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?

Always Wear a Cup

Constipation

A rash of security crackdowns by companies has led 3 Poopheads to tell me that their office recently blocked access to social networking sites including blogspot and this blog. If this happens to you I recommend you sign up for Google Reader and subscribe to the blog, by clicking on add subscription and type http://paulspoop.blogspot.com.
This should let you and experience pretty much every feature, including youtube videos but you won't be able to post comments.
You know I love reading your comments so please either save them and send them from home, or e-mail them to me and I will post them under your pseudonym.
I hope this laxative works.

Strange Dream

I was on Mike and Mike in the Morning as a guest. We were on location in Cleveland and I was on to discuss Cleveland Indians who should be in the Hall of Fame. Not sure if I was book because of my knowledge of the Hall of Fame or the Cleveland Indians. Either way, we were standing, with Golic in the middle.

The topic turned to Albert Belle who will never make the Hall of Fame but whose candidacy I am a big advocate of. I prefaced my remarks by saying that I consider a candidate with a short period of dominance more worthy of the Hall of Fame than a player with a long career of numbers compilation.

Belle only has 381 homers and 1726 hits but over a period of 8 years he averaged 40 homers and 125 RBI. And two of those seasons were shortened. In 1994 and 1995 he was averaging one homer per 11 at bats or so and he was robbed about 65 games probably another 20 - 25 homers, meaning he could have hit one of those magic numbers, 400 homers.

But Greenberg was not swayed by this argument, especially when I used Eddie Murray (an Indian briefly, was Belle's teammate) as an example of someone who just compiled numbers, although I do think Murray was a Hall of Famer.

At some point Greenberg became belligerent and actually swung at me and hit me in the face. Golic broke us up, then I woke up.

But Albert Belle belongs in the Hall of Fame.

The Way Life Should Be

We're headed to Maine for our annual Poop Family Vacation.
We'll eat sandwiches (known as Italians) for lunch and lobster for dinner and we'll sit on the beach reading Harry Potter.
But I'll only have limited internet access.
So what does that mean for you Poopheads?
As always I've put the Poop in the capable hands of The Poop's design and IT consultant, TON.
I'll only be gone a week and it's not like TON has anything better to do this week.
I've left him with some posts that I've written in advance and given him free reign to write whatever he wants (I await his choice for Song of the Week).
I'll be back Saturday.
Enjoy!

If He Changed It To Gay Douchebag That Would Be Infringement

Jon Bon Jovi wants the owner of the Mijovi energy drink to change its name, arguing it is too similar to his famous moniker.

But Marcos Carrington says his coffee-based energy drink is named after his girlfriend, whose name is Jovita.

In a Jan. 22 letter, Los Angeles lawyer Peter Laird, representing Bon Jovi, objected to the word "Mijovi" as well as other words "itsmijovi" and "itsmilife" that appear in the company's marketing materials and on the can.

"As you should be aware, one of Bon Jovi's most popular songs is entitled "It's My Life," the letter states. "We hereby demand that you immediately cease and desist all further use of the name "Mijovi' and "It's My Life.' "

But Carrington said the words "itsmijovi" and "itsmilife" are meant to mean "it's my jovial life." The full phrase on the can is "itsmienergy.itsmijovi.itsmilife."

Carrington says he's willing to stop using "itsmilife" on cans once an inventory of 3,000 cans is used up. But he says he's keeping the name Mijovi.


It's pretty clear this douche is "inspired" by Bon Jovi but big fuckin deal. No one cares about Bon Jovi anymore. For the first time in 20 years people talked about the band because of American Idol. Now they can go away again. Let the guy sell his energy drinks.

At Least She Had the Good Sense to Leave the Kids Out of It

A 20-year-old Syracuse woman who left children in her care to go pose for nude photos is facing several charges of endangering the welfare of a child.

Police say Michelle Rendino was supposed to be watching four young girls yesterday when she left them alone and went into the woods near Syracuse's Inner Harbor to have a man take nude photos of her.

A man fishing saw the children crying and called police. When police arrived, the oldest girl — a six-year-old — told police that "Aunt Michelle" went into the woods to take "nasty pictures."

Rendino says she asked the man to take nude photos of her so she could get back at her ex-boyfriend.

Song of the Week

"Definition" - Blackstar (Mos Def & Talib Kweli)
Two awesome MCs at the height of their powers, over an awesome beat.

