A small milestone

With Egghead's misdirections directly below, we reached 22 posts for The Online Scum in January, a new monthly record. Yes, that's about two posts every three days for your viewing pleasure. And despite the nagging feeling that nobody is reading this, our stats show a total of 1,658 page views over the past month. (Of course that still doesn't mean anybody is actually reading it.)

In any case we continue to urge all of you to contribute here. In Phnom Penh, where I am now, the once lively hash blog now appears to have died for good due to a total lack of contributors. Despite the record amount of drivel that Egghead and I (and even Stick Insect, a bit) have put up here this month, it could pretty easily happen here too.

Meanwhile I regret to report a breach of our online security. Some malicious hacker has defaced several recent posts. Fortunately the diagnostic tools available to me, your blog administrator, have enabled us to trace the source of this intrusion. We will shortly be sending enforcement personnel directly to the home of the guilty party.

776 and counting

SH3's hare this week is Buk Toy, and no prizes for guessing how many runs he will have completed on Saturday! Yep, it's his 848th run which is a significant number in ancient Sumerian numerology as it is more or less exactly the 64th power of 1.1111111 rounded down to no decimal places and as you all know 64 is 2 raised to the power of 6, so expect some auspicious happenings.







Details are:
Songkhla Hash House Harriers run# 1547, Saturday January 29, 2011; 4:00 p.m.
Hare: Buk Toy
Misdirections: from the Ko Yo intersection take the old Hatyai road for 10k and turn left at the Nam Noi traffic lights for about 1k, then turn right and follow the track for 100 meters or so to the run site close to the waterfall.

Sunday's (January 30, 4 and a bit p.m.) HH3 run is being set from the football field in Boonagan (from the Ko Yo intersection take the old Hatyai road for 4.7k and turn left for 8k then right for 4.5k, run site on the left. The hare is Nichaow.

So where were we? Ah yes, 2 2's are 4, 2 4's are ....

Piss-up in a brewery

SH3, setting the agenda for the hashes of Asia: My first evening in Phnom Penh, I bump into an old hash friend who tells me about their newest innovation, the pussy run.

"Pussy run?!" I say. "We do those in Songkhla!"

"Of course you do, you moron," he replies. "You're the one who told us about them."

Apparently one tired and emotional evening I'd explained the pussy run concept. P2H3 took the idea and ran with it.

"It's worked out great," he said. "Except maybe it's not a real pussy run. One of the husbands helps."

Ah, I thought, if only you knew . . . .

Anyhow the real news is that this Sunday, 30 Jan., these guys are running to Cambodia's Tiger Brewery and then trying to drink it dry. Yes, somehow by pure chance I keep hitting these events here. PP is just a quick and cheap Air Asia hop away from either Bangkok or KL, so those of you with time and money on your hands, you could do a lot worse than to pop over for the weekend. Softcock and Smeghead, I'm talking to you! (Though I've heard rumors that Smegs was here just a couple weeks ago. Or is there more than one of him?)

Yardo's long goodbye

Yardo has gone off to the land of the great flood to earn a Sheckel or two, but before he left he set us this little number to remember him by. Hopefully he'll be back before too long to devote another two weeks of his life to painstakingly putting together more of the same, as by anyone's standard this was a great run, and no one was complaining about having covered some of the same bit of country as the week before, albeit from the other side of the hill, particularly after the beer stop!

Hillwalk III

From Hillwalk I: The first evening, just as the acid started to hit . . . .

In the unlikely event that you're not already on the mailing list but are interested in a possible April follow-up to our last two wildly successful hillwalks (Khao Luang in 2008 and Khao Jed Yawd last year), please let us know. Stick Insect has generously offered (?) to organize and coordinate again, and is now in the first stages of planning this year's event, most likely to be held just after Songkran.


The photographer claims that this is a wet t-shirt shot, but the subject (Safe Sex) has assured him that only her hair was wet. In any case we like the macho beer ad pose that Solong is striking in the background.

Full moon 74: perfect in every detail

Incredible isn't it. Everything is just perfect: the proportions, the detail, the accuracy. But that's Google Earth for you!
The run? Oh well that's the usual six-and-a-half kilo mish-mash of trails (when they happened to coincide with the hare's loosely worked out plan), rubber, swamp, and shiggy, thrown together at the last minute 'cos there wasn't time for a real recce. But it will serve its purpose as a prelude to the beer drinking that will follow.

