feel the earth move?

Last night around 1-ish in the morning, just nodding off to sleep after a long day, richard sits bolt upright in bed and announces " there's an earthquake!" he shoots out of bed and says he's just gonna check out the house. it was a tremor alright. lasted about 30 seconds and made me felt a bit queasy after. richard was a bit worried more than usual, why? because earthquakes don't happen in england. they just dont. the UK, is luckily not in the ring of fire and doesnt get as may quakes as we do in the philippines or japan. they were saying this morning that this quake was the strongest they've had in 24 years! and this earthquake was on 4 something on the richter scale. merely a nudge, i should say. and for a minute, last night we also thought that it might be a terrorist attack in manchester, so we were bracing ourselves for either loud noises or more tremors, but then yes it turned out to be a 30-second earthquake. the biggest damage it's done is ruined chimney stack and rattled nerves. my office manager didn't even realize it happened. she just slept through it.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-shaken-by-significant-earthquake-788045.html

hmm, i guess it's kind of exciting for people who do not normally experience such a thing, but for me, last night reminded me of that dreadful july day in 1990. i wasnt in school 'cos i had the flu and at 4 in the afternoon the biggest earthquake to hit the philippines yet has begun. the earthquake lasted 45 seconds. it felt like a lifetime of shaking. just got out of bed in time to avoid a wardrobe nearly falling over and just caught a glimpse of my nana's house cracking and crumpling in places. it was the most TRAUMATIC experience EVER. it was really like the end of the world. couple the earthquake with a hale storm and it was a scene out of any disaster movie. most people i know from the philippines will remember this event. hundreds of people died and the whole city i grew up in just overnight turned to a ghost town. all roads to the city were closed and the only way out was to walk the land slide ridden roads or to get airlifted by helicopter. my family sans my parents, had to sleep outside our house because of the incessant aftershocks. i think that was the worst part, the aftershocks. they came at all times and they were even stronger than the tremor in england last night. and to just portray how scary it was. we slept outside on the footpath/sidewalk under the rain rather than sleep in the house. eventually after a week my dad managed to walk up from la union the nearest big town. its usually a 2 hour drive to us but it took him 8 hours to walk from that town to us. then finally with some relief we left our nana's house. there was no-one left in our block. our neighbors have all abandoned their homes to get to some safety, some normalcy.

that earthquake brought terror. pure and sheer.

the last three photos are earthquake damaged buildings in baguio city as follows: the retaining wall of baguio cathedral, hyatt hotel and casino, and hilltop hotel. only the retaining wall of the church has been rebuilt.

day 75

are you a leader or a follower?

sweet dreams

May there always be
A smile on your face,
While you're sleeping,
And when your awake.
I'll kiss your eyes,
And hold you tight,
Sweet dreams for my sweetheart,
There will be tonight.

- for my sweetie... all my love.

day 74

do you idolize anyone and is your life influenced by them?

4x4 forum threads

Do you know when your husband joins an off-roader club and you wonder what they chat about on their on-line forum? Well here is the answer. The following is a collection of threads from Richard’s 4x4 trucker buddies. It’s a bit sexist but c’mon it’s all in good fun. Don’t laugh too much now.

I recently read that love is entirely a matter of chemistry.
That must be why my wife treats me like toxic waste.
David Bissonette

When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her.
Sacha Guitry

After marriage, husband and wife become two sides of a coin; they just can't face each other, but still they stay together.
Hemant Joshi

By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. Socrates

Woman inspires us to great things, and prevents us from achieving them.
Dumas

The great question... which I have not been able to answer... is, "What does a woman want?
Sigmund Freud

I had some words with my wife, and she had some paragraphs with me.
Anonymous

"Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays."
Henny Youngman

"I don't worry about terrorism. I was married for two years."
Sam Kinison

"There's a way of transferring funds that is even faster than electronic banking. It's called marriage."
James Holt McGavran

"I've had bad luck with both my wives. The first one left me, and the second one didn't."
Patrick Murray

Two secrets to keep your marriage brimming
1. Whenever you're wrong, admit it,
2. Whenever you're right, shut up.
Nash

An Army Colonel got himself a new secretary. She was young, sweet and very polite. One day, while taking dictation, she noticed his fly was open. When leaving the room, she said, "Sir, your barracks door is open." He did not understand her remark but later on, he happened to look down and saw that his zipper was open. He decided to have some fun with his secretary. Calling her in, he asked, "By the way, Miss Jones, when you saw my barracks door open this morning, did you also notice a soldier standing at attention?" The secretary, who was quite witty replied, "Why no sir, all I saw was an old tired soldier slumped over two duffel bags."

