nisakiman

I've used a guy in Ubon several times who is very good, on the road between Tesco Lotus and the Polytechnic. Youngish guy who speaks reasonable English. He's done crowns and repairs for me that I've been very happy with. He also said to me "I charge you same price as Thai people, not more".

I can ask my wife the address if you are interested.

1 hour ago, soistalker said:

I've been coming to Thailand two times a year since 2001, so I don't know what you're on about. 

But thanks for the comment, Mister Helper. ? 

Don't feed the trolls. They just keep coming back for more.

Do you do much DIY in your house? If so, it might be worth buying a cheap chop saw which will swing through 45° either way. They usually come with crap blades though, so you would have to budget for a decent TCT blade also. However, they are an invaluable tool, and well worth the investment if you do much around the house. A lot easier than a mitre box, too.

Kitchen fitting, when done properly, is an art form. I speak as one who has been making (from scratch) and fitting bespoke kitchens for the last 15 years. Flat pack kitchens (Ikea etc) are ok if they're measured and fitted well, but the inherent problem is that they come in standard size units, i.e. 30cm, 40cm, 50cm, 60cm etc, and you have to be either a bit lucky for your kitchen to accommodate those dimensions well, or have a creative and skilled fitter who can make it look good regardless. Your fitter will also need to be able to deal with walls that are not plumb and corners that are not square if you are to get a finished product that looks the biz. Perhaps ask in Ikea if they have in-house fitters. That way if they don't do it to your satisfaction, at least you have some come-back.

What amuses me is the supporters of the current orthodoxy on climate change declaring that "The Science is Settled"; "There is Consensus"; "97% of Scientists agree" (which is actually BS, but leave that aside for now).

All those statements are the very antithesis of scientific method. Real science puts a theory (and climate change predictions are only that - unverifiable theory) out for open discussion. It doesn't try to shut down debate by labelling those that disagree as heretics.

In the 16th century, there was 'scientific consensus' that the Sun orbited the Earth. The science was settled. 97% of scientists agreed that yes, the Sun, beyond a shadow of a doubt, revolved around the Earth.

Galileo was labelled a heretic and a 'denier' for suggesting that in fact, the Earth was in orbit around the Sun.

Galileo's championing of heliocentrism and Copernicanism was controversial during his lifetime, when most subscribed to either geocentrism or the Tychonic system.[10] He met with opposition from astronomers, who doubted heliocentrism because of the absence of an observed stellar parallax.[10] The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, which concluded that heliocentrism was "foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture."[10][11][12] Galileo later defended his views in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, which appeared to attack Pope Urban VIII and thus alienated him and the Jesuits, who had both supported Galileo up until this point.[10] He was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy", and forced to recant. He spent the rest of his life under house arrest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei

Note the part "...formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture..."

AGW has become a religion for many, and the very idea that someone might disagree with their worldview gives them fits of the vapours. Hence the vitriol and cries of "Denier!", and the attempts to personally discredit them. 'Climate Change' has become a cult which has no tolerance for dissenters. Inconvenient facts are buried and tenuous possibilities declared fact.

This isn't science, it's religion.

Of course the climate is changing. It always has, and it always will. We've had ice ages, global tropics, mini ice ages, the medieval warm spell etc etc. That's the way this planet works.

The question is whether the minuscule amount (on a global scale) of carbon dioxide we are adding to the atmosphere is going to cause cataclysmic change to the climate patterns, which are anyway chaotic. The 'climate scientists' have really no more idea than you or I, whatever they may say. They simply don't have enough data, nor knowledge of the mechanisms at work.

Best solution for you is to take (or buy if you don't have one) a small steamer. That will cook everything you need to the level you want it, and all you need is a hotel room with an outlet beefy enough to run a kettle. And steamers are great for cooking all sorts of stuff anyway, so if you have to buy one, it won't go to waste when you go home. We use ours all the time - it cooks broccoli to perfection. We also steam chicken breast sometimes, (although we eat it with a very spicy sauce), and it cooks that perfectly as well.

For example:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-Russell-Hobbs-21140-Three-Tier-9L-Food-Rice-Vegetable-Egg-Steamer-800W-/162215071163

14 hours ago, overherebc said:

Thanks for that, means all the years I spent in Nuke power sations and handling isotopes for gamma radiograpby means I have lots more years to sit on the veranda and shout at people passing by.

