Bangkok Sapphire Scams

I worked as a diamond salesman for 13 years on West 47th Street in Manhattan. Our company, MANNY WINICK AND SON (it used to be SONS until the first son Chet had a psycho meltdown. My friend Richie Boy became SON) specialized in diamonds, however we sold anything; watches, chains, pearls, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires. We bought anything too and had a good client base since we were relatively honest.

A side deal here and there helps pay for the lights.

At least once a month the odd customer would appear at the shop with a bag of precious stones. Their story had been told by otehr travelers. Their eyes sparkled about getting a special deal from a jewelry shop overseas. We patiently nodded and pulled out a velvet tray. "Let's see your treasures."

Maybe they were lucky.

The customer would proudly pour out their investment, expecting oohs and ahs. "So what do you think it’s worth?"

Light soon faded from the genius' face, since the stones were practically worthless.

Inevitably the customer would angrily declare that we didn't know anything about semi-precious gems.

"Go see if you can get $1000 for the stones."

He'd huff out and return an hour later. "Will you give me $1000."

"No."

"Then why you say $1000 before?"

"Just to prove to you that we do know what about gems. Sorry, but you've been had."

No one wanted these stones, because the customer had been defrauded by unscrupulous dealers in Brazil, Columbia, Sri Lanka, SE Asia, Europe or the USA. Playing suckers for a ride is an international game and depends on the pigeon's greed to grease the way for his fleecing.

Bangkok is notorious for preying on hapless tourists i.e. rubes.

The scam classically runs this way.

En route to a famed temple a taxi or tuk-tuk driver will approach a group of tourists helpfully telling them that the temple is shut for a national prayer holiday, but he knows of another Buddha nearby. "40 baht. Very close."



Typical tout car at the walls to the Emerald Buddha.

Most tourists are unaccustomed to walking in the tropical heat.

A moment of weakness for free AC ride and they're soon speeding to a 'government gem expo'.

"A friend in your hometown needs them to sell. Maybe you can help us out by bringing them to him. Make twice your money."
Greed seizes hold of the unsuspecting tourist. "Twice my money?"

"Maybe three times if you sell on your own, but my friend will give you twice for sure." The government official even calls his friend, who tells them he will fax them at their hotel a promissory note to purchase the stones.

"Not want your money now. Only deposit." the government official takes a 50% deposit and hands over a receipt. "Come back later for gems. One month okay. If have problem give you back all money. 90%."

They put in writing.

Everyone is happy.

If the tourist is lucky he hears about the scam before his departure from Bangkok. If not he learns about it from someone like my jewelry store. Tears and gnashing of teeth as the dream of twice their money evaporates like a water on an Isaan plateau in summer.

Any arrests ever for this?

No.

If the tourist shows up with the tourist police demanding money, then the dealers refund 90% as agreed. Instant profit.

Before you drop a few thousand onto the deal of a lifetime, google the name of the shop or gem scams Bangkok. The names change of these stores, so better to obey the old adage.

Anything that sounds too good to be true usually is too good to be true.

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TV contest all-comers Pattaya

My mother wanted a daughter for her second child and bought tons of girl's clothing for my birth. Sadly I turned out with the wrong plumbing, however this gender disappointment didn't shortcircuit my mother's proudly dressing her new-born boy as a girl.

People raised in the Great Depression understood the value of money and buying new baby boy's clothing never entered my mother's head.

Pink. Baby Pink. What could be the harm?

Nothing so far, but the other day I noticed that the Alcazar is holding an open contest for the most beautiful ka-toey or lady boy in the kingdom.

Grand Prize 100,000 baht.

My object of my desire is a 1970 SR 400cc Yamaha motorcycle.

It costs 70,000 baht with a book.

Ms. Tiffany World 2006 comes from Mexico and I'm sorry, but even at my advanced age I'm prettier, plus I'm not looking to win, only to place. Second place prize is 50,000 baht.

What will it take?

Shave my legs, wax my body, and grow my nails.

Learn how to walk in heels.

