Dave Brubeck’s classic “Take Five” gets a Chinese flavor from the 12 Girls Band. Melody wise, it’s a novelty. Improvising wise, I still prefer the classic quartet.

I am a smoothie fanatic. I have to have my strawberry, wild blueberry, banana, pineapple and yogurt each night and I make some margarita once in a while. We’ve been using a 40-buck blender for more than a year now. It still works, but the noise level is getting loud and bottom part of the blade cutter is grinding against the base of the blender. These days I have to add some orange juice to have some liquid in order for the blender to blend.

I have my eyes set on Blendtec for a while but failed to persuade my wife even when I showed her Will It Blend videos including iPhone, marbles and golf balls. We were at Costco last night and the guy gave us a demonstration of Blendtec. The guy was very slick. He said something like this Blendtec is a perfect tool to make baby food after seeing that we might be expecting one.

One of the reasons I still holding off on getting Blendtec is obviously the price, which is almost $400. I think it might be worthwhile though.

Guess what I’ll be doing? That’s right, painting again. I hope to get the basement done this week. We just picked out a color and it’s purple (Victorian Iris). It’s going to be hot for the basement, which I am thinking of turning into an entertainment room and a little bar. Again if you’re in the area and have absolutely nothing to do, you know where to go. This week music will be Cassandra Wilson, Dave Brubeck, Chick Corea, Nina Simone and John Coltrane.

Trailer for a new Vietnamese horror film starring Ho Le Thu coming this May. She looks mad freaky.

The change of 20 corporate logos.

The Arts at Vassar page has been realigned, but the classic 4-column layout still can be view on my site.

I was just checking out Thuy Nga Shop for the first time and immediate recognized the familiar elements from the Apple Store. Sure the gray nav turned blue, but the borders and the breadcrumb trails were lifted straight off the Apple’s site. Even the blue box on the left hand side below the main nav is identical. Of course the handling of type is quite sloppy on Thuy Nga’s site comparing to Apple. I am wondering if Thuy Nga Shop is going to be down before Apple’s lawyer knocks on its door. Shame on you, Thuy Nga.

Two Twitters followed The Real Shaq to 5 & Diner.

Quoc Bao obviously likes to show off his little chick. No crime in that. She actually looks pretty cute.

I am proud to announce that the top two levels are completed. I will be starting on the basement next week. I was working all day Saturday and my wife came today to clean after my sloppy spots as well as to keep me company.

My sister-in-law and her husband went to New Jersey for the weekend and they dropped by Philly to pick up the kitchen ventilation system for us as a home-warming gift. That’s not all. They’ll even install for us too. Aren’t they great?

With the progress we’re making, I am pretty sure we’ll be able to move in no later than mid March. These weekends have been hell for me. Working from seven to seven is wearing me out, but the pain will be over soon. I can’t wait. The good thing about working long hour is that I get to hear a lot of great jazz. My play list for this week includes Billie Holiday, Wynton Marsalis and Oscar Peterson.

We love the new heat unit. Unlike my sister-in-law’s Carrier, which runs like a factory, the Trane XL15i built like a tank but runs like a Mercedes. We also have the duct cleaning scheduled for this coming Tuesday. Hopefully I can take that day off to be there when they do the cleaning as well as to work on the house.