'LDMA's Life In The Wor Zone' Has Moved

Bagan - foggy sunrise through palms

2005-02-14T09:00:00.000+07:00

Bagan - foggy sunrise through palms Originally uploaded by awfulsara. Awesome pic shot in Myanmar

2004-04-19T20:56:00.000+07:00

Important Notice Having come to the conclusion that Blogger is a lame piece of shite in comparison to the mighty, and extremely difficult to install Movable Type engine, I have just spent the last 12 hours installing, opening obscure scripts in notepad, gnashing my teeth as one thing after another doesn't work, and ultimately fighting with Blogger's ftp settings just to give me my Blogspot

2004-04-18T21:15:00.000+07:00

Why do farang girls hate Thailand? Posts and discussion on the excellent Mango Sauce. A website seemingly dedicated to the Bangkok Farrang male, but well designed and good thoughtful articles. Have you ever seen an ex-pat with a farang girlfriend? Me neither. Throughout Thailand, farang girls have been swapped for Thais in a manner reminiscent of the 1950’s science fiction classic

2004-04-18T20:27:00.000+07:00

WORD SURFING An interesting site for TEFL/TESOL teachers, focussing particularly on vocabulary.

2004-04-17T00:24:00.000+07:00

www.louisminson.com....ahem. Hey I just found what should be a great site in the near future. In the meantime why don't you gawp at the oh so incredibly 5 minutes effort swish effects. I'm pondering php at the moment and realising how little i know about anything.....trying to extract information out of mysql databases...arrrgghh. Weather full-on...hot as hell. I went to Sadao

2004-04-16T23:54:00.000+07:00

The Official Ninja Webpage: REAL Ultimate Power!!!! This is absolutely awesome. Incredibly funny and extremely hyperactive 10 year old with a fetish for ninjas. Ninjas can kill anyone they want! Ninjas cut off heads ALL the time and don't even think twice about it. These guys are so crazy and awesome that they flip out ALL the time. I heard that there was this ninja who was eating

2004-04-14T19:22:00.000+07:00

Advanced CSS Layouts: Step by Step - WebReference.com This splendid page has got me a little more up to speed on the seemingly undecipherable babble that is CSS, and I am now the proud owner of a great template, that is desparately in search of some content...I'll keep you updated as to it's progress. A gentleman by the name of Filco has been cartooning his way around Thailand, this

2004-04-13T23:53:00.000+07:00

Whoops, not blogged for a few days! Naughty, naughty! Im nursing a hangover from today's Songkran festivities. For those of you not hip to Thai festivals, this is the one where you go out riding pickuptrucks like militia men and have a sometimes violent waterfight with the entire nation, a concept which for the first two hours is extremely amusing but gets boring quickly, when you've been

2004-04-09T16:02:00.000+07:00

miscoranda: Testing Gmail Here's some positive news on G-mail, difficult to detect at the moment due to the screeches of horror at the privacy lobby, and the "um...excuse me that's our name" from some smallish British company. The more I see this service the more I want to use it. Complex yet simple, a taking of all the things that make hotmail and yahoo annoying, and ironing them out.

2004-04-08T17:49:00.000+07:00

The Memespread Project I've been seeing this word quite a lot recently so I did a Google definition search for it and I got this. a cultural unit (an idea or value or pattern of behavior) that is passed from one generation to another by nongenetic means (as by imitation); "memes are the cultrual counterpart of genes" www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn The link at the top of this

2004-04-08T14:58:00.000+07:00

'My dad has Einstein's brain' This rather gruesome story from the Guadian. On leaving hospital after hearing about his impending death he is famously pictured below. He left the hospital by the back entrance, poking out his tongue at the gauntlet of savvy pressmen who waited there. When the famous cheeky pose appeared in the newspapers, Einstein clipped it, penned a farewell caption and

2004-04-08T13:30:00.000+07:00

Rock Against Bush Probably not my cup of tea, but amusing nonetheless. A collection of Punk bands including Jello Biafra, Ministry, The Offspring, Anti-Flag and Billy Bragg.

2004-04-07T20:59:00.000+07:00

The Songkhla Bullet I don't usually have much time for trainspotters but this is interesting This is a fascinating and rare English account of the now defunct Hat Yai to Songkhla "Bullet" Train. I drive past these now derelict tracks so regularly, that it amuses me that the nowheresville bus stop that is Ban Nam Noi once had its own railways station. The central railway station in

2004-04-07T18:21:00.000+07:00

Google's Gmail hits trademark problem Ooops, The Reg reports that Google's path to world domination took a turn for the worse yesterday with news that a small British company has already got the trademark for Gmail and has been using it in 80 countries. How much is this going to cost them?

