Dented Reality Notes

Quote of the Day

From a very straight-laced colleague of mine who I really wouldn't have expected this from, in reference to the general attire seen on Halloween in the US;

"Girls just wanna dress up as sluts, that's the bottom line."

I can't wait.

Bea TalPlacido

Check it out, Bea TalPlacido pulls some awesome acoustic rock. She's best buds with my pal Ray Hernandez. She's playing 2 shows this week in my new home town San Franciso.

Wednesday, 8pm @ Brainwash
Thursday, 8pm @ Swig

Come check her out, she totally rocks, and is one of the coolest, nicest peeps you'll ever meet.

It's a FooCamp For The Restuvus

So I may not have received an invite to FooCamp, but now that I'm living in San Francisco, I'm able to attend the first ever BarCamp. I'm posting from there right now, and I'm just checking things out and getting a feel for the place. So far it's pretty cool - lots of interesting people and discussions, so I'm looking forward to the rest of the day.

More to come.

Boxed DVD Sets I Want To Buy (in no particular order)

Seinfeld, Seasons 3+
24, Seasons 2 and 3
Nowhere Man, Season 1
The Pretender, Season 2+

Politically Incorrect

Anyone who knows me very well knows that I'm not a very 'political' person at all. Despite that, right now even I can see when the general public makes a stupid mistake. How about this for one way of looking at things; ignore his platform, ignore his past, ignore his could-be-conceived-as-really-corrupt oil connections, and ignore the whole alleged vote-rigging a few years ago. Ignore all of that, it will only cloud your judgement. Ok - now make a straight decision between a man who can barely string a sentence together, and a man who speaks well, seems to have something going on inside his head, and can have a conversation with a journalist without cue-cards.

As one of my co-workers said - Today is a sad day in the history of America.

Swingers Quote

If you haven't seen it, you should see the 1996 movie, Swingers - it's excellent! This is one of my favourite scenes (part of it), which I just had to transcribe because it's so good :)

Mike: "Look, we're gonna spend half the night driving around the hills looking for this one party, and you're gonna say it sucks, then we're gonna go look for this other party. But all the parties, and all the bars, they all suck; I spend half the night talking to some girl who's looking around the room to see if there's somebody else that's more important she should be talkin to, and I'm supposed to be all happy because she's wearing a backpack. You know and half of them are just nasty skanks, who wouldn't be nothin except that they're surrounded by a bunch of drunken horny assholes. And I'm gonna tell you something T, are you listening?"

Trent: "Yeah I'm listening"

Mike: "I'm not gonna be one of those assholes, alright? It just makes me sick; it's like ah, it's like, some nasty skank who isn't half the woman my girlfriend is is gonna front me? It makes me wanna fuckin' puke!"

Notice Periods and Resigning

For those of you who don't know, I'll tell you about what a 'notice period' means to you if you are planning on resigning. I recently found this out (yes, personally), and I can tell you that it doesn't leave the nicest taste in your mouth, so be careful.

Situation: You are employed in one position in a company where your contract details a 1 month (4 week) notice period. You have been offered a job at a different company, but they require you to start in 3 weeks (from now, which makes it 1 week short of your notice period).

Options: At this point, your options would be something like;

Resign from your current position and tell them you are leaving in 3 weeks (see below for consequences)
Negotiate with your potential employer to start later (hopefully)
Decline from the job and stay where you are

Now, assuming that you want the job, and that you have already discussed the start date and the 3-week start is required, that basically leaves you with the first option (not much of an option is it?). So - what happens with that 4 week notice period on your contract if you leave 1 week short of it?

In this situation, some people will attempt to apply for leave for the final week of their notice period, which will mean that they won't actually have to go to work, but they'd get paid as if they had (accrued annual leave and the relevant authorities permitting). If this is not an option, which in some companies it won't be, you will find that you are lopped into a situation where you will be financially penalised for not giving full notice.

When calculating your final payouts after resignation, everything your employer owes you is added up into a 'kitty' of sorts. This might include accrued annual leave, final salary since your last pay date, owed company expenses etc. In the case that you leave before the end of your notice period, this kitty is reduced by the amount of salary that you would have otherwise earned if you had stayed. So in our example, that kitty would be reduced by a full week's salary before you got your final payment.

Think about whether or not you can afford to take that hit - it can hurt at the end, and will leave a pretty bad taste in your mouth, unless where you are going really makes up for it!

You Love Your Employer

But they don't love you! David Dvorkin came to a solid conclusion in his writing about The Surprising Benefits of Being Unemployed

the true, indeed the only, obligation any company's top management has is to its Board of Directors and major shareholders. And of course to the continued employment of its top managers.

An Art Gallery I'd Like To See

For some reason, it came upon me the other day that we don't see the "animal" side of people captured very often. We see beauty, we see sorrow, we see passion, we see 'humanity' -- what I want to see in an art gallery of some kind, is the animal, rage-filled, violent side of people.

I think these ideas sprang from a discussion about how porn in a gallery suddenly becomes art, but what I want here, is a collection of painted, drawn, sculptured and constructed representations of people which portray violence, rippling muscles, massive exertion, bulging eyes; you know what I mean. I think it would make an interesting gallery, and I'm sure all the art boffins out there would come up with all sorts of interpretations about the way that humans deal with their emotions, about the 'beast within', things like that.

Call me crazy, but I think it'd sell. Perhaps it could be called 'The Beast Within' or 'Devolution' or something similarly catchy, reflecting the animalistic side of human nature which would be on display.

Beau's Amazing Stew

This is the recipe which I ended up inventing when I wanted to try out my great new pot, a ScanPan Dutch Oven. I wanted to cook some sort of soup/stew concoction, and this is what I ended up with;

Ingredients:

400g Oyster Blade Steak
400g Diced Steak
1 Can Green Beans
1 Can Baby/Julienne Carrots
1 Can Peas and Corn
250g Pasta Shells
1 Large Brown Onion
3 Rashers Bacon
4 Corgettes
4 Sticks Celery
2 Medium Potatos
1L Liquid Beef Stock
Cummin
Bouquet Garni
Tobasco Sauce
Soy Sauce

Preparation:

Boil water and cook Pasta Shells as normal, with some salt to hold in the flavour. Don't throw out the water - it will go in the stew. It is a good idea to start the water heating, then start everything else, it should finish at about the right time like this.

Slice up the onion, dice the Oyster Blade Steak and combine both with the Diced Steak and some oil in the bottom of the pot. Cook on high heat until the meat is starting to brown, but not too much. Add the bacon, sliced into strips, and cook quickly. Once cooked, pour in the Liquid Beef Stock and add the potatos, cut into smallish cubes. Bring to the boil, then simmer for a few minutes.

Add Beans, Carrots, Peas and Corn, including their liquid to the pot, continue to cook. Add the pasta into the pot, including its water (if there is too much, drain a little off as required). Also add in sliced Corgettes and Celery. Add sauce and herbs to taste, then simmer for approximately 30 minutes.

That's it! A lot has gone in, but you should now have the equivalent of about 8 meals worth of stew, and it tastes great!