了兩轉,流連差不多兩小時呢.而離開時被迫觀看的珊瑚製品,其實也頗有欣賞價值.
而我小時肯定去過的,是中正紀念堂,不過內裡介紹蔣介石生平包括抗日及國共戰爭的展覽就無甚印象,作為一介武人,他的書法筆筆有力,頗有可觀之處.除了這些,還有其他藝術展覽,可能國民黨在野期間被淡化?這裡相信是以華盛頓的林肯紀念堂為藍本,而在同一地點的音樂廳及歌劇院,也像紐約的林肯中心!

另一個台北市名勝也和蔣介石有關,就是士林官邸,我們沒有買票入內參觀,欣賞其外圍的大花園已很滿足.

至於比這些歷史都要悠久的,是艋舺龍山寺.首次聽到艋舺這地方名,是數年前一套幾賣座的同名台灣電影(片中的黑幫來自該處),其實是台語,日治時期稱為萬華區,現今也沿用.該寺位於市區繁忙地段,香火鼎盛,供奉神袛數量極多,我為小朋友介紹了醫神華陀及愛情專家月老.

港澳台遊記:文化藝術篇

近年世界各地大都會對文化藝術的重視程度與日俱增,實在有點發財立品的味道,鄰近的三藩市和聖荷西街頭展示不少官方或民間資助藝術家作品,而機場已成為藝術展覽的重要場地之一,香港機場也不例外!今次在出機場去搭巴士的通道看到畫展及攝影展,在閘口又有茶壼陶藝展,電視台也播放不少介紹藝術的節目.連澳門這個大家第一時間想起錢的地方,其實亦很重視文藝節目,在碼頭也可見展覽的宣傳.

至於今次去台灣,到博物館欣賞藝術是重頭戲之一,總共去了六個!

1)鶯歌陶瓷博物館:早幾年迷上茶道,飲茶之餘又玩茶具,亦對其他陶瓷器愛屋及烏起來,不會錯過旅遊城市的陶瓷藝術展,包括香港公園內的茶具博物館,南加洲的美國陶藝博物館,而陶瓷業頗有歷史的台灣鶯歌區我聞名已久,我們在桃園機場下機,第一站就是參觀鄰近的鶯歌那裡甚有規模的陶瓷博物館.該館除了介紹傳統陶瓷器燒製過程,古代中國至台灣鶯歌陶瓷業發展史,也展出一些當代台灣名家作品及當地廠家的特色製作,相當多樣化.附近的鶯歌老街有很多商店,由於傾盆大雨及無意購買我們就沒有停下逛逛了.

2)故宮:最近迷上書法,故宮收藏大量來自中國各朝代皇室的珍品中,就包括了好幾篇書法藝術的顛峰之作:例如王羲之的快雪時晴帖,蘇東坡的寒食帖等等,可惜兩者目前皆沒有展出,可喜的是今次有兩個和書法相關的展覽:典藏新紀元展示了以近代作品為主的對聯,筆有千秋業則以歷代名家作品介紹書法的發展,其中包括蘇東坡另一大作:榿木詩卷,單看此兩展也不枉此行了,還有扇面書畫展也很精彩,至於其餘的玉器銅器瓷器等等,就不算太特別,香港藝術館也收藏不少.其實故宮最著名的兩件鎮館之寶皆被外借:白菜現在故宫南院,東坡肉則在三藩市的亞洲藝術館!我們唯有買下複製品留念(頸錬及磁石:)

3)台北美術館:展出的都是台灣當代藝術家作品,有些奇怪得creepy,例如李小鏡的動物人混合概念.較為有趣的是舞弄珍藏:主旨是把一些舊作品(如照片)改動再述.
4)科學教育館:以展品介紹數理化概念,也有介紹生態,遺傳學及半導體等等,我最欣賞的是科學攝影,包括微距拍生物,以及天文攝影.

5)三義木雕博物館:旅程最後一站是台中,因為要看之後介紹的薩克斯風博物館,順道經過以木雕聞名的三義市,司機建議參觀一下當地的木雕博物館,對各類藝術品口味很雜的我,其實對木雕頗為陌生,皆因木會腐朽難保存,不過最近讀過潮州老厝一書介紹潮人喜歡用木雕裝飾豪宅,總算加添了一點興趣,而佛像用木雕觀感亦相當調和,在此館我又見識了栩栩如生的木雕花卉鳥獸.
6)張連昌薩克斯風博物館:據音樂討論區網友,全球每三支saxophone有一支在台灣生產,而台灣最多此樂器工廠的地區應該就是鄰近台中的后里.台灣第一位成功製作saxophone的就是張連昌先生,他自小愛好音樂藝術,既擅畫畫,亦和鄉里夾band,當年saxophone十分昂貴,只有他一位做醫生的band友買得起,可是其宅失火,唯一一支sax被燒燬,亦無人能修理,於是贈予有意研究的張連昌,張逐個零件去鑽研,終於研發出製作方法,現在已傳至第四代,本來只為其他品牌做代工,張氏第三代才開始發展自己品牌.博物館簡單介紹了sax的分類,發明者,生產過程及發聲原理,近年迷上吹sax的我看得很過癮.

