As if Mai Thanh Son, Doan Phi, Tuong Nguyen, Tuong Khue and Cardin aren’t wimpy enough, Asia Entertainment added Le Anh Quan, another baby-boy voice, to its male roster. His debut Mot Giay Phut Thoi is a typical Asia’s cookie cutter. Le Anh Quan covers Asia’s songs that have been sung to death like Truc Ho’s “Con Mua Ha” and “Neu Khong Co Em,” Vu Tuan Duc’s “Tinh Da Vut Bay” and “Trang Ua Sao Mo,” and Sy Dan’s “Ngay Vui Nam Ay.” Vocally and instrumentally, none of these tracks stands out. Le Anh Quan’s weak voice and static delivery bring nothing new to the unimaginative productions. Come on Truc Ho, slow down, put some effort into your work and stop releasing these dreadful music.

I used to unable to drink coffee. I would get really shaky after a small cup and could not sleep at night. Those sign affects had gone the day my baby boy was born. I needed coffee to keep me up in the morning when he cried in the middle of the night. Now he sleeps through the night, but coffee has stayed with me and become part of my diet.

I don’t get coffee in the morning anymore because the line at Starbucks is insane. I wait until after lunch to enjoy a cup of grande bold with one or two rolled wafers from Pepperidge Farm. My homeboy Nate who works at Pepperidge Farm would bring over all kind of cookies whenever I go back to Lancaster.

Because I drink coffee at noon, I get really hungry by the time I head home from work. After dinner, I would kick back with a cup of iced Patron Xo Cafe Liqueur to unwind. The only problem is that the liqueur makes me sleepy afterward. If I don’t have to do anything else, I would just roll in bed with Dao. He can jump up and down all he wanted and doesn’t bother me at all.

Last Christmas, we received a Cuisineart’s Espresso Maker from Dana’s brother. Last month her sister’s husband brought back some expresso from El Salvador. My weekend joys have been waking up to a strong expresso and French baguette with fried eggs. I love my eggs sunny side up with black pepper, soy sauce and hot sauce. That’s all I need to start my weekend.

Released in July last year, Matthew David’s HTML5: Designing Rich Internet Applications seems to be rushed to catch the new HTML5 wave. The contents are poorly edited. The sample codes are inconsistent and choked full of obvious errors. The author goes as far as using inline CSS to float elements rather than calling external file or in the page header. This method of coding reminds me of workarounds I have to do inside a CMS, which is not fun at all.

If you’re interested in learning HTML5, Jeremy Keith’s HTML5 for Web Designers is still highly recommended. It’s a concise read, but I return to it again and again. If you want more details with broader topics including HTML5, CSS3, DOM, Microformats and best practices, John Allsopp’s Developing with Web Standards is still an indispensable read.

With over 400 type specimens and diagrams, Designing Type examines each letter in great details. From serif to san serif and from capital to lower case, Karen Cheng discusses the nuances and the characteristics in a font. Her technical knowledge on typography makes this book an indispensable read. Designing Type requires tremendous patience and many re-reads, but without a doubt a must-have text for anyone who is interested in type design.

With Evolution, sexy singer Thanh Ha attempts to get her groove back. No crime in that. Even a MILF needs rejuvenation. Like what Y Van had suggested in “60 Nam Cuoi Doi,” life only lasts 60 years so you might as well make the most out of it. Thanh Ha gives Y Van’s classic a fresh makeover thanks to Roland Casiquin for the up-tempo, rock-up beat.

While some of the productions are superb, the song selection is all over the place. Most tunes are translated and Casiquin can’t seem to help himself from injecting annoying ad-libs and nursery rhymes into the tracks. The jump-off “Diep Khuc Mua Xuan” (written by Quoc Dung) wouldn’t be so irritating if he keeps the machine voices out of the tune. Likewise the little Auto-Tune singing-rapping on Van Phuong’s “Tinh Yeu” is exasperating: “Girl you’re the one / You’re my love / You’re my medicine / When it comes to [love?] makes you the veteran.” These Vietlish tracks, particularly “Nobody But You,” make Thanh Ha sounds like she desperately trying to be hip just like the suit she can’t pull off on the album cover.

“Tinh Voi” (a translated tune) starts off with such a sleepy bossa-nova that Casiquin has to rock it up in order to keep listeners from dozing off. From r & b to dance pop to rock to smooth jazz to soul to rap, the album should have been titled The Evolution of Thanh Ha’s Sandwich.

As someone who follows Ngoc Anh’s career for many years, I didn’t think she could make a bad record if she wanted to. Even under Thuy Nga’s poppy direction, she managed to cut some exceptional tracks with Giet Nguoi Trong Mong and gained a wider audience who only knew her after she appeared on Paris By Night.

Her follow-up release, Ta Tinh, however, proves me wrong. As Thuy Nga pushes Ngoc Anh deeper into the pop hole, she can’t save herself from sinking into the god-aweful productions. Her rendition of Pham Dinh Chuong’s “Nua Hon Thuong Dau” is one of the most tasteless covers I have heard. The bouncy arrangement takes the soul and the lyricism right out of the song. Intead of “Nham mat cho toi tim mot thoang huong xua,” the beat gets on your nerve if you close your eyes.

Ngoc Anh and Bang Kieu’s duet on Ngo Thuy Mien’s “Rieng Mot Goc Troi” is much worse than on Do Le’s “Sang Ngang.” The track sounds like two chicks and a horrendous soprano sax battling out for their own turf. Other than the excellent, heart-rending version of Pham Duy’s “Mua Thu Chet,” Ta Tinh is mediocre at best.

