House of Jorob

Harry Nicolaides: The text of Verisimilitude

Harry Nicolaides is still rotting in a jail cell.

For insulting the royal family.

90 cellmates, an open toilet, and a cement floor.

Makes me want to jump on a plane and tour lovely Bangkok right away, lemme tell you.

Piling on to this poor guy's slumping shoulders are an entire herd of Internet disparagers.

These paragons look to the complete printing (50 copies), and the number of copies sold (7 sold). and write that Nicolaides is suffering from a publicity stunt gone somewhat south.

And that he deserves it.

Who are these people?

Well, there's Chuck. Classy guy, Chuck: "Harry Nicolaides is an attention seeking fool."

Then there's Val1089. Very sympathetic guy, is Val: "Harry is a fool, but not in the way you think he was. The book was never published, and possibly never written. Harry submitted the potentially objectionable passage to the Thai gov't himself to see if it would be lese majeste. It was all a publicity stunt to help sell the novel, before it was published."

He goes on to "wager you won't find a single copy of this book anywhere, nor will you find anyone who has read or seen a copy."

Yep.

A genuine authority, is Val.

A copy of Harry Nicolaides's entire text is here. It's in a pdf that popped back up on the net within the last ten days or so. Apparently it was pulled down as a sign of encouragement to the Thai police department, who were considering releasing Harry.

Harry's still locked up, so the book is back up.

Here's an excerpt from Verisimilitude --one that contains, if not all of the apparently offending words, at least some of them:

"From King Rama to the Crown Prince, the nobility was renowned for their romantic entanglements and intrigues. The Crown Prince had many wives "major and minor" with a coterie of concubines for
entertainment. One of his recent wives was exiled with her entire family, including a son they conceived together, for an undisclosed indiscretion. He subsequently remarried with another woman and fathered another child. It was rumoured that if the prince fell in love with one of his minor wives and she betrayed him, she and her  family would disappear with their name, familial lineage and all
vestiges of their existence expunged forever."

The King's a hypocrite.

He's gone on record as saying people should be able to critize the king.

And yet this sort of thing happens.

Must be good to be a king.

<sigh>

I'm not travelling to Thailand any time soon.

Wonder if the prosecutor is going to file for my extradition?

Rosetta Stone en anglaise

Anyone else ever wonder why the Rosetta Stone TV commercials never have anybody actually speaking the languages?

Big yellow box.

Bunch of homey, happy-looking people.

Everybody speaking about how they learned their new language.

In English.

They say things like "I tried classes, tapes, language school and nothing compares with Rosetta Stone...."

And

"Within a month of using <the> Spanish program daily, I had learned more than I had in years of lessons." 

And

"Now I can adequately hold my own in conversation--all within six weeks of purchase."

You ask me, I think a better endorsement would be an Italian native listening to a Rosetta Stone user.

In Italian.

When done, they turn to the camera and say, "Wow! I really understood what they were saying!"

Charlie Brown's Steakhouse

I usually express one of two opinions about restaurant food.

Mmmmm. Food good.

or

You mean I have to eat this?

So I rarely write about restaurants.

I really, really like Charlie Brown's.

The one on Baltimore Pike, in Springfield.

And not just for the food.

Which falls on the Food good side of the equation.

The service is outstanding.

Each time Jill and I eat there, we are attended to, not smothered.

Nor ignored.

The waitstaff know how to flip tables, too.

Not that flipping tables matters to whether or not I enjoy a meal.

It's just fun to watch.

We timed them one night, over a break in the dinner conversation.

The table near us had a party of four.

Full meal, bottles of wine. dessert.

They left.

Bang.

Table bussed, reset, and chairs straightened.

One minute, fourteen seconds.

Oh sure, I could write a bunch of superlatives about the high quality of the food.

Or the plate-filling portions.

Like I said, Food good.

But a waitstaff that knows what they're doing?

Hard to find, even in the expensive places.

Banned in Bangkok: Harry Nicolaides and Lèse majesté

Harry Nicolaides screwed up.

Big time.

The former university lecturer in northern Thailand self-published a book called Verisimilitude in 2005.

