ma91c1an

It also has been mentioned the radio bombs had a hand grenade trigger rigged to the C4 explosives.

Where can one find these things for sale in Thailand?

Grenades are available in Cambodia. Both grenades and C4 can be purchased from any Thai military man with access who wishes to make a bit of money on the side. If you make the right friends, and spend enough time drinking with them, you would be shocked at what you can acquire if you handle the transaction correctly.

It would be interesting to see a grenade initiator attached to a radio-activated switch. I am not certain that this report, wherever you saw it, is correct. There are ways to do it, but it would be easier and safer to not use radios. Radios introduce an unnecessary element of hazard, in my opinion. They also require much more sophistication.

You see, a grenade initiator is non-electric (at least all that I have seen are). In this description, a grenade initiator is very similar if not identical to a non-electrical blasting cap.

The way that a grenade works, you remove the pin from the grenade, then release the spoon, which in turns permits a striker to hit a percussion cap. This ignites a short fuse which in turn causes the grenade initiator/blasting cap to detonate after a few seconds (normally 4-6 seconds). The detonation of the initiator in turn causes the grenade explosive material itself to detonate.

The sequence: percussion cap >> fuse >> grenade initiator/blasting cap >> explosive is a non-electric explosive train.

You accomplish the same thing by crimping a non-electric blasting cap to a stretch of time fuse, poking a hole into a block of C4, and inserting the blasting cap. You can either light the time fuse conventionally, using a lighter or matches or some other source of fire, or you can use a military percussion spring-loaded device, the nomenclature of which escapes me at the moment. (It has been many years since I have thought about these things).

Again, this is a non-electric device:

Source of fire >> time fuse >> non-electric blasting cap >> C4 Explosive.

This is the same schema behind a grenade, except a grenade is encased in a metal shell that becomes shrapnel upon detonation. If you are creating an improvised grenade, simply press nails or other metal into the C4. It is quite malleable. Or, stuff the C4 into a length of metal pipe.

In any case, a non-electric train is, by far, the simplest and safest way to use explosives. Using grenades can make things even simpler, as blasting caps can be sensitive in the hands of the unskilled. There is not much need to get fancy, if you can affix a grenade to a target and then concoct a means for the pin to be extracted. Four to six seconds later, and you have grenade detonation.

In a case like this one, attackers could simply use sticky double-sided tape to affix strong magnets to grenades. This could suffice to attach a grenade to a vehicle or other target. The attackers could straighten the pin prongs so that the pin is smoothly removable. If the attackers are passing by on a motorcycle, they could pause next to the vehicle, affix the grenade, remove the pin, and proceed through traffic. Four to six seconds should be enough to get motorcycle-born attackers out of the burst radius, if they are not delayed.

When you incorporate a radio into an explosive device...such circuits require much more expertise and practice than non-electric explosive trains. The possibility that you will blow yourself up is much higher than confining yourself to non-electric trains.

Hope that helps.

True had an IPTV service for a couple of years.

They suddenly decided to cancel it with minimal notice. It was a major pain the ass to get them to send a technician out to retrieve their set top box. They were supposed to compensate me for it, but of course they never did.

I lacked the motivation to find the original lease agreement. I seem to remember paying a deposit, and a monthly fee for the box.

I preferred TrueIPTV to TrueVisions. No loss of signal during rain storms.

The primary reason to keep Bout incommunicado is to ease the burden on US law enforcement and US intelligence in monitoring his contacts. It is expensive and intensive in terms of time, logistics and assets to monitor the communications and interactions of someone like Bout with his lawyers, family, and other visitors.

He merits such scrutiny. US assets are already stretched thin. Better to keep him in isolation than to permit him to interact with anyone.

Hi, Vincent.

Second floor, Ploenchit Center, Hi-Mark Tailors. Ask for Mr. Ken.

Ploenchit Center is next to the Marriott Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 2.

