Olympic Time Of The Han

On the Twitter blog there is a little thing going on, and although the event in question has transpired already just over 26 hours ago, I still responded. Here is that thing:

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A fun project has emerged out of the Chinese community on Twitter. The idea is to share what you're doing during the opening day of the Olympic Games. To participate, just add #080808 to your tweet and to watch, just visit Twitter Search.

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And although I chose not to participate in this little game, I did post the following comment on that Twitter posting (granted said comment awaits the big okay from the Twitter blog peeps admin, or something) ---

Actually that should be 08/08/08/08/08/08, as in the eighth second of the eighth minute of the eighth post mortem --- Yikes! Sorry, I mean post meridiem --- hour of the eighth day of the eighth month of the eighth year of the new millennium, or if you prefer the Chinese style of date posting, going from large to small, 2008年8月8日8點8分鐘08秒 (or in the minimalist simplified style, 2008年8月8日8点8分钟08秒), in that that is precisely the moment the games were to commence, and apparently it went off without a hitch, although at that time I was sitting with a group of Taiwanese asking them and getting blank stares and virtually no response whose head would roll in Beijing if the commencement firecrackers went off a few seconds too soon or too late, and it was not until the next day, or rather early the following Sunday some time after the witching hour that I was able to view the opening ceremonies, and impressive they most certainly were (Whatever are the Brits gonna do in four years that could possibly top that show?), by means of Multimedia On Demand, or MOD, only recently launched by China Telecom in Taiwan where I hang my hat, and the first rounds of gymnastics which the Russkies were leading at about 3am when I headed home from my in-laws almost 12 hours ago now, and my wife just placed a glass of Merlot to my left which I am now going to attend to.

Slurp. Slurp, slurp.