Ann Longknife and K.D. Sullivan’s The Art of Styling Sentences is an excellent companion for anyone who would like to enrich his/her writing skills. The book delves into 20 patterns on how to write clear and prosperous sentences.

Each pattern is clearly explained with basic examples to help readers understand the concepts and structures. On top of that, the book provides professional examples written by well-known writers to show how the patterns are applied. Practice makes perfect and writing is no exception; therefore, there are exercises throughout the book to get your brain cooking.

Styling sentences is a work of art. Similar to design, you have to choose the right elements to make your writing live and efficient. I like the way the authors start out with the basic subject and verb then build up those basic elements into effective sentences. Your sentences grow as you delve deeper into the book.

Finally, the last chapter provides complete essays to demonstrate how the writing can be improve by using these patterns. The Art of Styling Sentences is a must have book and it deserves a space on my shelf next to William Struck Jr. and E.B. White’s The Elements of Style.

What do these two hotties have in common?

– Obviously, both are drop-dead gorgeous.
– Both have Vietnamese blood running in their veins
– Ngo Thanh Van grew up in Norway: Kira Kener is half Norwegian.
– While Ngo Thanh Van made to the top Vietnamese modeling, Kira Kener made to the top shelf of video stores’ adult section.

An unsent letter written a fan is creative, emotional, and well crafted. The personal love story is engaging and the love for Ngoc Lan is astonishing. He deserves to be Ngoc Lan’s greatest fan. Check out the essay:

Dear Trinh,

I’ve been meaning to write about why I think I am Ngoc Lan’s greatest fan. This has required reaching down deep into my soul. My recollections have brought me to a time of golden innocence, and since you were part of that time, I will write this letter to you, which, I must apologize first, must remain unsent… Read more.

Remembering Ngoc Lan: 12.18.1956 – 03.06.2001

Ve Day Em
Mot Chut Qua Cho Que Huong
Your Beauty

Just launched Vassar’s Exploring Transfer web site. It’s clean, simple, table-less, and web standards. As you might have noticed, I haven’t been designing any new site at Vassar because the web team is retrofitting all the existing sites. We are not even half way through because there are about 130 official sites. Exploring Transfer is squeezed in between projects because their 20th anniversary is coming up. Anyway, go check it out while I am getting back on more retrofitting.

“Tinh yeu den em khong mong doi gio, tinh yeu di em khong he hoi tiec.” This tune has been playing in the back of my head ever since I heard My Tam sang it when “Hat Voi Dong Song” first came out. The song took off like a love anthem so did My Tam. “Hat Voi Dong Song” was written by Quoc An. It is interesting how he took phrases from an article written by Le Nguyen and transformed them into lyrics. Usually songwriters take poems (not articles) and create the melody for the music. In Quoc An’s case, it is quite unique and creative and he pulled it off nicely. The lyrics are smooth and the melody flows perfectly. Of course, My Tam’s performance is flawless. Here is the article that talks about the song and here is the original article written about Ngo Thanh Van that sparked Quoc An to write “Hat Voi Dong Song.” Sorry my English readers, the articles are in Vietnamese only.

The folks at Triple Strength finally released their interactive Flash site to showcase their work. With clean and simple design, the site is intuative and beautiful. Great job guys!

Before coming to Vassar, I was working part time at Triple Strength doing Flash and web design. Although I was only there for a few months, I learned so much about design thanks to the Senior Designer Hung Nguyen. He is the man with the skills. I owe him alot for that. I enjoyed working with them but I find myself loving the educational environment more. I always wanted to work for a college and Vassar gave me a perfect opportunity. I still miss my good old folks at Triple Strength though. Big shout out to Hung, Lance, Pam and Alicia. I’ll drop by the studio sometimes when go back to PA. Once again, the site looks great.

Last Friday, Eben Ostby, Vassar class of ’77, gave an informal talk about techniques and process of CG filmmaking at Pixar. Eben is a supervising technical director at Pixar, where he worked on Monsters, Inc., Toy Story 1 & 2, A Bug’s Life and a variety of early computer-animated short films. It was interesting to see how they come up with ideas and the process of creating the film. He touched a bit on how they created the beautiful Sidney scene in Finding Nemo. At the end, Eben asked the cameraman to stop recording so he can show Boundin’. It is such a fantastic short animated film. The tap dance is awesome, the music is great and of course the animation is amazing. You can watch a sneak preview at Pixar’s site.

Amy Tan says, “Loud farts don’t stink, and the really smelly ones don’t make a sound.” Well! She hasn’t smell Jurassic Fart. It Is loud, green and deadly.

The half Vietnamese Kira Kener is way too good to be a porn star. She has such a gorgeous appearance and striking features. It’s heartbreaking to see that pretty face gives heads. Oh well!