Don't tell ME I can't look there...

Back on the Flickr Memory Maps group again, an interesting discussion cropped up that discussed how buildings like the Whitehouse and other buildings that the US government considers sensitive.

Check out this photo which centers over the Whitehouse.

Fortunately should you wish to see what the White House looks from above for whatever nefarious or otherwise reasons, why not check out The Eyeball Series, a collection of of detailed maps of locations that the US government would rather you didn't check out too closely...in case you're a terrorist or something.

American Adventure Park Becomes Shit - It's Official

BBC - Derby - Features - All change at American Adventure

This stou almost made me cry. When I was 19 and in need of money after the Amsterdam fiasco, I decided that i'd always fancied working at local theme park The American Adventure, so I got myself a job on the rides department. Ok it was no Alton Towers, but it had decent rides like the Missile and a BIG Log Flume and Rapids...and various other rides which while not as excellent as the aforementioned ranged from fun to utter poo.

I have paticularly fond memories of speeding the octopus upto dangerous speeds whilst playing hard acid techno over the PA, until I nearly got rumbled and stuck on the ultimate shame for a week, the junior pirate ship ride (8 hours of this screaming child hell contraption was pure torture), that and the Vintage Car Ride...aaarrgghh.

Eventually I was granted the trust of drip-nose moustachioed supervisor Dave, and got the big pirate ship ride everyday, and soon learned how to give perpetual 15 minute rides by pressing the stop and start buttons quickly at the highest point of the ride.

The place was filled with nymphomaniac 16 year olds, and baseball hatted chavs, and they were just the staff. The scutters that would fill the queueing systems every day made you wonder at the gene pool sometimes.

Such nostalgic ramblings lead me to the article I discovered today.

Visitors to the American Adventure theme park, near Ilkeston, are likely to notice some changes this year - three of the park's biggest rides are being closed: the log flume, the missile and the rapids.

It's part of a re-branding exercise by the park which is aimed at encouraging younger families to visit the site.

OH MY GOD!! They are losing the only three really good rides they had. Now I don't know about anyone else, but if I were to make a choice about what theme Park I'd be taking my (not oo distant) future family to, it would be a choice based upon the fact that there would be some banging hardcore rides I could go metal on while my kids were on the kiddy rides.

Mr Lloyd refuted the suggestion that closing some of the popular rides would actually make the park less attractive and said aiming at families was very much the park's new strategy: "We're trying to keep the family unit together. We've found that 15-to-18-year-olds don't want to be on a day out with their parents, they want to be out with their mates and there are plenty of attractions suitable for that. We've decided that we are not in the white-knuckle market."

Fine well, don't expect mew to bring MY young family when i get back to the UK.
Though given that I knew just how many of the ride attendants were off their faces on whizz and e's all day when I was working there, I'm not sure I'd fancy taking them anyway.

Alton Towers it is then.
American Adventure RIP

Happy New Year Spammers

A very Happy New Year to my blog users. Well some of them anyway.
Happy New year to Lenka, Sideshow Dan, My neighbours Are Hoors, Tim in Japan if you're still there, Chris in Singapore, and everyone else who reads and comments. My new years rez is to begin posting every day, but with the baby coming I'm wondering whether I'll have time...or whether this will turn into a gurgling new father thing..who knows.

My first 6 months on here were full of enthusiasm, my 6 months were somewhat lacklustre not helped by the adminship of ajarnforum.. I want to get this place sorted and regularly seen again.

My greetings do ot extend to the various spam merchants who have forced me to switch off comments (for the time being), and have used my blog to increase their page ranks on google in their affiliate programmes for viagra, online poker and varous other things that most people do not want to see. I have now sorted it so that all comments with a url attached must be approved by me first so although I will still get them my blog os not embarrassed by them actually showing uyp anymore. A big newyear fuck you to the asshole who just posted 400 comments in one day. Horrible people.

Grrrrrrrrr!