Speak like a crow breathing helium.

My lips would be kissable in coral pink.

Mascara would hide the crow's feet.

Cobalt underliner would bring out the blue in my eyes.

Hell, my man boobs are better than most silicone jobs.

And I'm not gay-scared.

Hey ho Stonewall!

My mother will be so proud.

Starving Farangs iN Thailand

This is a very funny website
http://www.notthenation.com/pages/news/getnews.php?id=482

THONBURI - Briton John Wilson says he’s just like any Thai person: He wakes up at the crack of down, takes the bus three hours to work, slaves away at work for a low wage and simply wants to enjoy his khao mun gai and Leo beer in peace when he comes home.

But now, with rice prices soaring to record levels, his life has become all the more difficult. The food vendors on his soi in Thonburi raised prices of nearly all dishes by five baht, leaving him struggling to survive.

“I think a lot of Thais are confused and think that just because I have white skin I am a rich person,” he said in an interview on Wednesday. “I’m not though. Five baht is actually a lot of money to me.”

“Thais think I am rich because I can make 40,000 baht per month,” he added. “But what they don’t realize is that I need to pay for my flights back to London twice a year, so that actually means I make less money than Thai people.”

John is not alone. Cheap farangs all over Bangkok are erupting in anger at the price increases, claiming that food vendors are simply trying to pull a fast one on old whitey.

In Bang Na, an American man reportedly was so livid about paying the extra five baht for khao pad mu that he called the vendor in broken Thai “a thief and a liar” and ensured him that he would never eat there again.

In Ramkamhaeng, a fat British woman was overheard complaining about decreased portion sizes, claiming that she was “absolutely famished” after a recent meal of krapow gai.

And on Khao San Road, a group of Australian backpackers beat a pad thai vendor nearly to death after he raised the price three baht from the previous month.

“Thai people, listen to me: We are not made of money,” declared Andrea Silverstein, a fast-talking British backpacker who was “appalled” that prices were at least five percent more than the Lonely Planet guide said they would be.

Americans who are paid in dollars are especially in dire circumstances. They claim that they have already lost 20 percent of their large salaries in the past few years, and rising rice prices will cause them to cut down on drinking or paying for more expensive farang food.

Some foreigners have decided to take action. Renowned farang beggar Marcus Stevenson says he is planning a march on the Commerce Ministry to call for cheaper prices.

“Not every farang is sipping cocktails at Vertigo, and I think that Thais need to hear that as well,” said Stevenson. “Sure we might make double, triple or quadruple what Thai make for the same amount of work, but our traveling and living costs are much higher. Thais don’t need serviced apartments, laundry service, pools, fitness rooms and UBC. We do. And those things cost money.”

To coincide with the rising prices, Stevenson has started asking Thais for 1,500 baht contributions instead of 1,000 baht. He says he has “almost” made enough money to finally go home and should have enough cash in a few more years.

Scary Internet Sex Sites

I was in NYC on 9/11 on my roof about a mile from the targets of the terrorists. My neighbors and I witnessed the World Trade Center collapse in flames, transfixed by the horror, yet I was not scared by the non-FX spectacle. Not in the traditional sense, however my email addresses keeps getting bombarded by sick sex websites more frightening than anything the CIA or Al Quada can organize in their Waziristan or Langley.

No over the river and through the woods for these grandmas.

Even scarier is Catwoman Wilderstein.

Or any nude VDOS of six-foot Nicole Kidman with her midget ex-husband Tom Cruise.

Let's face it. They never had sex so we don't have to worry about weird sex tapes or bizarre scientologist spawn.

