香港賽車人

在香港坐爸爸開車,甚少會開動其CD changer,但做乘客的我常常轉他的電台,他好像也不介意(不過如果我開車我不讓別人轉我台!)這天聽到一個很有趣的訪問:港人馬君宇Brian Ma在美國就讀航天工程大學,然後於賽車隊工作,其中包括美國champ car這個open wheel頂級賽事(其後為IndyCar合併)的車隊,2004年他是著名車手Alex Tagliani的總工程師,也有美國的房車賽經驗(Grand Am Series)目前已轉戰中國的房車賽.訪問中他提到美國車隊工作人員在比賽週末生活和歐洲人的分別,以及中國的房車賽由網民投票決定出賽排位的有趣現象(說的當然是買票!) 和我一樣由香港赴美讀書工作的大有人在,不過這位肯定是相當不平凡的一位

以下是在Youtube找到的video:

廣告好橋？

公司打廣告用代言人大家都屢見不鮮，有的是大明星，又有的是不見經傳但因該廣告為人所認識的，例如Progressive 保險那位很annoying 的女士（證明她有演技）又或者本文主角：Verizon以前那位試手提電話網絡訊號強弱的Can you hear me now老兄。最近他被另一家電話公司Sprint挖角，宣傳重點是雖然Sprint的網絡依然及不上Verizon, 但差距只是很小，價錢卻相宜得多。我覺得Sprint用的廣告公司頗有心思，回想過去出名用代言人的廣告，例如汽水啤酒化𥺁品等等，轉代言人屢有發生，卻鮮有代言人跳槽到「對家」，這的確達到引人討論令人關注的效果。

Emacs 24.1 copy and paste

I have been an Emacs user for years. And my time of using Emacs on Windows has already surpassed that of using on Unix. One operation I perform a lot is highlighting a section of text and then either hit Ctrl-Y in Emacs to copy it or Ctrl-C in other Windows application. That's actually not the "correct" X-Windows behavior so it was corrected in Emacs 24.1 and up. However, I am so used to this and need it back! From this link:

Here are the exact lines to put in your .emacs (C-x C-f RET and enter ~/.emacs) file:

(setq select-active-regions nil)
(setq mouse-drag-copy-region t)
(global-set-key [mouse-2] 'mouse-yank-at-click)

Sports highlights: Tour of California 2016 Stage 5-8

The "2nd half" of the tour was the like the 1st half: all stages feature exciting finishes. Stage 5 was from Lodi to South Lake Tahoe. This was another stage that the breakaway succeeded. And the winner, a young rider, should be no stranger to those who followed the tour last year. Toms Skujins won Stage 3 in San Jose in 2015 in a breakaway too. He was so new that other teams probably overlooked his ability last year and tried catching the breakaway too late. Teams certainly know his ability this year but still couldn't catch him. Stage 6 was a time trial. The big question was whether Julian Alaphilippe would retain the yellow jersey since there are quite a few good time trialists behind in the standing that could potentially overtaken him. Rohan Denis won the stage in convincing fashion but Alaphilippe responded well so he still had a healthy lead in the total time. Stage 7 was another one that featured one of my more memorable rides: Coleman Valley Road from my Levi Gran Fondo in 2011. Peter Sagan actually broke away on his own for a while and then was part of the group sprint, only finishing second to the best "pure" sprinter in the cycling world today: Alexander Kristoff. His team knew they must seize this opportunity (the next to last stage) and got the lead-out train well organized and they did a great job leading him out. Stage 8 was a loop in the State capital Sacramento which catered to the sprinters as well. The only big name sprinter that was overdue for winning a stage in this 2016 tour was Mark Cavendish, who was 2nd in total stage win to Sagan. When the riders approached the finish line, it was basically a huge mess. Cav lost his usually dependable lead-out guy Renshaw but this time it was him who successfully improvised. Cav, Sagan and Kristoff finished 1-2-3 for this last stage! And Julian Alaphilippe won the tour as the youngest ever winner (and the first French :) after the heart-breaking 2nd place overall finish last year (he led Peter Sagan up til the finish line when the latter barely grabbed the few bonus seconds) I'm looking forward to the next tour. Hopefully there will be a stage closer to home or office that I could watch in person!

