I LOGGED on to my Internet last night at home and couldn’t sign-in to my email or much anything else. I use Orbit’s satellite Internet service that requires me to have a satellite dish on the roof of my apartment building in order to bypass the nasty censors at King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology in Riyadh, who filter the Internet and block hundreds of thousands of sites for users using local ISPs.

This morning I turn on my TV and see on the news that a 6.7 on the Richter scale magnitude earthquake, that hit Taiwan overnight, has knocked out telephone and Internet communications throughout Asia and in some parts of the Middle East and the US after undersea cables were damaged. Experts are now saying that it could take up to three weeks for divers to go down and fix the cables!

When I went to work I told one of my colleagues who also uses Orbit’s SatNet service about my theory, and he said that “no, it was because so many people were busy downloading porn at night.” “Maybe,” I said.

A few hours later I received a text message from Orbit that confirmed my suspicions: “The Taiwan earthquake has affected your SatNet Service.We expect to get this problem solved solved soon and we will compensate you accordingly. We apologize for any inconvenience caused.”

This morning I was able to access some sites from home, but Yahoo Mail was impossible to get in to. I hope they solve this crisis soon.

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I JUST noticed a few days that I had a total of 29,750 visitors to my blog, and then today I looked at my counter and saw that I now have surpassed the 30,000 visitor mark!

I also forgot to mark my first year anniversary of blogging that occurred last November. I have to thank Jessica Zafra for being the first person to inspire me to blog.