迪士尼郵輪西加勒比海遊記

常常聽朋友說坐郵輪遊船河這個玩意比較適合和老人家同去(或自己已成為老人家),不過我老早(十年前)就計劃過去過二人世界,可惜最終因護照問題被迫取消,結果四十幾歲人才第一次去,家中兩個小朋友反而是第二次玩Disney Cruise! 其實喜歡遊船河與否和年鹷無關,主要是有否去hea的心態,至於我則是再加點好奇,當然,一家人去Disney這種family theme的cruise實在不錯,不過如有special theme的cruise,  例如heavy metal或者jazz ,我也會考慮自己去.

今次7天的行程可以說是不多不少，因為這是第一次,  樣樣都覺新鮮，由船頭行去船尾，頂樓到底層,三天才算熟悉全船.七天有兩整天都在海上沒有埋岸,最適合玩盡船上設施,包括這條名為Fantasy的船的一大特色:部份在船身以外的滑水梯Aquaduck,浸浸jacuzzi,做做gym消化一下進食了的大量食物,(待會再寫食),看看電影:迪士尼包括Pixar擁有大量電影版權,在船上能播首輪甚至首映的船公司只此一家!我們看了Avenger, Tomorrowland, Big Hero 6, Inside Out(首映)另外,晚飯過後就是musical時間,  雖然以Disney角色同故事為主有少少cheesy,  但歌同舞都相當高水準;還有魔術show和棟篤笑.

Jamaica golfing excursion

接著要寫的是加勒比海埋岸的四個港口，其中三個碼頭:Cozumel(Mexico), Grand Cayman, Falmouth(Jamaica)周遭基本上無甚可玩，離開碼頭範圍遠一點已算是窮鄉僻壤,迪士尼公司有subcontract local公司辦活動，例如眾多水上活動(snorkeling, rafting...)，幾十至百幾美元一位,我們全部都無參與.我只在牙買加打了高球($179), 另外要買沒攜帶的手套和波，球場環境及condition實在是不錯.牙買加天然環境不俗，有條件攪夏威夷式旅遊，但據聞政治環境未如理想.第四個港口在Bahamas,  是迪士尼公司私家島，叫Castaway Cay,海灘水清沙靚,而且很淺，放心讓小朋友玩,我們又在島上踩了單車及水上單車(額外收費)

Grand Cayman

至於飲食方面,水準基本上和一般每個entree收US$30左右的餐廳同級質素，前菜主菜及甜品任食,另有快餐(熱狗漢堡飽),任何時間都可飽餐一頓,還有長時間供應的軟雪糕極受歡迎,當然我寧可將我的甜食quota留給餐廳的甜品啦.提起甜品,上船之前一天我們為免航班延誤特地提早到Orlando遊玩了一天,由於十年前在Miami Joe Stone Crab吃過極美味的Key Lime Pie, 今次希望重温,在網上找到甚獲好評的Olivia's Cafe,無獨有偶,其實是迪士尼渡假村內的餐廳,他們的甜品實在一流.我們察覺到在Orlando似乎好玩好食的都和迪士尼有關,當日早上我們避開迪士尼到著名的International drive走一轉, 除了Wonderworks及Ripley's的建築有點特色,可謂乏善足陳,晚上還是去了Disney Downtown食飯聽音樂!

Dessert from Disney cruise

最後有幾點建議給將來打算坐迪士尼郵輪的網友:1) 全家人人最好準備一部smartphone/tablet,沒有私家機的小朋友可給他一部舊機,有wifi即可,上船前在家中先全部安裝Disney cruise app,該app除了有船的節目表,最有用的是即時chat的功能,讓在船上各處自由玩的家人可以隨時聯絡.2)多帶幾個袋,包括大個的環保購物袋(裝毛巾泳衣防曬等等去沙灘的用品),可丟棄的膠袋(裝沾滿沙的物品如鞋)以及ziploc bags(裝航程結束尚未乾的泳衣)

