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• From Bangkok — New MacBook Air
• Troubles With Stripe Credit Card Processing
• From Ao Nang, Krabi
• Youngun “Party Town” Thailand: Sexless, Self-Righteous, Androgynous
• Covidless Excess Mortality

From Bangkok

Beginning with the most recent thing, from today.

I don't know how long one must go between computer trade-ins, but I'm pretty safe in saying that eight and a half years is plenty of time—a veritable signal of my great virtue—to pound away on the same notebook computer. Since 2008 and after 20 years at PCs, I'm an Apple Mac guy. Had two MacBook Pros over 4 years. I'll not get into it but the Pro version is generally overkill for most people. In 2012 I researched whether a MacBook Air could reliably drive the 27" Apple Cinema Display I had.

Indeed it could and indeed it did—even running HD video on its two screens with rapidity and ease (many believe you need the expensive Pro to do all these things and most who think that don't even do those things...but pay for the Pro anyway). The 2014 model was the last computer I've purchased until this morning at the stunningly beautiful Apple Store at Central World in Bangkok.

I didn't even come to Bangkok yesterday for this...that's another story for the next section. I'd looked into it, but the info I got online is that you have to order it, which I assumed was because of the US keyboard and not Thai.

I checked into my hotel with a smokin' deal. $43 per night in a 4-star, regular $120. Long time since I stayed in a hermetically-sealed fancy-pants place...the Marriott in Warsaw, 2019 if memory serves.

...I don't like them. Tomorrow, my two nights is up and I'm moving to a $20 place where I can at least open the fucking windows, for shit's sake.

...Anyway, soon as I checked in and arranged every item out of my travel-light, 30L backpack, I headed out. Hoofed it to the Apple store 2.5 KM away. What I found out was that they did indeed have plenty of the M2-processor MBAs in all four anodized aluminum colors with US keyboards. It's any customizations that have to be ordered. So, if I want more RAM, bigger SSdrive, etc... OK, nope.

And so, voilà, and I resolved to return this morning and do the deal. In the meantime, I set out to get some food, so I headed down to Nana Plaza, perhaps the most curious place on earth. I don't care for it much—or go-go bars in general—but it's quite a spectacle to behold with three floors of them in a 70s style indoor-mall format. There's a Hooters across the street, though, so I had a pretty decent grilled-chicken Caesar. Given that Thai girls have smaller breasts on average (rocket tits, I call them), I think the franchise should be called Handfulls over here...right? That added 1.6 KM to the trek tally.