Gilligan In Drag

Thanks Licorice. That's relief, I was really starting to panic this evening.

A 400,000 baht bank balance would be a new requirement, if thats true. I think you are mixing multi non-O requirements with retirement visa requirements or visa extension requirements. That would be major bad news for many and close a major loophole. Yikes! Because of the COVID border closures, I stopped doing the 1 year multi-entry non-O spouse visit visa at Savannahkhet, so I have been out of the loop for the last three years and on yearly extensions at the local immigration branch. I have checked periodically on here to see that evrything is the same and if there was a change i missed it. Just do a search on here, there should be numerous reports. I was just going to check if people are getting their one year extensions on here or if they are arbitrarily denying people now for whatever reason. I was given a month stamp to wait till my paperwork was processed as usual but this time i am about out of time and they still have not gotten back to me. For the last two years they finished everything in a week but they haven't phoned us yet and its just about time over. Who knows, internal immigration and getting an extension is about a lot of games and gauntlets, so maybe thats all it is or that they are simply busier than before. maybe more people are coming back and applying to stay longer because they think the pandemic restrictions are lifted. In the past here they used to put my employers through the wringer every year, their own government univeristies for whom I used to work. They treat even foreign professors like we are some huge liability, they don't want to give extensions to professors, its actually smoother now that i am not employed in Thailand. So, maybe they just want to make me squirm a bit before they give me the stamp on the last day of my 1 month wait for visa extension. Its part of their job description to make applicants feel unwelcome. Sorry, blah blah blah, right? But my plan B is to go to Savannakhet and if they are now asking for 400,000 that is going to be very tight I barely have above that, it never occurred to me I might need to prove I have 400,000 plus for yet another month. I really hope your info is mistaken.

Zero awareness anywhere in the country about how extremely unhealthy breathing burning plastic is. It wreaks havoc on your endocrine system, neuro development of children and reproductive functions , according to some studies it literally causes young children to go through puberty and be able to give birth at age 10 or 11, causes females to act like men and vice versa. Most of the dogs in our village are dykes, I've noticed. Little data out there as you would expect, they'd rather you were freaked out about COVID to the exclusion of being concerned or doing anything about anything else and of course as we all know and agree, if it is not on the television news it doesn't exist and is a conspiracy theory and is misinformation regardless of what all the research says, what do qualified people know about anyway, right?. In another study (https://factor.niehs.nih.gov/2022/8/science-highlights/burning-plastic) conducted in Guatemala by the conspiracy theorist and misinformationist terrorist Dr. Lisa Thompson from Dept of Public Health at Emory University, in Guatemala where plastic is nearly universally used to kindle cooking fires, burning plastic was concluded by the study to be the single most important cause of mortality accounting for 7 million premature deaths in 2019 alone. A least the govt gives a toss and is listening to what Dr. Thompson has found and will be working with Dr. Thompson to run a national outreach and public awareness campaign. Well, at least we can smoke dope here in Thailand, but d'ya think we;d ever see any kind of health and safety awareness campaign in Thailand or anyhing that is of help to anyone. No, but you get to use computer tablets at school again though, now that the friend of all children Dr. Thaksin has come back and needs money from Thailand again. We lived nearly alone a ways outside of our village and in the last 4 years 5 families have moved out here with us, unable to make ends meet in Bangkok. They despise us because we are straigh talkers around here, something that is not appreciated at all anywhere in Thailand asked them to not burn plastic, I said to one family, "We don't do that around here. Give us your plastic and we will sell it/dispose of it ourselves for you. You make everyone sick including yourselves burning that stuff everyday." they stopped burning plastic, haven't smelled it again for two years and hopefully they are selling it at the local abbator but I get a daggers in the eyes gaze from the dad. I'd be worried hey might end my life premaurely but it has a good chance of doing that have anyway, I have been diagnosed with cancer of the bladder, something that smokers often get and I don't smoke.

Maybe he will be allowed serve as Prime Minister anyway from his prison cell. In the U.S. a president may serve from prison, as you may have heard regarding Onald Rump. I have a feeling though they told Pita to scram for a reason, to make way for Mr. T. Just one of those wild hunches you have...

