Vài tuần trước tôi tình cờ nghe được một đoạn radio nói về bài “Phố Buồn” của Phạm Duy do Vĩnh Lạc Đoàn Thế Ngữ thực hiện qua chương trình “Âm Thanh và Ngôn Từ.” Thế Ngữ phân tích nhạc và lời rất thú vị. Chê hay khen, Thế Ngữ trình bài rất chân thật. Tuy những chương trình này thu âm đã khá lâu nhưng tôi chỉ mới phát hiện. Những bạn nào chưa nghe, những đề tài nói về nhạc Trịnh Công Sơn, Phạm Duy, và Từ Công Phụng nên nghe cho vui. Tất cả các bài có thể nghe hoặc tải xuống ở đây.

Ngô Thiên Bảo:

I found your vietnamesetypography.com website, and I am so glad to see someone distill all the thoughts that go into good Vietnamese typography.… I’ve sent my donation to support your online book as gift to future designers in our community.

I really appreciate your generous support.

All of the Scalia Law Sites are now switched to HTTPS. Mad props to my new developer. After many trials and errors, he finally figured it out. This has been on my to-do list for a while, but I couldn’t to it because I have other requests and projects. I am glad to have someone to just focus on getting this done. Now all of our sites, including the main one, are moved to HTTPS. An added level of security is an added layer peace of mind. I still have so much to learn about running and maintaining servers, but having great people to work with is awesome.

My part-time backend web developer started this week. He’s knowledgeable and down-to-earth. He has been helping me out with smaller tasks like making online forms and some server administrations. His main project is moving all our WordPress Multisite to HTTPS. With his help, I can focus on design and front-end development; therefore, I am glad to have him joining us.

My wife bought Việt Thanh Nguyễn’s The Sympathizer last year to support a fellow Vietnamese-American writer, but she hasn’t read it yet. I am not a fan of fiction, but slowing warming up to it this week. Nguyễn’s mastery of the English language is impressive. For example: “The captain, who hobbled a bit because of venereal disease, threatened to commit suicide unless I found more seats. I offered him my revolver and he skulked off.” I am now on chapter four and planning on finishing it.

Ai thích nhạc trữ tình nghe sến nhảy sẽ khó mà quên.

Where can an orangutan turned president pee?

In the past couple of days, I started to feed my blog posts into Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn via dlvr.it. Whatever I write on here will appear in those social networks within half an hour. I am taking this approach to take control of my own content. I still want to have a presence on social media, but this blog will be the main source. Everything will start from here.

The second reason is to be less active on Facebook and Twitter. Of course I could easily turn them off, but I don’t want to be totally disconnected. I have turned off all my notifications on my phone, but I still have the apps. I will uninstalled them if I keep on checking them. I would be lying if I say that I don’t find the likes, the mentions, and the retweets to be gratifying.

With that said, I want to refocus on my priorities. I am still using RSS feed for keeping up with web design news. I still love reading personal blogs even though only a few people continue to write. I don’t engagement in comments anymore, but I still interact on Twitter and Facebook. With the new automation, I would like to move away from them as well. So if you don’t hear my response on Facebook or Twitter, please understand that I am not ignoring you. I just need to really cut back on my interactions.

Thank you for reading no matter what platform you use.

We’re hiring a part-time back-end web developer. If you have experience in Linux, Apache, PHP, and MySQL, check out the job posting. I am hoping that it will turn into a full-time position in the future.

Steve Harvey’s insensitive joke about Asian men didn’t offend me. I heard worst as a kid. I just find it ironic for a Black man to be dismissive about race. He should understand the pain of racism unless he has forgotten about Black history. Even if he’s not a racist, being ignorant about another smaller minority group makes him a racial bully. Chinese is not the only Asian population. Think before you joke.