"The 'Roman' Rounds"

Thailand does require a

fair bit of "roman" around --

and Squaronians all think they're Roman

Gladiators, a match for one and anyone!!!

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Great Opportunity for

Any Squaronian to Start a

Business -- in Washington Square!

Poking around the Internet awhile ago, just looking at various stories, I ran across one of CNBC headlined "Jobs That Pay $100 (Or More) Per Hour." Okay, so a hundred bucks an hour isn't a fart in a hurricane compared to what someone like Bill Gates or Warren Buffet tote around, but it sure as heck beats minimum wage, so I perked up a bit.


Unsurprisingly, the list includes the obvious jobs, such as just about any in the medicl profession (including, for instance, orthodontists), the legal field in the form of arbitraters (who are legal professionals), and interior design,


Then there are those jobs that may not be quite so obvious at first glance, but when you think about them a minute, it makes sense that people doing them can earn some decent money. These include professional photographers -- who may very well have formal qualifications as well as a naturally gifted eye -- and political speech writers (adangerous job if you write for a politician who draws bunches of negative publicity? Maybe.).


Next come those jobs that are less obvious still. From this story's list, I found two such jobs: being a hand model or a life coach.


That's right -- if you have photogenic hands, the rest of you cn be ugly as homemade sin and you can still be a well-paid model. Not exactly a walk down the catwalk or posing for a fashion designer or Playboy, but hey, it's money.


But life coach? I've always thought of a life coach as being an Agony Aunt, in the final analysis. Turns out some have advanced degrees and so on.


By the way, I debated and including being a life coach in the possibilities for Squaronians, since a fair number like to sit around like a bunch of "Cool Cats" and discuss the ways other Squaronians *ought* to be living their lives! ;^) But that's not really it either.


Squaronians, rejoice! Turns out that being a TATTOO ARTIST or MASSAGE THERAPIST can BOTH earn you $100 and north for just a single hour's work.


Soooo -- I can imagine certain Squaronians rushing off to apprentice with a Master Tatto Artist and enroll in night classes to learn the fine art of traditional Thai massage, thinking in terms of "revenue streams." But the possibilities go further.


Squaronians are the kind of guys the leat bit interested in decorating of massaging other men, old women, children, and so on. Nor are they interested in doing either for ogly wome, even those of the right age.


It won't take much pondering for any Squaronian contemplating entering these paired professions to settle upon a boutique niche, in terms of his target market ("target" in more ways than one!!!): the lovely ladies who populate bars, a-go-go's, etc. etc.


A skilled tattooist is "tattooist" a real word? -- can enchant the lass, predisposing her towards him greatly, at least when said lass is a bar girl. Then he can astound and thrill her by giving her a nice, long massage to help her forget all the painful needle marks he left when he inscribed "ฉันจะรักแฟนไทยของฉันตลอดไปและเคยหมดใจของฉัน (ถึงแม้ว่าเขาวิสกี้เครื่องดื่มมากเกินไปและมีสามแฟน!)," or "I will love my Thai boyfriend forever and ever, with all my heart (even though he drinks too much whiskey and has three girlfriends).!" [NOTE: no, I do NOT read or write Thai. Blame any errors on Google Translate -- a handy tool, by the way.]


Just imagine, Squaronians! Having your grubby paws on a grateful, beautiful lass AND getting PAID for it!!! Who knows what glories might lie beyond that last stroke of the massage you give her???


Harrumph. There is the matter of "fees." You'll probably half to fork over a fair bit of coin to maintain your permit to remain in "business," so to speak. (Adding "Monkey" before "business" ups the price, naturally!)

9:47 P.M., Wednesday, January 5, 2011

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E-Mail Identity Theft? --

I Don't Know Yet (and May Never)

This is disconcerting.


I have a Yahoo! e-mail account that started out in the mid-1990's as an account with rocketmail.com, which was bought ought by Yaqhoo!, though I got to keep the rocketmail.com adress I had, complete with the rocketmail.com to the right of the @. I've suspected a number of times that this account had been messed with in some way, but never had the slightest shred of evidence, really, to back my suspicions.


Now -- maybe I do.


A few days ago I reported abuse in a comment threaqd that followed a news story Yahoo! picked up and ran on its news service. rather to y surprise, when I opened my mailbox just now to check for something else I'm hoping for that's may give me another story for this column, I had a response from Yahoo!


Upon opening it, I saw the greeting, and the alarms bells went off as I went to DEFCON 4: "Dear Akim." I immediately glanced at the header info, and saw my e-mail address was correct (obviously, or I wouldn't have received it) -- but my NAME was listed as "Akim Mogens." Not only have I never met or known of anyone with either of those names, let alone the two together, I also have no recollection of ever seeing or hearing either one, not together nor even individually.


Looked up the meanings of the two names (individually) using google's definition function (that is, type in "define:_____" without the quotation marks and with no space after the colon before typing in the word you want defined). Discovered that "Akim" means "the head of a local government in Kazakhstan and Kirgizstan" and an acronym for a political party in Malaysia (and I doubt the Malaysia bit is relevant). Then I looked up "Mogens," which I found has this meaning: "Mogen - The Star of David or Shield of David (Magen David in Hebrew, with nikkud or מגן דוד without, academically transcribed by Biblical Hebrew linguists, in Modern Hebrew and Mogein Dovid or Mogen Dovid in Ashkenazi Hebrew and Yiddish) is a generally recognized symbol of Jewish identity and Judaism."