2004-04-07T17:40:00.000+07:00

Bars and Nightlife in Songkhla Well, here's an interesting post. Songkhla's getting reviews at last, and on such auspicious sites as erm... BaronBonk.com. It also bears a striking resemblence of the style of one Markoinbangkok, one of the admins on Ajarn.com It's reasonably uptodate in that it mentions the Buzzstop, but I'm not buying the shite about Aunties bar, it stuffers too much

2004-04-05T13:04:00.000+07:00

Urgent message from the Buzzstop: Beautiful Jit makes the best sausages in Songkhla.

2004-04-04T22:26:00.000+07:00

Encyclopeteia: How to Blog "Next, understand that BlogSpot is lame. Everyone with a blog knows a nerd. Damn near every nerd has web-space that he or she will loan/rent/give you. I'm one of them. Manny is one of them. Granted, blogspot isn't horrible, but let's face it, all the COOL bloggers have their own domain names and such. You do want to be COOL, don't you? " Yes ok I'm a Blogspot

2004-04-03T23:10:00.000+07:00

FREE ONLINE TYPING COURSE Apologies if this entry is brief as I'm testing out my newly discovered touch typing skills, and this much typing has just taken me about 5 minutes already.Is looking at the keys such a bad thing at this stage, or will it make all the difference in the long run? Absolutely awesome site, starts simply and gets you up and running in no time. Enough, this is starting

2004-04-02T17:09:00.000+07:00

Gmail NOT a Hoax Got a bit worried when Memock commented on my excited entry about Googles forthcoming Gmail service. The hoax story arose as it was planted on April 1st. However this itself seems to be another marketing coup. It's now April 2nd and Google are still plotting the destruction of Hotmail, Yahoo, and every online storage company in the world. Here is the full story captured

2004-04-02T15:10:00.000+07:00

The Original Chorlton and the Wheelies Shrine I used to love this show, so plastic, strange, but compelling. This is a nice, cleanly done site though it doesn't have much in the way of media content.

2004-04-02T00:13:00.000+07:00

tibet by the short hairs Well here's an old perennial that just popped up in my recruiters inbox, which is exactly the same as my personal inbox, but anyway.... Meet Mr David Antonuik, who's fairly flowery page in terms of content as well as in dubious choice for background wallpaper came across as slightly different to the usual ajarn.com resume crowd. The crux of the site is that

2004-04-01T19:42:00.000+07:00

Google announces free E-mail service! Well, this sounds awesome. Google have announced a free e-mail service with no ads, popups, and wait for it, 1GB of space!! Makes Hotmail's offering look pretty feeble. Game on! It doesn't seem right that I'm cheering a corporation on for the conquest for the world, but you just can't help loving Google! It was our first real friend on the web. It

2004-03-31T20:58:00.000+07:00

Today I had one of those urges to take two random pics from my collection and merge them. Ideas like this are always liable to look twisted. Just got to wait for the right worth 1000 competition. I've got summer class starting in a few days. It's made up of a pronounciation class every day for 90 minutes followed by a 2 hour creative arts session. It's really sodding hot here at the

Flickr's got a blog this button

2004-03-30T13:32:00.000+07:00

Well hey this is funky, I'm just testing out top piccy sharing chatwotsit Flickr's new blog this button and if all goes well you'll be able to see Bart writing a slogan very dear to my heart. bartNgoogle Originally uploaded by LDMA.

2004-03-29T18:26:00.000+07:00

Ok here's the moment you've "all" been dreading. Yes LDMA is getting his holiday snaps out from Samui. Ok,ok, theres only four and their mostly landscape shots so I might even be accused of photoblogging at this rate! Ok, well here goes. First of all, here's a shot of the beach 20 metres from our bungalow. Next we have a couple of shots shot of one of natures most entertaining rock

2004-03-29T17:32:00.000+07:00

Ann Widdecombe - Agony Aunt Oh lordy! Doris Karloff is hardly the most sensitive soul in the world, which is why I believe the Guardian has given her own agony column, not for any kind of seriousness, but as a parody of the agony aunt in it's antithesis. My husband left his wife and child for me eight months ago. I have two children, younger than his, from a previous relationship. Despite

2004-03-29T10:37:00.000+07:00

Welcome dear readers to another day in the Wor Zone. Today I will document my return from Samui..... AKA The Journey From Hell It started off ok. We got the boat from Samui to Don Sak at midday, and made our way south towards Nakhon Si Thammarat. We stopped off on the outskirts of Nakhon for some fried rice, and continued down the beach road. Then Disaster! We stopped at a red

