TallGuyJohninBKK

No, I was a graveyard shift cashier and supervisor by choice because, believe or not, that was the time that least interfered with my university class schedule back then. But all of that has nothing to do with the remaining fact that the very large retailer I worked for purposefully did all of the major restocking in the quieter overnight hours... so as to not have it interfere with sales traffic during busier "regular" hours. That obviously doesn't mean if we happened to run out of something during the day shifts that we'd ignore it. Of course not, someone would go to the back and retrieve some new stock.... But we wouldn't start piling up the aisles with cases and cases of product to be shelved during the normal shopping hours. That's only common sense, at least, for some of us.

It would be too boring if they didn't constantly reshuffle the locations of things, moving the ketchup to the wine shelves, and the wine to the diapers shelves... etc etc... All in a day's work.

The aisles of typical Thai supermarket venues are often narrow enough as it is... often making it difficult to pass just one other party in the same aisle... It certainly doesn't get any better when the store staff start hauling out piles of product boxes and stacking them around the aisles in the middle of the shopping day.

I was able to pick an hours time window for Standard delivery for tomorrow, but it took some doing to get there... When I first got to that point in the Checkout process, it also seemed like the only choice on offer was an immediate delivery option. But I believe there was another less than obvious link in that same section that produced the option to pick the normal time windows for standard delivery.

I worked in retail to help pay my way thru college.... We always did all the major restocking and maintenance/cleaning at night...after midnight until the early morning hours, because that was the time of the lowest traffic volume in a 24-hour market operation, and the work could be done most efficiently without annoying or interfering with paying customers... But hey, that was just a worldwide multi-billions of dollars retail market operation. What did we know....

Obvious, of course! The GHOSTS come out at night.... Woooo........

Right now, after completing my order via their website with some difficulty, the order is showing up as received and processing for tomorrow standard delivery in their system:

CP and Dhanin's family also being China origin, like the other group. Two of the biggest big money ventures in Thailand.

I went to try to place a Tops Online order via their website this afternoon... before I caught Jing's thread here... What a MESS!!! I was able to finally place an order, at least.... But with their latest changes, I found that: --90% of my previously saved long Favorites shopping list had been wiped away, leaving just a handful of Favorited items. --When I went to try to re-Favorite various of the missing items, I found I was totally unable to add any new Favorites right now. --When I tried to "search" for various of the now missing Favorited items, I found the website's search functionality was balky at best, bordering on useless. etc etc etc... Tops has done similar things to this various times in the past with "upgrades" or "changes" to their online platform, including previously having erased all of my Saved Favorites at various past points... But this latest re-do -- at the moment -- surely is one of the worst versions they've done. You really have to wonder where they get their IT staff from... Ahh, but then it struck me, it's probably the same geniuses who mishandle tech for this particular forum!!!

FATCA and FBAR are two different, but somewhat related requirements. The FBAR reporting requirement has the lower, $10,000 reporting threshold for holding foreign financial assets. And thus applies to more expats. The FATCA filing requirement has various and HIGHER reporting thresholds for holding foreign assets, depending on the filer's personal status (living in the U.S. vs abroad, single vs. married). For expats who live abroad, because of its higher dollar thresholds vs those living in the U.S., the FATCA reporting requirement applies to a whole lot fewer expats than the FBAR one does.

https://www.fincen.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/Due_Date_for_FBARs.pdf There's both the April and the October deadline dates... But in reality, it's the mid October one that effectively becomes the real deadline for FBAR. "Specifically, section 2006(b)(11) of the Act changed the FBAR due date to April 15 to coincide with the Federal income tax filing season. The Act also mandated a maximum six-month extension of the filing deadline. To implement the statute with minimal burden to the public and FinCEN, FinCEN grants filers failing to meet the FBAR annual due date of April 15 an automatic extension to October 15 each year. Accordingly, specific requests for this extension are not required."

The June date is the filing deadline for tax filings, when you add in the automatic two month extension for filers who live abroad. That deadline doesn't apply to the FBAR filing requirement, which is a whole separate regimen.

