Thaicoon

2006-03-10T14:54:00.000+07:00

I am in Thailand at the moment.....back March 31st!!!

One more month....

2006-02-13T21:41:00.000+07:00

....and we will be back in Thailand. I can't believe it's been more than a year.

At the moment we are busy preparing and planning where to go and what to see. We still have a few open spots in our planning.

So any tips on where to go or what to see are more than welcome.

Boy or Girl?

2006-02-07T17:59:00.000+07:00

This morning my wife had to go to the hospital. It was very good news this time......

Yep, she is 13,5 weeks pregnant. The baby was moving and the hart was beating very fast. We are very happy and excited!!!

Thai Shop

2006-01-14T17:23:00.000+07:00

Last night we went to the Thai shop to buy some (Thai) fruit but came back with a bit more then that:

Tod Man Plaa

2006-01-10T23:35:00.000+07:00

Yesterday we had some friends over for diner so my wife made some delicious Thai snacks for appetizer. Including Tod Man Plaa. Here is the recipe:

Tod Man Plaa
2 lb minced fish
1 ts salt
1/2 c red curry paste
1 ea egg1 tb nam pla
1 c finely chopped green bean
2 ea basil leaves, finely chopped
1 vegetable oil

Cucumber Salad
1 c cucumber sliced
3 ea shallots, sliced thinly
1 ea red hot chilli pepper, sliced
2 tb sugar
1 tb vinegar
1 ts salt
1/2 c hot water

Instructions:

Tod Man Plaa
Mix the fish, salt, curry paste, egg and nam plaa. Add the green bean and basil. Continue to mix until the paste is sticky enough to be able to roll into balls. Form paste into balls with your hand. Flatten each piece into 2 inch circles. Heat oil over medium heat. Fry fish until light golden in colour. Dry on paper towel.

Salad
In a serving bowl, arrange cucumber, shallot and chilli in layers. Mix sugar, vinegar and salt. Add hot water; stir until sugar dissolves. Pour over cucumber mixture.

Enjoy your snack!

Mao

2006-01-03T20:23:00.000+07:00

This morning at 11:00 o'clock we had our New Years reception at the office. Way too early to sip champagne.

A New Year...

2006-01-01T16:29:00.000+07:00

...A New Look.

I would like to wish all readers, friends and family A Happy New Year!!!

2005-12-26T17:59:00.000+07:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

May all your wishes come true.

In loving memory of our goldfish

2005-11-11T21:21:00.000+07:00

Coming home from a long day of hard work I noticed that one of our goldfish was doing a backstroke.

We immediately secured the area and started our investigation. We checked the bowl for fingerprints, took samples and swapped some DNA. Was it overfeeding or.....murder???

We questioned his roommate who was suspect numero uno. He told us that his partner was very old and gained weight. After long investigation we came to the conclusion that due to his weight he drowned.

Ok Ok I have been watching too much CSI lately.

And the winner is...

2005-11-05T16:16:00.000+07:00

Mimi Marks from the USA (center) was crowned
Miss International Queen 2005 at a gala event
hosted by Tiffany’s Show in North Pattaya.
Yu Ri from Korea (right) finished first runner up,
whilst Thailand’s Tiptantree Rujiranon (left) finished
second runner up.

Google Bug

2005-11-05T16:03:00.000+07:00

This Bug is funny:

Go to http://www.google.com
Type the word "Failure"
Instead of clicking on "Google Search"click on "I'm Feeling Lucky"
And see where it brings you

X or O Questions

2005-08-25T18:58:00.000+07:00

Thaksin Shinawatra has a new toy. When he is talking to journalists and he likes the question he shows a 'O' sign and will answer the question. When he don't like the question or don't want to answer it he shows a 'X' sign. Great for people who don't want to listen I tell you.

2005-08-23T17:53:00.000+07:00

Last night I suffered from a temporary case of insomnia. My head was spinning, thoughts, ideas and plans were going thru my mind and the only thing I wanted to do was sleep. This morning I dragged myself out of bed and crawled to the kitchen to get my first cup of coffee for the day and I noticed that one of our fish wasn't moving and was floating upside down. So I gave him a short but respectful funeral. Took a shower and drove to the office. When I walked into the office I saw 2 guys in superman suites being carried away by police. Yep fathers 4 justice @ our office. They were here to demonstrate against one of our TV shows. The show is called "I only want your baby and nothing more"......don't ask.

After getting my second cup of coffee I took a seat behind my computer and somehow I managed to drop my complete cup of coffee over my desk, papers and keyboard.

