Saturday 31 May 2008

News

  • The finals of the Miss Sexy Leo Girl Competition will take place at the Differ Pub in North Pattaya on Saturday, 31st May and the winner will receive 1 million Baht and a contract with the Leo Brewery. To show the sort of girls on show at Differ, the following are Leo girls:


  • The country wide smoking ban fines grow teeth from tomorrow, June 1st. The grace period ends today so expect the BIB to see this as an opportunity to make some easy money.


Ed. I'll drink anywhere that has Ricky involved. About 10 years ago he bought me a beer........


  • David has sold his share in Baby Dolls to focus full time on the Windmill and taken Mama Miki formerly of Whats up and Babydolls to sort the girls. A Jacuzzi and soapy mattress stage are part of the refit. They were popular at Babydolls so why not at the Windmill too. [via Pattaya Secrets]

Ed. If it's a choice between Mama Miki and Ricky then it's a tough call. No, I can't deny a beer, Ricky wins every time.


  • There's a new Pattaya blog on the scene and the Ghost appears to be well tapped in to the nightlife scene. He broke the news of Babydolls and Ricky before anybody else.



  • A Pattaya volunteer police officer was shot dead by the side of railway track. Police have found many motives for the killing. The victim was a copyright violation reporter which had made him not very popular with bar owners. [via Pattaya Daily News]



  • Living in Britain is now more dangerous than the Balkans, report reveals [via Mail Online]


  • Kylie hits 40

Humour

  • The unstoppable virus

I thought you would want to know about this e-mail virus. It appears to affect those who were born prior to 1960. Symptoms:
1. Causes you to send the same e-mail twice. Done that!
2. Causes you to send a blank e-mail! That too!
3. Causes you to send e-mail to the wrong person. Yep!
4. Causes you to send it back to the person who sent it to you. Uh huh!
5. Causes you to forget to attach the attachment. Well darn!
6. Causes you to hit "SEND" before you've finished. Oh no - not again!
7. Causes you to hit "DELETE" instead of "SEND." Damn! I just hate that!
8. Causes you to hit "SEND" when you should "DELETE." Oh No!

It is called the "C-Nile Virus."  Hmmm....Have I already posted this?

 

 

  • A man is about to have sex with a really fat woman, so he climbs on top of her. "Can I turn the ceiling light off?" he asks. "Why?" she replies, "Are you feeling a bit shy?" "No," he says, "because it's burning my ass!"

   

 

  • St. Peter is at the Pearly Gates checking up on the people waiting to enter Heaven. He asks the next one in line, 'So, who are you, and what did you do on Earth?' The fellow says, 'I'm Barack Hussein Obama, and I was the first black to be elected President of the United States'. St. Peter says, 'The U.S.? A black President? You gotta be kidding me! When did this happen?' And Obama says,..."about twenty minutes ago".

 

 

Friday 30 May 2008

Geeks

  • Download Multiple Web Videos Into a Single Movie or MP3 - While there are tons of tools that let you download web videos with ease, MovAVI offers one unique feature. It can join multiple videos from YouTube, Metacafe, Break.com, etc. into one single file all by itself that you can later download in any format.

join multiple videos

Related Reading: How to do Everything with YouTube

Using Movavi is simple - just add the different video URLs (5 is the limit) and select an output format. You can either request the combined video clip as an MP3 audio file (great for music videos) or in regular formats like iPod MP4, AVI, Flash Video & Quicktime.

Movavi will not join your videos instantly - it sends out an email when the video to ready for download. If you are looking for instant conversion, check this Flash Video Guide. MovAVI can also be used to join video files that reside on your local hard drive.  [via Digital Inspiration]

 

  • Free Open Source Counterparts of Windows Software

Why would you want to have Open Source software on your computer? Let's consider a few reasons:

    • First reason that every one thinks of is that Open Source software is free of cost, well it certainly is about 95% of the time but it can be paid too although the license will be less restrictive. Nevertheless it can save you hundreds of dollars
    • Another often overlooked aspect is that you can have full access to the source code of the software. This is a great blessing for someone who needs the ultimate customization.
    • You can actually help in the development by fixing bugs, releasing your changes to the code (in accordance with the license of course)
    • They may also offer more features then their commercial counterparts

With that out of the way, lets get to the fun part and lets save some bucks. I will be giving information on my personal favourites (which would generally mean BETTER) open source replacements. There are however other choices as well, so drop a line or two if our choices differ!

