Delusions of a Deranged War Wizard

Are food staffs edible?

noreply@blogger.com (Lord War Wizard) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 07:25:00 +0000

Check this out... I have decided not to highlight what's so *funny*... have a look and see if you can spot it.

(Well, the title is a plain giveaway already. :P)

dNeero Flash Embed V2 Test

noreply@blogger.com (Lord War Wizard) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 07:20:00 +0000

From dNeero: We're starting to roll out a new flash embed widget and need your help. We'll do a few tests and then we'll do a few convos asking for your feedback on V2. Thanks for the help.

Proof of Payment for Wordlinx

noreply@blogger.com (Lord War Wizard) — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 08:41:00 +0000

How rare it is to receive good news from PTC sites nowadays.

Here's one. I finally managed to reach the U$10 minimum for Wordlinx. It took a jolly long time but the speed of payment is incredible - it's instant.

The moment I clicked to cash out, I got paid instantly. See above screenshot for proof.

If you are wondering why it is $9.50, that's because the Wordlinx processing fee is 5% of the total amount. They claim it's for PayPal... anyhow, they have another option which is for you to pay the fee direct to PayPal. According to their explanation (they link their explanation to a source that is currently a defunct website), the fee for this option would be more than 50 cents (more than 5% of this $10 example) and they would need 30 long days to process it (instead of instantaneous).

Geez, it's only a few cents. If they want to take it, I rather give it to them than wait 30 days. Who knows what will happen within these 30 days? :P

Oh yea, here's my affiliate link http://www.wordlinx.com/gate/index.php?r=11714 . May your generosity return to you 8 folds! ^^

What Is It About Perfumes?

noreply@blogger.com (Lord War Wizard) — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 08:35:00 +0000

What is it about perfumes that make people willing to open their wallets to spend considerable sums of money?

I guess as with all things, we each have our own motivation. For me, it would be largely two things. One would be to smell ALLURING (lolz) and the second would be to put myself in a good mood.

The first reason is self explanatory and as for the second... when you keep smelling something you find nice, you feel uplifted.

If you point a pistol at me and ask me to tell you exactly what I like or dislike, I still might not be able to satisfy you. Likes and dislikes are often very hard to pinpoint - you need to be faced with something and you will instinctively know whether you love it or you hate it.

Generally, I like scents that are unique and which linger but must not be overpowering. I have encountered people who frequently spray a HECK OF A LOT of perfume on themselves day in day out. At first sniff, it may be a nice smell (and they might have spent a bomb on it). But too much simply ruins the smell and after being OVERPOWERED each time, you begin to actually HATE the smell. I know it has happened to me. So make sure that when you spray perfume, keep the amount decently reasonable. :P

As for what scents I do not like, I generally prefer to keep food on the dining table. That means if the perfume smells of food, that is a big NO for me. And if I may digress, this extends to other toiletry items like soap or even toothpaste.

I do not have any particular brand of perfume that I like. When I walk around departmental stores, I tend to be OVERPOWERED and that puts me off. I guess when competitors are all trying to sell the same category of products in the same place, the only logical thing for them would be to turn up the intensity of the smell... I half suspect that the promoters' sense of smell are all long ruined already. Poor them!

Anyway if you are intending to check out new perfumes, there is a new perfume blog that has just been launched. Since you are spending good money on a tiny bottle, reading some reviews or chit-chatting with perfume lovers sure wouldn't hurt. :-)

* This is a sponsored post.

Gmail Returns to Stone Age

noreply@blogger.com (Lord War Wizard) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 15:56:00 +0000

I thought this is funny. This is basically a return to stone age for Gmail.

Labels are one of the main features Gmail tries to wow the world by. And now, someone in Google decides to turn it off for netbooks.

Take an example. It's like a salesman who tried his best to sell a lady an organic chicken based on how great organic stuffs are and how nutritious chicken meat is. When the lady was finally wowed over and bought the chicken, the salesman gentlemanly reminded the lady that, "Don't forget you are vegetarian!"

