PattayaMale

"a straight arrow"....confused about this. Are we talking here of an appendage?

For American gay's, it is also a possibility of new national legislation that will put gay's on a civil par with married (man and women). Hopefully now that the democrats also hold a majority in both house and senate. If this happens it may make it easier to take your long term Thai BF to the states.

I downloaded the 32 bit. I had 32 bit Vista and that is why I decided to use 32 bit. To find out though, go to Control Panel....System and security.....System. Read the report that tells you system type. Probably 32 bit So far I have had one small problem. I use PressReader to read Bangkok Post because it shows the images of the actual print paper and hundreds of other news papers around the world. Cost $6 a month. Anyway a neat feature of W7 is that if a program does not work you run the Troubleshooter. I does something to allow you to use it by setting it to work as it ran with whatever OS you last used. So PressReader works fine now. Also, after installing W7 beta, I downloaded the new windows live mail. It has some new features which has added an interactive calendar.

The area that I live in went through this a few months ago. With all the new construction, it is probably a good thing that the electric companies are doing this. If the cool weather holds it won't be so bad to stay inside and catch up on some reading. When it was being done in my area the days were really hot......we went to the beach

All of the things you wrote are true and I too was reluctant to download it. What I did to protect myself was to do a full backup, (image) of my systems and my programs and data. So if something happens, I can restore my computer (I hope). I know several friends that do not even back up data, so if the have a hard drive fail, they are doomed. You I imagine do back up your important data having a few crashes to your web site in the past

"Fast forward to today, Palestinians left in pretty grim conditions. On the West Bank you have the Palestinian Authority, who have embraced the 2 state solution. In Gaza, the people elected Hamas, who start with a one-state solution. The Islamic State of Palestine. They provoked this latest round through the rocket attacks on Southern Israel. They hide arms in Mosques, Schools, hospitals, and residential areas. They do not evacuate their citizenry, rather hide with them held as human shields; blaming Israel for the casualties. They manage to obtain missiles to shoot, but not enough food to feed? Spend their resources on arms but not roads?" The above is a well western publicized view. But it certainly is not really correct I feel. If the United States would have given the billions in aid to the Palestinians instead of Israelis. How would that area look like now? It is too easy to say spend money on food not on self defense when a big power like the United States is paying for weapons and aid to the Israelis. You seem to be very well versed in this area. I am not. But to your knowledge how much total aid is given to each country? Why does the US spend so much on Israel? If you were a Palestinian, is it possible that you would feel the way you do? Religion in my view is the most destructive force. Look at the south of Thailand. Is it religious views that are causing the problem?

Maybe I am considered a crusader but I have several friends that smoke and all of them are very courteous. They understand. People that smoke outside instead of inside an air con room are considerate. My smoking friends just step outside for a minute or 2 and are back in. No problem. Almost all of them have said that they would like to stop or have tried to stop but for whatever reason they can't or just enjoy it. Why you think "these people" are never happy would probably not stand. My objection is when people do not step outside. I don't care if someone smokes as long as it is not in a confined space. I am unhappy that I have lost so many friends to health problems caused from smoking. They were really great, fun, loving people. It would have been nice to have had them around instead of their lives being cut short because of smoking

Today while at Continental for breakfast, one of the waiters came up to me and said he was moving back to Googie's to work. There are 3 boys there that use to work for Googie and all 3 are returning. I asked the waiter if he was joking and he said no. The landlord and his son were opening the restaurant. I doubt that it will be called Googie's and they said "Not sure". But according to them a restaurant at that location will be opening Jan 15 (which is as I understand the day that Googie's lease expires.

Usually when a new operating system comes out in Beta (testing) it is not available to the public in Thailand. This time it is available. I downloaded it in ISO format and then installed it without any problem. It did take 4 hours to install and convert all the files but I just let it do its thing while I went off to do mine. It has given me no problem access the Thai forums. It seems to me to be faster than Vista and it seems to have a desktop view that looks a bit like Apple OS. If you like to play around with this kind of stuff you can download it at http://www.windows.com/windows7 The Thai scripts that my Thai friend uses seems to work fine also

I spent some time googling to try and find any group that seems similar and can not find anything. How or where did you hear about this group?

Well each evening after their night's work at Alcazar and then Dynamite, a group of 20 - 30 ladyboys and many of their boyfriends come to my house for a night of drinking, swimming, and whatever. I am of course all ready asleep in the house but the guest house and balcony is theirs as long as I am never awakened. I am sure they would love to have you over GT and imagine they will not charge for your drinks. That being said I also still don't understand the idea of ladyboys but those I know have always been very nice. I just have decided people probably don't get me either so I have given up trying to make sense of it other than to think that is the way it is

I agree. I hope the next administration is more open to a country that is occupied by Israel and treated very badly.

Speaking for myself, your respect is not what I would think most care about. Since you are not even in Thailand, I wonder why you are so concerned. But happily I have been informed that very soon the inspectors will be showing up and doing the job the law requires. If you want to check on this just visit the government Health Center on Soi Bokow. According to what I was told, they plan on taking a close look beginning in Sunee Plaza since they have received complaints from that area. It was explained to me that each customer will be fined 2000 baht on the spot and that the bar will be fined 20,000 for each customer that is smoking. So if 3 people are smoking the fine is 60,000 baht. Also it will not be a "raid" where police storm the area but undercover investigators and that they will be coming from Alcohol and Tobacco control in Bangkok. So it seems to me that you and others can go on and on about his but the Thais themselves will take care of this. If you have a complaint, you should take it to Soi Bokow. All the postings in the world will not change this. Too much profit from fines to be made.