Coffee Soda Juice

More Daniel Negreanu hijinks (please watch the whole thing, the middle is about poker, but if you don't watch the whole thing you'll miss the joke):




And the remix (notice the record company is 10-7 records, 10-7 is Daniel's favorite hand):

Paul's Poker Story

I finished 3rd in a $1 SnG last night.
I feel like I really played well, was patient, made one or two loose calls, but for the most part I sat back and waited then moved aggressively when I felt I had it.
On a board of K-Q-J-10 I went all in (I did have an ace), hoping the overbet would encourage someone with a 9 or two pair to call me.
It didn't work but I think it threw players off to my style of play.
I tripled up with a Qh-8h. The flop was 7h-8c-5h, so I pushed all in and got two callers. I made two pair on the turn and caught my flush on the river. One player made an obnoxious comment but the rest of the table came to my defense.
Later I saw a flop with pocket 3s but called a minimum raise on a flop of 3 overcards (normally I'll fold). I made a set on the turn and a fullhouse on the river. Didn't get paid too much on that one though.
My biggest hand came at the final table when I was 6th with 6 remaining. I tripled up with pocket kings. When it was down to 3 I was shortest but still had plenty of chips. I got dealt pocket 10s, raised, the went all-in after a reraise. My opponent had A-10 but caught an ace on the flop to knock me out.

Awesome Poker Website

I learned about a new poker website that may interest some of you.
It's called officialpokerrankings.com.
Basically, it tracks tournament play for the top poker websites, you will need to register, but the site is free. You just need a player's screen name.
Hevad Khan, the 6th place finisher in the Main Event, plays a ton on PokerStars, and you can see his activity.
A lot of the Full Tilt Pros play under their full names, so it's fun to see how horribly Mike Matusow is doing.

Poor Pooch

An unfortunate collison between a yellow lab (a spectator's dog) and Marcus Burghardt, one of the riders in the Tour De France. Despite the limp you see the dog was ok. Despite the fall over his handlebars Burghardt was ok, but his front tire, not so much.

Sound not needed.

World Series of Poker Champ

Jerry Yang won the 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event. Yang started off the final table in fine fashion, making aggressive bets (opening pots for much more than the standard raise) and getting three knockouts really quickly (in all he knocked out 7 of 8 at the final table). At one point Yang had more than half the chips in play. He took a couple of big beats but rebounded to take a 4 to 1 chip lead into heads up against Tuan Lam.

Lam folded almost everything until he moved all in with 4-3 against Yang's A-9. Lam caught a 4 and some momentum. On the very last hand Lam moved all in with A-Q and was called by Yang with 8-8. A queen came on the flop, but the other four cards on the board were 9-5 (flop), 7 (turn) and a 6 on the river gave Yang a runner-runner straight, $8.25 million, the bracelet and fame and notoreity in the poker world.

Yang is already being criticized by poker players for his loose calls, overaggressive play and lucky card catching. The thing that separates Yang from Jamie Gold is that even on Yang's bad plays calling Lee Watkinson's all-in with A-9, came when Watkinson only had A-7, he did get all in with the best of it.

Yang is a very religious man and at one point he promised that if he won he would use the money to "glorify your name Lord."



He also seems like a nice man, he has 6 kids and promises to give 10% of his winnings to charity including the Ronald McDonald House and the Make-A-Wish Foundation. He says he won't become a full time poker pro, but who knows.

Even though I followed almost every hand on the internet I still look forward to seeing it on TV in another 6 weeks or so. I have the feeling it's going to make Yang look like a card rack who doesn't know how to play, but his aggressive style won him this tournament.

A few side notes:
The final table last about 16 hours (including breaks).

The heads up match between Yang and Tuan Lam lasted 36 hands.

The 2004 WSOP heads up battle between Greg Raymer and David Williams lasted three hands.

The 2005 WSOP heads up match between Joe Hachem and Steve Dannenmann lasted six hands.

The 2006 WSOP heads up match between Jamie Gold and Paul Wasicka lasted seven hands.

In total the tournament lasted 36 levels, two hours each, over 7 days of play (there were 4 Day 1s and 2 Day 2s.

I can't wait to see Scotty Nguyen. He finished 11th but had made a huge move, but I think he got drunk and made two bad calls in a row very late Sunday night. He never would have let Yang run over the table like he did.

The first five players were out within the first 60 hands. Then they played 107 hands four handed. On the second hand of three handed play was another knockout. After each KO there was a short break, so they played two hands in about 45 minutes at one point.

This is the 6th straight year an unknown has won the title.

Will Yang become a decent and respected player like Varkonyi, Raymer and Hachem (good but not great) or will he become a joke luckbox like Moneymaker and Gold?

Why I Love Daniel Negreanu

This interview with Tiffany "Hot Chips" Michelle from pokernews.com typifies everything I enjoy about watching Daniel play. He always looks like he's having fun. This interview was done on Day 2 of the Main Event, right before he got knocked out.

Laughing At Other People's Misfortunes

I never realized how funny QVC & Shop At Home are until I saw the clips of these two unfortunate incidents: