fedssocr

I think YouTube is eaves dropping on me

Wow. CKS must be rolling over in his mausoleum to see his party colluding with the commies to undermine Taiwan. Chu also ignores all of the non-Han people in Taiwan which is a sizable group. With people like this running the KMT, they have no hope of regaining power. Most of the younger generations consider themselves Taiwanese, not Chinese.

So, not Thai, but I just came across this Korean series on YT called A First Love Story. The guys are handsome and the story about two life-long friends is sweet (so far). Two short episodes - I'm not sure how many there will be. Turn on subtitles

I guess the cops are just mad that they can't extort these people like they can the gogo bars

It's sad that even a country doing things well is having some issues like this. I'll have to look up their vaccination rates. All of the videos I see have pretty good mask wearing adherence. And lots of venues have been shutdown for quite a while. But their number of deaths has been quite low so far.

I know a lot of gays who love Palm Springs and spend a lot of time there. I know a couple who have a home there. But yeah, the general population doesn't think about PS at all.

Not so much the protests as the draconian laws that make everything a crime against the state. There's no security for anyone who disagrees with the government or the CCP

I much prefer the A350, but Airbus has been having some issues with that aircraft too. Qatar Airways has been having issues with cracks in the fuselage (I believe)

I believe that's correct. Bangkok Post has a handy graphic

the "wealthy pensioner" category also requires $250k invested in Thai government bonds or real estate

I just read that Pitch from Love of Siam is the executive producer of Yearbook

I don't know if anyone is still reading this thread, but this new piece in the New Yorker is fascinating and explains a lot https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/13/the-other-afghan-women

I just binged episodes 6-16 of Light On Me (the pretty Korean HS boys drama). They put the first 5 eps on YouTube but then the rest was on Viki or WeTV. I signed up for the Viki free trial to watch the rest. It is really great. Quite well done. I loved the story's twists and turns. The production design is really good. Highly recommended if you get a chance to see it.

they already are. The ethnic armies are joining forces. There were several reports a few months ago shortly after the coup of people fleeing the cities and joining the ethnic armies

At this point with everything closed I'd guess that most airlines are still in wait-and-see mode with few flights scheduled. If things really open they will add flights which will decrease fares. I don't have much faith or trust in the Thai government. I'm way more inclined to wait until mid or late next year to see where we stand. As I said in the other thread, from my home to get to Thailand is about 24 hours of travel time. That much time with a mask requirement isn't something I'd want to put myself through. Especially when what's happening on the other end is rather unknown. I prefer to let things settle and get back up and running more "normally" rather than be a pioneer. Although I am vaccinated we are seeing a fair few "breakthrough" infections with the current variant, albeit mostly without requiring hospitalization or inflicting severe disease. Who knows that the next variant will be like. I'd also rather go when most of the locals have been fully vaccinated.

I'm not planning to travel for 24 plus hours on a plane for quite some time as long as the mask-wearing requirements are in place. I don't expect to travel back to Asia for at least another year.

obviously any "study" like this is going to be essentially anecdotal. I'm sure there's still some interesting tidbits though. The whole young-gay-man-leaves-the-sticks-for-the-big-city narrative is a very old story across many countries and cultures.

I wasn't a big fan of ITSAY either, but you're not allowed to say that. 🙂 I think I outlined all of my issues with it many pages back. I need to finish watching the Korean highschool thing but only the first 5 eps were on YT for free so I'm waiting for it to finish so I can binge it all in the Viki free trial.

a little surprised Taiwan is allowing that. But I presume they have pretty stringent quarantine procedures

sounds almost like the plot of The Everlasting Secret Family

clearly there are other options out there. It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out. There was a good bit of controversy over JFF several months ago. https://boston.edgemedianetwork.com/story.php?ch=nightlife&sc=sex&id=295837&justforfans_founder_accused_of_inappropriate_sexual_behavior_with_models,_intimidation

it's not just women who tease. There are plenty of gay guys doing it too. I paid for one month of Lucas Dell's OF. Very disappointing. Apparently there are also some celebrities and pseudo-celebrities who use OF for fan engagement that are not pornographic. But clearly it is a tiny segment of their business. The issue does seem to be visa and MC not wanting to be associated with the business. It seems like proving performer age is easy enough to prove with a government ID. Just like the porn studios have to keep records proving ages, these site can and I suspect that they must.

some other site will fill the void at least for a little while. I guess OF decided that a small sliver of income was better than no income.

I think it will be sooner than that. As I said in a different forum recently, I can't believe there's been no plan made to move to higher ground or at least inland. It's going to take a long time to build a new capital. You'd expect with all of the corruption in Thailand that the opportunities for graft would be too good to pass up with all of the construction contracts. Instead they just keep pouring more money into BKK train systems and more and more big buildings. Indonesia has been making their plan. And as nuts as the generals in Myanmar are, building Naypyidaw in the middle of nowhere seems kind of prudent with the rising water likely to wipe out Yangon and the delta.

I found this recent report from US public broadcasting to be quite interesting. I don't know if it's geo-blocked. But their Afghan reporter recently returned and interviewed the Taliban (and expected to be murdered) as well as some other people on the ground. There's some sense that Iran is actually meddling quite a bit in Afghanistan