PattayaPete

The word is that the British Embassy is not so accomodating. They will provide the letter but you need to show them proof of your income.

It really is quite easy. Here's what you should do. Go to the Thai embassy in Manila and apply for a Non-Immigrant O visa. Tell them you wish to retire in Thailand and that you have a pension which meets the financial requirements. When you arrive in Bangkok go to the American Embassy and get a proof of income document. All you need to do to get this is swear in front of an embassy official that you have a pension greater than 65,000 baht a month. No proof required. Then go to Thai immigration in Bangkok or Pattaya and apply for a one year extension by reason of retirement. You should get an extension to the O visa for 1 year. At the end of that year you can get a further one year extension by simply showing a bank account that has had 800,000 baht or more in it for the previous 3 months or alternatively get another letter offering proof of income from the American embassy. The only problem you may have is getting the O visa in Manila. The embassy there has a bad reputation. If they will not give you one then you "may" be able to convert your tourist visa to a Non-Immigrant O at Thai immigration in Bangkok. This did not use to be possible but I have read of several people managing to do this now. Alternatively you can probably get an O visa in Singapore. The easiest places to get the initial O Visa are Dallas USA, Hull England or Amsterdam Holland who will all dish out one year multiple entry O visas for the asking. I got my O visa in Singapore and had to show proof of 800,000 baht in a Thai bank account. Singapore would only issue single entry (good for 3 months) O visas but if you are going to apply for a retirement extension then that is all you need. I suspect that the Thai embassy in Manila will do the same as the Singapore Embassy.

The New Dynamic: I decided to take more notice of the mix of perambulators on Walking Street on a recent evening foray and there’s no doubt if the happy loving couples (and their pre-pubescent sprogs) and the clusters of north Asian noodles are taken out of the equation, the numbers do tend to look thinner than in recent years. A comment made to me by more than one person has been the ease of obtaining a seat in places such as the Peppermint and Happy ogling dens. Certainly in the past two high seasons it was not unusual for one or both of these dens to have a ‘house full, come back in 15 minutes’ sign across the door. That hasn’t happened this year, even though both places are still doing a good trade. On the same night, I took a wander along Second Road and noted long-established places such as the Bodega and Wonderful beer boozers, between Soi Post Office and Soi Yamato, were all pretty full and the Malibu show boozer was packed, primarily with couples enjoying what is a poor relation to the glitzy and polished Tiffany and Alcazar shows, but is nevertheless a great laugh. Sympathy for the Devil: Soi Buakhow (aka The English Patient) and its satellite sois continue to grow in terms of new boozers and nosheries, with punters seemingly opting to spend many of their holiday nights trawling in this area rather than down in Sois 7 and 8 and even Walking Street. The new Hell Club in Soi LK Metro is actually the Eden Club under a new name and management. The Eden Club, a Pattaya franchise of the very successful joint in Bangkok, opened on 27 December but was ill-fated when one of the partners had a heart attack the following day and, just two days after this, the second partner died. The original partner decided to close the club and it has since been sold to a new team and re-opened as the Hell Club on 6 January. Although it is under new management, the Hell Club will be maintaining a close connection with the original Eden Club in Bangkok, with some of the damsels of extremely easy virtue making the trek from the capital to take on the tumescent swordsmen of Fun Town. The Old, the New, the Opened, the Closed, the Survivors: The moveable feast that is the Fun Town night entertainment scene, especially as it relates to the chrome pole palaces, provides a constant source of information but requires an almost eyes-in-the-back-of-your-head, 24/7, north-south vigilance. Given that this column only appears once every two weeks, it’s amazing just how much can change. For example, at the beginning of December last year, the long-established Spicy Girls ogling den (in gender-confused Pattayaland Soi 1) closed its doors due to a severe shortage of the very product required to lure punters through the portals: namely, dancing maidens. The closure appeared as though it might be permanent. Happily, the management of the den have been able to regroup and the place is well and truly back open for business with a new and brighter frontage, including a table in an alcove out front for those who just want to have a quiet drink and watch the street. Not so the Hot & Cold II ogling den (Soi Yamato). It’s had a couple of openings and closings and it’s currently in yet another of its ‘closing’ phases. I’m surprised someone ever bothered trying such a poor excuse for a den in the soi, especially as its elder sibling is only in the next soi. Once again I think a severe shortage of chrome pole huggers has forced this latest closure. Given its general lack of ambience and the prices of its libations, and, more importantly, lack of quality females, The Roof late-night boogie barn (Walking Street) also closed in January. It’s been a successful beer boozer, an average ogling den, and a failed head-bangers palace, perhaps the owners might want to try something unique like a foot massage parlour, a tailor shop, or a restaurant? Of course, as we have seen in the last three years especially, everyone wants to run an ogling den and the owners of Blue Lagoon (Center Condo, South Pattaya) have opened a second den, imaginatively-named Blue Lagoon II, at the rear of the Best Friend booze bar complex (Beach Road). My understanding is the place was due to turn on the fairy lights around 21 January, but when that exalted evening arrived there was no sign of anything resembling life anywhere hear the joint. If and when it does open it’ll make the current total of chrome pole palaces 73, or is it 74? or 72? Who cares; there are already too many, and the word being openly whispered around town is that come the end of what is passing for high season we’ll be seeing quite a shakeout in the chrome pole ranks. While on the subject of Blue Lagoon, I wandered in with a couple of mates recently and have to say the music is good and there were quite a number of chrome pole molesters scattered around. Apart from one or two they were of the standard off-Walking Street class, but the ambience was good enough to put the place on a return visit list. There is an occasional pool (as in water, not coloured balls) show where lithe young maidens dressed only in their birthday suits dive for ping-pong balls, a bit like trained seals in a circus. Anyone who recalls the great pool shows of a few years ago in the Freeway ogling den would probably appreciate this sidelight. After a somewhat shaky start, the Angelwitch show den (Soi 15) celebrated its first anniversary in early January with a party that saw the place host a standing-room only crowd. Reports from various sources tell me the standard of chrome pole molester is now among the best around, as are the show girls. I can’t say the same for the XXX ogling den, just down and across the same soi as Angelwitch. The place is the size of a broom closet and libations are way over-priced at 125 baht for a liver waster, especially when the numbers and quality of damsels don’t even approach that of Angelwitch or even What’s Up. As of the deadline for this missive, the Club 69 ogling den, sighted right next door to XXX and Baby Dolls, is yet to open, even though there have been at least three tentative dates set for it to make its debut. Blowing Air: In most places taking a different girl from a boozer can lead to problems, between the damsels, but recently in The Dollhouse ogling den (Walking Street) a customer took first one dancer for a short time of horizontal folk dancing, came back with her and chose a second ‘victim’. After paying the 600 baht bar fine he went off into the evening, only to return a little while later and choose a third horizontal sounding board. Some time later he made his way back into the den and selected a fourth mattress dancer. I think only time, and weak legs, stopped him coming back for yet another selection. In recent times the Dollhouse line-up has changed and there are now a raft of lean bodies molesting the chrome poles and the music is good danceable material, no techno allowed. Impounding the Soap: The main attraction in the X-Zone ogling den (Covent Garden complex) is the regular soapy massage shows performed by some of the cleanest dancing damsels in Fun Town. This kind of entertainment is hardly unique in these parts but on 16 January a regiment of peelers allegedly representing the Chonburi branch of law enforcement launched a raid on the premises. Although X-Zone was closed down for the rest of that night, it was open again for orifice cleaning activities the following night, but rumour has it the den is facing an imminent 30-day closure order (unless of course they can find a brown paper bag stuffed with coloured paper and bearing numerals starting with 1 and ending with a triple zero that can then be offered as tea money). Not the Name of an Endangered Animal: Being an Aussie I’m no judge of Mexican or Tex-Mex nosh. However, my American mate certainly is, coming as he does from southern California. We’ve gone into the Sunset Cantina, located inside the Jasmine Hotel, on Soi BJ (off Walking Street) quite a few times and have really enjoyed the grub. If this joint was right on Walking Street it would probably be packed out every night. My personal dish of choice is the Californian Enchilada (which sounds suspiciously like a small hole-digging marsupial), at 100 baht I think it’s one of the best value for money meals in Fun Town. Is there a Doctor in the House? After years of e-mails and exchanging information, I finally made it into The Clinic (Soi Yamato) when mine host Deadly Derek was in residence and made myself known to him. We had a great chat about all things Fun Town and there’s no doubt Derek has a great sense of humour. I especially enjoyed his description of his serving wenches whom he describes as SPO’s: Service Prevention Officers. Not only funny, but pretty much spot on for almost every joint in Pattaya. Tales from the Crib: So who’s the ogling den owner who took a chrome pole hugger from a Soi Diamond establishment after she offered to pay half the bar fine and let him enjoy his jollies for free if he was able to make her achieve the delights of orgasm? He claims he managed to give her a triple treat. The moral of the story is simple. Apart from the desire for lots of money very quickly, there happen to be a good many females who enjoy a stirring session of mattress dancing. More Money than Sense: The owner of one prominent ogling den mentioned he’d had a hostess who stopped work after an Englishman offered to give her 200,000 baht a month (no, there is not an extra nought in that figure). Apparently, the girl didn’t know how to use her PIN number and access the money in the account from the ATM, so the mamasan kindly offered to help, for a modest 10 percent fee. The girl accepted this magnanimous offer, but the machine would only cough up 20,000 baht per day. Since this was the mamasans agreed fee, she naturally pocketed the money the first time they accessed the account. The girl wasn’t too impressed and neither was the bar owner when he found out. The mamasan is now working elsewhere. I don’t know what happened, but after two months the girl was looking for her old job back. Maybe the man with too much money, now back in England, finally woke up to the ridiculous nature of his largesse. Piece of Pith: If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.

