Mike Teavee

I bought the Thaipod101 Premium course and am trying to start by learning to read & write (also bought a couple of Kids alphabet books to practice the writing part). 

TBH, the Jury is still out on how good it is for me as it doesn't seem to be "Sticking", but I agree with the posts above that it's difficult to keep motivated when you're trying to do it on your own.  I do try to practise with my THai GF but she's from Satun so her dialect is different than Central Thai (Bangkok) so I don't know if I'm picking up "Bad Habbits" from her .

Can download quite a few free lessons from www.Thaipod101.com & YouTube has a number of videos to help practise 

18 hours ago, pomozki said:

links to Bangkok Post articles aren't allowed? if not, why not?
cheers

I believe it's because Bangkok Post doesn't allow people to post content from their site rather than TV barring them. 

45 minutes ago, HerbyJFlash said:

I have today read that this may be changing (source the mirror website) .

 

If the all but essential travel advice is lifted, will travel insurance covering covid become available ?

Can you please post the link (I think it's ok to post links from UK Press sites just not Bangkok Post). 

I found this one... https://www.mirror.co.uk/travel/europe/thailand-reopen-tourists-july-brits-22111903 but that was from the 30th May so was wondering if there had been any more recent articles.

10 hours ago, worgeordie said:

Season 1, 8 Episodes out,  Alex Rider, about a young lad who gets

involved with spy's, coloning, Action,Adventure, well worth a watch.

 

regards worgeordie

Reminded me of a movie plot and a quick google brings back a 2006 movie called Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0457495/ 

Seem to recall it was a big of a "Younger" movie but not a bad watch so will give the new series a fair go 

Space Force https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9612516/ 

Average of approx 1 funny per show & a very weird/scary Phoebe/Lisa Kudrow 

3 hours ago, sanuk711 said:

Yer there bound to run out of live shows soon------some of the discussion shows I watch, are being done by Skype,  I don't know how the soaps are going, Coronation St , East Ender's etc ...as I don't follow them.

I'm hoping the last episode of Blacklist isn't a sign of the way things are going, the 1/2 computer generated 1/2 "Real Life" mix was painful to watch

6 hours ago, xylophone said:

Try this Mike.... https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2019/06/men-stole-world-2008-financial-crisis-190611124411311.html 

 

Only available until June 20th apparently although it could probably be found via the doco maker's name.

Thank you sir, watched & enjoyed it ???? 

I didn't know that there was a site for all the Al Jazeera documentaries (The one I mentioned is from them as well).... 

https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/, looks like I've just got a wealth of new documentaries to watch...

Thanks again 

On 5/23/2020 at 5:16 PM, xylophone said:

I managed to find a 45 minute documentary entitled, "The men who stole the world" and watched it with a great deal of keenness, as it was about the market crash in 2007+, and if you have seen the movie, "The Big Short" (a superb movie in my opinion and true to form) then this is worth a watch as well.

 

It follows two or three actual people in the spotlight, and Richard Fuld, the CEO of Lehman Bros during the period prior to and after the big collapse and how he lied to the commission investigating the collapse and also focuses on the hundreds of millions of dollars he was able to "earn" from the securitisation and selling of bad housing loans.

 

It just brought home to me again how crooked the American system is, because all of the executives at the top got away with just about everything. More to the point was that the Republican government encouraged house purchasing by just about anybody and everybody (even if they didn't have any money) and allowed the banks to continue with what amounted to fraudulent lending, then fraudulent selling of useless loans.

 

The Obama government tried to rein this in with the Dodd Frank act to oversee the industry to prevent any more shenanigans like this, however the people in the know in this movie are basically saying that the same thing is happening again ever since that act has been revoked/reversed. 

 

Frightening.

I tried to find this on my streaming apps & on Youtube (These kind of documentaries are normally free on there) but had no links, could you please give me a pointer as to where I can watch it. 

Whilst looking for it I did find a 4 part series called "Meltdown: The men who crashed the world", all 4 parts are on Youtube.

Also found a few more similar documentaries on IMDB that I'm going to check out https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=economic-crisis 

On 5/18/2020 at 3:54 PM, BritManToo said:

TV series from the movie ........ part 1 of 10 is out.

IIRC the movie was terrible... Is the series shaping up any better?

PS Finally got around to watching Mindhunter... Excellent stuff, I'm hooked 

White Lines... https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9073958/

Also tried Maniac... https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5580146/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 not sure if it's supposed to be a comedy but it's pretty painful to watch

4 hours ago, Why Me said:

Great to hear, Mike. And the rate seems very good. I just went to their website http://asiavisatour.com/

though and it's all in Japanese (? Chinese?). Is that because they cater mostly to Asian expats? But I am guessing you dealt with them in English. Can you say about this please?

I think they must do a lot of business with Japanese customers & there was a Japanese guy in sorting his visa out at the same time as me, but no problems with English & good service all round 

19 hours ago, Why Me said:

Yep, I paid in that range. But here in Bkk/Chaengwattana.

 

Added: That is the range if your case is "clean". That is you have the funds, etc. It will be more if not.

Last August I used Asia Visa Tour...

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://asiavisatour.com/&prev=search

Total cost worked out to be exactly 16,000, this included... 