2004-03-27T10:44:00.000+07:00

Gritsniffer huh? Why I oughta.....why I oughta publish an old photo of the man like iSMN, purveyor of stange vibrations. I'm off back to Songkhla tomorrow, but like the Murphys I'm not bitter. I've got 12 of the latest DVDs to what picked up for about 32 quid in total and all quality. Amongst them Return of the King, The Matrix Revolutions, Animatrix, 13, The Passion of The Christ,

2004-03-26T11:04:00.000+07:00

Aids risk 'cut by circumcision' Men who have been circumcised may be six times less likely to contract the HIV virus than uncircumcised men, research carried out in India suggests. Look, I'm not going to bang on about this too much, but I read this and I thought about all the idiots who have ever tried to persuade me that my circumcision (yes, I am Jewish, so it goes without saying), is

2004-03-25T19:55:00.000+07:00

Court threat to UK song swappers The UK's record industry has issued illegal music downloaders with a warning that they must stop pirating music or face action in the courts. It's times like these that I love being in Thailand, where open piracy is everywhere I look, in Samui at least where within 15 seconds of this internet cafe I can buy GOOD quality DVD's of all the latest movies, huge

2004-03-25T11:35:00.000+07:00

I turned my piss pink "I managed to change the colour of my wee" writes Lurking Bon, "by eating a large jar of pickled beetroot. Just thought I'd share the joy. You should try it - the pink wee lasts all day." Oh yes, just because LDMA, is sitting on one of the most beautiful islands on Earth, it doesn't mean that he doesn't have time to blog dumb shit. A Rant on Service in

2004-03-24T15:53:00.000+07:00

Well, after a glorious 3 days of internet free heaven I thought I'd better bite the bullet and hunt down an overpriced (but broadband) internet cafe here in Chaweng Beach, Koh Samui. First of all, greetz to Tim who has the blog A Man In Japan, notable for his recent and fascinating expose of naked female sumo wrestling! Will be giving that a read over the next few weeks. He also wins the

2004-03-21T18:57:00.000+07:00

OK, thought I'd better write some thing before I go to Samui (or rather Suratani) tomorrow. I came 22/40 for the Frog pic and 53/55 for the second one....hmph! Today's picture is of Irish George of The Buzzstop on Sisuda Road, Songkhla. This place is my local and is the reason that I consistently refer to Songkhla as the cooked breakfast capital of Thailand; massive portions, reasonable

2004-03-18T17:30:00.000+07:00

I had another go on Worth 1000 See full-size. This kind of stuff could be used in future say I needed some photoshop art-work, for a portfolio later. The competition aspects give me more motivation to go deeper into the composition of the piece because I know how many of my competitors have stunning abilities.

2004-03-17T21:14:00.000+07:00

Worth1000.com Mentioned them when I first started blogging but they're certainly worth a mention (and a permenant link on this Blog probably.) Below is my first effort for Worth1000.com, the internets most incredible archive of over 75,000 unique pieces of photoshop artwork, some of which is just stunning, much of which is surreal as anything you could envisage. Anyway I delved in with one

2004-03-17T00:53:00.000+07:00

Wired News: Honey, I Shrunk the URL Wired reports on a handy service for when you get one of those useful but unwieldly URLs that go on forever called TinyUrl.com "The idea is indeed simple. Plug in a long URL, say the MapQuest page for the White House - http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp? country=US&countryid=250&addtohistory=&address= 1600+pennsylvania+ave&city=washington&state=

2004-03-17T00:49:00.000+07:00

At the risk of repeating myself, I have just found another site which documents an era where you didn't have to be a manufactured pop act to sell records. You may remember Joyce from last week on the 10 worst album covers (which I can't be arsed to relink...scroll down godammit) BizarreRecords.com is an archive far richer, and features links to mp3 samples of these lost geniuses' work, as

2004-03-15T21:48:00.000+07:00

Illegal-art.org I think I've found this site before before I got into blogging but I'll stick it up anyway. A lot of very good banned artwork (banned mainly because most of the stuff I saw uses corporate images to make its usually political point.) Speaking of dodgy artwork, here's my latest effort. Slippery Rick at that punchbowl again.

