Sam’s Mediterranean madness salad

 Summer is coming!

 

·         1 x 330-500 ml container plain unsweetened yoghurt

·         half a cup of vinegar  (you choose, white vinegar is good)

·         two tablespoons of dried or fresh chopped mint

·         packet of pasta seashells

·         celery - say 6 big stalks

·         parsley - a handful

·         half a green or red capsicum

 

Start by mixing 

the vinegar and mint together and microwave them together (I throw it in for around a minute - you may want to manage it a bit better).  Let them cool. You might want to do this an hour or so before you do the rest.

Boil the pasta shells until are cooked.  Set them to one side to cool.

  

Chop the celery and parsley with the capsicum.  Chop them finely.

 

Mix the cool vinegar / mint mixture together with the yoghurt.

 

Combine the cooled shells, the vegetables and the yoghurt together. 

 

The salad should be tangy, tart and astringent.

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Suckers - the problems with Malls

The latest proposed expansion to St Luke's Westfield in Auckland is bad news.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10675209 

The residents are opposing on the grounds it's an ugly monolith. Canadian author Douglas Coupland (who wrote Generation X) said Malls are like the Emperor's new buildings. Because they are beautiful and exciting inside - apparently-  people tend to ignore the huge tilt slab exteriors as if they weren't there.

And while this is all true; they are very very very very ugly that's not the main problem. 

The artificial interior is also ugly, but in a much different way, but that's not the problem.

Another issue is the parking and the noise and congestion around where they go.  But that's not the main problem.

Then there's the long hours people are made to work - all businesses are forced to be open when the mall is, and in small retail that can be very long anti-social hours that mean that families and kids get neglected for low paying jobs. This is almost the biggest problem, but again not quite.

The problem is what it's doing to our standards of living. In New Zealand all the big malls are owned overseas. When I see a big mall I see a huge money vacuum cleaner that sucks money and puts it in foreign bank accounts. I can hear it sucking and almost see the the notes and change out of the roof and into the sky. Next time you get near a big mall, blink three times to wash away the magic pixie dust and  see if you can see how ugly it is. Then stop and listen carefully and see if you can hear New Zealand's future being vacuumed up.

The rents for the businesses in them are high and often the staff inside are paid very low wages while the goods fetch premium prices... and then all the profits are sucked up and sent offshore.  The earnings are 'repatriated' and sent to Australia or wherever.  Actually it is Australia.  So all this spending is going offshore and worsening our balance of payments and making New Zealand even less profitable than it already is. The more malls and the bigger they are, and the more we shop in them, the lower our standard of living, especially so if you're a serf that works in one. It gives the phrase 'shop till you drop' new meaning.

I'd like to put a tag here - 'steps along the road to banana republic status'. Really the big sucker here is us. 

 

 

 

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recipe: Indian Summer bacon cabonari

 

 

4 bacon rashers

200 gm mince

6-8 capsicums (or substitute some broccoli)

250 gms sour cream

4 mushrooms

2 tablespoons ready made mild mustard or equivalent

mustard powder made up.

1 teaspoon rosemary

1/2 teaspoon sweet basil

cracked black pepper to taste

500 gm packet of pasta.

Other vegetables.

 

Chop the bacon into rough pieces, 2 cm square and fry

with mince.  Fry until browning, but before they become

crispy.  Say ten minutes.

 

Put on the pasta while the bacon and mince is cooking.

 

Finely chop the mushrooms and add with the herbs and the

pepper.

 

When the mushrooms have also browned add the mustard, and

then when it has mixed through add the sour cream.

 

While this is cooking put on any other vegetables you

intend to have.

 

Finally add the capsicums (and broccoli).

 

Let the mixture cook for 5 to ten minutes.

 

Drain the pasta and the other vegetables.

 

Serve together.

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Columns not up to Herald publication #1

This is unpolished and was never going to work for the Herald on Sunday or anywhere else. And now it's dated by the iPad release

 

We all know it’s been a long cold winter.  The surprise this week is that there's probably ood reason.  According to NIWA, the New, um, International Weather Authority or something, Hell has possibly frozen over.  Well NIWA says they don’t know. Some El Diablo or something from South America creating, unusual, isobaric, influences…. Actually it doesn’t matter what exactly it is in weather terms. The discussions have turned to the place where science meets Women’s Magazines: it’s a religious omen. 

