Tropposurfer

In the shrink world we might call that a; 'Freudian bow" ...

Came up in Sydneys inner suburbs to begin my life, divorced parents (when a woman left the man in those days she got ZIP help from the government - no child support. Mum worked all her life to provide. Small house (bought from an inlaw) . Lucky to move to Manly as a young kid. Never any money, second hand footy boots, learnt not to ask for anything very early on, Aunt made clothes for us. But a decent home life (except for the few years of an ahole step dad and his violent alcoholism) with fresh garden grown food by mum's hard working hands, I learnt by her side how to grow things. I learnt there how to fight and began boxing to protect my mum from him. Nevertheless life was difficult for me and my sister (bullied at school). Sister very studious in her adaption to survive what was happening, me athletic and distracted at school. We both carried and suffered all sort of weights as we grew up, and inflicted suffering on others (not violence but me a train wreck for the fist thirty years of my life). Later in life my life began to shift, I went back to school as a solid C grade student - good brain (thanks Dad) 2 degrees and 2 Masters degrees fought for, with blood, tears, facing a lot of fears, and sweat to get them. Hard manual work first half of my life. Began in horticulture and landscape building, later design, then carpenters license and building too. Money came later and now I live a life of ease and privilege, for which I maintain an 'attitude of gratitude' lest my ego rise and sabotage me. Nietzsche once said; 'Out of life's war - that which does not kill me makes me stronger'.

I call BS on that lol 🤣 I have a face like a busted bottom, a head as bald as a cue, and I've done very well with good looking women\ all my life.

I know its fun and the hot weather makes riding pleasant ... BUT ... riding any bike anywhere in LOS is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. If you insist on going ahead make sure you have superb private health insurance cause sooner of later (if you don't get killed in the inevitable accident you WILL have, you're going to need that insurance). My advice don't do it! Buy a small car.

Quite the opposite. Lots of people, when they try to guess my age or ask me how old I am they say I'm in my early to mid fifties ... I'm 67 very soon 😊😊😊 All that clean living lol 🤣

We went on an amazing safari/glamping thing not long ago and it was amazing. It was amazing. SA now is sadly a very dangerous place with lots of gun violence, home invasion crap. The legacy, some say, of the abuse and destruction of apartheid. I went in the early eighties, to SA, Mauritius and lots of north western Africa places as a young hippie surfer. The apartheid was unbelievably cruel and violent. The gunja, hash, and uncrowded perfect waves insane.

I doubt it would have been of help to the "NRA gun loons" Will 🥴😂 such obviousness is lost on these sick, paranoid, violence-proclivity suppressed individuals. As a comparative social phenomena of nations with massive gun ownership per capita Austrians own, per capita, more weapons than Americans yet their mass-shooting numbers are almost non-existent, with no mass shootings: It is 40 years since any mass shooting of any kind in Austria. They occur in the USA multiple times a week! https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54838016 I will take a wild leap of a guess and say the causations of such daily/weekly mass murders/slaughters is in the psyche of the culture, and as an extension of this group-think, the supporting regulations or rather the lack of them that promulgates such mass murder. As to this individual apparently he was reporting to others, openly and frequently, and recently, that he was hearing voices (schizophrenia?) and had talked of going to such-and such a place (another location to the ones he did kill at), and killing many people. Because of the almost complete lack of check n balances in US social thinking and civil structure, especially when looking at State to State, he was still allowed to conduct his business which was ALL about firearms despite his uttering's, and as a firearm trainer he had legal access to and possession of many, many weapons. He was also militarily trained. No one, no one had any notion of reporting this fellow it appears, well from reporting I've read so far, so his access to weapons could have been suspended pending a psyche evaluation. I have no evidence as yet as to why he did this, but, it is being reported across many media outlets that he went to a bowling alley very close to a 'liberal' (meaning the teaching ideas, socially centralist/moderate, and activist campus i.e. not a MAGA or GOP leaning place) focussed college and killed young students from that college as a large proportion of his victims. Visit America, no thank you.

