Rasseru

The AQI in Koh Samui earlier today was 21.

<very glad to have escaped Chiangmai and to be breathing clean air in Koh Samui>

I would have no need for the DVD play function, actually, as I already have a very good Blu-ray/DVD player.

Thank you, tifino, for all your thoughtful advice. Yes, I have an existing library of LDs, more than 300 as I recall from the last time I counted, which was years ago. All analogue, no digital.

The LD player I used to use died seven or eight years ago; I never replaced it. I have acquired since then DVD or Blu-ray copies of many of the films in my LD collection, but I would like to be able to play all my LDs too.

I started today looking into buying a player through Amazon Japan, and have found there, if I remember the model number correctly, a Pioneer DVL 919, which like your 909 plays both LDs and DVDs. Do you know it? Recommend it?

With apologies if this has been answered before and I simply couldn’t find it, but does anyone have any idea where I might be able to buy a laser disc player in Thailand?

For the record, and by way both of expressing my thanks to those who have been helpful here and of trying to be helpful in turn, a week ago I found the booth for disposing of batteries and other hazardous waste at KSK, on the P3 level just by an entrance to the mall.

Thanks to you both, Cheesekraft and Richcor, for your advice. Having now reached about a year's worth of problems that I believe are router and/or ISP service-related -- pop-ups and redirects, mostly -- and that have been very poorly addressed, which is to say not addressed at all, by TOT despite repeated pleas from me, I am in the middle of switching from TOT to 3BB. 3BB will provide a new router. For ADSL service, 3BB tell me that one may use one's own router, but for VSL service, which I plan to get, one must use a 3BB provided Huawei router. I plan to set it in bridge mode, by which, as I understand it, it will function solely as a modem, and use with it an Airport Extreme device, just purchased, for the in-home router and wifi functions. I'll keep an eye on the DNS issue.

Two numbers appear for me under DNS Server. One is the second of the two you listed. The other is 8.8.8.8.

That is encouraging!

Thank you, ukrules. I wish I could understand whether what they are saying cannot be changed is the same or different from what the security boffins say absolutely needs to be changed.

Looking to change my ISP, today I visited a 3BB sales office. After confirming that they would let me use my own modem-router if I wished, and being told that they would set the user name and password, based on their lists of same, I suggested that of course I would be able after that to change the password to one of my own. Absolutely not, I was told. I was stunned, as in my research into router security issues I have read over and over that it is critical to change, immediately, at least the password (and good to change, if possible, the adminstrator name too).

Does anyone have any experience or knowledge they can about this issue, particularly concerning 3BB, but beyond that to other ISPs in Thailand?

When speaking to others, the Japanese will ALWAYS add the honorific title (-san, -samma, or -chan) to their name, As in Smith-san or Jones-samma. ALWAYS.

Not quite. Almost always, but not always always. Spouses, for example, will sometimes not add -- sometimes they will, others they will not -- any such title to their spouse's name when they speak to them. Ditto when parents speak to their children. Ditto when teachers of children speak to their students.

Being and being called a 'farang' in Thailand has never bothered me in the least. Nor did being and being called a 'gaijin' in Japan.

I have very little experience of Japan, but I am interested in it.

My understanding of the word 'gaijin' is that it is basically negative, unlike 'farang'.

Is that true?

That is not my understanding of the word, based on my experience of living in Japan close to fifteen years altogether, of having had and still having many Japanese friends and being now a fluent speaker and reader of Japanese.

But that does not stop, as others have pointed out here, troublemakers from taking offence.

Thanks for that.

Do you have any idea of the origin of the word 'gaijin'?

Yes, 'gai' can be translated different ways, but the basic idea is 'outside'. 'Jin' means 'person'. 'Gaijin' is a shortened form of 'gaikokujin', in which 'koku' means 'country'. Some people take it into their heads that the shortened form is somehow disrespectful. Japanese who are aware that some foreigners think this are sometimes careful to use 'gaikokujin' instead of 'gaijin' around foreigners, but I have never heard the word 'gaijin' used in a way that gave me the sense disrespect was intended, and more than one Japanese person has told me, when asked, that to them it does not connote disrespect.

