Topic of the day: Taylor Guitar and GE Commercial

I was watching Ryder Cup coverage (on the background) and this commercial caught my attention: It's about Taylor Guitar got money from GE and one of GE's employee played their guitar at the factory, and played very well!

Oh well, too well! She didn't actually play it. It was achieved by clever videoediting.



The "real" guitarist was Marija Temo. Here is a video of her:

香港有史以來八間發鈔銀行

係邊八間？
答案在此

九龍地名剖析

亞皆老街、勝利道、自由道等等都是我們小時經常出沒的地方。這篇港台好文介紹了這些街名的由來。有趣的是，身為官台，卻公正地批評政府為了抬高價值而把地皮「搬區」。（九龍城說成在九龍塘）

Musician of the day: Edgar Meyer

Thanks to my wife, I got tickets to the opening concert of New Century Chamber Orchestra's new season, featuring double bassist Edgar Meyer. I have seen many great jazz bassist but this was the first time I saw a classical concert featuring bassist as soloist. Meyer definitely has the dazzling chops for that. He was not only exciting to listen to (making use of the whole range of the instrument from the booming bottom all the way up to the highs using harmonics) but also to watch: his fingers moving up and down and across the fingerboard is not unlike heavy metal guitar shredder at work. It turned out the piece he played was written by Giovanni Bottesini, aka "The Paganini of the double bass"

I was also the first time I heard Adagietto from Mahler's 5th live. I didn't know it could be performed by a chamber orchestra!

In addition to performing, Meyer is also a prolific composer. I am listening to his quintet right now(performed by Emerson String Quartet and himself. I find a bit unusual to listen to Emerson playing contemporary music. You would think this should have been a Kronos Quartet album!)

Tech of the day: anti-censorship tool

Unfortunately, this post is not introducing any. On the contrary, I just want to help debunk the myth of Haystack, which is a piece of software that was supposed to achieve this goal for people in countries in which the government heavily censor their citizen's internet usage. Check out this article, titled "The Great Internet Freedom Fraud". This is yet another case of hype over substance. To be a hero, you don't need to act like one. Instead, just sound like one.

Music of the day: Public Domain Music

I am listening to music from the MusOpen project right now. The goal of the project is to "set music free." A lot of recorded music are protected, meaning you can't just use them wherever you like (say, as the background music of a movie you shot) You might think it's OK if the music was written way back but it's not. It's because a piece of recording is protected by at least 2 copyrights: one for the underlying composition and one for the performance. For example, if you have the mp3 of a Beethoven Sonatina, you still might not be able to use it because even though the composition is not protected, the performance might still be. Currently the project is raising money to hire orchestra to record music such that both the composition and the performance itself are free. I saw someone criticized that the project should not focus on old/established works (aka warhorses) because one could easily buy such recording real cheap online but they missed the point. No matter how cheap those recordings are, you can't use them freely.

Sports highlights: Road course specialists

For IndyCar and NASCAR, road course expertise is certainly different from that of oval tracks. 4 time defending NASCAR champ Jimmie Johnson has not won on road course until this year at Sonoma. In fact, he raced in other competitions at road course in order to prepare himself better and that paid off. At the other end of the spectrum is Juan Pablo Montoya, who has raced in Formula 1 before and now in NASCAR. He won two times so far in his NASCAR career, both on road course! There was a roughly half-half split between road course and oval for this IndyCar season. And IndyCar had its last road course race of the season the weekend before. Will Power was crowned the king of road course (for having the highest point total in all road course races. There will also be a champion for oval only and of course an overal champ) Power was also the overall point leader. However, his closest competitor, Dario Franchitti, was considered a better driver on oval than Power and could make up the difference in the remaining races. For a while during the race last weekend, Power proved that he was not just a road course driver but he could do as well, if not better than, Franchitti on oval. Unfortunately his car ran out of gas and Franchitti took a risk by not taking any tire at the pit to get to the front, and won!

For NASCAR, there was a different story: a group of drivers branded road course specialists race exclusively on the road course races of NASCAR (which is held much fewer than oval races) Boris Said is arguably the most famous among them (also because of his hair-do) In fact, some NASCAR drivers learned road racing skills from him. Last weekend NASCAR's 2nd tier Nationwide series raced on the Montreal road course. Said was one of the favourite again (many predicted him to do well in previous road races too but he has not won before, not counting his lone victory in NASCAR truck series) And he had to compete with the local favourite, the Canadian and former F1 champ, Jacque Villenevue. After the frontrunners all having trouble (bad battery, broken track bar and running out of feul), he took the lead and won the race. That's a feel good story. And I guess he didn't mind being a road course specialist last weekend.

Star of the day: Peter Lenz

Peter Lenz, a 13 year old motorcycle racer, died when he crashed at an Indy race last weekend. It was sad. I am sure he was a talented driver, competing this young at this level. RIP.

Topic of the day: Google = Invincible?

Well, Google is no longer selling Nexus One, once consider the iPhone killer. The sad part is, it wasn't even on my radar screen when it was announced a month ago!

Topic of the day: Canada to ban MMA

Canada has one of the best MMA fighter in the world, George St. Pierre! Ironically, British Columbia Medical Association is seeking to ban MMA in Canada. This link has a good analysis that showed why BCMA's arguments were bad. For one thing, there were more fatality involved in soccer. Canada might as well banned soccer!

Topic of the day: how my folding bike was saved

When I was riding my Downtube folding bike the other day, the chain all of a sudden fell off. And the 2 pieces of the chain guard (one on each side of the chain ring) were not held together anymore. I had to push it all the way home. I took it off after I got home:

Without this piece, the piece on the other side of the ride would not stay on either.