Bangkok courts have just sentenced him to three years imprisonment.

Not for self-publishing fifty copies of his novel.

For allegedly insulting King Bhumibol Adulyadej and Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn in it.

And then being in a place where Thai authorities could arrest him.

A Thai website described the book as an "uncompromising assault on the patrician values of the monarchy".

Nicolaides described his novel as a commentary on political and social life of contemporary Thailand.

The book sold seven copies.

At least one of them had to be from the Thai government, I'm guessing.

Thailand has Lèse majesté laws on the books.

Thailand has a throne.

And one is not allowed to insult it.

I went hunting for a copy of the text that was so insulting.

At the moment, I can't find it.

It's supposedly three or four lines of text that deals with certain Thai prince and his....love life.

Or love habits.

I'm not sure, since I can't find the freaking passage.

Seems the prosecutor of the case has warned reporters recently that the law prohibited publication and repetition of the material.

I would guess that when you're a reporter in a Thai courtroom, looking at a shackled and orange-prisonsuit-clad 41 year old author who's been incarcerated for the past six months for writing the passage, you tend to listen to the prosecutor.

Because AP didn't print it.

Neither has anybody else.

I can see where we, as heavy-handed westerners or worse, heavy-handed self-centered Americans, need to respect the legal systems of other countries.

Back off, I'm sure my French readers would tell me.

If I had any French readers.

Lèse majesté laws stifle everyody: Thais and foreigners alike.

And I'm sure if Harry were of Thai descent, I'd have never even heard of him or his plight.

So Harry brings a spotlight onto archaic, backwater laws.

Too bad it wasn't intentional.

I mean, he had been part of Thai life for over four years.

He's an author. A reporter.

He had to know what could happen--he sent passages of his book--including the potentially offensive one-- to the Thai government in advance of his printing.

But nobody answered him.

I guess he figured no news is good news.

Oops.

If I find the passage, I'll be sure to post it, and link to the source.

I'm not going to Thailand any time soon.

Below are my references.

I suspect that Thailand has pretty much banned most of them--they banned YouTube when there was a spate of monarchy-mocking vids in 2006/2007. These days YouTube is available to Thais in a filtered form.

• Australian, Harry Nicolaides, Sentenced For Insulting Thai Monarchy
• Australian jailed for three years for insulting Thai royals
  
• Lèse majesté and Harry Nicolaides
• The trouble with Harry
• Writer Harry Nicolaides jailed for insulting Thai king
• Australian Harry Nicolaides Arrested in Thailand
• On Thailand, Harry Nicolaides, and Populism

Dungeon Tiles: Collector's item. Who knew?

The guys who make Dungeons and Dragons (TSR, Wizards of the Coast, Hasbro) have had hits and misses over the years.
Like version 3.0.
Miss.
Oh dear god, what a miss.
And like Dungeon Tiles.
The exact opposite.
Serious hit.
So much so, that you can't even find the first two kits in the series any more.
Released in August 2006, the things retailed for less than ten bucks.
And they were an instant hit among the graph paper set.

When my pen and paper game went to version 4.0 six months ago, one of the things I wanted to do, in keeping with the spirit of the new rules, was to speed up the battle-preps.

Which meant moving away from hastily scrawled graph paper battle maps.

Dungeon Tiles looked like the answer. Sturdy cardboard cutouts, gridded, and printed with different images on either side, they provided fast builds of complex rooms for combat.

The Wizards D&D site still lists the first group of tiles as if they were still available in stores.

Wrong.

Thirty bucks on Amazon.

$32 on Ebay.

None of the bookstore sites carry them, and good luck finding them on the shelves.

Burned about 40 miles bouncing between 9 different bookstores.

There are maybe seven or eight volumes in the series now. Most of them are still around, retailing for $9.95.

I've put together enough tiles to work for me using several of the later sets.

But those first two?

Ghosts.

Mylpcard.com, LPC Shopping Club, and the LPC Universal 1 Platinum Card

If you're holding your pre-approval letter for up to $7,500 purchase credit limit with LPC Universal 1 Platinum card, put down the letter.urn this card invitation.

Burn it.