I've lived in Thailand for the last 24 years, and only been to Phuket once, no incidents when I did go, but the general atmosphere is rather mercenary much less friendly than the rest of the country. I felt somewhat uncomfortable at the pushiness I felt afraid of security in the bars as well. If I want an idyllic tropical island holiday, Indonesia is streets better than Phuket, it doesn't cost that much more to fly down there 8000 baht round trip to Bali and from there you can also explore many other very interesting islands and places if the touristyness of Bali sucks too much, Java, Lombok, Sulawesi, natural environment and traditonal culture in better shape than post-modern consumerist shambles Thailand.

As much as I feel bad that people probably won't get to have the person they voted for as PM, there just isn't much of a spirit or will to have a democratic country, in daily life the traditional culture is very much about shut up and do as Pee Chai told you or get out of here. You can't stand up for yourself even a little bit. Do that and have the whole group against you. Just as Thaksin, although he was supposedly and probably more or less elected, bragged that he would do anything in his power not to leave. When he was around You never felt like he even remotely respected democratic principals unless of course it benefitted himself and as i recall he was very open a about that that it was a big ironic joke to him, that you idiots elected me, too bad suckers, the country is mine now! You snooze you lose! I always had this funny feeling all the time that he was just taking the pizz, as they say. I have no idea about Pita, but most people don't respect fairness or democratic principals here or anywhere, you get laughed at by most people in the west. I really don't have much faith Pita would do anything more than be another self-serving wanna be autocrat. People in the west have been so propagandized by nonsense for decades they seem to want a non-elected government. "Democracy?! How quaint! How passé. Run along then and go play on your tricycle!" As you might recall in the U.S., it was revealed in the files hacked from the Democrtic party computers, minutes taken from eeting correspondence between party honchos etc that they hold absolute contempt voters that it is all about controlling the press wining and dining and getting contributions from the big donors. Of course you can glean all of that anyway, but there it was rubbed in your face: your vote means funk all ya buncha bumpkins! Give us your milk money now or we'll beat you up! The voters are the deplorables not just Trump supporters were spoken of in theose kind of terms between party members. As much as I like Robert Kennedy Junior he will. not get my vote as long as he is running under that party, I don;t know what is wrong with him or what kind of game he is playing though I have a few gusses, and he is undermining himself and all of the good things he has been doing fighting corporate crimes against the people. The Democratic party was taken to court over it, how Bernie Sanders won the vote and the voters shafted. That the U.S. presidential candidate is selected was underscored by the court's decision. The judge basically said in essence, "We don't need your crap in this court room! The stinkin voters, gimme a break! The Democratic Party is a private independent organization, a club if you will, and it is entirely up to them what they wanna do, if you don't like it then don't vote for their candidates, end of story, scram get outta heah! Waste my time with your garbage!" The weakness and corruption of many other leaers in the west its hard to believe too that they are the product of any authentic democratic process. Still I stand by Thailand's voters no matter what Pita is really about or how he got where he did. We have to start somehwere and those have got to go, basta ya! As they say to the CIA installed coups year after year when their democratically electd governments are overturned by games, assassinations, coups etc by the United States.

You could see something like this coming as soon as the "yes, but"s started regarding Pita's legitimacy from clearly an illegitimate bunch, the group of appointed senators. If the last 9 years have taught us anything, its that Prayuth and company aren't going to budge and any further election circuses are nothing more than that sorry to say, the election was pretty suspect from the get go. Prawit, though. The Thai people are just being trolled here. Is he not nearly universally disliked, or if not could a more unpopular or unsavory character be chosen as Prayuth's new stand in? Not to mention that he is very closely associated with Prayuth, even having served as a caretaker prime minister for a spell when Prayuth was taking a break as I recall. Seems they're deliberately trying to anger people and provoke unrest.

