Met Smitty of Big Mango and Farang Speak 2 Much fame for a couple of beers earlier in the 
week and he's my sort of guy. He paid for the beers.......
We met in Peppermint and he got the attention of one of the Amazonian's from the cage but he showed little interest in a girl who will get plenty of attention from the Pattaya crowd. His lack of interest in the Amazonian and his comments on the quality of girls in Bangkok gentlemen's clubs like Forte, Pent and St. Moritz, left me with a feeling that we are bottom feeding in Pattaya. Those are my words not Smitty's and he admits to enjoying Pattaya in small doses. I'm not saying there's anything much wrong with bottom feeding but the opportunity to mix it with tattoo-less, beautiful, Uni students with fewer 
miles on the clock sounds appealing to me. Even if it requires a bit more effort, patience and money to close the deal.
For the younger guys out there with their bits and pieces still intact and an indifference to the price of an ale, I recommend you check out Smitty's world before you get stuck in a Pattaya rut, (pun intended!). You can read all about his world at Farang Speaks 2 Much.
I'm going off on a tangent here but why do so many young, farang guys in Pattaya court mature (I'm being kind) Thai ladies. My dear old mother-in-law is of the opinion that farangs have problems with their eyes. I say that's exactly the reason I married her daughter which usually gets me a couple of grains of rice with a plate of small chillies for lunch. I'll try and get some photos of what I mean for you. My guess is the guys don't realise they can pick the lookers. Maybe they have a mother fixation or a self esteem shattered by a farang ex. Whatever the reason, somebody should do the decent thing and put them straight. On second thoughts, feck that. Let the tourists have the grannies and the residents can have the 'lookers'.
Sierra Tangos
- Pattaya Rag Quiz sponsored by Club Blu (opens in just 2 days)
I will post questions most days from my Jan 19 post until Jan 30. You should e-mail your answers to me at pattaya.rag@gmail.com . You can e-mail me each time there are questions are you can mail me one time with all answers before midnight (Thai time) Jan 31. The questions will be sequentially numbered so you will know if you've missed any. Include in the mail the name you want to be known by if you win. I don't want to use a mail address to identify the winner. The winner will be announced on Feb 1.
The prize for the most correct answers is a free 'barf' in Club Blu so it will be of most interest to residents and regular visitors to Thailand. Here's the next question:
Q19. Written by Alfred, which poem starts with the line, `On either side of the river lie`?
Note: Barf covers the barfine only and not ST/LT fees. Also, it's up to you to get your choice to say "yes".
- Walked passed Club Blu this evening and the windows were all covered with canvas sheeting to prevent passersby seeing inside the bar. What's going on I wonder? Are the management looking for a bit of privacy so they can break in the staff?? We'll soon find out.
- Nakhon Ratchasima health officials are on high alert for the bird flu virus after dozens of chickens were reported to have died mysteriously at a local farm. Orders were issued to chicken farmers in all 3,712 villages in the northeastern province to carry out tests at their farms to locate the virus and to spray disinfectants. [via Bangkok Post]
- The 5th Annual “Ride for Peace” will feature at the Burapa Pattaya Bike Week. The Bike Week takes place between 15th and 16rth February with the Ride for Peace starting on 13th February at the Malaysian Border. The bikers will arrive in Pattaya and will be welcomed outside the Jet Petrol Station in South Pattaya. A convoy will then travel to the Pattaya Indoor Stadium in Jomtien and the following day there will be a convoy around Pattaya and the bikers will then make their way back to Malaysia. The Deputy Mayor offered his full cooperation with the event. If you would like further details on the “Ride for Peace” please call Khun Min on 081 000 1498. [via Pattaya City News]
- The Tourism Authority of Thailand has set a target to increase the number of Indian visitors to 600,000 this year from 500,000 in 2007 by focusing on attracting people in major cities that have high purchasing power. [via Hotel Online]
- Pattaya By Night magazine, (2nd issue) is in shops now.
- Chris, a reader, has sent me this update on Qtrax which I mentioned in yesterday's post.
Imagine the surprise of the file-sharing community when 12 PM EST rolled around and Qtrax didn’t launch their new music downloading service. Such legal and industry authorized promises have been made before - remember MashBoxx? Despite a media frenzy preceding Qtrax’s launch, absolutely nothing has come to fruition. No downloading service, no MP3s, and apparently no deals with the entertainment industry.