Will follow? You mean it hasn't taken place yet?

And you didn't see it before the run? just goes to show what happens when you don't keep up to date with the Scum-on-line!

It's all gone egg-shaped

This month's Full Moon run will take place on Wednesday January 19th which coincidentally is the date of the full moon this month which as you will all recall is January. Details are:

Hatyai Full Moon H3 run #74, January 19, 2011; 7:00 p.m. or soon after.

Hare: Kai Jeow

Misdirections: From Songkhla take the old Hatyai road for 4.7k and turn left for 3.5k, then left along the track for 1.5k to the runsite on the left.

From Hatyai take the Kuan Hin Mai turning right (opposite Wat Nern Salai) off the old Songkhla road then go 3.5k etc.

Usual stuff applies: Buy beer at 3 cans for 100 Baht or bring your own and share it with your friends. Bring a hand-light and bring some food if you feel that way inclined.

Saturday's SH3 run details are:

Songkhla Hash House Harriers run #1546, Saturday January 22: 4:00 p.m.

Hare: Yardstick

Misdirections: From the Kao Saeng intersection take the old Yala road for 16.3k and turn right (at Wat Kun Thong) for 2.7k then turn left just after the ceremonial arch and go along the track for more than a kilometer to the runsite.

Finally, Hatyai H3's run on Sunday (January 23rd, as soon after 4:00 p.m. as can be expected) is being set by Scud and the run site is just up the road from the Or Bor Tor office at Prutoh (From Songklah, take the old Hatyai road for 10k and turn left at the Nam Noi traffic lights then go 3.5 k and turn right for about 1k to the run site on the left.

Be there!

Sock-on Knock-on fashion update

Handjob models her daytime outfit up here in Sakorn, where it's bloody cold. In the evening she supplements this with a ski parka and one of those wool hats with the holes for eyes and mouth. And at night she just wears everything and pulls a couple big quilts over her. Enjoy your tropical warmth while you can . . . the next ice age is coming!

Blast from the Past 1

And remember when "she" used to show at the top of the hill?

When did Afterours stop doing cute?

Remember the little bike hash that died

The boys are back in town

No persons of female gender this week, it's all boys, boys, boys!

First up, this week's SH3 run is a G.M.'s Excuse Me, and his partner is the Mad Clogger himself, Kii Leum. Full details are:

Songkhla Hash House Harriers run #1545, Saturday, January 15, 2011; 4:00 p.m.

Hares: R2D2 and Kii Leum.

Misdirections: From the Kao Saeng intersection take the old Yala road for 17.4k and turn right at Tang Kwaey School, then go 700m and turn right into the quarry. The run site is on the right above the quarry.

HH3 on Sunday (January 16, 4 'ish) is also a G.M.'s affair and Sex Printer will no doubt be teamed up with his long-term partner, Toy Boy. The run site is: From the Ko Yo intersection take the old Hatyai road for10k and turn left at the Nam Noi traffic lights. Go 3.25k and turn right. Follow the road through the village to the run site on the right near the egg farm.

The next Full Moon H3 run will be next week on Wednesday 19th January and the hare will be Kai Jeow. Details of the run site will be announced at the runs this weekend.

Love ya!

The person of female gender that ate Lady of the Lamp

Here it is in its unexpurgated form, the run that ate Stick Insect, in his Lady of the Lamp guise.

The cause was a particularly catty combination of a 360 and an F. Just as the pack were expecting a pleasant little trot home along the valley between Kao Wong and Kao Lam, the hare instead decided to send them over Kao Lam. But by the time the real trail had been found, Sticky had discovered paper from earlier in the run and was off on a second circuit when the awful truth dawned on him, at which point he blundered off the trail and into suburban Chana before eventually retracing his steps and heading for the safety of the valley, where Inchdick and Khai Jeow were on hand to rescue him just as dark was falling.

Off T recorded the run at 7.3k but that probably only proved how much short-cutting he had done. Sanitized versions of the hare's track suggest 8k was probably nearer the mark which took the first runners home on paper about 1 hour and 24 mins, with the purists who actually followed the whole trail including the final F taking about 5 minutes longer.

