photojourn

Hello Everyone!

I am trying to find someone, or a company to hire to Move about 10 boxes of household stuff and minimal studio style furniture from my apartment in Bangkok to my new apartment in Chiang Mai. Can anyone recomend where to find an "Affordable" way of doing this? We can pack our own boxes, we just want need help moving things like the refrigerator, matress and sofa to the truck and then into the new apartment.

Thanks in advance for any leads!

I did the opposite move three months ago and sent it by rail. I shipped 33 cartons weighing 360 kgs for Bt1,700 (approx) including insurance. Received in Bangkok the next day.

CM station forgot to mention there was a Bt20/carton collection fee (could have been language barrier on that) but it still worked out cheap. No damage and everything received fine.

Thanks very much. What is the requirement and what is required to obtain the non-O ? Cost? Do you think they would process a mailed application from Melbourne - where there is a consulate?

Streaming ABC radio at Streaming ABC Vic. radio

Streaming ABC TV: ABC News

Follow live twistter feeds: #bushfires

Prayers for all those involved

Massive bushfires have laid waste to dozens of towns across Victoria. The death toll to date is 130, more than 700 homes destroyed, 330,000 hectares burnt. There are still numerous fires "going".

Anyone interested in monitoring the situation can tune to ABC streaming radio on http://www.abc.net.au/melbourne/radio/player.htm

Plenty of live updates on Twitter. Search for #bushfires

News paper reports on every Australian news site.

Photo gallery here: http://www.news.com.au/gallery/0,23607,503...6020-16,00.html

Prayers for this still in danger

Thanks very much. That clarifies it.

I need to get a double entry tourist visa while back in Australia.

Thanks again

Thanks. My visa states entry before Feb 28. Which I did. It is only a 3mth single entry. Can it be broken and reactivated though?

My parents are both extremely ill at the moment and I need to return to Australia urgently.

1. I currently have a non-immigrant B which expires early next month but I will not be returning to work for this sponsor. Can I preserve the time remaining on my existing visa for later return?

2. If possible to do this how long can this remain active for as I don't know how long I will be back in Australia?

2. If I can preserve the time remaining on my non-immigrant B can I apply for a double entry tourist visa while in Australia and return using the left over time on my non-immig B and then activate the tourist visa when the non-immigrant B expires? – So as not to have to do a visa run but just a border crossing for a tourist visa a couple of weeks after returning?

Thanks

John

Sounds about right. I was quoted Bt8,856 by Thaivisa Insurance for a three year old Yamaha Sparks that is worth Bt22,000.

DDM Club tonight. Anyone else?

Highly experienced journalist with extensive writing, editing, content development and management, SEO, SNM, marketing, public relations, corporate communications, and crisis and issues management experience across a broad range of industry sectors available for full time or ongoing contract work.

I've been researching Bangkok dentists for a story on medical tourism and have come up with case after case of over servicing, excessive procedures, wrong information, lies, and excessive charging - even though the prices are below what people pay in their home countries. The checking involved many of the larger dental clinics in Bangkok who have large internet presences.

The article is away being published so not able to go on my blog yet.

Moderate tooth whitening can be achieved by mixing lemon juice with cigarette ash and using it as a paste and then brushing with normal toothpaste.

As a round-off to the birthday event on Saturday we are planning to go to P35. Con anyone confirm the get-there-before-11pm-and-get-a-bottle-of-whisky' is still standing, that was mentioned previously in this thread?

Was there special event on Saturday? I prefer when it's not too crowded...

The free bottle promotions are mid-week and not on prime nights - as to be expected. It's a house music night tonight (Friday) Tomorrow I don't know. Time I went and checked the place out properly. Anyone else there tonight except Hawkup?

Last year in Mae Hong Son it began on April 6 so I imagine April 5 this year as it is the corresponding first Sunday.

There's a story on the three day festival here: Poi Sang Long ceremony follows Shan tradition

and video here: Newsblog video gallery

Invite them in for tea

P35 looks impressive and when they finish the project they will have three clubs on the one site and a convention facility with all up capacity of 7,000 people. The current club is the biggest with a capacity of 750 and two others with 350 capacity from memory. Lighting looks good. They play 70s,80s, and 90s on Mondays and hip-hop two or three other nights awekk in the current club.

Last week they were offering free bottles on whisky for a group of four or more via facebook alerts. Great promotion to build a following. Still waiting to find out if they are going to have trance, tribal, or hard trance.

I've got a pair of Nike Air sports shoes that need new soles but not the elcheapo soles the street repairers use. Any idea where to get them resoled with the original style sole around Sukhumvit/Pratunam ?

Thanks.

China policeman jailed for nightclub fire disaster

BEIJING, Jan 21 (Reuters) - China has jailed a senior police officer for 11 years for taking bribes and dereliction of duty in connection with a night club fire that killed dozens of people last year, local media said on Wednesday.

Fireworks set off during a dance show at an illegal night club in Longgang, a blue-collar area just across the border from Hong Kong, sparked a blaze that killed 44 people and injured at least 64 last September.

Investigations later found the club was unlicensed but had been allowed to stay in business despite being a den of prostitution and drug-taking, the Southern Metropolitan Daily said in a report posted on its website (www.nddaily.com).

Chen Xuming, deputy chief of the Longgang Public Security Bureau, had been "seriously irresponsible in his work, and had made no effective crackdown on the unlicensed venue," the paper quoted the Yantian District People's Court in the southern city of Shenzhen as saying.

Chen had also received perks and taken 60,000 yuan ($8,800) in bribes from the club's owners, the paper said.

China's night clubs have a grim record of fire safety and often act as fronts for prostitution and drug-selling under police protection.

