pete_r

January 14, 2010

A binman comes to a house, cannot find the bin outside, and knocks on the door. After several knocks, a little Chinese guy opens.

Binman: Where's your bin?

Chinese man: I been in the toilet.

Binman: I mean, where's your dust bin?

Chinese man: I just been in the toilet.

Binman: You don't understand, where's your wheely bin?

Chinese man (looks annoyed): Ok, listen, I really been wanking in the toilet. You happy now?

January 8, 2010

Hi Khonwan, Thanks for the quick response. I think you are right about the wisdom of drying. Looks to me that you will need about 2 and a half to 3 tons of fresh roots to get 1 tons of dried, with a price of 5.15 for dried chips at the moment drying would be a loss making enterprise. What I cannot figure out though is why so many small factories (middlemen) are drying cassava at the moment. Am I missing something? Surly they cannot have invested so much in plant and equipment if they could have made a better profit from selling the fresh root

I can think of two possibilities, but wouldn't know if they are right or not: One could be to store the chips and sell them later when the supply of fresh roots is lower and prices higher. Another could be for export to China, where demand is high and prices for cassava chips may be higher than in Thailand.

December 21, 2009

The British confirmed weapons of mass destruction in Irak too

nothing sure yet and in the meantime a lot of agencys have had time enough to set up a story.

No they didn't - there's no such place as Irak!

Now, if you meant Iraq, then so did the US and most of Europe. There were just different agendas and thus different intended strategies to deal with it.

seems Wolfi is a smart ass, my deepest apologies for the K in Irak, in German its spelled like this and just why it is spelled IraQ in English doesnt make it

correct. The real name of that country is btw. ‏العراق‎ its sumerian language and means Araki, or rise of the sun......

And since you are so fantastic in history, maybe you will explain which countries in Europe are THE MOST for you? Poland? ‎

I was only pulling your leg mossieman -= no need to bother sufing wikipedia for repostes.

As to Europe I was talking about current EU countries at the time and included Russia into the toss - no need to be brilliant at history, its pretty current, I lived it, I watched the news and read the papers like everyone else. Seen as you like surfing facts, I'm sure you can bring your history knowledge up to date with a little work

Er, "current EU countries at the time", do you mean like France and Germany? Where did the "Old Europe" label come from if as you say "most of Europe" was so convinced by the WMD story?

December 21, 2009

Nakachet, which bank and branch do you use (as different branches of the same bank can have different policies)? When I want to transfer money back to my home country, my bank wants to see passport, work permit and evidence of salary (i.e. certificate from my employer). So I would be happy to switch to a bank that would require only to show a passport and to answer a few questions.

Thanks in advance for your reply,

December 18, 2009

I used to live at the corner of Nottingham-, Derby- and Leicester-shires, in a place stuck between the M1, an airport, and a coal-fired power station. Good times in the spring and summer; December was a good time to be away though...

December 6, 2009

Not necessarily in order: Asia Sentinel, the Economist, the Irrawady, Asia Times, BBC, the Guardian. And Notthenation.com "for entertainment purposes only" of course.

November 27, 2009

From Thai Airways website: http://www.thaiairways.com/faqs/en/before-you-fly-faqs.htm

For travel to/ from Canada and the U.S.A., the following regulations apply two pieces of check baggage. The sum of the three dimensions (length+height+width) for each piece cannot exceed 158 m.(62 inches). The maximum weight per piece is 32 kgs.(70 lbs.) for Royal First and Royal Silk Class and 23 kgs (50 lbs.) per piece for Economy Premium and Economy Class

I don't know which class Mr and Mrs Wolfe were flying (the article in the OP doesn't specify it), but one explanation could be that the calculation by Thai Airways was -mistakenly or not- based on the 23kg limit for Economy class, which leads to ~50kg of excess luggage and 2000 USD at a rate of 40USD/kg..

November 25, 2009

PING is free.

http://ping.windowsdream.com/

November 25, 2009

This thread is three years old... Did your wife make it to the US eventually?

November 4, 2009

I find both Bangkok bank and SCB ok. The password for the Bangkok Bank service got lost in the post the first time, so after waiting for two weeks I had to make a second trip to the branch to fill in a password request form. No problem after that.

For accessing both Bangkok Bank and SCB online banking using Firefox, there is a neat little add-on that allows to open IE websites in a Firefox tab:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1419

October 8, 2009

October 7th came and went. Any crash yet?

October 7, 2009

Whenever I see this:

Firstly about the yellow shirts, no YOU may have seen that I haven't. I saw Red shirts pouring in from the jungle like 2 bit ignorant savages to tear up the capitol last SongKran (of all times) like the burmese of old. I saw Sohndi's car all shot up from a drive by. I did not see Yellow shirts engaged in that sort of mass terrorist action that I have seen with Toxin's bastards.

