ASIC

5) Do I need to do anything before I arrive in BKK airport? EG Let the Embassy over there know? Fill in forms?

It's actually YOU how are "over there"!

ASIC

Just be careful. If your computer is earthed and the rest of the equipment is not, you could burn some chips (most likely in the computer) when you plug and unplug the devices. I suggest you earth a 3-pin extension cable through the metal pipe, and connect all your devices and computer to the now earthed extension cable.

ASIC

It really depends on how much they like you and how many days you ask for in your entry form. It's normally possible to state your case if you need more than 14 days. I used to get 14 days, but after several years with green card in the country they know me at the Singapore Immigrations, and I now get a 3 month visa upon arrival.

If the customs officer at the border sees that your previous visa is close to expiring and it's obvious that you are leaving for Johor just to get another 14 days, he will most likely give you a 1 day visa and send you down to the Immigration office at Bugis. Officially you can only go in and out of the country a maxium of 3 times, for a maximum of 90 days.

When the american navy was kicked out of the Philippines, they moved their bases to Singapore, which explains the 90 days for Americans who come to visit friends and family stationed there.

ASIC

How about farang women marrying Thai men? I once saw such a couple, so I guess it happens. Would be interesting to know how their wedding turned out.

ASIC

There was a group of about 50 protesters today at Rachadamnoen near the democracy monument. I didn't have much time to read the banners as I drove by on the bus. Anyone know what went on there? Anything vital, or something about the lottery?

ASIC

The guy from CP group is in the Forbes survey with a wealth of 1.5 Billion.

Toxin is not rich. He gave all his money to friends and family. He's surviving on a monthly income of 60,000 Baht. Poor thing.

Apart from that, he is responsible for 9% of the GDP in Thailand. Amazing on a 60,000 Baht salary.

ASIC

I agree with madsere. The zones and the closing hours are two different issues.

The zones are a good and workable idea, but why have they chosen zones only frequented by 1) horny Thai politicians, 2) tourists and 3) drugged up Thai teenagers? None of the zones provides a place for the average Joe.

If it's not possible to create zones at the existing areas of nightlife, would it not be possible to give the exisiting places time to move to a zone, or find some other reasonable solution (i.e. 3 to 5 years). Toxin's wife has some land for sale I heard and with Toxin in power for 20 years more, 3 to 5 years should sound quite reasonable.

By the way, is there any proof statistically that shorter closing hours will reduce crime?

I think the biggest problem is the illegally opened bars, karaoke places, etc. I would love to see them closed. There is one such open-air bar, open till 6 am every morning, just next to my old office. It's full of Thais (and an lone alcoholic Swede) drinking and dancing in the street with the CD player blasting at max volume. Despite several complains, police has never done anything.

There are also many "bamboo huts" with dim lighting in the areas at Rangsit just next to the major universities. They are all open during the day, serving alcohol to lazy students. But hey! That's still legal.

If the police followed up based on the current laws, there wouldn't be a need for such draconical measures as a curfew, but I guess noone can demand that the men in brown ever does anything according to the law?

ASIC

Just get me some decent food. TG has without question the worst in-flight food in the world. Even half a million boyscouts (or so), used to eating burned bread, grubs, leaves, self-dead chicken and God knows what, that came here during the jamboree complained about the food. And they had the pleasure of enjoying the TG food right from the kitchen, the when it was freshly cooked.

ASIC

Talliban office?? Explain that to someone who lives in Bangkok please.

Why don't you just walk all over their rubbish products and when they complain, ask them if they have a license?

ASIC

First we are angry about the midnight closing hours. Now that it seems it has been reversed, we are still agry. What's wrong with us Farang? Let's all praise Taksin for once and say thank you for not destroying our nightlife. Thank you Dear Leader. Thank you. We are not worthy!

ASIC

2000 - 2001. I thought Der Leader was looking for a 3G license at that time?

I'm probably paranoid.

ASIC

Just had a long, and may I add - frightning, debate with some Thai friends about the social crusade. They all think it's absolutely necessary that kids stay home after 10pm, that the bars close at midnight, etc. etc. and that Toxin is a great hero.

The reason, they argued, was that western influence on Thailand is too great. Thai moral values are under thread. Thai culture is disappearing. When they were kids children respected their elders, there were no gang rapes, no drugs, no sex, no rock and roll. They had no chicken flu here, either.

Anyway, what I heard today is a exactly what the morons in power in Singapore keeps repeating. The West is to blame for all ills in Asia. Western values are not suitable here. Asian democracy is different from western democracy.

