drummer

Amazing: out of some odd 50 commentaries, this chap Rod sticks out like a sore thumb: it's the only intelligent comment about some poor guy, who did not choose to die in this way and all the rest of you chaps produced a lot of verbal diarehaa ! !

Makes you wonder what we're doing here, hey Rod ?!

With your myopic vision and problems with counting, I'm wondering the same thing about you....

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You know what they say... there aer 3 kinds opf people in the world ... those who can count and those who can't ... boom boom psssshh!

Swimmable rivers in Oregon? Maybe in August ... Thailand also as swimmable oceans... A bit briney, sure, but the fish are a heck of a lot prettier The hot springs are fabulous though Cold weather + hot springs = good time

You mean HYPOTHERMIA

This is really become funny ... Is there a Dr. in the house? Anyone who took biology anyways?

So did the hypothermia contribute to his hypoglycemia? or visa versa? I presume from the headline it was visa versa ... 10C isn't exactly freezing ... Or maybe the guy just had a heart attack? maybe too much dioxin like Yuschenko?

But anyway, this is bleepin' funny - dead guy or not

I have a friend from South Africa, and apparantly near their hometown some deaces back the police found a rather large marijuana field growing outside of town, which they decided to dispose of by burning .... the town was indeed downwind at the time....

6:28 in Koh Samui, and I've seen more waves in a swimming pool. they don't even lap over my toes. Chaewang beach is entirely deserted, though, so it was quite a pleasurable walk around. IO reckon this is what they call the 'calm before the storm' though ... heard a rumor that landfall is still a few hours away.

The streets are full of water, though, and the sewers are backing up .... (ick)

If the lack of flora or fauna on the earth's surface constitutes a desert, then is the ocean a desert?  Diddn't the Eagles say so in one of their songs?

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To get really anal, I think the oceans actually hold the vast majority of the Earth's flora and fauna....

Wat Po is a temple near he Grand Palace that is the highest rated massage school in LoS.

Also, she has tried a leaflet drop already - I think 1,000 leaflets and not a single response. So any other ideas would be appreciated. Or, where would be a good place to distribute leaflets?

"her target" .. I mean she is trying to build a customer base of falang and their girlfriends/wives. Especially women, as sh does all the spa stuff - facial scrubs, etc etc

I have a Thai friend who is interested in setting up an on-call spa service aimed at falang. She would go to peoples houses and do massage and spa treatments. Strictly professional - no funny business. Incidentally, she is quite good (my mother is a massage therapist and has 5 NBA players as regular clients ... my friend is as good.) She has a long resume and is Wat Po trained. She speaks good English and some French and some Swedish.

My have some questions...

(1) what reservations, if any, would you have to using this kind of service? Would you use it? How often?

(2) what kind of advertising should she do?

(3) her target is falangs and their wives/girlfriends.

Thanks

I'd recommend "Bush's Brain" too - its about Karl Rove, and you may or may not agree with the politics described in the book, but you are bound to learn something about how to play hardball.

Yupo - not going. Thanks

Indeed .... Ive have known some very rich people (old money) to play cards and talk about their bank acounts. And I've known some who would rather get a tooth pulled. I went to school with people (mostly very rich) from all over the world, but largely Asia. (Including Thailand)

From my experience, when it boils down to it, the people follow the 'social rules' because (in no particular order)

(1) somewhere they like the feeling better than other people

(2) don't want to damage their reputation

(3) just never really thought about it

Many are jai dee. Many donate money, time because it is a good thing to do. I am not trying to diss anyone here. I have some very, very good friends who this applies to. I'm just saying that this is my experience. Its in human nature. I'm not down on anyone.

Someone mentioned hanging out with sex tourists etc... There is a very real difference between not wanting to hang out with a group of people who have chosen an activity and those from general social status.

I don't want to hang out with rapists. That doesn't mean that I don't hang out with men, because most rapists are men.

IMHO, when it comes down to it, we are all human and have a great deal in common with each and every human being on the planet - from Argentina, Sweden, Nigeria, or Korea. More in common than different - personality wise. Naturally, talking with people who are just like me is easier ... We have a large pool of shared history with which to communicate by.

It is unfortunate that some people see only the differences and judge others by themselves. But, c'est la vie and I doubt it will ever change.

(Incidentally, I have met, dated, grew up with, etc, people who are similar to the 'out-of-place' girlfriend. IMHO, it really is snobbery. There are 200K reasons for it, and some of it sounds quite reasonable, but when you boil it down, it is snobbery. Usually unconious, and the nicest people do it, but thats what it is)

Speaking of, ... i remember reading a little bit of a thread on this, but how much of a dowry should I post? I really don't have a lot of means - really just enough to meet the new visa requirements, run the AC and buy the occaisional DVD.

