Jane Mayer’s “Attack Dog” is an intriguing piece in the New Yorker profiling Larry McCarthy, a negative-ad master siding with Mitt Romney. She writes:

Romney, unlike the remaining Republican candidates, has served no time in Washington. Yet he’s relying on a media offensive managed by operatives who have long been at the heart of Washington’s Republican attack machine. One of the leaders of this advertising war is Larry McCarthy, a veteran media consultant best known for creating the racially charged “Willie Horton ad,” which, in 1988, helped sink Michael Dukakis, the Democratic nominee for President.

If Romney wins the primary and compete against Obama, negative ads will dominate the media. Whatever side you’re on, don’t let the ads influence your vote. If you see something isn’t seemed right, fact check it.

Two weeks ago, I wrote a post on “Carelessness Leads to Stressfulness” and I have tried my best to resolve the issue. After many phone passes, I thought I was not be able to clear the debts. I tried not to think about it, but today I decided to follow up to see where the issue is going. To my surprise, my debt has not only been cleared, but I might also get a big bonus. We’ll see if the check will arrive in my mailbox.

Roger Skalbeck published his annual report on the “Top 10 Law School Home Pages of 2011.” George Mason is #10 on the list. This is based on the older homepage from last year. I am wondering if responsive design will get a bonus for next year ranking.

Even though the George Mason Law web site relaunched more than two weeks ago, the work is still not done. I have been doing tons of tweaking behind the scene including cleaning up templates, CSS and contents that added by others. Editors like TinyMCE are quite evil for people who don’t write markups. Sometimes I just have to let it go and not too bothered with it.

The major work I have been doing is recreating all the banners on the secondary pages. For example, the top banner is now running across the page instead of splitting with the side navigation. So I spent most of my time looking for photos and recropping and recreating the banners. It’s actually a pretty fun, creative exercise. Now that I think about it, all the jobs that I held involved crafting banners. I did a whole bunch when I was at Vassar College. Then I crafted a collection for random rotation when the School of Business rebranded into the University look and feel. Here I am again, pumping out banners after banners. One of my colleagues also helped me out and she likes doing it as well.

Of course I also try to make something fresh for this homepage at least once a week. I like to use this space to not only promoting just my work, but also other things that I find interesting to keep you stay tuned.

Every once in a while, I manage to make some dumb mistakes that could have been avoided if I was being more careful. Last Thursday when I arrived home from work, I received a big bill for something I shouldn’t be responsible for. I knew that the bill was a mistake, but I was irritated. I told no one about it and I just couldn’t through the night. I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t wait to get it resolved the next morning. That’s one of my weaknesses.

The next day, I started to make phone calls and then realized that I am going to have to go through some hoops to get the charge drop. The lack of sleep of the previous night combined with the stress of not solving the issue sent my head straight to the depression camp. I finally told my wife about it after I got home from work and she assured me that it’s not a big deal and I shouldn’t have to worry. I took her advice because she’s my better half and she knows more shit than me.

So the weekend, I left it at the back of my mind and just enjoyed my time with my sons. Now I am just dealing with it as much as I could. If it doesn’t work out, fuck it. As long as I know in my heart I am not responsible for it. If I did I would have no problem paying for it. Though I blame myself for being carelessness, I never pride myself in being a perfectionist. I made many mistakes in the past and I’ll make many more in the future. One of the things wish I could learn from my wife is to sleep it off. She is a master at it. I also need to learn how to calm the fuck down as well to make my life less stressful.

Dana, Dao and I were at Thanh Son today buying some sweet treats. The line was long and Dao didn’t want to stay inside. I took him outside while Dana was waiting to made orders. Outside the store, there were two women selling fruits and banh it (sticky-rice dumplings). The older lady is probably in her late 70s and the younger one is probably in her mid 40s.

The younger one is quite aggressive. She would grab anyone walking by trying to sell them something. One time she grabbed me and offered me some banh it in the bag for $10. I told her that I only wanted half of it for $5. So I handed her a five-dollar bill, but she insisted that I give her a twenty because she needed some change. When I gave her a twenty, she threw it in the bucket and gave me two bags of banh it instead. I took my money back and told her that I didn’t want to buy anything from her. Since that day on, she hasn’t harassed me to buy anything.

Back to today, as Dao and I were outside waiting for Dana, I heard the two of them arguing. The younger lady accused the old lady of spreading rumor about her. She said in Vietnamese something like, “You told people that I have diabetes.” The elderly responded, “I do not spread rumors. I only mind my own business. Yes, I said you have diabetes, but I never said anything about your pussy dripping wet.” The exact Vietnamese words were, “lon chay nuoc.” I couldn’t help laughing, but I had to drag Dao away. When I told my wife, she said, “You don’t need to be in Vietnam to hear Vietnamese gossiping.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:

Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life’s difficulties, and if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph. This is triumphant music.

Over the weekend, I spent an hour updating this site’s CSS for mobile-first, responsive design. I used em unit instead of pixel for breaking point, which I have reduced to just one media query.

I added a new testimonial from my latest client.

Also a big shout out to the Text Link Ads for the sponsor links on the right column. Vistaprint also renewed its ad placement for 2012.

Some of my family members who are avid Amazon shoppers asked me to put up the Amazon.com’s Affiliate link so that they can make me some money. Thanks for the support.

Paul Krugman:

Think about it: someone who really wanted equal opportunity would be very concerned about the inequality of our current system. He would support more nutritional aid for low-income mothers-to-be and young children. He would try to improve the quality of public schools. He would support aid to low-income college students.

Dr. Ken Murray:

Of course, doctors don’t want to die; they want to live. But they know enough about modern medicine to know its limits. And they know enough about death to know what all people fear most: dying in pain, and dying alone.

Insightful and informative. Must-read.