台灣另一個(偽)文青必到之地當然就是誠品書店!旅行期間我一般早起,不會晚過七點,所以24小時營業的誠品敦南店就是我最佳(或唯一?)選擇!從西門町德立莊酒店5號入口搭5號線坐5個站就到,結果隔一晚又去了一次,並逛了不是24小時營業的文具及音樂部,其實去多十幾次也逛不完,兩個小時也只是看了一點音樂和書法書.值得一提的是台灣不是每一間誠品也賣書，而台北賣書出名的還有重慶南路的書街。

事實上，台灣出版業一向發達，例如村上春樹作品中文譯本，以前有港版和台版，現在大家都讀台灣時報出版社的版本了。至於台灣人自己的作品，幾米的向左走向右走，香港網民幾乎無人不識，司機本來建議去宜蘭，其中一個景點就是幾米廣場，我們為免太趕沒去，改為到台北101附近的以幾米作品月亮忘認了為主題的巴士。

Last but no least,在台中去了由細玩到大的阿苗開的December Gallery,她平時在這裡教畫畫,在網上已看過她多幅作品,今次有緣親身觀賞,深深感受到那赤子之心.

港澳台遊記:音樂篇

常常聽說在香港開jazz club有如倒錢落鹹水海（其實在三藩市又何嘗不是？連Yoshi's SF也要結業，新東主打算靠加入其他類型的音樂打救，甚有名氣的Savanna jazz為生存也要遷離SF） 不過jazz club有如打不死的生物，一雞死一雞鳴，在香港有心聽live jazz，還是可以找到，就如今次我們去的Peel Fresco，（今時今日香港聽jazz首選是Orange Peel，查過該週六Orange Peel無concert，再去Peel Fresco網站check calendar才知星期日有show）9點半到達show已經開始，是來自美國的鋼琴手領導三重奏，和calendar所述的陣容有所不同，客串打鼓的則是香港首屈一指的爵士鋼琴手Ted Lo!之後各路英雄輪流上台jam,我對吹tenor sax那位印象最深,可謂揮灑自如.我老友為了和我hangout聽音樂特地等我離港他才去vacation,今次實在盡興而歸.
我的聽音樂之路上台灣有一個特別地位:中學時代常常去台灣唱片舖買卡式帶,那時我開始沉迷重金屬,不過香港唱片舖的重金屬音樂以黑膠為主,只有卡式機的我很難買到心頭好,找得到的也很昂貴;去到台灣好像發現新大陸!那裡選擇既多且便宜,製作亦相當精美,介紹文寫得很用心!今次抵埗第一晚就在酒店鄰近的西門町佳佳唱片入貨,這個規模的獨立唱片舖在香港已絕跡:(
到得誠品,不得不逛其唱片部,適逢歌手少浪在現場演出,此君活力十足;我亦購入一張由台灣爵士樂團Mission Formosa的專輯Kind of Truth,那是世界一流的原創作品及演奏.
星期日我們特地往台中后里參觀張連昌薩克斯風博物館,途中經過高速公路休息站湖口服務區,見到街頭藝人莊萬富演奏tenor sax,他的台灣及日本老歌別有風味;到了張連昌薩克斯風博物館,剛好趕上聽館內的live performance,表演者亦是擅長日本老歌,我最欣賞他smooth jazz版的周杰倫作品.
以下是大師在張連昌館演奏我當日的試sax曲:
這是一次十分inspiring之旅,我要好好練習我的sax!

港澳台遊

暑假又到,乃係一年一度外遊時間,今年早已定了在六月尾遊港澳台;而母親四月去世,大海撒灰儀式就在今次之旅進行,重遊澳門台灣,很多名勝以前都是跟母親一起去的,今次也讓我們懷念一番.
今次在香港去的地方比較特別的要算上環的西港城,前身是舊上環街市北座大樓,保留了外觀,內面則是一些特色商店,布舖及懷舊酒樓.不過我們在上環最欣賞的還是咖啡店Barista Jam.
至於澳門,早幾年跟老友去過看大賽車及在附近酒店賭幾手,今次目標是帶女兒去見識名勝,(題外話:本來兒子也有份去,不過一行四人坐271過了培正才發現忘了帶護照,於是當日行程改為去愛民邨懷舊,第二天再去,決定留下對觀光不感興趣的兒子陪姑媽,也省點船票費用!)由我以前工作地點中港城的碼頭坐船前住,其實已多年未到過中港城;原本打算買由氹仔回程的船票,不過航班選擇較少,還是買了(舊)外港碼頭的票.下船後,為省時搭的士到新馬路遊覽具歐洲廣場風味的議事亭前地及大三巴,再搭的士過橋到氹仔小飛象餐廳食(名過於實)的葡國菜,本來打算坐酒店專車到新的新濠影匯,找不到上車站,結果還是坐的士.該酒店以電影為主題,有蝙蝠俠機動遊戲等,有沒有人等位的鼎泰豐,還有一大堆名店,window-shopping也很過癮;接著坐東線酒店車到金沙城,該處由多間酒店組成,看到DreamWorks的卡通人物巡遊,更有特色的則是室內園林,從這裡可行到威尼斯人,本來我興趣不大,因為據聞和Vegas的無分別,去了才知相當不同:1)撐gondola的有唱國語歌(月亮代表我的心)的女船夫,2)有曼聯專門店,3)有安德魯葡撻及大利來豬扒包,都不用怎排隊,想當年兩者都是極度搶手的食品,其實今次也覺很美味.
最後一星期留給台灣,這是和我們一家淵源甚深的地方:爸爸和姐姐都曾在那裡讀書,爸爸也曾長期在那裡工作,好友提醒我上次見面是她的大學畢業典禮,原來我已有廿年未踏足該地!旅程比想像更具新鮮感.詳情見另文.