The most effective way to remember your wife's birthday is to forget it once...
Anonymous

You know what I did before I married? Anything I wanted to.
Henny Youngman

My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.
Rodney Dangerfield

A good wife always forgives her husband when she's wrong.
Milton Berle

Marriage is the only war where one sleeps with the enemy.
Anonymous

A man inserted an 'ad' in the classifieds: "Wife wanted". Next day he received a hundred letters. They all said the same thing: "You can have mine."
Anonymous

First Guy (proudly): "My wife's an angel!"
Second Guy: "You're lucky, mine's still alive."

Dick Whittington //// A little boy goes to his father and asks, "Daddy, how was I born?"
The father answers, "Well, son, I guess one day you will need to find out anyway! Your Mom and I first got together in a chat room on Yahoo. Then I set up a date via e-mail with your Mom and we met at a cyber-cafe. We sneaked into a secluded room, where your mother agreed to a download from my hard drive. As soon as I was ready to upload, we discovered that neither one of us had used a firewall, and since it was too late to hit the delete button, nine months later a little Pop-Up appeared that said: "You got Male!"

Computers are male:
10. They have a lot of data but are still clueless
9. As soon as you settle for one, a better one becomes available
8. They look nice and shinny until you bring them home
7. It is always necessary to have a backup
6. They'll do whatever you say if you push the right buttons
5. The best part of having either one is the games you can play
4. In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on
3. The lights are on the but nobody home
2. Big power surges knock them out for the night
1. Size does matter

Software is female:
10. Picky, picky, picky
9. They hear what you say, but not what you mean
8. Beauty is only shell deep
7. When you ask what's wrong, they say "nothing"
6. Can produce incorrect results with alarming speed
5. Always turning simple statements into big productions
4. Small talk is important
3. You do the same thing for years, and suddenly it's wrong
2. They make you take the garbage out
1. Miss a period and they go wild

Primary school maths question
If I buy a teddy bear for £10, name him Mohammed and sell him for £20, have I made a prophet?

Top Ten Things Only Women Understand
10. Cats' facial expressions.
9. The need for the same style of shoes in different colors.
8. Why bean sprouts aren't just weeds.
7. Fat clothes.
6 Taking a car trip without trying to beat your best time.
5 The difference between beige, ecru, cream, off-white, and eggshell.
4 Cutting your hair to make it grow.
3. Eyelash curlers.
2. The inaccuracy of every bathroom scale ever made.
1. Other women

__________________
Toyota make ..........I Break

day 73

What makes you feel homesick, nostalgic or sentimental?

where there is laughter

I was reading this quote today:

“where there is laughter, there is always more health than sickness”

So question: How do you keep laughing when you’re gloomier than the wettest British day? It’s really difficult when you’re a worrier by nature. The incessant thoughts. The pessimistic view of life. How can you laugh? But wheels turn though, don’t they. Well, eventually they do. I found that in life, no matter how much you try, no matter how great you are, you will at some point in your life still be at the bottom of the wheel at a certain time. The only thing to avoid is to be caught in the bottom when you’re in a rut, then you’ll be stuck alright.

A good laugh inducer is being silly. Really it works. Never mind being an adult, but for one second just be silly. I found the other day that listening to an old mp3 of Kung Fu Fighting would make me chuckle and a video of two Chinese kids lip synching to Backstreet Boys would make me laugh. Oh boy, they are hilarious.

See for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt_m7qooZfo

Laughter does keep you human. I think we are the only species in this world capable of actual laughter. Let’s not forget that sweet sound.

day 72

Do you have a fear of being alone? Rejected? Unloved?

pandora

A gripping read. Written in the first person perspective, it grabs you and doesn’t let go till the very last page. The story of one of the children of the Millennia, it tells of the life of Lydia/Pandora and her transformation from strong headed woman to Marius’s lover and equal.

