http://comics.com/cheap_thrills/

I find the Cheap Thrills recipies quite good - I first found out the chef responsible knows how to make a wicked Saltimbocca with a very simple recipe a few years back

Some one just sent me Seek's salary survey.  It was interesting from the perspective that I realised how many "extra" benefits I don't get, however I was able to tick off all the boxes in terms of career development.  A nice little reminer of why I'm in my job!

http://salarysurvey.seek.com.au/

For some strange reason the word bombastic has been stuck in my head.  It's a good word.  It describes a lot of people I know.  If you know any politicians, lawyers or doctors (and perhaps teachers) it will describe a lot of people you know.  I particularly like the part of the definition which says, "user of language more elaborate than is justified by or appropriate to the content being expressed."

I heard it used on some awful English sit come where Penelope Keith's character was describing her husband.  Apparently she still loved him anyway, as I do with most of the people I know. 

Bombastic bom·bas·tic

adjective

(of speech, writing, etc.) high-sounding; high-flown; inflated; pretentious.

Also, bom·bas·ti·cal.

[Origin: 1695–1705; bombast + -ic]

—Related forms

bom·bas·ti·cal·ly, adverb

—Synonyms pompous, grandiloquent, turgid, florid, grandiose. Bombastic, flowery, pretentious, verbose all describe a use or a user of language more elaborate than is justified by or appropriate to the content being expressed. Bombastic suggests language with a theatricality or staginess of style far too powerful or declamatory for the meaning or sentiment being expressed: a bombastic sermon on the evils of cardplaying. Flowery describes language filled with extravagant images and ornate expressions: a flowery eulogy. Pretentious refers specifically to language that is purposely inflated in an effort to impress: a pretentious essay designed to demonstrate one's sophistication. Verbose characterizes utterances or speakers that use more words than necessary to express an idea: a verbose speech, speaker.

I've added this Dilbert comic as it reminded me very much of an incident at work last week.

For those who don't know, I'm a Risk Management consultant.  That means companies pay my company copious amounts of money (that I wish I got to see) to pick my brains and get me to do work that their managers can not or are unable.  Most of the time the staff at the companies I work for are happy to see me.

Incidentally I also work on IT governance projects.  I actually rather enjoy them, but there is one thing that I understand and that is that IT is strategically important in supporting a business to meet it's goals and targets.  However, IT is not more important that the business or the people who need to do their job.

Last week, I arrived at the Queensland subsidiary of a US based travel company.  I had actually been there previously and one of the staff members had no problems passing on the network address to let me do my job (which incidentally was assessing the success of one of their IT projects).  However last week I decided to do the right thing and let the IT manager hook me up.  Boy was that a stupid idea.

He decided that because I wasn't actually directly paid by the company it was "too much of a risk" to allow me to have access to the company's network.  He added, 'unless he scanned my computer' which my manager and I were happy for him to do.  But alas no.  This guy was so intent on preventing us from working for his company, that he wouldn't allow anything.

So, as a result, this guy slowed us down considerably, prevented us from effectively sharing the results of our work with the people in his company who we were working with and generally earned the disrespect of his colleagues.  He also managed to annoy the Americans I was working for, who happend to be from his company's head office, who happened to pass on feedback to the global head of IT about how delightful it was to deal with this guy.

The reason why he annoyed me particularly, as this was the opposite end of the spectrum of IT services from the last client I had worked with.  They had us online and supplied with all the equiptment we needed as well as had our computers scanned so we could safely use the network within about half an hour - possibly the best turn around time I have ever had.  Not only that, but having to work closely with their IT head, I had nothing but good things to say about the area, with the exception that I think he was a bit ambitious aiming for an IT executive in the particular organisation.

But bringing me back to the second company (the travel one), the attitude of the IT guy reminded me of Mordac, the Preventer of Information Services, who incidentally reminds me of some one in IT that I know in social circles and am grateful that I don't have to work with, as I imagine he'd be much the same.