There are 600,426,974,379,824,381,952 ways to spell Viagra

It looks like spam will never die all the time that this is true. A detailed analysis on the different ways and tricks that one can spell the name of the little blue giver of erectile strength

Who is this idiot who keeps filling up my comments boxes with this viagra spam?? Or is it some kind of crazy viagra robot?

Just ONE More Hit? Not after Trainspotting.

Trainspotting blamed for UK flops

The success of Trainspotting did "a lot of damage" to the British film industry, star Kevin McKidd has said.

It also did a lot of damage to my mates, who sarcastically quoted the movie as thy chased their first fire breathing lizards. It wasn't a pretty sight 6 months down the line. Although, I can never truly blame a film for the actions of a few individuals, it brought heroin to the forefront of many young peoples' minds and it came right at that moment in the party scene when smack was just emerging as a very popular subversive way to chill out after a night out on E.

The rave scene gave young people a new view of drugs, a million miles from the 'Heroin Screws You Up' campaigns of the 80's, government films about heroin addicts on toilets, which in someways, Trainspotting was almost a parody of.
There's
a scene in Trainspotting where the old world meets the new world in a club in London, and this gave the film it's uptodateness, otherwise it could have been set 10 years before, well, that and the soundtrack, Lou reed and Iggy Pop aside!

Heroin had been the last thing on most people I knew, it was all about the pot, e's and whizz. The notion to buy Heroin was at the bottom of our mind, when all of a sudden this film comes out and suddenly it's a viable alternative to some.

Oh well, I never went there, some did and it screwed them up - heroin is it's own punishment I guess, and it was a bloody good film....

Wot No Daleks?

New Doctor Who Series On the BBC Will NOT Feature The Daleks

This is an utter disgrace! For those of you unfamiliar with veteran British Sci-Fi series Dr. Who, the Daleks were the all-time classic enemy of the time-travelling Doctor. Resembling studded pepper pots with sink plungers coming out of them, the Daleks were infamous for their high pitched cries of "EXTERMINATE".

It seems that the estate of the Dalek's creator has fallen out with the BBC over production control rights, with accusations that the BBC wants to make the Daleks "too evil" (as if they were all fluffy in the first place.) At the other extreme they didn't like the BBC's plans to produce a sketch involving 'Gay Daleks'.

I know I'm not the only one who thinks that Dr Who is bigger than this silly argument.


Reinstate the Daleks at once!!

E-Diots

Wired News: E-Vote Printers' High-Stakes Test

I'm not one to bang on about US politics. There are far more people that know and give a flying feck about it more than me, however, what is the deal with this e-voting? On the basis that the last US election used dubious technology to "elect" the current idiot in office, then why are people complaining about these bloody machines having to have a paper trail so that there is someway to track fraud.

Come to think of it what's wrong with a hand counted 'X' on a bit of paper like most other countries in the world? I guess it wouldn't make such exciting TV..

Allergic to PERL scripts

Why do all these goddamn plugins for movable type never work the first time I try them. I follow the instructions to the letter. I put all the right alterations into the script (it's not that much, just 2 URLS and a path to 1 file,) and then stick it in the plugins folder. So why on that left side of the screen can't I see a photo? It's not like I screwed the URLS up because the div tags are blank where the output is supposed to go...wtf is going on....sorry rant over...I'll find some dumb shit to keep you amused now....

-We Were Looking For A Place To Hide The Body When The First Tremor Hit-

They were all trampled to death when the horses broke out of the corral
Six children
Sixty hooves
+
'Ah quietly axplode, unremarkable.
and Ah say to she
from tha soun echoin down tha
chamber: murdah murdah murdah
an then she turn to me
in tha belly of tha camp...'
+
W(I)e have gun and tha
gun holds the me by my
hand, sayin 'everything
you have be(lie)ved is a ___.
And every lie you breathe 'neath
(y)our eye bleeds into this dusty sky'
+
An tha gun looks me in my eye
with it's smokin' pupil an says
'it's time to die'.
+
There has always been
an us in me
as sure as we... she opens my mouth
and out pops a little gun
there is a dragon in your dream
she wears on her skin
perfume
and out pops a little me
through the skin of both of you
there are two
where there is one
and I have come undone
+
'Ah ask her why she gotta go
and she smile
and tha black of tha gun is rubbin off
on her thigh
and Ah see the gun's got her by her black hair
the stuff 'tween her legs
an tha gun disappear up there
she says 'where are you?'
'where did you go?'
she lookin at me like she
can't see me...
she can't see me
we're not here
the I in me
the we in her
the hour is dead
the camp is still

