So the good news is that settlement on the sale of my apartment is almost done, and I’m happy to say the least. And, that means that I’ll soon have cash to invest in various stocks. And a lot of people I’m sure have opinions on which stocks are good value at the moment.

My opinions (based on my research) are that Qantas at $4.63 is value, Leighton at $49.60 is value, QBE at $28.45 is good, Wotif at $4.22, any banking stock (NAB, CBA, WBC etc), Independence Group is worth a punt, BHP and/or Woodside are good, and as a “penny-hopeful” Gryphon Minerals could have a good year.

What I’d like to know is what recommendations others have, if any? I think Rob B was a fan of GOLD for a while … who knows what?

Also, the blog continues to evolve … the latest improvement is “Subscribe to Comments” so that if you comment and subscribe, you can be emailed all additional comments to that post. Easier to keep track of discussions then.

The weekend was good, and I had another visit to the doctor at the rohng pha yaa baan  or “hospital” (where “rohng pha yaa” means “nurse” and “baan” means “house”; although the order means that it’s the house that owns the nurses, not the nurse who owns the house, which would be “baan rohng pha yaa“) to confirm that my ear still doesn’t work. So apart from being deaf, things are great!

I got kinda sick of the “inconsistant” nature of the way my old blog handled, amongst other things, subscriptions. There was a pretty random nature to it, and Friday afternoon I decided I had had enough.

My first action was to attempt to upgrade the notification plugin for Movable Type I was using. This was now a plugin that people have to pay for, so I decided to implement the latest version of Movable Type itself, and see if there were any new (free) plugins for it.

To say that the Movable Type documentation on the new version is lax may perhaps be the understatement of the year. I searched, and trudged, and trudgedly searched before giving up and deciding to look elsewhere.

My next action was to hit the folks at Blogsome, who I’m pretty impressed with. The problem is though that they don’t support “Notifications” either, instead preferring the more trendy and techno-savvy RSS feeds. (To be fair, the old version of Movable Type supported RSS feeds as well, but the primary problem for me is that my readship don’t support them.) Also, I couldn’t import 1000 entries into Blogsome from my backup.

I knew Blogsome used Wordpress, and I soon had Wordpress installed and basically operating. Importing previous entries was relatively straightforward, and all I then needed to do was install the plugins I wanted, and edit the templates.

I discovered Subscribe2 and Contact Form 7 to handle my email notification and email response forms respectively. I messed about with the CSS to get the formatting of my headerbar and posts corrected, and I’m pretty happy now with the new look.

Oh, I indiscriminately added a few friends to the “pre-subscribed” list, which hopefully means that you’ll get this post in your email without you having to do anything.

What’s still to do? A better method of integrating pictures, and getting my “favourites” back on the sidebar. Any other ideas?

In a departure from our normal routine of weekends being “movie time”, Mint and I saw CJ-7 at Emporium last night. CJ-7 is the Sony picture from Honk Kong, there titled Cheung Gong 7 Hou, about a poor father and his son, and what happens when they find a small alien dog. It’s a Stephen Chow film, who has previously made such films as Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer and despite being a kid’s movie was alright. The little boy, Dicky, was actually played by a girl, Xu Jiao. I didn’t realize until I read it on the IMDB discussion boards afterwards.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0940709/

That’s become a little ritual of mine actually. The post-screening recap on IMDB discussion boards and so-on, I quite like reading other people discuss elements of the film, which you don’t get in the traditional “review”, unless the reviewer has similar tastes to your own. Not since The Selfmade Critic have I felt that all discussion needed was done after reading a review, and who knows where he’s gone these days.

Also I bought new shoes. My old shoes (which lasted merely 8 months) had worn out around the heel and were cutting me like a European in a queue. Here’s a picture of the new ones, New Balance MR8507BS:

Thanks yesterday to those who played. It was … a slice of multigrain bread with chocolate chip icecream on it. Thai people often eat icecream on bread, but this was my first experience doing so. In fact, I didn’t know what it was until I ate the first bite. That’s why I was pretty sure none of y’all would guess it

On the weekend just gone we bought Frosties at the supermarket, and I was just enjoying the milk left over at the bottom. Well I was enjoying it well enough until Mint woke up and claimed her half.

For my birthday, I’m off to Chiang Mai for a few days. Should be a fun adventure, having not seen “up north” before.

Can anyone guess what this is? Full answer in the next entry.

This was a pretty big weekend - Charlotte had her birthday, and I hope had a great day. I sent a present, and hopefully it was received and well received, and hopefully she looks beautiful in it. Sidenote to Lara: also, if Mint and I get married while it still fits her, it would make a perfect Flower Girl dress. Gentle nudge, wink wink.

Yesterday I decided that enough was enough, and I wanted to see a doctor about my infected ear not being able to hear, as it was quite annoying and inconvenient. The method for people here to see a doctor is pretty much to go to a hospital and see a specialist. I don’t think they have GPs as such? So Dr Narong Seresirikachon, a Otolaryngologist at Sukumvit Hostpital saw me, and laughed at the inadequacy of the medication I was taking. He did confirm my diagnosis of an ear infection, and also added bronchitis and laryngitis to the list. I was prescribed a total of 6 medications, and a blood test, and I suppose I was suprised by what my 3000 baht (roughly AU$100) bought me in terms of care. Over a third of that was medication, and an even third was for the blood test. The doctor himself saw 600 baht, and the rest went to the hospital. It was a very smooth, painless operation.

But I learnt a few things, definately. For starters, some of the medication prescribed I could’ve refused, and then bought cheaper at a local pharmacy. Also, I could’ve refused the blood test, and see if I got better without it, thereby ruling out whatever illness prompted the possibility of needing a bloodtest in the first place.

My doctor in Brisbane always ticks the Bulk Bill box on the blood test form, so I didn’t think anything of it. Except of course, in the rest of the world, this is an optional treatment that costs real money. Ah well.

Mint, during this time, went off and saw a doctor of her own, and we met back and went to the movies at Emporium. Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street was the title I was most keen to see, and whilst it was a great interpretation, it was still a musical, which seems odd in a cinema. Nevertheless, great story and well implemented. We then did some minor shopping and headed home.

Today hasn’t been nearly as fun … I did some work on TT stuff and finished a new version of one of our videos. I also got back to the gym after neglecting it for a few days, but my excuse for this has been sickness. You can’t exercise when you can’t breathe, at least in my experience.