Thom Day Is Classic

This new video from OK Go is absolutely riducudonculous. Truly.

Leaving for Phuket in a couple of days or so. Still have a bit to sort out. Since this is the busy season, all of the cheaper rooms are taken. I’ll just have to sort through the myriad of options near camp and pay a bit more than I’d like for my accommodations. Not a problem. Looking for good tires at a good price that I can buy online and have shipped so they’ll be waiting for me when I get home. Loads of bug bites. (And not the good kind. Actually, even the good kind isn’t the good kind.) ((That’s a tittie reference.)) Cut my own hair today. Used a pair of regular paper-style scissors. Added a bit of flair with a utility knife. Somehow I managed to put a few pretty noticeable bald spots onto both sides of my dome. Handsome! If only I had a suitable assistant to handle such matters for me. Someday.

P.S. I’m starting to notice that hippie chicks seem to have deceptively hot bodies. Still not interested. Just saying.

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In a crossover worthy of Allen Iverson himself, I am presenting here my latest contribution to my other most worthy endeavor: ClassicChad.com. What’s ClassicChad.com you ask? Better question: What isn’t ClassicChad.com? Next question.

Chad is a man. But so much more. Chad is anything and everything. Chad is… chad. He’s a likely body double for Robin Williams. He’s a wink and a smile. He’s a cardboard sign that attempts to say Bundaberg, but truly says possible rapist. He’s the fine line between love and hate. He’s a man who found the one thing, that once put in his mouth, is only rivaled by a man’s penis in ultimate gayness. He’s a man who refuses to wear a hat that can be described as a Kangol, or a beret, causing the creation of the fashion phenomenon, the Kangeret. He’s the glue that forever binds four roguish boys from England, and three of America’s finest bachelors, into a super-team reminiscent of The Justice League of America. The Seven Samurai. The seven coolest characters from Ocean’s 11. The Seven Deadly Sins. S Club 7. All rolled into one ragtag band of brothers, skating through life on a patch of ice called a dream. A true Flying V. He’s a man who proves eloquently, that you can let the passion pop, but you can never pop the passion. To Chad.

Random Pai thoughts while waiting for breakfast:
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The french toast at Pai Country is awesome. I got two orders.
UFC 110 on One leaves me longing somewhat for the corner chats. UFC isn’t pay per view overseas, thereby, commercial breaks.
Bader took Keith Jardine’s soul. Seeing as how Thiago Silva had already taken his soul however, was there any soul left for Bader to take? Has Keith Jardine split his soul into seven, He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named style? Looking further into the past, did Houston Alexander also puncture the Dean of Mean’s attempt at eternal life with his uppercuts of pure Baselisk venom?
More guys need to copy the Phil Davis knees. Vicious. (UFC 109)
Sure would have loved to hear Greg Jackson in the corner after Round 1 of Sotiropoulos-Stevenson.
Would have parlayed Bader, Wanderlei Silva, and Cain if I was a betting man. To be fair though, I did see Wade Gome’s Facebook status post-fight, which read, “Cain’s a beast.” before I came to this decision, so that may have influenced my thoughts a bit. Still haven’t seen the second half of the card yet, so I haven’t had a chance to see how gifted I am with predictions.
I just hit the play button on my computer to restart UFC, it un-paused the current song on iTunes instead, unleashing what may in fact be the greatest opening line of a song, in the history of opening lines and songs. “Now the midget jumps out of the cabinet, and stumps the policeman on his toe!” Thanks R. Kelly, thanks.
Glad to see Joe “Daddy” get Oi Oi Oi’d by Sotiropoulos. Something about his overt love for his children bothers me.
Couldn’t cut it. Seriously, two orders of french toast and somehow there is two extra pieces on both orders. That’s 16 pieces of eggy bread. I hit eleven and the wall at the same time.
If I ever have the need for an assistant, I insist that it be Jean Ralphio from Parks and Recreation. Daaaaaamn!
Bader. Silva. 2-0 at the moment.
Still a huge fan of Zane Ritt’s description on his Facebook page. Disappointing the ladies since 1986. Stay classy, Oregon.
Bandages are off the knee and hand now. Looks like I escaped infection. I felt a bit dicey about it when upon the third changing of bandages at the hospital, the nurse looked at my knee, and just said “Not good”. Followed by the word yellow. And that was the wound that I considered to be the good one. Go figure. Couple more days and I can start putting aloe on them. By the way, actual aloe in plant form is crazy. It doesn’t even make sense. It’s just a plant loaded with goo. Wild.
Visa runs out tomorrow. Bus was booked to Vang Vieng. Didn’t want to pay the 500 baht fine for staying a day late so I paid 850 baht to make a 15-day visa run to Mae Sai instead. No slow boat available now. The water level in the Mekong is too low. I seem to be seeing the same weather conditions with local vaginas.
Jean Ralphio’s judging regarding Cain Velasquez: Daaaaaaamn!
I’d like to see Bonnar win this fight right now. I don’t like Soszynski for some reason. I bet he loves his children.
That parlay was mine. Would have been paid in the shade. Maybe I’ll try 111. Feels pretty risky though, at the moment I’ve got a gut feeling about Dan Hardy but that might just be insane. Mir and Carwin, I’d probably shoot for Carwin.
Loved Christian Slater on The Office. Not loving Kathy Bates. Also, now a huge fan of the term bro-workers.

