Honestly, this is a post I never thought I'd actually write but here I am. Many people I know and respect who are both intelligent and rational have begun taking the predictions of astrologer Ken Ring seriously when it comes to the predictions of earthquakes.

First let's take a look at Ring's theory: Basically Ring believes that the gravitational pull of the moon puts additional strain on fault lines during times of full or new moon, or proximity of the moon and this can lead to an "increased risk of earthquakes". His theory is dismissed by all geologist and seismologist in the country, but as a result of his predictions Mr Ring has enjoyed a certain amount of media spotlight.

First the claim that he successfully predicted the September 4 earthquake. What he actually said was, that on September 6 the earthquake was "entirely predictable". Of course it was, it happened two days ago and that's not a prediction. Unfortunately I'm unable to find an online source for this.

Secondly he claimed success for the deadly February 22 quake in Christchurch in a tweet reading, "Potential earthquake time for the planet between 15th-25th, especially 18th for Christchurch, +/- about 3 days." Now it's interesting to note that even with his margin of error, and it's a pretty wide one, he was off by a day.

Then there was his roundly criticised prediciton of a major earthquake on March 20, where he claimed that it would be "one for the history books", that there was a "killer loose on the street", and it would hit an east-west fault line which are only found in Malborough and North Canterbury.

On that date, we did have an earthquake. A 5.1M quake hit right in the heart of the eastern suburbs of Christchurch. It killed nobody, will only be mentioned in the history books as a footnote and did not occur in Malborough or North Canterbury.

But this is stuff that everyone knows, skeptics point to this as evidence that Ring's theories are wrong, Ring and his believers interpret them as being close enough to correct.

To find out more, we must go to the source. I sat and read Ring's website and tried not to let my gut reaction to physics defying woo such as "earthquakes cause fault lines, not the other way around" or "CO2 levels cannot increase because CO2 is heavier than air and sinks to the ground where it is absorbed by plants". Instead I looked at cold hard evidence.

Take this for example, Ring claims this is evidence that his moon-earthquake coorelation theory is correct.

On the below list of all of the major earthquakes in New Zealand since 1843, we list the phase of the moon when the earthquakes occurred. Of the 28 EQs listed, full moon or new moon within four days featured 19 times, or nearly 70%. 

First of all, 19 times out of 28 earthquakes is 68%, let's deal with accurate numbers and not round them up hmm? Now, the moon has approximately a 29 day cycle, it actually varies throughout the year but 29 is a reasonable average. If we take the days of the full and new moon, and add four days either side as Ring does, we get two windows of nine days where the risk of earthquakes is "elevated", or a total of 18 days out of 29, or 62% of the moon's cycle. So 68% of our most significant earthquakes occured during 62% of the moon's cycle? That's as bad as saying that 20% of all sick leave is taken on a Friday.

Finally I did some analysis myself, comparing every earthquake this year up to March 25 (there were 4550 of them) with the age of the moon. This begins at 0 on the new moon and goes up to 28 the day before the next new moon. 

If Ring's theory is correct, we should see an increase in both the number and magnitude of quakes from days 0-4, 11-18 and 24-29.

Notice the trend line on the middle of the graph, almost no slope to it at all. Notice the R-squared value (0.0116), this is a measure of statistical corelation. If R-Squared is 1.0 then given the value of one term, you can perfectly predict the value of another term.  If R-Squared is 0.0, then knowing one term doesn't not help you know the other term at all.  More generally, a higher value of R-Squared means that you can better predict one term from another.

Like so many other forms of woo, Ring's theories make sense at first glance, but under careful scrutiny they quickly fall apart. Mankind has always tried to predict disasters, including earthquakes, and kudos to Ring for trying, but clearly in this instance his theory is wrong.

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The first thing someone said to me at work today was, "How long did it take you to get to work this morning?", to which my reply was, "No longer than usual". Apparently it had taken her nearly ten times longer than usual to get to work.

Then I headed into my office and was asked the same question by another colleague. Odd to be asked the same thing twice by the first two people I saw, 

Speaking with more people at work, I found out that traffic seems to have gotten considerably worse in the past week. Commutes have more than doubled for many, while others are taking very long detours in an attempt to beat the traffic. But when did it get this bad?