???

Yup, you're probably gonna live forever!

2 hours ago, scorecard said:

 

Well whether the cough is real or faked (a bit silly) the reality is it's well proven smoking and second hand smoke causes lung cancer and other very serious medical conditions, and it kills.

 

Many folks have sadly lost loved ones, sometimes not that old to smoking related medical conditions, I know it first hand.

 

I don't blame people for wanting laws to the effect smoking is totally prohibited in restaurants and other places.

 

Now let's stand by for the interfering with the rights of those who chose to smoke brigade. 

Interestingly enough, it's not proven at all. There seems to be correlation, but the 'smoking causes lung cancer' meme stems from the Doll and Hill study in 1951. They concluded that of their study group, who were all doctors, the smokers had a higher incidence of lung cancer than the non-smokers. However, in the first of their studies, they asked the question "do you inhale?"  Therein came the first of the anomalies. The smokers who inhaled showed a much lower incidence of LC than the smokers who didn't inhale. In their subsequent study, they didn't ask that question, probably because they felt that it seriously imperilled the results they were looking for.

Sir R A Fisher, who was considered to be the greatest statistician of his time, scorned their findings because he saw the whole study as being deeply flawed, since it didn't take into account a multitude of confounding factors.

Over the decades since that first study in 1951, researchers have sacrificed tens (probably more like hundreds) of thousands of lab rats and other mammals, specially bred to be susceptible to cancer, in attempts to replicate the mechanism whereby smoking causes Lung Cancer, subjecting their animals to up to the equivalent of 500 cigarettes a day. So far, despite more than 60 years of trying, they haven't yet managed to get one single subject to develop LC from smoking. And for something to be declared 'proven scientific fact', you must be able to demonstrate the mechanism, and you must also be able to replicate that same mechanism.

[As an interesting aside, one laboratory in the USA was conducting research into LC from both radiation and from smoking. They failed to induce LC in the smoking rats, but the irradiated rats developed LC in 100% of cases. One day, to their utter astonishment, out of a batch of irradiated rats, contrary to all previous experiments, some 60% of the rats survived the radiation treatment. When they investigated this extraordinary anomaly, they found that they had mistakenly been given a cohort of rats who had been part of the smoking experiment, and had been subjected to large volumes of tobacco smoke. It would seem that smoking had had a protective effect from radiation, something that has been subsequently proven to be the case. http://disq.us/url?url=http%3A%2F%2Ferj.ersjournals.com%2Fcontent%2Ferj%2F6%2F8%2F1173.full.pdf%3AuOgx2J4XTOY-6jYPdKyMvAinJYs&cuid=1237100 ]

So, no, it's not well proven at all. It's merely conjecture. There are also many real life anomalies which throw into question the belief that smoking causes LC. For instance, why is it that countries like Japan, which has one of the highest smoking rates in the world, also has one of the lowest rates of LC? Why is it that the majority of super-centenarians were lifelong smokers? And with so-called 'passive smoking', why is it that kids who grew up surrounded by SHS (my generation, born in the 1940s) at levels unheard of today are the healthiest and longest-lived generation ever?

Well proven? I think not. The propaganda would have you believe it is so, but if you do a little independent research, you will find that most of the 'facts' you are fed by Tobacco Control are either gross exaggerations, lies by omission, or outright, barefaced lies.

2 hours ago, ratcatcher said:

Sorry for the death of the truck driver, but don't professional truck drivers use the engine as a brake when negotiating steep downhill grades. It's always the brakes that fail, well maybe they were red hot with the constant use?

However bring in a few gallons of water, pick up the flour, get salt and yeast and bake some nice bread.

Yes, you are right. I drove 22 wheelers interstate in Aus in the '70s, and the rule was that you go down a hill in the same gear (and by extension, at the same speed) as you need to go up it.

As Ramrod points out above, trailer brakes work by the air pressure keeping them disengaged. If you disconnect the air lines, the brakes on the trailer will lock on. A tri-axle trailer has six brake drums which operate independently - it is highly unlikely that the braking mechanism on all six of them failed.