I have always liked Marius’s character and was really intrigued with Pandora and how she played her role in Marius’s life. She did not disappoint me. She is as stubborn and headstrong as they come and really a match for the great intellect of Marius. The story focuses a lot during the period of unrest in Rome and when Pandora, still a human called Lydia was fleeing for her life to hide in Antioch (today is modern day Turkey). The narrative is so tangible; you could actually feel the pulse of Antioch if you tried.

Here in Antioch she rediscovers her faith in her old religion, the worship of Isis. However she was plagued with dreams of blood drinking and visions of a queen. Eventually Lydia, who’s changed her name now to Pandora, and Marius’ paths cross and the inevitable, happens. A series of events leads to Pandora being turned, and then do they find out that the series of events was more planned than they thought, by someone they already presumed was beyond reach of anyone or anything.

Of course, Marius and Pandora, united in their mutual love and affection for each other were now more joined with their vampiric nature. However, keener senses and highly intelligent personas do not a perfect couple make. Prides clash and egos collide. Beliefs differ and the weight of time perhaps helped to perpetuate a distance between Marius and Pandora. The vampiric marriage breaks after 200 hundred years and Pandora is abandoned by Marius, left alone in their villa in Antioch.

What a waste, I say. Is this what happens to a union given eternity? In all the Riceans, I thought Pandora and Marius’s alliance was the best match so far. They are as sharp as each other, like the sides of a double edged sword. But then again, who knows what happens to two people after being together for hundreds of years?

At the end of the book, Pandora is just finishing writing her story in the notebooks that David Talbot gave her. She has conceded into reliving her early memories by putting them to paper and the result was Pandora felt reinvigorated in her being and having that, she sets to find Marius and reunite with him, her long lost lover.

And so that is the tale of Pandora, a child of the Millennia.

day 71

Do you find it difficult to compromise on things?

what a ball-ache

Did I tell you about what happened the other day?

Well for starters, I work part-time in a wine shop and that includes the more than generous heap of grief you get from customers. Normally in the retail industry you get the one or two unhappy customers that come back to haunt you, but not in the wine/booze side of the business. You usually get unruly people who are sometimes even drunk and disorderly. You have to make do with your best tactful behaviour and see that they get bounced out of the premises, as if that was easy. Then you get your underage customers who try to weasel their way into buying age restricted stuff like alcoholic drinks and cigarettes (or more popularly called here as “fags”) I actually hate the word. Why because it’s slang in American for being gay and it’s usually used to label someone in a demeaning way and I hate that word, period. Anyway going back, kids here and I mean kids, even try to con you with all the excuses in the world so you would sell them something. And you try to do your job and what do you get? Trouble, as in name it and they will do it or say it to you. Call you names; throw eggs on the window and all sorts of mischief. Its makes you want to string them all up and throttle them one by one.

So what happened was, this kid, maybe 16, comes in the shop and asks for the other girl who also works there and I said she’s not in and he says , so you’re not going to sell me “fags” are you? And I said “no, not without ID”, and so he goes away. Closing time comes and just locking up the last of the shutters and what comes next? Kid with his big sister or whoever who I think is maybe 18, shouts if I’m going to open up the shop again to sell them 10 cigs. Uhhh – DUHH, no way, I think to myself, you’re not paying me overtime and for what 10 cigs??? Unbelievable. Anyway what comes next is like the sewer being released out of this girl’s mouth. Name calling and swearing and I wonder what the parents of these kids are doing. Why are these two still outside at 10 in the evening hassling for cigs? And eventually I lose my cool from being called different colourful names under the sun. The favourite was “chink bitch”. I think I heard that like 10 times, and it just reinforces the thought that these kids have in no way gained proper education since they just generalize that if I am not Pakistani then I must be Chinese. And yes, a lot of people are like that. Like hello? They don’t know other races exist. Anyway, I ended up shouting back that “I’m not the one desperate for cigs anyway and they can suffer and go to hell, ha-ha”

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything personal against smokers, I’m a live and let live kind of person. I am against kids who spend their parents’ hard earned cash on vices when they haven’t even finished school yet. I believe in the principle that if you can pay for it yourself then fair enough you can have it, but these kids are probably on welfare and I am literally helping them buy their cigs with my tax contribution that thanks to the UK government is just handed out to anyone who just refuses to work. Hmmm what a “ball ache” as my Richard would say.

grieving, mourning & simmering

Several days pass and not a meaningful blog. What on earth happened? Well for days now I have just been toying with ideas in my head but not been putting them into paper, or shall I say, I haven’t been writing lately, not even trawling the web as much. I have been engrossed though with some recent events that have just literally swallowed my psyche. I haven’t realized it but I guess now its more obvious to me. I have been silently, unconsciously grieving, mourning.