And all that damage wrought by one solitary person of female gender and her three trusty dogs of female gender who this weekend completed FOUR runs against everyone else's two as they were hares as well as hounds for both the SH3 and HH3 runs.

Who'd be a misogynist eh?

Sanity restored

It's Saturday so we can forget all those paranoid delusions and just get on with what we do best which is .... well, organizing hashes, and specifically putting on runs. So here's a little run we fielded today. Nothing too dramatic: somewhere between a sanitized 6.7k and the 8.4k recorded while setting the run. 6 checks and 7 F's; a lone check back which wasn't found despite some strong hints from the hare. 1 hour 24 minutes for the first runner and the rest straggling in within 10 minutes or so. The high spot was 360_4 at around 280 meters, or a bit more according to Google Earth and there was a total of 424 meters of ascent. More importantly there was som tam and kao neo and kao man gai on the menu after the run provided by Temporary Relief and Only a Yolk, as well as Crackwurst's kao phat, and apples and bananas courtesy of Chao Ngor and City Tits and bread from Ram it In and the Hot Bread Shop.

Did I forget anyone?

Nightmare on the old Hatyai road

OK! I know you're out there! You can say something now! You're just tryin' to freak me out, keepin' quiet. But you can't fool me! I KNOW you're there! So just you come right out here NOW and say something.....

Scum statz!

Just to make this the most prolific day ever in the history of The Online Scum, here are a few new stats on our viewership. Either Egghead and I keep looking at this thing a couple dozen times per day each, or there actually are a few other people who read it.



Number of page views yesterday: 63

Page views last month: 1,576

Page views last week by country (this is weird):

And finally -- pretty weird too -- here is the post most often viewed in the history of TOS, 113 times to be exact. So which one of you is the Barbie fan?

More stuff from 2010: part II

Not quite so many smiles in this one!

Your quiz questions for today are:

1. Where were we?

2. What had just happened?

3. What was about to happen?

4. Who is the man in the pink batik shirt, and why is he so tight lipped?

5. Were we having fun yet?

I dunno!

More stuff from 2010; part I

Another image to click on if you feel like reading it. This one is everything-you-didn't-want-to-know-about-who-came-to-Hatyai-Full-Moon-Hash-in-2010-and-were-afraid-to-ask-for-it-not-to-be-published. Those people who did 3 or more runs are in the top section and get their full details included; those who did 2 or less runs (and coincidentally did not set any runs) are in the summarized bottom section

How runs are born

Two runs fighting to emerge from their eggs this weekend.

First up on Saturday is SH3's, details of which are:

Songkhla Hash House Harriers run #1544, Jan. 8 2011; 4:00 p.m.

Hare: Egghead

Misdirections: From the Kao Saeng Intersection take the Old Yala road for 8k and turn right just before Ban Dan School. Follow the road for about 2k to the run site. Park on the side of the road as it is very wet inside the rubber.

Bear in mind that Saturday is Children's Day so it might be as well to set off for the run site a bit early.

Then On Sunday (January 9, 4:** p.m.), HH3's run will be from the water tower at Napong: From the Ko Yo intersection take the old Hatyai road for 4k and turn left at the Kuan Hin traffic lights and go 6.5 k then left for 300m to the run site. The hare is Moo Sahb.

Does exercising make you drink more alcohol?

That's the title of this piece today in the NY Times. And the conclusion of every researcher who's studied it? Undoubtedly, yes. The only question is why.

'Maybe, the authors speculate, some of the drinkers are drawn to a “sensation-taking lifestyle” that includes adventurous, extreme styles of exercise. Alternatively, imbibers could be “socializing and drinking after participating in organized group sports.'

Well, sure. We could have told them that. But here's another theory:

'Drinking and exercising both preferentially alter activity in “the mesocorticolimbic neural circuitry,” she said, a portion of the brain associated with reward.'

OK, we even might have guessed that too. Finally, though, a truly interesting hypothesis:

'Finally, it may be that exercising allows you to become a little less stupid as a result of binge drinking . . . .To some degree, exercising [offers] “neuroprotection.”

That's right. All that good work we're doing in trying to stupidify ourselves with beer? It might well be compromised by the running we do before it. We may have to rethink our approach.

