iPhone Sighting in Korat!

We went for ice cream after supper tonight. In the booth next to ours at Swensen’s there were four Thai young adults. Jim spotted one of them using an iPhone. I speak enough Thai to be able to ask the owner the important questions:  where did he get it, does it work as a phone, and does it work for Internet access? 

The phone is an import, purchased in Bangkok, at the MBK shopping complex. It can be used with either of the two major mobile phone services, AIS or DTAC. He had an AIS plan, which for 599 baht ($17.54) included 500 minutes of talk time, with a fee of 1 baht per minute of Internet use, or $1.75 an hour. Not bad. 

The phone was an unlocked model, as it obviously had to be to be used in Thailand. It had additional software installed, so it had been given the common “freedom” hack. I saw the installer app and the launcher app, as well as a bunch of games like sudoku. It had apparently not been updated to the newer system, as I found no icon for the iTunes Music store.

Like Manna from Heaven

Here are the lovely flowers by our front gate. Okay, blocking the front gate for the sidewalk, but next to the driveway front gate.

When I decided to grow some basil and chilis and dill I bought 6 terra cotta plant pots. All six of them are still in the back yard, growing useful things. But as if the planting of herbs and spices triggered the beneficence of some unknown deity, new pots have appeared, one by one, in the front yard by the gate. First came the pale pink rose, then the short plant with the bright pink flowers. Then came the tall skinny plant with the red flower, the short fat one with no flower currently, and finally the red rose.

We don’t know where these plants come from. We don’t know why they arrive, they just do. We don’t know why they are in ugly plastic pots. Most of all, we don’t know if replanting them into less ugly terra cotta pots, or even into the ground someplace, would offend the plant-giving deity.

I Need a Camera of my Own

There is a blog entry I want to make. It requires a photo. I have asked Jim to take this photo. More than once. He still hasn’t.

I would take the photo myself, but he gets all paranoid and nags me about not touching the lens and generally acts like I have no idea how to use a camera. I don’t have much of an idea on how to use his camera, as he has never let me read the manual (nor has he bothered to read it) so things like how to take in-focus close-ups are a mystery. But he obviously doesn’t like me touching his camera. Add a cheap digital camera to my Christmas wishlist.