I drive my wife and kids insane listening to web-related podcasts. By catching up on some shows while getting the kids to sleep I thought I could accomplish two tasks at once, but that isn’t the case. My wife said the talk gives her a headache. Dao asked me, “Why is that man keep on talking?” So now I just put on my headphone when I listen to podcasts. It helped me clean the house and fold the laundry.

If I remember correctly, the first tech podcast I listened to was Dan Benjamin’s “The Pipeline” with Jeffrey Zeldman. I loved to hear how these talented guys and gals became successful. Unfortunately “The Pipeline” has not been updated for a year.

The first episode of “The Big Web Show” I listened to was when Jeffrey and Dan interviewed the Drupal Girl aka Jen Simmons. She’s no longer the Drupal gal and this show is now quite sporadic. Then I got hooked on Jen’s “The Web Ahead.” I love focus of this show. Each episode delves into a very specific topic and Jen Simmons’ knowledge of the web is quite astonishing. She was on hiatus for a while, which gave me a chance to catch up on every show. One of my favorite episodes is on video with Michael Verdi. The topic on Flash brought back so much nostalgia. The show is now also sporadic.

I also tuned into Kristina Halvorson’s “Content Talks.” I listened to almost every episode. Love the content strategy talk as well as Kristina’s clear enunciation. Too bad this show is also not active.

Occasionally I listened to “The Talk Show” with John Gruber. The breakup caused quite a stir, which resulted in one-star review for John’s new show. I still follow John on his new show. Based on the lacking of updates of the shows I mentioned above in the 5by5 network, I could see why John did what he did.

One of the shows on 5by5 that is still on regular schedule is “Build and Analyze” with Marco Arment. This show is somewhat similar to “The Talk Show” in a way that they talk about Apple.

Although I am not too crazy about the Q&A format of “ShopTalk,” which hosted by Chris Coyier and Dave Rupert, I tuned in anyway. Chris and Dave could be quite hilarious at times.

Recently I caught up with both “The Non-Breaking Space Show,” which hosted by Christopher Schmitt and Dave McFarland, and “The East Wing” by Tim Smith and Galen Gidman. Both are pretty decent.

Damn, that’s a lot of podcasts.

I was having lunch with a very sexy mama today. She was so damn hot that I was sweating like rain. Fortunately the hot weather and the hot soup were to blame for my fantasy. These days all that I could do is fantasizing about her.

I am saddened to hear the news about a Vietnamese man gunning down another Vietnamese fellow before taking his own life. What even more heartbreaking is that the incident took place in the vibrant Eden Center.

Living in Virginia for the past five years, Eden Center has become my community. I go there for lunch almost daily now and I take my family there on the weekend to eat and just to hang out. Whenever someone asks me where to find authentic Vietnamese food in the DC Metro area, I point them to Eden Center with pride.

It’s big shock to hear Viet killing Viet in Viet community. It’s time for us, as Vietnamese American, to rebuild our image and move forward. For me Eden Center is closet to Vietnam from where I live; therefore, I want this community to strive, not set back. As driving to work this morning, I thought of a graphic signage to promote unity in the Eden Community.

Our little family getaway to Atlantic city is over. Three days of relaxing, eating and some gambling went by quick. In the morning, Dan woke up the earliest (around 5am) so I strolled him around the boardwalk. At noon we jumped into the big-ass bath tube in our room. Dao and Dan loved it. We didn’t even have to go to the beach. Dao is still in fear of the waves. We hit the swimming pool once. Lil Dan loved the water. As soon I put him in, he kicked his feet and splashing his arms froggy style. Then we took a long-ass nap and headed to dinner. After dinner we headed out to the carnival.

Once the kids got to bed around midnight, I went downstairs for Pai Gow. The first night I won $30. The second night I won $50. The third night I lost $100. Pai Gow is the only table that I like to play. I only bet the minimum and only the Resorts has the lowest minimum at $15. I am not a big gambler and I hate to lose money, but I like to play for fun. On the second night, an Italian guy pulled out $5,000 and lost it all in just an hour. He seemed tired as hell, but kept on playing until he lost it all.

