New Dementia Site

I have added a section on Dementia to my Superior Health web site; this complements my Alzheimer site, which was established 8 months ago.

The new site is at http://www.Superior-Health.info/Dementia/

The Alzheimer site is at http://www.1-800-Alzheimers.org Sphere: Related Content

New Web Site - Learn Japanese Faster!

I haven't written much lately on this blog because I have been working on a new web site to help people learn Japanese faster. See Learn Japanese Faster!. It has more than 45 articles on various aspects of the Japanese language from people who have been there, done that, and have now written about it.

My Learn English Faster! web site is also doing well, with more than 275 people joining the student mailing list in 3 weeks, as well as 75 teachers joining the teachers mailing list. Sphere: Related Content

Some Thai Food Has Six Legs

Many people enjoy Thai food worldwide: spicy soups and salads, flavorful rice dishes are abundant. But in Thailand, fried or roasted insects and scorpions are also popular, readily available, and inexpensive.

Insects have traditionally been a rich source of protein, calories, vitamins, and minerals in the Northern Thailand diet. They are also prized as delicacies. In fact, it is unusual to find an insect which is not eaten in one form or another by local people. Among the most popular are:

• cicadas, locusts, mantises, crickets, and grasshoppers which are all deep fried and are rather crunchy;
• bamboo worms, which are also deep fried;
• giant water bugs, which are steamed; they are also ground into a paste with chili and eaten with sticky rice;
• weaver ants (red ants with a painful bite) and their eggs; sticky rice is dipped into a mixture of ants, eggs, and chili;
• dung beetles; which add a wholesome flavor to curries; however, many people will not eat them because they live in and on excrement.

In addition, Thai people will eat:

• the pupae of silk moths and other moths and butterflies; you must first remove the pupae from their cocoons, then boil them until soft with a pinch of salt, finally sautée them lightly;
• the larvae of wasps and bees; these are deep-fried;

and arachnids:

• poisonous scorpions, which are grilled;
• giant tarantulas, which are also grilled.

I haven't seen other spiders eaten, but I suspect if it moves, it's considered food somewhere.

Also, termites (large white ants) are grilled and their eggs are a delicacy used to make a flavorful soup.

Where I lived in Bangkok, Sukhumvit Soi 4, every night starting around 5:00 PM, there was a street vendor with half a dozen kinds of fried and grilled insects and scorpions; her customers were mainly the bar girls in the area. Every night she was quite busy as the girls consider these insects a tasty snack, and munch on them as frequently as Western people munch on potato chips.

The lady vendor does not speak any English, but will pose with her wares for a photograph if you give her a 20 baht (about 60 cents) tip. And if you’re brave, you could always buy a bag of deep fried bamboo worms…

Sphere: Related Content

Eating insects in Thailand

The BBC has a photo article on eating insects. I lived on Sukhumvit Soi 4; there was a street vendor there every evening selling fried insects. No, I never tried any. (shudder)

BBC article

Here's another interesting article about American entomologists visiting Khon Kaen and eating insects for the first time: Tastes Like Chicken?

And yet another article. This one was published in the New York Times. Sphere: Related Content

Some Thai Girls Aren't Girls

Anyone who has ever visited Thailand will know about the beauty of Thai women. In their twenties, they are striking. In their thirties, they are looking more mature, but still most are very attractive.

The women working in the ubiquitous bars and massage parlors of Bangkok, Pattaya, and Phuket are mostly former housewives, believe it or not, married but separated, with two kids they left back in their village with their mothers. Most are from Isaan, the North-East corner of Thailand, which has a large amount of poverty. Some are from other parts of the country, especially Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai, and a very few are from Bangkok or central Thailand.

But about 1 in 100 is not a female at all, but a "ladyboy", or katoey in Thai. Quite often, they appear more feminine than the real women. I have seen many a farang ogle and lust after a very sexy woman, not realizing that "she" is a "he".

Like the women, most ladyboys are from Isaan. I have talked to a few on a one to one basis, and asked them when they first knew they wanted to be a female. All said they knew at an early age, around 5 or 6 years old. They said they liked the female manner, didn’t like rough sports, were partial to art and music.

Katoeys are an accepted part of Thai culture, considered to be a third sex in Thailand. Several are movie stars and TV announcers. One is a national kick-boxing champion. You will find ladyboys everywhere, working as waiters, store clerks, hairdressers, couriers, etc.

