I was at Barnes & Noble this morning for some last minute holiday shopping and overheard a Puppinized rendition of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas.” I headed over to the music department and treated myself a copy of Christmas With The Puppini Sisters. Right off the opening track, the Sisters “Step Into Christmas” with a joyful, up-swinging tempo. Then “Santa Baby” gets a Puppini’s soulful, sexy makeover. While “White Christmas” gets into the cold, winter spirit, “Mela Kalikimaka” gets a sunshine season’s greeting from the land where palm trees sway. “Holy Night” closes out the whimsical album with the Sister’s wonderful harmonized vocalization.

Wishing you all a joyful spirit for the holidays. Thanks for hanging out with me at Visualgui.com. Now go spend time with your family.

Who would have known, Nao Co Ai Biet, Phuong Thanh and Duc Tri make a fruitful collaboration? From a producer standpoint, Duc Tri makes a wise decision to record an acoustic album of his own tunes. The intimate setting showcases Phuong Thanh’s rough voice and raw emotion. Accompanied by Duc Tri’s sentimental strumming guitar, Phuong Thanh pours her heart out on slow ballads including “Co Bao Gio,” “Nao Co Ai Biet” and “Khi Giac Mo Ve.” On more powerful ballads, however, Duc Tri gives Phuong Thanh more room to do her roaring. “Ta Chang Con Ai” and “Co Quen Duoc Dau” takes listeners back to Phuong Thanh’s golden days when she stormed the pop scene with her vigorous voice. Nao Co Ai Biet displays the platonic connection between the two musical friends.

Before Duc Tuan, singers who get Duong Thu’s approval for his music were mostly women: Hong Nhung, My Linh, Khanh Linh, Thanh Lam, Tran Thu Ha, Nguyen Thao and Bang Kieu. To this reviewer’s ear, Hong Nhung and Nguyen Thao were the two most successful in articulating Duong Thu’s nature-inspired lyricism. They sing his music in a very easy-going approach. Duong Thu coached Duc Tuan to do the same in Bay Gio Bien Mua Dong, Duc Tuan’s latest album. Unlike Hong Nhung and Thao Nguyen, Duc Tuan has lost that natural instinct after his second album. The major different between Duc Tuan and the two female singers is that he forces himself to sound effortless. Throughout the album, but “Bai Ca Dao Mua Dong” and “Cua So Mua Dong” in particular, listeners can tell that he tries his hardest not to break a sweat. Bay Gio Bien Mua Dong is a proof that natural singing is something that cannot be trained. You either have it or you don’t.

Unlike your distance “twin,” you understand the meaning of “cay” (spicy), but you don’t believe us when we tell you so. At several Pho houses, you kept pointing to the Sriracha hot chili sauce bottle and say ketchup. You insisted on dipping it with the meatball. Mom finally let you tasted yesterday at Pho 495 and now you know not every red-looking condiment is ketchup.

The last issue of 2010 for GWSB newsletter gets a new design. The redesign goes back to table layout and shorter width to accommodate email clients.

So Bao Han posted her final letter on her web site. I admit I didn’t read the whole letter because not only the white text on the dark transparent background is hard to read, but also the background music is so damn distracting. She pointed that BaoHan.com will get a complete facelift. I hope that the new design will lift off that horrendous use of Flash as well. It took me a minute to find the damn scrollbar. Ok, enough of the web site. Let’s get on with the real deal.

Bao Han has been creating quite a bit of attention around her departure from the music business. She had the spotlight on Paris By Night to say goodbye and the whole farewell tour. I know she has captured quite a bit of fans, but really what will we really miss beside not seeing a skinny chick gets wild on Paris By Night. She has been singing for 18 years and yet not a single song from her impressed me. Her voice and range are paper thin, but what bugs me the most is that she sings Vietnamese as if it is her second language after almost two decades into the game.

Like her BFF Nhu Loan, I will probably miss seeing her on stage, but I doubt that I will miss her singing. Still, I wish her the best of luck in her next endeavor.

Someone has not only found the key to her heart, but also picked up the falling leaf and the elegant onyx drop.

Glad they found a new home: the luscious wild berries and pink quartz faceted briolettes & aquamarine rondelles.

We’re also pleased that our sweet friend enjoys our simple gift.

Now that we own this baby for three days and I have overcome the initial shock of owing more debts, let’s reflect on the buying experience.

Dana and I have wanted to buy a minivan for over a year now. We knew that we wanted a big, comfortable car for our little family, but we pushed off buying because we didn’t think we really need it. If we keep on thinking that way we would never get the car. A couple of weeks ago, the minivan came up again in our conversation so we decided to go ahead and proceed with our plan since we drive to New Jersey and Pennsylvania almost every two weeks. Our small cars are doing fine, but why not make our road trips more comfortable?

It didn’t take us very long to decide on the Sienna because we don’t have that much choice when it comes to Japanese minivan. It’s either a Toyota Sienna or Honda Odyssey. I am an Acura fan, but the MDX is out of the picture. It’s not roomy enough for the family and it is too pricy for us. My sister has the Odyssey and I am not too fond of it. In addition, my wife is all for Toyota. We took a test drive on the Sienna and that was it.

Dana did research online and found out how much people are paying for their minivans. The nice things about the web is that people share information. She also put in quotes to all Toyota dealers in our area and found quite a wide range. With the price in our hands, it was time for me to do the negotiation. I am not a good negotiator at all so it is helpful that I have a price in hand. I hit several dealers and they gave me such a high price. I asked them to not waste our time and just give me their best offer. Instead of giving me their best deal, they ask me to give them my price. So I wrote down about $500 below the lowest price we were quoted. Then they would asked me how did I come up with that price as if I just came from another planet.

Finally I came to the dealer that offered us the lowest deal. The salesman seemed honest and he also seemed to know that he has offered the best price on the Internet. We went back and forth and I was able to lower $300 off his offer and it was a deal.

After we signed the agreement, the fun part began. He offered me insurance on the smart key system, which costs $500 a piece if I lose one. I passed on the offer and thought to myself if he told me that from the beginning I would have chosen a regular key. Before we made our payment, more offers were thrown at our way from the financial guy. Extended warranties for all the electronics in the car. I passed on the offer as well and said if that was the case then maybe I should just go with the CE for less electronics. Extended warranties on mechanics up to 100,000 miles. I fell for this the last time I bought my Acura TL. I paid $1,200 and the only time I used the warrantee was when I accidentally locked the doors and left the key in the trunk of the car. My TL now is clocking in around 150,000 miles and she still runs as smooth as when I first acquired her. The financial guy dropped the price on the plan almost half and still I didn’t take it. He was not too happy about it.

Anyone who owns a Toyota or an Acura knows that the first 100,000 miles do nothing to the car if you change oil regularly and tune up once in a while. I drove my TL for seven years and I hardly pop the hood to see if anything goes wrong. I am hoping that the Sienna would be the same in term of reliability. So now that I just increased more debts for comfort, I need to get more freelance gigs to pay off my loan.

The other day, I poured out some wine and said “ru” (my southern style for “ruou”). You repeated as “lu” and pointed to the pomegranate, your favorite fruit for the moment.

Yesterday, you broke the music box and told mom “uh oh.” Mom said in Vietnamese “I have to ask grandpa to fix it.” You heard the word “sua,” which means fix, but you associated with, “sua, sua, sua, sua” and pointed to the refrigerator for your milk.

You recognize family members through pictures. If I point to my mother, you would say “ba noi.” If I point to your mom’s mother, you would say “ba ngoai.” If I point to mommy, you would say “ma.” If I point out your baby pictures, you would say “baby.”