There are a very few computer games that have acquired classic status in the Spike hall of fame. “Railroad Tycoon”, “Roller-coaster Tycoon”, “Civilisation”, “Total War” and of course “SimCity”.

The first version of SimCity was released in 1989 and was re-released in a various upgraded forms until the last iteration, SimCity 4, some ten years ago. Then the designer, Will Wright, went off to design one of the biggest selling franchises of all time, The Sims; leaving SimCity fans to continue tweaking SimCity with user developed add-ons and dreaming of a new version.

Not to be outdone by Raimon Land, A.D. Condominium are now offering something even more enticing than an iPad Mini with every condo purchase; a car.

Only 5,900 baht too; I’m off to buy two units.

(Thanks to Mr. PattayaDaze for the photo).

Comments 🔗

2013-03-07 | Chang Noi says

The joke is you can do the down-payment with your credit-card. So you are on an exiting & happy holiday and can “buy” and dream house/condo with your credit-card …. after a few weeks you think “I can never pay for that” and cancel the agreement. No problem … but the down-payment is gone. Happens not only in Pattaya or Phuket with foreigners but also upcountry with locals in beautiful new housings estates. Of course the car or iPad you only get after full payment.

There are two types of people to whom you should never give your phone number and email address:

1. Women called Ning who have a look in their eyes that you mistake for lust but is in fact indicative of a deep-seated drug habit of the type that compels them to phone you at three o’clock in the morning some three months after you have concluded a brief and messy relationship, to advise you that they still love you desperately, but also that they want to cut off your genitals and feed them to their sister (that they don’t have); the two slightly dissonant messages delivered in a single sentence by a voice heavy with narcotics and totally devoid of emotion before the line goes dead, briefly preceded by a noise that sounds exactly like a phone being thrown against a brick wall.

My sickness over the past weekend meant that I missed out on shooting a polo tournament. Bad news for me and those who were looking forward to staring into my lens from the back of a horse, good news for the majority of visitors to this site who are not fans of horsey shots.

But I am a dedicated chap, so I did drag myself there on Saturday and took photos for an hour or so before being forced to retire to my truck and its aircon.

So the good news is that I did capture some shots of the tournament, the bad news is that I can share one with you.

Having battled my way through a particularly nasty bout of man flu a week or so ago, I felt that I was on the road to recovery apart from some lingering unpleasantness around the sinuses. But the day after my road trip with Kevin, I started to go downhill again and have spent the past three days nursing the most spectacular inflamed throat accompanied by a high fever.

Having previously stubbornly refused any medical intervention, I have finally relented and am now consuming large white pills which proclaim themselves to be antibiotics, and they do seem to be working; but getting back to full speed is not doubt going to take a few days.

It is with deep regret that I have to advise that I have lost yet another reader.

I have received the following message from the imaginatively titled “Couldbe Nice but_crappy@ttitude.com”:

“But, closed comments, radical attitude, changed my mind from book marking and sharing this with friends, to saying to myself, this site is to be passed.”

Oh dear.

Closed comments? Well, all posts are automatically closed to comments after 30 days, otherwise spam from people with suspicious names like “Couldbe Nice but_crappy@ttitude.com” get past my spam filter and have to be deleted. I also closed a post recently because Grant was getting a little excited and I felt we were deviating from the usual jovial banter.

A day out with Pattaya Days reader Kevin saw us heading for the Ancient City. Kevin is a professional wedding photographer so had a bag full of the sort of gear that professional wedding photographers use; leaving my little bag of Micro Four Thirds goodies looked somewhat inadequate in comparison. In a previous life Kevin had worked for the Royal Air Force and his duties had included driving instruction and chauffeuring prime ministers, so I expect my driving seemed somewhat inadequate in comparison to his skills; although I didn’t actually hit anything and he only hid under the dashboard twice.

Still, with me driving, it was quite clear that all navigational skills were the responsibility of Kevin; so when we found ourselves heading in the general direction of Surin rather than the Ancient City, it was definitely his fault. His feeble protestations that I had been to our intended destination before, that he hadn’t actually been told where we were going and anyway he didn’t have his reading glasses, cut no ice with me. This is was an ideal opportunity to mask my gear and driving inadequacies and I took full advantage.

After a massive delay caused by Kevin’s navigational cock-up (estimated at around twenty minutes) we finally arrived at the Ancient City just as it was about to close (estimated at about five hours before it was about to close).

I had pretty much taken all the building shots during my previous visit, so this time I tried to find something different, which usually involved Buddha statues. This was my favourite of the day:

Spent a fair bit of time the last few days processing prancing polo photo photos. Was not going to inflict any on you, but Mr. Grant pleaded so fervently in the comments to the previous post, that I felt I had to oblige. If you didn’t want it; you know who to bitch at.

I’ve already posted a couple of movie review offerings for my long-suffering readers; but there is time for one more before the Oscars are handed out this evening. Are you sitting comfortably, popcorn on your lap? Good.

Best Picture Oscar nominations I have in my collection, but haven’t watched yet: Lincoln - It’s Spielberg, it’s Daniel Day-Lewis doing his method acting thing; but I managed ten minutes before boredom set in. Will try again after it has swept up a huge number of awards. Les Miserables - It’s Anne Hathaway being all vulnerable and waif-like; yummy. But I can’t get past the singing every sentence routine and had to stop before Anne had even made an appearance. They should have included a car chase early on to keep me interested.