coops

Saw the 'old' regular ATV4 on sale in a Powerbuy a few days ago - am waiting for the new one to be released in Thailand.

Would be surprised if it's an NBTC issue... but truly you never know what level of stupidity they might sink to.

ps come to think of it - have a friend over in UK at the mo'... should ask him to bring one back for me as it's out in the UK.

Was going to go and see the new Blade Runner movie... but discovered the wife hasn't see the original one. 

So, gives me a good reason to rewatch the original with her... in fact, will be the director's Final Cut version, which i've never seen either.

In other tv show oddity - have been going through the original Twin Peaks before we get to the latest season... and I do not remember seeing David Duchovny dressed in drag the first time around... (!) - also watching Prime Suspect every now and then, and there was an episode with 

Peter Capaldi also in drag as a TS prostitute - even more bizarre for 'The Thick of It" fans...

Animated Series....

Anyone watched/ing 'Rick and Morty'?

Stumbled on an article about it, looks worth a go - has a remarkable 9.4 rating on IMDB... and while over on IMDB, was reminded of another animated thing of wonder.... 'Archer', take a look and you'll very quickly know if it appeals to you.

Working my way through the latest season of Bojack Horseman... mostly a bit so-so... although episode 5 which i just watched is, errr, about 'A mass shooting at a mall creates a PR nightmare for Princess Carolyn' and is titled 'Thoughts and Prayers'....

“Diane Nguyen: I can't believe this country hates women more than it loves guns. 
Princess Carolyn: [after a pause] No?”

Just finished 'Big Little Lies' - entertaining and only 7 episodes... although the final episode plot twist which had been building up to all the while is a bit M Night Shyamalan on a bad 'The Village' day, and not in a good way which I think he used to have once upon a time....

Even worse than that, is the rumour of a second season, which is purely an exercise in milking a cow that's already done and dry and ready for the big dog food butcher's block in the sky. 

Better off watching 'Ozark' if you haven't got around to it...

Narcos latest season was fine enough - and while on the war on drugs malarkey, we recently saw 'American Made' - was planning to see 'Baby Driver' as it sounds fun, but wasn't out yet during daytime shows, so a Tom Cruise movie it was...

Now, utter bampot he might well be... but he is also most definitely a remarkable movie star... even when you roll your eyes at his name and etc etc... he still pulls it off.

Great fun and amusingly ridiculous yet plausible.

I recently read an article which noted his style of aging is to progressively look like a Sandi Toskvig impersonator 

You could be trying to buy a car in Singapore, and the license that allows you to buy a car.

2 hours ago, Will27 said:

The Frozen Dead - A good start to this 6 part series from France.
Has embedded subs.
 

Looks worth a look...

Never keen on the hardcoded subs - usually too big, not adjustable (obviously) etc...

so had a rummage around t'interweb and found you can get 1080p Blu Ray versions of it ( under its French title) - arse... or merde... the bluray does NOT include english subtitles... oh, the humanity, stupide...

Just started 'Broken' - not too cheery, but seems good and gets very good reviews... BBC. Sean Bean and Anna Friel...

Seeing Anna Friel reminded me of an absolute classic, belter of a series from early 2000's...

'Pushing Up Daisies' - loverly.

20 hours ago, Jingthing said:

Bojack Horseman Season 4 coming September 8!

I'll give it a another go - I removed it from my watch list after season 3, but maybe it will be back in form... highly recommended though for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.

On the other end... for utter tosh, but watchable, entertaining nonsense you could give "How to get away with Murder" a go. Or if you haven't ever seen Deadwood... <deleted> w@t@f the wrong is wrong with you, c@cks@ck@r?

(seriously, they bowdlerise w#t%f ? ) - 'they' not being HBO... any delicate flowers offended by profanity should stay away.

It's also worth pointing out non-Thai health insurance doesn't (tend) to have such egregious exclusions such as HIV coverage.

Suggest to bother with AIS.

Swapped over from True fibre to Ais for a year and had no problems.

Why bother?

Just buy a decent Asus router, which has vpn client capablilty. Done.

7 hours ago, newatthis said:

If you think Alien Covenant was crap, watch Tom Cruise "The Mummy." Absolute hogwash!!!

Now hang on... I'm not that dumb! 

Ah, ok - i thought you must be joking or sarcastic... but on the other hand there probably are people who don't 'bother' with insurance as they 'plan' on never getting real sick 

I'm not sure if JLCrab is joking, or profoundly ignorant of what insurance means.

"Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss. It is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss."

And obviously, based on simple common sense, in any 'private', ie capitalist, insurance scheme the average of payouts should be less than the premiums paid in - otherwise the insurer will become bankrupt.

"So if you are planning on never getting real sick" - 

Ridley Scott.... d@mn you!

"Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me"

I shoulda know better.... @sigh@    .... massive @sigh@

Prometheus was the first time I was a fool... but to be dumb enough to watch Alien Covenant, I can only blame myself.

Oh, it looks nice (yay, Ridley!) but apart from that - it notches up 6.6 at imdb, which is a decent enough warning.

Dreadful.... again.

Speaking of dreadful movies - Michael Fassbender reminded me of Tom Hiddlestone so much that  I must do my duty and hereby warn you never, never, to watch 'High Rise'.

