Game over

You probably don't know this about me, but I have led a double life for the past month or so. I've been making Fantastic Contraptions (and there is no twelve step program for it).

FantasticContraption is a game unlike any I have played. It brings out the engineer in you. The wonderfully frustrated cursing engineer up in the middle of the night hunched over the computer screen with a contorted face. That too.

Because you have to get the pink thing in the other pink think you see. Most of you are familiar with that sort of process (nudge wink) but not like this. You can build whatever you like to do the job but you've got to stay in the blue box you see... The best thing about the game: after you do a level, can check out what other people constructed.



Anyway: check it out at FantasticContraption.com. And while you're at it: check out my creation called 'extendedversion' (press play and continue) that made it through the last level. My work is done...

Not so bad after all

There are a couple of places in Thailand that I've avoided like the plague. Places in the you-don't-have-to-pour-acid-in-your-eyes-to-know-that-it-stings-category.

On top of that list is Pataya. In many ways I have been there. I have seen Pataya in places like Goa, in Cuba and let's not forget red light districts the world over. I imagine Pataya to be a cross between Amsterdam's red light district, the backrooms at Club Fire in Kathmandu and a kindergarten run by ruthless Russian mobsters.

No, thank you very much. For that same reason I just couldn't seem fit the bar scene at Phuket in my itinerairy. And you better believe I have yet to set foot in Soi Cowboy or Nana Plaza in Bangkok. It's (again with the Russians) a little like Siberia: I know where it is, but I just don't want to go.

Somewhere at the very bottom of the list: Ko Samet (or rather Goh Saamed). Too close to Bangkok, to crowded and overrun. At least the noisy hookers mostly stay on the mainland at Ban Phe but that's the most charming quality of the Island. Or is it?

I just got back from ten days at one of the southern most beaches and it can get a little busy, but for the most part it was great: nice, not to expensive cabins on the beach, no major developments, but a lot of Thai little foodplaces and resorts. Nice.

Especially since we could avoid the crowds and took the ultra special secret boat past the main pier and imediatly headed a couple of beaches south of where all the jet ski's and bars are. Of course I can't write about exactly how we pulled this stunt. It would just become less ultra special, not to mention less secret...

Did I mention I even conviniently 'forgot' my camera? Totaly black bag ops.