Job Discussion Forums

khmerhit · Posted: Sun May 02, 2004 5:03 am Post subject:

OK--Oliver Stone is in Cambodia scouting locations (again). A colleague of mine has arranged to bring him some grass with another colleague, and they go to meet him in the parking lot of a welll-known army-owned downtown brothel, where Stone is waiting with his host/minder/fixer/govt friend (the brother of a third colleague) in a parked car. Phew. Got all that? So colleagues no 1 and no 2 show up at the appointed hour and pass the grass thru the window, but Stone thinks its a journalistic set-up and that he's about to have his picture taken receiving the bag, so he bends down inthe front seat with the bag in an attempt to shield his face. Then colleague no 1 tries to engage him in conversation, hinting about the money for the bag, but Stone continues to shield his face and refuses to touch the bag, which is now lying between the seats. Colleague no 1 starts giving Stone a hard time, saying What's up man how come you're not coming across with the moo-lah, and so on. he doenst really care that it's the great director, he worked in New York as a bartender for years and he's seen a lot, plus he's on home turf (so to speak) and Stone is not. He's only joking, really, he doesn't care about the money, but he knows OS is shit-scared that he is about to be made into headline fodder! Well, on it goes, until the minder drives them out of there with my colleague shouting after him.

Hmmm. I guess you had to be there, but it's a True Story.

Joachim · Joined: 01 Oct 2003 Posts: 311 Location: Brighton, UK

Sometimes it's worth not being cheap and flying business class, as they usually double your baggage allowance, and you can actually sleep then!

You will rarely have a problem flying between Bangkok/Hong Kong/Singapore and the Indian subcontinent, where they know that people will be travelling with 3 times the baggage allowance, so the main airlines (TG, SQ, CX) deliberately undersell tickets, knowing the weight of the plane is going to be excessive.

Lufthansa are the worst, they attempted to change me $50 US for each additional kilo on a flight from Frankfurt to Singapore, the total excess baggage ended up costing more then the flight!. Thai have never questioned my excess baggage, even when I've been 15kg over. China Airlines do, but the fees are totally reasonable - about $5US per excess kilo.

scot47 · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Posts: 15343

Lufthansa just wanted to reinforce their image as law-abiding and efficient Germans. IATA rules state that excsess baggag should be cgarded at 1 percent of the first-class single fare per kilo.

That ain't cheap.

How do I know this useless information ? I used to be a TEFL teacher with an airline !

Dr.J · Joined: 09 May 2003 Posts: 304 Location: usually Japan

I never had any problems taking a guitar - I second the soft-case strategy. The chicks dig it too.

There is a theory that we actually need lots of stuff in a psychological sense, as if our minds cannot be at rest until we have enough physical possessions and are sufficiently provided for; a throwback from our caveman days.

Besides, you never know, you might just need that little plastic ring that's fallen off something, or that bent paper clip. You ever notice that there's never a bent paper clip around when you need one?