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Source: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/new-in-labs-hide-labels-see-subject.html

Tuesday, August 04, 2009 7:14 PM

Posted by Christopher Semturs, Software Engineer

Some time ago I bought a netbook. It's perfect in terms of portability, weight and space usage, but the natural drawback is the size of the screen. It's so small that sometimes I find it hard to read the subjects of emails in my inbox. It looks something like this:

Now, there are some ways to work around this, like using Google Chrome's full screen mode, but I wanted a way to do more. So I created a new Gmail Labs feature called "Remove Labels from Subjects" that automatically hides the labels from messages in your inbox, leaving plenty of space for the messages' subjects.

To turn it on, just go to the Labs tab under Settings and look for the following icon:

Enjoy the new screen real estate and tell us what you think!

Visual Talking -- Put Images Where Your Mouth Is!

noreply@blogger.com (Lord War Wizard) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 15:51:00 +0000

A Visual Talking contest ... $1,500 total ... we want you to win!!

Mark Grace, founder of Visual Talking, thanks all dNeero-ites for their suggestions and comments. Because of you, Visual Talking has redesigned their site and added features. They're not done, so please keep those suggestions and comments coming.

The main purpose of this convo is build up the inventory of standard sentences - these are sentences that we use often - think of those texting abbreviations like OMG, LOL, CMON, WU?, GAL.

We'd like you to create standard sentences ... create as many as you wish. And to encourage you to do that, we are going to run a contest. We'll choose the top 20 standard sentences in each category (Greetings, Questions, Answers, Love, Action), and then run another convo in which you'll choose your favorite sentences. The top five in each category will share a $300 purse ($150, $75, $35, $25, $15) ... and you may win in multiple categories!!

How do we choose the top 20? It's up to you ... your answer to question 7 below will help determine the five criteria our judges will use.

Get in Line

noreply@blogger.com (Lord War Wizard) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 06:30:00 +0000

This is another joke from Joke of the Day which I think is real neat. :-)

A crowded flight is cancelled, and a frazzled agent must rebook a long line of inconvenienced travelers by herself. Suddenly, an angry passenger pushes to the front and demands to be on the next flight, first class.

The agent replies, "I'm sorry, sir. I'll be happy to try to help you, but I've got to help these folks first."

The passenger screams, "Do you have ANY idea who I am?"

The gate agent grabs her public address microphone, "May I have your attention, please? We have a passenger here WHO DOES NOT KNOW WHO HE IS. If anyone can help him find his identity, please come to gate 17."

The man grits his teeth, "Screw you."

She replies, "I'm sorry, sir, but you'll have to stand in line for that, too."

Universal Health Care

noreply@blogger.com (Lord War Wizard) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 06:28:00 +0000

Polls indicate that most Americans are satisfied with their coverage. But the White House and other advocates of overhauling healthcare say people are probably paying more for insurance each year. Premiums for employer-provided plans have risen four times faster than wages, and are now double their cost nine years ago. Deductibles are rising as well. Supporters of the legislation contend that healthcare costs are a drag on the economy.

Starhub never fails to deliver

noreply@blogger.com (Lord War Wizard) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 11:29:00 +0000

Just tell me how good starhub is. They blanked out the only channel I want to see.

And no, refreshing does not help.

Gmail, don't give me any task!

noreply@blogger.com (Lord War Wizard) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 07:20:00 +0000

As you might have read (or discovered for yourself) from the numerous sites giving Gmail wide coverage on their online real estate, Google has apparently decided to make the Labs Tasks feature that was a spin off from some remember the milk thingy a permanent fixture on the left Gmail panel.

Yucks!

When the Labs feature for Tasks first came out, I tried it but I didn't like it. To start with, it looks ugly. To me, it is not utilitarian - it's just ugly. And I don't find it useful personally. Yet right now, I am forced to endure this Tasks sitting there permanently, it being a real eyesore.