 

Seeking sense I decided to see what New Zealand’s main religions could offer to explain the phenomena. What I sought ways to stop the cold or at least keep warm. The first religion I turned to was Rugby; New Zealand’s orthodox church. Bishop Henry believes it is because people have lost faith.  Apparently the worship of false Gods; Netball, league and, apparently soccer has caused severe upsets in the heavens. Now fully a third of the population are not worshippers any more and unless we return to being rugby-fearing the weather will only get worse.  His answer was to watch more rugby, buy tickets to the world cup and wear black.

 

The devotees of Apple and things beginning with small ‘i’ s have a strong code; the problem is personal,  Nirvana will be achieved when we all have Apple everything.  Currently awaiting their next major religious festival – the arrival of the iPad – the AppleMac-ites aren’t eating, sleeping let alone thinking about the weather. I tried to question one disciple but had to let him talk for 37 minutes about the arrival of the iPad, the models and their capabilities, which store he’s going to camp outside, and how early he thinks he’ll need to be to get one before Bevan.  Breaking his religious euphoria by asking whether it was a virus on a Mac that stopped the aliens in Independence Day, I asked about hell freezing over. It seems in Mac worship the idea of buying a PC and hell freezing over are linked.  

 

The new religion on the block and one that will be interesting to track in the 2011 Census results is Social Media.  While there are many sects in Social media the three largest; Facebook, LinkedIn, and the Tweeps have very few shared views on anything.  The key tenet of faith is that social media is the future, it’s all about social media and the rest of us don’t get it.  I put the question of Hell freezing over to a range of congregation members and all I got back was some virtual crops; a connection to a marketing manager in Tucson; and a 140 character rave about how stupid I was for not having full time staff on Twitter. I did get some responses on hell freezing over but the messages went back to comments about what’s for dinner and a quote from Shirley Maclaine. 

 

I did also look at web pages devoted to the Holdens and the Fords, the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of Westie-based religions. Both worship declining quality Gods which apparently both handle better than the other in bad weather, so more a religion to cope with, rather than address, the cold.

 

The Homeopaths, a religion devoted to medicine not working, believe the way to freeze hell over is to drop a lighted match in it. Conversely if it is cooling dropping a splinter of an ice cube will keep it as a blistering inferno.  Didn’t seem right to me but then I’m not a believer.

 

In the final analysis there should be signs that confirm that hell has frozen over. 

The signs I’d be looking for are, for example, Rodney Hide being in Cabinet, New Zealand beating the world champions in the Football World Cup, TVNZ admitting they were wrong and rehiring Mike Hosking, and the Coach who lost the last Rugby World Cup coaching the All Blacks in the next one.

 

 

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Herald on Sunday columns

I've got a 4 week gig writing columns for the Herald on Sunday.  'That guy' Leigh is away so I've had an opportunity to get back into writing humour. The Herald on Sunday is newspaper of the year and I have to say I always enjoy getting it as it is a good read.

Felt a bit rusty and I'll be sad when the last one is in this coming week, but it's been good.

This week: Vampires - when did they become the goodies?

http://tiny.cc/027lp

Last week: A  bit on fflexible working conditions

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10656294

Two weeks ago: Kiwi sports fans can ditch their bad-weather gear

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10654688

I've really enjoyed the stint. I haven't done my best work I have to say, re-reading older columns I don't feel as funny as I used to, BUT as I said I am rusty and instead of repressing my take on issues I need to get back to writing things down as they occur.

 

 

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The dreaded new computer

Changing over computers should be easy. Buy a new one plug a cord from old to new, push 'new computer' and in a few minutes, maybe an hour, the new computer will start and look like your old own with all the files in the right place, connectivity set up, email running etc........ the same but better.

Instead.... days of heartbreak and hours of fevered hunching and stress.  Missing passwords, thinks that just won't work, lost files.

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the dreaded new computer

 Changing over computers should be easy. Buy a new one plug a cord from old to new, push 'new computer' and in a few minutes, maybe an hour, the new computer will start and look like your old own with all the files in the right place, connectivity set up, email running etc........

Instead.... days of heartbreak and hours of fevered hunching and stress.

nice post from 'Where's my Jetpack' blog

I tried to share this but all the share button offered me was the video embedded in the blog. so here it is:

 

http://wheresmyjetpack.blogspot.com/

Monday, May 03, 2010

Social Media Mission Control

 

Sold on the idea that they absolutely just have to be involved in Twitter, Facebook and probably Foursquare at this point, businesses still fail miserably when it comes to social media. It's not really their fault. I blame the clowns at the agencies who made them believe how important it was in the first place.

