The guys at Caltech are conditioned to think in terms of big numbers, but this was getting ridiculous. Caltech, one of the world’s leading mathematics and science schools (if not the leading), finally won a conference basketball game today, 46-45 at home over Occidental. The victory snapped a 310-game losing streak in Southern California Intercollegiate […]

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I’m fairly sure I know who would win a vote for “most annoying person in Abu Dhabi.” And in a landslide. The woman whose voice scolds/warns taxi drivers when they are speeding. Whoever she is. These are the words you hate to hear:

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Every serious soccer nation has several layers of competition, and most have annual competitions that involve all of them in one big messy group. Such is the case in the UAE. It’s called the President’s Cup, and it involves all 30 or so real soccer clubs. Which actually are quite a lot considering about 90 […]

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We can’t expect the UAE to celebrate some of the more obscure and mysterious Western holidays. Especially ones originally based on Christianity. Like, say, Valentine’s Day. It’s a rather weird concept, if you try to explain it to someone unfamiliar with it. Someone from, say, the Arab world. “OK, there was these early Christians who […]

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First thing I think of when I look at the hed I just wrote is to be sure I spelled “license” correctly. The British, and I work at a British-language newspaper, spell license one of two ways. To “have a document which allows you to do this, that or the other” actually is a “licence” […]

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Seems a long time back, already, but it was just two weeks ago in Doha that my colleague at The National, Chuck Culpepper, and I were talking about revolutions, and we agreed that the “default setting” for most people who grew up in democracies is to side with the revolutionaries against autocrats. Even if we […]

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I don’t know how big this story is back in the U.S.  Talked about, I imagine, out there … but not exactly something that has the country agog. Something along the lines of “all politics are local.” However things are, back in the States … in this part of the world, the Egypt story is […]

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I have experienced ongoing plumbing problems since arriving here. Talking bathrooms and kitchens and drains here. Just wanted to make that clear, considering my advanced age. The latest? The bathroom sink that keeps oozing.

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Read it and weep. Remember how we were discussing, not long ago, the concept of “who is the next great U.S. scorer? From where is he coming?” Well, we have an answer. The next great American scorer was born in (and grew up in) New Jersey … but plays for Villarreal and Italy.  Ugh. Here […]

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Two events conspired so that I could see most of Super Bowl XLV live. I checked late Saturday night to see what stations were showing the game locally, and “ESPN” was one of them. Turns out, yes, it was the ESPN we now get in the apartment since we got a minimal TV package last […]

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