Microsoft Office ==> OpenOffice
OpenOffice provides a great alternative to Microsoft Office. The complete suite comes with a word processor (Writer), spreadsheet (Calc), presentation (Impress), drawing and graphing tool (Draw), tool for creating equations and formulae (Math) and finally a database tool which also builds reports and forms (Base). All components are multi-platform and multilingual. Its available for Windows, Linux, Mac and Solaris.
Download here

Microsoft Outlook Express ==> Mozilla Thunderbird
Thunderbird is a full-featured open source email client which provides an excellent open source alternative to all commercial email clients. Thunderbird offers a large features set, some of which are: support for POP and IMAP, built-in RSS support and spell checking. Thunderbird also has an integrated usenet news reader. The user-interface is completely customizable. Did I mention the many add-ons you can have?
Download here

Microsoft Internet Explorer ==> Mozilla Firefox (Relax, I know you are using it)
Firefox needs no introduction, still I will try - Firefox is an advanced browser built with its roots in the old Netscape browser. Today Firefox offers tabbed browsing, live bookmarks, many search extensions and many other extensions and toolbars. The support for Firefox by commercial companies is growing - and this is clearly seen by the number of extensions/toolbars they develop. So how did I do?
Download here

Winzip or WinRAR ==> 7-Zip
7-Zip is an excellent file archiver that can easily replace Winzip and WinRAR on your machine. It has a high compression ratio. It supports the following formats for packing/unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR - and the following for unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ARJ, LZH, CHM, Z, CPIO, RPM and DEB. It integrates well into the Windows shell( right click menu). Also 7-Zip is available in 60 languages.
Download here

Microsoft Visio ==> Dia
Dia can be used to draw many different kinds of diagrams. It currently has special objects to help draw entity relationship diagrams, UML diagrams, flow charts, network diagrams, and simple circuits. It is also possible to add support for new shapes by writing simple XML files, using a subset of SVG to draw the shape. It can load and save diagrams to a variety of formats
Download here

JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA or Other Commercial IDE's ==> Eclipse
Java based IDE which aims to be a universal development toolkit. Even though it has it's roots in Java eclipse's plug-in base allows it to edit files for almost any environment including but not limited web, c/c and of course Java.
Download here

Nero ==> InfraRecorder
InfraRecorder is an easy to use CD and DVD burner application. It supports virtually all different formats including rewritable disc, multi-session disc and dual-layer DVDs. Also audio CDs can be created with just a few simple drag drops in InfraRecorder. Other important features include disc copying, audio CD ripping and ISO generation and burning images. InfraRecorder is available in more than 20 languages.
Download here

VMware or Microsoft Virtual PC ==> VirtualBox
VirtualBox allows you to run a guest operating system on your PC, in this case either Windows or Linux based. The guest operating system support covers most Windows (including Vista) and Linux versions. VirtualBox is a very stable tool. I have run Ubuntu inside Windows without any problems. Networking, Clipboard, Disk Management are all seamless.
Download here

Microsoft Remote Desktop for Windows ==> TightVNC
TightVNC is an open source remote desktop application. It allows you to control a graphical user session on a machine remotely through the network. Both VNC server and client runs on multiple platforms. You just need to run the server on the machine you want to access and use the TightVNC viewer to access the system remotely. Some extra features like send special key strokes, file transfers and fullscreen view are also very handy.
Download here

Microsoft Internet Information Services ==> Apache HTTP Server
Apache HTTP Server is the most deployed and used web server on the Internet. It is always up-to-date with the latest HTTP standards - and runs on any modern operating system. Apache is secure. There are plenty of extendable modules available that make it even more lucrative choice to the MS IIS. Not to mention the packages that bundle together Apache, perl, php, Mysql, Filezilla, Mercury mail. Definitely one of my personal favourites.
Download here

Pheew.. that's some information. [via MakeUseOf]

 

  • Who do you call when you have a techie problem? Most likely a call centre in India !!

and you thought Pattaya was bad

 

  • Ace Backup: Versatile Backup Software
    Backups are important. I'm not only saying this because of the three dedicated servers that I'm running on the Internet that host my websites which earn the money I'm living from. No, it's also important at home. The importance depends mainly on how the computer is used. If you just play some games and surf the web you probably do not need to fear data loss. If you are writing a book for the last year you should make sure you create regular backups to avoid loosing all of your work of the last twelve months.

