HK Permanent Resident: It's official!!!

August 08, 2008 - I'll gonna remember this day for the rest of my life.

That day, I went to the Immigration Department of HK to collect my HK Permanent Identity Card. During the process, it was full of thrill and excitement! Imagine, your future of eligibility to live in Hong Kong depends on that single Smart ID Card approval! Damn, you just can't wait to finally grasped in your own hands.

As I handed my collection form to the counter, it doesn't take long. My name was called and instructed my to proceed to the collection counter. A little briefing about the rules and regulations... and there it is... I've officially been pimped!!!

It's official!!! I'm now a Hong Kong Permanent Resident!!!

Winners and Losers of 2008 Beijing Olympics

Dan Wetzel's one hell of an analyst. He has all the guts every writer just need to bring out intriguing topics...

I just love reading his articles. They are full of knowledgeable information, at the same time entertaining.

Here's one of those gutsy articles about the just ended Beijing Olympic games.
His points were amazing. Reading throughout the article, all I can do is just nod in agreement.

But I just want to comment about his last 3 WINNERS...
I think they were winners only for the Olympic perspective. Other than that, they're th biggest LOSERS...

Read on...

BEIJING – After nearly 1,000 medals were handed out here, someone needed to provide a Cliffs Notes version on the real winners (and losers) of the 2008 Summer Olympics. We’re here to oblige, and yes, readers from around the world, this is an American-centric list. Deal with it.

WINNER – Michael Phelps

With eight gold medals, seven world records, a possible $100 million in endorsements – and reports he’s hanging out with Australian swimmer Stephanie Rice – Phelps has redefined Olympic success.

Perhaps most impressive, he made Americans care about swimming. His race was appointment television at night and coffee-shop talk in the morning. The likelihood the Baltimore native achieves the goal of making swimming “more than a once-every-four-year sport” remains a long shot, although who wants to bet against him now?

LOSER – NBC

Because I was in China, I didn’t watch NBC’s coverage. I can only say from the flood of angry emails it hasn’t improved since the last time I was home for the games. Tape-delayed races, plausibly live coverage and covering up Chinese special effects for the Opening Ceremony, NBC is like the China Daily – a state-run propaganda newspaper – of American television.

If only everyone could get the feed for the Canadian Broadcast Company, which anyone in select American markets can attest does an exponentially better job of television coverage of the Olympics.

WINNER – Kobe Bryant

The two biggest surprises to come out of the redemption men’s basketball team was 1) the ease in which the U.S. dominated the competition to win gold and 2) the immense popularity of Kobe in China. Everywhere he went, he found adoring crowds, huge ovations and general rock-star treatment that not only dwarfed his teammates but also was at least the equal of national hero Yao Ming.

Not even in Los Angeles is Bryant this well received. Said Carmelo Anthony: “He ought to move here.”

LOSER – Liu Xiang

The Chinese hero was under enormous pressure to repeat gold in the 110-meter hurdles, an event he no longer dominates. He never even competed, pulling out due to injury before the preliminaries in an announcement that caused television reporters to cry on the air.

It was a devastating turn for Liu, whose likeness adorns advertisements across the country. While sympathetic Chinese journalists felt for Liu’s injury, many skeptical western ones questioned if it was just a face-saving measure. While only Liu knows for sure, it’s one of those clear cultural divisions in the world. Either way, the Olympics of Liu’s dreams turned into a nightmare.

WINNER – Hope Solo

A year ago, after she was benched in a Women’s World Cup game against Brazil, the U.S. goalkeeper ripped the decision, a move that tore apart her team and caused her temporarily to be separated from it. At the Olympics, she let her play do the talking, making a number of critical saves in a shutout of Brazil for the gold medal.

The entire U.S. women’s soccer team looked like it had entered a new era under positive coach Pia Sundhage. Solo is just the most obvious example.

LOSER – Ronaldinho

Soccer fans here were excited by the inclusion of the veteran superstar on the Brazilian men’s team, which, per Olympic rules, is mostly under 23. Once considered the best player in the world, Ronaldinho showed just how out of shape he is and looked a shell of his former self in a sad vision of how far and fast he has fallen. Very disappointing.

