My kids refuse to visit art museums with me these days and think it's extremely boring. Oh well, bringing them to art museums while they were babies wasn't successful in converting them to art lovers subconsciously.
However, like most guys my son has a curiosity in gadgets, including cameras. (DSLR is "standard equipment" for HK guys) And he has always been interested in animals. So, I used wildlife photography from the catalog of Silicon Valley Open Studio as a bait for him to go visit with me last weekend. (In fact, the event has a lucky draw contest that anyone could enter to win free art and kids love to win, anything!) To make this even more fun, I had him responsible for navigating to various studios showing photography using the maps and indexes in the catalog.
It was a success! We enjoyed the works for photographer Joan Sparks very much. She had photo of hummingbirds, falcons, butterflies, bears and so on. We got some good tips from her regarding wildlife photography. And my son ended up browsing some non-photography works (mostly painting) as well. Any exposure is better than none.
Monday, May 05, 2014
Sunday, May 04, 2014
Sports highlights: Champions League, English Premier League
It has been a very eventful two weeks in the world of soccer. Tons of drama even before the World Cup started to dominate the headlines.
There were 2 legs of semi-finals of UEFA Champions League. Not much happened until the 2nd legs: Bayern Munich was trashed by Real Madrid much like what they did to Barca last season. Chelsea took a slim 1-0 lead but quickly conceded the all-important away goal to Atletico Madrid, and then some more to seal their fate. This will be an all-Madrid final with a potential double or treble winner. (Atletico is at the head of the La Liga table now while Real has won the Copa Del Rey already)
And the English Premier League featured another exciting end-of-season fight for the championship. When Liverpool played Chelsea, the latter was still in the hunt for both CL and EPL. Some said Chelsea should cut Liverpool some slack for their own good. Well, Jose Mourinho had already pull most eligible first-team players out to get rest for the match against Atletico. No wonder I didn't know half of the starters. Still, Chelsea was able to strike first when the Liverpool captain slipped and Liverpool could no longer control its own fate after this loss, i.e., if Liverpool and Man City all win the rest of the games, the latter would claim the championship on goal differential.
Well, the road to championship for Man City was not without obstacle though. They still needed to beat the fifth-place Everton who has been "trending upward" lately. And Everton indeed scored first but eventually the City came back. Well, either Man City or Liverpool winning the championship wouldn't make me happy but it's good that it won't be decided until the final day of the season.
Last and least was a match unrelated to the championship: Manchester United vs Sunderland, which was the 2nd match that Man U was managed by their former player and legend Ryan Giggs. Well, it's their first home loss to Sunderland since 1968. And it saved Sunderland from relegation. Enuff said.
There were 2 legs of semi-finals of UEFA Champions League. Not much happened until the 2nd legs: Bayern Munich was trashed by Real Madrid much like what they did to Barca last season. Chelsea took a slim 1-0 lead but quickly conceded the all-important away goal to Atletico Madrid, and then some more to seal their fate. This will be an all-Madrid final with a potential double or treble winner. (Atletico is at the head of the La Liga table now while Real has won the Copa Del Rey already)
And the English Premier League featured another exciting end-of-season fight for the championship. When Liverpool played Chelsea, the latter was still in the hunt for both CL and EPL. Some said Chelsea should cut Liverpool some slack for their own good. Well, Jose Mourinho had already pull most eligible first-team players out to get rest for the match against Atletico. No wonder I didn't know half of the starters. Still, Chelsea was able to strike first when the Liverpool captain slipped and Liverpool could no longer control its own fate after this loss, i.e., if Liverpool and Man City all win the rest of the games, the latter would claim the championship on goal differential.
Well, the road to championship for Man City was not without obstacle though. They still needed to beat the fifth-place Everton who has been "trending upward" lately. And Everton indeed scored first but eventually the City came back. Well, either Man City or Liverpool winning the championship wouldn't make me happy but it's good that it won't be decided until the final day of the season.
Last and least was a match unrelated to the championship: Manchester United vs Sunderland, which was the 2nd match that Man U was managed by their former player and legend Ryan Giggs. Well, it's their first home loss to Sunderland since 1968. And it saved Sunderland from relegation. Enuff said.
Saturday, May 03, 2014
Regina Carter's Southern Comfort
I think the advertising agency used by Southern Comfort did a good job. I knew nothing about this brand of liqueur until I saw its attention grabbing commercial. I still haven't tried it but at least I know it's kinda like whiskey/bourbon now. And combining the phrase Southern Comfort with great violinist Regina Carter certainly sounds awesome even though I guess the music has nothing to do with the brand.