Ace Backup is a versatile backup software that was commercial and is now freely available. The basic features are to create backups of data on local drives, ftp servers or CD and DVD. It supports encryption offering five different encryption algorithms, versioning of files, compression, file filters, logs, multiple backup locations and scheduled backups.

One interesting aspect of Ace Backup is the opportunity to launch applications before and after a backup job. This would make it possible to run a disk cleaner after backup for instance or an application to shutdown the computer.

Multiple backup locations can be managed independently from each other or synchronized. Lastly the Explorer integration makes it relatively easy to add new files and folders to a project. [via gHacks]

 

  • These are pictures of the wreck of a brand new A340-600, in November 2007, that had never flown. Brand spanking new right out of the hanger, without a single hour of air time. Enter the Arab flight crew. Thank the French and their Arab friends for this bit of 'comedy of errors'. Nine employees of the Arab airline were in the aircraft, but not one employee from French Airbus was present. The Arabs taxied out to the run-up area. Then they took all four engines to takeoff power with virtually an empty aircraft. This was their first mistake as they obviously didn't read the run-up manuals. They had no clue just how light of an empty air bus really is.

No chocks were set, not that it would have mattered at that power setting. The brakes will not hold it back at full power anyway. As it turns out, the takeoff warning horn was blaring away in the cockpit because they had all 4 engines at full power. The aircraft computers thought they were trying to takeoff but it had not been configured properly (flaps/slats, etc, etc). Then one of these brain surgeons decided to pull the 'Ground Sense' circuit breaker to silence the alarms. This fools the aircraft into thinking it is in the air.

That was their last mistake. As soon as they did that, the computers automatically released all the brakes and set the aircraft rocketing forward. The poor bastards had no idea that this is a Safety feature so that pilots can't land with the brakes on. There was no time to stop and no one smart enough to throttle back the engines from their max power setting. So the rest is as you see it below.

 

Which airline are you flying to Thailand?

 

  • Update on yesterday's post re the roving candid camera shots of Pattaya night life. It would appear that Mapjack have now removed the offending images. [via The Sunday Morning Herald]

 

Thursday 29 May 2008

Pin Ups

  • Iga - need I say more?

 

 

 

 

 

News

  • A new resort Bang Saray Bay will open in the South of Pattaya at the cost of US$640 million. The resort will be completed in 2015 and features 490 rooms and 32 private villas. There will also be an Amazon Falls Water Theme Park and a convention centre that can carry 3,000 delegates. In addition there will be sports and lifestyle facilities as well as a man-made-beach and lagoon. [via Travel Weekly]

  • The Moon River Pub, North Pattaya is running an all you can drink promotion between 8.00pm - midnight for a net Bt1,000/-. This promotion is being advertised on the radio so I'm not sure of the dates. Phone 038 370 614-8 for details if you want to fill your boots for Bt1,000

  • It is not uncommon for foreigners to buy a condominium in Thailand, but so far it has been quite difficult for them to seek a mortgage. That is set to change. Expats who want to own condominiums in Thailand can now ask for mortgages through Bangkok Bank's Singapore branch, but the initial process can be done at branches in Thailand. Bangkok Bank (BBL) is the only bank offering such a facility to foreigners. [via Thai Visa]


  • The Thai Hotels Association (THA) warned that the country would be short of 30,000 hotel staff over the next two years as new hotels continue to open. [via lexisnexis]

  • The British Embassy Bangkok encourages British Nationals travelling or living in Thailand to register your details with LOCATE, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office newly improved online registration service. The new service also allows us to locate British Nationals in the event of a crisis abroad.

    To register please visit:

http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travelling-and-li...verseas/Locate/

You may email us on locatebangkok@fco.gov.uk should you have difficulties regarding the registration.

Ed. Crisis? Do the British Embassy know something they're not telling us.


  • British PM Warns Of Global Oil "Shock" - Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned Wednesday that the world faced an era-defining oil "shock" that required urgent action, as European leaders argued how best to contain protests over soaring fuel prices. "It is now understood that a global shock on this scale requires global solutions," Brown wrote in The Guardian newspaper.

  • And just when you thought things couldn't get any worse, they did - the slump in Britain's house prices accelerated in May to the fastest level since the Nationwide began records 17 years ago. The price of an average house fell 2.5 per cent in the month, making the seventh consecutive monthly fall in prices, the longest downward slope since the housing recession of 1992. In the year, 4.4 per cent has been wiped off the value of homes, the biggest annual fall since December 1992 when the price fall reached 6.3 per cent. [via Times Online]

  • If you are tired of your regular routine of Nana, Soi Cowboy, Patpong and Walking Street then why not give Nakhon Nayok a try. Say where! According to Buzzle.com, Nakhon Nayok is experiencing a tourist boom. Over one million tourist visitors a year.

