spud67

RIP Mr Hockey!

Anywhere else in the world, the cops would draw ranks and the thin blue line would crush this little prick. If the cops won't respect themselves, why would anyone else.

I fly out of YOW or YUL when going to BKK/HKG. As you are aware flying east or west makes little difference to your flying time, so, for sure check out the European airlines as well as the Chinese and American.

I like ACA premium economy through HKG. Not a money saver but good service and equipment.

The Chinese companies are probably the cheapest but I have no experience with them. Also, EVA through Taipei is worth a look.

United is usually the cheapest ($1200CAD roundtrip) North American legacy carrier but their planes are uncomfortable (old) and the food service is cheap.

Watch for an Air France Canada sale coming up next month. They had one last year about this time for Canada-Asia connections. Sample fares were YOW/YYZ/YUL roundtrip to BKK were $1585CAD for economy and SIN for $1799 in premium economy. No idea if it's reciprocal or available one way but worth a look. Dates last year were, booking period Apr 18 to 27 with multiple departure dates from booking to fall.

Last year I noticed good prices through Philippines. I haven't been impressed this year but I would still check them out.

Good luck.

A volatile situation to be sure, but you have to wonder why Russia took so long to come to a physical aid of its buddy in Syria, especially considering Syria is a key piece of the map for Russian influence and trade on the Med Sea.The explanation must be that they saw no-to-little appetite for forceful regime change re: Assad.

Now, the Norwegian, centre-left politician (who is not American) that is the sec-gen of NATO is giving off a general warning that we will defend our own. Turkey, a founding member, is one of our own.

I see this as a re-establishment of the existing borders. The west will continue to help Iraq and the Kurds while the Russians will bomb the bejeezus out of ISIS and other anti-Assad forces. Now the west will need to reduce its attacks within Syria and coordinate with the Russkies. Not the best but perhaps a return to status quo eventually.

I think the problem, as mentioned, is the '.al' with any combination of letters prior and without a space. Your mail service is assuming it is a link. Also, I'm fairly sure that 'et al' is not an acronym or an abbreviation; it's just latin for 'and others'. We used it all the time on land surveys. So I suggest leave out the period and just type it as a normal phrase.

The cynic in me would ask how much the 120 "street vendors" had to pay to be featured in the app.

But the capitalist in me was thinking that would be a great way to have the promoted industry pay for the production of the app.

There are a lot of opinions out there, I guess that's why you asked. I suppose they're all right and all wrong at the same time.

When it comes to stocks, trading and investing are completely different. I know I am not smart enough and not willing to put in the time to trade. I only invest. It's easier to take my time to understand the companies and the industries. My approach is to find companies with good dividends and a history of growing sales and profits. Being from Canada, I concentrate on Canadian and American stocks only recently started to pick up some Euro and Asian ETFs.

I'm still in the 'wealth generation' stage so I continue investing. Values are good now; seems like a good time to buy. I don't know enough about real estate so I leave it alone but I'm considering a small piece of farmland to which I may retire. I am 80% stocks, 10% bond funds and 10% cash. If I were retired and needed the income I would make some minor tweaks but not much.

Not sure if this qualifies as a hobby but posting here anyway...

I'm traveling back to Thailand in October and I'm looking to buy DVD or digital file of South East Asian movies with English subtitles (prefer subtitles over dubbing). I looked in a good sized store (can't remember the name or floor) in MBK last time and only found a handful of Chinese movies among a store-full of western movies.

My friends and I have wide ranging tastes but we are male and it shows in what we watch. Mostly looking for action, suspense, mystery, horror or even interesting period movies. We don't even mind amateurish quality if the intent is obvious. We've seen the Ong Baks and anything along that line would work great.

When it comes to monster movies, we prefer Gary Oldman in Dracula over the airbrushed Twilight stuff. Drama can be good as long as it is unique and interesting. Most dramatic movies bore me but maybe there is something interesting set in Isaan or Myanmar?

I'm interested in movie title recommendations as well as where I can buy.

“I now believe my friend really worships love... so much that she could trade her life for Tono,” her associate Paezaa Pichaipoosit wrote in a caption....

.... what an incredibly ill-conceived notion of love.

While I don't disagree with the above sentiments, failure on the part of the world's major governments as well as the regional governments of SEA to act on this issue could allow the dissaffected Rohingya's to become very fertile recruiting grounds for groups such as ISIS and al Qaeda. If i were an ISIS commander, I would buy/steal/pirate a large ship to pick up these boat people and 'inspire' them with dreams of prominent positions of honour in the new and upcoming caliphate...after they have performed their jihadi duty of course.

Turning our backs on these people could be much more than just morally wrong, it could be a military mistake too.

