Etc...

Chalet not included

If you're a skier - a serious skier - a major new resort is about to debut that you might want to think about trying. But you won't find it in northern New England, or the Canadian Rockies, or even the Alps . Instead, you'll need to think in terms of booking a flight to ... the United Arab Emirates. Yes, you read that correctly. Even though daytime temperatures there average in the 90s F., Ski Dubai next month is scheduled to take the wraps off a five-slope complex, complete with chair lifts and manmade snow. What's more, it's all indoors - part of a new 32,290-square-foot shopping mall that's being advertised as the world's largest. And you wondered what the Arabs do with all that oil revenue.

Zany comedian Steve Martin was saluted at Washington's Kennedy Center last week as the winner of the eighth annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. The honor is given for career achievement. For Martin, that began in the late 1960s as a writer on "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour." That led to fame as a standup comic, a "Saturday Night Live" cast member, and for roles in numerous movies. Actor Tom Hanks says Martin has defined comedy for his time as much as Charlie Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, and Laurel and Hardy did for theirs. Comedians who've won the Mark Twain Prize, since the Kennedy Center began presenting it:
1998 Richard Pryor
1999 Carl Reiner
2000 Jonathan Winters
2001 Whoopi Goldberg
2002 Bob Newhart
2003 Lily Tomlin
2004 Lorne Michaels
2005 Steve Martin