ChiFlyer

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.

I use Charles Schwab as my US bank and they tend to be on the stick. I have cancelled my US credit cards with Citibank and Chase as they became useless due to their notifications for approval processes. I use Skype for my US phone number and both banks are unable to communicate via Skype. I instead moved to AMEX for a US credit card and they have been a pleasure to deal with, other than their slightly high annual rate. Mine is $150 for a green card. Worth it to me due to the no hassle processes. I have a Bangkok Bank Account and I have been pleased for the most part with their online services. They occasionally forget to update the laptop online service when they do an upgrade, but the mobile service still works when this happens. I prefer to access via the iBanking laptop method as I like the bigger screen and like to extract data to feed various xls files on my laptop. I have a Bangkok Bank credit card to use when someone does not accept AMEX. I let my Bangkok Bank ATM card lapse as it served no purpose. I use my Schwab debit card for ATM withdrawals, as all fees are refunded anywhere in the world. The US Big Name Banks tanked on Friday in the US stock markets. A less than expected earnings report from JPM accompanied by words of warning from no less than Jamie Dimon were part of the reason for the downturn. Geopolitical angst and the Fed cooling toward lowering rates also caused a negative drag. JPM is a significant holding within my overall US equities. It was at 15%. Hmmm - 14% now. I have held JPM for many years and some bumps in the road have occurred in the past. I actually worked for a Jamie Dimon Bank (as an IT consultant) for 5 years. Jamie and I were not close friends, but I was in the same room with a few of his immediate reports at times. In case anyone is interested I use a site to get a quick market recap on a daily basis. They offer other services, but I use only the free market recap. https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

We kicked off Songkran by having the Mrs family over for a pool afternoon and supper to follow. The crew had a seafood lunch to get things started and then the younger people jumped into the pool armed with water guns. A good time was had by all. I made a casual supper that consisted of Sloppy Jane Sandwiches (a version of Sloppy Joes but with ground chicken instead of beef). Sides were some frozen waffle fries and a seasoned corn dish (my creation on the corn dish). Here is a link for the Sloppy Janes. This is written for ground turkey, but I have never seen that in the Pattaya area. This recipe is quite tasty IMO. I usually make a fair sized batch and freeze the leftovers for later use. I used a frozen leftover batch today. https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/sloppy-jane-sliders-1961874#communityReviews Given the use of reheated components, supper was on the table in under an hour. The spread. The hit of the day was the Hagen Daz Ice Cream for dessert. The 7 year old guest gave me some big repeated thumbs up gestures for the Hagen Daz. Leftovers were one sandwich.

Chicken Cordon Bleu - 2nd Attempt I made Chicken Cordon Bleu tonight. The result was much better presentation wise than my first attempt. The Mrs really liked it. Here are some items that I think led to the improvement. I butterflied the chicken breast before pounding it out. A butterfly cut of this nature needs to be done carefully. One wants to cut to within about 1/2 inch of the other side, but not all the way though. The breast should open up like a book. What works for me is to cut slowly and stop and check progress along the way. Pound the butterflied breast a little gently with the mallet. Really the point is do not smash it hard or else you may tear the breast and it will not roll well. Pounded out breasts will vary some in size. If you find that the ham and chees are crowding the edge, cut off some of the ham and cheese. Roll slowly and get the ends tucked in. Have your toothpicks at the ready.

The duplicitous self-absorbed bastard deserves all of the "Rot in Hell" comments that he will get.

I am watching a couple of TV series that have held my interest. The first is (S01-S03) of "The Fall" starring Gillian Anderson (Xfiles etc.). IMDB 8.1 (2013 thru 2016 or so). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fall_(TV_series) This is a well done serial killer detective show based in Belfast. The second show that is holding my interest as well is "Bodies". IMDB 7.3 (2023). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodies_(2023_TV_series) This is a Sci-fi detective thriller with time travel elements. It is a little confusing to get started with, but comes together well IMO, if you give it a little time. It has 4 time segments with multiple characters and it would be a good show to read the recaps after viewing the first few episodes. I downloaded both of these from IPT, but both are Netflix produced series.