    The area is renowned for its waterfalls, rivers and forest. It sits at the foothills of Khao Yai National Park, which is one of the finest natural attractions in Thailand. The cool mountain water that flows out of this park feeds the rivers and waterfalls of Nakhon Nayok. Every weekend, thousands of Thais flee the heat of the city to play in the refreshing water of Nakhon Nayok's famous waterfalls such as Sarika and Nang Rong. Others picnic by the stream, under the towering trees of Wang Takhrai Botanical Gardens.

No mention of bars but couldn't you live without them for just one weekend. Sort of place to take your favourite bunk-up for a serious weekend workout. For more information try the Nakhon Nayok's Tourist Info site.


Wednesday 28 May 2008

Humour

  • England's captain starts new craze...

 

  • The doctor that had been seeing an 80-year-old woman for most of her life finally retired. At her next checkup, the new doctor told her to bring a list of all the medicines that had been prescribed for her. As the young doctor was looking through these, his eyes grew wide as he realized she had a prescription for birth control pills.

"Mrs. Smith, do you realize these are BIRTH CONTROL pills?"

"Yes, they help me sleep at night."

"Mrs. Smith, I assure you there is absolutely NOTHING in these that could possibly help you sleep!"

She reached out and patted the young Doctor's knee. "Yes, dear, I know that. But every morning, I grind one up and mix it in the glass of orange juice that my 16 year old granddaughter drinks..................................And believe me, it helps me sleep at night."

 

  • Skidmarks for real men..... Ouch....

 

  • Old people have problems that you haven't even considered yet! An 85-year-old man was requested by his doctor for a sperm count as part of his physical exam. The doctor gave the man a jar and said, 'Take this jar home and bring back a semen sample tomorrow.'

The next day the 85-year-old man reappeared at the doctor's office and gave him the jar, which was as clean and empty as on the previous day. The doctor asked what happened and the man explained, 'Well, doc, it's like this - first I tried with my right hand, but nothing. Then I tried with my left hand, but still nothing. Then I asked my wife for help. She tried with her right hand, then with her left, still nothing. She tried with her mouth, first with the teeth in, then with her teeth out, still nothing. We even called up Arleen, the lady next door and she tried too, first with both hands, then an armpit, and she even tried squeezin' it between her knees, but still nothing.

The doctor was shocked! 'You asked your neighbor?' The old man replied, 'Yep, none of us could get the jar open.'

 

  • Hills allegedly confirmed as Vice President.....

Geeks

  • Omnisio: Great Way To Edit And Mix Videos And Presentations

omnisio

Ever wondered if you could edit and mix different YouTube videos together? Or mix YouTube and Blip.tv videos ? Or play a Powerpoint presentation alongside a video ? Well.no doubt there are tools to do it but Omnisio is different.

Omnisio is an excellent online tool which allows you to assemble clips from different video sites like YouTube, Blip.tv etc and mix them and edit them, without downloading any of them. Yes, its simple, fast and very easy. It has a cool interface and allows you to easily search and add videos and then use a slider to clip them and add them together. Using the screenshot below as an example, I was making a video out of different clips from Bryan Adams' concerts.

Some other cool features of Ominisio are :-

1: It doesn't require a sign up unless you would want to have an account where you can store those edited clips and videos and come back later to see it again.

omnisio-videos

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2: You can also synchronize video with slides and show them side by side. This is an awesome feature and especially useful for conferences and meetings.

3: It also allows you to embed the mash-up which you created, in your blog or website.

4: You can share the videos with your friends and add comments, directly in the videos !

5: Last but not least, its FREE !

If you love playing with videos and presentations, then this is a must try tool for you. I'm loving it already ! [via MakeUseOf]

 

  • RadarSync keeps your Windows software and drivers up to date

RadarSync

While some of our favorite desktop applications automatically alert us when a newer version is available, many do not. Fortunately, there are several utilities that will scan your PC, compare the version numbers of your installed applications with an online database, and let you know if new versions are available for download.

