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Il Peccatore ("The Sinner') is an Italian restaurant that's been open since mid-November on Soi Lengkee, about half way between Soi Buakhao and 3rd Road. I read that the owner named it Il Peccatore because Pattaya is a city of sinners. It features indoor and outdoor dining areas, with the enclosed area strictly non-smoking. The indoor area had about 15 diners when I arrived and I didn't want to get intrusive with my camera, so I only took pictures of the bar area. I had been meaning to try Il Peccatore for awhile, but never got around to it until last night. Il Peccatore posts its daily specials on its Facebook page and yesterday's special really caught my eye: paccheri cacio e pepe. Il Peccatore Paccheri is large tubular pasta and cacio e pepe translates as "cheese and pepper." The cheese is pecorino romano, a very salty type made from sheep's milk. Cacio e pepe is one of the oldest dishes in Italian cuisine, dating back to shepherds in Roman times. It's a simple dish, consisting of only a few ingredients, namely cheese, pasta and pepper. Modern variations often add extra virgin olive oil to give the sauce a shine. Since the 1950s, cacio e pepe has become a staple in Rome's restaurants and has more recently become popular outside Italy. In 2016, it was named by a New York City magazine as the year's "trendiest dish." I haven't seen it before on a menu in Pattaya, so I was eager to try it. I wasn't disappointed. The sauce was excellent and coated the fresh pasta as it should. I thought it could do with a bit more pepper and ground more on the pasta from the miniature pepper mill on the condiment tray. A basket of fresh bread preceded the pasta. After the meal. the waitress offered me a complimentary glass of chilled limoncello as a digestif. Nice touch! I really like limoncello. I was happy with the meal. The portion wasn't large, but the paccheri was very filling and adequate for me. Considering the meal was based on fresh pasta and pecorino romano and included bread and limoncello, I thought it was value for money at 270 baht. I know there are restaurants where you can get bigger plates of spaghetti for half the price, but a mound of dry pasta with canned sauce is a long way from paccheri cacio e pepe. The service was fast and friendly. The waitress I had spoke good English, which isn't always the case in Pattaya restaurants. The owner (or perhaps manager) greeted me both on my way in and out. I didn't study the menu, but there seemed to be a wide range of Italian dishes, including pizza. I noticed another diner had taken the other special, the grilled T-bone steak for 490 baht, and I almost regretted my decision to go with the pasta. The steak looked large and thick and the gentleman ate it with gusto. Il Peccatore's daily specials follow a pattern of fresh pasta dishes under 300 baht and a meat dish (beef, lamb, pork, duck) under 500 baht. The meat dishes aren't necessarily Italian, such as roast beef with roasted potatoes and T-bone steak. I'll include some photos of the daily special lists from Il Peccatore's FB page at the end of this post. From what I overhead of the other guests' table conversation, almost all were Italian. That's a decent comment on the quality of the food. Bottom line: I'll definitely go back for another taste of Italy and maybe the steak and roast lamb as well. Evil

I'm a big fan of Taco Taco, but I haven't been back too many times since they moved to Soi 9 off Pattaya Klang, simply because the old location, a stall in the Soi Buakhao night market, was more convenient for me. No doubt, though, that the new enclosed, air-conditioned restaurant is a far more comfortable place to have a meal than a fold-up table in front of the old stall. The menu has expanded considerably, too. I went back yesterday to try the Taco Tuesday special: And a tempting pic from Taco Taco's Facebook page: The following tacos cost 60 baht each all day Tuesday and you can mix and match as you please: You can also choose hard-shell corn tortillas or soft wheat tortillas. I picked column B and had the conchinita pibil and chicken tinga in corn tortillas and the smoky beef on a wheat tortilla. The order came with three in-house-made sauces: the iconic Mexican pico de gallo (aka salsa fresca or salsa mexicana); habanero chili hot sauce (fiery hot ) and pineapple salsa. The pork, chicken and beef in the tacos had been slow-cooked with Mexican spices. The cook didn't skimp on the chili content and the chicken tinga and smoky beef had quite a kick without the hot sauce. The conchinita pibil was a bit milder with a sweet-sour flavor to the pork. It's based on a traditional pork dish from the Yucatán Peninsula and is a favorite of mine. I hope Taco Taco spins off conchinita pibil into a main dish and not just a taco filling. The meal cost 180 baht for the three tortillas and 20 baht for a bottle of water. Bottom line: Since Dave's Cantina closed, these are the best tacos in Pattaya. They aren't the biggest, but definitely the best tasting. Some other taco variations on offer on the regular menu. Taco Taco also has weekly specials and this week it's three-bean chili con carne with rice and nachos: : Evil

