bkkguy

I can't wait to read your review of the new Nokia with Windows Phone 8 after your maid buys a Samsung! Refresh my memory - when did Samsung release the Galaxy, Galaxy II and Galaxy III ? and the Galaxy IV release is confirmed for next month yes? just ahead of Apple's next round of updates? And how many other Android phone models has Samsung released in the last few years? I have counted at least 15 .. perhaps it is not surprising that born again Samsung/Android fanbois have the same Apple fanboi prejudices and blind spots and continue to be unable to choose their phones based on features, specifications, performance and usability but rather have to rely on superficial factors like social class of owners and release schedules! bkkguy

I have had it shoved down my throat for years that Thai is a tonal language so tone is used to imply meaning - "ma, ma, ma, ma, ma" etc, but I have just been to see the movie "Jan Dara -the epilogue" where the matriarch uses a Thai phrase that is usually translated as "precious one" when referring to Mario, but there are three distinct tones of voice she uses at different points in the movie that I think would be understood by both westerners and Thais as "I love you and am so happy to see you", "I love you but now I need you to protect me" and "I love you but if won't do your duty then you are not my precious one anymore!" bkkguy

who is "they" and if you can only think of one reason for transliterating Thai into English then it might help if you actually read my original post where I said "[for AOT,BMA et al] the objective is NOT to teach people how to pronounce [something] ... they need a legally acceptable representation of a name in one script in another script and ... they transliterate for spelling, not for pronunciation" - that is what transliteration is all about, see the the Oxford English Dictionary note there is no reference to "sounds" or pronunciation here, just letters of the written alphabet! written Thai uses an alphabet of 44 consonants and 13 vowels and other characters, English uses an alphabet of 26 characters and punctuation etc; while there is a reasonably close correlation between written and spoken Thai there are still exceptions and irregularities, and there have been whole volumes written on the difficulties of correctly pronouncing a word written in English; there are also sounds used in spoken Thai that are not used in spoken English, etc, etc, etc... given all of this I am surprised that you seem to think that "transliteration" for pronunciation is easy and you cannot understand why the way "Thais spell their words in English is simply goofy or wrong" you think the Thai letter "gor gai" is better transliterated as "g" rather than "k" but when Thais "gin" I am sure they expect to have something with rice but most English people would expect a drink with tonic and ice! then there are the d/t/th and b/p/ph problems and for pronunciation you will probably "fuck it" if you are an English photographer going to Phuket! then there is the fact that some consonants in Thai are pronounced differently at the start and the end of a syllable - hence the baht/bath problem! none of the common "official" transliteration systems used here (and yes I have studied Thai and I am very familiar with the various transliteration systems used - official or otherwise - that is why I referred to "three or four" in my original post even though you seem to have missed that as well!) are perfect, and they all try to make at least some concessions to pronunciation as well - and that is where they usually start to fall down! so even simple transliteration has problems that greater minds then yours or mine have grappled with for years, and getting multiple government departments and other organizations to agree to use a single transliteration system has so far proved impossible, so if you really think that the factor of ten million more difficult task of easily rendering correct pronunciation of a Thai script word using English script is ever going to be successful then you are off with the pixies - the only realistic option for pronunciation is the use of a custom scripts like the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which you also chose to ignore from my original post! bkkguy

perhaps for you, but for the Airports Authority of Thailand or the Highway Department or the BMA or a foreign company doing business in Thailand the objective is NOT to teach people how to pronounce the name of an airport, a district, a building, a street or a business name, they need a legally acceptable representation of a name in one script in another script and there are three or four accepted "standard" transliteration systems in use to do this in Thailand - they transliterate for spelling, not for pronunciation if someone wants to learn to speak Thai they can't rely on any English transliteration of Thai script, as with learning any language they need to learn the Thai alphabet then they need a script to represent the phonemes of the Thai language and while the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is commonly used in English and other western dictionaries every man and his dog who produces a Thai/English (or whatever) dictionary or language course in Thailand feels compelled to invent their own phoneme system causing chaos for the language learner! bkkguy

forget facebook, for on-topic listening download yesterday's BBC Radio 4 Friday Night Comedy "Now Show" podcast for some great papal jokes ("Catholics are supposed to give up something for Lent" etc) and the skit about the tortoises and the "horsing around" on food contamination are great listening! I usually prefer "News Quiz" to the "Now Show" but both are classic English comedy! bkkguy

sounds good to me - where do I pick up the official badge? and seeing as we have moved so far off-topic for this thread I will leave you in suspense on the other items but trust me - most of these are not forums that I think you would know! and Rogie if you are not going to put me on ignore I would suggest some Slippery Elm rather than Rennie Ice/Spearmint/Peppermint/Sugar-free or any of their other "delightful" flavours bkkguy

