Lucky 8 & 2008 Olympics

This is neat: I just found out that the Beijing Olympics will be held on 8/8,
(my birthday) and the opening ceremony will start at 8 pm! I wonder if it'll start at 8:08...

Those Chinese people and their obsession with the number 8...

I heard that actually it started with the Cantonese, because in that dialect, the number "8" sounds like the word for "rich", so it became a lucky number. Then it spread to the Mandarin-speaking areas.

Now you get Chinese companies like "888 Auto" (where my dad gets his car fixed)
and people bidding for phone numbers with as many 8s in them as possible.

So, if my birthday had been 1988 instead of 1981, imagine how lucky/rich I would be! :)