Somjot

Guys, are we done now? Both of you sound like my ex- wife.

Quite the opposite: They take estrogen plus medication to suppress their testosterone in order to make them more female. It actually makes them less aggressive but moody. That aggressive behavior towards competition is more likely caused by the lack of money to pay for certain substances, which if not consumed regularly drives them nuts.

Or worse. Can't forget the story of that Bangkok taxi driver just a few years before Corona, who had an argument with another one, while they were driving more or less next to each other and at some point, thought it might be a good idea to pull out his BB gun and intimidate the other guy by shooting at him. To his surprise the other guy pulled out a gun too and fired back. I think it is safe to say that his surprise didn't last for long, as the other guy had a real gun and after missing twice, hit him between the eyes. I`d love to know, what his last thought was.

I could not get rid of those bloody pigeons which were infesting the roof of our house, waking me up in the morning with their terrible sounds and <deleted>ting everywhere. Throwing my shoes after them didn't make them go away. Even a pressure washer didn't help but at least I got my shoes back. So, I got myself a BB gun from a hidden shop in Chonburi and the owner, former police officer, instructed me to shoot at their wings from the side not at their bellies or heads so they will definitely feel it but no harm or injury caused and the whole pigeon family will leave very soon. I said, if one pigeon family disappears the next will come to take their place, but he answered, don't worry, the first group will tell the others and within a few days you won't see any pigeons on your roof. To be honest, this made me doubt his mental health a bit but at the end he was right. Go figure. However, I asked him about the legal situation, as I did not feel comfortable with those guns looking like the real ones plus as a foreigner living and working in Thailand you better do not get involved in any illegal activities. He clearly answered me, not to carry them around and not to use them outside my property. In case I bring that gun to his place for a check or repair I should transport the gun and the magazine separately. As long as I use them only on my property to scare away pigeons, dogs or cats always making sure not to accidentally hit a person and only use the plastic pellets, it is according to the law. Using metal pellets is prohibited same as modifying that gun to use real ammunition. Oh, before I forget it, I haven't noticed any significant changes to my Willy since I bought that gun.

Sadly, once again the Israeli Palestinian conflict has shown the world the double standard of some countries in the western world, like the US, the UK and my home country, Germany. Human rights – of course! Freedom of speech – absolutely! No torture for captive soldiers – Sure! But … err … only if it is about OUR human rights, OUR freedom of speech and by the way, those POWs in Guantanamo were not soldiers, they were combatants. The UN voted about a resolution for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire a few days ago. A … HUMANITARIAN … Ceasefire! And Germany did not vote for it. Reason: “Err … well … that resolution did not state clearly enough that Hamas is a terror organisation!” Are you kidding me?? Everybody knows they are! In less than one month more Palestinian civilians have been killed than Ukrainians since Russia attacked them - and that was almost two years ago. I have no right to criticize the US or the UK but I cannot tell you how disappointed I am from my own government. We are so proud about how “intense and honest we did come to terms with our past revealing all the crimes of the Nazis and that every German now and for all times has the duty to make sure that such a thing will never ever happen again”. But obviously the sentence does not end there, one has to add: “… to Jewish people, everybody else we consider being minor, can be slaughtered as we or our forever Jewish friends see fit.” Some may call Hamas animals, but one thing is for sure, they are smarter than us. They knew from the beginning that they had no chance to win a war against Israel and that was never their intention. All they wanted was to cast a slur at Israel, which traditionally reacts very extreme on attacks like this and at those few countries, which support Israel, no matter what they do. And by doing so, widening the gap between those countries and the rest of the world, making them see our true faces and consequently distrusting us more and more, facilitating any kind of cooperation between them and our isolation from them.

Now THAT is a brilliant idea. Would definitely raise Pattaya's reputation.

As far as I remember there was no film crew involved. It was only her little speech, we had rehearsed before, the shocked faces of everybody and the few words the boss spoke to her on the parking lot. It was spoken in Thai and me, not being a native speaker in both languages, translated it into English, trying as good as I can not to let anything get lost in translation but of course this was not a word for word translation. Apologies for the confusion, should I have created the impression, that it was.