Shock as SH3 reveals big budget deficit: Standard and Poors reduce credit rating to ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

The shock figures showing SH3 posting a massive 12K+ Baht loss last year

SH3's auditors waited until after markets in Asia had closed to announce that Songkhla Hash had run at a deficit during 2010 with its net worth slashed by a whopping 23.14%. Initial analysis of the full figures suggests that the loss posted is due to a massive increase in expenditure on food, now running at 3 times the Hash's beer bill.

Hash Cash was unavailable to comment on allegations that the soaring food bill has resulted in some expanding waistlines and an increase in short-cutting due to many of the hounds piling on the kilos over the course of the last year, but one irate Hasher commented "This is what happens when you let women get their hands on the dosh!"

Our City Correspondent comments: This is yet another sign that SH3 is going to the dogs who seem to have enjoyed the chicken bonanza financed by ordinary Hash shareholders. This is not so much a case of fat cats but of fat dogs getting their noses in the trough!

Full Moon Hash: the accountant tells it like it is

The annual ritual of balancing the books has occurred and... miraculously Hatyai Full Moon H3 is in the black and carries a healthy balance into 2011. Click on the image twice to make it big enough to read.

The rather more laborious task of auditing granny is now under way and the results will appear here when the figures have been cook... err agreed.

Run #1543: The full beavershot

Total length, including false trails and checkbacks: 8.8km
Total ascent: 502m
Click to embiggen!

Happy! Happy! Happy!

(click the image once to make it big; click it again to make it enormous!)

Who are all these happy people? And more to the point why are they all so happy?

Taken at yesterday's runsite, you might think this picture offers proof that Beaver's claims for the power of yesterday's run were not somewhat exaggerated, good, no let's be generous, great as it was. But sadly you would be mistaken as anyone who was at yesterday's run would realise that although the location is undoubtedly the same, the group of happy hashers is somewhat larger and less, shall we say hard core than the intrepid band who fought manfully against receding hangovers and advancing years to conquer Beaver's opening foray in the haring stakes for 2011.

No, this picture was taken back in April last year on a previous Beaver-Hand Job outing to Hatyai and is courtesy of regular returner, Spotted Dick who appears in it as does our other regular but infrequent visitor Buck. It also records one of the last appearances of Schmukme Witherspoon and Yolk's Poke, both of whom disappeared shortly afterwards, separately we assume. But Smeggers and Yardo are there and Kii Leum and Phuk, all of whom for one reason or another can't always be with us.

"So" you might think, "that must have been a good turnout that day". In fact by our recent standards it was a pretty average turnout - 36 hounds and 2 hares. Not so very different from yesterday. It just goes to show that although we can't boast the mega-attendances that apparently used to happen in SH3, we can still turn out a healthy bunch of loyal and happy hashers every week. And long may it continue!

Yesterday's run? No doubt the hare is working on the visual display as I write, which will confirm that we wended our way along the base of the hills from the football pitch, went over them, went down the other side, then up again and finally back down in about 8k and an-hour-and-a-quarterish or a bit longer if your hash name begins with Soft or Gan. Beaver met us 5/8ths of the way round, then in an avowed effort to "beat Nichaow home", took a dive on a wet rock and ended up looking like he'd gone 15 rounds with Manny Pacquito. But it was an excellent opening to 2011 and sets the standard to which all of us should aspire in setting runs. Ahem!

On! On!

Soft, warm & moist

Welcome to 2011!

Like no doubt hundreds of other Online Scum readers, you have awoken this morning blearly-eyed and fuzzy-headed, wondering how in the world you'll even make it through today. Well here's how: come to the hash! Beavershot and Handjob have prepared a run guaranteed to stretch your limbs, clear your mind, raise your spirits, soothe your soul, and help sprout hair in places you haven't seen it in years. Like all the best beaver, it promises to be soft, warm, and moist. And there may even be some FREE BEER left over from our big Xmas weekend.

Not to oversell this magnificent run, but this truly is the kind of event that will make you wish you could have invited a friend from another hash, just to show him why you run in Songkhla. "Come with me, my friend," you would say, taking him by the hand, "And surely you will soon know what it feels like to run in paradise." And he would look at you as if for the first time and reply, "Please let go of my hand. And stop calling me Shirley."