迷你倉

和香港相比，美國人居住空間相對地多，不過租迷你倉擺放家中放不下的雜物，在這裡已盛行多時，反而在香港似乎是近年才發覺打到「通街都係」的廣告，原來香港迷你倉大行其道，始自早前港府提出活化工廈政策，修例令開設迷你倉毋須申請。世上眾多嗜好，大多需要佔點地方，不要說單車友、結他友或hifi 友，就算是愛好買袋買鞋的時尚男女，租用迷你倉都可算是一條｢後路｣。不幸地，上個月牛頭角一間迷你倉發生大火，兩位消防員殉職。還記得那天正在香港，第一次看到這單新聞，已覺突兀，皆因火警新聞通常報導時已受控甚至撲熄，這是例外，之後一天又一天，竟然等了四天半才傳來撲滅的好消息！期間不免議論紛紛，尤其是針對派消防員入內｢進攻｣的決定。近年建制派傾向凡事賴佔中，這次應該說不上；但反對派凡事賴689, 這次倒不無道理：如果消防處高層決定保守地只在外面灑水，必定有輿論壓力指責｢唔做嘢｣，一個有公信力的政府，是不怕也不被這些壓力影響其做法的。無論如何，今次事件引起各方關注迷你倉安全，相信將來會有嚴格的安全標準，不過，租用迷你倉之風不見得會減弱。其實港台早前拍了一套以迷你倉為背景的處境喜劇，並已播出數集，不過遇上迷你倉大火這個敏感時刻，該劇已停止播出，期望復播後有機會看看。

香港賽車人

在香港坐爸爸開車,甚少會開動其CD changer,但做乘客的我常常轉他的電台,他好像也不介意(不過如果我開車我不讓別人轉我台!)這天聽到一個很有趣的訪問:港人馬君宇Brian Ma在美國就讀航天工程大學,然後於賽車隊工作,其中包括美國champ car這個open wheel頂級賽事(其後為IndyCar合併)的車隊,2004年他是著名車手Alex Tagliani的總工程師,也有美國的房車賽經驗(Grand Am Series)目前已轉戰中國的房車賽.訪問中他提到美國車隊工作人員在比賽週末生活和歐洲人的分別,以及中國的房車賽由網民投票決定出賽排位的有趣現象(說的當然是買票!) 和我一樣由香港赴美讀書工作的大有人在,不過這位肯定是相當不平凡的一位

以下是在Youtube找到的video:

廣告好橋？

公司打廣告用代言人大家都屢見不鮮，有的是大明星，又有的是不見經傳但因該廣告為人所認識的，例如Progressive 保險那位很annoying 的女士（證明她有演技）又或者本文主角：Verizon以前那位試手提電話網絡訊號強弱的Can you hear me now老兄。最近他被另一家電話公司Sprint挖角，宣傳重點是雖然Sprint的網絡依然及不上Verizon, 但差距只是很小，價錢卻相宜得多。我覺得Sprint用的廣告公司頗有心思，回想過去出名用代言人的廣告，例如汽水啤酒化𥺁品等等，轉代言人屢有發生，卻鮮有代言人跳槽到「對家」，這的確達到引人討論令人關注的效果。

Emacs 24.1 copy and paste

I have been an Emacs user for years. And my time of using Emacs on Windows has already surpassed that of using on Unix. One operation I perform a lot is highlighting a section of text and then either hit Ctrl-Y in Emacs to copy it or Ctrl-C in other Windows application. That's actually not the "correct" X-Windows behavior so it was corrected in Emacs 24.1 and up. However, I am so used to this and need it back! From this link:

Here are the exact lines to put in your .emacs (C-x C-f RET and enter ~/.emacs) file:

(setq select-active-regions nil)
(setq mouse-drag-copy-region t)
(global-set-key [mouse-2] 'mouse-yank-at-click)

