mr. balloon

while looking up kerry's nomination acceptance speech i came across a funny article about a blooper from the event. apparently a large number of balloons failed to release after the event, sending the director of the convention center into a panic heard on-air:

'no confetti. no confetti yet. go balloons. go balloons. more balloons. all balloons. all balloons. come on guys, let's move it," began a relatively calm mr mischer.

soon afterward however the dnc director begam to panic.

"jesus, we need more balloons. i want all balloons to go, goddamn. no confetti. no confetti. no confetti. i want more balloons. what's happening to the balloons? we need more balloons. we need all of them coming down... balloons.

"go balloons, balloons... what's happening balloons, there's not enough coming down. all balloons - where the hell - there's nothing falling," mr mischer said, before finally exploding: "what the f... are you guys doing up there?"

sorry, wrong number

just had a wrong number on my mobile phone. i answered my usual, 'hi, jeremy speaking' when i don't know the number, which was followed by a pause... then *click* the person hung up. the same person called back and when i answered they hung up again.

i get this a lot as if one dials a 02 prefix instead of a 01 followed by my number it'll connect you to telewiz, a chain of mobile phone shops. wasn't always this way- about two years ago the number was changed for a telewiz outlet somewhere and the wrong numbers started.

in the beginning i'd answer with a simple 'hello' and would get an earful of thai after which i'd have to politely explain in thai that they have the wrong number, and if they dial 02 they will reach telewiz. sometime after about the 100th wrong number i grew tired of this and started answering the phone with the phrase 'hi, jeremy speaking', which was enough to let (most) callers know they didn't reach a mobile phone shop.

what i found was that instead of letting me know they dialled a wrong number, most hung up. a few times when i've been busy and annoyed i called back to ask the person why they had called- one or two apologized and explained they dialled the wrong number but a couple of others (from mobile phones) hung up! i suppose it's down to a lack of confidence in english, or not knowing what to say if a scary farang answers the phone.

had one amusing missed call which i could see from the incoming number was from a northern province. the old woman on the phone ignored my 'hi, jeremy speaking' and politely requested to speak to someone. i replied in thai that she had the wrong number. she asked me who i was and i told her i was a farang (foreigner) and she had called my mobile phone. she then started asking me where i was and if i was a farang then why could i speak thai! after a few minutes i convinced her that i didn't know her daughter/friend/etc and she hung up. :-)

on a more bizarre note i once received a series of sms text messages from a clearly irate girl who asked me to stop my wife(!) from contacting her. i replied she had the wrong person, that i was not married, and i had no idea what she was on about. she didn't believe me and launched into a text message tirade about my having met her a few nights earlier when i was out with my wife and how the wife was now bothering her and if i didn't do something about it she would go to the police. after double-checking to make sure i hadn't blacked out one evening i just stopped answering her messages. finally the next day the girl on the other end sent me an apology, saying the number was wrong. nice one!!!!!

german grand prix

with schumacher on the pole in a ferrari at his home grand prix, this past weekend's formula one race looked to be another snooze-fest. in reality the race was one of the first truly exciting f1 races i've seen in ages with crashes, clashes, disintegrating car parts, tyre failures, and most importantly a lot of passing on the track!

alonsi and button fought a great battle for second place, with button eventually taking the position after having qualified 13th. schumacher won, setting yet another record, but the racing down the positions was the best i've seen in years.

for once i'm looking forward to the next race!

a view from above

i recently rediscovered the really cool spaceimaging site which has put many of the ikonos satellite photos online, like this one of some hotel huts in bora-bora. ikonos takes photos of the earth from 400 miles up while traveling at 17,000 miles an hour- an amazing feat considering half my photos are blurred when i take them while standing still.

i love looking at satellite photos of remote locations and wondering about the lives of the people who live there. if you click on the bora-bora thumb you can download the full image- an entire island world of 5000+ people visible on your desktop.

from the window seat of a 747  there's often some incredible scenery- flying over remote areas of alaska, the american rockies and desert, and the vast number of unpopulated islands in myanmar really gives one a different perspective from life in a big city. of course these days i usually opt for an aisle seat so i can get up and walk around without disturbing anyone.

