ChiFlyer

Sadly Dickie Betts is gone. It is interesting that one of his sons is named Duane. The dual guitars of Betts and Duane Allman were incredible. My favorite song remains "Whipping Post", which is probably more about the dual drummers, but still highlights the overall strengths of the band.

Been thinking a bit about the situation that @coxyhog posted about and I have a completely unsolicited and probably useless suggestion about this going forward. I am an American and I think you are a Brit, so maybe this affects things. Also, I live full time in Thailand on an O-NonIm retirement visa. Your situation may well be different. What I do: I have a Bangkok Bank account. I had the Mrs open an account with Bangkok Bank. My central funds are in the US with Charles Schwab. I send periodic wires from my Schwab Account to my Bangkok Bank Account. These cost $15. I can then transfer from my Bangkok Bank Account to the one that the Mrs has at no cost. I originally chose Bangkok Bank because one could route transfers through their NY branch at no cost as it was processed as a domestic transfer to the NY office. That ability was taken away a few years back. Still Bangkok Bank has pretty decent online services to enable the rest of my scheme, so I stay with them. Not at all sure, if there are any similar possibilities that might work for you from the UK, but thought I would mention this. It took me a few years to work out this cunning plan (Black Adder reference intended). btw - currently a transfer from Schwab to Bangkok Bank (at least for me) completes in less than two days. Are these two banks taking advantage of me with currency conversions? Most likely. I am wiling to put up with that in order to have a hassle free ongoing process.

A number of years ago (8 ?), before I had a Thai Bank Account, I would use XE to send a little cash to the lady who later became the Mrs. On one transaction XE held it and I had to call them. Some minor office clerk (probably a Magatard) had held the transaction because of the first name of the person I was sending a little money to. The Mrs has one of those Thai lady names that ends in "porn". This is not unusual. Anyway I get on the phone with this moron and she starts grilling me. I ask for her boss and she joins the call. At one point I hear the boss groan a little and mutter "are you trying to get us sued?". Finally I ask where their office is located and they say LA. I say "ok you probably have a person of Thai decent working in your office. Please ask them about the name". They call some guy and ask him to come to their meeting room. He verifies what I am saying and the transaction is released. I hear him chuckle a bit as he leaves the room. I never used XE again. I only put up with this in this case because the future Mrs was ill and I wanted to get her to a doctor.

Stephen Colbert Interviews Salman Rushdie - Interesting I thought Part 1 Colbert - Rushdie Part 2

What I find lost in historical accounts is the brave role the Canadian Merchant Marine provided in combating the Nazi Wolf Pack campaigns in the North Atlantic. They made a considerable amount of effort in bringing down the 3rd Reich at considerable cost to themselves. https://legionmagazine.com/the-wolf-pack-attacks-the-battle-for-one-world-war-two-convoy/ Thank you for your courage Canada.

Orphan Black (S01-S05) IMDB 8.3 (2013). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_Black I am really not all that wild about this show, but the Mrs likes it. Why I do not know. I find it interesting at times. It is a Canadian show based on a number of clones who become aware of each other. The actress who plays all of the clones must have been going nuts with the wardrobe changes, not to mention the poor director who had to schedule shootings to minimize the impacts from said wardrobe changes. This is one of those shows that gets more interesting the further one gets into it IMO. We started S04 tonight. Given the number of story lines it gets choppy at times. I pulled it from IPT. I think that it is available on Netflix.

Well - my post here has nothing to do with Banks or Phone Companies, but this was one of the most aggravating experiences I have had with any company. I had purchased a plane ticket from Cebu Pacific for a domestic flight from Manila to Tacloban. When I got to the airport my ticket had been cancelled even though they had charged my credit card. They said there was no record of the credit card payment. I was going to see my honey. She had traveled 3 hours to Tacloban to meet me. We were going over to Naval for a starter. I did not want to leave her stranded in Tacloban wondering what the hell had happened to me, so I bought another ticket. It took me two years to get the charge straightened out with Cebu Pacific. At one point they told me that they could not refund my money because their email server had crashed and they had lost all records related to my initial purchase. 😠 I had kept tracks about all of this and turned them over to Citibank (the credit card issuer). At first they said hey your problem not ours, but I got a nice lady on the phone who was willing to look through said tracks. She got back to me after looking through said tracks and laughingly said "these guys are incredible, I am amazed". I got my refund from Citibank. Now when Citibank is the good guys in any story something is incredibly wrong.

No - I do not think so, but I once slept through an earthquake. 🙂 IIRC the ATM card had a fee when it was renewed. I chose not to renew it.

NP

Mongolian Beef Revisited I made this recipe tonight. I have changed it a bit since the last post. I backed down the Ginger and Garlic a little. I continue to use Sesame Oil for the marinade. I changed the sauce Reduced the Brown Sugar to 1 TBSP Added 1 TBSP Sambal Olek replacing the Sriracha Added 1 TBSP Hoisen Sauce to balance the Brown Sugar reduction I continued with the stated Fish Sauce - Soy Sauce combo Added 1/2 tsp of freshly ground black pepper I cut the Flank Steak into longer strips. I also used a very good Wagyu Flank that I had bought online for about 500. This alone made a huge difference. I buy my Flank from Sloane's. Sloane's goes out of stock frequently, so when I notice that they are available, I buy 3 or 4 and toss them into the freezer. Flank is my most often used medium cost beef steak for stir fries etc. I finish the dish with Sesame Seeds. Ready to serve Plated Lacking all humility, I will state that it was delicious.

I have started watching "An Optimist's Guide to the Planet" (2024) IMDB 8.7. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27096916/ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister from GOT) hosts a travel documentary that focuses on positive actions that are being taken by private citizens of a variety of nations throughout the world in order to address Climate Change. I am finding the show to be interesting and well worth a watch. I pulled the show down from IPT.

I was cautioning BMs who may not have a US SSN.

One must have a US SSN in order to use Schwab Bank, not to mention a minimally funded trading account with their brokerage firm.

I got around to watching the Oppenheimer Documentary the other day. IMDB 7.0. It compliments the movie well and is worth a watch IMO. I think comparing the movie and the documentary is kind of an apples and oranges thing.

I had already downloaded it on IPT where it is a very popular download. IMDB of 8.0 is impressive. I have not started to watch as of yet. That will likley be about a month from now.