Actually we are consumers not just guests. And Thailand has does what it can to try and get more foreign consumers. They even pass laws and expect the "farang" owners of the bars to follow those rules. Slackerman do you consider these farang owners, many that work their bars without work permits as guests in Thailand? If you consider them guests, do you consider it rude on their part to not follow the wishes of the Thai government.

It may be difficult but I have several friends that have long term BFs that they meet in bars. None of them continued to work in bars after they were with their farang.

Tonight when I was going to Sunee Plaza on my motorbike I thought it must ne the coldest I have experienced in Pattaya. It was so cold I decided to go back to my house and get a jacket. When I did get to Sunee Plaza I saw several farangs in sweaters also talking about the cols weather.

Also "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". In my opinion, you can have both. But for some of us, we are never satisfied.

Never having been to Baan Rim Pa I did a Google search and I see it is a beautiful restaurant. May I ask why you take people to such an expensive restaurant? I understand this is your new boy friend and you wanted to give him and his family a wonderful experience for his birthday. The reason for asking is that when I first tried to take by Thai friend and his family to an expensive restaurant he really objected because he thought his family would be very uncomfortable. Now my Thai friend and his family comes from a small village by Korat and very poor. In your case your new BF and his family might be from a higher economic class and that would make a big difference. Is there anyway you could get Baan Rim Pa to pay for your hospital stay? Your experience is one I would have been so upset about, the service alone would have ruined a great experience.

yaba must be so terribly addicting. And unfortunately some of the Thai boys that use it are very sweet. A friend of mine actually lost his business because he could not let go of his BF. The BF borrowed money from the mafia and the mafia tried successfully to get the farang to pay it. Sad What great news though that you have found a gay BF this time. I hope it works out well for you both. Has he an interest in bike riding? It might be fun if you could go on an abbreviated bike trip to some of the places you really liked away for the commercial sex scene.

I wonder if slackerman will answer the few questions I posed to him above. I agree with GB too. But it does not change the questions posted above.

Slackerman, If I understand what you wrote, your objection is someone filing a claim with police for relief because you feel the police will come back and ask that person to be an informant at some later date. I see that we agree on having the owners/managers ask customers to step outside if they need to smoke. So if instead of going to the police about a specific bar, how would you feel about a group of people putting some pressure on the police to enforce the non smoking law through letters to the editor or a petition to the Mayor? How do you feel about owners chaining exits so if a fire occurs people may not be able to get out? Do business's have that right to make those rules? If you agree that a harm will occur in 20 years as you suggest, is it because the harm is not immediate, you feel the owner has a right. The workers do not really have the leeway to just walk. In my view, the non smoking law was passed to protect people including the workers. It is not just because it is annoying in many ways.

Slackersam do you really think Stonewall and non smoking enforcement are similar? Businesses have all sorts of rules and regulations that they must follow. It is simply part of doing business. If an owner does not like the rules and regulations they do not have to be in business. Can you tell me one thing? Should business owners simply ask those smoking in bars to go outside and smoke? If you feel they should not, why?

You make the same point over and over. I think you prefer name calling to giving valid points to support your argument which in my view is childish. My view is very different than yours. I don't consider it a minor rule or law. I have no problem asking for assistance and neither should you I feel Why your father was afraid of the police I of course do not know. Would you be able to tell me if you support smoking in the enclosed bars? Do you consider smoking harmful? What is your view on second hand smoke?

And bars owners that are hurting the health of its customers and workers represent good karma? Remember that I approached the bar owners first. I am not doing it behind their back.

Last night a friend and I were out and about in Pattaya and noticed that more and more bars are ignoring the no smoking laws . I have tried to talk to some bar owners and managers where it is occurring with no results. So I thought today I would call the city help desk 1337 and find out how to report violations. The person that took my call after putting me on hold for awhile to check came back on line and told me to call the police at the following number: 038 420 802...5 She also told me to call the city managers office if the police did not go to check. So with this information and the names and location of some of the Sunee Plaza that are violating the law, I called. No answer. I tried for 10 minutes redialing all 3 numbers. No answer. I thought the call center must have given me the wrong number. So I went on line to check. The number was correct and I found additional numbers 038-428-223, 038 429- 371. I tried those numbers. Same thing. Despite my redialing each number for 10 minutes, No answer. Not giving up, I thought ok I will call the tourist police. I saw that they have a special 4 digit number 1155, but that number seems to be out of service. So after 30 minutes of trying to get someone to answer the phone I remembered that I saw a number on a no smoking sign that was in Thai. I went to check that number 025903342. Some one answered. Apparently is was the Alcohol and tobacco control number. Problem for me was they only speak Thai. So I decided that I would make up a petition. Get some people to sign it and submit it to the Mayor's Office and also see if I could get the press involved. Are there any other ideas? "Vote with my feet" is not an option. It is my hope to bring these violators to their knees!!