Google, A Faceless Internet Gorilla

There I am trying to get Google to fix my Blogger account so I can upload images and all I get from them is the following message saying they're deleting inappropriate photos from my Picasa Web Album:

Please be advised that we have recently received reports that inappropriate content has been posted to your Picasa Web Albums account. One or more photos displayed in your gallery violates our Program Policies and has been removed.

Our Policies state that images displayed on picasaweb.google.com cannot contain obscenity, pornography, promotions of hate, incitement of violence, or spam, malicious code, or viruses. Please note that if you continue to violate these Program Policies, we may suspend your Picasa Web Albums account.

Thank you for your cooperation

It looks like yesterday's Diem, the Vietnamese beauty did for me - there's not one nipple left in the album by Big Brother Google.

The question now is have they intentionally blocked images on my Blogger account. It's unlikely but it would be a question worth asking if if I could only find a human to interact with at Google. They have to be the most faceless Internet Gorilla around. I've just gone from frustrated to homicidal!!

Sierra Tangos

• Pattaya Rag Quiz sponsored by Club Blu (opens in just 7 days)

I will post questions most days from my Jan 19 post until Jan 30. You should e-mail your answers to me at pattaya.rag@gmail.com . You can e-mail me each time there are questions are you can mail me one time with all answers before midnight (Thai time) Jan 31. The questions will be sequentially numbered so you will know if you've missed any. Include in the mail the name you want to be known by if you win. I don't want to use a mail address to identify the winner. The winner will be announced on Feb 1.

The prize for the most correct answers is a free 'barf' in Club Blu so it will be of most interest to residents and regular visitors to Thailand. Here's the next question:

Q11. What guerilla fighter had a biscuit named after him?

Note: Barf covers the barfine only and not ST/LT fees. Also, it's up to you to get your choice to say "yes".

• The Livestock Development Department confirmed the second bird flu outbreak in Phichit province Friday. Laboratory tests showed samples from villagers in Sak Lek district to have the H5N1 virus. According to official, about 30 chicken in Phichit have already died. This is the second bird flu outbreak in Thailand. The first outbreak was confirmed on Thursday in Nakhon Sawan province. [via Bangkok Post]

• Create Mp3 files from text - Vozme is web based tool that turns any snippet of text into an MP3 audio file that you can either listen online or download to your local hard drive.

You just have to copy the text from a web page or an email and paste it inside the Vozme text box. While there are tons of solutions that convert text to spoken words, what I liked about Vozme is the clutter free interface and the fact that it runs inside the browser without requiring any downloads.

Bloggers can easily integrate the Vozme feature in the site so visitors can either listen to your full blog posts or they can select a portion of text and have Vozme narrate it like a speech.

Vozme accepts Spanish, English and Italian languages. [via Digital Inspiration]

• Wish you could extract all of icons stored on your computer? If I were to ask you how many icons you have stored on your computer, would you be able to tell me? Probably not! Nor can I! Actually, most applications store their icons directly in the EXE (executable) file itself, which indirectly hides those icons from you.

I sometimes enjoy changing the icons on my computer for a specific application or maybe for a certain file that I use very often and want to visually differentiate from everything else. You can quickly change the icon on a program, file, document, photo, etc by simply right-clicking on it and going to Properties. Click on Customize and then click Change Icon.

This is great for the most part, but the problem comes in trying to find a suitable icon to replace the current one with. By default, when you change the icon for a folder or program, Windows will bring up a list of icons from SHELL32.DLL, which has a bunch of generic-looking and crappy icons. Now going around and randomly clicking on EXE files or DLL files to find icons is not fun nor efficient.

IconsExtract is a cool freeware application that you can use to automatically find icons that are stored in EXE, DLL, OCX, CPL, and other file types. You’ll be amazed at the actual number of icons stored on your computer after using this program!

The program is a standalone executable and does not require any installation at all, which means you can run it on any computer easily! You can also filter the search by icons or cursors, by icon size, and even by the number of colors.

