Using the Taiwanese earthquake as an excuse, or simply (a delayed) 新年快乐 !?:

Scandal, the Taiwanese internet broke "my" internet!! Should I sue it for the serious damage to my reputation and honour as committed e-mail writer and fervent and frequent Blogger (well, that might be overdoing it.. ;)) But well, a potential excuse why some of you may not have received an e-mail from me yet to wish you a happy new year be constructed about as follows:

When the earthquake struck Taiwan on December 26th, rock slides took out submarine cables near Taiwan. Internet and telephone networks toppled like dominoes. Consequently, access to numerous webpages hosted outside the Mainland was pretty much impossible or, where already rerouted, as slow as back then, during the good 'ol days of internet (when I was still young, etc.. I'm not sure if we were more patient at that time or if our excitement about that thing called internet and e-mail was simply strong enough to make a minute appear like a second..).

My initial reactions was threefold

1. boy, this feels like I imagined information access to be in China before I actually came here
2. man, just imagine I lived in a world without gtalk, Skype, all these other web 2.0 thingys, only usual mail, fax and telegraph, only 70% of the Spam (apparently worldwide Spam dropped by 30% when China got "disconnected"..), if I had to go to the bank to transfer my money (well, this is still the case here since ICBC e-banking software does not run on Linux (hint ICBC... ;)) and go to the supermarket to buy my groceries myself (well, also this doesn't really apply to China. But hey, would I know the elderly lady cooking in one of the corners of the supermarket downstairs if it existed..?).. I couldn't even bother you via BLOG and Flickr?! Seriously, it felt a bit like back in the days.. Quite intriguing as an experience.
   
3. hey, hey, isn't this THE excuse for my delayed e-mailing in 2007..?

Well, well, I know that, given my past record this excuse would not only be lame and lacking the required credibility, but also simply not true (since gmail was actually working pretty decently (linked to Google's distributed server strategy?)).. Let me, therefore, grab this opportunity to wish all of you...

新年快乐 - Xin nian kuai le or simply a happy new year, bonne année, feliz año, ein Gutes Neues Jahr, e schööns Nois (ok, ok, I'll stop showing off with my google translation skills.. ;))..!! I hope you had a smooth start and will be enjoying an exciting, inspiring and rewarding 2007 full of little BIG moments!!

How I started my year? Ask Andrew (if he remembers..) ;) Thanks for the pic Claire and starting the year off with me all of you guys!


Hugs, Dom *^^*