With respect to the off-hour IP clause nonsense, suppose you've signed one of those things but also gotten explicit written affirmation from the CEO that they don't give a rat's ass about your blog or book contracts or custom search engines or databases or contract work or open-source code that couldn't meaningfully compete with the company's actual business and that it's just a catch-all to ensure that if you do steal proprietary info then they're covered, and that they explicitly don't want you to actually notify them with all your new "ideas"; does such a clause still have any legal teeth you need to be wary of?
If they're willing to give that explicit affirmation, I'd be surprised if they weren't then willing to put in the contract (either by explicitly limiting the IP clause to specific things, or from certain things).
I've gotten resistance on this kind of thing once before; did a face-to-face with the person with the power (the board member acting as the temporary CEO) and they pretty much just wanted a vibe check that I wasn't trying to screw them over. Next day I got the contract back with all the alteration I'd asked for.
