lotus eater

This place seems to be widely used among farang and to have a favourable write up. Does it have a skin specialist that is to be recommended? My girlfriend has a minor but recurrent problem which I'd like to have properly diagnosed and thus bring an end to endless expenses at the quacks and chemists which sell her new creams and pills every month.

If not Loi Kroh I'd be happy to have another recommendation.

Hello,

I have a nice piece of property next to Wat Umong. It is vacant after the tenant of 14 years left, and is in need of renovation. I'll be happy to renovate it to your specification, or, for a lower price, you can rent it as is, and renovate it to your standard. ( 30 years long lease is welcome.)

Thank you.

I'd like to be in touch next week when I'll be in Chiang Mai - please see my pm to you

Should have mad clear I want to rent, not buy.

Still hoping someone vacating a house, or seeing or knowing of one will let me know.

Again, many thanks.

Hello there,

i don't know if i've already been in touch with you as a few people replied to an add i put out. I have a 3 bed house in a lovely spacious village with no neighbours either side of me and a nice sized yard/garden.

I'm intending on moving out mid-September. If your in Chiang Mai drop by to see it, maybe it wont be right for you but I'm sure you'll love the village and you can see what other properties there are for rent.

Have just sent you a pm re my interest in this.

Should have mad clear I want to rent, not buy.

Still hoping someone vacating a house, or seeing or knowing of one will let me know.

Again, many thanks.

I'd be really grateful to hear from someone who is vacating or knows of a house not too far from the city. Of course I'm also looking in the conventional ways - internet and visits to agents (I come down from Chiang Rai as called for) - but a personal specific can sometimes be opportune.

I'm looking for a house of a high standard with 3/4 bedrooms, a big western kitchen - and wood floors as much as possible. I'd rather avoid a densely packed development but will accept it if the house is otherwize exceptional value. My budget is flexible - as is my need for amount of furniture in the house.

The landlord must be ok with my persian and birman cats living with me.

Don't want to burden this with more detail.

Many thanks.

I;m not entirely sure what a 'thai' eggplant is but are the recipe suggestions workable for the ordinary aubergine? If not I'd appreciate suitable suggestions for that.

When I lived in San Francisco, I ate a lot of good veggieburgers, but I haven't found any here.

Aum makes theirs with mushrooms and they are about as good as you can get.

Who or what and where pray is Aum?

Not Chiang Mai, I know, but I went to the Maharaja in C-Rai t'other day. Expensive - Thb120 for some veg dishes! Some karai dishes too tomato-ey, and not authentic by any stretch e.g. mattar paneer. Really good naan breads. Tandoori chicken + a nut n youghurt sauce was quite OK. The place was empty, apart from us. I wonder if it'll survive.

Was also there last week, empty, good flavour to dishes, but no hotness to any of the dishes I tried including the vindaloo. Vry expensive too.

Regardless of price the food there is just about the most inauthentic and, in my opinion, just about the worst, I've eaten in a supposedly indian restaurant. They can only be aiming to build their business based upon the lack of another indian restaurant in Chiang Rai, their central location, and a clientele which has no conception of indian food.

And LCDs go to a higher resolution .... my Samsung LA40M has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 (Full HD)... you'll probably won't find any plasma with that high resolution. Usually plasma's have a resolution

of 1024 x 720.

I've paid THB 39,994 ... (show model)

There are more LCDs with Full HD resolution than plasmas, true, and for last year's models even more so. But this year's high end plasmas all have Full HD resolution as well.

Also, 1024 x 768 and 1368 x 768 are more common plasma panel sizes than 1024 x 720. Much standard HD content is 1024 x 720 though.

So your point is somewhat valid, but the difference between standard HD and full HD is not necessarily as obvious or important as the marketing says.

On 23 November last year, Sweden's M3 magazine called in a panel of TV salespeople and reviewers to test how well they would be able to tell apart a full HD LCD TV and a standard HD plasma TV, and also if they could tell what signal resolution the panels were being fed with.

The results were interesting. The panels were masked in order to conceal their brand and model, and the test panel was seated at 3.5 meters distance. None of these people, who make a living from reviewing and selling flat panels, managed to spot the difference very well. In fact, when it came to seeing the difference between a 720p and 1080p signal, randomizing the answers would produce more accurate results than what the test panel managed to achieve.

