As the U.S. surpasses 86,000 deaths related to COVID-19, the idiot is in deep fear of losing his reelection. In desperation, he takes shots at the real president. He has been all over Barack with the none-sense Obamagate.

As much as Obama doesn’t deserve to get dragged into the mud, I enjoy seeing the idiot getting all work up on the former president. He knows damn well that he will never reach Obama’s level of intelligent, competence, and popularity. If Obama could run a third term, that idiot would never had a chance at the presidency.

Obama understands that the idiot has been obsessed with him since the birther conspiracy. The way Obama addresses his haters reminded me of how JAY-Z handled his haters. They stayed calm, cool, and wise. On “The Takeover,” JAY-Z brilliantly addressed his haters:

Twinkletoes, you’re breakin’ my heart
You can’t fuck with me; go play somewhere, I’m busy
And all you other cats throwin’ shots at Jigga
You only get half a bar—fuck y’all niggas!

While the other cats get half a bar, the whiny little bitch in the White House gets one word. Obama responded, “Vote.”

Questlove’s memoir is a fresh, funny, fulfilling music journey of one of hip-hop’s rare drummers. Questlove grew up in Philly and in a musical family. In addition to playing the drums at a young age, he also collected records. His memoir includes sections where he shared his thoughts and memories of records that inspired him. What I find even more fascinating is that Questlove writes reviews of his own work. He shared:

I was and am so devoted to the review process that I write the reviews for his own records. Almost no one knows this, but when I am making a Roots record, I write the review I think the album will receive and lay out the page just like it’s a Rolling Stone page from when I was ten or eleven. I draw the cover image in miniature and chicken-scratch in a fake byline. It’s the only way I really know how to imagine what I think the record is. And as it turns out, most of the time the record ends up pretty close to what I say it is in the review.

I appreciate the honesty in Questlove’s writing, especially the process in which he and the Roots make album as a whole experience and not just riding off the hits. The Roots has been in the game for so long because they were doing their own things instead getting caught up into the trend. Questlove recognized the failure of The Tipping Point because they tried to pleased Jimmy Iovine. In contrast, Game Theory was a true Roots record because JAY-Z give them the creative freedom to do their things. Reading the story of hip-hop through Questlove and the position of the Roots as an outcast is intriguing and eye-opening. Together with Ben Greenman, The New Yorker editor, Questlove wrote a engaging and enlightening book for music lovers.

If you visit this site on a laptop or desktop, you can see that photography occupies a big space on this blog. I want to turn this image-heave design into a weekly feature. Each week, I will select a few photos that are related and let them load randomly as readers visit the blog. What’s the point? I just wanted to give the blog more visual. Why not on mobile devices? I don’t want to waste reader’s data. This is an enhancement, not a requirement.

For the inaugural week, I would like to share some photos of my kids living their lives in quarantine. We, my wife in particular, wanted our kids to spend more time off the screen; therefore, we tried to let them do a bit of outdoor activities like playing in the sandbox in backyard, watering the plants, or biking around the block. With our jobs, we struggled to keep them busy; therefore, we had loosen up the screen time policy. Unfortunately, they had took our generosity for granted.

In the past few days, our two older sons went berserk when we asked them to do school work or turn off their video games. They also threw a fit when they asked us to play video games and we said no. Now we have to re-enforce the strict policy. Their patience for school work is amount to zero. As a result, their academic is suffering. I am feeling guilty and overwhelming.

The documentary is not based on the book but more of an extension. Although we get to see the beloved former first lady behind the scene on her book tour, the film is not as intimate or as personal as the pages. She’s smart, charming, and inspiring, especially to young women of color. She appears down to earth, but also seems scripted. If you haven’t read the book, do that first before streaming the documentary on Netflix.

Lại một người nữa giống như tôi nên tôi đồng cảm với sự khó khăn trong cách cư xử với nhau trong đời sống. Những chuyện càng tế nhị càng khó sử càng nên phải giải quyết.

Quan trọng là có gì không vừa ý phải nói ra. Bày tỏ những gì việc không hài lòng. Đừng yên lặng mà cứ ôm mãi trong lòng. Chuyện nhỏ sẽ chồng chất thành chuyện to. Ngày này qua tháng nọ những chuyện ấm ức rồi sẽ bùng nổ. Sống với nhau cần phải hiểu nhau. Nhường nhịn nhau vẫn chưa đủ cần có sự biết điều. Thà rằng mích lòng trước đặng lòng sau chớ đừng để mất lòng nhau. Một khi tình cảm đã sứt mẻ sẽ khó hàn gắn.

Hy vọng rằng người đừng đi đến kết quả như tôi. Còn cứu vãn được thì nên làm. Đừng để quá muộn màng giống như tôi. Sống trong đời sống cần có một tấm lòng. Cho dù chỉ để gió cuốn đi.

I was flipping through the recent issue of Time magazine and came across a layout that caught my eyes. I love the photo treatment. The layout is simple yet striking. As a result, I wanted to adapt it for this blog.

Using CSS Grid, I played round with combining text and photo. I can divide the layout in half or make the image takes up two third. I can use grid template areas to switch the placement of the image. I really like the flexility CSS Grid provide. The best part is that the photo only shows up on large screens via media query. Small screens only get text layout. The photo does not download on mobile devices. I do not want to waste reader’s data.