後記:發現了另一位中國老兄(今次在船上沒見到幾個)也post過迪士尼郵輪西加勒比海遊記,不過他每天分開寫比我這篇詳細得多,和我們的路線只有少許差異,相信對本帖讀者也有參考價值.(他自嘲不識音樂及迪士尼人物很搞笑,這兩方面我算比他強一點:)

荒謬世界中國篇之膚色有層次

早一陣子發過一帖講香港種族歧視問題如何嚴重,最近這則也和香港多種族社群有關,不過歧視者則來自強國,下文摘自新浪:

中國足協近日推出一組宣傳海報，提醒球員勿輕視對手。不過當中字眼具有挑釁性，尤其對香港隊海報寫道：「這支球隊的人，有黑皮膚、有黃皮膚、有白皮膚，這麼有層次的球隊，得防着點！」，明顯嘲諷港隊球員華洋摻雜、中外混合，「層次」分明。在內地人習慣用語中，強調膚色種族或許正常，但在不少香港人眼中，這些用語十分刺眼，帶有種族歧視成份。

倪匡說過:無恥分兩種:無知無恥及明知無恥。這個該是前者吧。
相信香港人對肯為香港出力的人,不論甚麼膚色,都會一視同仁地支持!

可否不分膚色的界限
願這土地裡　不分你我高低

來自家駒送給南非曼德拉的作品,現在也適合送給強國人:

Home run stories

MLB Network is part of the cable package I paid for and I am glad that I have it 'coz between MLB Network, Fox, ESPN and Comcast Sportsnet, I can catch almost 1 or 2 games per day every day during the season! And MLB Network's nightly show "Quick Pitch" gives me all highlights I need (better than ESPN's "Baseball tonight") However, I seldom watch other shows like "Intentional Talk" except for today. And it mentioned 2 interesting stories:

• Yan Gomes (Cleveland Indians) hit 2 HR yesterday and both of them were caught by the same fan! Now the fan is hoping he could get the balls autographed. Hope he gets it.
• Former Oakland A's (and current Indians) Brandon Moss hit his 100th career HR the other day. His teammates have the ball and asked Moss to buy them Apple gears (iPads and Macbooks) to get the ball back. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, stepped in and pay the "ransom" for Moss. Nice gesture!

荒謬世界國際篇之足協醜聞

上週五是國際足協主席選舉，之前美國公開調查該組織的報告，指控多名高層貪污。在醜聞壓力下，白禮達雖然在選舉獲勝連任，不久也宣佈下台。其實，國際足協和各國本土足協話事人之間利益輸送的傳聞，一向廣泛流傳，球迷大都略知一二。今次事件會否導致該組織洗心革面，我也不敢看好，畢竟足球是全世界最受歡迎的運動，球迷或多或少都有所「奉獻」；對搞手來說處處都是誘人的利益，四年一度的世界盃更是恍如金磺，要潔身自愛殊不容易。賄款正是推高電視轉播費的元兇，所以我們都是受害者呀！

More saxophone music

I am still in the mood of a lot of saxophone music. And I would like to recommend these 3 albums:

• Lennie Tristano - Chicago April 1951: This live recording from 1951 was actually released just last year. And what a gem this is! The band leader is of course the pianist Tristano. The 2 saxophonists, Lee Konitz on Alto and Wayne Marsh on Tenor were both shining in these sessions too. In addition to standards like "All the things you are", there are also less frequently heard pieces like Konitz's composition "Palo Alto" and the beautiful ballad "Judy", a Tristano original.
• Dayna Stephens - Reminiscent: this young saxophonist is very active on the scene and has released multiple albums, with this one being the latest and more straight-ahead sounding. This dude knows how to swing hard!
• Charlie Haden - Land of the Sun: the leader was the late great bassist Haden and pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba was one of the producers. These 2 names alone were big enough for any jazz fan to listen to this. Well, I haven't mentioned the saxophonists yet: Joe Lovano and Miguel Zenon. This album is a laid-back jazz exploration of Mexico's classic ballad tradition.

