Thú thật tôi chẳng có hứng thú gì để thưởng thức album mới của Phan Đình Tùng. Lý do đơn giản là nhìn cái tracklist tôi có thể hình dung ra được cách hát của Tùng. Và khi nghe qua một lần quả thật như dự đoán. Tùng rất trung thành với những tình khúc vượt thời gian. Thập chí còn cố gắng hát đúng nhịp nên không điều khiển được hơi thở của mình. Phong trào nhạc Việt bây giờ hát lại nhạc củ rất nhiều, nhưng đem những gì mới lạ cho những tình khúc xưa thì rất hiếm. Tùng cũng không ngoại lệ. Phần hòa âm và phối khí chỉ đạt đến trung bình. Cách hát cũng chẳng khác lạ tuy có chút trưởng thành hơn.

A week before my thirty-seventh birthday, I stepped on the scale and to my dismay I weighed around 155 pounds. I thought that I could never go over 150 pounds no matter how much I eat. At my birthday, which was little over a month ago, I decided to shape myself up because I will reach my 40 soon and it would go downhill from there. I am happy to report that I went back on the same scale again this weekend and I am now at 145 pounds. I lost 10 pounds in a month, something I had not been able to accomplish in the past. What have I done in the past month?

The first thing I decided to do was to cut down my sugar consumption. I drank hot green tea instead of coffee in the morning for the first two weeks. Now I am switching back to iced coffee with one cream and no sugar. As much as I love my sister-in-law’s irresistible flan, I had determined to skip it. It has been quite a struggle for me, especially when my kids shoving donuts, ice cream, and cakes down their throat.

I am experimenting with intermittent fasting, which means I don’t eat anything until one o’clock in the afternoon. I am fine with skipping breakfast since I did that when I was a kid. Instead of buying breakfast with the money my mom gave me each morning when I was a kid back in Vietnam, I spent it on video game and billiard. Because I am always busy at work, I am fine with eating at one. I am also incorporating salad into my deal. I used to pack grill chicken with pre-washed salad mix. Then I got tired of eating the same chicken everyday so I switched to fried tofu. Obviously fried tofu is not all that healthy.

My new plan has been to enjoy Whole Food’s salad bar at half price. If you just get whatever you want at the salad bar, your bill would be at least $10 or more. So what I had done is that I bought the pre-washed salad mix for $6, which I could eat for four or five meals. Then I would get two slices of fish or some chunks of curried lamb for $5 to go with my salad. I always have my sriracha sauce with me to spice up my meal. In addition, Whole Food is about half a mile from my office; therefore, I get a mile from walking back and forth.

I also am getting back to my exercise. Because the kids wouldn’t wake up in the morning until I force them to, I would get to do some jogging. I wanted my exercise to be enjoyable; therefore, I would not force myself to run like I used to. If I couldn’t run, I would walk. If the whether was not so nice, I would skip it. My diet plan would also changed on the weekends because I want to enjoy eating whatever the family and the kids enjoy.

Since I dropped 10 pounds in a month, I am hopeful that this new routine will last long.

In the 110th episode of “Unfinished Business,” Andy Clarke talked to Jeffrey Zeldman and Jeremy Keith about the importance of writing for yourself. Jeremy makes the case that you should blog whatever you want on your own site and he sets the perfect example with his own journal. He is a well-respect front-end developer, but he writes anything on his mind.

I have been doing the same on my own site. I write about the things that I am passionate about whether on music, typography, or parenting. Giving myself the freedom to write whatever I want encourages me to do it almost everyday. I am glad that I am not the only one who is still blogging when blogging is “dead.”

English hasn’t come easy for me and I used to feel embarrassed whenever I put my words on the page, but because I am writing for myself, I feel less intimidating. A few grammatical errors are nothing comparing to the thoughts and feelings I am revealing to the public. Then again, I probably have about three readers anyway. One of my personal goals is to write more in my first language. My Vietnamese is horrible. I can’t even write a sentence without Googling to see if the accents I used were correct. My Vietnamese writing is probably still at a third grade level, but then it doesn’t matter since this is my own site after all.

In the podcast, Jeremy pointed out why you should write from your own perspective resonated with me. He encouraged people to write even if the topics have been written elsewhere. For example, why would you write about CSS when you can find every CSS-related article on CSS Tricks? When you just learned or discovered something, you write from a fresh perspective; therefore, someone else can relate to what you have written. He is correct and I can attest to that. Web typography has been written before from people who are much more smarter than me, but I wrote Professional Web Typography based on my own perspective and experience. It turns out that many people had enjoyed reading what I had to say and I am happy about it.

Vì chất giọng hơi yếu và kỹ thuật không điêu luyện nên Thái Trân hát nhạc Trịnh nhẹ nhàng và thản nhiên. Cô không gào thét “Xin Trả Nợ Người,” cũng không trách móc “Em Còn Nhớ Hay Em Đã Quên.” Chính vì sự mọc mạc qua giọng hát alto mềm mại, cô thể hiện được sự đồng cảm trong “Một Ngày Như Mọi Ngày” và sự chân thật trong “Tôi Ơi Đừng Tuyệt Vọng.” Tuy Thái Trân không khai thác những mới mẻ trong nhạc Trịnh nhưng cô đem đến tất cả tâm hồn và sức sống của mình vào dòng nhạc bất hủ của ông. Vì thế Bay Ði Thầm Lặng là một album đáng được nghe.