If you interact with a lot of different people in Asia it often comes up how crap they think your food is. They tell you what it is you eat without having eaten a meal with you. They just assume you eat the same crap that they eat, sugar, msg laden stuff that they don't have the nutritional knowledge or will power to avoid. Its usually something to say because they don't know what else to say to you to challenge you or otherwise have discussion. So it starts with something to the effect of why do you only eat junk food in your country and then things mentioned like pizza or hamburgers actually have more nutritional value than commonly eaten foods in Asia such as a bowl of refined white flour based noodles and minimal amounts of overcooked vegetables and meat and substantial amounts of msg. I enjoy a lot of Chinese food and some of it is bland but still quite excellent, steamed ravioli type pasta stuffed with nothing other than salted greens, delicious and Chinese people in Taiwan gobble thm up, very popular food. You could easily put those on a plate and say "Blah. Yellow people food. So monotonous and the msg makes you bowlegged," or some other bigoted stereotyping. And what on earth is a white person and white person food? I assume that a white person is a person whose genetic line is from a rather wide area of the world which includes areas where such people have migrated, like South America where foods from Africa and the Americas make up a good of everyone's diet. Or North Africa and the Middle East. even some East Indians particularly in the north might construed by a Chinese person as white. A majority of Latin Americans self-identify as white and there are many very spicy and rich foods from those areas like Mexican food. Italian food, bland and boring? So, are their foods all the same and so easily dismissed as complete junk or is it really about putting other people down to feel good about yourself when you can't find anything to feel good about? How pathetic. Ironically, the food displayed looks like the kind of thing you'd get at a Chinese suki joint. Its just dunked in boiling water, can't think of any more bland a method of preparing food than that. Anyway, not everything that is some kind of pungent savory sauce is boring. Is plain steamed rice or bread bland and boring, kind of, but its quite satisfying to eat usually and is essential to a good diet. What are these people eating mostly anyway, florescent colored gummy worms?

