Comments Posted By Brian
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Im with Kevin on the French Dip “debate”. I always assumed a French Dip was cheeseless. With the cheese, its starts moving towards a Philly Cheesesteak. Ah well, 1st world problems for sure!!!
Re: helping your housekeepers daughter. You are a good man. Since you know her and her living style, I assume there should be minimal disruption to you. Kudos for helping out.
» Posted By Brian On 07/June/2021 @ 12:17 am
Looks like it was a good walk!! Lot of miles (kms) under your feet today.
Re: The keys – you should start a pool as to the first time you will lose/misplace one of the keys. Crazy the amount of keys.
Kind of like the “old” days when you needed two car keys – one to open the car door and a separate one to start it.
» Posted By Brian On 06/June/2021 @ 1:49 am
All’s well that ends well!! Keep walking!!
» Posted By Brian On 02/June/2021 @ 1:20 am
Back on the mean streets of Barretto
Enjoyed the travelogue (or picturlogue or whatever it was).
Keep walking’!
» Posted By Brian On 30/May/2021 @ 1:55 am
Stay healthy!! Yup, best to get things looked at. I (assume) that the cost of decent medical care is pretty cheap, so well worth it to get things checked out. Even if it is nothing, the peace of mind makes it worthwhile.
» Posted By Brian On 27/May/2021 @ 2:21 am
Re: the pic of the walk through your subdivision. Is that a pile of trash on the side of the road, or concrete bags (or similar) used for construction?
Is there organized trash disposal? Obviously, up in the mountains, I would assume that the organized trash disposal is throwing it out on the nearest path, but why is it so bag in the town? People dont want to pay for trash removal? Laziness?
» Posted By Brian On 25/May/2021 @ 10:11 pm
Good pics. With your caption about the tide being high, I immediately got an ear worm of the Blondie song. LOL
Also noticed one of the hashers doing the trail in flip flops. That would not be my choice of footwear on any hike. But hey, each to his own.
» Posted By Brian On 24/May/2021 @ 2:23 am
As Kevin said, if you are going to have a “Groundhog Day” experience over and over again, there are definitely worse ways to do it.
Fun fact regarding Groundhog Day. Actually filmed in Woodstock IL, not the place in PA where the groundhog became famous. Cool little town in northwest IL.
» Posted By Brian On 23/May/2021 @ 3:28 am
Very cool that you keep finding new places within the same area.
Re: beer – the famous line from the TV show Cheers: “Beer does kill brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. And that John, is why you always feel smarter after a few beers.”
» Posted By Brian On 20/May/2021 @ 11:53 pm
John, I like your style. From the dentist chair to the bar chair in 20 easy steps!!
» Posted By Brian On 20/May/2021 @ 12:25 am
The saying that “there are no ugly rich men!” holds pretty true.
Re: your tooth: As it is a molar, probably not a problem, but I have a buddy who lost a tooth and figured it was easier not to fix. Well, nature abhors a vacuum and the other teeth started to collapse, or maybe better to say that they started to lean to fill the gap. Waited too long to do anything and he ended up wearing top braces for a year to open up the gap enough to put in a new tooth.
Kevin, glad to see that you are able to post! Good news indeed.
» Posted By Brian On 17/May/2021 @ 10:55 am
That is really cheap on the beer front. Thailand – $3 is about the cheapest you will find, but $4-$5 is more the norm.
» Posted By Brian On 17/May/2021 @ 10:41 am
Sending positive thoughts to Kevin. Dont have a google account so cant leave a message there directly. Hope you get well soon!
» Posted By Brian On 15/May/2021 @ 5:31 am
Congrats on the three year mark! Time answers to no man.
I took the letter from your landlord to be encouraging. At least they have acknowledged that there are three months of rent (or equivlent) they are holding that are due to you. Getting it back may be a different story, but at least there is agreement on those monies.
» Posted By Brian On 11/May/2021 @ 11:51 pm
Great pics of the sunset! Love it.
» Posted By Brian On 10/May/2021 @ 11:24 pm
Re: your new place – looks quite nice. For one person, the size definitely should be enough. Looks clean and pretty well maintained, which is a plus. Like the view also! Do the helpers you had at the old place stay there or are they coming with you? 😛
Re: your old place – Can you use something like registered mail to send your landlord a letter with the same info that you had in the email? Dont know if it would make a difference, but if you have proof that they received your letter, it is better than them claiming, “Mr. John, we never received your email.”.