was hoping for some good satellite photos of bangkok but the site seems to be quite selective as far as what they make available online. there's a good view of wat pho, but the other bangkok images aren't too special.

found on another site some different views of bangkok, chiang mai, and (oddly enough) nong khai. the link to sukhumvit is broken- click here for the correct url. nana skytrain station is in the center of the photo, which looks to be taken in 2002 or before as sukhumvit square hasn't yet been demolished and the ambassador shopping center is still intact.

another reason to stay on land

satellites used to explain monster waves
rogue waves more common than thought, study finds

this rare photo of a rogue wave was taken by first mate philippe lijour aboard the supertanker esso languedoc, during a storm off durban in south africa in 1980. the wave approached the ship from behind before breaking over the deck, but in this case caused only minor damage. the wave was between 16 and 33 feet (5-10 meters) tall.

monster waves of mysterious origin prowl the oceans, surprising ship captains as they appear on the horizon like great walls before crashing across the bow, or worse.

windows of luxury liners get broken. supertankers are disabled and left vulnerable to the whim of the next wave. many ships disappear. "two large ships sink every week on average, but the cause is never studied to the same detail as an air crash," says wolfgang rosenthal of the gkss forschungszentrum gmbh research center [try saying that 5 times fast - jeremy] in germany. "it simply gets put down to bad weather."

a significant handful of these sunken ships -- about 200 over the past two decades -- are supertankers or large container ships, according to a statement explaining rosenthal's new research.

the cause for most of the mishaps is a mystery, but so-called rogue waves as tall as 10-story buildings are believed to be the major culprit in many cases. yet until recent years, scientists doubted such strangely huge waves occurred so frequently.

a new study based on satellite data and lab experiments reveals the rogues are fairly common and helps explain how they form.

the queen elizabeth ii was struck by a 95-foot (29-meter) rogue wave in february 1995. captain ronald warwick said "a great wall of water" appeared. "it looked as if we were going into the white cliffs of dover.

on jan. 1 1995 an oil rig in the north sea was hit by an 85-foot (26-meter) wave. the waves around it were less than half as tall.

in one week during early 2001, two tourist vessels, the bremen and the caledonian star, were smacked by separate 98-foot (30-meter) waves in the south atlantic while the ships were 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) apart. windows on the bridge of each ship were broken and the bremen was disabled and left adrift for about two hours.

rosenthal, an expert on rogue waves, and his colleagues obtained satellite data taken during the time of the mishaps with the two cruise ships. the data were collected by the european space agency's twin spacecraft ers-1 and 2, which employ a technique called synthetic aperture radar to measure wave height.

in the three weeks of satellite data, researchers found 10 waves in various parts of the world that were more than 82 feet (25 meters) high. that added a global perspective to information collected from various oil platforms. (a radar device on the north sea's goma oilfield counted 466 rogue waves over 12 years.)

the giants often form where normal waves meet strong ocean currents or eddies, the new analysis shows. a current can concentrate wave energy, causing a wave to grow. also, a series of fast waves can catch a set of slower-moving waves and merge into a single beast.
rogues also develop from weather fronts and low-pressure systems. winds blowing in one direction for long periods of time -- more than 12 hours -- can create unusually large waves.
 
scientists already know that, and anyone living along the southeast coast of the united states has seen large waves arrive days in advance of an approaching hurricane.
the new research found that some waves travel in sync with the wind, setting up superb growth conditions. quicker waves move ahead of the storm and slower waves fall behind, in both cases causing them to dissipate somewhat.

more needs to be learned, including whether the deadly waves can be predicted.

