WannaGo

"A hooker cut to look like Lana Turner is still a hooker."

"That is Lana Turner."

"Queen Suriyothai"

This is another movie you should see if you want to know more about Thai culture. It describe the fight between Thailand and Burma when Thailand was known as Siam. One interesting fact about Thailand is that it has been the only southeast Asian country to never been colonized by another country.

Thanks. Netflix doesn't have it, so I'll have to try to find it elsewhere.

I'm not so sure of that - especially when you often can buy a dvd ripoff of a movie in Asia (i.e., Thailand) within a few weeks of the movie's release! And for 100 baht (heck of a lot less than going to the movie theater).

Back in the "napster" days, I was looking forward to the release of the new Sek Loso album "Black & White." I happened to download it for free the week before it was released! (yea, I know, I'm bad....)

That's kind of my point. If people could buy movie tickets or DVDs at a reasonable price, there wouldn't be nearly so many people pirating them. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to buy or download a legit copy of a movie for the same price you can get a bootleg. The studios have artificially inflated the value of their products and are trying to hold them there, rather than recognizing that the consumers don't place the same value on them.

The other thing they do that drives me crazy is this schedule they have of releasing the movie in theaters, then to on-demand, then onto DVD months later, the finally to cable. They're trying to maximize their profits at each stage, I get that.

But there are a lot of people who only use maybe one or two of those platforms. Personally, I haven't been to a theater in a couple of years and never buy on-demand from the cable company. I only watch movies on DVD or online, and I imagine my movie habits are fairly typical. So people like me have two choices...wait, and wait, and wait for the studios to release a movie onto DVD and for download, or get a pirated copy soon after the movie comes out in theaters.

Again, there's no reason they can't release simultaneously to theaters, DVD, on-demand, and online. If they would give consumers choices that match their lifestyles and needs, I bet they'd actually start making a few more dollars and seeing a lot less piracy than happens now, IMHO.

10) They are running to the bathroom to vomit.

9) All the pretty young ladies have a big smile on their face.

8) A CBS intern says Bill Clinton said it's OK.

7) They all wore a paper bag over their head so their mommas wouldn't see them on the next Top 10 list.

6) You Can Tell If A CBS Employee Had Sex With Dave because they are the ones with hundred dollar bills coming out of their pockets.

5) She starts dressing up like Bristol Palin.

By the way, if any of you in the States ever get the urge to find some diamonds, there's this state park in Arkansas my family visited one summer when I was a kid. It's called Crater of Diamonds, and it has fields where you can dig for diamonds and keep what you find. I dug for two days and didn't turn up crap, but apparently people find diamonds all the time. Mostly industrial grade, from what I understand, but still cool. From the park's website, it looks like the last big one was a 5.75 ct from earlier this year.

I've never had to give someone CPR -- and only barely remember how from Army training -- but I hope the need never arises. The idea of someone throwing up in my mouth is enough to make me need reviving.

Whatever happened to that car that Tata Motors was touting a while back? As I recall, it was going to list for only a few thousand dollars and allow many Indians to be able to buy a car.

If you are talking about the Tata Nano, it looks like the first one was delivered in July:

"Tata Motors is pleased to announce that Mr. Ashok Raghunath Vichare of Mumbai has become the first customer in India of the Tata Nano. Mr. Vichare received his choice, the Tata Nano LX (Lunar Silver), at the hands of the Chairman of Tata Sons and Tata Motors, Mr. Ratan N. Tata, at the company’s dealership, Concorde Motors, today."

Apparently, there was a selection process for buyers of the first 100,000 cars. Those people have been chosen, and the company says it expects to get all the cars delivered by the last quarter of 2010.

From Tata's website: "All efforts will be made to deliver earlier, by ramping up production at the already operational Pantnagar plant and the fast upcoming Sanand plant. The successful allottees will also be sent discount vouchers of Titan and Westside valid at their outlets across India."

It's kind of a cool-looking little car, especially for under $2,500.

I think someone else here mentioned it, but you should check out the transcript of his plea hearing at the Smoking Gun. It's made very clear to Polanski in that hearing that there is no guarantee the judge will abide by the prosecution's sentencing recommendation.

