Bob

I only do torrents after drinking lots and lots of beer.

In Chiangmai, it's often more dangerous to try to cross the street where they have those light-controlled pedestrian crossings! Hell, sometimes I think there's some subliminal message being flashed in Thai to drivers that says: "Hey, time to squash that falang!"

Ah, rice krispy treats. I tend to take them with me when traveling as they are a tasty snack, weigh next to nothing, and never screw up your stomach. Never had the peanut butter variety, though....

The notion of seeing the falang I know dancing (okay...shuffling from foot to foot) on a gogo bar stage in their underwear is something that is beyond the pale to even imagine. And I can guarantee they would feel the same about seeing me in that position. Darn, that'd be downright immoral, ghastly and obscene.

The religious right for centuries has fanned the notion that sex between consenting but unmarried adults is simply dirty, bad, and immoral, and your assertion seems to stem from that attitude. Hey, it's only sex and, unless one sees it as immoral or somehow wrong in the first place, it's only a fun activity most people like to do and/or a commodity to sell. And, as KhorThose points out, there's a better way to sell it for the safety of the workers, customers, and society - by regulating it and officially making efforts to stem the associated problems (disease, the underage problem, etc.). As to being a saint or angel, I'm neither - and those concepts are no more or less credible than the concepts discussed in the "ghost" thread recently posted on this board; however, again you imply immorality. Having sex with strangers without a condom is probably immoral (and I'm defining "immorality" here as just being unsafe or stupid) but I don't agree that safe sex between consenting adults has anything to do with either morality or wisdom. I'll grant you that prostitution is technically illegal. But so is jaywalking and I don't see anybody painting moral connotations on that activity.

Rules look fine to me and essentially look like what's occurred here before. But.....while I could be disillusioned.....I think you meant "dissolution" when referring to possible termination of a membership.

Not many muffin lovers here, TJ! Betty's Muffin

I presumed that all the inherent passport information would come up on the screen when they swiped the passports, but how the heck would my flight number come up? Unless, in my case, they have EVA's computer linked to theirs, that sounds a bit implausible. I'm always asked what countries I visited and, in the last several years, it has been only Thailand. Other than that, I've never been hassled or had anything (suitcase, carry-on, laptop, or digital camera) searched.

Sorry, lvdkeyes, I don't. I saved it somewhere on this computer but I simply can't find it and I've used a newer camera with SD cards for the last few years (meaning I've had no reason to even look for it for quite a while). I may have gotten it from tucows.com or download.com (although maybe I just found it doing a general search). Anyway, it was free and worked like a charm. My guess is I have it on a backup cd somewhere here and, if you want it, just PM me and I'll search some more. Oh....it's probably a program that works with XP (I've had Vista the last 2-3 years and I'm sure it was before that). [in the interim, do a google search of "digital photo recovery shareware" or "digital photo recovery free" and you'll see a lot of entries.]

The SCB lady was telling me about this special or new account they had which would allow earning a much higher rate of interest and yet still qualify for the bank letter for immigration for the one-year visa. I didn't have or take the time to deal with it then (I was there to get the bank letter to renew my visa and wanted to get it done that morning, which I did) but will do so when I return next month. If I remember, I'll report here what I find out.

If they do, they deduct it before the interest is paid into the account (as the deposit book records don't seem to indicate any tax paid). It's rather irrelevant anyway as, even with a somewhat healthy Thai bank account (more than the Thai one-year visa minimum), it's peanuts. Come to think of it, one of the ladies at the bank (SCB) told me in April that she could move 800k of the amount into a higher savings rate (and she told me it was 4 or 4.1%) and that this type of savings account (or maybe it was a specialized cd) would still qualify for the one-year-visa deal (apparently funds put into certain types of bank deposits won't qualify). I meant to do that before I left but I'll certainly look into it next month when I get back. If it's anywhere near 4%, that's twice as much (or more) than what the US banks are paying these days.

For those that might not know, there are free programs that will also retrieve "deleted" photos on a digital camera media. I screwed up a compact flash card once, found a free program on the net to retrieve them, and recovered 95% of the ones deleted. I'd imagine the feds have a much better program.

Egads, what's a gay tuk tuk look like? And, more importantly, will you still give me a ride if I'm wearing this tee-shirt?

Unless you earn income in Thailand, I'd think there would be no income to report in/to Thailand. I've always wondered if the meager interest income I earn with the Thai bank account (I use the 800k-baht requirement for my visa) is reportable to the Thai treasury department. I don't report diddley to them (although, now that I've had to file the annual report with the US Treasury Department about my Thai bank account, I'm lucid enough to report that interest on my US tax return!).

Never heard of laptop rentals in Thailand. I always carry my laptop (for at least the last 6-7 years or so since I've owned one) and have entered US customs at either LAX or DET. While I know (from reports such as yours) that there must be some people hassled, I've never been asked anything about my quite visible laptop nor have I ever seen anybody else undergo any review about it. On the other hand, there's nothing of concern on my laptop either. Must be luck of the draw.

Sadly, due to past history, my expectations are more of the same. If they wanted to get tough on foreign criminals or, for example, pedophiles, they'd do that at the airport immigration office. Doing it at the provincial level is better than nothing but unfortunately means "after the fact" in most cases.

Don't have a clue, GT, but it continually amazes me how almost all electronics are substantially cheaper in the US than in Thailand (given most of the stuff is made in Southeast Asia in the first place). For example only, a 2GB SD card was $20.00 and $22.00 respectively in Big C and Pantip Plaza - whereas you can get one for just under $10.00 here in the US. Identical digital cameras are 20-40% cheaper in the US too.

Ditto. Loved the train story, Geezer. I wish I had the balls to do stuff like that.

King Kong?!? Pom kit wa khun rak ling gern bpai.....

Although I can't agree with your perception that the active threads at the two other websites you mention are generally supportive of anything or anybody, I would note that your comments are, consistent with how I've viewed your posting history, rather gracious and classy. Best wishes for your new ventures - and I hope you'll find the time to occasionally participate in Ting Tong and GB's new board.

Don't have a clue, never did it. I've also never seen it off the beaches in Hua Hin. In Hua Hin, there are a lot of kite boarders, though, and it's fascinating to watch them do their tricks and jump, at times, 30-40 feet into the air. This past February or so, they had the "World Cup" of kite boarding there and there were hundreds of them. And, yes, about 95% of them are guys and in fantastic shape.

Having been generally "hitched" for years now, I don't go to the bars (the traditional boy bars versus a drinking bar!) that often (maybe once or twice a month on average) and I guess I'm not particularly in the "hunt" mode when I do go. On the other hand, I do like to look and I always find somebody (usually at least a few) who strike my fancy. I dont' care about the drink prices (hasn't stopped me yet although once or twice I intentionally slowed down my drinking) but I have left bars before solely because the damn music was much too loud. As another poster has suggested, everything in this area is so subjective so I wouldn't pay much attention to any rating system anyway.

I guess a few scenes in a few of those films has made me a bit dewy-eyed; however, more scenes probably made me snooze or laugh at the acting. I'm not much of a romantic. I do remember getting a bit misty when Leonardo Dicaprio drowned at the end of Titanic (but that's because I was pissed I couldn't gaze on him any more.....hehe).

Yea, but you know, now that we're retired, every friggin' day is Saturday!

Sorry, no help from me. I took Fortran 101 back when both of us were teenagers and I did learn then that I don't even want to know how to spell programming. Good luck with the nerds' alien language.