kirrz

It's 1am - best friend (she's white and a tourist) & me get into a cab in Bangkok.. Cab driver thinks we're both foreigners & asks us if we want to buy marijuana. I say yes (wanted to see how this underground mafia I'd heard so much about worked). At this point I can no longer pull out my Thai and tell him I'm a local because he will flip (they don't deal with locals at all). We ended up on this crazy 3 hour adventure all over Bangkok in this cab involving switching cars, picking up a random drug dealer, waiting in seedy seedy isolated areas, strip clubs, 'massage' parlours.. All the while, I have a message typed out on my mobile saying "help! we're in a dodgy cab.. number is [number]" ready to send to my dad just incase. And the 2 guys in the front seat are discussing in Thai how much they are going to rip us off yet I had to pretend not to understand & go with it. Stupid stupid stupid move but we got lucky.

March 10th

A BASE jumper whose parachute snagged during a clifftop jump today at Christmas Creek, in Queensland's southeast, has been rescued. The man, who had been jumping with two friends from the cliff near Beaudesert, was uninjured but had to be rescued from a ledge, an RACQ CareFlight helicopter spokeswoman said. The helicopter flew State Emergency Service (SES) personnel to the top of the cliff to rescue the man, who was stuck about 60m below. --- Source: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17830115-2,00.html

What is your name and your nickname? Kiran.. have been dubbed Kiz by the Aussies (as they do) When is your birthday? 10-March What is your eye color and hair color? V.Dark Brown & Black Do you drink? Sometimes Smoke? Depends on the substance in question.. What city do you live in? 65% Sydney, Australia 35% Bangkok, Thailand What is your occupation, and do you enjoy your job? Full-time student - love it! How often do you travel? Frequent flyer gold How many languages do you speak? 5 pretty fluently + a smattering of Spanish What kind of music do you enjoy? Electronica, Techno.. (but I secretly still love the boybands too) What is your favorite food? Mexican Do you have a favorite color? Turquoise Do you have any unusual habits or quirks? I continually look for trouble What is a talent that you have that most people don't expect from you? I can play the saxophone Name something that you are proud of in your life. My friendships

Congratulations!

Non-stop: Bangkok --> New York (8640miles - 17.5 hours).. that was so intense.. With stopovers: Bangkok --> San Francisco (via Singapore, Hong Kong & Los Angeles) (10,065 miles) - though this was back in 1992.. now you can just fly directly to LA in 14 hours

in a storage room at a law firm during work.. consistently the entire duration of my internship there..

I'd imagine that any local jumpers here (if any) would be expats. I don't personally know of any but a great starting point would be to contact Stephen Northcott - [email protected] He is a very chilled out & helpful British guy that has pretty much built up from scratch & is now running the whole skydiving show in Thailand. If there are indeed any locals around here, he will definetely be in the know.

Argumentative - I counter-examine everything people say -even when I think they're right.. I just like to see people validate their beliefs.. besides, I think arguments are fun. Perfectionist - but only in relation to myself, never overtly to others. Never rely on anyone, I automatically assume everyone is going to fuck up so I make sure I have them covered (without them knowing).. It's such a shit trait though.. so many times at school or at uni, I have faked sick to get out of tests because I would rather not take them than take them and do badly..

So what then defines a site? Is it a place that is frequently jumped off? Or does a place become a site once someone has jumped off it? Or is any place that could potentially be jumped off considered a site? I'm trying to understand the whole site-naming, site-burning things and am a bit confused. What happens if someone jumps off an object that realistically most people will never be able to jump off (ie. Jeb & Palace Hotel) and talks about the place. Is that site-naming? If hotel management sees his footage and become a bit more alert about BASE, is that site-burning then? But is a place like that even considered a site? How about if you live in a high-rise & jump off your own balcony.. & talk about it.. is that site-naming? Is that still prohibited?

So out of curiousity... When someone like Jeb Corliss jumps off the Palace Hotel and it can be later seen in his video, are there any repercussions of that? Or does nothing happen unless you are caught in the act?

...and BASE was completely supported & legal worldwide, where would be the ideal place to live? Basically anything you see that you want to jump off, you can without any fear of authority whatsoever. I just stepped into NYC and I can't believe the buildings that exist here.