Sports highlights: Tour of California 2016 Stage 5-8

The "2nd half" of the tour was the like the 1st half: all stages feature exciting finishes. Stage 5 was from Lodi to South Lake Tahoe. This was another stage that the breakaway succeeded. And the winner, a young rider, should be no stranger to those who followed the tour last year. Toms Skujins won Stage 3 in San Jose in 2015 in a breakaway too. He was so new that other teams probably overlooked his ability last year and tried catching the breakaway too late. Teams certainly know his ability this year but still couldn't catch him. Stage 6 was a time trial. The big question was whether Julian Alaphilippe would retain the yellow jersey since there are quite a few good time trialists behind in the standing that could potentially overtaken him. Rohan Denis won the stage in convincing fashion but Alaphilippe responded well so he still had a healthy lead in the total time. Stage 7 was another one that featured one of my more memorable rides: Coleman Valley Road from my Levi Gran Fondo in 2011. Peter Sagan actually broke away on his own for a while and then was part of the group sprint, only finishing second to the best "pure" sprinter in the cycling world today: Alexander Kristoff. His team knew they must seize this opportunity (the next to last stage) and got the lead-out train well organized and they did a great job leading him out. Stage 8 was a loop in the State capital Sacramento which catered to the sprinters as well. The only big name sprinter that was overdue for winning a stage in this 2016 tour was Mark Cavendish, who was 2nd in total stage win to Sagan. When the riders approached the finish line, it was basically a huge mess. Cav lost his usually dependable lead-out guy Renshaw but this time it was him who successfully improvised. Cav, Sagan and Kristoff finished 1-2-3 for this last stage! And Julian Alaphilippe won the tour as the youngest ever winner (and the first French :) after the heart-breaking 2nd place overall finish last year (he led Peter Sagan up til the finish line when the latter barely grabbed the few bonus seconds) I'm looking forward to the next tour. Hopefully there will be a stage closer to home or office that I could watch in person!

Sports highlights: the youngest F1 winner ever, NASCAR at Dover, Tour of California Stage 1-4

What a dream week for racing fans (I mean, the kind of racing junkies who enjoy all formula one, "stock" car and bicycle races) To be honest, I have a hard time calling myself a fan of F1 as I almost stopped watching (or fast-forward through) most of the races since it's either Lewis Hamilton or Nico Rosberg from the same Mercedes team winning it (Lewis had the upper hand in the past and won 2 championship during that run but now it's over. It's Rosberg's time) I have been relying on updates from my buddy on WhatsApp to decide whether to watch the recorded race these days but this Spanish GP was different: my buddy told me I should watch it as it was won by Max Verstappen. I couldn't believe what I heard. I saw this guy racing in Macau 2 years ago (he didn't do much that race except crashing out) I thought he was still with the "junior" Red Bull team. Turns out Red Bull has decided to swap him with another young driver on the "senior" team just before this race (thus promoting him and demoting his replacement) What a decision it turned out to be! Well, there was definitely an element of luck too: the two Mercedes driver took out each other at turn 4 of lap 1! (As a HAM fan, my description was that ROS blocked HAM and caused the crash) However, for some reason, the 2 cars from the next fastest team, Ferrari, driven by 2 former world champ, couldn't take advantage and let the younger driver (in fact, the youngest winner ever) of the 3rd fastest team, Red Bull, win the race! Oh well, I'm sure this was just a rare deviation from the norm: the subsequent races will all be won by Rosberg again. :P

There was another young vs established driver (former champ) showdown at the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Dover on the same day too but this time the latter prevailed. What a close finish of that race with Matt Kenseth, Kyle Larson and Chase Elliot in that order. Kenseth showed why he was a championship level driver by holding off Larson whose car actually ran better. Don't get me wrong: Larson did a great job too. He was actually overtaken by Elliot for a while but got his position back later. I hope Larson would get his big break-through in the top series soon by winning his first race after these many 2nd place finishes. 

The Tour of California also started on the same day down in San Diego. As of now 4 stages have completed and all of them featured very exciting finishes: Stage 1 was a sprinter's stage. Among the favorites were pure sprinters like Mark Cavendish and Alexander Kristoff. Eventually it was the not-so-pure-but-could-also-sprint Peter Sagan who did it again. He is the all-time winners of most stages of this tour and also won the overall last year. Stage 2 we saw 2 men in the breakaway survived the chase by the peloton and the duel at the finish line was won by former US National Road Race champ Ben King (My newest cycling friend, Alex Candelario of Big Island Bike Tours, finished 2nd to him in 2010!) Stage 3 was another mountain top finish at Gibraltar Road in Santa Barbara, which was well-known as a tough tough climb in the area but was chosen by the Tour for the first time! Julian Alaphilippe patiently waited for the right moment near the end of the race to attack and won it and also took over the overall lead. Stage 4, started in Morro Bay, was a special one for all of us who rode Sea Otter Gran Fondo before: the last Cat-2 climb of the stage was the Laurel Grade. I still remember how hard it was. I must have stopped 2 or 3 times on that not-too-long but steep stretch. Then after the super-fast decent there was another climb into the Laguna Seca raceway (famous for its big drop as seen in old Indy car races. MotoGP still races there) which was the finish of the stage. What was interesting about the race was that the previously mentioned pure sprinter Mark Cavendish actually joined the breakaway and didn't get caught until the Laurel Grade! After the chase group caught the breakaway, it became a group sprint finish and won by none other than Peter "the Great" Sagan, who was so good at "unorganized" group sprint (i.e., in which the lead-out train didn't get a chance to form properly and sprinters have to improvise on who to follow and when to take off) Hope the rest of the tour would be as exciting for me to write about. 

