TotallyOz

The BF and I had a discussion about safety during Songkran and I begged him over and over to please drive safe. I once talked to another lad about this and he said that he would get a do over if he died. I don't like the idea of a do over and he asked what I thought happened. I said Nothing. His face just starred at me as if "stupid falang," What do you think happens after death?

I made a request recently for moderators and so far 2 wonderful guys have volunteered. The latest one is Jomtien. He is someone I know and trust and is a great guy and I know will be a wonderful asset to the board. Welcome Jomtien as Moderator for the website! We appreciate your willingness to help the board!

Songkran is the Thai New Year and the start of the Rainy Season. Thais celebrate this with water fights in every town and village. Me, wanting to be Thai, as well as a real kid at heart, I really love this holiday. Today I had the boyfriend rent us a truck and some HUGE containers to hold water. This would make it easy for us to shoot the water without constantly having to refill. We still had to refill at least 5 times as well as get large blocks of ice to make sure our water had an extra sting. J We went to Bang San as they were having a huge water fight in that area. I didn't realize that the city was over 1 hours from Pattaya and as we were a group of 8 all sitting in the back of a pick up truck, I was not worried UNTIL the truck started zipping down the highway at over 100K per hour. At that point, I wandered if I had the last codicil of my will ready and had made sure my family knew to cremate my body if it was ran over by a 18 wheeler. We made the ride fine, with quite a few Hail Mary's and one close call almost hitting a dog and my head hitting the front of the pick up. But, with my family tells me I have a hard head so I guess it was well protected. Once into the city, the fun began. I love it. I had so much fun with the water and with the Thai people. I did not see one other foreigner all day and all the Thais wanted to be sure they gave me the white cream for good luck and then douse me with water. I had entire trucks gunning for me. The route was less than 2 miles and took us over 3 hours. We had so many water battles that I can't keep track. The boys had fun! I had fun. The city was loud with yells of laughter, loud music and merriness. If you have never experienced Songkran, go outside of the major cities and go to where the Thais go. You will love it and it really is an experience you will never forget!

This entire article fascinated me. Am I the only one that this worries? Google and an alliance of privacy groups have come to Yahoo's aid by helping the Web portal fend off broad requests from the U.S. Department of Justice for e-mail messages, CNET has learned. In a brief filed Tuesday afternoon, the coalition says a search warrant signed by a judge is necessary before the FBI or other police agencies can read the contents of Yahoo Mail messages--a position that puts those companies directly at odds with the Obama administration. Yahoo has been quietly fighting prosecutors' requests in front of a federal judge in Colorado, with many documents filed under seal. Tuesday's brief from Google and the other groups aims to buttress Yahoo's position by saying users who store their e-mail in the cloud enjoy a reasonable expectation of privacy protected by the U.S. Constitution. "Society expects and relies on the privacy of e-mail messages just as it relies on the privacy of the telephone system," the friend-of-the-court brief says. "Indeed, the largest e-mail services are popular precisely because they offer users huge amounts of computer disk space in the Internet 'cloud' whine which users can warehouse their e-mails for perpetual storage." The coalition also includes the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Progress and Freedom Foundation, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, and TRUSTe. For its part, the Justice Department has taken a legalistic approach: a 17-page brief it filed last month acknowledges that federal law requires search warrants for messages in "electronic storage" that are less than 181 days old. But, Assistant U.S. Attorney Pegeen Rhyne writes in a government brief, the Yahoo Mail messages don't meet that definition. "Previously opened e-mail is not in 'electronic storage,'" Rhyne wrote in a motion filed last month. "This court should therefore require Yahoo to comply with the order and produce the specified communications in the targeted accounts." (The Justice Department's position is that what's known as a 2703(d) order--not as privacy-protective the rules for search warrants--should let police read e-mail.) On December 3, 2009, U.S. Magistrate Judge Craig Shaffer ordered Yahoo to hand to prosecutors certain records including the contents of e-mail messages. Yahoo divulged some of the data but refused to turn over e-mail that had been previously viewed, accessed, or downloaded and was less than 181 days old. A Yahoo representative declined to comment. "This case is about protecting the privacy rights of all Internet users," a Google representative said in a statement provided to CNET on Tuesday. "E-mail stored in the cloud should have the same level of protection as the same information stored by a person at home." That is, in fact, the broader goal of the groups filing Tuesday's brief. They're also behind the new Digital Due Process Coalition, which wants police to be able to obtain private communications (and the location of Americans' cell phones) only when armed with a search warrant. Under a 1986 law written in the pre-Internet era, Internet users enjoy more privacy rights if they store data locally, a legal hiccup that these companies fear could slow the shift to cloud-based services unless it's changed. The judge should "reject the government's attempted end-run around the Fourth Amendment and require it to obtain a search warrant based on probable cause before searching and seizing e-mails without prior notice to the account holder," the coalition brief filed Tuesday says. The Bill of Rights' Fourth Amendment, of course, prohibits "unreasonable" searches. The legal push in Colorado federal court, and a parallel legislative effort in Congress to update the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, is likely to put the coalition at odds with the Obama administration. A few weeks ago, for instance, Justice Department prosecutors told a federal appeals court that Americans enjoy no reasonable expectation of privacy in their mobile device's location and that no search warrant should be required to access location logs. The U.S. Attorney's office in Colorado did not immediately respond to a request for comment. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20002423-38.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