WINNER – Alicia Sacramone

Yes, she famously fell off the beam in the women’s gymnastics team finals and failed to medal in her only individual event final, the vault. She wasn’t too happy leaving Beijing.

However, the 20-year-old Brown University sophomore may wind up one of the breakout stars of the games. Even more than gold medalist teammates Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson. At least among male fans who help make her one of the most searched athletes of the Olympics.

Or as Deadspin.com put it: “Is Alicia Sacramone the New Anna Kournikova?” Anna never won, either. She made a lot of money anyway.

LOSER – Softball

In losing the gold to Japan, the U.S. may have made the best case for softball to be saved from elimination from future Olympics. That’s an awfully big price to pay for something that may not even be enough.

WINNER – Usain Bolt

Track seemed all but dead a couple weeks ago. Then along came this flamboyant speedster out of Jamaica.

He won three gold medals and set three world records, all while electrifying fans around the globe. He wasn’t just fast; he was flashy, a personality, a 6-foot-5 game changer who simply gobbled up track with each stride.

There hadn’t been anything in track like him in years, and coming off an era of extreme doping, he couldn’t have come at a better time.

LOSER – Jacques Rogge

If you wonder why everyone calls the International Olympic Committee out of touch, consider that while most of the world was celebrating Bolt, the organization’s president decided he should use his considerable bully pulpit to rip him for supposed showboating.

Rogge is a classic stiff-collared bureaucrat. His organization has made billions off athletes such as Bolt for years, yet he has to find someone to pick on.

He’s deathly frightened of criticizing any major nation – such as China, which broke a hundred promises to him in staging these games. He wouldn’t dare mention any of the dozens of athletes from big countries whose celebrations were just as bold.

A single sprinter from a small, impoverished, powerless island nation? Sure, hammer away.

Fortunately, Bolt came back and didn’t change his act at all in winning his third gold in the 4x100 relay. Rogge will soon fade into obscurity for a while.

LOSER – Smog

In a beat down worse than the one the U.S. laid on Germany in men’s hoops, the Chinese government all but eliminated smog from Beijing during the games. Trees were planted, factories shuttered, construction sites quieted and cars removed from the streets in an effort to produce blue skies.

It was a slow start to the process. Early on, the clouds of pollution were almost incomprehensible. The Chinese originally tried to claim it wasn’t smog but that it was just “mist.” Only the China Daily, and perhaps NBC, would believe this.

“We got absolutely snuffed out,” said a spokesperson for the Smog Olympic Committee. “It was a tough games for us. We just couldn’t get the carbons together to form a cancerous cloud, trap heat and sear eyeballs.”

WINNER – Smog

Guess what, it’s coming back. How depressing will it be to a Beijing resident the next couple of weeks? The smoke stacks will be relit, the coal plants fired up, the cars will return. Slowly, the reverse of the above picture will occur.

One older Beijing resident claimed the city hadn’t looked this good in a decade. Newer arrivals remarked the town was actually pretty. Yeah, not for long.

China has claimed it will curb the problem, but how? And Western corporations, all too pleased to take advantage of lax environmental laws, are part of the problem, too.

China gets routinely and deservedly hammered for its human rights issues in Tibet and Darfur. The biggest human rights issue may be the cancer in the air that its own citizens must breathe.

WINNERS – USA Volleyball and USA Water Polo

On the beach, the Americans swept the men’s and women’s competitions. Indoor, the men won gold and the women won silver. Both did so while dealing with some level of tragedy from the stabbings of Todd and Barbara Bachman, the parents of former women’s player Elisabeth Bachman and the in-laws of men’s coach Hugh McCutcheon.

In the pool, the men surprisingly took silver and the women also won silver in a last-second loss.

WINNER – Cigarette Smoke

Veteran readers of this column will note past criticism of Greek and Italian smokers, two medal contenders in the worldwide tobacco competition. At dinner, the Greeks smoke between bites. The Italians just never take it out of their mouths. (Smoking would be one of the more intriguing Summer Games events, although not as good as Russian Roulette, where gold really is the only option. Then there’s haggling at the Beijing silk market, where I’d have a shot to medal.)

Anyway, the Chinese appear to be far behind on cigarettes. It was mostly clean breathing (so to speak) around here.