Its not just the selling times. The whole lower alcohol content part of the alcohol market is a shambles at this point. There seems to be no sign of bottoming out either. Its ironic you can order pot online, see th ads for it etc but not beer. The advertising ban is really on over-reach. Retailers and bars should be allowed to advertise to customers what they have and how much it costs. But as it stands, you cannot look up on internet before you go and find out who has what and how much it costs. Its kind of like you are not suppose to want anything other than Chang, Singha, Leo and Heineken and a few assorted brands of Thai whiskey (rum) and some sweet some sweet ladies drinks, Spy, Smirnoffs lemon and some others. But in actuality that is not the case, most venues often offer other things, Thai micro brew stuff, which i don't caare for personally, rather bored of the style of IPA and wheat non of which have the subtle flair of say some long established European beer makers. though not many except perhaps in Bangkok where some places offer an impressive selection. Our Makro up country dropped their Fullers line of ales and a few other interesting and good value tings like Savannah cider from South Africa. Tops has really squeezed out the interesting beer section nearly entirely, this gradual quarterly expansion of Chang and Singha, till theres now this narrow band at the end o the aisle. They hung a strip of mini bags of dried squid concealing behind it a couple of dusty bottles of something that should be there ront and center the unqiue and excellent Duvel beer from Belgium so that one is nearly finihsed being slyly pushed out and many will just forget about it. But a drinks menu online is a violation of advertizing to them. As is a listing on a supermarkets website. Everything in the supermarket is listed and can be ordered for delivery, but not beer Seems that that would benefit the major alcohol companies quite a bit, what they would like more than anything I would guess is that there would be no need to say/ask what anyone sells, that there'd only be the same few things that they manufacture everywhere. Its an ugly patch on the country's image for tourists that they have only tatty wine coolers and the irregularly brewed Singha, "What will this batch taste of, mildew dish rag or toouch low quality hops or faintly of sugar and cabbage? Chang is drinkable if boring. Of course if you are just in Thailand for the girls who cares you hardly notice the boring drinks and vaguely nauseating alcohol. But its the government that is always bangin on about how the want Thailand to be for high class foreigners only, but all you are going to offer is Pattaya beer bar selction of drinks , "Hab Strawberry Spy, Bacardi Seaweed-Mango, and Leo! And Japanese craft beer small bottle, you give me 450 baht!" Of course plenty of alternatives are available but you have to physically go out and search for them or have a number of evenings of nasty drinks. Like other things the tourists ar in for a raw deal because they don't have the time here to suss out where to go for what they may want. If you are truly wealthy of course I suppose you are getting exquisite wines and champange and money is no object so you can shrug off the fact that the pricess are 3x now due to the latest in an endin series of tax increases on what they are back home. How many of the hi-sos even bother with Thailand? If were them, I be going to places where I could get nice alcohol because it is appreciated and supported in those countries, Spain and Italy for wines, Germany and Belgium for good beers or even my home home good old USA, where tons of beers have finally established themselves after we had a long period of what Thailand is going through now with a few insipid 3 percent beers like Bud, Bud light, Miller and Coors about your only choice. In most of us Ynaks minds, there was no such thing as anything else, beer was a mono-culture an the differenc eof beer was what tribe you belonged to because the marketing brainwshed you into it. I am someone unique and i own a gun so I drink Coors! I am proud to be gay so I drink Miller! I'm Joe Avergae so I drink Bud! I'm a bull terrier owner and an alcoh so I drink Bud light! I remember under Thaksin, there was talk in the media that they were going to require that stores turn the cans and bottles so that the labels would not be visible and by that not "advertise." That shows you the mentality, that there are some in the ministries who just want it banned period, don't seem bold enough to go that far. Though I'm sure Singha Beers is pleased about that situation, It makes it impossible to find any competing specialty alcohols, particularly imported ones like say Belgian beers, the outrageous levels of taxation on such make it so that few want to buy them and very few shops or supermarkets if any at this point carry them. There seems to be some problem with stouts as well. Stouts are a rather basic species inhabiting the beers and ale eco-sphere, they even have a good presence in countries that are supposedly more hostile to alcohol than Thailand is, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore where you can get Guiness in many places and major lager beer makers like Bintang of Indonesia, kind of the Boon Rawd of Indo make a decent stout but here it is the stouts that the supermarkets are inevitably always dropping from their inventory, its like the dark skin prejudice gets unconciously transferrred to beer. I nag the and they order it and carry it for a month and then, "No, nobody buy that beer sir." Well, so then where is it? Were the irish stout leprechauns stealing it during the night? OK, granted, they have cottoned onto IPAs and wheat beers but to me those are starting to look like lager that is expensive. You vill eat the bugs, take our cheap yaba tablets, drink factory lager, sniff zee paint thinner, own nothing and be happy!