I had given an older version of PS3 to a boy special who is no longer special. So, I needed another one for this trip. I went to Tuk Com yesterday and bought one. They are currently 12,000 baht for the 250G model. I wanted this version as it is smaller than the one I had before and easier for me to carry. A few things about this unit. The PS3 is not unlocked and you can't play copy games. It is an original device and they have not found a way to unlock this successfully yet. I have heard that it is possible to unlock but the first time you go online the unit is then blocked from ever going online again. If you are looking to buy the cheap 100 baht games, the PS3 is not the unit for you. Stores still carry the PS2 which you can get cheap games from. The PS3 is great fun for the BF as he can go online with it and play with friends or strangers. For example, last night he played soccer for hours with people from all over the world in a tournament. The online games do require an account with Sony but that is free. You can also pay to download movies, games, etc similar to ITunes. The games are a bit cheaper than you can buy in Thailand so it might be worth it. The Wii is another option if you want copy games as you can get these for 80-100 baht at Tuk Com. I love the Wii. But, on my last trip we plugged it into the outlet without a converter and it blew. They are very inexpensive and I think better to buy in USA or overseas than Thailand.

FYI: Those of us who love this place and use it as our regular food stop should take note. Salt and Pepper will be closed for 3 days for the holiday on April 17, 18, 19. I hope the owners enjoy their holiday and have a great time with their family and friends!

What is the easiest way to see what shows are on UBC at what time? I like American Idol and several other shows. I am trying to plan my schedule for these things. Any suggestions?

This is a question I get often. I am not sure where people's minds are when they ask questions like this. Perhaps they have learned to avoid thinking with their big brain totally and started to rely on thinking with the little one? Perhaps they think it is an appropriate question to ask in a land of gogo bars? Perhaps it is a socially acceptable question? What do you think? If someone asks you this question what is your response? What if you have been with the guy for say 7 years and your friend knows that? Does that make the question any worst or better? I am just curious to see what others think before I give my own humble opinion.

We have eaten at the Canton Restaurant in Central Festival several times and always been happy with the food. Canton is a Chinese restaurant and has good Dim Sum. It is open from 10 - 10 and the price is very reasonable. We normally get out of the place at about 200 baht a head. It is casual as are all places I have eaten at Central Festival. It is hard to find good Chinese food in the area and I like this place. 6 Fl. Central Festival Pattaya Between 2nd Road and Beach Road - Closer to the Movie House than the beach road

