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Buffy Frobisher

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Everything posted by Buffy Frobisher

  1. Screw the taxpayers. Oh, that's right, that's what they've been doing during their entire time in the Senate. They're just pigs with their snouts in the trough. Nothing more than that.
  2. My wife, the chief cook and bottle washer and all-round handyman, and instructor of the chang of course, tells me that we use either TOA or Beyer brands, premium Weathershield in all cases, depending on what deals Home Pro have. She says that glossy is best because it's easier to keep clean. I can't complain - we paint every 3 years and the place looks brand new after 18 years.
  3. Helpful to us, certainly, but not so for you it seems. It was a nightmare out there this morning. The IO at Counter 29 (the front desk - is that 29? - the boss) is retiring this year, and things have slowed down dramatically. She told me years ago to get off the married-to-a-thai visa and said she'd give me the "sabai sabai" visa - retirement. Worth getting if you're over 50. Much less paperwork.
  4. Couple this censorship demand with Sretta suggesting that he bring Chinese police in to "help" police Thailand streets at night, and you've got the Solomon Islands sellout Part 2. In no time you'll have the Chinese "donating" football stadiums and other facilities to win Thai hearts and minds, and before you know it Mandarin will be compulsory in schools. It only ends in tears. Sretta and his kowtowing to Xi may well be worse for this country than TS and his cronies ever were.
  5. Which side of Bangkok are you on now? If you're anywhere near Crystal Park (Lad Prao area - NE Bangkok) I can recommend possibly the best hairdresser in Bangkok - certainly the best I've found in 20 years.
  6. @tontong7 This is by far the best advice, from @ChrisP24. These girls usually have a few marks that they go after - you're not the only one she's doing this to - and the stupid ones send money and stay on the hook to Hell forever. Just block her on everything, and change your number if she calls. Fade away, have no contact, and she'll go after someone else when the effort exceeds the reward. In answer to your original question, no, there is no blacklist for bargirls to report tourists who didn't fold with blackmail, and if everything else about you is above the law then you have nothing to worry about. That said, if you have broken any law here then you have a LOT to worry about and you shouldn't come back. If you have any further problems with Immigration next time you come back, DM me. I have someone who fixes these things quite effectively. Just keep a copy of everything she's ever written to you.
  7. I'm in NE Bangkok and in our area we've lost all Bangkok Bank ATMs and their branch at a nearby mall, plus 3 of 4 SCB ATMs and their branch too. Even the 7-11s are dropping ATMs. And Zen, the Japanese competitor to Fuji at the Plearnary Mall, have now decided that they won't take cash at all, so they're off my menu too. This cashless society is being forced upon us way quicker than I thought it would.
  8. See what @Adumbrationsaid about Thai vs overseas. I only buy 99.9% so that I can move it out of Thailand. If you want to trade just in Thailand then buying Thai gold makes sense.
  9. I agree with @Proton. Hua Seng Heng is by far the best for commissions, at least for 99.9% gold which I've been buying from them for years. And be sure to get physical gold and stash it safely in a vault, not paper receipts which they also offer. At some point demand will outstrip supply if there's a failure of the $, and those holding paper will have a huge headache.
  10. Sorry for the late response. I use the main Chaeng Wattana office in Bangkok. Renewed my retirement three days ago. Same procedure, and all went well. It helps with Bangkok Bank if you update your bank book after each transfer because they use all the FFT lines in the book to generate your statement for Immigration. If you don't update, as I didn't this year, it adds 3 days to the process while the branch requests a statement of every transaction for the year from the Silom Road Head Office, from which the branch extracts the transfers. The book makes them much happier. I hope that helps.
  11. Pretty crappy. AQI is 114 at Bang Khen in NE Bangkok just now. Over 100 across the whole city, up to 152 in places. Still nowhere near what the folk in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai are enduring. Grab the IQ Air app from your app store. It's as accurate as the meter I have at home, collated from many private and Government weather stations across the country.
  12. Each year when I get a statement from Bangkok Bank to prove incoming transfers (I prefer that option to keeping 800K in an account), Immigration just count the number of transfers - it has to be 12 - and don't seem that interested in what the amounts are. They're always well over the base amount, so perhaps they just look to see if the total amount meets or beats that. It's definitely 12 transfers though, but they don't need to be every month. Once I was asked and just said "exchange rate bad" for the months I missed. Hope that helps.
  13. Calm down dude. I live my life the way I choose to - you should just go about living yours. I suffer from intelligence and things that interest me. What's your excuse?
