The Hermit

This is kinda interesting, and it pretty much got me right I think:

Which Tarot Card Are You?

I am the Hermit.

You are The Hermit

Prudence, Caution, Deliberation.

The Hermit points to all things hidden, such as knowledge and inspiration,hidden enemies. The illumination is from within, and retirement from participation in current events.

The Hermit is a card of introspection, analysis and, well, virginity. You do not desire to socialize; the card indicates, instead, a desire for peace and solitude. You prefer to take the time to think, organize, ruminate, take stock. There may be feelings of frustration and discontent but these feelings eventually lead to enlightenment, illumination, clarity.

The Hermit represents a wise, inspirational person, friend, teacher, therapist. This a person who can shine a light on things that were previously mysterious and confusing.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Macbook, Sandy and more

So, another long time since I've updated. I eventually did get the Ipod Touch, and it's probably one of the coolest devices I've ever owned. I do wish however I had EDGE access on the Touch, but I guess then that would pretty much be an Iphone. (My humble request for EDGE access is simply because we don't have 3G yet here in Thailand.)  They do have 3G trials going on up in Chaing Mai, and at the Central World Mall (AIS), but otherwise it'll probably be a while until we really get a good 3G rollout here in Bangkok.

My best friend, since I was 5 years old, came over for a visit a couple weeks ago.  He and his wife stopped in BKK for a few days on the way to Phuket and then to Nepal to see a friend of his wife's.  They were supposed to come back to BKK for a day, but that nonsense at the airport put the 'ole kibosh on that. I was able to show him around a little bit, take him to a couple nice places to eat and  introduce him to a few of my friends. The really nice thing about Sandy coming though, was that he bought my new Macbook that I ordered from the Apple Online Store in the States. My main computer will still be my iMac so I didn't go with the cheapest new one for mobile, the 2Ghz Macbook.

I do love the ability to sync all my stuff so easily via Mobile Me. I probably will fork over the $100 and stay with it once my 60 day trial ends. I just love the syncing and I've just recently started using the idrive.  Haven't even started messing around with the gallery or the web hosting yet.

Apple just recently opened their Thai localized online store, http://store.apple.com/th so my next purchase will probably be the in ear headset and possibly a time machine. I'll have to get a UPS and a all in one printer pretty soon too.

Otherwise life is pretty normal here.  Temp has cooled down and I love being able to open my windows and enjoy the breeze.  Even if it gets so dusty in here because of he bad Bangkok air. Haven't been going out much recently, just the occasional restaurant (and nothing new, just good old regulars) and occasional shopping.

Coming back in some form

Ok, I've been pretty lazy blogging again, but I'm getting re-motivated recently.  Trying to decide if I just go ahead and keep blogging here on Blogger, or if I should mess around with setting up my own hosted Wordpress blog. 

Lots has changed in the past few months.  Firstly, I've converted to being a mac-guy.  I bought a 24" 3Ghz iMac, and just love it.  My next Apple purchase will definitely be an iPod Touch, and I'm looking forward to the Macbook updates rumored for October. If they beef up the Air a bit, and lower the price, that will definitely be a tempting acquisition.   I tell ya, one really simple thing about the Mac that I just absolutely love....program installations and de-installations.  Windows requires running some executable, and all sorts of files being installed everywhere with "registry" updates.  Mac, it's so simple...drag the program to Applications, and that's it.  To uninstall, just drag it to the trash.....LOVE IT!  I hate the idea of all those stupid Windows files being left all over the place.

Anyway, Mac Rules, and with VM Fusion or Parallels or Boot Camp, one can have Windows too if they really need it.  So...what's not to love?

Bangkok life.  There's been so much poltical turmoil here in the city lately, but it's pretty much left me unaffected.  Actually, lately I've been leading somewhat of a hermitic life, going out rarely and just content to chill out.  I did go on a mini-vaction to Cha'am beach, near Hua Hin for a few days and really enjoyed it.  Love breathing in the fresh sea-air and lounging on the beach.

May Day Thailand 2008

May day here, and a lot of people have off. I'm working though. Actually quite busy since it's the first of the month and I have to put together a bunch of end of month reports for April.

Want to give a mention that Matt over at Thailand's Lost Boy has put together a list of the Top 100 Bloggers in Thailand. As I write this, I'm at number 56, which is better than I would expect seeing as how I don't really update regularly.  Really, this blog was just meant to be a way to update family and friends back home about my life here in Thailand. Amazing to think that other people find what I write worth reading.  Especially seeing how that most of the people (friends) that I actually INTENDED to write for don't bother much coming here :)

It's been damn hot this month during the day, but every early evening we've been getting wicked thunderstorms.  Check out a couple of these pictures that were taken on the 23rd.