Seared Scallop Pasta - Revisited Some of the younger family members of the Mrs are in town as they are on their Songkran school breaks. We had them over today and I made a large batch of Seared Scallops Pasta accompanied by a large Salad, and some garlic bread. It was a nice time between pool time and the dinner that I prepared being well received. One of the taller younger guys used some black putty to try to address the damage to a few tiles on the reflection wall by my pool. Worked out pretty well. Looks much better. I still have to have a guy run a new line across the top to feed the water more evenly. That contractor is busy with another job, so that will most likely be after Songkran. I am posting this mainly to show the food pics. A couple of points about the recipe: I have discovered that the Little Walk Villa Market has frozen scallops that are not bad. I usually buy them a few weeks before I am planning on using them because they may be unavailable on any given day. These can be found in the frozen section directly in front of the butcher area. In the previous post I said I went a little past Alton Brown's 90 second per side rule for the scallops and they were a bit over cooked. This time I did exactly the 90 seconds and they were a tad under cooked. I left myself a note to do 2 minutes next time. Raising the heat would also address this, but risks burning the fat. I also went a little Plain Jane this time as I was unsure as to how my guests would like this dish. I used pasta water as the thinner instead of wine. I also did not finish with ground black peppercorns. It went well. The crew bagged up the leftover pasta and salad and took it back to their condo. Oh, I made a homemade vinaigrette for the salad. The link below lists 8 ways of making vinaigrette. Better than store bought IMO and can be done in minutes. https://www.food.com/recipe/basic-vinaigrette-dressing-with-8-variations-213989 Pics Pasta Salad - I cut everything up in the Morning, covered with plastic wrap, kept in the fridge, made the vinaigrette in the Morning as well, but did not dress the salad until meal time. The salad was made up of Cos lettuce, Sliced Red Onion that was soaked in water for 15 minutes, a diced Red Bell Pepper, Sliced Mushrooms, a few sliced radishes, and some crumpled Feta Cheese. Some packaged Garlic Bread from VM. I went about 30 seconds too long on the broiling step. 2 minutes and 30 seconds for next time. Still zero leftovers. Plated

It is a great mini-series IMO. Powerful performances by Riz Ahmed, John Turturro, and the late Michael Kenneth Williams. I watched it on HBO when it first aired in 2016. Dialed into in kind of a Pavlovian response as it took over the "Game of Thrones" time slot.

The Mrs is getting over (slowly) some kind of bronchial infection, so we are spending most of our time at home. Due to this I am watching even more video entertainment than usual. I watched "The Insider" this afternoon 1999 IMDB 7.8. A little long at 2:37. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Insider_(film) This is a somewhat fictionalized account of a true story. Some big name cast members (Pacino and Crowe). Crowe was nominated for an Oscar. I looked for a link that would explain what is fictionalized in the movie, but could not readily find one. There are various links on the net where both Lowell Bergman (60 Minutes producer) and Mike Wallace take exception with what has been reported about what is the true story. IMO the true story is pretty damn complicated for many obvious reasons. This is not a linear series of events that occurred in a vacuum. The real life Lowell Bergman (60 Minutes Producer) is also listed as an influential person in the evolution of the TV show "Frontline". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowell_Bergman Oh, I liked the movie, but it was a 2 sandwiches watch, meaning how many breaks did I take. I downloaded the movie from IPT.

I began watching S04 of "True Detective" the other day. Interesting watch thru the first few episodes. The main star is Jodie Foster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Detective_season_4 The IMDB of 8.9 is an overall series rating, which is pumped up by S01, which starred Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. Still after a few episodes I am enjoying this show.

Speaking about coming out of a Chicago Winter reminded me of this Low Rawls song.

The acetic was applied with a paint roller. Evidently a little too vigorously at times.