I actively participate in quite a few forums every day on news, current affairs, technical issues, thailand, etc. I read here to see if there is anything new in Gay Thailand or other topics I might have missed but there rarely is and if there is there is usually nobody here worth discussing it with - to keep it specific to this thread I responded to abang1961's comment and the best he can come back with is another biblical quote and a meaningless youtube video, jovianmoon called me on a "straw man" argument then disappeared and fountainhall et al were so predictable as to be not worth responding too! you want interesting discussion - get some interesting people involved here! or I suppose eventually I may get to the desperate level of drooling over pics of bums in tight speedos and feel quite at home here! bkkguy

given your attitude why should I bother responding? if I come up with a list with 2 more countries than you have been to you will change your attitude? something that you would never revert to! oh wait didn't you just say "you certainly have a major problem! You don't even have a life!", "You make no interesting new contributions to this Board", "you sit around waiting only to make boring antagonistic interventions" do you need a link to that post? I have owned and managed or moderated many discussion forums - some for more than 10 years, so I have the guts! do you? bkkguy

I don't know that I am the one with the "new interests" problem - lets see how long it takes for the sycophants to "like" your post! less than an hour and Michael has done his duty - perhaps you need to call thaiworthy, he may be asleep already, usually he licks the arse of - sorry likes - anything anyone posts against me before they even finish posting!! and similar to fountainhall's claims in his post http://www.gaythailand.com/forums/topic/8610-you-mean-praying-to-take-the-gay-away-doesnt-work/?do=findComment&comment=64419 Mods: the "like" preferences of thaiwiorthy can be verified by a search of these forums . They are all therefore in the public domain bkkguy

OK you have my sincere apology, you were not as eloquent as I thought you were, in the thread I was thinking of the word you used was "Boring" http://www.gaythailand.com/forums/topic/8580-does-thaksin-shinawatra-rule-thailand-from-abroad/?do=findComment&comment=64143 of course you may have actually said "Yawn" in another post but I have a life so I don't need to spend hours collecting copies of your posts on this forum as part of a childish compulsive desire to discredit you - you do this so eloquently yourself! bkkguy

he is certainly not alone, and while the boundaries are not physical in terms of space - they are nebulous and in the cloud - they are very easy to delineate in terms of time - specifically the artificial protected world comes into existence when one of the favored ones clicks "Login" on this web site and enters the comforting embrace of the moderators and ceases to exist when "Sign Out" is clicked not quite the Big Bang, but it certainly causes a lot of whimpering when the protective barriers are breached - even temporarily! bkkguy

as you have already said so eloquently on another thread in another forum - "yawn" we all already know that you don't like to see your (or other "elite" posters here) ideas challenged, so stay safe in your artificial protected world! bkkguy

and on "sexual life" I agree with him completely - I don't want people using references from the bible to try to "prove" that being gay is "a sin", and I certainly don't want people praying to "cure" homosexuality by the same token I don't want people using references from the bible to try to "prove" how old the universe, and (somehow) homosexuality, is and thus how "natural" being gay is - either way I think arguing from biblical references is not the best way to go so if you think I am being "unfair" and just creating a "straw man" here how else do you think I should be interpreting abang's comment that "Homosexuality occurs as early as that recorded in the book of Genesis.So, it is as ancient as it could possibly be." is this some sort of pro gay anti Creationist interpretation that is supposed to be somehow compatible with my "scientific" view of the creation of the universe? bkkguy

so how old exactly is the Universe and Homosexuality according to the book of Genesis? and do you really believe this or is it just a sop to try to confuse the anti-gay religious right Creationists? or do you not really want to be challenged about your beliefs and what you say? I won't if you don't try to "hide" away my scientific inclinations through prayers and/or other religious rites! and you where the one to reference the bible so I don't really know what point you are trying to make here and a practicing Christian it seems - I have often wondered how people managed to reconcile the two, perhaps you would like to explain how you do it? bkkguy

ah yes the typical Bangkok Post falung letters to the editor response - this fourm (or country) is so perfect it is beyond criticism, if you don't like it then it is your problem so go home or go somewhere else but we never want to consider that some of the things we do here may actually drive people away but few new forum visitors actually bother to complain (not surprising given this type of response) but then there is all this navel gazing here about why new visitors don't post interesting new threads - if the only way to get responses about venues from the insider clique or anyone else here is to post advertorials then there is perhaps a significant problem - yes I can "fix" the problem here by creating my own forum or going away and never reading any messages here again but is this the best that Scoobie, or the other forum participants, are aiming for? bkkguy

how much of this spam do we have to put up with in the forums - I thought this was what the city guide was for? bkkguy

in a thread in the Gay Thailand forum fountainhall was on his high horse about who we should and should not discuss to stay within the boundaries of Thai law and local board policies but it seems he, and the moderators here, think that in this forum Bob, Rogie and others can discuss other members of the same family with gay abandon even if they are protected by the same laws and board policies bkkguy

as the above cases show - it is not what you don't say, but how you don't say it! bkkguy