Accessing and using the Gallery. Access to The Gallery is through the Gallery Link at the top right of this and every page of the forum. The Gallery is a good place to show off your picture taking skills. We all appreciate a good pic, especially of a pretty girl, so please do post your photos in the relevant section. There are 4 main sections as follows. 1 The Stunners Gallery. This gallery is open to all members to view and post. It has been around this forum in one form or another since 2000. Although it is called the Stunners Gallery, it is for posting pics of girls you have met and liked in Thailand. One man's stunner is another man's frog but all pics are welcome here. The gallery is divided into years. You can appreciate the good work of others from earlier years but you can only post new pics in the current year. In the past, I used to move pics in here from the Stunners posts on the main board. I will not be doing that any more as everyone can now post their own pics directly and get the correct attribution for them. I'd really like to see more action in this Gallery so come on guys, get posting. 2 FLB Events This gallery contains pics taken by the FLB Team at FLB events. You can not post here but all members are welcome to browse the pics and check out some of the fun you may have missed. 3 The Secure Gallery This gallery was put in to provide a more secure place to show off your pics. It is not open to all members. To get access you must apply by PM to PattayaPete or MM. Access will only be granted to people who have been a member here for at least 6 months, have made at least 50 posts on the main board and have posted 5 original pics of a sexy nature, in the Secure Gallery Application area. To keep membership current you must post at least 5 new pics every six months or so. We try not to get into levels of access on this forum. All members can see all the posts here BUT some members are reluctant to post pics in the general area. That's why we have a Secure Gallery. If you are an active photographer and would like to share your work with other active photographers then this is the place for you. 4 The Secure Gallery Application Area. Anyone can post here. This is the place to post your first 5 pics when applying for access to the Secure Gallery. Any pics posted here are moved to the Secure Area. 5 Tourist and Street Scenes Everyone can view and post here. This is the place for all your G rated tourist photos. People really do enjoy seeing general street scenes and photos of the tourist places you have visited. Since the new Gallery went in in late 2006 this area has hardly been used. I know lots of you have lots of great photos that you could post here, so come on guys show us the best of what you have. IMPORTANT NOTE Posting pics can be time consuming and headache causing for the inexperienced. When members make the effort to post pics PLEASE respond accordingly. All posters appreciate good feedback. No one likes being told that the girl he liked so much is a real dog. There is a comment and a rating system for all pics. If you do not like a photo for any reason then feel free to rate it accordingly. If you really like a pic, then PLEASE leave a nice comment for the photographer and give it a good rating as well. Rate the pic by clicking on 1 - 5 and then on Rate It. 5 is best 1 is worst. Leave your comment by clicking on the Add Reply button. If there is good feed back then more people will post new pics and we all benefit. How to post a pic in the Gallery. Go to the relevant section. All members can post in Stunners 2007, Secure Gallery Application Area and Tourist and Street scenes. Once you are in the appropriate gallery, click on the NewImage button at the bottom of the page. A normal posting screen will open, where you can give a caption to your pic (1) and write a little about it (2). Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you will see (1) Image to upload, a text box and a button labeled Browse. Click on the browse button and a window to navigate your own disk will open (2). Navigate to the photo you wish to upload and click open at the bottom of this window. After you press Open the image info will appear in the text box (1) and you are ready to upload it by pressing the Post Image button (2). You will have to wait a few seconds while your pic is uploaded to the Pattaya Talk server and you are done. Note: For more advanced posters you can post up to 8 pics at a time by using the BulkUpload button. Using this method you can not include a caption or text with each pic BUT you can open each pic after it has been uploaded, click on edit and include a caption and a comment then. If you don't do that the caption will be the file name of the pic and no comment will be included.

