Mai Me Arai » Thailand

It’s a Beautiful Day

Ben — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 04:25:20 +0000

When I looked from my desk out of the window this morning I was greeted with a rare sight – clear blue skies. I can count on my hand the number of times the sky has been blue in Bangkok, the last time being about 2 years ago, and I expect today will be particularly hot. Luckily the aircon in the computer room was repaired a couple of days ago so we should be able to ‘weather’ it.

In other news, WordPress makes updating so bloody easy. The admin interface informed me today that there was an update to WordPress available and gave the option to automatically install it or manually download it. The automatic install worked like a dream and was done in less than 10 seconds! Even better is that plugins for WordPress can by updated in exactly the same way. If any updates had killed the site I wouldn’t be singing their praises though.

Many Drupal users yearn for updates to be as simple, but unfortunately the level of customisation performed on practically every single install of Drupal makes it impossible to perform any kind of automatic updates that could potentially destroy the entire site. If you’re using Drupal and haven’t customised your site, why are you using Drupal exactly?

Ladies and Gentlemen, Wonder Gays!

Ben — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 12:01:37 +0000

www.youtube.com/watch?v=031N31B4EvM

One of the things I love about Thailand is that, unlike everywhere in the west, this sort of thing is allowed to exist without fear of public humiliation. These guys are mini-celebrities in Thailand at the moment.

Missing the Excitement

Ben — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:43:40 +0000

When Oui and I went out to have dinner after our Sunday evening raid we were surprised to discover all of the shopping complexes were shut. When we got back home I found out that a state of emergency had been declared in Bangkok. The same think happened with the last state of emergency and the last coup d’etat, WoW makes me miss all the exciting things in Thailand!

Anyway, there had already been a state of emergency declared in Pattaya to facilitate the evacuation of the ASEAN summit attendees after the red shirts showed up and crashed the event. I was actually making a primary colour joke in my previous post, so imagine my surprise when some blue shirts actually did show up in Pattaya to unsuccessfully oppose the red shirts.

Everything seems to be returning to normal now though and the government have declared Thursday and Friday to be extra public holidays to compensate for everyone’s Songkran being ruined by the red shirts. I’ll probably have to work though, but fingers crossed!

Think things couldn’t possibly get any better? The WoW 3.1 patch is coming down the pipe! Woo hoo!

Quotes of the Day (so far)

Ben — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 02:02:21 +0000

All from the Bangkok Post (link)

Thaksin, meanwhile, said through another video-link yesterday that Bangkok’s motorists inconvenienced by the UDD blockade should be prepared to make sacrifices for the sake of democracy.

All, except him that is. The gall of the guy to even mention sacrifice, I don’t know that he even knows the meaning of the word.

“All roads will lead to Bangkok and I’ll be there with you.” Thaksin asked protesters not to go home.

Except he won’t be here, being the convicted fugitive and all.

I’ve had friends tell me that the red shirts are all uneducated dick heads and have until now always said that they’re not stupid, that they just believe something different to everyone else, but how the hell could anyone sit there and lap up Thaksin’s bullshit and not recognise it for what it is? Especially this.

Yellow, Red… Where’s Blue?

Ben — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 09:58:42 +0000

The political turmoil in Thailand continues unabated. The crazy yellow shirt protesters who closed down the airports last year have been replaced by the crazy red shirt protesters who love Thaksin who, well… I honestly wouldn’t know where to begin and it’d be a disservice to them if I tried to name their crowning achievement when they’re still going strong.

Thaksin, who says he loves Thailand so much, is goading his fan club on daily to perform increasingly insane acts of dubious legality. Todays act of insanity is to block all traffic around Victory Monument (including access to the hospital there).

Thaksin’s fan club has said that if the PM and some members of the privy council (some royal thing I don’t fully get the purpose of) don’t quit by 4pm or some such time that they’ll storm government house, despite the fact they’ve previously said they wouldn’t. Despite also saying the Asean Summit would be left undisturbed earlier today, that is also now a target if said people don’t resign.

This is all in the name of democracy of course, not for Thaksin’s benefit at all. Just ask him how hard done by he is and how everyone won’t stop picking on him, he’ll tell you. Oh wait, you don’t need to ask because he’ll just tell you whether you want to hear it or not.

Thailand treats its convicted fugitives so unfairly.