555 means laughter

Australia's east coast beach suburb is my place of birth. Live in a bunch of countries each year, Australia included. Sometimes a year passes without a visit back to 'the land downunder'. I/we now live in a way that sees us being more 'citizens of the world'. Although I can tell you, paddling out very early morning in one of Australia's glorious, Pacific blue, crystal clear water, surfbreaks is hard to beat, and rises in me a love of country and gratitude. I love a lot about Australia, it is dear to my heart in many ways but I have no desire to live there as my 'base' home ... We have a home there and enjoy it very much, but I enjoy leaving just as much as returning. To answer whether Oz is my 'home' ... I'm somewhat ambivalent about a question of 'homeland'. I look for terms of reference, imperatives that would motivate me to go back there ... If I got deathly ill or something? I doubt it. Like others have posted I visit and feel 'apart-from' the land of my birth, well sometimes I do. I would not return to Oz for family as I have none of appreciable closeness left. Anyway, I can 'help' them if need be from wherever I am. For my close friends, yes, I would return specifically to see what was causing them difficulties and help as I am able to then return to our seasonal movement as we love to do. I have no idea if this addresses your question lol🤣 but it was good to reflect upon and wax lyrical about "a land of sunburnt plains."

NJ to TX is that what they call; 'going from the sublime to the ridiculous'? lol 🤣

Its the Bodhi tree (Ficus religiosa) not a mango tree (Mangnifera indica)

Ya can't fix stupid n ignorant. The law is quite clear. Opinions such as yours, mine, and others here matter nought. The law is quite clear. Trumps engagement in massive financial fraud and to conspire to do so has been established beyond doubt under clear stated law. You are right in inferring that its 'normal business' for much of US business to stiff everyone and walk away free. Let us remember the sub-prime debacle that plunged the US and the world into chaos. However, frequency and consistency of same unlawful behaviours does not excuse them. The ruling and laws consulted before making those rulings are not someones opinion based on political or personal bias. These rulings have been under the statutes of law. Inflating a properties value over 100 times or more then for tax reasons devaluing it by even more (it was a contrived and deliberate conspiracy to do so!) is not a matter of 'valuers subjective opinion' (aint' that some total BS), it is fraud. For me personally I don't care who it is Trump, Pelosi, Boris Johnson, Biden, that fella Democrat who just got busted for serious fraud and expelled from the Democratic Party, Murdoch, <deleted> stealing PPE money during the epidemic, Bezos stiffing and enslaving his workers, that <deleted> who owns Starbucks and refused to pay his workers a living wage ... whoever. No one has the right to defraud the People of tax moneys rightfully and properly to be paid. No one has the legal right to defraud investors, put banks at severe risk, AND knowingly doing so in a contrived scheme to do so which opens up real risk of crushing mom-n-pop investor/shareholders, banks, workers, and contractors of right and correct payment of money owed them. Trump has given the US and hopefully the world a gift in exposing to us all his sociopathic greed and madness. An awakening to how enslaved we are and how the lie of trickle-down economics as the basis of capitalism is false, a lie, pernicious, crippling, murderous, and unworkable.

76 years of systematic institutionalised apartheid and genocide gets ya what ya got. After all why would anyone in the world bother to acknowledge, or consider those souls as even people? People who have no nothing to give or be taken or traded, no wealth no access to the land, no resources, no inclusions in the GDP of the land their people have lived in for 4 thousand years and more. The Poms left in 47 cause they could not stop and refused to get their soldiers killed in the crossfire, so they simply threw their hands up and left. For 70+ years the Israeli Zionist movement (not representing the Jewish faith in any way) has not stopped bombing, bulldozing, shooting, beating, poisoning wells, destroying crops, evicting, steam rolling day in and day out the Palestinian people from the land called Palestine. No negotiations only cowardly conniving empty promises, empty treaties broken by Israel once again consuming land not theirs and using the institutions of the courts, legislation, and the army to justify and validate such atrocities, with yet more murdering, and land stealing. The Arabic people fought back against an unending supply of money and arms to the Israeli Zionist movement crushing them under foot. In the days of Meir there was some semblance of negotiations and respect for the Palestinian people and their right to live in Palestine alongside Israeli's equally withy equal rights. But slowly and inexorably the successive governments of Israel moved further and further to the Zionist right. In their Imperialist arrogance and blindness they blamed the Palestinians for fighting back against their being brutalised, humiliated. Now Israel is headed by a cold hearted power mad crook who has made deals with the fascist Zionist power cliques to hold power and accrue even more crookedly gotten wealth. Now, in his devil-deal he is bound to supporting the lust of the Zionists to exterminate Palestinians and the notion of a Palestinian state from any hope in mans future. Not that Netanyahu ever cared for Palestinians.

