KenW

Now there's a dick who jogs past my house every a.m. mobile phone in each hand. Ooooo he must be SO important!

Yes Uncle, if you go back to bed (gaaw) you'll feel better

That large number was 10 to the 17th power. I've just come across another example to give a feel for such large numbers. 10 to the 23rd power is the number of sand grains on Earth. So 10 to the 17, the number of conditionals in my story, is that number of sand grains divided by a million. A millionth of the number of sand grains. I read the sand grain example in The Five Ages of the Universe (by Adams & Laughlin) Yes, I am a wanker, aren't I?

Well, you're doing so good PANICOS. I aint no honey, but I once attracted the Bee. But I'll keep mum or deepthroat will demand I speak yet another language. :rolleyes:

Check post #28 above, Uncle Lung has gone back to his old gun totin' red jocks thigh boots avatar pic. Hoo wee, are we all in for trouble...

Over-fed fat arsed orange-robed monks who suck money out of the Asian poor and frightened, as all religious appear to do (e.g. the Vatican as classic example), then swann about in the lap of luxury, courtesy of the donations that go into their temple ballot boxes while they light their sticks and chant their mumbo-jumbo. In VN you never see a monk getting about on anything but the biggest latest model motor bike. I've seen them boarding aircraft in their outrageous neon getup, barefeet and all, to jet about the country in style and comfort. I say to local VNese: see, there goes the money you deposit in your fear, hoping against all hope for a better after-life, while in fact you're only assuring these cunts a better one in this. I once stayed in a hotel at the edge of Little India in Singapore where there was a big pagoda and monastery over the road (between Serangoon Rd and the next one, whose name I forget). The abbott used to have this monster new model auto parked in the yard, and use it on what appeared a daily basis. I'm not one for knowing my cars, but this was fair dinkum as big as an old fashioned cadillac. Parasites all.

Day 17 Where do you go when you’re not drinking? I mean I do not mean places of physical or emotional support, in the real world, like AA or allied organizations, or taking up golf, or billiards, heaven forbid, one could never do those without a drink could one, seriously, I mean tell me with a straight face you are capable of a full round of golf without a drink, or that teetering a stick at silly little plastic balls on a table, fine fun when your half tanked and the company’s jovial, but when you’re not, and they’re not, hoo wee, where do I mean, I mean using the resources of an adventurous mind, where do you go, I am discovering I go nowhere, I retreat into solemnity, into a dour kind of otiosity that leads with punctuation to neither boredom nor solace, but just sits there, as if it is some mind numbed dragonfly on my balcony rail, staring at me with its giant globular multi-faceted eyes, looking back at me, seeming for all intents like it wants to blink, but of course its arthropodean organs have neither eyelids nor the slyness of a wink in mind, much less an innocent blink, and so like Clifford Geertz they cannot tell a Berber’s joke about a sheep stealer from a malevolent tale about same, because a joke’s a joke after all, and without the comforting trappings of culture we are all left staring at the dragonfly wondering what it had for breakfast, taking it literally, or perhaps, has it ever seen a northern summertime in the Arctic tundra, well it may never have, and what’s more it cares not a fig, the way in my dry time I care not a fig for things that I shouldn’t care about, and care too much, way too much, for things that I should care about, thence I go nowhere, I’m physically there, I can still look down and sigh at my beer belly, which despite this dry time will not go away I bet, for it has not given up a gram thus far, leaving it a mystery to be solved by a Nero Wolfe, after he has watered his orchids and drunk his fresh orange juice, of hoodunnit laying on the fat, was it im or er, none of the above, but the rich uncle’s ex-wife, that’s for sure, the one none of us ever suspected, so I go nowhere, just as the fat goes nowhere, and my mind dries up, like an ancient parchment, or like the freak show cunt on a post-op ladyboy, for where do her juices come from, certainly not from her natural physiology, that’s for sure and certain, the surgeon perhaps inserts a tube of sterilized jello and sews it in there to ooze when required with foreplaying pressure, and maybe they have to go back every year or so, like a well tuned car, for a grease and oil change, but unlike them my soul merely dries up, despite all that, to parallel my mind, and between the two of them they telex me a set of messages, reminding me of a fifty year old teletype, clattering and clanking out messages like a mechanical typewriter in the hands of a Hemingway or a Hammett, five hundred polished words a day, that was Papa’s rule of thumb, always in the mornings, well trained journalist that he was, then it was off to the cantina, especially in the younger days in Cuba and Spain, followed by respectively the fishing boat or the bullring, but none of that is relevant to me, so why am I blithering on about it, because I’m stuck, that’s why, because I cannot escape this rat trap I’m in, between yesterday and tomorrow, called today, and I’ve seen all these rodents before somehow, all the todays you can muster, like Rowdy Yates with his herd, or at least that’s how it feels, for one day without a drink is as bad as any other without a drink, is that not the case, they moo and they low, like they’ve all got four legs and ticks, and they kick up some kind of dustbowl in my brain, clouding my sanity with thoughts of naked ladyboys with suberect cocks who shun me because to them I am sober and completely without either fun or interest, despite the size of the big fat thing laying limp across my lap, called my wallet, so I go on, hoping, despite at dawn it merely turning into a today, that there is a tomorrow…