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Tis the Season to be Whining: Apparently a local publication recently suggested tourism to Fun Town was down by about 50 percent, at least for the December 2006 period. Certainly there have been plenty of bar owners complaining about comparatively poor takings for this time of the year, although others are wandering about with broad ‘I’ve-just-swallowed-a-cat’ smiles and bulky wallets. From personal observation only, it’s clear to me Pattaya is busy, it’s just that some parts, formerly areas considered to be a litmus test of bar business health, are not doing the numbers they were. I would think the quantity of people coming here are about the same as they’ve been for the past few years but, Soi Buakhow, for example, has exploded with boozers along its entire length in the last two years, and the sois immediately adjacent to this arterial thoroughfare are also a hive of business activity. What this means, in very simple terms, is the tourists are spread far thinner across a much wider area. The other noticeable factor is the increasing numbers of couples, and younger couples at that, frequenting Fun Town. So the ogling dens, which now number about 72, give or take a chrome pole or two, have a thinner customer base while the late night boogie barns and lounge lizard libation rooms are usually quite well patronised. Back at the end of 1992, Fun Town had around 15 ogling dens, so in the space of just over 14 years that figure has grown by a whopping 380 percent. I think I’m pretty safe in saying tourist numbers to Pattaya have not increased by anywhere near this figure in the same period. UP: The FLB lounge lizard libation room (past the big tree on Walking Street) has been a popular fixture due primarily to its website. It also runs regular in-house themed dance contests and this picture shows the end result of one of them. (Photo by DAK) Bucking the Trend: The current high season has seen the vast majority of ogling dens ramp up their dancers’ bar fines from the industry standard 500 baht to anything between 600 and an almost ridiculous 2,000 baht. There are sensible economic reasons for this, primary among them being a desire to discourage the loss of too many dancers early in the night, but the New Living Dolls 1 chrome pole palace (Walking Street) has decided to not only buck the trend but has become the first to actually reduce its bar fine for regular dancers from 500 to 400 baht. This is truly amazing when you consider bar fines for dancing damsels have been a minimum 500 baht for more than 13 years. It’s a brave move and I’ll be interested to see what affect it has on their late-night financial bottom line. Bollocks Intact: Chris Henderson, the founding partner in the Dogs’ Bollocks beer boozer (Soi Yamato), has indeed been back in the Land of Revolving Football Managers (aka, England) for health and family reasons, but claims he has not sold his share in the bar as reported in a recent edition. A Worthwhile Watering Hole: Soi Buakhow is becoming a real mix of the booze and nosh business and the Club Oasis ogling den finally opened its doors on the corner of Soi Chaiyapoom in late December. Formerly a Belgian steakhouse noshery and then a Chinese munching palace, Club Oasis is under the same management as the now-closed Paradise den located farther down the soi. I’m told the owners didn’t have enough dancing staff to stock both places so they opted to close one and concentrate on their new baby. The music in Club Oasis is very good and different: rock and roll from the late 1950s and early 1960s (think Chuck Berry, the Everly Brothers and others whose names escape me in my current state of short attention), and enough of the damsels were moving in something akin to rhythm to completely disprove the spurious argument that Thai girls can’t dance to this sort of material. There were plenty of acceptable chrome pole huggers on show and the den had a really good atmosphere which made it a pleasure to be in. Drinks prices are reasonable with liver wasters at 100 baht, lady drinks 95 baht, and draught amber at 50 baht. Definitely worth a visit. Sumo Do, Sumo Don’t: The Tim ogling den (Second Road) has been around for more years than most people probably care to remember. Sadly, the place hasn’t seen a coat of paint or an update in its music -which is pretty good I have to say, even if it is the same material night after night- for about a hundred years. There are also some serious dangers to shipping cavorting about the solidly-constructed stage. I didn’t think it was possible to purchase a g-string capable of stretching so far across what can only be described as a backside with more ballast than the Queen Mary. I think part of the reason the place is so dimly lit is in an effort to hide the fact there are so many ladies of easy virtue who are closer to pensionable age than half the customers who frequent the establishment. One of the hostesses was wandering about with a Tequila bottle in hand in a fashion suggesting she was more likely to belt you over the head with it than offer you a liver-destroying shot. The final straw came when a woman whose last job must surely have been as a guard in a junkyard (replacing the regulation four-legged battle-scarred mongrel) removed her top and clambered aboard the stage to perform a series of whistle-blowing and dart-firing exercises without using her laughing gear. Perhaps it was no wonder the beer boozer section at the front of Tim’s was packed with imbibers while the den was only about a quarter full. Come to Papa: Down at the Second Road off Soi Diana, the Papagayo lounge lizard libation room is one of those places attempting an upmarket atmosphere in a mid-range location. That said, it is reasonably well laid-out, has a mix of coyote-style dancers as well as hostesses and a moveable feast of freelancing eye candy. Worthy of a stop if you happen to be wandering past. Show Us Your Pink Bits: Yet another ogling den has opened on Walking Street. Called Pinky Girl, it’s on the same side as the Silver Star but about 50 metres further down the road. From the damsels I saw on a brief reconnoitre, the den is owned by the same people who have Nui’s 2 and Hot Girls. Bang for Your Baht: I am sometimes asked why I mention the prices of various libations in many ogling dens. The reason is to give readers an idea of those places representing value for money. I’ve said before I know many people for whom the price of a thirst quencher is immaterial, yet they refuse to be gouged by bar owners. These are not the ‘two-week millionaires’ who pretend they can afford to spend up big. These types blow in and blow out and when they finally attempt to stay here for any length of time you’ll eventually see them scouring the sois for the free buffets and happy hour drinks. As the saying aptly goes, ‘a fool and his money are soon parted’. By way of illustration and comparison with Pattaya I’d like to note the prices for Erotica, a show-style ogling den operating in Soi Bangla in Patong in Phuket. According to a report in the Phuket Gazette, Erotica features around 25 choreographed routines with the dancers having been trained for three months prior to being let loose on the paying public. The salaries for dancers like these tend to be quite high and Phuket has a reputation of being far more expensive than Fun Town. Given the choreography and time spent in training, 150 baht for a house liver waster and bottled Singha at 120 baht at Erotica doesn’t seem too outrageous to me; certainly not in the gouging bracket. And yet we have a number of dens in Walking Street where the price for a liver waster runs around 120-135 baht and bottled Singha 110-120 baht. In most of these places the damsels are hardly top shelf, their numbers limited and only by stretching the meaning of the word ‘dancer’ could they be described as thus. Ask yourself this: why is it possible for a number of the high quality dens to offer very reasonable prices on their libations (and by ‘reasonable’ I mean anywhere from 80-105 baht), have a raft of delectable dancers, and still make a decent profit? They are usually busy for most of the night and deserve to continue to do well. Most of them I happily plug in this column, not because I’m friendly with the owners (I couldn’t care less who owns what bar) but because I genuinely feel these people are offering more bang for your baht and not treating their customers like a bunch of milking cows. Pattayaland Soi 2 provides a classic example of the attitude of treating customers like idiots. In 2000 it was the place for nightlife in Fun Town. Some of the bar owners decided they could do without expats and regulars and simply gouge the unknowing tourists and for a few years now, they’ve been struggling to fill their dens. For example, on a recent Saturday night in the supposed peak of high season I wandered into, and very quickly out of, the Crystals and All Girls ogling dens. It was around 10:30PM and neither place appeared to have more than a handful of chrome pole huggers and the number of customers wouldn’t have filled a phone box. Across the way, the Kitten Club was busier with about 15 or 20 damsels in dancing attire and a small posse of attractive lasses giving their shapely frames a good wash in the well-sudsed tub. Piece of Pith: Don’t squat with your spurs on.