if the discussion is about the law itself or about the court ruling it would not seem to breach board rules or Thai law and while CNN claims "It is not possible to report details of the content of the articles in question since they have been deemed to violate Thai law." the Nation had no hesitation about reporting on one aspect of the case: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/politics/Activist-jailed-for-Lese-Majeste-30198550.html in similar case last week Red Shirt activist "Jeng" got two years - the Bangkok Post and the Nation were both noticeably quite on this one but according to the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/18/world/asia/in-thailand-a-broader-definition-of-insulting-royalty.html?_r=2& bkkguy

so I lived in Australia for 35 years and while there regularly ate at French, Italian, Greek, Japanese, Thai, Korean, Chinese, etc restaurants and God forbid sometimes even fast-food burgers and was never condemed for wanting some variety - but now that I have lived in Thailand for 20 years I should never desire anything else other than Thai food and never crave for a burger and french fries or some other food style? why? I love Thai food but what is so great about it that it precludes all other foods? bkkguy

really? show me the stamps in you passport showing an extension of permission to stay for retirement based on a permission to stay from arriving on an Non O-A visa. all of the cases I have seen discussed on the various forums in the past 15 years have all been based on NON O visas issued overseas or a NON O-A issed overseas then a change of visa class with a NON O issued inside Thailand but never a NON O-A issued overseas! when challenged most people are unable to support their claims! this is only true if Ex-pat A has a "multi-entry" Non O-A visa - if he only has a "single entry" Non O-A visa then he is just as stuffed as Ex-pat B if he doess not get a Re-Entry Permit! the "lingo" covers many concepts! I agree with you that the "lingo" matters - so what is a "30-day waiver"? bkkguy

NON O-A visas are only issued outside Thailand by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at consulates and embassies, indeed most visas are issued by the MFA outside Thailand extensions of permission to stay for reasons of retirement are only issued in Thailand by the Interior Ministry at Immigration Police offices, the Immigration Police can also issue some visa classes in Thailand thus reading the MFA web site is not the best source of information on getting an extension! if you go the the Immigration Police office they will tell you that you need to change your visa class and if you meet the requirements for the extension they will happily provide the form - and charge you for processing that form - for changing your visa class, then they will provide the form - and again charge you for processing that form - for extending your permission to stay based on they new visa! bkkguy

most countries issue visas that cover entry AND permission to stay and many dictionary definitions cover this as well, but it does not matter what other countries do or what dictionary definitions you want to quote from, if you are coming to Thailand you have to work within the framework established by the Royal Thai Government via the Foreign Ministry for consulates and embassies and the Interior Ministry for Immigration Police offices and checkpoints and in that framework there is a significant distinction between a visa and a permission to stay and I don't care what foolish ideas you want to maintain in your own mind, but if you want to give advice to others then you need to use the right terminology or you just confuse and mislead people I am not saying from you, but the various forums are full of misleading statements like "Americans get a 30 day visa on arrival" and if you are an American and you arrive at the airport in Bangkok you will see a sign for "Visa on arrival" but there is no point in joining the queue there because the Immigration official there will direct you to the Immigration Checkpoint to get your 30 day permission to stay instead - this is not being pedantic, this is not ducks and geese, this is the real world! the various forums are also full of people saying they are going to extend their retirement visa but it is not possible to extend a visa in Thailand - the Immigration Police official will probably just assume you are another stupid falung and give you a form to apply for extending your permission to stay instead - this is not being pedantic, this is not ducks and geese, this is the real world! and it is not rocket science - I don't understand why falung insist on being so stupid with this! the Immigration Police produce the forms so you can re-define the terms any way you like but it will not match the forms they give you! and if you really did arrive on a Retirement Visa (NON-OA as distinct from NON-O) you cannot extend the permission to stay in Thailnd anyway, you need to change the visa class - this is not being pedantic, this is not ducks and geese, this is the real world! the various forums are also full of people saying you need to apply for your tourist visa just before you travel to Thailand otherwise you will not be able to stay very long because they don't understand the difference between visa expiry date and permission to stay - again this is not being pedantic, this is not ducks and geese, this is the real world! and it is not rocket science - I don't understand why falung insist on being so stupid with this! if you are from a visa exempt country and arrive without a visa and get a 30 day permission to stay you can extend that permission to stay by 7 days. if you arrive on a Tourist Visa and get a 60 day permission to stay you can extend that permission to stay by 30 days. if you arrive on a Non-O Visa and get a 90 day permission to stay you can extend that permission to stay by up to 1 year. if you arrive on a Non-OA Retirement Visa and get a 1 year permission to stay you cannot extend that permission to stay inThailand. these differences may not be significant for you but they are for a lot of other visitors to Thailand so rather than pulling rabbits, ducks or geese out of a hat, or a dictionary for that matter, forgive me if I would rather just understand the visa and permission to stay rules in Thailand and use the terminology correctly - as I say it is not rocket science! bkkguy

OK if you feel better I will take out the word gay from my post, how does that change the claim - these are still abusive businesses that are ignoring local labor laws and the point still applies just as strongly to gay massage and go-go bars as it does to your cop-out "non-sexual" massage places "if WE want to keep abusing the staff cheaply then we need to help keep the staff from starving" bkkguy