Pseudolus

I've never seen any foreigner 'integrate into Thai society' on any level.

For those of us living in rural areas and speaking Thai, we are isolated, with only our direct family for company.

I can't wait to get away from my village for my monthly trip to CM, where I can talk to other white men about whatever takes my fancy. In the village the hight of conversation is, the weather, the crops, and how spicey was that food I just ate, and pass another bottle of cheap rice whiskey.

not asking this to be obtuse Tommy, but seriously, are you happy like that? I think I would be on a couple of bottles of whisky and a book a day if I lived like that.

Thailand - Global hum of adultery. Wonder is this explains the Yingluck - meeting - hotel scandal then?

"issue warnings for petty traffic violations"

So they admit they will not issue tickets now and only go for black money. Thanks for the honesty.

I have been both over the last 7/8 years in various countries. When you have a big firm picking up your rent tab, paying your bills, sorting out your visas and tax, and paying you a salary that frankly you are not worth in your home country (if we are all honest about it) but due to skill shortages are worth it in a foreign country, life is exceptionally easy. Wake up - closet full of clean ironed clothes from the maid (paid for of course and from a pre-approved agency by your firm). Breakfast is ready, kids are attended to, kiss goodbye to the wife and step into the car with driver, and go to the office. Do your work, either drinks with the boys then home with the driver standing by, or straight home to dinner. When going to the home country, you have a month off, business class flights paid for, so all you have to do is live. Compare that to the life of a non mnc expat, and you can see where the gulf appears.

Very obvious you have no idea what you are talking about, your comments for the most part are incorrect on so many levels and does not accurately describe the typical life syle an MNC Expat in Thailand, you are providing a myopic, stereotypical description I am so furious that you forgot to mention.......

..........the Scottish smoked salmon flown out every week, the Beluga and Bolly provided free of charge and most importantly the free VIP pass to Poseidon to get executive stress relief.........

When I was in Sudan my package was;

1. Net base salary - all tax taken care of.
   
2. Hardship allowance uplift of 30% paid out of country. Net.
   
3. Up to 4 month bonus.
   
4. Shares - options and rights issues.
   
5. Housing (provided, including maid, all bills paid).
   
6. Car and driver.
   
7. Business class flights 2 times a year for self and family.
   
8. Schooling in home country - N/A,no kids.
   
9. All the usual bits and bobs including medical, evac, pension,
   

Seems a lot of people do not know what a true MNC expat offering really is. In Indonesia that is quite a common offering as well.

The Standard in Thailand is typically;

1. Salary, Net. Maybe a hardship uplift as well
   
2. Housing allowance.
   
3. Car allowance.
   
4. Shares scheme
   
5. Pension
   
6. Bonus
   
7. Medical
   

An expat here can most likely earn in 5 days the same that a Thai of the same level will earn in a month when all put together.

Don't get it any more.

Just wonder how many millions of baht this chump has taken to come up with such ludicrous concepts and try to promote them. Grubby man, grubby country, trying to find a way to do business with Iran. Hopefully this will be enough for the UN (usa basically) to jump all over Thailand to see what is going on already. Bound to be something with this little bird tweeting away.

I have been both over the last 7/8 years in various countries. When you have a big firm picking up your rent tab, paying your bills, sorting out your visas and tax, and paying you a salary that frankly you are not worth in your home country (if we are all honest about it) but due to skill shortages are worth it in a foreign country, life is exceptionally easy. Wake up - closet full of clean ironed clothes from the maid (paid for of course and from a pre-approved agency by your firm). Breakfast is ready, kids are attended to, kiss goodbye to the wife and step into the car with driver, and go to the office. Do your work, either drinks with the boys then home with the driver standing by, or straight home to dinner. When going to the home country, you have a month off, business class flights paid for, so all you have to do is live. Compare that to the life of a non mnc expat, and you can see where the gulf appears.

Non MNC expat, but still a firm sponsored expat. They get a job lot of cash each month and nothing more. They can afford the maid, driver etc but they have to sort it all out for himself. Still an easier life, but with more disturbances.

The expat who is going native has to deal with everything by themselves and feels the full weight of Thai ludicrous red tape.

When you are in the MNC world, you live in a bubble basically regardless of if you realise it or not and thus it is difficult to realise what the guy doing it all themselves have to go through. From the guy doing it all themselves, they could be jealous and maybe a tad irritated that the MNC guy has it so easy. But everyone has their own problems. no matter what all though the scale of the problems vary massively.

