sharksy

Some of the best bands are on Soi4 Nana, mostly Hilaries. Maybe not exclusively rock, but always good covers and a great night out. It's my goto area, and I'm not necessarily looking for women, just want a good night out.

Unless youre a Gypsie or similar. Police leave them alone, I remember being a bit shocked in a Thai restaurant in UK when I saw a girl who looked about 13 getting it on after a meal with an older boy. I was told they came in every week, paid for a decent meal early door and were in a secluded area. It seems acceptable in their communities.

Having been struggling much of my life, It's certainly better to be wealthy. Now I can buy a flash car, fancy clothes, latest phone without worrying too much about the cost or bills. I'm not a particularly handsome middle aged guy, but I'm occasionally dating much younger women now, some half my age or less - This is in the UK. This wouldn't really happen when I was poor/struggling. Yes, that makes me happy. And I worry about losing this wealth as I don't want my old life.

Had an Italian friend who crashed motorbike in UK. He was in hospital 6 months, came out with one leg shorter than the other. He was grateful for that, he said in Italy, they would have probably amputated his leg, unless he was near a major city

Majority of people, tends to mean NORMAL. Normal means: 1. conforming to the standard or the common type; usual; not abnormal; regular; natural. 2. serving to establish a standard. Your argument just doesn't hold water.

Costa is one of my favourite coffee shops. I don't want to be staring at advertising that I find offensive to me on a cup of coffee. This is all turning political, which is divisive. Might as well have Trump (or Biden) propaganda on it, that would still offend me. Oh, and one of my best friends is trans. Still won't get me going to a Pride event though.

My Thai lady has visited Japan twice this year already. Admittedly, working on a 2week tourist visa each time, doing farm work that the Japanese don't want to do. All of her colleagues there were Thai too. Earned decent money, although I didn't enquire how much.

Not sure if it was this place, but I have an Oesteopath friend who goes to an Elephant sanctuary near Chiang Mai to calm the elephants that have a limb blown off from an old landmine. He calms the elephants down, and helps them adjust to prostetic limb. Only guy in the world who does this apparently! He certainly worked wonders on my back in the past haha

I also generally like Indian people. Thais generally do not. And I have seen several examples of this, and I can also see the reasons why, although not always valid. I remember several years ago eating at an outside Thai restaurant, surprised to see a couple of Indians at another table. An old Thai man in a table in my eyeline pointed at the Indians and said to me "Dirty, I don't like". Poor Indians doing nothing wrong. Having said that, I've also seen in Platinum mall an Indian guy trying to barter a Thai shoe vendor down by suggesting he get better price if he buys 3 pairs. My girlfriend was waiting to pay for some cheap shoes, but this Indian guy had been there for at least 20 minutes trying to squeeze the best price out of the Thai vendor. He was taking up all of her attention and we were trying to get service from her. She caved in to the Indian guy, turned to us annoyed and said she made a loss on the shoes, but it was worth it just to get rid of the guy. She said she doesn't like Indian. Later in the week, we just existed the Labuan hotel, which had a government hospital next door. I saw a taxi from a distance and waved him in. As he swooped in, and Indian family near me (I suddenly realised they had been there longer than we had), so I gestured the Indian family forward, and I stepped back from the curb. It was like a Formula1 pitstop, the taxi came to the curb, spotted the Indian family as I stepped away, and just drove off. My girlfriend said, the taxi driver would probably have trouble getting the fare from them as they would take ages to barter. Happens in the UK too, My Philippine friend won't work anymore with Indians as they always want more work than agreed for the price, or a reduced price. I have a few Indian friends in the UK, whom are not like this at all and are lovely honest hardworking people.

Fair enough, it was 15 years ago I stayed at Centara Grand at Siam Square, that was a fabulous experience in every way. Got Silver with Hilton, admittedly, Waldorf is in a different league, but many of their hotel brands are mediocre at best.

I don't have a Thai bank account, that makes a big difference

Maybe you haven't been to Asia. It's the equivilent of Hilton etc. I presume you've heard of Hilton....?

Now we are onto premium fuel too? Yup, can feel Premium Unleaded on my Aprilia Tuono 1100cc 190BHP motorbike AND in my Mercedes AMG

Depends on quality of equipment

My father is half deaf. He came with me to pick up my system I had demo's about 100 miles away. When I got to the HiFi shop, the system was setup in the downstairs main hall. It sounded terrible. Even my dad said so. I had to query why am I spending nearly £20,000 on this with the shop, as the system I demo's before was night and day different. Turned out, they were using the DAC inside a £10,000 CD player (which was not part of my system), and had replaced this with a Linn Magic, entry level streamer. The DAC in this streamer was causing these problems. I told them, I'm not spending all that money on that sound. After a bit of headscratching, they came up with a Linn Klimax streamer, top of the range at around £16,000, but an older iteration in a plane box, know as a "renew". Absolute bargain at £2,500. The system lit up instantly, my dad could sort of understand why I was buying it now. And I have to speak to him 3 times usually for him to understand me. It's not all about the highs and lows. It's about dynamic impact, slam. Don't need great hearing for this. Unless you've heard a really good system, hard to describe. But source material is the most important.

I see it should now be referred as Mpox to remove the stigmatization

Google: Among U.S. monkeypox cases with available data, 99% occurred in men, 94% of whom reported recent male-to-male sexual or close intimate contact; racial and ethnic minority groups appear to be disproportionately affected. Truth hurts?

I have a hi end HiFi system, probably spent over £50,000 on it. Not sure I am an audiophile as such, maybe it's a long time hobby, but at this level, improvements get expensive. Anyway, Tidal or Qobuz is good, I switched to Qobuz from Tidal as it had more HiRes files, although a smaller catalog. Didn't know Qobuz is available in Thailand, didn't work for me a year ago on my subscription from the UK. I would suggest trialling something like an all-in-one system, like Kef LS60, Devialet Phantom(gold is good), possibly even a Devialet soundbar - my mate is using this for all TV and music - its very good, but not audiophile. I have a Phantom Gold in my garage, it rocks! Other things you can do to improve the sound, again trial it first, is an audiophile hub. This made a huge difference to my system, but, the better the system, the more noticable these upgrades are. There are other upgrades beyond this, but that's out of scope here

Damn, more monkeypox

A 17 yr old in a Mercedes AMG with a couple of mates in it. Wonder what could go wrong?

Does no one care that I feel offended when I walk across this rainbow crossing? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ck5908wd00wo What is the purpose of this other than wasting money. At least with pride events, usually one makes a conscious decision to go there.

Although I'm in England, not France, I was brought up to respect the police. Yes, I was a bit of a naughty boy as a kid, but I also realised that by running from the police, I have upped the anty, and the outcome would only be worse for me if I didn't get away cleanly. I rolled the dice.

Was there any indication that the police officer actually intended to kill the driver?

Before he runs over other innocent people? Yes - That's the chance you take if you don't stop for police

I got a free ticket to go with friends to Edgbaston to watch one of the matches. I'm not a cricket fan, but people told me it would be exciting. It was truely one of the most boring days out I have ever had. I just don't understand how people can get excited about this stuff.