September 30
THE results of the poll are in, and it's not looking too good for little Maddy. A whopping 6,254 people voted (although the actual figure might be closer to 33) and 76% said we should train the cat by introducing him to Mr Chainsaw. I can't argue with the will of the people, especially as I might have to borrow money off them in the future, so here's what they wanted. The new poll is up, so vote away!
September 28
THE weather here's really weird at the moment. Weird to me, that is. I look at the calendar and it tells me we're four days from October, but then I look outside and my Welsh DNA tells me it's the middle of July. I can't get the hang of all this sunshine. Being British, I'm naturally pale blue and have to sunbathe for hours just to get white, although I've got a pretty good tan going at the moment (even though it stops at at my elbows and neck). So to come to a place where every day the sun shines and the temperature's in the 80s takes some getting used to. It does have some advantages, like you instinctively know it's going to be another T-shirt and shorts day without having to look out the window, but at this moment in time I'd kill to see some rain. I've even asked friends back in the UK to take pictures of rain (are you reading this, Blunty?) and send them over. Of course, the downside to having relentlessly cheerful weather is that it makes it impossible to listen to The Cure, which is a bit of a bugger when I've just forked out $25 for Trilogy on DVD.
I think the problem I'm having is that, for 32 years, I've been used to having four seasons - spring, summer, autumn and winter, although sometimes we skip summer and head straight into autumn. But California has two seasons, warm and bloody hot. I spent most of August hibernating in the fridge and here we are at the end of September and it hasn't cooled down. I've been assured it will, but at the moment it feels like I'm living in a furnace. Never in my life did I think I'd miss rain.
TALKING of cold weather, I remembered some photos I took back in my parents' garden in January. It snowed (not much, maybe a couple of inches) and the sun came out in one of those beautiful freezing-cold-but-very-bright days, so I shot out and took the pics below. Dad e-mailed them over to me on Sunday and I've put them up. Click an image to see the big version, but bear in mind that I've kept them full size (2048x1536 pixels) as to not lose any detail.
Yellow flowers (I don't know what they're called).
Grass (the lawn type).
A bird bath (birds not included).
September 24
IF YOU'VE watched as much daytime American TV as I have, then you need help. You've also probably noticed how many adverts there are for prescription medicine. I certainly have, and I'm beginning to think that certain channels (such as the Gameshow Network, number 72 on the remote) only exist to advertise the lastest cure-all pill that's been knocked up in a lab by spotty men in white coats.
One that's caught my eye is for a drug called Altovis, which is described as a "once-daily tablet to fight fatigue". It's obviously meant for people who stay up too late and haven't realised that the easiest thing to do if they're knackered in the morning is ring their boss up and tell him they're taking the day off. The TV advert says Altovis provides something called "quality energy", which I have to admit got me worried. What exactly is quality energy? How can I be sure that I'm getting my fair share of quality energy? I mean, if I scratch my arse, that uses energy, but how do I know if it's quality? Maybe it isn't - maybe scratching your arse uses only normal boring energy, and quality energy is what you use when you rescue kids from a burning building or lead an expedition up the Amazon to fight giant anacondas. I don't want any old energy - how do I know how good it is? Can you interview your energy to make sure it's got a degree and is of sufficient quality in case you have to get a kitten out of a tree? I am gutted that the 20 or so spoons of sugar I get through in my cups of tea every day aren't providing me with quality energy and I've contacted my attorney to begin legal proceedings against the entire sugar industry for not giving me the quality of energy I deserve.
The other thing I love about the drug commercials is that they're always showing pictures of happy people walking along the beach or running through sun-dappled fields, which makes me wonder what they're suffering from. Whatever it is, I'd love to get it if the symptoms involve having as much fun as these people are. The guiding rule of these ads seems to be "never, ever actually show an ill person".
Then there's the downside to all this light and happiness: the side-effects. There's a couple of commercials where the list of side-effects takes the voice-over guy longer to read than the benefits did. Of course, this bad news is delivered over shots of happy people playing in a swimming pool or riding their bikes down leafy lanes. "Just look at the pictures," the ad's saying. "Forget that our new wonder drug can cause your eyes to bleed or boils the size of golf balls to appear on your face, just look at the smiles!" It's Disney in a pill bottle.
