it's Thursday and there's no better arbitrary reason to release 3 sets of photos other than the fact that "three" alliterates with "Thursday" and vaguely with "Thailand", if i may. it's my sneaky way of playing catchup for my 3 month backlog of photos.

pick and choose or if you dare, view the entire 3 sets in a single sitting. but i doubt anyone hates themselves enough to endure such torture.

SET ONE:
Paradise Island

highlights include:
- the greatest beach this side of, well, nowhere really.
- enough sunsets to last you a lifetime and into the afterlife (most likely hell).
- the first of many dynamic time-lapse videos. 3 steps, click. repeat 2000+ times.

SET TWO:
Bangkok & environs

highlights include:
- travel friends, past and Thai.
- a hidden gem in Bangkok, the skybar at the State Tower.
- some other stuff, included free of charge.

SET THREE:
Thai festivals

highlights include:
- Songkran - Thai New Year and general mayhem with universal solvents.
- Thai lovelies, the most beautiful women on earth (and therefore the most off-limits to me).
- a mistaken foray to "Songkran hub," Sangklaburi. it was a costly venture, paid thereafter by 3 weeks of dengue-like symptoms.
- Visakha Bucha - the holiest day in the Buddhist calendar.
- Doi Suthep temple, one of the 7 holiest temples in Thailand.

in my spare time outside of other projects and listless drooling, i've managed to install a new popup balloon feature. read my disturbing comments by hovering over a thumbnail (courtesy of overLib) only to quickly realize you don't care for my deranged rants... or you never learned to read.

the previous 3 sets of photos are a culmination of over 2 months of picture-ography-taking. as a result, i'm forcing loads of pageviews on you frugal bastards. i'd better see some major revenue out of this or else i'm taking names and fists will connect with backs of heads! i will destroy you.

caringly,

thejerk

oh, i nearly forgot. in case you haven't signed up for monthly photo email notifications, use the following form:

i'll keep reminding you until all thejerk.org visitors are on my distribution list. hopefully i can reach a total of 4 people by the end of this decade. 6 if my parents finally give in.

Posted by thejerk at 03:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

my man's intuition tells me most of you Nintendo playing warriors will never make it out to this neck of the woods to tour one of the greatest set of ruins in the world; i use the word 'ruins' very lightly because the temples of the Angkor complex in Cambodia are far from ruined like its Roman counterparts. the structure itself along with the intricate wall carvings have survived the test of time and for now, the onslaught of mindless package tourists that feel its necessary to touch everything with their sausage-like fingers. they f'in disappoint me.

photos don't do justice to this vast intact temple dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu. like my body, Angkor's combination of form and function is breathtaking - my fists alone are deadly weapons once used to excavate pure granite, accomplishing what pneumatic drills were unable. but when seen under the right lighting, the same fists are as delicate and lithe as a 7 y/o's anus.

despite my hatred for all things non-Thai female, i decided to put together another Canon 5D time-lapse video for you, the drooling masses. 2000+ shots went into the production of my tour of Angkor Wat. there's bound to be some confusion so let me clarify. the video shows the Angkor Wat temple which is one of dozens of massive temples at the Angkor Wat complex. hence Angkor Wat is a temple so nice, they named it twice.

in this edition of entertainment, i attempted some hollywood magic but to questionable end results. at one point i attempt to walk through a wall while later i bound over tourists ala a revolutionary 1980's video game.

divertirse:

note: all stunts were performed by a trained professional. thejerk.org does not recommend walking through solid stone walls or leaping over groups of chinese package tourists... or being as ruggedly handsome with deadly weapons for hands.

Posted by thejerk at 08:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (243)

in my attempt to recover from unpublished photo-itis, i was planning on a 3-fer-thursday blowout bonanza but laziness triumphed so i'm releasing what i have (that's what i told her!). it's just a 3 pager so you can breeze through it and even have time to read some of my miserable comments. on second thought, perhaps it's best to just soak your GI tract in Epsom salts instead. the end result will be the same.

highlights include:

- the single most overphotographed modern skyscraper in Asia; my continuing contribution to web-photo-detritus.
- domestic dispute at (where else but...) the mall. what is it about public domestic disputes that are so instantly recognizable and your deep unspoken desire to see it degrade into full blown fisticuffs, bitch-slapping and hairpulling?
- start of 5D adventures and more 17mm wides than your li'l 17mm thin can handle. if that last sentence made any sense, you're a complete photo tool - AND you use pee-wee sized condoms.
- muslims! well, the nice kind that don't wear belt-bombs and throw humus in/around your eyeballs. i'm pretty certain i spelled 'humus' wrong. and while i'm on the subject, is it 'wrong' or 'wrongly'? as 'wrong' describes a verb it's gotta be... bah! screw it.
- interesting fact: did you know Israelis are barred from entering Malaysia and Indonesia? of course not because you're ignorant and you should leave that couch long enough for your Xbox thumb to recover.
- i <3 Kuala Lumpur!