Did the major four record labels (Sony-BMG, Universal Music, EMI, and Warner Music) back out, or were they never really on board? As it turns out, currently NONE of the major 4 record labels are currently on board with Qtrax [via Chris and Slyck News]
- Extremely Useful Firefox Extensions:
After playing around with dozens of Firefox extensions in the last few years, here I share ten extremely useful extensions that will definitely improve your browsing experience:
1. Aardvark - If you regularly print web pages, this is a must-have Firefox add-on. With a simple shortcut key, Aardvark lets you remove elements from a web page that you don’t want in the print version. This could include advertising banners, HTML tables, graphics, etc.
To use Aardvark in Firefox, hover your mouse cursor over areas of the web page that you don’t want to print and press E (erase). That’s it. See “Reduce Printing Costs”
2.
BlogRovR - As you browse the web, this extension will quickly show you what your favorite bloggers have said about the web page that is currently open in your browser.
You just have to pass a list of your favorite blogs to BlogRovR and it will automatically fetch articles/commentary that link to whatever web page you’re viewing.
3. Morning Coffee - With Firefox, it is possible to set multiple homepages (separated by | ‘pipe’) so all your favorite sites will open in different tabs each time you launch Firefox.
But imagine a scenario where you want a different set of website to launch depending on the day. For instance, one of your favorite website may not be updated on weekends while another one (like PostSecret) posts new content only on Sunday. With Morning Coffee, you can organize websites by day and open them up simultaneously in tabs.
4. LinkAlert - - When you click an hyperlink on a web page, you normally expect it to point to another web page but that may not be the case always as links can point to PDFs, Office Documents, MP3 files, zips, email addresses, etc.
You know the frustration when you click a PDF and it starts to load Adobe Reader causing your browser to freeze for some time. Or you click an email address accidentally and Outlook opens up. With LinkAlert, such accidents may become a thing of the past as it appends a small visual icon next to links on web pages that are not HTML documents.
5. HyperWords - When you select any word or phrase on a web page, HyperWords lets you explore the web without leaving the current web page.
For instance, you view pictures on Flickr related to that selected word, read the Wikipedia entry (if there’s one), convert currency, translate text, view dictionary meanings and so much more right from the Firefox menu without having to click anything. Read “HyperWords Review”
6. IE Tab - Firefox is popular but we routinely encounter so many websites are designed for Internet Explorer only. A good example is the Microsoft Windows Update update.
IE Tab brings the Internet Explorer rendering engine inside Firefox so you don’t have to leave Firefox in order to view those IE only websites.
7. Scrapbook - This is like OneNote for Firefox as you can save clippings, images or even entire web pages to the local disk with a simple right click or a drag-n-drop. Scrapbook lets you search through the clippings and it also saves the original links incase you need to cite or revisit the original source.
8. FireBug - While this is primarily for web designers and developers, what I like about Firebug is inline image editing that lets you modify web pages while it is still loaded in the browser.
That means you can modify the HTML or even Javascript of the web page while maintaining all the links and CSS layouts. And with Firebug installed, you can also read Wall Street Journal online for free.
9. CustomizeGoogle - Google is the best search engine out there but it is not the only one. With CustomizeGoogle, you get to repeat the same search on other popular search engines from the Google website itself. I use this all the time.
10. PicLens - If you spend time on Flickr, Picasa or Facebook photo albums, PicLens will completely change the way your browse pictures on the web.
It adds a small icon near the pictures, you click it and the browser transforms into a full screen slideshow viewer. PicLens Also works with image search engines of Google, Yahoo!, etc.
[via Digital Inspiration]
- LiquidPlanner - Trust your Schedule. LiquidPlanner is online project management software designed to help teams of all sizes manage complex projects. It is an ideal project planning tool for teams who value efficient collaboration and project tracking. LiquidPlanner is built on an innovative scheduling engine that gives you a project schedule you can trust even before you know how long it will take to complete individual tasks. [via Go2Web20]
- FHM keeley Week Day 1
- FHM Keeley Week Day 2
- Ann van Elsen, Miss Belgium, in Playboy
- Q. Why do female black widow spiders kill the males after mating?
A. To stop the snoring before it starts.
- Q. Why can't men get mad cow disease?
A. Because they're all pigs.
- Q. How does a man show he's planning for the future?
A. He buys two cases of beer instead of one.
- Q. What's the difference between Big Foot and intelligent man?
A. Big Foot's been spotted several times.
