Insight

Poor b*stard - He's got my sympathy.

I haven't read everybody's comments properly, only just scanned over a few, but for everybody quick to jump on the "idiot got what he deserved" bandwagon, please bear in mind this guys background.

More than likely, he's never been outside Manchester, let alone Thailand. A few news articles have mentioned that he was in debt, so imagine being in such a "closed in" community, bearing in mind his stated mental age, with a constant voice telling him "do this for easy money", then perhaps some reason can be applied to this seemingly absurd plan.

I know for a fact a judge in the UK would take some of this into consideration.

There was a Thai guy in the office a few weeks ago working on some ongoing renovations wearing a T-shirt that simply said "F*uck You You F*cking <deleted>!" - If I'm ever stupid enough to land myself in front of a Thai judge for whatever reason, I'll be wearing this shirt - it won't make a blind bit of difference to the final outcome.

We're all living in a universe that's located inside a tiny particle of an atom at the end of somebody's thumbnail. And one day, that somebody's going to slip with a hammer and nail.

Love it!

Original here.

Strange... Like I mentioned above, never really had any problems before, but cheers for the info.

Got the zip code changed and the two missing issues re-orded, all for the fantastic price of f'all. Happy days...

Hi,

Was wondering if anybody knew much about post offices in Bangkok?

Subscribed to a magazine back in the UK two months ago - I should of received two copies by now but haven't received anything.

Only just discovered I got the zip code wrong (should of been 10110 but specified 10330). Is there any chance it could be lurking around the post office for "10330" but hasn't been forwarded on? Or is it now lost in the land of Thailand mail nothingness forever?

I've had several things sent to my address with no problems before - this is the first time I've got the zip wrong though.

Thanks in advance for any advice...

(Perhaps there's now an added irony with my signature)

Felt that one that originated in Myanmar in Sept 2003, but I do live on the 21st floor in Bangkok. A few things fell off some shelves, but that was the extent of it.

Here's the only active link I can find about it on the 'net:

http://quickstart.clari.net/qs_se/webnews/...e.RP0a_DSM.html

I just arrived back from Samui for the New Year. Had to drive to there and back from BKK as all BKK Air flights were booked up until the 6th. Busses and trains all had similar problems. Funny thing was, plenty of hotels were far from booked up and the place seemed hardly crowded.

Point is, demand is completely outspeaking supply, and when there's money to be made, surely BKK Air could cut a much more reasonable deal for use of their airport? It's only everybody who's going to benifit...?

Plane crashes into the sea, only three survivors, Englishman, American and Thai, end up washed up on a desert island.

American guy goes "Hey!!! Since it's just us, I'm going to be president!"

English guy goes "Tally-ho! I'm going to be Prime Minister!"

Thai guy goes "What I do?"

American guy goes "You can be in charge of supplies."

At that, the Thai guy rushes off into the jungle and is not seen again.

Two weeks later the American and Englishman are walking around the jungle looking for food. Suddenly, the Thai guy jumps out on them and shouts "SUPPLIES!!! SUPPLIES!!!"

Not a "mai mee" story, but frustrating as it was back then, it still makes me giggle today.

My ATM card stopped working. Every time I stuck it in the machine, got "Insufficient Data" back. Time for the dreaded trip to Siam Commercial Bank...

So after queuing to queue, my number gets called and I walk up to the counter. I hand over my card and say it's stopped working.

She slices it into the computer behind the counter, hands it back and tells me it works.

I hand it back to her and say that it really doesn't work. She slices it again and tells me that it does work again.

I hand it back to her yet again and ask if she wants to come outside so I can show her. At this point, she clocks on and asks me if I would like a new card. I say "Yes please".

She says that it'll cost me 300 baht. I say take it out of my account.

She says she can't do that and I have to use the ATM outside.

Marvelous.

Really enjoying reading this thread - Good to hear different opinions about such a complex issue. Orthelius, California Dave and taxexile, top posts - well worth reading.

I'm also going through the "cynical" stage, so anything I type has probably been typed before. I did like Cal Dave's comment on other professions, such as the rice seller in the street, and wholeheartedly agree on what he has to say.

Anyways, how to trace an IP address from an email (believe this was requested some time ago) ?

Firstly, you need to view all the headers of the email. In Outlook Express, right click the message, click "Properties", then click the "Details" tab. It's also possible to view all headers using Hotmail, but this is done through the configuration and can't exactly remember where about it is right now.

Anyways, get the IP address. If it's from a Hotmail account, there'll be an "X-Originating-IP" (I think) field. If not, get the IP from the last "Received:" field at the top of the header.

Now start a command prompt - Can do this by clicking Start, Run and typing "cmd" for Win2000/XP, "command" for Win95/98/Me. Then type "tracert xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx" (Where the xxx's are the IP address from the email).

This will do a reverse DNS lookup of the IP address, and perhaps give you a Top Level Domain (TLD) to work with i.e. co.uk, .co.th - This will add some perspective to the geographic location of the IP address.

The other thing this tool does is trace the packets from your PC to that IP address, also doing reverse DNS lookups on each IP address reached accross the journey.

There's also a graphical version of "tracert" here - http://visualroute.visualware.com/ - Same concept - Stick in the IP address and it'll trace all packets visually across the globe.

Anyways, back to heated discussions about paying for birds...

In which case, maybe I'm the right contender to answer the original question, as I moved here June 2001 and I'm not married.

Why am I still here? Because it's so enjoyable figuring it all out. I'm in a good, steady relationship with a Thai female, but not yet prepared to don the wedding ring. I work with Thais all through the week, and have a 50/50 Thai/Western circle of friends outside the office.

I work as a Software Engineer, not a thief, I'm not running away from anything and simply enjoy being surrounded by a new culture all together. I was lucky enough to be offered the job from home, and knew very little about the country before moving here. And in the two years I've worked here, I'm still learning something new on an almost daily basis as the learning curve here seems exponential.

One thing to note, however, is that I was told a lot of advice when I first got here about what Thais do and don't do by other westerners. Nowadays, I take all that advice with a large pinch of salt.

So let me make all those mistakes and give me a big "som nom na" for the few times I have screwed up. I still feel the wiser man at the end of it all...

Yes, I'm a newbie, so please enlighten me...

Is this one of those "I understand Thai culture more than you" threads?

... While stuck in a traffic jam, you see a tiny gap in the traffic in the other lane. You think "If I try and move into that gap, half my car will be left in the lane I was just in, thus blocking traffic for a mile back and frustrating 100+ drivers."

But you don't care and jump in that gap anyway.