The gap between the two technologies is closing in though. Still, from what I have read, Pioneer's Kuro series for this year (which is full HD) is still distinctly ahead of the competition. Samsung's very latest generation high end LCD's (from last month) have also got some very good reviews though.

a.) the timing, ie is either technology on the brink of material improvement or price drop?

b.) does their preference for plasma hold for both smaller and larger sized screens?

How do prices compare for similar sizes and quality of brands?

Is there an adequate from plasma to sniffdog's point about resolution?

a.) Not really as far as I have read and been told - the next significant technological breakthrough will be an altogether different technology which is currently under development but is expected to render both LCD and plasma technology obsolete.

The general advice is to define your needs and usage (what connected devices and material will you be using it for, what environment (light issues)) - read up on the pros and cons and go out into the shops to see for yourself - then get the TV you think will suit your preferences and wallet best. If you are looking for a bargain, last year's models have already dropped heavily in price, and you will have to wait another 5-6 months for the next drop, although the most popular models tend not to drop around Christmas time anymore like the mid range options. In 2007, Samsung models got more expensive around Christmas because of high demand.

b.) If you are talking about screens under 40" then there aren't too many plasmas available, so LCD will be your best bet. For 42" and up, the best plasmas give you better picture quality than LCDs of comparable size.

Yes, I would be buying screen under 40". So I wouldn't be going wrong if I choose a sony or samsung to suit my taste in looks and what I want to spend (maybe last year's discounted models for a bargain)? I'm a very infrequent tv watcher and would mostly watch dvd movies.

... advice all the hi-def buffs have given me.

I too am considering buying this month or next, so this is an opportune thread.

What do the buffs say about

a) the timing, ie is either technology on the brink of material improvement or price drop?

does their preference for plasma hold for both smaller and larger sized screens?

How do prices compare for similar sizes and quality of brands?

Is there an adequate from plasma to sniffdog's point about resolution?

Gentlemen. Amusing repartee. But "a certain blue pill" now coming into it is surely going to take this thread far, far from my question....

I wonder if anyone has their "L'expresso automatic". Mine was blinking its (first) descaling warning light but despite my doing the necessary as per the booklet the light won't stop blinking. The Magimix website specifies Phillipines as the nearest dealer.

Has anyone had one these machines looked at in Thailand (preferably Chiang Mai)? Or bought one here - I'd go to ask that shop's advice. I bought mine in Paris and it was shipped with my stuff. It's quite new.

I've been reduced to instant coffee for all important first drink of the morning - am even being driven to tea for the change. In dire need for help.

I live in a lovely 3 bed house with cable t.v, high speed internet, phone and large garden set in a very large secured village with gym, tennis courts, large swimming pool and excellent restuarant in the Hang Dong area in Chiang Mai.

I want to leave before the year contract runs out (Janruary) but don't want to loose my deposit so have to find somebody to move in.

It's amazing value as i only pay 9000 baht a month and i can send photos if anybody wants to see it.

Does any body want to rent this in September-October or know anybody else that does.

Any help is appreciated.

Hang Dong is not where I was looking but if the house is such great value I'd be interested to see some photos and any other further info. Perhaps you can PM me. Thanks

I've got persians and find their personalities vary hugely - even in the same litter. Though all show a degree of independence and insistence on doing everything at a time of their own choosing - and isn't that what charms one in a cat? (If you think persians are less frequently attached to you, you shouldn't try a birman - even more beautiful and no trouble to keep, but even more detached.

...

I found OpenOffice pretty nice on Windows, so I'd definitely check out NeoOffice. In fact I might do that myself. It will have the same import/export issues with the Word DOC format though. Import is OK, e.g. you'll be able to read it. But if you need to take somebody else's DOC document, edit it, and send it back, it's just not feasible with anything except the original MS Word.

...

OpenOffice 2.4 is official available for Intel based Mac's it works great. I can surely recommend it...

http://download.openoffice.org/other.html#en-US

Regarding Open/Neo office, yes they are basically the same thing; an open source project to create a viable competitor for MS office with Neo being the Mac orientated version.

...