Shred it.

Now.

This card is not a credit card.

It looks like one, and the offer letter has all the general shapes, buzzwords, and bold-faced type in the right places.

But it is not a credit card.

If you call the telephone number provided on the letter, or if you visit the website www.mylpcard.com, and you accept this card.....you will immediately be on the hook for almost $400 without purchasing anything.

Anything.

And, since acceptance of the card, according to the helpful telephone operator on the other end of the line, requires that  you set up automatic direct debit by LPC of your checking account.....

$200 of that sum will be pulled from your checking account right away.

The rest you're on the hook for and will be debited at a rate of $99 per month.

How can such a disaster be allowed to exist?

How can such a scam survive?

Simple.

It's not a scam.

It's a racket, for sure.

A scam aims to bilk you out of money, without giving you anything in return for it.

LPC gives you something in return.

Access to their exclusive Home Shopping club.

Like I said, this is not a credit card. It's a line of credit with the LPC Shopping Club.

And LPC explains it all in their letter.

They just bury the details in so much jargon, doublespeak, and legalese that unless you take a few minutes to stitch the disconnected pieces together, you miss the major impacts:

Which are these:

• $79 processing fee (pulled 2 days after signing up--counting weekends)
• $120 activation fee (pulled 2 days after signing up--counting weekends)
• $198 annual membership fee (charged to your new credit line)

Followed by these:

• $99 minimum monthly payment
• Shipping and handling for "new merchant card, cardholder agreement, and other information relevant to your benefits, as well as your catalog, and other specific membership benefits."

Shipping and handling on a card, a piece of paper, and a catalog?

Really.

Here is how they figure your monthly minimum:

"The minimum monthly payment due is $99, but only $50 or 10% of your total account balance from catalog purchases, whichever is greater."

That's a direct quote.

The letter assures you that you can get most of your money back if you decide you've done a bad thing by accepting the card.

Then:

"Your membercard processing fee, annual fees, shipping and handling fees are non-refundable."

You have a limited time in which to claim your refund.

This would be for the $120 activation fee.

You have 30 days.

Simply call the number on the back of your LPC card.

Here's the rub:

You won't get your member card for a while.

Here's what I mean:

• day x: You call and accept (please don't. This is for demonstration purposes only) Also, I didn't number this one because the amount of time between the next item in the line and your calling day vary on a sliding scale, based on what day of the freaking week you called them. Seriously.
• day 1: Your processing payment fee hits your checking account. $79.
• day 8: Your Activation payment hits your checking account. $120. Your credit line is established.
• day 8: Your annual membership fee hits your credit line. $198 balance due.
• day 13: Your LPC card ships, along with catalog, pieces of paper, plus shipping and handling charged to your credit line.
• day 16: Your LPC card arrives. I'm being generous here. Once the package is enroute to your home it is up to whatever spiritual leader you follow to get it there.

Congratulations.

You have two weeks left on your 30-day period to request your refund.

The authors of the letter don't lay all the information out as clearly as I have.

No.

They discuss each step in the chain, of course. They have to, to stay legal.

But they do it out of sequence.

Reading it straight through, you miss all the linkages.

If you don't chart it out, you're doomed.

Now that you've burned your invitation:

Go to BJ's or Sam's Club or Costco.

The memberships are much cheaper.

World of Warcraft: Powerlevelling your cooking and fishing skills to 150 on the Cheap!

And you don't have to be all that far along in class level, either. I did this when my gnome rogue was just level 19, which was perfectly high enough to slaughter any aberrant wolves or things that attacked me while running between trainer and city and lake.

It won't cost you much to get this far: The coin for two recipies and the fishing pole, and time is all.

No other materials costs involved.

Too bad I can't say the same for later levels of cooking, but at least you can catch a break where it counts: at the beginning, when you may not exactly be rolling in silver, let alone gold.

Couple of assumptions:

• You are Alliance.
• You are hanging around in IronForge.
• You have 9 or 10 open slots in your inventory.

