A Quiet Birthday June 28, 2005
Posted by Martin in : Thailand , add a commentI wasn’t keen on doing much for my birthday this year.
Birthday celebrations have become a bit passe here. Usually a group of us go out for a meal, movie, bowling or karaoke however we do that weekly anyway so it wasn’t a celebration I was particularly excited to do.
Tik arrived in Bangkok a few days earlier but left on the morning of my birthday to work in Pattaya so the actual day of my birthday was pretty quiet, and we’d postphoned doing anything until Tik returned the following weekend.
It was lovely to receive cards, e-cards and birthday wishes though from long-lost friends. Birthdays wishes are a great way of keeping a connection between people who really don’t get to talk much and live thousands of miles away. Even receiving cards from my parents and grandma were uplifiting despite them not really being a suprise.
My favourite card was from Tik because she’d obviously taken great time to write a sincere message to me (apparently it took over 2 hours to even find the appropriate card!).
I just want to say thank you for the kind wishes, they do mean a lot, especially from friends in the UK who I’ve not seen for years.
Why do we say ‘Bunny’ Rabbit June 26, 2005
Posted by Martin in : Education , add a commentI love when friends out here ask me questions about the English language. Finding an answer can bug me for hours until I can rush onto the internet to find an answer.
A few weeks ago I was asked ‘What’s the difference between a sea and an ocean?”
I’ve also been asked why we say ‘Bunny’ Rabbit
My personal mystery of life is this …
If it is Sunday and I say to you “See you next Wednesday”. How many days will I be presuming to meet? 3 days or 10 days?
How about if i say “See you this Wednesday”
Can anybody define exactly what is the proper syntax. Is there a rule which we can follow here?
I was told last week that despite English being the most diverse language, French is the most precise which is why it is used in international law.
Sometimes I have to admit that sometimes our language just doesn’t make much sense.
Welcome to CoderNow June 23, 2005
Posted by Martin in : Business, Computers , add a commentI am proud to present to you a draft of Coder Now.
This is one of my two new and exciting new projects. It is still in development and should be completed in about a month.
Please note that none of the content on the site is mine and it will be radically changed in the coming few weeks.
This will be one of the only freelancer-webmaster recruitment sites that does NOT charge any commission on introduced projects.
The marketing for the site is going to be time-consuming but we have a 2-tier affiliate program and coupon generators to give it a kick start. We also have a number of companies worldwide who have expressed interest in becoming super-agents.
Watch this space …
Edmund the Dead Lizard June 23, 2005
Posted by Martin in : Thailand , 2commentsIt’s not the most enlightening of stories but I needed to add something to break the monotony of three consecutive computer and business postings.
Last weekend I tried in vain to revive a good lizard friend of mine from an uncomfortable, embarassing and slow fate.
Edmund was one of the many small lizards who help around my house. He is about the size of my thumb and spends his days eating disease-ridden mosquitoes. Little lizards like this are common in my village (as well as 1.5 meter water monitor lizards which look like alligators!), they do no harm, make no mess and I always find their flash and unpredictable movements fascinating.
“Calls in Thailand” Retires June 23, 2005
Posted by Martin in : Business , 1 comment so farIt is very easy in Bangkok for a westerner to stagnate and eventually to ferment. What I mean by this is that I don’t actually have to work again, learn anything new, expand my mind or keep up to date with news . I’m nearly 26 and the residual income I generate from my United World Telecom looks after me well enough here for me to survive pretty well without needing a job. I could just lie on my sofa and sleep 24-7 if I wanted to.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a long way from being the guy at the school reunion with the Rolls Royce and butler in tow but with the low cost of living here life is pretty relaxed.
Living on my own, it’s sometimes an effort to do work which really isn’t essential and may not benefit me directly for a long time (if ever). I’m a pretty self-motivated person but even so, I’ve had 2 consecutively lethargic days.
I discovered yesterday that my enviable status of not paying tax anywhere is not so enviable when I get myself constantly rejected for debt consolidation loans in the UK. As somebody with ambition it’s essential to move forward here, my finances are almost exactly what they were 14 months ago when I promised myself I’d make an effort to clear some debts from my credit cards and family.
Contrary to the fact I’ve not detailed it on this site much I have actually been extremely busy building up some small but residual revenue sources. I’m also taking a survival-of-the-fittest mentality with my websites and I’m closing or retiring some which I consider the techno-equivalent of throwing my parents into a nursing home.
First to be led away in a wheelchair is my faithful Calls in Thailand Site.
Look at me, Look at me! June 20, 2005
Posted by Martin in : Computers , add a commentJust noticed today I’ve got a PageRank of 4 in only 4 months! It seems that adding text updates and keeping the site maintained fares well with google.
If I’d have know that then maybe I’d not have spent thousands of dollars with my United World Telecom site (which is still in development after 5 months!).
Do you have big boobs for my cereal? June 15, 2005
Posted by Martin in : Thailand , add a commentToday I left my new convenience store a little confused.
Had I just asked the lady working there if she had large breasts? or had I correctly asked whether she had any large bottles of milk?
She’s smiled and given me my expected replies, and then I realized that being a middle aged Thai lady who did not have such dairy products she’d have replied no to either questions.
5 hours of listening to a telephone queue June 11, 2005
Posted by Martin in : Computers , add a commentLast week I spent over 5 hours on the telephone, 30 minutes of this time was spent actually talking to an operator, 40 minutes I was awaiting a returned call from the operators (which they did not make) and nearly 4 hours was spent listening to a looped message telling me that a customer service representative would be with me soon. I began calling them at 11pm, finally getting to sleep at 5am with the ‘please be patient’ message imprinted into my brain.
Reliving the agony of reaching Efax’s customer service department by phone is likely to reduce me to tears. To summarize though;
* This was the THIRD time I needed to contact the company in a week
* I spent over $60 calling them by phone
* In total I spent over 11 hours on the phone to Efax to resolve a problem that they had caused me.
* Efax’s queueing system will randomly disconnect their line, usually after holding for between 20 and 40 minutes.
* I shall do everything in my power to never use Efax again.
I can’t pretend I was my usual happy self the following day but my aural-torture sparked an idea which may prevent anybody having to inconvenience themselves when they are put on hold.
Just a typical Thai Restaurant June 11, 2005
Posted by Martin in : Thailand , add a commentI met up with Mylo last night about 10:30 pm. Went to a fish & chip restaurant. Nice food not great, not awful. We both notices cockroaches crawling upside down on the roof.
As we were leaving we stood in the entrance to the hotel, just in time to see a large rat scurry in from the front door, run straight past us and into the kitcken. The waiters and waitresses just smiled.
Next time we’ll go somewhere different.
Returning to England June 10, 2005
Posted by Martin in : travel , add a commentIt’s Official! Tik and I have now reserved our seats on Singapore Airlines to fly us to the UK for 3 weeks in August.
* We are arriving in Machester 6:50 on Wednesday August 3rd and will stay in Southport to recover.
