APRIL 29

WHEN I snuff it, I want to come back as a cat. Owning three of the little sods has really been an eye-opening experience as to how easy a cat's life is. At least dogs fetch sticks and roll over; cats just sleep, eat, crap and, if it's Emric, throw up on the kitchen floor. Given that I get it in the neck for leaving the bog seat up I can see why a cat's life would be an ideal one. Even after dropping a load in the bathroom sink Emric is treated like a baby. As for Iestytn, nothing he does is wrong. Even eating the steak Ev cooked for me last night was cause for a laugh (unless you're me and reduced to eating a bowl of Rice Krispies, that is). Then again I could just come back as Madoc, in the space of six months go from scared kitten to fat stupid cat, but who'd notice the difference?

APRIL 28

SO, HOW much did I manage to get done on Wednesday? Well... not too much. Here's the list:

Thinking about it, it may not look like much but as I got the laundry done I'm pretty happy, especially as I was facing this when I got out of bed:

I guess I shouldn't have crossed off "phone mum" as she phoned me, but it's the same thing. Will I ever get round to washing and cleaning out the Mini? How do I know? And why am I asking you?

APRIL 26

I CAN be a lazy sod on my days off. Most are spent playing videogames or finding excuses not to do housework. But tomorrow there's a load of things I want to get done. So I made a list:

So how many things will be crossed off by the end of the day? Come back later to find out!

APRIL 24

TODAY I've been a journalist for exactly 10 years. Yes, on April 24, 1996, I entered the office of Celtic Newspapers in Cardiff and began my slow descent into cynicism, 12-hour days and crap pay. Although I've worked for four different papers in two countries, there's one thing I've noticed that seems to be common to all newspaper offices: the printer.

No matter which side of the Atlantic you're on, there seems to be a general view that the printer used for page proofing should be large, expensive, crap and programmed to jam 10 seconds before deadline. And it should use ink made from liquidised diamonds mixed with crushed black pearls, as that's the only reason I can think of for the looks we get when we ask for it to be replaced. Not that it ever is, of course. Oh no.

First comes the obligatory week-long period of having to shake the printer cartridge every time we want to print a page. Then comes another week of having to print broadsheet-size pages on letter-size paper using the advertising department's printer. Finally, finally, finally the cartridge is replaced, only for the bloody paper to run out two days later.

APRIL 19

I GOT accosted by another nutter in the alley where I go for a ciggie at work. I don't know what it is that makes me such a nutter magnet but it's bloody annoying me. Anyway, this one just went on and on about how bad smoking is and how I should give up immediately while I nodded and mumbled anything in my desperate hope that he wouldn't suddenly pull a knife on me. Eventually he wandered off to shout at the trees and I escaped back into the office.

APRIL 16

THIS is an open letter to Steve-o, the little git who's been nicking my bandwidth:

Dear Steve-o:

Hi! I'm Mut, the guy who runs PlanetMut, the site you're currently stealing bandwidth and leeching files from. I guess you must have checked your site at some point on April 15th as you've hotlinked to a different dirtbiking pic. If you check it today you'll notice the catshit is back. You can go on hotlinking my pics and I'll go on replacing them with pics of catshit. It only takes me 20 seconds and gives me a sense of enormous wellbeing.

So let's sort this out once and for all. If you really really really want to use one of my dirtbiking pics, email me and I'll send you a full-size high-res version. Hell, I have about 120 so there's plenty to choose from. But if you keep hotlinking, I'll just keep on putting pics of catshit up. Like I said, it's no bother to me. And I'll report you for file leeching, stealing bandwidth and copyright violation. I'm a journalist and I think it's safe to say I know more about copyright law than you ever will. Drop me a line if you want to sort things out.

I mailed this to him and I'm waiting for an answer, so keep checking back!

APRIL 15

SO TONIGHT I was writing the update about taxes (see below) when I decided to check PlanetMut's stats. I do this through CPanelX, provided by my host Blue Capacity. Anyway, the visits and hits are going well but then I noticed the bandwidth was up. Bear in mind that PlanetMut isn't exactly competing with Something Awful in terms of visitor numbers; it's doing OK but there's no reason why the April bandwidth should be so high. I checked the list of referring sites and there's a MySpace page in the list. I click the link and bugger me if the little sod who has the page hasn't hotlinked to one of my dirtbiking images. Here's a screengrab:

"Right, you little bastard," I thought. "I'll have you." So I hunted around the hard drive for an image to replace the biking pic. Suddenly a light goes on in my head - I took a pic of one of Emric's sink escapades a few months back. For those of you not in the know, it basically means I have a photo of some catshit in a sink. So with a bit of magic (well, not really) I replaced the biking pic with the poo and did another screengrab:

If you want to check it out - although if the 12-year-old retard has any brain cells he's probably replaced the poo by the time you read this - here's the url for his site: stupid moron's page. And a word to the wise - for Chrissake make sure your speakers are off 'cos this kid's got the kind of musical taste that makes your average 10-year-old girl look like a Classic FM fan.

