Pattaya Days

Obtaining and maintaining a reasonable internet connection in this fine country can be a bit of a challenge. Speeds vary hugely and disconnects are frequent. Calls to the help centre can be painful, and once the problem is identified as being located in the physical phone line, there is always a tendency for the TT&T engineers to assign the blame to the internal wiring of my condo; saves them from getting out of their office chairs and going to check their connections.

Mind you, maybe they have a point. This is the spaghetti at the point at which the phone lines come into our builiding:

There is a lip of a roof partially shielding the wiring, but everything gets damp when the rains come, and the box on the right is in too much of a mess for the door to shut. If a signal manages to get past this lot, then there is a further tangle of wires and connections to negotiate in the maintenance office, before a leisurely trip up to the condo unit floor where two more boxes offer interference possibilities.

My friend Nik has been having problems for weeks, and my internet has refused to achieve full connection speeds for longer than I can remember; so today action was taken. Nik went out and bought a couple of kilometres of wire and the condo technician was tasked with routing a connection from the incoming phone line on the wall, direct to our condos, bypassing the chaos of wires. My job was to stand and watch and look worried. Our condo technicians have a reputation for destroying or stealing condo property, being sacked, and being replaced with someone equally incompetent and dishonest. But the boy did good, and now I have a rock-steady connection; and some faith that my internet will keep on trucking when the rains come.

Can’t be so confident for the rest of the residents.

Asus Aspire One Netbook
One careful owner, never raced or rallied, needs some attention.

Here’s a fact: Netbooks suck.
They don’t do anything well. The displays are awful, battery life is abysmal and if I had to evaluate the amount of pleasure it gave me to use one, I would say “none at all”.

But, in flush of consumerism for which I am prone, I did buy one a couple of years ago. It was 10k baht, which seemed like a bargain at the time, and I had visions of taking it everywhere as my friendly computer. I soon realised that my iPhone makes for a much quicker and more convenient computing companion, so the netbook saw little action and then eventually decided not to work at all.

That was six months ago, and since then it has sat, glowering, on the shelf; giving out “fix me” vibes every time I passed. Today was she who must be obeyed’s day off, which she seemed keen to spend playing Farmville, Fishville, Pornville etc., so I thought I would have a go.

The beast had a power light that came on, but nothing else seemed to happen. If it was a hardware fault, there was not a lot I could do; but maybe I could inject some software life into it.

Some quality time with Mr. Google revealed that many people had suffered from Acer Aspire One death. For some it was terminal, for others there was a hope of resurrection via a BIOS re-install. So I spent about an hour gathering all the necessary files, preparing a USB stick and reading the instructions over and over to ensure I was doing the right thing. Then I held down a couple of keys, turned the thing on and waited for it to spring to life, at which point I intended to shoot “Hallelujah” very loudly, if only to annoy she who must be obeyed who was busy feeding her digital fish. Instead, all I could do was mutter “bastard” very quietly, because nothing happened. I spent two more hours fiddling with options in an attempt to breath life into the dormant machine, but it refused to respond. I pronounced it dead.

In such instances there is nothing to lose in disassembling the machine. There is a 0.00006% chance that you will discover a loose connection, and a 100% chance that the act of deconstruction will render the device beyond hope of future repair. But it is fun to do and sometimes interesting.

Here are some more facts:
Netbooks do not come to pieces as easily as a desktop computer.
A hammer is never a good idea (this applies to almost everything, especially delivering babies).
If you have to prise it open with a screwdriver, there is probably a screw you should have removed first.
If you have to prise it open with a screwdriver and something snaps, there is definitely a screw you should have removed first.
Once you have taken a netbook to pieces, you can’t put it together again.

Or at least, I can’t. But maybe you could! No reasonable offer refused.

I don’t really understand Mexican food. I get confused between the various names. Do I want a Burrillo, an Espilada or a Chinchilla? They all look the same on the menu and when they arrive at the table, they all look and taste the same. There are some beans, some rice and something that could pass as a large bowel movement which is either soft or crispy, or softly crispy, and is stuffed with more beans, a bit of salad and maybe some meat of unknown origin (unless I ordered Chinchilla). But fuck all that, I love Margaritas.

So I could never be described as a connoisseur of Mexican food; but I do enjoy the occasional visit to a Mexican restaurant, knowing that I will roll home feeling pleasantly full of something, and awash in Margaritas.

There was a place called Mike’s in Thappraya road which did the job; but the location was rather bland and noisy and our visits were infrequent. But now Mike’s has moved to a side street off Thappraya and it is now a very pleasant place to eat the obscure and drink Margaritas (or Corona if you must).