I was in a taxi a couple of days ago, in the suburb next to mine, stopped at a red light. The usual throng of VNese motorbikes sat stationary in their lane, to my side. My eye fell upon an arm dripping with gold bangles, fifteen or so of them, worn the way Indian women of wealth wear them. As it flicked its face or whatever I also saw the fingers were, every one of them, adorned by rings of kitchy gold and gemstones, with long nails painted scarlet red with decorative flowers or designs in the way of modern fashion. The person was ahead of me slightly, about level with the front of my taxi. From where I sat, under the helmet, I could only see these features, plus a tiny little three inch beginning of a pony tail. But the body form was stocky, and wearing very unbecoming plain blue men's pyjamas, the long sleeve shirt hanging outside the waist band of the long trousers. Then it turned to look over its shoulder. A broad ugly face with a black stubble chin gave the clue it was an ageing ladyboy, perhaps 40 or more years old. I gave her a plus for courage, with those fingernails and all, and another for whatever clever manner she had accumulated her showy wealth (too ugly by far to be contemporary custom, so must be into drug running, scamming, or such).

Well we might be left sighing at your ability to reason, but at least it's nice to see you're a tolerant soul who can take a bit of a joke and a tease.

Day 11 Stern examiners take note, for the current malaise ridden teetotaler has passed the most stringent test. Last evening I was laid up against the sword, but unlike for Caesar, the blades stayed sheathed and I remained unsullied and sober as a judge’s dungeoned moll. I went with the Hound to three bars over a period of about five hours, watching the world go by, looking on bemused as the joint I had advised him was Saigon’s best chance for pickup and perving refused to gather clientele, hung onto its disco thumping cacophony uncontaminated by custom, except for a dozen or so very ordinary, and often quite aged, GGs. Not a LB in sight. H had been on a horrific train journey all day and night, and was heading for Cambodge at sparrow fart on the morrow, this morning as I write, so it was early night plans for him anyway. He had but a few beers while we gossiped away. My Saigon lived up to its reputation for dullness and lack of colour for first time visitors. A few whores solicited along the street from H’s hotel, but that was it. But make careful observations O scanners of detail: I sat on a bottle of mineral water all evening. I swooned as I smelt the beer on H’s breath, when he gave out one of his belly laughs or said something that made me draw closer to hear through my geriatric deafness and the machine noise that passes for music these days. But I never flinched. My resolve was something to behold. It is quite amazing what a driving force fear can be. Et tu Ken teaser.

Thanx Rossco.

