It was a light day of blogging, with the only thing interesting that happened being Saddam Hussein's execution, which is kind of like the end of Hamlet: Everybody starts dropping like flies, but it is anticlimactic, and the most interesting and most exciting and most entertaining parts have already happened. Therefore his execution isn't really worth mentioning, except as "The End", curtain please.
For dinner, it was off to the Rotary Club's New Year's Eve (on December 30th?) party. Bob invited us along. He was there with his wife, Ta, and baby Gina. I was with Pui and Pot. The dinner party was held at the Town-In-Town Hotel on Pattaya Central Road, which is a place I had never been to before. It's fairly nice, but not too plush.Bob and Baby Gina -->
The Deputy Mayor Of Pattaya
helps open This Year's Rotary
New Year's Party.First were some introductions and speakers. This included the Deputy Mayor of Pattaya, who I'm sure is a great administrator and manager of our fair city, but the word "monotone" was invented with his voice in mind. (Unfortunately, it was just before Hizzoner got up to speak that Pot got antsy, and we had to go and hang out by the hotel pool for a little while, so I was elsewhere during his speech.)
After that was the official goodbye to this year's Rotary Exchange Student, who is from South Africa. I was a Rotary Exchange Student to Brazil when I was 17. Unfortunately, I really couldn't share any bits of advice with him about going home because... really... with the internet and e-mail and global communications, leaving one country for another isn't the "goodbye cold turkey to all of it" that it used to be. When I left Brazil, the people, the music, the language, the culture, everything I had gotten used to... all of it was gone. Now, this kid can tune into his old Thai school's webcam and see his friends every day, or hear their voices on VOIP, or just chat via instant messaging. He can tune into streaming Thai internet radio, catch some video on YouTube, read the Pattaya Mail, and on and on and on. For months after getting back, I would have killed for just a single smidgen of something Brazilian to come along to enjoy. Like I said: Not the same thing as when I left Brazil.From there, we had dinner, which was edible, but nothing spectacular. Standard "500-people-need-to-get-fed" food.
After dinner, there was a magician who did a show. A young guy from America. It looks like he had the cool idea of taking his magic show and seeing if he could work his way across Asia. Good idea. He wasn't too bad, although I didn't see anything I hadn't seen before. Mostly magic-store-level gimmicks with the requisite showman's personality thrown in. The crowed enjoyed him, and he had a good personality, if a little over-earnest at times.
An Elvis impersonator, who is
extremely popular in Opposite World. Finally, there was an Elvis impersonator... reputed to be one of the world's best, some fellow from France.
I only reserve this insult for the most extreme occasions: He was insultingly bad, i.e. he was so bad that I genuinely suspect that the only reason he got on the stage was for the purpose of affronting my sense of taste, talent, and appreciation of music. For chrisssakes, he looked nothing like Elvis: The guy had dirty-blonde hair, was pudgy, and had a bit of a goatee beard stubble. And no... he sounded nothing more like Elvis than his appearance would suggest.
I got up and left and took Pui and Pot home after the second song. (They weren't enjoying it either, in case you think me a spoilsport, and it was approaching 10:00 p.m.) I was behind about 25% of the dinner guests, and I would guess that another 25% weren't far behind me, leaving because of this guy.
No comments:
Post a Comment