Better than Bloody Shopping

Central shopping centre in Hatyai is a typical Thai department store, full of dull unimaginative designer labels, cosmetics, and shoes, and wifey Kan loves it. She's immersed in it right now. The one saving grace is that the store has is the book and stationary shop on the 3rd floor. In this little oasis is a single free internet computer with a broadband connection and a coffee shop which does wicked mochas. So that is where I am right now, and for one of the very few times in my blogging career I genuinely have NOTHING better to do.

The music's shite, the browser's old, as in it can't even run Gmail, and the monitor is the size of one of those early TV sets....ok it's 15", but I'm so used to 17" that I can't get my head around things looking right in 800x600. Oh well, I'm getting dirty looks from some chinese looking child who probably wants to play on Sanook.com so better go I suppose.

Unreasonable Assembly?

Think back to your school days. Remember assembly? Yeah, when the whole school, including all the staff sat down for half an hour listening to the headmaster prattle on about some moral issue followed by a rousing chorus of the school hymn.

Well, surprise surprise, it happens in Thai schools too. At Wor Chor, it goes like this: At 7:50 everyday a certain song plays over the tannoy, which is a cue for all students to line up in class columns out in the main courtyard, and for teachers to similarly assemble at the back of them. In the shady bits whenever possible, though sometimes the 8am suntan oppertunity is quite appealing.

At 8am one student half-heartedly sings the first line of the Thai national anthem, followed by the whole school singing the rest in barely a whisper. Then the student at the front leads a responsive buddhist prayer, followed by the student pledge where the students promise to keep all sorts of good habits.

By 8:05 the students are asked to sit down and if there are any announcements they are given. At this point the fallangs usually head off as our role in paying respects with the rest of the school is over and we go and drink coffee and check our e-mail.

Does this sound like the stuff of nightmares to you?

For all the Ajarn.com posters are concerned I may have just asked whether it is reasonable to rub jam on their foreheads and bury them in an ant infested beach.

The whole thread began when I was bemoaning the lack of replies to the job ad I had placed on the board. We'd just had two last minute resignations, one was over the notion that flag raising was against this guy's religion, and I thought it a little weird that someone could possibly object on moral grounds to just standing there out of respect.

Oh no, carped the cynics, it's most unreasonable for a fulltime fixed monthly salary teacher to be required to go to assembly. Here are some quotes from a poster called Whitey, with whom I had the most notable exchange with:

It means getting there before 8am when class doesn't start until 8:30

Good lord! Imagine having to get to school more than 2 minutes before your first class. Such usury! Surely if your contract states for you to be at any job for a certain time, then it's not unreasonable especially as that part of the job doesn't really involve much hard work. My head of department argues that for her there is nothing worse than seeing teachers stumbling in late, whilst the late students grin at you as they are lectured at the gate. Hardly sets the example that the schools feel teachers should set.

It ISN'T too much to ask your teachers to do it once a week, but every day? Forget it.

Now, here we come to an argument I can almost agree with. Very rarely do all of us fallangs manage assembly every day, but 3-4 times a week is hardly unreasonable.

Just nitpicking over 30 minutes a day that could better be used for lesson prep or doing paperwork. 30 minutes a day is 2 1/2 a week, 10 hours a month.....100 hours in a school year. That is a full month of extra work for no extra money. Don't get wrong, I'm complaining about it, just explaining why your teacher maybe decided that he didn't want the job. Can you blame someone for not wanting to work uncompensated hours?

I'll address both points. Firstly, the 30 minutes before first period isn't really the time to be doing lesson prep, though we all do it, and it's tolerated to a point, but theres nothing worse for me to have to go to bed knowing I've got bog all time to prepare my class especially when I've spent all night on the internet. Most of my classes end at 3:15pm, that gives at least 45 minutes at the end of everyday to do paperwork or prep for the next day.