I gotta remind of this:

The yellows are no better than the reds, the difference is in the coverage the media make of the two sides.

Cheerio

September 20, 2009

So the self-proclaimed peaceful protesters of last year start to show their true colors?

September 17, 2009

Exchange your THB to GBP in Thailand, you will definitely get a better rate than in the UK.

If you have a bank account in the UK you can try to order a bank transfer (convert to GBP first, then send the money in GBP), but the banks in Thailand tend to request a lot of documents before they allow you to do it, and there is a limit of about 600,000 THB per operation. The way that worked for me is to show a work permit + evidence of salary like salary slips or employment contract + say that the transfer is in the category "repatriation of salary of foreigner working in Thailand" - the limit with this type of transfer is the amount of salary earned in the year.

Otherwise you can carry cash or buy a cashier's cheque. There are probably some verifications the Thai bank will do before issuing a cashier's cheque, similar to the bank transfer.

Traveller's cheques might be an option too but I've never tried it.

September 11, 2009

If Young is a tool he is a high precision one,
well oiled and stored in his case each night,

because there is no rust on him at all.

A "useful tool", maybe?

September 8, 2009

http://fistfulofeuros.net/afoe/economics-a...ropes-perifery/

August 31, 2009

Thanks for all the answers. Without much second thoughts, I can wai older people based on the age difference; and not wai people of similar age and in a lower hierarchical position (unless they wai first - same as for younger people). In this particular case of former colleagues of similar age, I see it as a fine line between either waiing and appearing a tad too formal (with the risk of introducing unnecessary distance in the work relationship), or not waiing and appearing somehow ill-mannered. Guess I'll follow my instinct at the next meeting, but will keep in mind that the safe side is to wai anyway, as has been pointed out.

Regarding the idea of not waiing because Thais don't care if Westerners try to pick up the culture or not: That depends on the context, sometimes it's true, sometimes the ability to wai properly is definitely appreciated.

August 30, 2009

Here is an etiquette question: After moving to a new job in a different organization a few months back, I will still have occasional meetings with my former colleagues for follow-up on ongoing projects. As we are not colleagues any more, shall I wai them or not?

Knowing that:

- My departure from the former job was on friendly terms.

- When working together and seeing each other every day as colleagues, we did not wai each other.

- We are in the same age range (7 years between the youngest and the oldest).

- I was one of the youngest in the team, so if a wai is advisable next time I meet them, the initiative should come from me (hence the question!).

- Hierarchically I was at the same level as them, not in a higher or lower position.

Thanks for any input or experience,

August 25, 2009

Not to start wars, but during Thaksin years standing up to police pooyais was simply impossible.

Not to take your bait, but do you have reference/evidence for this, or is it just another of those empty allegations?

August 8, 2009

Well at the French embassy they do stamp the passport after a visa refusal, indicating the date, application reference number and type of visa applied for (student visa in the case I follow).

The reason I bump this thread is to ask if anyone has experience in re-applying immediately after the first refusal: The embassy told the applicant (Thai nationality) to re-apply after 6 months, so what are his chances of success if he re-applies before that? ('cause the term starts next month, so sitting and waiting for half year is not really an option).

Thanks,

August 8, 2009

If you can't open it - here's the link
http://windowslivehelp.com/solutions/safet...nt-hijacks.aspx

The explanations in this link are one possibility; something similar happened to the Hotmail account of my wife 3 months ago. In her case her password was changed, so she completely lost access to her account. The strange bit is that she had not logged in to that account for about 2 years, having moved to a Yahoo e-mail address; meaning that if it was a virus that stored her login information, the spammer behind it waited a jolly long time before making use of it.

It makes me wonder if instead of a virus it could be a weakness in the MSN ID check process in case of forgotten password that allows the spammer to get hold of account login information.

August 4, 2009

This is gonna sound strange too, but you could replace the fear by boredom: Find a balcony or other place that scares you as you describe, sit there and do nothing as long as necessary to feel bored. If you feel scared, force yourself to stay sitting and wait, eventually as nothing happens the fear should go away and boredom settle in. Repeat the process several times until the fear is gone for good.

July 20, 2009

I knew the version about France: France will be the most beautiful country on Earth, there will be mountains, and seaside with beaches and cliffs, and forests and a lot of countryside all in good proportions. The climates will be diverse enough to produce wine, milk & cheese, breads, fruits and more.

As for balance... Just wait until you meet the French people...