RadarSync does that, and more. Unlike other update checkers, RadarSync will scan not just for software updates, but also for driver updates. Once you scan your computer, you can either click the "Downlods all items" button (seriously, that's what it says), or click Details next to the items you're interested in. The details window will show you a brief description of each application, and even a list of alternate programs that do basically the same thing. For example, if you check the details window for Pidgin, you'll find Google Talk, AIM, and Meebo.

The utility will also let you download and install updates directly from the manufacturer's website. RadarSync's basic version is available as a free download. For $29.95 per year, you can get access to the full version, which gives you access to tech support and also lets you schedule automatic system scans. [via Download Squad]

 

  • How to Read Popular Magazines on your Desktop for Free

free online magazines

This is a very simple & non-geeky trick to help you read the latest issue of popular magazines like PC Magazine, MIT Technology Review, Popular Mechanics, MacWorld, Lonely Planet, Reader's Digest, etc without paying any subscription charges.

You will also get to read adult magazines like Playboy and Penthouse. Best of all, these digital magazines are exact replicas of print and served as high-resolution images that you can also download on to the computer for offline reading.

How to Read Online Magazines for Free

Step 1: If you are on a Windows PC, go to apple.com and download the Safari browser. Mac users already have Safari on their system.

Step 2: Once you install Safari, go to Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced and check the option that says "Show Develop menu in menu bar."

Step 3: Open the "Develop" option in the browser menu bar and choose Mobile Safari 1.1.3 - iPhone as the User Agent.

iphone-user-agent

Step 4: You're all set. Open zinio.com/iphone inside Safari browser and start reading your favorite magazines for free. Use the navigation arrows at the top to turn pages.

For people in countries like India who are already subscribed to Zinio Digital Magazines, this hack is still useful because you get access to certain magazines which are otherwise not available for subscription via Zinio (e.g., Penthouse and Playboy). [via Digital Inspiration]

 

  • Add 32GB of storage to your laptop without cracking the case

Laptops aren't generally known for having the largest hard drives out there. If you pick up a cheap one, you might not have more than 80GB of space, which some people can easily fill up. If you're looking for an easy way to add more space without cracking the case or carrying around an external drive, you might look into one of these new ExpressCard drives from A-Data.

Many newer laptops feature ExpressCard slots, which aren't always used, so why not fill yours with 16GB or 32GB of storage? What's really cool is that if you want to access the files from another computer, you can simply plug in a USB cord and treat it just like an external drive. You can pick one of these up for $65.99 or $129.99 depending on the size you choose. Source: EverythingUSB [via Coolest Gadgets]

 

Tuesday 27 May 2008

Pin Ups

 

 

News (sort of)

  • Bar Bits

I had a wander round the bars on Saturday night with a couple of drinking pals and just about everywhere we went was pretty quiet.

We started the night in Club Blu on Soi Buakhow but quite a few of my favourites were missing so we only had a couple of drinks and then jumped a Baht Bus on Buakhoa to the South Pattaya Road / Second Road traffic lights. I had the pleasure of sitting next to a couple of katoeys for most of the journey and when we got to Tuk Com this little old Thai lady got off the bus, had second thoughts and jumped back on the bus and had everybody confused. About 100 metres nearer to Second Road we alighted and the bus had hardly moved another 10 meters when the whole bus disembarked and the passengers headed back in the direction of Tuk Com. More of this later.

We walked in to Soi 15 from Second Road, (good short cut) and hit What's Up Go Go which is a long term favourite of mine. In addition to the buxom Jacuzzi girls, and I don't use the word 'buxom' lightly in this case, they have a number of ladies dressed in just braces and belts (suspenders in America) and in this case I use the word 'dressed' very lightly. As we walked in, one lady dressed in braces and not much more was standing on a sofa straddling a guy seated on the sofa whilst he admired her breakfast. The surprise was the girl was a real looker so times must be hard. Over by the Jacuzzi, one overweight guy was dispensing with his bucket of ping pong balls in a rather unusual fashion. He was giving them one by one to one of the Jacuzzi girls by sticking them where the sun don't shine. Times must be very, very hard for the girls to go to these lengths for tips. There were plenty of girls in the shop window and several lookers amongst them. What's Up is a fun bar and has plenty of voyeurs but a shortage of paying punters so the girls appear to be even more amenable than usual.  

I'd been reading on the Pattaya Forums that a coyote bar in Soho Square was doing so well they it was expanding. We took a wander down there to check it out and found a ghost town. The bars were nicely fitted out but had not one customer between them and just two coyote dancers on display. It must have been around 11.00pm so I'm not sure if Soho booms at a different time to the go-go's. I'll have to try again at a different time to see if I have more success.