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This is way too many people I know.  (It's also on my forward page).

When asked where you live you give the name of your electorate.

When finding out where someone else lives you say to yourself (or aloud) “Oh that’s in Bennelong/Eden-Monaro/Flynn.”

You can tell when there are 500 pieces of paper in a pile just by looking at it.

You have at least six different campaign t-shirts.

You have worked on a campaign in part so you could add another campaign t-shirt to your collection.

You actually understand the rules of parliamentary procedure.

You find watching Question Time more compelling than watching sport.

You watch Question Time and laugh along with the more humourous interjections.

You watch Question Time and shout things at the TV.

You have ever watched Question Time from the gallery.

You have ever watched Question Time AT ALL!

You owe about 20 people five dollars.

You have ever worn out a pair of shoes whilst doorknocking.

When there are rumours of a cabinet shuffle or leadership stoush you ring your friends to gossip.

When there are rumours of a cabinet shuffle or leadership stoush you start planning a move to another office.

You can name every Premier and state Opposition Leader.

You can name every former Prime Minister, including the caretakers.

You have a slightly conspiratorial opinion on what happened to Harold Holt.

Most of the insults you use for your friends/enemies have to do with their political affiliations.

The main reason you and your mates go out drinking has to do with politics.

You have ever been annoyed by the old people who have been handing out how to vote cards at the same booth for 40 years because "they're not doing it properly."

You catch yourself hoping for bad news you might be able to blame on the other side.

You become irrationally angry at the mention of an opposing politician's name.

You become irrationally angry at the mention of a friendly politician's name.

When you see groups set up for opposing parties you organize with your friends to "beat" them.

You refer to members of your party's caucus by their first names, and would never consider doing otherwise.

I've posted this lesson on my other blog...

What I did find instead was a US site about a forum of leaders.  I’ve been reading through their biographies and they’re actually quite inspirational.  It would be nice to find something more broad as well, but this will do for now.  www.achievement.org

My inner geek is in overdrive!  So many journal articles on economics and they're all free!

http://www.economics-ejournal.org/

I've just had to research Virgin for a work project.  If you head to this site and look at #6, I'd like to see more mobile companies offering this considering the dialing (and occassionally blogging) habbits of so many I know!

http://www.virginmobile.com.au/companyinfo/aboutus/ourtopten.html

This is a cool video of a box going through the UK mail system.

http://www.timknowles.co.uk/Default.aspx?tabid=296

Between this and shows like Mythbusters, it has made me think that we really are quite ignorant…  that and most of the information we have at our fingertips is really quite boring and useless.

I thought that I’d google popular myths just to combat my own ignorance for a day and have come across some fascinating stuff.  And most of the ‘myths’ when you think about it, really are counter-intuitive.  

Live Science has yielded some interesting stuff.  Starting with the fact that gum takes 7 years to digest – always seemed a little odd that our digestive systems slowed down for this one particular thing.  That the great wall of China can be seen from space (well it’s too narrow and just reeks of Communist Imperialist Ideology) and that we use all our brains not just 10% of them (any one who has learned anything about how different parts of your brain works, would know that we use all our brains, perhaps Einstein just meant that we only use 10% of the potential when he said this).

5 second Rule!

Snopes is more for popular legend than science.  Their 25 hottest Myths is interesting, but not earth shattering by any stretch.

Cancer Myths was interesting, not in the least because if you believe everything you hear almost everything causes cancer as well as cures it.

Digg seemed good for science stuff again.

Next I looked at History Myths, as it seems like another branch of knowledge in which ignorance prevails.

There are lots of sites devoted to particular moments in history but not too much of a general nature.

The Women’s History page from about.com was an interesting read, although does largely surround US feminist myths.

Although there wasn’t too much else that grabbed my attention.  I also tried looking at myths about other cultures, especially after living in Japan, which is not as many would advocate, but there were few results for general resources.