If the truck had a full load of 20 tons or so, and the driver was relying on his brakes to slow him down, they will start to fade as they heat up. On a long hill, very soon the brake linings become glazed and cease to have any stopping power. And that, I suspect, was the cause of the 'brake failure'.

2 hours ago, georgemandm said:

That is what all smokers say .

but you cost me money because you will get sick and my tax dollars pay for your   Irresponsibility .

In the UK, the (no doubt exaggerated because it comes from anti-smoking organisations) estimated cost to the health service of treating 'smoking related' diseases is £2.7 billion.

Smokers contribute in tobacco taxes almost £12 billion to the treasury. I would imagine those figures are similar all over the world.

So you should be grateful to smokers for subsidising your health care. If it wasn't for them, you'd be paying out much more of your tax dollars.

Speedo and cowboy boots combination conjures up some interesting images.

I'm sure the katoeys would be quite keen. The ones I've met seemed to have a thing about cowboys.

I remember about twenty years ago, my ex wife bought me some speedos for some unfathomable reason - I normally wear Bermudas on the beach. I tried them on, and (not boasting here - I'm just normal in that area) I found I couldn't fit everything in. I was overflowing out the leg-holes. It would have been most embarrassing in a beach situation.

Mind you, they do say it pays to advertise...

I doubt the Thai authorities give a shit about farang. Why should they? "Come to Thailand, leave your money, and go" is the basic mindset of the Thai authorities. They certainly don't see any reason to make life easier for would-be expats. Why should they? The Thai policy is one of protectionism. I can't see that changing in the foreseeable future.

In many ways it's an admirable attitude. If the Western countries had adopted the same approach to immigration, perhaps we wouldn't be seeing the problems that occupy Europe and the US today.

On the other hand, by making it so difficult for foreigners to do business in Thailand, they are shooting themselves in the foot, big time. They are rapidly sliding down the scale of vibrant economies in SE Asia as a result of their reluctance to embrace inward investment on competitive terms. Until the political landscape goes through radical changes, I can't see anything improving.

12 hours ago, the donger said:

I know the building, and its the same as any in Saphan kwai. There is actually a hostel inside as well, don't see the police closing that down?

I just checked their Facebook page, as I'll be staying in Saphan Kwai in a couple of weeks, and I thought it might be a nice place to go.

It looks like the attention they drew to themselves has created a terminal situation and they have to close.

https://www.facebook.com/Mysticrooftop/

Damn! It looks like a really nice place to chill and have a beer.

11 minutes ago, grollies said:

Wasn't that from Pulp Fiction?

No, it's from "God in the Dock"  (1948), by C S Lewis, the author of "The Chronicles of Narnia".

The full quote is:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.

---------------------------------------------------

It is a particularly pertinent quote in our current nannying world, which seems to be full of finger-wagging moralists telling us not to drink, not to smoke, not to eat sugar etc etc, and calling for legislation to punish those who don't subscribe to their world view.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

 C S Lewis

----------------------------------------------

2 hours ago, grollies said:

I'm still trying to get my head round Australian businessmen in suit jacket, shirt & tie and matching shorts as an earlier posted here said.

 

What socks do you wear with that? Long socks to the knees? Short socks? And what about shoes? Are sandles acceptable?

 

 

Smart shorts with creases, knee length socks and well polished brogues or similar. Actually, jackets didn't seem to be mandatory; a well pressed short-sleeved shirt with a tie seemed to be quite acceptable.

I am talking about when I lived in Melbourne forty years ago, so it's very possible things have changed since. I'm sure there are some Aussies here who can tell us.

12 minutes ago, Flustered said:

Why is it funny, insurance is common sense.

 

If not insured then tough luck and cough up the amount asked for. Absolute stupidity riding a bike without insurance.

The bike will have been insured, but it depends what type of insurance. Most car rental firms offer CDW (Crash Damage Waiver) at extra cost, which means that if you have an accident you will be liable for the excess (which varies) on the insurance. If he didn't take or wasn't offered CDW, then he's liable for the full amount.

2 hours ago, Jonmarleesco said:

He drove with, at, or on, speed? Whichever, he evidently found time for a snooze.

Yes, I'm surprised he was able to nap, meth being what it is.