So lets got this straight. A multi baht billionaire has an orthopaedic issues with his shoulder, lives in Dubai or wherever for years n years where such surgery can be rectified superbly at any time in multiple O/S hospitals and exclusive clinics, but Mr T waits till he returns to LOS to get surgery for an issue that develops over some time, and this has zero to do with trying to manipulate his complicity in all manner of crimes and avoid jail-time?! Fool me once (the Thai people) ..., fool me twice then I'm a twit.

Mac 😊

Thank you pholder ... But hey, why should

It would be nice if your question were so easily defined and simply answered. It is not. People migrate and not only for the simplistic ideas that Thailand attracts people who wish to run away, are desperately lonely, to hide, have little to support themselves, are either out-n-proud mongers or closet mongers, or have nothing much to live for. I/we have a home here for none of the above reasons. Some folks are just not built for risk. Some prefer what they know and which is familiar, others not. Some live international travelling lives and own homes in multiple countries. Some have left their nations because they seek a warm to hot climate, and a shorts n loose shirt relaxed 'easy does it' lifestyle, while some others come here cause they are hiding out from Interpol, the CIA, or are incognito ex SAS hardmen lol 🤣

Sabco large flat microfibre dust mop, and a wash pad. about 700 wide and easy as pie to push about to collect the crumbs and dust. Then exchange for the mop head and wash da floors. If you buy an auto-robot vacuum then don't buy cheap ... they are crap.

In some sectors of cultures (Indian) its the essence of our humanity or as in Yoga 'Prana' (which we all carry) that is honoured by waiing or as the Indians describe the actions of the hands together, being still, a gentle bow of the head 'namaste' far above longevity. Its an interesting phenomena in LOS to see the cultural notions of wai and youth and the aged, and the fusion of this with economic and caste class wealth status/power dynamics and imperatives. I would suggest it's also true that wealth, and age are not harbingers of insight nor wisdom. I try, but fail at it a lot, to respect the essence of others as taught in Yoga, hence my working at greeting all others with namaste, including falangs. My fundamental practice of working at respecting others has been informed by this, Buddhist, and Gestalt therapy learning. I find namaste a wonderful spiritual, calming, centring key to support my awareness of how I am no greater than, yet a vital part of the whole, just as you are. What others think of this is inconsequential really it is my intent that is significant. I actually use this towards nature as it lays before me in such beautiful a way. I do this as an action to calm and empty my mind before, and as I move around playing golf. I usually hit the ball well after doing so by the way 😊👍 As a zeitgeist figural note I would suggest that many 18 year olds are far more mature than Donald Trump as an example of the age and maturity wisdom hypothesis.

the first sentence has some merit. The second is a generalised, bigoted, ignorant crock of ....

On da' island we have some pretty sad roads here n there. Queue the landslide of the pretty new road/bypass over da Patong Hill! Monsoon season brings dem' pesky potholes out for sure. By and large the roads we use on the island are ...?? The backroad from BangTao to Laguna Golfing is reasonably okay?🥴 with. few a rough spots n really bad concrete expansion seams and the usual shocking level transitions/aprons between bridges and roads ... OMG! Suk. Rd to Patt's is a perfect example of a shocker. At 110 kms you literally become airborne at every single canal/creek overpass/bridge, so constant braking is needed to keep the car in contact with the roadway lol 🤣😂🤣😂. Thank God we don't ever ride that road at all now. I find acceptance of driving at lower speeds in LOS is a necessity to preserve ones life, vehicle suspension, and tyre integrity lol 🤣 I look at it this way; When we do go and drive in Europe, and Australia we revel in the decent surfaces and open the throttle with much more appreciation of being able to do so.

Yeah what a total joke huh?!! So much for justice.

Beware man's capacity to project.

Buy the very best you can afford, you won't regret it. Upright/wand styled vacuums are popular and quite easy to use (great for a quick clean of an area). For the whole house we use a floor styled machine ... Miele 👍 The good old Hoovers are still great value.

Slava Ukraine ! In tried to find a link to an Israeli Knesset minister (yesterday, in Israel) in an interview on RT (Putin propaganda network) very angrily saying that Israel would not forget Russias feeding of the Hamas's massacre and that Russia would pay a dear price for the deaths they brought on Israeli people i.e. Israel would double down on its efforts to arm and fund Ukraines war against Russia, and that Israel will never stop doing so until Russia and Putin is crushed.