Secondly, how is turning up at the contracted hour 07:50 not compensated? The problem here is that many Fallng teachers refuse to separate the notions of part-time work and full-time work.

Where a teacher works part-time they are given a fixed hourly wage which depands on the teacher actually teaching the class in question. No class, no money. For part-time teachers, time is money, in a very real sense. The advantages to working part-time is that you are your own person. You can turn up 2 minutes before class and leave school the second you are finished. The disadvantages are that if a class is cancelled due to public holidays (of which there are many in Thailand), or for any other spurious reason, then thats your 500 baht down the toilet.

Full-time teachers don't have to worry about this problem as they are paid a fixed salary whatever classes are cancelled. The otherside of this is that a full-time contract in a highschool will require the teacher to take on a similar set of responsibilities to the other full-time teachers, after all the foreign teacher gets paid more so why shouldn't they? At my school these duties include passive attendance at assembly, the odd (once a year) lunchtime quiz activity, or weekend English camp at some local beauty spot resort. Still, time is money, but all the time your contract says you are to be at school, you have to be there and participate like a regular teacher. The time is 8-4, the money is a fixed salary.

30 minutes in front of the flag pole in the hot morning sun makes me angry for the rest of the day and takes away from time I can spend with my sons. And if I can't spend time with them then why the h*ll am I here in the first place?

This one is supposed to tug at the heartstrings. The guy has a family. Congratulations! How about the other teachers in the school? It's ok for them to be there half an hour before you're required to be there at 7:50. Don't they deserve any family time? Is the school being unfair to THEM? This quote, above all others smacks of the kind of snobbish, colonialist attitude that basically says because I'm a westerner I should get better conditions than everyone else in the school.

Standing in the glorious 8am sunshine makes him angry? Well go back to sodding England and tell me how much you enjoy waiting for a bus in the pissing rain at 8am, working your bollocks of for some corporate arseholes and getting stuck in the traffic at 5pm. His children are lucky to have the oppertunity to grow up in a hot country and have a father who is capable of earning twice as much as most of their peers' parents.

The debate is still raging and many more contributors have raised points than just Whitey. Whilst I'm not singling him out, he has been the most vociferous on the assembly points.

Ajarn.com head honcho,BKK Phil says of him:

I remember meeting with Whitey very shortly after he'd arrived in the country and he skipped into the school with hardly a care in the world. Everything was peaches and cream. Sure, he's had a few domestic problems since then, but he's become hardened to the battle.

True I am a relative newbie of just 2.5 years in the job, but I truly hope that I can find ways in which my enjoyment of this job does not diminish to the extent where I feel that a simple requirement like assembly attendance doesn't come to resemble a tortuous, time wasting, skin-cancer inducing, tear from my family.

Whitey's an ok guy, but think we'll have to agree to disagree over this one mate.

All quotes taken from this thread

What is worrying is that the majority of posters on this thread, agree that assembly is not something that full-time teachers should have to 'endure.'
This is echoed by the people that run the board even. I was starting to wonder what the hell was wrong with me, when I started to get PMs from posters who didn't want to post as they felt it fruitless to argue with such entrenched positions, but heartily agreed with me. Thanks guys!

iSMN - Gayboy

Gritsniffer huh? Why I oughta.....why I oughta publish an old photo of the man like iSMN, purveyor of stange vibrations.

I'm off back to Songkhla tomorrow, but like the Murphys I'm not bitter. I've got 12 of the latest DVDs to what picked up for about 32 quid in total and all quality. Amongst them Return of the King, The Matrix Revolutions, Animatrix, 13, The Passion of The Christ, Master and Commander, and Lost in Translation. I also found Trainspotting out here which I have been craving to see again for ages (if you'll pardon the pun there.)
So, it looks like I won't be bored for a while in my sleepy little town, but to be honest I'm getting a bit bored with the San Antonio style antics here in Chaweng. I went out the other night for a Burger King at about midnight and the streets were pure carnage. Dunno, being married has totally put me off this kind of stuff, where I'd have been totally up for it and more 4 years ago.

