Base32

Taking my wife to a restaurant and watching her eat. Gawd - time does not fly.

@Yagoda Inflammatory trolling post removed.

@Jingthing Tread very carefully with the borderline antisemitic and defamatory outbursts. Posts and replies removed.

I don't even mess with it. I just give them a full year. Given I don't use that account for anything but holding the necessary funds, a full year is about 6 or 8 lines on the statement showing accrued interest and the money I take out and put back in the day before the immigration appointment and the day of in order for their to be line items in the bank book on those days. Yep - and all that too. And then a signature writing marathon to put your mark on all documents. And at least at where I do our annual application they want specific pictures: Two picture of husband and wife in the living room "doing something," two picture of husband and wife in the bedroom "doing something" ( 🤔 ), two picture of husband and wife at the front gate with the address clearly visible, two picture of husband and wife at the front gate taken from across the street with entire house in the picture - the last two we have not been instructed that we must be "doing something" like juggling a pen, a STM 11, and a bowling ball. In reality, putting the paperwork together at home using a scanner as a copier takes me about 2 hours. I shove that paperwork into three folders: Original documents, Document set 1, and Document set 2. On each folder it is clearly listed what is in each and in order. Make an appointment for a 1 hours immigration visit, get my bank letters and statement the day of the appointment, stop at a copy shop to make copies of the bank letter, statement, and bank book, go to immigration and give my wife the three folders to hand to the IO at the front, then kick back and wait to sign papers and let the wife do all of the talking. Took about 35 minutes this year. Years back when I lived in Chiang Mai, I'd hire an agent basically to stand in line for an appointment. Not sure if the dog & pony show in Chiang Mai has changed as at that time you had to show up at zero dark thirty to get a queue ticket for one of the few slots to get your paperwork processed. Now live in rural Thailand and I'm quite fond of our rural immigration office. Most of the people who show up are Myanmar workers with a handful of farangs. This visit (a few days ago) I was the only farang in the building. If you live in a big city hiring an agent to get you past the petty bureaucracy is probably a good idea. Hiring a a lawyer to do the annual marriage extension dance? Like I said, after doing this for the better part of 10+ years putting the paperwork together isn't that difficult. I don't see why the expense of hiring lawyer would be necessary as it doesn't really buy you any value. Agents are of value for getting you past the first layer of bureaucracy if you are in a big city that has high volumes of farangs needing immigration services.

@BLMFem Using terms like "pops" and "buddy" and other patronizing or condescending addresses is inflammatory and meant to troll other members. Stop!

Budtenders? <laughs>

Sorta like the streets of San Francisco (as well as many other major cities in the US).

Welcome to the developing world. You're not in Kansas anymore, that's for sure. Embrace it. That's the smell of the freedom to travel the world.

Where is "A Skosh?"

Nothing better than a tablespoon of Skippy's Extra Chunky after a workout and eat it right off of the spoon. ♥️

I'd love to have a wife who was in Congress. I'd be a millionaire too!

Bickering and inflammatory posts removed.

1. Flame posts removed. 2. @Will B Good Tread very carefully with criticizing moderation. Post removed. Don't go there.

Topic is locked. All this thread has produced has been ethnic slurs, inflammatory jibes, and some rather vulgar speech which seems to deliberately steps over the rules for decent speech in the forums guidelines.

Moved to the Chiang Mai forum at Op's request.

Keir forgot me. 😢

Realistically, iOS13 and Android 9 are deprecated.

No

I removed a number of bickering, flame posts. Tone is down please and agree to have a civil discussion.

Hell - the US hands immigration goodies out like candy. A male spouse who entered Thailand lawfully spends the rest of his day proving to Thai Immigration that he is still legally marriaged and not trying to game the system after 20 years of marriage. 👮‍♀️ "You sure you married still. We think you lie. Farang always lie." In the meanwhile even with ICE ICE Baby in the US, its still a piece of cake to stay in the US if you're married to a US citizens. Even your brother. Just as a Somali Congresswomen. Easy peasy. Really - I could care less who they deport in the US.

Flames, off-topic, and troll posts removed.

Bickering and flame posts removed. Keep it civil folks. Thanks!

A ฿100 THB item will cost ฿110 THB with a 10% VAT. I think we will find out whether or not the increase from 7% to 10% will be the "Third-Rail" of Thai politics or not.

@stupidfarang Post using derogatory language in the President's name remove. Please use his correct name in posts in the future. Thank you.

Regressive taxation screws the lowest on the income ladder. 3% is no small bump - it's significant and it's going to hurt consumers. Looks like they are going to take the "boiling a frog" approach, like people won't notice. What they will end up doing is chilling the economy which will in turn make their tax revenues even less. Let's see how Somchai Average reacts.