Textism’s “Did You Really“:

You’ll agree that everything deserves a second chance. A few months ago Twitter started slowly making sense. I’m not sure I concur that, as some have said, the constraints of 140 characters will force anyone to think or write in a meaningfully new way, but there’s something attractive about this throwaway stream of rants, thoughts, links, asides. Fragments of the lives of others just drift in, make you smile, or wince, or roll your eyes for a second, and then disappear. Very little offered, nothing expected in return. I can get behind that.

Yes! I, too, am a Twitter.

After three consecutive flops, My Tam is finally making a solid comeback with Tro Lai. Maintaining her pop and r&b flavors, her new album is a consistent set—track for track—in both vocal performance and beat production. Her song choices are wise and her writing skill has revealed incredible improvement.

The advantage of singing her own songs is that she knows exactly how they should be delivered. “Nhu Em Doi Anh” is a slow, pop-rock ballad in which she carried the tone and emotion just like the way she has intended: sweet and mellow. “Khi Tinh Yeu Tro Lai,” also written by her, is an instant hit as well. She takes her time pouring her heart out on the simple, electric guitar that accompanied by a thumping r&b beat.

Although she does her own songs good, she does other songs even better. In Quoc Bao’s “Va Em Co Anh,” she proves to have enough juice to take on a gospel-tinged cut. The way she vocalizing and phrasing reminded me of r&b singer like Alicia Keys and Mariah Carey. Unfortunately when she tries to be like them on “Hurt So Much,” the spell breaks. Even with such a marvelous voice couldn’t save her English accents.

Music wise, the Korean producers have done a much better job on here than her previous Vut Bay. They must have recognized that they can’t turn a “toc nau moi tram” into a blonde Korean doll. The slow productions blended in with her voice smoother. Tro Lai indeed is an important return for My Tam and she has reclaimed her title as the princess of Vietnamese pop.

NPR profiles one of my favorites jazz pianist Bud Powell:

Pianist Bud Powell was admired by his contemporaries as an adventurous original with a style marked by unrivaled virtuosity. Today, he is remembered for redrawing the course of modern jazz piano by pioneering bebop improvisation at the keyboard. Though personal misfortune interrupted his career, and shortened his life, at his peak Powell exuded an emotion and power that captivated audiences and musicians alike.

Download the program here.

Engrave Your Tech:

Laser engraving can transform your standardized device into a unique piece of art, or promotional piece.

Check out samples of their work.

A fun read from Textism on book cover design.

Simple, gorgeous portfolio.

One of the advantages of working with an existed design is that you could kick out pages faster. I put together the Commencement page for the School of Business based on a secondary template, but I changed the layout a bit to give more room for the cheerful photos.

One of the strange but cool things about working at the School of Business is the design process. Unlike many sites, which wait until everything is completed to launch, we just put up whatever we get done. For instance, the homepage was launched before any other pages were done. I was surprised when my boss told me to just put up the homepage and continue to work on the interior pages. So we are replacing the old with the new as we go along. In a way, it makes sense because the web is always changing. Even if you wait until everything is complete (might be a year or two later), you still need to make changes later on. In other words, nothing on the web is set in stone.

Nguyen Khang has a fabulous voice, but he needs a talented producer like Rick Rubin to get on him the right track. Asia and Van Son, two of the three notorious Vietnamese music productions, are backing him up, yet they don’t know what to do with him. Ta Muon Cung Em Say, his previous album with Asia, covered popular tunes with not much creative effort. Love, his new release under Van Son, featured new and lesser-known tunes, but they are simply monotonous.

I have to get past nine slow, sleepy cuts in order to hear something that I have wished he would focus his energy on making. It’s actually a combination of “Ai Ve Song Tuong” and “Toi Di Giua Hoang Hon” that set in a simple bluesy, swing arrangement. He didn’t even have to maneuver his voice around the jazz rhythm, but the result is still intoxicating. If he could turn some of these dead-slow tempo ballads into jazz-pop grooves, we would have something invigorating to enjoy. For instance, “Con Chut Van Vuong” would have been a great piece if it were converted into a bluesy ballad. “Tieng Tho Dai” could easily transform into a bossa-nova number and kill off the back up singer while you’re at it. No offense, but I can’t stand Nguyen Khuong’s caramel voice. His spineless whining on “Soi Toc Yeu Yeu” is still remarkably irritating.

Nguyen Khang, my brother, I have mad love for you and would hate to see you go down. If you feel burn out. Take some time off. Get away from Vietnamese music for bit. Go on tour and stop putting out albums that might harm your stature. Move forward, not back. Go further, don’t stop. You’re still blessed with that powerful, rugged and raw voice. Now work on some innovations.

Phuong Quoc Truong aks Pai Gow John plead guilty in casino scam:

According to federal prosecutors, the scheme worked like this: A member of the crew, called the card recorder, would track the order of blackjack cards, relaying them with a hidden transmitter to an off-site associate who would enter the sequence into a computer.

The bribed dealers would then perform false shuffles, creating a “slug” of unshuffled cards. The slug would be returned to the shoe, the device that holds the cards being dealt. When the slug cards were dealt in later rounds, the card recorder would signal associates at the table to dramatically increase their bets on hands the recorder knew would probably win. The off-site associate, using a card-tracking computer program, would relay when the odds were the greatest.

Welcome back Dean Allen.