I'm not a parent but my dad put all that tracking stuff on when I was a teen.. and I found it. And then I managed to break through it & find a way to disable it whenever I was online. So I would stay online for that 1 hour time limit allocated & know that I was being tracked, then disable it & do whatever the hell I wanted to.. & simply enable it again at the end of my session. (and I'm a *girl*.. whoa)

what will you think of next?

We don't. And Thailand is a totally Buddhist country so no one celebrates Christmas, it's just another excuse for malls to have sales - so that's all that Christmas is in this part of the world - a shopping season.

hahaha

I never realized it was that bad in Cronulla you know.. I've been exposed to this whole situation through the international media (since I'm overseas atm) and they have pretty much jumped on to the debate about whether Australians are inherently racist or not.. But I got an email from a friend in Sydney and she said exactly what you did.. that beachgoers are being harassed by these people everyday & it has been an ongoing problem.. and you're right.. whether it's a racial issue or not is irrelevant - that kind of behaviour isn't acceptable or needed anywhere.. At the end of the day, we can debate it all we want but you have to deal with the consequences since you live there - hope everything works out..

I'm sorry if this sounds ultra-ignorant but American politics isn't really my forte & I'm curious.. Over the last few years I've met loads & loads of Americans and just about every single one of them has something bad to say about George Bush (think he's incompetent or whatever). So from where I'm looking, it seems like the vast majority of Americans dislike Bush. But obviously that's not the case since he got voted in for a second term. Why is it that he got voted in again? Is it simply because he was better when compared to the alternative, Kerry? Or are there actually a large number of Americans that support Bush (take away the token 'I support him because we're both from Texas' people)? And if so, what are his policies that could make him favourable?

You've been given heaps of advice here.. all of it is really good but relevant in different situations.. You haven't once said what you suspect the problem is with your daughter or how bad you think what she's hiding is.. & I think the move you make really depends on that. If you think she is living a secret double life as a crack whore, then fair enough. Crack down. But tell her the rules have changed and that you are now monitoring her because you are worried about the change in her. Don't just spy on her because this way, by being honest, you are getting all the information you want, but you are also respecting her as a person. But if you simply suspect she's trying a few cigarettes or kissing a few boys then is that really something you want to completely blow the trust out of your relationship over? It seems like you've already made the decision to track her.. so at least be upfront about it and tell her the new rules - she will respect you more in the long run.

I hear it's going to be freezing.. never been to NYC before.. are there any 'must-do's or 'must-see's??

i started the bush thread and then markharju got inspired & went nuts so which one of us would be contending for the idiot title?

Can I please say something before you do anything drastic.. I was like your daughter in my teens- all of a sudden found new friends, spent so much time on the computer & shut my parents out all the time. My dad who happens to be a computer genius put all these programs on the computer limiting my time on the internet and put all these tracking things so that whatever I was writing in IMs, he could see at work! I didn't know that he was tracking my behaviour.. but in regards to the limiting program, I just spent a lot of time figuring how to crack it & eventually I did. And then when I found out he was tracking me, it pissed me off so much that I went from bad to worse. And then I found out my mom would go through my stuff everyday & read my diary etc.. I was convinced that I had no privacy whatsoever and tried harder to hide things from my parents. I went out of my way to rebel & probably did things that were more hurtful to them just out of spite. I didn't trust them and they caught me lying.. so trust on both sides was broken for years.. Now, I'm a few years older.. I have the hindsight.. teenagers are like that.. but the more you pry, the more she will hide things. Of course she is going to experiment and rebel a bit - that's part of growing up. You just have to be a bit open-minded and try to establish an honest relationship with her. If you catch her lying, don't go nuts. Have a mature conversation.. It will take some time but eventually you will show her that you aren't as backward as she thinks and that she can be a bit more open with you. Sometimes, if you hear about or she does things that you don't like.. just go with it because those little sacrifices on your part will earn you the greater trust which is what I think you are after. So please don't be rash.

see i don't know...if she was that drunk that she was throwing up & needed to be taken home, then i doubt she would have been in a frame of mind to be thinking rationally enough to asess the situation & then act accordingly.. & it doesn't have to be sex at all.. even a kiss?

not to the same extent as bush..

hahahaha maybe.. but at least he's charismatic enough to fool you into forgetting he's an idiot