• 2,000 THB for them to do my TM30 (This was August when it was a very hot topic so might not be needed now)
• 8,900 for the extension (includes 1,900 for the immigration fee)
• 5,000 for a multi re-entry permit (Next time I'll do this myself for 3,500) 
• 100 for the Bank Letters (get on the day from the branches in the basement at CW, all of the banks seem to have a branch there).

If you just wanted the extension then it's 8,900 (7,000 for their services + 1,900 for the extension itself). 

For this they do all of the paperwork (including the map to your place :)) and you still have to visit CW in person.

I met them at their office (1/2 way down Soi 24) at 10:00AM and they drove me to CW, got there just before IO closes for lunch to get an early afternoon ticket

Spent 1 hour having some lunch downstairs & went back at 1PM, got in front of the officer around 1:30PM and was out by 1:45PM 

2 days later I went back to their office to pick my passport up.

All legit/above board & would recommend them/will be using them again in August. 

20 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Agree that it takes a "bit of work".

So what is your logical explanation for "infinite".

You know, you can tell some people the "big bang" theory, but it doesn't mean that all people have to believe that BS (belief system)

You don't believe in Big Bang Theory? How do you think the Universe got to where it is today? Was it simply created like this some 6,000 years ago?

If anything I would have thought that people who believe in a "Creator" would embrace BBT as it explains how a "Singularity" some 14 Billion years ago led to where the Universe is today... 

The Big Bang Theory is the leading explanation about how the universe began. At its simplest, it says the universe as we know it started with a small singularity, then inflated over the next 13.8 billion years to the cosmos that we know today.

https://www.space.com/25126-big-bang-theory.html 

PS, Whatever your beliefs, The Big Bang Theory is a great TV show https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0898266/ ???? 

5 hours ago, Elad said:

The Earth's spin actually reduces the effects of gravity. You will weigh less at the equator than you would at the poles.  

Thanks... Silly of me to get my Centrifugal mixed up with my Centripetal ???? 

For anybody who's interested in watching the Flat Earther documentary (wouldn't really recommend it) it was called "Behind the Curve" & is available on Netflix. 

I've came across it as I was randomly scanning documentaries, another one I came across was Religulous with Bill Maher... https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0815241/

Is there really a Holy Land theme park along the lines of Harry Potter world? (I think that in itself says something)

19 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I sometimes think I'm in one and the Corona thing is just a reality show. Do you know anyone that knows anyone that has Corona? I don't.

I know the Corona Virus is very real as I have a nephew who is working himself to death in one of the hospital wards dealing with it, but I do wonder if Social Media (especially Facebook) hasn't made it much worse than it could have been (bad it definitely is, this bad I'm not so sure)

Anyway, one for a completely different topic I think... We have enough to deal with in this one already ???? 

2 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

So, where did the "laws" you reference originate? Just happened out of nothing?

Laws aren't real things, they're just Man's way of expressing natural phenomena - Would a Law exist if lifeforms that could appreciate them didn't exist - Yes & No... No because there would be no need to express the phenomena as a "Law" nor anybody/thing to recognise it as such, Yes because the naturally occuring phenomena would still be there.

Take Gravity, Gravity isn't a law that was invented and loh & behold, came to exist, it's a direct result caused by the Earth spinning... if the Earth were to stop spinning, there would be no Gravity, Law or not...

10 hours ago, BritManToo said:

Thought it was pure garbage.

A 'B' movie at best.

Made worse because a lot of it was in Hindi/Bengali so you had to use subtitles.

I'm not against Subtitles perse but I don't think it added to the movie & I normally have Thai subtitles on so the GF can follow some of the stronger British dialects in the dramas that I tend to watch...

Somebody earlier compared it with John Wick 3, I wouldn't say it was that bad but a C / B- movie at best for me.

35 minutes ago, stapoz said:

That's what I thought. Taking any plan below Maxima is wasting of money as I couldn't use declared total limit for hospital. Only Maxima and up allow to use the limit (eg. 5MB) for hospital.

My 1st time looking at Health Insurance & I'm also looking at the Maxima 5MillionB plan with discounts for removing outpatient & paying the 1st 20,000 THB for any claims works out to be approx 35K pa for a 54 year old.

One thing  I'm uncertain of is whether it's better to just apply direct or go through a Broker (I understand that the price is the same either way)

Anybody have any recommendations for insurance Brokers in Bangkok?

33 minutes ago, GlassWayOverHalfFull said:

I don't know what you mean by a high baht? Is that a strong or weak currency? 

I'm guessing he actually meant a Low baht... i.e. you get more Baht for your Pound£, Dollar$ etc... 

1 hour ago, mfd101 said:

The question posed is really really important. All the current assumptions & institutional rules & behavioral regulations would be in chaos if reactivation or reinfection becomes the norm.

 

That would be an exceedingly grim outlook, at least until a vaccine comes along - which may be some time in the next 6 months or maybe 2 years or maybe a decade away. Noone knows.

Not quite as grim if the reactivation is none contagious & I'm yet to read of anybody who's "Infected" for the 2nd time dying so hopefully it is not as serious when/if reactivated

But I agree, very grim reading that makes the end of lockdowns even more difficult to plan