Sports highlights: the youngest F1 winner ever, NASCAR at Dover, Tour of California Stage 1-4

What a dream week for racing fans (I mean, the kind of racing junkies who enjoy all formula one, "stock" car and bicycle races) To be honest, I have a hard time calling myself a fan of F1 as I almost stopped watching (or fast-forward through) most of the races since it's either Lewis Hamilton or Nico Rosberg from the same Mercedes team winning it (Lewis had the upper hand in the past and won 2 championship during that run but now it's over. It's Rosberg's time) I have been relying on updates from my buddy on WhatsApp to decide whether to watch the recorded race these days but this Spanish GP was different: my buddy told me I should watch it as it was won by Max Verstappen. I couldn't believe what I heard. I saw this guy racing in Macau 2 years ago (he didn't do much that race except crashing out) I thought he was still with the "junior" Red Bull team. Turns out Red Bull has decided to swap him with another young driver on the "senior" team just before this race (thus promoting him and demoting his replacement) What a decision it turned out to be! Well, there was definitely an element of luck too: the two Mercedes driver took out each other at turn 4 of lap 1! (As a HAM fan, my description was that ROS blocked HAM and caused the crash) However, for some reason, the 2 cars from the next fastest team, Ferrari, driven by 2 former world champ, couldn't take advantage and let the younger driver (in fact, the youngest winner ever) of the 3rd fastest team, Red Bull, win the race! Oh well, I'm sure this was just a rare deviation from the norm: the subsequent races will all be won by Rosberg again. :P

There was another young vs established driver (former champ) showdown at the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Dover on the same day too but this time the latter prevailed. What a close finish of that race with Matt Kenseth, Kyle Larson and Chase Elliot in that order. Kenseth showed why he was a championship level driver by holding off Larson whose car actually ran better. Don't get me wrong: Larson did a great job too. He was actually overtaken by Elliot for a while but got his position back later. I hope Larson would get his big break-through in the top series soon by winning his first race after these many 2nd place finishes. 

The Tour of California also started on the same day down in San Diego. As of now 4 stages have completed and all of them featured very exciting finishes: Stage 1 was a sprinter's stage. Among the favorites were pure sprinters like Mark Cavendish and Alexander Kristoff. Eventually it was the not-so-pure-but-could-also-sprint Peter Sagan who did it again. He is the all-time winners of most stages of this tour and also won the overall last year. Stage 2 we saw 2 men in the breakaway survived the chase by the peloton and the duel at the finish line was won by former US National Road Race champ Ben King (My newest cycling friend, Alex Candelario of Big Island Bike Tours, finished 2nd to him in 2010!) Stage 3 was another mountain top finish at Gibraltar Road in Santa Barbara, which was well-known as a tough tough climb in the area but was chosen by the Tour for the first time! Julian Alaphilippe patiently waited for the right moment near the end of the race to attack and won it and also took over the overall lead. Stage 4, started in Morro Bay, was a special one for all of us who rode Sea Otter Gran Fondo before: the last Cat-2 climb of the stage was the Laurel Grade. I still remember how hard it was. I must have stopped 2 or 3 times on that not-too-long but steep stretch. Then after the super-fast decent there was another climb into the Laguna Seca raceway (famous for its big drop as seen in old Indy car races. MotoGP still races there) which was the finish of the stage. What was interesting about the race was that the previously mentioned pure sprinter Mark Cavendish actually joined the breakaway and didn't get caught until the Laurel Grade! After the chase group caught the breakaway, it became a group sprint finish and won by none other than Peter "the Great" Sagan, who was so good at "unorganized" group sprint (i.e., in which the lead-out train didn't get a chance to form properly and sprinters have to improvise on who to follow and when to take off) Hope the rest of the tour would be as exciting for me to write about. 

The "leaked" Queen's comment on the recent visit by the Chinese leader

If you follow world/Chinese news, you should recall the high profile visit of the Chinese leader to the UK last year. It was a big deal that he was able to meet the Queen. Normally that wouldn't have happened but they made an exception because of the large amount of money that would brought to the country by doing businesses with the Chinese. This was supposed to be the evidence of the changing of the guard: a used-to-be-world-dominating country kow-tow to the latest "super power." Well, the British people were known for having their say in a subtle fashion. BBC just leaked a comment by the Queen related to this visit: it happened at an annual party that let her people to meet her Majesty. One of the participant mentioned to the Queen that she was an official from the police department that handled the visit.  And the Queen's response?  Two simple words that implied a lot:  "Bad luck! " Then she went on to comment that the group was "rude. " The beauty of this was that no one could rebut on these comments as they were unofficial!  Is this an intentional leak or what?  One has to remember the British politicians were very good at their game. 

