Opinion Revision

Elizabeth Young

Opinion Piece

“i've been cooking like every night for my friends, as well as myself and i make the BEST (i think lol) Coconut Chicken”

While I’m sure Lindsay Lohan herself thinks this is excellent news, most of the rest of the world would disagree. It’s inane, and the Library of Congress wants to save it forever. The Library of Congress announced on April 14^th that they had acquired every public tweet ever…and they want to save them all forever too. While Library of Congress and Google are excited about the insight this could give historians about the layman’s reaction to such major events as the Haitian Earthquake or the release of the iPad, preserving every little thought anyone ever had is a complete waste of time.

By cataloguing the “tweets” of the world, the Library of Congress is forgetting Twitter’s primary functions. People use the social networking service as a way to send quick messages to friends, despite having other platforms for this, and companies and celebrities use Twitter.com as PR and marketing. Twitter, as a result, largely consists of frivolous and excessive information. While a number of people do use Twitter as their electronic soap box and say excellent, profound, concise statements, finding these statements would be difficult. Not only will we have to see the forest through the trees, we need to identify which trees are worth looking at individually. And I admit I shudder to think of someone looking up the hours when an important Supreme Court decision was made only to find a proliferation of the exact same link with no commentary, or worse over 90% of the tweets being completely vapid and irrelevant. What will “they” think of our society? Or, better question, will cataloguing the tweets give historians an accurate picture of the whole society?

Nope. But they might shed light on a few formative sub-groups such as teens, celebrities, and corporate culture. Not only will identifying influential Twitter situations become difficult, defining relevant sub cultures will also become part of the task. With over 75 million twitter users, though, the demographic would be pretty intensive. These groups I’ve identified as Twitter users are not the usual subjects when it comes to historical studies. Anthropologically, perhaps it’s fair to state that all the digitization we’ve experienced has forced these groups into the spotlight when it comes to recording things “for posterity.” But there’s only so much posterity we can handle.

In this the age of communication where 50 million sentences of 140 characters or less are sent out each day on the Twitter platform, the inane thoughts of people like Tyra Banks, Stephen Colbert, or, God forbid, your next door neighbor just don’t matter. I don’t care if Joe Jonas says goodnight to his fans or that certain campus citizens are currently drunk. Normally the answer for this problem is simple: don’t follow them. But the Library of Congress is legitimizing their thoughts as historically significant, as primary source data for future generations. Every thought.

I’m not anti-Twitter; I actually love it. Do I think that our president’s celebratory election tweet should be saved? Yes. I also love that companies and organizations are soliciting advice and suggestions from their followers. But I use Twitter because I like forewarning for the Hirschorn Museum’s after hours programs and that stores give me online coupons when I follow them and that my cousin’s radio show can remind me when it’s on. I’ll even admit I follow GaryJBusey just because it’s hilarious. This is why Twitter is useful on a day to day basis; it’s very personalized. It’s everything I’ve built up to entertain me, inform me, and aid me. Keyword: me. I, as a unit of historical evidence, am not relevant.

Google says that it wants to focus more on tracing the trending topics than the individual tweets. They want to know things like how many people type “Barack Obama” and whether or not the frequency has a correlation to major events in his career. This is data I can support, because if there’s anything studying history has taught me it’s that there are simply too many people in the world to care about every little anomaly and deviation; Twitter being the perfect example of why the electronic age has the potential to really crowd the vision of scholars.

Take, as an example, an entertainment event such as an awards show because the data supply is rife. Everyone watching sent immediate updates like “OMG Jeff Bridges totes just won best actor”, “Congrats Jeff Bridges, you deserve your oscar”, “haha Jeff Bridges just said groovy in his acceptance speech.” As a historian, the important information to be gleaned, if your research topic should fall in this category, is how many people sent congratulatory tweets vs tweets wishing someone else had won and at what times the frequency was largest, etc. Data. Statistics. Numbers. Sure tweets such as ‘MrZiler’s’ “Jeff Bridges won an oscar for drinking, smoking, and finger banging Maggie Gyllenhaal...My Hero!” will be lost to us and the originality and comedic aspects might even have merit. But think how many useless “yay Jeff Bridges” tweets we don’t need to weed through if we only catalogue that fact that Jeff Bridges was mentioned.