Down to Jomtien Marina yesterday morning to take a shot of a friend’s boat. There seemed to be more than the usual number of people and lengths of cable:

And some expensive looking cameras:

Turns out that they were shooting an episode of a Thai soap, possibly the worst television in the world (apart from whichever show it was that brought us that squawking Scottish tank). The star was someone called Jenny who is, according to she who must be obeyed, famous. She is also known for being gorgeous, but, if I can throw in a nautical term at this point, she didn’t float my boat.

She seemed to be getting less preferential treatment than some other performers in the show. She had to find her own piece of shade to keep cool; whereas these two, who presumably had a crucial, albeit non-speaking role, were provided with fans and had bags of snacks close by in case of need:

My camera equipment was mundane compared to the film crew’s collection. I brought along the 1D, because people expect “a real camera”. but also had the GF1 which produced some very acceptable images and were mixed in with the final selection I gave to my friend. The boat is for sale if you are interested in standing in a salty shower fully clothed, throwing up, and tearing up $1,000 baht notes.

Rose are red
Ferraris are too
Apart from this one
Makes me want to puke

It’s about three years since the project to build Thailand’s tallest residential building, the 91 floor Ocean 1, was announced. Since the announcement, nothing much has happened and most people, including myself, assumed that the project was dead. Indeed, I was rather rude about the development more than a year ago, and it looks like I owe Bruno Pingel and his team an apology. Because construction is about to commence!!

We know this, because someone has published a mail from Rob Astbury, the sales manager, where he said (in December 2009) “Last week we signed a contract with one of the largest construction companies in China and it is planned for construction to start in February 2010. It is anticipated the building will be compete in four years.” Excellent news indeed!

(If you want to read the complete mail, search on “Ocean 1 Pattaya potential investors discussion group” in Facebook).

Cynics will say that Ocean 1 has been announcing the commencement of construction “in 2-3 months” for the last couple of years and this is not the first time that a construction contract has been announced with nothing subsequently happening; but I am sure this time it will be different. It is also a little disconcerting that there has been no official announcement of the contract, and no sign of mobilisation at the site for a project that was meant to start last month; but I am sure the place will be awash with workers very soon and Pattaya’s proudest landmark will start to rise from the ground.

As Mr. Astbury so sensibly points out, the current bargain price of 143,000 baht a square metre will rise once construction commences ; so you only have a very few days to get your ass down to Siam Best Enterprises in Jomtien and sign on the dotted line. Sadly, this is twice the price per metre that my totally beach front condo unit can currently command, so my plans to sell up and move into Ocean 1 will have to remain but a dream. But you go ahead, you won’t regret it.

For reasons that are not entirely clear, I decide to make the 45 minute journey to the Khao Kheow Open Zoo. It is has the word “open” in the name, not because it is open and will happily take your 100 baht entrance fee, but because many of the animals are in open enclosures which theoretically should make for happier beasts; even though they would probably rather be thundering majestically across the plains and being eaten by predators.

It’s a while since I last visited, and the impression I get is that there is now more concrete and fewer animals; and that nothing has been maintained in the year or so since my last visit. I sure as hell didn’t risk going to the toilets. Even so, if you have never been, it’s worth a trip.

You can drive round the zoo in your own car, or sit in an open bus along with dozens of sweating tourists. So I took my car, and first stop was an area full of deer.

Nervous animals at the best of times, they were in full “oh fuck, we’re all going to die” mode, thanks to Read more…

First, you need to stand on the sand next to the sea with a long lens.

By the way, that’s a backpack on my back, not a hump.

Then spend an hour pointing the lens at passing traffic.

There was Pierre, acting up for the camera as usual. Little jumps..

…and Gallic shrugs:

Bo was smooth turning and jumping:

And then he and his mate went out on the ridiculous Gemini two-rider machine:

There were some kit surfers out too, but they were just hanging around:

An hour of shooting and then it was my turn to play. Excellent wind and the body got a good workout. Then a large plate of lasagna for dinner, and now I am sat here with aching limbs, a toasty skin, and a feeling of contentment.

The pound exchange rate may be down the toilet, but life can still be beautiful.

Poor old Thailand is having a bit of trouble with its image at the moment. There are the red shirts threatening rallies to overthrow the government. The yellow shirts are making grumbling noises in the background; and we all know what they can do if they feel like causing some trouble. There have been grenades in Bangkok and the usual tally of bombs, mayhem and murder in the southern promises. To an outsider it might seem that a weekend break at the Somalia Holiday Inn (no relation) would be preferable to coming to the Land of Smiles.

Of course, the reality is that you very unlikely to encounter any problems (unless you walk down Beach Road at 0300, drunk out of your head and shouting “come and see my engorged wallet ladies”). But perception is everything, so the Ministry of Tourism has had to think of some exciting incentives to boost declining tourist numbers.

And today one of the measures was announced: Free $10,000 Riot Insurance for all visitors.

Shall we go to the Maldives or Thailand darling?
Well, Thailand is offering free riot insurance
Why?
Presumably because they have a lot of riots.
Maldives it is then.

Pure genius.