Sports highlights: NHL and another John Scott story

I wrote about the feel-good story of the NHL season: journeyman enforcer John Scott played in the All-star game this year and won the MVP (and fan supports!) Yeah, he was actually in the minor league but he got called up at the end of the season. It's the right thing to do to honor a player towards the end of his career (and the team is already out of playoff hunt) Speaking of playoff, it's sad to see all Canadian teams were eliminated from this year's Stanley Cup playoff (and it's not even the last week of the season!)

香港電影金像獎最佳電影十年

十分具爭議性的香港電影十年被香港電影金像獎評審選為最佳電影，再添爭議！首先，我未有機會欣賞，也不會像那班向主子獻媚的電影業商界奴才般說本片有否資格得獎，不過其中一單元由母校培正高一屆的師兄監製，多少有點虛榮地感到興奮，也為他們努力獲得認同而高興。老老實實，就算我看了本片，也未有資格評論它應否獨佔鰲頭，一來我未看過其他候選電影，二來我也不是電影藝術專家；不過，我有理由相信本片得獎並非因為護主奴說的所謂黑手支配賽果，可能他們對主子操控選舉太習以為常吧。至於另一批評指最佳電影何以沒有獲得其他獎項如最佳導演、編劇及男女主角等等，一位資深電影人解釋得很清楚：因為十年一片分數個單元，拿某單元的導演、編劇及男女主角和其他「長片」的比較，並不恰當。一個頒獎禮竟變成一塊照妖鏡，甚至帶挈譯名和十年相同的美國片在強國成為常被下載電影，實在很有強國特色。

荒謬世界香港篇之帶著特權去旅行

上月689女兒由香港機場飛三藩市,在禁區內發現行李遺留在出面大堂,於是一家向機場人員施壓,要破例由第三者帶該行李通過安檢.據聞689與機場人員通話時說了一句:叫我梁特首.認真霸氣十足.

老老實實，如果是肥彭其中一個女，不用老巴打電話，(肥彭亦肯定不會說call my Governor Patten!) 機場工作人員都自動會幫手，幫完之後亦不會傳出來.但689一家神僧鬼厭,知情人士當然不會為他們守秘.

已退休官員王永平說得好,作為特首及家人,這種事應該避嫌,明示(或即使暗示)他們特別身份,實為極低劣行為.

荒謬世界香港篇之亞視永恆

亞視一而再再而三欠薪，已不再是新聞，月初債權人德勤會計師樓指公司現金僅餘二十萬港幣，需要遣散員工及提早熄機，等不及到四月一日廣播牌照期滿，新股東司榮彬的代表急急召開記者會晒冷：展示一篋五百萬現金再加五百萬支票，認真（土）豪氣；還說要在熄機前搞一次亞姐呢！且看會否兌現。老老實實，雖然家人係亞視忠實觀眾，我自己就算不上；但當年少數會用錄影機錄下來的劇集，竟然多數都是亞視作品，計有郎心如鐵，萬家燈火，我和殭屍有個約會。有沒有發現三劇的共通點？對，萬綺雯均有份參演:P 前兩套特別是萬劇，就是有一股亞視劇集娘到kitsch的味道。

Big Island單車團員

上次寫Big Island 單車遊，之所以如此好玩，也多得領隊有一個相當能幹的助手Jeremy.  此君在Big Island 土生土長，由他介紹當地風土人情，例如當地生長相當有特色的植物，或者歷史掌故等等，特別感覺地道。他介紹過西面Kohala coast 乾旱環境也能生長的頑強Kiawe樹，木可用作BBQ; 而我在火山旅館窗外看到好幾棵枝上帶有紅花的樹,Jeremy告訴我們樹名Ohia而花則叫Lehua,在當地故老相傳,乃係一對情侶化身,樹原為一美男子,被當地女神Pele看中,但Ohia為愛人Lehua拒絕Pele的愛,結果中後者之咒慘變為樹,其他神祗無力解Pele之咒,唯有幫Lehua化為寄身於Ohia樹之紅花,詳見此文.

