FEBRUARY 27: FRANCE 21, WALES 16

ABIT of a mixed bag tonight. First off, we lost to France. Bugger. There goes our chance of the Grand Slam this year, although we could still win the championship and the Triple Crown. On the other hand, as the saying goes - "As long as we beat the English, we don't care". We've got Italy on March 14 and Ireland on March 21, neither of which I'll be able to listen to (bastards!) but at least my sister will be at the Ireland game and will take lots of photos. Won't you, Lou?

I WAS checking my hit stats earlier and saw that I'd reached the magic number. If that doesn't make the site more than 58% evil, I don't know what will.

DURING a quiet period at work today I was reading The Onion (which is a bad thing - as Fridays are our busiest day, I don't want quiet periods 'cos that means I'm going to be stuck in the office for longer) when this headline caught my eye. If you don't want to click the link, the headline reads "ATF Agents Closing In On Nation's Most Notorious Cigarette Bummer". Trouble is, "bummer" is British juvenile slang for a gay man, something that had me giggling into my tea. From what I can remember of primary school, "you're a bummer!" was one of the most-used epithets on the playground, at least until we started learning proper swear words. As none of us had a clue what bummers actually did, I always imagined it involved two men rubbing their arses together. Yeah, I was a moron. Sue me.

AND in sadder news, Wendy Richards - Miss Brahms from British sitcom Are You Being Served? - died a couple of days ago from breast cancer.

FEBRUARY 27: FECK THE IRB AND ITS BLOODY "INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT"

ONCE again a bunch of lawyers and marketing people have shat on my chance to listen to Wales in the Six Nations. For some reason the BBC can no longer broadcast games to America over the Internet, meaning instead of being able to hear Lee Byrnes' try I have to read about it. And to cap it all I'm going to miss the end of the game cos I have to go to work. Arse, arse, arse.

FEBRUARY 26

EVERY time I go to the Mobile station down the road I end up trying to make sense of this sign. I recognise the words, it's just that they don't make sense. Not all of them, obviously; everything from "Revolutionary" on is, well, adequate. But the bit that really buggers my mind is the top part. I just can't get my head around "The Latest German Engineered Technology Of A Soft Foam Wash". It's just... wrong. Shouldn't it be "A Soft Foam Wash With The Latest German Technology"? Or possibly "German Technology Brings You The Latest Soft Foam Wash"? How about "The Latest German Technology Brings You A Soft Foam Wash"? And what's with the "insure" good service bit... shouldn't it be "ensure"?

It's at times like this I wish I had something worth worrying about.

FEBRUARY 25: WATCH THE SKIS... ER, SKIES

SO TONIGHT I'm going through the photos of our journey from Vegas back to Long Beach when I come across one I forgot about:

WTF? It appears to be two nearly identical clouds. Here's some close-ups:

Not only are they very similar in shape, they also look suspiciously like aircraft (remember, we're not exactly that far from Area 51 here). I mean I know they're just a freak cloud formations and there's nothing supernatural/extraterrestrial about them but the first few bars of the The X-Files theme did go through my mind.

FEBRUARY 24/25: 101 REASONS WHY WORKING FOR A NEWSPAPER IS BAD FOR YOU

NUMBER 1: You get so bored waiting for the late story that you end up eating loads of chocolate. Thanks a lot, Burbank City Council.

FEBRUARY 24

IFINISHED Let The Right One In at about three this morning and it was worth every minute of lost sleep. Whether you read it as a love story in the form of a vampire novel or a vampire novel disguised as a love story, it's an incredible read. I've already seen the movie and it's amazing how much of the book was dropped for the big screen, but stripping away most of the backstory allows the film to focus on the relationship between Oskar and Eli, a relationship that's a million times more touching and romantic the the trite shit served up in rubbish like the Twilight books.

Although I know I'm going to read it again at some point, Let The Right One In joins a select few other books I own which I wish I could read for the first time again. It is excellent.

FEBRUARY 23: LOOK! ANOTHER COLUMN -->

AFTER much arsing about I've finally added a right-hand column, something I've been meaning to do for ages. The top part of the column shows the book I'm currently reading and is linked to its page on LibraryThing.com. I've had to extend the header to go all the way across and as I'm not keen on the stretched look to the font I'm going to redo it at some point. And James flew back to Blighty today and is currently somewhere above the Atlantic. Have a safe flight, matey, and drop us a line when you get home.