In North America and Europe, a sex-change (also called a gender re-assignment) operation is considered to be a big deal, requiring many months of psychological counseling before the operation to make sure the person is committed to the change.

In Thailand, a sex change operation is quite common. There are several clinics and hospitals which perform it, and the cost is a fraction of what the western charge would be, typically US$5000-7000. Nevertheless, for a poor person from Isaan, $5000 is a huge amount of money.

There are three main areas in Bangkok where ladyboys are present in large numbers: Nana Entertainment Plaza (on Sukhumvit Soi 4), Patpong Road (off Silom), and Soi Cowboy (close to the intersection of Sukhumvit Road and Asoke Road, which has both BTS SkyTrain and MRT Subway stations).

At Nana, the majority of ladyboys are "pre-op", meaning they still have a penis. At Patpong and Soi Cowboy, most are "post-op", meaning they have had the operation to create a vagina. The operation involves cutting out a section of intestine, which will become the vagina. The penis is cut open and inserted into the intestinal tube; typically some of the scrotal sac is used to increase the length of the new vagina. The tip of the penis becomes the new clitoris, and is normally still sensitive after the procedure is finished and everything has healed. The ladyboys I talked to said they could still have an orgasm, but did not ejaculate.

Scar tissue is visible if the post-op ladyboy retains his/her public hair, but if it is shaved off, it is difficult to tell an artificially created vagina from the real thing.

However, this is typically not the end of the story in sex reassignment. The male body is typically larger than the female, even in Thailand, where many people seem to be 80% the size of western people. The ladyboy has to take hormones for a couple of years before the operation; these hormones help him grow breasts and reduce his facial and body hair growth. Thai men don't usually have much body hair, compared to Western men, but they do have some; hormones or another treatment are needed to reduce or eliminate it. However, hormones have a side effect of reducing the ability to ejaculate.

Males typically have a protruding Adam's apple, so that is yet another operation: it can be shaved by a surgeon to reduce or eliminate the protrusion. And many have electrolysis to eliminate body hair, especially in the armpits.

If you visit Nana Entertainment Plaza after 7PM (which is when it opens), you will find several hair-dressing establishments located on the decks that run around three sides of the structure. The ones at the front cater to the bar girls; the ones at the rear cater to ladyboys. You can watch some of the ladyboys preening and preparing their makeup.

Some of the bars are exclusively ladyboys. If you enter one such bar, you will find that most ladyboys are more than passable and some are strikingly beautiful. I don't think I have ever seen an ugly ladyboy.

As far as relationships go, ladyboys are just like Thai women. They want a long-term relationship, and they will try hard to make the relationship work. Many speak some English, but you really need a product like Speak Easy Thai to help you learn some basic Thai vocabulary. If you can communicate better, you have a much better chance of a lasting relationship.

A part of Bangkok's nightlife that should not be missed by any visitor, ladyboy cabaret shows are professionally done, with spectacular productions (lots of feathers and glitter, good music, and some comedy as well). You can see them at the Calypso Cabaret (Asia Hotel, Ratchathewi SkyTrain station), Golden Dome Cabaret (15 minute walk from Sutthisan subway station), and Mambo Cabaret in the former Washington Theater between Sukhumvit Soi 22 and 24. Sphere: Related Content

Learning Thai -- The Language of Crows

This morning, at dawn, I listened to the morning news delivered by a large, black crow in the tree next to my bedroom window. This crow has a very large vocabulary, and its language is tonal, like Thai. Although crows can make only one sound, which in English we transcribe as "caw", in fact it uses the same five tones as Thai.

The morning news lasted about ten minutes, with frequent pauses, which I took to be the pause between sentences or paragraphs. This crow used repetition and tones to create different words. Unlike Thai, which only duplicates a word to indicate a generic plural, the crow would issue as many as five identical caws quickly, then pause slightly. I took the five caws to be one word or phrase.

Thai uses five tones: low, middle, high, rising, and falling. The crow used the same tones. There was clearly a "caw?" and a "caw!", which were quite distinct from the other three caws: low caw, middle caw, and high caw.

As far as I could tell, the crow did not repeat itself during the ten minute news announcement. I could not hear any answering crow, so I took this as general broadcast news, as opposed to "hey, I'm looking for a mate!".

In Thailand, 20 years ago, I lived at JB Mansion on Phaholyothin Road, Soi 3. I often went into the pool, but I had to wait until sunset, as I have fair skin and burn easily. There was a large bird, perhaps a parrot or toucan, in a cage that was obviously too small, on the balcony of the apartment building next door.

