an exercise in percussive maintenance
Asides
Guinan, the bartender aboard the Federation Starship Enterprise in Star Trek: The Next Generation, is hundreds of years old. In the episode, Yesterday’s Enterprise, she is able to sense it when the timeline changes. She met Picard five centuries before Picard meets her. And the Enterprise has holodecks which are bigger on the inside. Discuss.
A little over two hours ago my desk started shaking. Then I realised our entire building was shaking. So this was how it was going to end?
About twenty seconds later the Earth stopped moving and two seconds later #earthquake was trending on Twitter and South Africa experienced a sudden spike in online activity. Someone needs to do a study on what this says about us as a species.
Anyhow, according to the USGS the quake measured a magnitude of 5.3 at the epicentre which is a little under 100km away from us. No damage here, but closer to the action at least one person was killed when a wall collapsed and an as-yet unknown number of miners are trapped underground (oh, yes, the epicentre is in a major gold-mining region). It’s also not known yet whether mining activity could have triggered the earthquake.
Those of you interested in this type of thing can find more information here.
P.S. Did I say no damage? Not quite accurate. My chess set was massacred.
A lone tower remains standingI just thought I’d introduce you to the latest additions to my bookcase. I ordered them a few weeks ago during the school holidays, but they only arrived today.
This does not bode well for the studies…
P.S. Tune in tomorrow for my review of Ursula le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan.
I feel after yesterday’s post I need to write a follow-up. No, I did not cry when Holland was eliminated from the tournament. And come on. It was an excellent game.
I am wondering who to support in the final, though. On the one hand I’m thinking Germany. My ancestors on both maternal and paternal side come from there, and I know how to make glühwein to enjoy during the match. On the other hand I have no problem supporting Argentina after their performance last night.
Really, I just want to see what happens when when the German scoring machine encounters that Argentinian defence. I’ll rather not support anyone and just enjoy the show.
I fear I might be turning into a fan. (I even looked up the meaning of “offside” the other day…)
I regret that there will be a delay in posting this week’s Song Title Challenge, due to a very poor 3G signal at my current location (the in-laws’) and because I’m not going to retype the whole thing on my phone.
Normal service on if all else fails…use a hammer will hopefully resume by tomorrow afternoon (South African time).
My apologies if this has caused you any inconvenience (as if!)
😉
if all else fails...use a hammer 