From the Bangkok Post:

Rival faceoff
At Bangkok City Hall, a rally in red vowed to prevent a "silent coup" by the judiciary. At the airports, yellow-clad protesters were "willing to die" to bring down the government. In the streets, two-thirds of citizens say they are embarrassed and ashamed for the country.

At first I laughed out loud when I read this, but now that it's the day after and the owner of the company I work for talks to me about possibly closing down I shake my head in dismay instead.

Addendum:
Red shirts = Pro-government
Yellow shirts = Anti-government
Everyone else = Caught in the middle

Since the release of Wrath of the Lich King I've noticed that performance in Northrend on my pc is quite slow and, for the first time in quite a while, I was forced to knock the detail down. The beautiful shadows were the first to go, giving back some performance, but even then the significantly pushed out draw distance in Northrend was making my video card (Geforce 8800GT) choke.

I'm not a person who likes to play at anything but maximum detail, thus the whining and begging on my part began.

I already planned to get a new video card at the end of the year, so I figured why not just use the credit card and get it now? Good plan, huh? Oui didn't agree. It took some work, but he reluctantly came around to my way of thinking (I gave him the silent treatment). Off to Jedi Shop we went.

I've been a nVidia user for a long time so that was what I asked for, but the answer was not exactly what I'd hoped. They didn't have any because they were expecting a new model to be released in about a month. The staff kept asking me why didn't I want to wait and get the new one, but I explained that I'm not a person who likes to wait.

I was desperate and not walking out of the store without something after going to the effort of convincing Oui, so asked about ATI's offerings and while they didn't have the top model (I had to 'wait' until Monday for that one) they did have the next best thing so I got that.

I ended up with the ATI 4870 HD and after installing it and testing it out in my pc I quickly discovered something important: my power supply wasn't cutting the cheese. It was pretty clear this was occuring as whenever I ran anything taxing the entire pc would shutdown. After checking the manual I saw it requires a 500W power supply and as mine was only 390W it was off to Jedi Shop again the next morning.

The new power supply (Gigabyte Odin Pro 550W) is very nice and now that there is enough power my pc isn't shutting itself down all the time. The video card is also working as intended and when taxed the fan in the dual slot design powers up with quite a lot of noise.

At least it runs good.

To those who've met me the idea that I am fat probably sounds ridiculous, but would you believe there are a pair of jeans that I am constantly switching between being too fat for and fitting just right? I mention this because I'm wearing them today and can feel that I'm getting to that stage again where I can't wear them because The middle part of me is getting too big once more.

It probably doesn't help that I haven't done any exercise for about 6 months and spend even more time sitting in front of my pc than usual.

In other news I read that 'Burn After Reading', the film featuring a dumb version of Brad Pitt, is playing in Bangkok and Oui doesn't want to see it. Bribery may be required.

I just received an email titled:

Are you addicted to watching naked celebrities?

I never really thought about it, but the way you phrase the question suggests that I perhaps should be and that such a thing is a problem you can help me with. Humans are so complicated!

Where do I enter my credit card details?

Next time I upgrade our WoW accounts it would be nice to know that I won't be able to play if I haven't installed the expansion (which is at 55% downloaded) beforehand.

I'm in trouble with the boss now because he can't play WoW tonight.

One of our goals while in Australia was to open a joint account we could send money to. It also served the dual purpose of proof we are a real couple for Oui's eventual permanent residency application.

When we opened our joint account in Thailand the clerk acted as if the 1.3% interest was a simply stunning offer by the bank, but having lived in Australia I knew it was actually shit. Had we opened the account in only Oui's name we could have gotten a higher interest rate, but as I am not Thai 1.3% was 'good'.

One of the few days we were in Sydney I decided it would be a good time to open an account and as my ex works for Westpac we tried there first. Everything looked good until I formed the clerk asked if I have any other identification (I'd given him my passport). I said that no, I didn't, and asked what kind of identification he needed as he already had my passport.

To cut that long story short, they would happily accept Oui's passport as sufficient identification but for me (an Australian) my passport was not enough.

A highly ridiculous part of our exchange:

Clerk: I need the stamp from when you entered Australia.
Me: It's all done electronically now.
Clerk: Yes, so I'll need a stamp.
Me: It's an electronic passport - there is no stamp.

