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 write every day the final 300 days up to the first match of South Africa 2010. A visionary idea that never really got any traction. But feel free to click on the links over on the right side of the page and go look at it. I’m making an effort to present some context to the event. South Africa politics along with the soccer.  And it’s wringing me out.

Anyway.  It’s 3 a.m. in the United Arab Emirates.  I don’t get to sleep until I knock out something. But my favorite ideas, at the moment, will take more mental energy and time investment than I am prepared to make. That happens sometime. Especially when you’re not getting paid.

So, a list! Of the 10 topics I would write about — here and now, but hopefully at some time in the future — if I weren’t wiped:

10. Pac-10 basketball. When did the conference turn into the Big West? Long Beach State beat UCLA this year, and Long Beach State was a bad Big West team. The Pac-10 is horrible, and that’s the main reason I have paid zero attention to college hoops since landing in Abu Dhabi.

9. Abusive football coaches. I just saw the videos of former Texas Tech coach Mike Leach and his rambling harangues of his team. Here is the longer of the two (after the ridiculous TV trailer), and be warned, it has plenty of bad language. Anyway, football coaches do this. Except some are a lot more direct and obscene. Mike Leach did not invent this.

8. I thought I lived in the Muroor neighborhood of Abu Dhabi. Turns out I live in something called Hadbat al Zafranah. Which is known for … nothing. I don’t even know what or who Hadbat al Zafranah might be.

7. The Lakers. They look shaky. I already know they will not win another NBA title. The rest of you are in denial.

6. Andrew Bynum.  Which happens first: He “gets” it and becomes a real player, or he has a career-ending injury? I’d say it’s about 70-30 for career-ending injury.

5. The U.S., almost from sea to shining sea, needs to rebuild its infrastructure. Our “stuff” is old and rundown. We’re halfway to becoming Europe without the charm or history. I bet there are more skyscrapers being built on Abu Dhabi Island right this minute than in the whole state of California.

4. Life without television. Well, live without a television set, anyway. Haven’t had a operable set since the middle of December. And I’m still sane. More or less.

3. Did anyone note the date when NASCAR no longer mattered? (Has any sport come on so fast, and then just lost half its fan base in about the time it takes Jimmie Johnson to turn a lap at Martinsville? Well, no.)

2. Did anyone note the date when Bill Simmons swallowed whole the entire field of sports writing? And why does he have no real rival? Hertz has Avis. Coke has Pepsi. The Yankees have the Red Sox.  Simmons has no one. (Keith Olbermann doesn’t count.)

1. Can any Dodgers fan in good conscience buy a ticket to see that team play as long as the McCourts (either one of them) is an owner?

Yes. I will get around to some of those topics. Most of them. But not tonight. Sorry. Come back tomorrow, we’ll see if the vision things came back.