It’s true.
Ryan Leli loves the Mets.
The Suffolk County teenager loved the Mets so much that authorities say he posed as a reporter to get into Shea Stadium and talk with players.
Police arrested the 18-year-old Leli Friday night at Shea just before the start of the New York Mets-Colorado Rockies game and charged him with impersonating a journalist, the Queens District Attorney announced Saturday.
Prosecutors say Leli told New York Mets management that he worked for NBC Universal and showed a fake NBC employee identification card so he could get press credentials.
Leli first used the press pass to attend an Aug. 10 game between the Mets and the San Diego Padres. Authorities said Leli used the pass to approach and chat with players including Mike Piazza before and after that game.
Leli used the fake NBC identification again Friday to get another press pass for the Mets-Rockies game.
Mets management apparently became suspicious and contacted authorities.
Leli was also charged with criminal possession of a forged instrument, falsifying business records, larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, criminal impersonation and criminal trespass.
Leli could get up to seven years in prison if convicted on all charges.
I know, I know, the jokes write themselves.
(Source. And a big, big congratulations to Todd and Lauren on the birth of their second daughter, Natalie Jane, on August 22nd!)
The proposed Barstow casino is one of the casino projects touched upon in a new article from the LA Times this week:
Rich tribes also oppose two other deals the governor struck with poor tribes, which would allow off-reservation casinos. Those pacts involve the Los Coyotes band and the Big Lagoon Rancheria.
No tribe has less than Francine Kupsch’s Los Coyotes. About 70 of the 380 members live on the 25,000-acre reservation in homes built with federal aid. Many collect welfare. They receive federal commodity cheese and charity turkeys at Thanksgiving.
Casino developers have concluded that the land, in the northern San Diego County mountains, is too remote to support a casino. The nearest settlement is Warner Springs, down a narrow road. The closest city is Temecula, 40 miles away.
Now, Los Coyotes hopes to open a casino in Barstow, off Interstate 15 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. That proposal is controversial — the desert town is two counties and more than 100 miles from the reservation. The group would need permission from the U.S. Interior Department for an off-site casino, but Congress is considering banning off-reservation gambling.
Schwarzenegger suggested that the 21 Indians who make up the Big Lagoon Rancheria join Los Coyotes in the Barstow project. The lagoon that gave the tribe its name is 700 miles from Barstow, in Humboldt County in far Northern California, and Schwarzenegger was hoping to preserve their stretch of largely undisturbed coast.
Each band could have 2,250 slot machines in the Barstow deal. But the compacts announced last year to allow the deal have languished in the Legislature.
You have to register to read the article, unless you use BugMeNot.com or, better yet, the BugMeNot plug-in for Firefox, which should be your browser of choice anyway.
If you’re one of the folks wanting to know what casinos are coming where — and have discovered that I can’t answer that question when you call the Hesperia Star (because I can’t, other than to give you an unsatisfactory update to the Hesperia casino situation) — check out Casino Stalker, which merges Google Maps with a growing database of information about casino projects around the country.
(Oh, and there will be a new Hesperia casino story in next week’s Star.)
Joel’s posted some selected camera phone photos to Flickr, including this one of me wearing a Pirates of the Caribbean baseball cap at Disneyland with Kate.
Kate had been very good and eaten only fruit, veggies and a few pieces of elbow macaroni with garlic cream sauce all day. But Jenn is a nut for churros and when Kate got her hands on the sugar, cinammon and deep-fried pastry within, she loved it, not surprisingly.
There’s also a picture of Kate with my fish tank (which she went berserk over) and a shot of her with my parents in Oakland.
I need to get around to posting all my camera phone shots before Kate’s old enough to drive. I’ll do so this weekend, for sure. Really.
I’m daring the spam gods by linking to a Vegas odds maker here, but here’s the current line on Rock Star: Supernova:
Dilana Robichaux 1/1
Lukas Rossi 10/11
Magni Asgeirsson 3/1
Patrice Pike 21/1
Ryan Star 5/1
Storm Large 7/1
Toby Rand 5/7
I don’t bet — I just don’t have the gene that gets a thrill from the risk — but I guess that means Vegas has them ranked Toby, Lukas and Dilana as 1st, 2nd and 3rd choices, with Magni, Ryan, Storm and Patrice bringing up the rear.
I find Ryan exasperating at best — the guitar-throwing stunt last night reeked of trying to desperately please Supernova — but with the possible exception of Toby being so highly ranked, that certainly sounds like what I hear a lot of other people saying.
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