荒謬世界香港篇之嚴重歧視

日前議員陳志全（公開同性戀者）在地鐵被兩名大嬸當眾辱罵，多次提及其性取向及性器官！陳議員當然不會還口，只是一位旁觀乘客看不過眼出言指責，因為這些言語實在太難聽，有教壞細路之嫌；事後網民起底指她們都是藍絲。支持建制的藍絲不喜身為泛民一員的陳議員，那是理所當然；不過，她們第一錯是當街謾罵，更錯是針對其性取向。

事實上，除了性取向歧視，香港種族歧視的問題也十分嚴重，早前有人在南華早報撰文指少數族裔（尤其是膚色深的印巴人士）在香港入學、開銀行戶口以至租屋，皆有困難，實在值得關注（梁特會說這是土地供應的問題吧！）題外話：該文把話題扯到本土運動針對在香港打擾本地人生活的強國人，稱之為歧視，我就不敢苟同。

Last but not least,是梁特已經表示源於土地供應的老人院欺凌個案，比歧視更可惡！照顧老人家的確不是一件舒服的工作，長期在該環境工作，人變得麻木無情也不是不能預見的事，如何防止老人家受虐，還須集思廣益。

Danger in riding on the road

One of my good friends told me once he and his kids will ride on nothing but bike path/trail. At that time I thought he was a bit paranoid. Well, maybe not. These day you could read a few news articles about traffic accident involving bicyclists almost every week. Here is another one happened in Napa Valley (specifically, St. Helena): An Ohio woman celebrating her first wedding anniversary was killed Tuesday in a bicycle accident on Main Street north of Charter Oak Avenue. 

I certainly don't want to stop road biking but I guess I could use more caution in traffic.

荒謬世界香港篇之包容非法居留人士

日前一名貌似技安（並無歧視之意）據稱非法居港九年之十二歲人士，與自稱其阿婆自首（後者協助非法居留，不知名父母據稱在中國）並獲工聯會嫻姐高調力撐留港入學。

在中港矛盾重重的今日，此事當然引起全城議論紛紛：
1）包括工聯會的建制派曾經明確表示反對此類人士留港（時為公民黨籍律師為無證童打官司成功，法院准其留港，該事一直成為五毛用來攻擊公民黨的把柄）今日的他們（又再）打倒昨日的他們
2）此事件有否成功為政改轉移港人之視線，實在很難講。
3）部份網民到接見該童面試之小學外貼標語表示反對該校收錄非法居留人士，星期六一位該校就讀的小朋友被傳媒拍到在標語前哭訴：「犯左法又點喎」卻被細心的網民聽到背後有成人教唆：「大聲啲」年紀輕輕就成為propaganda的棋子：是悲哀？還是前途無可限量？
4）一向以爭取勞工選票為目標、形象比較正面的嫻姐，突然趕這一淌看似不相干的渾水，所為何事？有分析指面臨殺校危機的黃大仙區小學是事件受益者，才是她真正籠絡的對象。信焉？
5）一向口口聲聲依法辦事的建制派再表演搬龍門絕技：今次講情不講法。

荒謬世界美國香港篇之懷孕旅客早產靠傳媒籌旗支付醫療費

標題基本上已概括整件事件，值得討論的是誰對誰錯。第一錯的可能是主流媒體，大都傾向同情孕婦而指醫院不近人情，我不敢苟同：如果醫院真的不近人情的話，會先收錢後醫治；現在只是按例，先收錢後發出世紙罷了。美國大嬸腹大便便（懷孕七個月）還出國外遊，無論醫生批准與否，也不見得是明智之舉。遇上保險不肯負責，倒真是有點值得同情，雖然美國社會福利再好也不見得包在外國生仔，旅遊保險指嬰兒名字不在保單之上未免有點賴皮。無論如何，傳媒總算幫了大嬸一把：輿論壓力使醫院即發出世紙；煽情的報導又激起網民同情心，捐款大致足夠支付醫院費用。

