i may be lazy, but at least i don't kill people

massacre in southern thailand. poor innocent (but not very bright) japanese kid beheaded. u.s. elections a competition between dumb and dumber. even the australian opposition are now saying fighting words about s.e. asia.
can i go live on the moon for three or four years?

i'm so lazy...

the most exciting thing i did today was go down to the corner to put in some dry cleaning...and i also did some gardening on the balcony. watched a crap movie on HBO about a guy who gets in an accident and gets his parts replaced with animal parts...really bad.
also did some more experimenting with making a movie...need more lights for the blue screen stuff...might go and buy some halogen lamps and try making light boxes for them so the light is evenly diffused on the screen...
i am soooo lazy!
:)

Ancient art of the Wat Pho Penis Massage

went for a massage the other day with a korean friend who was in town.
been looking for the perfect massage place for a while...the ones on the beach are perfect - you lie back in the shade listening to the waves crashing on the sand as your knotted muscles are worked over... really nice...
but around where we live, they are either kinda dank and lacking in atmosphere, or just kinda suspicious.
well, the one we went to the other day was all that...
i'd scoped it out a few times as i walked home - it's a 5 minute walk from my place. looked clean and respectable. we walked in, i told them that my friend has shoulder problems and wanted work done on his... shoulders. ordered oil massages, 'cos the regular thai massages can really HURT!
the woman i had was in her early 40s, a little on the large side - looked good and strong. fairly confidence inspiring before a massage
well, when i stripped off, modestly leaving my undies on, and she told me to take them off, i thought - "that's ok - i'm cool with that"... means she could work my butt muscles better - a good butt massage is a thing of joy. i was lying on my front anyway, so everything was modestly concealed.
when it was time to roll over (you always roll over half way through a massage - for arms and chest), i thought it would be time to cover up the nether bits with a towel so she could massage the publicly available bits - but not so - i lay there naked as the day i was born as she massaged my arms and chest...then she got a bit lower. i was half asleep - it was a good massage. she called to me "you want me to massage here?" tapping me on my willy.
i am such an innocent guy - i had an image of the fabulous thai art of the penis massage practiced at wat pho - the budhist temple in bangkok where all the best masseuses learn their art. i wondered for a full 5 seconds how it was possible to massage a penis, and then remembered that the penis doesn't actually have any muscles...only then did it dawn on me what i was being offered.
"no, that's ok" i answered - i mean, this woman was the least likely prostitute i've ever seen - not that i would've been up for it anyway - as it says at the top of this page, i don't visit the whores...
so she went on and massaged my legs and feet (between the toes is really good), i finished up and left.
outside, i asked my friend if he'd had the same offer...
"oh yeah", he said "she wanted 10,000 baht" (about 30,000 Japanese yen, or $400 Aus - he said no too, btw)
my friend is not as innocent as me - apparently that kind of thing is well known in korea - its called a "taliban" in korean strangely enough - "tali" for masturbation, and "ban" for room...wonder if the Afghanis know?
so we walked home laughing - i told my wife - she thought it was funny.

so there you go - if you're into that kind of thing - its hard not to find it in bangkok - if you're not and you just want a good massage, well, i'll keep looking...

Bangkok taxis

there are a lot of taxis in bangkok.
unless ur somewhere really touristy, and sometimes at rush hour, they always use the meter these days - u don't even have to ask them. minimum fare is 35 baht ($1.50 australian or about 100 japanese yen). u can get from khao san road on the west of bangkok to sukhumvit in the east for 100 baht - in fact u can get pretty much anywhere in bangkok for less than 200 baht - even the airport from sukhumvit is 150 baht (tollway is an extra 70 baht).
every now and then u wind up doing the taxi hokey pokey - u get in, tell the driver where u want to go, and they say "mai dai" - can't go - which means they don't want to go there. or they say "200 baht" and u laugh at them and get out and try the next taxi.
but generally, no problems. i have become a taxi person. i taxi everywhere.
the old tuktuks are still here - but the hassle of haggling for fares is too annoying, and it doesn't seem to work out much cheaper anyway. so airconditioned cabs it is. motorbike taxis are popular too, but if it's close enough for a motorbike taxi, i tend to walk. thai's never walk anywhere if they can help it.
the only trouble with taxis is the smell...although most taxis are new and clean, about half of the taxis stink. drivers with nasty halitosis or who have just eaten something with lots of garlic... the worst is when u get stuck in traffic (always) with a stinky driver. u can't open the window for the pollution and heat, so you sit, trying not to breathe as the taxi crawls along...
but my new discovery is the khlong (canal) ferries! they are so cool! no traffic, 8 baht from here to downtown. the ferry rocks up at the jetty, you leap on (literally), climb in, sit if you can. they have plastic curtains running down each side operated by the passengers to keep the FILTHY khlong water from splashing onto passenger. khlong water is 90% poo (the other 10% is urine) so you REALLY don't want to get splashed...
haven't tried the buses yet - apparently they are really, really cheap, but why bus when a taxi is so cheap?