他其實才加入Alex 公司個多月，這次是他首次負責multi-day tour,  每朝除了把單車搬上搬落，亦要準備sports drinks等等飲品，裝滿幾個cooler及零食補給盒，還有開車尾隨單車隨時支援。之前他也做過多份不同的工作，和旅遊業有關的是酒店concierge,  和單車業有關的是在Oahu帶mountain biking 團，也做過汽車及建築器材公司服務部等等工作。現在Alex 公司後山有機會用建築器材開發mountain biking trails,  又多一項專長！
另兩位團友是一對物理治療師夫婦,開設自家診所,辛苦經營廿年以上,現今仔大女大,公司亦上了軌道,才多點機會出外把臂同遊.可能因為工作健康意識高,兩位都是很fit之人,亦是單車高手,今次特地帶了自己的Tandem bike來踩(另一位團友和我則踩提供的Giant Defy Advanced, 和我踩開的單車差不多級數,只是disc brake不覺有多大好處)見他們合拍地發力收力,十分欣賞,的確是老夫老妻的典範.
最後一位團友是比我年輕一個generation的米高(我又比物理治療師夫婦年輕一個generation吧)此君iPhone不離手,自拍乃係高手,又是fit人一名:玩過Iron man.在著名個人衛生產品公司負責產品推廣,工作包括計劃如何為公司產品在合作的百貨公司有效地展示等等,他們人生經驗都相當豐富,全程天南地北講過不停,全無冷場!

Big Island單車遊

我對單車環島這類活動有很大的興趣，今年春假參加了Big Island Bike Tours這間公司舉辦的一星期夏威夷Big Island環島遊，東主兼領隊是前職業車手Alex Candelario，有多年在Big Island練車的經驗，對島上有挑戰性、風景優美又安全的路線可謂相當熟悉，在他精心安排下，團友們可以踩單車認識這個環境及氣候多變的地方，實在是不一樣的旅遊。 

Big Island如何多變？從該團住宿點可見一斑：Hapuna Prince Hotel位於陽光普照渡假村林立的Kohala，海灘水清沙幼且白，即使不用器材，游泳也可見到海中一羣羣美麗的熱帶魚，沿著海岸線踩車不時可見鯨蹤；島南住的Airbnb渡假屋則在清幽寧靜的Woodvalley，四週被樹林和綠草包圍，可謂洗滌心靈，有置身世外桃源之感；至於火山區，氣候有如熱帶雨林，早上天朗氣清，下午又有零散驟雨，晚上適宜在Jagger museum觀看火山爆發，火紅的烈焰壯麗雄奇，令人深感大自然的威力。我們住的Volcano house, 就正正對著火山，晚飯時可欣賞之前提到的壯觀場面。

另外還有幾個景點令我印象特別深刻：

－Crater rim trail: 這條行山徑橫跨火山口，可算非常難得的經驗。

－Pololu valley hike：這條行山徑沿著懸崖直落到海邊，頗有挑戰性。

－Ahalanui hot pond:  這是一個靠海的地熱温泉，一邊浸一邊觀看潮水不斷進出，實是快事。

－Big Island Brewhaus: 特別介紹他們的White Mountain Porter

－Kau coffee mill: 有咖啡及夏威夷果tasting, 亦有tour介紹種植方法過程。

就算不是hardcore單車友，如果想遊Big Island, 我也會建議參加Big Island Bike Tours的day tour, 加上以上景點，還有我今次沒有機會去的Green sand beach at South Point，該處不適宜駕車，只能hike下去，十分期待下一次再去!

有圖有真相

千瘡百孔

好一陣子沒有寫香港時事，不幸地，今次想寫的幾宗都不是好消息。
1）一位7-11店東被南亞刧匪用刀刺傷後傷重不治。7-11公司呼籲市民到各7-11捐款幫助死者家人，香港人不少慷慨解囊，值得Like。

2）近日香港多名學生自殺，去年九月學年開始至今超過20人，可說驚人。相比和教育不太相關的政治事件，局長似乎不覺迫切性，之後只說了加把勁這種廢話。倒是FB上的討論及文章分享比較有建設性：大家以為有用的一句加油，其實有反效果：因為意指對方本身未盡力做好；大家以為多餘的一紙不自殺協議書，原來只是counselling方法的一步。