Saxophone music

Those who are close to me all know I'm in my "all about saxophone" mode lately. I have been listening to mainly jazz for years, most with saxophone already but I'm focusing on music with the instrument even more these days. For the adventurous jazz fans, I strongly recommend these 2:

• Matana Roberts released her album "The Chicago Project" in 2008. Compared to her latest album which features quite a bit of human voices (Rhapsody's review calls it "sound-art installation." So you get the idea), this is more accessible. I could hear a bit of fusion, a lot of avant garde (with clear Coltrane-influences) and most importantly, clever melodies. Here is a link to a good review.
• Rudresh Mahanthappa's latest album is named "Bird Calls" Bird and alto sax immediately made me think of Charlie Parker and Bebop. Although he sounded more like Coltrane, especially on the solo/duets series titled "Bird Calls #1-5", all these pieces contain influences from and references to Parker's work (see this detailed review)

荒謬世界香港篇之假民意撐假普選

五毛團體近兩年多次搞簽名支持假普選方案已經多得有點令人麻木，每次均被人發現一人簽多名，未成年學童簽名，外國遊客簽名，可見簽名毫無說服力，但搞手如張溶等仍然樂此不疲。今次就被踢爆送蠔油，藉口是其他團體入會之贈品，明眼人都知是同一班人所為。下次簽名人數非過千萬不行，五毛團體加油呀！

荒謬世界香港篇之富二代教買樓

摘自此文:

根據現行的按揭規定，月入1.5萬元的年輕入，要通過壓力測試，估計只能買大約售價250萬元物業，但先要儲夠四成首期，即100萬元，月儲3000元，也要儲28年

當然,等28年,樓價又已升了!

荒謬世界香港篇之納稅與選票

某位強國所謂法律學者在香港大放狗屁,說假普選制度下之提名委員會以工商界人士為主是合理的,因為工商界交稅交得最多.意思是:政府收呢班人錢,自然要聽佢地支笛,保護佢地利益,而社會大多數中下階層既人就無需代表,話之佢地死.

果然有道理!

Sports highlights: Tour of California, NBA Playoff, White Sox vs A's, NASCAR, International Challenge of Champion

It was another week of dramatic finishes in the world of sports. First, the 10th edition of the tour of California bicycle race started in Sacramento on 5/10. And San Jose hosted a stage in all 10 years. This year it was the stage 3, which started in SJ, through Calavaras Rd to Sunol, then Hwy 84 to Livermore and up Mt. Hamilton, back down to SJ again and finished with a climb at Metcalf Rd. The winner was an unexpected one: the young rider Toms Skujins from Hincapie Racing Team. He started his attack on the Hamilton climb. And hung on to the lead at the finish. It might have to do with the wrong decision made by the "bigger teams" not trying to bring back the breakaway. The commentators joked that it's because of the poor cell phone signals and the lack of knowledge about Skujins. He had the yellow jersey for 2 more stages with helps from his teammates until the individual time trial in South Cal, which again had an unexpected winner: Peter Sagan, who was better known as a sprinter. In fact, he has won many stages before with his superb sprinting ability. However, in recent years Mark Cavendish has taken over as this tour's premiere sprinter, who won both stage 1 and 2. Sagan's team owner was so disappointed that he publicly challenged Sagan. And Sagan rose to the occasion to not only win a sprinting stage after that but also the time trial to grab the yellow from Skujins. He lost the yellow to another young rider Julian Alaphilippe on the Mt. Baldy stage and fell behind by seconds at the beginning of the final stage on 5/17. Sagan's only hope to retake the lead and win the race came down to the sprint bonuses of the last stage. Cavendish won the intermediate sprint. Sagan came second and Alaphilippe got third so Sagan inched closer but still need the bonus from the finish (10s for the winner, 6s for 2nd place, 4s for 3rd.) Cav won again and prevented Sagan from grabbing that 10s. Sagan and Tyler Farrar were really close for the 3rd place finish and the photo showed Sagan beat Farrar with a margin less than the width of the bicycle tire! What a finish!

