December 23, 2005 Well, being so close to Christmas people in the office tend to just wander around or get their last minute shopping done. Anyways, not feeling all that motivated myself I thought I'd log into the site that keeps track of hits on this page - lo and behold it would seem that there are people who regularly come back here (maybe to go to the new album site, I'm not sure) Anyways, I got inspired and thought I'd post an update for a change. How many of you remember Boney M? Those of you in the US may not be familiar with this group, however those from India, Europe and Canada should. I pulled out their Christmas Album - being the season and all - and listened to the perennial 'Mary's Boy Child' and 'Drummer Boy' among others. The first time I heard one of their songs - 'Rivers of Babylon' - was well over 25 years ago - and yes I am still getting old. Anyways having heard them so long ago, I didn't really know much about them other than the fact they were huge all over the planet except for the U.S. For 25 plus years I have always pictured that dude with the afro singing every time the low base voice kicked in singing - "All a moments the world was a glow, all the bells rang out there were tears of joy and laughter ... " or "Let the words of our mouths, and the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in thy sight, here tonight" from Rivers. As I was reading up on the group I found out, to my utter dismay, this guy never sang a single note on any of their big songs. Apparently it was the producer of the group, Frank Farian, that sang the deep bass parts - does this name sound familiar to anyone? As I read a little more about this producer things became clear - this was the guy that put together Milli Vanilli! Apparently with Boney M. it was a well known fact that the producer was singing the male parts and not the afro dude that was visible to the public. Man, this was like finding out Santa wasn't real! ; ) There's my useless piece of information for the end of the year! The picture on the left was taken by none other than Ajoy, on the morning of Manju's wedding - they were both a little perplexed with all the hustle and bustle first thing in the morning. In case you haven't looked at the Shutter book site since Manju's wedding, I've posted some more albums: Yasmeen's first birthday in Toronto and also some older pictures of Mya's first birthday and of both girls when they were first born. There's sure to be more - especially after the Holidays. My inspiration to post this update stretched over to our extended family website as well - how 'bout that?! Merry Christmas, Manoj