off the top of the dome

Charles Hamilton freestyling (rhyming off the top of his head, for those not familiar with the term) better than many emcee's can write.

first run-in with the law..

I tend to keep the words to a minimum on the blog, and let the images (still or moving) tell the stories. But this event has no image to share, except the one I shall paint now.

After a wonderful long weekend spent in the city, Dave and I went to the night bazaar area to indulge in a pizza. We parked our bikes in the nearest free area we saw, as one does when parking a motorcycle in this land. After our meal, I went to buy some bootleg DVD's and Dave headed home. A few minutes later I get a call that went something like this:

"Yo, you've got a boot on your back wheel."
"Geez. What about you?"
"I got on my bike and just dashed before the cop could put it on. He did yours first."
"Geez. Alright thanks. Peace."

So I walk to my bike and see the cop writing up my ticket. I speak to him in Thai to earn a little respect and not be treated like a stupid farang (foriegner), he points to a sign down the street written IN THAI that read "no parking". I laugh. He continues filling out the ticket.

"You have license?"
"Nah."
"No license plate?"
"Nah."
"Ok. You come with me to police traffic station to pay ticket."

As I turn around to put away my ATM card and money, it continues,

"Ok, but I only have 200Baht (6 bucks)."
"Ok let's go, I take you." he replies.

So now the cop is doubling me on my bike. He's making small talk with the usual "Where are you from? What do you do?" talk. Nice enough guy.

We get there, I sign some paper as "Alan" and he asks me to fork over 200Baht.

Illegally parked, no driver's license, no plates. 200 Baht.

The cop rides me back to where my bike was parked, says sorry, shakes me hand, and off he goes.



Only in Asia.



Related Sidenote: DVD's purchased include LOST-Season 4, The Simpsons-Season 19, The Happening and Doomsday.

K'naan

Above: Somali-Canadian artist K'naan speaking on the Pirates in Somalia.

Below: Two new vids from K'naan - one of my favourite artists out there in musicland. This is real as music gets.

Somalia


ABC"s f/ Chubb Rock (click the link to see the real vid. The big record company machine won't let the common man embed the vid and thus spread their artist's music and message.)

ABC's - The official video

Pai

A few visuals from a weekend getaway to a small city called Pai that just sort of fell into place.


What would you do different if you could start again from her age?


Nice..


All the Thai's were jumping for pictures, so we joined in the fun.


Fun it was..


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View from our room. Not bad..


The ability to travel to and stumble onto places like these on a long weekend is among the best things about living in Southeast Asia.


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