Some random reactions, thoughts/possible brain farts: -Its not entirely fair to judge the guy and MFP yet on their statements, but what they're proposing here, its not a good look right out of the starting block. MFP does not seem to be much of a bunch of realists, I can't imagine displacing the alcohol duopoly as they are proposing would be doable. The alcohol duopoly is what and where it is because they are politically powerfull. Which begs the question, who do these people think they are anyway? Who is backing them, where would their support lie that they could break up one of the more powerful business/political interests in Thailand? One wonders if they are not simply the public face of another would be totalitarian military group or even internationalist/globalist concern. In either of those cases perhaps then MFP would be able to knock the stuffing out of the so-called alcohol duopoly. But, until I know better, I would simply call his bluff on both reversing cannabis de-criminalization and breaking the alcohol industry giants stranglehold on Thailand. He's not the Prime minister yet so why not just start saying things and proposing things you think will garner further support to help in your bid to cement a ruling party position. - A condescending, I know better older brotherly look to his body language in the photo. But that is what people get out of government mostly anywhere you go, the sense that a parental or big brother is looking out for them and they don't have to solve their own problems. Personally, that photo (Thaiger is jumping the gun aren't they, future prime minister? Really?) kind of gets on my nerves, he looks like hes just gotten through lecturing them about the evils of cannabis. He's quite urban Chinese-Thai looking (no surprise there) and as I understand it cannabis is traditionally more something rural Lao/Isaan peoples and other outlander areas have found important. If you are going to be proper and acceptable as a politician among the Bangkok controlling elites and their conservative supporters, you'd do well, to say you want to get rid of the cannabis shops and put upcountry rural things like cannabis where they belong, criminalized and kicked to the curb. -The cannabis drama is also serving as a distraction from more real and harmful drug and other health issues such as yaba, severe air pollution, completely unregulated and out of control use of toxic and internationally banned substances in food and in use in agriculture and Thailand made products. Also again corruption makes it impossible to regaulate thngs that need regulation for people's health, so it better to deflect to easy targets like cannabis just as in the west for what, the last 80 years. Like most politicians in the world, he appears only concerned with putting on a good puppet show. Not surprising but no less disappointing. -Does it matter is what I also ask. The whole planet appears to be descending into a horrific phase of deliberate economic obliteration, the consequences of fiat currency printing will collapse most countries currencies, I can't iaine the Thai economy would be largely unaffected by this if only because soon nearly no one would be able to afford to travel to Thailand. . The unipolar globalist US-UK-European hegemon is in deep trouble and some extreme measures and strategies are already being undertaken to maintain their grip. One example would be the One Health WHO revamp that will be signed in October, which transforms WHO from a group that recommends govts to take actions to one that dictates to all WHO signatories and which, in the event of even a potential threat to public health, in the sole estimation of the WHO, no actual threat necessary, cedes all sovreignty and governance of said countries to the WHO. We know the WHO has become a club to further the interests of its donors, so those who will be asked to sign the One Health treaty will certainly do so, it is fait accompli. The US is already trying to respond, there are two bills in conress, one to quit the WHO and one that orders an end to all funding of the WHO, if you are a US citizen contact your reps and tell them you support these bills. But, Thailand will no doubt not even be aware such usurpation and in effect colonization of their coutry is soon at hand. MFP may well, by 2025 find itself set aside and only serving as a globalist errand boy to deliver the globalist dictates. The United Nations is in a similar rev up in case health emergencies don;t work to get absolute control of the planet. There is much coverage on all of this if you look around, truly jaw dropping and utterly terrifying. Makes MFP or not to MFP kind of irrelevant it would seem.

Oh yes they have:

If they are stupid/insane enough to actually go through with this, well then if enough people refuse to pay they'll drop it. Just say no sorry, I haven't got 1000 baht. Or no I won't pay it, I have it right here, but no, what if i didn't have it then, eh, youre insane! What would you do, give me twenty years in prison and create and international incident about it? Make a scene about missing your flight, chances are they'll just let you through to get rid of you. A lot of poorer travellers, say from India and Pakistan won't have the money, it will be a complete mess, they'll just get waved through more than likely. They are just artificially creating a hassle and if you want to get out of it you pay. not much different than if they started twisting your arm to the point of pain and you can either pay or endure the pain for another hour.

Throwing refrigerators off the balcony, its called being mentally ill and thats what this clearly is. Go ahead blame pot, but what you'll never know is what he would have done if he didn't smoke pot, maybe a nice well thought out calculated mass shooting spree? He probably also had some spicy food with lots of msg, so lets also blame Thai food for what happened.

So, Air Asia still won't tell anyone what their covid policy is, they provide no phone contact info anymore so they don't get my money. They essentially open it up so that they can overbook their flights and do an on the spot demand for COVID validation and throw you off the flight if you can't provide it. No, that is not happening. They either get it together and provide clear and legible info preferably in an FAQ or easily accesible via a search engine and not buried in some kind of clause in a contract on page thirty seven or they lose their business from me.