All day, this bird sent out a single whistle, which I took to mean, "Is anyone there?"

One day, I repeated the whistle back to him. It was easy to reproduce and I did it accurately.

The bird immediately perked up, shifted around on its perch, sat up straight, turned its head around in both directions, and issued a different whistle which I had never heard before.

I duplicated that whistle, and the bird looked confused. It tilted its head, shifted around, then issued the second whistle again.

I repeated it.

The bird settled down, and went back to issuing the first whistle.

So what happened here?

Clearly, if the first whistle meant "Is anyone there?", the second whistle meant "I am here, who are you?" and it should have been followed by a third whistle, which I did not know.

This is similar to the "discovery protocol" used in computer communications, for example with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi devices. An initial signal, called "Attention" in computer-speak, is followed by an "Acknowledgement", and then a "Begin Transmission". This is also termed a "handshake".

When communicating with the parrot, the handshake failed as I did not provide the correct third whistle, and the bird realized that I was not another parrot.

Getting back to the crow, it did not do what the parrot did, that is, issue a single sound repeatedly. It was clearly speaking different sentences for a long period of time, ten minutes, without repeating itself, as far as I could tell.

In Australia, some crows in the Northern Territory have figured out how to eat cane toads, which have two poisonous sacs behind the head. Normally, anything that eats a cane toad dies. Because of this, cane toads have spread southwards and have now reached Sydney. But the crows near Darwin have figured out that if they flip the toad onto its back, they can eat the cane toad by going through the stomach.

Amazing birds, crows. I never realized before today that they spoke a version of Thai. I wrote Speak Easy Thai to help people learn Thai; maybe I should write a Speak Easy Crow.

Sphere: Related Content

Learning to Speak Thai

The main problem with learning to speak Thai is that the basis of the language is not European-based. English and the other Euro languages have Latin, Greek, Viking, etc., roots; Thai does not, so you have to memorize hundreds, if not thousands, of strange and unrelated sounds. This is difficult, unless you use some sort of memory trigger.

Speak Easy Thai is a low-cost (about US$25) CD-ROM that helps solve this problem by presenting a picture and a sound file; all words are spoken by a native Thai speaker, so you hear the correct tone.

If you see a Thai word printed in a book, such as a travel guide, chances are you will not remember the word because there is nothing to hang your hat on.

But when you see a picture of something and hear it spoken properly in Thai, your brain will find it much easier to remember the word because it seems to set up more associations (hypertext links, if you will) in your brain.

It’s a fact that most people learn better visually and aurally than they do by simply reading and trying to memorize. This is, in fact, how children learn. They hear the words spoken by adults and other children, and repeat them. Young children learn to speak a language well before they can read.

Thai uses its own alphabet, rather than pictograms like Chinese, which makes it much easier to learn than Chinese. You just have to get over the hump of reading the Thai characters. The alphabet contains the same letters as English, but they are drawn differently. For example, all the common consonants and vowels exist in Thai, but a Thai G (or P or M) does not look like an English G (or P or M).

But the best part of learning Thai is the grammar, believe it or not, because there is very little to learn. There are no, absolutely NO verb conjugations, which will please anyone who has ever tried to learn one of the Latin-based languages like French, Italian, and Spanish. Future tense is handled with "ja", meaning "will", or by adding an adverb of time, like "tomorrow". Past tense is handled by putting "already" at the end, or by adding an adverb of time, like "yesterday". For example, instead of saying, "I went to the market", you use the present tense ("go") but add "already" at the end, as in "I go market already". Easy peasy.

Also, adjectives do not change form, you don’t have to worry about the sex of a noun because all nouns are neuter. Adjectives always follow the noun, without exception; you say "house big" rather than "big house".

General plurals are done by doubling the noun: "house house" instead of "houses". Specific plurals use the same construction we use in English for groups, as in "The farmer has three head of cattle". You can’t say "I have three children" in Thai, you must say "I have child three person"; "child" is the noun, "person" is the group word, also known as a "classifier".

Adverbs are easy too, no variations. You can add emphasis by doubling the adverb: "He runs quickly quickly".

The most difficult part of learning Thai is that it is a tonal language. English uses tones on sentences. Compare these three statements:

"You’re going to the party."
"You’re going to the party?"
"You’re going to the party!"