My drive home yesterday took longer than it should have as two lanes merged into one to turn right by the hospital, where it is clearly NOT sign posted for motorists, leaving long queues as those in the left lane attempt to push in, while those in the right lane shake their fists at the perceived queue jumpers. 

Today I took an alternative route and found it not much better, with right turning traffic queues so long at two sets of lights that they were blocking straight through lanes. 

So what's happened? Surely it can't all be earthquake related! I noticed that even four lane Brougham street was backed up, despite the fact that I know there isn't a single lane closed due to earthquake damage.

Any ideas?

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"Gentlemen, once again it has fallen to us to perform a mission considered by command to be impossible. Make no mistake, the risk of taking casualties on this mission is extremely high. The mission is simple: get into the mall, buy Xmas gifts and escape.

"Field intelligence reports that the best time to enter the mall is between the hours of 3pm and 5pm. During this time there is deconflictation as the teenagers have burned up all their energy from their sugary drinks and are unable to continue their mating rituals, while the regular people are still at their place of employment. This is when we will strike.

"We will insert via ground vehicle from the east, gaining ingress from the eastern carpark entrance. From there proceed directly to the target area, expect to encounter heavy resistance from sales, enormous signs promising huge savings and pushy sales reps forcing handcream, debt cards or offering to buy your unwanted gold.

"Once you reach the target area, engage the nearest sales rep with extreme prejudice. Complete the transaction as quickly as possible, aim to be in and out in less than five minutes. 

"When the mission objective is completed, the most difficult part of the mission begins: egress. Return to the insertion point for rendez-vous and extraction. Expect to encounter similar amount of resistance on egress. There may be a mobile phone kiosk which also contains pushy sales reps and do not allow yourself to be tempted by delicious looking pictures of chocolate sundaes promising 'real Belgian chocolate'.

"Upon reaching the rendez-vous point, enter the extraction vehicles. The drivers have been instructed not to wait for stragglers so time will be of the essence. Once extraction has begun, there should be limited resistance although we may run into conflict with additional traffic around the conflict zone so keep your heads on a swivel.

"Any questions gentlemen?"

"Yes commander, what will we be having for dinner after the mission?"

When exactly did we have to plan our Christmas shopping expeditions like a special forces mission?

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Since the weather has improved markedly, I've been using the barbecue quite a bit recently and last week made a bit of a delicious mistake. Now I quite like smokey flavours and have a real taste for Masterfood's smokey barbecue seasoning, which goes really well with chicken.

In an attempt to make it even more delicious, I decided to put a little lemon and lime juice on the chicken before seasoning it. After adding a little oil, I reached for my barbecue seasoning but somehow failed to notice I'd picked up the wrong bottle from my spice rack. In my defense, they do have the same colour lid.

One shake and I immediately noticed the colour was wrong but I'd put too much on to salvage it. Checking the bottle I discovered I'd actually used garlic and herb salt. Does garlic and herb salt go with lemon and lime juice, I asked myself. Only one way to find out, I decided.

After barbecuing it, I discovered that the flavours go together very well, and so barbecue accident chicken was born. I tried it again tonight, this time well aware I was using garlic and herb salt, and it turns out this was no fluke.

The history of mankind is full of accidental discoveries: Post-it notes, microwave ovens, penicillin and now barbecue accident chicken.

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People who know me will know I enjoy a few drinks from time to time, and also that when I'm drinking I like to have something of high quality and a little bit unusual.

I also like to think I'm responsible with my drinking. I rarely drink on any day of the week other than Friday or Saturday, I make a point to never drink and drive, even after one and I try to limit myself to four or five drinks in an evening. My lovely wife has called me an alcoholic before, but honestly I don't think she actually knows the meaning of that word.

One of my favourite drinks is absinthe, the green fairy. Absinthe is a spirit derived from the distillation of a number of herbs, particularly wormwood, and is notable for its extremely high alcohol content, often going as high as 90%. The wormwood gives the absinthe a chemical called thujone, an acetone once thought to have hallucinogenic properties similar to THC, although this has since been disproven.