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Total distance traveled by motorbike today: 138.5 kilometers (86.06 miles)
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Detailed Breakdown:
Distance from Pai to Chiang Mai: Approximately 135 kilometers (84 miles)
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Distance traveled around Pai main streets aimlessly: 0.5 kilometers (0.31 miles)
Distance from center of Pai to spot on 1095 across from the rickety shack where I dumped my bike super fancy digger style: 1 kilometer (0.621 miles)
Distance from the spot where I kneed the pavement Double Dragon II style to Pai Hospital: 1 kilometer (0.621 miles)
Hobbly steps from Super Cool Bike 97 to Emergency Room entrance: 90+
Time spent in Emergency Room: 20 minutes
Cost for visit: 372 baht ($12)
Amount of blood on Converse Jeans: Too much
Distance from Pai Hospital to Chiang Mai: 136 kilometers (84.5 miles)
Distance traveled unmarred by unnecessarily rad diggers: 136 kilometers (84.5 miles)
Times almost going off the road on one of the 762 curves along the slightly mountainous journey: 3
Times almost drifting head-on into a surprisingly huge silver pickup truck: 1
Distance collision was narrowly avoided by: Less than a meter (3.28 feet)
Number of skinny cows seen grazing along the side of the road: 8 or so
Number of ripped up knees: 1
Number of now badly bruised painful bitch wrists: 1
Number of cool looking bandaged left hands: 1
Top speed hit on a straight patch of road: 92 kilometers/hour (57.17 miles/hour)
Number of crazy fresh Lil’ Miss Bossy T-Shirts: 1