3）這邊廂立會強行通過追加對本地市民用途不大的高鐵撥款，那邊廂政府削減醫療開支，而近日政府醫院因為流感潮爆滿，醫護人員疲於奔命。

這個年代的香港，千瘡百孔。

AlphaGo vs Lee Sedol Game 1

A new chapter in the history of the mankind has been written yesterday: the hardest game to beat invented by the human being has finally been beaten by Artificial Intelligence. One of the best Go player in the world, 18 time world champ Lee Sedol, dubbed by Google as the Roger Federer of Go, started a 5 game series against Google's AI machine AlphaGo yesterday and lost game one. I watched the game live on YoutTube, along with 80k+ users all over the world. I thought Lee started well and built up some solid territories but AlphaGo slowly ate into all those and Lee resigned. Note: I am not a very strong player. According to this (seems to be) professional analysis, Lee actually overplayed in the beginning (which I as an amateur thought were strong move) and only caught up in the middle game but then eventually lost it. Basically, Lee made a few mistakes. AlphaGo did too but its play was closer to perfect.

(Side note: was listening to the classical channel this morning and the host mentioned something from a Scientific journal. I thought it has to do with this match but it's not. It was about researchers came up with a model to predict the gender, the age group and income level based on the apps on that person's phone. And it was way-off for that radio host :P So, machine learning still have a long way to go. On the other hand, I doubt human could predict much better either)

Sports highlights: Daytona 500, Supercross at Texas, a new Man U rising star

NASCAR is unique among North American sports in many ways. It starts the season with the biggest race of the year: the Daytona 500. I guess it's too big a tradition to move it so that it's more like other sports, where the big events happen later in the season. And I think the 2016 Daytona 500 finish was one of the best I have watched in my short history of being a NASCAR fan. I certainly remember those tandem-drafting races won by Trevor Bayne and JJ. This one was more exciting and showcased how good a race car driver Denny Hamlin was: he weaved through the traffic after the final restart to get to the front, was passed by Martin Truex Jr briefly but he took the lead back at the last second for a photo finish!

The night before there was an equally exciting race in Texas: it was the 450 class of Supercross. Defending series champ Ryan Dungey has been dominating since the beginning of the season in January. This was the first time that he got to the front but lost the lead, to the German star Ken Roczen, who showed flashes of brilliance ever since he moved from Europe to race here in US but injury stalled his progress last season. Roczen was able to fend off Dungey at the end and won the race.

Another star in making was the 18 year old Marcus Rashford. I watched the Europa League match between Man U and Midtjylland, the 2015 Danish league champ. Rashford's name was on Man U's lineup and I had no idea who he was. I thought Van Gaul intentionally put in some rookies because it's a easy game that he wanted to rest his regulars. Wrong! It's the 2nd leg and Man U lost 1-2 in the 1st leg so it's pretty much do-or-die. Van Gaul had no choice because the regulars were injured! And they got to a poor start for this 2nd leg by giving up one more goal to Midtjylland so they needed 2 goals just to force overtime. I was glad to see Memphis got his form back and scored. Then it's Rashford time! He scored 2 in the 2nd half to help Man U to advance. Then he shined some more in the Premier league match against Arsenal by scoring 2 goals! What an incredible start in his young career. I hope he develops in the right way and doesn't become another Man U "1-hit wonder." (I remember Januzaj. My friend reminded me Macheda was another)

GoDaddy MySQL Server changes

I have been hosting one of my website at GoDaddy for a long time (too long that I couldn't remember) and I setup my own instance of WordPress 1.5 back then (now it's a feature of GoDaddy web hosting and it's so much easier) and I seldom make any change unless it's broken. I visited my site just now and got a helpful error message saying WordPress cannot connect to the database (I used a host name in the secureserver.net domain) And I (re)discovered where the db server name was stored: it's wp-config.php. So I opened the database manager from GoDaddy to figure out the IP address of the db server and replace the one in wp-config.php. Voila! My site is back.

