Gary

High blood killer is called the silent killer because there are NO symptoms. When I retired to Thailand, my blood pressure was too high and could not be controlled. The US doctor had me on three different expensive drugs. I felt bad every day. A retired friend had been watching me and finally asked me what was wrong. I told him I felt bad every day. He took me to his heart doctor at Bangkok Pattaya hospital. The doctor checked me out and looked at the three drugs I was taking. He decided that those three drugs were not a good combination and advised me to throw them away. He prescribed a 20 mg ACE inhibitor called Anaril and a baby aspirin a day. He told me to come back to see him in a week. The next week my blood pressure was normal and I felt great. Controlling your blood pressure won't make you feel any better but it will control the unnecessary stress on your circulation system. It appears that the wrong drugs were what was making me feel bad. Even my pulse rate has dropped considerably. Stress is the real cause of a lot of health problems. Eliminating the worry about your blood pressure will make you feel better.

She's just a kid and no one should criticize her for some horseplay that ended badly. She has a great future ahead of her and her choking at the end of a match shows that she lacks some poise and maturity. The bottom line is that she's still just a normal kid. Good luck to her and her sister.

I have an Elegance 135 cc and it is a very good dependable little bike. One of my favorite watering holes is up on a mountain. I am able to easily pass the 110's and 125 bikes going up the mountain. It amuses me that the kids cannot keep up with me. I see that this one has spoked wheels. It would be much better with tubeless tires. My wife and a friend continually have flat tires. A puncture is one thing but flat tires for no apparent reason is a bummer. After several years of having tubeless tires, I have never had a flat.

Many toilets cannot swallow tissue and especially granny rags. There are some idiots who intentionally try to stop up toilets. Why they do this is beyond my comprehension. There are few things worse than a toilet that is overflowing.

My Thai wife totally agrees. If we are going out to eat seafood, she insists on this restaurant. We no longer even try other places. The wife knows what is fresh and what isn't. My taste buds are not that developed.

Since the airlines figured out how to rip off more money from passengers, I invested in a good backpack. I paid 2,700 baht for a Targus Metro. It's carry on legal size and comfortable to carry. I used to use a Travelpro carry on with a shoulder strap but the backpack is much easier and more comfortable to carry. It has many different pockets and compartments. At check in, I kept it on my back and they didn't bother to weigh it. With all the different compartments, I don't have to root through a bag to find what I'm looking for. Having had my luggage lost a number of times, I carry a couple days change of clothes, a small shaving kit, tooth brush and soap.It has a special compartment for a laptop and a lined padded pocket in that compartment for my beloved Kindle. I no longer carry a camera. My cell phone has an excellent camera.

Most high end Samsung phones can be rooted and unlocked. Try this site; http://forum.xda-developers.com/

Buy an iPhone then pay to have it hacked ??

That's an old scam. They will ask you for enough money to be able to send a courier to deliver your check. I was feeling ornery so I contacted them to see what their scam was. We went back and forth several times with me insisting that they take the courier cost out of the winnings. Of course they refused. I even offered to pay double. They gave up.

Very nice indeed !!

I absolutely hate shopping. My wife occasionally suckers me into going with her and it always costs me money. She has a budget and if the total goes over that figure, which it normally does when I go with her, she taps me for the extra. The household budget is 30,000 baht per month and that pays for everything, utilities, clothes and food. ADDED - We have two refrigerators at the house. One is a huge thing with a bottom freezer and the other is about twice as big as the under counter little box shown. The refrigerator in my condo is twice as big as the one shown and it is too small even for me when I am staying there alone. I don't mind doing my own cooking.

How about this? Send me $100 and I will give you the secret way to earn lots of money. Ah well, since I am among friends, I'll just tell you the secret. Set up a website and sell this secret way to make money by selling this secret. Have you ever wondered why people are selling information on how to get rich? If they are so smart, why are they giving up their methods by selling them to you? If their methods are so fool proof why aren't they rich?

I suspect that the landlord is smiling all the way to the bank. It appears to me that farang business owners work very hard at building a business and then, unfortunately, all the profit eventually goes to greedy landlords.

I don't book a driver to pick me up at the airport. It just complicates things and I don't like waiting if the driver is late or doesn't show up at all. The last few trips to Pattaya, I have used the airport touts. You do have to negotiate because they will try to get an inflated fare. I really don't waste time, I tell them that I want a nice car and a good driver for 1,200 baht. The driver pays the tolls. A taxi will take you a short distance from the airport and you will change to a private car. I have never had any problems. No waiting in airport taxi lines, the tout will take you directly to a waiting taxi. I only tip if the car and driver suit me. I never tip more than 200 baht.

I lived in Washington Square for more than two years. It was an interesting place to say the least. I knew all the guys mentioned by Dean as well as Dean himself. In the early 90's most of the old CIA spooks were still alive and that in itself was quite interesting. The last of the Squareoneans was Mekhong Kurt. He passed away some time back. I think he knew his time was about up because he died at home in Texas. He very seldom made that trip. I still see Richard Diran at Taffy's once in a while. Doug has a New Bourbon Street but I have never been to the new place. Even with most of the Square demolished, I still stop in to see Taffy at the New Square One when I get to Bangkok. I can never forget Ja. LocalYokul calls her Jaaw. She was my girlfriend for a period of time. At the start of her bar girl career, she worked for Seagate Hard Drive company. She started working part time at the Silver Dollar. She adapted to her new bar girl career very well and was quite popular. Unfortunately she was very high maintenance. Nothing but the best designer clothes and accessories. She still looks very good and still likes only the best of everything. Not much left of the Square now, only good memories.

I think that only the landlord is making any money. Rent at a WHOPPING 660,000 baht per month !! A profit of only 500,000 per year for that kind of risky investment is crazy.

As jacko mentioned early in this old thread, the one at the end of Beach Road in Jomtien is probably the best. There is a problem getting there because the baht buses don't like to go that far down. You will probably have to charter a baht bus to take you there. Getting back is easier because the staff will call a baht bus to pick you up. My Thai wife is a seafood expert and can easily tell what is fresh and what is past its sell by date. She refuses to eat at the ones on Walking Street. She says they are far too expensive and not everything is fresh.

LOL! Well, there's a yank and there's yank and in fact another yank. I didn't mean the painful type.

Like many others, I had low back pain and suffered for several month before going to the chiropractor. After two visits I could hardly get out of bed. I then bit the bullet and went to an orthopedist. I was face down on the table and the doctor, after pressing here and there told me that I had severely irritated back muscles. He then asked me if I had visited a chiropractor. I said that I did and then he asked me how many times. I said twice. The doctor asked me if I was better after the first treatment. I told him that I was actually worse. He actually went into a rant and asked why I was stupid enough to go back a second time. He told me that if I ever went back to a chiropractor, not to come back to see him again. He told me that my back needed rest and not jerked around. He gave me some pain killers and after resting a couple of days to do some special exercises. He said I'd be lucky if there was no permanent damage. Needless to say, I have never gone to a bone cracker again. If you do go to a chiropractor and you don't get immediate relief, DON'T go back. That's been my experience. I certainly wouldn't allow a Thai massage lady to ever yank me around either. A Thai oil muscle massage is fine but no "back adjustment".

I think the worst chain is Chesters. I ate there a couple years ago and recently gave it another try, YEP, it was as bad as the last time.

Plug converters will NOT work, you will still be getting 240 volts and your 120 volt appliance will fry. Most electronic items such as computers and phones will accept 120 or 240 volts. It will say 120 - 240 volt on the power block. No problem as long as the power block says 120 - 240 volts. Things like a hair dryer use a lot of power so you would need quite a large step down transformer. Thailand power is also 50 cycle and US power is 60 cycles. That will affect motors. They will run hotter and slower even using a step down transformer.. I had an expensive Sony boom box from the US that I ran off a transformer. I specifically told my then girlfriend that it HAD to be plugged into the transformer. She wanted to listen to the boom box in the kitchen so she unplugged it from the transformer and plugged it directly into an outlet. She got just a puff of smoke and silence. The dumb bitch!

I have a Nuovo Elegance. My helmet is a Nolan convertible (removable chin guard) and it won't fit under the seat.

Wanting to remove the built in storage is a bad idea. My condo has a lot of built in storage and it is really useful. The bedroom has a wall to wall wardrobe built in and the living room has a built in entertainment center where the large TV fits. In fact the built in storage is one of the reasons I bought that unit. I wish our house had built in storage. Since there is no built in storage in the house, we have four crappy stand alone wardrobe units. The entertainment center in the living room is made from crappy particle board that doesn't fit that well as well as looking cheap. There is a useless gap at each end.

I have no idea who my neighbors are and I don't care. I mind my own business and they pretty much mind their own business.

Be an liberal Obama supporter and live in a make believe fantasy world.