I was incredulous at this but instead of getting angry I just said "ok, thanks", took our passports, and left. I was on holiday after all.

Next door was ANZ and I thought "why not give them a try too?", I'm happy to report the staff there were incredibly helpful. Any future accounts I open will be with them, my confidence in their service is so high.

Unfortunately they had the same problem, but this time I was presented with a list of possible forms of identification I could use. I needed a certain number of 'points' and looking through the list I was amazed to find that there was no way I could possibly have enough to open an account in Australia (I had already presented my passport and she informed me that it wasn't possible to also use a full birth certificate because of this).

We gave up at that point but luckily my ex later came to the rescue, pulling a few strings that resulting in our joint account at Westpac.

We went and saw the new 007 film, Quantum of Solace, and while it isn't as good as the previous one it was still good. The music in the opening sequence was, in my opinion, shit (especially compared to Casino Royale) and when I saw that it was sung by Alicia Keys I came to the conclusion that I probably wouldn't like any of her other music either.

In the beginning of the film there was a little too much driving/running around than was needed and the part where Bond and Mitchell are having their chaotic final confrontation was drawn out. We get it, it's chaos in there.

Come to think of it, the handling of Mitchell himself was heavy-handed in that both Bond and M mention him by name, the purpose of which I assume was to show they are both familiar and comfortable with him. When Bond said his name I knew right away something was up because he never mentions a nobody. By the time M also said it I was certain he was bad to the bone.

This was entirely unnecessary, the simple mention after the fact that he'd been her personal body guard for years (which they also do) is all that was needed.

M had some good bits in this film and I especially enjoyed her rant comparing a villain's mention that "we have people everywhere" to florists having stores everywhere.

As I said, it's not as good as the first film. Hopefully this is simply due to middle-child syndrome and the best is yet to come.

I quiver with anticipation at the impending arrival of Wrath of the Lich King. We recently started new horde alts, me as a warlock and him as a priest (role reversal ftw!), and due to this Oui has informed me that he doesn't want to get the expansion right away.

Nu-uh! You're getting it bitch. I'm getting it, so that means you have to too because it will be boring as hell without you.

I'll post a pic of our new characters who look a little like the bride of frankenstein, which is out of the scope of Oui's experience so his looks like Marge from The Simpsons. We giggled a lot while creating them (well, it was mainly me) and are quite enjoying them so far.

It's interesting to me that Oui is complaining to me about all the same things that I used to complain at him about when our roles were reversed and when I point this out to him he seems non-commital in his agreement.

Thailand has a history of leaders who get into legal trouble and decide fleeing is the best option with Thaksin as the most recent example.

Next on the list is ex-PM Samak (ie the crude and uncultured loud-mouth) who, upon being given two years in prison, suddenly has cancer. His legal team have used this as an excuse for him to not have to go to prison as he should have and he's requested permission to leave Thailand to seek treatment for his 'cancer' in the US.

The fact that the courts have granted his request is astonishing given their recent gaffe in allowing Thaksin and his wife to leave Thailand to attend the Olympics in China never to return (admittedly only his wife was a convicted felon at the time). I imagine all criminals feel they should be permitted an overseas trip before serving prison time, but most can't afford the 'fee' to make it so.

I hope everyone realises that Samak is not coming back and that he is following in the footsteps of his predecessor Thaksin. I wonder if he will seek asylum in the US.

About two months ago I hired a new accounting girl for the office and since she arrived she has done some really good work. I particularly liked that I didn't need to give her a lot of direction.

You can imagine that it came as a bit of a surprise to everyone that noone has seen her since last Thursday. We can't contact her and while trying to see if there was another way to get in touch with her, in case something horrible has happened, found that she had taken documents identifying her from our files. Asking around only caused the situation to get worse.

She has borrowed a lot of money from various people, also from one person working here, and last Friday just happened to be pay-day. What a coincidence!

We all thought we knew her after working with her for two months so this has all come as a shock. I've been pretty relaxed in my hiring practises in the past, but from now on I'll be much more careful.

I'm just stunned that she would simply stop coming. Thank god (or the deity of your preference) we didn't give her access to any company money yet!

Edit: I'm actually kinda glad she's gone because she had a really creepy habit of always touching me that I was sick of.