  14. I did a run down the Asia Highway from Nakhon Sawan on Sunday night with a Cobra XRS-888 radar/lidar detector activated. Just north of Chai Nat I found one camera which is K-band (most speed cameras in Thailand are K-band) plus they are using SPECTRE to detect radar detectors. It's the only time I've detected SPECTRE in Thailand, so maybe there are others now. It's on an overhead gantry, as indeed are most cameras on that highway. As this is Thailand, it's actually pretty hard to work out what the actual speed limit is on that road. They now have the right-lane clearly marked as 100-120kph, with the middle lane as 100kph and the left lane at 80kph, however in some 100-meter segments of the highway there were 90, 100, and 120kph signs, which seem to be wherever there is a U-turn gap in the median strip. It's massively confusing (and insane!), particularly if you're running at 120kph and have to peel 30kph off in 50 meters without causing a pile-up. There are also very bright LED flashes coming from many overhead gantries just as you approach them, but these appear to be to scare you into thinking that you've had your photo taken as the radar detector didn't see anything. It's also dangerous - most countries use speed camera flashes at your rear. That said, closer to Ayutthaya there are two bridges with cams and flash units that are running K-band radar, one of them with those bright displays showing your speed. I got "done" with one of them at 123kph when my GPS speed was actually only 118kph, so we'll see if they send a pic and what they say about the pic I have. I suspect that like everything here, calibration isn't a strong point. I also got a 500 baht fine a couple of weeks ago going up to Nakhon Sawan, when I moved over to the completely clear left lane (which now has an 80kph speed limit on it) and got hit at 122kph. As always, Thai drivers sit in the right lane regardless of the speed limit, so I just did what was logical for traffic flow. It will be interesting to see how they enforce the new law announced a few days ago that they'll start fining drivers who drive slowly in the right lane, and deducting points. On the Asia Highway, at least, they'd be fining nearly every driver and within a month no-one will have a license! As an aside, on the Chalong Rat expressway in Bangkok, there are 27 K-band cameras between the Outer Ring Rd (Kanchanpisek East) and the city, and these are a mixture of side-mounted cameras and top-mounted, all on gantries. If you're driving in from Khao Yai/the North, the first one is only 100 metres from the first toll gate, and the second one at the Sukhapiban 5 exit. After that it's a mine-field. These ones look like regular CCTV cameras with a small radar panel under them. I'm told by a professional driver that although the speed limit is 80kph, they are set to 120kph. I play safe at 90kph and have thus far been lucky.
  15. I put a solar water tank up on the roof when I built the house 17 years ago and have had piping hot water in every room ever since, even on cloudy days in the middle of the monsoon. Sure as heck saved on the power bills too - I reckon it easily paid for itself in 12-18 months. Worth considering?
  16. If you're looking for a first or second shot I'm pretty sure that Bumrungrad still have them. That said, When I got Covid myself a few weeks ago (despite 2 x AZ and 2 x Moderna), I went to a local hospital in the Bangkok 'burbs and was given the new antiviral drug from Merck called Molnupiravir, and it's amazing. Taking 4 capsules every 12 hours for 5 days, I went from wanting to die to fairly OK on the third day, normal on the 4th day, and a negative ATK test and completely clear on the 5th day. My specialist at Bumrungrad said there's no need for any more boosters, and that they now recommend taking Molnuvirapir whenever you get Covid (which apparently we'll all get somewhat frequently, like a cold), just as you'd take Tamiflu for a bad case of influenza. I've heard that you can now buy it OTC at some pharmacies for about 4,000 baht per 40 capsule course, though I cannot confirm that yet. It can be obtained from some clinics, and I've now got a few in the fridge just in case.
  17. In my humble opinion, and based on everything she's been able to do for my wife, the best OB/GYN I've ever encountered is https://www.bumrungrad.com/doctors/Saowanee-Karnplumjid. Without getting into details here, you'll find that she'll be experienced with both PCOS and Endometrial Hyperplasia. She's operated on my wife several times over the years for both surgical issues and cosmetically, and her work is beyond perfect. She's in massive demand so make sure to book well in advance.
  18. Thanks Sheryl. I'm glad to know that we have a medical specialist on the forum. I just wish that you could hear my now-dead friend's opinion about your belief that Cyberknife is reserved for "severe types of thyroid cancer and or metastatic cases" though. Y'see, he was recommended to have the Cyberknife treatment too for an early-stage nodule about the same size as the OP to PREVENT any metastasis, because the surgery is robotic and way more precise than a human hand; but he didn't listen because he found another armchair expert who thought like you. He opted for surgery and radiation by one of the top surgeons at one of the best cancer hospitals in the US, which missed some cells and it metastasized to brain and liver - and he's dead. With the utmost respect, might I suggest that before you do any more consulting for people with serious health issues (thyroid can be serious), you gain knowledge from a qualified surgeon about Cyberknife so that you offer wisdom, not speculation.
  19. Move your whole pension to a Thai bank in one transfer each month. CBA in Australia charge $22 per transfer, and Bangkok Bank charge 500 baht for the incoming transaction. You lose ever so slightly on exchange rates because J.P.Morgan in NY clip it on the way through, but on $10K out of Australia the fees amount to 2,000 baht total. ATM fees every time you need cash will kill you. Get a Thai bank account.
  20. The only problem you might face is if you encounter any 2-pin outlets, of which there are still a lot in use. Even at my place the builders used a mix of 2-pin and 3-pin wall outlets - for whatever reason was in their head on the day. But you can buy a 2-pin adapter at any local hardware store or Home Pro.
  21. I would recommend that you go to Thonburi Hospital if you're in Bangkok. Thyroid surgery can be very tricky, but they have some new technology called a CyberKnife which uses robotics and radiation beams to cut through and destroy cancer tissue to the nanometer, far more precise than a surgeon can be. It's also non-invasive so no scars, and the treatment is usually over 5 days but you can live life normally between treatments. It's incredibly successful against cancer, but it is also quite expensive so I hope that you have some health insurance which will cover it. More details here: https://www.mymeditravel.com/cyberknife-treatment-procedures-in-bangkoknoi-bangkok-thailand
  22. I don't know what the additives are, but many years ago I did a tour of an Australian margarine factory and was astonished that a black sludge that looked like it had come out of the sump on my car, could end up lovely and yellow and tasty by the time it reached the tub. I never touched it again from that day forth.
  23. True, but with 10-year Australian passports I don't have to worry about that for a while. Obviously I must go every year for the Retirement renewal, but wasting a day getting to and from CW every 90 days is a thing of the past with online reporting, thankfully.
  24. Why not try the online 90 days report? It's easy, and they even send you a reminder email 2 weeks before the next one, which you can do immediately instead of waiting for the exact date. I've done 3 x 90 days now and it's perfect. I'll never go to CW again except for the annual renewal.
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