AND now, back to our scheduled program:

WHILE driving to work in the rain yesterday I had a thought (it does happen sometimes). Ev has recently sorted our taxes out and it occurred to me that I really shouldn't be paying any. After all, the American Revolution was all about "no taxation without representation," right? And I can't vote. Therefore, by the Yanks' own argument, I shouldn't have to pay taxes. I shared this knowledge with my colleague Fred, and he argued that the Revolution was all about - and I quote - "kicking your Limey asses out of our country". I pointed out that if it wasn't for us "Limey assholes" he'd still be counting by carving notches in his testicles or whatever the hell our friends south of the border did before us Europeans turned up, and if he didn't watch it I'd spell his byline wrong. It's conversations like that which make the days just fly by.

APRIL 13

LAST night Ev took me out for a surprise trip. I had no idea where she was taking me, only that I had to be showered and waiting outside the apartment at 3.30pm sharp. She dutifully turned up at 3.45pm and we set off, only to return to pick up my camera, and I'm bloody glad that I did.

We headed north on the 405 and for the first time I got to see the Hollywood sign. The first part of the surprise was dinner at Pink's, a hotdog stand in LA that's been there since 1939.

Needless to say, the food was fantastic. Ev got a regular hotdog, a chili dog and onion rings and I went for the pastrami reuben dog with sauerkraut and chili fries. The diet Coke is Ev's. After stuffing ourselves senseless we got back in the car and headed on the road again. Ev drove up Sunset Boulevard - which is, to be honest, a bit of a dump - and into Beverly Hills, where she did a masterful job of getting lost in the winding roads.

After finding our way back onto Sunset and getting stuck in a traffic jam we came to the UCLA campus. By now I was wondering what the hell the surprise could be as I had no idea what could be at UCLA that I'd want to see. We parked up and headed to one of the campus theatres. Then I spotted a sign.

"Hang on a minute," I thought, "that doesn't half look like Bill Bailey's Part Troll show." And bugger me dead if it wasn't. Ev had found out that Bill was doing a gig at UCLA and had managed to grab two of the last tickets to see him. I was flabbergasted - Bill Bailey was the last person I thought I'd get to see live out here. It was a fantastic surprise and Ev had done a great job of managing to keep it secret for a week.

The show was superb - Bill was on top form and kept the audience in stitches throughout the show. Although I've seen pretty much all of it on the Part Troll, Bewilderness and Cosmic Jam DVDs it was still brilliant to see it live, especially as the last time I saw BB was in Cardiff in 1996ish (remember that, Mr Merritt?) He even did the Kraftwerk tribute, which is my favourite spot on Part Troll. We even met a couple from South Wales who were in LA on holiday. Although taking pictures was forbidden, I managed to get a couple of shots by guessing where to point the camera. I couldn't hold it normally as we were two rows back and right in the middle.

After the show we hung around outside and lo and behold Bill came out. He happily signed my ticket and posed for a photo with me. What a fantastic bloke, and what a fantastic night out.

APRIL 12

I'VE just finished playing Quake 4. Although I've owned it for months I only started playing it last week when the thrill of liberating Stalingrad in Call of Duty 2 wore off after the 356th time. While Quake 4 wasn't quite the shitfest that Doom 3 was, Quake 4 is more like a trip down memory lane but with $55 graphics. For example, you're walking down a corridor when you come across a ton of ammo and armour. Hmmm... could this mean there's some trouble up ahead? Yep. You walk into a room. The exit's locked. Four Stroggs materialise. Oddly enough, after killing them the doors unlock. Thanks, id Software - I haven't seen that since, oh, Quake 2. And that was in 1997. Let's face it, after Half-Life 2 trying to come up with a better game is like urinating into a hurricane and hoping you don't get splashed. I'm off to liberate Stalingrad.

APRIL 11

REMEMBER - only 263 shopping days to Christmas.

APRIL 8

THE Long Beach Grand Prix kicked off today, so we went to the Irwindale Speedway to watch the motor racing there. And a bloody good night out it was, with lots of cars, noise and crashes.

I have been slightly disparaging about NASCAR-style racing in the past - "accelerate, slow down, turn left, repeat 500 times" is how I've always thought of it - but fair play it was great.

I took about 350 pics, but about 320 of them are shots of a chain link fence in perfect focus with some brightly-coloured blurs in the background. So I took a pic of the sunset instead.

The races - there were five in all - were great, even if it took three attempts to get the fourth one started. And the hotdogs were pretty good too.

APRIL 4

I WAS sitting in traffic on the 5 freeway today near downtown LA when I spotted a plane emerging from the low clouds. "Stone me," I thought, "that doesn't half look like a stealth bomber." And bugger me dead if it wasn't. As I didn't have the camera to take a pic, I've spent literally seconds banging out this highly-accurate sketch:

So why was a high-tech state-of-the-art bomber flying over an urban area? Was there a terrorist threat? Were the godless Commies on the way? Had someone worn a "Bush Sucks" T-shirt in public? Nope - it was sent up to celebrate the first day of the baseball season.

APRIL 3

OK, there's now the best part of 200 postcards up, meaning at some point I'll have to reorganise that section. But if you want to see the new ones, they start here.

AND a shout out to Darleene for plugging my makeover of Ryan's car. Thanks, Dar, and next time I pick a victim I'll let you know :-)