MM

Oh, cigarettes. Yeah, I'd forgotten that. My girl went to 4 7-11 and Family Marts looking for Marlboro Lights soft pack. She gave up and brought home a box style pack. And, yet, the day before, we were at Friendship and they had lots of cigarettes, but I forgot to buy them then. All those boxes of SML probably are sitting in bar storerooms right now, or on tier way to Bangkok.

Well, there you go. How can someone call it "Thai logic" when you're fully in agreement. I just call it shallow thinking, and it seems to cross national and ethnic boundaries quite easily.

Does it look like this? (Testing picture upload) Great...pic uploading works again.

The server physical migration has finished, and we are now back on the standard server we always used. If you encounter any problems, please log them in this thread.

Now the two other remaining gogos are shut in Covent Garden, Dream Agogo (formerly Toyz) and Club Relaxxx. Both of them shut in the last 2 weeks. This leaves Xzone all alone and upstairs. Good luck with that.

Oddly enough, a few days ago, toilet paper was out of stock everywhere. I'm not sure if that shortage has been resolved or not.

As you have heard, there have been supply shortages the last few weeks due to the flooding in central Thailand. The main local distributor for bar supplies (beer, water, sodas, spirits) has been unable to fill full orders from the bars, returning with a portion of an order rather than the amount requested, along with a slightly higher price tag on the items. Some items are not available at all through the distributors, and bars have had to go scavenging around town for those places with a supply of needed materials. I was told by a bar manager that, in addition to beer case prices going up, the cost of imported spirits has risen as well. This has me confused, since I didn't know they were stored in the flooded area, but usually come in via Lam Chebang port. Oh well. She gave an example of Hennessy Cognac going from 1570b to 2150b overnight. Maybe the Thais are taxing them more, or somebody is price gouging. Anyway, price gouging is going on at various levels in the supply chain. It seems that everything has gone up a little or a lot over the last weeks. I was surprised to find out that a gogo I know of has already taken the preemptive step of raising all drink prices by 10 baht. That's everything from water to soda to lady drinks to beer...everything. I am not happy with this turn of events, since it is profiteering, pure and simple. I doubt orange juice and coca cola have gone up 10b per can. I have been getting reports of 250b increases per 24 bottle case of beer though, and that equates to a bit more than 10b per bottle, so passing the price increase to the customer is something a bar might consider doing. Others might consider splitting the pain, and raising the price 5b, and some might just consider it a temporary situation (hopefully), and eat the loss. I'm not sure what to do myself, at this point. I've not raised prices for a couple of years, and only by a small amount. That's my problem. I'll need to review recent purchases to know. But, I would try to make an informed decision on what products have gone up in price, and not make an across the board increase covering even things that didn't go up in price. As this first gogo ups their prices, it's probably going to mean others will follow suit. I wonder if they will or can come down again. If the distributors don't lower their prices, then there will be a permanent increase in pricing all over town.

Back on topic...here's one I see all the time on the forums: "Thai logic. Less customers, raise the price." That is utter bullshit. It's a racist comment, pure and simple, impugning the ability of Thais to understand basic pricing and supply and demand. A Thai business person understands pricing as much or more than some cube dweller posting on the internet parroting some statement he read years ago and internalizing it as a "fact". I know farang who raise prices in slower times. I know farangs and Thais who raise prices when the demand is great, or when expenses rise. That's normal across all races. For an example of this supposed Thai logic, go look at massage shop prices in the less traveled areas, Soi Chaiyapoon, for example. They have dropped in the last year or so. Why? Competition for customers! Less customers, the lower the price to get those that are available.