In my case that wouldn't have helped. It was a two-lane Street, central Pattaya Rd, to be precise and I was coming from Foodland and had stopped ad the intersection 3rd Road. I was riding a big bike and had stopped on the right lane behind a pickup. Left lane was free as most people ignore the red light and turn left so I would have been an obstacle for them. Nevertheless, in the past quarter century I have seen so many horrible accidents. Thailand has always been one of the leading countries when it comes to traffic fatalities with more than 20,000 killed on the street. Surprise, surprise more than 70% were riding a bike. My take on this is, if you ride a bike, especially in Pattaya and frequently at nighttime the question is not, if you will have an accident, it is, when. You might be a special case, able to analyse every possible danger from every direction and even include the 300 pound foreigner who made the balcony dive just above you but keep in mind the average farang, who is on the streets at night, his vision blurred by the sildenafil he took not to mention his mind, after those six beers he already had, might not be as sharp as you. You can't be serious about those Tuk Tuks. Isn't Pattaya`s air polluted enough?

I never trusted (or always was too stupid) to put my money in the stock market or funds or even fixed deposit accounts as there are always fees to open the account or to close the account or whatever, which nobody tells you about in advance. My very basic (or dumb) philosophy was: “invest in yourself, invest in things you have control of and invest in education.” In your special situation and without knowing the background of your wife and the age of your daughter I would suggest: 1. Invest in your daughter’s education or as my dad used to say: “what do you have in your pockets, can be taken from you. What you have in your brain, can't.” 2. If, like in most cases in Pattaya, your wife has a farmer background, buy some good farmland. It`s price will never go down and it can always be used to get food on the table. One way or the other. 3. Make sure that in case of your passing, your family has access to your money. I know cases where the wife was struggling, sometimes for years, sometimes in vain, to get the money, which her by then dead husband intended to be hers.

From what I have noticed or read in the newspapers in the last 25 years Bangkok Bank is actually one of the safest; same can be said about TMB, while Kasikorn Bank, well, I would be careful with them. @longngo217 My girlfriend's young sister is working in Bangkok Bank for more than 10 years now and there have been times when she came home totally stressed out or even crying. She started in Bangkok Bank and climbed the career ladder with incredible speed. But when that low interest era started and banks in general had difficulties, she was more and more forced to convince customers to sign contracts for unnecessary things. Every week her boss would gather all the employees around him, applauded the employee, who had placed the most insurance or CC contracts and then asked the one who had placed the fewest, why he had failed the company and all his colleagues. This new company policy created a toxic atmosphere turning former friends into opponents or even enemies by putting an almost unbearable pressure on them. And she, always being the best employee in her branch suddenly was turned into a loser and a burden for everybody. As I really felt sorry for her, I gave her some advice with her first reaction being: “I cannot say that. It is impolite.” I answered: “your boss has no problem to expose you in front of everybody unjustifiably calling you a failure. Is that polite?” In the next meeting like in most previous ones she was asked again why she had placed the fewest contracts and failed the company. To everybody's surprise and unlike the most previous meetings she did not look down on her feet and apologized quietly. She answered: “I've always been your best employee, the hardest working, always on time and always happy to help my colleagues. The job description in my contract says “financial services clerk” and not “insurance salesman”. “No Sir, I did not fail the company. The company failed me. Here is my notice of termination. And I'm going to find myself a bank to work for now.” Then she left the room, walking tall and everybody looking at her, jaws dropped. She told me, that she had never had such a feeling of relief in her whole life. To her surprise, when she had just reached her car, the fat and now sweating boss came huffing and puffing after her with a tortured smile saying things like “Wait, we should not rush things, I was trying to motivate you always having the best intentions for you in my mind.” Long story short: she got a fat promotion. So if you don't get any further I offer you to contact me privately. Maybe my by now sister-in-law can get some information for you. She, like everybody on her pay grade, has access to every account from Bangkok Bank. (That's why I secretly opened another at a TMB branch. Don't tell her.)

I don't know how well you read my post. I repeat: “Since a huge bus full of Chinese tourists hit me from behind, while I was standing at a red light waiting for it to turn green, completely destroying my big bike …” Or in other words: I was not driving my bike, my bike was not moving, when the accident occurred. And you answered: “just need to increase your riding skill, I see many making mistakes“. May I humbly ask, which mistake I made and how exactly “increasing my riding skill” would have prevented the accident?

