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In my previous post I wrote that I had 13 points (out of 16) from the World Cup first round. In Saturday’s edition, the newspaper revealed that the leader (a veteran of Beat the Press sports competitions apparantly) had 14 points so I am currently in joint second place.

I got the winners of the first three knockout matches correct (along with everyone else I bet) so I am still in contention. Today’s other match might see that change, I bet I am in the minority for picking Portugal over Holland. But if they win I’ll be moving on ahead for the $100.

Yesterday the temperature at 10am was 100F. By mid-afternoon it was 113F. This morning, driving to San Diego, the west most part of the valley floor was 92F at 7.30 in the morning!!

But at least it’s a dry heat.

Today is Day Without An Immigrant day, where people in support of illegal aliens and other criminals will try to hurt the country by not going to work and not buying anything. Well, I’ve decided to show my support by, today, not buying anything from a store that is run by anyone with ties to an illegal alien. Not sure how I will determine that but I am sure they will appreciate my effort.

It struck me this evening that almost every Hot Dog on a Stick vendor I’ve ever seen has babes working behind the counter. I don’t think that its neccessarily that employ above-average looking girls, I think its the uniforms that at once glance are pretty gaudy and dorky, but on closer inspection seem to do a lot for the wearer. Or maybe its just the idea of meat on a stick.

(Ok, I can’t get the image to reduce in size no matter what I try)

So whilst I look for a job I’m enjoying the good graces of the State of California and a nice little cheque every week or two. Last week I got a letter requesting that I go to the local employment office for a personal job search consultation. Now I’m sure these people do a great job but I doubt any of them have heard about Java, J2EE etc let alone have any idea how to find a job. Typing in the local office, no problem. Someone looking for Struts on Tomcat – probably not. So I was thinking I might be able to have some fun watching them try to tell me how to do a job search. Yeah, I’ll give them the acronyms and my starting salary requirement and wait for them to give me the interview times.

On the way into El Centro this morning I was excited to see that the new Popeyes is now open – I just love that spicy chicken. However, this is a rule out here in these parts (I call it the 15th law of being a redneck) that says when anything new opens everyone must go there and forsake all other alternatives. And sure enough we went in for lunch and the line was huge and no seating available. Well, it will still be there in a few weeks and I’ll try again then.

On the way back after lunch, there was a fire engine and an ambulance outside Popeyes, and the medics were running in with a stretcher. Not the best advert for your first week of opening – I won’t have what he’s having.

This weekend was quite special for variations of weather. We had a day where it was in the high 70s, then a day and night with 30 mph winds. Last night it was down to 36F at 3 in the morning (I know this because I was up trying to persuade our large dog to let the little dog into the kennel so it didn’t freeze it’s bottom off).

Look, I’m British, so of course I’m going to talk about the weather!

Here’s my daily evening schedule when at the loveshack – don’t you wish you led my exciting life?

• Get home sometime between 4.30pm and 5pm
• 5pm – 6pm Watch Home Improvement whilst eating turkey sandwich
• 6pm – 7pm Watch Seinfeld
• 7pm Watch The Simpsons
• 7.30pm Watch yet more Seinfeld
• 8pm Play Fifa Soccer 2005 on my XBox
• 9pm Watch CSI/Law & Order/SVU/CI
• 10pm Watch CSI/Law & Order/SVU/CI
• 11pm Watch The Simpsons
• 11.30pm Watch Seinfeld, fall asleep

How is it that the most guys who spend their weekend off-roading in the desert look like extras from Deliverance, but the girls are usually hot looking runway-model types? Inquiring minds want to know!

For more dirt-people related articles, see this one on my MINI blog.

So here’s a hot topic where I live right now – should stores employ people who can’t speak any English? There are an increasing number of sales assistants who only speak Spanish and its getting to be harder for non-Spanish speaking people to get jobs, even McDonalds wants bi-lingual people. It has generated a lot of letters in the press: Anglos takes the view that this is America and the national language is (American) English and if you come live here you should learn to speak it; the Mexican view is that their culture is being suppresed and they should be able to do what they please. Of course it makes sense to hire bilingual people when your customer base is at least 50/50 English/Spanish speaking but I can’t see that it makes any sense at all to put a non-English speaking person on the front line.

But lets face it, in 20 years time California will be 90% Hispanic so maybe I need to drop the French (thanks British school education!) and learn Spanish.