Absinthe also has a very specific preparation ritual of which there are a couple of varieties. The one I use is known as the French Method or simply the Absinthe Ritual, I have yet to try the Bohemian Method as I think having fire anywhere near a high alcohol spirit is a recipe for disaster.

The ritual begins with pouring a shot, or more correctly a dose of absinthe into a glass. A special slotted spoon, strangely named an absinthe spoon is then placed over the top of the glass with a sugar cube.

So I suppose the big question is, what does it taste like? The answer is surprisingly simple: Aniseed. I'm not a huge fan of licorice but I love absinthe, weird huh? 

Does it have a psychoactive effect? Not while I'm drinking it, but I do notice that I have some pretty trippy dreams after I've been drinking it.

So there's my take on the green fairy, I hope it's something you'll try and have it done properly. Improperly louchéd absinthe can taste pretty terrible, here's my final tip: if the sugar cube hasn't fully disolved by the time your glass is full, you're pouring the water too quickly.

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Apparently I used to roll myself up in the blanket like human sushi, I think Jess is pretty glad she broke that habit. Likewise, she used to move so far onto my side of the bed that I was precariously balanced on the edge, contemplating how soft a landing the carpet would be if she moved any further over. A few free kicks for offside sorted that out.

However, on Tuesday night one of our remaining issues reared its head again. I awoke at some ungodly hour because I was cold and realized Jess had all the blankets, so naturally I pulled some off her, only to have her pull them right back. This went back and forth for a few minutes, during which no words were exchanged, until I finally gave up. 

After a few more minutes of being cold, I tried a desperate tactic and pulled the blanket up from around my feet, essentially rotating the duvet by 90º. Turns out this is what caused our wee issue in the first place and now the duvet was completely upside down, but at least I was warm again. 

The following morning I left Jess to sleep late while I headed off for work and later on I got a text message from her saying simple: "You're a blanket thief!" Naturally replied by accusing her of the same thing and we squabbled back and forth like four year olds for a while. Then I came upon on idea.

I'm not sure whether it's the pregnancy, the earthquakes, or just a general lack of sleep, but Jess has been a bit grumpy lately. Not at anyone in particular, just a shorter fuse than usual so I decided it was time to launch Mission De-grumpify! Just so that she would know how special she is and how I want to make her as happy as she makes me.

So after work I trotted off to the mall and popped into The Body Shop. I will admit to having a slightly ulterior motive here, they were giving away cupcakes! After poking around for a while I bought some Deep Sleep Pillow & Body Mist to help her sleep and some Hemp Face Protector as she's complained her face is feeling really dry. (She's still gorgeous tho)

I'm pleased to say that Operation De-grumpify was a complete success as Jess was smiling on the couch last night and seemed to be much happier with herself and the world. So it looks like some good has come from me feeling guilty about our late night antics. (Not like that you dirty dirty reader!)

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It's hard to believe that more than a week has passed since the city of Christchurch was violently awoken by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake. While life has returned to normal for us, many face the arduous task of putting back together shattered homes, businesses and lives. 

It all began at 4.35am on Saturday 4th September. Oddly I'd been having trouble sleeping that night, having woken up at 2.30am and started listening to my iPhone. I woke up again at about 4.15am and turned it back on, but was somewhere between sleep and waking when it happened.

The bed shook violently, the windows rattled and the rumble from the ground is something I'll never forget. Jess awoke and exclaimed, "It's an earthquake," to which I apparently had the good sense to reply, "I know". I rolled off the bed and as I fell to the floor I distinctly recall seeing the whole sky light up twice as transformers blew. Once I hit the floor and the shaking continued, I rolled back under the bed and waited for the shaking to stop.

Once we had collected our senses, Jess and I realized the power was out and that we could be in the middle of a major event. Some of the effects of the massive adrenaline rush from a fight or flight situation are the need to visit the bathroom, and sudden thirst. Both of these soon alerted us to the fact the water was also out.

Strangely one of the services that didn't go out was the mobile network. Both Jess and I grabbed our iPhones and got online to figure out exactly what had happened. Twitter became an invaluable source on information in those first few hours, with hundreds of Christchurch tweeters exchanging information on what had happened well ahead of mainstream media.

