quandow

11 minutes ago, Somtamnication said:

Real fake news is bad bad bad. Please stop.

Here's the problem - one person's fake news is another's Fox News. And have you ever looked at TheOnion.com? VERY convincing political satire that many dupes believe. Then there are all the sites like Brietbart that lean HEAVILY to the right, MSNBC.com just as far to the left. Who is to be the judge of what is or is not fake?

I just LOVE these fables. "No alcohol available." HAHAHAHAHA!!!

I've heard many times you can judge a person by looking at their children. This pretty much says it all:

I was an avid scuba diver in Puget Sound during the 90's. There was one particularly challenging but rewarding dive at Agate Pass. The strong tides were such that you took two cars, parked one off where the dive ended, then took the 2nd car where you entered and drifted across the pass. At the end of the dive on an incoming tide was a salmon farm. Occasionally we would dive close to it and see the nets holding these poor creatures. They were packed like sardines, no room to swim around, and buckets of antibiotics were thrown in to kill the disease that flourished in these conditions. Completely disgusting. There is no way you could EVER convince me to eat farmed fish.

All the folks I know are still around. I "kind of" understand Thailand wanting to get rid of the riff raff. I used the monthly income process (honestly) over ten years and often wondered how that could be valid given I could lie through my teeth at the embassy. Now I've had to scramble and will hopefully be able to satisfy the ฿800,000 method, depending on how long a particular annuity will get me the check soon enough for me to transfer to one bank, then to another, then Transferwise to Bangkok bank. Like I said, scrambling. I am sure many folks were being disingenuous about having the required monthly income. It IS brutal how Thailand is applying these rules, and of course I looked into Vietnam, Cambodia, P.I., etc. I just have too many friends and am too comfortable with my life to start over. The only real effect I've seen is the visa "agents" jacking up their prices, but just a little.

I don't get it. Didn't the citizens vote FOR Brexit? If the vote passed but the politicians don't honor the decision made by the people, then why bother having voted in the first place?

3 hours ago, Kelsall said:

Well, nothing else is working in the haters' multi-pronged effort to overthrow duly-elected president Donald J. Trump.  They might as well try this.  Yawn.

I have to admit, as much as I HATE Trump, this is just ridiculous. It gives all us Trump haters a bad name!

The general lawless nature of Thailand is a large part of its attraction, but this is the down side.

1 hour ago, soalbundy said:

I have spoken English with my son (11) from the day he was born, despite the mother-in-law saying he is Thai, he will never understand what you are saying ???? He speaks fluent English and can read English fluently as well, I make him read kids stories on the internet. He gets further input from playing games on the internet (Roblox) and can communicate with some of the players in England and America, since many of the players and games come from America he has started to get a slight American accent which I come down hard on, "it's not caaan't, it's cant". I let him see examples of how Richard Burton spoke and show him the ugliness of the American accent by showing him examples of the 'Southern drawl' it seems to have had an affect. He has now asked me if I can teach him German but I feel that at 11 it is too late without a lot of work, and Thai's don't like a lot of work. 

By the looks of your spelling, punctuation and grammar, your kid will definitely be bi-lingual. Well done!

I knew some kids that played together, three different countries represented. When they threw the ball to the German kid, they spoke German, and so on. Kids pick up languages VERY quickly up to the age of approximately 5 so talk on in English as much as possible.