My wife has had several beautiful silk dresses made there of her own design, and she takes dresses that she purchases elsewhere there to be tailored. Very good service, good pricing, strong customer service ethic. I know the owner quite well, he is a very honorable man.

Hope that helps.

My mother-in-law died of cancer at home after a few weeks of perfunctory treatment in a government hospital near the Victory Monument.

They had no funds to provide her with effective pain killers, and she was in great pain as she declined. My best friend, on the other hand, a foreigner with sufficient assets, was hospitalized at Bangkok Hospital while he faded way with cancer. He had IV Demerol as needed for pain. He had battled the malady for two years through a combination of chemotherapy and surgeries.

Grandma's treatment at the government hospital was nightmarish. It was packed with desperately ill people patiently waiting for charity. The nurses and the doctors did their best with what they had, but they often lacked basic medical supplies. At times, their patience ran low. I can only imagine their frustration and their feeling of helplessness, particularly knowing that they could have done more with better funding.

The only reason that Thailand's current health scheme is "good" is because it exists, whereby previously there was nothing in its place. The ill simply stayed home, as an earlier poster commented, or when it was time to die, they were taken to a wat, so that they would be close to an incinerator and monks for funerary rites.

The poor in Thailand now have access to some medical treatment, and this is, indisputably, a good thing. There is much room for improvement.

There is certainly no reason for some bureaucrat to claim that this health system should be emulated.

If you want to emulate a "good system" (/sarcasm), emulate the one in the US, where anyone can be dumped in front of an Emergency Room and treated. They may receive a bill after treatment, and they may even receive hounding phone calls from bill collectors for years afterwards, but there is no way to compel payment. Illegal aliens in the US get the best deal of all, in fact. Some of them remain hospitalized for years at no cost, on dialysis, even, at no charge, because they are unable to pay and are uninsured.

Passing the bill to the hospital, and to local government, bankrupting communities....now that is a plan (/snark).

What cracks me up is how no one seems to remember that the current 2007 Constitution was endorsed in a referendum.

It was not "imposed."

Kewpie is the heat.

I cannot use any other brand.

Yes tops is more expensive but worth going into just for the bakeries, suk soi 19 and silom complex are both a few meters from the bts.

There is now a Tops in the new Mall on Phra Ram 9 (Grand Central Phra Ram 9? Something like that). Take the Phra Ram 9 exit off of the underground, and follow the signs. You will end up walking directly into the basement level of the Mall. Tops is straight ahead.

There is a good spot inside Ploenchit Center across from the Marriott on Soi 2 on the second floor. I cannot remember the name, but it has seats overlooking the streets. Excellent food, good prices.

Love Scene is on Soi 23, just a few doors down from Soi Cowboy. Open 24 hours. Outstanding food.

Some of the best Thai food that I have ever had was from the bar on top of Food Land on Soi 5. Sit by the pool tables so that the music is not too loud. Very affordable. Just be careful in case you have to run a gauntlet of Africans to get in there. Seriously.

About phone numbers and the iTunes store.

You need to have a phone number that is associated with your credit card. Whatever number is associated with your credit card is the one that the iTunes store will require. When you first create your Apple ID, the store will do a look-up to validate the card. If you have gotten past this step and created an Apple ID, you should be good to go. I would not change the number on the iTunes store, however, unless you also change the number on file with the bank that issued the credit card. Doing so may cause an attempted purchase through the iTunes store to fail, if the phone number on file with the bank does not jive with the number in your Apple ID.

Any Apple device, whether a MacBook Pro, iPhone, or iPad, will play virtually any file type, though you may need a free program like VLC in some cases.

Finally, you can upload your files, including pirated music, to iCloud, where it will then be available to all of your Apple devices, assuming that you are running the latest versions of the Apple OS. You may have to pay a nominal fee, however, as Apple offers free downloads for music and other files purchased through iTunes. Files sourced "elsewhere," are not free of charge via iCloud. Apple "assumes" that you are uploading music or other files that you already "own," as in CD's or DVD's that you have ripped from your personal collection.