FEBRUARY 22: BACK IN THE LBC

WE ARE home after a six-hour drive across mountains and desert from Vegas to Long Beach. As threatened promised here's more photos of Vegas from Saturday night and some from our trip back this afternoon. First off, here's the Venetian:

The Venetian is probably my favourite hotel/resort/whatever-it's-called in Vegas. It's stunning inside and out and even has canals which you can take gondola rides on. God, I sound like such a bloody tourist. From the Venetian we started walking back up the strip to the Luxor, passing Harrah's on the way:

And Caesar's Palace:

The bloody streets were packed so I went into walking-around-London mode, which basically involves picking a straight line and sticking to it no matter who gets in my way. Further up the strip we passed the Cantina Diablo and stopped for a bit to watch some strumpet dance on the tables.

I'm sure she's only doing it to pay for college. Or perhaps antibiotics. By this point the three of us were pretty shagged out from all the walking so we stopped off at New York New York to blow our last remaining cash on the penny slots. All the casinos have exclusive nightclubs and "ultralounges" (WTF is an ultralounge? "Here's the ultralounge, over there's the supertoilet and through this door is the hyperkitchen") and they all have merchandise stalls:

New York NewYork's ultralounge is called Rok, although from the clientele lining up to get in it they should have dropped the pretence and just called it "Douchebags". Shit, they could have gone for an Irish theme and called it "Douche O'Bags" and arseholes would still line up to get in.

As you can see, I raked it in on the slots - my winnings from an initial $5 amounted to two cents. By now it was around midnight, we'd been on the go for 12 hours and the cigarette smoke was really getting to me - not only were my eyes killing me, I was starting to want one more and more. So we called it a night. Yeah, we're lightweights. I'll put the photos from our return trip up in the near future, as it's 11pm and frankly I'm knackered.

FEBRUARY 22: LAS VEGAS, 2.11AM

I'M GETTING too old for these late nights. Anyway, today kicked off at 11am with brekkies at the Luxor buffet after a refreshing six hour's sleep. A Vegas buffet is a sight to make a brave man weep; counter upon counter of food ranging from brightly-coloured cereal to cheesecake and everything in between - and you can go up get more as many times as you want (Flynn, when are you coming over?). Being the light eater I am I started the day with shrimp, bacon, chorizo and eggs, sausage, French toast, Spanish omelette, corned beef hash, scrambled eggs and potato cakes. And that was just the first plate. After I'd demolished a couple of slices of chocolate cheesecake and three coffees I felt almost ready to face a wander up and down the Strip.

We walked from the Luxor to the Excalibur next door. Now the Excalibur has a bit of an identity problem - it thinks it's a medieval castle but really it's a five-year-old's idea of a medieval castle. But we couldn't care less about aesthetics as we were out to hit the slot machines and, being the high rollers we are, we went straight for the penny slots. After doing our bit for the Excalibur's profit margin we braved the great outdoors and the Strip itself.

It's boring during the day, but the photo opportunities are still there. Here's the New York New York casino:

And here's its rollercoaster, which Ev once blacked out on:

"Hello? Is that Hot Babes? Could you deliver one to me please? Excellent. What's that? Do I have any preferences? Well... it's a little embarrassing... OK... Er... do you have a girl who'd be happy to dig her own grave at gunpoint? Hello? Hello? Did you hang up? They hung up!"

I really have to get a move on with this update as it's now 2.39am and I can't keep my eyes open. Above is the kind of photo where all you can think when you're taking it is "please let it come out, please let it come out".

It came out.

One of the ceilings at the Paris hotel and casino.

The lobby of the Paris. I suppose there are worse places to work.

We're waiting for the fountain show to start at the Bellagio and I'm doing the zoom-out-on-a-long-exposure trick. It came out pretty well given that my $260 105mm lens sticks around the 55mm mark. But enough of such trivialities - here's a couple of photos of the fountain show, which really are spectacular.

Remember that little video camera I bought last year? Neither did I.

"Hello? Hot Babes? I'm wondering, do you have any petite girls? Great! And would any of them mind dressing up as a French maid? You have one? Superb! There's just one more thing I have to check - will she fit into a 55-gallon drum of hydrochloric acid? Hello? Hello? They hung up again!"

Here's the strip at night. And with that, I'm off to bed. I'll put the rest of the photos up when we get back to Long Beach tomorrow afternoon. Honest.