"we know some of the reasons for the rogue waves, but we do not know them all," rosenthal said.

vietnam trip report

my trip to vietnam went like this:
- arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare
- stood in a long line to check in
- handed over my ticket, passport, and royal orchid card at the check-in counter
- was asked where my new vietnam visa was as the one in my passport had just expired
- i find out that there is no new visa and there's absolutely no way to get one on arrival
- went back to my apartment

i really ought to have double-checked the visa, but i'm not happy with the people in my office who arranged my trip as they're supposed to take care of this stuff. argh!!!!!!!!!! the only saving grace is that thais don't need a visa so one of my staff was able to go to vietnam and take care of my customer. was really looking forward to this trip, though....

a night at the movies

if you're thinking of going to see a movie in thailand, be sure to check out the movieseer website which lists movie times in all major theaters- surprisingly not just in bangkok but all over the country as well. the folks have a mobile site at wap.movieseer.com, though it costs something like 20 baht per month. might seem unimpressive for those of you living in america or england, but for thailand having this sort of information at one's fingertips is unusual.

unfortunately, the selection of movies in thailand is never too wonderful. today at egv our choices are catwoman, i robot, or the chronicles of riddick - with i robot probably getting the nod as it's the 'least worst' of the bunch according to rottentomatoes.

the lido group of theaters used to show some decent movies- they were the only places in town showing mystic river and the pianist, but now they've become quite mainstream. there is hope, however, as i read in the paper (and on masie's blog) that a new independent cinema has opened up in rca called houserama. will check it out soon, though i expect the foreign-language films will be subtitled in thai.

for an interesting experience check out the egv 'gold class' cinema in siam square. couldn't find any photos online of the actual theater, but it's a smallish venue with enormous barcalounger-type chairs.

on the subject of movies, anything and everything you could possibly want to know about a movie you've seen is here at the internet movie database. Highly recommend you check it out!

subway construction photo exhibit

it has been open for weeks now but i've still not taken a ride on the bangkok subway. i ought to find time to do it, but as most of my life tracks the east-west path of the skytrain i really don't have much of a need, so it means i'll have to make up my mind one day to take a ride to nowhere

from august 3rd through the 31st my photographer friend marc schultz will be exhibiting some amazing shots he took of the subway while it was under construction. the subway retrospective will be held in the gallery f-stop at tamarind cafe on sukhumvit soi 20. you can see more details about the exhibition here.

bobby fischer

i read in the news today that the mysterious chess champion, bobby fischer, has surfaced in japan where he was detained as he tried to leave the country.  apparently it all stems back from his 1992 rematch against boris spassky as it was held in yugoslavia which at the time under international sanctions. bobby's american passport was later revoked and this apparently is what the japanese have caught. looks like the us government might finally catch bobby, who faces a 10-year jail term as well as countless fines and has been on the run for years.

on the subject of odd chess personalities, a while ago i stumbled across the website of sam sloan. sam has been descibed as, "US Chess Federation candidate, taxi-driver, polygamist, gadfly – all these epitaphs fit one of the most colorful personalities in world chess. Sam Sloan has been jailed in Afghanistan, fought Pakistani kidnappers, had lunch with terrorist mastermind bin Laden, fled US courts who want access to his father's alleged $50 million fortune. And you thought chess players led dull lives?"

to learn more about who sam is, read what he has to say about himself and enter his bizarre world. he's no stranger to thailand....

chic asia

a quick recommendation to check out chicasia.com if you live here in bangkok. most of the online restaurant and nightlife guides i've encountered tend to be either quite random in their selection or hopelessly out of date, but this one is quite good. the club selections are farang-centric and a bit behind the curve, but the restaurant selections are top-notch.

cabbages and condoms

last week the international conference on aids was held here in bangkok, amid predictable amounts of controversy and bizarre antics.

the event was co-chaired by senator mechai viravaidya, owner of the well-known cabbages and condoms restaurant and hotels. the cabbages and condoms locations generate revenue used to support mechai's population and community development association (pda) charity work.
 
the pda building is located next to the cabbages and condoms restaurant on sukhumvit soi 12. apparently one can get a free vasectomy after any meal purchase but i'm not sure that many people take up the offer.