They all use the same English words, but the tone (flat, rising, falling, respectively) gives an entirely different meaning to each sentence.

Thai uses tones on words, but not on sentences. For example, "seu-ah" spoken with a flat (mid-range) tone means "clothing"; "seu-ah" spoken with a rising tone means "tiger". So you must be careful to learn the correct tone for each word, otherwise you might be saying "my tiger is dirty" when what you meant is "my clothing is dirty". There is no doubt that this is the hardest part of learning Thai, and the only way to learn the correct tone is to listen to a native Thai speaker saying the word. Sphere: Related Content

How the Computer Moves the Arrow on your Screen

Go here:

http://www.1-click.jp/

It takes a minute or two to load. Then move your mouse cursor over the screen.

Try moving the mouse quickly, and then pausing.

Try clicking, too.

Sphere: Related Content

New Photography Blog

I have started a digital photography blog at http://dougs-photography.info/WordPress/
which will contain tips and techniques for choosing a digital camera, photo printer, taking photos, and making money by selling your photos.

Check it out. Sphere: Related Content

Hardware Problems

The girls at Thai Culture Publishing have been having a hard time lately, as one of their computers started acting strangely, constantly rebooting during the initial loading of Windows.

This is a sign of the Blaster worm, among other things, so I decided the best way to fix this would be to remove the drive, put it in an external box, and run a virus scan on it.

However, I am in Ottawa, Canada, not Bangkok. So I told Pad to go the next day and buy an external drive box for a 2.5" disk drive at Pantip or Fortunetown.

Next day, she told me via MSN Messenger video conference that she now had a box. Now the challenge became the removal of the drive from the laptop chassis.

Pad is not knowledgable about hardware, and her English comprehension is not 100% yet, having essentially taught herself English in the last 12 months or so. She has trouble understanding the difference between "in" and "on", for example. I told her to unplug the cables and power cord from the laptop, turn it upside down, and place it on the desk. Seemed like a simple enough command, but I was wrong.

She unplugged the cables and power cord, then picked up the laptop, and opened the top drawer of the desk.

"NO!" I yelled, and she closed the drawer and put the computer back on the desk.

"Pick up the laptop, turn it over, and put it ON the desk upside down."

She opened the top drawer again.

"No, Pad," I said, "ON the desk, not IN the desk."

Finally she understood, "Oh, OK, Doug, now I understan'," and she put the computer on the desk right side up.

"Now flip it upside down, Pad." And she did.

OK, first step accomplished.

Then I told her to look at the bottom of the laptop case, and look for the icon of the hard disk drive. These icons are impressed into the plastic, and there are five of them, for memory, CPU, hard drive, battery, and modem.

She said, "OK, I find it already." She then used a small screw driver and undid the Philips screw, then could not get the cover off. Her husband, Gen, came over to help, picked up another screwdriver and started removing the screws that hold the case together.

"NO!" I yelled, "Gen, yud! Yud!"

He stopped, and I told Pad not to let him undo any more screws, it was just the one for the hard disk cover that we wanted. So then they tried to pry the cover off, and suddenly it popped off, landing on the desk.

"OK, Doug, finiss."

Great, except I could see in the web cam video that this was the memory, not the hard drive. So I told her that, and said, "Put the cover back on and look for the icon of the hard drive."

It took 3 or 4 minutes to fit the cover back in ("Difficul', Doug") and screw it in. Finally she went looking for the hard drive icon.

"OK, Doug, I see it."

Once more attacking it with the small screwdriver, she undid the screw, and popped off the cover, and there was the CPU exposed. Sigh.

One more round and she found the hard drive.

To make a long story longer, she finally got the hard drive out and installed in the external disk box. While she was assembling the box, I asked her, "Sanuk, mai?" (Is this fun?)

"Chai, Doug, now I like boy."

Next day she took the laptop back to the office and the girls succeeded in installing Windows, which is quite difficult for people who can't read English all that well.

As a result of this episode, I have added a section to the Windows Stupidities site to tell people to uncheck the option for automatic restart on error. It's called My System Continuously Reboots, and is located near the bottom of the contents menu. Sphere: Related Content

Resources to Learn English

I have been researching English learning resources lately, as I have some Thai friends who need some help. I have consolidated what I have learned so far here:

http://www.ebooks-international.com/Languages/LearnEnglish.html

The Thai people I know fall into two categories, as far as education goes: those with a university or college education, and those who quit school at age 10 or so and had to work.