Of course my favourite one is about the ability to ‘fire walk’ – which is not firewalking, it’s walking on hot coals, and the pressure from your feet forces the heat away from the surface.  So nothing to do with being psyched and ready or spiritual or the like. 

Obviously there was the usual bunch of dribble about myths regarding Global Warming, the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and other various conspiracy theories, but what the heck, there’s a whole lot of stuff out there to get us out of our comfort zones and into actually understanding the world and culture.

Aboslout offer free downloads of some fairly big artists.  There's not a huge selection and I'm not entirely sure how how often it's updated.  But it's free and it's legal.

http://absoluttracks.com/

I've started typing in random words into google as I have no idea how people find amusing sites I've never heard of.  My bunnies search has yielded a very amusing site of bunny animations...

http://www.angryalien.com

Video camera - $600
 

Barbie pedal car - $120.00
 

Explaining to hospital staff that you injured yourself in an accident while "drifting" the Barbie car in the wet.....priceless 
  
 
 
 
 
 

On my links there is one to a site called the edge, which is quite interesting if you like things that are a bit intellectual.

As I'm slowly catching up from being away for two weeks (and preparing to be away again next week) I've just had a quick look at their email which had a link to an interview with Philip Zimbado.  He was involved in the Stanford Prison Experiment that I've blogged about recently.

The article does reflect on the prison experiment, but it talks about the psychology of heroism and what makes some one do something where others do not.  Apparently these people often don't percieve themselves as heroes they just think they have to do what they have to do.

But if you can't be bothered reading the whole article (as it is long) I've cut a good quote from it:

Cultivating the heroic imagination involves just two aspects. First,  thinking of yourself as an active person rather than a passive person: thinking of yourself as somebody willing to get involved; to move off the safety spot of minding your own business; to take a decisive action when the world around you looks the other way. Second, thinking less about yourself, less about your ego, your reputation, less concerned about looking foolish, making a mistake, upsetting someone’ s apple cart, and becoming socio-centric – more concerned for the well-being of others or upholding a moral imperative. Perhaps it also entails a dash of optimism, so that you believe you have the power to change something bad by your actions.

And here is my greeting to you - feel free to put it in an email and pass it on.

Christ is risen

He is risen indeed

- From the Anglican Easter Service

I was reasearching Jane Austin after seeing Becoming Jane and was surprised to find a collection of a lot of her works avaible online for free download.  I've done a few searches online to find quite a few collections availible in pdf formats which can be read on the computer or prited out*.  And the selections are often more varied or broad than what is availble in book stores (although I'm not going to snub bookstores as I am yet to walk into one that doesn't have a good selection of classics).

http://www.riapress.com

Classical works online, with a strong nautical them, but includes the works of Jane Austin and some significant works for early Australia.

http://www.planetpdf.com/free_pdf_ebooks.asp

Planet PDF has a good variety of works from a number of eras, the site also seems to have some useful pdf tools that can be downloaded.

http://www.poemhunter.com/eBooks/

Poem hunter has a brilliant selection of poetry for those interested in this genere - I'm not a poetry fan but it's diverse enough for there to be something for every one regardless of your favourite types of poetry.

http://oll.libertyfund.org/EBooks/index.html

The Liberty Fund has a huge library on a number of fiction and non-fiction topics ranging from literature to theology to economics to politics and science.

http://www.virtualimprint.com/catalog.shtml

Has a small collection of Regency and early Victorian works.

http://manybooks.net

A wide variety of classic literature covering heaps and heaps of generes.  I'm exploring the mysterys and detective stories and there are too many to count!

*Often printing would cost more than purcasing classics which you can often pick up for as little as $6.

Psych students eat your heart out

http://www.prisonexp.org/

This is the details of a study into how normal people react in prison circumstances.  It's both fascinating and disturbing, but also draws parallels to modern situations that seem quite valid.