The wind from this storm was so strong, my sliding glass windows were vibrating. And the lightning was literally constantly flashing through the sky without stop.  Really quite a show.

*UPDATE* Well, the photographer of the pictures wrote to me and complained about my linking and displaying the storm pics here on my little blog and asked me to take them down.  Thus, if you want to see the pics here are the links:

http://tinyurl.com/6hy53g

http://tinyurl.com/59qz2k

http://tinyurl.com/5ja7y6

Songkran 2008 Reflections

Well, we're in the midst of the Songkran Water Festival here in Thailand. I've not really participated much this year, preferring to hide out in my condo and avoid getting soaked.

I have so much to write about, but just haven't gotten myself motivated to write yet. This past weekend, went for a weekend trip to Mae Sot, on the Myanmar border. It was fun driving through the mountains, and I hit a farmers market on top of one of the mountains. Wow, things were really cheap. 2 bags of plus (about 30 plums) or so, 30 baht;  2 kilos of tomatoes, 20 baht. I'll probably write a dedicated post about the Mae Sot trip.

Songkran is a funny holiday for me. It's very festive here in Thailand, and everyone has off....but of course it's not a holiday in the US and UK, so work continues. It's a peculiar mood; a strange half-work/half-holiday feeling.

I've been using twitter a lot recently, so feel free to follow-me. I have a 50/50 mix of Thai followers and work/marketing followers.

http://www.twitter.com/daveoli

Truevisions and Satellite TV

So here in Bangkok, I subscribe to the largest satellite/cable TV provider, TrueVisions (formerly UBC until bought by True). I have the gold package that give me about 60 or so channels, maybe 15 of which I watch on a regular basis.  I pay about $60 U.S. (2500 baht) a month or so.

Starting a few days ago, the picture and sound stopped for a few minutes, or blacked out before resuming. This became more and more frequent but it was cloudy so I figured it was just the clouds interfering or sun spot activity.  Next day, same thing, except it was sunny and clear out. Hmmm....so I called up a couple friends to ask if they were having any problems with their TV...(sun spots? network problem?)  Nope, everything OK...so a quick call to TrueVisions scheduled a tech to come out the following day, afternoon appointment.

The day of the appointment, I turned on my TV, and same exact problem, quite frequently. Any show was pretty much unwatchable. The tech called me up around 11:30 am to confirm the appointment, and dutifully arrived around 12:30 (afternoon as promised).

I kid you not, as soon as the tech walked in the door, the problem completely vanished.  Before it was literally happening every couple minutes, so we sat there and watched TV for about 20 minutes, and it was perfect.

So...ok, problem resolved. The tech walks out the door, and bam, within a few minutes, problem is back!  Are you kidding me???  Luckily, I have the tech's phone number, so I call him back.  10 minutes later, knock on the door, and as he is knocking, the problem is there. In between the time I walk to the door and open it, and we walk back to the TV, problem gone.  Everything perfect again.

Am I in some movie?  No...because it wouldn't be believable in the movie.

Anyway, thankfully the tech just takes my word and changes the converter box.  Since the box was changed, have had no problems. So...I'm pretty sure I wasn't crazy......

Wishlist for 2008

Things I really would like to buy in the next month or so if I had oodles of cash:

Asus EEE PC - 12,500 baht

Really a sweet little portable machine that is so light. Pretty much everything I do is now online, so I want to be able to cart this little bad boy to the beach, to the coffee shop, to Singapore, or wherever and maintain total efficiency.

Nokia N95 - 26,000 baht

It has everything, connectivity, music, GPS, games and a sweet camera. Especially since I recently lost my beloved Canon.

MacMini - 24,000 baht

I want to hook this up to my LCD and turn it into a media center. Play music, view pictures, watch downloaded videos/movies, watch DVDs and also turn it into a DVR. Also just want to surf the web on my big LCD.

A New PC - 50,000 baht

No link here, since I'm not really sure what I want. I do want a fairly high end machine with a nice graphics card and sound card, a nice sound system to play music, and most importantly 3 LCD screens. I want a command center!  I'll use my little Asus EEE as my mobile unit, my MacMini as entertainment/media and the big desktop command center to rule them all.

Mellow New Years - Bangkok 2008

Wow, woke up this morning and it was down-right COLD!  I think the temp was somewhere in the 60's (Fahrenheit). I opened up my windows and had to put on sweat pants. Haven't had to do that in quite a long time.

This morning, for my first meal of the new year, I treated myself to a McDonalds breakfast. About 4 months ago or so, they started doing breakfast at *some* of the McDonald's around Bangkok. However, recently I heard rumors that it was being discontinued. Well, I called 1711 (number for McD's delivery, they delivers here in BKK for about .60), and low and behold they offered breakfast for delivery. Ordered myself up a Big Breakfast, Sausage McMuffin and hashbrowns and an OJ. Well, the big breakfast was a bit wanting...the the mcmuffin was darn good and the hashbrowns were great. The orange juice turned out to be orange drink...bleh.