Oh, and the tourists, it's true that ex-pats in Thailand have a real disdain for tourists whether they be backpackers, or Thomas Cook package types. Why?
Because they come to Thailand and treat it as if it were a similar culture like going to Benidorm for 2 weeks.

Thai culture is so different from Western culture but the tourists neither check up on this or care. The biggest example I can give is the topless sunbathing. This is not only illegal in Thailand, but grossly offensive to Thais in general. Here in Samui it is everywhere and the locals turn a blind eye, but I've seen it in Songkhla and the look that locals give says it all.

Thai culture is something that we ex-pats (especially those who live outside the tourist ghettos) have learned slowly over time and are always conscious about, and the smallest things can offend Thai people, which is why seeing the uncaring crass tourism here kind of pisses me off. Kan reckons it's an example of her post-neo-colonialism, where tourists and culture and not armies are colonising traditional culture and bending it to their image. Ok rant over.....Conclusion of Koh Samui, it's pretty but I'm bored now.

Aids risk 'cut by circumcision'

Aids risk 'cut by circumcision'

Men who have been circumcised may be six times less likely to contract the HIV virus than uncircumcised men, research carried out in India suggests.

Look, I'm not going to bang on about this too much, but I read this and I thought about all the idiots who have ever tried to persuade me that my circumcision (yes, I am Jewish, so it goes without saying), is somehow a form of child abuse, and that kids should have the choice of having it done when they're older....Like anyone with an ounce of sense would want their knob hacking at when they'd be of an age when they could remember it. Well, now I have the argument that my parents' choice for me has left me 6 times less likely of contracting HIV! Enough about cocks!

Got horrendously drunk last night on Pina Coladas. Yes I know, what a cliche, sitting on a tropical beach under the stars with a glass full of umbrellas and fruit. Well, it's a cliche I am perfectly happy to undertake.

I am finding I am able to hold a decent conversation in Thai now, much to the amusement of locals round here, who try me out with all sorts of questions that I seem to be able to answer in my somewhat broken Thai.
I have found an excellent website for learning Thai. It teaches all the skills and uses small Flash sound files to great effect when dealing with pronunciation. Highly recommended!

Court threat to UK

Court threat to UK song swappers

The UK's record industry has issued illegal music downloaders with a warning that they must stop pirating music or face action in the courts.

It's times like these that I love being in Thailand, where open piracy is everywhere I look, in Samui at least where within 15 seconds of this internet cafe I can buy GOOD quality DVD's of all the latest movies, huge catalogues of music CDs, and Playstation 2 games, all this for pennies (ok between 100- 200 baht or 2-3 pounds). In Hatyai/Songkhla it is a lot more covert, but nevertheless pervasive. The way they operate is to just have the covers on display in little books which are generally kept out of sight. You choose your selection and an order is placed via mobile phone or a runner is sent to fetch them. Five minutes later you get your merchandise. There are occasional crackdowns by police but they rarely stem the flow for more than a week or so.

It goes without saying that I have a fantastic and very current DVD selection, well, it's not like I can buy DVDs from Amazon as I have a shitty region 3 player, and it's not like there's much in the way of legit decent DVDs around for sale here, so I'm forced to buy pirate. I really don't feel bad about this.

Back to the music. I am quite happy to admit that I might be considered a "serial uploader" on the basis that I share the ill-gotten gains I download off Soulseek, my client of choice for the last 18 months or so, but within the filesharing community this is what is required as a good citizen of that community, why should I consider this music just mine if I haven't paid for it. I end up deleting stuff I don't like anyway, why should I pay for something I might not like later, it makes no sense to me anymore, and besides which, music has no scarcity value for me anymore, I just don't feel I have to pay anymore.

Meanwhile, is a Thai equivalent of the RIAA or BPI going to come after me? I doubt it. If they can't even control the REAL piracy on the ground then how the hell are they going to stop it in cyberspace. Bahjingjing!