BRAVIA Paint Ad (V for Visual-stimulating)
Dove’s Evolution Commercial (Beauty is how you make it)

After reading Dieu’s personal chaos, 2pac’s “Hold On Be Strong” comes to mind. I want to share it because his words had helped me:

I know them ain’t tears coming down your face. Wipe your eyes. In this world, only the strong survive, you know. I know it’s hard out there: welfare, AIDS, earthquakes, muggings, carjackings. Yeah, we got problems. But believe me when I tell you, things always get better. God don’t like ugly. And God don’t like no quitters. You know what Billie Holiday said baby, “God bless the child that can hold his own.”

Keep your head up, boo. When it’s on, it’s on!

As the web team putting on our thinking caps to redesign Vassar’s homepage, we looked at other schools to see what they are doing. The list below consists of the sites I like the most:

Bennington (artsy, elegant)
Brown (slick, organized)
BU (clean, simple)
St. John (neat typography)
MIT (changes daily, same as Vassar’s cuurent design)
New School (open, minimal)
Mills (tight, simple)
MICA (unique crops of photo)
Providence (consistent – one design for all)
Simmons (colorful, tight)
SFAI (contemporary, edgy)
SFCM (muted, nice type treatment)
OTIS (nice illustrations)
ACCD (dig the 4-column layout)

Duong Ngoc Lang’s take on Vietnamese criticism, “Khen Che Van Nghe,” is hilarious. In his conclusion, he stated that if you want headaches, jump into criticism. He’s not kidding. By the way, can you guys point me to some Vietnamese critics?

“I see no changes. Wake up in the morning and I ask myself.
Is life worth living should I blast myself?” -Tupac Shakur

No, I am not that depress (not yet). I can’t recall that I have ever been depressed even though I write like I am. But releasing the demon inside your head through writing isn’t so bad. At least writing helps me calm, relax, and say, “fuck the world” (that exists in my head), if I want to. I know people who write to help them get through their depressions, and I know people who are psychologically fucked-up because they have nowhere to escape, not even on a blank piece of paper. The ones that survived tend to do much better, not only with themselves but also with others, like their mission is to make life more beautiful. On the other hand, the ones couldn’t pull through suffer tremendously. So being able to write is a gift, not a curse. So let’s the trumpet blows, and “Release Yo’ Delf.”

Y Lan is one of those mamas who refuse to grow up. No crime in that, although you want to smack her sometimes for acting like a girl who just received her first period when she’s in her fifties. Even she admitted herself that she was born with it, so there is no point of changing it. The lady is just young at heart, soul, and sex.

When I first experienced her newest album, Hoi Tinh, I couldn’t figure out what the hell she was doing. There are folks, jazz, ballads, and even medley all roll into one. After several spins, however, I realized that the album is a huge sexual temptation. Right off the bat, she asks you (“Hoi Tinh”), love. Can you hear that she’s still calling you (“Con Nghe Tieng Goi”)? She can’t sleep at night waiting for the sun to rise so she can see you, love. You are her everything (“Anh La Tat Ca”), and it is you who takes all her worries away. She has enough of her old man who can’t seem to satisfy her anymore, as she confesses, “Thoi thi… thoi thi… nhu the cung song / Bao nam… bao nam chan goi trong hong gi dau? / Dang cay hon tui da nhieu / Le tuon nhu do tram chieu kho dau.” She needs a younger guy, someone who has enough strength to flip her world upside down because she is as wet as “Thac Do” (a Trinh Cong Son’s ballad). She also makes sure that you could hear her moaning and groaning, instead of scatting in the swing rendition of “Ao Lua Ha Dong.” And to make things more arousing, she’s mindfucking you up with “Khoa Than Dem,” a folks tune with lust, provocative lyrics that are full of lovemaking metaphors.

Y Lan is bad, but bad in a good way. If you’re a Catholic boy, I discourage you from listening to Hoi Tinh, because she will make you wanting to commit adultery. And that’s against the Lord.

Unlike Jay-Z, Diddy never gets the proper respect as a rapper even though he’s been in the game for who knows how long. That doesn’t bother him, and he doesn’t let it stop him from being an entertainer either. He still does what he does best: makes hip-hop hits for the broads. Somebody has to do it, and he knows he can’t do it alone; therefore, he invited everyone—from Nas to Twista to Big Boi to Mary J. Blige to Christina Aguilera to Jamie Foxx—to help his ass out with Press Play, his latest album. And unlike Cam’ron, Diddy makes sure he gets all the best beats to support his weak lyrics. Almost all the productions are tight to make you want to dance all night, and forget his shitty rhymes like, “Now that I have you here / Girl, let me take you there / Nothing can compare to fucking, fucking, my dear.”

Can depressing songs really fuck you up? Tom Reynolds was screwed by nihilistic shit so bad that he has to pen a book entitled I Hate Myself and Want to Die: The 52 Most Depressing Songs You’ve Ever Heard. Instead of analyzing how the suicidal tunes make you want to blast yourself, Reynolds makes them sound depressingly hilarious with his wit, incisive, heartless and sometimes silly criticisms.

With the list including Ray Peterson’s “Tell Laura I Love Her,” The Carpenter’s “Good-bye to Love,” Phil Collin’s “In the Air Tonight,” Celine Dion’s “All By Myself,” and Bonnie Taylor’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” Reynolds discusses the lyrics (mostly his own interpretation of the stories), examines the vocal deliveries (how horrible Mariah Carey sounds when she takes the chorus of “Without You” to the next octave), and scrutinizes instrumental sounds that make you want to pull your hair out. Even though Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” made the cut, I ain’t mad at him. The song meant to be miserable, and she was “telling a story nobody wants to hear.” Who wants to listen to a song about lynching with “bulging eyes,” “twisted mouth,” and “burning fresh?” But I must confess that I dig the part where she mournfully croons, “Here is fruit for the crows to pluck / For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck / For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop / Here is a strange and bitter crop.” I guess I am pretty fucked up myself for enjoying such a horrendous image.

Besides a few truly depressing songs like “Strange Fruit,” Reynold’s list includes sorry-ass songs like Kenny Rogers’ “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town.” Apparently, the song is about a “cold heartless bitch Ruby” who goes out of town to fuck other men while her husband who is a crippled Viet Nam vet rolls around in his wheelchair. Reynolds points out that listening to the song makes “you feel guilty about even having legs.” You may say that he’s a soulless dickhead, but that what makes his writing appeal to me. At least there’s another asshole who is unapologetic about what he thinks.

Two of Hov’s joints from his forthcoming album has leaked. Both “Show Me What You Got” and the title-track “Kingdom Come” are produced by Just Blaze sampling from Rick James’ “Super Freak” to horn lines that were used in Wreckx ‘N Effect’s “Rump Shaker.” Jigga still got the flow and the bravado (“Hovie Hov is the coldest / I’m just getting better with time.”) that make him one of the greatest rappers of all time. And he might be “the hip-hop saver” as he has claimed. We’ll find out on November 21, when the album drops.

Meet Kelly, a Vietnamese-American video blogger majoring psychology. In her dedication to cheaters, she breaks it down psychologically and scientifically “Why Do Men Cheat?” And I find her view to be fascinating that men has a penis and that we have no clue where to put it. Cute, right? Damn, don’t you want to go out with a mindreader like that? You don’t even need to say a word, she just knows what you want. But be careful, she could be a mindfucker too.