Prubangboy

March: Songkha, Ko Lipe, Ko Phi Phi, Phuket Old Town (to dodge Chiang Mai smoke). Looks like a mad tourism season coming up, based on the throngs I see right now in CM Old City, so I'll book early. April: Bhutan and Dharmasalama. Bhutan has cut the visitor fee to $100 a day (all inclusive). It's a bit samey, and I went before, so 6 days will more than cover it, even with a couple of festivals. May: Hopefully, Chiang Mai is breathable enough to return, if not maybe Shanghai. I have new Chinese friends from the pot bar. Not psyched about China overall, but staying free with locals would be hard to pass up. I read a couple of good true crime books about Shanghai. Rest of the year: Chiang Mai rainy season is my fave time of year, then the tourist crush is fun too.

I'm going to say smaller than Nimman. You have short main drag that at least isn't a 4 lane road, a bit of scenic town by the wat with the famous painting, and then not a whole lot by the river. A temple on the outskirts still has an old-style wooden buddha. Overland to Laos from Nan to meet up with the boat going down to Luang Prubang is a great route full of very folkloric style temples. Hongsa, on the Lao side has that Gaughan painting, teak house in the jungle feeling at a level seldom seen. I'm planning a Nan weekend in Dec. Scenic bus in, and fly back to Chiang Mai.

Super longevity diet. Basically, vegan + a bit of fish. Zero booze, just Ganga.

Interestingly, I was reading today about how for older weight lifters, 2 sessions a week does MORE for you than 3 sessions a week, due to the deeper rest that spurs on greater muscle growth between sessions. 2 sessions a week gets you 25% more muscle improvement than if you lifted 3 times a week. Going a little (not a lot) harder during those two sessions and resting 2 minutes between sets also amps up the improvement. So much of the well-intentioned self-help advice we get also includes a useless dose of self-punishment. https://us.humankinetics.com/blogs/excerpt/training-frequency-requirements-for-older-adults I don't want to take this useful thread off-topic. My boring point is that any work at all we do now is helpful for later decline. I read in Billy Idol's autobiography that had he not been weight training, he would have never walked again after his motorcycle accident. Whereas I saw him live (with a cane) 9 months after it.

This is work we need to do every day, just like we try to keep our muscle mass and metabolism intact to support and extend our physical health. Just like these things can be reset, so too can our optimism. We can up our resilience and equanimity via meditation, self-help or whatever works for us. Work done on this now will be money in the bank later when we hit a late age disaster. These qualities will support our happiness and diminish our misery. As to the rest of it, it's a reminder: if you want a guarantee in this life, buy a toaster.

Har Har. He made a bum joke. Another slab of stubbies, then?

I carefully phrased it so that no-game chav's could make lame bumming jokes.

What's going on with myself is always a little interesting to me; simply paying attention to internal states, both physical and mental. If your internal states are boring, and you find that "unbearable", that's on you. It's like complaining that the weights at the gym are heavy. I don't recommend that most people meditate. They want a chill pill, not insight. And I hope they can cut to the chase and get one that they like. Meditation is not - and never was- about making you feel good. To dispassionately observe boredom is to watch it evaporate. That may make you feel better, it may not. Either you're interested in that process or you're not. It's all good.

Strong book recco: The Lady And The Monk by Pico Iyer, about hippie Zen-er Pico and his chaste emotional relationship with a very simple Japanese woman (who he married after the book). The book is also one long love letter to the beauty of Kyoto with lots of painless cultural exposition. Pico's writings about Japan and Kyoto are def Gamma-specific. Go to Mount Koyasan. It's the Luang Prubang of Japan. We booked a room next to the sacred Cedar forest grave yard. We had to sign a form promising not to have sex in our room. We were too close to the grave yard. Also, explained the desk clerk, the maid was his mom. My other Mount Koyasan takeaway is that sake made by monks is worth the upcharge. I stayed for a couple of months at The GreenPeace Guesthouse -which I think is still in biz. They had a famous sign in the shared bathroom: No Flushing After Midnight. And then below it was appended: Unless It's A Really Big One.

