using qt3.3.8, vs2005 sp1

hi, i have narrowed my problem to the following:
created the simplest qt program, with QApplication and a simple qobject with QTimerEvent and in the timer event i called assert(0) to raise an assertion failure.
started the timerEvent and found that the timerevent keeps getting called (and i get an assertion failure again and again)
of course this is not desirable, i want the program to stop.
all the code up to the assertion (and non after) will be called again and again.
any ideas?

thanks for you help,

Roy.