Just found this out:-
Mercury transit due



People in Thailand and across Asia, Europe and East Africa will be able to view a rare event next week as the planet Mercury moves across the face of the Sun.

Voravit Tanwuthibandhit, a member of the Thai Astronomy Association, said the partial solar eclipse, on May 7, would begin in Bangkok at 12.13pm and finish at 5.29pm.

Those interested in viewing it directly were advised to watch through black tinted glasses, he said.

It was a rare event and had not been seen from Earth for over 100 years.

Another interesting juxtaposition would occur on Aug 27, when Mars would be the closest to Earth in 59,540 years. From that day, Mars could be seen with the naked eye from dusk to dawn over the eastern horizon for about one month, he said.

Hardly life changing info but could be interesting.... oh ya on may the 8th Pete Tong is playing at the Ministry of Sound here in Bangers so I think we gotta get some tickets don't you?

Hot great day in Bangkok but less tourists around than I have seen for some time. The spectre of SARS haunts the hotels. Still plenty around but I wonder how it will be in the coming weeks. Interesting article from the BBC can be found here.
I forgot to mention that it wasn't me that took the photo of the mosque rather a friend that lives in our building. If you are a news addict like myself yoiu have to check out Marios Cyber Station. It contains links to all sorts of wierd and wonderful sites....always worth looking a bit on the wildside I would say.

Well I made a difference!!! A few weeks ago I was walking down the road by the Oriental Hotel and I saw this despicable sign in lovely peaceful Thailand

Anyway the great news is that after me complaing to the Bangkok Post and the Tourist Police.... the evil Islamics have been forced to remove the sign! Ah I think thats the first time I have made a difference to anything!!!!

Thai Language Can be learned

Well learning Thai is just a little bit easier when you have this list of words

The 100 basic words used in conversation are shown below. These typically comprise around 50% of all words used:

1. a, an 2. after lang jaak 3. again ik 4. all thang mot 5. almost keuap
6. also duay 7. always samoe 8. and lae 9. because phraw waa 10. before kawn
11. big yai 12. but tae 13. (I) can dai 14. (I) come maa 15. either/or
16. (I) find phop17. first raek 18. for sam rap 19. friend puuen 20. from jaak
21. (I) go pai 22. good dee 23. goodbye 24. happy sabai dee 25. (I) have mi
26. he kao 27. hello 28. here thi nii 29. how yaang rai 30. I Phom/Chan
31. (I) am behn 32. if thaa 33. in thi 34. (I) know lu 35. last thee laeow
36. (I) like chorp 37. little lek 38. (I) love rak 39. (I) make tham 40. many maak
41. one neung 42. more ik 43. most tisut 44. much maak 45. my
46. new mai 47. no 48. not mai 49. now tawn nii 50. of
51. often bawy-bawy 52. on bon 53. one 54. only thao-nan 55. or reu
56. other 57. our 58. out nawk 59. over set 60. people khon
61. place thii 62. please 63. same meuan kan 64. (I) see 65. she
66. so 67. some baang 68. sometimes baang thii 69. still 70. such
71. (I) tell poot 72. thank you 73. that 74. the 75. their kong kao
76. them kao 77. then laeo gor 78. there is 79. they kao 80. thing sing
81. (I) think khit 82. this ni 83. time mou 84. to ti 85. under tai
86. up bon 87. us rao 88. (I) use chai 89. very ,maak 90. we row
91. what arai 92. when meua arai 93. where tee nai 94. which nai 95. who crai
96. why thammai 97. with gap 98. yes chai 99. you kuhn 100. your kong kuhn

I got the list from a memory improvement website which you can go to here and then I filled in the words using a Thai dictionary and a very helpful broken hearted Thai friend of mine. On the subject of learning Thai I highly rate this site here as its plays the sounds and words for you which is the hard thing to grasp. I know the important 100 words and more besides but there is such a way to go. Need a Thai girlfriend!!!

Well its a steamy one today in Bangers. Last night Lochie managed to lose a friends camera that he borrowed to photograph the festivities on our mad Sunday out. So you can imagine just how happy he is right now about things.
Need to get my act in order this week as bills are mounting up and yet income is not so hot right now. Once we get the diamond thing running then we will be fine and dandy....oh ya never have a payment gateway on your internet site as the bastards find so many differing ways of not paying up! Use ESCROW they are far better and always pay up.