Not having a beer in the morning for breakfast is cultural, specifically mainstream US culture. I have noticed in some other places I have been like Mexico, Korea, British colonial Thailand (Pattaya, Udon etc.) alcohol in the morning is a thing that strong and healthy men do and I suppose old men too. Yes, I was raised in the U.S. too where it is rather more a female dominated society than European and some other asian societies and where there still lingers the legacy of the iron fist of the women's christian temperance unions who were a big part of alcohol prohibition. Women are generally speaking not good at drinking as they are not good at some other things like running the European Union, speed metal guitar, or playing rugby so like those things drinking is not acceptable in the US. In the US, drinking is still relatively stigmatized compared to the rest of the world and is still something you are only supposed to do at night in bars or when you are in church. So, in the US you'll never see beer as part of a good breakfast. Personally, I prefer coffee in the morning and it doesn't go well with beer, but tea I can imagine works pretty well. If I'm not mistaken in many places in the US you can't even order a beer in the morning its against local statutes and of course alcohol is completely prohibited in dry counties. It was quite an experience to be in a major city like Phildelphia, where the tea-totalling traditions of the Quakers still hold sway apparently, and find I could not go to a corner shop and get a beer, that I had to go to a bar and get a beer to go. What if the bars were not open because it was illegal to open during the day, I wonderd to myself not wanting to ask my Phlly hosts for fear of sounding like an alcoholic. I guess you are Schlitz outta luck in Philly in that case. It does not necessarily mean you're an alkoh to have a drink with breakfast nor does drinking because you enjoy getting drunk mean you're an alkoh, another thing about US drinking culture, you drink Budweiser or Schmidt 12 packs because they are incredibly delicious, right? Or you drink wine simply because everyone else at the dinner party is or because it signals refinement to others. it is taboo to admit in middle class US "society" or smart not to admit that getting drunk is a highly engaging hobby of yours because someone who might have the authority like a wife or mother will have you spending several nights a week at an A.A. meeting for the rest of your born days. But here in Thailand you are clear to have a beer in the morning. -All the Best, the American Beer Police

Its like listening to three year olds arguing back and forth. "Nuh uh Anuuuutin! You did thaaaaat. You made those boys smoke ganja! I'm gonna tell Prayuth on you! Dey wez sittin ovo dair-oh not doin anyfing, but you was telling about ganja, alot so they think you want them to do like that, uh huh! I'm a go tell right now!" "I did not! You crazy! I'm a be the prime minister one day and kick your butt!"

The headline refers to a debate. Not much of a debate or even a discussion if all you have to say to support the notion of banning smoking in bars is that it causes or may cause more traffic accidents. It goes without saying its so obvious, alcohol is served all over the place and not only that, a whole host of things and kinds of circumstances contributes to road accidents. How about senselessly installed traffic lights that serve no purpose, and which essentially teach people there's no point in stopping for red lights, or yacketty people or animals in the car that engage the driver in conversation that takes the focus off driving, or terribly maintained roads as is the new fashion trend up country. Seriously though, since when is road safety of even remote concern? They just widened the highway going from Roi Et to Ubon I think it is, from 2 lanes to four. A project that dragged on for over two years, with their 12 cents per day work crews of Burmese grannies and 6 year old girls out there with forks and spoons and glue piecing the new highway together. One year later and there are gaping potholes in the middle of the highway for miles and in stretches where you are meant to be blasting down the highway at full speed. That doesn't cause more traffic accidents?

PSI cheap-oh sattelite dish service which gives you your supposedly freely available Bangkok regular TV where reception is not good did not carry the South Korea Uruguay match today. I saw two matches from a few days ago no problem, Denmark-Tunisia and Poland-Mexico no problem. I could not tune in any of the major regular free non-cable Thailand television stations today and there were a number of sports stations with just a black screen. I'm not really a telvision whizz, never watch it, but if the world cup games were on today they were difficult to find if there at all. Update: Channel 7 or PSI must have let something run at least 20 minutes past kickoff time. Thats when I gave up after clicking through probably 30 home shopping stations. I saw online people were able to get the game, so I decided to check no FIFA cancellation yet. Korea-Uruguay now in extra time so they are letting that part through. Channel 7 is the third channel on the weird rando stations clicker we have, if you hit the + button to go to the next it takes you to 56 then back to 4 then 17, etc. I passed the third spot in the channel clicker order 4-5 times so through our set up perhaps there are people who are confused at PSI or Channel 7 thinking they better be on the safe side and start blockng the games or large portions of the games now or just the usual don't know don't care whatever whenever.

