Polar Bear

There was a huge fire in the animal section of Chatuchak Market this morning. By the time firefighters got it under control, it's estimated that over 1,000 animals had died. Some owners/staff sleep above their stores, but they were all able to escape. The only good that can come out of this now is if it's never allowed to reopen. 
 

https://thethaiger.com/news/national/devastating-fire-at-chatuchak-market-destroys-118-shops-and-kills-1000-animals

Thanks for the info. I'll watch out for it. The topic is nothing new. Biological Exuberance by Bagemihl was published 25 years ago. It was a core university text in animal behaviour courses, and it cited hundreds of studies going back decades. Back then, the main theory was that there were higher levels of homosexuality in species with high-need offspring, with homosexual adults 'nannying' or adopting the offspring of others to increase overall species survival. But then Black Swans also have a surrogacy system, and male-male pairs are by far the most successful at raising offspring, so that might have changed over time. I'm interested to see what the current theories are. 

It's asking for your Skype password to confirm the transaction. Depending on how you set up your Skype account, it might be your Windows password, but there should also be an option to reset your password. That would probably be the easiest way to fix it. 

20 minutes ago, Robert Paulson said:

When did it start? I don’t buy it cuz people never went there. I wanna go. Yes I’m serious

I went about 10 years ago, and it was pretty popular then. We were booking stuff more than 6 months in advance and couldn't always get our first choice because things were booked solid.

This is the list I came up with, based primarily on direct flights and flight times to make weekend trips viable. We are working our way through it. The Maldives was a surprise for me. It's a 4.5-hour flight, and the local islands are beautiful but really cheap if you can live without booze for a weekend. There are the resorts, too, obviously, if that's more your thing. We also just got back from a few days in Indonesian Borneo. 
 

Cats and dogs often get fat after they are sterilised because they are more hungry but need less food. The specialist food is high protein and low fat for extra bulk with reduced calories. I've never bothered for a dog, I just cut their food intake down, and they soon adapt. But cats are a lot more demanding when they are hungry, so I can see why people would try to avoid that. 

Royal Canin and Happy Cat are both widely available in sterilised format. 

These are the sites I usually buy from, but you can also use them to get the search terms in Thai.

https://kingkongpetshop.com/product/royal-canin-sterilised/
https://tailybuddy.com/search/sterilised


This is a seller on Lazada with Happy Cat sterilised. (I've no idea if it's a good brand. I've just seen it in stores.)
https://www.lazada.co.th/products/happy-cat-14-i5150439562-s21763871241.html? 

Be careful with Lazada though, I've stopped buying dog food from it because I had a couple of bags that were fake. 

I don't know how easy it would be to find here, but in the UK, I used old carpets or rugs turned upside down as weed suppressants. They last much longer than plastic. But they are easy to come by in the UK, and not so common here I think.  

Boiling water will kill weeds faster than vinegar. It's pretty much instant for the leaves, but you need to wait a few minutes for it to soak into the soil. Neither will kill the root system of deep weeds unless you dig the ground over so the liquid can make contact with the roots directly. You can also make a vinegar, salt and boiling water solution, but you risk contaminating a wider area with the salt if you aren't careful, and as it will still only kill on contact, I've never seen the advantage over just using boiling water. 

Covering it with clear plastic will just create a polytunnel and encourage seeds to germinate. If you want to cover it, use thick black plastic to heat up and destroy any seeds on the surface without letting light through. If you laid the plastic down a few days before you would preheat the soil and help to dry it out, which would make boiling water more effective below the surface.

 

I watched it on my laptop and took a screenshot of the QR code at the end. 

Have you tried Berrer? 
https://www.berrerbrand.com/หมวดสินค้า-10-ยีนส์-=-หมวดย่อย,118 

It works out to an increase of about 5.8% for each year you defer. 

https://www.gov.uk/deferring-state-pension/what-you-get 

28 minutes ago, Maestro said:

 

What do you mean with "DBed"?

Denied boarding

Not this route or airline, but I've been pinged at the departure gate for document checks after an online check in, once to confirm I had a visa and once for an onward ticket. I had the paperwork with me both times, so there was no issue, but I assume I would have been denied boarding otherwise. 

How much do you usually transfer? You can only send less than  50k THB per transaction to Krungsri. Wise will only send bigger (up to 2 mill) transfers to Bangkok Bank, Kasikorn and SCB.

Berrer

https://www.berrerbrand.com/

1 hour ago, NoshowJones said:

That really answers my question, now suppose your carry on case does not fit and is just a few Mts bigger. If you look at Lazada, they say that any case you buy could could be a little over or under the size you ask for.

If your case was just that little over their sizing and did not fit. What would they do?

If it's oversized for carry-on, they will force you to check it and charge you for it. If it's oversized for check in, they will charge the oversized/overweight baggage rate. That was 250E on the route I used to take. It's probably something similar from Thailand. That's why I got it made a couple of cm below the maximum, just to be sure it wouldn't be slightly out. 

22 hours ago, wadman said:

 

A lot of airlines allow you carry on 2 pieces of luggage onto the cabin: 1 piece that fits into the overhead bin + 1 personal item (which can be a laptop bag, as long as it is small enough to be stored underneath the seat).

 

See if this works for you. Check with Thai airways to see what their cabin allowance is for your ticket. 

Thai's cabin allowance is 7kg for the carry-on and 1.5kg for the personal item/laptop bag.

17 minutes ago, NoshowJones said:

KLM for baggage online is 35x25x55 and weight is 12 Ks. It would be interesting to know what other airlines charge and how they determine 

the charge. ie do they have a measuring tape at check in?

Most airlines have boxes/cages to check the size of carry on. They have them at check in and at boarding, though most won't bother to use them unless they suspect your bag is oversized. 

However, KLM check-in staff do have tape measures as well. For checked baggage, they have a linear maximum (158 cm in total - length + width + height). I have a sports bag that was custom-made to fit their sizing. It's 156 cm total. They usually check and always seem disappointed to find it fits. 

Thai's allowance is only by piece to USA & Canada. To everywhere else, it's a weight allowance, so you can take more than one bag, as long as they are less than your weight allowance in total. There was talk of them switching everyone over to a piece allowance last year, but as far as I know, it never happened. In any case, if your allowance is 25kg, it's a weight allowance. When it's by piece, it's 23kg in Economy.

https://www.thaiairways.com/en_TH/travel_information/baggage.page?

4 minutes ago, Lazy Sod said:

Renewing my 5 year in BKK soon. I read somewhere last year we can watch the video online so we don't have to sit through at the licensing office, but I can't find the link. Is it still available?

https://www.dlt-elearning.com/forignerhome 

30 minutes ago, Muhendis said:

Aircon is a power guzzling luxury (or maybe not so much of a luxury).

I would suggest that, at current prices, solar technology would give you a payback time which would be well worth the capital outlay.

Mind you, it would be more economical to run your AC at a sensible temperature in the region of 27ºC in the bedroom and 30ºC in the lounge and also change to inverter technology if you don't already have it.

 

Installing solar panels and replacing AC units in a rented property doesn't sound like a very economical option TBH.

Or is this my landlord posting...?

It needs servicing soon anyway, so I'll let the landlord send someone to deal with that.