snooky

Thought I had that 'Gotcha' moment when I read the word 'learnt' in your latest piece.  Even now, my Grammarly program is trying to change it to 'learned' which is strange, since this program is always trying to change my American spelling of many words to the British version.  However, in your defense, Merriam-Webster does show the following'   -   

"Definition of learnt

• chiefly British past tense and past participle of learn"
•  

So, being a US high school graduate of the 40's, I must eat my thoughts and admit that you are mostly 99.99% correct.  Enjoy your column greatly, although I do still miss Mr. Trink's Night Owl to this day.

Many photos of wrecked vehicles but most (they estimate 79%) accidents and deaths are motorcycle involved.  Possibly more, and closer up, photos of motorcycle accidents should be in the papers - possibly some of the gore will make the drivers think a bit more!  Not too hopeful, but maybe a life or two will be saved.

Too many posters apparently are not aware that use of chemical weapons has been banned for almost one hundred years. but war has not.  This is part of the reason for the missile strikes.  Too bad all war cannot be banned but there are always monsters trying to take over as much as they can without any regard for human life.

Altho all war is really hell, it is not specifically banned but the use of chemical weapons is banned by treaty:

"The Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, usually called the Geneva Protocol, is a treaty prohibiting the use of chemical and biological weapons in international armed conflicts."

https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/cwcglance

Geez, I'm 89 now, better wait to fly anywhere until my next birthday so I don't get ripped off!!

1 hour ago, HHTel said:

Agreed but also fine the Honda driver for using the 'hard shoulder' preventing any emergency vehicles access to accidents etc.  It's common here to use the hard shoulder when the road is 'full'!  No excuse for the pick up driver's actions though.

The pickup driver probably forced him on to the shoulder or the car driver would have just passed him on the left and gotten away

I purchased an RO system here about 15 years ago made by a now defunct company in the US.  The filters were changed on a regular basis and had the greatest tasting water until my regular tech moved out of town.  Now the filters have been changed, including the membrane. but the water does not have that good taste anymore.  I live in the Saphan Kwai area and wonder if anyone else has had a similar problem.  The company I bought it from is still in business, they have changed filters and when I complained, they sent a tech out who then told me there was no problem with the water taste.  Even my Maa Bahn does not like the water now, she used to fill up some bottles for her own use and does not do it any more.

 I enjoy drinking good water and most of the bottled water here really s**ks so am not drinking as much as I should.  Any thoughts or suggestions besides the usual sarcastic ones about buying a new unit after so many years?  Buying a new unit is no problem but how do I know what the taste will be like?

5 hours ago, colinneil said:

Why are you being a smart a++e?

Not bloody funny, you should hope you never meet a crazy Thai pickup driver.

 

Did you get up this morning yourself?

I didnt my wife and my electric winch, had to get me out of bed.

I think most Thai pick up drivers are a bit crazy, as are the van drivers here!

8 hours ago, petermik said:

"soon I will be able to give that special someone my undivided attention" Nat states.....lucky bugger whoever he is

Hmmm, think that might be reversed - the new 'he' will probably be the one getting buggered, if not physically most likely financially!

Strange, I go to Immigration once a year for extension, re-entry permit, and, if the timing is right, my 90 day.   Otherwise, 90 day by mail or internet although when I did my last 90 day on the internet, except for the barcode acknowledging receipt, I never did receive anything from them to print out or telling me when my next report was due. The officer printed me out the usual due date form with no problems while getting my extension.  Filled out my extension form on the computer and didn't notice anything different with everything completed about ten days ago.

 Never had to go there to open a bank account either.

One day a year does not seem such a burden for the privilege of staying here.

On 11/29/2017 at 3:13 PM, DUS said:

Yeah, the captcha works and showed as "verified" or something along those lines. No idea why it doesn´t load the second page after clicking on "submit". Would have loved to do it online but so be it... mai bpen rai....

I submitted and one business day later it was approved.  Now what??  I tried clicking on the 'view' button and only got a blank page - with or without the pop up blocker on.  I see no signs of anything further to click on to get future dates as everyone seems to be talking about.  I did not receive any emails from immigration either.  If someone could please give me the actual return address from immigration, I can do a further search as I get so many emails it is difficult to search.  Especially since my computer was in the shop for five days while I was down with the flu.  There are over 240 pages of comments, kind of difficult to go through all of them to find one complete answer to the whole process - I did go through ten pages................

Thanks for your help. 