(CNN) -- Actress Dixie Carter, best known for her role as Julia Sugarbaker on the TV show "Designing Women," has died, her agent said Saturday. She was 70. No other details were provided. Carter was drawn to roles portraying steely Southern women. One of her more recent roles included a guest appearance on the show "Desperate Housewives," for which she was nominated for an Emmy in 2007. "This has been a terrible blow to our family," her husband, the actor Hal Holbrook, told "Entertainment Tonight." "We would appreciate everyone understanding that this is a private family tragedy." Carter and Holbrook met while filming the CBS-TV movie, "The Killing of Randy Webster." Carter was born in 1939 in McLemoresville, Tennessee. In addition to her role as feisty Julia Sugarbaker, she's been on other television series including "Family Law" and "Diff'rent Strokes." For the entire article: http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/TV/04/10/dixie.carter.obit/index.html?hpt=T2

(CNN) -- Actress Dixie Carter, best known for her role as Julia Sugarbaker on the TV show "Designing Women," has died, her agent said Saturday. She was 70. No other details were provided. Carter was drawn to roles portraying steely Southern women. One of her more recent roles included a guest appearance on the show "Desperate Housewives," for which she was nominated for an Emmy in 2007. "This has been a terrible blow to our family," her husband, the actor Hal Holbrook, told "Entertainment Tonight." "We would appreciate everyone understanding that this is a private family tragedy." Carter and Holbrook met while filming the CBS-TV movie, "The Killing of Randy Webster." Carter was born in 1939 in McLemoresville, Tennessee. In addition to her role as feisty Julia Sugarbaker, she's been on other television series including "Family Law" and "Diff'rent Strokes." For the rest of the story: 'Designing Women' star Dixie Carter dies - CNN.com

I knew him really well and thought he was a great guy and always fun to talk to and hang out with. This is way too young to die. My heart goes out to his friends and family.

This is a great thing you are doing. I wish I was in the USA to attend. I know you guys will have a wonderful time.

The Grocery Store at Central Festival on Beach Road is quite nice. It is a bit more expensive than others in the area but if convenient, it has a nice selection of fruits, meats, Farang food, handmade items etc. I asked and they said they didn't deliver but not sure if the lady understood me. This is located on the very bottom of the shopping center. If you enter on Beach Road, take the outside escalator down and it is right there.

