55Jay

2 hours ago, CMNightRider said:

I think your suggestion to lighten up should be addressed to Thai Immigration, and not the members of this site ????

Just now, Dnyy said:

YES! Always seeing foreigners doing the wai but in most cases not receiving it back

Yes, similar at my office after a 100% purge during the Big Joke era.

Dare I say our visits to Immigration used to be enjoyable.   No more.  I dread it now.  Our wai was sniffed at and dismissed by the stone faced drone we pulled for my last annual extension.  A real piece of work that one. 

3 possible scenarios. 

It could be you, approaching all as if they are dumb monkeys, over-explaining simple s**t in your version of pidgen English.  They had you at Hello but you're still babbling, so they ignore you and hope your wife will be more succinct.

Or, they don't speak a lick of English, so the sounds coming out of your mouth sound like the noise you hear coming out of theirs.  But you insist, cause you're a grown man, certainly you can manage shopping for a 7mm screw on your own.  "U Hab Sah-Ka-Roo, 7 Emm Emm Sah-Ka-Roo, peas, you hab?", as their eyes glaze over and they look to your wife for mercy.

Or they are just rude kants, same as you might have back in your country.  Nothing to do with language or Thailand. 

The answer is no, the same way you answer "no" to questions about unicorns, mermaids and santa claus.  It's in the same basket. 

But if you want to pretend it's a possibility, then your chances of being right increase to 50/50.  But not really.  And you'll still never know.   So why waste time faffing about with it? 

1 hour ago, Huayrat said:

Just get your Girlfriend to check in and sit and have a coffe in the lobby and follow her upstairs after she has the key. 

Yeah, what a life for a man's man, eh? 

Not only an irrelevant minority, no voice, fewer rights to pretty basic s**t, kept in perpetual limbo, having to report our intention to leave the country, when and where we're going, and when we expect to be back, to preserve a delicate immigration status.

And now we've got a new tether, like a dog in a virtual fenced yard that escapes, and the Thais are obliged to report us running around the moo baan - He's here, no, now he's over there, now he's back. I mean really, are we slipping down the slope so that the once unreal sounding proposition of microchip implants, starts to sound appealing? 

But for now, keep yer heads down and stay off the radar even more by avoiding using your name to check in to a bloody hotel.  Pretty soon we'll be The Invisible Man, with a single red button on our chests.  "Push here for cash". 

These babbling dinosaurs down at the Immigration Politburo, a few Leos together after work, might be aware of our little hotel "loop hole", and are letting it go for now, rather enjoying the imagry of the once great ones reduced to hiding in cars and lobbies like a Gik at the boom boom resort.   An amusing state of affairs in the slightly paranoid and kooky Enchanted Kingdom.

14 minutes ago, Matzzon said:

The Daily VDO rext messages are something you get for you, your wife or your kids registered or downloaded something from Internet, sometimes Youtube and it´s Google that gives them the info, or Facebook. Probably registered the phone number somewhere and maybe even saved it for easy fill in forms in computer too.

Thanks for the explanation, but that wasn't the point. 

The point is you don't seem to know either, yet you want to downplay and dismiss someone who's asking a vaild question, because you're worn out and weary about internet whingers. 

Why continue to smash yourself over the head?  Don't click.  Don't weigh in. Save yourself from yourself.

3 minutes ago, Jan Dietz said:

Here is a preview of the 2020 packaging:

 

That's pretty cool, going to fly off the shelves.

Just now, chang1 said:

Why not? If it stops my wife stuffing sweets and other <deleted> into our boy I'm all for it.

What are the metrics to assess whether the photos on cigarette packs have had the intended effect? 

1 hour ago, chang1 said:

Why would they want to make it easier to buy fags?

Next step have them without any names so it is pot luck what you get. Getting regular and menthol mixed up should put a few more off.

You seemed to have missed the point intentionally, in order to register your virtues. 

And then I saw your other posts, and now I understand. ????

7 hours ago, webfact said:

The new standardised packaging complements Thailand’s pictorial health warnings, which occupy the upper 85% of the front and back panels of packs, currently the largest in ASEAN.

Largest! Horray!  The Hub of Feeling Proud About Useless Stuff. 

I get smokes now and then, for me, or someone else. 

Me to midget 7-11 clerk: 

"Winston si faah, Lek, khruuuuuup".