FEBRUARY 21: LAS VEGAS, 5.06AM

WE MADE it, although thanks to leaving an hour later than planned we didn't check into our rooms at the Luxor until 3am. But before that we took a quick trip up and down the Strip.

After checking in and dumping our crap in our rooms we headed off to find food. Unfortunately there's only one place in the Luxor that's open for food at 3.50am:

Classy! We joined the queue and decided on our order, only for the staff to switch the menus around as apparently McDonalds starts serving breakfast at 4am. I settle for a bacon, egg and cheese McGriddle thing with an extra hash brown and coffee:

Just what my arteries need. Anyway, as it's currently 5.20am I'm heading to bed. I will hopefully do another update tomorrow (or technically later today) so stay tuned for more boredom thrills!

FEBRUARY 20

AS PROMISED here's the second part of James' trip. He got to drive through some mind-buggeringly beautiful scenery and as a result I've put an arseload of photos up. Because I don't know where most were taken I haven't bothered doing any captions.

You just know there's some wanker of a property developer looking at this thinking, "What that place needs is an overpriced gated community and some crappy chain restaurants". People like that should be shot.

James has obviously on higher ground here as there's snow, but as to where he is I don't actually know. And I can't ask him as he's gone to San Diego Zoo today.

Looks like he's heading towards the desert.

Death Valley. I think.

Fantastic stuff, and it's just made me determined to get out of Southern California and do a similar road trip. Or, preferably, just get out of Southern California.

IN BOOK news I've just finished In The Woods by Tana French, a crime thriller set in Ireland involving the murder of a young girl. I'd seen it around and wondered if it was any good before taking the plunge and shelling out $14 on it, and I'm bloody glad I did. It's been a while since a book kept me awake til 4am but this one managed it easily; by the time I was 50 pages from the end it took a huge amount of willpower not to start skipping pages - and I don't mean in a "get-on-with-it" sort of way. I've just fund out there's a sequel, The Likeness, out in hardback so I'll be picking that up at some point.

FEBRUARY 19

JAMES has returned safe, well and knackered after a 12-hour drive back to the LBC today. He made it to Monterey and then headed inland, coming back via Death Valley (which, he discovered, you have to pay $20 to enter) and Baker, home to the world's tallest thermometer. So without further ado here's a shedload of pics he took on his travels and a video of some elephant seals. I'll put part two of his trip up tomorrow as I'm wiped out.

Heading north on the 101.

His first overnight stop - the Hacienda Motel in Santa Barbara. Only $58 a night and he managed to talk the owner out of charging tax.

The Chumash Painted Caves near Santa Barbara.

Look at it. No baked concrete, no traffic, no pollution. It's only a bloody lane and it's beautiful.

Lake Isabella. It looks like home. Roll on May.

Back on the road heading up the coast. If you like elephant seals, you're going to love this next bit.

James shot a video of the seals and I remembered how to convert AVI files into Flash movies so here's 32 seconds of the England rugby team training some elephant seals doing elephant-seal type stuff:

This is gorgeous scenery. I can't get over how empty it looks compared to where we live. It looks a lot like Scotland.

I'm assuming this is or is near Big Sur. I'll have to check with James in the morning, so don't be surprised if there's a correction on here. Part 2 will be done tomorrow - for now I'm off to bed.

FEBRUARY 19

PICTURE a man going on a journey. It's a journey of huge importance, a journey undertaken in extreme discomfort and one that could make the difference between life and death for Ev's passenger seat. After what seems like hours of agony that man finally reaches his destination only to be confronted with this:

You are bloody joking me, right? Panic sets in but then I spot this:

"Aha," I think. I knock the door and wait for an answer. None comes so I open the door and step inside...

Momentarily puzzled I open the door and look outside. Yep, I'm still in Ralph's at the Marina Pacifica. Yet I appear to have entered some kind of portal to a world where there isn't toilet paper and piss all over the floor, where the soap and paper towel dispensers are actually full and where the bin isn't overflowing. And what's with the plant? I was so impressed I even bothered to flush.

FEBRUARY 16: i would have put these up last night but i was knackered

WE JUMPED at the chance to go to Griffith Park Observatory and headed up there on Saturday afternoon. It's set on a high hill overlooking LA and thanks to it being a holiday weekend was absolutely packed, meaning we had to park a mile or so downhill and walk back up.