From skin-baring album cover to artifical, soupy hits including Le Xuan Truong’s translated “Cuoi Cung La Hu Vo,” Ngoc Trong’s “Sau Vuong Khoi May” and Hai Nguyen “Em Hay Ve Di,” it’s sad to see such a phenomenal artist getting sucked into Thuy Nga’s money-making machine. With Ta Tinh, Ngoc Anh is selling out her soul more than trying to reach the young listeners.

Two years ago, social media was a hot topic at AACSB conference. This year a talk on social media sounds dated. Nevertheless, Samantha Novick who is the new media specialist for Thunderbird School of Global Management gave an insightful presentation on how to engage alumni using LinkedIn. The communication team in the School of Business doesn’t do much with LinkedIn since the Career Center handles it, which makes more sense in our case.

The last session was on maximizing marketing and communications reach with minimal resources. Stop outsourcing is one of the most effective cost-saving strategy and bringing staff in-house is a great move. Though hiring one person who handles both print magazine and web site design and development is the right method. I am not doubting that print designers can’t create a web site or vice versa, but to get the best from the both world is easier said than done. For me, someone with a strong web design background (HTML, CSS, SEO) and some graphic design skills is a much better fit for business school.

While all the sessions I had attended are informative, what I find most interesting is building a brand culture. How can we create something that is unique for our school? How can we position our school beyond our location, the usual academic programs and the overselling if “leadership?”

I didn’t expect to learn anything technical here, but it seems to me like everyone is struggling with its own CMS and some is looking for workaround using WordPress. Each mentioned about mobile version in development, but none makes use of its current content with responsive web design. I am more surprise that none of these schools is doing anything for the iPad. I could see all the cost of printing magazine, annual reports and publications could be saved if we start thinking about marketing our message for e-readers.

I finally landed in Tampa, Florida at one o’clock in the morning today. My original plan was to fly out at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, but I booked a day late. I made a horrible mistake and caused a great hassle, but in return I had some time to spend with Dao for a day. So I can’t complain.

I didn’t go to bed until 2 a.m. and woke up at 7 for some breakfast. The last thing I needed was to listen to some inspirational speech, but I have to handed to Donna Typson who delivered a motivating talk on “Peak Performance.” She was engaging in sharing her personal accounts and also providing some great advices. Here’s are a few wisdoms to keep in mind:

1. Don’t let your job take away your time with your children
2. We live our life in chapters. You are the only one who can give yourself permission to turn a new page
3. To be successful, you need to share time, energy, knowledge and contact

After her speak, I went up and bought her children’s book titled The Red Bow.

Followed by Typson’s was a presentation from The Mihaylo College of Business and Economics on “To Brand or Rebrand: Leveraging Research and Technology to Build B-School Brands.” Mihaylo is in the process of building its own social network using Moodle. The site has the following features: My Mihaylo, connections, classes, workspace, docs, bridge and goals.

After lunch, Tim Westerbeck, president of Eduvantis, gave a presentation on “Building a Brand Culture.” Here are the five principles he highlighted:

1. Identify your core institutional values
2. Codify the core values as “constitution”
3. Embody core values in everything you do
4. Develop policies and practices reflecting the core values
5. Deliver a service experience consistent with core values/brand

The last presentation of the day was from Daniels College of Business on how the communication team built danielspioneer.com from brainstorming to getting feedback to implementing site using WordPress. In a way, this site is somewhat similar to our “At the Center of It All.” The second half of the presentation is on “Managing Communications When Things Go Wrong” by Darlene Rotch, Chief Executive Officer, Panorama Public Relations.

For dinner, I went to Champp’s with five other people for informal networking. We had hamburgers and exchanged business cards. I am looking forward toward tomorrow’s programs which are “New rules of engagement: How to elevate your business school’s Web 2.0 to the next level” and “Maximizing your marketing and communications reach with minimal resources.” After that, I will head back to Virginia to be with Dana and Dao. I miss them so much already.

Lat weekend my sister gave me a dozen of American CDs I left at her house before I moved out. Unlike me who tend to throw junks out, my sister keeps everything. She drives me nuts sometimes, but I am glad that she still kept some of these old joints.

I went through the pile of CDs and spotted R. Kelly’s 1993 12 Play, which brought back so much memories even though I never liked the entire album because of the rap tracks. Let’s face it. R. Kelly can sing, but he can’t rap. He made a great choice of abandoning rapping altogether in his later releases. Except for “Sadie,” an emotional dedication to his mother, 12 Play was a booty-call soundtrack, especially with tunes like “Sex Me,” ‘Your Body’s Callin'” and “Bump N’ Grind.”

When I tried to tune my wife into 12 Play, I played one of the hottest hits in the 90s and she told me to turn it off. The bass gave her a headache. While I see nothing wrong with a little “Bump N’ Grind,” she doesn’t seem to “need someone, someone like me to satisfy [her] every need.” I guess that’s how marriage goes!

This is the forth time I have seen the white man in his 60s sitting in Starbucks pretending to talk on the phone. The first time I thought he did until he took his hand away from his ear without a phone in his hand. He was just rambling about the government, economy and some sort of CIA. I didn’t quite understand what he was talking about, but I hope that he doesn’t do anything crazy at Starbucks.