Hope that this helps.

Outstanding restaurant.

Service is in the best Thai tradition (no one provides smoother service than the Thai, in my opinion). Attentive, timely, unobtrusive, but there when you need it.

The food is superb. It can be a bit pricey, depending on what you order, but the fondu is mid-priced and delicious.

Ambiance is good.

I can recommend Chesa, and its sister restaurant in Central World, without reservation.

For the record: I have no connection to the restaurant, but I have met Rene, one of the owners, and I consider him a gentleman.

Actually, I disagree.

I had a dog that ended up with pancreatitis a few years ago after I fed her some meat that had just turned the slightest bit. I figured, "she is a dog, she can handle it." Man, was I wrong. She almost died, and she was in excruciating pain.

I had to take her to the vet, and it was not affordable. Poor girl almost died.

Just my experience.

Those who continue to pay the police are part of the problem.

Simply refuse, point at the cop and say the magic word "kee-gong," which means "cheater," and walk away.

Walk away from the taxi driver. Walk away from the shop owner.

Walk away from all of them.

Your money is yours, and you are under no compulsion to give it away to anybody.

Permitting anybody to intimidate you simply perpetuates the behavior.

Do not be intimidated.

What can they do? Arrest you? They will not do it. They cannot do it. At the police station, you can rightly demand an English translator, and you can lodge charges of corruption against the cop.

It is better for them to hassle lower hanging fruit, so to speak, meaning people who have no spine.

Stand up to them, ignore them, and walk away. They cannot do anything about it.

This driver was on the up and up.

It is generally much faster to take the freeway. I do not remember what the toll is, but I believe that it recently rose in price, so there is much less traffic on it.

You can fly.

It would depend, I would think, upon your standard of living, and on a couple of other factors.

1. Are you considering a live-in maid?

2. Or, are you considering a maid who comes in daily for a few hours, or for a few hours on various days?

3. Rates for a Thai maid will be higher than you will pay for a maid who may be in the Kingdom illegally. Regardless of other advice that you may receive, I do not recommend employing an illegal alien. Pay a bit more and hire a maid who has a valid Thai ID card, or an alien with permission to work in the Kingdom.

Generally, the appropriate rate for a live-in maid will run between 7-9000 baht a month. You will set the hours, and the standards of work that must be met. I get the subjective impression from the way that you phrase your query that you will be a much easier boss than most Thai families with maids. It is up to you whether your live-in maid works seven days a week, with one or two days a month off, as is customary, or whether you permit your maid one day off a week, or more.

There are some considerations that may factor into your decision-making. If you hire a maid through a service, you will be charged much more. You will, however, have the benefit of a firm to whom you can seek redress in the event that your maid engages in theft, does not work appropriately, or otherwise does not satisfy your requirements. I have seen rates around 15,000 baht a month for maids from such services.

If you are hiring a maid that is referred by a neighbor or other associate, you may not have the same recourse. Maids are human, they are often under financial pressures, and they can suddenly vanish with your valuables. In my own case, I hired a maid through a service, and I was more or less satisfied, as the firm would send two maids for a few hours every day. I might not get the same two maids every day, but I always had two maids, they did their work well, and then they were out of my hair quickly. On one occasion, however, one of the maids slipped money from my wallet, and engaged in inappropriate behavior with some of my wife's possessions.

I noticed the missing money almost immediately, and I called the owner of the firm, who came to my home directly. The maid denied the theft, but she was exposed by the other maid, who explained, in detail, precisely what the other maid had done. When confronted with further facts, the thief was still steadfast in denying wrongdoing, but crumpled once I made clear my intention to call the police. She produced the missing money on the spot. Her face looked exactly like wood. It was an amazing experience for me, actually.