Ok, Not that it matters, but I found and fixed the issues. This was simple laziness on my part. When I set up my enterprise network 10 years ago I did so with multiple redundancies to prevent issues like this. I got it set up, configured, and *poof I thought, done! Uh huh. But Microsoft. A series of issues caused this downtime, I just did not know they were happening... because the system was working as I had intended it. lol. I have 3 name servers. All on different physical servers and in different racks inside the datacenter, and on different subnets, all "best practices" for DNS hosting. What I failed to do is run periodic tests to make sure all 3 servers were up and running. My primary server hosts 99% of DNS requests (about 500 per second), and unless you specifically ask for a specific server for some reason, #1 will answer. Apparently #'s 2 and 3 both had issues that arose from windows updates sometime in the past 2 years or so (since the last time I checked them physically). One was down due to a change to the firewall rules (turned off the rule that was supposed to allow the traffic), and the other was too sensitive in its automatic IP blocking rules. It seems that 10 requests per second not over the top for dns servers), which resulted in that server blocking every single IP that was requesting data. lol. The end of the chain, my primary server, had a hiccup for a yet unknown issue- I simply hit "start" and it started working again. Ill research that later... but all 3 are now back up and running, and now on my monthly maintenance to-do list. On the plus side of things, its unusual for a windows server to not go thru a reboot at least once a month or so... and DNS servers 2 and 3 managed to stay up and stable for over 2 years! Woohoo? 555. Anyway, sorry about that lapse guys. Totally not cool of me. Ill do my best to prevent it in future... and have put my phone number out for the mods in case it does, so I get notified faster. Ill also get our facebook presence up and running ASAP so those that want to can join it and be able to contact me there if need be. Frosty

I have had the same AIS number for years so I really cannot comment about other brands. Here is how I use it. I do stop at the arrivals hall now and get the whole thing fixed up for the month and paid for. The plans seem to be changing regularly so I tell the ladies what I want and they install and set up. OK, occasionally there are a few people there but bugger the cabbie waiting. He will stop for gas anyway! By the way, by going onto the AIS web site you can do a bit of pre planning as to the right sim for you before you get up to the counter. One response says to pay and top up on one trip and activate on the next. This does not always work as if you have too much credit it will automatically renew even if your not in Thailand. I want data when I arrive so that I can do a bit phoning in the cab. I need data as I use LINE almost exclusively in Thailand. In Pattaya I am sure to be in Central so I use the office there and put say 100 dollars in the machine and put in 5 x 20 baht top ups. Each top up gives me a month in advance. I am currently about 10 months ahead. I suspect that it does not matter where you go and what card you get. For me, I have made decision to keep the same number as long as I can and for that reason AIS has suited me with its 12 month life as long as I keep it topped up. I also believe that the reach is better with AIS but again, only what I believe. As a matter of interest, I spend for a month about 450 baht for around a 4 gig fast plan and I top up say about 100 for phone and text calls using AIS. This just about is fine for me as I also use the sim as a hot spot for my lap top so a bit of decent speed data suits me.

I've been reading up on the new 777x and it seems to be getting closer to the actual test flight stage, (Q2 2019) with deliveries expected in 2020 (as I understand it). From first impressions it appears to be quite revolutionary in a number of areas, not least the Engine design and development, along with folding wingtips and pax capacity of over 400. Some are saying this could kill off the A380. I'm not so sure if that is a fair or relevant comparison, perhaps putting it up against the A350 might be better, here's an interesting comparison: https://simpleflying.com/777x-vs-a350/ Anyway, speaking of Engines, here's the new GE9x strapped to a 747, the comparison to the GECF6 this particular 747 has, to give y'all an idea. Either way, hopefully it'll be better for the end user (us) in both comfort and reduction of costs.

Lowest prices of the year in May and June should be big choice out there. I might suggest Flipper Lodge Soi 8 at that time of year. They also used to do promotions at that time of year may still do but whatever am pretty sure at 1200 you'd get good room in June there (not high season though)

As you exit the customs/baggage hall at Suvarnabhumi airport and turn right to head to the meeting points there are couple of mobile phone operators on your left hand side. I can't remember which companies are represented but last May I used the one that offered a tourist sim and it worked perfectly for the three weeks I was their. You need to hand over your passport so they can copy the details and they will fit the sim to your phone and check it is working. From memory I think it was around 480bt which included a set amount of talk time and a decent chunk of mobile data.

Last night at the TT on Beach Rd near Soi 7.

35:95 for one Euro with super rich at the airport today ,35:93 from TT jomtien this evening,western currencies looked down across the board.

Most comprehensive No Trespassing sign ever...

Again last night on Beach Rd near soi 7, before the PT Crawl when I lost my ability to work my phone!