Keeping the archives to every public tweet on Twitter will cut down on much of the personal exchange beyond saved, because people with protected statuses won’t have their data submitted. That’s a plus. Twitter also has multiple systems in place to gauge the success of any tweet: the number of people who “re-tweet” the statement, the number of people who favorite any given status, and the number of people who follow any one user. Perhaps by implementing some sort of numerical determinant the Library of Congress can decide which individual statements are worth keeping? With the addition of selected users being documented fully, such as the White House or the Library itself, a clear and useful picture of our society’s thoughts on relevant issues might emerge.

I’m still trying to imagine situations where an academic would be eager to have this data and I suppose I see the point some have made about understanding what people think is important at any given time, or how people are reacting to a situation. Ethnographers rejoice. But just knowing that I could look up how many people tweeted that their dog was going to the vet that day or the number of people who tweeted just the word “hungry” puts me back at square one. SO IRRELEVANT.

Opinion Piece

“i've been cooking like every night for my friends, as well as myself and i make the BEST (i think lol) Coconut Chicken”

While I’m sure Lindsay Lohan herself thinks this is excellent news, most of the rest of the world would disagree. It’s inane, and the Library of Congress wants to save it forever. The Library of Congress announced on April 14^th that they had acquired every public tweet ever…and they want to save them all forever too. While Library of Congress and Google are excited about the insight this could give historians about the layman’s reaction to such major events as the Haitian Earthquake or the release of the iPad, preserving every little thought anyone ever had is a complete waste of time.

By cataloguing the “tweets” of the world, the Library of Congress is forgetting Twitter’s primary functions. People use the social networking service as a way to send quick messages to friends, despite having other platforms for this, and companies and celebrities use Twitter.com as PR and marketing. Twitter, as a result, largely consists of frivolous and excessive information. While a number of people do use Twitter as their electronic soap box and say excellent, profound, concise statements, finding these statements would be difficult. Not only will we have to see the forest through the trees, we need to identify which trees are worth looking at individually. And I admit I shudder to think of someone looking up the hours when an important Supreme Court decision was made only to find a proliferation of the exact same link with no commentary, or worse over 90% of the tweets being completely vapid and irrelevant. What will “they” think of our society?

In this the age of communication where 50 million sentences of 140 characters or less are sent out each day on the Twitter platform, the inane thoughts of people like Tyra Banks, Stephen Colbert, or, God forbid, your next door neighbor just don’t matter. I don’t care if Joe Jonas says goodnight to his fans or that certain campus citizens are currently drunk. Normally the answer for this problem is simple: don’t follow them. But the Library of Congress is legitimizing their thoughts as historically significant, as primary source data for future generations. Every thought. So people will know that Joe Jonas says goodnight to his fans or that Miss Citizen was drunk if they use the correct keywords.

I’m not anti-Twitter; I actually love it. Do I think that our president’s celebratory election tweet should be saved? Yes. I also love that companies and organizations are soliciting advice and suggestions from their followers. But I use Twitter because I like forewarning for the Hirschorn Museum’s after hours programs and that stores give me online coupons when I follow them and that my cousin’s radio show can remind me when it’s on. I’ll even admit I follow GaryJBusey just because it’s hilarious.This is why Twitter is useful on a day to day basis. It is not pertinent to the rest of the world. Twitter is about building your personal online communication experience and not much is relevant to society’s formation or evolution.

Google says that it wants to focus more on tracing the trending topics than the individual tweets. They want to know things like how many people type “Barack Obama” and whether or not the frequency has a correlation to major events in his career. This is data I can support, because if there’s anything studying history has taught me it’s that there are simply too many people in the world to care about every little anomaly and deviation; Twitter being the perfect example of why the electronic age has the potential to really crowd the vision of scholars.

Take, as an example, an entertainment event such as an awards show because the data supply is rife. Everyone watching sent immediate updates like “OMG Jeff Bridges totes just won best actor”, “Congrats Jeff Bridges, you deserve your oscar”, “haha Jeff Bridges just said groovy in his acceptance speech.” As a historian, the important information to be gleaned, if your research topic should fall in this category, is how many people sent congratulatory tweets vs tweets wishing someone else had won and at what times the frequency was largest, etc. Data. Statistics. Numbers. Sure tweets such as ‘MrZiler’s’ “Jeff Bridges won an oscar for drinking, smoking, and finger banging Maggie Gyllenhaal...My Hero!” will be lost to us and the originality and comedic aspects might even have merit. But think how many useless “yay Jeff Bridges” tweets we don’t need to weed through if we only catalogue that fact that Jeff Bridges was mentioned.