[Update:] Even more details were leaked afterwards, according to those sources, the Chinese leader was very picky: down to the color of the closet, the location of the bathroom and the menu of the official dinners.

桃園結義拜關公像

最近很多FB朋友轉貼一張強國膠劇的截圖：情節是三國劉關張桃園結義，竟然對著關公像來拜，據聞這就是原片，看來是一個搞笑節目多於正經劇集，如果是導演故意安排這一幕的話，此君認真有幽默感!

The best ice hockey player that hasn't won the cup yet

Yes, I am talking about Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals. I consider him one of the most dangerous player in the game ever since he arrived in NHL. He is such a prolific scorer and led the Capitals to several President's trophy (the team with the best regular season record) However, in North American sports, it's all about the playoffs. The importance of this trophy pale in comparison to the Stanley Cup! To be honest, I have so many other teams to root for that I never feel sorry for the Caps when they bowed out to lowly seeded teams in the past. For this season, I am actually glad that they lost to the Pens. Ovechkin played quite well and his supporting cast has never been better. For some reason they just cannot get over the hump. As my son said, Ovechkin is the hockey version of Dan Marino.

FM 98.1 format change

I have written about my radio listening experience a lot,  mostly about jazz,  rock or sports talk.  I actually listen to 98.1 a lot too.  It's one of my top 6 presets!  So, what does this station play? Well, it was called Kiss FM in the past decade or so and played mostly 70s and 80s hits. A month ago it quietly changed its format to 96.5 KOIT-ish soft music. And it's got a new name: the Breeze. The transition was so smooth that I didn't find out until a week after! I missed those old upbeat stuff they used to play. I could be in cheesy disco mood once in a while too. After all, for old soft music I could go to 96.5. I guess the Breeze is trying to pick up the listeners who totally refuse to listen to newer hits, which KOIT is playing more often these days. Anyway, looks like the Breeze will remain on my top 6 after I heard them playing "Holding back the years" and "Don't dream this over" These 2 were among my favorites in the 80s!

直寫中文及兩字並排

由高中開始，我已接觸中文文書處理，在DOS的年代已練習倉頡輸入法，用熟來自台灣的國喬及倚天等外掛中文系統打歌詞冧女。老實說，那段學習之路值得回味，雖然印象已極之模糊，只記得在台灣閱讀當地電腦雜誌，對這類軟件的成熟程度，相當驚嘆。（多得這位仁兄撰文，大家可以懷舊一番） 到Windows年代，改用南極星，現在還保留不少用其proprietary格式的文書檔案呢！事實上，電腦系統在國際化的漫長道路上已變得頗為成熟，從以下種種可見一班：Windows 10內置中文輸入法免費亦頗好用，由要特別選取Big5(繁體）或GB（殘體）encoding否則見亂碼發展至今日兼容多國文字的Unicode，而一般文書處理軟件也適用於中文。在此想分享一次最近學用特別中文功能的經驗：話說早幾天要打一篇訃聞，需要兩種功能：
1)直寫，而且由右至左。這當然有別於西方文字橫寫及由左至右。
2)兩字並排。傳統訃聞包括農曆及西曆日子，格式上是並排。
Googled了一會，不覺得平時最常用的Google Docs有支援。於是再research一下我的「次選」Libreoffice，就找到不少來自台灣的網頁（可見該國人始終是中文文書處理方面的專家）這些指南都是以中文UI作示範，我嘗試在已裝的Libreoffice 4使用英文的UI找尋那些對應的選項，選用後打出來的字卻顯示得不對勁，索性重新安裝，裝了Libreoffice 5並特地同時加裝繁體中文UI，再重覆以上網頁指示，終於成功！在此列出步驟:
1)從top menu選格式->頁面->頁面(tab)->文字方向:從右向左(直書)
2)mouse-select要並排的字, 從top menu選格式->字元->亞洲語言版面設置(tab)->雙行, check分為雙行寫入
(這個功能相信頗為冷門,找到這個網頁,其實是OpenOffice的步驟,不過Libreoffice也不多吧,只是tab名為亞洲語言版面設置而不是中日韓版式.)