This is probably the 3rd or 4th time I've been to a Regina Carter concert and she's one of the artist that I consider "couldn't go wrong": anything she played has high musical values. Of course, that's a huge compliment to a musician. Before her last 2 albums, Regina Carter had already played a large variety of jazz throughout her career, including her early, heavily pop-influenced "Something for Grace," classically-influenced "Paganini's Dream" and the jazz-standard filled "I'll be Seeing you: a sentimental journey" which established her status as one of the top jazz violinist. In my opinion though, it was the last 2 releases that broke away from mainstream jazz and propelled her from "merely" good (skillful, versatile and enjoyable) musician to a truly great master.
In her last album "Reverse Thread," Regina Carter collaborated with African musicians and came up with authentic, original music by combining elements from African music (folk tunes and rhythms) and jazz (improv) She continued her musical journey tracing the roots of her ancestry in the South. This time she used a lot of melodies from her childhood. Her performance at the SFJAZZ center included playback of such music pre-recorded in the South as references for the audience. We could clearly hear how she used the simple tunes as building blocks and transform them into vehicle for improvisation. The concert hall was filled with joyful mood. The encore piece was about going home by train and it deeply moved me as it brought back all those old memories of taking KCR trains home after school or work when I was in Hong Kong.
This is probably the 3rd or 4th time I've been to a Regina Carter concert and she's one of the artist that I consider "couldn't go wrong": anything she played has high musical values. Of course, that's a huge compliment to a musician. Before her last 2 albums, Regina Carter had already played a large variety of jazz throughout her career, including her early, heavily pop-influenced "Something for Grace," classically-influenced "Paganini's Dream" and the jazz-standard filled "I'll be Seeing you: a sentimental journey" which established her status as one of the top jazz violinist. In my opinion though, it was the last 2 releases that broke away from mainstream jazz and propelled her from "merely" good (skillful, versatile and enjoyable) musician to a truly great master.
In her last album "Reverse Thread," Regina Carter collaborated with African musicians and came up with authentic, original music by combining elements from African music (folk tunes and rhythms) and jazz (improv) She continued her musical journey tracing the roots of her ancestry in the South. This time she used a lot of melodies from her childhood. Her performance at the SFJAZZ center included playback of such music pre-recorded in the South as references for the audience. We could clearly hear how she used the simple tunes as building blocks and transform them into vehicle for improvisation. The concert hall was filled with joyful mood. The encore piece was about going home by train and it deeply moved me as it brought back all those old memories of taking KCR trains home after school or work when I was in Hong Kong.
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Sports highlights: Cricket World Twenty20 final, Paris-Roubaix, Darlington
It has been another week full of great matches and races. It was disappointing that the Wisconsin Badgers was so close to the NCAA men's basketball championship game but couldn't make it. Instead of watching the championship game, I'd rather watch the replay of the Cricket World Twenty20 final between India and West Indies. What an exciting match (maybe the NCAA game was better but I wouldn't have known)! India batted first and the West Indies bowled so well that India couldn't put up big numbers during the last few overs. However, India bowled almost as good during the bottom of the inning and shutdown West Indies' offense for the most part. West Indies was lagging for such a long period that I thought they might not be able to catch up but they eventually got the bat going and hit quite a few big ones out to win the championship.
The 2 NASCAR races at Darlington also had exciting finishes. The young Chase Elliot winning the Nationwide races two weeks in a row was kinda surprising. He restarted well and seized the opportunity to move up. On the Sprint Cup side, Kevin Harvick was simply strong from the pole but had to fight hard at the late restarts to beat Dale Jr for the Green-White-Checker finish.
Another great race of the week was the Paris-Roubaix bike race. My cycling enthusiast friend was actually right there in Paris and watched it with the local folks! Good for him! Niki Terpstra made a bold move to break away while he was still a good distance from the finish and succeeded. That was one sweet victory.
The 2 NASCAR races at Darlington also had exciting finishes. The young Chase Elliot winning the Nationwide races two weeks in a row was kinda surprising. He restarted well and seized the opportunity to move up. On the Sprint Cup side, Kevin Harvick was simply strong from the pole but had to fight hard at the late restarts to beat Dale Jr for the Green-White-Checker finish.
