While 40% of Americans didn’t read a single book last year, AI agents were fed with millions of physical books. Original books were destroyed after they were scanned. We are so screwed.

If you’re using a desktop computer, go ahead and destroy Hahchili.com. Why? Because it’s fun as heck!

In our unwritten agreement, I was responsible for the external relations of our HaH! chili products. I created the logo, designed the labels, developed the website, and, of course, promoted the products on social media. My partner, on the other hand, was responsible for making the products from scratch.

This season, she delegated much of the production to me. I must admit, I found the process of making hot sauce to be quite intensive—and literally tear-jerking. It certainly made me appreciate her efforts much more. Furthermore, I felt bad that I hadn’t gotten involved in production earlier. Then again, if I had, I wouldn’t have created the products.

I am starting to get used to the fumes, but they were powerful even from just washing the peppers. Cooking the peppers intensified the fumes even more; my eyes were watering and my whole body smelled like hot peppers. Grinding and filtering them was a tedious but essential process, and the whole batch needed to be cooked once more before bottling.

Seeing the final product was worth all the effort—the beautiful color of the sauce paired with the simple typographic label, topped off with a red seal that makes it look official. Of course, HaH! chili sauce is extraordinary and enhances any dish. I stand behind it. I guarantee it.

My Dearest Vương,

Our lil’ King turns eight today. You are still our youngest and loveliest. Everyone in our family adores you. You are sweet when you want to be and you are smart when you want to be. You are who you are and you only do things you want. No one can pressure you into doing anything. I love that about you. You have a strong mind and you have confidence in yourself. Don’t lose that.

You are a quick learner when you want to learn. Reading became second nature to you even though you didn’t like to read. You could do math when you focused. With Xuân’s teaching, you learned how to ride a bike with ease. Your relationship with Xuân has not been as great as it used to be, which makes me a little sad. You were so tight before. He always took great care of you. It is inevitable that siblings argue and fight, but don’t take his love for granted. You guys are wonderful brothers.

It is also natural that you’re closest to your mom and she loves you more than anything in this world—even more than me. I don’t stand a chance to compete with you on that. Of course, I have nothing but love for you. I have always enjoyed the time we spent skiing together. I am looking forward to the winter so we can roam all over the mountains with you.

Love you to the moon and back,
Dad

I bought this bottle a while ago, but hadn’t had a chance to taste it until tonight. I popped it open to celebrate the King’s birthday. He’s our youngest son who’s turning eight.

At 117.9 proof, Green River’s Full Proof is strong. It is perfect for a cold, rainy weather. It warms me up immediately. Green River’s Full Proof is bold and sweet with warming spice, caramel and hints of cinnamon and mints. It finishes rich and lingering. I love sipping it neat or a cube of ice to bring down the sweetness and to bring out the flavors.

This bottle would compliment our HaH! chili sauce. I’ll definitely make a batch with it.

One of the advantages web-based books have over traditional printed books is dynamic design. The cover of my web-based book, Vietnamese Typography, is a perfect example. As of this writing, the title and the author’s name are set in 60 different display typefaces. Each time readers land on the cover page, a typeface is loaded at random. A traditional print book can’t do that.

Launched as my final thesis for my MA in graphic design, Vietnamese Typography originally came out in both print and web versions. The cover was set in Adobe Garamond Premier, designed by Robert Slimbach. Its high-contrast display styles made Garamond Premier ideal for the book’s large title on the cover. For a book on typography, however, I didn’t want to limit the cover to just one typeface.

After the book launched, I finished my graduate program. The project was complete, and I didn’t need to touch it again. For a year or so, I left it untouched, but then I started to miss it. I began playing around with the site—mostly updating content and adding new typefaces that support Vietnamese. I expanded the type recommendations and reworked the samples. At this point, the web version was drastically different from the print edition. From fixing errors to adding new material, making changes to the web version was instantaneous.

As I collected more typefaces that supported Vietnamese, I wanted to showcase them in the book. In addition to the recommendation and sample sections, the cover was the best place to show off display typefaces—a dynamic feature possible only on the web. This was one of the main reasons I decided to drop the print edition entirely for the second edition of Vietnamese Typography and focus all my attention and resources on the web version.

For the second edition, I decided to add diacritics to the book title (Việtnamese) and the author’s name (Trương). I wanted to demonstrate that these display typefaces can be used to set Vietnamese text. To see all of these typefaces, readers would have to revisit the homepage repeatedly or keep refreshing the page. To save them time, here is the list of all 60 display typefaces:

