A Small Report, Episode X

I've been pretty busy, and haven't had time to blog much. I will get back to that a bit later. In the mean time...

TLDR

So I wanted to test mobile broadband, and got a cheap plan. No problems there. However, a few days later the agreement arrives by snail mail; and

it's fifteen(!) pages chock full of legalese, written with a small 0.1" font.

I actually did read it, but seriously guys: If you need fifteen pages to say You can now surf the 'Net, don't behave like a jerk or break the law and everything will be fine, there's something wrong with your customer relations department. Land-line phones are being phased out and everyone will need cells sooner or later; do you really think grandmas and grandpas are going to opt for your service?

I mean, I understand that you want to CYA, but fifteen pages is just, wow. (The fact that you send me the terms only after I've signed the contract was also somewhat amusing.)

Magic: The Gathering Shops in Bangkok, Thailand

While in Thailand, I also went to some Magic: The Gathering shops there. They seem to be a bit tricky to find through Google, and the list of shops participating in Friday Night Magic (on Wizards of the Coast's homepage) is at least partially outdated. Here's a list of the shops that I visited, or got confirmed on-site:

Update 2011-01-05: I visited Thailand again this Christmas, and confirmed that Big Magic indeed does lie on the second floor of Union Mall. However, the shopkeeper also indicated that the shop will move to a new (currently unknown) address in March 2011, so the Big Magic entry probably won't be current for much longer. Khun Ple also resided in the same location as previously. I did not visit any other shops.

Gashapon

Gashapon might not strictly speaking be a Magic store, so you're unlikely to find other players to trade card with there, and opening hours may be somewhat irregular (which can probably be said for the other shops as well). However, they do sell boosters of the newest edition available for a reasonable price. I mention Gashapon for two reasons: 1) it's the only shop I know of that can be said to be reasonably centrally located, and 2) it's located in MBK, which is perhaps the most visited mall in Bangkok, and there are also three other huge malls (Siam Paragon, Siam Center and Siam Discovery Center) located near by, so you might want to visit the area in any case.

To get there, take the BTS Skytrain to the National Stadium Station. You can see MBK from the station. When leaving the station, there will be ramps above ground-level by which you can walk right into MBK.

MBK is essentially rectangular, with the Skytrain station on one end and a hotel on the other end. As you will be entering from the Skytrain end, I'll refer to these as the Skytrain end and the far end. Furthermore, at the Skytrain end there are two ramps that you can use to enter MBK. One ramp leads directly into the multiple story Tokyu department store, while the other does not. I'll refer to the sides as the Tokyu side and the other side.

I think the top-most floor of MBK only contains several cinemas. Gashapon is located on the second-top-most floor, which would be the seventh. The correct floor sort of has an 8-shaped walkable area, with some other cinemas in the middle and both ends containing big open areas (holes) to lower floors, with pathways along the outer walls, and an arcade at the far end of the Skytrain end of the floor. Gashapon is located on the far end of that floor, on the other side (i.e. located diagonally opposite of the Tokyu department store corner).

Unfortunately, I don't have the address for MBK, but it's not hard to find.

Khun Ple

The other Magic shops that I visited are a bit away from central Bangkok, so you might not want to walk. Khun Ple used to reside in MBK as well (on the same floor as Gashapon and on the same side, but on the Skytrain end) but has moved and is now the first one you'll encounter if you use the MRT Subway. Khun Ple sells boosters from the newest sets, but also sells some single cards. There are also a few tables for players there.

To get there, take the MRT Subway to Phahon Yothin Station. (Alternatively, if you buy some sort of ticket that lets you travel cheaply on the BTS Skytrain, you can first travel by Skytrain to BTS Mo Chit Station, and immediately on leaving the Skytrain station enter the MRT Chatuchak Park Station. Phahon Yothin is the next station from there, ticket cost 16 Baht.) Khun Ple is located inside the Phahon Yothin station, one floor above the subway ticket gates:

Khun Ple
Metromall in MRT Phahon Yothin
Room 12
Bangkok

Once at the Phahon Yothin Station, also visit...

Big Magic

Big Magic used to reside in the Amarin Plaza shopping mall (which is still worth visiting), near the BTS Skytrain Chit Lom Station, and at least when I last looked, that address is still listed by Wizards of the Coast for Friday Night Magic (but not for the Conflux pre-release). I confirm that it now resides in Union Mall. Union Mall is right next to the MRT Metro Phahon Yothin Station, and one of the station exits does in fact essentially lead right to its door (or at least one of them); you can ask which one from one of the subway guards, and the mall should be visible from other exits as well in any case.

Big Magic usually has products from more than the very latest sets, and might have sales for certain sets. There are folders containing various single cards that you can buy from the shop, and there are also several tables and a fair amount of players that frequent the shop, so you might be able to trade some single cards from them as well.

If you enter Union Mall directly from MRT Metro Phahon Yothin Station, you will ride some escalators to do so, entering in one corner of the building. (The building is essentially rectangular.) Once inside, you want to get up one additional floor, but otherwise stay to the same side of the building (keeping to your right). Big Magic is closer to the far end of the mall than the end where you entered, and is located along the building's outer wall.