A weekend of concerts

One of the biggest attraction of New York City to me was the jazz scene. I used to live in the village and went to several shows per week. And some times on the same night as I would go to an early show. Then walked around the village to attend a 10pm-ish show. And finished off at the all-night jazz jam at the Small's. It's harder to do that in the Bay Area as places are more scattered. And there are not as many notable performances per night anyway. Well, 2/5 was an exception: guitarist Rez Abbasi and his acoustic quartet (RAAQ) played at the California Jazz Conservatory (formerly known as the Jazzschool) in Berkeley and smooth jazz veteran Euge Groove played at Yoshi's in Oakland. RAAQ's show started at 8pm while Euge's show time was 10pm. I could only leave home at 6:30 and the traffic on a Friday night was usually bad (~1.5hr to the Oakland/Berkeley area) And it seemed rather unpredictable for this Super Bowl weekend in the "host city" so my "strategy" was buying the Yoshi's ticket in advance and take a chance with the Jazzschool concert. It was a lucky day for me though as I arrived ~7:50. Found no street parking so I pulled into a nearby garage quickly and got to the concert at 8. The quartet was almost done with setting up at that time. It was perfect! (Turned out their flight from JFK was delayed by 4 hr and they rushed from the airport straight to Jazzschool!) I guess the school is good at booking great guitarists: I saw the "Seasons" quartet performed there before too. RAAQ got a lot of praises for their recent effort in "Intents and Purposes": an album-ful of fusion classics. To me, they did a double-twist by adopting those pieces to an acoustic setting but they were also "rocking" hard with their acoustic instruments! Then I headed to Oakland, which was a 20-min drive for the Euge Groove show. Gotta admit the atmosphere was completely different here. While the music of RAAQ sounded quite intellectual, Euge's music was very accessible with heavy pop, funk and some R&B elements. Very danceable too. To be honest, I was surprised by the large amount of black folks in the audience. After all, smooth jazz was a genre where "white guys" commercialized original black music and made good money with it. I guess all people care was enjoyable music: Euge was a very entertaining show man. And of course he's got his sax chops too. I have so much to learn! What a great evening with two of my favorite instruments :)

Then we attended the El Camino Youth Symphony's Chinese New Year concert. The program was a good mixture of "Western" (e.g. Chopin concerto) and Chinese music. Those with traditional CNY folk sound were fortunately not too cheesy. Even the "Yellow River" concerto from the Cultural revolution-era sounded semi-exciting, thanks to the extraordinary technique of the pianist Gwhyneth Chen. Her playing was so great that I had to buy her CD after the concert. 

Sports highlights: Super Bowl 50 surprises, Caribbean World Series, Phoenix Open

This Super Bowl Sunday is quite different from the ones before: it's actually held in the "neighborhood" (less than 15 miles away) The traffic was expected to be real bad before and after the game. Also, it's the Chinese New Year's eve. So we ended up not able to invite anyone to party at our place. After lunch, there were still 3 hours 'til kickoff so we watched a bit of the Caribbean World Series, between the Winter league champions from Venezuela and Mexico. Former White Sox great Freddie Garcia (who pitched the world series-clinching game 4) pitched his final game for the Venezuelan team. It was kinda exciting. Mexico came back to tie while down 2-4 and got a walk-off HR at bottom of the 9th. I also watched a tie-breaking playoff at the end of the Phoenix Open Golf Tournament between Rickie Fowler and Hideki Matsuyama. The American Fowler is becoming one of the "Big 4" of this new generation of world golfers and that's why I tuned in. Matsuyama is the highest ranked Japanese player too. They remained tied after first 3 playoff holes. The tie was not broken until Fowler hit his tee shot into the water and practically gave away the victory. And that happened while Lady Gaga was singing the national anthem during the Super Bowl opening ceremony. I jumped in right at the kickoff! The game featured 3 players from my schools: Panther's kicker and kick returner/RB Fozzy Whitaker (Texas) and Punter Brad Nortman (Wisconsin) as well as the star TE of the Broncos, Owen Daniels (Wisconsin) My coworker was so convinced that the Panther would blow out the Broncos unless the latter could somehow force some turnovers into scores. That was what exactly happened. I knew the Broncos defense would be the most important factor to the "watchability" of the game and they stood up to the challenge. Normally I prefer offensive fireworks but I was glad that it was a defense dominated tight game instead. It's not a bad thing that a good player like Peyton Manning could go out on top. Also, long-time Cowboy-turned Bronco LB DeMarcus Ware deserved his super bowl ring.

So, that's how the sports world wrapped up the year of the sheep. I am looking forward to a great year of the monkey! (Yay to Euro 2016 and World Cup of Hockey!!!)

Jazz movies

I wrote this post 1.5 years ago and mentioned the lack of biopics about jazz giants like Coltrane and Miles. Well, it turns out new films were made or announced in 2015: one for Coltrane and one for Miles called "Miles Ahead" written, directed by and starring Don Cheadle. He looked real cool in the released photos. A lot of it was fictional though and was set against the period when Miles was near his creative low point ~50 years old. In addition, there was another recent release about the greatest electric jazz bassist ever, Jaco Pastorius, simply titled Jaco. It was made with the contribution of former Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo, who was a true fan and a sincere guy. The January issue of Bassplayer had a special feature about this project and how he got involved. It was an interesting read. (Coincidentally I re-read the part of Alex Skolnick's autobiography about how the Pastorius family was not doing well financially while fighting for the rights of Jaco's music recently. Trujillo acquired Jaco's famed bass of doom so that it could return to the family. Isn't it funny that two metal guys both had something about Jaco to talk about?)

Super Bowl 50

美式足球係我最最喜歡睇既運動,  年年聽傳媒報導，大量球迷會湧去super bowl主辦城市朝聖，究竟實際上有乜活動？我一直唔知，因為未去過。今年在自己地頭，無理由唔去踩場，結論係四個字：不外如是。(好聽一點，或者講：點都應去，好過唔去：p)

睇過NFL頻道播出既地圖，整個三藩市灣區都有相關活動，除左比賽當日既球場，SF金融區Embarcadero被營造為重頭戲Super Bowl City,  Justin Herman Plaza附近封左好幾條街，進入"City"要過金屬探測器，保安嚴密程度僅次於機場，"City"內有乜呢？除左飲品(掠水酒) 食物㰙位，就係一間間贊助商既檔口，展示一點旗下和足球及SF 拉得上關係的產品；唔好睇少呢啲，都幾多人排隊，我估遠度而來既遊客也唔會介意花少少時間掛？當然也見有好似我講明一定唔等既本地友。我唯一等既係入去Levi's 睇佢賣啲球隊球賽logo衫，真係設計得幾好睇。

最後一提：有無留意舊史Super Bowl講係邊一屆一定用羅馬數字，但今年就變左阿拉伯數目字？我個陰謀論朋友可以會話個league打壓歐洲文化，不過官方透露羅馬字50係L, 俾人覺得好Loser(香港人用親L 都唔係好野啦), 明年會轉番羅馬字喎。無論如何，今屆就係金禧，我送一個字：撐！

All-star games

Gotta admit I haven't been paying much attention to the NHL All-star break even though I have NHL games on TV almost every night after the football season is over (sans Super Bowl) as a non-basketball fan. Then I found out it was on the same day as NFL's "All-star game" aka Pro-bowl. I was curious about the decision of putting both games on the same day by the two leagues but couldn't find much info on the net. Most articles ridicule the mere existence of these games as both have low TV ratings. In fact, NFL have indeed consider getting rid of the game a few years ago. I think the game went downhill after it was moved to the week before the Superbowl (for filling the void between the 2-week break from conference championship weekend) which prevented players from SB teams to play in the game to avoid injury, which is obviously the right thing to do but it significantly lowers the star power of the game. To be fair, the SB stars didn't play much during the "old" Pro-bowls that were held after SB either. And this new format of teams chosen by two former stars and HOFer (Michael Irvin and Jerry Rice) which was copied from NHL mixing players from different conference was confusing too. Nevertheless, I recorded and watched the game, which proved how hardcore a football fan I am! Oh yeah, the former Cowboy's team beat the former Niner's.

Ironically,  this is the year NHL moved away from the 2-opposing-all-star-team-drafting-own-player format and went back to conference/division competing with each other. However, instead of one 60 minute game, they played 3x20 min game. Each game pits one division against another in 3-on-3 format! The two winners play against each other in the last game to determine the winning division. This season was the first one that NHL uses 3-on-3 during overtime. And it was controversial: players don't like it but I do. I think it's easier to score this way without going into shootout. However, this wasn't even the controversy of this game! It has to do with one player: John Scott. BTW, I watched the pro-bowl first and the bottom ticker had already shown me him winning the MVP honor :( So, who is John Scott? I haven't followed the NHL like I used to so I only know the biggest of the biggest stars like Patrick Kane, Jonathan Quick, Sidney Crosby, and local players like Joe Pavelski...etc. Turns out John Scott plays the role of an enforcer (whom teams put on ice to fight rather than playing the puck!) most recently for the Coyotes. Why was he controversial? He was voted in by fans who wanna showcase the fan-vote loophole of the NHL All-star game. And he was traded to the minor league just before the game. Some in the league management actually tried to dissuade him to play but he refused to back down. He was chosen as the Pacific division team captain and scored twice in the game (his career total was 5 goals :) and as I mentioned already he won the MVP with real fan support at the game. It became a feel-good story and actually shed some positive light on the game drawing attentions from NPR and Wall Street Journal. The NHL got a lucky break from a potential publicity disaster.

