Month: May 2012

Pandora, Spotify, and Rdio aren’t available in Asia…

…so hey, fuck you and your stupid attempts to listen to music legally. On the other hand, BitTorrent works quite well, so hey, fuck you, too. The music industry (as we know it), the movie industry, and copyright in general will be dragged into a completely new system, no doubt kicking and screaming, but hopefully within our lifetimes. Anything less would be a massive failure on our part, tantamount to the way we were handed down reefer madness and the war on drugs.

Monsoon Season

A big storm blew through here yesterday… At one point, it was gusting as hard as I’ve ever seen it. The reeds at the edge of the pond were blowing sideways, and the doors of the house seemed unsure of whether to blow in or out. The babies were sleeping at the time, and stayed that way even though the thunder seemed to boom right over us and the lightning tripped the Saf-T-Cut twice. Nam was still at work, and the street in front of our house flooded a bit, but not as bad as last time.

The storm blew over and the sun came out. The babies eventually woke up and Max must have remembered the floods from last year since he asked me to go get him a fish. Neither the pond nor the storm drains were overflowing this time, so there weren’t any fish.

I had to run errands on the other side of town and saw that the storm had blown down a huge highway sign right in front of our neighborhood. I hope nobody got hurt. The rear entrance was flooded again, like last time, and for a while it was a bit too deep to drive a car or motorcycle through, although pickups were making it through just fine.

If anybody stupid enough to drive through that storm was going under this sign when the telephone pole-sized steel legs bent in half, they either crapped their pants or didn't even see how close they came to being squashed because it was impossible to see or hear anything.
They closed off one side of the highway to pull down the sign with crane trucks. This was the only way to get into my neighborhood, though, because the rear entrance was still flooded.
This doggy found a juicy treat.

It rained again hard today, which made us scramble around to get things done (Nam’s car is in Khon Kaen getting resprayed so we’re doing it all in the Crown and with the help of my <150cc bike fleet), but it’s all good now.

We are Legion, or the Ts have already won.

– NOTICE OF BAGGAGE INSPECTION –

To protect you and your fellow passengers, the XSA is required by law to steal your wife’s panties and confiscate your house keys so you can’t get in when you arrive home from your 26 hour flight at midnight inspect all checked baggage. Your bag was among those selected for physical inspection (possibly because it contained used women’s undergarments).

During the inspection, your bag and its contents may have been searched for prohibited or tantalizing items. At the completion of the inspection, many of the contents were returned to your bag (albeit not in the orderly or sensible fashion in which they were originally packed). Also, we forgot to completely zip up the outside pockets so that stuff was falling out of it when it reached the baggage carousel. In addition, we forgot to replace the suitcase straps… Our bad!

If the XSA officer was unable to open your bag for inspection because it was locked, the officer may have been forced to break the crappy die-cast metal locks meant to keep out petty thieves and perverts on your bag. Our bad! We routinely invest in million dollar x-ray porn machines, but can’t afford a bent paper clip! XSA sincerely regrets having to do this, however, XSA is not liable for damage to your locks resulting from this necessary security precaution (because if we wanted to be accountable for our actions, we wouldn’t work for the government!).

We appreciate your understanding and cooperation.