Big Magic
Union Mall,
Unit 21-23, 2nd Floor, 54 Ladprao Soi 1
Ladprao Road, Jompol, Chatuchuk
Bangkok Thailand 10900

B-D Shop

Supposedly also reasonably near the MRT Metro Phahon Yothin Station, B-D Shop is listed on Wizards' FNM page as located in Central Padprao Center, and inquiries to players indicated that it indeed resides a bit further along from Union Mall. However, I never went there, and can't say anything about what products they sell, or whether you can buy single cards there or not, or even if the address I got is correct or not. Be that as it may...

B-D Shop
Central Ladprao Center
Ladprao Road, Under Ground Floor
Unit B25
Bangkok

In addition to these, Card Master, Eternal Magic and VK Shop are all listed on Wizards' FNM list, but I did not visit them, as they supposedly lie even further away from central Bangkok. I also got some information about some shop in the basement of Century Shopping Mall (probably Century Plaza, near the BTS Victory Monument Station) but without even a name of the shop it did not seem worthwhile to hunt it down.

If anyone can confirm these, or other shops, feel free to chip in.

Body Tune

Body Tune is a massage parlor chain in Thailand that specializes in real (AKA traditional) Thai massage--i.e., the type that only involves actual massage.

I visited Thailand during the Christmas holidays, and went to their Silom branch (right next to the Sala Daeng BTS Skytrain station, or alternatively close to the Silom MRT Subway station) a few times. Let's just say that after the two hours are up, you know that you have been massaged. The massage borders on rough, but afterwards you are rather relaxed and any sore muscles are sure to have got a workout. The personnel is very professional and seems very knowledgeable, as opposed to other places where you can get traditional Thai massage. I also tested another parlor hosted by the hotel where I stayed, but the massage felt very reduced in scope, and soft and ineffective as opposed to that of Body Tune, which actually loosened up cramping muscles and the like.

At 590 Baht for two hours, Body Tune is probably(?) at the more expensive end for massage, but I think it very much was worth it. Don't forget to tip! :-)

A Small Report, Episode IX

In order to get going with the blogging again, I have decided to attempt to write several short posts next. I suspect they will be more of lists than actual posts. Additionally, being fresh into the new year and all, I think there will also be a somewhat longer post about 2009 coming up. And maybe some more text about D&D alignments; they've been neglected for long enough.

But first, something that I sort of left hanging in my previous post:

The Samsung N120

There are a few reasons why I would seriously consider the Samsung N120 as a netbook contender:

• The keyboard. I still tend to think that one year ago, the AAO had one of the best keyboards of all the netbook offerings available at the time (the HP Mini, or whatever its name is, is the only one I tested that I considered better (and YMMV), but it of course had other shortcomings). The only problem with the AAO keyboard, which I still consider to be excellent for a netbook, is that while it had larger keys than (most of) the competition at the time, they're still a bit too small for efficient writing. The N120 has a slightly larger form factor, and perhaps because of it, a somewhat larger keyboard.
  At first, I did not really believe it would make that much of a difference. Most buttons on the N120 are maybe 2mm larger or so in both dimensions, with the part of the button that you actually hit with your fingers being maybe half that much larger. 1mm can't make much of a difference, right? But when I actually got to try it out, it does make a difference, and personally I actually thought the N120 keyboard was significantly better than the AAO's keyboard. If I were to write significant amounts of text with a netbook (for instance, if I travelled a lot and wanted a netbook to use a lot on the road), I would pick the N120 in an instance for its keyboard alone.
• Screen size. The AAO's screen is big enough for me, but I readily admit that if the netbook's form factor would allow for more, I would take the 10.2" screen rather than the 8.9" screen any day.
• Screen resolution. While the N120 doesn't have better resolution than the AAO, there has been some netbooks lately with 1024x576 resolution rather than 1024x600. I already constantly find myself switching to Firefox's full screen mode in order to get as much vertical content as possible on the screen at the same time. Without it, I get about 384 pixels of content in the Firefox window; and of that, 24 pixels less is starting to be rather significant. In short, I quite prefer 1024x600 to 1024x576, and the N120 delivers...
• Battery life. Although I might not have an immediate need for it, I must admit that ten hours of battery life, as opposed to two hours, would open an entire new world of possibilities.
• Integrated 3G (optional). OK so this is a small thing, but I think I would prefer having it integrated as opposed to a dongle (which I now have). One thing less to keep track of...
• Other sweet stuff. The N120 also has Bluetooth, something that you didn't see in most netbooks one year back. And of course, as opposed to the AAO, it would have a bigger hard disk, a faster hard disk, the option of memory upgrade to 2GB rather than 1.5GB (probably without having to take the netbook entirely apart when upgrading), a better trackpad (the AAO trackpad gives me nightmares)... and so on, probably several other minor things as well. And it would have Windows included, allowing for dual-boot for any programs that don't exist under Linux.

So yes. If I got a netbook now, I'd probably get the N120. There might be an update coming up in the future... :-)

Layout Changes

I made some slight stylesheet changes to lists. List item margins and multi-section list items should look better now, I hope.