Speaking of photo finish, in the Friday night NASCAR Truck race Kasey Kahne barely beat the Erik Jones to the finish by 0.005 second! Jones is also an up-and-coming young star in the sports.

Speaking of young stars, the NASCAR Xfinity race on Sunday was all about them. Chase Elliott would have won the race if not for the caution right before the last lap. Chris Buescher was another driver with a strong car throughout the race. He pitted and got new tires while Elliott didn't. And that's the difference that propelled Buescher to the victory lane with Elliott had to settle for 2nd.

Speaking of 2nd, the #2 seed of NBA's Western conference playoff, Houston Rockets had a slow start and fell behind LA Clippers 1-3 in their best-of-7 playoff series. Well, as a long time Rocket fan I still remember them coming back from the same deficit in 1995. And they did it! However, I guess it's hard to see the history of 1995 repeat itself: they went all the way and won their 2nd championship in a row!

Speaking of 1995, that's not a good year for the Chicago White Sox even though they have these guys on their roster: Ray Durham, Tim Raines, Frank Thomas, Robin Ventura, Ron Karkovice, Ozzie Guillen and Wilson Alvarez. I hope their 1995 history doesn't repeat for them as they finished 3rd in their division and had a sub-.500 record. That's a bad year for the Oakland A's as well as they finished dead last in their division. Both are teams I root for and they played against each other last week. The Sox won a few close ones and swept the A's in Oakland. Oh well, it couldn't have been win-win for me anyway.

Last but not the least dramatic finish was the TV rerun of the semifinal of 2014 International Challenge of (9 ball) Champion between Shane Van Boening and Darren Appleton. Van Boening missed an easy shot for the 8 ball and lost to Appleton (who lost in the final to Thorsten Hohmann)

荒謬世界香港篇之殺人放火金腰帶，修橋補路無屍骸

本網誌寫時事的帖好像少了一點,老是音樂和體育可能有點離地,其實我在FB也常常Comment/share相關新聞,例如老牌左派楊光去世,楊氏在早幾年獲頒特府大獎時,他領導六七暴動導致DJ林彬被燒死一事已再度廣被傳揚.其實人死為大,如果不是林鄭代特區政府讚揚楊氏之貢獻,可能對楊氏不滿之聲沒有如今響亮.林鄭也算是抽到下箴,此事剛好在梁特放假時發生,讓她做個醜人.

25 Unusual Albums for Guitarists

I gotta admit I have been paying less attention to guitar (and this blog) these days after picking up saxophone. So, it's time to post one about guitar: GuitarPlayer presented 25 unusual albums every guitarist needs to hear The editors even took the time to link a YouTube video to every entry. What a good read/listen! Gotta admit I am not too interested in those country albums mentioned even though I understand how important/influential those players are. I dig the blues ones: I actually own the SRV/Albert King album! And glad to hear some early 80s Gary Moore. He seemed to rock harder than his late 80's self (Of course he became all blues after that) The list even included an album without any guitar playing: Weather Report's 8:30 because all of us could learn something from bassist Jaco Pastorius. 

荒謬世界香港篇之遊學團面試錄影撐政改

一個名為佔中不代表我的帳號發表了一條影片，內容是訪問數名中學生，他們表示支持政府力推的（假普選）政改方案。影片出街自然引發議論紛紛，有學生所屬學校校長出來澄清，影片源自學生為參加免費遊學團的面試錄影，主辦機構有提供參考答案，又承諾影片不會公開。

主辦機構昆人，固然不該；學生（及家長）也有問題。如果他們真心支持政府的方案，就是助紂為虐；如果不是，即是為便宜說假話，亦大錯特錯。希望他們經一事長一智，以後不要輕易信人，更不要說違心之言。

Sports highlights: the White Sox bats are waking up?

The Sox was down 3-6 to the Tigers yesterday. Looks like it's another lost cause but the Melk man hit a 3-run homer (his first of the season!) in the 8th and then Avisail Garcia followed up with the game winning RBI single. They also beat Detroit the night before. Hopefully this will be a confidence boost.

90% of what people do now is done within a web browser?

I was debating with a friend the merit of a Chromebook (it's really debate for the sake of debate 'coz both of us are not inclined to buy one) I think there's a market for Chromebook because a lot can be done inside a browser these days. It has been more than a decade after Larry Ellison was pitching his concept of "Network Computing" that depends on technology like Java Applet. With today's JavaScript-based technology you could provide very rich UI in your Web apps. Then the next day I read this article "Six things that make open source a no-brainer for your company" The author wrote

90% of what people do now is done within a web browser. Let's face it, most end users today could get by with a Chromebook and still be able to get their jobs done.

If you scroll down to the comment section, you would see two comments are against this point. One said the author lacked stats to back up this argument. (One actually said "browser is a bad terminal" but he agreed he was old-school so let's leave him alone) I gave this some thought and I think we could come up with a list of what people usually do with their computer and decide whether 90% of the list could be done in a web browser! Here is the list on the top of my head:
- social networking
- web browsing (duh!)
- messaging
- office productivity (word processing/spreadsheet/presentation)
- media consumption (browsing photo, streaming music and video)
- media editing (picture/audio/video)

A web browser can certainly handle the Top 5. In fact, Google Doc is so convenient that I'd rather use it than M$ Office. The last one is debatable: for simple manipulation like making a collage of pictures, applying a filter, trimming a video or adding a sound track, web apps are good enough. What a browser cannot handle are the more sophisticated tasks like decoding a DVD or multi-track recording. So I think it's fair to say it's 25% capable for the last task. 5.25/6 = 87.5% which rounds up to 90! (In fact, if you just consider the time one typically spent on these tasks, it's certainly > 90% within a web browser!)

As a side note, even though I am no fan of Chromebook, I can't deny it's a successful product. From this article:

Amit Singh, the president of Google for Work, discussed the vision of Chrome for work and said that Chromebooks are the number one selling device on Amazon and number one selling device for education as well.

And this is from a non-Google source: Top 3 holiday computers sold by Amazon were Chromebooks. 

Sports highlights: another walkoff (the first by the Giants' Joe Panik), Chicharito scored

Just wrote about a walkoff hit by the former Giant (current White Sox) Melky Cabrera earlier this week. Now I'm writing about a walkoff hit (a sac-fly) by the current Giant Joe Panik in bot 9th last night. And it happened at the game we attended on Wednesday (club level seats thanks to Jenny!) Unlike the lopsided 12-0 A's vs Mariners game, this one was a nail-biter featuring the best-of-the-best pitchers in the game: WS MVP Madison Bumgarner and regular season MVP/Cy Young Clayton Kershaw. Both teams indeed pitched really well in the game, giving up only 2 runs each for 8 innings. (Dodger's 2-run homer was pretty much the only mistake made by MadBum) My son was particularly impressed by Santiago Casilla, who kept throwing strikes in the beginning of the 9th.

Also happy to see the A's beating their SoCal rival Angel's with another lopsided victory: 9-2. And the White Sox earned its victory earlier in the day as well. Seems like both Samardzija and Abreu responded to my criticism earlier. The former pitched a good one and the latter hit a homer. Go Giants, A's and White Sox!

Last but not least, the former Man U forward (though mostly on the bench) Chicharito got a rare start at his new team, Real Madrid (who is even more star-studded than Man U, especially for his position) in the very important Champions League quarter-final match against rival Atletico Madrid because of injuries to the regular starters. According to the stats quoted by sports websites, he scored 1 goal per 105 min on average given how rare he plays. I joked that he might be able to score in this game if he played many minutes and he did! Good for him!