The owner was shocked, and he pleaded with me to avoid any police entanglements. He offered compensation in multiple forms, which I declined. I did not blame him, and he was quite proactive, and he clearly was trying to mollify me. I told him that I had been made whole, but that the thief was no longer welcome to work in my home. I believe that he fired her, which saddened me, but I also believe that one reaps what one sows in this life, and not just the next. The next day, he sent over a very nice fruit basket, for which I was grateful. I really appreciated his gesture.

The other maid... well, the owner of the cleaning company ultimately decided to close his doors. He explained to me that it was just too much of a pain in the ass to find and to retain good maids, as they would come and go without regard to any commitments that they had made to him. His staffing requirements were hence impossible to manage. He also admitted that he really made no money, as he was running a legit business, paying taxes, and other requirements. I offered to keep the other maid, and he seemed to be relieved, as she really has proven to be a fine human being for as long as I have known her, which is about three years now.

So I now pay that maid, who now works for herself, and not for a firm, and she works very well for me. She has a couple of other houses that she also handles, so she comes in for four or five hours a day, which is adequate for my needs. She takes days off when she has family responsibilities to discharge, or on some holidays, but she does not expect to be paid for days when she does not work. At this point, we generally pay her around 5-6000 baht a month. I consider her a bargain at that rate.

She cleans and mops daily, she dusts, she washes the clothes, irons, washes dishes, and generally picks up the place. I have no idea how large my home is, but it is not big. Two floors, two beds, two baths.

Sorry for the length of this. Hope that this helps.

Still no movement on this issue from True.

They actually called me after I complained bitterly about spam text messages on my iPhone, a failed WiFi router, disrupted internet service, and who knows what else, telling me that they would come and pick up the IPTV set top box at the end of April.

Of course, no one showed.

Bleh.

I am going to excavate several years worth of receipts from True and take them in. I have a feeling that I will soon be seeing some very wooden Thai faces.

Any luck getting your deposit back on this?

I spoke with True on no fewer than four separate occasions regarding the IPTV set top box, they made commitments and "appointments" with me to come and pick it up, and they never showed, and they never called.

I tried to physically return it to the True Shop at Fortune Town, and they refused to accept it, telling me that I had to call True on the phone, which I explained I had already done many times. Classic Thai conundrum.

My next move is to stomp into the True Shop at Siam Soi 4 and stage a sit-in until somebody can make a decision.

I am open to many flexible solutions, but I am not willing to permit True to simply cancel the service and then pretend that they never charged me a hefty fee as a deposit on the set top box. It belongs to them, not to me. Indeed, if I could use it for any other purpose, I would. But it is dead technology without their service.

I want my deposit back.

Maybe a blistering letter to the editor of the two farang newspapers in the Kingdom might elicit a response from them.

How expensive is it ? How is the view there ? Food good ?

and can you just go there for drinks ?

If you've been there or know about it. Please advise, thanks.

I found it absurdly expensive. The view is great, but how much is it worth to you to view Bangkok from a high vantage point? I tired of looking at the city after three minutes. Consider me easily bored.

The food was uninspired, and grossly overpriced. You can get better food, by far, on the street. Their interpretations of fusion dishes or Western cuisine were not vastly superior to what you might get at Sizzler.

It is a hi-so destination. I got the distinct impression that people who went there went so that they could exult in their own awesomeness.

You can go for just drinks, but again, the view is the only reason to go.

Far better food at the JW Marriott or the Landmark....the Mandarin Oriental, a host of other venues.

Service was decent.

Just my opinion.

No idea about public venues.

It is available on TrueVisions Platinum package satellite channel 108 ASN.

You can see it on ASN, included in TrueVisions. I believe that it may require the Platinum package.

Watching it as I write this, in fact.

Without looking at receipts, those prices look to be in the ballpark for what I paid for my iPhones through True Corporation. My 32GB 3GS was roughly 26-28k baht. I purchased mine at the True Shop in the Fortune IT Mall.