My book, Professional Web Typography, is featured on Typekit. Sally Kerrigan writes:

Donny Truong’s Professional Web Typography is just about everything you’d want in a starter text for learning about type on the web — and best of all, he practices what he preaches with the type selection and placement. Adobe Caslon works nicely in the body text and in headings, with Myriad in subheads for an effective sans alternate. Source Code appears in the code samples throughout.

Can’t ask for a better Friday!

Hoàng Quyên and Lê Minh Sơn know damn well that you have listened to these songs many, many times already, and yet they still want you to hear them again. They also know that if they do anything to these beloved ballads, they would be damned for being sacrilegious. With a lesson learned through Thanh Lam’s Này Em Có Nhớ, Lê Minh Sơn has smartened up to refrain his musical direction as well as Hoàng Quyên’s vocal delivery. The first two tracks—“Giọt Nước Mắt Ngà” (Ngô Thụy Miên) and “Ru Đời Đi Nhé” (Trịnh Công Sơn)—carry the similar semi-classical vibe that made Thanh Lam’s Ru Mãi Ngàn Năm an instant classic. Whereas Thanh Lam injected so much personal experience into her singing, Hoàng Quyên expresses the lyrics with ease and innocence. Even when the band swings behind her in “Bài Không Tên Số 8” (Vũ Thành An) or the acapella voices surround her in “Để Em Mơ” (Nguyễn Cường), she focuses solely on your ears and nothing else. Although she brings nothing novelty to Phạm Duy’s “Hẹn Hò” and “Đưa Em Tìm Động Hoa Vàng,” her singing is impossible to ignore. With the closeness she brought and the tasteful, east-meets-west strings Lê Minh Sơn arranged to keep things flowing, they make damn sure that you’re tuning in.

The first two days of Introduction to Web Design had gone well. The students seem to be interested in learning to code. Although most of them are learning HTML and CSS for the first time, they understand the concept very quickly. Because of the small class size I can work with each individually on the assignment. I am glad that the school did not cancel it. For a web design course, keeping it small should be the way to go. The students also came up with intriguing proposals for their project. Can’t wait to see the final results.

I am sad and disheartened to learn that you had left this world. How could a kindhearted man like you lost his life to a heart complication? Life is just unfair. You were truly one of the most loving husbands and fathers I have known. You opened up your heart to me and placed your trust in me. I wanted to apologize to you that I couldn’t accomplish what you had asked me to do. As much as I wanted things to work out, the situation was beyond my control. Regardless of what happened I have nothing but respect for you. Rest in peace, sir.

My book, Professional Web Typography, released to the world 30 days ago. It has been an intriguing experience to see the reaction from the web community, especially on Twitter, and to learn about the pay-what-you-want model. Although the book was never intended to be free, I even put a prominent buy button next to the read button, I noticed a handful of tweets refer to it as a free ebook.

To give you some perspective on the economics of the book in its 30 days, I have gathered some information from Google Analytics and PayPal. According to Analytics, there were 18,075 sessions, 11,578 users, and 50,399 pageviews. According to PayPal, out of 76 readers have supported the book, one paid $25, four paid $0.01, and everyone else paid in between.

As promised to keep the book up-to-date, I added two new chapters: “Using SVG as Type” and “Animating Type.” My goal is still to keep the book as succinct as possible.

One of the most requested additions to the online book is a PDF version. In fact a handful of supporters expected to get a download link after they made the payment. Although I initially had no plan to release any other format other than the web, I had made a PDF version for anyone who supports $7 or more for the book. Since I have been writing a personal email to thank anyone who had supported the book, it would not be too much work to attach a PDF copy.

Once again, thanks for all your support.

I haven’t blogged about my boys for a while and don’t even know where to begin. So much had happened in the past few months. I am just going to write what I can remember.

Let’s start with soccer. We signed up soccer camp for Đán again in the spring after he showed some interest in the sport from last winter. Every Saturday morning, I took him to soccer with Đạo tagging along. Unfortunately Đán had lost his focus and attention. He rather walked around the field than joined his friends and coaches for soccer. On the other hand, Đạo started to show interest in soccer. I wanted to sign him up, but they did not have class for his age. He ended up playing in Đán’s class. One of the coaches invited him to join the group and he had been part of the team ever since. With Đán I just let him do whatever he liked. If he didn’t want to play soccer, I let him roamed around the field. He could join in whenever he wanted too. Most of his teammates were in the same boat. They just ran and did whatever they wanted rather than paying attention to the coach. Poor dads chasing after their kids and giving them warnings again and again. It’s the middle-class problem. We paid for our kids to play soccer, but ending up babysitting them.

Lately Đán had been obsessed with dinosaurs. He took his dinosaur toys with him everywhere he went. He even knew how to pronounce their names. I nicknamed him the Đánosaur. My wife and I had a conference yesterday with one of his teachers and we were surprised to learn that she had no behavioral problem with him at the daycare. Then again she was a very strict teacher. She told us that he always shared his dinosaurs with his friends in class, something he hardly did at home with his brother and cousin. We were glad to have her as his teacher this year.

Đạo is also wrapping up his kindergarten with his fantastic teacher. On Monday, he and his friends performed 9 songs for us. Each song lasted a couple of bars. One of their favorite tunes were about Abraham Lincoln. After the performance, I asked him who was Abraham Lincoln and what did they mean when they sang, “he freed the slaves.” He responded, “Abraham Lincoln was our 16th president and he gave people money.” I learn new thing everyday through my kids.

Summer is coming and we had some vacationing lined up.