OxfordWill

That's actually not the first time I have had a bad experience with calling for help here. I was sat in a bar on a quiet soi one day 6 months or so ago, and a russian or eastern eu lady was out of it, with a very scared toddler. She was trying to get on a motorbike to go somewhere but couldnt hold the child well enough and kept falling off. I went out to intervene (I dont go looking for trouble but it was a farang child and thais werent doing anything) and tried to talk to the lady and get a phone number of friend etc. She was very hostile and aggressive. I called the tourist police and they just couldnt be bothered. Barely paid the call lip service. Eventually she and the kid got in a taxi and I paid the guy some extra to ensure she got somewhere safe. She didnt know where she was going but we possibly managed to work out a hotel from the description. To this day I can't shake the look on that kids face, utter fear. Point being you just can't rely on them. I would have thought on sukhumvit within shouting distance of 5 star hotels they would at least try to keep up appearances by sending a car. But no.

Thanks All.

Aridion- he meant because of the noose hanging around the crazy guys neck, perhaps it had been a masonic initiation (as in the picture) which had set his fragile mind askew.. Got me chuckling.

get off tot and look into SME line packages from other providers (less users sharing international bw, allegedly)

just realised you probably cant as if your building has tot, it likely doesnt have true media. :/

I have had the same concern over and over again.. I found one trick; photoshop. If you can teach her a brief thing on how to touch up her own photographs, it is very likely she will make that a habit. Once she has her foot in the door with photoshop you can expose her to some other sites which go into more depth and show what else you can do, and this can lead to exploring other software (in my ex gf's case she eventually made her own website).

However in general, if she isn't doing it for herself it can be a huge waste of time- I have come to accept this now and adjusted my choices accordingly as for me, that lack of interest was a killer.

There are plenty of thai women who are creative and artistic, and perhaps a 'few' (statistically speaking) who are intellectual (don't forget we ethnocentrically coin and define this word ourselves). So much is culture. Finding an actual "painter" is hard, but finding girls who are into the "artistic" fashion niche is easy.

She's clearly only into you for the whiskers, take it away and see how long she stays around!

Cheapest lesson you ever learned- don't meet your cats on the street! If you don't like it you can walk. TIT. Vote with your feet.

Prepare for the stray apologists...

I would just stop after telling them that it is not acceptable in your culture, and forget the part where you lecture them on theirs if you want any hope of it being accepted.

+1

As a frequent patron + "member" of Narz (downstairs) I can say it's full of people most weekends. It helps to check if an event is happening, but more often than I not I rock up on a fri or sat and find it more than half full. Downstairs music wise its electro/trance and the djs are either playing "classic" trance (the dj who has been there for years despite renovations) or if another then can be very up to date- one guy was mixing Oliver Smith + dinka tracks before they were officially released.

If modest then wine can be a good investment- you don't have to look after it yourself, just invest the cash with a reputable outfit.

If you have enough, its a buyers market on land in some countries now.

I don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to investing in stocks, shares etc.. so I avoided them.

"The principal of it" is seldom a piece of thinking worth encouraging.

i am pretty sure i dont agree with you

but i am really not sure what you mean

can you clarify please?

are you quoting House?

principle along with integrity

(not to mention so many more important morals so lacking in the general populace not just in thailand)

are high ideals very much worth striving for as individuals and as a human race IMHO

it could be argued that these ideals are our destiny should we ever rise above the law of the jungle

The sentence in question usually comes from a moral outlook known as moral absolutism. It does not allow for situations in which killing one evil person might save ten thousand innocent people (if you subsribce to "killing is wrong (in principal)". This and other reasons I won't bore you with are why I don't like the position. It doesn't allow for circumstances (hence "absolute")

This is not to say I am a moral relativist.

You said "instead of turning into Suan Phlu and Immigration". When did this event take place? Immigration moved from Suan Phlu ages ago.

Bingo.

There is still immigration at Suan Phlu what has changed is what type of immigration it deals with. It is reasonable at that alleged location to assume the men meant the nearest immigration and not Chaengwattana.

"The principal of it" is seldom a piece of thinking worth encouraging.