After further examination, I found one link of the chain is broken too:


I almost wanted to give up because I thought it would cost me quite a lot to buy a new chain as well as replacing the chain guard. Fortunately I didn't. Turns out the whole "repair" costed $6! I bought a few nuts/bolts/washers to reattach the remaining half piece of the chain guard to the chain ring. And with the help of Performance Bicycle in Mountain View, that 1 broken link in the chain was replaced. Now it works again :D

Music of the day: Jazz Organ Fellowship Gala

In the spectrum of popular jazz instruments, I'd say organ probably falls somewhere between violin and guitar. Joey DeFrancesco and Jimmy Smith are as big names as any other jazz greats but for some reason organ is not getting the attention it deserves. Only if someone would take action! And that someone is Pete Fallico, Founder and Executive Director of JOF (Jazz Organ Fellowship.) I really admire his efforts in raising the awareness of such a wonderful instrument and its players. I attended its 2nd annual gala/concert last night and saw wonderful performances by 3 organists: Tammy Hall, Atsuko Hashimoto and Trudy Pitts. Pitts is this year's JOF honoree. I am a fan of the organ trio format because most of them features a guitarist. And this performance featured the great (and local guitar hero) Mimi Fox as well as Yukata Hashimoto from Japan (husband of Atsuko)

This event was very inspiring. Maybe I should organize one for jazz violin some day!

Topic of the day: NIMBY

Just learned this new term (well, it's new to me) today because of the eviction of Ike's. Long story short: Ike's is a sandwich shop in the (SF) Castro neighbourhood. It was so successful that there were long lines outside the shop. And that caused problem with the people living upstairs, who complained about garbage and noise. Not sure if the complaint worked but turns out Ike's does not have the required license for its operation, according to the City. Anyway, it is facing eviction. Is this an act of "Not-in-my-back-yard"-ism? I dunno.

Sports highlights: Silva vs Sonnen, former F1 drivers in NASCAR

I have not watched any of Anderson Silva's fight live before this Sat but I'll make sure I do next time. The fight last Sat just added some more to his already legendary status. He was taken down and was dominated all 5 rounds and did not look like he had anything left to fight back. And then he did it! He submitted Sonnen. I guess that's why he's a legend.

Three former F1 drivers (that I know of) competed in NASCAR races this weekend. Both Villeneuve (the former F1 champ) and Piquet Jr did well in the Nationwide race (finished 8th and 7th, respectively) but they were 1-uped by Juan Pablo Montoya, who won his 2nd Sprint Cup races in his career. Both times he did in on a road course rather than oval. I guess he hopes Sprint Cup has more road course races than just 2 times per year!

Music of the day: Legend of the Ring

Just read an article about "Legend of the Ring", a condensed version of Wagner's masterpiece (consist of 4 operas) This is a funny quote from that review:

[it] resembles nothing so much as a PowerPoint mockup of one of the opera world's richest and most majestic creations. This is opera as performed by recent business school graduates; it feels as though the libretto is studded with "net-net," "bottom line" and "at the end of the day.

Well, I'm still curious enough that I might watch it some day!

Topic of the day: Simkins Hall renamed

I remember this dorm. One of our good friends from Texas used to live there. And it was the center of a recent controversy. For all these years we were at UT, we didn't know the name was dedicated to a former law professor who was a Klan member. I can't imagine being an African American knowing that fact could live in that dorm happily.

Star of the day: England World Cup team captain

His name is Mark Reynolds, a computer programmer. His team will start playing today in Lacrosse world championship hosted in Manchester. This event is just like its soccer equivalent, played every 4 years. Still, I will root for Team USA to recapture the title from Canada. I watched Team USA played against Major League Lacrosse All-Star team last week. Those guys are GOOD.

Topic of the day: NASCAR x Transformers

As a fan of both, I'm really excited that the next Transformers movie will feature NASCARs! From this link, you could see both #88, 48 and 42 (in NASCAR, they are driven by Dale Earnhardt Jr, Jimmie Johnson and Juan Pablo Montoya, respectively) I can't imagine Junior and JJ's cars to be decepticons but the #42 car fits that image!

香港 vs 美國

在香港，打警察一巴，上到法庭，官考慮判感化。
在美國，警察槍殺人，上到法庭，官已輕判了事。

Sports highlights: UFC, NASCAR at Daytona, CFL Kickoff, World cup

When Fedor lost the week before, naturally the attention turned to: who will be the next Fedor? Well, I am pretty sure both UFC heavyweights that fighted this weekend: Lesnar and Carwin, did not want to suffer the fate of Fedor, losing to a lesser opponent or be submitted. Lesnar almost did the former in the first round but Carwin was the one submitted in the second round. It was exciting to watch.

I am not a fan of Dale Earnhardt Jr (or his dad) but I was happy to see him winning the Nationwide race at Daytona running the number (3) that belonged to his dad. It was emotional. And the Sprint Cup race at Daytona was equally good. Hate to say this but the big wrecks were something to watch.

And of course, there were world cup quarter finals that featured quite a few instant-classic moments. The top one gotta be Suarez's handball save of the goal that would have sent his team out of the tournament and the subsequent missed PK by Gyan.

With all these events going on, I didn't realize it's CFL's kick off weekend! Thanks to CFL's official site, I caught the highlight of an exciting (high scoring) comeback win by Saskatchewan Rough Riders over the team that beat them in last Grey Cup, Montreal Alouettes.