I Can Hear Clearly Now...

For the past week or so, I've had muted hearing in my left ear. Ear drops provide some benefit, but it becomes obvious that there's some serious blockage going on. As usual at a time of crisis, I turn to Wikipedia. I educate myself on all manner of spurious facts (e.g. did you know that there's 2 genetically distinct types of earwax; in the West we have the gooey yellow variety, whilst in Asia, it's grey and flaky?). I've never had my ears cleaned before, but I read about syringing. And being a scientist, I can't resist the temptation to experiment. Particularly when I realise that my recently purchased printer refill kit has all the necessary equipment. It's an oddly pleasant experience, and before long I've removed a shocking amount of debris from my ear, including a huge chunk the size of a fingernail. I don't have the stomach to investigate what it might once have been; I guess some kind of tropical insect.
Afterwards, the effects are astonishing. The world echoes with a crisp sibilance; the tiniest sounds ring with miraculous clarity. Makes me wonder if in fact I've been deaf for decades rather than days.

Better Late than Never

I'm not sure what spurs me into action; maybe that recent taxi journey. But I finally get round to sorting out some medical insurance for myself. I guess it's one of the few things in life that you hope is a complete waste of money; ideally, I'll never need to claim on it.
It's not cheap. Well, it's around 27 quid a month. Is that a lot? Sounds a lot to me, but then I'm gradually losing touch of the UK cost of living.

It's a Nice Day for a Red Wedding

Sunday morning, and we're attending a Chinese wedding ceremony. Now, I don't know if you've ever been involved in one, but they kick off at 4.30. In the morning. Sheer madness. It's being held in our neighbour's house, and everything has been decked out in red, including me. The early hour fogs my mind; I can't work out why our Costa Rican neighbours are hosting Chinese ceremony between a Japanese bride and a Thai groom. In fact, my mind is very foggy; last night was St Patrick's, and it's only been a couple of hours since we slunk home.
After the ceremony, we go back to bed. On waking, the whole thing seems like a surreal dream. Maybe it was.

Bleeding Ink

So when we came to Bangkok, I bought an Epson printer (yes, I know, but I was naive). I've been becoming gradually more astounded by its increasing ability to drink ink. And the refills are ludicrously expensive, even here, in the land of cheapness. The final straw came when one of the separate colour cartridges ran out, and it took that as permission to completely refuse to print a black-and-white page.
Determined to fund Epson's greed no longer, I purchased a Defeat-Epson pack from our local mall. Now, I'm not sure of the legality of this - Epson certainly make it tough to crack their system - but I'd had enough. In the pack you get refillable cartridges, a battery-operated chip reprogrammer, hypodermic syringes, and a year's supply of ink. And all for less than an Epson cartridge.
It's all a bit involved - you have to prise the chips off a genuine Epson cartridge, reprogram them, insert the chips in the new cartridges and finally fill with ink. Not being a medic or a drug-user, I'd never really used hypodermic needles before. But one thing I can attest to - they are sharp. Luckily, the needle accident involving most significant loss of blood occurred as I was filling the red cartridge, so print quality shouldn't be degraded too badly.

The Highway Code

After such a long time living somewhere, a lot of things tend to become routine. Other activities, however, never lose their capacity to surprise. Take taxi journeys, for example. Flagging one down, there's always a vague sense of apprehension; you never know who you'll get.
There's the miserable old boy who'll refuse point blank to take you (how does he make a living?), or the young chap just in from Burma who doesn't actually know where Bangkok is. Downtown, you'll get the chancer who sees White and offers a 200 baht fare, or surreptitiously suggests a ping-pong show. An abundance of Buddha statues doesn't necessarily make me feel safer, particularly if the driver can't actually see through his windscreen for all the trinkets. And there's that unnerving habit of removing both hands from the wheel to 'wai' at every passing shrine. But my favourite is always the crazed red-bull driver, who'll flout every convention of the road just to steal those vital few seconds.
We had a classic this week - returning home, we'd failed to notice he'd taken a wrong turn, and we were heading on to the motorway back into town. Unperturbed, and not fancying the 5-mile round trip to the next U-turn bridge, he simply span the taxi round and headed up the motorway on the wrong side. We covered a good couple of miles in this manner, switching lanes to avoid the oncoming traffic. And being Thailand, there wasn't a single horn sounded; just some quizzical looks and amused shoulder shrugs from the drivers swerving out of our way.

Googled

So apologies for the short intermission in posts. It appears that my blog has been bought over by Google. Do they own everything on the web now, or what?