Not a very impressive performance by the store staff there -- assuming that the source video itself isn't a staged put-on. On the other hand, if that was a Thai store and you walked in with the same request, the immediate response from the staff typically would be "no hab" without even bothering to check -- even if the store actually has a whole section of hammers for sale, including the left handed ones! 🤪

Here's an idea for those reading here... When I was getting serious about my then future Thai wife, I made sure we sat down together to discuss our future. I made a proposal to her, and she accepted it, and we've almost never had an argument or dispute about money things in the 10+ years we've been together now. I told her, I'd financially support her and our married life together fully, and whatever money she made from her job was hers to keep and she could spend her earnings on her family/parents as she wished. And in exchange for that, she (the wife) would never ask or expect me to provide any money for her parents, relatives, acquaintances, etc. It's an agreement and solution that's worked out well for both of us thru the years. And it's been a good incentive for my wife to do what she's done, and that's been to advance to a pretty successful, well-paying business career of her own (with some consulting help from me along the way).

They're people whom, by definition, their attending MD determined that COVID was either the primary cause of their death or a contributing cause of their death, and stated so on their death certificate. I'm sure they're generally older as a group.... but I don't know that the CDC has provided any more detailed breakdown of their particulars for the most recent deaths...since the US emergency declaration ended. Bottom line is they died because of COVID, either predominantly as the cause, or at least partially as the cause.

The following looks like the best, most up-to-date COVID stats I could find for England -- 157 COVID deaths for the most recent week in what has been a recently declining trend: https://ukhsa-dashboard.data.gov.uk/ So the above chart basically is showing 800 COVID-cited deaths in England over the past four weeks, with the recent weekly numbers declining each week, but still above the lows of mid-2023. https://ukhsa-dashboard.data.gov.uk/topics/covid-19#deaths In general, like in a lot of other places including the U.S. and Thailand, other COVID indicators for England have generally been getting better/improving since the recent peaks of around January, likely part of the emerging seasonal peaks and declines of COVID. At the beginning/first week of 2024, the UK health agency reported about 5 new COVID hospitalizations per 100,000 population in England. By the recent data for Week 11 thru March 17, that weekly per capita rate was down to 1.85 per 100,000 population. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/flu-and-covid-19-surveillance-report-published https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65fc087265ca2f00117da72f/Weekly-flu-and-COVID-19-surveillance-report_wk12.pdf That translates into almost 1,700 patients hospitalized with confirmed COVID in England as of March 17, per the second chart below. The comparable number was more than 4,200 at the start of 2024: https://ukhsa-dashboard.data.gov.uk/topics/covid-19#healthcare The question of course in England and elsewhere on this is what comes next -- do the current downward trends persist, or are they just a lull before the next COVID peak.

The federal government's statistics say about 43,000 people died in the U.S. in motor vehicle deaths for the most recent full year -- less than the above cited approx. 6 months worth of COVID deaths totaling nearly 47,000. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year As for heart disease, it is one of only several causes of death that still exceeded COVID in the U.S. in recent years, up through 2022 (the most recent year for which official U.S. national rankings are available): Top 10 Causes of Death in America These are the conditions and catalysts that killed the most Americans in 2022. https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/slideshows/top-10-causes-of-death-in-america?slide=11

https://twitter.com/BNOFeed/status/1772081376600240639 Info from the U.S. CDC showing the 1,000+ weekly COVID deaths current streak began the week of August 26 and has continued through March 2: Source link: As for the two gray-colored columns at the far end of the chart, those are as yet incomplete, only partial counts, and thus colored differently: "Data during recent periods are incomplete because of the lag in time between when a death occurs and when a death certificate is completed, submitted to NCHS, and processed for reporting. This delay can range from 1 week to 8 weeks or more, depending on the jurisdiction. The most recent 3 weeks of mortality counts are shaded grey and mortality rates shown as dotted lines because NVSS reporting is <95% during this period." The deaths counted above are those where the death certificates listed COVID as either the primary or contributing cause of death. Let's hope this streak will come to an end soon ... and not be repeated.