Archiving every public tweet on Twitter will cut down on much of the personal exchange because people with protected statuses won’t have their data submitted. That’s a plus. Twitter also has multiple systems in place to gauge the success of any tweet: the number of people who “re-tweet” the statement, the number of people who favorite any given status, and the number of people who follow any one user. Perhaps by implementing some sort of numerical determinant the Library of Congress can decide which individual statements are worth keeping? With the addition of selected users being documented fully, such as the White House or the Library itself, a clear and useful picture of our society’s thoughts on relevant issues might emerge.

I’m still trying to imagine situations where an academic would be eager to have this data and I suppose I see the point some have made about understanding what people think is important at any given time, or how people are reacting to a situation. But just knowing that I could look up how many people tweeted that their dog was going to the vet that day or the number of people who tweeted just the word “hungry” puts me back at square one. SO IRRELEVANT. And frustrating.

REVISED Review for Work Shopping: AmieStreet.com

We were promised a music purchasing revolution in the digital age. Companies like Napster tried, but they got bogged down in the legalities and were forced to revert back to the expensive pay-per-track system. Bands like Radiohead also attempted to transform the music industry by letting fans choose how much they’d pay for albums, but too many fans abused the system. While these approaches clearly had their day, neither of these new ways to own music has really stuck. That’s why I was surprised to learn that there has been a website in business for almost three years that serves as an alternative to the behemoths like iTunes.

A week ago, I randomly stumbled onto the website AmieStreet.com while I was searching for information on an Avant Garde string duo (they’re called Chess, for what it’s worth, and they’re awesome). I didn’t understand why the CD was selling for $10 on Napster’s newer, legal software and only $1.65 on Amie Street. My first thought, naturally, was that it was either illegal or malware. The answer, however, is demand based pricing. Every track on the website starts off, at most, 10 cents (often free). Then as people download it, recommend it, or listen to clips of it, the website uses an equation to gauge the demand for the song. As the demand increases so does the price; individual tracks top out at 99 cents. So in my case, Chess clearly didn’t have a popular album. The pro to this approach is really fresh, young music being just a click (and sometimes a free click) away; the corresponding con is that there is a lot of bad music to weed through. But the hunt is exhilarating.

I spent four hours on this website the first day I stumbled upon it. I decided that in order to keep myself from blowing tons of money really quickly, I would make a wish list and then pick and choose what I wanted to initially purchase. Oh, the best laid schemes…

No matter what you’re into, this website has it hidden somewhere in its depths. From The John Betsch Society to John Doe to John Wilkes Booth, even John Lee Hooker. For those of you unfamiliar with this cast of characters, they’re très different. Because Amie Street isn’t just interested in new, hip, experimental and sometimes admittedly ill produced music, Mos Def, The Eels, Belle and Sebastian, and the Barenaked Ladies all have albums and tracks on AmieStreet.com. The secret to Amie Street is to search for a specific sound, and not a specific artist’s name. They have an impressive Blues/Jazz section as well as a pretty good Comedy section filled with famous artists (George Carlin? Yes, please!). And to be honest, if you ever want a copy of a classical work, I would check this website for a free or cheap version before I looked elsewhere. Rap, Electronica, Bluegrass, and Religious are very well represented. The separation between these genres is immense and yet they all have a home on Amie Street.

When you register, the website sends you a playlist of 75 popular downloaded songs fo’ free. Weeding through them revealed great artists that I added to my and along with my imported Pandora.com preferences, I quickly garnered a wish list more unwieldy than I had anticipated. I also stumbled upon some truly awful music (think: your next door neighbor’s poorly produced piano renditions of church hymns), but the website really wants to help you discover their artists. Downloading music is all about searching for what you know you already like, but at Amie Street, it’s about branching out and finding recommendations and fresh jams. Sure the suggestions were off a few times – the program seemed convinced that I loved Caribbean style Electro-Pop and it also thinks that Queen and The Decemberists sound similar – but overall each rec added three or four more artists to my radar.