overall, the decor is nice and the food is very good. service can be a bit on the slow side, especially when busy. be forewarned that the spicier dishes haven't been toned down to suit foreign tastes, unlike other popular thai restaurants such as lemongrass and the spice market. my favorites from c&c are tom kha gai, panaeng (spicy), gai pad met mamuang himmapan (a typical farang choice), gaeng keow wan, and for dessert khao niow mamuang.

definitely recommended to try at least once and a fun interesting place to take visitors. if you live in the center city you can also order their food via the room service or food by phone delivery companies.

fahrenheit 9/11 - dodgy dvd review

picked up a copy of fahrenheit 9/11 from panthip plaza yesterday. cost me 120 baht (usd4.00).

the quality of the dvd is good even though it looks to have been recorded in a theater- certainly watchable. the subtitles aren't always accurate (as you can see in this screen shot of the infamous quote about hussein) and the subtitles tend to skip long parts of dialogue. i've got to think that the thai translation is even further away.

the movie is done in the same distinctive style seen in bowling for columbine. i didn't find it as striking as i hoped it'd be- probably because i had read lots of reviews of the movie already so already knew about many of the scenes.

overall, moore does very a good job of showing how the administration sought to use the 9/11 attacks as leverage to eventually invade iraq. i expect this will have opened a lot eyes back in america.

during the bombing campaign before the invasion i remember seeing on cnn a bomb being loaded onto an aircraft, the bomb having been painted with the words, 'remember 9/11'. many people truly believe(d) there was a direct link between hussein and the 9/11 attacks, but of course now even bush has acknowledged that there was no link.

in the movie the word 'lies' is mentioned many times but i see it as something more subtle- it's an case study of how a government successfully used the media and other outlets to shift public perception. the bush administration is far from being alone in this approach, but emotions come into play here because of 9/11 itself as well as the mounting casualties. moore certainly plays on this.

it's a good movie and definitely worth watching. also highly recommend the fog of war, which can also be found at your favorite local dodgy dvd store.

fahrenheit 9/11 - in theaters august 2

a good one from david letterman's top ten lists...

bush's top 10 complaints about "fahrenheit 9/11":
10. that actor who played the president was totally unconvincing
9. it oversimplified the way i stole the election
8. too many of them fancy college-boy words
7. if michael moore had waited a few months, he could have included the part where i get him deported
6. didn't have one of them hilarious monkeys who smoke cigarettes and gives people the finger
5. of all michael moore's accusations, only 97% are true
4. not sure - i passed out after a piece of popcorn lodged in my windpipe
3. where the hell was spider-man?
2. couldn't hear most of the movie over cheney's foul mouth
1. i thought this was supposed to be about dodgeball

pineapples, mangoes, and... durian

one interesting thing about living in asia is all of the exotic fruit available. the pineapple here is amazingly sweet and juicy- so much better than the sour pineapple wedges we get in cans back home. there are a many different varieties and sizes of bananas. pummelo look like and has the texture of large grapefruit, but are not bitter. mangoes are eaten both ripe when the fruit is sweet and orange in color, and commonly eaten before it has ripened- when it is a pale green color and quite tart. there are also a lot of interesting and odd-looking fruit like mangosteen, lychee, longgan and rambutan but i'm not a big fan of fruits with seeds inside (too much of a hassle) so i don't eat as much of those.

by far the most bizarre fruit here has got to be the durian. it's a large fruit, around the size of a bowling ball, with a spiky green exterior as you can see in the photo. it grows on very tall trees and, as with coconuts, you don't want to be sitting under the tree when the fruit comes crashing down.

of course what everyone notices first about the durian is its smell, described as 'banana, mango, pineapple, pawpaw (all somewhat over-ripe) and vanilla', 'garlic, smoked ham, and rancid cheese', or 'the flesh of some animal in a state of putrefaction' depending on who you ask. thais say that the fruit smells like hell but tastes like heaven. f.w. bubridge, a 19th-century explorer described the taste in detail as 'a combination of corn flour and rotten cheese, nectarines, crushed filberts, a dash of pineapple, a spoonful of old dry sherry, thick cream, apricot pulp and a soupcon of garlic, all reduced to the consistency of a rich custard'. doesn't sound like heaven to me!