A friend and I were sitting outside a popular bangkok pub (which I won't name as I don't want to harm their rep or be blamed of trolling) on Saturday night quite late and were the last two customers there. It was around 12:30. Apart from us, in this particular soi, there was a parking attendant and three members of pub staff (two girls one guy).

Engrossed in our conversation I noticed something which barely registered in my peripheral vision- a thai man walking towards the pub without a shirt on. There is nothing odd about this so it barely registered. As he came closer however I noticed he was wearing a piece of rope done up in a noose around his neck and holding a long (10-12 inch) kitchen knife.

He was walking with purpose right for the pub but seemed to be out of it- perhaps mentally ill, perhaps high on yaba, who knows. The next thing we know he is having a conversation with the pot plants which are outside the entrance. This is about 2 metres from where my friend and I were sitting. The problem was that he was between us and the door, but had not yet seemed to notice us. Not wanting to attract his attention, we decided to sit still and wait for him to wander off, hoping he continued to ignore us.

The potted plant offended his father, or perhaps mother, causing him to go into a violent rage and attack it. After demolishing the plant and pronouncing that it fully deserved what it got, he wandered over to a nearby parked car. Seeing our opportunity, my friend and I went inside the pub, locking the door behind us and asking the staff to turn down the lights. Almost immediately the garbage bags sitting next to the now destroyed pot plant decided they had not quite spoken their mind yet and upon hearing their protestations the man returned to stamp on each garbage bag, stabbing them with his knife and giving them a piece of his (utterly deranged) mind. The staff had been trying to call the police by this point, but said no one was picking up.

Using my phone I called 191 - assuming the problem was with their phone- but alas nobody was picking up at Thai emergency police HQ. It rang, and rang. Same story from my friend's phone. Nevermind, I thought. We'll try the Thai tourist police. 1155 - answered immediately. A thai women in good English:

Me: [calm voice, talking slowly and carefully] Hello. We are on Soi XX at pub YY. There is a man with a large knife acting violently in the soi and several people are locked inside this pub, unable to leave. Please can you send the police?

Her: Is there any Thai people there? You have to get them to call the police.

Me: Yes, they have tried already but there is nobody picking up at 191.

Her: It is a 24 hour line.

Me: Is it.. yes, but nobody is picking up there.

[the man starts to examine the pub door as if meeting a door for the first time in his life, his knife hand and left eye twitching]

Her: You have to ask Thai people to call the police.

Me: Yes, I believe you said that just now. The problem is we have tried to call the police from 3 different phones and the police are not picking up.

Her: It is a 24 hour service.

[knife man goes back to loudly berating the pot plant for it's attitude; why had it said what it had said, and why wasnt it being more generous toward his feelings.]

Me: [switching into Thai] 'Nobody is picking up the phone at 191. Thai people and foreigners have tried to call 191 but nobody is answering. Will you help us please?'

Her: Since you are Thai you should know to call 191.

At this point I hung up and called 191 again. It rang but nobody answered.

Giving up, while the Thai staff had to be continually advised not to press their noses against the glass lest they attract his attention again, and the group in general agreeing that Thai police really were less than useless, we barricaded ourselves as best we could and waited it out. Eventually the man spotted a particularly offensive car park divider and ran off in pursuit down the soi.

The Thai staff asked us to stick around as they were scared.

Obviously, we were a little shaken up by the experience.

Once the man was apparently not returning, we walked to sukhumvit to get a taxi. Two policemen drove up on a motorbike- my faith was instantly restored! The woman at Tourist police had not let us down after all! I waved them toward us, a large smile on my face...

.. to which the policeman on the back of the motorbike waved back, as they continued along the road at great speed, oblivious.

I'm 27 and happy to meet you, as I understand your position 100%. It would probably have to be in a pub though, because frankly where else is there unless you choose a specific hobby like playing tennis etc.

You're kind of right James... though...

1. I like eating in at La Monita, and am happy that they've finally started accepting cards, which is usually the way I pay...

and 2. they've been saying they're going to do home delivery for MANY MONTHS almost since their opening, but nothing's come of it so far...