On behalf of Greta Toonsilsbergersen I wanted to pass this message along to the people and other odds an ends in Thailand: Why the continual fuss about ganja/cannabis? I smoke it all the time and I'm the most famous person in Sweden, so it can't be all bad. But, what no one except myself apparently is bold and innocent enough to bring up is what we all know to be the real monster in the closet: coffee! Ahhh! When people drink it their hands shake! And shaking hands is not Thai, Thai people wai each other they don't shake or wave their hands.The addiction is severe, people wanting to quit coffee, get headaches and can't function properly sometimes for up to two days. Need coffee?! How dare you! You should be sent to the emergency room at once and put on a ventilator running all over town moaning, having a spazz, "Oh! I need my coffee today! Don't talk to me! Ohhh..." Indeed! The smell is horrific. I should be in the emergency room right now from the smell, but instead I am out here on the sidewalk trying to warn you all of this hidden crisis you ignored for too long. Look at you! The lot of you! Your teeth have turned yellow, are you so hooked on coffee thatyou have forgotten to brush your teeth? What am I a young girl gong to do? Run back to Sweden where we drink juice and cower under a cabbage leaf when that brewed coffee smell hits the air. The doctor said the amount of neuron damage I have sustained from just that whiff today is up 7000% since I last had a brain scan! And the fiends who drink eat too many cookies and cakes and this contributes to the diabetes and obesity pandemic that continues to spike and cause govts to waste billions in health care. I'm just a young girl but my future has been sold to jabbering coffee addicts. And what do I get today, a bunch of people who talk too much and too quickly dissolving the whole order of the fabric of the nation-state as we speak, and if that weren't enough they do too much and think too much and that creates CO2. And besides How can the authorities have any focus during this time of great global crisis with all of these hyper coffee people wanting to open businesses and get another science degree at night school at the same time. You cannot run an orderly planet with any of that, all these coffee drinking queue jumping over-achievers who need to learn to wait their turn and the green light from the authorities to open a high fiber greeting card boutique on wheels or marzipan snifting club or whatever Dr. Coffindust, your elected representative MP says is good for the health of the economy and for democracy and our health and life. How much hand sewn eco friendly lace have you seen? Yeah! None! We don't have any! Its extinct! Because people just want to open coffee shops and take the easy way out! There needs to be a national quota of handsewn eco-friendly vegan lace to help reduce the number of coffee outlets clogging the sewers with their slaughterhouse bilge! Think of nemo the clownfish for once in your lives! Why, I think about him all the time! Don't you?! Do you think he likes coffee grounds in his seawater?! How'd you like it if it rained clownfish urine on ya everytime you set your picnic foods out on the lawn? And that stuff, that trash you are left with when you are finished making a cuppa, as you so quaintly call it, doesn't disappear just because you finished brewing your pot. Talk about potheads! How dare you! We already know most Thai people cannot handle coffee so therefor it is high time Thailand illegalize it and regulate the non-psychoactive additives of milk and non-dairy creamers by requiring registration cards and providing a quick one-stop online eco-verification system and nationwide system of environmentally friendly bar code scanners for identifying milk buyers and their co-horts and to validate their purchases. 872 baht annual fee made payable only with go green Paypal Thailand. Yaba is more discrete, convenient economical and green friendly simply because I say it is and I will shame you in public for the rest of eternity if you contradict me . Coffee plantations should be razed to the ground and made into green zones for genuinely useful projects like windfarms and miniature golf courses and eco-museums to bring in tourists. I say we go back to discussing in parliament that old chestnut tracking bracelets. If you want coffee, yaba, or ganja flower you must register with the tracking bracelet program until the fentanyl vaccine people come up with an eco-friendly ganja, yaba and coffee vaccine that renders these substances powerless to have any effect.