Since a huge bus full of Chinese tourists hit me from behind, while I was standing at a red light waiting for it to turn green, completely destroying my big bike and the police officer later refusing to believe, I was sitting on the bike, when the accident occurred with the last thing, he asked me being “why you live?” I gave up riding a bike in Pattaya. With a car it takes a bit longer to get from A to B, interestingly not much and finding a parking lot isn't a big deal too, when you know the place, plus you are protected by a lot of metal around you in case of an accident and above you, should it rain plus you breathe filtered air and not the dirt and dust from the street. Yet, I gave up driving through Soi Buakaw. Same as Soi 6. And from my point of view the main problem are not the Baht busses. It is those street vendors who are infesting Pattaya now by the thousands. They park wherever they want forcing the cars to wait until they can drive around them. Even worse than in Soi Buakaw is Soi 6. When you drive into the Soi from Second Road, they are standing in a long row next to each other on the left side down to Beach Road and deliberately leaving only so much space that a car can only drive by very carefully causing a permanent traffic jam plus most of the bars on the left side losing business big time. Maybe once or twice a month some police car arrives causing all the vendors hurrying into Soi 6/1 and coming back seconds later once the police is gone. I really do not understand why nobody does anything against it.

www.travel-dental.com The only Farang dentist, who ever passed the Thai Dental Board Exam and therefore has a "License to Drill" and 30 years plus plus job experience as a dentist and implant surgeon.

I´d rather say retiree. Don`t worry. You`ll get there. It`s inevitable.

The cinemas themselves were surprised in the early 80s when the first video tapes came on the market, as they were sure their business has come to an end. At that time, we had VHS, Beta and video 2000; only the first survived. However, the reason for cinemas still being there is quite simple: no matter how big your screen is and how sharp the image, there is nothing like this cinema experience where you`re basically sitting in the middle of the action together with many others and just forget the world around yourself.

Rama V passed 1910!! Jesus, how old is your wife?? ????

For the forum's sake, somebody cancel that post, you cited.

I haven't been to the movies in Thailand since Star Wars VII was released which was something around 2015 and I remember very well that everybody stood up. A few years before that there was an incident reported by the media: a group of 4 to 5 young Thai people in their early 20s refused to stand up, which caused a lot of people swearing at them, threatening to call the police, which finally happened. The young men argued that this was only tradition and not a law, so they did not break any, which was later actually confirmed by the officials and as far as I remember no one went to prison. That led to many discussions in the media with some groups even demanding to make it an official law. Another incident I remember, which happened years before that and in which I was involved, happened in Pattaya. Everybody stood up except one elderly guy who was sitting at the end of the row of seats. It didn't take long, and people started swearing at him. He tried to say something, but it was too loud to understand him and the first popcorn flew in his direction followed shortly after by food rests other kinds of garbage. Lucky as I usually am, I was sitting just two rows behind that guy and remembered very well the difficulties he had to get out of his wheelchair which he afterwards folded and had put next to him. At that time, I was in my late 30s or early 40s and hitting the gym 4 to 5 times a week, 6 foot tall and 105 kilos of body weight. I had been learning to speak, read and write Thai for quite some time, considered myself good at it, and was going to stand up to tell the angry crowd to stop, as the man came here with a wheelchair and is not able to stand up, but no matter how intense I thought, I could not recall the bloody word for “wheelchair”. Then something hard hit my head and seconds later melted vanilla ice cream ran down my face. Germans have this saying: “Leichte Schläge auf den Hinterkopf erhöhen das Denkvermögen" which could be translated ("soft blows to the back of your head will increase your intelligence" although there is no equivalent in English. In Navy CIS, Gibbs did this so many times to Dinozzo, every time he said something stupid, that it is widely known as the Gibbs slap. However, I can confirm that the German saying is not true. Not only couldn't I remember the Thai word for wheelchair, suddenly I couldn't remember any word in Thai and all I felt was anger and rage. I stood up while tiny rivulets of vanilla ice-cream crawled their way down my now red face. I lifted the old guy´s wheelchair up and screamed at the crowd: “wheelchair! wheelchair you morons! The next guy, who throws something at me, will get this wheelchair up his ass. You understand? Wheelchair up your ass!” Everybody, except me, immediately calmed down and their faces looked embarrassed, as they had thought they were defending the honour of the most respected person but all they did, was to wrong an elderly guy, who most likely would have stood up, if he only could. Seconds later the disabled guy whispered to me: “Thank you. But please not do that with my wheelchair. I need for go back home.” That day I learned one thing: The Thai word for wheelchair is actually wheelchair, although it is pronounced like “Weed share”.

