The end of Chinese New Year and return of winter

It began snowing yesterday night during the Lantern Festival -- the final day of spring festival -- this after we were blessed with a week of spring-like weather.

No buildings burned this year, and there is peace and quiet at last. Exhale.

Meanwhile, was anyone among you at The Irish Volunteer last night to watch USA-Canada hockey? I wrote a preview article for the Beijinger's blog but decided not to brave the snow to go out there (instead I watched from home on CCTV-5). I heard the bar was packed.

And now, links from last week (or so) I found interesting:

• Brendan O'Kane on GFW and VPNs; I've noticed that Hotspot, back in the day when I still used Hotspot, never worked from one specific Starbucks at Dongsishitiao. Always wondered about that...
• The end of Cup of Cha?
  
• China Hush's translated article of a hitchhike from Beijing to Berlin.
• Global Times on the 50-cent army.
• Black and White Cat on "Hu Jintao's non-microblog"
• South Koreans NOT happy about the judge's decision to DQ their short-track relay team (Chinese women got gold as a result... you may have seen a replay or two of this on CCTV-5)
• Bloggers in China, NYT
• "A stunning makeover for China Daily," say the editors of China Daily. What, so it can look more 2-dimensional and give front-page ads more prominence? The font's gonna need a bit of getting used to. It reminds me of the font for the Chicago Tribune, a paper I don't particularly like. But I'm just grumbling to myself.

And finally, a blog everyone should read: China/Divide. First post here. (HT: the Beijinger.)