二度香港（續）

前文提到上星期日香港氣溫急降至二度引起的幾個爭論,其實多得一篇也寫不完!本文繼續:
4)教育局在星期日急凍後,宣佈幼稚園及小學星期一停課一天,又惹起議論紛紛,這邊廂有中學大學生也要求停課,那邊廂有名咀如陶傑指政苦多此一舉,過份保護新一代,讓他們成為東亞病夫!至於家中沒有工人的上班一族,臨急臨忙要找托兒也有難處.其實作為家長,怎能不擔心孩子冷病?(不知陶才子家中有沒有小孩)不過學校可以彈性一點,就此一天讓家長決定孩子上學與否,及可穿非校褸的禦寒衣物回校,那就皆大歡喜(雖然可以預見某些被逼上學的小朋友會向父母投訴他的好友可以留家為何他不能:)
5)這次寒流也引起了對香港露宿者問題的關注:梁特首去探訪避寒中心就無謂多講,反而一向關心露宿者的Benson Tsang去探訪兼派發物資就被阻甚至被報警收場,又是政苦機構處事殭化之過.又有報導指政苦此時派員噴水洗隧道,實為乘機趕走露宿者.更帶出禮義廉數位議員均以趕絕露宿者為己任.平心而論,在街上走,又有誰喜歡見到露宿者?但一個人成為露宿者總有其難處,推動高地價政策的政苦就算不是元兇也是幫兇.

二度香港

本文標題有否令讀者聯想到甚麼異度空間，心底升起一股寒意呢？事實上，話題的確和寒意有關，不過是天氣的。1/24（星期日）是香港自1957年以來最凍的一天，很多朋友貼了攝氏二度或三度的screen cap。好幾個朋友說穿了兩件羽絨也不夠，有一個還病倒了，真慘慘豬。一次反常的天氣，卻帶出多項爭議：
1)縱使多個外國天文台早前預測該週末香港氣溫會勁跌，警告有降雪雨之可能，香港天文台依然力排眾議將預測定為六度，高山最壞情況只會結霜。當然，天文台在當日改口，但又用了類似蝗語的冰丸一詞，後來才改稱冰粒。有論者指近年香港天文台往往向商界傾斜，今次刻意避開提起雪，更有政治考慮之嫌；皆因翻查曆史，每逢廣東地區下雪，都是政權遭殃之時。
2)HK100這個具有國際地位，有多位本地外地高手參加的山地賽碰巧就在這個急凍週末舉行，結果有多位選手在接近終點的大帽山因為地下結冰被困，繼而出現低溫症徵狀，勞動消防及救護員救援。坊間頗有聲音指責參賽者浪費警力，主辦單位亦不夠果斷取消賽事。其實後者是否也受了天文台的誤導呢？無論如何，看過一眾跑友的發言，都認為今次實屬突發事件，主辦單位已盡全力準備，況且比賽早在星期六開始，當時雖冷卻不至於不適合進行比賽，如果今後HK100因為坊間這些負面意見而不再繼續舉行，實在可惜；到時可能又有言論批評香港人不懂又不肯舉辦國際級賽事了。
3)這邊廂一眾跑手出事，那邊廂又有大量趁「熱鬧」想觀看雪雨/冰粒的市民上山，結果警方封山，旨在疏導交通以助救援人員拯救被凍傷之人士，亦減少更多因路滑導致的意外發生。網上熱傳一對堅持要上山的男女和封山警爭論的片段，該女聲言他們有上山的自由，救護人員自有其救人的責任，兩者無關係。網民幾乎一面倒鬧爆該女，連100毛也諷刺他們「風雪中抱緊自由」其實我倒覺得沒有一方是全錯或全對，山上多他兩個人也不多吧，不過文明世界沒有甚麼簽生死狀讓上山者後果自負的機制，讓步似乎更為合理罷了。想起當年我媽也很喜歡在冬天最寒冷山頂結霜時要我爸和她上山觀霜，那個年代倒沒有太多問題。

Farewell to many 60-something musicians

What a poor start for the music scene in 2016! I simply cannot remember so many greats pass away in such a short period of time. It's as if the "other world" is trying to form an all-star band with David Bowie, Glenn Frey, Lemmy (they will take care of vocal, guitar and bass) and Dale Griffin of Mott the Hoople would play the drums. "Tower of Power" founder and trumpeter Mic Gillette could join them too. :( And the new band could be managed by the legendary Malcolm McLaren. Wish they all RIP.

