Fishfish Snakesnake

Advice here from a very heavy user - since the early 1990s - surviving by editing English-language text for clients in Indonesia . In my experience, Asians in general, with the possible exception of Japanese, handle items like cell phones, motorbikes or laptops roughly. They do not give their personal instruments the same kind of TLC that we grow up learning to do in the west. If I happened to set a camera down hard, or carelessly on its lens, my old man might give me a good hard slap, and I would have earned it. I learned early on to handle electronics very thoughtfully, like living beings, and avoid sharp kinks in cables (for instance) or setting down heavy items on cell phones (while packing or traveling). A second-hand laptop may have been dropped on a corner but not cracked, or dropped and its case replaced ... but it has damage inside, and an intermittent short that cuts out the LCD screen. Major manufacturers give one-year warranties for a very good reason: personal computers are treacherous little devils, and will often let you down for the oddest of reasons. Final note: I've never gone wrong with Lenovo. Astonishing reliability, although I had to replace a power supply once four years ago (cheap). Not that fancy or fast a unit but reliable, as my laptops are workhorses.

While I accept that there might be more to the story than I know, I still cannot understand the logic (Yeah, I know LoS). Why not just be a deadbeat and blow the loan off? Why go to the extra trouble - not to mention expense - of putting out a contract on your creditor? Some notion of saving face? (The universal catch-all explanation in more than a few countries of East Asia. )

Unless Red Bull Junior is an absolute moron, he'll be looking over his shoulder the rest of his life - in Thailand, anyway. Things ... happen to cars. And aircraft. And people. My last long stay in LoS - in 1986 if I'm not mistaken - some puffed-in criminal type had opened a so-called "millionaires' club" in Bangkok. The guy who ran it - your typical flashy in-your-face "rounder" (as we called them in Vancouver) prominently walked around wearing a bulletproof vest and surrounded himself with a phalanx of bodyguards. Even so, after he reportedly cheated a buyer for a car - I think a Rolls-Royce - he was shot to death in the open by a hitman. So much for the millionaires and bodyguards. I also knew a Chinese who ran a jewelry shop in the old Erawan Hotel. The frankly puzzling story was that he had lent someone the equivalent of $25,000, and instead of repaying the loan, or stiffing the Chinese dude and walking away, the debtor hired a hitman to shoot him dead. It would be satisfying to see something "happen" to RBJ.

It is the Will of Allaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh

Thanks again. This is not at all my area of expertise but I thought I should do my best as I was asked, as someone familiar with life in LoS (at least in former times...)

Your prompt response is most appreciated, 'save the frogs'. I feel at a loss in this matter as I've not partaken of the magic vegetable since the early 1970s, after smoking up half the ditches in Mexico. I'm still hunting for a location where my stricken pal can reside while in Thailand (and with easy access to the killer-weed). If he continues to go downhill that would include overseeing the usual messy bodily functions, I presume, as well as serving food and fun. I was simply wondering whether any enterprising "medical tourism" operation had set up a facility based around therapeutic cannabis.

I'm a long-time orbiter of LoS, and worked for STOU from 1984 ~ 1986, while living in Rak Si (we called it "Roxy") in a nice old terribly hot wooden house run by a couple we referred to as "The Witch" and "The Zombie". Visits to the Kingdom from 1969 ... last trip there with an old pal and his family in 2024. I moved to Indonesia in 1988, and have been a Communications Worker as well as ESL "Edutainer" here. Only a lurker on the aseannow site, as I seem to have little in common with the majority of contributors. One of my old ESL teaching pals, a California stoner in his late 50s operating a surfing camp in Krui, West Lampung (Sumatra) has recently been diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer and it seems to be spreading rapidly. I suspect he's down with the "turbocancer" derived from the "safe&effective" bioweapon clotshots, but have kept my mouth shut. He's in a wheelchair and suffering, as the medicos here are miserly with painkillers. He has asked about Thailand because he knows my history, and I am thus writing to seek possible leads to a facility where he can stay stoned on grass while whiling out his remaining days (not long, I'd surmise). I hate to say "hospice" but that is essentially what it would be. No sterile hospital setting, thanks - we have plenty of those down here. Any suggestions? I know that there was a discussion of retirement homes for wealthy foreigners (wrinklies death watch), but have heard nothing about a facility that would take care of you and keep you zonked on mary-hoochy.

What a pack of drama queens. To be an A-List actor, you must be shameless. These two belligerents, rushing about and declaiming like soap opera divas, fit the pattern. Poor cops (rolling eyes, looking bored and annoyed). Happy journalists (nothing better than a spectacular domestic conflict).