* Subtitled: How almost to ruin your perfect vacation by attempting to make it perfect-er. In a previous post we have stipulated that we have landed in paradise. To recap, for those just tuning in, we are ensconced in a tastefully decorated, well-appointed, four-bedroom house with an enormous terrace that gives us about a 180-degree […]

[Read more →]

This was so lame, we even heard about it in Italy. Well, thanks to espn.com … but if it hadn’t been so spectacularly lame, it wouldn’t have gotten enough exposure for me to see it and read about it. When you’re spending your days walking on the beach in Italy and napping and trying to […]

[Read more →]

You’ve heard of the food taunt? Even people who aren’t really foodies talk about this. You take your camera to a restaurant, you take a photo of the tastiest aspects of your meal, you post it on the internet or message it to your follow food-taunters and hope to inspire jealousy. I know of two […]

[Read more →]

Just did the math. Twenty-four hours ago I was in the middle of a copy-editing shift in the office of The National in Abu Dhabi. Now, I am sitting on the patio of L’Oasi Hotel, watching the gentle sun angling slowly below the horizon … just outside the city of Rome. As in Italy. The […]

[Read more →]

Just sayin’. No baseball team ever had come back from a 3-0 deficit in games to win a playoff series … until the Boston Red Sox memorably did it against the New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series in 2004. But six years later, fans in Boston may not be celebrating that precedent-setting […]

[Read more →]

I have no major issues with Bob Bradley’s choices for the 23-man final U.S. roster for the 2010 World Cup, announced today. Are there some guys on the squad who don’t exactly shout out “global elite” when you hear their names? Absolutely. All but maybe a half-dozen guys, actually. Are there a batch of players […]

[Read more →]

At the office the other day. A weekend day. Things are slow. Room is quiet. And then, those mechanical sound. The sort of ambulance siren … with scratchy needle-on-LP thing … and yes … someone is playing Pacman on the google.com home page. Someone turned around and gave the co-worker — a person with a […]

[Read more →]

I put up with this show for seven years. Including more than one season (like 2 and 3) when I wondered why I bothered with this random, uneven, inexplicable, frustrating show. “Lost.” I remember watching the debut episode, with the plane crash and the survivors on some strange beach … and liking the whole concept. […]

[Read more →]

Today, May 23, is World Turtle Day. But I suppose most of you already knew that. Turtles rank high on the list of most-huggable animals. Though you really wouldn’t want to, and the turtles will give you a pass, as well. The little ones that the senior citizens among us remember buying to live (albeit […]

[Read more →]

Two television shows, one quite successful, the other a week from being cancelled, have tried to make headway with a similar ongoing question: How much of our lives is fate? That is, random happenstance out of our control. How much of our lives is about choices, decisions, that we make? And I came back to […]

[Read more →]