First, Thuy Nga rips off Apple’s web site. Now iPho also rips off Apple’s brand. Vietnamese sure loves Apple.

Wait a second, the restaurant might be owned by Chinese.

New Orleans pianist and singer Eddie Bo passed away last Wednesday from a heart attack. He was 79. RIP

If you haven’t heard of Mr. Bo’s one-man orchestra (bass from the left hand, chords from the right hand and rhythm from the feet), check out New Orleans Solo Piano.

Thuong Vuong-Riddick’s The Evergreen Country came in the mail yesterday. The author sent me the book in a return favor of using “Bonjour Viet Nam” slideshow for a presentation. I am reading it and here is the translation of the proverb we all know by heart:

Father’s work is like the mountain Tai Son
Mother’s dedication is like a spring running water
With the same heart we must worship Mother and respect Father
To accomplish this is a son or a daughter’s religion.

“Pretty girls can do anything, but ugly girls have to do everything.” -Jack Sheldon from Benny Goodman’s Live at Carnegie Hall: 40th Anniversary Concert.

Pitchfork gets a clean, organized layout from Tangible Worldwide.

Truong Ky, host of VOA‘s “Nghe Si va Doi Song,” passed away yesterday morning at 64. Quite a shocking news. RIP.

As a fan of Nat King Cole, Louis Armstrong and Sarah Vaughan, Tung Duong will perform standards like “The Girl From Ipanema,” “Fly Me to the Moon,” “Misty” and “When I Fall In Love” in his upcoming intimate-style concert in Ha Noi. I am not sure if he can pull it off with his English barrier, but it sounds like a promising show.

A sharp piece on Jay-z at BestLife:

Staying true to yourself might stand as a succinct summary of Jay-Z’s philosophy of success. The notion goes back to Shakespeare’s “To thine own self be true,” and further back than that to the Greeks. But for Jay-Z, it has an urgently contemporary meaning. Even, or perhaps, especially, in recessionary times, amid the thousands of entertainment and lifestyle choices consumers have available to them, what separates winners from losers is a commitment to a single proposition: You are the product. If people believe in you, they will believe in what you create. Jay-Z understands this and is down with it.

A sketch based on Chris Brown and Rihanna’s descriptive report.

Doug Bowman stopdesigns Google:

When I joined, I thought there was potential to help the company change course in its design direction. But I learned that Google had set its course long before I arrived. Google was a massive aircraft carrier, and I was just a small dinghy trying to push it a few degrees North.