Re: the business sign – funny, but I will repeat the tweet I saw and mentioned earlier. “A man who carries a gun into church tells me I am afraid because I wear a mask”. Personally (and statistically), I am pretty sure that there was and is a much higher chance of me dying from COVID in 2020 and 2021 than being the victim of a random attack on the street that would leave me dead. Does that sign apply to those that either open or conceal carry? 😀 But a funny sign nonetheless. LOL
» Posted By Brian On 10/May/2021 @ 9:49 am
Love the third picture. To me, seems to capture the essence of the Philippines.
» Posted By Brian On 09/May/2021 @ 10:53 am
Re: eating bamboo. I have eaten it quite a lot in Taiwan. They call it “baby bamboo” and it is quite tender. I assume it is the shoots when it is first growing. It is actually pretty tasty. Served different ways – stir fried, shaved, etc. I would imagine that if you look hard enough, you would find there in PI.
» Posted By Brian On 09/May/2021 @ 10:49 am
Bamboo is an interesting grass. Looks like a pain in the ass to harvest, but such a versatile plant. Eat it, cover your floor with it, use it make a shelter, etc. 1001 uses.
» Posted By Brian On 08/May/2021 @ 1:32 am
John – yup, hope the malaise is short lived.
RE: routines. I think it is human nature to want a sense of routine in our lives. I read an article once about how the human body reacts to something new, and there is a “rush” when that happens. First dates, first time to a new country, etc etc etc. But if everything was “new” all the time, it would be information overload and the brain could not handle it. So we go back to the comfort of routine. Gives the brain and soul a bit of a rest.
» Posted By Brian On 07/May/2021 @ 12:30 am
Is on line grocery shopping made any inroads there? Is that a possibility at all? I am guessing probably not, especially with perishable items.
» Posted By Brian On 07/May/2021 @ 12:19 am
The problem with any vaccine is that they are not 100% effective. So, if you are the only one vaccinated, and everyone else is not, you still have a chance of getting it. Statistically, if a large percentage has the vaccine, the odds go WAY WAY down that any one person will get it.
I agree that governments response has, in many cases, been overblown and ineffective, but (and this is a big but) I dont see it changing. The recent pictures of people dying in the parking lots of hospitals in India will only reinforce in their minds the need to “keep the hammer down” when there is a real (or perceived) outbreak.
I really believe that if the overall vaccination rate does not go up, a year from now, we will still be complaining that XX pub had to close for two weeks, capacity at YY is limited, if I want to travel to another country, I will have to quarantine for two weeks, regardless of if I was vaccinated or not, etc etc
Thailand was pretty much open. There was a recent flare up. What happened? Restrictions on restaurants, bars, etc.
Scenario #1 – high % vaccinated. Things get back to normal “relatively” quickly.
Scenario #2 – 50% vaccination rate. Periodic flare up of COVID. Restrictions resume for weeks, months until it subsides. Repeat for years.At the risk of sounding like a communist or hippy, sometimes you just have to “take one for the team”, and have what’s good for society outweigh what I think is good for me personally.
» Posted By Brian On 04/May/2021 @ 1:04 am
Re: Vaccines. I have been involved either directly or indirectly in R&D for most of my career (but not in pharmaceuticals). I am pretty comfortable with how the process played out and the development went. I do not believe that corners were cut, or steps removed from the process. Most of the delays in “regular” R&D is because there is a LOT of waiting for funding, corporate bureaucracy, changes in company goals, new executives, etc
Typical R&D process
1. come up with an idea
2. WAIT for approval and funding
3. do a bench top proof of principle
4. WAIT (and WAIT) for approval and funding
5. do a pilot plant study
6. WAIT (and WAIT and WAIT) for approval and funding
7. WAIT because the company’s attention got diverted
8. scale up to small commercial size
9. see #2, #4, #6, #7
10. bring to market
Hence, a 5-10 year time frame from #1 – #10for the vaccines
#1. already done
#2, #4. #6, #7 were not in the picture. Funding was there. No wait time.
#5 was started before #3 was complete. There was no lag time in moving from #3 to #5. If #3 was successful, the pilot plants were already built, study parameters were already in place, raw materials, etc were already there and ready to go, if not started
#8 was started while #5 was in progress. No lag time. Etc.From what I have heard from those involved in the industry, we hear about the big three vaccines in the US (Pfizer, J&J, and Moderna). There were multiple other companies that were working on COVID vaccine development. For whatever reason, step #3 failed, step #5 failed, etc. You didn’t really hear about these, but it wasn’t just three companies doing work on vaccines. It was these three companies that were successful and met all stage gates of the process.