Now, I've searched back through the thread but I can't find what I want buried between all the hoohaa about soul music, personality clashes and other things. What I'd like to know is simply concerned with living in Thailand, which is what this thread is supposed to be about. If one chose to explore the possibility of dwelling on the outskirts of P like Rossco or of CMX like Lung, what would you be likely to pay rent per month and what would you get for that? Forget replying about a full range on offer including villas with car garage, pool and all that stuff. Were I so to choose I'd merely be looking at a small clean semi-modern joint big enough for me and the occasional LB lover. And please, pals, just this once, talk to me in US dollars. I am so sick of reading you in-club guys sharing info in Thai baht that outsider dumbos like me have to do time consuming arithmetic on every bloody time to work out value.

Day 10 I walk, I fidget, I sit down, I get up, I sigh, I walk again, back and forth, across the bedroom, out into the stairwell, up the stairs, to my study, walk the length, sit at keyboard, sigh, mooch blankly at monitor, unmotivated to tap, get up, climb up another flight, to the roof deck, walk to the rim, look down at the street, a fat old bag hand drags her toddler grandchild, yapping away to each other in infant talk, sigh, a boy from the ice works roars past on his clapped out old motorbike, as though he’d just heard a B52 strike was imminent, I walk back, it’s raining, gentle pitter patter, rolling thunder, my hammie hurts where I slipped on the wet tiles last night, fancy a grown geriatric not seeing water all over the kitchen tiles, down I went, arse over tit, both feet out from under me, somehow the left leg gets caught under my body and the hammie snaps, so much for being stone cold sober, give me falling down drunk any day or night. Hapless but harmless. I do not feel any better. Take it from me. That’s the big surprise. Ten days in and I do not feel healthier, I do not resonate with robust happiness, with joy I do not gush, unlike the life-giving orange morning liquid that oozes from my juicer. Perhaps I am expecting too much. It’s only been ten days. I am down. I am sad. Sad is my overwhelming word, sadness my dominant feeling, Sad Sack my comic motif. I am sad of heart, sad of mind, sadness pervades my soul. I feel like a whore who is used to being fucked five times a night, at home on holiday with her parents. Just think how good this respite is for you, a typical mother’s comment, how it reinvigorates your body, how it re-builds your health. But I just want to be fucked mama. Well, I’m just like that whore. And she’s crying out for me. She doesn’t know it, she doesn’t even know me, she doesn’t even know I exist, but every time she pines for a pound of flesh plugged between her flaps, thrusting and withdrawing, bringing her exquisite delight and unbearable pleasure, that unique slushing sound as cunt is filled, emptied and re-filled, that sloppy slurpy bed squeaking supplement to heavy breathing and incoherent babble, that pre-empts moaning before it gives to yelling and screaming out for more more more, she knows me even though she doesn’t, she feels for me even though she cannot reach out to me, she gives out understanding of my oasistic dilemma: I am not partaking of refreshing life-giving liquid isolated in the desert of drabness, but on the contrary I am living in a devilish dungeon of a desert uncontaminated but surrounded by miles and dunes and swales vegetated with the nectar producing relieving refreshments I so crave, those which render life acceptable, times tolerable, situations sufferable, can-dos doable. I sigh. I just want a drink mama. When O when will it be? Please god in whom I cannot believe, here’s your chance, your big shot at converting a blaspheming infidel heathen on the spot, when all you hafta do is show up with a perfectly healthy liver and by a click of whatever passes for godly fingers, insert it in me like a cucumber stuck up that holidaying whore, bringing us all relief, a good deal of joyous shouting and the ability to go on another day. I will fall down on my knees, not only become immediately converted, but pray to whatever doctrine you demand, whatever shit you stand for, and offer to suck whatever holy poles you care to flip out from your non-earthly parts hidden under the robes of your magical mysteries. But you Omniscient One, like my next glass of red, are just completely incapable of showing up, isn’t it?

