The Maine Vacation

We're back from our annual trip to Maine and we had a great time and didn't get too sunburned.

The trip did start off with a scare though. As soon as we arrived at the cottage we took Diesel inside and let him off his leash. A few seconds later I looked for him and saw the garage door was open, he had taken off. The four of us went running in four different directions trying to find him. Mrs. Poop's dad was the first one to get to him. Diesel had run to the beach and was swimming in the ocean with some kids. Never mind that he violated two city ordinances forbidding off leash dogs and dogs on the beach prior to 5pm but as soon as he saw him Diesel came running over as if to say "hey grandpa, let's go swimming, isn't that what we came here to do."

Our first two days there weren't such great weather so we went to this great pizza place in Portland called Ricetta's for the lunch buffet, they make a bunch of pizza with combinations of different toppings (chicken, pepperoni and mushroom, for example) and then you can eat til your full. Or you can have cherry or blueberry pizza for dessert.

On Tuesday we saw the Portland Sea Dogs (Red Sox AA affiliate) beat the New Hampshire FisherCats (Blue Jays), in another annual tradition. I had a Sea Dog Biscuit Ice Cream Treat.

We did get in a couple of good beach days and I was able to read "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." I won't say anything about it here, I'll wait for the next edition of Paulo's Book Club.




Diesel also got in a couple of good beach days. That dog loves swimming. He will completely duck his head under the water. And when a wave comes, he jumps completely over it. But he just seems so happy doing his doggy paddle. The part he hates is the bath he gets afterward to get the smell of ocean water off him and the sand out of his fur and paws. But I think 10 minutes of swimming exhausts him more than a 45 minute walk.





But of course the best part of Maine is the lobster. One night we bought them pre-cooked in a takeout place ($8/lb. I think), I had 2 of them. Then the next night we went out to dinner and I had the Lazy Man lobster. It's a lobster that they pluck out of the shell for you and serve it in a dish.



And we made a new discovery this year. The lobster roll, which is normally made with mayonnaisse (I hate mayo), can also be purchased "plain" and drizzled with warm butter. And they really stuff them full of lobster meat. So we had that for lunch a couple days. $10 is kind of expensive for a lunch sandwich (outside of Manhattan), but the amount of lobster meat makes it well worth it.

Another year has passed and we have roughly 51 weeks until we visit Old Orchard Beach again.

The Next Celebrity to Get Raped By a Gang of Prison Lesbians

Five days after being booked in connection with a May drunk driving charge, actress Lindsay Lohan was arrested early Tuesday morning on five charges -- including drunk driving and possession of a controlled substance.
Police spokeswoman Calisse Lindsey said police stopped Lohan as she tried to drive out of a parking facility around 1:30 a.m. as she was leaving a party.
The officers smelled alcohol and administered a field sobriety test, which Lohan failed, Lindsey said.
When taken to the police station, she registered .12 and .13 in another test for alcohol levels, the spokeswoman said.
Officers also found a white powdery substance in Lohan's possession which tested positive for opiates.
She was charged with two counts of driving under the influence, possession of a controlled substance, bringing a controlled substance into a jail facility, and driving on a suspended license, according to Lindsey.

The story gets even weirder as some guys claim she stole their car and chased down her assistant in another car.

1987 World Series of Poker

Part I:


Part II:


Part III:


Part IV:


Part V:


The first tournament of the second stage of the WSOP. 1970-1986 were the early years. 1987-2002 were the formative years and since then is the explosion. 152 players entered but the coverage starts with only 6 left. Former Mets announcer Ted Robinson is the host. Of those 6 left, 3 are very well known players today, Dan Harrington, Howard Lederer and Johnnie Chan.
This is also the first televised tournament that really shows the hole cards on almost every hand.
Harrington gets knocked out in 6th place when his A-Q falls to A-6.
There's a lot of talk about Howard Lederer being the young gun in this tournament. He is only 23 and still a student at Columbia. Even he says he's surprised he's doing so well, his first time in the Main Event. The discussion is quite ironic in light of him being on the other side of the same topic now.
Lederer was probably about 300 pounds during this tournament, earning him the nickname "Bubba." To this day Phil Helmuth and Annie Duke still call him "Bub."
I'm not sure if it's the quality of the recording, or the years, but the voices of Lederer and Doyle Brunson sound much different than they do today.
Bub busts out with A-6 vs. 9-9.
At the beginning of the tournament Jack Binion introduced each player to the crowd by name. Imagine how long that would take if they tried to do that now.
Telly Savalas joins Gabe Kaplan as actors in the field. Lederer once explained that hand that knocked Telly out of this tournament. Flop is Jd-10d-blank. Someone goes all in with A-10 and Telly calls with Kd-Qd. The tens held up.
Puggy Pearson just talked about the young computer players. Damn, I wish he would have said internet.
Not only is Johnnie Chan the best player he has luck on his side too. He moves all in after the flop with top pair, top kicker. Bob Ciaffone is getting short stacked and calls with bottom pair. The turn give Ciaffone two pair and the lead, but Chan gets an ace on the river for a higher two pair and we're down to heads up, Chan vs Henderson.
Chan played really tight through the heads up match, folding a lot of hands, but he had such a big chip lead he was just trying to catch one big hand. He called an all-in with A-9 vs. pocket 4s. He caught a 9 on the river to win the tournament.