part of the problem is that the fruit is so stinky- a single ripened fruit sitting warm hotel lobby could fill the entire area with the smell. hence the fruit has been banned in most public places and on public transport here in thailand. some hotels and buildings have signs specifically prohibiting durian, like the one shown here. that doesn't stop people from trying to sneak durian onto buses, into taxis, and even onto airplanes.

last year there was a security alert when someone tried to check in a box of durian onto a virgin blue flight in australia. virgin blue's boss described the smell as 'something you'd find in your outdoor dunny (toilet)' and noted that he could smell the durian from '50 feet away' when the plane was parked on the tarmac.

so with all that said, why are some people so crazy about durian? i've got to think that, like smelly cheese or natto, durian is an acquired taste that's difficult to adapt to in later life. a bit ashamed to admit it, but after all these years i've never tried fresh durian. i did try durian ice cream but wasn't very impressed- the taste was exactly the same as the smell... urgh. one thing that really did surprise me was fried durian chips- i tried them and they're really great and taste absolutely nothing like durian stench.

it may be an old wives' tale, but there's a common belief here that eating durian and drinking alcohol is dangerous or even deadly, but the recent health warning focuses more on the high calorific content rather than any dangers with alcohol. Durian can be dangerous in other ways, as the spikey fruit can be fatal if it falls from a tree or building and strikes someone. supposedly durians were hurled at invading burmese via a durian catapult when the two countries were warring.

crazier still, some people believe that durians can act as an aphrodisiac and are being marketed as an alternative to viagra in some western countries.

if you want to try durian, this website recommends the mon thong ('golden pillow') durian as you will experience 'no stomach cramps and no excessive winds as with cabbage, and no discharge pain as with chili. but there will be burping, and burps do smell like the durian fruit...' the author goes on to note that advantage of the mon thong is that although 'there will still be burping, ... it's not as frequent as with other varieties.' not sure if excessive burping would negate or accentuate the aphrodisiac qualities of durian.

perhaps i'll pick up the courage to try some fresh durian (of the mon thong variety) the next time i'm in a market. in the meantime, pass me those durian chips!

old maps of bangkok

i've been looking for some old maps of bangkok but haven't found too much yet.

2bangkok has an old french map along with some engravings and amusing text from a disgusted french visitor from 1892. monsier fournereau felt that bangkok was in a sorry state and what thailand really needed was french colonial influence for things to improve. someone must have listened to m. fournereau as the next year thailand was forced to give up laos to france as well as a number of other concessions in exchange for, well, nothing.

wikipedia has a more detailed german map from 1888, showing plantations and a mangrove forest near the mouth of the chao phraya river.

it's interesting to see how how relatively undeveloped bangkok was at the time, despite having been the capital of thailand for over 100 years. if you know of some more interesting historical maps of bangkok online, please let me know.

pac man-drian

mondrian was an early 20th-century neo-plasticist painter with a style reminiscent of my first attempts at trying to master microsoft paint. pac-man was an addictive early 80s arcade game where the objective was to gobble up dots while chased by four colorful ghosts.

combine the two and what do you get? pac mondrian.

formula one + euro cup = sleepy

last night i took a nap from 9pm to 11pm to give myself energy to stay awake for the euro cup final shown live in the middle of the night thailand time. for my american friends tuning in, this was a big football (soccer) tournament among european national teams. a couple of lesser-ranked teams wound up in the final, the favorite and home team of portugal and the underdog greek team.

needless to say, it was a great game with portugal completely dominating in terms of the number of shots taken but greece pulling through to win 1 to 0 despite constant pressure. you can read a good summary on pisal's page.

in other sports news, the earlier formula one gp of france was won by none other than (get ready for it...) michael schumacher. looked like alonso had a chance for a while, but the ferrari team used an interesting strategy and pitted 4 times- ferrari's gain by running a lighter fuel load and overall better tires more than offset the time difference to the then-leading alonso, so schumacher exited the last pitstop ahead of the renault.

