I find it ironic that everyone is so caught up in the media frenzy regarding 63 people dying from the Santika Pub fire on new years eve when over 260 people were killed due to motor accidents over the new year (more than 2000 injured).

I guess if situations like the Santika Pub fire occurred more often we would stop caring about that too.

I normally let Christmas pass me by here but I still call my family to wish them a happy holiday, so when I tried this morning only to get a message saying I had to contact CAT (the international carrier in Thailand) I figured I must have forgotten to pay a bill.

A few phone calls later it was revealed that there was indeed an unpaid bill for the massive sum of 15 Baht. They cut my service over 15 Baht! Let's look at that in Australian dollars:

15 Baht = $0.65 Aus

I recently began the process of renewing my visa and work permit, something that must be done annually, and have experienced so many head-shaking moments in a single day that it would be impossible for one blog post to contain them.

I was surprised to find that most of the immigration staff for the business section at the Suan Plu office don't speak english and have been complaining about the fact to everyone at work. One of our staff told me that I shouldn't complain because "Our King said all Thai's should speak Thai", to which I responded "Does he know everything? Would you jump off a bridge if he said to?".

I instantly regretted saying it, because obviously I would expect all Thai's to speak Thai, but Immigration is a place where nearly every customer is foreign and as English one of the main languages spoken around the world I would have thought they would have more than two or three staff who could barely speak english.

My abrupt response was also a result of my irritation at Thai's using any of the Kings words as an excuse or defense for something stupid. The blind and absolute devotion of Thai's to the king is admirable but I don't see how it could possibly be healthy for any free-thinking individuals or benefit society at all. Not to say that it doesn't, I just can't imagine how it would. After all, I don't know everything.

The other thing that got me really frustrated was Immigration policy, namely changes to it.

Staff at my office put a lot of work into preparing the paperwork for my visa renewal, constantly referring to documents from Immigration and their website to know what they needed to prepare. Unbeknownst to them there had been a policy change at Immigration which meant I would need a lot more documents than they had prepared. The idiocy is that the notification of the change was only available on the desk of Immigration staff at their office so they were basically saying they wanted everyone who visits them to waste one day (the minimum amount of time required to do anything at Immigration).

At least our staff got angry about this too, so I wasn't alone on this one.

It was a pleasant surprise when we were in Sydney that I found my mum still had a copy of Holding the Man, a true story penned by Timothy Conigrave, because I'd been telling Oui about it for so long and he spent any spare time we had whilst there reading it.

I told him that he would cry, as had everyone else I know who'd read it (myself included), but he wasn't convinced. He seemed quite certain that we were all a bunch of wimps.

As we'd been in Melbourne a few days prior to him starting the book he recognised references to many of the landmarks that are made, which helped to pique his interest further. When we got back to Bangkok I kept checking on his progress because I wanted to talk to him about it when he was done, but one day noticed that he'd stopped reading it. Apparently he'd gotten to the part of the book things got more and more depressing and didn't want to read it anymore.

I've tried to convince him to finish it but have been as of yet unsuccessful. For those wondering what the big deal is, I would recommend it over anything else I have ever read, just be prepared for the content.

Today when I was in Central Chitlom I saw an advertisement for a new Enya album on one of the many screens they have about the place and instantly headed to B2S on the top floor to buy it for Oui. He is nuts about Enya and I knew he'd like it.

The idea was that this would be a surprise but I'm terrible at keeping secrets from Oui so I told him. He's not much an Enya fan that he didn't even know there was a new album.

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

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?

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.