OOLEEBER

Hi Scratt,

I've been stopped at that exact tollway on the only 2 occasions I've driven north on it.

The first time without my Thai wife. The cop insisted that I was going over 100 but I was adamant that I did not exceed 80 and this was a fact. So then he called over his mate who rubbed his chin and looked around thinking for a while then eventually a little light must have popped on in his head. He pointed to another toll lane on the left with a sign that says TRUCKS. He was insisting I should have used that lane. I pointed out that this was a Toyota Hi Lux and my definition of a truck although vague, usually had either pretty high sides or 6 or more wheels.

Just then the exact car as mine passed us and I said "look SAME SAME".

He scratched his bonce again and then walked around the car. Then he gave me some BS about my chrome roll bars in the back changing (amazingly) my car into a truck. I had to pay a 500bt bribe to avoid returning 400klm to BKK to collect the licence. No receipt of course.

When I got home the wife said. "Maybe he had no money to feed his family today. What you worry you help him".

The 2nd time My wife was with me and when he saw her in the back with our twin babies he walked once around before making some excuse about the rear bumper slightly obscuring the numberplate but waived us on out of sympathy "this time".

Thousands of Pick-ups like mine have the same bars and anyway, when he waived us over it was from the front. What was he, pshycic.

I think its just a hot spot for pulling Farrangs and I bet these guys jump for joy when they see they've been rostered to work there.

We should start a topic just on this location and see how the numbers run.

Apart from that I actually like and respect them. I'd never want to do their job and when I smile at one I always get a smile back. After all, what would we do without them. I just get a bit peeved when I get ripped off.

Good luck all

Hi Rubberneck and welcome,

I did it 2 weeks ago so here's the go:

1. If you were married before get hold of your marriage cert and your divorce cert.

2. At the Bri Emb (poss online also) you can obtain a copy of an "Affirmation of Freedom to Marry". Re-type this filling in the blanks with your own details. Make sure it's 100% the same and check the spelling etc.

3. Go to the British Embassy to the 1st floor with the following:

a) Passport

2400Bt (I think)

c) Re-typed Affirmation......

d) Marriage & Divorce cert if applicable.

4. Return 24hr later and collect all the docs and passport.

5. Walk back down Wireless Rd in The direction of Sukhumvit Rd. Cross the bridge and you will see several translation shops on the corner (I used Interlanguage Translation Centre and they were great). Shop around if you can be bothered but I couldn't be. You will need to have the affirmation translated to Thai. They can provide the rest of the service which includes sending a courier to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to do more paperwork. they then bring it back and can post everything back to you by EMS - Recorded delivery to me and you. The full payment to the translation office was around 1500bt - 2000bt. I've forgotten to be honest but the whole thing is so simple because the translation guys do it every day. I hate sitting in cabs in BKK and waiting around.

For the actual marriage Just ask your GF where her local ampour (town hall) office is. Walk in, sign some docs and I think I paid 50 Baht. Within 15 min you'll walk out with a copy of the marriage cert each and hopefully a big grin too. It's all very low key so make sure you have some coldies in the fridge for when you get home.

BTW I didn't need any witnesses but I dont know if thats the case in every province.

Good luck Matey.

If I've missed anything here I'll be happy for someone to correct me.

I understood that 22k is equv to 96.5% and 24k = 99.9%. I could be wrong.

I bought a chain at a "red & yellow" shop and really wanted the 99.9% because of the lovely colour but the assistant advised my that it would be better to go for 96.5% as it is much stronger and one of my 17 month old twin girls (with me at the time) would surely have a go at ripping it of at sometime.

I thought that was very nice of her for the advice as the 96.5% was cheaper but not by much.

Hi Begs,

Yes it is Oliver.

I know but you were ( or some or us were ) not too sure about poor old Phil UK the other day.

Just for the record I don't think he's a troll either. Just a nice guy asking some honest questions that us smartypants already have some experience in.

You never know when one's gonna pop up though.

Hi Folks,

I thought you might find this interesting. The more of us that know about these pests the better

Pest control

August 28, 2004

A few years ago, a man turned up at a regular meeting of American feminists. Before he joined in, however, he told the group they would eventually throw him out because, in his words, all feminists were "bigots and liars".

