I may have mentioned some or all of this already, on the blog. But I feel like doing a list. Just cuz. So, 10 random facts about Abu Dhabi and/or the United Arab Emirates.

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If there a word for this? A phrase? There ought to be. Winterlust? Icicle-envy? Freeze-fervor? Glacieritis? What I know is this: Places that never get cold … wish they did. I saw it in Hong Kong a year ago. I’ve seen it in Abu Dhabi this winter. It is a recurring,  population-wide fantasy. Take tonight, […]

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I once made fun of overseas Americans who shifted into a sort of babyspeak when dealing with non-native English speakers. I would listen to them and laugh. It was like listening to a first-grade primer being read aloud. Remember Dick and Jane? Do they still use Dick, Jane and Spot in schools anymore? Probably not. […]

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I knew this was coming. I knew it while standing in the newsroom here in Abu Dhabi two nights ago, stopping on my way out out of the building and watching via computer the final minutes of the Premier League match between Everton and Manchester City. Everton coach David Moyes substituted for Landon Donovan in […]

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Mrs. Bolton would be proud. Or maybe not. Mrs. Gertrude Bolton was my teacher in second and third grade. (I went to a small school.) She thought it was a good idea for every kid in the class to come up front, while she sat at the piano, and to have each kid sing a […]

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I want to know. Really. A lot of you have been watching Derek Fisher. Do the Lakers look like they’re playing 4-on-5 when D-Fish is in the game? Does he look like a bench coach who somebody let suit up, for the heck of it? Is there a point guard in the league he can […]

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We did a couple of stories in The National about the solar eclipse today, described as “the longest of the millennium” … so we had to go out and look, didn’t we? At 11 a.m., we dutifully traipsed outside the Teeny Tiny Apartment and into the narrow street. The sun was coming down brightly on […]

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A year ago, I was in Hong Kong. I had arrived in October, and caught the end of the island’s bad weather. (A typhoon alert, the first week. Heat and rain, in general.) But by mid-November, things were fine, and in January I actually recall running a space-heater at night a time or two in […]

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USC fans probably would like to think Mike Garrett had this planned–  and reviewed and updated that plan at the end of every season. “When Pete Carroll leaves, and he will, whom do I want to be the next USC football coach? In what order of preference?” Because USC people probably would like to think […]

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Have I written this before? If I haven’t … I should have. Thank you, Jose Canseco. Thank you for telling us what we didn’t want to hear about baseball and steroids. Thank you for never giving in, never going into a shell when fellow users were calling you names, like “delusional” … and said you […]

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