Jess also had a battery radio beside the bed which we hooked up to some speakers to listen for information, but were unable to get much as Newstalk ZB went off the air until around 6am. Once they came back on the air, there was wall to wall coverage of the earthquake, but little firm information at that point.

As dawn struck, at 6.50am, we got up and dressed in warm clothes as it was a cold morning and the heating was out. I walked around the house giving it a thorough inspection for damage. Luckily for us, the repairs that were carried out last year seem to have protected out house brilliantly, with absolutely no damage visible.

At around 8am we decided to go for a walk around the neighbourhood to see what had happened. Our area looked relatively undamaged although there were a number of chimneys that had come down. 

Sitting around the house listening to the radio and conversing on Twitter eventually proved too much for me and I had to do something, checking over my parents' house seemed like a good thing to do. They're both overseas at the moment but their place could have sustained some damage. Fortunately the exterior of the house had no damage at all, and inside all we found were a few broken glasses and vases.

As the day continued, there were many more small tremors, but nothing that had us diving for cover. Power and water were restored to our house around midday and we made a trip to the Addington Coffee Co-op for a dose of normality on a day that was anything but.

Once the shops opened, we headed in to the supermarket to get some supplies, along with everyone else in the neighbourhood. Some essential survival items in our baskets, we headed back home to hunker down.

Doing a quick mental stock take of the food we had in the cupboard at the time, I figured there was about a week's worth of food. Water could have been an issue for us, we had some stored but quite a lot of it contained barley and hops. Something I need to remedy in the future.

Fortunately with the power back we were able to boil a lot of water which were then stored around the house, some in the fridge, some in the jug and some in the bathrooms for teeth brushing and pill taking.

That night I doubt many Cantabrians slept well, as every aftershock brought on an adrenaline rush which would keep you wide awake. 

As Sunday dawned, the full enormity of the disaster struck home for many a buildings began to be demolished around the city. For us it was a day to sit around the house.

Jess and I headed back in to work on Monday to see how our respective workplaces had fared. For Jess it was rapidly back to business as usual, but for me it was clear the next few days would be interrupted. After doing a visual inspection on all of the computers and data projectors in the school, the boss sent us home.

The decision was made that the school would not reopen until Wednesday, but I decided to pop in and sort out a number of little jobs floating around, again heading home around lunchtime, after the closure of the school was extended to the following Monday.

Wednesday was going to be a quiet day for me until just before 8am when a 5.1 magnitude aftershock hit, once again sending me scrambling under the bed for the first time since the big one. This shake also knocked out the power for 20 minutes. Unfortunately this meant all the servers at work initiated a controlled shutdown, a good thing, but it also means I needed to head back into work.

After Wednesday morning's jolt, there were plenty of aftershocks but none more than a reminder that the earth still wasn't quite stable. Of course these jolts also had most people at the end of their emotional tether with a number of heated discussions at work. As someone who has suffered from depression for over 10 years, you'd expect me to be at the end of my rope, but I was like the emotional rock for everyone to lean on at work. Jess also did remarkably well, despite the fact that she's pregnant.

Both of us resisted the temptation to go sightseeing until the following Saturday when we took a walk up and down Avonside Drive, one of the worst affected streets in town. The damage there was a real shock to me, mostly to see it with my own eyes as on TV it can be a little surreal.

Currently we're both back at work and back to normal although we are still a little on edge. Every creak in the house has us looking up and turning our heads like meerkats. 

What this has really taught me is that we need to be a bit more prepared. I remember laughing at my Mum for hoarding all sorts of items when a bird flu pandemic seemed possible, now I'm not laughing at all. I have a list of items I need to buy over the coming weeks and put together a survival kit, as well as establish a maintenance plan for the kit. Then we'll be ready for anything Mother Nature can throw at us.

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Over the past few days I've realized I have a sports blog, a weight loss blog and even a baby blog, but no real place to write about my own thoughts, feelings and experiences. And probably funny pictures of stuff I find around the net.

First thing on my list is to write an earthquake retrospective, but since work currently await, that will until tonight.

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