Another great race of the week was the Paris-Roubaix bike race. My cycling enthusiast friend was actually right there in Paris and watched it with the local folks! Good for him! Niki Terpstra made a bold move to break away while he was still a good distance from the finish and succeeded. That was one sweet victory.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
The Lion The Beast The Beat
I have been seeing Grace Potter and the Nocturnals on TV quite a bit lately. First, I saw her being interviewed on the Guitar Center sessions from AXS (a "new" TV channel that I just started subscribing to) Her live performance in the session was so full of energy. She is a very talented multi-instrumentalist (piano and guitar to name a few) as well as a soulful singer. There was an interesting conversation about how she started playing piano: her mom was a piano teacher and gave group lessons to local kids to earn some $. Grace Potter asked her mom to teach her stuff she taught the most advanced student so she could be better than all of them!
Later that night I was channel surfing and saw Palladia was supposed to be showing a programme about Heart (the rock band with female lead) but I saw this instead:
Well, I don't recall the Wilson sisters (from Heart) looking that young. They were certainly that young in the 70s but the clothing was not from that era for sure! I didn't realize that's Grace Potter until the end. (Gotta admit I'm bad at recognizing faces, even good looking ones!) Her vocal style did sound a bit like Heart though. And she's hot in the video!
So I decided to listen to the whole album. (I don't listen to much pop rock these days.) I enjoyed it. Some songs reminded me of Fleetwood Mac too. And, surprise surprise! Grace Potter has indeed covered a Fleetwood Mac song ("Gold Dust Women") with Warren Haynes.
Later that night I was channel surfing and saw Palladia was supposed to be showing a programme about Heart (the rock band with female lead) but I saw this instead:
Well, I don't recall the Wilson sisters (from Heart) looking that young. They were certainly that young in the 70s but the clothing was not from that era for sure! I didn't realize that's Grace Potter until the end. (Gotta admit I'm bad at recognizing faces, even good looking ones!) Her vocal style did sound a bit like Heart though. And she's hot in the video!
So I decided to listen to the whole album. (I don't listen to much pop rock these days.) I enjoyed it. Some songs reminded me of Fleetwood Mac too. And, surprise surprise! Grace Potter has indeed covered a Fleetwood Mac song ("Gold Dust Women") with Warren Haynes.
Monday, April 07, 2014
Art explosions Spring Open studios
Art Explosions has studios in SF for rental by artists and 2 of their locations hosted open studios this weekend. I went talk to some artists and checked out their works.
Melisa Philips
She was the first artist I talked to. If you know me, I am not the type who could talk to strangers easily. Fortunately I saw a picture that seemed to be taken in Hong Kong in her studio and I used it as a conversation starter :P It was indeed taken in HK in 2006 when she attended a wedding of her friend. The works she showed were mostly photo as well as some paintings (some based on photo she took) She is very into patterns and shapes, e.g. those from the windows of buildings or staircases. I bought two bike-related photo from her for $5ea. I also found her painting "Give Me a Sign" very interesting. It's actually based on that HK photo in which there were lots of signs of stores/restaurants, a typical sight from the main streets in HK like Nathan Rd. Finally she told me about her online shop at Etsy.
Mathilda Lazelle
Her big self-portrait was actually the first piece I saw at the event as it is close to the entrance (and she used it for one version of her business card. Great idea :) The paintings she showed was mainly people or food, or both. One of them is superimposed images of a person and a jellyfish. I told her about one main character from Haruki Murakami's novel liked watching jellyfish as he felt calm. She felt the same way too. Not me though. To me, jellyfish represents danger.
Rasika Apte
She is an Asian American artist from my generation. She was working on a watercolor piece while I was there and we started talking about it, which has several circle outlines. She told me she is developing a theme with repeating patterns. She has already painted a few. And it all started with one small painting with a radish. Another painting of hers that caught my eye was one with a Sikh temple. She painted it after the shooting incident at a Wisconsin Sikh temple. It was based on some photo she had plus her own imaginations.
Ameena
She showed a large Pollack-esque abstract water color, which is a collaboration with another artist. In addition, she had a lot of small acrylic paintings. We talked about the challenges with such a small real estate.
Mary Stengel Bentley
She had a very interesting piece titled WELCOME. Each letter is converted to binary ASCII and each 0 or 1 was painted with a different colored pattern. Perfectly fitting the
Bronwyn DexterOne of her piece has a red-ish background with a few running horses and "cheez-it"-like patterns. I told her it's the year of the horse on Chinese calendar and she could sell it to Chinese for a good price. She is also a musician. In fact she used the Fender Jaguar head image on her business cards (that's the guitar she plays. So do I!)