A fire at a karaoke club and bath-house in Tianshifu township in northeastern Liaoning province in 2007 killed at least 25 people and injured dozens. (Reporting by Ian Ransom; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Source: China policeman jailed for nightclub fire disaster - Reuters

One can only pressume that the Thong Lor police won't end up going through anything like this.

A Thai court sentenced an Australian author to three years imprisonment on lese majesty charge on Monday.

The court's ruling came as Harry Nicolaides, 41, pleaded guilty on the charge. He wrote a novel in 2005 which concerned royal activities.

Nicolaides was initially sentenced to six years in jail but the punishment was reduced by half as he pleaded guilty.

The court said it decided not to suspend the penalty because the defendant who was an author disseminate lese majesty information information in his book.

ABC news online reported on Monday morning that Nicolaides was led barefoot into courtroom 811 in the Bangkok criminal court, chained by the leg and the wrist to another inmate.

In talking to reporters he described the past four-and-a-half months since he was arrested as an "Alice in Wonderland" experience.

He said he was hoping to wake up from a dream and find it all gone. He was visibly emotional as he spoke saying he wanted to make amends for his crime.

Aussie sentenced to 3 years in jail for les majeste

Thanks for the answers, though perhaps I was a little unclear in my initial post. My female friend who has the non-immigrant B has not yet been issued a work permit, nor has the company as yet submitted the necessary documents for one. She is a little bit daunted by the trials that her colleagues are going through at the moment while watching the days tick away on her non-immigrant B.

As for the others, one in particular obtained his professional qualifications 20-odd years ago and these were done through something like an apprenticeship or in-industry training by his employer at the time and that employer doesn't exist any longer. The qualifications have been enough for him to work for the last 20-years but some if not all of the past employers no longer exist.

The circles with the exclamation mark around them indicate that the photo has not been imported into iPhoto or that the photo no longer exists in the iPhoto library. What you are clicking on is a thumbnail image of the original photo. You should delete the thumbnail because it is no longer relevant or linked to the original image file.

It sounds like the thumbnails are in albums as opposed to in your events library or that they were never properly imported into iPhoto. Sorry to tell you but when you trashed them from other places on your hard disk you removed the original files and all that remains is the thumbnail imported into iPhoto.

You need to have iPhoto set up to copy photos to the iPhoto library on importing if you want to store them in iPhoto. Otherwise they still reside on your hard disk and you only have a thumbnail image in iPhoto. This setting is found in the advanced menu of the preferences settings.

You should also download Onyx from the Apple website (free) and run it to clear your caches and reset the Unix commands periodically. Using some paid-for tools such as Tech Tool (also available from some torrent sites such as thepiratebay.org) you can optimise and de-frag your hard disk. Be warned though that full defraging of a badly neglected hard disk can take many, many hours. If Firefox is running slow then you should delete your preference files. Full details are available on the Mozilla forum.

You can also try a restart holding the command+option+shift keys down and waiting until the second startup tone before releasing the keys. This will clear the PRAM.

To PM someone click on their uer name next their post and select Send a Message.

i go to dance

A couple of friends of mine are working for a company in Bangkok with BOI status. One has a non-immigrant B visa which is due to expire in about six weeks. Prior to this non-immigrant B she was on tourist visas but not working for this company and prior to that had a non-immigrant B that had been issued on behalf of another company.

(1) Can her current non-immigrant B be extended in Bangkok when it expires?

(2) If the answer to (1) is no, is it likely that she would get issued a 2nd non-immigrant B in Vientiane (where she obtained the current one) back-to-back for the same company?

(3) How many back-toback non-immigrant B visas can a person obtain for the same company?

Three other friends working at the same BOI company are working on tourist or visa exempt entry stamps. The company has started the process of applying for work permits for them but they are getting conflicting information (surprise, surprise). In particualr they are being told they must submit certified copies of their accademic qualifications and certified original letters from previous employers in order for the work permits to be approved.

One guy in particular is in his late 40's and says he has no hope of obtaining his school records and all say it is almost impossible for them to obtain original letters from previous emploers for a variety of reasons such as previous employing companies having ceased trading, etc.

Is the requirement for accademic and past employment a requirement for a work permit or are they being given wrong information.

Naturally the friends working on tourist visas are concerned about their status and the consequences of being caught so it's not necessary for people to comment on that aspect.

Any information would be appreciated. Thanks.

Seems like Thais just can't help but try to destroy all of its tourism prospects.

(1) Close airports and disrupt hundreds of thousands of tourists and business travelers

(2) Burn club goers to death on New Years

(3) Murder tourists (and possibly rape) attending the FMP.

Ummmmm, Is it possible some people confused the words brains for rain?

Stopped by Raindogs last night after receiving numerous invites via FB and found it a very dull but gay place. As of midnight there was perhaps 30 people there.

Mixing was mediocre and the play list eclectic to say the best - jumping from one genre to another. Main interest seemed to be on the indoor tent being used as a projection screen for hardcore gay porn depicting well endowed ladyboys demonstrating their prowess's.

Perhaps it might go off later in the night but this type of video show is not something that I go to clubs for. Another FB group I can remove now.

I find this account rather difficult to believe. Can you tell us what day of the week this was? Every Tues evening Rain Dogs screens documentary films pertaining to photography. After reading your post, I checked with the owners of the bar, and they said they don't show films on any other night, and that they have never screened porn there, whether gay or straight. None of the owners are gay, and the clientele is usually quite mixed. It is certainly not a gay bar - not that there's anything wrong with that. But claiming they were publicly screening a porn film is a rather serious charge here.

Well it was certainly very gay on New Years eve.

Update, if anyone cares:

All 4 missing have been found amongst the dead.

Sorry to hear that.