Happy Valentine’s

Day five in Bangkok. Probably should have left yesterday. Definitely could have left today. I do tend to be pretty relaxed in my departures however so this comes as no surprise. I will endeavor to leave tomorrow night aboard the night train to Chiang Mai. Once there, I will be able to do a few day trek in the jungle, and then move on by minivan to the border of Laos. Then I can slow-boat it down the river toward Vang Vieng, where if all is as advertised, I will be able to catch up on all those episodes of Friends I’ve missed over the years. From there, back into Thailand and down to Phuket.
I’m bored. I’ve done a decent amount of stuff in my short time here, but you can only do so much. It is quite reminiscent of my time in New Zealand. My travels there were mainly small, solo adventures broken up by frequent bus travel. Most times I rather enjoyed the long bus rides, I found them to be rather comforting for some reason. I was often slightly disappointed when I could sense that my destination was coming. I imagine things will be similar here.
I’m still pretty impressed by the speakers on my Macbook Pro. It’s a bit off topic but they really seem to kick for laptop speakers. I’ve been privy to rock at least a few hostel parties relying on these alone to guide the way. I’m not as impressed with the abilities of my wireless card. I would often see people snatching signals from random places throughout the hostel. Signals to which my illustrious MBP seemed blissfully unaware of. Superheroes is a great song. Can’t help but wonder what Daft Punk is up to these days. I still can’t believe they did a show at Coney Island a few years ago and I missed it. Classic Chad. I am currently in mourning over the loss of my favorite pens. I’ve been using the same ones for all my writing. I believe that I brought three with me upon leaving, and am now down to one, in a barely usable form. I forget what happened to the first one, but I thoroughly recall stepping on the second one in Melbourne, crunching it to bits. I promised to take special precautions with the final one, which about two days after this pledge, was given the honor of accompanying me to the beach, where I kindly introduced it to a crippling dosage of sand. The outcome: it would no longer click to open and close. It just remained perpetually open. Not the worst thing in the world, but after a while I decided to Tim “The Toolman” Taylor it and that is exactly what I did. After “fixing” it, the clicking worked like a charm, except it would now no longer remain open. Which is where it can be found now. I have resorted to using scotch tape to hold down the click but after a day or so, it tends to slide up sending me back to square one. I intend on trying some electrical tape that I saw yesterday at 7-11, combined with a better, more efficient diagonal taping pattern. For my journal’s sake, I need to save this pen. I have been completely unable to secure a suitable replacement. Updates will be forthcoming of course.
So much to go over. Thais are about as sneaky as advertised. Can’t blame them but it does get pretty old quick. For instance, Tuk-Tuks will inevitably take you somewhere you don’t want to go. Unless you actually want to go to super sneaky travel agencies or Indian tailors. Seriously, how the fuck is there so many Indian tailors here? During my foot travels last night, I quite literally walked by a section of block that had three Indian tailors in a row, each with a dude outside (pretty standard), trying to get me to come inside. I found myself wondering, if someone isn’t interested enough to go into the first one, why would he go into the second or third one? Sucks for them. Then I just realized now, that if coming from the other direction, the last guy’s shop would be first, so half the time he’s the man. But what about that dude in the middle? It’s not like he was super convincing or anything. So, Super Sneaky Thai Trick #1. If the Tuk Tuk driver offers you a tour of certain areas for a reasonable price, say 30 baht an hour, be prepared for a stop at whichever Travel Agency he is in cahoots with. Perhaps if you don’t mind going through with the charade of getting a price for your intended “journey”, you can then continue on for the rest of the tour. I however would not be surprised if on that tour was a stop for Thai fashion, a.k.a. an Indian tailor.
Super Sneaky Thai Trick Story #1: I inquire at a tourist information booth near the pier, what my best option is for taking a boat in the harbor. I essentially was trying to find the boats that the locals take and not a tour boat. After getting some information, the kid there informs me that today is the last day of some promotion that the government is doing where for 10 baht you can take a Tuk Tuk around and see a bunch of stuff. He informs me that I can head to the Big Buddha, which I have no idea of the real name, but is a temple of some sort with a really big Buddha statue. Also, the Lucky Buddha is nearby as well. Then he suggest a stop at the T.A.T. Here is where it gets tricky. The T.A.T. is the Tourism Authority of Thailand which I’ve been informed is set up to be a safe place for tourists to get legit information for their travels, and be able to book their trip without commissions and hidden costs. It is situated in a government building and is a legitimate part of the government. This was all explained to me by a Tourist Police officer that I bumped into while visiting the Lucky Buddha. He actually inquired of me how it was that I came to be there at that particular time, explaining to me that it is normally not open to the public on most days and that day happened to be a special exception, therefore very few tourists would be visiting. I won’t get too much into particulars but he explained two things to me. One, the official role of the T.A.T. and its reason for being. If by this point, you’ve already noticed the hordes of travel places, or actually spent time in a few as I have, you will already understand the reason intuitively. The second, some information about getting legitimate Thai suits, made from Thai fabrics. Something about how every school uniform is made by this Thai company, and they do all the suits for Thais going abroad to study or work. So the government heavily pushes their wares, as opposed to people frequenting the many Indian shops, hurting the Thai companies. Anyway, this guy gives me all this info, writes some stuff down for me, and goes on his way, adding to his legitimacy. He helps, and goes. I then head back to my Tuk Tuk driver, who I have now come to understand is probably a student who lives in the countryside who is given the opportunity to live in Bangkok for a couple of months, drive a Tuk Tuk, and get a sense of the city. The Tourism guy explained all that to me as well. I’ve now seen, the Big Buddha, and the Lucky Buddha, so where to next? He suggests that I go to the T.A.T. office now. Good thinking I suppose, I’ll get some information for my trip up north. We drive a few blocks, pull over, and this majestically huge government building that I’m expecting to see is nowhere. It’s a travel agency. Sneaky. I figure I’ll go in, quickly get a price, and test my memory to see if I’ve thoroughly memorized my upcoming trip proposed to me by the last three travel agencies I got stuck going into. Yeah, I said it, three. Somebody has to step in the shit so that you people can leap over it with ease. In and out in a few minutes. Now I’d like to see something else. This is when he suggests Thai fashion. ‘Sure’, I say ‘Why not?’. Here is where I will tell you why not. Because you will get out of the TT, walk about three paces and realize that you have not found yourself in an area bustling with activity and Thai fashion, you will find yourself in the hands of, you guessed it, a fucking Indian tailor. The deal that I’ve made with myself is that when I find myself in a stupid situation that I’m responsible for, I must ride it out. So I did. Not a fun 25 minutes. Although that price did get lower and lower as I attempted to leave. No thanks. After this, I just had him drop me back at Khaosan Road. Point of the story, T.A.T. and Thai fashion.
Always get a straw when you buy a bottle of soda. They recycle the bottles and I doubt splendidly. Many, many lips have touched that bottle. Get a straw. Polei taught me that about China, transfers here as well. The street vendors will usually pour the bottle into a cup, others will use a plastic bag. They pour it right into the bag and drop a straw in. Fancy. I’m reminded of my earliest days of apartment living in the 97-98 era. If you’ve never had the pleasure of hearing my surprisingly lengthy list of things I’ve had to wipe my ass with in dire times, you don’t know what you’re missing.
Divide by 30, that’s roughly your price in US Dollars. Most T-shirts here on the street are 120 baht, many of pretty substandard quality, but some pretty decent ones as well. I’ve only purchased one so far. Turns out that even at $4 a shirt, I’m still pretty particular.