The way I usually shop is by deciding the maximum I’d be willing to pay for something and then if the price is actually lower or comparable, I purchase it. This method can present a problem when using AmieStreet.com, I found. One of the artists I had put on my list, Byron Pace, was good and I enjoyed his music, however it wasn’t love. But I had said that I would be willing to pay $2.50 for the 6-track album, and it was free. So I purchased it. Immediately afterwards I felt so….so…douchey. In front of my very eyes the price of the album jumped from $0.00 to $0.90. While that doesn’t seem like much, I knew that it meant that I might have just discouraged someone from purchasing his music who might have grown into a true fan. Since then some of his songs have grown on me more but I still don’t love it as much as my Sylvie Lewis purchase, or Consumption Junction, or Jukebox the Ghost.

Amie Street is really service-oriented and has a lot of great perks. I was pleased to discover that pre-paying $75 will win you $25 of credit. That’s a lot of music on this website! This deal is only good if you know you’ll be haunting the website like I plan on doing. At this time I decided to forgo the pre-pay option due to funds (or lack thereof), although I imagine eventually I’ll take advantage of the system. You can also re-download it later or listen online. Once you purchase music if you visit the listing you can hear the songs in full, and not just the clips others can hear. You can also listen to the full songs by accessing your “Library” from any internet connection. Fair warning! If you want to listen on your own music platform you’ll need an unzipping program like AlZip or WinZip.

Exploring this website was half the fun of the music. It’s also extremely time consuming. Pulling myself away from it long enough to write this review has been difficult, to say the least. Take that as you please. What was most surprising about this website was that it has been in existence for as long as it has and no one I talked to about it had heard of it. This isn’t the digital revolution I was imagining, but it’s not only legal, the bands that utilize it are grateful that their songs are being heard. I am more than happy to oblige. I wish I were a recording artist so I could review everything Amie Street does for its young musicians, too. I bet they’d be just as accommodating as they are to customers.

COLUMN FOR WORKSHOP: Seriously nothing going on

The world isn’t always interesting. Sometimes I troll the internet for hours, eavesdrop on an unknown number of conversations, and watch the news until they start recycling the stories and nothing will catch my attention. I guess it’s telling about where my interests lie that I can’t scare up some good stories to relay on to you all. Believe me I searched.

Hard news? Nah. The Mining Incident in West Virginia is at the forefront of American news but that requires a working knowledge of…something…to properly comment on. Unions, safety in the workplace, even religious views are all applicable knowledge areas but alas, I haven’t the faintest idea what I would talk about. There are also the San Diego earthquakes, but having never been to San Diego or experienced an earthquake, I feel my commentary would be inadequate.

In World News, former pop-sensation Shakira recently visited Haitian camps to promote her charitable organization (coughHERSELFcough). But who really wants another snarky diatribe against celebrity photo-ops in underdeveloped nations? On a completely different note, the death of the Polish president is, indeed, tragic and news that I was personally interested in following but not column worthy. I did notice that some of the press coverage mentioned that the now deceased President’s twin brother is the former Prime Minister of Poland. I feel like I should have known that before, but I don’t feel I can comment on it for a solid 800 words.

When real news fails to produce fascinating tidbits, I turn to Perez Hilton. A decent scandal is good for half a dozen blog posts on Perez, and I went back about twelve pages before I realized anything earlier has already been picked up by various news outlets and therefore is no longer good gossip fodder. The only things they really covered before hand is plastic surgery and Tiger Woods. Bored. Oh, and apparently Rowan Atkinson is desperate for work. There’s going to be a Johnny English 2. Normally, I’m a firm believer in “why not”, but really?

Switching to campus news again I’ve hit a dead end. We’re in tap club season but it’s after Spring Step Singing so most of the drama-rama has passed. The lesbian news is rife but don’t ask, don’t tell right? It’s probably bad form, anyway. As an active gossip monger, I could take this opportunity to stretch the truth and create scandal from nothing which would be fun. I imagine there would be repercussions or something though…not as much fun. The graduation and senior week problems are solved or not yet issued.

There’s not even fluffy news like a new youtube or another internet sensation floating around. Fads seem to last for even shorter periods of time than in the past because of the immediate nature of the news NOW. So what’s a girl to write about? I dunno, but there’s sure to be some bullshit happening somewhere.

Breaking News: Some Bullshit Happening Somewhere

lawl

How Will The End Of Print Journalism Affect Old Loons Who Hoard Newspapers?

