It’s lazy because it’s pretty much a copy and paste of a chat log. Still, it conveys the story well enough.

[07:33] chuckler: yesterday I drove Jack Mint and I to Chiang Dao
[07:33] chuckler: met Mint’s mum
[07:34] chuckler: then Mint’s mum, Jack and I checked into the hotel, while Mint went to wait for her ID
[07:34] chuckler: a very small asian town hotel …
[07:34] chuckler: one star doesn’t begin to describe it
[07:34] chuckler: but the room was big
[07:34] chuckler: so it gave us a base for mint’s mum to take care of jack while i found an internet cafe
[07:35] chuckler: anyway, then mint called an hour later to say that her ID wasn’t going to happen
[07:35] chuckler: so we met back at the hotel
[07:35] chuckler: and made a new plan
[07:35] chuckler: we left jack with mint’s mum
[07:35] chuckler: and mint and I drove back to Chiang Mai
[07:35] chuckler: packed the ute to the brim with all the stuff we’d need for mint to stay at her mum’s place
[07:35] chuckler: and drove back to Chiang Dao
[07:36] chuckler: quick check-in with Jack and mint’s mum, then drove to Mint’s mum’s place
[07:36] chuckler: unloaded the car, and back to Chiang Dao
[07:36] chuckler: and last night I drove back to Chiang Mai by myself
[07:36] chuckler: Mint, Jack and Mint’s mum are still in Chiang Dao
[07:36] chuckler: trying for the ID again today. I am flying to Bangkok today to see the embassy
[07:36] chuckler: then departing for Australia on the 11th
[07:36] chuckler: *whew* story complete

You have to admit, there aren’t many countries in the world in which terrorists can take over one airport, let alone two, with impunity. People outside of Thailand know that the Army were ordered in and refused right?It’s been going on for days now, and is pretty serious: some pundits think Bangkok’s airports will be closed for weeks.

If that happens, I suspect I’ll not be home for Christmas - my flights go through Bangkok and if they need to be cancelled, flights from CM will not be available for love nor money. I already tried to change my CNX - BKK leg to a day earlier to do some embassy stuff, but all flights are full.

The real issue is my visa, which has expired and I am only on a “permission to stay” stamp until the 11th. I depart CNX on Thursday the 11th at 9:45am, so if the flight status is unknown up until, say 6am on the 11th, that means I’ll have to hightail it pretty quick to a border to get stamped out before midnight. Actually I just checked that, and apparently they’re giving discretionary powers to the border police on enforcing overstays that can be proved to be at the expense of closed airports. Still, this is Thailand, so I’d much prefer to have no doubt.

Also, weather here is quite cool. This morning I resorted to wearing my suit jacket for warmth. Looks like Mum and Dad only just missed the cool season!

This afternoon I got the call - Jack is now recognized as an Australian citizen, his certificate is in the mail. Hoorah! Now all that’s left is his passport and he’s sorted.

Yesterday’s post inspired me to also post this:

http://schickfreeyourskin.com.au/go3d/player.html?id=00ec4f6a998e50f2b7936d35a7027907&

You’re welcome.

if my beard and mustache could join together. then i’d look like this:

http://schickfreeyourskin.com.au/go3d/player.html?id=f3f4836e38979c86e6a0826ff32e0024&

awesome right?

Hey everyone, sorry for the dearth of posts - I have been busy.

Tuesday I flew to Bangkok to visit the Australian embassy to register Jack as an Australian citizen. When I got there, there were a couple of groups of people ahead of me, and they took AGES. They were doing the same sorta thing, but usually it was old confused type men with their Thai GF on ridiculously high heels making heaps of mistakes on the form, which then needed to be filled out with heaps of eye rolling from the Australian old guy. When it was my turn, I’d read the instructions back to front and everything was completed 100% correct in advance, so I took 5 minutes. The guy serving me must’ve been SHOCKED.

From there I went to MBK and bought some new shorts. They didn’t have the shorts in the fabric I wanted, but they had long pants, and they said “no problem, I can make shorts for you” and whizzed up the legs to turn the long pants into shorts. Voila!

Then I went to The EuroGourmet Bistro for goulash with gnocchi, and a reuben sandwich. They were fantastic. The cheesecake desert was not fantastic, just average, but maybe that’s because I was really too full to be eating cheesecake anyway.

I headed to the cheap Ever Rich Inn on Sukhumvit between soi 5 and 7. I recall Brek stayed there once, pre-Mint, and the room was the cheapest and therefore didn’t have a window. This sounded perfect as I needed to get to bed early for an early start the next day. It was perfect. I was in bed by 7pm.