actually saw some passing on the track for once, with barichello moving from tenth to fourth and then passing trulli on one of the last corners of the race to take third place and a podium spot.

megapixel madness

as a reward for coming to visit my page today i have decided to completely bore you with some info on my pending digital camera purchase.

my current camera is a fuji finepix 50i. i bought it a couple of years ago when it was "the pinnacle of current digital technology, offering superb image quality, a movie mode with sound and an MP3 audio player in the slimmest digital camera ever available". the specs at the time were cutting edge, but it's definitely showing it's age compared to the cameras out there now.

when i was thinking about buying the fuji i got into a debate with my good friend joe. he was also shopping for a camera but was looking at larger ones with more features, more pixels, etc. he'd send me articles with so-so reviews for the fuji. i wound up buying the fuji as i thought that the portability would outweigh the megapixel deficit. overall i've been happy with my choice over the last couple of years and i'm pleased with the photos i've taken with it.

one feature i thought i'd use and but didn't was the mp3 function as the actual mp3s eat up too much space on the smartmedia card and my mp3 player is much easier to use. one feature i didn't think i'd use and use a lot is the ability to take mpeg movies, like those you can see in my linkin park blog entry. i only wish the quality of the movies were a bit better.


all the photos on this blog up until today were taken with my fuji, but i feel it's now time to retire my it and upgrade to a new camera. with so many choices in the market, the first thing to decide is what type of camera i want to buy. i'll almost certainly go for another ultra-portable model as if i wanted to get serious, i'd invest a few thousand bucks into an slr digital camera and some good lenses.

here are the cameras i'm considering:
- pentax optio s4 - (review) (review) one of the best of the ultra-compact camera segment. one big improvement over the fuji is the 3x optical zoom- amazing that it can fit into such a tiny body. picture quality (at a higher res) and functions probably on par with what i have now.

- casio exilim ex-z40 - (review) the casio equivalent to the pentax, using a pentax 3x zoom. very similar to the pentax in spec, only slightly larger. difficult to choose between the two- i'd probably lean towards the casio if only because service could be an issue out here in asia with some of the lesser-known brands.

- sony dsc-w1 - (review) (review) sony, the king of proprietary since betamax, is still using their memory sticks in their products. this is one reason i've never given sony a serious look for cameras. not really a good reason, though, as i find that for my mp3 player, palm pilot, and cameras i've wound up buying them each their own memory anyway. finally here's a sony that's a contender- good size, 3x optical zoom, great movie mode, and (wow) 5 megapixels in its small body.

- canon powershot s500/digital elph - (review) (review) similar specs to the sony, 3x optical zoom and a 5 megapixel sensor. good movie mode, limited to 3 minutes- which is fine as i can't imagine watching a tiny grainy movie for more than a few seconds anyway. overall got great review and the sample photos look decent.

- casio exilim ex-s3 - (review) (review) a super-slim camera, only half an inch thick. can't get much more portable than this in a camera with more than 3 megapixels. although the reviews are generally favorable, i'd lose some functionality with it's fixed-focus and it's at a pixel deficit compared with the other cameras. like my fuji, no optical zoom only digital. looks really cool, though, and i'm a sucker for cool....

- pentax optio 555 - (review) (review) this is what would be called a mid-size camera these days, and i'm not sure it'll pass my portability requirement. will be interesting to take a look at this one, as it's got a 5x optical zoom and boasts 5 megapixels.