September 22
THIS is one of the finest creations ever to grace the face of the planet. It's a joystick that plugs into the telly and lets you play arcade classics such as Galaxian, Pac-Man and Rally-X. We picked one up in Target last week and haven't stopped using it since. Ev's fave games are Pac-Man and something called DigDug, but there's not enough explosions in them for me so I've been rekindling my love affair with Galaxian. It's great not to have to chuck 10p in the machine every time you want a game, and playing on a 54" TV is something else again.
But it seems I'm not the only one who's a Galaxian fan - Madoc did his best to join in the fun. It was too good to miss, so we got the video camera out and filmed the little bugger.
I'VE made a few changes to the site. I've altered the CSS positioning of the main section so the menubar won't go over the top of it any more. I've put a random-image script in so if you press "Refresh" (or F5) you should see a slightly different image appear at the top of the page. There are 15 in all - try to collect the set! And I've added a poll, so feel free to vote. I'll be doing a new poll once a week on whatever topic bubbles up to the surface of my mind (as and when it works).
September 19
NOW it seems to be working OK. If anyone's actually reading this, please mail me if you can't see the new-look graphic at the top of the page. I'd appreciate it, and remember - you'd be saving the cat from being kicked across the room.
September 18
I'VE been redoing bits of the site tonight. In fact, if you're wondering where the graphic at the top of the page has gone, you're not on your own. Although I can see it fine in Dreamweaver, for some reason the page on the server doesn't show it. If anyone can help me with this problem - I honestly don't know why it's doing it - email me if you know the answer. Stupid, stupid websites.
1pm: Well, it seems to be working now...
1.20pm: Nope, it's packed up again...
Talking of stupid, there's a new video of Madoc. Its working title is "Cat meets videocamera lenscap", which is a bit long so I might rename it "Tard!"
September 15
BLOODY hell I've been lax in updating this site, and I apologise unreservedly to my reader(s). In case you've been wondering what I've been up to over the past 10 days, here's a quick rundown:
September 7: Went to the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles to pick up my work permit. As the appointment was at 8am and it's a 22-mile drive, like all good Californians we left plenty of time to get there - two-and-a-half hours, to be precise. Yes, in order to be 22 miles away at eight in the morning, we left the apartment at 5.30am. This is mainly because we had to take the 405 freeway for part of the way. It still took 45 minutes to get there, thanks to some inconsiderate sod who decided to spin off the road and crash.
Downtown LA isn't a place you'd want to go unless you have to. I have no doubt that somewhere in Iraq there are soldiers thanking their lucky stars they got duty in Baghdad and not downtown LA. To put it simply, it's scary. We arrived at 6.15pm and had to find somewhere to park and eat brekkies, so we passed the Federal Building and continued down Los Angeles Street. Within 200 yards we were in Skid Row - I'm talking tents on the pavements, queues outside the soup kitchen, the works. While the raving leftie socialist part of me was disgusted that such poverty could exist in one of the richest cities in the world, the 0.01% of me that's becoming Californian screamed "Turn the car around and DRIVE LIKE A BASTARD!!!" Ev did a swift U-turn and we parked in the Los Angeles Mall, which is as welcoming a shopping centre as Ebbw Vale is as a tourist destination, and my mum's going to kill me for saying that.
We joined the queue and waited... and waited... and waited. About 7am they started to let us in through the metal detector and we headed up to the room where they dole out the permits, which contained about 150 people in various states of brain death. It's a bit like waiting in line at the supermarket deli counter - take a ticket and wait for your number. After an hour I started to feel queasy (I'd had a bug the weekend before) and left to get some air. The git of a security guard wouldn't let me back in, so we had to line up outside for another 30 minutes.