Supportive Parents

Note this post was written in March but I kept forgetting to post it.

Sunny Lane's Parents Say She's 'the Girl Next Door, Turned Hard Core'

As a girl, Sunny Lane wanted to be a professional ice skater.
Her mother, Shelby, decorated her glittery competition costumes, and her dad, Mike, cheered for his only child from the sidelines.
Years later, they're still at it -- only now they're helping their daughter chase her dreams of becoming a porn star.
"I like to be in front of the camera," Sunny said. "I like to show my talent. I have many, many talents in a lot of different areas, and I want to show them."
But it's more than just showing off the physical assets and the innocent pouts that have earned her the nickname the "Shirley Temple of Porn," because she looks much younger than she is. Sunny will only say that she's in her 20s.
"It would totally mess the fantasy up for my fans," she said about her reluctance to reveal her age. "I look very young, which I'm very grateful [for]."
Sunny Lane is her stage name, and her parents also go by the same last name. For the last year and a half, life in the apartment has revolved around the business of selling Sunny, whom they market as "The Girl Next Door Turned Hard Core."
Once Sunny has worn an outfit, Shelby puts it -- unwashed, of course -- back in a small plastic bags to one day auction off on their Web site. Sunny's underwear can bring in a lot of cash.
"They'll pay $50 to $100 for panties," her mother said.
"We're not kinky parents," Mike said.
Married for 29 years, he and Shelby say that their own secret to staying monogamous was watching porn movies. For them, Sunny's co-stars are her "dates," and they say they'd rather her have sex on a porn set than with a "civilian" who might eventually break her heart.
"She does her thing, safely, in a good environment, and I don't worry about that. When she comes back home, I just ask her how her date was," Mike said.
Mike and Shelby are proud of Sunny's success. Mike said that when he first saw Sunny on the Playboy channel, his reaction was, "Well, dreams do come true, I guess."
"To me, it's all entertainment. I see it all as entertainment," said Shelby.
Mike and Shelby say they fast-forward through the sex scenes in their daughter's movies, despite having made a cameo appearance in one of her early films. If she has a good scene, Mike relies on her fans to let him know whether it was good or bad.
"And if it's good, that means the movie's going to be good, her scene's going to be good, and everybody's going to make a lot of money hopefully," he said.
At the adult video convention in Las Vegas in January, Sunny was there to market herself, and her parents were right there beside her. But Shelby and Mike seem to have taken their support to a whole new level. While at the conference, they looked into getting life-size, anatomically correct sex dolls molded of their daughter.

This is only an excerpt the rest of the article goes into greater detail about the porn industry

Who Are These Guys?

Player A - rookie year: 41 runs 14 HR 45 RBI .300 BA .885 OPS
Player B - rookie year: 41 runs 14 HR 40 RBI .293 BA .857 OPS
Player A - 2006: 83 runs 29 HR 103 RBI .260 BA .742 OPS
Player B - 2006: 96 runs 26 HR 116 RBI .311 BA .912 OPS
Player A - 2007: 45 runs 10 HR 65 RBI .291 BA .759 OPS
Player B - 2007: 59 runs 18 HR 59 RBI .296 BA .890 OPS

2007 stats through 7/21

I Think This Makes Too Much Sense

The Oakland A's should trade Mike Piazza to the Yankees.
It works for the A's because Piazza is making $8.5 million and they would rather use Jack Cust as DH.
It works for the Yankees because Will Nieves is batting .164. The Yankees could use Piazza one game per week as a catcher, once a week as a DH and the rest of the time as a right handed bat off the bench.
The Yankees might balk at taking on the extra salary for a backup catcher. Also teams usually like to have a backup catcher who plays good defense, Piazza doesn't. The reason Nieves is hanging around is because Mussina likes to pitch to him. I doubt he'd be comfortable or get comfortable with Piazza.
I still think it's a deal that would help both teams even if the Yankees don't give up a good player to get him.
Could you imagine Piazza and Clemens on the same team?