Ah Lofty, no shit Sherlock. Go to the top of the class. I have never thought nor never said I knew much about him. I didn't even know his name. I'd plead guilty but ask that with mitigating circumstances of 6 decades of memory decay I be allowed to forget one name here and there. Look 3 lines above: I even forget yours. I happen to have met so many Corkies down the years married to Indigenous Australians, Thais, VNese, Filipinas, etc., who are the biggest racists I ever encountered. Who you're married to don't count for shit other than maybe things like what turns you on. Same goes for misogynists. A large fraction of the blokes I know who have been married long time are women haters of all shapes and sizes. I think your reasoning is totally screwed up linking these things together like you try to do. On racism, he went on record with claims like he saw no wrong in the whites taking America from the Indians. In an interview about blacks he said he believed in white supremacy. In both full comments he went on to sweeten the bad taste with gooey phrases meant to water down his other ones, but all skilled redneck politicians do that. You've got me on homophobe. The sources of those barroom quotes about faggots and cocksuckers now elude me after all these decades of blur. Or perhaps I heard wrong back then. Maybe my informers were talking about Frank Sinatra. I've never really been good with names. But then Righty, you pointed that out didn't you? Of course you're allowed to enjoy his movies, as most do. I just don't, that's all. And before you open a fresh post to call me a smart arse, I am aren't I?

I wish someone would give us news about the GOTC instead of all this banter. I'm getting excited too, and want to be titilated. I'd better be back on the grog by then bejeezuz. This past week has been living misery (see my Detoxi Blues thread and weep for me). (PS: good to hear news of individual FMs like ab, who are already organised.)

PD, I was just reading Hound's comment above which led me to glance up at yours once again. I know I'm slow, but I just realised that you are more clever than I had realised at first reading (and perhaps even you realised). For you have actually ended your post with TWO if/then statements. (I've used up my +1s on you)

Marion Mason (aka John Wayne) was a racist redneck misogynist homophobe. Whether he ever made a good movie is not for me to judge. I'll just say I couldn't stand him. Each to their own I suppose. Hound you are only the second person (after me) I have ever heard say this about the hallowed Beatles. I have been arguing for years they were the most overrated band that ever made the charts.

OK PD is unsure. Does anyone out there know what There are no actions to display on your profile page means?

Yes that was clever of you PD. +1 from me.

Larry or PD Question: on my profile page to right of status updates there is a plain column with the words There are no actions to display What's it all about Alfa (Romeo)? How does one get actions to display? What to click on? Edit: Like the good sober numbskull I appear to be I've put this in a Gallery thread without even looking at what the thread was called! Edit 2: So I just moved it here, put in a thumb, pulled out a plum, said what a clever ...

Post moved to Technical Questions About... thread.