You seem to be one of those that the OP says misundestands MNC expat life and has probably never met a MNC expat as I am one and have nothing like what you describe.

Sorry that your MNC experience was not the same an mine was. Pattaya - can we assume you work in the oil business as a day rate consultant then?

"400,000 drug addicts have undergone medical treatments.

that's good then. What a load of cock.

Oh, and a Visa could take ages where as the emergency travel document is quick quick.

http://www.chiangmaishiping.com/householdmove.htm

Also contact some of the local estate agents - they might have some numbers for you to call.

re Car - those cash for cars guys will give you 75% ish of its current value. Save yourself some time and sling it up on all the classifieds quick quick at a good price; you never know you might have it sold quickly.

I think you are referring to this product?

http://www.butcher-p...dex&cPath=22_80

Fishing net is not food grade, will melt if hot, and might be susceptible to having pieces falling off. Most importantly though is if they have dipped the net in some nasty chemical prior to shipping to the shops for what ever reason. Make sure you clean it thoroughly before using it if you do.

With trussing by string, you can incorporate a few slip nots into the tying that will allow the ham to expand but not fall apart. Very difficult to explain how, but it needs to be strong enough to only swell with the meat and not just fall off. Perhaps call up the western butchers here and ask them to order you some?

That's the stuff. I think I'll learn how to tie some knots like the video above and see if that works. I feel like I am in cubs learning to tie knots all over again.

If that cottage roll wasn't so dam_n tasty I would've given up by now LOL

THANK you for all your suggestions.

There are loads of butcher supply companies all around the world - send a few an email and see if they will send you a roll of it. I would imagine that one roll would last you for ever so no problem.

we use both dutch mill and meji for steaming in latte cappuccino etc, if they where anything other than fresh milk they would not foam up, also noticed another brand of milk has appeared here in pattaya cant remember the name

Wrong - you can foam powdered milk. Done it myself with my Bezzera espresso machine, and here's another guy who has as well;

http://www.home-bari...ilk-t22142.html

"This morning I discovered the milk in the refrigerator was sour! I am a VERY early riser, and the grocery store was not scheduled to open for another four hours! I could not go without my morning's cappuccino so I remembered that there was lots of powdered milk left from a recent camping trip. I mixed up some of it and started up the trusty 1978 machine. To my surprise it made beautiful foam! I pulled the shot and made the cappuccino.

I was even more surprised when it was really quite good. The foam was noticeably more stiff, but the flavour was hardly different. To me it was actually better in flavour than skim milk, though "real" milk to me is better"

and are you a barista foaming milk for customers on a daily basis

Used to be about 10 years ago. What bearing does that have on the fact that powdered milk does indeed foam, contrary to your belief. Also, the foam is a little stiffer than usual, but the layman coffee drinker would never notice that. So your point is?

I do not think she has a chance as they were not married. If she tried to access the money before a will has been read (if there is one) she will be breaking Thai law. I would guess she would have to prove to the individuals who claim his estate that she leant him the money and trust them to give it back. Can you the woman prove that the cash in her account did not come from him initially? I would say, basically, no chance.

Crown relocations will get your stuff out. They will walk in, box it up, and ship it. A tad pricey though.

http://www.crownrelo...82564F2002E19F5

Better to just box it yourself though and post it via the post office. A lot easier in the long run and significantly cheaper.

http://www.thaivisa....36457-stingray/ - Cash for car.

You married her. In your culture, it is 50:50, what's yours is hers, and what's hers is your. Why should you act differently just because she is Thai? That's not very fair really. What ever your income is each month, she should have access to it. Same as if she were American. Surely she is aware of your, as a couple's, finances? Just be fair to her and remember you should not be cheap charlie with her or even consider that as an option because in doing so, the money you are trying to stop her having, half of it is actually hers. By law. So lighten up, stop being her auditor, look deep inside and question if you were like this on your first marriage.

Poor lady; feel quite sorry for her now.

When I was last there in 20 days ago, on the pop up thing on your computer when you find it and try to connect, it said Free for 2 hours. Just assuming that in the future they will start charging after 2 hours? Not as bad as the Mandarin in KL though! 350 baht for 24 hours WiFi in the room, or 750 for 3 days. I actually wrote them a letter to complain about that lol

Hi Folks.

Playing around with the X100 and I took a few snaps of a dog in a tunnel.

I've tweaked it a little, not happy with the colour on it but wanted to bring out the red of the bucket for some reason and the green in front of the poor sod.

