Evil Penevil

If you don't fancy turkey on Christmas Day, you might give L'Auberge a whirl. The Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve dinners are sold out, but the buffets on Christmas and New Year's Day are still available. : All you can eat oysters and 30 kinds of cheese seem good to me! L'Auberge is located about 10 minutes walk from TukCom near the intersection of Soi 17 and Third Road.

Two perennial Christmas dinner favorites, Nicky's and The Sportsman, are sold out. The second sitting at the Robin Hood Tavern is fully booked.

Cafe des Amis for traditional fine dining:

The Holiday Inn: But you're out of luck if you'd been hoping for a Christmas Eve dinner:

he InterContinental Pattaya Resort. The sunset view from its Infiniti restaurant is spectacular. If you're looking for a high-class Christmas dinner but don't want turkey and trimmings, this could be an option.

Some upscale options: Edited just now by Evil Penevil

Another great choice for those of you who prefer a U.S.-style Christmas dinner is TiggleBitties Tavern at a reasonable 895 baht. This is another place that is always sold out.

My favorite during the years I lived in Pattaya was Starz Diner at the Hard Rock Cafe. In terms of the quality and variety of food and the entertainment, it was great value for money. I can no longer do justice to huge buffets, but Thai girls, and especially Thai children, will absolutely love it. Starz is also big enough it will have room even if you leave booking very late. I don't know if they just didn't list everything on the menu below or if they have cut back on the size of the buffet, but when I ate there in 2019, the buffet included raw oysters, sushi and sashimi as well as various Thai, Japanese and Chinese dishes. I had a Thai girl with me and I still can't figure how such a small person- max 40 kilos- could pack in so much food. She didn't touch the farang stuff except for the desserts, but had multiple plates of the seafood, sushi and Asian dishes. On top of that she must have consumed 10,000 calories in desserts. We were there two hours and she was chewing something 90% of the time, sweet stuff the last 60 minutes. Christmas pudding, pie, cake, cookies, candies, Yule log, she had it all!!! Never seen anything like that in my life, even at a casino buffet in Las Vegas.

This is the worst kind of news. Striderman is one of the best known and most respected board members. My sincerest wishes that everything turns out for him in the best possible way. @Yesitisdakid Support and assistance from friends are crucial in situations like this, especially if there is no family close by. Full respect to you and any other Pattaya resident who stands by Striderman.

The only guys who had to be worried about that at the Devil's Den were the ones who asked for it. Evil

No, it didn't end well for Bugsy ... That's the famous front-page newspaper photo of Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel in the Los Angeles morgue after he was shot to death through the living-room window of his girlfriend's home in Beverley Hills, CA. No one was ever charged with the murder, but it is widely believed he was killed for skimming profits instead of paying back other mobsters who had financed the building of Siegel's Flamingo Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. The fictional character Moe Greene in The Godfather is based on Bugsy Siegel. The movie got it right that Siegel was a major player in the development of Las Vegas as a world vacation and gambling center. Siegel believed the combination of hotel casinos and top-class entertainment would attract both high-rollers and masses of low-level gamblers. He was right, but didn't live to see his idea reach fruition. Evil

Great news for all fans of the Devil's Den! The owner, Cerberus (Mike) has posted on Pattaya Addicts that he has recovered from his health problems to the extent he's in the process of finalizing the contract on new premises in which to re-open the DD. DD has always been a niche establishment and not everyone's favorite. However, no one can deny that the DD was unique for Pattaya and offered a level of service- with a guarantee no less- seldom found anyway in the world. I'm very glad both Cerberus and DD are making a comeback. Evil

That's a pleasant thought! I met Eyenitnoy several times over the years. He was indeed a nice guy, maybe too nice for Pattaya. I cautioned him about revealing too much about his retirement plans and investment strategies as well as his relations with girls on the boards, but he didn't think any harm would come of it. Events proved him wrong. He stopped posting when someone figured out which company he worked for and sent them copies of a selection of Eye's posts on Secrets. According to what VP178 has posted elsewhere, Eyenitnoy still posts on forums devoted retirement planning. I always felt he was seriously overthinking the retirement scenario and he had lost sight of the forest for the trees. He got too wound up in the minutiae of investing and forgot the goal was to provide a big enough income to live comfortably. He had plenty enough money to stop working and move to Pattaya, but I'm not sure that's what he really wanted. Evil

Sports Illustrated has featured trans model Kim Petra on the cover of its Swimsuit 2023 edition. Those covers used to feature the most beautiful women in the world. Evil

Transwomen have their biggest advantage in raw strength sports like power lifting or endurance sports such as long-distance running and cycling.

A good opinion piece in the transgender athletic debate: All four of us lost to trans athletes who took away our victories and opportunities

It was a screen shot of the video that played on Twitter by clicking on the embedded link. Evil

The link works fine for me. For those for whom it doesn't work, it could be a browser issue. Sometimes minor browser updates that aren't announced interfere with features like embedded videos. It usually takes a few days for the bug to be corrected. Evil

I've never met either of them, but I've encountered one IRL. Evil

Douche Bag-gins and his soulmate

I'd like to head back to Thailand, but I'm still dealing with health and mobility problems that make living abroad unwise right now. No point in returning to Pattaya if I can't enjoy its, shall we say, attractions. I'm waiting to see if I'm going to need a knee replacement. Evil

I'm not feeling very optimistic about the future of the U.S., but of course this goes way beyond transgender issues. Crime is rampant and the education system is collapsing. Too many problems, not enough solutions. Evil

This is a 17-year-old "girl" who placed second in a regional high-school championship in California, thereby qualifying for the state championships. Because of the public uproar that followed "her" win, "she" and another transgirl withdrew from the championship race. Would anyone mistake him for a girl? Here's an article that outlines the harm "inclusion" of trans athletes can do. ‘Fastest girl in Connecticut’ Chelsea Mitchell suing state after losing to trans athletes Some excerpts from the article: For her, those goals were winning a state championship and going to college for track. But in her first state-wide competition, she was forced to compete against a transgender athlete—something she said she “had never really heard of” happening until it happened to her. In that race, the trans competitor bumped her out of qualifying for the next round of competition. “It was just obvious to everyone there that they had a huge advantage. Everyone could see it,” Mitchell said. By her sophomore year, she says there were two transgender athletes regularly blowing biologically female track stars out of the water. Mitchell raced against them for all four years of high school and in every major race she competed in. “Just two athletes took so many opportunities away from biological females,” Mitchell told The Post. “Even though there were only two of them, they took 15 state championships away from other girls — and there were 85 girls that were directly impacted from them being in the races.” She herself lost two all-New England awards and four girls’ state championships as a consequence.

"Her" name is Avi Silverberg and "she" smashed the Canadian national women's record by bench pressing 370 lbs, topping the existing record by 95 lbs. Silverberg has been the coach of the Team Canada Powerlifting team for about 10 years. He entered a women's competition to show how farcical the rules were in his sport in Canada. The governing body allows anyone who "identifies" as a woman to enter a competition without any further requirement. According to the rules, Silverberg had to be allowed to compete because he SAID he was a woman. What's most ironic is the previous record (275 lbs) had been held by a transwoman named Anne Andres. Anne Andres complained bitterly that Silverberg had entered the competition. Evil

I read elsewhere that it is indeed a renovation/rebuilding. That report said one person has acquired the leases on all the bars in the complex and will turn it into one large open beer bar. Evil