Confirmation

I figure this thunderstorm is God's way of affirming through nature that this is in fact the week commemorating the passion of Christ. But I will wait to see what things look like during Holy Week 2: Revenge of Byzantium in like August or whenever it is this year.

I got pulled over last week by a cop that I knew was following me. When he lit me up, I figured he had somewhere to go. When he pulled up behind me, I didn't think that anymore. When I told him, yes, it was my car, he apparently thought I was lying and made me and my brother give him our IDs. And registration and insurance. The only thing he could have found suspicious was the fact that all documentation and background checks would turn up the same Los Osos address, after we had just told him we live in Buena Park and La Mirada. So he told me to fix my brake light and be on my merry way. First time I could honestly answer, "No, I don't know why you stopped me."

I figure this thunderstorm blows.

I'm working my way through How the Irish Saved Civilization. In the first chapter, Cahill suggests that "[t]he nearest we can come to understanding this divide [between the Roman legions on one side of the Rhine, and the Germanic tribes on the other] may be the southern border of the United States. ... The barbarian migration was not perceived as a threat by Romans, simply because it was a migration..."

I figure this thunderstorm should stop now.

I recently looked at the standings for Major League Soccer. And found that what began in 1996 is not what exists now. First off, my Dallas Burn is now FC (Football club) Dallas, in a trite nod to the game's unamerican herritage. The Kansas City Wiz lost their wizzing balls and became the Wizzards. The San Jose Clash are the Earthquakes, and we now have Real Salt Lake and Club Deportivo Chivas USA. Two wonderful quotes from these expansion teams' websites (respetively):

"Utah already boasts sizeable soccer-loving communities from outside the United States, as well as many former LDS Church missionaries who have returned with a love of the game," said Commissioner Garber. "That's what Salt Lake's home team will offer - exciting, action-packed, world-class, Major League Soccer."

and

"It was at the dawn of CD Guadalajara's entry into the professional ranks of Mexican soccer that its players were given their nickname, 'Chivas,' a name which means goat in Spanish and still has survived to this day. Following a 1-0 victory over Tampico in 1948, a reporter, incredulous that the club from Guadalajara had won the match, wrote that the team 'plays like hopping goats.' The nickname 'Chivas' was initially used as an insult by rival fans but eventually the name grew into a symbol for the club and readily accepted and embraced by its fans."

So now a marginal soccer league has to try to market teams whose mascots are either nonexistent or Mexican goats.

I figure I'll sulk about the rain for a while.