RULES THAT GUYS WISH GIRLS KNEW...



1. If you think you are fat, you probably are. Do not ask us. We refuse to answer.



2. Learn to work the toilet seat. If it's up, put it down.



3. Do not cut your hair. Ever. Long hair is always more attractive than short hair. One of the big reasons guys fear getting married is that married women always cut their hair, and by then, you are stuck with her.



4. Birthdays, Valentines, and Anniversaries are not quests to see if we can find the perfect present yet again!



5. If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, expect an answer you do not want to hear.



6. Sometimes, we are not thinking about you. Live with it.



7. Do not ask us what we are thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as navel lint, the shotgun formation, and monster trucks.



8. Sunday = Sports. It's like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let it be.



9. Shopping is not a sport, and no, we are never going to think of it that way.



10. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine. Really.



11. You have enough clothes.



12. You have too many shoes.



13. Crying is blackmail.



14. Your ex-boyfriend is an idiot.



15. Ask for what you want. Let us be clear on this one: Subtle hints do not work. Strong hints do not work. Obvious hints do not work. Just say it!



16. No, we do not know what day it is. We never will. Mark anniversaries on a calendar.



17. Yes, peeing standing up is more difficult. We are bound to miss sometimes.



18. Most guys own three pairs of shoes. What makes you think we'd be any good at choosing which pair, out of thirty, would look good with your dress?



19. Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.



20. Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That is what we do. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.



21. A headache that lasts for 17 months is a problem. See a doctor.



22. Foreign films are best left to foreigners.



23. Check your oil.



24. Do not fake it. We would rather be ineffective than deceived.



25. It is neither in your best interest nor ours to take the quiz together.



26. No, it does not matter which quiz.



27. Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument. All comments become null and void after 7 days.



28. If you won't dress like the Victoria's Secret girls, don't expect us to act like soap opera guys.



29. If something we said can be interpreted two ways, and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one.



30. Let us ogle. We are going to look anyway; it is genetic.



31. Don't rub the lamp if you don't want the genie to come out.



32. You can either ask us to do something OR tell us how you want it done - not both.



33. Whenever possible, please say whatever you have to say during commercials.



34. Christopher Columbus did not need directions, and neither do we.



35. Women wearing Wonderbras and low-cut blouses lose their right to complain about having their boobs stared at.



36. More women should wear Wonderbras and low-cut blouses. We like staring at boobs.



37. The relationship is never going to be like it was the first two months we were going out.



38. ALL men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings. Peach is a fruit, not a color.



39. Pumpkin is also a fruit.



40. If it itches, it will be scratched.



41. Beer is as exciting for us as handbags are for you.



42. If it is OUR house, I do not understand why MY stuff gets thrown in the closet/attic/basement.



43. We are not mind readers and we never will be. Our lack of mind-reading ability is not proof of how little we care about you.



44. If we ask what is wrong and you say "nothing," we will act like nothing's wrong. We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.



45. What's a doily?

Well had a great day with friends. Spent the day playing pool and drinking ice cold beer. Nice to be alive. Heard about there being more bombs in Jakarta yesterday. Indonesia had best get its act together and deal with the Islamic problems there. When I was last in JKT late last year I was dumbfounded that there were so many arabs staying there now. Apparantly there is an unusual amount of arabs now teaching Islam in the villages. Not good news for anyone.
Just got an email about SARS saying that drugs for it could be available within 3 months.
Here it is:-

First drug to be ready 'within months'
By Mark Henderson, Science Correspondent

THE first drug to combat the Sars virus could be available for
treating patients within months, after new research in the United
States.

Early trials at the US National Institutes of Health suggest that the
antiviral therapy, developed by AVI BioPharma in Oregon, is highly
effective at killing the coronavirus that is thought to cause Sars.

If the full results, which are expected in two weeks, confirm the
findings, the drug could be given to patients within "months rather
than years", Denis Burger, AVI's chief executive, told The Times
yesterday.