We' been tipped off that stars in the off Walking Street bars often barf themselves at the weekend so they can hang out in places like Lucifers. So what do we do next, we go to the Beer Garden. Nah, we go to Lucifers and nah, it's not for me. Maybe there was a time but it's so badly laid out that I couldn't see the fanny. You have to push your way through a football crowd of people to see what's in there. Too much like hard work for me but you young things might enjoy it. From the short time I was there it is obvious that there is more than enough women in Lucifers to satisfy the US 7th Fleet (or was that Cavalry?) but how they'd pair off is beyond me. I reckon the best place in Lucifers is the tables at the entrance to the front bar. Sit there and you will get a parade of beauties passing you by. Spot one you like and stalk it. Seems a better option to me than taking pot luck in a football crowd.

We finished up the night in J.P. Alley (near the Blues Factory) and as I've mentioned before in the Rag, it's a great place to girl watch. Seems like there's a never ending flow towards Walking Street until 2.30am and then somebody throws a switch and the flow reverses with the crowds from Marine, Lucifers and Tony's heading off Walking Street to Insomnia, Marine 2 etc. etc. One of the guys I was with on Saturday has been 'romancing' a lovely from Club Blu. She's been out of town for a while and she phoned him Saturday to say she was still in Bangkok. Sure enough she comes down the alley about 2.00am which I guess was Sunday but only just. It's great when you catch them out. I think the romancing is over!!

Footnote 1: I like to sleep in after a night on the town but Sunday my beauty sleep was interrupted by a phone call at 8.00am. I was half asleep when I answered it but I got the equivalent of a bucket of ice cold water in my face when a Thai lady's voice says, "Where are you?". "In bed", says I, as quietly as possible as my missus was laying next to me. My mind's racing. Who did I give my number to? Don't panic. Don't PANIC. "Do you want your credit card", says the voice. I'M PANICKING. I check my shorts and sure enough the wallet I keep my cards and licenses in is missing. "Yes I want my credit card", says I and the lady hangs up.

Ten minutes later she phones back and agrees to meet me at the 7-11 opposite X-Zyte on 3rd Road. I race round there with my missus who's already decided that the lady with my cards must have shared a hotel room with me the night before. We get to the 7-11 and fuck me the girl with my cards has a terrific pair of tits. The missus knows my weakness so this is starting to look a bit grim. She speaks to the girl who says she found the cards outside a short time hotel near V.C.. I'm not panicking anymore cause I'm totally FUCKED. The missus takes my cards and gives the girl a Bt500 reward. Bit stingy thought I but for once my missus was ahead of me. Probably cause my mind was in meltdown trying to figure out how I could hang on to my meat and two veg. The girl had used a land line to phone me and came to 7-11 on a motor cyke taxi. The missus reckons she was in cahoots (luv wild west movies) with the card stealers because there's not a girl over 16 in Pattaya that doesn't have a mobile phone and motor cyke. The girl was making sure we couldn't trace her after the meeting.

I reckon the thieves were the two katoeys and the old lady on the Baht Bus at the start of Saturday evening. The old lady created a distraction whilst the Katoey emptied my pocket and that's why they all jumped off the Baht Bus immediately after me and my pals. They didn't want to be sitting on the bus at the traffic lights in case I realised my cards were missing.

They hadn't charged anything against my credit card possibly because of the farang name on the card. They probably reckoned it was easier to get a reward from me than find somebody to buy a stolen card. To be safe, I still cancelled the card.

For the record I wasn't a naughty boy that night but I might well have been for all the aggro I've had this week. There can be a downside to life with a wife in LOS but I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be.

Footnote 2: My last 2 trips around the bars have brought unexpected developments. One was an altercation with a bar owner and the other my pocket was picked. People reckon things come in 3's so I think I'll stay home this weekend.

 

  • Pattaya City News is now officially Pattaya One News. The web site looks a lot cleaner that's for sure.

 

  • One of my regular drinking pals couldn't join us this week due to family commitments. He said he only had time for Soi 6. In his words, a splash and dash.....

 

 

 

 

 

Monday 26 May 2008

Humour ?

  • The Australian Poetry Competition had come down to two finalists; a university graduate and an old aboriginal. They were given a word, then allowed two minutes to study the word and come up with a poem that contained the word. The word they were given was 'TIMBUKTU'.