The "leaked" Queen's comment on the recent visit by the Chinese leader

If you follow world/Chinese news, you should recall the high profile visit of the Chinese leader to the UK last year. It was a big deal that he was able to meet the Queen. Normally that wouldn't have happened but they made an exception because of the large amount of money that would brought to the country by doing businesses with the Chinese. This was supposed to be the evidence of the changing of the guard: a used-to-be-world-dominating country kow-tow to the latest "super power." Well, the British people were known for having their say in a subtle fashion. BBC just leaked a comment by the Queen related to this visit: it happened at an annual party that let her people to meet her Majesty. One of the participant mentioned to the Queen that she was an official from the police department that handled the visit.  And the Queen's response?  Two simple words that implied a lot:  "Bad luck! " Then she went on to comment that the group was "rude. " The beauty of this was that no one could rebut on these comments as they were unofficial!  Is this an intentional leak or what?  One has to remember the British politicians were very good at their game. 

[Update:] Even more details were leaked afterwards, according to those sources, the Chinese leader was very picky: down to the color of the closet, the location of the bathroom and the menu of the official dinners.

桃園結義拜關公像

最近很多FB朋友轉貼一張強國膠劇的截圖：情節是三國劉關張桃園結義，竟然對著關公像來拜，據聞這就是原片，看來是一個搞笑節目多於正經劇集，如果是導演故意安排這一幕的話，此君認真有幽默感!

The best ice hockey player that hasn't won the cup yet

Yes, I am talking about Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals. I consider him one of the most dangerous player in the game ever since he arrived in NHL. He is such a prolific scorer and led the Capitals to several President's trophy (the team with the best regular season record) However, in North American sports, it's all about the playoffs. The importance of this trophy pale in comparison to the Stanley Cup! To be honest, I have so many other teams to root for that I never feel sorry for the Caps when they bowed out to lowly seeded teams in the past. For this season, I am actually glad that they lost to the Pens. Ovechkin played quite well and his supporting cast has never been better. For some reason they just cannot get over the hump. As my son said, Ovechkin is the hockey version of Dan Marino.

FM 98.1 format change

I have written about my radio listening experience a lot,  mostly about jazz,  rock or sports talk.  I actually listen to 98.1 a lot too.  It's one of my top 6 presets!  So, what does this station play? Well, it was called Kiss FM in the past decade or so and played mostly 70s and 80s hits. A month ago it quietly changed its format to 96.5 KOIT-ish soft music. And it's got a new name: the Breeze. The transition was so smooth that I didn't find out until a week after! I missed those old upbeat stuff they used to play. I could be in cheesy disco mood once in a while too. After all, for old soft music I could go to 96.5. I guess the Breeze is trying to pick up the listeners who totally refuse to listen to newer hits, which KOIT is playing more often these days. Anyway, looks like the Breeze will remain on my top 6 after I heard them playing "Holding back the years" and "Don't dream this over" These 2 were among my favorites in the 80s!

直寫中文及兩字並排

由高中開始，我已接觸中文文書處理，在DOS的年代已練習倉頡輸入法，用熟來自台灣的國喬及倚天等外掛中文系統打歌詞冧女。老實說，那段學習之路值得回味，雖然印象已極之模糊，只記得在台灣閱讀當地電腦雜誌，對這類軟件的成熟程度，相當驚嘆。（多得這位仁兄撰文，大家可以懷舊一番） 到Windows年代，改用南極星，現在還保留不少用其proprietary格式的文書檔案呢！事實上，電腦系統在國際化的漫長道路上已變得頗為成熟，從以下種種可見一班：Windows 10內置中文輸入法免費亦頗好用，由要特別選取Big5(繁體）或GB（殘體）encoding否則見亂碼發展至今日兼容多國文字的Unicode，而一般文書處理軟件也適用於中文。在此想分享一次最近學用特別中文功能的經驗：話說早幾天要打一篇訃聞，需要兩種功能：
1)直寫，而且由右至左。這當然有別於西方文字橫寫及由左至右。
2)兩字並排。傳統訃聞包括農曆及西曆日子，格式上是並排。
Googled了一會，不覺得平時最常用的Google Docs有支援。於是再research一下我的「次選」Libreoffice，就找到不少來自台灣的網頁（可見該國人始終是中文文書處理方面的專家）這些指南都是以中文UI作示範，我嘗試在已裝的Libreoffice 4使用英文的UI找尋那些對應的選項，選用後打出來的字卻顯示得不對勁，索性重新安裝，裝了Libreoffice 5並特地同時加裝繁體中文UI，再重覆以上網頁指示，終於成功！在此列出步驟:
1)從top menu選格式->頁面->頁面(tab)->文字方向:從右向左(直書)
2)mouse-select要並排的字, 從top menu選格式->字元->亞洲語言版面設置(tab)->雙行, check分為雙行寫入
(這個功能相信頗為冷門,找到這個網頁,其實是OpenOffice的步驟,不過Libreoffice也不多吧,只是tab名為亞洲語言版面設置而不是中日韓版式.)

