Saw Fusion View's Tweet about watching the Olympics online, with coverage from NBC and BBC. Irish tv network also have live broadcasts at their RTE site. Youhave to give credit to RTE, they have made leaps and bounds with streaming live video and audio to everyone online.

I'm sure you have heard about the girl who is not pretty enough to appear in front of the world singing her heart out at the Olympics opening ceromony. Now that does not help anyone's confidence, right? It's not even show-business-related, is it? I've posted and written some stuff about Chinese and Materialism, and judgemental, they can be. Sticks and stones... and all that, well, it's just not true. It takes a long time to get rid of that kind of humility psycologically.

...it's the infamous Blue Screen of Death, and it appeared in the Olympics opening ceromony. Someone has it on their Flickr account as well. If only I stayed till the end watching, I know nothing goes perfectly, but it's not everyday you see BSOD on such a big and important event.

It's nice to see the Chinese getting into the whole Olympic mood, like the Chinese in Dublin (The Irish Times online).

Flags, friendship and a buffet of traditional cuisine were the order of the day as over 100 members of the Chinese community, as well as a host of friends from elsewhere, gathered in the Melody Bar and Restaurant on Capel Street to mark the event in style.

I, myself, only watched as far as the Irish atheletes arriving out into the stadium, it was a very long procession of countries, my excuse... to get back to my thesis project. It was a great ceromony though, can see so many people put so much work into it.

In other news, babies and couples tying the knot was the big thing on 08/08/2008 (including the chef working in my family's restaurant down in Limerick).

Between midnight and midday yesterday, there were 35 births. Only 13 were natural deliveries, with the remaining Caesarean sections to ensure that most auspicious and treasured of babies - an Olympic baby.

A record number of people got married - 16,400 couples from Beijing's eight districts and, when you factor in the suburbs, 20,000 couples.

It's amazing what superstition does to Chinese people.

I've been so busy with my final project work, I have not being paying much attention to the Olympics like before.

I am getting a bit irked by some stuff in the news with people taking pot shots at China around this big event. It's not suppose to be a political event, is it? People are always spoiling events. Let the atheletes compete, the only thing about that though, I wished there was a non-drugged athelete competition. I'm pretty sure all the atheletes there have some sort of drug or another to take advantage of the competition. Apart from being busy, I think I miss watching it with my father, it's something I won't be able to do ever again. Maybe that is partly why I don't really read up on the Olympics each day. So the countdown to the 08/08/2008 in Beijing. I hope everything goes well for China and all atheletes who are attending this big event.

If you cannot catch the series Rhodes across China, you can still check out the recipes, or the videos.

In light of recent news about massage parlours owned by Chinese gangs which are used as fronts for something more than a massages but again it's the minority that are causing trouble for the legitimate business, as is the case with this Chinese business woman who voiced her anger at these establishments which gives other legit massage parlours a bad name.

Just came across this blog entry. She found of the places she has experience working in, Ireland was one of the nicest without much of the prejudices such as

In France, the discrimination is so obvious. Chinese are better than Arab but still they would hint to you how 'shameful' to be Chinese. Even those so-called intellectual would ask you from time to time, do you eat dogs?

It's great to see that someone's who enjoyed working in Ireland, and found discrimination less than other countries, according to her, it's equal!

Due to increase price of aluminium as well as people moving away from soft drinks, it will be shrunk from 355ml to 350ml.

Read full article from FT.com.

Series following George Lee as he investigates whether China's growing economic power represents an opportunity or a threat.

It's a four-part series, more info at http://www.rte.ie/news/features/china/georgeleeinchina.html.

Only found out after seeing an ad for it tonight (23:15 on RTE One). Keep an eye out for the next 3 eps throughout 2008 (according to RTE).

... are Asian. Guess what? Hong Kong International airport is the top airport according Skytrax after

collecting 8.2 million questionnaires from passengers over a 10-month period last year and this year.

So there was an article about the Asian businesses in the north side of the city, and from my interview with SCMP, I mentioned there was no Chinatown in Dublin. Well, some establishments want to have some sort of gateway for a Chinatown.

Business owners on Parnell Street have petitioned Dublin City Council to let them turn the area into an "official Chinatown" by building a giant archway, flanked by golden dragons, at the entrance to Parnell Street. If the council agrees to the project, it will be a real sign of just how diverse Ireland has become in a relatively short period of time. [...]

I wished it appeared sooner than the 12th (since the column IBC was featured in was the 13th July).

In the Indo, amusing tidbit about China cracking down on streaking and the f-word. Only in China, "Spectators House Rules"... it's not going to be easy. You cannot just change people habits just like that, it'll take time. I sure hope they have enough western loos there, I hate squat loos.

I forgot to blog that I was interviewed by Mark Footer from South China Morning Post. If you are subscribed to SCMP, you can read the whole article, but here is the article online.