NotEinstein

1 hour ago, BigStar said:

Will that make the cheap junk "great sounding" as the OP wants?

Lol - never heard of satire?

There is a shop in Chiang Mai that will put whatever brand name you want on hi-fi equipment you purchase......

Our village school had a party yesterday evening. Our house is half km away, but we could hear the music perfectly, with the added bonus that the glass was rattling in the window frames in time with the rhythm. This is standard fare in our, and I assume, every other normal Thai community. If it happens at school, the kids are hearing impaired and indoctrinated into the bigger and louder the better by adulthood. The solution? Shut the doors and windows and immerse yourself into something with headphones on if you can't go elsewhere for the duration. The next-door neighbours had a ghost party a couple of years ago, thankfully only during the day, so Airport Plaza for the afternoon was in order.

I never drive after sun down. At least once a week, we witness the car/pickup in front driving erratically, the nut behind the wheel presumably drunk, stoned, or playing with their phone. The wife's aunt was knocked off her motorcycle outside 7/11 by a drunk in a pickup just last night - she is now in hospital. What will happen to the drunk? Not enough, for sure. We had a drunk in a pickup following his gps, drive into our metal fence earlier in the year - he was so drunk he could hardly talk and kept falling over, but he was very apologetic, so all good! He phoned the guys he had been drinking with and they took him and his pickup away.

3 minutes ago, jeffandgop said:

Yeah?  I went at 1pm on my appointed day to pick up my marriage EOS stamp and still had to get a que number and waited 2 ½ hours in a totally full crowded facility just to get that stamp. 

All I know is what they tell me and years of doing exactly that - No queuing or getting a number, just going directly to window 3.

1 minute ago, Raindancer said:

Many thanks.  Could you clarify.....do you require copies of all passport pages?

I provided all used passport pages and bankbook pages, which meant a complete old book and a single entry in a new book to cover the 60 days.

1 minute ago, Raindancer said:

I presume you already signed the extra 2 forms of acknowledgement held in the tent, before you went directly to the appointment window?

I grabbed the forms when passing a few weeks before.

5 minutes ago, stament said:

I didn't realise you could book an appointment. How do you do that @NotEinsteinplease?

https://outlook.office365.com/owa/calendar/[email protected]/bookings/

10 hours ago, trainman34014 said:

Back to the bad old days yesterday after two years of peace and quiet and fast service.    Went in to Counter 3 at 0945 for Final Stamp on my Marriage Extension; normally at most a ten minute job but the place was packed with people, no Aircon, just a Wall Fan, seats all full etc and dozens standing around like me.   Eventually got out at 11.55; not good at all and what will it be like when the Chinese return in any numbers ?

 

At 10.30 they were already calling out numbers that should return after 1pm as they could not cope with the volume.  Sadly it was more like a Cattle Station and the 'new' building is nowhere big enough to cope with the throughput.

I've always been told, including this year, to get the Final Stamp after 13:00 - it seems you have given good example as to why they say that.

Extended my family visa today. A busy office, but very efficient - handed in paperwork and paid at the front desk. I had an appointment booked, so just had to wait (we got there early). 40 minutes later called to sign some papers, had photo taken, they had done a 90 report for me, and they handed over my passport. All done in one interaction, so we left 20 minutes before our appointment time. There was no walk-in queue after 13:30 from what I could see.

8 minutes ago, gearbox said:

Daddy funding a coffee shop? Wouldn't this be a waste of a degree? One can run a coffee shop with primary school arithmetic.

Of course, but "I have my own business na kaa" rolls off the tongue.......

There has been a glut of uni. graduate job seekers in CM for the past couple of years. My daughter graduated 2 years ago and only recently found employment at 12K. She is the only one employed from her group of friends that were at Waree together. Of course, they could get jobs at Makro or 7/11 etc., but daddy funding a coffee shop is more likely.

5 hours ago, JeffersLos said:

I just checked on ddproperty and there 6 pages of listings for 2 br detached houses between 1.5-2 million THB.

 

Is it better to buy a newly built one, or one that has been lived in?

 

Ones that have been lived in haven't collapsed yet, and would have gone through their teething problems already. With new one they've never really been tested and everything that is under the ground or in the walls might need to be ripped out and redone. 

 

A friend of our had their house built and the plumber saved 1000THB by not using glue on the PVC joints and they've had 5 years of various leaks ever since.

