jaywalker2

Didn't like it all. The brilliant scientists selected to save the world happen to be one black, one Mexican, one Asian, and a white guy who gave up science to make potato chips. Lots of melodrama, not much action. Dumbed down version of the book (although I couldn't make it through that either)

I don't care if they wan to restock the shelves, but the way they do it is annoying. They block the aisles, wander around pushing big carts and practically knocking people over, they have ladders, and cardboard boxes strewn all over the place. Have a little consideration for the customer, will you? I nearly got run over the day by a guy pushing a big line of shopping carts through the store at breakneck speed.

All of these online delivery companies should be banned. They add to traffic, pollution, global warming, and keep people from getting up off their lazy asses and walking to the store.

I never thought I'd be able to say this but this guy is worse than Prayut

This ought to make for a nice relaxing vacation

I should add that installation and the router are free. Despite this buidling being old, the providers seemed to have no trouble adding the fiber optic cables.

The problem I always had with VDSL was reliability. I was getting it through True and it would cut out several times a day. I had the technician here and he tried to fix it, but they finally told just to put in the optical fiber.

That's not true. Many buildings in Bangkok have multiple providers. My building was built in 1997, and you can get fiber optical service through True, AIS, or TOT (whatever they're calling themselves now(.

That means the building is wired for fiber optical then. They just don't offer it to the tenants?

Me too. That's why I was trying to get clarity on the issue. I wonder if you could get fiber optic if you paid for the installation yourself.

On fiber optic, of course, typical speeds for uploads and downloads are 500 mbs and in Bangkok most buildings are wired as far as I can tell. I know my building in Bangkok has TOT, True, and AIS. What surprised me is that ADSL appears to be common in Pattaya and/or many people are using sim cards for Internet access. It made me wonder about the discrepency between the two places and why 3bb is so popular there while it's the number 3 Internet provider in Bangkok, way behind AIS, which is way behind True (yes, I know 3bb was bought by AIS but it's still operating under its own brand for the time being).

I heard from more than one person that VT8 and maybe VT5 only have ADSL, which I found hard to believe. Also, I have heard that many buildings only have 3bb as a provider. What happened to True and AIS?

The speed is capped at 20mbs though, isn't it?

The score of the NBA all star game was 211-186.

I was wondering what the internet situation is in Pattaya and especially Jomtien. Do most condo buildings offer fiber optic internet? What about the View Talay condos, such as View Talay 2A and 5C. Are you able to connect fiber optic internet?

Didn't the former government pass a law requiring social media companies to delete accounts when requested? I know I had a former account deleted (that's what they told me anyway)

Thaksin's behind it.

That will never happen. There are hundreds of thousands of condos in Bangkok that can't find long-term tenants so they turn them into Airbnb's. My building has recently had an influx of Chinese, Arabs, and Russians. In Thailand, it's all about the money. Nobody gives a hoot about quality of life.

I must have missed something then, because all of the media stories seem to involve Russians and Chinese gangsters, except, of course, for David the Swiss guy who set all of this off.

Trink's column changed a lot after the Bangkok World folded and he transferred to the Bangkok Post. In the Bangkok World, if I recall correctly, at the World he had a whole page and it was all about the nightlife, which shows to see, which bars were rip offs, details about the Thermae, grifting whores, etc. That was all lost when the Bangkok Post decided it wanted to be family friendly and reined him in. Trink turned to conspiracy theories, Burma shave ads, and his obsession with HIV. He was never a great writer but he was a unique voice and one of the few things of interest in the English-language newspaper back in the late 80's.

Sure, let the Russians, Chinese, and Indians in visa free and then complain about the increase in foreigner crime. Or make the queues at the airport even longer by scrutinizing the passports even harder. If you want 80 million tourists, your country is going to be turned inside out.

I was actually referring to the retirement situation. Japan doesn't offer a retirement visa, as far as I know. In fact, when I was there, it was trying to get rid of its own senior citizens by shipping them off to senior facilities in places like the Phillipines. The fact that you and others like you haven't married indicates how much Japan has changed though. In the 80's and early 90's it was rare to find a long-term foreign resident who didn't end up married, even those who were supposedly confirmed bachelors.

If you want to live long-term in Japan, you have to marry a Japanese. Long-term visas are easy to get if you're married and you get 3 years. Japan is not an easy place to live, however, much harder than Thailand.

It depends on how you calculate. With the yen at 150 to the dollar, Japan seems a lot more inexpensive on a dollar basis. Plus, Japan has seen almost no inflation in the last 30 years. So you can live in Japan cheaply but on the whole it's still much more expensive than Thailand. In Japan, you need an income or at least 300,000 yen a month to live a basic lifestyle, which comes out to about 70,000 baht.

Not true. Foreigners are constantly stopped and checked for no reason. In fact, there's a lawsuit that's just been filed to stop racial profiling. Try renting an apartment if you're a foreigner. Very difficult.