Happy Chinese New Year!
Gong xi fa cai! May the new year be happy and prosperous to all of you.
I had a mostly quiet day since my Perth-bound aunt from that side of my family is away, but there was profit to be had in the ang paos! It surely must be a sign of a booming economy when your good-luck money rises faster than inflation.
Some random links because I can’t be bothered writing more: Considering it’s the year of the dog, I was highly disappointed to learn that Sony have laid off their robotic dog division, the crazy penny-pinching bastards. Then again, that reliable geek tabloid the Reg reckons we have flying cars to play with instead (both via One Dog Said).
Meanwhile, the tennis was again quite entertaining. Baghdatis didn’t win, but that’s okay, cos he still put up a decent fight to the dude who is unequivocally the best tennis player in the world right now (well, for the first set anyway). And Federer cried on the podium! I had no idea Melbourne Park (or perhaps Rod Laver) meant quite so much to him.
[...] Unrelatedly, the Australian Open has been throwing a few surprises. The biggest of these, for me at least, was seeing Marcos Baghdatis play a weak game to lose in the second round. At first I thought that Gael Monfils was going to replace him and become, if you will, the Baghdatis of this year’s Open (Jim Courier was right to describe him as “simply entertaining” and “fun to watch”) … but then he lost his next game. Against Baghdatis he had the energy, the determination, and the spark that Baghdatis had had last year, but against the (admittedly more experienced) Gasquet, all that energy seemed to vanish. [...]