In short, I'm worried that at the least, my e-mail address has been hijacked and used to spam people, and at worse, somehow used to cause bank problems for me.


Since this can affect any of us, I'll pass along any information I get as I go along.

10:56 P.M., Wednesday, January 5, 2011

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"Burma" Richard

Launches Great New Blog

Richard K. Diran, professional writer, photographer, gemologist, artist (oil paintings and sculpture), adventurer extraordinaire, martial artist, and -- most importantly -- a Squaronian, has started a new website well worth perusing.


The website's tagline reads, "Faces and Facets of Burma...Adventures..People..Culture..Gemstones....." but Richard will sometimes go a bit further afield, as he does in his most recent blog entry, posted January 11, 2011, and titled "Phantom of the Apocolypse." The piece is about thye late Tony Po, a legendary CIA officer who fought in Laos during the Vietnam war era.


Tony left Thailand before I arrived, so I never got to meet him, though I knew Pat Landry (who's also gone now);m Pat worked with Tony for decades, so knew him well and told many a tale about their various adventures (or misadventures, as the case may have been! -- Richard touches upon more than one of Tony's tales in his blog entry.).

Here's where you can read Richard's blog entries, and do not the hyphen in it:

http://www.burma-richard.org/

Almost forgot to comment on that URL. I thought an ".org" extension was for outfits such as, oh -- charity organizations, or maybe privagte civic groups. Stuff like that -- not a guy with a most unusual biography who likes to chase his vodka with an Underberg! (Well -- I have little room to talk on that particular point, other than to say I rarely drink vodka.)

You also will probably want to take a look at Richard's other website, which is devoted to his art stuff (other than writing). It's at this URL:

http://www.diranart.com/

Now, Richard's art website's entry page may present a bit of a dilemma for Internet-challenged folks, a group that includes a fair number of Squaronians. You see, all you see is Richard's name in big letters, then right below that, the single word "Enter." That means, Squaronian, you have to move the cursor -- the little arrow thingy that moves around the screen when you move the mouse -- until it's over "enter." Then click. (Ask one of the bar ladies for help if you get stuck -- practically all of them are as expert on this stuff as they are on the latest, up-to-the-minute currency exchange rates. Which they know to at least 18 digits.! ;^)]

If you look at Richard's websites, please tell him so and be sure to add "Oh -- Mekhong Kurt says 'You're WELCOME, Richard!'" :-)

9:13 P.M., THursday, January 13, 2011Mekhong Kurt

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Snow in Texas: Not for Dogs

It snowed the other day in parts of Texas, as some of you undoubtedly know. Too late for a white Christmas here on the ranch -- I don't know if I'll EVER get to see one, except in films, videos, and photos.

Of course, the areas hardest hit were paralyzed. Here on the ranch, we didn't get much (see picture below ofm Sis's back yard), so the effects we4re either minimal or nonexistent. (Sis was plumb pleased the the school where she teaches, just a few miles north of here, delayed opening until 19:00 A.M., so she had one day shorter than usual. And school kids think teachers don't enjoy it too!)

As you can see, there's really not much
snow on the ground around Sis's house.

On the other hand, Sis's nearly-8-year-old Chihuahua, Missy, is not impressed with the snow. She is normally very good about going out into the back yard to take care of business -- but she refuses to walk off the sidewalk (which is snow-free, and cleared quickly once the snow stopped).  She prefers to spend wintry, snow-bound days in warm comfort:

Though you can't tell it from this picture,

I was actrually holding the pillow up to take

this shot -- Missy had burrowed completely

under it to stay warm. In the house. With the

inside temperature a comfortable 70F or so!

11:43 P.M. Thursday, January 13, 2011

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News from the Square and Environs???

Well -- shoot. I'd lioke to pass along more news of the Square and, better still, some amusing or ebarrassing stories about some of my fellow Squaronians, but I've heard practically nothing from practically no one, so I'm operating blind as far as current affairs go. (Yes, I mean those other sorts of "affairs" as well!)

I suppose that Charlie W. of Minneapolis is there, and that his running mate Bubba either is there or will be soon. Haven't heard of anybody else's travel plans.

I haven't been to Naam Khao Thai Restaurant in Houston, owned by Ned and Ott (but run by Ott's daughter Pook), though I hope to get down that way while on this side of the pond. I've read a few reviews of it, and some of them were very positive. Ott is there for now, but for how long, I don't know. In any case, Pook is there full-time all the time, so if you find yourself in the area -- it's in the western part of Houston, not far south of Interstate 10 (I-10), east of George Bush Park. There's a website for the restaurant, with a map page, so check that out:

http://www.naamkhao.com/

So, if you find yourself in the area, do drop by.

And anyone with any news of the Square, please pass it along. If you have pictures to go with it (.jpg or .gif formats only), those are always nice.

1:38 P.M., Friday, January 14, 2011

Enough for one go --

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