Music of the day: The Melody of Rhythm

It was a collaboration between tabla player Zakir Hussian, double bassist Edgar Meyer, banjoist Bela Fleck, and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Hussian and Fleck are both the most well-known players of their respective instrument but Edgar Meyer's playing is eqaully amazing. I forgot it's a double bass! This is refreshing music. Here is an interview by NPR (the public radio station)

Sports highlights: NRL, Pacquiao, IndyCar

It was the opening weekend of National Rugby League (Australia/New Zealand.) I watched one game, of course.

The biggest event was Pacquiao vs Clottey. Not a particularly interesting fight since the Clottey was blocking his head most of the time and did not try that hard to fight Pacquiao back.

The best one was Indy Car's season opener in Sao Paolo, which featured a whole lot of lead changes! And you seldom hear people praising sports coverage these days (see the comment section)

Musical of the day: The Phantom of the Opera 續集

讀了才子陶傑今天在《蘋果日報》的專欄，方知Andrew Lloyd Webber有新作，更是我至愛的The Phantom of the Opera 續集！本來想為本文標題《老貓燒鬚》，但怕人誤會我指的是Andrew Lloyd Webber，其實我想話陶傑！

以下節錄自原文：

新作是《歌聲魅影》的續集。戲名Love Never Dies，略嫌白了一點，不像《貓》（Cats）、《棋》（Chess）、《星光快車》（Starlight Express）一樣有遐想的餘地，但今天是網絡世代，八十後的觀眾，不喜歡咀嚼含蓄，只求一Q到位。......韋伯最叫座的音樂劇像顧嘉煇和黃霑，都由添萊思（Tim Rice）填詞。

看上文下理，相信你也會和我一樣，以為Chess也是Andrew Lloyd Webber的作品，其實作者是前ABBA成員Björn Ulvaeus 和Benny Andersson才對。

最後一句也有問題，Andrew Lloyd Webber最叫座的音樂劇是Phantom和Cats，但兩者都不是Tim Rice填詞；反而之前提過的Chess卻是。

我作為一名棋迷，竟然不知有Chess這部音樂劇，也多得他的錯誤，我才會去Wikipedia認識一下該劇！

Topic of the day: Weaponizing Mozart

When you see some teenagers gathering outside your place, what's the best way to drive them away? I've just learned of one way from UK.

Remember it has been reported that US blasted Metallica's music in Iraq? Lars Ulrich, the drummer of Metallica, even protested about it. I guess blasting Metallica to teenagers in UK won't work though. You gotta find some music they absolutely do not like. (Metallica got themselves disqualified by releasing their comeback album "Death Magnetic" last year) So, some UK cities are blasting Beethoven and Mozart instead!

What's wrong with those people?

Musician of the day: Gyan Riley

I saw guitarist/composer Gyan Riley's show at Yoshi's this Monday. What an amazing solo (classical) guitar performance! He played Bach's Suite for Lute and his own composition inspired by that piece. Followed by a piece by Agustín Barrios. Then he played 4 of his own etudes that addressed 4 different guitar techniques.

As a (no good) guitarist, I enjoyed his playing very much and liked the way he explained his techniques. Also, it's interesting to hear classical musicians playing their original compositions instead of the standard repertoire over and over again.

When I got home, I found from his website that he has played worked by Terry Riley so I finally realized he is Terry's son! Also listened to his non-classical (fusion/jazz) CDMelismantra on Rhapsody. He is one versatile player!

Finally, I want to mention this show is part of the bay area classical radio station "KDFC @ Yoshi's" monthly concert series. According to them, the goal is to bring live classical music into a more relaxed environment where people can have a drink and "don't need to worry about clapping in the wrong place." I think this is indeed an interesting idea. In fact, Gyan Riley did tell us we could clap anytime between movements and didn't need to wait 'til the whole suite was performed! As far as drawing new listeners to classical music is concerned, I'm not too sure. I mean, before I became a fan of classical guitar and was just your typical jazz fan, I checked Yoshi's schedule from time to time but I doubt I would be attracted by this show. On the other hand, any guitar player would have enjoyed this performance no matter what style s/he plays.

Game of the day: Kisei Game 5

It was actually played last week. Cho U (張栩) defeated Yamashita Keigo to win his first Kisei (棋聖) title, to complete his career grand slam (won all major Japanese titles in Go) Only Cho Chi-Kun (趙治勳) has done that before!

Topic of the day: alcohol, so what?

This is another story related to "moral police" and Olympics, after the foul language incident I wrote about last week: the Canadian women hockey team beat US in the gold medal game yesterday. Afterwards, they came back to the ice to celebrate with champagne, beer and cigar. They were criticized for disrespect to their country and the Olympic spirit. Take it easy, people! Let's not blow things way out of proportion. The only issue I have with this incident is that Marie-Philip Poulin, who scored both goals for Canada, doesn't turn 19 -- legal drinking age in British Columbia -- until next month. And she was seen with beer in her hand. Well, the legal drinking age is 18 at Alberta, where the team trains. Maybe she's not aware of the higher age limit in B.C.