I think the biggest argument I would make in favor of vaccines, is that if we do not increase the % of people who get the vaccine, we will continue to muddle along half-assedly (dont think that is a word, but you get the idea 🙂 ) under partial restrictions. Capacity limits, partial lockdowns, etc etc etc. Rightly or wrongly, I believe that the only way that governments around the world will relax things back to “normal” is if there is X% (80%?+) of the people vaccinated.
Complaining about the status quo, but yet not wanting to get vaccinated seem to be counter intuitive.
With the recent events in India, I dont see things changing unless the vaccination rate goes up.
Anyway, interesting discussion.
RE: the menu – is that where you get your Korean wings?
» Posted By Brian On 03/May/2021 @ 2:34 am
Yup, that is why they play the game, rather than just taking the results from what is predicted.
Overall, seems like the evening turned out pretty good.
On a side note, and spoken as a complete amateur when it comes to darts; I always thought that you did have an influence what your opponent had to play. More of an indirect influence I guess. Forcing them to go for a different number for example.
» Posted By Brian On 02/May/2021 @ 2:44 am
LIke the joke goes
“I gave up beer, women, and sex. It was the worst 15 minutes of my life”
» Posted By Brian On 30/April/2021 @ 5:22 am
Just some random thoughts:
Overall, I think it is smart that you will be making the move. If you stay, it would just eat at you. But you will be paying $600 or $700 for your new place. So, you are paying 66% of your old rent for 50% of the space? Somewhat of an apples to oranges comparison I would imagine however.
Do you know the upstairs neighbors? As you are an “early to bed, early to rise” type of guy, any idea if they follow the same schedule or will they be keeping you up late with music, walking on the floor with heels, doing jumping jacks at midnight, etc.
Are the maids quarters on your floor and is there someone there now?
Any concerns that the current landlord will hassle you (or try to withhold part/all of your security deposit) when you take the A/C’s and appliances?
How long will you be locked into the new place? If you see something that really catches your eye in the next year, would you be able to make the move?
Anyway, good luck and I am sure that it will out just fine for you.
» Posted By Brian On 29/April/2021 @ 11:54 am
It is funny/interesting how some TV shows and movies age well, and others just do not. I have come across the same issue that you had with the Addams Family – I remember a show/movie being really good, but upon rewatching it years later, not so much.
On the other hand, Citizen Kane is often thought of as one of the (if not the) best movie ever made. IMO, It looks a bit dated when watched today. However, it set a standard and a lot of innovations used in the film inspired generations of movie making.
Re: living as a sole foreigner. I spent about a year in Indonesia as the only foreigner for probably about 50 miles. My house was in a gated community, so no problems or worries about theft, beggars, etc. Social media was in its’ infancy, so no problems or drama from that either. I actually had a pretty good time and enjoyed the time spent there – I find Indonesians quite friendly overall, and the language is easy to learn. (Knowing a bit of the native tongue (in any country) goes a long way in breaking the ice.)
The biggest hassle I had in that situation was that everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, knew what I was up to all the time. From people at work, random shopkeepers, waitresses at restaurants, etc. all knew who I was and where I had been the previous day, night, if I had been with anybody, etc. I have some empathy for really famous people in the regard. LOL I wasn’t looking for a relationship at the time, and realized that due to the circumstances, I was much better off doing nothing that would cause any talk and come back to haunt me later.
» Posted By Brian On 25/April/2021 @ 1:07 pm
I assume the has a motorized winch on it to move it to/from shore to bar? Or is it human power to move it?
» Posted By Brian On 24/April/2021 @ 10:27 am
Same type of business arrangement in Thailand. I know a foreign guy who has a bar, and he cannot even be seen behind the bar, because if the police come in and see him behind the bar, he is thought to be “working”, and could have his visa revoked, etc. I have heard stories about a foreigner “owning” a bar, but everything is in their partners name. Partnership/relationship goes south, and oops, there goes the bar/restaurant.
I believe that if you employ a certain number of full time Thai staff, you can then have a stake in the business.
» Posted By Brian On 23/April/2021 @ 1:49 am
«« Back To Stats PageAs is often the case, Kevin speaks sooth. LOL
BTW, Blacklist is a good show. Watched the first 4 seasons or so and liked them. For whatever reason, I stopped watching. I will have to re-watch and catch up. Believe it is on season 7 or so.
» Posted By Brian On 21/April/2021 @ 8:26 am