Well, 6.6 pounds lighter, to be exact. And it didn’t involve violent illness or amputation. You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but I weigh myself fairly regularly. Not that any of us really need to do that. Because if the clothes that used to fit don’t fit anymore … we’ve lost weight. Or, […]

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Kobe Bryant ranks third in the NBA in scoring, so far, at 26.4 points per game. But the Lakers are 4-4, and are beginning to have the feel of a .500 team. Are these concepts related? Well, yes. In that the Lakers have managed to win four games … but have contrived to lose four. […]

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The big story in the offices of The National here in Abu Dhabi today … or most talked about, anyway … was the bar tab at a Dubai nightclub for 387,988 dirhams — or $105,638. Dubai is the biggest city in the UAE, and the best-known — which kills people in Abu Dhabi, the actual […]

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This was a first: A Briton asking me to write a story about Landon Donovan. The news peg is that Landon is back in England, for two months, on loan with the Premier League side Everton, and he seems likely to play his first match (in his second Everton go-round) Wednesday night. Here is that […]

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I actually know only one person who attended Stanford, and as I watched the second half of the Fiesta Bowl at 8 a.m. UAE time, I was thinking of his (and other Stanford fans) suffering. Frankie, my condolences. I feel your pain. Fourth-ranked Stanford contrived to lose to third-ranked Oklahoma State, 41-38, in overtime, in […]

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I addressed the question, in the headline above, in a comment piece for The National. Diego Maradona is the coach at Al Wasl, one of the top clubs in the UAE. As noted earlier on this blog, the FIFA co-player of the century (with Pele) is extraordinarily popular here. Loved to death. But can the […]

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When 2007 turned into 2008, in Long Beach, California, I had no idea I would experience New Year’s Eve outside the U.S. for the next four years. Way outside the U.S. The first in Hong Kong. The next three in the United Arab Emirates. I don’t quite yet consider myself an expatriate, but the evidence […]

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For most of a decade, Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal have been the best tennis players in the world. From Wimbledon 2003 through the French Open this year, they won 26 of 33 grand-slam championships. It seemed as if the only times they lost … were to each other. Even here at the end of […]

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Spent a whole day today covering tennis (and not just writing about it; see yesterday’s entry), and this is what I took from it: I am jealous of tennis writers. It’s very easy to explain, too.

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By the end of the day, I had written something like 2,300 words for The National about the Mubadala World Tennis Championship here in Abu Dhabi, capital of the UAE. And no one had even struck a ball in anger. But that sort of production is what comes from 1) the day before the biggest […]

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