Vinh Pham

I was installing Java JRE today and something caught my eye that really bothered me. The sentence they showed on screen goes like this:

“by installing Java, you will be able to experience the power of Java by Sun Micro…”

and

“the Java powered Internet is now available to you. You can experience the wide variety of fun”

I don’t know if its just me, but these two sentences are very awkward. The first one is repetitive, and the second one is using a passive voice.
Am I wrong? Any English lit. majors out there care to comment??

I think I wrote about this before, but I have to say it again.

So, right now in California the Super Lotto pot is pretty big ( I am not sure how much because I don’t keep track ). It’s amazingly funny how every time the lottery gets big, tons of people turn out to buy lottery tickets…

This makes NO statistical OR logical sense…

How does a bigger lottery pot increases YOUR chance of winning???? And if you only play when the lottery reaches, oh lets say, $300 millions, does that mean $299 million is too little for you????

I don’t know about all these “other” people, but I’d be damn happy to win a $1 million lottery. Heck, i’d be happy to win $5 on a scratcher!

But aside from being a raging gambleholic, I don’t care too much for getting rich through lotteries. I would rather do something cool and capitalize on other’s people stupidity.

Honestly… That’s basically what success is: Figure out a way to capitalize on someone else’s ignorance…

If you read my blog before, you know I support immigrants and I think a good guest worker program would be very beneficial to them as well as the US. However, today I saw a news story that was really stupid.

An immigrant woman came to America, had a child, and then got deported back to Mexico. Her child is allowed to stay in the US. Ok, I am pretty sure we all know this is messed up.

However, what this woman did next is stupid. She went to the Mexican government and lobbied them to help her. Ok?? honestly.. I support immigration and all, but WTF can the Mexican government do for you?? They don’t even like the US.

Then she went on to say this on TV “the US is the one who broke the law first, by for letting people people cross their borders”. Ok?? WTF again. I am not sure what to say to this. This is like shooting yourself in the foot, or something…. I am not sure… I just know its a really really stupid argument and it would benefit her, as well as other immigrants, to just shut up.

Anyways.. Have you ever wondered if all this news about China’s poor manufacturing quality and toxic contamincation could be a classic case of “wag the dog”? Seriously, if you are a conspiracy theorist, it wouldn’t be hard to believe that the US propaganda machine is defaming China because they are afraid of China’s rising power…. Food for thought.

Although I normally abhor president Bush and everything he does, I do find one thing in common with him.

I do believe that if we leave Iraq without a good exit strategy, the Iraqi people will suffer just like Vietnamese people did when America left our country.

I can’t believe this story posted on yahoo news: War analogy strikes nerve in Vietnam

They interviewed a bunch of f@cKEn commies and made it seem like ALL Vietnamese people wanted America to leave. That’s simply NOT true. After America abandoned us, our country was ransacked by commies, our dads were tortured in prison, our moms raped, and our villages were burned to the ground.

To this very day Vietnam is still a third world country. The government steals from the people, and children… CHILDREN!!!… still walk the street begging for food to eat.

I for one, wish America did NOT abandon my country.. And I hope they will not ABANDON the Iraqi people.

ABC Family makes me sick every time they run an ad. How can they call them themselves a “family” network when they run shows like “Greek” and “Wildfire”. These shows teaches you about binge drinking and promiscuity… Call me backward, but I don’t think those are good “family” values.

Whatever happened to real family shows like “step by step”, “sister sister”, and “full house”. Those shows taught good family values and virtues.

How about a show with Asians in it? Teaching Asian values like respecting your parents, getting an education, and working hard?

“Opening cans and killing spiders.”

I think that’s what Kelly said. I was half as sleep by that time, but from what I think I heard, I feel bad for Alex. Just a couple minutes before that, I heard screaming and woke up to find Alex trying to kill something crawling on the ceiling. I am guessing its a spider…

But hey, at least we’re not this guy: Woman sets fire to ex-husband’s penis.