REVIEW TO WORKSHOP: Amiestreet.com

We were promised a music purchasing revolution in the digital age. Companies like Napster tried, but they got bogged down in the legalities and were forced to revert back to the expensive pay-per-track system. Bands like Radiohead also attempted to transform the music industry by letting fans choose how much they’d pay for albums, but too many fans abused the system. While these approaches clearly had their day, neither of these new ways to own music has really stuck. That’s why I was surprised to learn that there has been a website in business for almost three years that serves as an alternative to the behemoths like iTunes.

A week ago, I randomly stumbled onto the website AmieStreet.com while I was searching for information on an Avant Garde string duo (they’re called Chess, for what it’s worth, and they’re awesome). I didn’t understand why the CD was selling for $10 on Napster’s newer, legal software and only $1.65 on Amie Street. My first thought, naturally, was that it was either illegal or malware. The answer, however, is demand based pricing. Every track on the website starts off, at most, 10 cents (often free). Then as people download it, recommend it, or listen to clips of it, the website uses an equation to gauge the demand for the song. As the demand increases so does the price; individual tracks top out at 99 cents. So in my case, Chess clearly didn’t have a popular album. The pro to this approach is really fresh, young music being just a click (and sometimes a free click) away; the corresponding con is that there is a lot of bad music to weed through. But the hunt is exhilarating.

No matter what you’re into, this website has it hidden somewhere in its depths. From The John Betsch Society to John Doe to John Wilkes Booth, even John Lee Hooker. For those of you unfamiliar with this cast of characters, they’re très different. Because Amie Street isn’t just interested in new, hip, experimental and sometimes admittedly ill produced music, Mos Def, The Eels, Belle and Sebastian, and the Barenaked Ladies all have albums and tracks on AmieStreet.com. They have an impressive Blues/Jazz section as well as a pretty good Comedy section filled with famous artists. And to be honest, if you ever want a copy of a classical work, I would check this website for a free or cheap version before I looked elsewhere. Rap, Electronica, Bluegrass, and Religious are very well represented. The separation between these genres is immense and yet they all have a home on Amie Street.

I spent four hours on this website the first day I stumbled upon it. I decided that in order to keep myself from blowing tons of money really quickly, I would make a wish list and then pick and choose what I wanted to initially purchase. When you register, the website sends you a playlist of 75 popular downloaded songs for free. Weeding through them revealed great artists that I added to my list, and couldn’t wait to hear more from. The first thing I did was import my Pandora.com preferences (you can also use Facebook, Last.fm, Songza, Hypemachine, and even iTunes). They used my station seeds and the artists I most frequently “liked” to give me recommendations; using the recommendations and blanket genre searches I had quickly garnered a wish list more unwieldy than I had anticipated. I also stumbled upon some truly awful music (think: your next door neighbor’s poorly produced piano renditions of church hymns), but the website really wants to help you discover their artists. After you play a series of clips there is always a pop-up screen that gives you more recommendations from every price range, not just the best sellers. Sure it was off a few times – the program seemed convinced that I loved Caribbean style Electro-Pop and it also thinks that Queen and The Decemberists sound similar – but overall each recommendation added three or four more artists to my list.

Now to purchase. The decision to weed out a bunch of the music was hard. I saved all the artists that I wasn’t completely sold on for later, and just purchased a few. My decisions were based not only on my reactions to the songs but on the artists’ statements that AmieStreet.com provides and price. I had a few albums from multiple price ranges (I freely admit it bothers me when I don’t own complete albums), and I was ready to start purchasing. The way I usually shop for anything is by deciding the maximum I’d be willing to pay for it and then if the price is actually lower or comparable, I purchase it. One of the artists I had put on my wish list, Byron Pace, was good and I enjoyed his music, however it wasn’t love. But I had said that I would be willing to pay $2.50 for the 6-track album, and it was free. So I purchased it. Immediately afterwards I felt so….so…douchey. In front of my very eyes the price of the album jumped from $0.00 to $0.90. While that doesn’t seem like much, I knew that the demand based system meant that I might have just discouraged someone from purchasing his music who could have grown into a true fan. Since then some of the songs have grown on me more but I still don’t love it as much as my Sylvie Lewis purchase, or Consumption Junction, or Jukebox the Ghost.

When you purchase a song or album, first it takes you to your cart. You can purchase the music straight away, or you can decide to pre-pay your future purchases too and then they give you website credit. For instance, if you add $10 to your account, you actually get $12.50 that can be spent on music. The best deal, however is pre-paying $75 and getting $25 of website credit. That’s a lot of music on this website. This deal is only good if you know you’ll be haunting the website like I plan on doing. At this time I decided to forgo the pre-pay option due to funds, although I imagine eventually I’ll take advantage of the system.