Contemporary Art in San Jose

When one think of art museums in the Bay Area, the top names come to the mind are probably SFMOMA, De Young, ... etc. However, there are also many lesser known "hidden gems." My favorite free art museum is Cantor Art Center (and the Anderson Collection next to it) in Stanford. Another free museum that I frequently visit is Triton in Sunnyvale. It showed works from local photography competitions, for example. I needed to run some errands in San Jose downtown this Saturday and used this opportunity to visit  SJ Institute of Contemporary Art (also free admission)

One series of works featured pages from old magazines with faces covered up faces. I can understand the meaning but to be honest I think it's just too "easy". Another "easy" work was related to geography: it's the US map with state and state capital names switched around. Sometimes "easy" could also be "interesting"

井山裕太獨攬日本七大圍棋賽冠軍

日前日本棋手井山裕太成功贏得「十段」圍棋賽冠軍，完成了日本棋壇前無古人的壯舉，那就是同時手執七大賽冠軍獎座！想想日本棋壇多年人才輩出，高手如雲，武宮正樹、加藤正夫、趙治勳、林海峰（後兩位雖來自韓台，但為日本棋院成員）卻從無人有此成就，因此這在棋界可說是一則震撼性不少的新聞。可惜的是，今時今日的日本棋壇已不再手執牛耳，和以上高手叱咤風雲的年代水準有一大段距離，要知道那時代及更早前日本冠軍即是世界冠軍！而過去十多年世界冠軍一直是中韓棋手的天下。井山裕太七冠獲得傳媒的關注，也遠低於多次贏得韓國及世界冠軍的李世石和AlphaGo之戰。從未在世界賽奪冠的井山裕太，相信會有更多日本棋迷期望他作出零的突破。 這篇來自中國媒體的文章，可能有少少偏見，但某一程度上對井山七冠含金量的評估也有點代表性。

Kenny Barron and his string playing friends

One thing great about going to a jazz concert is that you never know what to expect. For rock or pop concerts, the band/musician would usually be playing the hit singles from their new albums plus a few old big hits. For jazz, you might hear the compositions that the musician was famous for (or some standards that s/he is well-known for covering), or not. For tonight's Kenny Barron concert@SFJAZZ, there is yet another unknown: how is the "drum-less" lineup of a piano, a cello, a violin and a bass gonna work? It turned out to be all duets between piano and a string player except the last big jam. And the set list was a great mix of standards and his original compositions. What I enjoyed the most about the performance was how naturally they flow from one chorus to another. As much as improv is an important part of jazz, sometimes one could feel the player solo for the sake of it without much else really to say.

I am actually quite familiar with and admire Kenny Barron's piano playing in a duet setting from his album with Stan Getz. My sis loves that 2 Disc set too. He started the concert with the cellist Mark Summer who was the founding member of  the famous jazz string group, Turtle Island Quartet. I could hear him very comfortable in playing the role of a walking bassist. After all, he played the only instrument in that range in a string quartet! I would say his sound leaned more towards the European classical tradition than American jazz. Still, I enjoy the brief improv solo he played. The more memorable tunes from this set included a Thelonius Monk cover: San Francisco holiday (Worry later) and Barron's original: Concentric circles. This was actually the longest set.

The next set featured the main reason I went to the concert: violinist Regina Carter. I think the first time jazz violin really caught my attention was from the Kenny Barron album "Things Unseen" And of course, Carter and Barron did an album together way back in 2001. They played 2 tunes from that album: a Latin arrangement of "Softly as in the morning sunrise" and Monk's cover: Misterioso. (As I am writing I am listening their cover of Sting's "Fragile" from the same album. Very emotional!)

Last but not least was bassist Dave Holland. Piano-bass duo was actually more common than you think. I could easily think of many such collaborations by bassists Charlie Haden or Ron Carter. I have seen Holland led his "big band" (an octet) and quartet before. Now I really want to see him perform flamenco live!

All 4 of them closed the concert with a big jam of another Barron's original "What If." This is definitely the most memorable concert I have been to in 2016 (could be one of my all-time-best!)

RIP Prince

Cello and Vodka

I heard this musician story on the radio last Friday morning:

In 1958 , five years after Joseph Stalin's death, the Congress of Soviet Composers' Party Resolution, which had for a decade censured Russian musicians, was finally lifted. Forced to withhold his best works for so long, Dmitri Shostakovich was at last freed to compose his first cello concerto. On August Second of 1959, he gave the completed manuscript to his friend, cello virtuoso Mstistlav Rostropovich. Just four days later, Rostropovich, accompanied by Shostakovich on piano, performed the four-movement work from memory three times. Recalling the occasion, Rostropovich said, "We were so happy, we drank a little vodka together. We then played it again, not so perfectly, and drank more vodka. The third time, I think I played the Saint-Saens Concerto while he accompanied his own concerto. We were very happy."

There is a reason that their music is so good :P

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!