 

Are their surveyor companies out there that for say, 10,000 THB go over the whole house checking everything before you buy it?

 

https://www.ddproperty.com/en/property-for-sale?sort=price&order=asc&region_code=TH50&freetext=Chiang+Mai&listing_type=sale&minprice=1500000&maxprice=2000000&property_type=B&property_type_code[]=BUNG&market=residential&beds[]=2&search=true

The vast majority prefer new, sold on the pristine look, and with no ghosts! but, just like second-hand cars here, looks can be deceiving. Virtually all of those you pulled out of ddproperty are postage stamp plots, hence the price. If you want any space, maybe to grow things or extend later, plot size dictates price and residential land is not cheap anymore.

24 minutes ago, night_rider said:

Thanks much. It looks similar to Chiang Mai, about 500 meters but the Doi Chiang Dao rises to 2000+.

Looks like a worthy trip. Of course all the property online is priced like they were still in the opium trade and using their product. 

Unless you are looking to buy in a gated community, forget online. Just choose an area and ask at the village shop about land for sale - everybody and their dog is a 'dealer' after the massive 3% payout.....

My daughter has recently started working in the Chiang Mai grab support center. Apart from it being a sweatshop with air-con (targets for call handling, must handle 2 calls at a time, and complete a separate report after each call, shift changes at the drop of a hat, and no pay for the month of training) the stories are hilarious - riders getting overcome with hunger while waiting, so eating the order, then asking what to do, etc. Yesterday a rider had 2 orders, the first for ice-cream and while waiting for the second, the rider asked for the order to be cancelled as it was taking too long and the ice-cream would melt, then going into a mental fit when it was cancelled as requested, not returning the food to the restaurant, stating he would eat it. The riders are 'incentivized' through Black Mirror style scoring - must send a photo of them in the correct gear before starting etc. They use their own GPS map system as I assume Google charge too much, but it is full of flaws generating lots of issues requiring individual Google access to resolve. The restaurants lose 30% to grab, so I can see cheaper to run, delivery only food preparation 'shops' popping up now. So much is taken for granted with an incredibly complex system so that Grab can turn a profit, similar to the German economy having rested upon cheap Russian gas.

It's still active http://hydro-1.net/Data/HD-04/houly/water_today.php

I extract the latest from there hourly onto my desktop. I assume it is still a guy typing readings into a spreadsheet.

More

http://hydro-1.rid.go.th/Data/HD-04/houly/water_today.php?water=แม่น้ำปิง&station_id1=P.75&station_id2=P.103

https://shopee.co.th/น้ำมันมะกอกเอ็กซ์ตร้า-เวอจิ้น-1L-i.116919348.7061618518

2 hours ago, Bill97 said:

Valves are set in an unusual way for filtering.  Not sure filter would function with valves set like that.

Yes, well spotted. It is allowing the input water to flow to both sides of the filter, so no filtration, maybe just adding a little sand for 'roughage'.

I should imagine that it is supplied by the village water rather than a deep well.....

That is a sand and gravel filter for deep well pumped water. It looks as though it has the usual label on it telling to back-flush every 10-14 days for 15-20 minutes. We have 2 of these, one of which the gravel and sand was changed last year after 15 years - a bit over due!

The mother-in-law got one of these 4 years ago - no issues, still on original battery.

15 hours ago, dj230 said:

You'd be surprised how cheap apple charges for their batteries, and they're authentic, those tiny phone shops using cheap batteries are going to need to be replaced again in a year, might explode, or not hold a good charge. With phones being essential these days, I don't know why one would want to save a couple bucks on it with the risks.

Not always the case. 3 years ago I bought a screen and battery for an iphone6s off of shopee and changed them myself - still good today.

Many Thais have damaged hearing from the extreme volume from birth at the party for any event they can think of scenario, including at school. It is as if they are wearing headphones.....

The habit that gets me is when they 'shout at the house', as I call it - when they arrive wanting to speak with someone inside. I ignore them until they get to the door and peer in, unless the wife has already bellowed in response, destroying my calm existence once again.

Had to change the fluorescent light tube in the room of a trainee teacher tenant in our residence this morning - she has 2 huge soft toys on her bed to sleep between.

There are barbers in virtually every village. Mine is now charging 50 baht. Barbers shops are typically closed on Wednesdays.