After you complete the transaction you get reverted to a download screen. Everything for each artist or album is put into a .zip folder to download so you do need the appropriate software to access your new music (I use AlZip). Once you’ve extracted it to wherever you keep your music on your computer you can add it to whatever music player platform you use (I use Windows Media Player). It comes with all the album art and you can burn it onto discs as many times as you want. Your computer crashes and you lost all your music? AmieStreet.com lets you re-download it later. You can also listen online. Once you purchase music if you visit the listing you can hear the songs in full, and not just the clips others can hear. You can also listen to the full songs by accessing your “Library” from any internet connection.

Exploring this website was half the fun of the music. It’s also extremely time consuming. Pulling myself away from it long enough to write this review has been difficult, to say the least. What was most surprising about this website was that it has been in existence for as long as it has and no one I talked to about it had heard of it. This isn’t the digital revolution I was imagining, but it’s not only legal the bands that utilize it are grateful that their songs are being heard. I am more than happy to oblige.

Review: Thai Siam (draft)

Driving down 56, the restaurant practically jumps at you from around a bend in the road. It’s completely unassuming, this little one room restaurant, but you can smell the spice from the miniscule parking lot. Thai Siam is a family owned restaurant that no one expects. From the very first glimpse I got of the little restaurant, I knew I could classify it as a small business with a cult following.

The room itself looked like someone’s living room. The only difference was the two refrigeration units in the corners. There were couches with blanket throws and a curio cabinet in the corner filled with china cups and other figurines. My personal favorite knick knack was the pair of golden deer on top of the shelves. The TV in the seating area was playing an Asian channel but there didn’t appear to be subtitles or sound. A pile of old magazines from Thailand and Thai cookbooks were on the coffee table. I flipped through them quickly, thankful to leave the cooking for someone else. As antiques often appear, the room looked dingy, maybe even dirty. The overall effect was wholly unappetizing.

But the smell. Oh! The smell. It brought the hunger right back. Everything in the restaurant was completely infused with curry, pepper, and basil. I have had my share of Thai food, but no restaurant has managed to utterly fill the air with the scent. I was definitely interested again, but somehow the restaurant itself managed to disinterest me again.

Just like my first experience with a Cafeteria restaurant, the dining protocol was difficult for me to eke out without asking for guidance. The restaurant has “take out” in the title, because that’s how most people order. There was a rumor that no one was supposed to be allowed to eat-in at all, but somehow we managed. I only counted 10 dining seats in the entire building, plus some deck dining. A friend and I awkwardly stood by, wondering where to sit, if we should sit, how to order, etc. We finally bit the bullet, and sat in a faraway corner and went to the counter to order. I got my standard, beef fried rice, and my friend got the green curry.

We wanted an appetizer. We couldn’t get one. It says on the menu that several dishes are so popular that they sell out and won’t remake them. Fried wontons? Thai dumplings? Nope. We get it! It’s a wildly well-liked wunderkind, but I personally still have an inclination that service industries should serve. I don’t like being inconvenienced, and this policy of not giving me fried wontons really was a nuisance. It’s at this point that the only thoughts I had were “this food better be worth it.”

It was excellent. I ordered Thai Hot, the supposed top of the heat scale. Being raised by parents who encouraged us to add pepper to everything, I have never had a problem with spice. The main conclusion I drew from Thai Siam’s definition of hot, however, was that every other Thai restaurant has lied to the American population about what “Thai Hot” could mean. I concede that it was, in fact, too hot for me. Of course I didn’t stop eating it. It was delicious!

Thai food is smoky, and spicy, and features basil prominently. This was no different, and while it was good, with the exception of the heat it was nothing special. As one of only two Thai restaurants within a forty five minute drive, I could not help but compare it with Thai 99 in Lynchburg. Price wise, Thai Siam is a little cheaper, but the difference isn’t significant enough to merit comment. The menu selection is larger at Thai 99. I would say that the food is better at Thai Siam, but Thai 99’s service is much more inclusive. So it boils down to choice. There was some excitement in the hunt for Siam, and the inconspicuous nature of the business provides an atmosphere unlike the more commercial Thai 99