Bangkok Taxis 

quit thai school...

i quit my thai school last week.
i've done enough english teaching to know when the teacher is just rocking up with no preparation, no idea of what we've covered so far, and a general half-assed approach tot he whole thing. finding things out meant that i had to DIG - i mean, i want to be taught - not struggle to find out what i want to know.
so no more of that thai school for me.
this means that i now have no reason to leave the house all week - although i've been out every day this week - unusual for lazy, lazy me...
the reason most foreigners here get good at speaking thai quickly is that they go and chat to the "hostesses" at the go-go bars - but as i don't, my thai doesn't progress...no wonder my japanese got so good so quickly!

and you know what's wierd? most japanese men i know have a massive "language complex" - they can't speak english at all - but here, with the incentive of becoming "charisma man" in the go-go bar scene - they all learn thai really, really quickly.
go figure...

tha' pool

OK - i'm over my weekend disappointment. not watching the news anymore tho'...it is banished from my tv...
back to the regular routine - doing nothing!
went for a swim yesterday - our pool is about 15 metres, so i figure 70 laps is about a k. did 70 laps yesterday, and was so tired went to bed at 9pm - party, party, party here in BKK...
also went looking for a travel agent that didn't exist to book tickets for my COLD new year sojourn to europe - london, narrow boating, yorkshire, ireland!
bring on the freezing english weather!

tha' pool 

more sighs...

i thought you were supposed to feel all warm and fuzzy after a big erection...
but i feel used and dirty...
even mango smoothies are no solace today...

sigh.....

oh well, at least i voted.
3 more years of embarrasment -
sigh...

Big Erection in Australia

there's a big erection in australia this weekend.
i call it an erection 'cos i live in asia, and they always get their "l"s and "r"s mixed up, and also 'cos it's just a bunch of cocks trying to fuck the people! 'scuse the language, but that's how it makes me feel.
i haven't been in australia for a big national erection since 1988 or so...i last voted from england in 1993! so i guess i'm partly to blame for the whole thing. last erection i was determined to vote, but i was very, very hung over. this time i went to bed early last night and didn't drink...gonna nip down to the embassy and vote today...won't make a difference, my local seat is safe labour party...
i just hope that in this erection, we get a new cock to run the country, not so much 'cos i like him or his party, but just so that maybe we can say that we object to stupid dubya...i hope Kerry wins for the same reason. it may not be good for the country in our case, but maybe, just maybe, it might make a little bit of difference in the world. maybe, just maybe, i can go back to being proud to be australian. is that too much to hope for?
from

www.smh.com.au

Tuesday, September 28, 2004 Illustration: Alan Moir 

btw - this is my place - to give you an idea... 

i wanna eat some MANGOES!

its not supposed to be mango season now, but i went to the thursday market in the uni next to my place, and they were 50 baht a kilo. this makes me happy. very happy. what made me even happier, was that it was late in the day, so i got two kilos for 75 baht (about 3 dollars Australian, or 225 yen - in case you wondered) - without even having to haggle. they get down to 20 baht a kilo in may, but recently they've been 90 baht a kilo.
gonna chop them up and freeze them, then make frozen mango daiquiris! i make a mean frozen daiquiri - even got the little cocktail umbrellas. keep the glasses in the freezer so it stays really cool until you drink it.
...this was the highlight of my day...
apart from that, the power went off twice today - once in the middle of a crap movie on HBO - what scares me is that i was kinda annoyed at not being able to watch it.
this has been an especially lazy week for me - going to the market today was only the second time i've left the apartment this week. i did go downstairs to the gym on tuesday, and i almost went for a swim yesterday and today, but when i looked out the window down to the pool - it was full of kids. who wants to swim when the pool is full of squealers? damn school holidays! wonder when the buggers will be back in classrooms where they belong?
lazy lazy lazy week

Chicken? 

friend sent me boxer shorts with this pattern...so strange that i like it!

Tuesday is thai day and the maid comes

Tuesday i go to thai class.
my thai is terrible - i can read it a bit and write it, but i don't know what most of the words mean.
i arranged to have my thai classes on tuesdays and fridays, 'cos that's the day our maid comes. Yes - we have a maid - hahahaha!
she cleans, does the washing and ironing. i put on a t-shirt the other day and it had been ironed - felt so good!
our first maid was terrible - you could tell she didn't want to be a maid, and so she cleaned in a half-hearted way. when she quit, we got a new maid, about 18, who is studying accounting at night. she is so good - hence the ironed t-shirts.
but i never realised how invasive it can be having a maid in the house. when the maid is walking around cleaning stuff, and i'm just sitting watching HBO or ESPN, or lying in my hammock reading, or all the vital stuff i normally do, i feel kinda guilty at my own bourgesoisesse (spell?).
so i go to thai class in the afternoons when the maid visits.
i don't study much - but i guess i'm slowly getting better - need to practice more, but my antisocial lifestyle prohibits me from actually talking to people, so my improval is pretty slow. i can tell a taxi driver where to go, and i'm getting pretty good at haggling, but that's about it...
oh well, can't complain, at least we have a maid, and those ironed t-shirts feel good!

mondays

mondays are my lazy days.
well, everyday is a lazy day for me, but mondays are the laziest.
it's 6:14pm, and i haven't left my front door.
i'm sitting around in a sarong because i'm too lazy to put on clothes (too hot anyway).
this afternoon as i stared out the window, a flight of over a thousand dragonflies was buzzing just above the level of the roof - 34th floor.
gotta love dragonflies...