Contemporary Art in San Jose

When one think of art museums in the Bay Area, the top names come to the mind are probably SFMOMA, De Young, ... etc. However, there are also many lesser known "hidden gems." My favorite free art museum is Cantor Art Center (and the Anderson Collection next to it) in Stanford. Another free museum that I frequently visit is Triton in Sunnyvale. It showed works from local photography competitions, for example. I needed to run some errands in San Jose downtown this Saturday and used this opportunity to visit  SJ Institute of Contemporary Art (also free admission)

One series of works featured pages from old magazines with faces covered up faces. I can understand the meaning but to be honest I think it's just too "easy". Another "easy" work was related to geography: it's the US map with state and state capital names switched around. Sometimes "easy" could also be "interesting"

井山裕太獨攬日本七大圍棋賽冠軍

日前日本棋手井山裕太成功贏得「十段」圍棋賽冠軍，完成了日本棋壇前無古人的壯舉，那就是同時手執七大賽冠軍獎座！想想日本棋壇多年人才輩出，高手如雲，武宮正樹、加藤正夫、趙治勳、林海峰（後兩位雖來自韓台，但為日本棋院成員）卻從無人有此成就，因此這在棋界可說是一則震撼性不少的新聞。可惜的是，今時今日的日本棋壇已不再手執牛耳，和以上高手叱咤風雲的年代水準有一大段距離，要知道那時代及更早前日本冠軍即是世界冠軍！而過去十多年世界冠軍一直是中韓棋手的天下。井山裕太七冠獲得傳媒的關注，也遠低於多次贏得韓國及世界冠軍的李世石和AlphaGo之戰。從未在世界賽奪冠的井山裕太，相信會有更多日本棋迷期望他作出零的突破。 這篇來自中國媒體的文章，可能有少少偏見，但某一程度上對井山七冠含金量的評估也有點代表性。

Kenny Barron and his string playing friends

One thing great about going to a jazz concert is that you never know what to expect. For rock or pop concerts, the band/musician would usually be playing the hit singles from their new albums plus a few old big hits. For jazz, you might hear the compositions that the musician was famous for (or some standards that s/he is well-known for covering), or not. For tonight's Kenny Barron concert@SFJAZZ, there is yet another unknown: how is the "drum-less" lineup of a piano, a cello, a violin and a bass gonna work? It turned out to be all duets between piano and a string player except the last big jam. And the set list was a great mix of standards and his original compositions. What I enjoyed the most about the performance was how naturally they flow from one chorus to another. As much as improv is an important part of jazz, sometimes one could feel the player solo for the sake of it without much else really to say.

I am actually quite familiar with and admire Kenny Barron's piano playing in a duet setting from his album with Stan Getz. My sis loves that 2 Disc set too. He started the concert with the cellist Mark Summer who was the founding member of  the famous jazz string group, Turtle Island Quartet. I could hear him very comfortable in playing the role of a walking bassist. After all, he played the only instrument in that range in a string quartet! I would say his sound leaned more towards the European classical tradition than American jazz. Still, I enjoy the brief improv solo he played. The more memorable tunes from this set included a Thelonius Monk cover: San Francisco holiday (Worry later) and Barron's original: Concentric circles. This was actually the longest set.

The next set featured the main reason I went to the concert: violinist Regina Carter. I think the first time jazz violin really caught my attention was from the Kenny Barron album "Things Unseen" And of course, Carter and Barron did an album together way back in 2001. They played 2 tunes from that album: a Latin arrangement of "Softly as in the morning sunrise" and Monk's cover: Misterioso. (As I am writing I am listening their cover of Sting's "Fragile" from the same album. Very emotional!)

Last but not least was bassist Dave Holland. Piano-bass duo was actually more common than you think. I could easily think of many such collaborations by bassists Charlie Haden or Ron Carter. I have seen Holland led his "big band" (an octet) and quartet before. Now I really want to see him perform flamenco live!

All 4 of them closed the concert with a big jam of another Barron's original "What If." This is definitely the most memorable concert I have been to in 2016 (could be one of my all-time-best!)

RIP Prince

Cello and Vodka

I heard this musician story on the radio last Friday morning:

In 1958 , five years after Joseph Stalin's death, the Congress of Soviet Composers' Party Resolution, which had for a decade censured Russian musicians, was finally lifted. Forced to withhold his best works for so long, Dmitri Shostakovich was at last freed to compose his first cello concerto. On August Second of 1959, he gave the completed manuscript to his friend, cello virtuoso Mstistlav Rostropovich. Just four days later, Rostropovich, accompanied by Shostakovich on piano, performed the four-movement work from memory three times. Recalling the occasion, Rostropovich said, "We were so happy, we drank a little vodka together. We then played it again, not so perfectly, and drank more vodka. The third time, I think I played the Saint-Saens Concerto while he accompanied his own concerto. We were very happy."