Emily Proud
We talked about what kind of art she does inside (and outside) this studio. She told me the watercolor landscape she showed was actually drawn outside near Land's end. She is also a teacher. Maybe I could take one of her group lesson some day.
After talking to Emily, I left this location (2425 17th St) and moved on to the 3-story building on Alabama St.
Alison Walker
Like many other artists, her works utilize many repeated patterns and lines as common themes. One piece that caught my eye though was a drawing of a rose, which was based on the ones planted by inmates at the Alcatraz (she visited as a botanical artist working to preserve such images since the place was being torn down) She left a lot of white spaces and used quite a bit of thin narrow lines for the stem and leafs, which reminded me of Chinese paintings.
Hannah Schutzengel
She was working on a small painting (oil on treated paper) I told her it looks like avocado to me :P
Lucia Gonnella
I was attracted by a few of her seaside landscape painting about Bari (in South Italy), the bay area and Hawaii. Took a few picture which got her notice and she started talking to me about her art. Bari was her birthplace so no wonder she has several paintings about it. In addition to traditional paintings, she also made relief sculpture on canvas with a person (herself) and flowers. Another interesting piece consists of three canvas connected with door hinges. It's about water. She intended it to be viewed closely, with two canvas on each side of the head. I was glad to talk to an artist with lots of experience and so friendly.
Beth Knight
Her pieces were all about dogs appearing in various sizes in the city.
Melisa Philips
She was the first artist I talked to. If you know me, I am not the type who could talk to strangers easily. Fortunately I saw a picture that seemed to be taken in Hong Kong in her studio and I used it as a conversation starter :P It was indeed taken in HK in 2006 when she attended a wedding of her friend. The works she showed were mostly photo as well as some paintings (some based on photo she took) She is very into patterns and shapes, e.g. those from the windows of buildings or staircases. I bought two bike-related photo from her for $5ea. I also found her painting "Give Me a Sign" very interesting. It's actually based on that HK photo in which there were lots of signs of stores/restaurants, a typical sight from the main streets in HK like Nathan Rd. Finally she told me about her online shop at Etsy.
Mathilda Lazelle
Her big self-portrait was actually the first piece I saw at the event as it is close to the entrance (and she used it for one version of her business card. Great idea :) The paintings she showed was mainly people or food, or both. One of them is superimposed images of a person and a jellyfish. I told her about one main character from Haruki Murakami's novel liked watching jellyfish as he felt calm. She felt the same way too. Not me though. To me, jellyfish represents danger.
Rasika Apte
She is an Asian American artist from my generation. She was working on a watercolor piece while I was there and we started talking about it, which has several circle outlines. She told me she is developing a theme with repeating patterns. She has already painted a few. And it all started with one small painting with a radish. Another painting of hers that caught my eye was one with a Sikh temple. She painted it after the shooting incident at a Wisconsin Sikh temple. It was based on some photo she had plus her own imaginations.
Ameena
She showed a large Pollack-esque abstract water color, which is a collaboration with another artist. In addition, she had a lot of small acrylic paintings. We talked about the challenges with such a small real estate.
Mary Stengel Bentley
She had a very interesting piece titled WELCOME. Each letter is converted to binary ASCII and each 0 or 1 was painted with a different colored pattern. Perfectly fitting the
Bronwyn DexterOne of her piece has a red-ish background with a few running horses and "cheez-it"-like patterns. I told her it's the year of the horse on Chinese calendar and she could sell it to Chinese for a good price. She is also a musician. In fact she used the Fender Jaguar head image on her business cards (that's the guitar she plays. So do I!)
Emily Proud
We talked about what kind of art she does inside (and outside) this studio. She told me the watercolor landscape she showed was actually drawn outside near Land's end. She is also a teacher. Maybe I could take one of her group lesson some day.
After talking to Emily, I left this location (2425 17th St) and moved on to the 3-story building on Alabama St.
Alison Walker
Like many other artists, her works utilize many repeated patterns and lines as common themes. One piece that caught my eye though was a drawing of a rose, which was based on the ones planted by inmates at the Alcatraz (she visited as a botanical artist working to preserve such images since the place was being torn down) She left a lot of white spaces and used quite a bit of thin narrow lines for the stem and leafs, which reminded me of Chinese paintings.