I think its more of case of human nature, most people going through life with this adamant attitude of "I know! You don't know!" Its basic ego and it afflicts everyone Thai or Farang. The only difference is that your being a farang and their being Thai enters their mind and your mind ad tha colors this rather common dynamic of I'm always right and you're an idiot. When it comes to things like building a roof, I would ignore them and let it ride. In the end, if you've done good work, you're wife will see that, and if she ignores it or denies it, thats more of a problem perhaps, unless you can find some way to work that out. I'm not any good at construction or building stuff, but its clear even to me the skills are very lacking in just about every person I hire to do stuff, the work is sloppy and they can't handle things that are complicated like good electrical work. These guys put in a new room here with r;rtrical outlets and I just wanted to know if we could run a lot electrical items could the circuit handle it, they acte like they had never heard such a strange question in their livs and they didn't know how to answer the question. Its basic to elictrical work and I got the answer myself on internet. Another room they put in had completely collapsed within 4 years. And these guys go to Bangkok and other cities to work on building and do construction. I'm thankfull they are around and not expensive, I couldn't do better work, so I really have nothing to say to them. But if I was accomplished like you, and seeing what I have seen of the workmanship around here I would jst dismiss that guy without a second thought. I would just say to the guy, "No thanks, I got this." Its just his delusional ego telling him you can't do the job. Its the same in the US, you always have your Mr. Grumpy lalways scrutinizing everything declaring how to do everything, who listens? His mind's a turntable that is just stuck on that record groove, perhaps because it is to do with his job, he has to make sure everything is going right all the tie and he can't switch off. But if you weren't farang it would be something else with a Thai doing the same job. The guy might just want something to do and it would just be a friendly thing with another Thai, lets work on a project together. But, yes, because you are farang many Thais start think about what they can get out of you. I have a good intuition about people, I just have to look at someone to see if they are going to scummy or not about what it is they propose. In my case i would be wary of anyone trying to wiggle their way into my business, I would have a polite but assertive no-more-nonsense attitude of "I know the score jack, and you better not even think about trying to get involved with anything in my house." In my experience you are asking for trouble allowing random Thais around, you are right not to like him telling you to get off the ladder and let him do it. <deleted>? I would be getting a bit cross, and say, "I'm already finshed man! What are you talking about?! Why do you care? Its my roof and its my problem. Good day!" But you don't want drama, too many Thais are very fast to take grave offense over nothing and don't contribute at all, they are too selfish most of them to truly interested in being truly helpful. Its the way this society rolls generally speaking, the potential for drama isn't worth it. I know that so my attitude is like a brick wall and they get the idea and leave me and my family alone generally.

One last thing, how do you make the appointment? Looks like do it on the Royal Thai Consulate Ho Chi Minh website, its all typically a bit vague, something to do with visas, but nothing available till Dec 19th, wow! If you had to leave now I guess you'd be getting to know Vietnam waiting for that date to roll on in!

Yes, that seems to have been their modus for years now, to keep making it tougher and tougher. Its the only way in my 30 years of being here that i have ever known it to be. I used to only ever go the multiple entry visa route not because of financials but because Thai internal immigration is abusive and play games with people to put them to some kind of test. I don't know why so many people put themselves through visa extension hell when you can quickly and painlessly get a multiple from relatively civil straight forward people at a consulate. Its still less stressful even factoring in the requirement to leave the country every three months, if you ask me. I only recently went back to in-country visa extension simply because the borders have been closed for the last few years. I don't want to to go to Savanakhet either anymore until they drop their covid "protocols" because I don't want any truck with any aspect of the COVID thing. But I think they like that better, that you leave and come back, just the idea that you are leaving if only for a few days seems to sit better with immigration. Visa extension route and they feel you are trying to colonize them or something. But going to Ho Chi Minh seems like the ticket if my extension falls through and it may well. Looks like a great place to visit and maybe head out to some nearby beaches for a spell. Yeah!

Thanks or that Dr. Jack sounds good!

Thanks Pattaya Kevin, I am thinking of going there too as a plan B to extending in country. They were really messing with me when i went in to local immigration this time. so I am worried they are going to deny my extension request on some minutiae or technicality. How is it getting to the consulate? Is it convenient to guest houses, is public transpo such as taxis good and available?

Hopefully they will screw it up and it won't work or they will forget about it or something or we will have a nuclear holocaust which might be less painful than being on a social credit system which is probably where this is going. And forgive me my financial illiteracy but wouldn't having half the amount of cash in circulation tend to increase its value rather than halve it?