First to recite his poem was the university graduate. He stepped to the microphone and said:

'Slowly across the desert sand,

trekked a lonely caravan

Men on camels two by two

Destination - Timbuktu.'

The crowd went crazy! No way could the old aboriginal top that, they thought.

The old aboriginal calmly made his way to the microphone and recited;

'Me and Tim a huntin' went

Met three whores in a pop up tent

They were three, and we was two

So I bucked one, and timbuktu.'

The aboriginal won.

 

 

  • Q. What did the sign on the door of the whorehouse say?

A. Beat it! We're closed.

 

  • Bit too close to the truth to be funny....

 

 

  • Oldie but goldie....

One day Superman was feeling a bit horny. So he asked his super hero friends for ideas on where he could get a bit of action. 'Hey Batman! Who's good in the sack?'

'Well Superman, everyone knows that Wonder Woman is the best sex in comic land. Why don't you try her?' replied Batman

'I'd love to, but Wonder Woman and I are friends. So I don't really want to take advantage of her.'

'Damn shame.' said Batman as he waved goodbye to Superman and drove off.

Ten minutes later Superman was flying low over a city when he saw the Green Lantern.

'Hey Hal, I'm looking for a little action. You're a swinging bachelor, who's the best babe in comic land?'

'Hey, Superman! Everyone knows that Wonder Woman is far and away the best lay in comic land, why don't you try her?'

'Well, we're sort of friends,' Superman said, 'but I didn't realise she had gotten around so much.' And he flew off in frustration

Twenty minutes later Superman was flying over a field when he saw Wonder Woman lying naked, in the middle of the field, with her legs apart.

Superman was tempted. He thought to himself, 'I'm faster than a speeding bullet, I can be in and out of there before she even knows I'm here.'

So with a blur and a sonic boom he was down, in and gone. Wonder Woman stared up into the sky with a dazed expression. 'What the hell was that?' she exclaimed.

'I don't know,' said the Invisible Man as he rolled off, 'but my ass is killing me.'

 

  • Finally, Pistol Pilot sent this in and I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.....

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=fae_1198918886

Geeks

  • Dropbox beta invites 

Back in March when we wrote about a new service in private beta called Dropbox, there were all kinds of people interested in it and wanting to get in on the private beta to try it out. We were able to give out 50 invites, but there were still many, many people who wanted an invite, but were unable to get one. Thanks to a tip from Cory, we found that Dropbox is currently getting ready to "open the gates" so to speak, and they will be allowing "tens of thousands" of users to start using the service. But more importantly, they want their blog readers to get a chance to get in on it too, even if they hadn't signed up previously. For a limited time they have provided a code just for their blog readers to use to sign-up.

You're a Dropbox blog reader, right?  They did post an interesting article today discussing some of the different ways that people are using the service like using it to synchronize chat logs across all computers of an account, using it as a "dropbox" for faxes, and they said one user even uses it as a security system - "one user set up his webcam to record video once motion is detected, with the resulting file being dumped into his Dropbox. He uses this combination as a security system of sorts when he's out of town." Interesting, isn't it?

So now here's the important part, where we tell you how to get your beta code. Just go here and then you'll be provided with the download, as well as your beta code which will be outsidethebox. The download is available for Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Mac OS X 10.4 or above. [via CyberNet]

 

  • Batch Image Resizer Fotosizer

Image Resizers are available in the dozens on the Internet, even batch image resizers are not uncommon anymore and it boils down to taste rather than functionality or speed when making a decision for or against a specific product. Fotosizer adds itself to the list of batch image resizers. It comes with a clean interface that displays thumbnails of every image that is loaded into the application.

Supported are to browse for files and folders or to drag and drop them into the program interface. The resizing options allow to change the resolution of each image by percentage or fixed width and a few preset dimensions can be selected to make them usable in iPhones, iPods or the PSP.

Other options that directly affect the resized image are the image quality and two checkboxes to maintain aspect ratio and preserve width and height by orientation.

 

Several output parameters can be defined as well. The output file format can be selected as well as the output folder and the filename of the new files. Several variations are available for that purpose, for example adding day,month and year information to the filename.

Several optional parameters are available that can rotate the images or apply a black and white or negative filter. [via gHacks]

 

  • A better MAC Os Leopard theme for Firefox 3

 

  The features and performance of Firefox 3 have helped me fall in love with the browser all over again, but the "native" themes need some work. I've been keeping an eye out for a theme that is more along the lines of what Safari looks like on my Mac, and one developer has stepped up to the plate with two gorgeous alternatives: GrApple Delicious and GrApple Yummy.

