Random Thoughts from California

I haven't written anything in a while, and Aziz has harassed me to write something. Living out in California is definitely a different experience than the East Coast. I am so close to Mexico it is sometimes difficult to discern between our two countries in certain parts of the city. Autumn (my fiancee) misses the cold winter weather of the East Coast while I do not miss that nonsense at all. I have shoveled a lot of damn snow in my lifetime and look forward to a brief respite from the icy and muy frio conditions.

Now for some random musings from Big Worm:

1) For those who may have forgotten, I predicted the quick tumble of the Georgetown Hoyas from their ill-fated pre-season ranking of 8. Are they in the top 40 anymore? I know Oregon is ranked and is supposed to have a good team, but if you are trying to improve on last year's Sweet Sixteen appearance and close loss to the eventual champion you cannot lose to a team whose mascot is a duck. You just can't.

2) Speaking of Georgetown, my favorite professional athlete is "fittin" to leave my beloved city and take his immense talent elsewhere. The Philadelphia Sixers have completely mismanaged the team by bringing in dead weight (Webber), drafting poorly (Dalembert, Korver), and continually putting no talent around its best player, Allen Iverson. Bill Simmons wrote a fantastic article concerning Iverson and his crappy teammates over the years. The Sixers have three people on the roster who were born before 1981, and only one of them was drafted by the Sixers: Iverson. That means everyone they have drafted before 2002 is elsewhere in the NBA except for Iverson. According to nba.com, the Sixers have had the following brain-fart picks since 1992: Clarence Weatherspoon (#9 overall), Shawn Bradley (#2), Sharone Wright and BJ Tyler (6 & 20), Jerry Stackhouse (3), Keith Van Horn (2), Larry Hughes (8), Samuel Dalembert (26), Jiri Welsch (16!!!), and Paccelis Morlende (81). I am not including Speedy Claxton and Todd MacCulloch, whose names speak for themselves. Between 1992 and 1998, they had no worse than a #9 overall pick and could only manage one good player!!! So now, Iverson will leave and go win a championship ring with someone else, while the Sixers will have another first-round draft pick to use on some obscure European player no one has heard of. I can't wait.

3) Enough sports. I went today to the DMV to get a driver's license. I noticed that they had applications in many different languages, and some guy next to me took the written test in what looked like Korean. Since I am a trained investigator, I deduced he was more comfortable reading in Korean instead of English. All of this would be fine if not for one small, insignificant fact: THE STREET SIGNS ARE ALL IN FREAKING ENGLISH!!! How is somebody who does not speak any English be allowed to take a driver's license exam in a language other than what he or she will encounter while driving? I can see the person thinking, "Okay, on the test it said when I come to a stop sign to stop the car. What is that strange, weird-shaped red sign with large white letters on it? Oh well." A few months ago, while still living in Alexandria, we ordered Chinese food but the driver couldn't find our place. I was trying to find him outside while talking to him on the phone. I told him to come back to his car and I was right there. He didn't understand the word car. When I finally found him, he said he does not speak English. I thought, "How the hell is he able to drive and read the signs?" As someone who is an offspring of a naturalized citizen, I understand foreigners in our country trying to make a living. But you have to learn English in order to avoid killing someone on the road.

Sorry for the length. It makes up for the month or so of silence. Be safe out there.