badsmurf

You Know You Want It

2009-01-15T02:29:51Z

Songkran is coming

2009-01-13T04:02:31Z

April 13-15th is The Thai New Year, which we celebrate by respectfully throwing water at each other for 72 hours non-stop (brief breaks for drinking are allowed).

Anyone interested in coming drop me a line.

Drinks Friday - Ace Bar - Be There

2008-12-03T18:26:21Z

Friday, Ace Bar 6pm

My second going away party (last one was fun too).

Me Lame

2008-09-08T04:45:59Z

Geez..haven't updated since April.
I'm coming to NY for Thanksgiving, I hear Macy's is throwing me a parade with balloons and everything. Hope to catch up w/ everyone.

In New York

2008-04-10T10:34:45Z

This is a public service announcement sans guitars.

I am in New York for a few days, and will be getting together with everyone Friday night 8pm at Double Down, 4/11/08 See you there.

Random Walk

2008-02-24T13:18:40Z

This weekend I decided to take my new camera out for a walk, I didn't have a destination in mind. But I wanted to play with a new lens I bought and practice some techniques I read about.

This being Bangkok I was sure something crazy would turn up, and it did. I looked down from one shopping center and there was a half pipe in the courtyard. And if there is one thing better for photography than a half pipe full of great skate boarders, its a half pipe full of not-quite-so-great skate boarders.

And next to that was some bizarre signing contest or somesuch.

Enjoy --- and give me comments !

Party - Take Two

2008-02-06T00:11:57Z

I am repeating last Fridays get together, hopefully with better weather

Double Down Saloon
Houston and A
9pm

First one there gets to buy me drinks !!!!!
( this offer limited to first 100 guests )

Blue Monster Attacks New York

2008-01-24T02:35:24Z

Newsflash - Giant Blue Monster With Twisted Sense Of Humor spotted en route to New York from Asia

I will be in New York from Jan 31st to Feb 10th.
Big party planned for the 1st, but I don't know where yet.
Hope to see everyone, its been awhile.

B.S.

気を付けろ-ゴジラ

2008-01-18T01:07:30Z

Saw Cloverfield last night.
I won't spoil anything, but it was an interesting movie - you could almost call it avant garde.
But when it was over I felt a bit empty, like having a great main course and then being kicked out before desert is served.
Anyone else see it yet ?

7 Days Sober

2008-01-08T16:02:05Z

I kept my New Years Resolution of not drinking for a week...W00T
( does being sick for 4 days count as cheating ?)

I think I'll drink excessively to celebrate.

Happy New Year from Bangkok.

2008-01-06T01:55:49Z

It promises to be another exciting year here in the land of not quite right.
The recent election will see the end of our Military Coup Government, and the return of civilian government. The ousted ex-Prime Minister Thaksin is still in exile ( but not suffering since his Manchester City soccer club is doing quite well ), and his political party TRT is still banned. But he just changed the name of TRT to PPP, and those banned from politics had their relatives run in their place...and guess what ?...they won.
So out with the Old, in with the New, and then in with the Old.

In sadder news, the King's Sister passed away a few days ago. The palace announced a 15 day mourning period so fashion wise Black is the new Yellow. The mourning period also suggested that people limit merry making for 15 days. How do you limit merry making on Television ?, easy you cut off the Chroma Signal -- all TV shows now look almost Black & White. its kinda weird, everything now has that fake nostalgic look to it, but you get used to it. The big problem was when I was watching my Thai Zombie Ghost TV show and couldn't tell the Zombies from the humans with the color removed --- oh well.

Otherwise it winter here, and one morning it was 66 degrees !!! Thats Cold. Too Cold -- now everyone is getting sick. Half my office was sick or out Thursday, including me, and I didn't even open the office on Friday.

The bright side, is its helping me keep my New Years resolution of not drinking for a week ( 3 more days to go ).

Bangkok Weather 85, low humidity, 20% chance of coup

2007-12-12T13:21:39Z

Its thats time of the year again, coup season.

For those who need a quick recap, last year in September we had a coup while the Prime Minister was in New York. The rationale was that the PM was about to declare an emergency and take control. The generals who took over didn't really want the job and quickly appointed an interim government with the mandate to have elections in a year. To make sure the old government didn't come back the courts ruled the PM's party (TRT) and 111 members of the party to be guilty of election fraud and disqualified them from office for 5 years.

Unfortunately the plan doesn't seem to be working. The old party reformed as a new party (PPP), and many of those disqualified politicians are having their relatives run in their place. The PPP is now ahead in the polls and could end up the largest block in parliament, if they can convince (read BUY) one or two smaller parties to join them, then they would form the government. It helps that Thaksin is a billionaire and has been funneling money into the PPP.

With elections two weeks away, and the writing on the wall, rumors are spreading about a plan "B"
Plan "B" could be to disqualify the PPP party in the next week or two; or postpone things; or it could involve annulling the election if they win. As I said these are rumors, but doesn't mean it won't happen. Its going to be an interesting December here in Thailand.

Shiney Lights in the Sky

2007-12-06T13:01:40Z

December 5th was the King's 80 Birthday here. And I got myself invited to a front row seat at the fireworks on the 4th.

I'm very happy with the pics, shooting fireworks is not easy.

This weekend I will try and do a real update, and catch up on the last months worth of insanity.