He then proceeded to undermine many of the group's discussions, using a combination of disingenuous comments, intentionally outrageous claims and, eventually, direct insults.

Despite this, he was not immediately ejected. Instead, group members argued with him, argued about arguing with him, argued that everyone should just ignore him, until the meeting organiser took matters into her own hands and kicked him out.

This drama didn't play out in a real-world meeting place but on an internet-based discussion board. These electronic discussions, which cover almost any imaginable interest, allow like-minded people from around the world to post messages.

And the man, who probably would never have behaved this way in real life, is a classic example of an internet troll - a cyber prankster whose sometimes playful, sometimes abusive, mostly puerile and occasionally useful behaviour can tear an online community apart or leave it more bonded than ever.

Trolls take pleasure in disrupting online discussions by posting controversial messages, explains Susan Herring, a professor of information science at Indiana University in the United States, who wrote a paper about the troll attack on the feminist discussion board.

"The group was infiltrated by a couple of different men. One person [who they referred to as Kent] came on the group and announced from the outset that he was going to get kicked off the group. He said that feminists were intolerant," says Herring.

"He said he wanted to discuss the issues but all he really wanted to do was disrupt the group. He actually manipulated the ideologies of feminism, which is open and tolerant, and if people in the group tried to shut him up overtly they would prove they were intolerant. He won either way."

Kent's posts to the feminist discussion group, which had about 200 active participants, were provocative enough that someone would inevitably take the bait. In one post, Kent the troll, oozing false sincerity, wrote: "Incidentally, I take the silence over the gender wage gap hoax to mean that no feminist here even wants to TRY to defend their biggest lie: that men are paid more for the same work than women are."

Fighting with Kent was difficult because he was never specifically offensive, just subversive. In another message, he challenged the group: "In summary, what exactly is offensive about my posts? If you can tell me I will either stop doing it or leave the board. If, however, you refuse to tell me, and I've not been shy about asking SPECIFICALLY what standards I'm supposed to live by, then I will carry on doing it, of course."

Then, when people tried to ignore him, he would write: "Every poster here has told me that I'm wrong and they are right about feminism. Do you see that? I at least offer proof. I want to discuss, not just drop a slogan and ride out throwing dismissive insults."

The result was chaos, Herring says.

"They didn't know about trolling and I think that would have helped them act more actively. Half the people said ignore him because they figured out he was getting off on the attention. But there were always newcomers or someone else who would take the bait.

"There was another group that said we should just ban him. Then they had the whole discussion about banning him. Finally, the webmistress took matters into her own hands and did ban him. In the process they devised guidelines on how to deal with disruptive people."

Kent the troll focused his energy on upsetting feminists but other trolls are happy to upset a wider range of people. "Ari" told Icon his favourite technique was to write messages that were nominally on-topic.

"For example, I had an argument with one gentleman from alt.fan.ronald-reagan whether the title 'the Great Communicator' belongs to the Gipper [Reagan] or Nokia's 9210 Communicator mobile phone," Ari says.

The comparison between the late former president and Nokia's latest mobile communication device disturbed many of Reagan's fans, resulting in a spirited (and totally pointless) debate in the message board.

"Another good one was the 'Trent Reznor [of the band Nine Inch Nails] got his inspiration from the Sledge Hammer! [an '80s TV show)] theme song thread," Ari says. "That one got me an email from the TV series' creator."

Other trolls are a little more sick and twisted than Ari. On a discussion board about pet rabbits, one troll wrote the message: "Please post rabbit recipes." Unaware it was a troll, one of the rabbit lovers reacted in horror: "How inhuman can you be? This is a rabbit LOVERS newsgroup not a rbbit EATER [sic] newsgroup." Others, confused by the message, actually provided their favourite food-for-rabbits recipes.

So why do it? Why purposely find people who have a common interest and upset them? Like bullies, trolls feel alienated and want attention, says Rebekka Sommer, from the health psychology unit at the University of Technology, Sydney.

