impulse

Move along folks. Nothing to see here...

I've visited a couple of shops where the double deckers are re-built on decades old chassis. It's scary how much plywood and how many pop rivets they use. No structural rigidity at all. If you get into an accident on one, you have about as much protection as a paper bag.

Nothing against Vietnam, but I don't know how you'd prepare for a 178% increase without some deterioration of quality. Anyone from Vietnam want to comment?

Interesting that he retired resigned just before an investigation into his corruption. https://www.wsj.com/business/world-economic-forum-opens-new-probe-into-founder-klaus-schwab-e2f061d6?st=E1NgjP&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Kudos to you. I did that exercise for about a year, 30 years ago. It was a real eye opener how much I was spending, even a nickel, dime and dollar at a time. I do a repeat every few years, but only for a month or so. My spending habits have gotten much better.

Oh, I don't know. They sold the good news about Biden's mental acuity and Kamala's oratory genius. The question is, who's buying (and paying)? Because it certainly isn't the readers and listeners who are leaving the MSM in droves.

Gosh. Another MSM says Orange Man Bad. That's new. And apparently threadworthy.

Didn't they used to have a policy that your purchase was free if you didn't get a receipt? That was to get the customers to rat out the cashiers that were pocketing the money... Or maybe that was another chain.

I see we have a bunch of the "willing to fight down to the last dead Ukrainian" guys here. Crimea was lost. It's not coming back without WW3, a NATO ground war and possible nuclear Armageddon. (Under Obama, I may add). So was the Donbass. (Under Biden) The dying needs to stop, and the reconstruction needs to start. Edit: My biggest concern is that Zelenskyy's intransigence will eventually force Putin to go all the way to Kiev. Or kill another few million trying.

That's what happens when you let in millions from the 3rd world. Probably not coincidental that it's in the Southwest. Where's the border? And how evil do you have to be to allow that to happen at the same time we weren't even allowed to go out to eat?

It's a concern if you don't have a blocking wallet or card sleeve. And I'd bet that a show of hands would reveal that most of us don't. Don't even get me started about putting my smartphone in my pocket inside a bulky faraday pouch.

And the QR fans call us out as luddites and technophobes. Personally, I have nothing against people who prefer cashless payments. Some of them are decent people. That's just not my preference.

I thought they already banned new double deckers and the problem was rebuilding decades old chassis and re-registering them under the existing VIN. Or did that go by the wayside like so many tourism/safety proclamations?

I wonder what drugs? Weed? Or harder stuff.

I had forgotten how nefarious they have been. I'm almost rooting for the powerful Thai families on this one.

Good info. Thanks for that. I'm wondering if any of them are profitable yet. Or are they all spending out the wazoo to get market share and hoping their competitors will run out of investor funds and drop out before they have to? (Then they can finally jack up prices) That seems to be a common story in online startups. I watched it happen to dozens of rental bicycle startups here in China. One by one, they ran out of investor cash and dropped out. Now there's only a few left.

I guess I was looking for guidance all along the process. For example, where would you go for a diagnosis and to formulate a game plan? Where would you recommend a dialysis patient to go if that was part of the treatment plan? Even a transplant patient... Especially keeping costs in mind. Are there specialized public hospitals, or are foreigners pretty much limited to Private?

Trump's agreement came with terms and conditions for the pullout. Which were simply ignored by Team Biden, who were bound and determined to go down in history as the president that ended the US's longest ever war.

Not hard to imagine his poll numbers going down right now. We're in the middle of it. It's like when you remodel your house and your wife hates you for making the mess. After it's finished, she'll come around. So will the voters.

Along the same lines, what are the recommended facilities for kidney treatment in Thailand? When my Chinese GF used to visit me before her kidney transplant, I took her to Bumrungrad to talk to the doctors and figure out where to go and what to do if she needed dialysis in Thailand. Fortunately, she never needed it on her short visits. And she got the transplant in China a couple of years into my work assignment in Bangkok. Afterwards, she was able to stay for weeks instead of a few days. I'd be interested in recommendations of doctors and facilities (pro and con) from people who have that experience in LOS.

Winner winner, chicken dinner. I can't count how much I've saved when I didn't have the cash in my pocket to pay for something on a whim. If it's really important, I'll pull out the plastic. Or go to the ATM and pull out the cash. But if it's a wild hair thing, I'll look back later and be glad I didn't buy it.

Sorry if you thought I was questioning your accuracy. I didn't even see your post until after I pushed the submit button. Seeing it, I went back and acknowledged your post. I was referring to my Thai friends and coworkers who spend a lot of time scheming where they can get the best discount that day for lunch. They are masters of the discount...

I was wondering some of the same things. I've lately been reading that Thai customers actually expect food delivery to be cheaper than going out and buying it because of all the discounts being offered by the delivery apps. (Airalee posted one example a few posts ago.) I don't know how accurate that is, but it would sure be challenging to offer a service that people expect to cost them less than nothing.

You can read that 1000 times and still not get it unless you read some of those law books you always see on those shelves that spend thousands of pages discussing cases that decided what constitutes "due process" and who qualifies as a "person" and whether being deported constitutes being "deprived" of anything that they are entitled to. There are hundreds of cases and thousands of pages to define what that single sentence really means. Not to mention whether a piddly district judge can force the president to do anything. Or issue universal injunctions without certifying a class because that constitutes a class action. Or they can demand action without posting a $ billion dollar bond in case their injunction is over ruled on appeal.

Thanks for that. Though BKK Post is blocked here (I think on the BKKPost side), I was able to Bing search a snippet and found the Delivery Hero public announcement. Which left me wondering if this is just going to end up being a name change... Berlin, April 23, 2025 – Delivery Hero SE (“Delivery Hero,” the “Company,” or the “Group”), the world’s leading local delivery platform, today announced that foodpanda, its Asia-based business, will stop operating its platform, food and grocery delivery services in Thailand on 23 May 2025. This decision is in line with Delivery Hero’s focus on optimizing its geostrategy – as shown by the previous discontinuation of operations in countries such as Denmark, Ghana, Slovakia and Slovenia. Delivery Hero will continue concentrating efforts in other parts of APAC where the Group sees greater return. The Company’s regional team which provides services such as marketing and people operations for the Asia-Pacific region, and is based in Thailand, will continue to operate as usual. Delivery Hero continues geostrategy optimization and exits Thailand - Delivery Hero