Since my surf story is taking me longer to write than Mannequin 2: On The Move, I’m putting up a video instead that has nothing to do with surfing. But it does have to do with a winch. So that’s pretty cool.

Dear Gay Dudes of Sydney,
What the fuck? Seriously, what the fuck? Can you guys cool out a bit. Is it necessary for such a massive percentage of your population to be in such phenomenal shape? Firstly, let’s say half of the women in the area who see me assume that I am gay, which is a likely estimate. Not only are they assuming that I am gay, they’re now assuming that I’m on the bottom rung of the Sydney gay ladder. You guys are nearly all super buff, not to mention well dressed, leaving me rocking twink status. And I’m not talking about World of Warcraft. Then there’s the issue of the other half of the female demographic. Like I really need you guys cruising around town reminding locals and backpackers alike, what the male body is capable of. Hey GDOS, ever hear of body fat? I’m not well versed on local job opportunities, but I’m solidly convinced that there appears to be an occupation that only you guys are aware of that consists of the following: waking up, drinking a protein shake, getting a facial, a biweekly haircut, a visit to the tailor, four hours at the gym, three hours shopping for the latest fashion, two more hours at the gym, a Zumba class, dinner with other GDOS accompanied by hot women at a ratio of approximately 2 GDOS to 1.5 hot women, one hour of dancing with the dual purpose of fun/cardiovascular improvement, a mud bath, an episode of Ugly Betty, then off to bed on a super plush mattress with sheets of some insanely high thread count. And the smell of lavender. Clearly this job pays quite well. No wonder you keep it a secret. Well done, Gay Dudes of Sydney, for because of you and your extremely vertical walking stances, I strive to keep my feet on the ground, and reach for the stars.
-thom day
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Dear Gay Dude Who Looked A Lot Like A Smaller Daniel Craig,
Hey, you were walking by Hungry Jacks near Oxford Square, it wasn’t that warm out but for some reason you had no shirt on. You were clearly gay. Has anyone ever told you that you look a lot like a smaller Daniel Craig? That must work out quite nicely for you.
-thom a.k.a. Lanky Gerard Butler
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Dear Other Gay Dude Near Hungry Jacks Who Also Had No Shirt On,
How often do you work out your abs? Jesus. I couldn’t help but ask myself how many Muay Thai kicks I would need in about four months to utterly destroy your midsection. It seemed like a great litmus test. Perhaps I will bump into you again. With my shins. On a more serious note though, when they need to clean washboards, do they rub them on your abs? It would make sense. Enjoy your core.
-thom a.k.a. Ab-raham Lincoln
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