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Only the Good: Sad to report on the untimely death of Steve Blumenthal, one of the co-owners of the Tahitian Queen 2 ogling den (Soi BJ, off Walking Street), of a heart attack at just 41 years of age. Steve penned the ‘Out For A Beer’ column in one of Pattaya’s monthly tourist publications, sensibly giving TQ2 a mention in most of his pieces. I didn’t know him very well but he struck me as a nice person, and I’ve certainly never heard anyone talk of him in anything but the kindest terms. Steve, despite his relative youth, had been in Pattaya for longer than even he would probably care to admit. To his family and friends I offer my sincere condolences. RIP. The Chilli has Gone from the Spice: Sadly, after seven years of operation the Spicy Girls ogling den (in gender-confused Pattayaland Soi 1) closed its doors on 2 December 2006. Before coming under English ownership in February 1999, it was owned by a Frenchman and had gone under the cognomen of Papillon for about five years. It’s my understanding the den struggled for some time to attract sufficient numbers of chrome pole huggers and as the soi has increasingly gone ‘gay’, and with the adjacent Pattayaland Soi 2 dens no longer attracting the customers they once did, Spicy Girls suffered from a dearth of walk-by trade. It’s a pity, as Spicy Girls in its heyday, from opening until about 2004, was one of my favourite haunts, with good music and loads of friendly dancing damsels and, without doubt, was responsible for producing the best ogling den T-shirt in Fun Town, the famous ‘Letter from a Bar-Girl’. Despite the demise of Spicy Girls (and 1969 a few months ago, in Naklua) the number of ogling dens across Fun Town remains at an all-time high of 71. Ringing the Changes: The above news item leads me into noting the fact that 2006 proved to be the busiest on record as far as openings and closings of ogling dens in Fun Town are concerned. I may well have missed a couple of events, but the following is a potted history of the last 12 months of the revolving doors as far as the chrome pole molesting industry is concerned. There were 20 openings and 14 closings during the past year. These numbers are a little misleading in that Bentley’s (Second Road), for example, changed focus to concentrate on its pool table operations rather than dancers; Club Electric Blue Jnr (Soi Diamond) opened in February, closed in June, was renovated, and re-opened in October; and Betty Boup (Soi 6) segued from a simple Sierra Tango boozer into a pseudo ogling den, much like its neighbour Mandarin. The Zoo ogling den Soi 8 closed in January, after the briefest of appearances, apparently due to a lack of exhibits. Dream, in the same soi, was more like a nightmare and lasted, from my understanding, about a month while the Circus (Walking Street) lost the fat and bearded ladies, closed down, and reopened as Angels. Teasers failed to tease enough damsels away from the bigger dens and the owners quickly worked out that it would be more profitable to open as a beer boozer with a load of pool tables. Highway Star (Walking Street) became The Roof late-night boogie barn but the original name was resurrected for a new den above the Siren beer boozer complex at the Beach Road entrance to Walking Street, following the demise of that long-established Marilyn poor-taste show boozer. Soi 15, off Walking Street, boomed with the opening of Angelwitch, Baby Dolls, Club 69, and XXX during the course of the year, and the complete remodelling of What’s Up. Babewatch (Soi 16, Covent Garden Complex) drowned in July but the site was purchased and extensively and expensively refurbished and opened as Taboo Club in late October. Down the soi, Images fell in a screaming heap and has been turned into a beer boozer. In Pattayaland Soi 2, Jupiter’s was turned into a pink palace with Wild West Boys moving up the soi and its previous location reverting to its original Rodeo Girls moniker and the distaff gender. Further afield, the Blue Lagoon opened in Center Condo on South Pattaya Road while Soi Buakhow and its adjunct Soi LK Metro joined the chrome pole brigade with the opening of Memories, Paradise, and Club Oasis. Down in Soi Yamato, Hot & Cold II had another go at filling the cash tills. With the pace of change in Fun Town accelerating with each passing year, I can see this review taking up half a page by the time we reach the end of 2007. Take Me Down to Fugly Town: It’s one of those ogling dens that’s been around for more years than most would care to remember. In recent times Champion was remodelled and now sports more fairy lights and mirrors than previously, although it still possesses the same indefinable smell of age, mould, spilt beer, and cigarette smoke. There are about 13 dancers on the two stages at any one time and the place is usually quite busy. Frankly, I find this surprising. Certainly the owner is a friendly man who’s had the joint forever, but I get the feeling there are three main reasons for the popularity of the joint. First, and least important, the music is generally pretty good. Second, a lot of older men seem to feel more comfortable with the lower end of the chrome pole molesting pond-life, perhaps because these damsels realise they aren’t particularly attractive and put on a wonderful act of being ever-so-friendly (grateful perhaps) to customers. Third, there’s more beaver on show per square metre than your average marsupial farm. Personally, I’d almost be prepared to pay the damsels a lot of money to put their apparel back on, and never take it off again. One noticeable point was there were only two girls sporting tattoos out of the 25 or more dancers. If you are a subscriber to the belief: ‘Go Ugly Early and Beat the Rush’, then Champion is the place to start. An Evening in Soi Petting Zoo: Some of the damsels working in it call it Soi La Mok (disgusting), but Soi 6 remains the afternoon playground of choice, an adult petting zoo, for many locals and visitors alike who fancy a quick dine and dash in a Sierra Tango establishment. Pick any joint you like and you’re liable to have one, two or even three or more knob-fondlers trying to get you into a stage of such hormonal tumescence you’ll happily empty the contents of your wallet as you are taken in hand for a tour of the upstairs lying-in facilities and helped to unburden yourself of all that pent-up love juice. Personal favourites include Red Point, which always seems to have its share of the more attractive gropers in the soi, as well as good music. Kiss Kool is similar, although it is a pseudo ogling den with two or three girls dancing on a centre stage. Nicely appointed lounge seating, plenty of knob-fondlers and reasonable prices make it a popular stop-in for many people. Also in the soi is the Mandarin Club ogling den. French-owned it still possesses much of its Sierra Tango charm with plenty of damsels of all shapes, sizes, and ages. The middle-stump handshake is still the preferred mode of introduction and the bar fine for an upstairs inspection of the horizontal folk dancing rooms is just 300 baht. Intriguing Cultural Rituals: Anyone who has spent enough time wandering about the ogling dens of Pattaya cannot fail to have come across an almost Freemason-like ritual performed by the various dancing damsels, usually early in the evening, as an exercise designed to attract customers. The ritual always involves one or more of the girls getting birthday-suited, and always has some amount of alcohol and/or water included. I was in the Heaven Above temple of the chrome pole (Soi Diamond) when the following customer-enticement ritual took place. One dancer took down a thick wooden phallus from its pride of place next to the statue of Buddha on the spirit tray above the bar, waied the statue and then placed the object on a change tray. Four girls, all in various stages of undress, then lined up and the phallus was passed from front to rear between their legs before it was reverently returned to the spirit tray and a flower garland placed around its ‘neck’. Piece of Pith: We are born naked, wet, and hungry. Then things get worse.

Hi Rhoel I do backup to DVD. I never play the stuff from DVD just keep it backed up there. I tried double layered DVDs for a while but as they cost 300 baht compared to 10 baht for a single layer and I had way to many failures I am back to single layer DVDs. With 2.5 terabytes of disk space I can keep 160 or so HD movies on line. That's enough for now. I do plan to swap to Blue Ray once the price and technology settles down. I was an early adopter of DVD's. My first writer cost 50,000 baht and the disks were 550 baht each. This time with the format war and the disk price for blue ray being even higher, I think I'll just wait for a while. I have not seen any HD-DVD or Blue Ray computer drives for sale in Thailand yet. You can get Playstation 3s with BR drives in Pattaya now. They are imported from Japan and are retailing for 38,000 baht. I don't see the point myself. Apart from real time HD monitoring which although nice is not essential. I am using the CineForm Intermediate codec (AspectHD) which works flawlessly and fast on my editing machine.