"If you're a troll, you're feeling fairly disconnected. Because you're not feeling OK, you go into a discussion group where people are sharing vulnerabilities or passions but you're not experiencing any sense of belonging, so you trivialise that sense of belonging and you feel better about yourself. It is a kind of power trip. It comes down to self-esteem."

Herring says trolling is the cyber version of schoolyard or workplace bullying. "The analogue for trolling is bullying at school but rather than overt bullying, the far more insidious type of bullying. The victim gets a sense that something is going on but you can never confront anyone. I think it's driven by the same thing, which is jealousy." The impersonal nature of the internet also gives rise to this anti-social behaviour.

"There is less accountability online because trolls don't know what you look like and in some ways they can disassociate from the effect they're having on people. It's almost dehumanising," Sommer says.

"I can say something nasty because I don't have to look you in the face. If I don't have to look at you it's easier for me to be hurtful and it still serves my purpose which is to make what you're doing look silly and make me feel better about myself."

Ari tells us he trolls because: "It's fun and easy. Also, it makes me feel all superior and stuff. I like feeling all superior and stuff. It's comforting."

Trolls are most common on open internet discussion boards but have also invaded closed online communities such as orkut.com, an invitation-only social networking service. Michael Jones, an active Orkut member, says he has a troll stalking him online.

"I'm not sure where I got this guy from but he's got this doctored photo of me [on his profile]," says the 32-year-old PhD student. "The guy shows up and randomly invites people to my apartment for large amounts of group sex and I don't even know who [he or she] is. Why me?"

Jones believes trolls can be a problem but says they also spice up an otherwise dull discussion: it's no fun when a group of people who agree with each other get together. "If everyone is there to agree with each other, no one is doing anything. You can be a devil's advocate and stir things up then."

Trolls become a nuisance when they descend into direct abuse, he says. "They're just being outright stupid, it's not even entertaining. It's abusive language for the sake of abusive language."

Another Orkut user, 19-year-old university student Yi Shi, says she has helped track down trolls on the site. Orkut trolls will typically create a fake identity before finding discussion groups to disrupt and people to upset.

" 'Leonie Obermeier' was a troll we collectively hunted down," she says. "The German-speakers concluded that none of her posts sounded feminine. Others were getting upset that she kept spamming people to get profile views."

The proof Leonie was a troll came when a sharp-eyed web-surfer discovered Leonie's profile photo actually came from a copyrighted website by typing "blond teen" into Google.

"The trolls are generally not very intelligent," Shi says. "A quick Google images search will yield their photo on a copyrighted website, their grammar/syntax/punctuation is often atrocious and they slip up in many places."

As for dealing with trolls, that's simple: ignore them, says Jones. "Ignore it and delete it without any further comment if you can. The worst thing you can do is give them the attention that they are seeking. It's a kind of social terrorism - if you really appease them and give them what they want, they'll terrorise you."

Wise words Levanter.

Thanks for that insight - very interesting and very useful. I for one will try to work on your advice.

Cheers

Sharp as it may have been, my sarcasm did not succeed in penetrating the service girl's three layers of whitening creams and powder through her exceptionally thick frontal bone and into the grey mass behind it, which, given a more favourable environment, could have developed into a brain.

Beauty Meadish.

Funny, referring to an earlier post regarding So-da. The exact thing happened to me yesterday when an Ozzie friend on her first visit here asked for a soda 3 times and got a blank look every time. Eventually she looked to me for help and I said So-Da and the girl got it straight away.

My friend couldnt belive that I had said exactly the same and it got through. Needless to say I was quite pleased with myself and thoroughly enjoyed the next Bea Chaing.

Hope there are more of these stories out there.

Cheers

This question was raised in another thread but it's in another topic so I thought I raise it here.

Does anyone know for sure i.e. actually been fined for leaving in a hotel safe or similar?

Cheers

######,

I just clicked on the link and the Thai police have shut down the site.

Indeed - did no one else notice that 10% would be 5.75Mil.

That's why I buy the BKK Post and not The Nation. They really do seem to be a bunch of plums working on that rag!