Basically they are saying, let's not take responsibility for the mess we got ourselves into. Let's blame someone else. We are not responsible for what goes on in our own country. We are not responsible for bringing up our own children to be good law-abiding citizens.

I'm sure a better school system could have helped teach children right from wrong. I also believe parents should take responsibility for their own children's upbringing. Every day I see some idiot letting his kids do things and excuse it with "he's just a kid". Other peoples kids are annoying, but my kid is perfect and I give him everything he wants, and I let him do everything he wants.

Finally, why aren't the men in brown doing their job? If these hooligans and gang-rapers were afraid of getting caught, if their case in court were processed swift and fair, would there be so much trouble? However, the Thais in my deck of the woods don't seem agree....

It sadens me to hear that in Thailand the West is famous for prostitution, corruption, drugs and dictatorial leadership and that Thailand is completely innocent and merely a victim of western influences. Thank God for Toxin. Finally someone here to set it straight.

ASIC

But what is wrong with a.n.g.e.l.f.i.r.e.d.o.t.c.o.m.? I don't see anything wrong there. I simply want to download a Linux distribution. Is there any way to get a ban lifted?

Anyway, who is responsible for banning websites? Can the police just ban stuff without any proper investigations into whether it breaches Thai law or not? Wouldn't you need some kind of court-order? It seems a bit arbitrary at the moment.

ASIC

At present I can read Thai quite well and at reasonable speed. I can even sing along on the occasional karaoke and follow the subtitles on UBC. However, my vocabulary is limited and the pronounciation is a problem at times. Vocabulary can be extended with a dictionary, but what about sentence structure? I hate books on gramar.

I know I am learning the language "backwards" if you will. My problem is the text books. I find it very difficult to read Thai when written using roman characters. First of all, it doesn't give the proper pronounciation and secondly, most books use "english" romanization. I am not a native English speaker, and it's difficult to juggle three languages at the same time. I.e. the Thai word for "good" is written "Dee" and not "Di" as would be used in most non-english speaking European languages.

Are there any books out there for a "backwards" learner? I have tried using Thai books teaching English, but that's not really ideal either.

ASIC

Imagine this:

You just went to download a Linux distribution from http://freshmeat.net/projects/natld/ The file turns out to be hosted on a website that - to the best of your knowledge - hosts personal homepages for free. (follow the link above to see which one).

To your surprise you get the message - "You are not authorized to view this page". So, you send a letter to your ISP that something is wrong. you never get a reply, but you discover the page is blocked by the authorities. Even a search for the website in google or yahoo is blocked. You ask your friend overseas to check for you, but she recline, because she's afraid she'll get in trouble. Now she even shun you and log out from MSN messenger whenever she sees you online.

Are we talking about a dictatorial Singapore? No! We are taking about LOS. The free country. A democratic bastion in Asia. Rule by fear is coming. Self-sensor or leave the country. You have to make the decision soon, because experience shows that self-sensorship eventually makes you sick in your head.

So, could the men in brown come knocking at your door at night? Maybe? Did you do something to upset the social order? No? Sure? Really sure? No nud_e pics in your e-mail inbox? in your outbox? Not even by mistake? Maybe it's time to clean up your harddisk? Are you sure you got it all deleted? All caches cleared? All traces removed? Did you scan all files and websites that you visited lately for words like "<deleted>" ot "Toxin" (They both appear in this forum occasionally). Did you throw out all your CDs that you bought from Pantip? Any VCDs left? Any DVDs? Maybe it's better to throw the computer out completely? Maybe go back to DOS again? Maybe you are under surveilance already? Did you show any "unusual" download patterns lately? Maybe you are a suspect already? Maybe you are paranoid? Maybe the website in question is really a porn-site? But how do you know? The site is blocked and your friends overseas are scared as ###### to check it for you! How can you download your linux distribution and get your work done? Maybe Linux is against the new social order? Maybe it's better to give up your IT career and become a low-paying farmer? Maybe the ISP is using caller-ID to track where you are calling from (they DO, it's a fact). Maybe they are checking who wrote this? Maybe the internet revolution in LOS is dead even before it reached speeds beyond 56k? Maybe you just settled in in LOS after a sensorship nightmare in Singapore? Maybe you have to move country yet again? Maybe you are toast?

Anyone knows if there is a list of banned web-sites, who banned them, and the reason why they were banned?

ASIC

UBC just announced that they will introduce pay-per-view. As for the chinatown solution, it only works for cable, not for satellite.

ASIC