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At this price, it's going to fill fast. I suggest making your reservation quickly. Amor Restaurant

Our dear Guests & Friends, It is our great pleasure to invite you to join our 9th anniversary dinner at Casa Pascal Restaurant ! On this occasion Kim and myself would like to express our sincere appreciation for your friendship and patronage at Casa Pascal ! During the dinner, each Diner will participate in a lucky draw with lots of nice prizes (Restaurants & Hotel Vouchers) Lucky Draw will be taking place at 22:00 hrs. Wednesday, March 17. 2010 18:00 onward 9th Anniversary Celebration Menu A glass of Prosecco or a Beer of your Choice *** Amuse Bouche *** “ Goose Liver Egg “ on a Symphony of Asparagus, Artichokes and Avocado on selected Garden Leaves with black Truffle and Truffle Dressing -or- Beef Carpaccio & Ruccola Salad with aged Parmesan & black Truffle *** Fine selected Seafood in a white Wine & Saffron Cream Soup -or- Cappuccino of Cepes Mushroom Cream Soup *** Sherbet of mixed Forest Berries *** Barramundi Fish Filet and Shrimps in a Lemon Butter Sauce on sautéed Spinach and braised Celery Hazelnuts Potatoes -or- Whole roasted Beef Tenderloin Port Wine and Balsamico Sauce Potato Gratin & assorted Vegetables *** Vanilla Mille Feuille with Chocolate Mousse and flamed Peaches -or- Selected Cheese 900 Baht + 7% V.A.T For your reservation : (038) 723-660 or 081-983-4182 (Kim) Restaurant Pattaya Casa Pascal

I'm very lucky. During the raffle at the Take-Care party I won a dinner at Le Montecristo. I'll certainly be there enjoying it within the next several days. And don't forget that right across the street is Chez Vickie. You don't want to miss Chez Vickie either. And there is also the Bordeaux. I haven't tried it myself yet, but all the reports I've had from others gives it a thumbs-up too. Three very good restaurants directly across the street from each other, with Cuisine au Beurre and Petite Planet just down the street. I certainly think these places make it worthwhile trying.

There are also good videos on YouTube:

No, our water was the same bottled water you were trying to reject. I hope the restaurant succeeds. You may be right about price conscious customers. I'll bet if they're smart enough to reduce their prices a little bit so that they're more competitive with Cuisine au Beurre, Petite Planet, et al, you won't be able to get in without a reservation.

If you mean me, yes I would enjoy a trip like that. Maybe you could teach me a thing or two about wine on the way. It all depends on whether I can be available when you're here. Send me a message once you know the dates you'll want to make the trip and we'll see what we can work out.

That's too bad. I'd love to see this place next time I'm in the area. Maybe your friend can provide more location information. Maybe they don't usually allow visitors, but I wouldn't mind trying. The worst that can happen would be that they would say no.

It isn't 100% of the time, but if the online screw-ups can result in an upgrade, that would be enough for me to at least continue booking online, smartphone or not. If the gate agent is going to move someone out of the seat you requested, ask where they're going to move him. Maybe he's the one who would end up with an upgrade, in which case I would tell them to let him stay there and move me instead.

It was a very nice event. Ken, the Thai owner of the Little Mango restaurant presented a very good Thai food buffet, which everyone seemed to enjoy. Mike and his staff at Corner Bar were very attentive to everyone, and the bar was packed. There were excellent prizes offered in the raffles, so many prizes that they actually had to do the raffle by thirds, in three sets of drawings. I was very lucky. I bought 7 raffle tickets and won 5 prizes. Raffle prizes included everything from dinner and bar vouchers to bottles of liquor to hotel stays. Pattaya Gay TV was there and will webcast the festivities on their Thursday, March 11 program.

It was a very nice event. Ken, the Thai owner of the Little Mango restaurant presented a very good Thai food buffet, which everyone seemed to enjoy. Mike and his staff at Corner Bar were very attentive to everyone, and the bar was packed. There were excellent prizes offered in the raffles, so many prizes that they actually had to do the raffle by thirds, in three sets of drawings. I was very lucky. I bought 7 raffle tickets and won 5 prizes. Raffle prizes included everything from dinner and bar vouchers to bottles of liquor to hotel stays. Pattaya Gay TV was there and will webcast the festivities on their Thursday, March 11 program.

Can you provide any more details, such as its name, where it is, or how to find it?

I'm no wine connoisseur. I don't drink wine very often. I wouldn't know a fine wine from a mediocre wine. For me, if I like it, then it's a fine wine. If I don't like it, then it's lousy. I've had very expensive wines in my time that I didn't like at all and inexpensive wines that I loved. As for the Thai wines, the same thing applies. I'll try them. Maybe I'll find some that I like and maybe I won't, but I'm not going to discount them out of hand just because I've been taught all my life that the only wines worth drinking are Chateau du Snob. I wonder if any of you have tried wines that aren't even made from grapes. Many say the fruit of the cashew nut tree makes an excellent white wine and the fruit of the Bignay (Antidesma bunius) makes a wine capable of convincing wine experts that they are drinking a fine claret. In any case, if I can get my hands on the wines the video is talking about, I'm certainly willing to give them a try.

The work should not have any effect on you if you are staying at The Venue. If you wish to stay in that area then you might also want to check Ganymede and The Poseidon. View Talay 5 is very conveniently located in proximity to the gay beach area, however it's somewhat of a trek to walk from the condo to Thappraya Road. If you don't mind the walk, then construction noise should not be a factor, even though View Talay 7 is under construction only yards away.