Yours
~~Gossip Girl~~ BadSmurf

Photo Fun

2007-11-05T16:39:57Z

Playing around with my new camera. Took this photo of the sunset using a tripod and long exposure. Then edited in photoshop to increase the color range of the sky and to make the buildings BW.

Peace Prize

2007-10-12T16:23:07Z

I saw the headline that Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize, but I didn't see the results of the voting. Does anyone know if Rush Limbaugh came in second ?

Guilty Pleasures

2007-09-21T12:04:43Z

...I watched Gossip Girls

Career Mime

2007-09-16T13:33:47Z

Took the career test and the answers are too stupid to post, lets just say I am a geek and Computer Engineer came in #6. The only things I was interested in were #9 Physicist and #17 Oceanographer, which combined would let me pursue my life long dream of making Sharks with embedded Gamma Ray Lasers.

I'm Fine

2007-09-16T13:20:10Z

Thanks for asking

Land of the Wierd

2007-08-20T02:30:42Z

Thai movies come in four varieties,

Horror/Ghost movies which are often great (really ! - I get more goosebumps watching a Thai horror flick then today's softsnuff from Hollywood)

Comedies - which are just BAD

Action/Fighting movies - Good fight scenes, no plot. Ong Bak is the best of these

And then A fourth category of "Just plain weird". To that category I will add "Bangkok Love Story" which is your normal "Contract hit man kills people, killer gets shot, best friend takes care of killer, best friend has crush on killer, killer cries" -- or to put it another way, if you ever wanted to see the foreign language version of "Brokeback Mountain" meets "Reservoir Dogs" then this is your movie.

Luckily for all of you, the trailer is online
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6755806230242168723

In other news, Thailand just approved a new constitution in a referendum.
Top Three reasons to vote YES
1) It is a good constitution, I really like the part about having half the senate appointed
2) A Yes vote for the constitution is a Yes vote for the Coup. Yeaaa Coup
3) I'm tired of all this politics shit...if I just vote yes will you leave me alone now

Exit polls showed that #3 was the top reason the Constitution passed.

Cosplay Time

2007-08-04T13:26:35Z

I went to the Cosplay Day event this morning, but I think this will be the last time. There were less participants and more photographers than ever. Its been getting that way but its now one photographer for every Costumed Player.

In other news, I'm actually busy working AND its raining all the day - so nothing exciting to report.

From Cosplay Augus...

p.s. Is anyone reading this ?

Justin

2007-07-19T01:07:37Z

I just heard the news about Justin, it came as a real shock. My condolences to his family and to all his friends -- I really wish I could be there with everyone right now.

Happier Times

Invisible Ink

2007-05-16T20:23:16Z

I was just reading all my friends pages and noticed a lot of big empty spaces, it then occurred to my 3am in the morning brain that I live in Thailand the land of No You Tube. I reset my browser to use a proxy and all those empty spots fill it up with You Tube Videos.

In other news, supposedly there was an Earthquake here this afternoon. I failed to notice, just like I failed to notice every other Earthquake I have ever been in ( at least 2 in California ).

Cosplay

2007-05-05T12:30:18Z

For those not keeping track, today is the first Saturday of the month -- Cosplay Day

Click to see more.

Nothing

2007-05-04T18:26:37Z

Its 1am here - just got home and I am posting for no specific reason.

Things here in Thailand are the usual lunacy, fun for me but I get the feeling I am living in bizzaro world and one day it will all come crashing down ( actually I am waiting for that day, I want to buy a Condo )

Life here has its upside, 24 hour party time (regardless of official 1am closing); great beaches; everything cheap, etc... But it also has its brain-hurting annoyances. Top on the list right now is my local bank, they are f'ing horrible. I signed up for EBanking, they made me enter my password 3 times, then someone noticed the keypad was not plugged. After the account was set up I was directed to go upstairs where someone would verify the account worked and show me how to use it (no instruction book). Upstairs the clown couldn't even log on to his computer! he kept pointing to the windows login screen and asking me to enter my EBanking account. I explained he needed to login, not me. After a few minutes of this I decided whats the point and left, he just wandered off.

Once home I tried again, no luck. I had my assistant call the bank and find out whats wrong, after 2 days of calling I was finally informed that my account was not set up, no one was sure what was fucked up and it was being bounced to the main office. That was a week ago, I'm now supposed to call back next week to find out what the status is. In the meantime the bank rarely picks up the phone, so I have no way to check my account balance and see if any money has come in. BAH.

Luckily on the upside booze is cheap...'cause tonight I needed a lot of it.

In other news, Thailand is suing Google/YouTube for not removing an offensive video of the king, YouTube is still blocked here. This a day after Thailand hires an American PR firm to improve their image and fight off accusations that press freedom here has been seriously eroded.

Happy Thai New Year To All

2007-04-13T11:41:45Z

I've been really horrible about updating my journal, the last three months have been very eventful to say the least, ups and downs, and it has kept me from updating.

But my new years resolution is to starting updating again, so here we go.

Pictures from the first day of the Songkran, The Thai New Year Festival.

Songkran April 13 2007

This year things 'feel' different then previous years, everyone still wants to have fun, but their is a sense of worry after the Dec 31st bombings and the still unsettled politics. It doesn't help that there was another incident a few days ago with someone blowing up a phone booth outside a movie theater (no one was hurt).

Normally I go to an area called Khao Sarn Road, which is famous for having the wildest water gun fights, but this year I am staying away (for now). Today's photos are from lower Sukhemvit road including a popular strip of bars.