I haven’t used photography on my blog for a while and I have been wanted to bring it back. I am pleased with this direction. It took me about half an hour to accomplish this. I really love CSS Grid.

I am working on a small website for a freelance project. While all the pages are static, I would like to give my client an easy way to update the news section of the site. Implementing a content management system, such as WordPress or Kirby, just to do that is unnecessary.

Over the weekend, I spent an hour revisiting Mavo, which seems like a perfect solution for what I wanted to accomplish. Developed in the Haystack Group at MIT CSAIL and led by Lea Verou, Mavo allows an easy way to update website content with no backend database and without a single line of JavaScript. I gave it a try a few years ago, but got hung up on creating the JSON file in Github. This time, I set up the JSON file in Dropbox and it worked. I was able to make part of the web page editable. Furthermore, I added TinyMCE to give my client an easy way to update the content.

I was thrilled to see how friendly and intuitive it is to update website content with Mavo. This is something I have wanted for many years to offer to my freelance clients, but I don’t have the skill to develop myself. Unfortunately, the huge disappointment came when I viewed the source code. The content section was blank. When I turned off JavaScript, the content also disappeared on the page. I realized that the content was being injected using JavaScript.

If the main content of the page doesn’t show up when JavaScript is turned off, that is a major accessibility issue. Who has JavaScript turned off these days? I have been trying Safari on my iPhone without JavaScript and the experience has been so good that I am continuing to do so. For the website project, I am back to square one again. I should have known that Mavo is a JavaScript library; therefore, it depends on JavaScript to work. Although I can’t implement Mavo, my time spent was not wasted. It was a good learning experience.

Seinfeld’s latest Netflix special was passible. His materials were decent even when he joked about Porta Potties. He was definitely entertaining, but he was not killing it. His voice was hair-raising when he took it up a notch. His body gesture was goofy at times. I didn’t feel this special much.

Năm nay ngày của mẹ nhưng con không thể về bên cạnh mẹ. Mong mẹ thứ tha. Con hứa sau vụ coronavirus này chúng con sẽ về thăm mẹ.

Lâu rồi không gặp mặt nhau con nhớ mẹ lắm. Dường như thời gian xa cách tình cảm của mẹ đối với con có chút nhạt phai. Dĩ nhiên mẹ lúc nào cũng thương yêu con cái nhưng địa vị của con đã không còn như xưa. Có lẽ con đã trưởng thành nên mẹ không còn bận tâm như xưa. Có lẽ cuộc sống của con ổn định nên mẹ yên tâm. Có lẽ con bận bịu với con cái nên mẹ không muốn con phải thêm lo lắng cho mẹ. Đáng lý ra con phải là người lo lắng cho mẹ nhưng thật hổ thẹn con không thực hiện được. Mong mẹ hiểu và tha thứ.

Trong thâm tâm con mẹ lúc nào cũng quan trọng và lớn lao. Hình bóng của mẹ vẫn trọn vẹn không bao giờ thay đổi. Con biết rằng chỉ nói và suy nghĩ cũng không thể nào bằng được hành động nhưng ít nhất viết ra những tâm sự của mình con cảm thấy nhẹ nhàng hơn.

Có lần con ngỏ ý muốn mẹ về ở gần chúng con, mẹ đã nói một câu khiến con đau đớn vô cùng. Có lẽ cả cuộc đời này con sẽ không bao giờ quên. Con suy nghĩ mãi vì sao mẹ nói như thế. Chẳng lẽ mẹ cố ý nói như thế để con khỏi ái nấy phải về việc phải lo lắng cho mẹ. Chẳng lẽ mẹ muốn con được yên tâm để tập trung lo lắng cho gia đình của con.

Con hâm mộ chị Thơm và đội ơn chị rất nhiều vì chị luôn sát cánh bên mẹ. Tuy gia đình riêng của chị bị đổ vỡ nhưng bù lại chị được mẹ chở che. Chữ tình không trọn nhưng trọn chữ hiếu.

Hôm nay ngày của mẹ đáng lẽ ra phải nói lên những lời vui tươi nhưng lại viết xuống tâm sự của con đã ấp ủ từ lâu. Con không viết lại trên Facebook nên chắc mẹ cũng không đọc được những gì con đang viết ở đây. Thôi thì dân dịp ngày của mẹ con xin chúc mẹ sức khỏe dồi dào. Con thương mẹ và luôn nhớ đến mẹ. Mẹ vẫn là tất cả trong cuộc đời của con. Happy Mother’s Day!

I saw the clip of two white men (a father and a son) shot and killed a black kid jogging. The violence shook me to the core. Then I saw another clip of black kids kicking an elderly Asian woman in the face just for the fun of it also broke my heart. Both incidents were outrageous. An unarmed black kid didn’t deserve to die and a defenseless Asian woman didn’t deserve to get kicked in the face either. I am no way comparing a murderous incident to a dumb-yet-disturbing act—they need to be brought to justice—but I want to draw attention to both cases. America, we have a serious race issue that needs to be addressed. We need to stop all these hate crimes.