LOSER – Chinese Coffee

Good tea here. Coffee, not so much. I’m dying for a Dunkin’ Donuts large black. Not four ounces of warm, darkened water. The Big One.

WINNER – Ara Abrahamian

Yes, sportsmanship and all declares that protesting a scoring decision by throwing your bronze medal down and storming off isn’t good form. Then again, who hasn’t wished they could do the same on occasion. The Swedish Greco-Roman wrestler inspired every take-this-job-and-shove-it wannabe around the world.

That’s a winner enough for us. And that was before an arbitration court ruled in his favor.

LOSER – Angel Matos

The Cuban taekwondo athlete was so angered at his disqualification from a bronze medal match, he deliberately booted the referee in the face. Yeah, that’s a little much. Matos and his coach were banned for life. Not sure how there could be an appeal.

WINNER – Beijing Organization

Considering the ability of the government to relocate people, build whatever infrastructure was necessary and control everything from private industry to dinner menus to traffic, there will probably never be a better tactically run games than these.

As long as you didn’t consider how it got done, working in Beijing was a breeze. The venues were modern and close, and the organization was sophisticated and smart. On this point, London and everyone else has its work cut out for it.

WINNER – Living in Beijing

Once the smog cleared, Beijing was tremendous. One of the best parts of covering an Olympics is you don’t see the host city as a tourist. You come here to live and work for a month, and while you’re obviously never a real local, you tend to get a little deeper into the place.

You learn how the subway works. You figure out a bus route. You have regular restaurants. We lived at Beijing Normal University, on the near northwest side of town, between Second and Third Ring Roads. It is surrounded by a real neighborhood, and over the course of nearly a month we met store owners, waiters, bartenders, cooks, security guards and local residents. We’d see them on the street and stop and chat.

The food was incredible and beyond cheap. The service was impeccable. And this neighborhood near “Bay-Shoe-Dah” was a tremendous place to live for a stretch.

WINNER – Chinese People

Nowhere in the world have I encountered friendlier people. Nowhere. Perhaps it was Olympic pride. Perhaps I was just an easily identifiable American with a press badge. It didn’t matter. The Chinese people wanted me to think well of them and their emerging country, and it is quite clear that this nation’s greatest resource is its citizens.

From the woman in the earthquake refugee camp who, despite having nothing, offered me a small, simple glass of water as a sign of hospitality. To the army of volunteers, forever smiling even when given the lowest of tasks such as sorting garbage in the cafeteria. The lasting memory for me from these games will be the Chinese people.

Their government has issues (as do all governments). It didn’t live up to what it said it would here. There is a great fear of China in the western world because people here will work for wages unlivable anywhere else and because of a natural suspicion of the Communist party.

No doubt, the challenges here are immense. If allowed, the Chinese people might be good enough to solve them.

Beijing Olympics' winners and losers
By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports

Aug 24, 2008

AFP Photos

Kobe Bryant: The Real Olympic Glory

BEIJING – Once Kobe Bryant let that Shaq rap go, he wished that he had resisted responding to so much else throughout his tumultuous 20s. Shaquille O’Neal obliterated him on that June nightclub stage in New York, a TMZ moment that threatened to drag Bryant back into that Hollywood trash-tabloid place.

Here was Bryant on his 30th birthday, on the eve of playing Spain for his gold-medal moment for United States basketball, and he had such regret that it took so long in his life to let Shaq shadow box.

“The biggest mistake I made was coming up with a rebuttal,” Bryant said. “My philosophy had always been to keep quiet and not to say anything. And by me responding, that drew me into it. If I had to do it over again, I would’ve just let people talk and say what they had to say, and as time goes on, they would’ve seen what was what.

“When you’re young, (you think) ‘Enough is enough. I’m going to say something.’ And all of a sudden…”

All of a sudden, there’s no winning. There’s no way out. Perhaps this is why Bryant seems so liberated, freed from a legacy and life forever framed through the prism of Shaq and their three Los Angeles Lakers’ titles together. As Kobe reshapes his image here with American flags, Jordanesque ferocity and the warm, welcoming touch of a grateful guest, O’Neal is back in the United States facing a restraining order for allegations of stalking an Atlanta woman after several disturbing e-mails and phone threats surfaced.