I love my Iphone and use it in Thailand everyday not only to make calls but to get e-mails, surf, play games, etc. There is a new version of the OS coming out. I wonder how long it will take for the Thai guys to crack this one? And we begin. Steve Jobs is on stage. He's giving a few updates First, iPad. He's showing his favorite reviews, from Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal, and Baig at USA Today. Today, Apple has sold about 450,000 iPads. He says Best Buy is out of stock, Apple stores selling them as fast as they can get them in. Users downloaded 250,000 iBooks titles the first day, now more than 600,000 to date. Users have downloaded more than 3.5 million iPad apps. He says people are loving the product – shows a photo of a little girl hugging one in an Apple store. Now on to the App Store. More than 3,500 iPad apps in the store. He's showing a bunch of apps now, including Major League Baseball, various games, Etrade and IMDB. He's showing a bunch of news apps now, including Time magazine, our sister pub, and the New York Times and Popular Science. Jobs gives special attention to Netflix. There are now more than 185,000 apps in the app store. Now he's talking about how Apple has won the JD Power award for smartphones the last three years. Now he's calling out Net Applications' numbers on browser use, pointing out that the iPhone has 64% of the mobile browsing market as far as use. Apple has sold 50 million iPhones and 85 million iPhones and iPod touches. Now, on to OS 4. Developer preview comes out today, official version ships in summer. 1,500 new APIs. Developers will have access to calendar, in-app SMS, full map overlays, full access to still and video camera, and more. There are more than 100 new user features, including creating playlists, tap to focus on video, gift apps, spell check, Bluetooth keyboards, file & delete mail search, places in photos, 5x digital zoom and home screen wallpaper. Apple is going to focus on seven "tentpole" features today. The first is multitasking. (Finally!) We weren't the first to this party, but we're going to be the best, Jobs says – similar to cut and paste. It's really easy to do multitasking in a way that drains battery life. It's also easy to do it in a way that sucks the performance from your foreground app. Apple has figured out how to do it and avoid those things. That's what took us a little longer, he says, but I think we nailed it. Now, a demo. He's launching mail, looking at a message. Touches a link in the message and goes to the browser. Now he wants to get back to mail. He double-clicks the home button, and the window rises and shows the apps that are running. Now he goes to eBay, checks his auction. Now he goes to play Tap Tap Revenge. Now he goes back to the website and mail, then goes back to the game. It always takes him back to where he was in any app. (Lots of applause here.) So that is our multitasking UI, he says; and it's really wonderful. (Still a lot of questions about exactly how this works.) Steve Jobs sounds better than he has in a long time, by the way. Scott Forstall is coming out to give us some more detail on Apple's multitasking implementation. He explains that Apple is providing seven multitasking services. First, background audio. He's talking about Pandora as the most popular music streaming app. Until now, if you closed the app to do something else, the music stop. No longer. Pandora founder Tim Westergren is coming up to talk about it. Tim says the iPhone has singlehandedly changed the direction of Pandora, making it mobile and so much more useful. "It was this completely transformative moment for us. … Our growth rate doubled overnight." He says it took his developers one day to make Pandora's iPhone app background aware. He's demoing it, showing that he can skip songs. He can also go to buy a song that's playing from iTunes, even as the song is playing. (As a Pandora iPhone user, I can tell you this is great. Android and Palm have had this for a while.) Now, Skype. You can stay in a call and use other apps. Even if you're not running Skype in the foreground, you can receive Skype calls. David Ponsford from Skype is up to demo. He says Skype has more than half a billion users. (This is a very important feature that will appeal to a lot of business customers.) Even in another app, if someone calls a notification pops up and you can pop over to Skype to answer. While he's on the call, he goes to OpenTable to pick a spot to eat. (I wonder what happens if another call from the main phone app comes in at the same time? He doesn't say.) On to background location. (This is really important for turn-by-turn direction apps and check-in apps like Loopt, Foursquare and Gowalla.) Forstall demos a GPS system working while music is playing in the background. Apple came up with a cell tower solution that allows these apps to work without having GPS on all the time – because GPS is a major power drain. Apple came up with a way to wake up location apps and tell them your location as soon as you move. Apple is adding an icon indicator to the top menu bar that shows if any app is tracking your location, and a location services menu that lets the user control what apps can access location, and let you know if any app has tried to locate you. Background notifications are next. Apple has pushed more than 10 billion push notifications in less than