I don’t know if you have heard and I'm sure you have, I mean at this day and age if you haven’t heard of these people then you probably have been born yesterday. Do you remember the guy who played Mel Gibson’s son in one of his movies? Heath Ledger? Well, he’s dead and he was so young, only 28. And Pakistan’s former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto? She’s also dead, killed by a suicide bomber. Oh what has the world come to? Normally I don’t follow these people’s lives, but somehow, I always feel some grief when I hear someone die. Some people will say that’s sad, etc etc. But to me it’s more than that. It’s the passing of the soul that I mourn. Where are they going? Are they headed for an eternity of damnation as catechism says or like my nana used to say, the dead sleep until judgment day? Even more frightening is the thought that your soul does not go anywhere but just dissipates and fades away or worse still just goes into Sheol a fog like formation of souls around the earth, mentioned in pop fiction in Anne Rice’s book, Memnoch.

Another thing that I am mourning the loss of is the quiet peace of mind that I had. For now I have to deal with remaining thread’s and lose ends of a business investment that turned more into a folly and money pit than anything else. Pair this up with the vexation I have to go through dealing with the people I expected to be the most supportive. And blimey, no matter what I do it’s still my bloody fault. I’m just looking forward to just tying up the loosed ends and I can finally wash my hands clean.

But there is one good thing in my life that stands constant and enduring, and is like a rock that sits at the edge of the sea, just accepting the slap of the waves steadfast. I hang on to him for dear life and his strength drives me. And when you have someone to talk to like I do, seems like half of your troubles are unburdened, then it’s not as bad from there. So I just keep plodding on, towards our goal to unite our family that’s split with one half on the other side of the world. And I keep on counting the days down to important events that will ultimately get us to that final goal, and then I sit back now and sigh and mull this…“ recipe for dealing with anger and frustration: set the kitchen timer for twenty minutes, cry, rant, and rave, and at the sound of the bell, simmer down and go about business as usual…”

So for now I think I have simmered down.

day 70

Do you find it difficult to compromise on things?

the meaning of Moira

Moira just celebrated her birthday the other day, and I was looking up something to post about our girl. Her name if you look it up in a baby name book means “star of the sea” that is the common meaning. But did anyone know that Moira, also means “Goddess of Fate”

...and the three goddesses in Greek mythology, are the white-robed Moirae or Moerae (in Greek Μοiραι — the "apportioners", often called the The Fates) and they were the personifications of destiny. The Greek word moira (μοiρα) literally means a part or portion, and by extension one's portion in life or destiny. They controlled the metaphorical thread of life of every mortal and immortal from birth to death (and beyond). Even the gods feared the Moirae...

That’s real cool. Well I didn’t know that when I gave her that name then. Honestly, I watched this film called Cutting Edge with Moira Kelly and I like that name and my dad, Moira’s grandpa is called Moises, so that’s how Moira came to be called Moira.

And back to the Moirae. They were supposed to appear three nights after a child's birth to determine the course of its life. The Greeks variously claimed that they were the daughters of Zeus and the Titaness Themis. In earlier times, the Moirae were represented as only a few - perhaps only one - individual goddess. Homer's Iliad speaks generally of the Moera, who spins the thread of life for men at their birth Moera Krataia "strong Moira".

Really insightful, what one can find in the meaning of one’s name isn’t it Moimoi (our little boylet) Happy 15th sweetie!

day 69

do you believe in luck? do you think it has influenced your life?

they once said & one about the war

Words these people once said... everlasting...

Do something for somebody every day for which you do not get paid. -AlbertSchweitzer, philosopher, physician, musician, Nobel laureate (1875-1965)

A painter is a man who paints what he sells; an artist, on the other hand,is a man who sells what he paints. -Pablo Picasso, artist and sculptor (1881-1973)

If one sins against the laws of proportion and gives something too big to something too small to carry it -- too big sails to too small a ship, too big meals to too small a body, too big powers to too small a soul -- theresult is bound to be a complete upset. In an outburst of hubris the overfed body will rush into sickness, while the jack-in-office will rush into the unrighteousness that hubris always breeds. -Plato, philosopher(427-347 BCE)

A politician is a man who thinks of the next election; while the statesman thinks of the next generation. -James Freeman Clarke, preacher and author(1810-1888)

A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes. -James KernFeibleman, philosopher and psychiatrist (1904-1987)

And this one, a perfect summation of what the powers that be should have considered before embarking on the on-going war...