Yesterday I was up at 4am for a visa run to Cambodia. The bus left at 5am on the nose and got to Poipet n about 3 and a half hours. We then walked over the border and had breakfast at the Grand Diamond casino. Dawdled around for another 40 minutes, then walked back across the border and headed home. Once back in Bangkok, around 2pm, I headed to The EuroGourmet Bistro again for more goulash, this time with the pork knuckle. No cheesecake though - I had learned my lesson! I caught a cab from there to the airport and flew home.

This will totally confuse most of my readership, but here goes:

I’ve been playing Mob Wars on Facebook. It’s a reasonably fun way to waste 5 minutes at the start and end of the day, attacking imaginary people you don’t know, buying imaginary guns and property, and doing imaginary criminal acts.

One thing that you learn quickly is that cash isn’t very safe: someone attacks you and they take a chunk of it if they win. And just like real life, there’s always someone better than you - with a bigger mob and more weapons are so forth.

So there’s a bank. The catch with the bank is that they charge you 10% to “clean” the money. You do need some clean money to pay the doctor’s bills, but 10% starts to hurt. And you don’t earn anything on any money in the bank.

Then there’s property. Different levels of property attract different levels of income, but some facts are consistent: every purchase you make means the next purchase of the same type will have a 10% higher price; and, If you sell property, you get 50% of the higher price back. Take, for example, an “Empty Lot” which is $5,000 to buy. If I buy it, the price for next time goes to $5,500. If I sell it, I get $2,750 (half of $5,500).  I also get a paltry $100 income from the empty lot. (the next price up is $6,000, not $6,050 if the 10% increase was incremental).

If I build a villa on it, for an extra $10,000, the $5,000 empty lot is gone, because now you own a villa. Same pricing rules apply though, next villa is $11,000, selling your first villa will return $5,500.

But the exploit is in the multi-buy prices. If I buy or sell multiple empty lots at a time, it actions them all at the same price, but applies the 10% increase (per property) AFTER the purchase or sale. So if I’ve got $50,000 to put away, I can either put it in the bank and have $45,000; or I can buy 10x Empty Lots, @ $5,000 each, which at 10% increase per purchase makes the new value $10,000 each, which when sold as a lot of 10 I get half back … ie $5,000 each. But I also earn $1,000 an hour on the properties themself that I hold onto them.

Anyone with big cash on them in Mob Wars deserves to get it taken off them for being too stupid to use their cash elsewhere.

This is the box of my new game: Ca$h ‘n Gun$.

It’s a Party Game which is best with more players - 6 is best, but I also bought the Yakuza expansion which allows up to 9 and includes a team element as well.

Actually when looking for a game I really wanted “something that even Lara would like” and I think this may be it. Let me summarize how it works:

Players are gangsters brought together to split the loot from their last robbery. To ease the negotiations, each gangster brought his gun. (each player gets a foam gun). There’s 8 rounds, and whoever’s the richest alive player at the end is the winner. Each round, everyone points their guns at someone and then that person has to decide whether to lie down and chicken out, or do nothing to prove you’ve got guts. Then there’s a shootout, and whoever’s still standing splits the cash in the middle. Commence the next round.

This looks like an absolute hoot, and from reviews, adding the Yakuza expansion turns it into the perfect party game. With a few drinks under one’s belt, this will be a winner in December, believe that!

Well when you think about it, “Strawberries Jam” (pictured right) is more accurate than the English “Strawberry Jam” but it’s still funny to see. I was amused anyway. Also, note the quality of this photograph. I am quite pleased with it.

M&D have arrived, in an anticlimactic way … Mint was changing Jack, I was making up their bed and I heard a noise from outside. I went to a window, and lo, they had arrived already. We scrambled to let them in and Mum was immediately succumbed to Jack’s gravity, not putting him down unless he was forcibly removed.

We had pad thai at home from the street vendor around the corner for dinner, which M&D ate with rice. Aren’t parents wierd? 

Yesterday, we had our first outing as a family to Kad Suan Kaew, for some shopping. Here’s Mint and Jack, ready to go into the wild world.

When we arrived, Mint went off to do some clothes shopping for herself and Jack and I went to go eat dinner. Of course, as you can see in the 2nd picture the stress and high drama of the outing was too much for him to bear.

I went to a food-court crossed with a restaurant place called The Curry Hut and had a very reasonably priced set menu … roti, medium butter chicken and a hot Indian milk tea for 89 baht. I also added rice (19 baht) and a lassi for desert (35 baht).

Mint then found us and we hit Tops for some groceries. By this time Jack had woken up so he had bright eyes looking at everything and everyone. His good mood deteriorated though, and before long he was out of the pram in mine or Mint’s arms, being “bounced”, which often shuts him, so beautifully, up.

Songtaew home, with remarkably 4 other passengers who had to endure his - by then - crying for the 8 blocks or whatever home.