I'm getting a server not found error wheen I go to http://www.rhoel.co.uk/IndexImages/rhoel-icon.jpg. The server may be down or it may be something to do with the Taiwan problem. When it displays OK you are probably pulling the image from your cache. Avatars are not displayed to unlogged in people. It's a feature

I know it's crazy but I really wouldn't worry about it. I've had two new cars here. With the first one it took 3 months to get the white plates. I was stopped about three times, usually on the expressway in Bangkok and had to pay a bribe each time of 500 baht. It was all new to me then and I probably could have got away with 200 baht. With the second car it only took 6 weeks to get the plates. I drove all over the country in that 6 weeks and was stopped once for speeding in Isaan. One hundred baht took care of that. Don't expect for laws like this to make sense or anyone to know why they exist. TIT after all. My guess would be that a lot of Thai's like to keep the red plates on as a status symbol and would never change them over if not for the fact that you are bound to get stopped and fined for breaking this rule.

I had a look on the net and found the Sigmatel site. They appear to be in the codec and DAC business rather than the player business. Codecs and DACs are components of an Audio Player. It would appear that your device is made with these components by another company. You need to take a good look at the player, the documentation and the CD that came with it to see who the manufacturer is. They will almost definitly have a web site with the latest drivers that you can download.

While anything is possible, I don't think your plan will work. What you need to do is get a Non-Immigrant Type "O" visa before you arrive. Stated purpose of the visa is to apply for a retirement extension once you are in Thailand. All you need to qualify is 800,000 baht in a Thai bank account and to be over 50 years of age. Then once you get here you go to immigration to apply for a one year extension. The problem here is that you do not have the cash in a Thai bank account. You may be able to talk your way past this by showing the money in an account in your home country. It's going to depend on the official at the embassy. If that fails then get a multi entry tourist visa. That will enable you to stay for three months and get another 3 months after that by doing a visa run (leaving the country). While on your tourist visa, move your 800,000 into a Thai bank account. After it's been there for three months, head off to Penang or Singapore with proof of the money and apply for the non-immigrant "o" there. Then return to Thailand and apply for the visa extension. Easy peasy, and welcome to the bureaucratic world of the expat.

Off the Drip: The better boozers stretched along the ‘English Patient', otherwise known as Soi Buakhow, seem to be generally doing quite well even though high season has yet to kick in. With a couple of mates in tow I spent a few hours exploring three of the gogos located on and about the soi. The first place we visited was Champagne in Soi LK Metro. It was reasonably busy with quite good music, although it had the standard cheap amber draught (45 baht) while anything else was reaching gouge level. There were about 20 chrome pole huggers cavorting about the place; four or five rated a second look. After Champagne we walked a few metres further into the soi and went into the Memories gogo. My first thought was this was going to be dreadful, but instead we were pleasantly surprised. The music was OK and most of the damsels were friendly and smiling. Considering there were only 14 dancers rostered on we all agreed there were between five and seven for whom we could quite easily have been enticed into purchasing a small condominium. On a per capita basis this makes Memories rate as one of the best dens in Fun Town. Libations were well priced at 80 baht for liver wasters, 60 baht for lolly water, 50 baht for draught amber and 90 baht for lady drinks. We ended our little reconnaissance at the relatively new Paradise chrome pole den, right on Soi Buakhow. Libations here were priced between those of Memories and Champagne and, like the former, the damsels were a generally friendly crew. There were approximately 16 dancers, a number of whom have definitely been around since Pattaya was last visited by the US Seventh Fleet. We stayed for a few cultural shows and especially enjoyed the dual-dancer ablution performance that involved a shower head, water, soap suds, a couple of unshaven beavers and a pair of pink towels. The consensus at the conclusion of our foray rated Memories on top, just ahead of Paradise. Head ‘Em Up, Move ‘Em Out: On Sunday night 26 November the Coyotee's gogo (Soi Marina Plaza, off Walking Street) held a dance contest with 18,000 baht in prize money. A total of 16 girls, divided into three groups, competed for the 10,000 baht first place money. There were 10 girls from Coyotee's, two from the Diamond chrome pole palace (Soi Diamond) and four damsels who made the trek from the highly-acclaimed Long Gun and Rawhide gogos of Soi Cowboy in Bangkok. The management of Coyotee's tell me they had been negotiating with these two Bangkok dens for some time in the hope of enticing some of their best girls to compete in a Pattaya dance competition. Certainly the long wait was well worth the effort as the four-girl team not only had great bodies but knew how to cavort about a chrome-poled stage to brilliant effect. The field of 16 was reduced by half for the third and final round and it was no surprise the five judges included all four of the Long Gun and Rawhide dancers in the line-up, as well as one of the two Diamond girls. In the finish, two Coyotee's dancers, Khun Amm and Khun Fern, picked up the 3,000 and 5,000 baht prizes for coming third and second respectively while Khun Apple from Long Gun snared the thick end of the prize. In a way it was a pity there was only one winner as all 16 contestants were excellent; I'm glad I didn't have to involve myself in the judging process. There are plans to reprise this style of contest, possibly some time in January, and if you are here then you shouldn't be disappointed if you make the effort to attend. I might add that in between the three rounds of the dance contest, which kicked off around 11:00PM, the Coyotee's showgirls performed and there's no doubt in my mind their nightly gash-gobbling show is one of the best in Fun Town. Bags Under The Eyes: Fun Town has yet another late night boogie barn. Appropriately named Insomnia, the ear-drum splitters palace opened for business on Friday night 24 November on what was the site of the very short-lived Players, in Soi Marina Plaza, just around the corner from the Coyotee's gogo. The place features the now almost standard clutch of especially employed dancers in denim jean shorts and skimpy tops and is open until sparrow fart. No Time for Recess: Congratulations are in order for the Classroom gogo (Pattayaland Soi 2) that celebrated 13 years in business on 1 December. I remember going in back in the mid-1990s when it kicked off as a single shophouse, but it used to be packed most nights and the schoolgirl uniform theme was a hit with most punters, especially retired vicars and ex-London councillors. Mr Scot (“I'm still waiting for my turn to get beamed up”) has been at the helm of the meeting and greeting duties in the Classroom since the beginning, making him one of the longest-serving managers in Pattaya. Finger in Another Hole: Big Andy, he of the re-opened Club Electric Blue Jnr gogo (Soi Diamond), has joined forces with the management of the ever-improving Windmill gash-gobblers den, and opened a show bar appropriately called Tramps, located upstairs next to Windmill. Regulars might recall this as the site of the Tiger's hide-the-Heineken-bottle den. This went to its demise about three years ago, but the ghosts of slime-pits past have been resurrected and once again the den reverberates to the sounds of whips a-cracking and boots a-stomping. Even Don Quixote Would be Impressed: In the famous story of Don Quixote by Manuel Cervantes, the eponymous hero comes upon a plain filled with 30 or 40 windmills and decides they are giants who should be challenged and vanquished. I have no idea what Don Quixote was smoking (or ingesting). Anyway, the Windmill gash-gobbling den (Soi Diamond) may only be small in terms of size but it's getting a giant and deserved reputation among the amateur gynaecologists of Fun Town for its almost non-stop dedication to the art of beaver munching. The lighting is brighter, the seating arrangements have been greatly improved, and there are plenty of damsels of all shapes and sizes performing a variety of acrobatic feats about the place. Perhaps the most pleasing aspect of the den is the friendliness of the dancers: this is a joint where ‘attitude' is not tolerated and therefore makes for a fun experience for all concerned. Although this column is posted on various websites particular to Pattaya, I rarely have the time or inclination to go surfing these wonders of Internet communication, so the following is probably ‘old hat’ to some of you. Apparently there was a falling out between the management of the Secrets lounge lizard libation room (Soi 14) and the New Living Dolls ogling den (Walking Street) and the Wednesday nights where free draught amber fluid was offered to Secrets members in the latter den has ceased. Of course a vacuum rarely remains in place for too long in Fun Town and into the breach has stepped the FLB lounge lizard libation room (Walking Street) with Monday nights between 8:00 and 9:30PM featuring as the new time for members of the FLB website to partake of a few tumblers of free draught amber nectar in New Living Dolls. Nice but not too Naughty: I wandered into Naughty Girls gogo (Soi Diamond) as I thought it was time I went back in for a look. My initial feeling was I wasn't going to be in for a good time. The music was OK -car alarm but at least listenable- and there were plenty of chrome pole huggers on stage and scattered around the joint. I ordered a drink and one minute I was quietly sitting watching the standard shuffle thinking I was going to be subjected to the ‘my guano doesn't stink cold shoulder' and the next I had a couple of young ladies accosting me with the usual “What you name, where you come from?” line, but without the added, “buy me dlink?” Even when it was clear I wasn't going to be taking any damsel out of the den for a quick etching inspection, they still remained friendly and chatty. A show involving a pair of young ladies supplied with bananas was done with fun and by the time I was ready to leave I thought the den has certainly improved in quantum fashion in recent times. The draught amber is 55 baht with house liver wasters at 100 baht, so at least the pricing policy is generally in line with most similar establishments. It mightn't be the best in town, but it's definitely worth a drink or two. Nice but not too Taboo: The fairly new Taboo gogo (Soi 16, Covent Garden Complex) will be having a party to celebrate its first couple of months of operation on Thursday night 21 December, starting around 8:00PM. The happy hour will continue as usual until 10:00PM and free food will be on offer for customers. The den is taking time to find its niche in the marketplace with a bevy of underdressed gyrating dancers sharing table space with a few fetchingly-attired ‘coyote' damsels. I quite like the overall ambience of the place. Those who recall its previous incarnation as Babewatch will remember the concrete bunker-like emplacement that doubled as a dancing stage and completely dominated the room. It has been blasted into oblivion and the new layout is far more stylish, but the added space makes the place one of the larger dens in town and consequently tougher to fill. Nice but not Really Aussie: The Aussie-run Boxing Roo beer boozer (Third Road, opposite Soi LK) will be holding a San Miguel Amber Fluid party on Thursday evening 21 December. There'll be the usual free nosh as well as San Miguel froth at 40 baht a glass and entertainment by a Filipino band. Piece of Pith: Life not only begins at forty, it also begins to show.