Thanks snowleopard but Jeez ! I'm going to have to read that again tomorrow before I've had my first 2 beers of the day.

Someones birthday today - you know how it is.

Sincere thanks - I'm really enjoying this journey in language but for now I'm off to find Miss Moneypenny.

Cheers

O

And thanks Meadish,

I'm still trying to get my head around your very kind and patient explanation. Not to mention scouring the web for info.

I think I now understand the difference but find it hard to obtain a glossary of sentence constituents. Still looking.

Good onya matey.

ooleeber

Love your stuff here guys!

O

Very clear I think?

"the term agent was explained by meadish to ooleeber".

"agent" is the subject

"Meadish" is the Agent

"explained" is the Verb

But does that make "ooleeber" the 2nd subject or something else?

This is fascinating!!

Oh! and in the active voice, what does that make the door? Just a noun?

Thanks

Thanks Guys,

For the welcome and the explanations. Snowleopard, I read your post twice and was mildly frustrated with myself for not understanding all of it but I just found a site explaining English grammar and lo and behold I now understand you.

I'll try to keep my posts limited to Thai queries now that I have a source for the grammatical questions although any links to Thai grammar or a brief overview would help greatly.

It's funny I believe I speak thai in the correct grammatical order but only because I copy everyone else but I don't know why sentences are constructed as they are.

Thanks Again - Have a great Sunday!

Hi Guys,

Sorry to butt in here with a change of topic but you 5 folk seem to be the most informed here (and the most enthusiastic). I know nothing of linguistics and there are some key phrases or words you use that, if I knew the meaning I feel would open up a whole new world of understanding for me.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I wish I had studied English further at school. but alas.......

Here is the level of my lack of knowlege.

1) Noun - naming word: chair, bike etc

2) Adjective - can't remember, is that a describing word? Like Fat or fascinating?

3) Verb - To Do (the auto pilot in my brain is still working I think) ie.. - no, I'm not sure. Does that mean I'm "going to go shopping" and "going" is the verb?

Jeez I feel really stupid now.

But my point is I know so very little to be able to deconstruct and discuss the language and you guys understand these words as well as you know the names of the fruit at the market. And I'd love to learn too. I could look the words up in the dictionary but it's not as much fun and not nearly as informative as hearing it from a (or several) human being(s).

So far (just in this thread) the words who's meanings have escaped me are:

Passive voice

Agent

Auxiliary

There must be so many more and I really should buy a book on the subject. To be honest though, I can't remember being taught any of this at school. All I remember is reading 'To Kill a Mocking Bird'.

Anyway, please forgive me if I'm out of line and out of context with this intrusion and I will accept your correction on my post in this thread without embarrassment but any advice on any of the above that might open my eyes further in the world of language would be gratefully received.

Cheers

Changed

OK, GIF did not work.

Later!

O

HI M S,

Thanks for that matey and thanks for the welcome and yes it is Oliver. not so difficullt but you were spot on - Good Man !

And thanks for the the advice on the priorities of the tonal aspect. So far, vocally, it's been the hardest part for me. My brother has a record deal in Oz (we're both from Scotland) and he can sing perfectly but I can't sing for buttons and getting the tonal part of Thai correct has been a word for word excercise for me. Maybe once I can speak thai ok I can sing too - Now that would be something!!!!

I also appreciate your comments on the mai pen rai regarding my lack of linguistic skills and I'm sure you're right. I just wish I'd studied harder at school so I understood more efficiently some of the terminoligy used on this forum to expedite my learning. For a long time now I've wanted to go back to school and learn english properly. Funny how one can have a perfect command of the english language and know so liitle about it. (not that I fall into the perfect category but....).

And.. Thanks again (I'm a very grateful person today) for offering to help with clarification. You're obviously one of the good guys.

Onya matey.

If anyone is offedened by my GIF please let me know

Hi Snowleopard and 2004 and all others,

This is my first post and I only found this forum in the last couple of days but already I've copied and printed many pages of your posts to help me learn Thai.