To check what tasks you have, you have to deliberately go and click on that link to bring up the Tasks pane. The chance is high that if you have just those few tasks, you will likely remember them at the same time you bring up the Tasks Pane - so fat load of crap Tasks is useful for. On the flip side, if you have simply too many tasks, I strongly urge that you polish your task management skills.

If you are talking about tasks with long time frames, you need e.g a calendar (such as Google Calendar), and not that weeny Tasks pane. That is really useful for the original remember the milk kinda tasks... you know, (1) Buy ABC brand milk on the way back (2) Wash my hands after using the toilet (oh plzzz....) (3) Pay credit card bills... the point is, you can try to exercise your memory by remembering such small things. You don't need Tasks unless you keep having small things to remember - and in that case, those are probably repeated tasks that are harder to forget than remember.

Yes yes don't yell at me just yet. I know there are MANY people who swear by using Tasks or related tools. To each his own, I guess! :P

I came across this fabulous post by MAMBOLERO here. He really sings the beats of my heart. I will post his words below verbatim for your "enjoyment".

On a final note, I hope Google will allow us to disable this Tasks feature. This toggling on-off can perhaps be included under Settings >> Labels. If it's already done, perhaps the feature has not been rolled out to me yet.
---
I wish I knew!

Please, Google, will you STOP already with shoving more immovable "options" into the left-hand side of my Gmail page? Don't misunderstand, I like the Labs -- I like them a lot -- and I've enabled all but 4 or 5 of them. However, I also like the ability to choose WHERE/WHEN/& WHAT goes in that left-hand column.

After all, wasn't that the whole point of making the chatbox, etc., movable?

At the rate you're "helping" me, Google, last week by splaying all 30 of my labels at the top of the left column, now by tucking Tasks under Contacts, my Chatbox will end up buried in a flutter of clutter "below the fold". Now, just stop that!

Yes, I finally figured out how to knock the labels down to my five most essential; I prefer the neat and tidy drop-down labels list, thank you very much.

"Tasks?" Hard as this may be to take in, my Google-y hosts, NOT all of us want to put our grocery list alongside our inbox or our To-do list anywhere but on Post-It Notes, the kitchen calendar, or maybe, just maybe, in our heads. Thousands and thousands of us DON'T work that way; we're mobile, we travel light, we organize to the beat of a different drummer.

Options? We love 'em. Orders? No, thanks! Put an Off/On switch to "Tasks".

Do You Care? dNeero-ites Care!

noreply@blogger.com (Lord War Wizard) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 07:16:00 +0000

Looks like dNeero-ites care ... celebrity deaths, international politics and problems, recession, flu, Harry Potter ... my o my ... here are some of the questions we all asked. For your User Question this time, suggest you concentrate on technology (gadgets, phones, TV, PC, whatever).

Lousy McDelivery Service

noreply@blogger.com (Lord War Wizard) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 13:07:00 +0000

First time ever I want to try McDonald's delivery service and this happened. Great job Macs! I am starving but I think I will look elsewhere. Thanks, I mean, no thanks.

Health Care Affordability

noreply@blogger.com (Lord War Wizard) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 09:39:00 +0000

Strong majorities of Americans across the political spectrum would support diverse approaches to expanding health insurance coverage, including letting uninsured adults participate in Medicare or state public insurance programs, such as Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program, offering tax credits for people to purchase coverage on their own or requiring employers to offer and contribute to the cost of their employees' health insurance coverage.

How to cut down on your electrical bills?

noreply@blogger.com (Lord War Wizard) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 06:25:00 +0000

I find this document I received (see below) pretty insightful.

If this phantom load thing is true (see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standby_power for more details), many people may already have wasted quite a bit of electricity. So it's your call... do you want to cut your pockets some slack and save Mother Earth as well?

Cheers! :D
Cut Electrical Bills 2009

Do You Care?

noreply@blogger.com (Lord War Wizard) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 06:20:00 +0000

Why not? Why? There are so many things that happen, and so many facts ... but really, how much of all this affects you or that you can affect?

dNeero is going to add "Do You Care?" conversations to it's already successful "SpitzTunes" series. We'll look at the news from many sources ... if you have a favorite online source, please let us know.

