CheshireTom

I think the main thing to bear in mind with SQ is that their intercontinental services are a bit better than their regional services and their A380 and B777 aircraft are a bit better than their B747s. My opinion is, if you're going to be doing a stop en-route, Changi would be my choice.

Mick, The attraction of the Oishi sarnies is those nights when the fried-chicken food carts have called it quits because of the weather, or whatever. Sometimes a bag of pineapple or cantaloupe just doesn't quite satisfy my hunger pangs.

Where are they (or at least the tuna and cheese/ham varieties)? Is their (Oishi's) kitchen still down as a result of the floods, or what? Same, same the pizza slices in the green, yellow, pink and purple boxes? I'm not a fan of the CP shit that seems to be taking up all the space in 7-11 chilled displays these days. For those who have no idea what I'm talking about ...

Ah, well! The tennis from Oz is also on now .... worth it just for all those -kova and -nova birds!

Presumably, you mean licences, and not licence. As for documentation (for each licence), a non-immigrant visa for starters, certificates of residency, medical certificates, old licences. I would opt for two originals of the residence and medical certificates. They may not be required at any given LTD office on any given day, but you'll be pissed-off if they are and you don't have them.

As an aside Vic, and I apologise if you mentioned it in the thread, how are you watching the games this season? I've got to say that the HD transmissions of the NFL on Astro are one of the things that make the subscription worthwhile.

Coming from Qatar, I got stopped after exiting customs by a couple of guys in civvies. I obviously asked to see their ID and requested a uniformed copper to be present. No great drama and I was taken to a room roughly opposite Exit Door 8 where they then checked my hold baggage. I got the impression they were specifically after ciggies.

Mick, At the time I just wanted relief from the pain - I was in Pattaya with not much arranged during the day, so it was worth it for me. As an aside, I went into hospital in Had Yai for an operation just over two years ago. In UK, it's a general anaesthetic job, but they offered to do it with an injection into the spine, which I went along with. Coincidence, or not, I have no idea, but one of the side effects was that my back pain pretty much disappeared overnight. Other than waking up and my back feeling a bit tight (just doing a couple of stretches sorts it out) I've not had any real back pain since. How did you guess?

I used the physio at PIH (10 visits in 14 days) when my back pain was beginning to verge on the ridiculous. It done the business for me, but it was a short-term fix and I was back to square one within a couple of months. I'm sure the stretching rack came straight from the set of Braveheart though.

Anywhere with Astro. Coverage starts at 8 a.m. Thai time.

I think that dental treatment in the tourist resorts is significantly more expensive than in the rest of the country. I don't know your travel plans, but if you are in, or near, a city that hosts a university Faculty of Dentistry and associated Dental Hospital, you'll normally find a load of private dental clinics nearby (Chulalongkorn in BKK, Khon Kaen, Chiang Mai and Hat Yai are the four major locations that spring to mind). The Dental Hospitals themselves can be used by farangs and provide the same treatment by the same doctors at a fraction of the price found elsewhere.

Wearing a bit of thread on your wrist and eating fried chicken and somtam off the floor can hardly be used as evidence of "adapting to the local lifestyle". My dog does that. And he sleeps a lot.

It's not flying any long haul routes yet, is it?

Emirates are using them to BKK from Dubai (and Hong Kong) - EK384/385.

I read on Thai Visa the other day that some guy in Pattaya was selling his 2m mesh dish and Dreambox set up for Astro. I have no idea about the credentials of the service provider (keeping the dreambox configured) but Astro itself is pretty good. I think a couple of barowners must have it (or similar) to get the American sports. I'll see if I can find the ad again. Edit in: There you go ... remember, caveat emptor!

In which province is it registered?

Has our daily ration of green ping pong balls been reduced?

Only until such time as I spotted it. Then they got the second vote. I didn't know it was connected to the personal ratings thingy until you started this thread - I always wondered what the stars were all about. On a serious note ... the rating of posts and/or threads is all very well but I think it should be visible as to who is doing the voting, irrespective if it's positive or negative.

What makes it even better is that you can rate your own thread. I always wondered why Gabor's and Evil's threads always seemed to have 5 stars.

It's the time of the year for promotions and new jobs for Thailand's finest ... DSI to crack down on illegal foreign-run businesses The Nation on Sunday January 1, 2012 1:00 am Department of Special Investigation (DSI) chief Tharit Pengdit said yesterday his office would crack down on foreigners using Thais as nominees to buy land and run businesses from which they are legally excluded, while his deputy Narat Sawettanan said 536 websites had been shut down since December 13 for allegedly having lese majeste content. Tharit said many foreigners were using Thai nationals as nominees to run businesses prohibited for non-Thais under the Foreign Business Act 1999. The businesses include logging, newspapers and property development. He said the DSI was cracking down on foreign gangsters encroaching on forestland and running property projects as well as extorting others in Koh Samui, Pattaya City and other tourists cities, while human traffickers had brought Chinese prostitutes into Thailand. Claiming foreign gangsters aimed to launder money in Thailand-based businesses before transferring it offshore, Tharit said the DSI would be more proactive in going after them before Thailand entered the Asean Economic Community in 2015. He urged members of the public to alert the DSI to any suspicious activities.

Aren't the ratings then assigned to the thread starter. If not, what do these "rating" stars mean?

Why is it unscrupulous, not to mention disrespecting the board and its membership, to review JK's posts and give him a plus where appropriate (not that he'd much care)? How else is his "reputation" going to be enhanced, if not voting his posts. Some folk have obviously voted your posts up - are they also unscrupulous and disrespectful? What is unscrupulous is activating the visibility of a function only after certain reputations have been established. Why wasn't the visibility activated at the very beginning when the red and green buttons were introduced? Can the function not be extended to show exactly which BMs have voted red or green for each post? That would make for better viewing. It would certainly sort out the unscrupulous posters, don't you think?

There you go! A greenie from me and 3 goals at The Bridge - all in the same day!

Sorry. There's more than one ratcuntfuckmaster?

I think it's fair to assume that Joe couldn't give a toss about his "reputation".