Azhrialilu Dot Com

Azhrialilu dot Com will be offline for a short while today sometime. Unfortunately I can’t predict what time that will be.  We’re transferring to a new hosting package with AN Hosting and once the account is set up I’ll start the move.  Hopefully it won’t take too long and the dns will propogate fast!

Wish me luck, people!!!!

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We had an earthquake last night… an earthquake!  In England!!!  Obviously it wasn’t up to the standards that other countries suffer them, but it happens so rarely here that it’s big news when it does.  The last time I remember feeling an earthquake was in 1984.  But that was mild in comparison with last night, well more like this morning.  It was close to 1am.

There I was, lying in bed minding my own business, drifting off to sleep.  Gary was snoring away next to me.  The next thing there was this loud rumbling sound followed by, what felt like, the bed shaking.  Gary almost leapt out of bed and went to the window, where he said he could feel the window vibrating.  This felt like it went on for about five minutes but apparently it was only 30 seconds or so.  At first he thought someone had broken in, followed by the comment that it couldn’t be an earthquake because it would have set off all the car alarms, so it must have been something overhead.  Needless to say, after feeling and hearing that, I found it even more difficult to go to sleep and lay awake for most of the night.

The earthquake was all over the news this morning.  According to tv and news website reports, the epicentre of the quake was 8km east of Market Rasen,Lincolnshire and 22km south of Grimsby and was a 5.2 on the Richter Scale.

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For example, when you first meet people are you a hand-shaker, hugger, double-kisser or way more standoffish?  What about later on in friendships….are you touchy-feely, need your space or have a total quirk about not liking to be touched somewhere that we’re supposed to know if you don’t tell us?  Ahem.  Moving on.  Lastly, what about PDAs (public displays of affection)….are they cool, obnoxious, somewhat okay, never okay, or something entirely different?

Ohhh, where to start! 

• When I first meet someone the last thing I want is them invading my space… see this circle around me *waves arms in a wide circle*  that’s MY space, stay out… step away from the zone!  I can’t abide people who I’ve never met smothering me in any kind of hug or kiss session… get thee behind me, touchy-freak!  It’s the quickest way to get me to dislike a person on sight and, believe me, it’s happened……….. more than once!  I mean, come on!!!!!!  Why, pray tell, do people feel this need to get all touchy with someone they’ve met for the first time three seconds earlier?  It just makes me suspicious.  A handshake I can cope with - but even then, unless it’s an interview or some other kind of business meeting, I would question just why someone would be stuffy enough to feel they’d have to shake my hand.  A simple “hi, how are you?” is more than adequate with me.  Or even a “It’s so cool to meet you, finally!”  I can cope with that too.  But no touching, goddamn it!  NO TOUCHING!!!!!
• On to stage two - this is where we’ve met once or twice now and are moving towards a friendship of some kind.  Just in case you hadn’t figured it out yet, I’m not a touchy person, I prefer not to be touched, thank you!  But at this stage, 9 times out of 10, I can cope with a quick hug - I prefer it over stupid air kisses (What the hell are they all about anyway?) - but I would still prefer to keep that space I alluded to earlier… *waves arms around in a big circle again*  Just imagine we’re talking over a fence (with some kind of barbed wire over the top of it so you can’t lean over )
• In a relationship, now that’s an entirely different matter.  With my other half I can be as touchy-feely as I like (which he’ll be quick to tell everyone isn’t very often.  Damn it, I’m not a touchy-feely person!!!!) but public expressions of affection by my other half don’t bother me at all.  Although I do draw the line at tonsil tickling in the middle of tescos!  That’s not to say there hasn’t been certain times when serious gropage has gone on in the freezer section *sniggers*

All that aside, what it boils down to for me is the person attemping the touching.  When I first met my mother’s current husband, he came at me across the carpark (I had no clue who this guy barrelling towards me was) and threw his arms around me in some kind of dramatic hug.  He was met with a stiffened spine and a glare that demanded “what the hell are you doing?”.  From that point on, I disliked him.  I still do.  I’m told he’s quite a nice guy.  Tough luck, I dislike him immensely - there’s more to it than the deluded hug, but that’s another post.  What he did was set the wheels in motion and got my hackles up by invading my space without invitation.  A big no-no.  Don’t do it… not if you want to live!

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What is it with online quizzes.  Most of them… okay, if I’m honest, ALL of them, are bloody stupid and pointless.  But everyone and I do mean everyone will do at least one of them at some point! 

 Take this one for instance:-

Are you an Attention Whore?

You Don’t Need Extra Attention

You’re perfectly happy with who you are, and you don’t need attention to feel good about yourself. You prefer to let your actions and accomplishments speak for themselves. Working hard to get people to like you is your idea of a nightmare. You’ve got a lot going on, and anyone with half a brain will notice that on their own!You come across as: Confident and serious People may wrongly think you’re: Stuck up and shy

Obviously I couldn’t resist doing this one - the title of it was far too tempting for me!  I couldn’t tell you how accurate it is though - do people see me as confident and serious or that I’m stuck up and shy?  Who knows, no one’s ever told me

But then you see ones with a title like:-

What Punctuation Mark Are You?

And I just think “What, now?”  Just how on earth can some questions tell you what punctuation mark you should be or what it means to be that particular one.  That’s just stretching the stupidity too far, I feel!

Now how many of you clicked the link and did that quiz?

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Azhrialilu dot Com is now graced by a new colourful style instead of the usual drab greys, whites and blues it’s been sporting for the last few months.  I’ve also taken the opportunity to add a couple of new plugins - comments can now be edited by their author for 24 hours after posting and  if you link to your blog url when you comment it should now .. I say should… pull through a link to your latest post (my way of saying thank you for commenting!) and I’ve also added a subscription option so you can be notified if a reply is made to your comment.  I was going to add the threaded comments mod but my comments.php is modified so much I couldn’t just replace the whole file and have it work out of the box and I really didn’t feel like rejigging it myself

Of course it was during my updating of the blog that my host decided to cut itself off, which left me sitting muttering and scowling for a half hour or so waiting for it to come back to life so I could continue with my fiddling.  I’ve now transferred my blog to somewhere much steadier!  So hopefully downtime will be a lot less often.

Let me know if you notice any difference with regards to speed and suchlike with the site now.

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