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Yesteday as I headed back to the river-pier after a long day at the archives, I decided to take a short-cut through one of the markets. I wandered past the fresh vegetables, the flower vendors, the peppers drying, the seafood slowly rotting in the mid-day heat, until at the very end of the alley I saw it - a stall full of DVD's.
I immediately went over and asked if he had any titles in English. After looking me over to make sure I wasn't CIA (or worse - Disney intelligence), the elderly man lead me down a hallway and into a dimly lit room full of wall-to-wall black market DVD's. They had everything there, films that havn't even been released in the theatres yet. Because I am both a cautious consumer and a loving father, I purchased only copies of 'Open Season' and 'Happy Feet'. Each DVD was 80 baht, (or about 2.30$) and amazingly they both worked in our DVD player.
(Further proof that you don't have to be a Rock Star to risk life and limb making illegal underground contacts in developing countries and circumvent existing international copyright law.)
In Other News...
Tomorrow I go to meet with my new research assistant. Each day I print out copies of newspaper editorials that comment on the 1940-1 Franco-Thai conflict. Many of these microfilms are old, scratched, torn, faded, or otherwise illegible for someone who is not a native Thai speaker. I need someone to help re-type these articles so that I can expedite the process of reading and processing the information. I may ask an assistant to also provide summaries as well so I can quickly decide which articles I want to read first. I've been inquiring for two months now and at last I've found a qualified candidate.
There's only one problem: it's a female student. Kaddi is understandably torn, especially since she wants me to work quickly and finish quickly so that we can all go home and I can complete the dissertation. Today she proposed a compromise that I think everyone can live with. Basically, I'll hire a team of helper monkeys.
With a thousand monkeys writing at a thousand typewriters, in ten months I'll have produced the greatest dissertation the world have ever known!
6 comments:
Underground contacts? He bought these from a stand in front of the mall. They were next to the Hello Kitty backpacks.
24?
Oh, the lies you weave into the story of your life. I have had the monkeys working on my dissertation for months now and well... I am still here.
Good luck with that.
By the way, we'd love to see that article (from Time) about the Mack Strate. Any chance of it being worked into the blog?
It's very difficult for 301NIB to get a copy here in Thailand, but you can pick it up at any newstand in the US. It explains how the Mack Strate controls the information age. 310NIB has grown more powerful than anyone could have possibly imagined.
"You" certainly have.
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