If your intent is to jailbreak the phones, you may be able to source them for less through grey market or black market vendors at MBK, Fortune, or other venues. But this may expose you to some risk, as far as warranty support is concerned.

I raise this point because one of the iPhones that I purchased had a power manager problem out of the box. I took it to the True Shop at Siam Soi 4, and they swapped it out for me after an hour or so. The service was smooth, professional, and competent. They transferred my data from the old phone to a new phone while I drank coffee and read the newspaper. The replacement works flawlessly, as does my other phone.

True Corporation offers various promotions, and I was able to exploit one when I purchased my phones. We got the pair of them for less than 2,000 baht down, and we pay the cost of the phones amortized over 24 months, with no interest. Our total bills per phone per month, inclusive, run less than 2,500 baht each, which compares very favorably to what they would cost on the ATT network in the US. We use them heavily, both data and voice, and we make international calls when we need to do so, without fear of the cost.

I am very satisfied with both the phones, and with True's support of them. True's service has been exceptional. They sent a very competent technician out to my residence to configure my WiFi router, so that we could use the phones over WiFi, at no charge. I was astonished.

For me, any additional expense that I may have incurred purchasing the phones through an authorized dealer was money well-spent.

I plan to purchase the next-generation iPhone through True, as well, and True Corporation has earned a couple of customers for life. While their network coverage in remote areas of Isan, from where my wife's family lives, is not as good as the AIS network, it has been "good enough." In Bangkok, the phones work flawlessly.

One point: 3G coverage in Bangkok is limited to certain areas. If you are in spitting distance of a True Shop, or a major shopping area, 3G works well. You can also use the WiFi networks in Starbucks stores, as a True customer, at no charge. In outer neighborhoods, 3G networks have not yet been completed, so the phones work in EDGE mode. They are fine for voice, but EDGE is too slow, in my estimation, for data. At least, this is the case in my neighborhood. This is why you may wish to consider a WiFi router in your residence.

I am able to use Skype on my iPhone over WiFi in my residence, to talk to friends back in the US with no problem.

I am a very pleased customer, both of Apple, and of True Corporation.

I will be looking very hard at the iPad, as well.

Hope that helps.

I regret the impression that my last comment made--under no circumstances was I advocating the unwitting drugging of a potential sexual partner. I see how that misconception arose, however. I expressed myself poorly.

I have one other observation to make: the ultimate female aphrodisiacs remain money and power.

And thank God for that!

I have to politely disagree with the recommendations to go to any "high" restaurants in the city. I have been to most of them, if not all of them, and while I was appropriately impressed by the view, the food invariably left me dissatisfied, and the pricing was extortionate.

If you want to go to a high place, then go, knowing that you are not really going for the cuisine. Take your credit card. Unless you carry a lot of cash, you will need it.

True called me yesterday.

A very nice young lady named Khun Thayan explained to me that True Corporation is canceling its IPTV service. She did not know why.

One of my pastimes is joking around with Thai ladies, especially when they do not realize that I am joking, by engaging in innocent yet ridiculous exchanges with them. For example, the nice lady who sold me handkerchiefs last week agreed that while I am not as handsome as George Clooney, I do live in Thailand, and other silly observations. The key for me is to make absurd statements with the utmost seriousness. My payoff is when the ladies finally realize that I have been teasing them, and they can no longer hold it together, and they dissolve into giggles.

Maybe I am mentally ill. No telling.

Anyway, after a few minutes of enjoyable conversation, I was able to gather from Khun Thayan that True was canceling the service for everybody. She apologized profusely, and she did the best that she could with the information that she had, which was that True was canceling the service for everybody. She did not know anything more. She made an appointment with me for True technicians to come by to collect their set top box. I asked Khun Thayan if she would be coming personally, because if she would be, I would make tea, English-style, with cakes, cucumber sandwiches, scones and preserves.

No dice. Just the technicians.

I suppose that I am grateful that True had the courtesy to call me and to tell me, though two days notice is not much time. I also would appreciate being informed that the programming on the IPTV service would be made available for me to purchase on an alternative service.