Here is a report from CNN that may surprise some of the wine lovers out there: Thai Wines

Unnnbelievable! Another earthquake. This time in Sumatra. It happened just 3 hours prior to this post. Previews of coming attractions? Maybe 2012 isn't such a myth after all. Where will the next one strike? With my luck, the next epicenter will be Sunee Plaza. _____ Strong Earthquake Strikes off Sumatra Coast March 5, 2010 (CNN) -- A strong earthquake with magnitude 6.5 struck Friday night in the ocean southwest of Sumatra in Indonesia, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The quake, which occurred shortly after 11 p.m., was centered about 100 miles (165 kilometers) west of Bengkulu in Sumatra, and 215 miles (345 kilometers) south of Padang, Sumatra, the USGS said. The center was 13.7 miles (22 kilometers) deep, the USGS said. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not issue a warning after the quake, but said there was a "very small possibility of a local tsunami that could affect coasts" no more than 62 miles (100 kilometers) from the earthquake's epicenter. "Authorities in the region near the epicenter should be made aware of this possibility," it said.

Downsized to 5 bags? I hope you can handle traveling so light. I bet the hotel bellboys have a heart attack when they see you arriving . . .

What's your answer?

I don't play golf, but I would think better golf courses would have rental clubs available. You might want to check into that. One thing you might be able to do, if you are from the USA, would be to buy clubs while you are here, donate them to one of the charities when you are ready to leave and let them use the clubs in one of their auctions or raffles, get a receipt, and take the tax deduction. Other than that, your alternatives are to pay the fees, buy clubs when in Thailand, or just don't play golf when in Thailand.

I spotted this story last night, but did not post it because it is inconsistent with a story that appears in the PATTAYA DAILY NEWS. One story has the arrest taking place at the Prima Place apartments, on Third Road. Another story has the arrest taking place at "Freema Mansion," which correctly would be Prima Mansion on Soi Rungland. One story has them all working in Sunee Plaza bars and says that Sunee Plaza is notorious for under-age boys and girls. Girls? Under-age girls? Working in Sunee Plaza? Where??? There are other inconsistencies as well, so until the local media can get accurate about it I thought it best to leave it alone. You can view the PATTAYA DAILY NEWS article at: Teenage Runaways Caught in Drug Party Pattaya Daily News – Pattaya news Powerful news at your fingertips

The old joke, years ago, when the Pope called a conclave of Cardinals to discuss the problem of priests diddling with the altar boys, he couldn't get them to attend until he promised that the entertainment would be the Vienna Boys Choir.

Oh well, that's one way to solve the inconsistency problem. I guess they didn't say why the consulates are going to stop issuing long-term visas. I wonder if that's just in the USA or if Thailand is stopping all consulates worldwide from issuing the visas. At least the Thai embassy will still issue the retirement visa. Actually, I don't consider it to be such a big loss. You can get the retirement visa just as easily right here in Thailand. The problems are the fact that it will be more expensive since applicants will have to pay to have their visas converted and will probably also have to make a trip to Bangkok to get the proof-of-income statement from the embassy and pay for that too. The thing is, the immigration offices within Thailand won't issue the retirement visa to people who don't have a Thai bank account and most Thai banks are refusing to permit people who don't hold a retirement visa to open an account. How do applicants get around that little Catch-22? The consulates in foreign countries issue the visa even if the applicant does not already hold a Thai bank account. If they're all being stopped, then the only way I can see to get around the problem if you don't already hold a Thai bank account is to apply for the retirement visa through the Thai embassy. So, you better hope the embassy won't require a Thai bank account and unless you live in the Washington, D.C. area, you also better hope a personal appearance at the embassy isn't required. For years I've been urging people to open a Thai bank account while they still can. For those who didn't listen and couldn't be bothered, you can't say I didn't warn you. We'll have to wait and see how this one plays out.

That's the problem and it isn't necessarily limited to retirement visa extensions. It's not even limited to Thai visas. For example, over the years we've had people write in telling us that their boyfriend fairly easily obtained a visa to travel to the USA. We've also had people write in telling us that it's impossible, and yet the circumstances were nearly identical. I have never had a problem of any kind at the Pattaya immigration office, but some people have said problems were all they had. We've also seen people tell us this office is easy, but that office is difficult. People write in to tell us the Thai consulate in one city is easy, but the Thai consulate in another city is a major pain. That even applies to banks. We've had our share of threads telling us one bank branch tells you something, but another branch of the same bank tells you something entirely different. Too much is left to the whim of individual officers. Even when standards apply it still seems to be left up to individual offices and individual officers. Sometimes immigration officers (and bank employees) are ignorant of their own regulations and policies. Obviously it shouldn't be that way, but since it is that way you have to be prepared as best as you can. The worst mistakes I see farang make are going in dressed like slobs and getting angry and belligerent with the officer if problems arise. Those are the best ways I know to get rejected.

They didn't ask you, but they did ask frodo. In other words, you can never be sure which officer is going to ask for what. Seems to me the best thing to do is have those kinds of documents with you just in case.

"If not, yer in the terlet . . ." - Jimmy Durante

Yes, but obviously you've accumulated enough to live on for the rest of your life. I'm talking about people who retired, didn't have much of anything accumulated, and also have very small incomes. These are the people who are living month to month and are almost always broke by the end of the month or even before. I'm sure they can survive, but beyond sheer survival, I don't think I would want to trade for their lifestyle.