2004-03-15T19:59:00.000+07:00

Whoohoo, that's it....free for 2 weeks, til my summer classes start on April 2nd, and then it's mostly Blue Peter style "makes". Here's one I made earlier-tastic. Kan just made me a really nice, creative dinner, and I'd thought i'd share it with you, (virtually anyway!) From the top and clockwise thereafter: A spicey sardine and grated green mango salad in a tomato sauce with

2004-03-12T20:10:00.000+07:00

I just found an excellent ESL Blog called An English as a second language blog - ESL blog: TEFL career? The discussion on this link regards a certain Daily Telegraph rant regarding those who choose TEFL as a career. The job is tedious, the salary appalling and the prospects nil. Sebastian Cresswell-Turner laments that 'no one with a scrap of ambition' would choose to teach English as a

2004-03-12T18:21:00.000+07:00

Well it's not often I can say this, (so I'll say it cos I can), but I had a truly delightful class today and yesterday. You may remember my earlier displeasure with the fact that we have been given summer classes at a time when I'm more planning to sod off to Koh Samui. Well, actually it's not been that bad at all, with most of the sullen faces I ususally have to teach absent and replaced

2004-03-10T22:54:00.000+07:00

Ok well it seems that the awesome little Flash games I've bee cooing over all day are made by a single genius by the name of Chris Manuel. Millions more utterly fantastic and hilarious games over at B3TA. Please do play What's New Pussy Cat? I have been almost crying with laughter as I played it.

2004-03-10T21:51:00.000+07:00

An utterly fascinating absoarbing and original set of mind games all following on the same theme that being to use fairly standard mind or concentration games and add surreal extra annoyances. Quality from Channel 4.Distraction

2004-03-10T15:04:00.000+07:00

Just been playing on Flickr.com, where they've managed a save to hard drive function for their pictures rather than the ridiculous print screen method one had to endure previously. This photo is one I found there that should have been included in The Top 10 Worst Album Covers of All-TimeThat's not to say that the ones that did merit the top 10 are quite, quite deserving, such as number 8, the

2004-03-09T15:54:00.000+07:00

Today, me sending a big shout out to my man Ae AKA Rice Pouch AKA Uncle Ben, proprieter of Songkhla's finest coffee drinking establishment, Coffee Mar. I particularly recommend the Cafe Con Parma, a double expresso topped with whipped cream and cinnamon. Also worthy of mention is the strwberry cheese cake (good ones being soo rare in this part of the world.), and his near legendary Croissant

2004-03-09T13:57:00.000+07:00

Well, here goes with another set of pristine islands about to be sentenced to Lonely Planet-style doom. Still it increases the holiday options somewhat and it's not that far from me, lets hope these islands handle the increased tourism wisely and don't turn these islands into a Koh Phi-phi style freakshow.Thai airline to open up Andamans with first charter flights. Currently accessable through

2004-03-09T08:27:00.000+07:00

It was the Jews that first espoused this most ancient of truths that the prawn is an abomination unto God, so therefore should not be consumed. Now it seems that the fundaMentalist Yank Xians are getting in on the act.God Hates ShrimpWhatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.Damn I sinned last night at that seafood restaurant! Yes I know it's a

2004-03-08T01:28:00.000+07:00

Did you ever wonder why the power on switch on every electrical device you own is always the same, and just what the hell does it mean. Some intelligent people with way too much time on their hands discuss.BeatnikPad Journal: The Power On Icon

2004-03-07T00:59:00.000+07:00

This riddle puzzled me when I heard it a few years a go when i heard it and NO-ONE seemed to know the answer to it. Well here it is thanks to the very interesting Riddlenut site "Think of words ending in -GRY. Angry and hungry are two of them. There are only three words in the English language. What is the third word? The word is something that everyone uses every day. If you have listened

2004-03-05T14:57:00.000+07:00

Thought this article would be yet another slagging off of teaching English in Thailand, but it's not, very pro-teacher but don't slack off. This article from the excellent TEFL Asia Is TEFL Teaching Just a Doss Option? - Robert Crowe "Must be better than sitting on a deckchair in Bognor Regis modelling the latest in handkerchief adornments for the head and nursing a warm beer."

2004-03-04T14:24:00.000+07:00

Hmmm, so I get to the end of semester and I'm thinking ahhh, no work, Koh Samui, and drinking cocktails, when this morning the bombshell gets dropped that the school want us to do summer courses till the end of March. Wasn't happy. Fortunately I remembered my contract mentioned something about paid holidays, and I rushed to get it and lo and behold there was the offending clause. Boss didn't

2004-03-04T14:07:00.000+07:00

I really cannot believe I just wasted 4 minutes of my life at this site, but the thrill I got from knowing that I did better than 42.4% of people was interesting. I wonder who actually sits on this all day.HoldTheButton.com - How Long Can You Hold It?