Entry to the observatory is free so we went in and had a shufty at the exhibits, one of which was about the different ways astronomers can look at the universe. Here's me in infra-red:

But possibly the best thing about the observatory (or, to be accurate, its location) is around the back:

Griffith Park has stunning views across LA County pretty much to Santa Monica and the roof galleries were lined with photographers and people just enjoying the sight.

Here's downtown LA (click for the bigger version):

JAMES has headed off on his mini-tour of California. Thanks to the bloody awful weather he had to abandon his plan of hiring a Harley and instead is slumming it in a Nissan Sentra. I saw him off from the car rental place at about 12.30 this afternoon and received this text off him at seven:

Wagons circled in St Babs. Too tired to continue. US101 solid+carte1 turned out 2 b quite slo. Motl rm gud:-) but temp of boiling lead+only decaf 4 perc.;-)

I think he's in Santa Barbara, took the 101 instead of Pacific Coast Highway, and only has access to decaffeinated coffee. I can't for the life of me work out what "motl rum gud" means but frankly I'm just happy he's safe and not lost in Compton.

FEBRUARY 15

EV SPOTTED this bumper sticker in a pet store on Second Street and, after judicious application of a red marker, it's now adorning our fridge. We're off to the Griffith Park Observatory so expect some photos later. And thanks to Flynn for his well-reasoned and polite email congratulating us on our win over the English yesterday. But did he have to refer to the entire Welsh nation as "ovine-molesting"?

FEBRUARY 14: WALES 23, ENGLAND 15

AND it's there! England penalised themselves out of the game, true, but some staunch last-minute Welsh defending saw us hang on for the win. That's our Grand Slam and Triple Crown hopes still alive. My sis, who's at the game, must be over the moon. And it's great that little Siân's first game against the English ended with a win.

FEBRUARY 14

JAMES is sitting at the desktop PC, I'm on the notebook and we're both obsessively hitting the F5 button to get the latest score. So far it's Wales 23, England 15 with about 9 minutes to go. I've entered that stage of fandom known as "someone get ready to call an ambulance" - my palms are sweating, I'm wired, trembling, nervous, and petrified of refreshing in case England have taken the lead.

FEBRUARY 14

STUFF the International Rugby Board. Thanks to "rights management" we can't listen to the Wales v England match which is being played in Cardiff right now. I don't know why this is as I've been able to listen to the matches in previous years and it's pissing me off. James and me are "watching" the text commentary here but it just isn't the same. I do wonder whether England have signed some kind of exclusive deal like they did with Sky a few years back. Anyway, Wales are currently winning 9-8 and the second half's just kicked off. I'll be back with the good news/suicide note later.

FEBRUARY 13

BLOODY Valentine's Day. As usual I ended up heading to Borders in a last-minute panic as I'd forgotten all about it even though Ev had dropped subtle hints all week along the lines of, "I've got your card and present" and "What are you getting me for Valentine's Day?" and "Don't forget it's Valentine's Day on Saturday!"

It's not that I have anything against Valentine's Day, it's just that I feel I should be exempt from it. After all, I gave up my entire life to move out here and be with Ev - my family, friends, job, car, pet rats, house, books, CDs, videos, clothes... everything. If that doesn't give me a lifetime pass from having to shell out six dollars on a crappy bit of cardboard with some marketing drone's idea of loving words written in the middle, I don't know what would. Unfortunately the weight of social convention is against me (and I don't want to look like a total bastard) so I braved the rain and got her a card and a couple of pressies:

It's a toy wind-up monkey and a stuffed evil-looking cat thing (those of you who actually pay attention to my blatherings will notice it's the same one as my book magnet). In return she hastened my demise from heart disease/obesity by getting me a box of turtles:

Turtles consist of soft toffee with pecan nuts in it, covered in chocolate. They're only slightly less addictive than crystal meth and probably have about 500 calories in each one. Luckily I don't have an addictive personality, so I only ate half the box after taking this photo.

IN OTHER news James made it here safely. He's looking forward to listening to the Wales v England match which kicks off at 7.30am California time. Having an English bloke in the room when I'm listening should be interesting - usually it's just Ev.

FEBRUARY 11

THERE was a bit of life injected into the newsroom today when the police scanner blared out a report of a burning car in an Orange Street car park. Within seconds of a photographer heading for the scene the rest of us realised that our car park is in Orange Street and, car keys in hand, we all legged it outside.

Panic over - the fire's down by the Galleria a good block or so from our car park (and, more to the point, my Mini). Trusty mobile in hand I wandered down to the scene with the photo editor and took some pics.