Being and being called a 'farang' in Thailand has never bothered me in the least. Nor did being and being called a 'gaijin' in Japan.

I have very little experience of Japan, but I am interested in it.

My understanding of the word 'gaijin' is that it is basically negative, unlike 'farang'.

Is that true?

That is not my understanding of the word, based on my experience of living in Japan close to fifteen years altogether, of having had and still having many Japanese friends and being now a fluent speaker and reader of Japanese.

But that does not stop, as others have pointed out here, troublemakers from taking offence.

Being and being called a 'farang' in Thailand has never bothered me in the least. Nor did being and being called a 'gaijin' in Japan.

Thank you, elektrified and Tywais, for your helpful replies.

In the most recent topic I could find on the subject of battery cycling in CM, which dates back four and five years ago, has the same title as this one, minus the 'Part the Second' bit, and has now been archived, which meant I could not, or at any rate not easily, revive it by commenting on it there, someone wrote 'Yesterday I took my old household batteries (I'd accumulated them over a few years now) to the municipal offices on Intaworot Rd. in the old city (west of the Three Kings monument). There is a recycling station at the front of the building---very easy.'

No complaints, as I was fully prepared to find that this terrific info was not so terrific anymore, but I went today to try to retrace the steps of the gentleman who posted that and could not, finding no such recycling station and being told at the information window that there was no such place. I once knew two other places where I could take batteries for recycling, or at any rate for what one had the impression and hope would be proper disposal, but they have disappeared too.

Can anyone help with up to date information about where one can take used batteries for recycling? To be precise, I am talking about small batteries used in electronic devices, not motorcycle or car batteries.

A tip of my hat to you, Ben, for how you have handled yourself here. I had no difficulty believing you in the first instance, as the one time I have had a case of food poisoning - years ago, in Japan, and very violent - it came on in about three hours. That said, I like the restaurant in question, and will not be prevented from going there by your experience, as I think that sort of thing can happen anywhere at times.

Ah, indeed, the great philosophical question: why are any of us here? I think that one has to find the best answer to that question one can, for oneself, and that there is no single answer for everyone.

Hello, Chiengmaijoe. I have read many but not all the comments on this thread, and if you have been asked and have answered this question already I apologise for asking it again, but if you are genuinely curious about what goes on in the minds of your friends when they say and do such things as those you report and ask about, why not just ask them?

Hi Rasseru you've dragged this back on topic, so I'll answer your question.

. . . . .

I could go on, but . . . to be frank, trying to discuss it here is a waste of time as most replies have already shown.

Hello again, Chiengmaijoe. Well good, it sounds like you've got it pretty well sussed. Your frank conclusion, that part of your reply that I have just quoted, does not surprise me, and the truth embodied in it had much to do with my own suggestion couched as a question.

Hello, Chiengmaijoe. I have read many but not all the comments on this thread, and if you have been asked and have answered this question already I apologise for asking it again, but if you are genuinely curious about what goes on in the minds of your friends when they say and do such things as those you report and ask about, why not just ask them?

I think of the difference between the Chinese and Japanese tourists as something like the difference between Russian and English tourists, only much greater.

Thanks for telling us about this restaurant, it sounds wonderful.

Do you know their opening times?

You are welcome, Saan. I'm sorry but I do not know their opening hours. I am pretty sure they are open seven days a week, but beyond that I do remember anything about the hours they are open.

Where is this book center. Just down from pantip across from the motorcycle accessory store. Love Jap food!

Thanks kevin

I don't like to say this but it bothers me mentally when people refer to Japanese people as Japs.. Do you ever see British people referred to as Limeys or Americans as yanks. Or Chinese as chinks. Please have some respect.

To be fair -- or if not fair, which you are being, I think, as far as that goes, then to be correct -- the reference here was to food, not people. And one does occasionally see references, for example, to 'Aussie beef' and 'Cajun food'.

If I can post this link, it will explain, in all the detail anyone could need, how to get there.

http://www.aroijapan.com/torajiro/promotion.php