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/ )