Dirhams. Generally pronounced DEER-ems. That’s what we spend over here in the United Arab Emirates. It’s the currency. Dh100 (shorthand for 100 dirhams) is equal to $27.20. The contribution to enter the Abu Dhabi Ballers III NCAA Tournament competition was … Dh50. Or about $13.60. And did it keep me from rooting for Northern Iowa […]

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Where was this when I was growing up with two brothers and a father who talked about destroying all-you-can-eat restaurants? Guys who would snatch choice morsels off your plate if you looked over at the TV for three seconds or blow through a half-gallon of chocolate chip you brought home last night. A refrigerator with […]

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For those of you waiting with bated breath for how I made my NCAA Tournament picks … After mulling this for, oh, five minutes two days ago, I went with the most weasel-y way of all:

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When you move into a rental, don’t you wonder who lived there before you? Maybe even the several someones who lived there before you? (Or in the case of our place in Long Beach, in a building built in 1925, the hundreds of somebodies and perhaps quite a few nobodies who lived there?) Here at […]

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Tore up my flip-flop … A couple of lines from “Margaritaville” by Jimmy Buffet … and something I think of every day when I walk outside here in Abu Dhabi. Some of you may be too young even to know what a pop top is. If you came to the United Arab Emirates, however, you […]

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Well, yes. Looks like I’ll be filling one out. Even though I have paid less attention to this college basketball season than any since … well, maybe when I was10 years old — just before UCLA started winning NCAA championships. But newsrooms like to organize tournament pools, and one of the sporting guys on the […]

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Sad but true. March not even half complete, and I’m done exercising outdoors, during the day, in this town until, oh … maybe late November. But not to worry. Sufficiently alarmed at the idea of 90-degree days for the next week (and much worse in the next five months) … I have solved my exercise […]

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It was fun. It was exciting. It was madcap. And it appears to have been a bit draining, as well. For all that, I’m sure it was 10 weeks Landon Donovan won’t soon forget, his 2010 loan to Everton of the English Premier League. But it is official: He is on the big bird back […]

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In the U.S., and I believe Canada, too, you move the clocks ahead one hour tonight. (Don’t forget, you North Americans. Don’t want to be late for church or brunch.) In a matter of hours, I will be only 11 hours ahead of you Pacific zone people. Instead of a tidy 12. We don’t do […]

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A reality of blogging: It’s bloody difficult to do one item a day, every day, for two blogs. And hold a full-time job. Try it sometime, and a year later let me know how it’s going. The second blog is my quixotic World Cup Countdown blog. And part of that deal is a promise to […]

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