Guitars at Yoshi's

It has been a good 2 month-ful of live (guitar) music for me, including 3 at Yoshi's (and the Memorial concert for my friend that I played in) I took my sis to Yoshi's for Mike Stern's concert last December (also featuring Randy Brecker on trumpet and Dennis Chamber on drums) I bet she has never seen such a powerful drummer. One thing I like about him is his moves were not flashy for flashy sake. On the other hand, they just seem natural for the stuff he played. And Mike Stern was vintage Mike Stern with his unmistakable sound on his Tele.

Then I got to see another great drummer on my first visit to Yoshi's on 2016: Simon Phillips, whom I last saw playing with Hiromi. This time he led his own fusion quartet: Protocol, with Danger Danger's Andy Timmons on guitar. Their sound reminded me of Cassiopeia, a legendary Japanese group with guitar/keys/bass/drums that I really enjoy. Their music had rich melodies and also showcase their great skills on their instruments.

And I saw two of my most admired musicians/instrumentalists last night at Yoshi's: Testament's Alex Skolnick on guitar and Stu Hamm on bass, 25 years after seeing them played together in Austin. I became interested in their music even before listening to Hamm and Testament (via the Hong Kong indie music publication 音樂一週, 還記得樂評人戲稱Hamm's Kings of Sleep為昏君！Very creative) For a jazz and metal head like me, it's hard not to like Skol: a guitarist equally excel in the legendary thrash metal band Testament as well as his own jazz trio and world music group! He also wrote well, in magazines, his blogs and his bio. I bet he got some of that from his PhD parents. And I started playing bass around the time Hamm released his ground-breaking Kings of Sleep, with his melodic and harmonically rich original compositions. His bass licks and accompaniment distinguished his music from those who merely "noodles" with their technical chops. From what I read in Skol's bio, they went separate ways after their tour in the early 90s. Skol soon recorded with another bass legend Michael Manring. I was so glad to be at this "reunion" show, which also celebrated Hamm's latest release, the Book of Lies. In addition to new tunes from the album, like the solo bass piece from his suite, they also played quite a few covers: "We will rock you", "Misty Mountain Hop" (with Skol on slide guitar!), "Lucy in the Sky with Diamond" (Hamm played it as a solo piece 6 years ago at Bassplayer Live in Livermore) and "Red house" (with Skol on vocal) The encore piece sounds like a Joe Satriani (Hamm's long time collaborator) tune and Skol showed his "lineage" to the mastro. Now, time for some criticisms: there were way too many covers! When I was a kid, I couldn't stand "Misty Mountain Hop" :P (but it's one of the few tunes that I completely changed my mind after I grew up) Hamm's playing sounded a bit muddy too. And finally, it's a personal thing but I am not a big fan of vocalizing with guitar solo (like what Skol did last night. Coincidentally, Stern also did it in his show! I do know it's a good practice routine for improv)

Looking forward to a great year of live music in 2016!

Time series database

Most application developers are probably familiar with good old relational databases (Yes, I am a certified Oracle DBA) as well as the new breed of NoSQL database like MongoDB. I deal with quite a bit of metric data at work, which is time-based. I have been playing with InfluxDB which is optimized for such data and is part of a TICK stack for collecting, managing and visualizing time series data. Compared to Oracle and SQL Server, installing InfluxDB is a piece of cake: just do a yum install, then start it and it's ready for inserting data! To interact with it, it has a command-line interface, influx, just like Oracle has SQLPlus. Programmatically, all you need to do is making use of its HTTP API: 'get' to query and 'post' to insert. No complicated database driver configurations. Of course, you could use one of the available client library for your language to make things even easier. My next step would be trying to time the queries using something like Influx-cli to evaluate its performance.