The car that burned is the SUV with its bonnet up. The police think the fire was accidental and started by an electrical fault. Fun over, I headed to Subway and then back to the office.

FEBRUARY 10

FOR some reason I cannot go to a bookstore like Borders or Barnes and Noble and just look at books. At some point during my visit I have to dive into the stationery section and peruse the notebooks, journals, bookmarks, pens/pencils and so on. I have no idea why as nine times out of 10 I don't buy anything; we have enough pens to sink a battleship and I'm stocked up with Moleskine notebooks. Maybe it's some form of OCD I was previously unaware of. Anyway, the last time I made my predictable beeline for the Paperchase section of Borders I ended up buying a set of magnetic page clip bookmark thingies.

I've explained my bookmark situation in detail before but this is the first time I've used these magnet thingies. And to be fair they do the job pretty well. They don't fall out of the pages like a normal bookmark, they don't tear or disintegrate, Flynn can't vandalise them and they double up as cool fridge magnets. It can look a bit incongruous to have a pink cartoon cat marking my place in a book about, say, the Yorkshire Ripper, but as I once used an alcoholic transvestite chain-smoking Superman to keep my place in a biography of Himmler I don't think this really matters. Exactly how long it'll take me to lose all four magnets remains unknown but my money's on sometime in May.

FEBRUARY 9

I'VE noticed recently that many of the Americans I know can't pronounce little Siân's name properly. I've tried a few times to instruct them - "It rhymes with 'barn'"; "Remember the Shah of Iran? It's like that only with an 'n' at the end"; "just call her Rose" - but I don't think I'm getting anywhere. Anyway, above is one of the latest photos Lou sent over. I have a feeling dad took it.

AND here's some more snow photos. Why there's what appears to be a snow seal next to the Hoarwithy sign remains a mystery.

FEBRUARY 8: FUN WITH BOKEHS

SO I MADE another couple of bokehs - a heart-shaped one and a squiggle - and, along with the star one, tried them out on the streetlights. They worked perfectly:

Sweet. I'm going to have to take these out next time I do some night shots.

FEBRUARY 8

AFTER coming across this article last week I've been dying to make my own bokeh and try it out on different light sources. "Bokeh" is sort-of the Japanese word for that part of a photo that's out of focus, usually the background which usually has blurry highlights. And it's those sparkly, blurry bits that this technique takes advantage of.

First of all you'll need some stuff: black 8.5x11 card, scissors, duct tape, sticky tape, a star-shaped hole punch, a pencil and a lens (sorry but apparently this doesn't work with point-and-shoot cameras). I picked up the card for 29c a sheet and the hole punch for $3.50, both from Michaels, a craft store in the Long Beach Towne Center (yes, it really is spelled like that). Anyway, here we go...

First off, draw around the lens barrel - it doesn't matter if the circle is a bit bigger than the actual lens - and cut out the disc.

Looks like all those years of watching Blue Peter paid off. This is where I hit the big problem - the hole punch I'd bough wouldn't reach to the centre of the card disc. After sulking for a bit I worked out a solution.

I punched the hole in the corner of the sheet, cut it out and put it over another disc...

...marked where the star was going to be, and cut it out. Then it was just a case of sellotaping the bit of card with the star in it over the hole.

The red comes from the cover of my notebook, which I used to protect the desk from my craft knife. That's the front part done, now it's time for the bit that goes over the barrel.

Cut a strip of card that's long enough to go all the way around the lens barrel and is slightly wider. Once it's wrapped on tightly seal it with duct tape.

Here it is on the camera. Try to have the card overlap by about an inch as you don't want any stray light getting in. Now it's time to attach the front part.

At this point I was left wondering how to attach the front to the card sleeve. I ended up cutting some short strips of card, taping them to the disc, bending them back over the barrel and taping them on. This left some gaps so I covered those over with duct tape.

Here's the completed bokeh on my XT. I don't think it'll win any awards for neatness but it should work. Apparently the trick is to use a very shallow depth of field to blur the light source so it'll conform to the shape cut in the disc. I decided to use some candles for the light source, put the XT on manual focus and selected an aperture of f/2.2. It was then just a case of moving closer to or further away from the candles:

Not too bad for a first attempt.

This is more like it. From what I can tell the star shape appears sharper the further back you are from the lights, but personally I like the blurred edges. It's still daylight but as soon as it gets dark I'm going to try it out on some streetlights. You have to admit it's a pretty good effect for an outlay of about $11 and 20 minutes' work.