Buddy, either am I expressing myself so badly, maybe because I'm a non-native speaker, or you are you intentionally try to misunderstand me. Yes, Israel withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula (after 15 years) but Westbank and Western Golan heights are still occupied and, even if not occupied, Gaza`s borders, waters and airspace is still under control of Israel. 1981 the Golan heights were practically annexed by Israel although only the US recognize them as Israeli territory. East Jerusalem was annexed 1980. All these acts were internationally condemned, yet Israel keeps settling in these areas. Or the short version: "Israel just didn't care and kept expanding their territories and terrorizing the Arab population, which felt completely betrayed and left alone by the international community" Now what makes you think, what I wrote is completely made-up and not true? Do you still believe in that fairy tale that “the people without land finally settled in the land without people”? Israel is a stolen country. Stolen from a majority, who were living there for centuries, by a minority, who used to live there thousands of years ago with the help of powerful Western countries. I never wrote that Hamas was formed after the six-day war, but where do you think all these terrorist organizations are coming from? We call them terrorist organization but from the view of the Arabs they are freedom fighters, trying to get back their land. Would you accept it, if some minority in your home country with a completely different religion and mentality would suddenly found a state in the middle of it, expelling you and your family? As long as we keep using this double standard accepting every crime and allied state has committed and only condemning the crimes of the other side, People keep dying. We're doing this for decades now. Wasn't that the definition of insanity by Albert Einstein? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Actually, he never said that, still it remains a great quote. However, I have another quote, which suits us both: “The dogs bark but the caravan keeps moving.” Let's agree to disagree. We could spend the rest of our lives discussing this and yet it would change nothing. And without knowing you, I think we both have better things to do. Have a nice weekend.

Well history as well as international law do not see it the way you do. Israel is Israel but it was Palestine and Muslim for more than 1000 years. When it went under British mandate the Jewish population was something around 3%. 1917 Britain declared their support for the founding of a national home for the Jews in the Balfour Declaration and against the will of the local population more and more Jews settled in Palestine. The declaration had many long-lasting consequences. It indirectly led to the emergence of Israel and is considered a principal cause of the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict, often described as the world's most intractable conflict. In the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel occupied the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, West Bank, East Jerusalem and Golan Heights. The international community considers the establishment of Israeli settlements in the Israeli-occupied territories illegal; they are in violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The United Nations Security Council, the United Nations General Assembly, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Court of Justice and the High Contracting Parties to the Convention have all affirmed that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies to the Israeli-occupied territories. Israel just didn't care and kept expanding their territories and terrorizing the Arab population, which felt completely betrayed and left alone by the international community. And that is what led to the creation of all Arabic terrorist organizations in that area. Hamas is Israel's child. As irony of fate, one of their oldest books, Hosea 8 verse 7, states: “For they have been planting the wind and their fruit will be the storm”.

And? What is this supposed to tell me. All you did was taking that Wikipedia article “History of Palestine” copied and pasted the most part of it. This article was by the way one of many I studied, before I wrote my comment. Nor is it contradicting me neither does it provide evidence the Muslims pray with the backs to Jerusalem. So once again, what is your point? But to get back to topic: I can't say that I'm always happy with the decisions of the new government - the taxation of money brought into the country is giving me a headache. But condemning the violence and at the same time confirming to be neutral, was a very wise decision not only according to future business contacts to this area but most importantly to save the lives those 30,000 Thais stuck in Israel. Siding with Israel maybe even offering some kind of military help would be a death sentence for the people there.

