Ngoc Lan’s Con Tim Da Vui Tro Lai (And My Heart is Happy Once Again) fills with so much joy and love. Still can’t believe you’re gone. You were so amazing. Whenever there’s a discussion about you, the question frequently comes up is, “What is your Ngoc Lan’s favorite song?” And the answer I always see is, “It’s hard to say because she sang so many beautiful songs.” Lately I have stumbled across comment such as “If you don’t like Ngoc Lan, you must have really bad taste.” How can someone not like that sweet and lovely voice of yours? Your performance on “And My Heart is Happy Once Again” had always encouraged me to move on and lifted me out of the rain. All that I ever hope for is your heart to beat once again.

The time is here folks. I am heading off work soon and won’t be back until next year. Before I go, just want to say, “Happy Holidays.” Spend your time with the one you love, not the one you hump (heard it from one of the rapper, can’t think of his name right now). Get some rest, sleep, and mad phat. Enjoy the spirit. Eat more, drink less. Laugh more, cry less. Give more, get less. Sex more, pimp less.

To my family around the world, you know I love you so better send some god damn presents. You aready know about the Asian style, cash is always the best gift. Benjamin always looks sexy as a gift. More cash more love! Don’t need to think about what I like. Sike! I am just playing. You know, Donny loves ya so do me a big favor. Don’t spend your Christmas time in the factory. I know you’ll get triple times paid but come on, take a damn break and enjoy pho, hieu tieu, bo nhung dam, vit nau chao, or whatever goodies you make. I know you ain’t making no American food.

To my crew at Vassar, no more gossiping about web design. Who cares if Dreamweaver is screwing with Mac Server? So what if CSS is being a bitch to Netscape 4.7. Since CSS is so damn fly, screw Netscape. Ok, let me stop. Enjoy your time off guys and no more thinking about the web. Let the son of bitch go.

And to all my reader, “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.” Don’t mind what I just wrote. It’s simply silly and my mind is not functioning too well right now. This is what happens when you don’t sleep. Peace out!

Wow! The authors actually read my review and quoted my words. Check out Carrie Bickner’s Web Design on a Shoestring and Jesse James Garrett’s The Elements of User Experience.

Remember that funky juggling animation? It ended up on the Barefoot Monkey site.

Here are some beautiful CSS sites for your viewing pleasure: Alazanto (nice use of types with beautiful colors), Design Dojo (clean and organized. Gotta love that subtle stylin’), malevole (simply eccentric).

Blasting The Firm album on my earphone. The album features Nas, Foxy, AZ and Naure. It’s an old school joint and the beats are off the hook. The lyric is blazing too. Of course, Nas is well-known for his lyrical skills but AZ is the most overlooked rapper for his skills. This guy can flow forever. Really dig his style. This album is mucho hot baby

I just want to say “Happy Thanksgiving.” I am posting this a little bit early because I will head home tomorrow to be with my family and friends for the holiday and won’t be back until the following Monday.

By the way, iLoveNgocLan.com gets a new theme (tenderness). Check her out! Isn’t she adorable?

I thought it was amateur at first but there is a deep message behind the Meatrix.

If every morning I see photos similar to Peter Funch’s Crash series in Bangkok, I wouldn’t be able to eat my egg and cheese. The HESHE series allow viewers to be careful when visiting Bangkok. Or else you’ll be in for a surprise.

To lighten up my day, let’s take a look at some of the beautiful typography from Type Matters.

Congrats Mikki for the new happy design. The sun has shined and a brighter day has begun. Mikki, keep your head up!

Need inspiration and resources for your CSS design? Check out CSS Vault. Make sure you bookmark it and subscribe it to your RSS reader.

Cereal is another fantastic design from Zen Garden. It’s beautifully flow together.

This Viet Flash piece is quite entertaining. The illustrations are great. The lyrics crack the hell out of me.

My condolences to Nguyen Phuoc Sang family. Sang passed away in a hospital in Viet Nam at the age of six while diagnosed with leukemia. Sang lived with his grandmother while his parents worked far away trying to make ends meat. Even in a poor situation, his parents sold everything they had to pay for medical bills. I heard the news when his parents were desperately seeking for donations a couple of weeks ago. I spread the words to iLoveNgocLan.com and received some contribution for him. Unfortunately, Sang couldn’t make it through. He was in a great pain and the last words he said was, “Mom, please help Sang.” Even though I have never seen his face, I am deeply affected by his situation. What a tragedy? Life is so unfair.

The Vassar’s Admission web site gets a new make-up. This is what happens when you hired an advertisement agency to do a web job. The design looks new but the codes are as old as my dead grandma. What happen to consistency? The navigation moves up every time you go through a deeper level page, which makes users disoriented. So once you’re in a secondary or other level pages, how do you go back to Admission homepage? If you click on Home, you’ll go to Vassar homepage (not Admission homepage) in a new window. The only way to get back to Admission homepage is to simply type in the URL. Fantastic. Oh well, this is what you get when you get graphic designers to do your web site.

Just finished polishing the History site at Vassar. Although the design is not too exciting, the code is now clean and lean with CSS and XHTML structured.

I am glad to see the site is back online. I am still in Lancaster hanging out with my family and won’t be back to Poughkeepsie until tonight. I am having a wonderful time with my niece and nephew. There is also another reason I took off work for three days. I will reveal that reason tomorrow.

Currently enjoying The Best of My Le Vol 2. I am hooked by her strong and warm voice, especially Cho Nhau Mot Nu Cuoi, Giot Tinh and Nuoc Mat. She brings out the essence of the songs.

A List Apart relaunched. It’s looking good with 3 great articles. Go check it out!