I live in a villiage 30klm outside Sukhothai with very few Farangs and while this has the benefit of me not having much English communication, I'm forced to speak Thai (willingly I should add) it also restricts me from asking questions about the language that seem to crop up faster than the Morning Glory in my pond. This forum is the perfect remedy and I hope to bug you all with many questions in the future. My wife speaks pretty good English but 50% of the time she can't answer (or I don't understand her explanation), no matter how hard she tries.

I'd like to say thank you to all who have posted and given me some fascinating information to work on. I've lived here for two years and I'm ashamed to say that I only started learning Thai script last week. I have limited time ( work and 17 month old twin girls ) so I'm only up to about 20 letters in the last 7 days or so but I love it and already I can recognise letters on road signs etc.. that were for so long so alien to me. It's really a joy and although I'm learning slowly it does seem rather easy. I've yet to learn how I'm supposed to pronounce the letters phoneticaly and include the vowels, which does seem rather complicated and then there's many more rules I believe I must master but at this stage I'm raring to go.

I should point out that I have no linguistic skills, unlike may of the contributors to this forum, and I only discovered what "classifier' meant today (which is pretty pathetic now that I think about it) but I'll plod on and already I've learned something from your postings. I hope that gives you all some heart. Your contributions to this forum are much much more than a medium that satiates your own love of the language. It helps new commers like me and I'm very grateful. I mean that sincerely.

A note to Snowleopard - ( This reffers to a separate thread but I feel it's worthy of note), I thought you were a bit harsh on Richard in this thread. Your response to him was not in-keeping with your usual rapport with everyone else. Unless of course you've had confilct with him before that I've not read so far. But in any case, this is not a jousting arena. I'm sure you'd agree it's not the place for anger or one-upmanship (if thats how you write it) We all know something and no-one knows everything and all information can be priceless to some receipients. (just my tuppence worth and no criticism intended)

Sorry I don't have a funky picture or GIF to go with the username. I'll work on that later.

Anyway, thanks again to all and any links to Thai learning sites will be warmly received.

OOLEEBER is how Thais pronounce my name, can you work it out?

Hi Snowleopard and 2004 and all others,

This is my first post and I only found this forum in the last couple of days but already I've copied and printed many pages of your posts to help me learn Thai.

I live in a villiage 30klm outside Sukhothai with very few Farangs and while this has the benefit of me not having much English communication, I'm forced to speak Thai (willingly I should add) it also restricts me from asking questions about the language that seem to crop up faster than the Morning Glory in my pond. This forum is the perfect remedy and I hope to bug you all with many questions. My wife speaks pretty good English but 50% of the time she can't answer (or I don't understand her explanation), no matter how hard she tries.

I'd like to say thank you to all who have posted and given me some fascinating information to work on. I've lived here for two years and I'm ashamed to say that I only started learning Thai script last week. I have limited time so I'm only up to about 20 letters so far but I love it and already I can recognise letters on road signs etc.. that were for so long so alien to me. It's really a joy and although I'm learning slowly it does seem rather easy. I've yet to learn how I'm supposed to pronounce the letters phoneticaly which does seem rather complicated and then there's many more rules I believe I must master but at this stage I'm raring to go.

I should point out that I have no linguistic skills at all and I only discovered what "classifier' meant today (which is pretty pathetic now that I think about it) but I'll plod on and already I've learned something from your postings. I hope that gives you all some heart. Your contributions to this forum are much much more than a medium that satiates your own love of the language. It helps new commers like me and I'm very grateful. I mean that sincerely.

A note to Snowleopard - I thought you were a bit harsh on Richard in this thread. Your response to him was not in-keeping with your usual rapport with everyone else. Unless of course you've had confilct with him before that I've not read so far. But in any case, this is not a jousting arena. I'm sure you'd agree it's not the place for anger or one-upmanship (if thats how you write it) We all know something and no-one knows everything and all information can be priceless to some receipients. (just my tuppence worth and no criticism intended)

Sorry I don't have a funky picture or GIF to go with the username. I'll work on that later.

Anyway, thanks again to all and any links to Thai learning sites will be warmly received.

OOLEEBER is how Thais pronounce my name, can you work it out?

I'll post this on a new thread too.