a year since the feature came out. Now Apple is adding a new feature called "local notifications" that doesn't require I link through Apple's servers. For example, a TV app can notify you when a show is about to start. Next, task completion: Basically, programs can finish uploading something even after you close it. Fast app switching: Quickly move between apps without having to relaunch them. Now he's wrapping up the multitasking talk. Steve Jobs is back. He's going to talk about folders. It's a better way to organize apps. He's going to make a folder with games in it. He pushes his finger on an app, drags one app on top of another and it instantly makes a folder. It automatically names the folder based on the category they came from in the app store. (This is very cool, very useful, and unlike anything Apple's competitors have implemented in their OSes.) You can even put folders in the dock. As an aside, he demoing how you can change the iPhone's wallpaper. You can set the home screen or lock screen, or both to display the wallpaper. (Others have had this feature for a while.) "An incredibly great drag-and-drop UI," he says. Yep. Now Jobs is on to Mail. First he's going to talk about unified inbox. You can have multiple accounts all feeding into one inbox, and you can now use multiple exchange accounts. You can also switch quickly between inboxes if you want to keep them separate. There's mail threading now, too. (This is important. Gmail has made this a must-have feature.) You can now choose to open inbox attachments using a third-party app. (Again, Steve Jobs has a lot of his old stamina back. He's doing longer stretches of the presentation than he has recently.) Now Apple is adding iBooks to the iPhone. It looks much like it does on the iPad. He's showing the Winnie the Pooh book. (Looks good. This is trouble for Amazon.) You can buy a book once and read it on any of your devices. Current page and bookmarks will wirelessly sync. As with the iPad, Winnie the Pooh will come free with the iBooks iPhone app. Scott Forstall is back to talk about enterprise features. There's better encryption in email, and making APIs available to allow app developers to encrypt data in apps. Apple is also improving mobile device management. Now enterprises can easily manage iPhones like they do BlackBerrys and Windows Mobile phones. There will also be wireless app distribution, allowing companies to wirelessly push apps to devices. Also multiple exchange accounts now supported, VPN and more. Now on to Game Center. He's showing Apple has more than 10x more games than PSP and Nintendo. This will allow you to find people to play games with, and compare your progress on leaderboards. It will be available "later this year," he says. This is huge. Steve Jobs is back. The final big feature is iAd. Mobile advertising built in to OS 4. He's explaining what this is. "We think most of this mobile advertising really sucks," he says, "and we thought we could make some contributions." He says that on a mobile device "search is not where it's at. … They're spending all their time in apps." (Google just got slapped.) The average iPhone user spends 30 minutes a day using apps. An ad every three minutes would be 10 ads per device per day. Apple will soon have 100 million devices, which roughs out to 1 billion ad impressions per day, he says. "We want to change the quality of the advertising." The ads on the web today are not capable of delivering emotion, Jobs says, which is why most ad dollars still flow to TV. Apple wants to be more interactive than TV ads, but deliver just as much emotion. He also wants to bring ads that keep you in the app. The result is that people don't click on ads, because they don't want to be yanked out of apps. "We have figured out how to do interactive and video content without ever taking you out of your app," he says, which will make people more willing to look at ads. "Apple is going to sell and host the ads," he says, "and give developers an industry standard 60% of the revenue." (Now it's all-out war with Google … and Microsoft for that matter. I wouldn't be surprised if competitors try to raise legal concerns here.) He's demoing a Toy Story ad Apple built in HTML5. You can navigate within the ad as if it were a standalone app, even put video in there. There's even a game in the ad. And the ad includes free wallpaper and a map that shows nearby theaters where the movie is playing. There's also a game that you can buy from within the ad. "Have you ever seen an ad like this?" Jobs asks. He pauses. "Anything even close?" (Nice to see him this comfortable on stage again. He's cracking wise and everything.) Now he's showing a Nike ad that Apple built. You can look at the history of various shoes, design your own shoe, find stores that carry them, view video. Now showing a Target ad that does a lot of the same stuff – design your own dorm room, buy the stuff. "It's that simple. And again, I can return to my app anytime I want. … We think this is going to be pretty exciting." (The 60/40 revenue split here in iAd is really interesting. Apple stands to make a LOT of money here, and a lot of enemies.) OS 4 ships this summer for 3GS and iPod touch 3rd generation – those will be able to do everything. 3G and iPod touch 2G won't do multitasking. "The hardware just won't support it," he says. For more: http://brainstormtec...uarters/?hpt=T2