I asked Khun Thayan for the name of her boss, intending to talk with him and to register my comments. She said, "Oh, no, we take comments, and then give them to the boss later."

I explained to Khun Thayan that I am a crazy farang, I am not Thai, and that when somebody does something which impacts me, and I am displeased, I do not simply accept it with Confucian resignation. Guys like me, we complain, and we complain hard, and we complain all the way to the top, until somebody appropriately mollifies us, by providing an alternative, by providing a refund, or some other solution.

Khun Thayan handled the "crazy farang" very well, and she is to be complimented. She got it. She really did. She very appropriately was unwilling to give me her boss's mobile number, but she did give me his name, which is Mr. Kunthol, Customer Service Manager.

I asked Khun Thayan to ask Mr. Kunthol to call me today, Thursday, so that I could register my comments about the abrupt cessation of service, and the failure of True to make any sort of explanation whatsoever to its customers. She told me that she would try, but that she thought that Mr. Kunthol would call me next Tuesday, as "he is very busy."

I told Khun Thayan that if I did not hear from Mr. Kunthol on Thursday, that I would be calling the offices of the Chairman of the True Corporation on Friday. I do not think that she believed me.

I do not mind that True is canceling this service. What annoys me is, True is canceling the programming, and has not announced any plan to transfer any of the programming over to TrueVisions, or to any other service.

Unlike the original poster, I vastly prefer Fox News, and I am displeased that it will no longer be available. Fox was only available in Thailand on IPTV. Fox is not included in the satellite service, TrueVisions, to which I also subscribe.

Tomorrow, assuming that Mr. Kunthol does not call me today, I will be calling the Chairman of True Corporation. I will inform him that he has a very competent and sincere young lady named Khun Thayan working for him in Customer Service, but that her supervisor, Mr. Kunthol, is not responsive, he failed to call me, and that he may need retraining, or counseling.

Mr. Kunthol certainly should have insisted that his subordinates had information more detailed than "True Corporation is canceling IPTV" to deliver to customers.

I feel badly for Mr. Kunthol. This debacle is certainly not his fault. He merely sits in a meeting, is given information, and he then marches out to do his job.

But somebody, at a responsible level within the True Corporation, has more information to impart. Somebody, somewhere, knows more.

I am off to go look at the TrueIPTV website.

Hope springs eternal.

I have to second the mention of Los Cabos on Suk soi 14.

You can walk to it easily from the Asok skytrain station. Just cross over to the even-numbered side of Sukhumvit (same side as Emporium), walk down from the platform, and walk in the direction of Nana station perhaps 20 meters to the small soi on the left. You will see a small sign for the restaurant.

There is also an open-air Thai cafe on the right as you walk in, it is open all of the time, and seems to be pretty popular.

Los Cabos is in the former residence of the French Ambassador, a large house with a great open-air balcony on the second floor. The air-con is decent on the first floor.

The proprietor was one of the founders of Great American Rib.

The Mexican cuisine is undoubtedly the best to be had in Bangkok. Better than Coyote. The guacamole is outstanding, very fine refried beans, and the recipes are sparing on the cheese, unless you ask the kitchen to go heavier. Good tortillas. I have not tried to just order tortillas with butter, but it is on my list. The enchiladas are competent. My wife is a connoisseur of nachos, and she gave them a thumbs up. They leave Larry's Dive in the dust, not to mention Bourbon Street, Charley Brown's, Patty's, et al.

I have been patronizing this place for the past two or three months, even during their so-called "soft opening," while the proprietor "worked out the kinks" with his wait staff and kitchen personnel. He has a nice crew working for him. You may need a little assistance with translation in the event that you ask for something non-standard, but the owner is on the premises, and he is proactive.

I gain nothing by posting this review. I am just a pleased customer, and very relieved that I can now eat Mexican in Bangkok without regretting it.