"Noi?"

"Sure, noi."

"Boo?"

"Yes, si "Boo".

"Ok, wait in a minute".

<Too short.  Searches for the mini-step ladder>

"Oh-Kay, kaaaa.....Win-Stunnnn Boo.  Boo.  Boo.  Boo...."

< scanning shelves with tiny finger>

<Pulls out random green menthols>

"Nii?"

"No.  Boo"

<scanning shelves again>

<Turns, holds up L&M Blue, loses balance, teeters precariously>

"Jeezus, be careful!  No, Winston, si faah, lek. I mean noi"

"Saai.  Saai.  No, your other saai.  S**t.  Kwaa.  Kwaa, nit noy"

<Pulls out/holds up Winstons!>

"OMG, Yes!  Chai, chai, khrup!  Dead guy, gaping hole in neck, them's the ones!"

"Oh-kaaay, <big smile> hee hee hee!  Hok sip Baht, kaaaaaaa".

This new regulation is sure to streamline the process.

32 minutes ago, Chazar said:

I'm 27

Would  have been good to be born rich in the early 1950's when international travel was taking off.

Too  many  people, shrunken world, too  much "security"

General comment, not directed at you specifically.  27!  Wow, that's great.  Enjoy!

Ah yes, the exuberence of youth, discovering the world, and then 50 years later, lamenting that it's all gone to hell in handbasket.  Which is what my Grandmother told me a few times when I was 7 or 8 years old along with "It's all gone topsy turvey!". 

But I struck out at 18 years old and thought I'd discovered a secret gem in Thailand circa 1987, but I could have imagined an older fella supping a beer, shaking his head and telling me I was too late, "It's gone to hell, you shoulda been here 10 years ago". 

24 minutes ago, bowerboy said:

 

Yes they do have all the records. I wasn’t worried about TM30 until yesterday when a friend told me he had been fined.

 

He went to immigration to get some required document for his driving licence (not sure what exactly) and the lady brought up his details on the computer and then spun the screen round so he could see it and there were the names of all the hotels he had stayed in over the last few months....he got fined 1,800THB and had to pay it before they would give him the documents he needed.

 

BUT he wasn’t allowed to pay the fine...as the house was in his wife’s name she was the one who had to come down to the office to pay the fine before they would give him the documents.

 

Until yesterday I thought this was all a Thai Visa urban myth....it’s not....it’s real.

It's not "real" until it happens to you, or someone you know. 

Gentle, light rain in my area of Nakhon Ratchasima from last night, just catcing the edge of it by the looks of the radar snap shot above.  Ground soak keeping pace, hopefully we'll get some strong, persistent rain this or next month for the reservoirs.

Just now, Jingthing said:

It was sincere. I was relating to your comment. I almost never use that Ha ha response to indicate dislike but I realize it's often used that way in response to my posts.

True.  OK, thanks.  Glad you got a chuckle. 

1 hour ago, 55Jay said:

People who say "veggie", "hubby", "wifey" and "She who must be obeyed", annoy the farkin' s**t out of me.  ????

17 minutes ago, 55Jay said:

@Jingthing  I should know your on-line persona well enough by now but I'm curious, were you laughing with or at me in the previous ^.  Doesn't matter, I'm just curious at my wrinkle of interpretation.

Oh jeezus, I must look desperate, but Jingthing is on-line, and you know he's paying attention to his notications.  Bing. Bing. Bong!  Or perhaps i'm on his block list, so he didn't see or hear them.  Say it in Donald Trump's Manhatten New York voice: "Like, OMG, the Block List, like, it's the biggest and best Block List, EVERrr!". 

And all the more reason to not give a s**t.  Still, it was interesting to me to know which part of my comment made him Laugh Out Loud.  Was it the part about women?  Or the part about immasculated former Englishmen men, bowing down to their ex-bar girl wives in Thailand, calling them "She Who Must Be Obeyed"? 

If Jing takes A-Fence, and reports me for annoying him against forum rule #69, please don't keel-haul me for it!  I'm just kidding around!  Go easy on me, please!

9 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Has anyone else seen anyone wear "maga" stuff in Thailand? 

Yes.  There's a group in my area, had them made locally. 

EdIt: I actually don't know source.  Could have been ordered on-line and mailed in, but my sense was it was crafted locally and distro'ed among the group.