orientalist

In the end I bought some coolant online and keep it in the back of the car. Checking the water/coolant level regularly now, it doesn't seem to be going down, so perhaps no leaks.

Exactly! That is exactly how she thinks! But woe is me if I don't fork out for the car wash every week. I told her people who love their cars clean them themselves, but she didn't buy it.

Anyone tried to transfer their account yet? The email said after 6pm on the 21st just fire up UOBs bank app and register as a new user, but when I did this it turns out to be an application for a UOB bank account (I only have a CC with Citi) which I am apparently not eligible for because I am not Thai! I could just ditch the card except that I have a lot of direct debits and Rewards points on it plus a 4,000 baht voucher from Citi that went missing at the post office. Anyway, I guess it'll be a trip to UOB tomorrow. What a freaking shambles for what are actually high-end CC users.

Thanks. Since I'm being sucked into car maintenance I suppose I'd better educate myself about it. The gf is a lost cause as far as this is concerned.

The situation is complicated. We don't live together and 2 years ago after telling the gf repeatedly we couldn't afford a car she got a second hand one behind my back with repayments supposedly to be made by her daughter. I vowed not to put any money into it. But recently the daughter reneged on the deal and we've become dependent on the car to get the granddaughter we're raising to school. The car had about 35k on the clock and we are now at 70k. I remember her occasionally putting water in the radiator... and then she didn't. So last week the engine overheating light came on, smell of burning, steam, etc. Then she filled it up with water again. That's when I looked in the manual. My last car was a used Cortina in the 70s and in those days you just used plain water. Antifreeze was for winter, so this is all new to me. We had the same problem with oil. She never checked it or changed it (magical thinking) and we had warning lights come on one day - luckily close to home. After reading about the damage that can do I've insisted on having proper oil changes at B-Quik. They usually check a whole bunch of things. I had to pay for new brake pads and rear shocks this year but they haven't mentioned coolant so far. I suppose I'll have to ask them how much coolant flushing would cost.

I don't want to flush the system at present. Right now it's 100% water so I want to start topping it up with the correct coolant so it at least has some antifreeze in there. I assume 5 or 10 percent antifreeze is better than none at all.

I just discovered that the gf has been putting plain water in her Honda Jazz radiator since she bought it (when she bothers at all!). I see from the manual it's supposed to be Honda All Seasons Type 2 pre-mixed coolant. B-Quik quoted me 790 baht for their own (green) coolant but that seems expensive. Many shops on Lazada have what they claim is the real Honda stuff for around 180 baht. So, is the cheap stuff genuine or at least ok to use?

The freebie camera on the gf's Honda Jazz 2019 is kaput so I 'd like to buy a new one from Lazada and screw it into the existing bracket. Two questions. Are the bracket screw threads all a standard size, and are the USB sockets mostly the mini-B like our existing one?

A bit of extra information about the IOLs: It turns out the m-i-l, because of her dense, hard cataract, needed a procedure called extracapular cataract extraction (ECCE) which allows for a bog-standard rigid IOL made of PMMA. It was manufactured by Neo Eye in Indonesia. I got the ultrasound surgery using a popular American IOL made by Alcon. It's foldable acrylic and comes with its own inserttion device - supposedly more accurate and quicker to use. So that's why my op was more expensive. Unless you have a dense cataract I think ultrasound is probably the default procedure.

LH currently has FD 1.88%, 2.00% and 2.10% for 8, 10 and 11 months respectively. Minimum 100k. Until Aug 31.

Oops. Scrub the above comment. When I checked both bills it seems the lens cost for the m-i-l was just 700 baht whereas mine was 6,500. Not sure why. Possibly because I had asked for blue-light-blocking IOLs and they may have been a foreign import. I didn't discuss the cost of the lens with the doc. Anyway, had my other eye done yesterday and all went well. Total cost 30,600 baht.

An update on Metta Pracharak eye hospital: First, my bill was not reduced because of my having a health check elsewhere. When the bloods are done there the cost is added to the bill. It seems they just tell everyone the cost will be plus or minus 35k and then it depends on what they have to do. Impressed with the service we took the gf's mother there as she was blind in one eye (almost blind in the other) due to a very dark cataract. They insisted on an overnight stay at the hospital as the op would be more difficult. They must have expected it to hurt because they gave her an injection under the eye. The op went ok and we chose the private room at 1800 baht. In the morning the occular pressure was so high they asked us to stay another night. She was discharged the following day but really couldn't see much other than light. The total cost was 27k including the 8k after-hours fee and 3600 baht for the room. They had reduced the basic op fee from 22k to 11k without any explanation. My guess is a trainee surgeon did the op under supervision. They had us install their app to do a video call consultation for the first 3 days. So far so good.

Doing an image search on Google it looks more like a Green Iora. So far, it is green all over. But it seems to be weak or injured so I'm not sure we'll get to see it's adult plumage.

Anyone know what this bird is? It can't fly and we don't know what to feed it. Looks like an insect-eater though. This is on the outskirts of Bangkok.

No, this was my first. I was putting it off for financial reasons but uveitis and steroid drops last year made the cataracts much worse. Like Tropicalevo I have used multiple pairs of glasses and now varifocals but at my age couldn't justify the expense of varifocal IOLs and they have some disadvantages.