2004-03-02T00:27:00.000+07:00

Here's one of those 'I'm a jaded TEFL teacher' sites in a similar vein to the great Simon Barnes' I hate Teaching English. This isn't half as proffessional or funny as that long lost site, but the Teechurz Tipz are pretty good and ring true to some extent. I shouldn't laugh but I do.Check out English Teacher X

2004-03-01T23:07:00.000+07:00

Yay, Photo Bucket has re-appeared, and it still has ALL my silly pic uploads like this. Screw UPL.

2004-03-01T22:33:00.000+07:00

I have previously waxed lyrrical about the very splendid Grey album, a mash-up between the lyrics of JayZ's Black Album and the Beatles' White Album. Ok so it's possibly not the greatest album ever written, remixed or whatever, despite 99 Problems, which is awesome. What's making this one of the most important albums of the year is the fact that hundreds of websites are all hosting this album

2004-02-27T13:59:00.000+07:00

Method Man and Redman, two of my favourite hip hop artists are reportedly making a sitcom for Fox. It is being described as "a kind of edgier take on 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' theme". Full story at BILLBOARD. Can't Wait

2004-02-26T20:32:00.000+07:00

Ok so whilst I'm banging on about Google today, and lets face it, who isn't, check out Wireds excellent and very comprehensive guide to Google.. Catchily titled The Complete Guide to Googlemania!

2004-02-26T20:19:00.000+07:00

Eeh the things you can do with Google these days. I wonder how long it will be before Google hating will be as popular as AOL or Microsoft hating. The upcoming stock exchange float may be a good point as any to begin the speculation. Nothing stays THIS popular forever. For now try this out. It's a google search which adds a random word to make your results more interesting. It's name?

2004-02-26T02:21:00.000+07:00

Asian people love our fair language, don't they? I guess so, because teaching it seems to keeps me in sticky rice. This site is all about inappropriate uses of English on mostly Japanese products.Welcome to Engrish.com!

2004-02-25T12:57:00.000+07:00

Just so Floozy Charlotte doesn't feel left out, here's a pic of her too.

2004-02-25T12:52:00.000+07:00

Here in Thailand there are a few things I really miss about life in the UK. One of the more obscure ones is that I miss the righteous indignation of the Daily Mail. Can't stand the ridiculous right wing claptrap it spouts of course, but it's just one of those things one scoffs at before reaching for the Guardian or Independant. Anyway for your entertainment this is the daily mail-o-matic. I

2004-02-25T11:23:00.000+07:00

Now I like this, but then again I'm someone who likes boring people with my photos. It's kind of a flash-based chatroom and realtime picture sharing service. It's still in beta and important things such as the ability to save pics to harddrive are thus far absent, but definately worth watching, and it's fun to play with. Check out Flickr!

2004-02-25T10:14:00.000+07:00

Just got to give a shout out to my man Big C, one of the few lads at this school who is actually quite funny. The guy's name stems from one particular class where I was elliciting things in English that the students associated with England. After the predictable Man Uniteds, and Britney Spears(?), I suddenly heard a deep male voice shout out....... BIG COCK Apparently he meant Big Ben, but

2004-02-25T10:04:00.000+07:00

Well, I dunno what happened to picture bucket, but I found a really cute replacement for it. UPL is a very nice, simple, and quick to set up, upload service. Only 4 meg but hey it's free. Just to give it the blog test here's a pic of my colleagues Jane and Aaron running a game of charades at our school's recent festival. UPDATE. Just took the link down....UPL has vanished.

2004-02-25T09:48:00.000+07:00

Yay, here's today's strangely coloured animal. BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Polar bears turn green in Singapore

2004-02-25T09:13:00.000+07:00

The ultimate place for teachers looking for work in Thailand, or if you're not looking to work as a teacher in Thailand a good place to argue with jaded ex-pats. Ajarn.com - living and teaching in Bangkok

2004-02-24T15:43:00.000+07:00

I cannot rate this site highly enough. Enough surreal phoshop tat (or is that art?) to keep your desktop unsettling forever.Worth 1000.....they gave me 10 credits for me birthday too

2004-02-24T15:31:00.000+07:00

Oh Christ on a bike! Looks like the Thai obsession with NW English Football teams is going a bit far. Waiing scousers is the odd picture that just popped into my mindThaksin eyeing Liverpool, says Thai national coach

2004-02-24T15:24:00.000+07:00

Sodding exam week is very very dull. So much so that I got really into this Psychology textbook on perception. Interesting stuff. Makes me wish I'd followed all those intense people at college who were into analysing you, and done a course in it. This shot taken from Mars Odyssey