A splendid composition from Duke Ellington with a breathless solo (cue in around 2:25) from saxophonist Harry Carney.

Yes, IE6 gotta go.

Decision Sciences gets a new design.

I am dead tired. The weekend has been rainy and dreary, but we managed to get the house cleaned up. The only task left to do before moving in next weekend is getting the carpets clean. We’ll hire professional cleaners of course. Do you have any recommendation in the area?

Now that the house is winding down, we will be concentrating on our new and even bigger challenge. Ready or not, he will come in 44 days or less. We still have nothing for him except for the gifts from Visualgui.com readers and the crib from my sister-in-law. A couple days ago right in the middle of the night, Dana put my hand on her belly and I could feel the little guy kicking his mommy. Now I can’t hardly wait to see him. We’ll have a great time together I am sure.

The eleven songs on Madeleine Peyroux’s Bare Bones, her fourth album, sound as though they are old ballads, yet they are all new tunes she has co-written. Like Billie Holiday, Peyroux knows how songs would like to be sung and how to make the lyrics come to life even though she interprets them in such a laid-back sensitivity. Unlike Lady Day, however, Peyroux sways us to look on the shinier side of life.

Stripping the emotional core down to its bare bones, Peyroux relaxes her flow as she encourages us to do the same with our lives. “Stop all this talk / Turn off the telephone / Open up another bottle,” she advises on “River of Tears.” “Instead of acting crazy chasin’ things that make you mad / Keep your heart ahead it’ll lead you back to what you have,” she suggests on “Instead.” On “Homeless Happiness,” she sounds like she had lived it: “A bench by the shore a coat for my pillow / A future with no guarantee / The world was a rat race and I had my fill oh / No hurries no worries for me.”

Except for “You Can’t Do Me,” the only track that gets a notch of rock up, the fantastic instrumentations allowed her words to shine through. Producer Larry Klein doesn’t allow the accompaniments to overshadow Peyroux’s hypnotic vocals. As a result, Bare Bones is a perfect record for kicking back, slowing down and enjoying life.

I am sort of watching this Vietnamese document.

A great clip of birds flying and resting on the power lines.

Dana bought me Compound W and the pain stopped the first time I applied the gel. I should have done that three months ago instead of cut it off and bled and swollen again and again.

Ho Quynh Huong’s new album kicks off with “Hay Noi Loi Yeu,” an energetic club joint with a Latin flavor. She than exercises her vocals on a powerful r & b ballad, “Can Phong Mua Roi.” Unfortunately the album plummeted on the third track, “Love of My Life.” Her English is somewhat comprehensible, but the lyrics and the accent are still horrendous. Like the current state of Wall Street, the album never pulls itself back up after that. What lacking is the creative Nang Luong.

The clip of Kevin Mahogany interacting with the drummer brings back the good old memories when Dana and I were still dating. It was the first concert we went together. We had no idea who Kevin Mahogany, but we were hooked the minute the big man with a big, beautiful tone stepped on stage. (Another great find, big bro. I have to see you try something like that at Quan Van Nova next time. Deal?)