On Thursday Afternoon at the Police Region 2 Child and Women Protection Unit based at Banglamung Police Station, a press conference was held to announce the arrest of an American National accused of producing pornographic images and videos in his Central Pattaya Apartment. Mr. Anthony Paul aged 39 from USA was detained on the strength of an arrest warrant which was prompted by complaints from around 30 Thai Women who claimed the suspect convinced them that he wanted to be their boyfriend and then took videos and pictures of them engaging in unprotected sex without revealing he was producing the material for well known pornographic subscription websites. For the full story: Suspected American Porn Producer arrested by Police in Pattaya | Pattaya One News

UBC Platinum service is not available in VT6. You can subscribe and pay but the channels are not there. They say that they have one Large satellite and that it does not connect all the channels and there is nothing they can do. One can get more channels with a smaller box but they say that is against the rules. Anyone know why they do this?

Thailand's Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has declared a state of emergency in Bangkok amid escalating anti-government protests. In a televised address, Mr Abhisit said the move - which gives sweeping new powers to the security forces to tackle protesters - would help restore order. It comes hours after thousands of "red-shirt" protesters marched on parliament - forcing MPs to flee the building. The protesters want Mr Abhisit to resign and call elections. Thailand has lurched from one crisis to another since 2006 when the government of Thaksin Shinawatra was overthrown. This is the fourth state of emergency in the capital since 2008. 'Stay put' The current bout of red-shirt rallies began on 12 March. The government had vowed not to use force against the red-shirts, and the protesters too had said their demonstrations would not be violent. But Mr Abhisit said in his televised address that the protesters could no longer be considered peaceful after their march on parliament. "Our goal is to restore normalcy," he said. "We need to plan and implement everything to the last detail and with thorough care. The last thing we want is for the situation to spiral out of control." Mr Abhisit said the state of emergency applied in the capital and surrounding areas, but it is not yet clear how the authorities will implement the new laws, the BBC's Rachel Harvey in Bangkok says. Emergency law gives sweeping powers to the security forces and in theory bans public gatherings of more than five people, our correspondent says. But tens of thousands of anti government protesters remain in the commercial heart of Bangkok and show no signs of moving voluntarily. They regard Mr Abhisit's government as illegitimate as it was brought to power with military support. For the entire article go to: BBC News - Thailand PM declares state of emergency in Bangkok

Thank you to Z909 for agreeing to help us moderate the site. We really appreciate his willing to assist and to keep the site going and moving forward. Much thanks Z. GT

In Internet Slang a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an our Forum with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. In the last few days we have had to deal with one individual that we as a moderator team decided that we had to moderate. When we moderate someone that simply means that we make sure that the person's posts are read by one of the moderators before we allow them to be public. After we put the member on moderated status he registered a new name. We moderated that name (number2). Then, he did it again. Again, we moderated the negative post and put that member on Moderated Status (member3). At this point, I knew we were dealing with someone who had way too much time on his hands for us to deal with so we have initiated a new membership rule. The new policy is to require a certain number of posts that are approved by moderators before any person is able to post without moderation. This does not affect any current members who have posted in the past. It only affects new members who have never posted here before. In other words, a new member must post and those posts be approved by a moderator before we remove the moderated status from them. It only takes a few posts to determine a troll and we assure we will be on top of the new member posts. Also, we are asking for help with Moderating. It is a hard job and does not pay well (nothing other than the gratitude of our members). If you are interested in being part of the Moderating Team, please PM me and let me know. GB, TLP and I will discuss those interested. Unlike other boards, we don't require you to send us your passport or other personal information. We only ask that you have been a member here and contributed to the site. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I had a great dinner there tonight and loved the Fish and Chips. It tasted just like they do in England. They were 225 baht. They also had some deserts but they were not as good as the main course. The Pig and Whistle is on Soi 7 between Beach Road and Second Road. It is about 1/2 down the Soi. The service was fine and the atmosphere was nice. The temperature was good and there were no delays in getting our food or the service. I really enjoyed the Fish and Chips Plate. Great taste and reasonable priced.

The sign on the doors say 700,000 for the 2 shops with 2 upstairs rooms. That is less than half of the previous asking price. Anyone interested in a great location, this is one of the best buys in that area.

I kept getting requests from people for this site so I set up a profile. At the beginning of the process it asked for my gmail address to pull contacts. I thought it was OK and I did it. It pulled over 200 people from Thailand. I have never contacted the majority of those people with that e-mail and they had not sent me an e-mail. How does this process work? Where are all these contacts from? Several were from people I knew but at least 200 were not from any I knew. The next step asked me to invite others to HI5 on my e-mail list. Again, this was over 500 contacts. I did not know the majority of them either so I did not allow the second step. Anyone know how they use this app?

For those that use ITunes as your way to listen to music, movies and TV in LOS, I have just tested this new software out for ITunes and was amazed at how wonderful it made my sound sound. Let me say that I don't often buy things for my Mac that are not needed. It is normally perfect the way it is. But, this program really did impress me more than I ever thought and for the shows and programs that were hard to hear at times, the sound now booms out and with amazing clarity. It is a great piece of software! Bongiovi Acoustics

I went to dinner with friends last night and took the road to the Jomtien beach for the first time. They have made great headway on it since my last trip. I did not experience the usual potholes or the backed up traffic. I did notice they have a big lane for parking. Why build the road and then put a parking lane in? Was that the intent all along? Anyone know how long until this is finished?