Looks like they have adopted the local way of thinking when it comes to meeting the needs of customers:

1) Credit cards - only if we have to

2) Delivery - why, we are busy now

I heard it's because chefsxp had a guy in charge of accounts who then either left or got fired just before the arrangement was settled, and now they need to go through the whole contract process again- which is why it's taking time. Personally I cannot wait as love the food there.

As I mentioned, I have a great pension. $5600 a month till the day I die and $700,000 in Drop and 457b (401k like).

i can't make up my mind. is the OP a troll or does he need our sympathy?

I'm sure he meant great for his chosen profession. Not "great" as in any challenge to your undisputed undesirable "richest member on the forum" crutch.

i am always amused when poor boys display their envy by making irrelevant statements

I suppose we cannot be so charitable as to blame wealth for your contumelious nature, but perhaps age is responsible for the vituperation.

Hate to break this to you, but unless things have changed. It takes 3 months since the exposure for a test to be conclusive. Correct me if i'm wrong.

RNA PCR is acceptable reliable within a week or so.

"core thai loop noy die my cup ?"

"please may I take a photo?"

Best said with a camera in your hand, your son already responded to by the monk, and smiling.

If you have your son by your side, or aren't clear with your gesturing, it might be misunderstood as asking the monk to take a photo for you (unlikely tho, if the monk lives anywhere with tourists he will be used to it!)

As I mentioned, I have a great pension. $5600 a month till the day I die and $700,000 in Drop and 457b (401k like).

i can't make up my mind. is the OP a troll or does he need our sympathy?

I'm sure he meant great for his chosen profession. Not "great" as in any challenge to your undisputed undesirable "richest member on the forum" crutch.

There are many things in life I cannot control, and sometimes I find myself worrying about them. You either do or do not have HIV. You have to wait a little bit to find out (but you could speed this up by finding an open clinic). During this time, you have absolutely no control over the outcome of the test. Worrying serves a useful purpose a lot of the time, but in this case, it has nothing positive to offer you. Try to think of it in these simple, yes/no, on/off, binary terms. There is something reassuring about knowing 100% that whatever the outcome, you have absolutely no control over it and therefore no obligation to "do" anything in the meantime, except try to relax. What you fill your time with and what thoughts you allow to occupy your mind in the meantime, is something you very much do have control over.

Any body of answers passed from one institution or individual to another, who readily accepts them without the rigor of analysis and the deliberate rejection of "conclusions", is as a whole, by definition, a lazy pursuit.

"Wisdom and knowledge derived from personal practice is to be known only by oneself and cannot be shown or proved to others. "

In such cases we cannot term the items in question "wisdom" or "knowledge" then, since both are conceptually only still on the human radar expressly because they can be transmitted.

Yes, we are forever married, as a species, to our desire to humanize the universe.

It may have been a busy day for his lab and he may have not wanted to waste time on a case such as yours- HIV cannot (and I use "cannot" in the sense that the sun "cannot" explode tomorrow) be transmitted via oral sex.

Please indulge me and work out how many minutes so far of your life you have spent on this issue of yours, then choose a number between 1 and 10 (ten being the most stressed) to describe how stressed and worried you are about this situation. Turn the number into a percentage out of 100. Compound the number of minutes spent by the percentage of stress involved.

Please make a note of this number.

Next, please calculate what monetary value you place on your time as a human being, say in your profession, or just in general your worth, on a per minute basis. Once complete, you can work out pretty much to the satang how much of an idiot you are being.

I hope this helps.

Thailand and then another SEA country for retirement. Maybe invest in property in a more retirement friendly country now.

My experience being an employer here, hiring expats, is vastly different to yours. What industry are you in? We seldom have enough applicants for available positions and are sometimes forced to choose less than ideal compromises.

You should take the blinkers off and start hiring Thai staff - I have this evening had the privilege of taking the team who have worked for me over the past two years out for a thank you dinner - All Thai, all have turned out a first class performance....... and all degree educated.

We hire both thai and western staff. If you weren't so blinkered by your assuming nature, you might have asked.