mstevens

I take 5,000 IU daily for half of the year. My wife takes 10,000 IU daily. I've been takig 5,000 IU / daily for 6 months of the year for almost 10 years. Doctors who recommend vitamin D often recommend around 5,000 IU / day.

Stickman is up and down. Some weeks are flat like this week, all bar news and little else. Other weeks are good and more varied. Some weeks are very good. He wrote about when he thought Pattaya was at its best a week or two ago and a week or two before that before that he wrote a very long story about an old girlfriend which was particularly good.

Trink was a friendly fellow who was always gracious when approached in public. I chatted with him a few times at the cinema in Siam Square that was demolished a few years ago. i used to catch a movie on Saturday afternoon and more often than not, he'd be there too. He was always polite, and friendly. His column might have been good in the past but for the last decade or more it was junk, filled with Nigerian scammer letters and warnings about getting involved in relationships with bargirls. I remember reading it in the late 90s and early 2000s and there was little in it. In its prime, it was a must read.

Where on earth did you get the idea that NZ got pissed off and priced visa fees at what Thais pay to visit NZ? This is 100% factually wrong. New Zealand does NOT price visas different for different nationalities and there has been no change in the price of visas to New Zealand recently, and certainly there is no pricing according to nationality.

What does Australia charge a Thai national for a tourist visa?

Just curious if any Aussies have applied for a tourist visa using this new e-visa system? If you have, what is the price in Australian dollars?

I doubt they will get a long jail-term. Sure, there are multiple charges and the most serious is 7 years in jail. My best guess is that if they plead guilty (and they absolutely should do that), offer genuine apologies, admit that they behaved like barbarians, then they might get lucky and only be sentenced to a couple of years jail, be released after 12 months and be back in New Zealand around the middle of next year. They'll just miss one Christmas with their family. If they fight the charges they can expect a much stiffer sentence, maybe 4 or 5 years. And it does seem, at this early stage, that they wish to fight the charges.

The Privacy Act in New Zealand means details of previous arrests or criminal history is generally not made public.

I don't think cash will help now. They're in the system and won't be paying their way out. The best thing they could do would be to get down on their knees, perform the deepest wai, apologise profusely for their total madness and plead for forgiveness. Plead guilty as early as possible (NOW!!!) to all charges which will reduce their sentence. If they are lucky, they might get sentenced to less than a couple of years in prison, and be released after serving 12 months or so. They should be back in New Zealand around the middle of next year. I really think that is about the best they can hope for.

What a mess! But I can't say I am surprised. Anything online to do with visas for Thailand or Thai immigration seems fraught with problems.

I am not saying you should take all of these, but this is my personal daily supplement regime: Multivitamin Vitamin K2 Mk7 Vitamin D (in the cloudy / wet months only) Magnesium Fish oil A few notes: - I agree 100% with the poster who mentioned not to skimp on fish oil. Buy the best you can afford. (I buy Carlson, Wild Norwegian, Elite Omega-3 Gems, Natural Lemon, 1,600 mg which is available on iHerb) - A multivitamin is useful to fill in any gaps / deficiencies in your diet. Think of it as an insurance policy. Again, buy a good one. - Vitamin D is a must if you don't spend much time outside in the sun. If you do spend a lot of time in the sun, you may not need it. I take 5000 IU of vitamin D daily for half the year. - Vitamin K2 Mk7 is very good for bone health and driving calcium in to the bones (and away from the arteries). The Mk7 version is the best as it is the most easily absorbed. - I take all my supplements in the morning, except for magnesium which I take twice a day, 150 mg in the morning and 150 mg at night. No matter which vitamins you take and how high quality they are, your diet is even more important. Just which diet is best is very much a moot point and I don't want to mess with the thread by going down that path.....but please don't think that taking lots of high quality vitamins will make you healthy, as it won't necessarily. But it certainly will help. What you eat is the most important thing! Combining high quality vitamins with a great diet is the way to go.

I've got to second this, it's really excellent advice. Also, to the OP, your LDL is not that high. (My LDL is higher than yours and I am totally comfortable with it although my HDL is much higher and my triglycerides much lower than yours.) I'd actually look at upping your healthy fats (eggs, olive oil, avocados, red meat with the fat, chicken with the skin) and doing some resistance exercise, all of which will increase your HDL which is at the low end of normal.