About 6pm tonight (Thai time), I got the all clear from the server company. The move took just 22 hours for them to bring the server back online after moving it from Cedar Falls, IA to Kansas City, KS, a distance of about 320 miles. Not too bad. We will be switching back to the main server in about 20 hours...or sometime after tonight's bar closing, and sometime after Frosty's internet connection comes back. During that time, we'll be offline for a while,and there will be some delay while the Domain Services (network address location service) is reprogrammed to point to the main server again.

why canucks? Firstly, the OP and the majority of posters IN THIS THREAD are not from the USA. You being a Canadian have your own issues to deal with regarding your welcome in your adopted country. Even your prime minister has reservations about your presence in your country. Based on your antipathy towards westerners, as typified by your knee-jerk assignment of this thread to "yankis", I can see you probably have trouble (deservedly) with the locals as well. I look forward to seeing you dancing groin to butt on the bar counter at Layla Bar with the rest of your kind out on Marine plaza some night as I pick up my motorcycle.

I have still not received any notification from the server company that they have completed the move, but then, it hasn't been 24 hours yet, either. However, I have to tip my hat to Frosty, who volunteered to use one of his servers for the temporary backup. I told him the forum runs on linux, and he has only Windows systems, but he said "No problem. It's written in php and mysql, and they are operating system (OS) independent." I have always heard that, but like all such claims, thought there were going to be numerous little gotchas that would take days to resolve, by which time, our main server would be up anyway. So, rather than going out to play on a Saturday night, Frosty hacked and hewed at the code and data for the forum, and got the thing working just a few hours later than he thought it would take, sometime late last night in Thailand. The main problem, at that point, was the DNS resolution (getting "pattayatalk.com" to go to his new server rather than the old server), and that varies depending on many factors at different places in the internet. The guys in the USA were able to access the new server before we in Thailand....by this morning, Thai time, it seems to work, with the exception of photo uploading, quite well. Hats off to Frosty! You've convinced me that you are, in fact, a hacker extraordinaire. Without his assistance, we'd still be waiting for the server company's email that we were ready to go.

Only your posts, for some strange reason we have yet to determine.

Agreed.

Davy is a member, but I don't know if he checks in much. If you'd ping him over on the other side, he could review the resume and perhaps help out.

Ok, now the OP can receive PMs...if he ever comes back to look.

Good fix there, Spicy. Does his partnership with you mean that he has "managed PUSSY"? Lovedog's pretty traumatized about the bike, I'm sure, but he'll get over it quickly. Come on, does anyone have a lead for the OP? If you do, wait until he shows as a Member, rather than Registered, because until then, he can't receive PM s.

Thanks, Fondles, that's exactly what I was thinking of doing. I bought my bike at Mityon as well.

Nice try though. Thanks. I'll be sure and point them out as I see them, because there are so many things that guys take as gospel, having heard it from other guys or read it on boards, and then they internalize it and believe it to be a "truth" that everyone knows...without a shred of first hand experience to back it up. It's all out there, but it's hard to elucidate until you see it in put forth in a conversation.

LOL..calling a Thai motorcycle sales shop with tax, insurance, and registration questions? Are you kidding? I can barely get a pizza ordered over the phone. The shop is just across from Tuk.com, so it's not far to go check in person.

License, tax registration, 3rd party insurance, and (I think) private insurance were all part of the purchase price. All my paperwork got wet when my bike got flooded in the Sept 11 rains, so I need to go try to pry those pieces of paper apart and find out what the situation is.

I'm about to come up on my first year of owning the motorbike. Can I just take it back to the dealer and have them take care of the paperwork/insurance (again)?

You're just grumpy cause you sold your Yamaha VMAX today.

I think lovedog was having a laugh with a bit of showing off. I hope so anyway. And, I must admit, it was funny (to me, at least). Unfortunately, you were the catalyst that got him going. Nothing personal, I am sure. Welcome to the board, and believe it or not, there are some employed expats on this board who might be able to give you a tip.

Reduced passenger numbers, especially from the scaredy-cat East Asian nations is going to mean less wandering tour groups. Earlier, someone posted that the Saudi government had made it a criminal offense for travel agents to book or advertise vacations in Thailand. I doubt a little water in BKK will slow down a determined monger though. From http://www.bangkokpo...at-main-airport

495 was the price for TWO people! We couldn't finish it all, and another couple took home bags of food to eat at home.