Now that I think of it, there's no real reason this wouldn't work on a point-n-shoot, as long as it's one that looks like a DSLR, such as a Fuji S9000 or a Kodak Z980. As long as you can set manual focus and get a shallow depth of field you should be able to get the same effect.

FEBRUARY 8: SCOTLAND 13, WALES 26

AND we're off to a great start in our defence of our Grand Slam title by hammering the Scots. I didn't get to hear the game but from reading the match report we were all over them from the start, with two tries coming in the first eight minutes. Lovely. The only real worry is Steven Jones' inability to kick a penalty or conversion, something that might be the decider in our meeting with England next week and something that's a cause for concern. I'm hoping he just had a crap game and will be back on form by Saturday.

ISPOTTED this gorgeous 1955 Studebaker Commander yesterday and nagged Ev until she dropped me off so I could get some photos with the Chocolate.

I'm going to have to go back with the XT and get some better photos of it. And talking of better photos, I took this one of the full moon last night:

The camera was set at f/9, ISO 100, 1/125s. I gave the photo a once-over in CS3 and it came out OK but I still need more practice.

FEBRUARY 7: FREE CAT

SO WE get up this morning to discover that Emric has topped his recent wire-chewing escapades by taking a bite out of the piece of beef Ev was defrosting on the kitchen counter and then throwing up over it.

Short of putting him on a sheet of wood and setting him adrift off the pier, does anyone know why he's doing this? And, more to the point, does anyone know how we stop him from doing it without resorting to physical violence? Answers on a postcard here.

FEBRUARY 6: CAT FOR SALE*, TWO PREVIOUS OWNERS, ALL OFFERS CONSIDERED

JUST a few short hours ago these pieces of ravaged wire were a pair of iPod earbuds living a life of happiness and leisure. On the bright side, they're Ev's - mine are on my desk at work. Then a certain cat who shall remain nameless (the little orange bastard Emric) chewed them to bits. The question now is what to do about it, given that this is the second set of aural equipment he's wrecked in two days.

My plan, drawn up after careful consideration of all the available options, involves kicking Emric so hard in the arse that I could wear him as a slipper**. After a few days of wearing him around the place he'll probably be a bit manky and ragged and smelly, at which point I'll remove him and sling him in a dumpster. Which will then be fired into the sun.

*Unfortunately this isn't true.

**Ev would like me to make it clear that animal cruelty is not funny and poor little defenceless booboos like Emric should never be harmed, even when they do repay your love and care by eating your speakers, puking on your carpet and pissing in the sink.

FEBRUARY 6: GMAIL FREEBIES

GOOGLE is giving away free Gmail stickers - all you have to do is send 'em a self-addressed stamped envelope by Valentine's Day and they'll send you the stickers. Details here.

FEBRUARY 6: "I'LL BELIEVE IT WHEN I SEE IT..."

YEAH, I was wrong. For once the prediction of rain came true and it chucked it down all day and night, making for driving conditions best described as "a pain in the arse". It's still snowing in Britain so James - who's coming out next week in a desperate attempt to get some sun - sent over these photos of the snow near him... and made me even more homesick:

To be honest I'm not homesick enough to drive in snow - fighting my way through the gaggle of SUVs and and minivans on the bloody 710 is bad enough.

IF YOU'RE ever in Orange County near Placentia and you're in the mood for pizza, make a beeline for Tony's Little Italy. I admit to some bias here as it's owned and run by our friend's dad but Christ, these are the best pizzas in the universe. These are not your average thrown-together-by-a-stoned-monkey pizzas, they're the closest thing to authentic deep-dish Chicago pizza outside of the Windy City. They're freshly made by hand and take the best part of 45 minutes to cook, a sure sign you're getting a quality pizza. If you don't believe me, here's a review.

FEBRUARY 5

THIS is currently my favourite photo of Siân. I don't know why but it just cracks me up every time. And many thanks to El Flynnderosa for sending over these photos of the snow near him:

Speaking of home, we have our vacation time sorted out so I'll be back in God's country at the end of May. Me and Ev already have a list of places we want to visit and are busy planning out exactly how we're going to fit it all in. But rest assured of one thing - I'll be taking plenty of photos to bore the crap out of you with.

