Mucho respecto to Dave Brubeck and Art Pepper for their exquisite reinvention of “Bésame Mucho.” Thanks TTBlue for the morning drugs. I have to see Brubeck soon before I miss my chance.

When you have a voice as raw as Nguyen Khang’s, you don’t really need to do much to rework a mega hit like Thai Hung’s “Hay Ve Voi Anh.” You just have to burn the sugarcoating and go straight to the bitterness of it. In the wrong voice these lines,” Tron doi anh luon yeu rieng em / Chi em ma thoi hoi nguoi yeu dau / Xin quay ve day hay ve voi anh,” could turn into cheddar, but that damn rawness makes it convincible. One of Chris Rock’s jokes is that if you come correct, you could get what you want. Can’t be like, “Excuse me…. Excuse me… The man has a request… A man requested… I wonder… Can you lick my balls?” She’ll be like, “Hell no, lick your own balls.” Now you end up with dried balls, but if you come with some bass like Nguyen Khang, you could take your girl back without 99 roses or a rock. Whatever it takes to bring her back without putting a hole in my pocket works for me.

The only time I pull out my digital camera is for family photos and foods. I haven’t used it much for anything else so I figure it is time to do something useful with it. I am not interested in photography even though I use many photos in my designs. I have a tendency of looking at designs wherever I go—even to the mall where I find a color of a sweeter I like or the way DKNY uses typography for signage and advertise. I stare at them for a while and try to study them so that I could later incorporate into my work. I must say it takes up too much of my memories even though I am the visual guy. So I figure why not let my camera captured the visual for me. I am not trying to take pretty pictures or anything artistic. I just point and click at something that I could look at later on when I need some inspirations. I started off with typography around various small towns where I live. We took a trip down to NYC yesterday, ate so much food and captured a few photos, particularly the incredible M&M store in Times Square. Man, I love the city. Design is everywhere you look even if you don’t want to look.

When your weekend is filled with snow, what is there better to do than watch movies?

Curse of the Golden Flower; bless of the bombshells. Goddamn, I have never seen so many Chinese cleavages in movies before.

Who Slept With Her? is a Korean version of American Pie. The film is laced with sexual silliness, but at least she’s cute.

After listening to a Vietnamese-rap “Kem Chuoi,” you probably won’t look at banana ice cream the same way, especially with the suggestive lyrics that goes something like: “Chuoi cua anh vua ngon lai vua cung / liem hoai hoai thi no van con cung / nhung ma em liem mai thi no cung bi mem” But hey, that’s her “shit” and she loves it. I hope she likes some nuts with it too.

Thanks Andy for ruined my appetite (LOL)!

It seems like my sky isn’t the only one that is so cloudy grey today. I know how you feel, Andy, but like my man Ray Charles said, “The Sun’s Gonna Shine Again.” So keep your head up.

Tim Brown refined his personal Web site. Try to minimize your browser. Sweet, ain’t it?

I have thought of putting together an inspirational resource for higher education designers, but never put my mind and time to it. Fortunately, eduStyle has thought of it and actually did it.

“What You Don’t Know about Martha…” is that she’s my mother at the office. Everything I need, she’s the first person that comes to mind. I just put a dense on my car, do you know where I can take it to? Yes. I get you the numbers. I need a hundred more blank CDs (for work and music); she has Staples delivers them in two days. I still haven’t touch the fax machine because she does it for me every time. When I needed a ride home when my old car broke down, she took me home. When she gets hot peppers or vegetables from the farm, she hooks me up. In return, I give her my love and my music. She loves my jazz collection even though she was married to a rocker. Martha rocks! You see why I love Vassar?

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