- casio exilim pro ex-p600 - (review) (review) this is i think the largest of the exilim series, probably better called exichunky. a bulging-pant-pocket camera, it makes up for its size with a 4x optical zoom and (whoah) 6 megapixels. lots of features and the sample pictures i've seen in the review sites are great.

i'm disappointed that fuji doesn't have a better offering as i've always used fuji digital cameras. the company used to be on the forefront of small camera design and technology, but the only camera i found in the compact segment (the a340) really doesn't measure up to the competition.

video camera sensors are becoming better and better, with some able to take decent still images. the sony dcr pc 330 is one of the best compact video cameras on the market, but is only capable of taking 2.1 megapixel stills which i've read don't measure up to the quality found in dedicated 2 megapixel digital cameras. still, one day the technology will converge- i'm looking forward to it as there are definitely times i've had a still camera with me and wished i had a proper video camera.

will head to pantip plaza this week to make my decision. any suggestions? there's also a nice fuji finepix 50i for sale if you're in the market for a camera.

thai music

as the friends and family who read this blog are mostly elsewhere in the world, i thought i'd give you a little introduction to music here in thailand. while you're reading this you can listen to some music yourself, at the kapook music station. scroll down and click on the name of the song to listen to it- though if you can't read thai this of course will be quite random for you.

i won't get into thai country or folk music yet, as those are given about the same level of respect in bangkok as american country music gets in new york city. what the typical bangkokian younger generation listens to is thai pop and rock music, with a heavy dose of western music mixed in.

what a foreigner ('farang') notices right away about the thai popular music here is how dominated it is by sappy love songs, bubble-gum dance hits, and power ballads. if you turn one one of the local music video channels you'll invariably see either a (very cute) female singer wailing on about life in general or a (very cute) singer bouncing around to a catchy dance tune. much of the time it's songs about broken hearts, love that was never meant to be, and so on and so on.

there are some good rock music bands here, like silly fool and (ever-popular among farang) loso. i find that on their cds the songs are mostly ballads, with only one or two faster songs. this is the complete opposite of the west, where most rock/metal bands will have one, two, or no ballads.

the industry is dominated by two giants- grammy and rs promotion. they often put together groups similar to the 'idol' bands in japan or boy bands in the west. seems like a lot of singers get a break by knowing the right people, having good connections, or sometimes outright purchasing video and air play.

although a lot of half-thai ('luk kreung') singers can sing in english, to my knowledge no thai groups have become successful internationally. probably the closest is tata young, a talkative half-thai who i've actually met before (another story), as she had a couple of recent hits that got regional airplay. one song in particular, 'sexy, naughty, bitchy' seemed like it had the right sound but none of my friends in other countries have heard of it before.

Here are some songs to give you a sampling of popular music. have a listen and let me know what you think:

nam lai (saliva) - silly fools. silly fools is one of the more successful rock bands in thailand now. this is a very popular semi-ballad type song that'd pretty good

sexy - paradox paradox has quite a unique fun style. it's too bad some of their older (in my opinion better) songs aren't online. sexy is decent.

kor chet nam dta (wipe away your tears) - clash this is one of those power ballad songs with sappy lyrics i mentioned earlier. "i know that i can't replace him. i know he's the only one in your heart. all i ask is for you to softly dry your tears, like i used to do when we were lovers" oh please! *puke*

yak rong dang dang (i want to shout it out loud) - palmy palmy is one of those 'luk kreung' singers who appeared on the scene a couple of years ago. her style was quite different, a bit alanis morissettish, and her first album sold very well.

panthip - loso panthip plaza is the computer center of bangkok, where one can buy all sorts of international software for 100 baht ($2.50) per disc. anyway, the the singer in this song is suggesting to his date various places to go, but he absolutely won't go to panthip because a girl who broke his heart opened up a store there.

meow meow - kat english one of those bubble-gum dance tunes sung by another 'luk kreung'

chao na gup ngoo hao (the farmer and the cobra) - fly fly has been popular for many years. this particular song is about a farmer who nurses a sick snake back to health, but the snake eventually bites him and he dies- the morale of the story being you can't change someone's basic character. the video for this song shows fly being struck down by an evil (though attractive) woman he presumably tried to help.

704 - da jim thailand's answer to hip-hop. da jim's first cd forced thailand to grapple with the issue of explicit lyrics. the answer was not a warning sticker but to ban the cd outright and da jim was forced to release a much tamer cd. i've got a rare copy of the original naughty album- course it doesn't mean so much to me when the singer shouts out 'monitor lizard' a few times.

that's my quick round-up of the music scene here... hope you enjoyed!