Eric was aware of what was in the financial reports: https://newrepublic.com/post/176615/eric-trump-stumbles-gotcha-moment-new-york-fraud-trial He forgot to remember to forget that he saw them. Remembering to forget is the entire Trump legal strategy across all 4 trials. And now, here's Elvis:

She said she can't do it because it's a school day. Astonishingly, I am not making that up.

Eric keeps saying he was too busy pouring concrete to read financial statements. The last building project at Trump Inc was in 2006. He may or may not have been manning the concrete mixer at the time. He says he doesn't remember.

"Farang-style" Further reading about Peking duck tells me that the super-crispy skin-style with pancakes is known in China as American Peking duck. Come to think of it, my four orderings of Peking duck in Thailand have all had the same oily, rich (but never crispy) skin. I'll bet you could get it in an upscale hotel Chinese restaurant with an international clientele. I tried at The China Grande in Bangkok, which was widely touted as the best in town and it was the same ol' same ol' (good value tho). Because the main clientele at the China Grand is Chinese people. I was very excited to stay at mid-level Chinese Hotel with a lot Chinese food options. But they weren't to my liking -which mean my New York City-version of Chinese food-liking. I've met a lot of Chinese people who prefer American Chinese food to their own. Spoiled by Manhattan, I have mostly given up on Chinese food here. It's like English people being picky about Indian food.They too come from a place where the fake version is better than the real food. As usual, it's not them failing, it's us having the wrong expectations.

Gotta say, the people I see staring at their phones seem reasonably entertained. Boredom may now be extinct as an emotion, just like you never hear people complaining about ennui anymore.

Wouldn't necessarily do it now till the San Fran kinks get worked out, but def would in a limited setting like a shuttle between airport terminals. Too much $$$ potential for this to be allowed to fail and they're too close to success to give up. If you can maximize traffic throughput via satelites, that changes the economics of everything. It will affect everything from the cost of your Bic lighter to capital savings on less worn out roads, to air quality. Taxi's are the merest tip of the iceberg. In our limited, what's left lifetime, auto-cars will be the norm.

I love weed, but it doesn't eliminate boredom, it just postpones it.

If you meditate, you're never bored. You always have a little bit of something to do.

I did some focus groups for vodka. In the proverbial blind taste test, Sky beat out all the higher end brands, including Grey Goose. Reason: no burn going down. But then, a lot of people like that ethanol kick in the back of the throat. Flavored vodka, like lemon or passionfruit (the only one I bought twice).... -I'm go to guess is a big Bob Smith no-no.

What is your favorite short time hotel? How much does that cost these days for how many hours?

I enjoy your ruminations. I'm at the opposite end of the bell curve where I think I died and went to heaven. It may be place-specific. I hear a lot of unhappiness in Issan and Pattaya, but almost no complainers in Bangkok or Chiang Mai. Hua Hin seems chill too. Phuket, less so.

This is a great place to ponder expat life with other ponderers, BUT If it is indeed not Thailand, then it must be some variation of "just you". Bad fit, or whatever.

The next 5 posts from the OP: "I want to go. I do, really." "But do I? Do I really? I've been there a bunch of times, but I still can't even fathom a guess as to whether or not I'll like it".

Agreed. I'm using Wealth Tax as a broad short hand for a range of ideas like Land Tax, new income tax bracket, ending offshore accounts, properly funding the tax collection arm of government. All of them are problematic, but so is is 1500 a month for a studio in Bristol. I've been to Bristol. Bleak. And it's still in the South. It's grim up Norf. How long can they hold out with rents popping up 10% a year on their increasingly shorter leases? This will be like civil rights, a multi-decade process. Like that one, it will divide the old from the young. The contempt the young have for us for our iPhone and latte-lecturing is now intractable and hard-wired.

This is the Intervention-style reality TV show the world really wants to see. Alkie to Pothead. Problem: no drama when they convert to being potheads.

Frasier Suites, waaaay down Suk soi 11 has a small one without the dreaded DJ ruining it. A few floors down is the 5* Indian restaurant, Charcoal (home of the worlds biggest nan).