There is a reason that their music is so good :P

Sports highlights: NHL and another John Scott story

I wrote about the feel-good story of the NHL season: journeyman enforcer John Scott played in the All-star game this year and won the MVP (and fan supports!) Yeah, he was actually in the minor league but he got called up at the end of the season. It's the right thing to do to honor a player towards the end of his career (and the team is already out of playoff hunt) Speaking of playoff, it's sad to see all Canadian teams were eliminated from this year's Stanley Cup playoff (and it's not even the last week of the season!)

香港電影金像獎最佳電影十年

十分具爭議性的香港電影十年被香港電影金像獎評審選為最佳電影，再添爭議！首先，我未有機會欣賞，也不會像那班向主子獻媚的電影業商界奴才般說本片有否資格得獎，不過其中一單元由母校培正高一屆的師兄監製，多少有點虛榮地感到興奮，也為他們努力獲得認同而高興。老老實實，就算我看了本片，也未有資格評論它應否獨佔鰲頭，一來我未看過其他候選電影，二來我也不是電影藝術專家；不過，我有理由相信本片得獎並非因為護主奴說的所謂黑手支配賽果，可能他們對主子操控選舉太習以為常吧。至於另一批評指最佳電影何以沒有獲得其他獎項如最佳導演、編劇及男女主角等等，一位資深電影人解釋得很清楚：因為十年一片分數個單元，拿某單元的導演、編劇及男女主角和其他「長片」的比較，並不恰當。一個頒獎禮竟變成一塊照妖鏡，甚至帶挈譯名和十年相同的美國片在強國成為常被下載電影，實在很有強國特色。

荒謬世界香港篇之帶著特權去旅行

上月689女兒由香港機場飛三藩市,在禁區內發現行李遺留在出面大堂,於是一家向機場人員施壓,要破例由第三者帶該行李通過安檢.據聞689與機場人員通話時說了一句:叫我梁特首.認真霸氣十足.

老老實實，如果是肥彭其中一個女，不用老巴打電話，(肥彭亦肯定不會說call my Governor Patten!) 機場工作人員都自動會幫手，幫完之後亦不會傳出來.但689一家神僧鬼厭,知情人士當然不會為他們守秘.

已退休官員王永平說得好,作為特首及家人,這種事應該避嫌,明示(或即使暗示)他們特別身份,實為極低劣行為.

荒謬世界香港篇之亞視永恆

亞視一而再再而三欠薪，已不再是新聞，月初債權人德勤會計師樓指公司現金僅餘二十萬港幣，需要遣散員工及提早熄機，等不及到四月一日廣播牌照期滿，新股東司榮彬的代表急急召開記者會晒冷：展示一篋五百萬現金再加五百萬支票，認真（土）豪氣；還說要在熄機前搞一次亞姐呢！且看會否兌現。老老實實，雖然家人係亞視忠實觀眾，我自己就算不上；但當年少數會用錄影機錄下來的劇集，竟然多數都是亞視作品，計有郎心如鐵，萬家燈火，我和殭屍有個約會。有沒有發現三劇的共通點？對，萬綺雯均有份參演:P 前兩套特別是萬劇，就是有一股亞視劇集娘到kitsch的味道。

Big Island單車團員

上次寫Big Island 單車遊，之所以如此好玩，也多得領隊有一個相當能幹的助手Jeremy.  此君在Big Island 土生土長，由他介紹當地風土人情，例如當地生長相當有特色的植物，或者歷史掌故等等，特別感覺地道。他介紹過西面Kohala coast 乾旱環境也能生長的頑強Kiawe樹，木可用作BBQ; 而我在火山旅館窗外看到好幾棵枝上帶有紅花的樹,Jeremy告訴我們樹名Ohia而花則叫Lehua,在當地故老相傳,乃係一對情侶化身,樹原為一美男子,被當地女神Pele看中,但Ohia為愛人Lehua拒絕Pele的愛,結果中後者之咒慘變為樹,其他神祗無力解Pele之咒,唯有幫Lehua化為寄身於Ohia樹之紅花,詳見此文.