My plans for tonight?.........Sleeping

Tom Yum Goong - The Game

2005-08-10T20:46:00.000+07:00

This looks cool and I am very curious about the movie:

Get to play action hero Panom Yeerum in Tom Yum Goong: The Game The much-anticipated Tom Yum Goong, with action star Panom "Jaa" Yeerum, starts showing tomorrow, but fans that want something more can also turn to a new 3D PC game called "Tony Jaa Tom-Yum-Goong: The Game," where they get to play their fighting hero.

The game was developed by Game No Limit, a 10-million baht joint venture company between Saha Mongkol Film International and Show No Limit, an IT event organiser.

The company was set up in January last year to develop PC games based on Thai movie characters and Tom-Yum-Goong is its first game.

In an interview with Database, Game No Limit managing director Pongsuk Hiranprueck, who also owns Show No Limit, said the action romp Ong-Bak, Panom Yeerum's first action movie from two years ago, was the inspiration for the game.

Panom is also known internationally as "Tony Jaa."

"After watching Ong-Bak I was so excited about his marvellous Thai kickboxing skills. I was inspired and wanted to develop a game by using his character," he said.

Pongsuk searched the Internet for information about PC game development and later made a business proposal to the owner of Saha Mongkol Film, Somsak Techarattanaprasert. He also had help from his thesis adviser from four years earlier, Prachya Pinkaew _ the director of Tom Yum Goong, who also helped direct the game.

He agreed to Pongsuk's proposal, noting that it would be the first time a Thai movie had a tie-in through a computer game, which could help promote the movie.

Pongsuk recruited five game developers through a web-board on Thai3D.Net and started developing a demo version based on the Ong-Bak movie almost two years ago.

But Somsak of Saha Mongkol Film convinced Pongsuk to change his mind and produce a game based on the new movie instead.

"It was a new project and there was not yet a script at the time so we worked closely with the film director. Our game designers also joined the movie production team to observe them and wrote out our game script," Pongsuk said.

Although the game follows the movie, it does have some differences, he said.

The development team came up with nine mission levels. At each level, a player learns how to fight like Panom.

In the story, users get to play Panom, who is a young man whose family elephant is stolen by the mob. As in the movie, he has to leave his forest home to retrieve the animal from the mafia's den in Sydney's Chinatown.

The player can gain energy by collecting items and fighting members of the gang. There is also some problem solving along the way.

Jaa Panom's Tom Yum Goong: The Game will be available with English subtitles through distributor New Era, which will market the game in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Brunei and Thailand. The price is 299 baht.

The company expects to sell around 50,000 copies and will also launch the game for mobile phones.

Game No Limit expects to make a profit after introducing two more games based on Thai movies in the future.

Source: Bangkok Post

6 Years ago......

2005-07-27T21:37:00.000+07:00

July 27, 1999

I entered the restaurant in the morning to eat my breakfast. The first thing I saw was her long black hair. Her dark eyes were the prettiest I had ever seen. She smiled and I was in heaven.

That was 6 years ago and now I know I was right. This is the girl of my dreams.

Wisuda I love you

MDA

2005-07-27T02:06:00.000+07:00

I bought a new mobile phone today. Not just a normal phone but a MDA compact (aka HTC Magician aka I-mate JAM aka Qtek S100 aka SPV M500). It's a pda and mobile phone in one. So say goodbye to the (paper) agenda and the small papers and post it's on my screen and desk. Wow my desk is so clean now (at least that's what my wife says).

It has Microsoft Pocket Outlook, Word, Excel, MSN, Internet Explore, Media Player and a 1.3 mega-pixel CMOS camera on it. All of this running on Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 SE Phone Edition.

I'm as happy as a kid in a candy shop.

I'm Back

2005-07-17T18:31:00.000+07:00

It's been a long time since I post something. I will give you a short recap.

Things are crazy at work. The company I work for is launching a new TV station here in August and my department are providing them with lovely tunes and music. It's nice to see how things are starting to grow and to see that many (local) famous actors, hosts and directors are joining us to become the biggest Media Company in Holland. Friday I visited the studio and I have to admit I have never seen so many cables, plugs and switches in my life.

Yesterday we had a party of one of our friends who are going back to Thailand for 3 months. It was a nice party with many Thai people and the complete staff of the Thai embassy. It was nice to meet the new Thai ambassador.

Last week I finally watched Sagai United. I had to see this movie because the son of my friend is playing in this movie. He's the captain of a soccer team from Yala who are trying to win the soccer competion. The movie isn't that good but it was fun to see him playing in it. My friend told me he is going crazy because girls keep calling his son ;-)

I have finally updated my Flickr account with some of my pics.

More to come.

Lift

2005-05-26T19:20:00.000+07:00

After reading Oui's lift story here is mine embarrassing lift moment.