KL, in the flesh, you bitch ass skanky mugs!!

enjoy! (or as pronounced by latinos: enyoy!)

Posted by thejerk at 04:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

my detox period after a month-long stay on paradise island could be no other place than Bangkok. a shot of depressing reality is the medicine only the Kao San Road (KSR) region of Bangkok can provide. for those not 'in the know', the KSR area is the hub of all backpacking tourism in Thailand. lucky for me, my descent into reality was cushioned by the cast and crew you've seen over the past few months in Indonesian photos and a few notable applicants who auditioned to be my latest harem of travel minions.

THE GOOD

cast of characters

chris' hand (archive footage)

outside of KSR region itself, Bangkok is an incredibly vibrant city with steamy and sizzling street food options down every street. shaved and sweaty meats hang from food carts while spicy fumes from overworked woks choke your air-pollution constricted windpipe in a fit of cough and mucus. in short, it's paradise. the happiest place on earth is neither Disneyworld nor Tijuana, Mexico, it's downtown Bangkok (aka the city of angel - no plurals in the Thai language). aside from Los Angeles, California (also the city of angels - plurals exist in english), there are few places with such an dense concentration of beautiful women however 'dense' may carry another level of meaning when referring to the lovely ladies of LA. don't bother even trying because they're completely out of your league, you squadron of quasimotos. coincidentally, beyond sharing the same city moniker, LA is home to just as many, if not more, Thai restaurants and incongruously gorgeous prostitutes.

THE BAD (& THE UGLY)

the self-prescribed medicine to reach new depths of depression on KSR naturally involve large doses of the lowest forms of humanity freshly jet-lagged from the western hemisphere. with scant extra money derived from minimum-wage jobs, these mainly older farang (white foreigners) take advantage of the beneficial exchange rate to flaunt their Thai Baht and flagrantly violate all rules of class (think: school in the summer time) and dignity they supposedly learned in the 'educated' west. often their behavior is excused, if not exponentially compounded by the 'white-is-right' mentality followed like sheep by many of the local populace. a white man from a foreign country, regardless of their absolute bottom-feeding status at home, is inconceivably (or paradoxically) revered by the oft-too-kind Thai people. this, as well as the chilling thought of Thai monks who are disallowed from wearing underwear beneath their robes, show Buddhism indeed has a negative side.

and who can forget the old ugly low class white guy w/ gorgeous (but lazy) thai girl; i describe them as lazy because instead of working hard for a piece of the pie, she betrays her moral upbringing to date or marry an older, ugly, and often overweight falang for a more comfortable and padded life.

but you know all this so check out the most common scene in Thailand:

another sub-species commonly found out of their natural habitat in Bangkok are the dreadlocked foreigners on their way to/from India. granted, these are the kinder and more harmless members of the farang 'elite' but their holier-than-thou rhetoric and in-your-face dogma can irritate even the most devout Buddhist. by choosing their individual appearance and ideology, they ironically relegate themselves into a larger stereotypical (& lice-ridden) group, ultimately defeating their self-proclaimed uniqueness. really, guys, would running some soap through that matted back-hair kill ya?

it's 2550 on the Thai calendar, the year of our lord Buddha. at this time in my traveling career, i'm simply chasing festivals for the photographic opportunities they provide. i rarely mix with other travelers, preferring truly independent journeying while sobbing myself to a quiet sleep after the last of the overnighting prostitutes have entered into their recurring dream of old white guys and conical rice-paddy hats overflowing with shopping money.

who am i to make these claims? i'm just an observer, a wandering warmdoucher with a Canon 5D camera. a journeyman with man-boobs that simply wants solitude to use his Canon 5D professional dSLR camera. a miniature sizzle-chest, unendowed with looks or stature but gifted with a Canon 5D dSLR camera with Canon's latest Digic II processor to deliver 13 mega-pixel, full-frame, 3 frames-per-second images at a reasonable price.

Canon & Diet Coke. you can reach dozens. sponsorship opportunities abound at thejerk.org. email me for details.

Posted by thejerk at 12:16 AM | Permalink