What you'll see in the transcript is routine in plea hearings. The judge (although in this case, it seems to be the prosecutor doing it in front of the judge...California apparently has different procedure than Florida) explains to the defendant that the sentence is at the discretion of the judge, within the guidelines of the law, and queries the defendant to make sure he understands that.

This is the same chance any defendant takes in making a deal...judges don't typically deviate from the recommendation, but I've seen it happen more than once. Any attorney who tells his client otherwise is giving bad legal advice. Fleeing because you think the judge may give you a harsher sentence than you negotiated is no more acceptable than fleeing to avoid prosecution in the first place. It wouldn't work for some black kid slinging crack on the corner, so it shouldn't work for Polanski.

I have to agree with smoker; he probably should have taken his chances at trial because he could have had a shot at an acquittal. Rape cases were treated very differently then, and California justice, in particular, has never been sure, neither then nor now. Had Polanski's lawyer managed to seat a jury of women -- who tend toward judgment of the victim in rape cases -- he might have gotten a walk.

The prosecutor must have had qualms about the strength of his case to make the deal that he did, but Polanski also must have had his own doubts to cop a plea.

Stephen Colbert and George Wendt took turns insulting the Olympic candidates on the show last night. It was pretty frickin' hilarious. Colbert called Rio Brazil's taint and Wendt says the Tropic of Capricorn has to take Valtrex because Rio straddles it.

http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=250381

In 8th grade we had a teacher make a student hold two dictionaries outstretched in each arm and hold it there for ten or twenty minutes. The offense was talking to another student in class.

Oh man, that brings back bad memories! I went to a private parochial school -- fundamentalist Baptist, not Catholic -- and our 8th grade study hall monitor was a woman who never, and I mean never shaved her legs. Being adolescent boys, we started calling her Mrs. Bushwhacker behind her back...except for the day she was behind our backs and we didn't know it. I had no idea that dictionaries could be used as tools of torture until that day. We still called her Bushwhacker...but we made sure we looked around real good before we did.

I imagine the closing of businesses related to the movie and music industries has a lot more to do with their insanely overpriced products than customers burning bootlegs.

Wow. Schoolmarms and headmasters in North Carolina apparently can't take a joke. The Flying Spaghetti Monster religion is just a parody. I bet this kid is happier than a pig in shit at the school's response.

I agree with a statute of limitations on many crimes...but never on crimes of violence, which this was. Take a few minutes to read over what Polanski did, and you'll see this was not a momentary acting out, but plays more like a deliberate plan.

Thanks WannaGo you have the general area right but BangSaen is actually a bit further North. Come down the Gulf of Thailand from Bangkok about half way down the bay before it widens out. Chon Buri City is the closest major city shown on the Google Map. Both the other responses of Pattaya and Jomtien are then a bit further south of me.

Still a very good idea of yours and good luck with it.

Thaifan, thanks...I moved you a little closer to the general location.

I just looked at the map and it shows US. Is that what you are looking to mark? I am originally from Chicago.

No, I think it just defaults to a US view. But, if you look on the left side of the map, you'll see the usernames of the people I've added so far. Just click those names, and it will take you to the general locations (it ain't exact, trust me). I added you in Jomtien.

With free content on TV and the internet, I think spending money on DVDs is a waste of money.

I have a friend back home that wants a collection, spends lots of money on CDs and DVDs yet doesn't have health insurance.

Some people build a nice little collection by renting DVDs, burning the ones they want and returning them. Not saying this is what I do or anything.

Good idea WannaGo!!

Just to make it tough for you though I was born in the UK have lived in Hong Kong, Athens (Glyfada), Sydney, Bangkok and now Bang Saen!

Thaifan, I went with where you live now. Check the map and see if I got the general area right. You just have to click your name on the left side of the screen.

Go Seminoles!

Say hi to Arnold the pig!

You know, I worded that badly. Tallahassee was cool, and I miss it...the mean, angry, redneck version of Green Acres is where I live now. Arnold the Pig has tusks here.

Maybe Obama could appoint this guy...

...so Scalia can have some company.

I am sure Bush doesn't know a pawn from a rook.

I don't know...surely someone has explained to him about his relationship to Dick Cheney by now.

