THE NARRATIVE
At the place where the bridge over the river Kwai was built.
Note, the guy who made the story sucked at geography but the Thais renamed the river. Capitalism wins!
Anyway, the town is pretty sucky in terms of places to stay. I did get lucky (kind of) and found a cheap place. No wifi in the mosquito infested room but I was fricking exhausted last night and pretty much passed out after a full day of travel.
After checking a dozen (maybe more) places I can tell you that they want a premium to look over their slightly historic river. Twenty five to thirty dollars (or much more) will secure you a moderately average room that would cost half that elsewhere.
The streets are littered with the small hole in the wall bars where tourists of a certain age go to get drunk and women of a certain demeanor go to extract money from their wallets through their penis.
Overall, not feeling this town.
After spending a couple hours listening to people quoting stupid prices to me, I found a place (400 baht) which says they have wifi in the room. Due to the Asian mindset of 'copy the hell out of anything that works' it seems a town is either wifi or not. This one is not. Which is sad for Logan.
Naturally, I can't check out the room until 12:30pm as it is occupied currently. That gives me an hour and a half more of sitting around.
Fortunately, this place is (for some reason) on the 'tourist trail' so getting around is very easy. For 100 baht, I can take a tuk tuk to the bus station. For 140 baht, I can go all the way back to Ko san road in Bangkok. I didn't come up with the pricing structure.
Hence, my current plan is to head to the hotel which has promised (hum) wifi in the room. And a table/chair. I have doubts. If it doesn't work out, it's back to the bus station and I head to a less touristy place hoping to find a hotel whose owner hasn't taken a lot of crack before coming up with the price structure. If it does work out, I'll hang out here for a bit to check it out.
Not sure what the next town on the list will be like but I'm heading off the tourist trail as I go south toward Malaysia.
TWENTY FIRST CENTURY DUH
I was going to call this the 'duh factor' but according to Urban Dictionary, it has already been assigned a different meaning.
I've been listening to a lot of audio books and have noticed a common element. Many of the main characters are stupid. I'm not talking average intelligence but just dim.
As George Carlin said, "Think about how stupid the average person is and realize half of them are stupider than that!"
I've come up with two possible reasons why authors are writing about stupid people, especially for purposes of comedy:
a) relatability. There are a lot more stupid people than smart ones and you want to sell more books, right?
b) ease. It's easier to write books about stupid people. Need them to go into bad situations with no preparation? Have to get stuff explained to them for the purposes of exposition? Playing some sort of word game to try to ratchet up tension because your story is kind of lame?
He's coming!
Who?
Him!
Oh gods - you don't mean - .
Yes - Gregor!
Yeah, fuck you, nobody talks like that. Only lame writers. Here's the real way.
"Gregor is coming!"
"Fuck!"
Less build up. Sorry. Write a better story and it will be build up enough without that shitty literary device. However, if you are writing about morons, it is at least conceivable they talk like that. They probably won't object and say they don't because morons aren't big readers. Otherwise, they might not be morons.
This means you should feel better for reading this blog. It may not be "Phaedrus" but fuck, you are actually reading something that doesn't have a lot of pictures. You should feel better about life. Plus, Phaedrus hasn't gotten any better in the last couple thousand years and this blog is much more topical.
I also worry about so many stories getting made about below average intellect people simply because it may be another step toward the inevitable outcome that is Idiocracy. That movie still gives me the chills as it is a sad prophecy.
To reward you for your resilient reading, here's a picture:
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What kind of dickhead would reward people for reading with a picture that has more writing on it? The same kind of guy who walks into a house with a big ole bucket of KFC, announces "I've got KFC!" then sits down and eats the whole bucket?
BOOK REVIEWS
The Shifter Chronicles
7/10
In this book, the mundane and supernatural worlds already have a treaty.
The melding of the two worlds seems to me much more benevolent than I think it would ever go down in real life - contrast this with the Demon Accords series.
As can be seen by my rating, I did enjoy this series. You can see the slow advancement of the main character who is in his early or mid twenties but acts like an angsty teen in the first book up to a fairly mature figure in book three.
The three books should be taken as one long book - they don't stand on their own. You need to read them in order.
I liked the minor characters and the world (backdrop) seems OK. You don't see the authors gaps in knowledge too often though like any teen book (more noticeable early on, less later) authority figures are either evil or inept/ineffectual.
If there were more books in the series, I'd have read them but for some reason there are currently only three out. This series should easily lend itself to many more.
For some reason, the author doesn't seem to have an easy (for Logan to) find Facebook page so I can find out when more books are released. For small (not Stephen King) authors, this seems counter intuitive.
PRICES (Thailand)
Pedicure, 100 baht (about $3)
At the place where the bridge over the river Kwai was built.