I also chatted with some Vietnamese dealers for a bit. On all three nights, an old Chinese guy who spoke no English was there sitting next to me. One of the dealers told me that he and a group at another table took the bus there every night until 4am. Imagine that, playing the same damn thing every day.

In any rate, vacationing with two small children isn’t quite relaxing, but it was definitely worth the bonding time. The two boys are growing amazingly fast. I am not sure how a single parent could handle it all. I certainly can’t do it without Dana.

Back in 2000, I spent a summer month interning at Trump Maria, which now turned into Golden Nugget. What was nice was I had a hotel room and three meals a day for employees. What was suck was I didn’t have anything to work on. I didn’t learn anything except clipping path in Photoshop, which is quite a useful skill to have. My internship was supposed to last three months, but I resigned after a month a half, which was long enough to satisfy the college’s credits.

One of the things that I loved was whenever a co-worker took me out to a bakery that baked fresh, delightful baguette. I am not sure if the place is still around, but I couldn’t remember exactly where it is. I remember faithless that it is a few blocks from the Taj Mahal toward AC express way. My mission in the next couple of days, a last-minute getaway, is to find out if the place is still around. I used to love the smell of that fantastic French bread.

Anyway, I am going to be on the road today; therefore, I’ll missed the Euro 2012 final. With the way Spain play, I doubt that it’s going to be excited game so I’ll just catch up with the scores afterward. Peace out!

• SMACSS by Jonathan Snook
• Pro HTML5 Accessibility by Joshue O Connor
• Web Development Recipes by Brian P. Hogan, Chris Warren, Mike Weber, Chris Johnson and Aaron Godin
• Pragmatic Guide to Sass by Hampton Catlin and Michael Lintorn Catlin
• Branding With Type by Stefan Rogener, Albert-Jan Pool, Ursula Packhauser and E. M. Ginger
• About Face: Reviving the Rules of Typography by David Jury
• Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works by Erik Spiekermann and E.M. Ginger

Met up with MODX’s founder Ryan Thrash and a small crowd at LeapFrog Solutions, which located about five-minute drive to my house, last night. Ryan gave a quick demo of MODX Cloud and it looked impressive. I would love to move Mason Law up there one day. Ryan is a real down-to-earth fellow. I am also glad to have met Lee Brinckley who is a MODX developer at LeapFrog. Thanks Lee for bringing Ryan in town.

Thanks Zeldman for sharing this:

And then, bang. Your kid is laughing ecstatically in a seemingly utopian environment you did not provide for her and you are not part of. The easy adult social interactions that are unfolding belong to your ex’s new life, not yours. You are watching your family move on without you, you are discovering all over again, as if for the first time, that your family has exploded, your wife does not love you, does not need you, the world goes on without you, this is not my beautiful house, this is not my beautiful wife.

Type Matters by Jim Williams: A visual intro to typography that takes less to read but more to marvel its gorgeous design. This is a perfect example of a graduate thesis project in graphic design.

Typographic Web Design by Laura Franz: Not too many books devoted to web typography. This one has some useful tips on legibility when choosing types for the web. In-depth HTML & CSS tutorials are helpful for beginner web designers.

Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton: Read the first edition a while back. The second edition is a much needed refresh. Love the type crime examples.

The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst: Rereadinging this book seems to take slower and slower each time just to digest the information.

A friend commented on the redesign: “Your new site looks weird as if it is not designed for desktop.” He’s right. The new site was not designed for desktop or mobile. It was designed for readability. The redesign process focused on how the text is comfortable for reading. The width of the column depends on the text size and its characters. I also played with indents with no spaces between paragraphs for the body text. Microtypography is the main inspiration for the site.