Ever Green in Bangkok

This week the world's climate experts are meeting in Bangkok to formalize a plan to deal with climate change, despite FOX NEWS and drivers of SUVs claims that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the liberal media. The secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon, is calling on the representatives to save the world by coming up with a viable ecological strategy by 2009.
No one is expecting any earth-shattering policy to come out of the conference in Bangkok, Thailand's largest city, whose air quality has surprisingly improved with the surge in LNG-fueled vehicles. I was standing on the Skytrain platform yesterday and could actually see several miles, although this wasn't true in the countryside where it's burning season and the populace is dedicated to burning everything in sight.
Rice paddies, fallow fields, trees, plastic, garbage.
Burn burn burn.
And no one in Thailand is telling its citizens to change this behavior.
Global Warming?
It's always been hot in Thailand.
36 Centigrade yesterday and no rain in sight until after Songkran, the Thai festival of mad mayhem celebrating the end of the hot season. "
Ïf it gets hotter, we have to make ice to get the beer colder." My brother in law joked in front of his auto repair shop."
Öh, I hadn't thought about that."
His wife was across the road burning tree stumps into charcoal for cooking.
100 baht a 10 kilo bag.
Burn burn burn indeed.
The world is going to hell no matter what the governments do.
Why?
Because there are too many people.
And there's going to be more.
9 billion by 2050.
And no parking anywhere.
Ted Turner predicts we won't reach that goal.
"The planet will be 4 degrees warmer and no crops will grow. We'll end up as cannibals."
9 billion cannibals?
No better way to control the population than that.

FAT WOMEN OF THE WORLD UNITE

friend, Jamie Parker, contends that the true cause of global warming is due to obesity.

"Think of those millions of fat people's body temperatures and their sweating on a warm day and don't forget about the friction of the wind hitting their plus-35 BMI. Jamie's previous theory about global warming had to do with Earth passing through a warmer section of outer space left over from the Creation, which got him a job with the GOP. It lasted about three weeks.

I'm much kinder to fat people, for unlike Jamie who's very thin, I have suffered from Orson Wellesitis throughout my life. Not that I ever challenged the fakir of fat, although I once found a his cape at a Provincetown antique store. The owner wanted $200 to the circus tent. I offered him fifty. He turned me down, but I think about Orson often. He was big and so is most of America. Bigger than big, however many of these over-sized people think of themselves as normal, especially the women and no one forgives these little elephants more than feminists who are constantly fighting man's attempt to focus beauty on one ideal form as a skinny model or a sex bomb starlet.

Skinny is not normal for feminists according to a UK study. Members of a survey shown a set of photos of women were asked to identify with the fattest and thinnest women in the photos. Most women picked fat.

After all most women are fat if only to project enough body mass to scare men from having sex with them and I can't blame them. I wouldn't want to have sex with me either.

Fat women of the world unite, but I have to warn them not in one place, because I wouldn't want the crust of the Earth to collapse.

Just saying Fucking Iggy.

War on Drugs Victory

I was a good boy throughout the 1960s.
I did no drugs.
I drank beer, fought in senseless brawls, and drove my 68 VW Beetle like it was my father's Delta 88.
The summer of 1970 was my baptism into the drug culture.
Coming back from the Surf Nantasket after seeing the Chosen Few I smoked a joint in my VW Beetle with Tommie Jordan. The reefer had no effect until the lights on 3A in Hingham. The red light lasted an eternity and we laughed with the joy of cannabis enlightenment. It was never as good as that moment.
I've done everything. No confessions. Only the truth.
My mother says I lost my edge.She was right and in many ways I wish I could say I had never done anything, because no high is better than the rush of holding my daughter. I'm a better man now. I moved to Thailand was to remove myself from sources of temptation. Billions have been spent by the DEA to combat the spread of drugs without any success.
The prison was packed and the justice system is overloaded with cases prosecuting. Drugs are everywhere. It is time to admit failure. My side won, for even the President of the USA is in need on a fix, judging from a recent photo.
Tell me this isn't the 'high' sign.
There #43 is. Surrounded by the faithful. Desperate and I know.
I worked at the Bains-Douches in Paris. One night Jack Nicholson and Ron Woods entered the club. they gave me the same sign, only they wanted 'downtown'. GW doesn't play that game. He's a reborn Christian. Temptation is only a knock on the door away.
Look what happened to Clinton on a snowy night.
Intern
Pizza.
No sex
History.
No one can be strong forever.