I am not a specialist for international property ownership law, but I have a few doubts if the frequency a city is mentioned in one book written about 3000 years ago by people who were basically shepherds or in another book which was written decades after the death of their prophet by people who started doubting if the promised Kingdom of heaven will happen as soon as they thought is a legal base to raise a claim on some land. Palestine was Muslim since the 7th century and a part of the Ottoman Empire for more than 400 years until 1918 Britain got the mandate. 30 years later the loss of their lands to the new proclaimed country Israel was decided over their heads same as the promise for independent Arab state was broken. Now this is absolute nonsense. Muslims pray only in one direction - to Mecca. Or to be precise to the Kaaba, the holy mosque in Mecca. If their geographical location is exactly on a line between Jerusalem and Mecca, then yes, they would pray with their backs to Jerusalem but this has nothing to do with Jerusalem. Seriously, where do these false informations come from?

Let's not forget that the whole area was basically Muslim since the 7th century or in other words more than 1300 years. After World War I, the allied powers (Britain, France, Italy, and Japan) assigned the mandate for Palestine to Britain, which supported the establishment of a Jewish state. The newly formed United Nations recommended the creation of independent Jewish and Arab states, which the Arabs were not happy with. However, in May 1948 Israel declared independence, Arab states were never created, instead hundreds of thousands of Arabs were expelled, more and more Jews immigrated into Israel which occupied Gaza, the Golan Heights and other territories establishing settlements. Actions the international community rejected as illegal under international law, not that this had any consequences for Israel at any time. To be honest, and I know I shouldn't say that, I have no sympathies for Islam and strictly Muslim ruled countries, as they act as if they were still in the dark ages. That being said, this decade long conflict would never exist, if some stupid Western governments wouldn't have messed around in countries with mentalities, they could never understand. For me there is no difference if a human being, no matter of what age, is beheaded by a Muslim sword or torn into pieces by a high-tech Israeli missile fired into a hospital. This is violence and brutality on a level that shouldn't exist anymore. We can keep taking sides, as we have done for the last decades, reporting only the crimes of one side in the media and withholding the crimes of the other side, but where did this get us? Or stand up and name and shame the crimes of both sides from the very beginning. But that takes balls, because you would be standing against the most powerful country in our time, the USA, with an extremely high Jewish influence and power. And no matter if you are a U.S. citizen or not that would have consequences. So better keep condemning the side which our governments have chosen, and our media has proven (by biased reporting) to be the evil one. Isn't this so much easier? But is it brave? I think we should gather information from different sources to learn the truth about how and why this conflict started and then make up our minds and not leave the thinking to others.

True, that is clearly a flaw in my calculations. I projected my own sexual virility on him ... err ... I mean ... err ... a friend`s virility.

I am not quite sure if I understand your post. Are you really blaming the population of Thailand for being evil, having hearts of stone, not being trustworthy and living in a bubble, which makes them unable to understand critical thinking reason and logic? Or are you blaming your OCD for perceiving them like this. I am by no means trying to patronize you, but did you ever hear about high - context and low - context cultures? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-context_and_low-context_cultures#:~:text=Within high-context cultures%2C people,as important figures to identity. Our cultures are low context cultures, which means simplified, that we exchange information by talking quite directly. The Thai culture is high context or in other words, they communicate more between the lines. Which unfortunately means that no matter how well we speak their language we still might face huge difficulties to really understand them. To give you an example: I was at some office with a friend, who asked the employee for a certain service and the answer was: “Khit gon”, which means, “let me think about it first.” Later I asked my friend, where he's going to get that service. And he answered: “I will wait for the decision of that employee before I look for other places.” “But he just said no.” “Didn't you listen? the guy said, he will think about it first.” “Which is a clear no.” Thais do not want to confront you with a negative answer out of politeness. They don't want to make other people feel bad. So they refuse between the lines and not directly. This may be the reason why so many of us think, that Thai people are dishonest and not trustworthy or even liars and cheaters. I am not saying, all of them are 100% honest - let's not forget, we talk about Pattaya, the largest brothel of the world - but it wouldn't surprise me, if in most cases the message just didn't get through. However, we should always keep in mind, that it is us who live in a bubble in their country and not the other way around. And the only solution is: LEARN (their ways) or LEAVE (or keep suffering) Again, I'm not trying to patronize you, just out of curiosity: why are you still here?