A lot of big things happening this weekend, many of them without me (can’t be in three places at once):

• The launch of the PS3 in Japan
• The AOPA Expo 2006 in Palm Springs, seems like I miss it every year it in CA
• The Brawley Cattle Call Rodeo. The event has already started but this weekend sees the highlight with the parade Saturday morning, and the various rodeos throughout the weekend. Yee-hah! And all that.

I suppose that if CostCo has Christmas decorations for sale in September, I should not be surprised that the local stores have switched to “winter fashion” and its now impossible to buy a short-sleeved shirt anywhere. Only long sleeve lumberjack shirts and nice wool-knit sweaters for sale now. Don’t worry that the temps are still in the high 90s and, lets face it, aren’t going much below 90 even in the “winter”. This is Southern California and, dammit, we’ll wear scarves and down jackets even if its still 75F out, even if we do look stupid.

Got our electricity bill for July - $513!!! Yikes.

Oh no, the east coast is suffering a heat index of 115F - call out the national guard, the world is ending. Out in Brawley, its been an actual 115F for a lot of the time, and will be again and stay that way before the summer is out. So do what we do, turn up the a/c, strip down to your undies, and lay in front of a fan.

P.S. Don’t tell me that its ok because it’s a “dry heat” :-)

The newspaper printed a final article on their Beat the Press competition this weekend. Our subscription ended so I don’t have a scan of the article at the moment. Bottom line is that a Mexican sports writer won the whole thing, and the top member of the public came third. I got the next best public showing, coming in joint fifth with a couple of other sports editors but since no one beat the press, the $100 goes unawarded.