Hannah Schutzengel
She was working on a small painting (oil on treated paper) I told her it looks like avocado to me :P
Lucia Gonnella
I was attracted by a few of her seaside landscape painting about Bari (in South Italy), the bay area and Hawaii. Took a few picture which got her notice and she started talking to me about her art. Bari was her birthplace so no wonder she has several paintings about it. In addition to traditional paintings, she also made relief sculpture on canvas with a person (herself) and flowers. Another interesting piece consists of three canvas connected with door hinges. It's about water. She intended it to be viewed closely, with two canvas on each side of the head. I was glad to talk to an artist with lots of experience and so friendly.
Beth Knight
Her pieces were all about dogs appearing in various sizes in the city.
Sunday, April 06, 2014
馬到成功 vs 馬到功成
以「馬到功成」一詞恭祝對方在商業上、在競賽上取得好成績，從小就聽不少，也不止於新年才用得上。踏入馬年，忽然發現很多地方展示「馬到成功」標語，包括球場（在歐洲足球場出現為中國客而設的廣告板已是屢見不鮮）小朋友學校（那是預祝籌款達標，可能因為中國人家長眾多吧）看來兩詞不同，又是中港差異吧。於是Google一下，多得蘋果日報左丁山撰文解釋，原來兩詞各有出處：
「馬到成功」見元代無名氏《小尉遲將鬥將認父歸朝》第二折：「那老尉遲這一去，馬到成功」，意思係一開始就成功，掂晒。至於「馬到功成」，出自元代鄭廷玉在《楚昭公》第四折：「只願你馬到功成，奏凱而還」，意思係事情順利，得到勝利。不過習主席說的是「馬到成功」，各大媒體知道要怎做吧。
Friday, April 04, 2014
African cichlid fish
I wrote about guitar-related newsletter I got in my Inbox the other day. I also got newsletters from my Alma Mater, University of Texas at Austin. I found the ones from the college of natural sciences particularly interesting. As a trained scientist, I gotta admit I wasn't in touch with science as much as I did when I was a kid but this newsletter keeps me closer. I especially enjoyed this article on African cichlid fish: only one male fish in the group (called a school of fish) gets to be the colorful one and have strong reproductive system. Other male fish with grey color could challenge and if it wins, it becomes colorful and reproductive while the loser loses the color and its reproductive system gets weaken! Well, that kinda reminds me of the scene at UT back then: guys fight for gals (metaphorically) The winner got in good mood and sometimes dressed himself up too, while the loser became less active and might just withdraw from the social circle.
Thursday, April 03, 2014
Sports highlights: Supercross, F1, IndyCar, NASCAR
I have followed a few seasons of Supercross (motorcycle racing) but I think I have just watched the most enjoyable race so far: the Toronto race in which 2-time champ James Stewart came from behind to earn his 49th victory of his long career. And he was not the only highlight! Defending champ Ryan Villopoto was injured earlier in the day but he hang on to qualify for the main event and had a good finish. It showed how much heart and will to win he had.
The 2nd race of the F1 season was held in Malaysia last Sunday. The folks were quite heavy hearted there because of the MH370 disaster. I read the attendance number was rather low. The entertainment value was just so-so: Lewis Hamilton was on the pole and won the race. Vettel did that many times last few season and made the races BORING! He was actually on the front row but slipped to the third. That's the surprise of the race and I guess it was worthwhile to stay up 'til 3am.
And it was the first Verizon IndyCar race of the season later in the day. That's a street-course race in which the polesitter couldn't lead 'til the end of the race. The winner was a familiar name though: #12 Will Power, the Verizon sponsored driver. The other Verizon driver, Juan Pablo Montoya, did just so-so on his first race back to IndyCar after a long time away.
Also, it's the MLB opening night (in US) on Sunday. I knew it's inevitable that I caught the name of the winner of the NASCAR race at Martinsville before watching it taped, as much as I tried to avoid reading the scrolling news ticker on the bottom of the screen. I was glad I saw it though 'coz it was a surprise: Kurt Busch, who has not won a race in years (which was understandable as he spent his last 2 seasons with 2nd or 3rd-tier teams after he ruined his relationship with Team Penske) I would have turned off the TV if I didn't knew the eventual winner because Jimmie Johnson did so well: no matter where he started after a re-start, he was able to get to the front during the green flag run, well, except the last one. And it's a strange feeling: I bet there were a lot of fans who dislike both Busch brothers. Being ousted from Team Penske was basically all Kurt's fault (bad temper and arrogance.) However, he got quite a bit of respects after bringing those 2nd/3rd-tier teams up a level or two. Seems like he got mature a bit, evident in this race: he got tangled with Brad Keselowski, who was so mad and kept retaliating but Kurt kinda kept his cool and avoided further damages.