15 hours ago, luk AJ said:

I am surprised everybody is in favor, in principle I don’t care too much what people do but driving stoned is as worse as drink driving..this is my only concern.


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

1

I am surprised that no news commentators have ever mentioned the worst aspect of pot smoking - the awful stench that it produces smells worse than three-week-old baby diapers full of poo.  And it gets into the clothes of the smoker, making them smell worse than someone with body odor who has not taken a bath for three weeks.  The rest of us who do not smoke this s--t are going to have to endure many hours of this crap.  Not anywhere near as bad as alcohol, where we only smell the user after he has fallen down drunk in the street and we can just run a street sweeper over them to clean them up a bit.  Should be banned from all public places, outside of office building and any place where large crowds congregate

6 hours ago, NanLaew said:

Do you honestly see it getting easier?

I originally had a visa extension in the early 90's when the requirement of income was only 35,000bt per month.  Mine lapsed because I was a day or two late returning due to work commitments.  When I finally got a new extension Mr T had upped the requirement to 65,000bt per month.  I have been told that had I kept the original extension going, I would have been grandfathered into the old rate - not sure about that but as you can see, things do change here so it is better to keep the present extension rather than running into difficulties later on.

He did put out some good music - my personal favorite of his was 'Arai Gaw Yuam" - hard trying to find a video of it though!  Shame people get messed up through fame, fortune, and talent.

I know I will get a lot of flak for this but many folks only ride on the back of motorcy taxi's to get to the end of their soi's from the bus or train stops or vice versa.  Most of the motocy drivers do not carry extra helmets, most folks will not carry a helmet around all day for a 2-4 minute ride to or from their homes.  Plus even if the drivers carried extra helmets, how many passengers would put them on considering they were worn by hundreds of previous riders, several of whom may be infected with lice or other things.  I realize how dangerous it is without helmets, but does anyone got a decent answer for this quandary other than "wear a helmet"?? 

This poor girl had absolutely no time to react except to start to steer away, but then how would she be able to project the trajectory of that bouncing tire?  R.I.P. to her and condolences to her family.

One of the worst accident that I ever witnessed in my 35 years of bus driving was on the Penna Turnpike where an eastbound truck lost a wheel similarly, it bounced into the windshield of a westbound tractor-trailer, killed the driver, and the truck crossed the median strip and hit an eastbound truck head on which was loaded with jeeps, jeep engines and assorted parts which were scattered all over the roadways.

5 hours ago, Thaijack2014 said:

You can follow their "butts" on their instagram app... maybe there they show their true faces... They are idiots, but their followers are even bigger idiots, wanting to see pictures of ass cheecks all over the world... they support that!

Check out this story in the San Diego Gay paper (where they come from) and read the comments - they are as disgusted as we all are over here and agree punishment should be given to them.

http://sdgln.com/news/2017/11/28/local-married-gay-couple-arrested-bangkok-exposing-buttocks-temple

The video only seems to show the car blocking the ambulance from entering the soi.  How could the car driver know if it was an emergency or not even if the emergency lights were not on?  The car should have gotten out of the way immediately.

2 hours ago, Xonax said:

Impossible to get a taxi at normal fare in Pratunam (not at least outside Baiyoke Sky hotel), in Lower sukhumvit inside the sois (namely soi 11), in Chinatown (namely in Charoen Krung road and Yawarat Road).  The problem is worst after 4 pm.

Not to mention Silom or Suriwongse tourist areas, especially in the evening.

Three car (carriage) trains are long outmoded here.  New York carries many more passengers but mainline trains there are mostly eight and ten car lengths.  Instead of just lining the pockets of the various contract holders, cars should be added to both the MRT and  BTS in order to serve the present and potential passenger loads. Before someone tries to correct me, I know that most, if not all, station platforms can only accommodate six train cars.  More room = more passengers, passengers squeezed together and having to wait for three or four trains in order to board = more people in their cars and more traffic jams.

And PLEASE, no more of those awful Chinese built trains which on the BTS seem to be constantly trying to test your balance abilities when coming to a stop.  

14 hours ago, Muggi1968 said:

Most Thais are skinny until they marrie.....

 

Guess you haven't ridden the BTS or MRT lately - they will have to reduce the seven seats across each section to five pretty soon.  So many fat kids coming from school they will need special cars for them and lucky if you can see beyond the girl (or boy) in front of you when walking down the footpaths - one butt blocks the view!