In which I prepare for the worst...

One of the interesting quirks of Thai life is that there's no greater loss of face than that of losing your temper, particularly in public. Actually getting pissed off is a social shame on par with being dumped by your girlfriend while being pantsed on national television. No doubt this helps to maintain social cohesion in a densely populated country with a history of blah blah blah... The relevant aspect, really, is that this reservedness allows people to pull off acts of startling buffoonery - like hurling buckets of icewater at passing cyclists - without fear of getting slugged in (highly justified) retribution. In any other country on Earth, the life expectancy of such a miscreant would be measured in femtoseconds.

But if you can't beat em...

All this is a maddeningly loquacious way of saying that the buildup to Songkram continues apace. I got nuked again on the way home today by an unseen assailant in a passing SUV. For reasons unknown to me, work crews are constructing a fiberglass submarine in the parking lot of the mall next door, and the populace is arming itself with a Mississippian fervour. I thought it wise to do likewise, but what started out merely as prudent planning morphed into a fine opportunity to take my inner adolescent out for a rampage. I am now the proud owner of two lovely and even matching water cannons, each of approximately the same mass and atavistic ferocity of Tsar Bomba. Should I encounter God in my travels, God himself will be soaked.