You have 2 main search options when you start up the program:

1. Select only a single file. For example: C:\WINNT\System32\shell32.dll. You can either manually type in the filename into the textbox, or select it from a dialog box by clicking the “Browse Files” button.
2. Select multiple filenames by using wildcard characters (? and *). You can select the folder that you want to scan by clicking the “Browse Folders” button. If you check the “Search Subfolders” check-box, all of the subfolders of the main folder will also be scanned.For example: if you type “c:\*.*” in the filename text-box, and check the “Search Subfolders” option, IconsExtract will search for icons in all folders and files on your C: drive.

After the search is complete, you will find the icons displayed in the main window of the program.

You can then save the icons into ICO files by selecting the ones you want to save and then choosing Save Selected Icons from the File menu.

You can also copy a single icon to the clipboard and paste it into another application by pressing the standard CTRL + C key combo. This will copy the icon in the standard dimensions of 16×16 or 32×32. If you want to copy a different size, double click on the icon and select the specific image in the properties window and click Copy Selected Image.

Overall, this is a very cool application for anyone who likes to customize their icons or who wants to take a cool icon from a program as use it as a Fav Icon or something similar. Definitely worth check out! Enjoy! [via Online tech Tips]

• Nina Moric 2008 Calendar - bit off a stunner

• Boob flashers of the world unite

• Burns Night - Two clever limericks and an ode (?) in honour of the great man:

A Lad For All O' That

Oh, our Robbie had humanish faults,

He would flirt and consume single malts,

But the words that he writ,

On Scotsmen's hearts sit,

More treasured than coin in their vaults.

by J. Michael O'Neil

To Irn Bru

Woke up with sweat upon my breastie,

Ma heid was sair, my breath a' yeastie,

Had been a night of drams and gin,

Dancing an reelling in an awfie din,

Gawking at limmers and getting fu,

May the lord be thankit fur Irn Bru.

by Magnus Mcdermid

Burns Night (a Golf Widows reply)

To Robert Burns we owe this night

To men in general woman's plight

We fall in love, our heads we lose

Our hearts we give, for men to use.

We cook, we sew, we clean the house

Sometimes we play the timorous mouse

We give up jobs and raise the kids

Clean his loos and lower the lids.

Around life's course we carry his clubs

Retrieve him from his many pubs

We hear of shots, of putts he made

Through gritted teeth we say, well played.

What women want is hardly news

Some words of love, advice on shoes

So listen men these words are true

I'm saying men, I'm meaning YOU.

Tell your girl, your woman, wife

You are the meaning of my life

Though golf may take you far away

Without their help you could not play.

For who would keep your trousers neat

Who would keep your kit complete

In all of this I tell you laddie

A woman betters any caddie.

by Ken Batchelor

• Recipe for the Perfect Marriage

1. Two times a week, we go to a nice restaurant, have a little beverage, good food and companionship. She goes on Tuesdays, I go on Fridays.
2. We also sleep in separate beds. Hers is in California and mine is in Texas.
3. I take my wife everywhere...but she keeps finding her way back.
4. I asked my wife where she wanted to go for our Anniversary. "Somewhere I haven't been in a long time!" She said. So I suggested the kitchen.
5. We always hold hands. If I let go, she shops.
6. She has an electric blender, electric toaster and electric bread maker. She said, "There are too many gadgets and no place to sit down!" So I bought her an electric chair.
7. My wife told me the car wasn't running well because there was water in the carburettor. I asked where the car was; she told me "In the lake."
8. She got a mudpack and looked great for two days. Then the mud fell off.
9. She ran after the garbage truck, yelling "Am I too late for the garbage?" The driver said "No, jump in!"
10. Remember: Marriage is the number one cause of divorce.
11. I married Miss Right. I just didn't know her first name was "Always".
12. I haven't spoken to my wife in 18 months. I don't like to interrupt her.
13. The last fight was my fault though. My wife asked, "What's on the TV?" I said "Dust!"

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