It was a great weekend for racing fan :)
The 2nd race of the F1 season was held in Malaysia last Sunday. The folks were quite heavy hearted there because of the MH370 disaster. I read the attendance number was rather low. The entertainment value was just so-so: Lewis Hamilton was on the pole and won the race. Vettel did that many times last few season and made the races BORING! He was actually on the front row but slipped to the third. That's the surprise of the race and I guess it was worthwhile to stay up 'til 3am.
And it was the first Verizon IndyCar race of the season later in the day. That's a street-course race in which the polesitter couldn't lead 'til the end of the race. The winner was a familiar name though: #12 Will Power, the Verizon sponsored driver. The other Verizon driver, Juan Pablo Montoya, did just so-so on his first race back to IndyCar after a long time away.
Also, it's the MLB opening night (in US) on Sunday. I knew it's inevitable that I caught the name of the winner of the NASCAR race at Martinsville before watching it taped, as much as I tried to avoid reading the scrolling news ticker on the bottom of the screen. I was glad I saw it though 'coz it was a surprise: Kurt Busch, who has not won a race in years (which was understandable as he spent his last 2 seasons with 2nd or 3rd-tier teams after he ruined his relationship with Team Penske) I would have turned off the TV if I didn't knew the eventual winner because Jimmie Johnson did so well: no matter where he started after a re-start, he was able to get to the front during the green flag run, well, except the last one. And it's a strange feeling: I bet there were a lot of fans who dislike both Busch brothers. Being ousted from Team Penske was basically all Kurt's fault (bad temper and arrogance.) However, he got quite a bit of respects after bringing those 2nd/3rd-tier teams up a level or two. Seems like he got mature a bit, evident in this race: he got tangled with Brad Keselowski, who was so mad and kept retaliating but Kurt kinda kept his cool and avoided further damages.
It was a great weekend for racing fan :)
Wednesday, April 02, 2014
Epiphone artists interviewed
I received a ton of newsletters in my Inbox everyday. Other than the ones from online stores I shopped from, I also got a few from guitar or effect pedal manufacturer of which contests I entered (and I never won any free equipment :( ) I actually enjoy the ones from guitar maker Epiphone quite a lot. My first guitar was an Epiphone SG Junior (that I still play whenever I am with it) And I did "win" something from them back then: it's a promotion with guitar instruction video (yes, in VHS!) that they gave away gig bag ("official" one with the Epiphone logo!) So you may say I'm partial to the brand. Their newsletters usually feature interviews of musicians who play Epiphone guitar. You might be surprised by the big names (not playing the "big brother" brand Gibson instead!) Jazz/blues master Robben Ford is one of them. Jeff Waters of Canadian thrash metal legend Annihilator is another. The part I found especially interesting was when he talked about running into musicians influenced by him. Personally I have run into a guy who listened to my band before without knowing I was the one in the YouTube clip. And I have also found a cover-version of our song on the internet before! And Robben Ford's interview got me really interested in the 1966 Epiphone Rivera he plays. He actually recorded an entire album, "Bringing it Back Home", with just this guitar, hoping to capture that one sound.
Friday, March 28, 2014
皇后大道東
羅大佑真係未卜先知，當年一首「皇后大道東」己經預言:
有了屍爬及自由行之後，偉大同志們都說香港沒有他們早已玩完。
旺角火車站的確被改了名字。題外話：其實兩鐵合併，應該兩站一齊改名，不然只改歷史較短的地鐵站名才對！
知己一聲拜拜遠去這都市
要靠偉大同志搞搞新意思
照買照賣樓花處處有單位
但是旺角可能要換換名字
有了屍爬及自由行之後，偉大同志們都說香港沒有他們早已玩完。
旺角火車站的確被改了名字。題外話：其實兩鐵合併，應該兩站一齊改名，不然只改歷史較短的地鐵站名才對！
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Sports highlights: F1, MotoGP, NASCAR, T20 World Cup
Many sports competitions have started their 2014 seasons finally. Formula 1 started two weekends ago in Australia, which translates to a 3:30 am start time. I was not sure if I was gonna watch but I woke up without an alarm so I guess I wanted subconsciously. And it was not a bad race. To me, the major reason NOT to watch was that the 4-time defending champ Sebastian Vettel seemed to win every race. Not this one though 'coz something was wrong with his car early on. So did Lewis Hamilton's car. That left only 3 former champs competing with the rest of the field. Still, not too much competition up front: Nico Rosberg won for Mercedes easily. The local guy Daniel Ricciardo finished behind Rosberg and got the crowd really excited (However, he was disqualified because the fuel flow exceeded the rate allowed by the rule and his team refused to change after receiving warning from the officials. The owner of his team seemed really upset when things don't go in his favor. Oh yeah, his other driver is Vettel. To be honest, it's not fair when the governing body came up with rules against your team: e.g, favoring engine power over aerodynamics, which has been Red Bull's strength, but as a spectator I don't wanna see the same guy winning all the time. Anyway, saying things like this sounds just like a cry baby) And a rookie, Kevin Magnussen, finished third (bumped up to 2nd after Ricciardo's DQ) It's too early to tell if there's more parity this new season but I'm keeping my finger crossed.