Interested to see what you guys would do with the base picture.

http://www.bkwater.com/index.php/en/branch.html

Pura do them as well - sold in most super markets etc, but they also have shops out there as well. List is above. If you mean the ones for hiing and camping, you need to tell us your location. There is a very good camping shop on Lad Prao road that sell them.

we use both dutch mill and meji for steaming in latte cappuccino etc, if they where anything other than fresh milk they would not foam up, also noticed another brand of milk has appeared here in pattaya cant remember the name

Wrong - you can foam powdered milk. Done it myself with my Bezzera espresso machine, and here's another guy who has as well;

http://www.home-bari...ilk-t22142.html

"This morning I discovered the milk in the refrigerator was sour! I am a VERY early riser, and the grocery store was not scheduled to open for another four hours! I could not go without my morning's cappuccino so I remembered that there was lots of powdered milk left from a recent camping trip. I mixed up some of it and started up the trusty 1978 machine. To my surprise it made beautiful foam! I pulled the shot and made the cappuccino.

I was even more surprised when it was really quite good. The foam was noticeably more stiff, but the flavour was hardly different. To me it was actually better in flavour than skim milk, though "real" milk to me is better"

I think you are referring to this product?

http://www.butcher-packer.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=22_80

Fishing net is not food grade, will melt if hot, and might be susceptible to having pieces falling off. Most importantly though is if they have dipped the net in some nasty chemical prior to shipping to the shops for what ever reason. Make sure you clean it thoroughly before using it if you do.

With trussing by string, you can incorporate a few slip nots into the tying that will allow the ham to expand but not fall apart. Very difficult to explain how, but it needs to be strong enough to only swell with the meat and not just fall off. Perhaps call up the western butchers here and ask them to order you some?

Best flour I always found for bread is Canadian flour. Don't know why, but the results are usually better. Where to buy it? Seen baking supplies in Makro, there is a speciality shop in Fashion World, and also I think in Bangcapi mall. There is a new Japanese shop on 33/1 Sukhumvit and they have a lot in there as well. Thai's mostly do not have an oven and as such baking is not something they do.

I asked something about Thai Cows milk fat content a while ago in the farming forum, and was told that you do not get much milk from a Thai cow. Maybe this is why it is expensive? Imported and taxed. Or the cows are imported and taxed. Thai's don't drink it, so Farangs will buy it and have to pay more.

Playing around with a new camera recently and took a hundred or so pics of the dogs. This one stopped me in my tracks. I knew he could lick his chops but had no idea that he was inverting his tongue to do the job properly.

Just wish he would pay as much attention to the rest of him as opposed to only parts where remnants of his fish breakfast happened to splash.

I seem to recall that recently though you actually had to be studying something (that means attending the courses) to get the student visa. You don't need a degree to study for a degree, but each university will have certain entrance standards though. That would be the least of your problems though is the curriculum is taught in Thai.

superstition is a form of psychological condition, and indeed the west has been healed by it.

Hmm, and along the way we have new psychological conditions: e.g. the fluctuation of stock markets...

Well, actually it is. There are many forms of superstition and most of them have psychological reasons behind.

For example, sportsmen who do certain things such as rituals or wearing certain items prior to competing. They call them superstitions but in reality are coping mechanisms for anxiety disorders and often demonstrated through OCD (like bouncing a tennis ball a certain amount of times.....

Another reason is paranoia, and superstition is more often than not trying to create an element of certainty with the reasoning being that false certainty is better than no certainty at all. When people have no control over something, the overpowering need is to try to do something. Superstitions is one thing they can do and feel "at least they did something".

Then you have the placebo effect as well. Placing a rabbits foot on your key chain will not give you luck. However, if you believe it will bring success in relation to a certain event, the power of your own belief can bring about your desired result. It's not the rabbits foot, its you believing you will do it and thus doing it. Counter wise, not doing your superstition prior to something, you believe you have lost before you started. So you give up. And it doesn't happen. You then blame it on not holding your 4 leaf clover in your bum cheeks or what ever the superstition is. Doing something when you have not completed your superstition though is very much a psychological condition known as perceived helplessness. You believe you can not do something, so you don't.

On such as the number 13 / Friday 13th; these are phobias. Simple irrational fears.

So you see, all superstition are rooted strongly in psychologically. Not new. Don't understand what you are talking about re: stock market fluctuations though. Any fluctuations are a result of the people working at them and the people trading stocks and they are all affected by the aforementioned, and also by greed. Mostly greed.