JTXR

If it were me: "Do what you want darling to make yourself feel good. I think you look perfect now and I think I won't like the implants, I really like a woman with natural breasts, but if you really want them and can pay for them, I won't stop you."

Yes, it was a mistake. Like all dogs, soi dogs here are imprinted and habituated in the first few months of life. Psychologically they can be a total mess, and they can't be trained out of it. You might think of doing what Thais do: take them to a temple and leave them. Donate something to the temple for their upkeep. The humane thing would be euthanasia, but you won't find a Thai vet who will do that.

It was a cynical, immoral and illegal scheme anyway and it's good it bit the dust.

Hi. I'm a native English speaker and have learned to speak French, Spanish and Italian over the years. Thai, though, is proving very difficult. I've taken courses and know a lot of expressions and words, but listening and speaking fluency (or even much ability) is not coming at all -- I think partly because of the tones, and partly because in Bangkok it's too easy to fall back on English. Based on past experience, both learning and teaching languages, I'm convinced what I need at this stage is a period of isolated total immersion. In particular, a month-long home stay somewhere where there will be little or no opportunity to speak English. Can anyone recommend a homestay they know of that would suit this purpose, or an ideal place to look? Please don't suggest other language-learning approaches (courses, watching movies or tv, non-English speaking gf, etc.). I know what I want at this stage and for this thread I'm only interested in homestay suggestions. Thanks.

Why is it hard to understand that a security clearance at her current position (member of Congress) doesn't make her any less a threat to national security in a position she is clearly unfit for? Same with Hegseth. Yes, he was in the military as a junior officer. That does not make him any less unfit as Secretary of Defense. The only qualifications Trump requires is that his people are loyal to HIM (not necessarily the Constitution) and that they look good on TV. That's not so bad for the Department of Commerce. For National Security and Defense, it's a monumental trainwreck waiting to happen.

OP here. Well, I found a dentist. Fellow who has his own one-man clinic in Bangkok, and also works at Phaya Thai Hospital. Clean and modern clinic. Most important, I found out he's done implants for members of my wife's family. They like him very much as a person and like the work he's done. 40K for Osstem implant (Korea) and 65K for Straumann (Switzerland). What exactly is the difference between these two to justify the significant difference in price? How exactly is the Straumann superior? Or is it just that the Swiss product is assumed to be superior?

All these polls are less than useless. The popular vote means nothing.

Nice living in an imaginary world, is it?

For me, he has way too many interviews with MMA fighters, comedians, sports figures, etc., so these I just skip. His interviews with people of some substance, though, can be ok. He comes across as not super well-informed and not super intelligent but not dumb either. A regular, straight-forward guy who has genuine curiosity and enjoys talking to people. Politically, he took what I consider an unfortunate turn during the pandemic and seems a bit audience-captured, but again, I just skip the interviews with politicians.

Which clinic or dentist, if you don't mind sharing?

Yeah, try buying a car with gold. This thread is funny for a number of reasons, first in that it claims to be about the value of money (various currencies) but the chart illustrates the value of gold. The price of gold in dollars, pounds, baht, etc., doesn't affect in any significant way the value of those currencies for purchasing everything that is not gold (i.e., almost everything). Rotating the graph is cute but pointless. And using the graph as a starting point for talking about "currencies with a value of zero) is especially funny. It would only be true if gold were the only thing that could be purchased with currency AND if gold could conceivably become infinitely valuable -- the former is of course never true and the latter is impossible.

The extraction itself was surprisingly cheap. Less than 25% what my dentist in the US would have charged. I guess that's one reason why the price quoted for the implant was more than I expected.

OP here. That is certainly an option. It is in fact what my dentist in the U.S. told me a year or so ago, before the problem became acute. Right now I (a couple of weeks after the extraction) I'm just seeing if I can get used to the hole there. As for having too many teeth. I had teeth extracted when young an only have two molars on the lower left side now. It is very weird, having a tooth above but nothing below. That said, given the location, if I decide to do the implant it would make sense to go with the lowest cost option as far as material goes, since no one will see it.

OP here. Sorry I wasn't more specific in my original post. I said only "well-known international hospital in Bangkok." It was in fact BHDC. They did a great job with my extraction and I'd definitely and happily go back for dental work, but the sticker shock of their quote for the implant threw me for a loop. I wanted to know what the options were in BKK and elsewhere in Thailand. (I live in Thailand.) One thing seems clear -- prices from a few years ago are hopelessly out of date. Inflation has really made its mark. Thanks for the many informative follow-up posts.

Thanks