Compared to F1, NASCAR seems like it's mid-season already with 5 races in the books, one exciting finish after another. Maybe the rule change was a good thing: it made the already-competitive drivers battled even harder for the win. And the normally nothing-goes-wrong #48 team got a flat tire late in the race while leading at the Fontana race. It ended with a Green-White-Checker finish: the same Toyota driver, Kyle Busch, won on Toyota's "home track" 2 years in a row.
MotoGP just had its first race of the 2014 season at Qatar last weekend. It was a duel between the young defending champ, Marc Marquez, and the legend, Valentino Rossi, at the end.
I didn't know it's a world cup year (Cricket Twenty20 that is) until my friend told me Hong Kong defeated Bangladesh during the last first-round group match. It's kinda like Australia upsetting England in the soccer world, I guess. And the result didn't affect which team advance to the next round (the latter did) Still, a win is a win. Looking forward to watching more 2nd round group and knockout stage matches!
Last but not least, the 2014 MLB season has also started, again, in Australia (Sydney Cricket Ground) with the Dodgers vs the D-backs at 1am PDT Saturday. This time I did set an alarm just to watch it and had to endure a ~40 min of rain delay! Since I was up after the game anyway, I ended up watching the Arsenal vs Chelsea game too. However, it's too sad for me to continue after the gunners went down 0-3 (the last one involved a red card that should not have been given. And it was given to the wrong player! How bizarre!)
Compared to F1, NASCAR seems like it's mid-season already with 5 races in the books, one exciting finish after another. Maybe the rule change was a good thing: it made the already-competitive drivers battled even harder for the win. And the normally nothing-goes-wrong #48 team got a flat tire late in the race while leading at the Fontana race. It ended with a Green-White-Checker finish: the same Toyota driver, Kyle Busch, won on Toyota's "home track" 2 years in a row.
MotoGP just had its first race of the 2014 season at Qatar last weekend. It was a duel between the young defending champ, Marc Marquez, and the legend, Valentino Rossi, at the end.
I didn't know it's a world cup year (Cricket Twenty20 that is) until my friend told me Hong Kong defeated Bangladesh during the last first-round group match. It's kinda like Australia upsetting England in the soccer world, I guess. And the result didn't affect which team advance to the next round (the latter did) Still, a win is a win. Looking forward to watching more 2nd round group and knockout stage matches!
Last but not least, the 2014 MLB season has also started, again, in Australia (Sydney Cricket Ground) with the Dodgers vs the D-backs at 1am PDT Saturday. This time I did set an alarm just to watch it and had to endure a ~40 min of rain delay! Since I was up after the game anyway, I ended up watching the Arsenal vs Chelsea game too. However, it's too sad for me to continue after the gunners went down 0-3 (the last one involved a red card that should not have been given. And it was given to the wrong player! How bizarre!)
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Real Disasters
It seems like sad news of disasters came one after another: first it was Malaysia Airline 370 went missing. Then 100+ were missing after the mudslide in the Washington state. That really puts things in perspective. Losing 0-6 to Chelsea didn't seem that bad any more. The media misuses the word disastrous a bit too much.