Hey, where's everybody from? Post it here, with a little note about your current hometown, and I'll add it to a Google map so we can see where all the forum members are located.

This is the link to the map. So far, it just has me.

Never read any Hammett, but a few months ago, I decided to see what all the fuss was about with "The Postman Always Rings Twice" by James Cain. Excellent book. The thing that struck me is how we always how differently (and better) people behaved in past eras, but the story Cain told 70-some years ago could just as easily have been a story in a newspaper today.

It doesn't surprise me that Polanski had some advance warning of what the judge intended to do at sentencing. Judicial impropriety is more common than most people think, and from what I understand of the incestuous relationship between the criminal justice system and "the industry" in LA, it probably would have surprised me more if Polanski didn't get some indication of what was going to happen.

What I keep coming back to is the nature of the offense. Regardless of the time that has passed, or his good works in the interim, he committed a deliberate assault on a child. This was not an, Oops, I thought she was of age and just got carried away. Certain types of offenses must be punished, no matter how much time has passed, and this is one of them. The fact that he compounded his crime by fleeing the country only makes it worse, and as one of the other posters noted, he shouldn't then benefit from his own further criminal actions.

The one thing that really puzzles me is that there have been no other reports of victims coming forward, either in the U.S. or in Europe. His actions leading up to the actual assault -- befriending the mother, offering to do good things for the child, coming up with reasons to have multiple contacts with the child, giving her drugs and alcohol -- all are consistent with pedophile grooming behavior. It is not common for someone with pedophilic tendencies to live as long as he has with only a single victim.

I have a gay friend who came back from Thailand with 36C boobs on. LOL. So True.

I got 36C boobs with no traveling and no surgery...just too many calories and not enough exercise.

Hey, are fake boobs as prevalent among Thai women as they are among American women? I am sooo not a fan of fake boobs. Even though I like big ones, I prefer them small and real to big and plastic-y.

First we have to get clear what a ladyboy is. If you define a ladyboy as someone who dresses everyday as a woman and uses the woman's toilet then most guys who like them consider themselves straight despite whatever activities take place in the bedroom.

Many gays use a much different definition to include effeminate acting guys. Most guys who like this type consider themselves gay.

This could just be my own ignorance on the topic, but I thought a "ladyboy" was a term specifically for a transgender or transsexual prostitute and just figured there was some other term for a Thai who was transgender or transsexual and not a prostitute. Am I wrong about this?

As I understand it, people who are transgender or into cross-dressing don't always consider themselves gay, so it would make sense that guys who prefer them would not consider themselves gay, either. And a transsexual, especially post-op, would consider herself to be a woman, so again it would make sense that a guy who was with a transsexual would probably consider himself more or less hetero.

Then again, a lot of people don't really like to put themselves in any particular category and just do whatever feels good.

Being a plain ol' hetero with no real interesting kinks (I'm not even into spanking), it all makes me feel so boring and provincial. I do get kind of hot for trashy women, though.

I am completely at awe at how Thailand accepts homosexuality. I am not homosexual, by the way, I am straight. But I have plenty of friends and two cousins who are gay. Being friends with them since puberty and now up to adulthood, I have witnessed how some of them have struggled to find acceptance, not just in society, but first and foremost, in their families. It is a difficult thing to see.

So to say, the stigma against homosexuals is still strong in our counrty, The Philippines. Maybe it's due to our religion - but maybe it's just because of the narrow minds of present day society. I have always believed that if the god we believe in is an accepting god, then he would embrace homosexuals just as he would straight males and females.

I was reading up on this topic a few days back, and I would like to quote a line that has struck me most:

"Buddhism, which is deeply embedded in everyday Thai life, has always been the mediator with regard to social differences, and thus, where gaps in understanding exist, acceptance takes over."

When that will happen in our country - I have no idea. But I have gladly cheered on behind and beside my two cousins as they came out of the closet, and I would gladly cheer on for other friends as well.

That's an interesting idea...that the prevalence of Buddhism makes the culture more accepting of different lifestyles. The corollary in the States would be that the prevalence of Christianity -- a much more judgmental religion -- makes the culture more intolerant.

How sad for us.