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent. -Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi(1869-1948)

finally...

Order is good. Mostly. It makes sure that the earth will go around the sun in the same way as it has in the past and bring summer to ripen the mangoes. Patterns are good too -- most of the time. They help us find our shoes easily among an array of other pairs. But if we stick too much to the same order and pattern, we lose. We lose the opportunity to discover new lands, new paths, new flowers, new ways. Sometimes the break in order is by choice and at times it's forced, as when you lose a job. Often it's a blessing in disguise. It's an opportunity to explore and discover what remained hidden on the old path. - excerpt from a.w.a.d.

day 68

Does anyone give you an inferiority complex?

Girlfriend 1.0

Stumbled upon this and found it truly hilarious. Unfortunately, the following is for the true techie who will find the terminology and references out right funny, but to the uninitiated well, it's not that complex... enjoy!

Subject: Male Friend Seeking Technical Support.

Can you please advise me. I'm having some problems. I'm currently running the latest version of GirlFriend and I've been having some problems.

I've been running the same version of DrinkingBuddies 1.0 all along as my primary application, and all the GirlFriend releases have always conflicted with it. I hear that DrinkingBuddies won't crash if you run GirlFriend in background mode with the sound turned off. But I'm embarrassed to say I can't find the switch to turn the sound off. I just run them separately, and it works okay.

GirlFriend also seems to have a problem coexisting with my Golf program, often trying to abort Golf with some sort of timing incompatibility. I probably should have stayed with GirlFriend 1.0, but I thought I might see better performance with GirlFriend 2.0.
After months of conflicts and other problems, I consulted a friend who has had experience with GirlFriend 2.0. He said that I probably didn't have enough cache to run GirlFriend 2.0, and that eventually it would require a Token ring to run properly. He was right---as soon as I purged my cache, it uninstalled itself.

Shortly after that, I installed GirlFriend 3.0 beta. All the bugs were supposed to be gone, but the first time I used it it gave me a virus. I had to clean out my whole system and shut down for a while.
I very cautiously upgraded to GirlFriend 4.0. This time I used a SCSI probe first and also installed a virus protection program. It worked okay for a while until I discovered that GirlFriend 1.0 was still in my system.

Then I tried to run GirlFriend 1.0 again with GirlFriend 4.0 still installed, but GirlFriend 4.0 has a feature that I didn't know about that automatically senses the presence of any other version of GirlFriend and communicates with it in some way, which results in the immediate removal of both versions.

The version I have right now works pretty well, but there are still some problems. Like all versions of GirlFriend, it is written in some obscure language that I can't understand, much less reprogram.

Frankly, I think there is too much attention paid to the look and feel rather than the desired functionality. Also, to get the best connections with your hardware, you usually have to use gold-plated contacts. And I've never liked how GirlFriend is totally "object-oriented".

A year ago, a friend of mine upgraded his version of GirlFriend to GirlFriendPlus 1.0, which is a Terminate and Stay Resident version of
GirlFriend. He discovered that GirlFriendPlus 1.0 expires within a year if you don't upgrade to Fiancee 1.0. So he did. But soon after that, he had to upgrade to Wife 1.0, which he describes as a "huge ressource hog". It has taken up all of his space, so he can't load anything else. One of the primary reasons that he upgraded to Wife 1.0 is that it came bundled with FreeSexPlus 1.0.

Well, it turns out that the resource allocation module of Wife 1.0 sometimes prohibits access to FreeSexPlus, particularly the new Plug-Ins he wanted to try. On top of that, Wife 1.0 must be running on a well warmed-up system before he can do anything. Although he did not ask for it, Wife 1.0 came with MotherInLaw 1.0 which has an automatic pop-up feature that he can't turn off.

I told him to try installing Mistress 1.0, but he said that he heard if you try to run it without first uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will delete MSMoney files before doing the uninstall itself. Then Mistress 1.0 won't install anyway due to insufficient resources.

Can you help??

day 67

Have you ever given a speech? What was the last one about?