Some of the brightest people I have ever met have only 4 years of schooling. They can add and subtract but cannot multiply or divide and do not understand fractions, decimals, and percentages. One lady (age 29 with two children and two ex-husbands) that I know well was a waitress a year ago. In the past year, she has taught herself English, how to use a computer, and how to run a business with several employees and a half a dozen major customers.

Another lady took 2 years at a technical college, financed by a government student loan. She created a multi-page web site using Notepad to code raw HTML. That's not something I would do, it's too difficult. When I asked her why, she said she wanted to understand exactly how HTML worked.

However, none of these people speak English very well. The university-educated can read better than the others, but they invariably write poorly and often speak poorly.

Hence my research. Hopefully it will benefit you or someone you know. Sphere: Related Content

I found this article very interesting, as I have done some research on car auctions:

Most Expensive Ferrari Ever Sold

by Mike Bartley

The popularity of the Ferrari is known the world over. The Italian carmaker is known not only for building good looking cars with high performance but also for the price that these vehicles fetch. In fact the company's cheapest model has a base price of $150,000. When it comes to expensive cars, Ferrari just set a record for the most expensive Ferrari ever sold.

The sale came at an auction held in the marque's Italian assembly facility. Hosting the auction are the Canada-based RM Auctions Inc. and the trusted Sotheby's. The auction saw 33 classic Ferraris being auctioned off. The most expensive of the lot is the 1962 TRI/LM Testa Rossa Spyder. The said classic race car fetched a price of 6,875,000 euros or about $9.275 million. While the car became the most expensive Ferrari ever sold, it is not the most expensive car sold in an auction. That distinction belongs to a 1931 Bugatti Type 41 Royal Sports Coupe which was sold for $11 million.

The Testa Rossa Spyder is said to be the world's most famous race car since it was used by Ferrari in the 24-hour Le Mans. The dominance of the car of the said prestigious racing event spanned from the late 1950s to the early 60s. The car sold at the auction for the record price is the last of its kind which is one reason why the price reached more than $9 million. The particular model is the last Ferrari race car to have its engine in the front and it was driven by Phil Hil and Oliver Glendebien at the Le Mans in 1962. Aside from that particular car, the auction also sold classic Ferrari cars which earned the Italian car manufacturer more than $46 million.

Other Ferrari cars sold during the auction, which would put to shame any production vehicle even if equipped with Kleen Wheels accessories, includes a 1953 Ferrari 340/375 MM Berlinetta Competizione which fetched a price of 4,235,000 euros. The said classic Ferrari is the second most expensive Ferrari sold during the auction. Another classic car sold at the public sale is a 1970 Ferrari 512 S which was sold for 2,640,000 euros. A 1953 Ferrari 340 MM Competition Spyder was sold at the auction for the price of 2,310,000 euros. Another Ferrari classic which was sold at the auction is a 1966 Ferrari Dino 206 SP which was sold for a whopping 2,420,000 euros. Another expensive Ferrari car sold is the 2003 Ferrari F2003-GA Formula 1 Grand Prix Car which was driven by Michael Schumacher during his stint with Scuderia Ferrari. The car was sold for 1,540,000 euros or almost $2 million.

Of the 33 cars that were auctioned, only one car was not sold and it was a 1987 Ferrari F40 Prototipo.

Aside from the mentioned cars, Ferrari also auctioned off different car-related merchandise like a 2005 Ferrari steering wheel which was sold for $85,000. Compare that to a brand new Chevy Aveo which has a starting price of $9,455 and you will see how expensive Ferraris are. The Italian car manufacturer also auctioned off a 2004 V10 engine which was sold at $62,000. A matching 2004 engine cover was also sold at the auction which fetched a price of $12,500. An autographed Schumacher helmet was sold for $30,000 while a racing suit worn by the German Formula One driver fetched a price of $28,000. Current Ferrari Formula One driver Kimi Raikkonen's racing suit was also auctioned off and was sold for $8,500. And perhaps the oddest things auctioned off were a set of Felipe Massa's under-clothes which was sold for $775.

About the Author
Mike Bartley, 49, is a professional automotive journalist domiciled in Irvine, CA. He travels from one state to another to cover the hottest auto shows, racing events and automotive revelations. His penned compositions cover press releases, reviews, and suggestions. Where the auto action is, that's exactly where you can find Mike.

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For more information on Car Auctions, go to http://www.maximize-income.com/Auctions-Cars/ Sphere: Related Content