Give Verve Jazz Masters 30 a spin and it becomes clear how Lester Young was the master of ballad playing. On the slow-burning “I’m Confessin’,” Young made his tenor sax sang like an emotional human voice. On the up-swinging “All Of Me,” he flourished like wild flower in the spring. The classic “Love Me or Leave Me” still gets me every time. Young had such a sensual tone that one must hears it to appreciate it. This collection has been played constantly in my car, home and work for the past week.

David Sedaris:

Strange that being walloped with a heavy spoon made everything seem funnier, but there you have it. My sisters and I would be helpless, doubled over, milk spraying out of our mouths and noses, the force all the stronger for having been bottled up. There were nights when the spoon got blood on it—nights when hairs would stick to the blood—but still our grandmother farted, and still we laughed until the walls shook.

Master P’s “Gutta Time” (satire video)

Santa Claus is coming to Hoa Binh Village

Shaggy, the dancehall virtuoso, returns with Intoxication, an album that will guarantee to get you hooked, make you sweet and irritate the shit out of you. His remake of Mary Hopkin’s “Those Days” has, unfortunately, stuck in my head and I can’t get rid of it. The rhythm is groovy; the flow is unmistakable; the chorus makes me want to slap myself for singing: “Those were the days my friend / we thought they’d never end / we sing and dance forever and a day / la la la la…” Another the track that is ridiculously addictive is “Mad Mad World.” The keyboard riff is as sweet as Starbuck’s Caramel Frappuccino. Need some workout? This album will keep you pumping for 56 minutes.

Tapemasters Inc. linked up T.I.’s I Am (part 2) to keep his name in the game while on house arrest for his weapon charges.

By singing a jazz standard over a rock song or the other way around, Jacqui Naylor invented a style of her own called “acoustic smashes.” With The Color Five, she dressed Gershwin’s “Summertime” lyrics in Gregg Allman’s southern-rock “Whipping Post” and Rod Stewart’s “Hot Legs” in Herbie Hancock’s funk-jazz “Cantaloupe Island.” She pulled both tracks off with her slightly scratched voice, versatile phrasing and rhythm sensitivity. Unfortunately the album loses its spell with mundane pop-rock covers like REM’s “Losing My Religion” and U2’s “I Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.”

I am not a GPS expert and I have only used TomTom, Mio and Nagivon. Between the three, Nagivon 2100 impresses me the most. The user interface is intuitive; the 2D and 3D graphic maps are clean, simple and beautiful. The text-to-speech technology, which speaks the street names, is very helpful. The speed “caution” is also a nice feature to keep you on the limit. I bought the Nagivon last Black Friday for 99 dollars, which included the free lifetime traffic for the value of 99 dollars, and loving it ever since.

We took mom around the city to say goodbye New York. We walked around Times Square, dropped by Rockefeller Center to check out the huge, scintillating Christmas tree, and stopped by Chinatown for some Malaysian food. Although the city was packed, we had a good time and mom seemed to enjoy herself. That’s all that matters.

Khanh Linh needs to cut out that operatic shit. Her wailing soprano on Le Minh Son’s “Tieng Hat Em” is as irritating as screeching chalk against the board. Maybe she shouldn’t have worked with Le Minh Son, the composer who seems to enjoy hearing singers scream all out. Her cover of Duong Thu’s “Tieng Song Bien” isn’t so bad until the annoying adlib kicks in. The Latin-grooved “Tuoi Nui Doi” is the only track that stands out.