We'll always end with the question "What do you care about most right now?"

Awesome packaging from Pringles

noreply@blogger.com (Lord War Wizard) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:48:00 +0000

I think Pringles did it alright this time. The last time I went to the supermarket, I bought 2 bottles of Pringles when I spotted them along snacks aisle.

And why is that?

I was attracted to their packaging. The bottles now are tall and slim. Yes, read that again - tall and slim. When you see a tall and slim bottle, you cannot properly associate it with its supposedly unhealthiness. :P

So I bought them. And when you eat them, you just keep on eating them till you have to stop yourself so that you won't guiltily finish the entire bottle in one sitting. And because the chips are not oily, you still won't remember you are eating unhealthy junk stuff lolz.

So packaging is important (yea, don't we all know that?) and Pringles' new product designer needs a raise. :D

Endurance Athletes - A Panel

noreply@blogger.com (Lord War Wizard) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:43:00 +0000

Thanks for the great response to "Endurance Athletes". We have chosen you for our Endurance Athletes Panel. This panel is made up of those that either currently are or have been endurance athletes. You will be receiving invitations to join conversations that revolve around the lifestyle of an endurance athlete ... that means we'll address training and competition, but also music, movies, vacations, politics etc. ... endurance athletes are people too! If you wish to be removed from this panel, please let us know in the last question or send us a message from your account http://www.dneero.com/account/inbox.jsp

Let's start the stream of conversations with questions asked by your fellow dNeero-ites.

Does making money bust your conscience?

noreply@blogger.com (Lord War Wizard) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:15:00 +0000

I was talking to a friend who recently got involved in "another" MLM kind of opportunity. Well I am not sure if it is MLM but the ignorant me tends to conveniently lump anything and everything concerning selling products by word of mouth or through an online network of leaders, distributors or what-have-you under the MLM category (or network marketing, whatever). Not sure if I am right but I don't really care lol. :P

Anyway because he is a good friend of mine, I was racking my brains to think of ways I can help while he was telling me about his new passion. I was in fact looking at the product list and scrutinizing the text to see how any of the products might be of use to my family or me.

I then asked him whether the products have been patented and if he can provide more details on how WOW the products claim to be, etc. But guess what? He replied that the products are not patented then went on at great length about how I can RECRUIT people, form teams and make this a stream of income. Everything will be done for me since the awesome system is automated online.

Apparently he wasn't the least bit interested about the products (though he did try them out for the sake of "professionalism") and if I may say this irresponsibly, he couldn't care less if what he is selling is dirt or curd. And when I commented that this sounded like a pyramid scheme, he beat his chest and said that the company HAS PRODUCTS. In his mind, having products automatically separates the company from pyramid schemes.

In our quest for money, do we sometimes need to take a step back and ensure we are acting responsibly and in good conscience? Well... to each his own.

PS.: The cute inset image is from http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/money.jpg . I hope the kind owner doesn't mind. If yes, drop me a note and I shall remove it immediately and offer my apologies. Thanks in advance! :D

SpitzTunes -- Ya Gotta Love It!

noreply@blogger.com (Lord War Wizard) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:10:00 +0000

Driving home from work the other day, Air Supply's "All Out Of Love" came on the radio. Despite the hilariously hokey melody and lyrics, I started thinking...are we in fact all out of love? What has happened to the love song? Has it changed for better or for worse? I guess that's for you to decide.

Computers make us lose touch with spelling

noreply@blogger.com (Lord War Wizard) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:12:00 +0000

Recently, I was called back to the army to serve my annual required stint.

In life, we spend one-third of our time sleeping. In army, we spend one-third of our time waiting. It is quite a perpetual game of waiting; but don't get me wrong - we do a lot of rushing too. You see, we rush to wait then wait to rush again. Loop it and you can appreciate the entire picture.