Note, the guy who made the story sucked at geography but the Thais renamed the river. Capitalism wins!
Anyway, the town is pretty sucky in terms of places to stay. I did get lucky (kind of) and found a cheap place. No wifi in the mosquito infested room but I was fricking exhausted last night and pretty much passed out after a full day of travel.
After checking a dozen (maybe more) places I can tell you that they want a premium to look over their slightly historic river. Twenty five to thirty dollars (or much more) will secure you a moderately average room that would cost half that elsewhere.
The streets are littered with the small hole in the wall bars where tourists of a certain age go to get drunk and women of a certain demeanor go to extract money from their wallets through their penis.
Overall, not feeling this town.
After spending a couple hours listening to people quoting stupid prices to me, I found a place (400 baht) which says they have wifi in the room. Due to the Asian mindset of 'copy the hell out of anything that works' it seems a town is either wifi or not. This one is not. Which is sad for Logan.
Naturally, I can't check out the room until 12:30pm as it is occupied currently. That gives me an hour and a half more of sitting around.
Fortunately, this place is (for some reason) on the 'tourist trail' so getting around is very easy. For 100 baht, I can take a tuk tuk to the bus station. For 140 baht, I can go all the way back to Ko san road in Bangkok. I didn't come up with the pricing structure.
Hence, my current plan is to head to the hotel which has promised (hum) wifi in the room. And a table/chair. I have doubts. If it doesn't work out, it's back to the bus station and I head to a less touristy place hoping to find a hotel whose owner hasn't taken a lot of crack before coming up with the price structure. If it does work out, I'll hang out here for a bit to check it out.
Not sure what the next town on the list will be like but I'm heading off the tourist trail as I go south toward Malaysia.
TWENTY FIRST CENTURY DUH
I was going to call this the 'duh factor' but according to Urban Dictionary, it has already been assigned a different meaning.
I've been listening to a lot of audio books and have noticed a common element. Many of the main characters are stupid. I'm not talking average intelligence but just dim.
As George Carlin said, "Think about how stupid the average person is and realize half of them are stupider than that!"
I've come up with two possible reasons why authors are writing about stupid people, especially for purposes of comedy:
a) relatability. There are a lot more stupid people than smart ones and you want to sell more books, right?
b) ease. It's easier to write books about stupid people. Need them to go into bad situations with no preparation? Have to get stuff explained to them for the purposes of exposition? Playing some sort of word game to try to ratchet up tension because your story is kind of lame?
He's coming!
Who?
Him!
Oh gods - you don't mean - .
Yes - Gregor!
Yeah, fuck you, nobody talks like that. Only lame writers. Here's the real way.
"Gregor is coming!"
"Fuck!"
Less build up. Sorry. Write a better story and it will be build up enough without that shitty literary device. However, if you are writing about morons, it is at least conceivable they talk like that. They probably won't object and say they don't because morons aren't big readers. Otherwise, they might not be morons.
This means you should feel better for reading this blog. It may not be "Phaedrus" but fuck, you are actually reading something that doesn't have a lot of pictures. You should feel better about life. Plus, Phaedrus hasn't gotten any better in the last couple thousand years and this blog is much more topical.
I also worry about so many stories getting made about below average intellect people simply because it may be another step toward the inevitable outcome that is Idiocracy. That movie still gives me the chills as it is a sad prophecy.
To reward you for your resilient reading, here's a picture:
What kind of dickhead would reward people for reading with a picture that has more writing on it? The same kind of guy who walks into a house with a big ole bucket of KFC, announces "I've got KFC!" then sits down and eats the whole bucket?
Eh - close...
BOOK REVIEWS
The Shifter Chronicles
7/10
In this book, the mundane and supernatural worlds already have a treaty.
The melding of the two worlds seems to me much more benevolent than I think it would ever go down in real life - contrast this with the Demon Accords series.
As can be seen by my rating, I did enjoy this series. You can see the slow advancement of the main character who is in his early or mid twenties but acts like an angsty teen in the first book up to a fairly mature figure in book three.
The three books should be taken as one long book - they don't stand on their own. You need to read them in order.
I liked the minor characters and the world (backdrop) seems OK. You don't see the authors gaps in knowledge too often though like any teen book (more noticeable early on, less later) authority figures are either evil or inept/ineffectual.
If there were more books in the series, I'd have read them but for some reason there are currently only three out. This series should easily lend itself to many more.
For some reason, the author doesn't seem to have an easy (for Logan to) find Facebook page so I can find out when more books are released. For small (not Stephen King) authors, this seems counter intuitive.
PRICES (Thailand)
Pedicure, 100 baht (about $3)
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