There's only one decent moment when there's a cover of Abba's 'SOS' by Portishead - and you can hear that elsewhere or on youtube without suffering the movie - i'll be reading the book once I've rinsed the memory of this from my mind.

On the other good Tom Hiddlestone side - the TV series "The Night Manager" was marvellous.

It's specifically stated as 2 million US lifetime per person - but that is on my plan... if yours is genuinely a maximum per year then the lower limit makes more sense

Would definitely have helped to specify what currency you're using... I kind of guessed you were using US $ by default until the GBP total coverage part.

Just to state the 'obvious' but the "GBP 650k, 1,3mn and unlimited" refers to life time allowable total coverage... and an expensive chronic illness will add up with the prescription drugs - so the 650k in UK sterling is ok-ish... but maybe the 1.3m would be more advisable?

It won't be easy to decide how much deductible and % pay etc... 'up to you' it really is (!) but i'd be tempted to discard the 10% options just to make the final choice 'easier' ;-)

I'm lucky enough to have Cigna insurance through work ( no deductible, no co-pay or whatever that's called - outside the USA) so the side of the decision was already taken - but can tell you i've not had any issues with Cigna and no need to 'pay and claim back'.

Started watching season 2 of Preacher....

amusingly oddball... and it has Ruth Negga

Not even sure what 'AIS PowerPro' is, but sounds impressive....

I am on AIS fibre though at 100/10 :-

To your first IP the ping was 294ms average... (42 std dev)

turning on my VPN to a UK server brought the ping down to av of 264ms (25 std dev)

That second IP you gave was a lot more variable - av of 324 ( std dev 54).

A google speedtest to Atlanta US was 94/10.8 speed with a ping of 264ms.

Having a VPN that has servers in Belgium itself may help if it's that important.

3 minutes ago, tonray said:

I think coming from the UK Vs the USA as I do colors thinking on what's expensive as far as health insurance. 

You should see the difference between my coverage inside the US and ANYWHERE outside... basically 100% covered outside the US but mostly deductibles and 80% in the US...(not that I spend any time there)

"

Physician Office Visit

Outside U.S. - 100% covered; Inside U.S. - 80% after deductible is met

Specialist Office Visit

Outside U.S. - 100% covered; Inside U.S. - 80% after deductible is met

"

and Lord only knows what a 'physician office visit' will run you in the US....

I'm with you - Pho is a bit bland really.

Much prefer my local Kway Teow Rua

or Ramen of course....

On 04/08/2017 at 2:20 PM, Mover1 said:

Wow i just tried Cigna for a quote and their cheapest was 70,000 baht. Is that the normal price for a 44 year old uk expat in thailand? Seems excessive

You don't specify what level of coverage - but it is not way off if it's for maximum 2 million USD coverage in Thailand/Asia with NO deductbiles at all for drugs/hospital etc ( this does NOT apply in the US for obvious rip-off reasons).

I'm lucky to have Cigna global through work, covers both me and my wife and i can only guess on the total coverage cost ( as part is covered by Company) but 70k bhat may be about right for a high level of (almost unlimited) coverage with no deductible.

You should be able to get a range of quotes depending on any deductible you may choose to take on and total limit etc.

ps I forgot to add I've had to make numerous claims - and all are/were dealt with immediately with no need to pay then claim back or any of that malarkey.

2 hours ago, GR8fun in LOS said:

I have found and also read on this site that the "Ookla Speed Test" is a complete waste of time.

 

I have found that it is recommended by Thai providers, as it overstates the speeds by 10 times and sometimes higher.

 

Try some other speed test tests there are many free ones about and also look to testing outside of Thailand, is my suggestion. 

No.

And as far as your quoted speed - that ONLY applies IN Thailand - the total bandwidth out of Thailand is not big enough  to possibly provide everyone with their quoted speeds at all time or even part of the time.... hence why Ookla is just fine for testing your inside Thailand speed.

They have some other servers, but seemed to be more Asia, and so much slower (Vietnam for example).

On the other hand, out of interest I did a Google speed test to a server in the USA and got a surprisingly decent download speed at that time of ~50 Mb/s... naturally it will vary greatly.

You can always use

http://speedtest.googlefiber.net

Just did it from my laptop on a 5 gHz Asus wifi with AIS fibre, and got 94.1/9.2 to Atlanta - which is nice. (The 2.4Ghz happened to be 78/16).

And Ookla Beta on a macbook does near as makes no difference 100 down to a couple of bangkok servers - as it does to my Minix box over 5gHz Oookla to a Bangkok server.

A decent 5gHz wifi connection will have no problem whatsoever getting your 100/30 speed - my Minix box is downstairs connects to an Asus wifi router upstairs on the 5gHz freq. and always gets the promised 100/30 with Ais on a local thai server speedtest.

The 'free' routers you get may not have such wide 5gHz coverage, but should be ok for the same room to test - just make sure you are on a 5gHz connection and a local server, the Ookla speedtest will usually search and select one in Thailand for you.

The 'free' routers from True are going to be.... fairly sh@tyy no matter what - there's no reason to need to disable your 5gHz for example.

Unless in a one floor type of setup, you might want to buy a decent Wifi Router ( Asus as an example ), plug that in to your router/modem and disable completely the True router wifi... use the asus or whatever with appropriate passwords etc.

Then if you end up finally having had enough of true you can just disable the next (AIS or whoever) crappy router wifi, plug in your Asus and away you go....