Hi Guys Martin updated the software for the review system recently. Some of the terminology got changed by the update. I started to sort it out but I am away on holiday now so I had to stop. It will be job number 1 when I get back. You can still add a new hotel by clicking on the Upload Products link at the top right of every page. A little obscure, for sure.

Excellent! That really cracked me up.

This site basically has unlimited bandwidth. When members post pics that are hosted elsewhere, they may exceed their bandwidth limits at the hosting site and then the pics will not display here. The message will vary depending on the policy of the other site.

Hi Mary Seems you took a wrong turn and ended up in Denmark as that is where you are posting from. I heard a rumour that you are a 50 year old bald fat guy that gets off on pretending to be a young girl. Whatever floats you boat I suppose.

History Lesson: According to a reader who seems to know what he’s on about, I was mistaken in my previous missive when I wrote about the longest-running boozers on Pattayaland Soi 2. Terry at The Shamrock allegedly holds the record, about 22 years, narrowly ahead of George at the Viking Beachcomber with the Blue Parrot and Cheers next in line. Nonetheless I still stick by my contention that Colin and Stan are the longest-established partnership on the soi, and probably in Pattaya, with 18 years in business together. Medals all round. Off the Drip: The better boozers stretched along the ‘English Patient’, otherwise known as Soi Buakhow, seem to be generally doing quite well even though high season has yet to kick in. With a couple of mates in tow I spent a few hours exploring three of the ogling dens located on and about the soi. The first place we visited was Champagne in Soi LK Metro. It was reasonably busy with quite good music, although it had the standard cheap amber draught (45 baht) while anything else was reaching gouge level. There were about 20 chrome pole huggers cavorting about the place; four or five rated a second look. After Champagne we walked a few metres further into the soi and went into the Memories ogling den. My first thought was this was going to be dreadful, but instead we were pleasantly surprised. The music was OK and most of the damsels were friendly and smiling. Considering there were only 14 dancers rostered on we all agreed there were between five and seven for whom we could quite easily have been enticed into purchasing a small condominium. On a per capita basis this makes Memories rate as one of the best dens in Fun Town. Libations were well priced at 80 baht for liver wasters, 60 baht for loly water, 50 baht for draught amber and 90 baht for lady drinks. We ended our little reconnaissance at the relatively new Paradise chrome pole den, right on Soi Buakhow. Libations here were priced between those of Memories and Champagne and, like the latter, the damsels were a generally friendly crew. There were approximately 16 dancers, a number of whom have definitely been around since Pattaya was last visited by the US Seventh Fleet. We stayed for a few cultural shows and especially enjoyed the dual-dancer ablution performance that involved a shower head, water, soap suds, a couple of unshaven beavers and a pair of pink towels. The consensus of opinion at the conclusion of our foray rated Memories on top, just ahead of Paradise. Of Mice and Men: If your expensive tastes runs to top-shelf liver wasters, or Beer Lao - one of the better amber fluids- or you want to just relax in a friendly place slightly off the beaten track, then the Lennies air-conditioned beer boozer in Soi Diamond, right opposite the well-patronised Casino Club, is a place to put on your list. The layout is not quite right, which therefore detracts from its allure, but it has a friendly atmosphere and attentive serving staff with a few enthusiastic knob-fondlers. There is a solitary pool table placed in the back of the boozer, but it happens to be in front of a very large television screen. I would think when punters come in to watch sports on the TV then the pool table doesn’t get much use. Or if it does, then people trying to watch the finals of the left-handed Tiddlywinks Championships broadcast live from Uppington Snetherballs probably become frustrated at having their view impeded. Then again, if you want to watch TV you might as well stay at home. The boozer runs the occasional well-attended party, the last one being a Sexy Nurses Night on 4 November. Let’s Talk About Sex: What is it about sex for money, especially the issue of First World Male meets Developing World Female, that sends so many people into moralistic fits of high dudgeon? And why is so much that is written about Pattaya so damned dishonest? Do so many journalists really believe the average reader can’t bear the truth, or do they feel the need to somehow prove their Politically Correct (PC) credentials? Most journalists learn to deal with the need to produce copy to a limited and specific time frame, and for those who’ve been in the business long enough you soon learn to recognise when others are struggling and have thrown something together in order to cover the tyranny of the deadline (yes, go to the head of the class: this is one of those times for yours truly). The broad generalisations in the prose are usually the most obvious giveaway the writer is struggling to fill his column inches. The Thai-foreigner, bargirl-tourist/expat relationship dynamic is one area guaranteed to fill column inches if a journalist is at a loss for something to write about. And so to the reason for this preamble. The ‘Lost Boy’ columnist of the Bangkok Post’s Guru Magazine decided he would deal with the vexing subject of ‘love’, especially as it pertains to the Thai girl, foreign man. Of course, in order to try and fill an entire splash of white space he needed to launch an attack on the standard whipping boy: Pattaya. He notes, ‘The Lost Boy has been to Pattaya five times now, which is more than enough. The city has an awful reputation. ‘Hell on earth’ is how some people describe it. To The Lost Boy, it’s just a party city where after a couple of days it all gets a bit boring…The enormous amount of sex that goes on in the city seems to taint Thailand a little. Pattaya is almost a separate entity in itself, not really a part of Thailand. It is best to view it as such.’ That last part I tend to agree with; Pattaya is not like anywhere else in the country, but then neither is Khao San Road. The same could be said of the main drag of the Sydney suburb of King’s Cross. It is nothing like the rest of Australia. We already know Pattaya is crass, in-your-face, and owes its very existence to the business of prostitution. Broad generalisations and disjointed arguments are the style of ‘The Lost Boy’ columns, so it’s not surprising when he falls into the usual trap: ‘From talking to bar girls, this writer has come to an understanding that it is not something the girls (and boys) want to do, but it is something they need to do.’ What an absolute load of putrefying bilge. Let’s get this straight, one more time for the dummies. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimated there were about 500,000 people making their living from prostitution, or less than two percent of the total female population of Thailand. Pattaya has around 10,000 damsels (and that figure I feel is on the high side) offering sexual favours for monetary recompense as their main or sole occupation; and there are probably at least that number who work in occupations where they don’t sell their bodies. In other words, the numbers who are here offering their favours to foreigners represent about two percent of the overall figures for Thai prostitutes. More importantly, the girls who are here are doing this by choice because there’s more money and better conditions (i.e. free time) than going to work as a cashier in Carrefour six days a week for 32 baht an hour or in a factory for 3-4,000 baht a month of 12-hour working days. There are literally millions of females in Thailand who don’t need to work on their backs; most of those coming to Pattaya to perform as a mattress dancer, choose to do so. Very few are in such dire straights that no alternative is open to them. Even that rabidly feminist organisation Empower has finally woken up to the realities of bar work in Bangkok and Pattaya. They no longer seem concerned to get the girls out of the sex industry, but rather take pains to teach the damsels better and more effective ways of dealing with customers and relieving them of as much money for as little effort as possible. I’ve had more than a few conversations with ladies who pretend they hate what they do. Yet when I tell them I know a few employers who would be happy to have their services in gainful employment, the first thing I’m asked is how much they would receive as a salary. When I mention a figure of 7-8,000 baht a month the girls have all said, “not enough”. Funny how most of the rest of the population can live on similar wages, and many seem able to purchase condos, cars and mobile phones. They just have to wait a little longer and learn how to save. The damsels cavorting around chrome poles and the younger lasses propping up an end in many a beer boozer do so because they can make a damn sight more money in less time than at almost any other unskilled occupation. And they don’t have to punch a time clock six-seven days a week for eight-12 hours a day. Piece of Pith: It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.