I am hesitating a bit between downloading the OpenOffice or the NeoOffice - each is recommended above. nikster and slackula are saying expressly that Neo is better for Mac; but the Open site, as Richard says expressly specifies the mac/intel. Please help me choose the friendlier and less troublesome of the two downloads for my new macbook and my elementary purposes.

Thanks chaps for such an abundance of info quickly provided. I'm quite sure that as I digest and apply it it'll see me through all my problems - and I'll come back with difficulties, if I may.

I'm moving around for the next week so I will be slow to report.

But just for now, the NeoOffice seems the preferred recommendation, contrary to Richard-BKK's strong recommendation of OpenOffice. So I'll look for that now.

Thanks again - and I will report again.

I now have my macbook and would be most grateful for a bit of further advice - and apologize in advance if answers to my questions were implicit in previous replies.

I intend to download OpenOffice 2.4 and try that along with the textedit already in the mac. If that proves suitable for my purposes (including a simple spreadsheet) I won't bother with getting the Office for Mac.

However I did have Office for Mac on my old iBook, with Word docs and Excel spreadsheets.

What will happen when I attempt to transfer the data from the iBook to my new Macbook with a firewire connexion? Will the data transfer in usable form? Will the Office for Mac programme also transfer, and if so do I end up with both OpenOffice and Office? (I also may still have the old Office CD). I really don't want a confusion (to my less than computer savvy brain) on my Mac.

Any advice will be hugely appreciated.

On a separate question, is there a way for me to transfer stuff manually and selectively from the iBook to the Macbook? eg transfer all the music but not all the podcasts in iTunes?

The point about ample and frequent experience seems a good one. Does anyone have knowledge or experience of the implant specialist at Grace? (In general I have a good impression of Grace too, ie Korakot, equipment, etc - but vis a vis the particular dentist on the particular job at hand, this has varied.)

I too will be committing to a couple of implants in the next month or so and so was very interested in Maejoman's referral to the Bangkok hospital - I'd be most grateful for further info. (Incidentally, MM, I'm afraid my experience at Chiang Mai Dental Hospital was terrible, not to say horrific; but I'm loath to openly mention names there.)

We're going up to the 3rd quarter now,any movement yet on the site of the sails.Just read that lehman bros is in big liquidity problems.By the way how is white sands going.Goldbug seems to be very quite indeed.

Your source or evidence?

Lehman's set a timetable last year as follows: complete financing for Sails by summer/autumn, restart construction by december. If there is another slippage on that timetable, then will be the time for serious concern.

Secondly, why has there been no news of buyers enforcing (or trying to enforce) their rights under the contract to demand delay penalties or their deposit back? Presumably because the investment is seen as still far from endangered.

Off topic I know (and I should know better, of all people ) but I have to say that the sourdough loaf they sell at Carrefour- my favorite bread in LOS. If you get a freshly baked one, it keeps well for at least 5 days. And for the price, an excellent value. Toasted thin slices, with Camembert smeared on top....mmmmmmm

Yes, indeed. I bring back several for my freezer on each trip to CM. I have it toasted with a copious dribbling of very good olive oil every breakfast - acquired that habit from the Andalusians.

Lots of other ways too.

Can this office deal with visa renewals & re-entry visas?

And the price of the ticket and how it compared with more orthodox flights to west coast america?

Can an A&P customer who has tried the sourdough loaf at Carrefour, Chiang Mai tell me if there is anything similar - in taste not just name - at A&P?

Thanks, all .

Did find some lentils at Kasem.

The Indian grocer at Wararot sounds most enticing.

Will try Rimping for chick peas.

There was a long thread here about 4-5 months ago describing how to find the Indian grocer with the dried chick peas at the Warorot Market. Rimping had them for a similar price. Tops has canned chick peas, but they're prohibitively expensive.

For the puposes of indian cooking, specifically daal, there is more than one type of lentil one might choose. So I'd like to locate the indian grocery in worarot too. If someone has pinned it down and would care to give an idea of its location there I'd be grateful.

Small shops of long standing add something to a city. Reflect on how much more charm - and specialized service too - the boutiques, butchers, fromageries, et al of a Paris have vs the standardized and rampant supermarkets of american or increasingly, english towns. France has laws to protect these small businesses, shops and local food markets from the supermarkets - the latter being permitted only outside towns and, if inside, only in limited numbers and size.

I'm for supporting the Kasems of CM.