他其實才加入Alex 公司個多月，這次是他首次負責multi-day tour,  每朝除了把單車搬上搬落，亦要準備sports drinks等等飲品，裝滿幾個cooler及零食補給盒，還有開車尾隨單車隨時支援。之前他也做過多份不同的工作，和旅遊業有關的是酒店concierge,  和單車業有關的是在Oahu帶mountain biking 團，也做過汽車及建築器材公司服務部等等工作。現在Alex 公司後山有機會用建築器材開發mountain biking trails,  又多一項專長！
另兩位團友是一對物理治療師夫婦,開設自家診所,辛苦經營廿年以上,現今仔大女大,公司亦上了軌道,才多點機會出外把臂同遊.可能因為工作健康意識高,兩位都是很fit之人,亦是單車高手,今次特地帶了自己的Tandem bike來踩(另一位團友和我則踩提供的Giant Defy Advanced, 和我踩開的單車差不多級數,只是disc brake不覺有多大好處)見他們合拍地發力收力,十分欣賞,的確是老夫老妻的典範.
最後一位團友是比我年輕一個generation的米高(我又比物理治療師夫婦年輕一個generation吧)此君iPhone不離手,自拍乃係高手,又是fit人一名:玩過Iron man.在著名個人衛生產品公司負責產品推廣,工作包括計劃如何為公司產品在合作的百貨公司有效地展示等等,他們人生經驗都相當豐富,全程天南地北講過不停,全無冷場!

Big Island單車遊

我對單車環島這類活動有很大的興趣，今年春假參加了Big Island Bike Tours這間公司舉辦的一星期夏威夷Big Island環島遊，東主兼領隊是前職業車手Alex Candelario，有多年在Big Island練車的經驗，對島上有挑戰性、風景優美又安全的路線可謂相當熟悉，在他精心安排下，團友們可以踩單車認識這個環境及氣候多變的地方，實在是不一樣的旅遊。 

Big Island如何多變？從該團住宿點可見一斑：Hapuna Prince Hotel位於陽光普照渡假村林立的Kohala，海灘水清沙幼且白，即使不用器材，游泳也可見到海中一羣羣美麗的熱帶魚，沿著海岸線踩車不時可見鯨蹤；島南住的Airbnb渡假屋則在清幽寧靜的Woodvalley，四週被樹林和綠草包圍，可謂洗滌心靈，有置身世外桃源之感；至於火山區，氣候有如熱帶雨林，早上天朗氣清，下午又有零散驟雨，晚上適宜在Jagger museum觀看火山爆發，火紅的烈焰壯麗雄奇，令人深感大自然的威力。我們住的Volcano house, 就正正對著火山，晚飯時可欣賞之前提到的壯觀場面。

另外還有幾個景點令我印象特別深刻：

－Crater rim trail: 這條行山徑橫跨火山口，可算非常難得的經驗。

－Pololu valley hike：這條行山徑沿著懸崖直落到海邊，頗有挑戰性。

－Ahalanui hot pond:  這是一個靠海的地熱温泉，一邊浸一邊觀看潮水不斷進出，實是快事。

－Big Island Brewhaus: 特別介紹他們的White Mountain Porter

－Kau coffee mill: 有咖啡及夏威夷果tasting, 亦有tour介紹種植方法過程。

就算不是hardcore單車友，如果想遊Big Island, 我也會建議參加Big Island Bike Tours的day tour, 加上以上景點，還有我今次沒有機會去的Green sand beach at South Point，該處不適宜駕車，只能hike下去，十分期待下一次再去!

有圖有真相

千瘡百孔

好一陣子沒有寫香港時事，不幸地，今次想寫的幾宗都不是好消息。
1）一位7-11店東被南亞刧匪用刀刺傷後傷重不治。7-11公司呼籲市民到各7-11捐款幫助死者家人，香港人不少慷慨解囊，值得Like。

2）近日香港多名學生自殺，去年九月學年開始至今超過20人，可說驚人。相比和教育不太相關的政治事件，局長似乎不覺迫切性，之後只說了加把勁這種廢話。倒是FB上的討論及文章分享比較有建設性：大家以為有用的一句加油，其實有反效果：因為意指對方本身未盡力做好；大家以為多餘的一紙不自殺協議書，原來只是counselling方法的一步。

3）這邊廂立會強行通過追加對本地市民用途不大的高鐵撥款，那邊廂政府削減醫療開支，而近日政府醫院因為流感潮爆滿，醫護人員疲於奔命。

這個年代的香港，千瘡百孔。

AlphaGo vs Lee Sedol Game 1

A new chapter in the history of the mankind has been written yesterday: the hardest game to beat invented by the human being has finally been beaten by Artificial Intelligence. One of the best Go player in the world, 18 time world champ Lee Sedol, dubbed by Google as the Roger Federer of Go, started a 5 game series against Google's AI machine AlphaGo yesterday and lost game one. I watched the game live on YoutTube, along with 80k+ users all over the world. I thought Lee started well and built up some solid territories but AlphaGo slowly ate into all those and Lee resigned. Note: I am not a very strong player. According to this (seems to be) professional analysis, Lee actually overplayed in the beginning (which I as an amateur thought were strong move) and only caught up in the middle game but then eventually lost it. Basically, Lee made a few mistakes. AlphaGo did too but its play was closer to perfect.

(Side note: was listening to the classical channel this morning and the host mentioned something from a Scientific journal. I thought it has to do with this match but it's not. It was about researchers came up with a model to predict the gender, the age group and income level based on the apps on that person's phone. And it was way-off for that radio host :P So, machine learning still have a long way to go. On the other hand, I doubt human could predict much better either)