1. Alright
2. Aneto
3. ACE
4. Atlante
5. Ballinger
6. Bild
7. Bree
8. Bricolage Grotesque
9. Bungee
10. Calistoga
11. Canicule
12. Case
13. Change
14. Dattilo DJR
15. Ebony
16. Ethera
17. Fit
18. Fragen
19. Fruktur
20. Gimlet
21. Glyptic DJR
22. Harriet
23. Horizona
24. Job Clarendon
25. Kuhlman
26. Kukka
27. Kyrios
28. Lavishe
29. Lentiform
30. Loes
31. Megazoid
32. Name Sans
33. NaN Druid
34. NaN Druid Sans
35. NaN Fiasco
36. NaN Holo
37. NaN Jaune
38. NaN Metrify
39. NaN Rage
40. NaN Serf
41. NaN Spaceland
42. NaN Success
43. NaN Tragedy
44. NaN Tresor
45. NaN Weiss
46. Neue DIN
47. Nickel Gothic
48. Oi
49. Only Extended
50. Ottavio
51. Pennyroyal DJR
52. Phudu
53. Poltawski Nowy
54. Queens
55. Rhody
56. Roslindale
57. Sequenz
58. Soprano
59. Warbler
60. Xunga

Hôm nay mưa da diết cả ngày. Trong văn phòng nhìn ra cửa sổ lòng man mác buồn. Nghĩ đến những mối quan hệ khác nhau trong cuộc sống. Từ người thân thương trong gia đình đến những người trong xã hội. Cách người với người cư xử nhau. Tôi cố gắng không bị lôi cuốn vào những controversies dù người trong hay người ngoài. Những gì trong quá khứ cứ để nước mưa trôi đi. Còn những gì trong tương lai xa vời vợi cứ đến đâu hay đến đó. Tôi chỉ muốn tập trung vào hiện tại. Sống sao cho nhẹ nhàng và thoải mái. Ai không ưa mình hoặc thậm chí ghét mình cũng mặc kệ. Chỉ chú tâm đến những người còn quan tâm đến mình là đủ rồi. Đời sống là thế, không cần phải là người tốt hoàn toàn. Không cần biết ai nghĩ sao về mình mà mình tự biết chính mình. Có những mối quan hệ tôi đã gạt bỏ cho dù người thân hay người dưng. Tôi không ngại mình không phải làm người tốt đẹp trong mắt người khác. Tôi cũng rút ra nhiều kinh nghiệm rằng lúc nào cũng phải giữa một khoảng cách trong bất cứ mối quan hệ. Có khi thân thiết quá cũng trở nên kẻ thù. Có khi làm ơn mắc oán. Thôi thì chẳng thà mích lòng trước đặng lòng sau. Thôi vài dòng trải lòng trong một ngày mưa.

A few fun videos had been added to the HaH! Chili playlist including the hot sauce challenges.

Xuân and I had been reading Vera Kochanowsky’s 101 Haiku for 15 minutes a day. The haikus are short, but they introduction is 35 page long. I love how Kochanowsky approaches haiku. For example, she writes:

In our modern life we are rarely encouraged to observe little things. Although we may look at our surroundings (when our eyes are not glued to our cell phones), we often don’t see what is really there. We don’t take the time to make those connections that fill our world, and which can bring us a clearer understanding of ourselves and our relationship to all that exists, one little piece at a time. Haiku can be a form of meditation, a focus on a particular object or experience that has elicited a feeling or even just some kind of response in us, a spark of recognition, a connection to something we have known or experienced before. Each of these moments of understanding becomes a tiny piece of beauty in the mosaic of our lives.

Kochanowsky continues:

The idea of “less is more” is nothing new. In art and music there are plenty of examples. The human mind enjoys and even revels in these intentional gaps. A good art teacher will tell you that when you draw an object or a person you can leave certain things out. Some lines can and should be lighter, and some can be left out altogether. Dark areas enhance the lighter spaces, and vice versa. Knowing what to minimize or leave out is where the artist shows his or her mastery. The viewer’s mind must fill in these gaps. It regularly does so with surprisingly little effort.

In music the blank or light space is silence. The musician’s canvas is time. Our minds always compare the present moment to what has just been heard. The impact of what will come is shaped by what is played or not played in this moment. One can get used to loud sounds if the ear is bombarded with them continually. But if there is a moment of silence just before it, a loud cymbal crash will have a more startling impact. The best musicians know how to use silence, the spaces between notes, to move their listeners.

After the long introduction, the concise haikus were a breeze to read through. They are beautiful. Here are a few of my personal favorites:

Your voice, so soothing,
like warm butter over grits.
Let me not forget.

Someone spilled paint
all over the fall mountains—
each leaf, a masterpiece.

Cold night in the woods,
sparks fly up from the campfire
to mingle with stars.

Xuân is getting better at recognizing the words, but has yet to understand the meanings behind the poems. We’ll reread the haikus slower the second time around.

We made the first batch of our HaH! Chili sauce for this season. As a bourbon lover, I had to infuse some bourbon into our sauce. Allow me to introduce the Limited Bourdon Edition.

By infusing the award-winning New Riff (Bottled In Bond) bourbon into our original HaH! Chili sauce, we elevate the art of hot sauce to the next level. Handcrafted with fresh ingredients (peppers, garlic, shallot, vinegar, and salt) and combined with the spirit of Kentucky, our bourbon chili sauce is not only Hot as Hell, but also bursting with flavors including sweet vanilla, butterscotch, clove, cinnamon, and mint. Check out the introduction video.