I have a creative sfx sound card. Hooking it us is a bit tricky. The easiest way is to use the S/PDIF output. That's a single coaxial cable that runs to the S/PDIF input on your multichannel amp. It can be quite hard to get everything configured correctly. The new soundcards like the sfx are much easier than earlier cards like the audigy but still can be troublesome. The reason I don't connect this way is because it causes problems with stereo output when listening to music and it will not properly decode wmv multi channel audio or SACD or DVD Audio. For that reason I wire each channel direct to the amp, so that is 8 wires for 7.1 audio. Doing it like this creates extra problems as well. There is a nice free utility called ac3filter which is a big help with this. It is free to download and does solve a lot of audio problems. This is a BIG subject and getting it right can be difficult but it will work with all multi-channel sound cards. The audio specs for the sfx cards are excellent and the price is incredibly reasonable as well. Newsgroups of interest would be alt.binaries.hdtv and alt.binaries.hdtv.reposts for Hi Def movies and TV shows. For SD movies and programs there are many groups, they all start with alt.binaries. and then movies.divx, multimedia, erotica, dvd, boneless, dvd.image, and classic.tv.shows to name just a few. One of the huge advantages of newsleecher is that it enables you to search all newsgroups for a title in less than 30 seconds. You can download from the search engine, so most of the time I pay little attention to which group something I want is actually in. Just the hdtv groups will have over 4 million posts at any one time so downloading all the headers is tedious and takes ages. Newsleecher really makes the process much more friendly.

This all getting a bit out of hand. Please remember discussion about other boards is not welcome here and cross posting private communications will get you banned. I can see that mulphy is being picked on for reasons that are not apparent to me. Please cut it out and let's get back to some friendly on topic discussion about Pattaya. This topic is closed.

I use component cables, directly off the video card. As all my videos are downloaded I have no use for a tuner card. I'd like to use hdmi but as yet have not found a reasonable video card with hdmi outputs. I know they are coming. As for H264, yes you do need special codec, a compatible player and a fair bit of processor grunt if the video is of a reasonable size. The easiest way to get them going is to install a copy of PowerDVD 7 which has all the needed bits. I am using nVidia Pure Video to decode all my videos and it works for H264 as well. This may be because I have installed PowerDVD 7 and its using the codec that came with that program though. Alan, I have two services. Ji-Net through TT&T which is reliable and always runs at the rated speed. It's a bit pricey though at 2,000 baht a month for 512/256k but it's great for surfing the web. I also have a TOT 1024/512 service which is cheap (for Thailand) at 1,000 baht a month. As you say the TOT service is crap and surfing the internet rarely provides speeds over 200k. The strange thing though is that with the usenet service it runs pretty well. I usually see speeds of around 700-900k during the day and a solid 1005k at night. I am not sure why that is the case but it would appear that somehow traffic on the usenet port escapes the TOT throttling which affects everything else. I use it exclusively for usenet access so I am pretty happy with it.

Ahh, that's one megaBIT or 1024/512 if you like. Readily available in most of Pattaya.

Profits? What profits - I am unemployed. That's why I have enough time to play with all this stuff. Seriously though you could get a slightly more modest system up and running for less than 100,000 baht. Not a huge amount compared to the amount of enjoyment you can get from such a system.