Names and locations to know:

There's a fishing trainer and a cooking trainer in the area. The cooking trainer is named Daryl Riknussun and he is located in Ironforge, at the Great Forge. There's a cooking vendor named Gretta Gantner in the small village near IceFlow Lake. She sells a recipe you will need, along with fishing poles, but she can't train you. The fishing trainer is hanging on the shores of Iceflow lake, which is where you are going to be doing your fishing. His name is Paxton Ganter.

You'll need all of these guys to reach 150.

Make sure your bought a fishing rod.

If you want to buy it before heading out to the lake, general goods vendors have them in Ironforge.

First order of business:

Go fish.

Hike on over to Iceflow Lake.

Invoke your fishing skill. When the bobber bobs, right-click it. You will land a fish if you've clicked within two or three seconds of that bobbing motion.

You will pull two kinds of fish out of Iceflow: Raw Brilliant Smallfish and Raw Longjaw Mud Snappers. These things stack to 20. Fish until you have 9 stacks of fish, total. You will probably split your catches pretty evenly, with Brilliant Smallfish having a slight lead. The first 75 fish you catch, you will gain one point on your fishing skill. After that, it's roughly one point for every two fish landed. 

When you hit 75 fishing, run over to Paxton Ganter, and train. Your cap will go to 150. Return to the lake, and fish until you hit that number.

That's it for the fishing.

Second order of business:

Jog across the lake to find Gretta Ganter. She sells the cooking recipe for making Brilliant Smallfish. Buy it, and head back to IronForge.

Learn your recipe, find a cookfire, and cook every single Raw Brilliant Smallfish up to level 75.

Don't cook the Raw Longjaw Mud Snappers yet.

Once you hit 75, run over to the Great Forge and find Daryl Riknussun. Purchase the recipe for cooking Longjaw Mud Snappers.

Don't cook the Raw Longjaw Mud Snappers yet.

Go find a cookfire, and finish cooking ever single remaining Raw Brilliant Smallfish.

You should gain a couple more cooking points.

NOW cook all of your Raw Longjaw Mud Snappers.

These things cook at a higher level than the Brilliant Smallfish, and so will level your cooking skill from 75 to 150, where the Smallfish results will tail off.

Once you are done, you will have levelled both skills to 150.

Now you need to complete quests in order to advance into Expert.

But that's where this little guide ends.

Meteor 4: The World of Warcraft Expansion

Acronis Disk Director Suite 10 ftw!

Jill got Wow's Wrath of the Lich King for Hanukkah.

Time to install it.

But first, relocate the entire WoW installation to the 1 TB Barracuda SATA drive I installed in there during the late October hard drive disaster.

Oops.

When I set up the big drive, it was as a destination for backup and recovery services during the reconstruction of the existing--but crashed--hard drive.

I never reconfigured the drive to behave as a normal storage device.

Hell, at the time I was just happy to have a recovered PC installation with all applications running correctly.

Okaaaaay.

Pulled out Acronis.

Brought up the partitioning tools.

Advanced, Manual Mode.

Located about 700 free Gigs and created a new partition out of it.

Moved and deleted a couple extra backups from the Time of Troubles.

Closed Acronis and restarted the PC.

All drives checked in.

With the correct drive letters.

Total time to repartition and clean up the files: 8 minutes.

I am never going to use Partition Magic again.

Evar.

Next: moved and upgraded Wow:

• Located the installed files under Program Files.
• Copied to their new drive space.
• Renamed the old folder.
• Repointed the desktop icon for WoW's launcher to the new folder space.
• Booted up Wow and tested the new location.
• Testing: mailed stuff between characters, deleted a character, created a new character, doublechecked maps and character locations on the maps, etc.
• Rebooted.
• Fired up the upgrade DVD
• Grinned as the autoloader found the new location for the files and installed Lich King to the right place.
• Updated the account with Blizzard during the installation.
• Fired up Wrath of the Lich King.
• Tested by playing the damn thing long enough to level a 1st level Blood Elf priest to sixth.

Total time for the entire migration and upgrade, including updating the account with Blizzard and the subsequent patching (which kicked off automatically upon the installation completion) to the Lich King files:

45 minutes.

As in, less than an hour.

Man.

I hope this is an omen for the rest of 2009.