The easiest way for Americans to invest in other countries would be country specific ETFs through ishares or the like. The next easiest is to buy American Depository Receipts of foreign companies on NYSE. Here is a good searchable list of most of the available ADRs. Beyond that, I would check out Interactive Brokers (an American firm I believe) but I'm not sure they handle the Thai stock market.

If you really want to move your cash onto foreign soil, I echo the above comment; book a session or two with an accountant.

'More than 1 million Quebecers were represented and argued the companies were liable because they knew they were putting out a harmful product and hid the health effects of tobacco.' And after 50 plus years of medical evidence that exposed the health effects of tobacco, should the tobacco companies really be responsible for the the selective ignorance of those smokers? The ones they should be compensating are those whom the same selectively ignorant band of smokers compel to suffer their second-hand exhaust fumes.

I don't disagree with the assessment that smokers assume much of the responsibility but as a former smoker in Canada I was witness to the last 30 years of government effort to reduce smoking. And every time the government tried to expand warnings on cigarette packs, remove cigarettes from the sight of children or prevent sales to children, the industry in Canada loudly complained that nothing - nothing - linked smoking to cancer or other health problems. Up until now, the tobacco industry has outright lied about it's products here. While smokers will pay with their lives, shouldn't those who lied pay also? The industry spokesman saying that smokers knew what they signed up for - at the end of this trial - is rich given the lies they have spewed for decades.

You want to sell a dangerous product? No problem, but you have to tell everyone everything first.

" Putin said even if "someone has done something wrong," Russia "has nothing to do with it." "

Hmmmm .... what's that line about 'he doth protest too much' ? Seriously Vlad, at least wait until they point some fingers at you before screaming out your innocence.

Soooooo the Women's World Cup is about to start in Canada and Canada has a habit of rubber stamping extraditions to the US. What are the chances the FIFA VIP rooms are suspiciously empty of FIFA VIPs?

Synthetic babies? Really? Grow up Mr Dolce. Kids are kids. If I had a choice to ban either 'synthetic babies' or overpriced purses, it sure as hell wouldn't be the kids.

Nope, never fooled. I can always tell. It's the hands that give it away.

Had an awesome time! 5555

"Santa Clause" The patron saint of TEFL teachers.

Our Lord Santa is very close to completing his LLB. Soon he'll be writing reindeer insurance contracts.

To clarify my earlier posts, when I asked mamasans and ladies in nearby bars, about the Bar 4 closure, they said 'Someone died.' When I asked if it was related to the man falling from Nana Hotel, they replied, 'Yes.' Further questions brought up the concepts that he was drinking with a lady and her BF didn't like it. A fight broke out. It moved to the hotel, somehow, and continued there.

No one mentioned anything to me about an unpaid bill; bar, lady or otherwise. No one mentioned anything untoward about Bar 4 that doesn't happen at other bars on Nana. In fact it's my perception that this bar is far cleaner than others on the soi.

Word on the soi: he was having a drink in the early hours with a lady at or near Bar 4. Her boyfriend took exception. Backed with 3 buddies the fight began and continued at Nana Hotel. It was 4 on 1. One man is dead and Bar 4 is closed for a week.

Is this related to the Bar 4 closure? The girls at H4 said someone died there early Friday morning and the police closed the bar down.

Must have been a wild night. At about 3-330 a.m., I watched 3 Arab dudes, at the 7-11 just south of the soi 6 intersection, throwing stuff at a tuktuk and a huge, I mean HUGE, Thai dude hopped out of the tuktuk with a club of some sort. That's when my company said we should get off the street.

Thanks

My apologies if this has been covered recently, I did a search and did not find the answer I was looking for.

I will be making my annual holiday to Thailand later this week. I will be bringing some cash to save on ATM fees. I plan to convert to THB from CAD at VASU. Most of the cash is in 100's and 50's. Is anyone aware if VASU or other money-changers do not accept certain denominations?

Thanks for the help.

The Kurdish state within Iraq has one of the very few functional, popularly-elected governments within the Middle East. For some reason, the people and it's leaders appear to be handling a responsible government and economy. If there is a nation-to-be within the Syrian-Iraqi bloc that is worth supporting, surely it's the Kurds. A recent interview I saw, suggested Turkey, a key regional NATO member, who is fighting Turkish-Kurds freedom fighters/terrorists within it's own borders, has been, quietly, holding talks with the Iraqi Kurds with the hope of reducing violence.

Depression is a rotten bitch that never truly goes away.

May you find peace Mr Williams.

My favourite line,"This happened from the Chinese tourists’ habit of giving officials five to 10 yuan.." See? We're just so used to getting tips now, sometimes we get a little too anxious and expectant that we suggest a 50 baht tip up front. Not our fault, blame the rich Chinese big spenders.