The Blog of Scott

I finally managed to finish FTPing the new design to sassquad.com, due to persistent connectivity problems here. Not been a good week for internet generally, with apparent downtime on TMNet's international gateway (one mention of a landslide in Hong Kong or something). Things appear to be okay now. This problem may have also stopped me from being able to access www.bbc.co.uk. All this week, I've had some strange message telling me that my country code was unknown. I normally listen to BBC7's recordings of classic comedies, which has really helped me to retain my sanity. I'm now a new fan of Just a Minute, I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue and Round The Horne.

By last Friday evening, the haze began clearing from KL, apparently due to a change in wind direction. However, those KL-ites who travelled north to escape the haze, found that the haze also travelled with them! There's a little smog as I speak, but nothing like last week. However, the burning season in Sumatra will last until October, so it may happen again.

BBC World have been showing Kuala Lumpur with the nasty haze. Easily the worst seen since 1997/98 (I wasn't here when that happened, but I couldn't believe the stories even then), so to carry on with life here without seeing blue sky, or anything for that matter, casts a very depressing shadow over everything. As I write, Kuala Selangor and Port Klang have been declared as emergency areas, with API of over 500 earlier today. No schools are open, and all businesses (except food shops, and health/medical related centres) are to close. Meantime, the government have now released API figures to the public, after being a national secret for seven years. Figures are now available on a twice-daily basis. Meantime, Kuala Lumpur is business as usual, unless the API reaches 500 here as well. I wonder how long it will last. It can't be much better for those who suffer from breathing problems.

The site is back online now. I have also been working on some of the formatting of the blog. I haven't figured everything out yet, so there could be some broken links in places.

It's been a miserable couple of weeks; my hosting provider's hard disc decided to fail, and it's basically stayed that way for weeks now. So, I've migrated my blog to blogspot.com now. I reckon it's going to stay that way forever, unless all the servers of the world decide to conspire in unison against my mortal self! Things are still a mess at the moment, I'm halfway through updating sassquad.com to take into account my new CSS design, and my work connection keeps timing out. Malaysia is indeed at the pinnacle of technology, I think bloody well not. Mind you, some lucky few can make a mint in this part of the world - a Malaysian web portal with a RM16 million (USD4 million) budget! On top of this, the Malaysia haze problem is getting worse . The country is now one giant cigarette. Everyone here, including myself, now have a unique smell about ourselves. The new Malaysian perfume - eau de palm oil. Fantastic, when it gets real hot here, we'll cook more evenl