Music of the day: O mio babbino caro

I know playing opera tunes on violin sounds kinda cheesy. Well, Joshua Bell did it (on his Romance of the Violin album) too so it feels a bit more justified. I gotta admit I like it a lot when I heard it on the radio yesterday. I've got the sheet music and this will be the song I practice next!

Animal of the day: Komodo dragon

My son taught me something new today: Komodo dragon is the biggest and heaviest lizard in the world.

Sports highlights: Super 14 Rugby, Winter Olympics plus more

My weekend began with Super 14 Rugby on Friday night. Saturday morning, Man U vs Everton was on ESPN. Then Inter Milan vs Samdoria. NASCAR Nationwide Series (yes, I watched because of Danica) UFC (What a quick knockout) NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. And winter olympics (curling and hockey) of course!

Life is not bad after super bowl.

Topic of the day: foul language, so what?

Nowadays media is ruled by moral police. There are so many things you can't say on TV, as if TV is the only place people could hear foul language.

So it is a rarity to see a piece from mainstream media (Yahoo) that is brave enough to go against this. Here is the story: NBC showed Shaun White, who won a gold in Winter Olympic's halfpipe competition, chatting with his coach. And the conversation involved lots of foul language. The writer of that piece said that it's not wrong for White and his coach to have that conversation. It's NBC's fault for showing it. I couldn't agree more.

Tech of the day: Windows Server 2008 and WiFi

I played with a Windows Server 2008 (64 bit) laptop today. It is totally vanilla without any driver installed (not even Ethernet!) So I got my hands full. The first thing to do is, of course, google "windows server 2008 wifi driver" And I found 2 useful links:

1) Convert your Windows Server 2008 to a Workstation
It introduced to me a useful shareware Lavalys Everest Ultimate Edition This tool was able to tell me which Wireless Controller I have. And I just googled and downloaded its driver for Vista 64 bit.

This link also showed me how to open up Server Manager (and then Device Manager) to pick the Network Controller device and install its driver from the previously downloaded file.

2) Windows Server 2008 and WIFI
This showed how to open Server Manager and "Add Features" to add the "Wireless LAN Service"

After that, viola, the familiar WiFi connection icon magically appears!

Topic of the day: teleprompter vs handprompter

Republican superstar Sarah Palin criticized President Obama for using teleprompter before. Now we all know why. She uses the more environment friendly handprompter instead! Please check out the picture in this link.

Topic of the day: Pac 12

Just read an article about the possibility of expanding the Pac 10 conference to 12 teams (i.e., Pac 12) The 2 ideal additions would be Utah and BYU. I guess it would be a good move for them as well as the stronger teams in Pac 10. They all could get more high quality opponents, at least for football. I would welcome our local TV showing Stanford vs. Utah and California vs. BYU!

Topic of the day: Boredom can kill you

Literally! It's not a joke, according to this study. Even if your life is full of mundane chores and you barely have any time left for yourself, there are still plenty of possibilities, for example, take an online class from your nearest college. Or it could be as simple as reading a book from a famous author you have never read. Don't let boredom kill you.

Topic of the day: Facebook and Hong Kong politics

The Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) is a Communist China leaning political party in Hong Kong. A Facebook group named 《我相信可以召集１００，０００ 個厭惡民建聯的人！》(which means I should be able to find 100000 people who dislike DAB) was established in July 2008 to condemn the questionable practices of this party. Facebook removed this group this morning, when the group has over 84k members and inching closer to the 100k goal.

The membership of this group has been growing steadily since it was established and it grew rapidly from 30k to 84k since last October because of the hi-speed rail controversy.

A lot of Hong Kong netizens are wondering why Facebook did this. It would be absurd if it was pressured by the party itself or even the Chinese government.

A new group has been formed as a replacement.

Stars of the day: 2010 NFL Pro bowler

A lot of fans complained that it is dumb to have pro bowl a week before the super bowl because the players from the super bowl teams won't be playing.

Well, I have no complaint. In fact, I think I'll enjoy this pro bowl a lot because both Vince Young and Tony Romo will be playing! They were both selected to replace other injured QBs.

Topic of the day: Dictionary = book banned in school

And it happens in (Southern) California! The Menifee Union School District has pulled the Merriam-Webster's 10th edition dictionary from school shelves because it includes the term "oral sex" and a parent complained about it. What's wrong with you SoCal folks?

五千年文明古國?

無意之中見到一篇質疑中國為五千年文明古國的文章，是對是錯，我對中史認識不足以判斷，不過讀讀也無壞。

Topic of the day: Personal finance advices

Normally I don't read these type of articles. There are tons of "Top 10 things you should avoid to save money" articles flying around. Usually the no.1 has to do with not buying coffee from American's favourite coffee shop and make your own at the office instead (I don't even drink coffee myself. I just own their stock)

And I have just read the worst ever this morning, a Top 6 this time. Two of them are just plain obvious: avoid withdrawing from ATM that would charge you a fee and cancel your credit card that charges you annual fee. Come on! Who doesn't know that? Another "advice" is not ordering soda when eating out with your family. Assuming a family of 4, that amounts to $624 per year and I quote:

If you invest $624 at the market average of 9% a year every year, you would have almost $32,000 at the end of 20 years.

If your investment returns 9% a year every year, why bother about the cost of soda?