On one of my recent trips to Thailand my wife wasn't feeling well so she asked me to go to the pharmacy to get her some medicine.
When I entered the lift there was this guy and this horrible smell (I think he just returned from the gym). At the 5th floor he got out but the smell stayed.

When the lift stopped at the reception I walked out and there were these 2 cute girls who wanted to enter the lift (yes with the bad smell) they must have thought I was the one smelling bad..........talking about embarrassment.

Bad Word

2005-05-12T17:25:00.000+07:00

Today I received a funny e-mail from my Polish colleague. My boss asked me to send a basic MS Word file to our colleagues in Poland.

They replied:

Could you please be so kind and send me the whole file as a file with extension .xls
Because .doc files are not good for your computer system.

Since when are Word files not good for your system? Have they been naughty?? :-)

Krong Thip

2005-05-11T14:42:00.000+07:00

The Thai way to stop people from smoking

Daffy

2005-05-06T00:56:00.000+07:00

At bit of a boring day so I helped Daffy land on the target. Don't forget your parachute.

Osborne's Knock out

2005-04-29T19:45:00.000+07:00

Following up on Jib's story on Muay Thai I saw this on a Pattaya new site:

Ozzy Osborne, and his wife came to a boxing stadium in Jomtien to watch their son, Jack compete in a Muay Thai boxing contest. On the VIP sofa, he was joined by one of Thailand’s hottest pop stars, Miss Tata Young. It was a fiercely contested fight with Jack Osborne winning by a knockout decision to the delight of his parents. The winning trophy was presented by Khun Witchai, a Pattaya City Councilor and owner of Hollywood Disco in South Pattaya.

Xbox 360

2005-04-26T15:40:00.000+07:00

British sources have confirmed that the next generation Xbox is called Xbox 360, that the logo is a simple, round nexus, and that the console itself has a concave design.

The machine can stand upright and hollows in at the middle. Previous rumours had put the console as silver, although fresh information says the final design may be white.

Microsoft will show the console for the first time in a half-hour special on MTV on May 12. Here you can see the teaser.

Xbox 360 will be released worldwide in late 2005.

Microsoft will continue to produce games for the old Xbox version until 2007 and the Xbox 360 will not be backward compatible due to the new hardware.

Edit: Just read this article and the new rumour is that the xbox 360 will be backwards compatible!

New Look

2005-04-24T16:39:00.000+07:00

I just changed the look of my blog I hope you like it. Comments are welcome.

USB Sushi Sticks

2005-04-20T15:50:00.000+07:00

We all know the normal memorysticks. Easy and handy to use. But now there are some new fun designs:

You can order them here.

Songkran

2005-04-15T14:25:00.000+07:00

It's Songkran (Thai New Year). No Idea what Songkran is?? Have a look at the pictures @ 2Bangkok and Baba's Blog.

Some people love it some people hate it anyway.......Sawadee Pee Mai!!

Shutter

2005-04-06T22:53:00.000+07:00

Me and my wife just finished watching this very good Thai horror movie called shutter.

The movie is about Tun (Ananda Everingham), a young photographer and his girlfriend Jane (Natthaweeranuch Thongmee) who drive home after a night out drinking with their friends. On their way home they accidentally hit a woman. They decide to leave the dead woman and drive away. A few days later Tun is making pictures at the university and discovers some white exposure on his pictures what looks a lot like the girl they ran over the other night. The girl's spirit is haunting them down and wants revenge.

A very good Thai horror movie by Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom.

Now let's try to sleep.....

Meet Vlogging

2005-04-06T18:18:00.000+07:00

Google is starting a new kind of Blogging called Vlogging (video blogging). Vlogging is like blogging but instead of using text and images it uses (personal) videos. Members will have the opportunity to upload videos to Google's server. At the moment Google is testing the possibilities but they expect this to get even bigger than the famous Blogger.

Waking up

2005-04-04T18:34:00.000+07:00

Okay first I have to apologize for the lack of content. My office merged with another company and moved to a new location last week. So last week have been pretty hectic.
So did anything interesting happened? Well apart from packing boxes, move boxes and unpacking boxes? I got a new PC at my new office and it has Office2003 running. It looks much better than the 2000 version so let's see if it is in fact any better. Google increased their Gmail mailboxes from 1GB to 2GB after Yahoo increased their mailboxes from 250MB to 1GB. Hotmail seems to be far behind with their louse 2MB boxes (free). I am not sure about the quality of Gmail as it is still a beta version but I might give it a try.