Thursday, March 20, 2014
霸氣十足的中國電視觀眾
Monday, March 17, 2014
IndyCar has got a new title sponsor
Can't believe I missed this piece of big news all weekend and only learned about it on the intranet on Monday! This is very exciting: IndyCar is now Verizon IndyCar. (Some news reports keep mentioning Verizon Wireless. Hey, Verizon still has wireline business! It's the "mothership" who got the title!) Among all title sponsors in recent years, Verizon has the biggest marketing muscle and IndyCar has got a much needed lift. To be honest, at this point IndyCar has nowhere to go but up (not my opinion. I read from a comment on this piece of news) I believe it's a win-win for both parties: it's reported that Verizon will be contributing 10 millions (half in cash) Most major sports sponsorships cost more than that! In fact, Nationwide insurance pays double that to sponsor the 2nd tier series of NASCAR! And of course, the top tier of NASCAR's title sponsor is none other than Verizon's competitor: Sprint. I think that motivates Verizon to step up its game. After all, Sprint forced Verizon out of NASCAR completely with its exclusive deal (Verizon used to sponsor #12 team of Penske at Nationwide. When Verizon was forced out, the victim was Justin Allgaier who lost his Penske ride and ended up with a team with less resources) Another thing interesting about this deal is that team Penske has been sponsored by Verizon for the last few years. The #12 car driven by Will Power was so close to winning the championship a few times but fell short. For the 2014 season Verizon will also be sponsoring the #2 Team Penske car driven by former F1 and Indy 500 Winner Juan Pablo Montoya. I expect him to be very competitive and a favorite to win the championship as he's still one of the best driver in the world. Oh well, no matter who wins, Verizon will get the spotlight being the title sponsor. I'm looking forward to a successful IndyCar season, which would benefit motorsports in US in general! (The third important motorsports series in US is already sponsored by Tudor so I don't think AT&T could join the party soon :P)
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
培正和舊金山
一直以來都知兩者頗有淵源：不少培正校友移民或升學之後定居該地。作為培正人，小時候不知在勝利道一帶甩掉多少腳毛，竟然到最近巧合在維基百科看香港街道名，才知那裡有一條舊金山徑。以下摘自報章：
勝利道一帶的街名別具革命和外國色彩，何解呢？這要從梭椏（Soares）先生講起。Soares是葡萄牙普遍的大姓，於1925年一位名為Francisco Soares的葡萄牙開發者，用其姓氏為「梭椏道」命名。他更以自由、勝利、太平幾個與第一次世界大戰有關的詞語，作為此區的街名。另外，因其名字部分與美國城市「San Francisco」相若，於是採用了當時中文「舊金山」的翻譯，將梭椏道與勝利道中間的小巷稱做舊金山徑（San Francisco Path）。而他的太太Emma和女兒Julia同樣榜上有名，譯音後化身成梭椏道旁的艷馬道和棗梨雅道。如此翻譯地名，的確有點馮京作馬涼的味道（麻雀館英文譯作mahjong school一樣耐人尋味）
Saturday, March 08, 2014
A day-ful of Ingrid Jensen
It's the international women's day so it's perfect time to play music from female jazz musicians. I prefer instrumental music and one of the biggest name in big band yet I seldom listen to is Maria Schneider (she decided not to license her music to streaming/download services)
Found this video of her band performing Ivan Lins' composition, Lembra de Mim
The first horn soloist appeared in the video was Ingrid Jensen. I actually first learned about her today! And coincidentally the local jazz station KCSM played a few tunes she played on, including Vernal Fields from her album with the same title at 11:51AM, and Hope Springs Eternally from Helen Sung's album Anthem for a new day at 5:14PM. (KCSM also played an Ivan Lins' tune Comecar De Novo from the album Juntos at 12:40PM too. Things certainly came full circle today!)
Found this video of her band performing Ivan Lins' composition, Lembra de Mim
The first horn soloist appeared in the video was Ingrid Jensen. I actually first learned about her today! And coincidentally the local jazz station KCSM played a few tunes she played on, including Vernal Fields from her album with the same title at 11:51AM, and Hope Springs Eternally from Helen Sung's album Anthem for a new day at 5:14PM. (KCSM also played an Ivan Lins' tune Comecar De Novo from the album Juntos at 12:40PM too. Things certainly came full circle today!)
Friday, March 07, 2014
Data Cruncher Uses Code to Solve NYC’s Problems
I read this article from the Wired magazine while having my froyo break. I was fairly impressed even though there wasn't much detail about what that female programmer did exactly. In any case, it was a good thing done by our profession and definitely deserved some credits. I guess I'm really easy to please 'coz judging from the comments on the linked articles, a lot of readers were not impressed. I do agree with one of them: some mission critical systems (like the ones used in hospital) could be so buggy that a whole team of programmers are dedicated to fixing bugs and basically performing the heroics mentioned in the article all the time!
Thursday, March 06, 2014
現今的地下黨員應汗顏
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