At least in the U.K. (apparently unlike Thailand), the government there is continuing to provide the newest COVID XBB vaccines for free to those deemed most at risk, in addition to now a new pay-for-service option for the Pfizer vaccine for everyone else. Part of a growing trend involving the direct private (non-government) sale of COVID vaccines, as is now occurring in Thailand per the OP in this thread: Boots to offer Covid vaccines in England for nearly £100 a jab Pharmacy to offer Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to those not eligible for NHS booster shot from next week Boots is to offer Covid vaccinations for almost £100 a shot, making it the latest provider to sell the jabs to those not eligible for a booster through the NHS. ... The announcement by Boots comes as vaccination services gear up for the spring booster campaign, in which people aged 75 years and older, residents in care homes for older people, and people aged six months and over with a weakened immune system will be offered another Covid jab free on the NHS. However, with eligibility for this and previous campaigns limited, most healthy people have not had a booster jab since late 2021, and experts warn their protection will have waned over time. (more) https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/26/boots-to-offer-covid-vaccines-in-england-for-nearly-100-pounds-a-jab And more background on the same: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/02/pharmacies-in-england-and-scotland-to-offer-private-covid-jabs-for-45 Worth noting - three of the four Thailand venues cited in the OP here offering the newer COVID Pfizer XBB vaccine are doing so at lower prices than the Boots England offering above.

fyi....

fyi.... I don't think the older bivalent Pfizer vaccines for adults are available anymore from the BMA health clinics. But these below now are available.

Not from the history of the past 20th Century or the current century thus far, as shown below: "A pandemic is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. Widespread endemic diseases with a stable number of infected individuals such as recurrences of seasonal influenza are generally excluded..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics_and_pandemics Plus another one, with a lower estimated number of deaths: 2009 Swine Flu Pandemic In 2009, the H1N1 flu virus, known as "swine flu," spread quickly worldwide. Researchers had not previously identified the novel H1N1 flu virus in either animals or humans.6 Between April 12, 2009, and April 10, 2010, swine flu caused 60.8 million cases, 274,304 hospitalizations, and about 12,469 deaths in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that up to 575,400 people died worldwide.7 ... The pandemic officially ended on August 10, 2010. Still, the H1N1 flu virus circulates seasonally.7 https://www.health.com/condition/infectious-diseases/worst-pandemics-in-history

It's coming... just a matter of how soon, and how bad... World health leaders warn of pandemic 20 times worse than COVID Without preparedness, the WHO warned, a pandemic from Disease X could cause much more damage than COVID, which has killed more than 7 million worldwide. Jan. 24, 2024 (NewsNation) — At the recent World Economic Forum, the World Health Organization issued a warning to world leaders, saying the world could face a pandemic 20 times worse than COVID-19 in the future. Scientists call it Disease X, a term that recognizes the next global pandemic could come as the result of an unknown pathogen rather than the spread of a currently recognized disease. ... While Disease X was the focus of the session, it’s not the only illness that concerns epidemiologists. Other viruses that could potentially cause a pandemic include Ebola, Marburg, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, Lassa fever, SARS, MERS, Nipah virus, Rift Valley Fever, Zika virus and new evolutions of COVID-19. https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/4424600-world-health-leaders-warn-of-pandemic-20-times-worse-than-covid/

User report: Filed my online 90-day report to BKK Immigration on Monday morning about 8 a.m. Got the approval and confirmation back today/Tuesday by about 10 a.m. That's probably the fastest turnaround time I've ever experienced with 90-day online reporting to BKK.

Did Sweden beat the pandemic by refusing to lock down? No, its record is disastrous "One fact that tends to be glossed over by anti-lockdown advocates is that Sweden did eventually tighten its social distancing regulations and advisories, though only after the failure of its initial policies became clear." ... in December 2020, King Carl XVI Gustaf shocked the country by taking a public stand against the government’s approach: “I think we have failed,” he said. “We have a large number who have died and that is terrible.” He was correct. If Sweden had Norway’s death rate, it would have suffered only 4,429 deaths from COVID during the pandemic, instead of more than 18,500." https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-03-31/sweden-covid-policy-was-a-disaster