Day 7 The walls lean in, they bend, like truth in the hands of a politician, bent walls, sounds like a VNese ice-cream vendor on speed, toodley ooo la ooo la ooo, the rolly poley sound of a fairground hirdy girdy, they threaten me, unlike the ice cream vendor, but like the moderators of disapproving porno forums, can I sustain them, keep them back, hold them thither, the way they keep floodwaters at bay by stacking sandbags, or will they press on anyhow, relentless, dogged, determined, destructive, crushing me in the end, like so many old automobiles in an American junkyard, there are four of them, and if you count the ceiling and the floor, there are six surfaces seeming set to crush me, trash my spirits and my flesh, six surfaces of a rectangular solid, not quite a cube but nearly so, I could calculate all sorts of things about them, their collective area, their joined sectional length, various ratios between sides, would all that cogitating help, would it convince them to have faith in their joints, their bolts, their nuts, I’ve got no faith in my nuts, so why should they have any in theirs, my nuts never could control things when I needed them to, the bolt was always blown before the horse got out, and as we know the horse always got out before the gate was shut, so no use either closing the gate or searching haplessly for the condom, all the little astronauts are floating free in uterine canal space, or wallowing about in a pitch black rectum, bumping into incipient turds, Eagle, this is Mission Control, we’ve just blown our bolt, too quick by far Mission Control, that’s always how it was, how many women whined in my face, so quick, too quick, gone already, how that hurt and embarrassed, like these walls will do, hurt because it’s physical, embarrass because as I go under, I will doubtless scream out for one last drink, and that will embarrass me in front of all who have tried to help me, be of assistance, offer sound advice, then disappointed in me, will scowl like my mother used to do, weak of will, that’s what she said, beneath the lenses perched atop the bridge of her supercilious snoz, gazing down at the crossword, pen to her lip, not even bothering to look up, to make eye contact with me, totally contemptuous, weak of will, the call to down arms that resounded throughout the house, perhaps I could try the same on these walls, weak of will, giving in too easily to my fear, falling in on me, flattening me like a pudding under a steam roller, the walls, the walls, hold back the walls, was that what the soldier in white yelled out just before he died, perhaps it was, I forget, I have no faith in my memory now, seven days is a long time if I remember rightly, or did I say that already, such a longest time, talk about the longest day, what about the longest week, seven up, then seven down, after the manner of so many coin tosses, but that reminds me too much of casinos, something I have grave fear of, not for my own weaknesses, but for the evil generated by nasty people who have trashed me for the high of the tables, and good money hosed down the fatcat’s plughole, straight into his bin, a giant underground vault of money, moved around with a bulldozer, just like Unca Scrooge in the Donald Duck comics, my own weaknesses are much more straightforward, they are the drink, which, wait a moment, I’m not supposed to keep mentioning, and time, which I can because I’m allowed to boast about seven days on the road to abstention, my throat rasping like sandpaper, my taste buds feeling like they’ve got cockroach shit scattered all over them, discovering, like Paul did his new calling near Damascus, my orality, realizing that without a glass in hand I must find some suitable substitute for my mouth to muzzle up to, my lips to lovingly latch onto, I had never realized that trying to give up the drink, there I mentioned it again, I must stop mentioning it, would allow me insight into my own past with such clarity, my orality, that’s what I’ve discovered this week, does that explain why I have a lifelong love of cock, why ladyboys are the epitome of my sexual desires, why their Holy Poles and their blubby lil hormone hampered members are so vital to me, in my mouth, that’s it, and why my past wife sang so tellingly and sadly one night, as our marriage was breaking down, to a tune originally named You don’t buy me flowers anymore, by some pop composer or other, possibly Neil Diamond, but if not someone of equal ego bolstering churnout, but she sang the tune to her own words, You don’t cut my toenails anymore, for when I couldn’t get cock, as you often can’t in a marriage, when you’re the bloke, I opted for the next best things in order of size preference, toes then nipples, they do lack women don’t they, they lack one big thing, of vital import, toes and nipples are fine of their own accord, but as cock substitutes they lag quite a bit behind, like some gluepot nag clumping down the straight at the furlong post with the winner and runners-up rusted onto their glory already, I didn’t suck her toes anymore, poor thing, or give out loving pedicures, what a sign, just like these damn walls, how they lean, look, there, look, can you see, they definitely lean in, they élan in, they ale’n in, they nale in, but I can survive, just like any other anagram, it’s only a week, or according to my late mother, only a weak, and what’s a weak between friends, eh, week of will, that’s what it is, week of will …

If she hadn't had her dick cut off she wouldn't be so lonely.

Every LB bar in the world should have that sign out front.