There are all sorts of possible reasons for thinning hair and the difficult part is identifying the reasons specific to an individual. Some vitamin and mineral deficiencies can contribute to thinning hair as can a lack of protein. But these are just a few of the many reasons that could be behind it.

It keeps things easy for the Thais - don't like what a foreigner is doing, simply play the no work permit game with them and Thailand wins every time. Given that it seems there are new YouTubers / influencers starting up channels all the time, I wonder whether they will take a wider look at foreigners with a YouTube presence in Thailand? Very easy to catch them given that most love nothing more than pointing the camera at themselves. Evidence aplenty. "You make video in Thailand! Where work permit you?!"

Why do you say misinformation and quackery, Sheryl? Do you call quackery on the increasing number of MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS who are turning their back on statins as a treatment for high cholesterol? Many of us who advocate low-carbs diet to avoid or overcome cholesterol issues base our comments on books we have read by doctors, by reading peer-reviewed studies and by following experts in this field. And when I say experts, these are doctors with decades of experience. This is an area of medicine which is evolving and what was understood in the past is being seriously questioned with many recent studies turning the research on its head.

Looking at the video, while you cannot see the point of impact, it appears that the car just drifted off the road to the left and collided with Oat, killing him. Did the driver fall asleep? And then the vehicle veers off to the other (wrong) side of the road. At the very least, the driver should be charged with negligent driving causing death. It might not have been intentional. It appears the foreigner was a 60-year old German and he fled from his home following the accident. Police went to his home the next morning to investigate and breath-tested the driver then but by then it showed no alcohol....which is hardly unexpected as it was the next day.

No, it's absolutely not a Kiwi or Maori name. If it was "Ruatoki", that could be a Maori name, but it's not.

I don't wish to be alarmist but your eGFR at 47 appears to be low. I was always of the understanding it should be like 90 or higher. That said, it is not marked as H or L so perhaps I have this wrong?

I'm not a doctor, but am reasonably well read on cholesterol and diet. It sounds like you're carrying some extra weight. Do what you can to lose some weight. The best way to do this is through diet. Exercise is helpful, but diet is a much more effective way to lose weight. If you're willing to try a ketogenic diet (high fat, very low carb / max 20 grams of carbs per day), I imagine the weight will fall off you and your cholesterol profile will improve markedly with HDL increasing and Triglycerides decreasing. Your A1C will also improve. A ketogenic diet essentially means half your plate is meat / animal products like eggs, and the other half is non-starchy vegetables. This approach would see you lose weight, your cholesterol profile improve - and you would not need to use drugs. To be clear, this is not the approach which conventional doctors use although there is a growing number of doctors who recommend exactly this approach in preference to the prescribing of statins.

They're blokes, mate.

The house is an uber expensive property with rent mooted at 1 million baht / month. He drives a brand-new, high spec Audi - a very expensive car in Thailand. And he was a security guard previously. Correct me of I am wrong, but that's a low-income job. Do you not think there are more questions here than answers?

I'm curious about the guy's background. He obviously has a lot of money. How did he make it? Was it through legitimate means? His behaviour makes me wonder about that. When someone makes a lot of legitimately money in business, generally if you Google their name you will get some background on the businesses they have owned / run / been involved in. Not in every case, of course - but in most. But Google this guy and what do you find? An elephant sanctuary. I can't imagine that's a road to riches. Far from it, in fact. The question of how he made his money is relevant because this man's behaviour is not what you'd expect of someone who is leading the lifestyle of a wildly successful guy. Those who have done well for themselves, who live in uber expensive, beach-front houses on a tropical island and who drive brand-new German vehicles generally don't behave like this man. So how did he make his money? I'd love to know more about his background. It seems to me there are some big questions to be answered.

Impossible to say from these comments whether you're smart or not, although spelling "received" and "alcohol" wrong doesn't suggest you're great at spelling which could be a tiny indicator for someone who is smart / intelligent. Your attitude does shine through, however. Let's just say that you don't come across as humble or modest.

I very much agree with this. I reckon he'll be scurrying to offer a significant amount of compensation to the doctor he assaulted, a donation to the ambulance service he gave the bird to and a big, big wai on national TV....and if he is lucky, he might not get botted out.

New Zealand was very disappointing. On paper this is a reasonable NZ side - not as good as Australia but far from terrible - but they always seem to crumble when they come up against the Aussies as if there's a problem mentally going up against Australia. NZ will get done in the second test too, no doubt.