To be frank with you, I never cared much about animal rights. Of course I wouldn’t hurt an animal for no reason, but you won’t see me protesting for animal rights any time soon. This is probably because I grew up in Vietnam, a country where hunger dictates the association animals = food. You’d be dead if you think differently…

My girlfriend on the other end, is the opposite. She cares a lot for animals. She has told me numerous stories of coming to the rescue of injured animals. One time she picked up an injured bird and turned it into the SPCA. Me, I would have thrown it back in the tree and let it tough it out.

I admire what my gf does, because she is genuine about it. She doesn’t do it for credit or glory, she does it because she cares. This will be good for when we have kids.

But anyways, the point of my comment is related to this whole Michael Vick incident. He getting a$$ rap3d by the media for his crimes. People are using this opportunity to trash him and drag his reputation through the mud. But I beg to ask the question, is this really necessary? and more importantly, is all this rage genuine?

The people who are buying Vick dog toys, or using Vick jerseys as bedding for their dogs, do they really care about animals rights? Or are they just buying into the hype? I swear, some of them are just doing it because they don’t like the Falcons…

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am NOT condoning his actions, but at the same time, I don’t think what he did deserves to be paraded around by the media either. For me personally, I find it more disgusting when celebrities drive drunk and gets away with it.

My gf forced me to join the gym today. I guess after a weekend of seeing all my buff friends ( bastards.. ), she decided I had to get buff and fast!

Its nothing new. She has been egging me to join the gym for a couple of months now, but I always found a reason not to. She calls it an excuse, I call it an “inconvenient” truth.

The goal is for me to join the gym and workout to a) build muscles b) stimulate my metabolism so that I would eat more. The end result would be: buff Vinh.

Buff Vinh - now that’s a novel concept. For as long as I can remember, I have always been as skinny as a toothpick. My dad and my brother are both skinny, so it is no wonder I am the same way. I try to eat a lot, and I eat very unhealthy as well, yet I cannot gain a single pound. The heaviest I have ever been is 127lbs at 5′ 6″.

Eh, its a good thing I am not yolked. I imagine that if I was a big guy, a lot of people would get hurt. You know… a lot of repressed anger. On top of that, I think being skinny makes me who I am. I don’t think people would see me the same way if I was big.

Anyways… Patrons of Peak Performance in Davis, prepare the way, here I come!!!

“You’re Asian, quit humiliating yourself” Seriously, I have no idea why this line is funny. It’s the catch phrase for Rush Hour 3. You hear it all time on TV nowadays.

Can someone please tell me why this line is so funny… What is so “humiliating” about an Asian person speaking French? I am pretty damn sure Asian people speak all types of languages, including French. Are Asian people suppose to go “ching chong ching chong, me no English”?

Hella stupid.

I was snooping on playpure.com today and found a blog entry by Bigi Lui that I thought was very interesting. He discussed the big disconnect between a programmer and a graphics designer. Basically, the programmer does not know how to make things look good, but on the other hand, the designer doesn’t know how to code. Bigi suggested that one of the solution to this problem is to find someone who is good at both, however, the problem is, those people are very hard to find!

I agree with Bigi, but I would like to offer one more solution: Me.

I am the happy-go-between a programmer and a designer. I am the guy that can take the design and make it functional with the code. This is because I am not good with coding enough to be a full-pledged developer, however, I know enough to understand what the code can and is supposed to do. The same is true with my design skills. Although I do not have that “design” eye, I know what good design looks like and I know how to make design into functional pages. With knowledge of both fields, I make things work.

As my freelancing business begin to prosper, this is becoming more clear. Companies need people like me because I can help them take their back-end and work with the designer to make it look good. In today’s world, even on the web, you gotta look good!

The other day, someone called me an “HTML Guy”. At first I did not really know what to make of it, but now, its starting to make more sense. In today’s Web2.0 phenomenon, there is a high demand for people with my skill set.

The hardest part is… I have to stay on top of my game. I have to keep up with two different fields of computing. I have to stay up to date with the greatest and latest technologies, not to mention all the acronyms! Wish me luck!