I've always been a media junkie. I worked in radio for many years and also had some affiliations with the local TV stations. One of the things I thought I'd miss from farangland when I settled here in Pattaya, was the wide variety of media I could get back home. As it turns out, I now have access to the very best in the world in stunning quality on my almost huge 50 inch plasma screen and state of the art 7.1 audio system. The key to this is the internet. I am convinced that within 10 years all the media outlets we presently use will basically fade away and the internet will become the major delivery vehicle for movies, TV, news, radio, newspapers, CDs, DVD, HD-DVD and any other media you can think of. The good news is that the internet can basically deliver it all right now, it's just not very user friendly at the moment. I've been tinkering with this stuff for years. What I have now in Pattaya really is more than even I thought would be possible. I listen to true CD quality or better music in my car, office, lounge or bedroom. I have every song I want and can access every one of them in all those locations. I watch the best TV programs in the world, usually in high definition and with dolby digital multi-channel audio. If it plays in the USA or England or Australia or New Zealand today, I can watch it in Pattaya tomorrow. I have a library of hundreds of movies, many in stunning High Definition accessible at the push of a button. When I'm feeling nostalgic I can watch my old favorite TV programs from the 60s, 70s and 80s. If I want the news I can read virtually any newspaper in the world the moment it is printed, I can watch BBC News, CNN, Fox News, TVNZ news, ABC (Australia), MSNBC and heaps more, live on my TV. I can listen to thousands of radio stations although my favorites are the ones I program myself. I am listening as I type this to Peter's Smooth Jazz. So feeling fairly smug about all this I thought I'd share my setup with you. Anyone can do this provided you have access to a reasonably fast internet connection. Once you have that you can be anywhere in the world and your access will remain the same. You can spend as much or as little as you like. The best setup at the moment is a fast computer with a good video card, a widescreen plasma or LCD TV and a good home theater audio system. If that's too rich for you then a normal TV and stereo and a basic computer will still get you up and running. Here's a pic of my main system. The screen, amp, and dvd player are all Pioneer. The speakers are Enery Connoisseurs with an extra two surround and two back speakers, not shown. The computer, just to the right of the left speaker has a core 2 duo processor and an nVida GeForce 7600GT video card and 2 gigs of memory and two terabytes of disk space. The reason the computer is so highly speced is to play the latest BBC and Sky high definition content which is encoded in H264 and to store all my High Definition movies. The H264 stuff really takes a grunty machine to play. American high def content is in mpeg2 TS streams and does not require as much processing muscle. Ordinary SD (standard definition) content would run OK on an old Windows 95 machine. So how does it all come together and where do I get all the content from. Read on. Actually before I get into that there is one more piece of equipment which although not essential really makes the system hum. Here it is - It's a Philips Pronto programmable universal remote control. It allows the whole system to be controlled from your seat and because it has macros makes things easy for the wife and son to use. One button labeled Watch TV turns on the TV, the amplifier, UBC and switches all the inputs correctly so it just works. To change to a DVD or to use the computer also just requires one button push. Any universal remote will do but having macros makes it easy for non-techy people. This was the only bit of kit I could not buy in Thailand. I had to get it mail order from the States. OK so with all the gear where does the content come from. Well my number one source of movies and TV programs is Usenet, also known as Newsgroups. This is just am amazing place to get digital content and it's all free (sort of). The problem with usenet is that it is not very user friendly. There is a steep learning curve to understand where the content you want is and how to get it. This is such an important source of content that I am going to go into some detail. The first thing you need is access to the newsgroups and a program to sort it out for you. Your own ISP probably provides some sort of access but if it exists at all it will be next to useless. The three most important things you need is good speed, good retention and a full list of groups. No ISP provides that so a subscription service is the answer. Giganews is by far the best. You can read about their service at www.giganews.com. You will have to pay for it though. Packages start from $7.99 a month for 2 gigs of downloads up to $24 a month for unlimited downloads. You’ll need a good client program to find, organize and download your selections. For this I’d recommend Newsleecher with a subscription to Supersearch. You can read about it and get it here www.newsleecher.com. It costs $29 a year. So what do you get for this. Well access to thousands of movies, porn, TV programs, and music tracks. There are millions of new posts every day. This is where I get virtually all my High Definition Content including the latest programs and movies to air anywhere around the world. I have recently been watching Prison Break, Grey’s Anatomy, Boston Legal and Lost from the States, Dr Who, Bleak House and Planet Earth from England and many more. They usually pop up on usenet within hours of being broadcast and you can choose what level of quality you want from stupid little windowed video right up to full high definition versions. I usually get the middle versions which work out at about 700 megs per hour. With my 1 meg connection it takes about an hour to download an hour. For movies and special programs like the very excellent BBC Planet Earth I grab the full high definition versions which can take up to 24 hours for 1 hour of program but the quality is mind blowing. I should say that even the middle version content is far superior to the quality of UBC and generally comes with full Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. There is also a full selection of porn, DVDs and old stuff. I recently grabbed all four seasons of WKRP in Cincinnati a favorite from the late 70s and all four seasons of Coupling from the BBC. The thing that is great about usenet is that the content is all on the giganews server so downloads come as fast as you connection will allow. The variety of content available is just mind boggling. The downside of uesnet is that most stuff is only retained for three months so it can be hard to find some of the older stuff. That’s where bit torrents come into play. I don’t like torrents much because they can be slow and rely on users being online for the content to be available. However there is some stuff you can’t get anywhere else and it’s all free. Get yourself a good torrent client, I use utorrent, free from http://www.utorrent.com. Then go to a good torrent search site like http://torrentscan.com/ and start searching for the good stuff. For live TV I use the TVU player available from http://www.tvunetworks.com. This will give you live feeds of NBC CBS ABC CNN Fox 5, Fox News, ESPN, Star Sports and many many more international channels. The quality is not great but it is live and free. I hate mp3s. The quality just is not there, so all my music is in lossless format. I choose to use apple lossless as it is compatible with my iPod which I use in the car. As most music services do not provide apple lossless format (with the obvious exception of the iTunes Store (not available in Thailand), I download music generally in ape or flac format and use dbPowerAmp to convert them. As all these formats are lossless you lose nothing during the conversion and the music retains the full CD quality. You can find lots of lossless music on usenet and in torrents but it is disorganized and hard to find. I use http://www.alltunes.com/en-index.shtml the most to download music as they have an extensive collection, it’s available to Thailand and it’s charges are considerably less than all the other music stores and it is well organized. For radio I like to listen to http://www.pandora.com/. This free service allows you to design your own radio station. You can actually have up to 100 personal stations. I have just 5 which is enough for me. When you first go there you start your first station by entering a song or artist that you like. Just one is enough to get you going. It then delivers a station based on that one selection. As you go along you can refine it by adding new artists or songs but from just the one choice it will assemble many different artist and songs. Giving a thumbs up or thumbs down to a song refines your stations. I also listen to some of the stations from home. You can find thousands of stations on the net. Just use google. The thing that radio stations add is exposure to new music which you might otherwise be unaware of. When I discover a new artist I like then it’s off to alltunes to download a few selections. All this content comes together on my Home Theater PC running Media Portal. Media Portal is a 10 foot interface. That just means an interface that you can read from your lounge chair so all the writing is very large and it is totally controllable from the pronto remote. It organizes all the music and movie files into an easy browse point and click and play system. It’s available free from http://www.team-mediaportal.com. Well this post has gone on long enough for now. Is anyone interested in this stuff? I know I am a bit of a nut but I really enjoy messing around with this. It took a long time to get it all set up the way I like it and in a form that the family can use easily. Now that it all works it is pretty care free and feeding it new content is probably a 20 minute job each day. I can’t keep up with all the good content I have but it’s all there waiting for me when I want to watch or listen to something good. If anyone wants to know more just ask. If you are in Pattaya and would like to see it in action drop me a PM. If you need help setting up your own system I can give some pointers and maybe a bit of practical help if you are in Pattaya. Let me know but be warned it does get a bit techy at times.