At first glance the two themes look nearly the same (as seen below), but the differences lie in the details. GrApple Yummy is almost an exact clone of Safari, which is what I thought I was looking for. That was until I noticed that each individual tab does not include the site's icon, which I didn't even realize Safari lacked until this theme made me go back and double-check. I was very bummed because I loved the theme otherwise, but that's when I came across GrApple Delicious which does show the icons on each tab:

 

The only thing that is really different between the two themes (at least that I noticed) is the tab bar. In GrApple Yummy the tab bar hangs from the toolbar located above it just like in Safari, where as GrApple Delicious displays the tab bar in the typical old-school Firefox fashion. It doesn't really bother me which way the tab bar is oriented as long as I have my icons on each tab, and so I'm loving the GrApple Delicious theme.

And the oversized fonts in the location bar. gone! As you can see in the screenshot to the right the location bar is toned down a bit in both themes by using slightly smaller fonts.

Obviously these themes are targeted towards Mac OS X users, but they do surprisingly work on other operating systems. The only issue was that the menu (File, Edit, etc.) layout was a bit off from what it should be, but that can quickly be cured with an extension such as Personal Menu. If you want to install it on an operating system other than Mac OS X you'll need to do so from one of these two pages: GrApple Delicious or GrApple Yummy. [via CyberNet]

 

  • Cheap and simple sunburn remedies that really work

Sunburn isn't just a painful nuisance - it can wreak havoc on healthy skin and put you at risk for getting skin cancer later in life. (In fact, two or more severe sunburns before age 18 greatly increase the chances, as skin has a sort of a "memory" of burns and tans year after year. [Honig, 2000] While the best treatment is prevention with an effective sunblock, sunscreen, or a proper physical barrier from the sun, things can sometimes go wrong.

 

So what do you do when you return home from an outing and you resemble a well-done lobster bake? Try one of these time-tested home remedies.. And give yourself a chance to heal:

    • Vinegar - Paul Michael was the first to introduce me to this cure, in his 254 Uses for Vinegar piece. Apply vinegar (or a half-water, half-vinegar solution) with a spray bottle or dab on with a towel. Then cover the area with a tea towel for overnight relief. While a bit stinky, it does wonders to "cool" down the burn.
    • Aspirin - Recommended for adult sunburn victims with a known tolerance to aspirin, this is the treatment I used most recently. Simply crush a couple of aspirin in a bowl or cup with the back of a spoon. By adding a small amount of water, you can create a "paste" which can be applied directly to the burn. (Be sure to crush the aspirin very well.)
    • A variation on this is to add it to Maalox (the tummy stuff) instead of water and brush it on with a basting brush or a cotton ball. Since aspirin alone can cause burns, be certain you don't have an intolerance to it being applied topically, and don't let it sit on your skin any longer than overnight.
    • Tea - Whip up a batch of tea (either from boiled tea bags or sun tea), and cool it in the fridge along with some ice. Spray directly on burned skin or dab with a soft, rag. It instantly cools and relieves the burn, so keep applying for best results!
    • Milk - Apply gauze dipped in lukewarm milk to the burned area. Leave on for minimum of 20 minutes, and rinse the area when it starts to get a bit funky-smelling (or no more than an hour or so later.)
    • Aloe Vera - Growing up, we always had an aloe plant in the home for minor burns and afflictions. Break off a piece of the plant, and squeeze it so that some of the goo (gel) drips out the end. You can rub this directly into the sunburn for the same kind of soothing relief you can get from those "after-burn" gels and over-the-counter commercial products (only better.) When the gel starts to dry, the area may become stiff, so keep applying or cleanse the area and apply with some new gel.  [via Wisebread]

 

IceRocket Tags: ,

Sunday 25 May 2008

Pin Ups

 

  • 69 topless babes in NUTS (France)

 

 

News Xtra

  • Club Misty have loaded new photos on their website of the club interior and the dancing staff. Samples follow:

 

  • The following are a few shots from Walking Street last night. Fairly quiet but it is low season. I was in a popular off Walking Street bar where a good number of stars were missing and I said to the Mamasan that the town's quiet but your girls still get bar fined. She replied that 80% of the missing girls had bar fined themselves so they could go down to Lucifer's and Insomnia. If you are on the pull, save time and money and just head to Lucifers around midnight.