The old images of the brooding, immature Kobe and the gregarious, life-of-the-championship-party Shaq have turned inside out. Somehow, Kobe’s become the grownup and Shaq the screw-up.

In the wake of the Lakers’ NBA Finals loss to the Boston Celtics, Shaq climbed on that stage and started with the lyrics that, “Kobe couldn’t do without me,” and maybe for the first time cast Bryant as a sympathetic figure. To dismiss the firestorm as deftly as Bryant did – whatever, I’ve got a gold medal to win this summer – cornered Shaq as a fading superstar filled with too much jealousy, too little motivation.

These Olympics have been the most remarkable three weeks of Kobe Bryant’s basketball life. He disdains the marketing “Redeem Team” title, calling it “kind of cheesy” because let’s face it: Those weren’t his international failures over the past eight years. Nike tried so hard to make LeBron James a co-star of these Games but failed miserably. He’s riding shotgun and doesn’t seem terribly thrilled about it. There’s no usurping Bryant in China.

Bryant has won the respect of his teammates, but he doesn’t run in the big cliques on the team. LeBron is the ringleader of the young players, and Kobe goes his own way. He’s won his teammates over with his ferocity, his insatiable need to win, but no one ever gets close to Bryant. He’s a loner, but he learned to lead. When all hell was breaking loose in the semifinal victory over Argentina, it was Bryant working with Jason Kidd to bring his teammates back from the brink of losing composure.

“We didn’t come to tussle,” Bryant said. “We came to win a gold medal.”

When his teammates went in groups to volleyball and women’s basketball games this week, Bryant was over at the U.S.-Brazil gold medal women’s soccer match with his wife and daughters. He waves his American flag, his eyes mesmerized by the dichotomy between the winners and losers, gold and silver.

“I stayed to watch them get their gold medals, just to see what that would be like,” he said.

As much as any NBA player, these Olympics have been a source of pure fascination for Bryant. For this most obsessive perfectionist, a basketball player with a full-time staff “whose whole job, whole purpose, is to just stay on top of my health,” Bryant couldn’t stop putting his own greatness into context with that of the world’s best athletes. He spent several years of his childhood living in Italy and always did have a global perspective on himself. The Olympics have been such a renaissance to his career, Bryant insists that he wants to play as a 34-year-old in 2012 in London.

“If they want me back, I’ll be back,” he said.

Bryant’s popularity is staggering in Asia and Europe, and he insists that, “People here have seen my personality more than in the States. I’ve done tours here. In the season, I’m in that Mamba mode. That switch is on. But during the summer, I’m kicking back and they get to see what a smart-ass I am. They get a chance to relate to you a lot more.

“Half the places you go to in the States, they’re rooting against you. Here, I think they’ve seen more of who I am.”

Well, there’s this idea, too. Bryant will forever have the rape charges in Eagle, Colo., on his permanent stateside record, but they don’t judge him overseas. They don’t care about that dropped case and taking sides in the Lakers’ soap operas and vitriol toward his Lakers bosses and teammates.

They just judge Kobe in the pure way that he judges himself: On the basketball court, peerless.

On his way back home, Bryant will be remembered as the anchor responsible for restoring American basketball glory. His MVP season, his return to the Finals, taught Bryant that he had to give more of himself to get the things that he ultimately wanted.

For the longest time, though, he played the part of the spoiled brat, the baby brother that Shaq had to balance between shaping and scolding, and maybe ultimately defining. Now, Shaq’s career is in sharp decline with a summer of high-comedy, low-rent rap and a stalker complaint in hot pursuit.

Across the world, Bryant goes for his gold medal on Saturday, something it turns out he could do without Shaq. Still, that’s a war Bryant never won and never will. Mostly, he understands that it isn’t even worth waging. Let it go, he tells himself. Let it go.

“As I get older, I do care what people think of me,” Bryant said. “I don’t want them to have the wrong impression. That is important to me. I’m not too big to say that. I’m not embarrassed to say that.

“I care about what people think.”

The world has watched him grow from teenage prodigy to tortured twenty-something to the weekend a world away in China when Kobe Bryant could feel the burdens peeling away like a second skin.