Something strange/ stupid happened this morning. I woke up and felt really tired but hey it's Monday morning so what else is new. I stumbled to the bathroom and took a shower. I walked back to my room to put my clothes on when I looked at the clock and saw it was only 4 o'clock in the morning......yep I woke up 3 hours early.

I am dying for my fifth cup of coffee. Things like this make people coffee addicts.

New Keyboard

2005-03-22T01:49:00.000+07:00

Today I installed a Thai keyboard which we bought at Panthip Plaza. Thanks to Mr. Gates things didn't exactly go as planned. Some files were missing on my Win2000 CD (no not bought @ Panthip) so it took me about 1,5 hours to get it installed but hey it is finally working:

สวัสดีครับ

Funeral

2005-03-09T03:14:00.000+07:00

Last week my dear grandmother died at the age of 93 and the cremation was held last Friday. It made me think about how Thai people have funerals.

When somebody dies the body is kept at home for about 7 days before it is being transferred to the temple for the cremation. The body is washed and Friends and family wearing black clothes will come to visit and pay their respects to the deceased by pouring perfumed water over the right hand.
After that the hands of the deceased are placed in wai position holding 1 incense stick, a candle and a lotus flower. (So 1 incense stick is for a deceased person and 3 incense stick is to pay respect to Buddha.) A white string (sai sin) is placed around the hands, neck and ankles. Also a 1 Baht coin is placed inside the mouth so the deceased have money for the next life. Then the coffin is closed.

4 monks will come every evening to pray (chant) and the room is decorated with a big picture of the deceased next to the coffin and the room is filled with flowers.

On the 7th day the coffin is opened and family will pour coconut milk over the body before the body is being transferred to the temple.
Friends and family will join each other at the temple to pay their last respect before the body is burnt inside the temple. The body is burned to let the spirit enter the next life.

The big difference with a farang funeral is that in Thailand the funeral is not a very sad event. Buddhist people believe that there is a next life and this life is just a step to that next life.

Monk gets his sight back

2005-02-23T21:21:00.000+07:00

I just read this story in The Nation.

----
An elderly monk who accidentally glued his eyes shut with super glue had sight restored to his right eye yesterday after doctors successfully performed surgery on him, an eye specialist at Angthong Hospital said.

Dr Banjob Nimitpornsukho said Phra Khru Prapatworakhun, 81, abbot of Wat Mathuros in Muang Angthong district, had his sight restored after a two-hour operation using acetone solvent to remove the glue without harming the cornea.

Doctors will operate tomorrow on his left eye, which is still tightly sealed by the glue, he said.

Phra Khru Prapatworakhun hurt his eyes last week when he accidentally used super glue to soothe an irritation instead of eye drops.

-----------

I really think this story is amazing. In Europe people always believe that medicalcare and dentalcare is very bad in Asia and is not as developed as in the west. This again shows that Thailand (especially Bangkok) is a very well developed country and that medicalcare is sometimes even better than in the west. If you need an operation in my country you have to wait for two weeks and that's if you're lucky. In Thailand you can and will get an operation the next day. Also the rooms are much better a private room which will be like a hotelroom (if you can pay for it). Fortunately I never had to go to the hospital in Thailand but a good friend of mine got his eyes lasered in Bangkok and was very positive about the results, the treatment and the service at the hospital. Nothing is what is seems ;-)

Jao Sao Pud Thai - Pad Thai Story

2005-02-22T20:21:00.000+07:00

Yesterday me and my wife watched the Thai movie Jao Sao Pud Thai. It's a very funny comedy about Petchara (Nakapapha “Mamee” Nakprasert) she is a beautiful working woman who lives in Chum Chon Ruam Jai. Her father is Pichet (Kowit Wattanakul), a Pad Thai stall owner, and her married younger sister, a pretty and talkative girl, is Aranya (Pinsuda “Balloon” Tanpairoa). Petchara is a talented cook – and Pad Thai is one of her specialty dishes. But one day, while fighting with her sister over her marriage prospects, Peht made a slip of tongue, claiming that she will marry whoever eats her Pad Thai for 100 days straight. Wiwat (Somchai Sakdikul), a local TV producer, senses an opportunity and quickly sets up a game show, “Pad Thai’s Love,” to contest for a Bt1 million prize and Peht’s hand in marriage. All of the villagers support Surachat (Pisek In-Trakunchit), a handsome professor and Peht’s next-door neighbor, to compete in the game, while Petchara secretly hopes he wins.

Welcome to Thaicoon

2005-02-19T18:25:00.000+07:00

Welcome all to Thaicoon. This blog is dedicated to Thailand. Here I will drop all my thoughts, idea's, memories and interesting news about my favorite place in the world. Sit back, fasten your seatbelt and enjoy the ride ;-)