I tweeted recently about my disappointment with my insurance company - by name. (Hint: You're not really in good hands with them.) Within a day and a half, which is a long-ass time in social media, I got a reply on Twitter, though I'm sure they thought they were being quite timely. It was a very bland and corporatey response, something to the effect of, "Sorry. How can we help?" But the truth is, that's all they could say. Unfortunately, there is nothing they can actually do to help and they know that. They sent an adjuster out to the house who denied my claim, so I said they sucked on Twitter. Is their Twitter Response Team going to overrule the adjuster? Of course not. They responded just for the sake of responding, to avoid looking like an uncaring corporate entity with little regard for their customers' petty complaints. They call it Brand Reputation Management, which is a nice way of saying "Spray the Dog Shit with Lysol." It will stop stinking for a little while and maybe people will walk through the room and not notice it. Eventually it will dry up and stop stinking altogether.

I'm sure there are others out there who griped about an airline and maybe got a few free miles out of the exchange, but those cases are rare. Personally, I'd rather go back to the days (two years ago) when companies just let the complaints happen, not worried what one little tweet was going to do to their brand. One little tweet won't do shit to your brand, unless it reflects a huge and catastrophic fuck-up on your company's part, like maybe you lost a child on one of your airplanes. You got sold on "Being in a Conversation" with your customers, which is utter bullshit. You may now appear to be in a conversation, but you don't give a rat's ass anymore than you ever did. There are other insurance companies, but this one gambles that I will probably not go to the trouble of switching to another just because I have to pay for my own claim now. They're probably right, but their fake caring response had nothing to do with that. They should stop worrying about it and stop pretending to care.

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Where's My Jetpack?

via wheresmyjetpack.blogspot.com

When I clicked share all it would post were the imbedded videos off the site so I have cut and pasted this from http://wheresmyjetpack.blogspot.com/

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Angels and Demons - movie comments

I would have put 'spoiler' on this but really you can't spoil this movie, that would be the equivalent of rotting plastic fruit.

I watched this movie last night - it was on and I was in front of the TV. 

Knowing very little about the fabled Illuminati turned out to be far too much to watch this film.

The movie makers (as Dan Brown's book has different events) want us to believe, among many other things, that:

1)  a man branded with hot irons, on his chest, could half an hour later run, fly a helicopter and then parachute onto a square in an urban area.

2)  an elderly man branded on his chest with hot irons then weighted down underwater for a minute could appear on a balcony and talk to 200,000 people within 12 hours.

3) the College of Cardinals could have 4 votes for a new Pope within 12 hours.

And to quote a line in the movie: May God have mercy on all our souls.

 

 

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Nothing to do with work - SamNZed's peanut chews

 

115gm (4oz butter)

60 gms (2+ oz ) cocoa powder

2 eggs

230 gm (8+oz) caster sugar (Maybe use some brown?)

1 tsb vanilla essence

Cup of cornflakes

Tablespoon milk

4 tablespoons crunchy peanut butter

55gms (1 and 3/5ths ounces) plain flour

 

Cream butter and sugar – add eggs, cocoa vanilla, cornflakes, milk and peanut butter. Beat. Add flour. Use milk if mixture too dry – should be sloppy not solid.

Bake @180 C for 20 minutes (or until fork comes out clean from centre)  in a square tray.  Tray should have greaseproof paper

 

When cooked take out of tray and leave to cool.  Ice when cool

 

ICING

 

175 gms (6 ozs) Butter

500 g (1 lb) Icing sugar

3 Tspoons (or more!) cocoa or melted chocolate

2 teaspoons vanilla essence

2 Tablespoons peanut butter

 

Cream butter with icing sugar add vanilla and chocolate or cocoa mix, add peanut butter. Beat well. Icing will keep in fridge.

 

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Why I don't talk endlessly about my work - but just on communication without the s

I quite enjoy a lot of the perspectives I get on Twitter, Facebook, the news and blogs I read covering PR, internal communication, corporate communication, social media yada yada yada. BUT it's the industry I work in and I like to think about other things, many related, tangentially, and directly and others because they're funny.

I could try and write here everything I've learnt and experienced about communication but it would bore me, and if I'm bored it doesn't seem fair to bore you as well.

 Today though; trapped in my own pedantic enclosure: PR it's communication not communications.  Communications are phones, messages and computers and perhaps tactics of communication. Communication is strategic and about the art of communicating.  I have no sympathy for a PR marketing business who call themselves communications and get rung about computers or telephones. It might be they are only a communications company who wordsmith communiques and create design but really mostly people think they're in communication from a strategic perspective (whether they are or not).

Anyway if nothing else it is important to understand the language you're using because in thinking about it you can achieve greater clarity and generate work with more value.

Communications

Communication

and stolen from Nasa

askmagazine.nasa.gov/.../25s_communicating.html

 

 

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