FEBRUARY 4: EMRIC MOVES YET ANOTHER STEP CLOSER TO A SLOW, PAINFUL DEATH (AND SOME OTHER STUFF)

WELL I suppose it's my own fault for leaving my speakers on the coffee table. I mean, how was I supposed to know that a certain orange ball of fur was going to make a meal of the wires?

DOES anyone know what this car is? I spotted it on Shoreline Drive on my way to work and tried to get better pics of it but my bloody phone locked up as I took 'em. Typical. Anyway, from a moving car to a stationary one: mine. Thanks to a smash on the 710 it took me over an hour and a half to get to work in 85-degree heat. Then I made it to the crash site:

"That doesn't look too bad," I thought.

"Ah."

FOR those of you aware that there's a world out there, you might have seen news reports about the weather in the UK. In a nutshell: it's been snowing. London's come to a standstill, six million people didn't go to work yesterday and schools all over the country have had to close. Dad sent some photos over:

They're forecasting rain this weekend for Southern California, but I'll believe it when I see it.

FEBRUARY 4: SIX NATIONS PREVIEW

SATURDAY sees the start of the Six Nations, the annual rugby tournament held between Wales, Ireland, England, Scotland, France and Italy. As the reigning champions, Wales are out to defend the title (which I saw us win in March last year, a day which I now think of as "The Greatest Day Of My Life, Except That Time We Beat England At Wembley Stadium In '99") while everyone else is out to take it away from us. So without further ado, here's a rundown of our fixtures and how I think we'll do.

FEB 8: SCOTLAND (A)

Scotland are a pretty unpredictable team capable of being great one day and shite the next, not unlike a certain team who wears red and whose name resembles "Whales". The Scots have the home advantage this time around but I don't think it'll do them that much good. Prediction: Wales by a try.

FEB 14: ENGLAND (H)

Win, and a small green damp nation will be ecstatic; lose, and someone's going to have a hell of a lot of knives and razors to hide. I can't stand predicting this game as if I go for a Wales victory and we lose I'll have to put up with endless abuse from certain people (mentioning no names, Flynn). But if I think we'll lose and we actually beat the bastards England I'll be branded a faithless non-fan. So I'm going to chicken out and move on to the next game.

FEB 27: FRANCE (A)

We beat France in last year's tournament decider at the Millennium Stadium. but this time we're playing them in Paris. The French team does have a tendency to crumble if attacked in strength but can also play a good game of rugby when they're on form. It'll be close but I think we can do it. Prediction: Wales by a penalty. And this one kicks off on a Friday at 1pm California time, meaning I'll have to listen to it at work... should be interesting for the Americans in the office.

MARCH 14: ITALY (A)

Italy should be a walkover, but then again after our humiliating loss to them a few years back I'm no longer throwing terms like "walkover" around in relation to the Azzurri. Then again... it's Italy, for Christ's sake. Prediction: Wales by a couple of tries.

MARCH 21: IRELAND (H)

Along with England, the Irish are the other team to watch out for in the tournament. They're capable of some brutal rugby but equally capable of throwing games away for lack of discipline (see Wales v Ireland 2005 for a classic example). But I think this year they'll beat us, dashing our Grand Slam/Triple Crown hopes at the last minute. Prediction: Ireland by a try. Or two.

FEBRUARY 3

EV SENT me the above pic today. It is, apparently, a woman sunbathing topless. If anyone can put me up for a few days while I organise Ev's sanity hearing, that would be great.

FEBRUARY 1: FUN WITH FOOD (PART II)

WE WENT to the Superbowl party. At the party there was food. Lots of it. Sandwiches, chicken, ham, crisps, dip, salad, tomato halves stuffed with bacon and cheese... sorry, I'm going to have to wipe the drool off my keyboard. Anyway, at some point someone whipped these out of the microwave:

Then these made an appearance:

And then the inevitable happened:

The game itself was pretty good and didn't seem quite the commercial-laden bore that the 2006 Superbowl was. I was hoping the Cardinals could win it (I think it's that British thing of going for the underdog) and they almost did, but the better team won in the end.

Moving on to proper sports, next weekend sees the start of the 2009 Six Nations and another five weeks or so of cheers, tears, prayers and early-morning screaming-at-the-PC (I listen to the matches on BBC Radio Wales over the Interweb). As per usual my sis is going to two of the home games in Cardiff - England on February 14th and Ireland on March 9th - leaving little half-English, half-Welsh Siân to be thoroughly indoctrinated by her Welsh grandparents on both occasions. Lovely.