Last night was pretty mellow. Just stayed in, had a bottle of Champagne and peanuts, and watched the festivities on TV. Crashed about 1:30. Jeang had one glass of champagne and ended up worshipping at the porcelain altar last night.  I'm guessing that will be her first and last glass of champagne ever :)  Well, hope everyone has a great 2008!  

Choose Your Own Adventure Finally Comes to the Web 2.0 World

If you're around my age, then surely you remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books. I loved these books, had the 'ole parents buy bunches of them and consumed them ravenously. Well, the CYOA style has finally come to the Web via a Web2.0 style interface, check it out:

protagonize: community-driven interactive fiction

Merry Christmas in Bangkok 2007

Hoping everyone is having a happy and peaceful Christmas. Of course Thailand is like 90%+ Buddhist, and Christmas isn't a recognized official holiday, thus it's a working day.

International internet access seems to be running very fast this morning, so I'm wondering if all the expats taking off for Christmas have relieved all the load of the international links.  Anyway, it's GREAT!

Bangkok Temperature December 2007 - HOT

December is supposed to be one of the coolest months in Thailand. November was awesome, I only turned my air conditioning on a couple times the whole month, my electric bill was less than 800 baht. Usually I average around 1500 baht, and during April / May 2500 baht and up. There were nice breezes during the day, I was able to keep my windows open to enjoy the fresh clean, er..smog. However the temp was really quite comfortable.

However, this December has been darn hot. The past couple days especially, and I think the next couple are supposed to be even warmer. What's going on? My air con is getting turned on more and more....oh well, so much for those super low electric bills.

Thanksgiving in Bangkok

There's not a lot of evidence of Thanksgiving in Bangkok.  Christmas, yes...all the malls and shops are putting up Christmas trees and decorations.  There's a 4 storey Christmas Tree in the middle of Central World mall.  It's HUGE!  But Thanksgiving, being uniquely American, not much visible evidence. However, many of the American owned restaurants do a great job of putting on some big Thanksgiving feasts. And like the 4th of July, the American expats are out in force today.

It's not really a holiday for me here of course, but I take it pretty easy regardless. Stay home, reply to some email, do a couple things, and pretty much chill. Watched a movie on HBO, and read. I'm reading "Pattern Recognition" by William Gibson, and as I started reading it, I realized I had read it before....but didn't really ever remember reading. Surprising, because it is quite good. Anyway, I now realize I only probably got into about 100 pages or so, because it all seems like new territory at the point I'm at. I digress.

In the evening, went for the usual ritual (past 3 years) of Thanksgiving Dinner at Bourbon Street Restaurant on Soi 22. They are a little expensive, but they do a nice job with buffet having turkey, ham, stuffing, veggies, potatoes, yams, cranberries and pumpkin pie. It really gets packed in the evening and reservations are a must. I am utterly and completely stuffed. Even though it's not supposed to be permitted, I was kinda sweet with some of the waitresses and they allowed me to stash some in a takeaway box for Friday leftovers :)

The Prelude to Loy Krathong Festival is LOUD

Last year around this time, I was living out in the suburbs, and it was nice and quiet.  This year, I'm right in the middle of the city, and I'm living right next to a canal, so I get to experience loud firecrackers/fireworks every night (often times being shot off right next to my building and exploding right about at my condo level).

This is all part of the lead-up to the Loy Krathong Festival in Thailand. I really enjoy the actual Loy Krathong day, it's a very visual and neat holiday, people lighting lanterns and floating them out on lakes, ponds and canals everywhere. The whole firecracker thing happening every night for hours, I am definitely looking forward to that part ending.

Awesome November Weather in Bangkok

This is the time of year when I just love living here in Thailand. The weather is getting cooler, the sun is out, nice breezes are blowing, and I can walk down the street without the need to take a shower at the end of the walk. I put my laundry out to dry on an eastern facing balcony, and when I open the balcony sliding door, and open the windows on the north facing side, I get a really nice wind flowing through. The added bonus; since the laundry is out there, the breeze carries in the smell of fresh laundry all throughout the condo.

Trying so hard to diet, but it's difficult. I just love food so much. Trying to stick to salad in the morning, and soup for lunch.

This is Kao Moo something or other, I forget the name. A little bit spicy, but pretty good.  Of course, you'll see that I'm drinking milk tea with the soup, which probably isn't all that good for the diet, but it's delicious! Here's another noodle soup I have (don't remember the name at all):

Probably doesn't look to appetizing to western eyes, but it's pretty good stuff. The cost for these soups: about .60 - $1.