My wife has made a wise choice on the Baby Trend Jogger Travel System. I have been using it for five weeks now and each day I can’t wait to take Duke out for a little ride. Every time I take him out for a jog, he would sleep the whole way through.

As soon as I start to jog, Duke’s eyes begin to close as well. He enjoys the jog more than the walk. With the big back wheels, the stroller runs smoothly even though Duke prefers a little bit rocky. Even when I hit a hump or a pothole, he still sleeps. The nice thing about the big wheels is that I could just pull the stroller up the porch steps without waking him up. Dana and I took him to the mall last weekend and he behaved really well in the stroller until he was hungry or wet.

Space wise, Baby Trend takes up almost the entire Acura’s trunk. Still, folding the stroller is a piece of cake. Just pull the triggers and press down to close. To unfold, just lift up the stroller handle until you hear the clicks. It is very convenience. If you want to take your baby out for a jog or a stroll without breaking your bank, Baby Trend Jogger Travel System is highly recommend it.

Jazz has always been about collaboration. Even if the musicians have never played with each other before, they have to work together as a team to bring out the beauty and the liveliness of jazz. The most challenging aspect of jazz collaboration is not how well each individual play, but how well he plays with his partners despite stylistic differences. How did Ella Fitzgerald’s girlish voice and Louis Armstrong’s gruff voice worked out so marvelously? How did Thelonious Monk’s choppy piano style flow with John Coltrane’s fluid saxophone? How did Chick Corea’s virtuosic piano meet Bela Fleck’s virtuosic banjo? Here is a list of 20 collaborative albums I have enjoyed enormously. The albums are listed in alphabetical order instead of from top to bottom. I cannot put a ranking to these works because it would be like comparing apple to orange:

At Basin Street (Clifford Brown & Max Roach)
The Avant-Garde (John Coltrane & Don Cherry)
Ben Webster Meets Oscar Peterson (Ben Webster & Oscar Peterson)
Corea/Hancock (Chick Corea & Herbie Hancock)
Ella and Louis (Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong)
The Enchantment (Chick Corea & Bela Fleck)
First Time! The Count Meets the Duke (Duke Ellington & Count Basie)
Getz Gilberto (Stan Getz & João Gilberto)
Immortal Concerts New York City, Birdland Club. 1954 (Art Blakey & Clifford Brown)
John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman (John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman)
The Complete Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington Sessions (Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington)
Louis Armstrong Meets Oscar Peterson (Louis Armstrong & Oscar Peterson)
Metheny Mehldau Quartet (Pat Metheny & Brad Mehldau)
Side by Side (Itzhak Perlman & Oscar Peterson)
Sketches of Spain (Miles Davis & Gil Evans)
Skol (Oscar Peterson & Stephane Grapelli)
Somethin’ Else (Cannonball Adderley & Miles Davis)
Sonny Meets Hawk! (Sonny Rollins & Coleman Hawkins)
Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall (Thelonious Monk & John Coltrane)
Two Men with the Blues (Wille Nelson & Wynton Marsalis)

Duke is a little active fellow and he doesn’t like repetition. I do the same thing twice and he begins to cry. As a first time parent, I was having a hard time coming up with new activities to play with him until my cousin gave me Baby Play for Duke’s full-month celebration.

With 100 easy-to-do techniques, concise explanations and photographic demonstrations, I turn to Baby Play again and again to keep Duke stimulate. He loves cycling when I change him. I could feel the excitement when I give him a little massage after he takes a bath. When he cries, an airplane swinging with jazz would calm him down. He looks so darn cute with his little arms hugging around the roll-up towel on his tummy as I rock him from side to side. He even tries to pull his head up.

Since the book is divided into age range (from zero up to 12 months), I only got through the newborn section. I’ll get there when Duke get there. In addition to the doctor seal of approval, what makes Baby Play worthwhile is that I don’t have to have fancy toys to do these fun activities with Duke.

While going through my external hard drive, I came across a bunch of sites I have designed in the past. Back in 2000, I started a web design company called d3studio.net. After losing the domain to a hosting company, I went on and created Visualgui.com. I am not sure if any of you here today were there back then. In any rate, here are some entertaining sites for your enjoyment:

D3Studio.net version 1
D3Studio.net version 2
D3Studio.net version 3
D3Studio.net version 4
D3Studio.net version 5

Revenge is best served cold, but Chan-wook Park’s Oldboy serves a disturbingly imaginative dish of revenge that is bold, bloody, beautiful and brilliant.

The cutest creepiest creature I have ever seen.

OC Register‘s “Sexy cafes are Little Saigon’s twist on Hooters“:

This is where lingerie-clad, spandex-sporting, high heels-wearing baristas make your coffee, whip up your smoothies and refill your green tea.

Via Zen Corner

iLoveNgocLan.com is auctioning a lacquer portrait of Ngoc Lan & Kieu Nga, a photo collage artwork and a red hat she wore in “Lien Khuc Me” video. All the money will go into Ngoc Lan Foundation to help poor and needy children in Viet Nam. You can read more info on the action in Vietnamese here.

This fighting action looks surprisingly good.

A wicked mashup of Eminem’s “Cleaning Out My Closet” and Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab” by Cookin Soul.