my week in signs


“jump for joy! you made it without wetting your pants!”

There’s always time for air hockey… with your gang.

No peddling measly wares, you Dickensian biotches (M-F 8:00 – 10:00AM)

The coolest car I saw this month. Some type of Hillman.

A line of mops, brooms, and scrub brushes marketed under the brand name BLACK MAN. So wrong, I just had to have one – now that’s marketing!

Overall, the sparse furnishing and utilitarian decor force us to recommend Mass Casualty Zone A over this one.

What starts in the men’s room ends in the man room.

Weather Revelation

I am shocked.
It’s COLD outside. I’m in Thailand, and it’s COLD outside. Granted, I was standing on my veranda in my boxers, but it’s genuinely cold! In Thailand!
I’m so happy, I could cry! But I think I’ll take a midnight shower and bask in the shivering COLDNESS instead (this weather will only last until February, apparently).
OK, this still doesn’t explain why some people on the street are wearing winter parkas (!), or why there are earmuffs and wool scarves (!!) on sale at the department stores (it’s cold enough for me to use a warm blanket at night – perhaps for the first time, here – but I’m pretty sure I’ll never need anything warmer than long sleeve shirts during the day).
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Ha ha, I just took a shower and I’m freezing my ass off! In Thailand!
This is like the best day of my life.

A Thai Fish Sanctuary

Last weekend, a student called up and said he wanted to show me a local sight. “Well,” I figured, “whatever it is, it should beat the hell out of tipping water buffaloes on yet another Saturday afternoon.”
So the wife and I got in the car and picked up said student and his girl at her apartment. We drove about ten kilometers on back country roads with potholes nearly the size of our current ride, my sister-in-law’s cute blue Opel Corsa.
After nearly running over several wild chickens and sleeping dog, we arrived at our destination:

The entrance to Wan Macha Fish Sanctuary.
A fish sanctuary?

I’m just guessing it would suck to get stuck in a hungry catfish’s mouth.
Yes.

Don’t let the perspective fool you, some of these guys are longer than my leg.
After feeding the lake monsters, we walked around a bit to view the rest of the sanctuary. As it turns out, while they are obviously doing a great job of caring for the fish, the whole thing is ruined because they are keeping other animals under horrible conditions. I choose not to show most of them here (in fact, I chose not to not even take too many photos because it made me sick), but there were crocodiles, monitor lizards, several bird species, rabbits, guinea pigs, and a pair of foxes all kept in small cinder block cells like in some medieval zoo. Also, they were keeping adult monkeys isolated in one square meter cages made of chain link fence, which were blessedly cooler than the cinder block cells, but way too cramped, and the monkeys just looked like they wanted to die… They wouldn’t even eat the fruit we tried to give them. The only comparable lack of compassion and common sense I’ve ever seen was in a Kyushu zoo around ten years ago, when I saw a sick lion sitting in its own feces in 100 degree weather…
Anyway, more photos:

Now that’s a lawn mower.




I believe I’ve found Christmas Dinner!

A beautiful place, ruined by the ignorance of its keepers.
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For more catfish porn, see my Flickr set here.