Bangkok is looking dark right now and looks like the rains is a comin'. I need to get back into being healthy and cut down on my alcohol intake. I only went to the gym once I think last week. I need to get moving on the 'diamonds for investment' work that we are doing as I need to stop worrying about money. It seems an almost daily occurence now and I am not happy about it. My new friend Irene in Malaysia's blog URL is http://mizwacky.blogspot.com . As she was so kind to help me post my first pic I think that she deserves to be read. Its a very pleasant blog so there and read some!!
Ok enough of this blogging malarchy its time to go and earn some money.... oh yeah!

Wow what a big Saturday night that was.... Ministry of Sound was great...you know they have white girls as dancers there? I am still under the influence so more later....

Well I just had to share this with you.A good friend of mine Anne just split a few months ago with her Thai boyfriend and they are still having fights over the goods and chattels. So last night was a big fight day and the boyfriend showed his disgust with Anne by sending an SMS of a picture of a foot!!! She was mortally offended as all Thais would be after being shown the sole of a foot but we found it a rather hilarious use of technology.
The SARS thing is becoming more of a worry day by day as govts around the world continue to lie to us. I heard from my new friend Irene that Malaysia is doing the same thing as Thailand and being somewhat economic with the truth. I am not paranoid about it but I have limited my trips to the gym.... or was that just laziness?????
I am quite into this blogging thing right now so maybe I will send it out to my email list and see if it starts going somewhere. I reckon that I may give blogging rights to some friends too so they can post their stuff too............. any ideas on how to develop this blog are very welcome.... or does only Irene read this blog?
Anyway here is a picture of Anne and our friend Lochie.

Ok here it comes the Songkran picture!!! And I want to say I big thank you to Irene Kiew who just sent me an email telling me how to post pics! Irene you are my first and only reader of my blog!! Inspiration for me!! Maybe I will start writing this more often if I start to get readers!

Ok so that didnt work very well did it?
We have no pics up yet. So ok what I will do is to store the pics on my webserver... Then we can try again huh?

Ok so here goes we are trying to see if I can upload an image to my blog

Well I didn't do much blogging did I? I thought that I would get around to doing a lot more but I just get caught up in life and never get round to doing it. I am following this SARS epedemic with great interest. I see they say Thailand is SARS free but a friend of mine says that Bummungrad Hospital has lots of people there who are sick with it. Now I personally have not confirmed that because I dont want to go there and catch the disease myself. That would be just typical of my luck to go there and end up catching the latest plague.
I see Winnie Mandela just got found guilty on a fraud and theft charge. I don't like the bitch myself and think that they should throw away the key. I don't seem to be able to post pics up here as I am an HTML half whit and also using the free version of this blogger. If I get around to making this blog a regular thing I will buy the pro version or whatever its called.
I just heard to that Paul Turner a friend of mine in Bali is sick.... I hope its not the SARS thing.... he seems to think its some sort of Dengue fever but there is as much chance of them diagnosing anything correctly in Bali as there is of George Bush being described as clever!
I dont know if anyone has actually read this Blog at all. I have started a discussion group here which are my views on Islam. I will try and get some traffic to this site and to the discussion board over the weekend if I have time.

Well this is my first Blogger entry. I was doing one on mydeardiary.com but I couldn't post pictures so I thought that this one might be the best one to try. I was somewhat inspired to do this after reading Stuart Hughes' Blog from Northern Iraq which can be viewed at www.stuarthughes.blogspot.com/.
Stuart's blog is pretty inspirational reading and I hope that you all take time to read his blog.
We have just finished yesterday (although some people are still at it) taking part in Songkran which for those unitiated is the Thai New Year. I must say that I thought that I would hate it but it really was great fun. You really have no choice but to get involved in the water throwing that is rampant across the city as if you don't get involved then you are going to get wet yourself anyway! As they say when in Rome....Anyhow a great time was had by all and it made me again realise just how lucky I am to be a guest here in Thailand. Apart from throwing water from any recepticle or squirting device that is nearby the Thais also rub powder in your face. This was done in the most polite of ways although I did notice that the Thai girls got there faces rubbed more than anyone else!!
I will have some photos that were taken during the festivities that I will post up to my new blog tomorrow. I hope that you have sometime to view the really riotous fun. Hey next year come and join us! I will be doing my utmost to be here thats for sure!!