“I’m just happy I made it to 30,” he said. “Now the pressure’s off.”


Kobe turns a year older, a decade wiser
By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports
August 23, 2008

AFP Photos

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Clinton or Obama: Who's it gonna be?

While John McCain is now the official Republican presidential nominee and now taking time to decide of whom to choose as his vice presidential running mate, the race for the Democratic presidential nominee remains close.

Obama still holds the lead in number of delegates but Clinton is making a come back with huge primary victories in Texas, Ohio and Rhode Islands. This race is believed to go down the wire as these two goes toe to toe with seven more weeks of primaries ahead.

Anyway, whoever come out victorious between the two, I do believe that the Democrats will make history on the 2008 Presidential Election. There are hints that there is a possibility that these two would share the Democratic presidential ticket. An Clinton-Obama or Obama-Clinton ticket would be a sure win. A big-time ticket that puts the Republicans in a big trouble, and I guess they know it!

So, why did I say that the Democrats will make history? It's simple. If these two runs together, it's either America will have their first ever woman or first ever black-African president. And therefore, the only thing we're waiting now is...

Who's gonna be on top? Hilary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama?

Visa or Mastercard: Which one suits for you?

The two leading credit card companies in the world today are the competitors Visa and MasterCard. They both operate in a very similar way. While Visa claims to have almost a billion cards issued, MasterCard has over twenty five thousand banks issuing its cards and it is difficult to find any difference in the number of locations worldwide that accept the cards, which is now estimated at over twenty million.　But, as far as most consumers are concerned, there is no real difference between the two. They are both very widely accepted in over one hundred and fifty countries and it is very rare to find a location that will accept one but not the other.

However, neither Visa nor MasterCard actually issue any credit cards themselves. They are both simply methods of payment. They rely on banks in various countries to issue credit cards that utilise these payment methods. Therefore, the interest rates, rewards, annual fees, and all other charges are issued by your bank and when you pay your bill you are paying it to the bank or institution that issued your card and not Visa or MasterCard.

How Visa and MasterCard make their money is by charging the retailer for using their payment method. So the truth of the matter is that a Visa issued by say the Bank of New York will have very little to do with a Visa issued by other banks and may in fact by more similar to the Bank of New York’s MasterCard.

What this means for the vast majority of customers is that you do not have to overly concern yourself with whether a credit card is MasterCard or Visa. You would be better off concentrating on the interest and other charges on the card, the balance transfer possibilities or their reward scheme. You are very unlikely to ever be effected by the fact that it is one and not the other.

If you prefer, if you are going to have two credit cards, you may decide that you want one of them to be Visa and the other MasterCard, this means that if something drastic were to happen to one company, or if you were in the unlikely position of finding a location that accepts one but not the other, then you would have the option of paying with either.

At the end of the day however, much more depends on the bank that gave you the card, than on the type of card it is.

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CT Metal Factory Visit

Here is a photo gallery of my CT Metal factory visit in China.

Goodbye 2007! Hello 2008!!!

It’s been awhile since my last post here... And I wonder how’s everyone doin’!

Well, well, well, just came back from Cebu, Philippines today! I was in a delayed flight (as always) and the plane landed at around 1:15am, and that made me arrived home at probably 2:30am. Went to sleep at around 4:00am, then get-up at my usual time 7:30am, ‘coz ladies and gentlemen... I need to be back in the office.

Hell yeah! Last year’s second half has been a very busy season for me and my company and I think busy days are about to continue this year! But ah-ah, don’t get me wrong! It’s not only that we are getting more business, it was also the period of trying to fix all the problems from previous products and suppliers!

Anyway, anyway, year 2007 is all behind us now and we are now about to tackle new challenges and face new experiences for the year 2008! For me, it all started today and I think I am ready to welcome just anything! Year 2007 was a great year for my career, my family and our business. And we're just so eager to turn 2008 into another amazing year! So help us God!

So, I guess I have to hit the breaks here! Just want to extend my greetings to everyone... Let’s all have an amazing year 2008! And please always remember... Be positive... Keep on kickin’!

Goodbye 2007! Hello 2008!!!
Happy New Year to all!!!