A happy new year to all of you

I know I am a couple of days late, but it's the thought that counts.

Here's wishing all of you a Happy New Year and a great 2007 ahead! I hope this year is way, way better than anything you have ever experienced so far and may it be the stepping stone to a better, brighter future.

Now, back to my usual stuff.

So the new year came and went without too much pomp. It was a subdued celebration with a quiet dinner by the Singapore river at Boat Quay along with my family and my in-laws. A few beers, a few bites and then back home before the clock struck the magic number.

We did manage to catch my family on Skype (cause that's the only decent VoIP software available for the Mac) for a video call to wish all of them. And that too on the stroke of 12.

The day before, we had taken my in-laws to the standard Sentosa Island tour that we usually take all our guests to. This time, though, we decided that we all would not see the whole thing along with the guests. My daughter and I have seen these exhibits a zillion times and are not really interested in seeing them again.

So we decided to do our own little trip. My wife would take her parents to the major attractions and my daughter and I would spend time with each other.

I had, however, warned eveyone that Sentosa would really be crowded on Sunday, mainly because the sun had come out after a week's worth of rain and because most people had a long weekend. So Sunday was always going to be crowded. What my wife did not expect was the number of people who queued up to get into Sentosa.

My daughter and I took the cable car from Mount Faber, where the queue had to be wound around three times in that extremely cramped up space. But we did get into the cable car before my wife (along with my in-laws) had even got the tickets! That's how crowded it was.

So obviously, we reached the island(!) way before them.

I took her to the 4D Magix show (which I would strongly recommend to everybody, just for the fun experience) where she had a ball. She was talking about it for more than an hour after the show finished. Of course, we had to wait for an hour before we got in, that's how long the queue was.

From there, we took the Dragon Trail, which is like a nature walk with a few dragon figurines thrown in. But it was a great stroll with her chattering away with all sorts of questions and all kinds of observations. She really is a smart kid!

Then, while the rest of the family watched the Dolphin show, the two of us went across this rickety (well, not really) bridge to the marketted lowest point of the Asian continent. A few more pictures there and we had a really great time. Running on the beach, playing games, we just had a great time together.

Then it was back home to watch ManU beat Reading 3-2 with a Ronaldo double (AGAIN!). It was great to see Solksjaer in the form of old, with great first touches and even better finishes. Of course, Reading did not look boring at all. They had me on the edge of my seat for a while. And of course, it wasn't until Giggs came on that we started to make penetration into the Reading box more often. So it was a great night of football, especially since Chelsea drew with Fulham to go even further back.

As I write this, both ManU and Chelsea have drawn their respective matches last night (against Newcastle and Aston Villa respectively) and so the lead is now 6 points.

What I hated the most was Jose Mourinho cribbing that he could not win because he did not have the best players in the world. Yeah, John Terry and Petr Cech are out with injuries, but to say an entire side cannot perform "because the best players are not there" is insane. Whatever happened to Lampard, Drogba, Essien, Ballack, Ashley Cole, Makalele, Carvalho, Robben, Kalou? Most of these are part of the so called "Untouchables" in Jose's list...his first team people. All of them are fit and playing.

Just goes to show that just throwing money at the game does not make a great team!

Sure Chelsea have spent more money in the last couple of years, but ManU has been working towards building a team which works. And this is despite people like Rooney not completely firing right now. It has been a while since Rooney scored, but it's only a matter of time. And when that happens, may God have mercy on Chelsea!

But...enough of soccer. What else did I do?

Oh, we went to IKEA yesterday. I noticed that the bookshelf we had bought (also from IKEA) when we moved here was sagging under the weight of all the books that we I had brought with me from India and the additions that I have bought since. So we needed a bigger, better book case.

Which we did get. We also saw a great showcase that we liked and which was really cheap. So we got that as well. And so the evening was dedicated to putting them all together. A couple of hours of work and the new book case, complete with all the books put in, and the showcase were assembled and in position. A satisfying few hours. I really love putting these things together. It's probably one of the reasons I love buying stuff from Ikea. They design such great stuff, such precision. It's just fun to get my daughter involved and assemble everything.

So that was yesterday, which incidentally was a holiday for us. It's back to the grind from today.

The new year beackons.