The second time around things went easier - if your idea of easy is climbing Mount Everest with no oxygen and chainsmoking all the way. I got another number and got back in the queue. As I got closer to the window I thought, "I'll be out of here in no time". Unfortunately I hadn't considered the impact one woman from El Salvador could have on events. After 25 minutes of her trying to communicate with the only two words of English she knew - "me" and "yes" - she was hustled off somewhere, hopefully to a firing squad. Then it was my turn. Yes, you've spelled my name right. Yes, my address is correct. What's this, another ticket? When does the show start?
I was on the final stage and I'd only been waiting a total of four hours. By now a paranoia had set in among people in the room, myself included - a fear of reaching the end only for there to be a fire alarm/emergency evacuation/alien invasion and we'd all have to come back next week. I got my photo taken and within five minutes I'd been called up to receive my Authorization to Work card. Clutching it in my hand like the Holy Grail I made my way downstairs and we were able to escape and head back to the relative civilisation of Long Beach, only stopping to stuff our faces at the local Denny's.
September 8-10: Slept, ate, smoked, watched TV, played computer games. In other words, back to normal. And I applied for a couple of jobs, which was painful as I haven't done anywhere near the amount of lazing around I was planning on.
September 11: Oh God, another INS appointment, this time to have my fingerprints taken. And it's at 8am again, a time which I thought had ceased to exist back in April. We had to go to Gardena this time, and as it's only 17 miles we left at 7am to be sure to make it. To be fair the process was far easier and more efficient than the work permit, although I had to get another numbered ticket and wait to be called out. The lady who took my prints - they're actually scanned by a computer - managed to bugger it up a few times and then put my place of birth as "England". I ignored this insult (you try explaining the difference between Wales, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland to an American) and waited patiently while she rescanned my hands. After only two hours Ev and I were out in the sunshine and heading to Denny's again. I think my prints are sent to FBI headquarters to be checked, so as long as South Wales Police haven't found the bodies yet I should be OK.
September 13: I got a reply to one of my job applications! Amazing! Unfortunately the job's in the city of Tracy, which is a five-and-a-half hour drive away. Oops. Next time I apply for a job I'll have to check which end of California it's in. As this was one balls-up I couldn't blame on the cat I had to send them a grovelling apologetic e-mail explaining I couldn't make it to the interview as it was too far. The idea of driving for almost six hours and staying in the same state brings home how huge the USA is, given you can get from Aberystwyth in west Wales to Ipswich on the east coast of England in under five hours.
September 14: What the hell's going on? I've got another job interview, this time down the road in Costa Mesa. Five applications, two interviews. When I passed my journalism degree it took me about 70 applications just to get one interview and then another 210 applications before I actually got a job. Now the buggers actually want me to work. I can't get my head round it. Anyway, the interview's this Friday afternoon so I'll post the results up here.
September 15: Slept, ate, smoked, watched TV, played computer games. In other words, back to normal.
So there's my mega-update. It's 1am and I'm off to bed.
September 5
WE WENT to my cousin's wedding yesterday in San Diego's Old Town (I think it's called "Old" because most of it was built before 1972). I drove as Ev's back is playing up at the moment, and as it's a holiday weekend over here the traffic was a bit of a pain in the backside. Actually, I use the word "drove" in its loosest possible form as the trip was more akin to being sat in a car park that has four lanes, signs and in many other ways resembles a freeway.
For some reason, people who live on the coast in Southern California use the weekends to go to other parts of the coast in Southern California. This strikes me as odd as it's a lot like living in Merthyr Tydfil and deciding to spend a couple of days in Aberdare. Unfortunately the only road available to them is the 405 which appears to be named after the number of hours it takes to get anywhere when using it. The picture above was obviously taken at about two in the morning as there are actually gaps between the vehicles.
It is possible to bypass some of the 405 by using the 73 toll-road where for about $3.50 Californians get to experience things they don't normally associate with driving, such as moving, not stopping and travelling at speeds of over three miles per hour. I used to be pretty dirisive of SUVs that came with DVD players and fridges but after six months of living here I realise that they're part of a basic survival kit necessary to remain alive when you're making a trip to the supermarket for ciggies and milk.
AS IT'S the start of a new month, I've started a new page. The old stuff is available through the "Archives" link on the menu to the left.
