Exploits
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Birth of a U.S. Citizen Abroad, reported
Now all we have to do is wait for the results. If everything goes well I’ll go to pick up his passport in two or three weeks. The entire application took less than an hour, including filling out forms for reporting the birth of a U.S. citizen abroad as well as a passport (BTW, did you know there are “passport books” as well as “passport cards” now? The former are standard passports and the latter are for visiting countries bordering the US and US territories or something like that.). One funny thing is that the interviewer didn’t believe that I didn’t have dual Japanese/American citizenship although I thought I explained…
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Rico Suuu
Have you ever stayed at a 5-star resort? I’ve done so on a couple of occasions, and Nam has done it a few times more than me, and we both agree on one thing: It’s disconcerting to find out how completely fucked up rich people are… If Lucifer’s Hammer fell tomorrow, rich people would be among the first to be eaten, for sure. ////////////////////////////////////// These are the type of thoughts that go through my head after midnight on weekdays. Say it with me: SLEEP. DEPRIVAzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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Half full
I just came in from picking chillies off our bushes in the front yard and began errantly picking my nose when checking email. At least I’ll never make that mistake again.
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Murasaki Inu
A lifetime ago (13 or 14 years ago to be a bit more exact) I sat in a stuffy classroom in Tenri, Japan, and started penning my first essay in Japanese. Not having yet learned any kanji, I wrote it entirely in the phonetic alphabet known as hiragana. It began something like this: One day I walked to the main worship hall and saw a purple dog… Thus, the legend of the murasaki inu (purple dog) was born. It was a recurring theme in later essays (four years worth to be exact) as well as many blues/enka jams (anata ha tashika ni aru / watashi no murasaki inu) when Cosmic…
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Thai ATM Horror Story
So today turned out to be a big bummer because of the stupid Thai banking system. In short, I tried to withdraw 20,000 Baht from my Japanese bank with an international (PLUS system) bank card, which is something I’ve done many times before with no real problems. This time, however, the ATM (Thai Commercial Bank) flashed an error, “Communication Error,” and spat out my card but no cash and no receipt. I figured it might be an error with this particular bank and mine in Japan (Mitsui Sumitomo), so I tried again with the ATM to the immediate right of the first one (Thai Military Bank). Same error message, same…
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Beer Lubrication
So I want to relate a story about beer. Last Sunday I attended a wedding of a guy who I’d met only twice before; once in a liquor store in the presence of a crazy almost-naked dude wearing a loincloth, and the second time in the deafening molam haze at a local live house. The first time was about eight months ago. T was visiting from Japan and we were buying beer for a front yard barbecue. We bought all the Leo longnecks and loose cans of whatever, as well as a case of Archa if memory serves me right. There were two (Thai) guys behind the counter, one of…
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Intercepted – Congrats, Nutty!
If you attended our wedding or followed our progress here on this blog, you may remember who caught intercepted the bouquet at the wedding toss – yep, our good friend Nutty is getting married this Sunday in Ratchaburi. We are catching the VIP bus down to Bangkok tonight (arrives @ Mo Chit @ 3 AM). We’ll spend tomorrow catching up on Mexican grubbage if possible, and will drive out to “Ratburi” on Sunday to join the celebration, be merry, antagonize other guests with my perfected snoring patterns, and come back the next day.
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English Camp
We’re taking the third year students here for four days: Phu Hin Rong Kla National Park Quote: Remaining wildlife includes tigers, leopards, Asiatic Black Bears, wild boar, fox, monkeys, leopard cats, wild hare I expect to come back with some cool photos.
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Nam Opened for Yoshimoto!
Well, this was certainly unexpected when I said we were going to see Yoshimoto perform in Bangkok this past weekend: This story actually belongs to Nam – so let her tell you sometime how she ended up on stage before the performances both on Saturday and Sunday. Me, I only speak with photos on this one.
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Yoshimoto Entertainment in Thailand
This time we’re off to see Yoshimoto perform in Bangkok at the Imperial Park Queens Hotel. The organizer is an old friend of Nam’s and he came to our wedding last year. We are using our Thai Air mileage for the flight out from Khon Kaen; we need to return on Sunday but all the flights are full. We need to get back to the airport since we’re leaving our car in a pay lot (50 Baht/day) right next to it… Maybe take a Nakhonchai Air VIP bus (curiously, Nakhonchai Air doesn’t have any air transportation – just buses and vans). Unfortunately, our friends High Heel Momoko and Kuro-chan do…