I really had a feeling about some of that stuff - but i wanted to check it out first. I don't know if I am offered accomodations or anything - I assume I'd be playing at some hotel. I looked up prices for stuff on-line and some cost-of-living estimates were pretty darn high - like USD $50K /year, and some were closer to 30K THB a month.... In any case, the visa situation was what i was particularly worried about, as I'm not gonna leave my girlfriend here. So Singapore is a no-go - unless of course, my friend meant 5 muan USD.... he didn't actually specify and doesn't speak very good english. I'd assume not, though.

OK - thats kind of what I was thinking.

I got my deposit back from the Sathorn St. View Apartments (http://www.sathornsaintview.com , i think) with no hassle and a smile. I'd recommend them highly. A very friendly staff - only a 1 month deposit required, and no lease terms. you don't have to stay there for a year like my current place

(my current place - 3 month deposit! and a year lease only... standard in the Ramkhamheang area, though I hear)

That is a "Gut feeling"

Listen to your body....

As someone who has studied this a little bit - here is my theory...

The 'gut reaction' IS logic and reason.

Its just that your concious mind isn't direcly aware of it. To make it into concious perception, the signal strangth of any 'thought' or 'perception' has to be pretty strong. But there is a lot of information your brain has access too that simply cannot make it into consious thought because you don't have time. To fully process everything you see (only) is 1 second would take about 2 minutes. You are already run over by the car, eaten by the lion, etc by that point. So your brain has many many shortcuts and most information doesn't make it into conciousness.

An example - you meet someone and you get a 'bad feeling' about them. Could be aggresive body language, it could be a smell (you know how dogs smell fear? we emit smells that can betry our intentions - we just aren't aware of them for the most part) So my theory is that when you get a 'bad feeling' about someone, there is a logical reason for it, you just aren't directly aware of it.

Maybe the feeling that you are forgetting something is similar.

Of course - its not always right, but there is always a reason for it.

I have just been offered a contract to work in sangapore for 4 months. What is the cost of living there? Is 50K THB / monthy enough to live on there? Can my thai girlfriend come along? Any other thoughts, recopmendations, etc? I've never been there, and won't have a chance to visit before I decide.

Thanks

Very very funny, Axel. I'll have to send that one to my dad

Exactly what I though - to the word

Anyone know what the cheapest rate for shipping something fairly large from the US to LoS is? THnks

I have a friend who used to work for the group that is now in charge of a lot of the US airport security. He used to work for them at Staten island in New York. He says that they are, by far, the worst people he has ever worked for - actually some of the worst people he has ever met. Not just in competence, but also in terms of morality. Last I heard there was an investigation, but I dunno if anything ever came of it...

My girlfriend, who is reading over my shoulder, is apparantly hue maak maak, as she read

It is no longer a big deal to pat Thai kids on the head. 

Anyway, we are off to get something to eat....

FYI.... there was a research study done on stuttering, I think back in the 60's. A college used some orphan children for the study. As someone already pointed out, stuttering may be caused by parents trying to prevent the children from stuttering, while the child in going through their natural stuttering phase, that we all go through.

Anyhow, what the colllege did, was every time the children stuttered, during their normal phase of stuttering, an instructor would comment on their stuttering. In other words make the child aware that he/she was doing something wrong...

Long story short, every one of those children in the study stuttered for the rest of their lives..... and the colldege was sued around 30 years after that study by the participants of the study.

hahaha ... thats progress for ya! If you are a left hander and are forced to use your right all the time it can lead to stuttering, too. it seems to have a lot to do with the division of labor between the 2 hemispheres of the brain, FYI. Fascinating really.

underneath the siam skytrain station is one spot that has a severe problem.

getting people to overhaul and maintain the desiel engines would not only help air polution it would save on fuel costs and subsidies.

and to remove the two-stroke motocycles you need something just as cheap to replace them.

maybe thailand should attempt to get the rights to manufacture these

http://www.ecycle.com/powersports/hybrid.htm

Biodiesel would be a huge improvement, too.... The most you'd have to do is to replace the fuel lines - and you only have to do that is the vehicle in question is older than 1985. It'll mix with petroleum diesel in any quantity, and runs 4 times cleaner than the most effiecient fuel cell technology out there. And you can make it out of any type of vegatable matter. (Heck - you might even be able to make it out of those extra chickens... )

There are devices you can slap on the exhaust pipes of the diesels to remove all the large particulates from coming out of those busses, too...

Yes - like a standing wave, except, of course,m in a 3-d environment.

Of course I was making an analogy, too... the DAF seems to cancel out the (speaking) action ... - that is creates a sort of standing wave in your brain that cancels out the action in progress. ...at least thats what I learned in class.

It is interesting that it would affect stutters differently than non-stutters, but I can think of ways in which it makes sense, too... stuttering itself may have exacly that kind of effect.

This finding has brought forth a form of speech therapy for stuterers called "delayed auditory feedback."

Another interesting thing about that is that if you use it all the time, you won't be able to do anything. It seems to have an effect like sitting and the exact wrong spot in between 2 speakers where you can't hear anything because the sound waves cancel each other out. Does this affect stutterers differently than non-stutterers? I would guess not, but I could see it working either way... Does the Speech Easy work all the time, or does it detect stuttering behavior and kick in?