JULY 26

IT COMES to something when the weather forecast in the paper says words to the effect of "There'll be a respite from the heat tomorrow as it'll only be 94 degrees". Yes, it's been abso-bloody-lutely scorching over the past couple of weeks with temperatures hitting 112 degrees. And it's been HUMID. Basically, you know it's bad when even Californians are complaining about the heat. But spare a thought for my parents - it was 85 degrees in their living room at 10pm last night. And they don't have A/C.

JULY 23

FOR your viewing pleasure, here's some pics of Mexican TV:

JULY 19

MEMORIES... Sometime in 1991 Blunty comes to visit. We go to the pub, get wrecked and stagger back to my parents' place via the chip shop and offie*. Both of us pissed out of our minds, I go down to the garage for a fag while unknown to me Blunty gets it in his head to empty my underwear and sock drawer and throw the contents out of my bedroom window. At 7.30am I'm awakened with a raging hangover by my dad wanting to know why my boxer shorts are decorating the bonnet of his Vauxhall Cavalier and where the interesting pattern of spilt beer on the kitchen floor came from.

*Offie = off license = liquor store.

JULY 16

I WAS going to do an update about the soul-crushing boredom of work today - about how I was in the office for seven hours but only had about 90 minutes of actual work to do, the rest of the time spent sitting around waiting for stuff to come in. But sod that - I had to call the police tonight. If you're both sitting comfortably, I'll begin.

I was driving back home on the southbound 710 doing my cruising speed of 87 when I noticed something in front of me. First I thought it was just the oncoming traffic's lights refracting in the crap on my windscreen, but then it dawned on me that it was a crappy old Volvo with no lights. I flicked my headlights on (brights to you Yanks) and he pulled over to the right, letting me past. Once he was behind me I noticed he didn't have any front lights either, not even those little sidelights that Volvos have.

Now I'm used to putting up with dickhead drivers here. The proportion is about the same as it is in the UK, but here people driving cars seem to do anything but drive their cars - they're on the phone, drinking coffee, reading newspapers. And of course Mercedes drivers, just like in Britain, are arrogant pricks. But in 16 years of driving I don't think I've ever seen a car doing 80 down a motorway / freeway with no lights. This pissed me off, so I called the police.

Calling the police is a lot like calling anyone else nowadays - you get put on hold. But I called and told them of the situation. Unfortunately I'd been on hold for about 10 minutes so by the time I got through the Volvo had got off the freeway at the Wilson exit and I was on Ocean. But I gave the cops the details, including the car's license number, so hopefully they'll nick the twat.

ONE of the things you can do when bored out of your mind on a slow Sunday at the office is find interesting stuff to read on the Internet. By far the most intelligent, well-written, fascinating, infuriating and funny blog I've ever found is The Religious Policeman. It's by a Saudi Arabian who pokes fun at every aspect of what he sees as the corruption - cultural, political, religious and economic - of his country by its rulers (who make the Taliban look like the Teletubbies) and its religious leadership. Unfortunately he's stopped writing now (and by writing what he did he put himself at severe risk of disappearing into one of Saudi Arabia's jails) but it really is worth a read. And, as you get more and more angry at the utter uselessness of its leaders and the fanaticism of its religious police, remember - these people are our ally. Scary, eh?

JULY 12

Insert sarcastic comment here. Then put link here.

JULY 11

WE WENT to a party at our friend's dad's house on the weekend. It was great fun and we had a really good day out. The party was Hawaiian-themed so there were even dancers there and I managed to get a pic of the fire dancer. But the whole Hawaii theme got me wondering - what would the equivalent be in Britain. I guess you could have an Orkney-themed party where everyone wears 20 layers of clothing, sits in the freezer and complains about the crap sheep harvest, or a Guernsey-themed party where the guests sit around counting their money and collaborating with Nazis. I would also plan a Isle of Man-themed party but I know absolutely bugger all about the place.

TODAY I had the painful duty of paying the winners of the World Cup Sweepstakes. Charles got $70 for his team of divers, Danette picked up $35 for coming second, Vince's Germans earned him $18 and Fred's Portuguese won him another $18. Well they would have but I spent it in the bookstore today, so I guess I'll be making a trip to the cashpoint before I can hand his money over.

JULY 10

THERE'S a load of new wallpapers up here.

JULY 9

I JUST finished playing Quake 4 again. It still sucks.

JULY 5

I'M AT a loss to explain this one. This is the first time "JDizz" has turned up in my list of referring sites and I'm buggered if I can remember replacing his hotlinked image with poo, which means only one thing: he actually wanted a pic of catcrap for his background. MySpace users - aren't they just great?

JULY 4

HOT on the heels of the incredibly successful "here's some pics from our trip to the old Spanish mission" entry, here's some pics from when I got trapped in the elevator at work on Sunday:

Here's the elevator's control panel after the thing stopped. See all those buttons? They were about as useful as a dead rat in a tampon factory. At this point I called Tammy, who called the fire department to come get me out.

This was my view for the next 10 minutes. I've heard about other people who've become trapped in elevators panicking but I was concerned with a) having no ciggies and b) the verbal abuse I was going to get off everyone else. Then Tammy called me back to tell me she'd just heard the report go out over the police scanner. Great.

The firemen turned up and shouted at me through the doors to see if I was OK. They went down to the basement (breaking a door down to get there) and used the manual controls to make the elevator come down. The door opened about 12 inches and I squeezed out. Fun and games all round.

The firefighters taped over the elevator doors to keep others out and headed off, leaving me to face a load of piss-taking when I got back to work on Monday.

JULY 2

HERE'S some pics from our trip to the old Spanish mission at San Juan Capistrano.

JULY 1

I THINK it's safe to say I've found the winner of this month's "Gayest Car in the Universe" competition.

And thanks to ABC Sports for putting a huge scrolling banner across the screen apologising to kids for the delay because of the England - Portugal game DURING THE PENALTIES. Morons.