If any of you have been following the news on Thailand, you may have noticed that the Prime Minister, Samak Sundaravej, has been relieved of his office and duties following a court verdict finding him in breach of the Constitution, which prevents ministers from being gainfully employed or earning revenue from a private enterprise.

In this particular case, the prime minister was found to have breached the Constitution for being paid to appear in a number of TV shows as the presenter.  Granted, he has been doing this for years - but upon taking office as Prime Minister, he should have relinquished his duties as a TV chef. Read the rest of this entry »

Today I got my daily Japan Times news summary- don’t always read it, sometimes it ends up in the junk mail like it did today, but today for some reason I decided to have a look - and at the top was an interesting offer - “Secrets to Doing Business in Japan Revealed!” - for only $1, I’d get the free e-book and access to the Japan Jump Start site and forums.

That was too good an offer to refuse - so I visited the site and read about all of the potential secrets about doing business in Japan - and even though I have trusted friends in Japan who are kind enough to teach me these things, I felt there would be no harm in finding out what some of the “big” successes in Japan had to say.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday was one of those days which started off very badly… I had been planning to go to the office as usual because there were a lot of things that I needed to take care of.  But suddenly I was told my son was “performing” at school and my wife really wanted me to go… I said I was too busy then I left for the office.

But then I remembered an email someone had sent me recently about a professor and a jar - a great read and very thought-provoking - and it occurred to me that I’d better take care of the golf balls… so I called my office, made sure nothing important was waiting for me, and then told my wife I’d see her at school. Read the rest of this entry »

Despite what one might think, providing security at the Olympics was actually quite simple, in that very few incidents occurred - I spent most of my time walking around and checking the various posts, and figuring out how many pizzas to order that night!

One of the funnier things I encountered during my rounds, however, was that some athletes kept leaving their keys in the doors!  Each time, I would debate whether to pull the key out, or if I was going to inconvenience someone who had just run to the bathroom or something… but I followed my common sense and would collect the key to take down to the security post, while writing a note to ask the room occupant why they left their keys in the door. Read the rest of this entry »

… takes place every year in Thailand from April 13th-15th during the Thai New Year, more commonly known as Songkran.

Though the Guinness Book of World Records obviously hasn’t certified this fact, an estimated 60 million people (well, the population of Thailand, give or take a few million, plus many foreigners) throw and splash water at each other over this three-day period which celebrates the arrival of the new lunar year. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been moving servers, upgrading scripts, and playing around with themes for the site, so on occasion you may discover that the site is down or looks different or acting weird (like its owner).

Rest assured it’s not you, you’re not imagining things.

Apologies in advance for any inconvenience… everything should be back to normal this week.

As you may have noticed, I haven’t made any posts to my blog since May 2006. Since then the online gambling industry has gone through some very turbulent times, starting with the enactment of the UIGEA (Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act) in late 2006, which resulted in a number of operators and software platforms dropping out of the US market - a very lucrative one at that - but the powers-that-be which treat US citizens and residents as if they are dumb, mindless, naive little children decided that they should “protect” their children by making financial transactions for the purpose of online gambling illegal. Read the rest of this entry »

Hello dear friends!

It’s been a while since you’ve been able to hide from my caustic wit (not!) in my weekly newsletters from Got2Bet. While I’m sure the great majority of you are going to damn the day I got my new soapbox (May 6, 2006), there ARE a few of you who have asked me to get off my butt and start doing some work for a change… so I hereby declare May 6 as Spearmaster Day - the day when the self-appointed Conscience of the Online Gambling Industry formally reclaimed his porcelain throne!