Anyway, I digress. While we were waiting and about to fall off the fringe of sanity, a friend and I decided to play hangman. It is that game where we take turns to come up with a word for the other person to guess. For instance, if I have the word "miscreant" in mind, I would illustrate the 9 letters like this:

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The person guessing will choose a letter and the correct letters will be written out. After each wrong guess of a letter or word, a stroke will be added to the hangman-to-be. When the hangman is finally completed, it is game over for the guesser. (If you feel like playing the game, check out e.g. http://www2.20q.net/hang.pl - this site looks real neat to me.)

I used to pride myself at having a decent competency level of English. While playing this game, I realized that I have lost touch with spelling. I used to be quite a good speller. While providing words for my friend, I was embarrassed several times because I misspelled the words I chose for him to guess. As the cliché goes, I would find a hole to hide if I was an ostrich.

Upon reflecting, I realize that I have been relying too heavily on computers. For practically all browsers and word processors, a misspelled word would be marked with a red underline. While this makes rectification of any error very convenient, it unfortunately is a bane too. You see, when I correct each word, I would immediately zoom in to the correction that is most obviously correct. If I have been spelling a word wrongly all the while, I would still be none the wiser. And in my usual haste, any slip would tend to feel inconsequential and relegated to the back of my mind. So how would I ever learn?

As a result of this incident, I am resolving to take spelling more seriously from now on. Instead of simply right clicking on a misspelled word and choosing the most obviously correct word, I shall instead do manual correction. And if it turns out that I really cannot spell the word, I shall endeavor to find the right spelling and commit it to memory.

I hope this post resonates with at least some of you and you would make the same commitment as me to strengthen your grasp on spelling. Cheers!

Endurance Athletes

noreply@blogger.com (Lord War Wizard) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:10:00 +0000

Endurance training and racing requires quite a commitment from athletes ... the commitment is for time and money ... they put up with pain, they eat for the event and buy supplements that cost a bundle ... their equipment is specialized to their events (shoes, high performance clothing, bikes, skis, wet suit, heart monitor, exercise equipment, etc., etc.) Some of the athletes are in the professional ranks, but most are age-groupers. Why do the age-groupers do it?

Best way of closing down a site

noreply@blogger.com (Lord War Wizard) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:23:00 +0000

I thought this is one of the most impressive site closing announcements I have seen. You know, most usually just disappear without a noise. :P

Oh btw, I was trying to access drop.io (which turned out to be real crappy) but typed in file.io instead which is this site that has already "shut down".

See above screenshot. :-)

SpitzTunes -- Working My Way Back to You!

noreply@blogger.com (Lord War Wizard) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:20:00 +0000

I've been away for a while .. not because of lack of interest, but because I've been away ... wanted to get this convo going ... in coming convos I'm going to do themes ... for example, politics in music, sports in music, sexuality in music ... if you have any suggestions, please let me know in the last question. And yes, the first question came about because I just did exactly that, with The Best of the Four Seasons!

What's for dinner?

noreply@blogger.com (Lord War Wizard) — Wed, 27 May 2009 16:50:00 +0000

Can't eat pork, Swine flu...

Can't eat chicken,

Bird flu.

Can't eat Beef,

Mad cow....

Can't eat eggs,

Salmonella.

Can't eat fish,

heavy metal poisons in their waters.

Can't eat fruits and veggies,

insecticides and herbicides.

Hmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I believe that leaves Chocolate and ice cream!!!!!!!!

Remember - - - 'STRESSED'

spelled backwards! is

'DESSERTS'

Hair, Beautiful Hair!

noreply@blogger.com (Lord War Wizard) — Wed, 27 May 2009 16:47:00 +0000

Short, long, high & tight, sculpted, point cut, dread locks, mohawk ... different climates, cultures, locations seem to demand different hair styles. Who leads the way in hairstyling ... Paul Mitchell, Vidal Sasson ... or is it the celebs with their personal stylists ... regardless the media picks it up, judges it, and we adjust.