How many conditionals? In my “Love at First Sight” story on my Vietnam LBs thread, in episode #58 post #138 thread page 15, I posed this brain teaser about the conditional if P, then Q: Having given interested FMs a week to ponder it, I’ll now offer a solution. Firstly, let’s consider information in bits, the units used in computer processing. One ordinary printed letter a, or b, or c when thought about or read or written consumes about 7 bits of information in our brain. A standard conditional if P, then Q will take 8 letters, the comma and 3 spaces plus the logic involved in that sentence which is absent and unrequired in a, b or c. So the conditional involves 84 bits + n more for logical sequence and content. Assume for ease of calculation that n = 16. So we can round off to assume that it will take a conditional about 100 bits (10 to the second power) of info. We want to consider the inputs of mathematical, engineering and scientific minds – as well as space crew - from Newton in 1665 to Armstrong in 1969. So about 300 years of scientific discovery and engineering problem solving, not to mention flight training. This entails a growing number of minds dedicated to the problem. Beginning with Newton acting alone, then each generation of say 20 years of employment on the issue, seeing new scholars joining in, building on Newton’s discoveries during the following 100 years, the numbers growing at first slowly then faster and faster, through Einstein and all the early 20th century theoreticians, Goddard and the other US & British engineers, the Nazi rocketeers led by von Braun, post-WWII developments in computing, the 1950s and 1960s US space scientists and engineers, the Cold War Soviets, until NASA ends up employing or funding thousands upon thousands of related workers including astronauts. An estimate of the total, from 1665 through 1969 can be arrived at by using an approximation to a compound interest formula with an initial balance of 1 (Newton). I have opted for a growth rate of 1.5% simply because it feels right (highly subjective), less than a doubling rate which seems to me to be far too high and higher than a rate of anything like 1 which feels too low. (Yes, sometimes science can be iffy like that, and a bit like shopping for lollies: this? these? which?) There is some basis to it though: human population growth rates peaked in the 1960s at 2.2%, while for the 1950s they were about 1.8%. Growth in dedicated scientists and colleagues over the time period of interest would surely have been less than this, but in my best guess, not by too much. This all brings us a figure of about a million people (= human brains) involved over those 300 years. (Actual figure 931,322) A million is 10 to the 6th power. We know the human brain stores about 10 to the fifteenth power bits of information. Which means all those scientists and others together have stored over 300 years some 10 to the 6th times 10 to the 15th power bits of information. That’s 10 to the 21st. If we assume that any given scientist or engineer (post-Newton) would have devoted about 10% of their working day to solutions of problems related to the main issue (a seemingly small amount, but it takes into account sleep, weekends, holidays, meetings, reading, memos, reports, other work commitments and things like meals, wife fucking, time with kids), we get 10 to the 20th power bits of info focused on the moon landing. Let’s also assume that we can use the number of bits of information as a measure of that 10% of time (ie also 10% of the number of bits used), And as experience tells us conditionals probably constitute about 10% of the actual thinking process and reasoning outcomes involved in such a thing, all that means they occupy 10 to the 19th power of the collective brains’ bits of info. Now, as any conditional takes 100 (10 to the second power) bits, attached to this task from 1665 through 1969 are 10 to the 19 divided by 10 to the 2 conditionals. That’s 10 to the seventeenth power conditionals. Which we can also write as 100,000,000,000,000,000 conditionals. (a hundred thousand million million, or, a hundred million billion) In the HINT from the initial post I warned it would not be a small number! To give Readers a feel for such a large number, recall that the current population of the planet is (round figures) 8 billion. Forget the factor of 8 for the moment, so we can talk in orders of magnitude (a billion = 10 to the ninth power). The above number of conditionals then equals 100 million earth-populations. There … ain’t that neat? It’s also neat to think about the conditionals in your daily life: Dawn at 5:30 a.m. If the sky’s lightening, then it’s … You get out of bed. If I put my feet to floor, push up with my hand, then I will be … At the pissoir. If I point my cock at the water in the bowl, then it will … Etcetera, so many there are. Our brain uses conditionals for so vastly many things we do, often “without thinking” as we say in the idiom. We are of course thinking, our brain being highly active on our behalf. But so often we are unaware of it. It is “unconscious” behaviour, another popular but mistaken expression. Think how often you have driven home from work, and later, because your mind was busy with problems of the day, things that will or did happen, people you met, conversations had, you realize you cannot recall one skerrick of the journey (whether the light at a most familiar corner was red or green, how many cars overtook you, whether the carpark at the supermarket was full or only half, all that). It is as though your car knew its own way to drive itself. In fact it was your brain doing it all on your behalf, using its memory banks, that’s true, but when decisions were required, and actions by your hands and feet demanded, conditionals came to the fore. (If we need to stop at this red, then left foot you need to depress clutch pedal, then left hand hit the gear lever, then right foot depress the brake pedal …blah blah blah.) A final if P then Q: If you liked this, then smile. (Ha!)