While this new massive Southeast Asian earthquake happened, apparently, just after midnight local time -- when I was quite awake and alert as usual -- I didn't feel a thing, as to be expected. I haven't noticed an earthquake I was in since one hit central New Jersey in 1978. It could be felt in Singapore; Channel NewsAsia had reporters in hawker centers as late as 3 am to record people who'd seen water splashed about from it or felt tremors. The reports suggest the quake was most felt (here) in the north-central and eastern Singapore; I'm in the west. I found out about it when I woke up this morning and read the World News Now fan mailing list.
There wasn't any tsunami this time, mercifully; the biggest wave I've seen mentioned was about three feet tall. There's still a lot of destruction and many killed; it only seems modest compared to December's tsunami.
In considerably brighter news we got the second review of the manuscript in, and this reviewer liked the book a lot more than the first did. The reviewer thinks the odd blend of topics will help sales. At the least we're going to discover if there aren't many books with the same choice of subjects because nobody noticed the niche before or because nobody wants this mix.
Trivia: In the 1830s Nikifor Nikitin, of the township of Baikonur (now the nominal location of the main Soviet/Russian cosmodrome), was expelled by the Tsar's government to Kirghiz, as he insisted on talking about flights to the moon. Source: The Rocket Men: Vostok and Voskhod, The First Soviet Manned Spaceflights, Rex Hall and David J Shayler.
Currently Reading: Jupiter, Reta Beebe.