I went on a trip last week to Atlantic City and had a great time.  I stayed at Harrah’s for 4 days and split my time between Harrah’s and the Borgata.  Flying from Portland, Maine the total flying time is only an hour.  This is far more desirable than an all day journey to Vegas or a 4 hour drive to the casinos in Connecticut.  (Hopefully Maine will have a real casino at some point that I can drive to!)

Here are a few photos of the trip and a video of the outside of Harrah’s at night.

Here is a video of what Harrah’s does at night to the hotel to create a great light show.  I saw this when leaving on a plane, it was spectacular!

I am a big fan of the Sunday night HBO shows, I always have been.  From The Sopranos to Six Feet Under, from Sex In The City to Deadwood, HBO has always been a part of my Sunday evening. With True Blood and Entourage just wrapping up another season HBO now has new episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm followed by a quirky little comedy/drama called Bored To Death.

Curb Your Enthusiasm is on at 9pm, followed by Bored To Death at 9:30pm.  For those that don’t know Curb is kind of done in a reality show format and are preplanned stories by Larry David, the co-creator of Seinfeld.  It is one of my favorite shows and in its seventh season.  Bored to Death is a new show that focuses around a character who is going through some life changes and decides to try to become a private eye.  Curb takes place in California while Bored To Death is in New York City.

The strange thing about watching these two shows is that Ted Danson is on both of them.  On Curb he plays himself and is friends with Larry David.  On Bored To Death he plays a womanizing, pot smoking, and partying editor of a magazine.  I don’t think I ever remember on any network or cable channel an actor or actress that has done this.  To me it is like when Seinfeld was on and Jerry was on his own show as himself.  If he then acted on another show playing a character directly after it on the same network, wouldn’t this seem strange?  Out of all of the actors in Hollywood why would someone cast an actor that is on the show immediately preceding it?

Ted discusses sandwiches on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Ted tries to take care of a problem on Bored to Death.

With the movie Zombieland recently opening I thought it would be fun to check out a few older zombie flick trailers on YouTube.  There are numerous old classics to choose from.  I think you may agree that production quality today is much better than it used to be.  Here are a few examples.  I didn’t include any of the well known classics, what fun would that be?

Zombieland, 2009

I Was A Teenage Zombie, 1987

Zombie, 1979

Blood Of Ghastly Horror, 1972

The Astro-Zombies, 1968

The stock market just finished its best quarter in 11 years yesterday.  Remember at the beginning of the year I said the best defense is a good offense?  I still believe that as the market is getting ready for a move back above 10,000. My Top 5 stock picks as a whole are kicking it all over Wall and Broad Streets.  I will update one more time at the end of the year and unveil my new top 5 picks for 2010 over New Year’s Day.  This time I suggest you get in early and as soon as I let you know what to buy!

2009 Total Return

BKYI +321.1%

MTW  +9.4%

UYG -2.0%

MBLX -19.2%

ICXT -25.2%

Curt’s stock picks total return +56.8%

DJIA +10.7%

S&P 500 +17.0%

NASDAQ +34.6%

I see a lot of things on the internet.  Most of it is boring, unimaginative, and suspect.  There is then the small percentage that is funny, informative, or contains critical information that you can’t live without.  The final camp is a special one that really highlights how creative people can be.  Here is “A Glorious Dawn” that has been floating around for a little while, a “song” created by clips of talks given by Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking.

I know it has been basically a month I took off from updating my blog, but now I am back. During this time I finally bit the bullet and sent my notebook back to HP to fix an annoying wireless connectivity problem.  I have to hand it to them, once they received it they turned it around in just a few days.  It now is as good as new. (I think I just jinxed it!)

While I was gone I took a little trip to the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut.  What a great place! Here are a few photos and a couple of videos. They don’t like people taking photos of the gaming floor but I managed to take some nice ones of other areas of the resort.

I am now back to blogging!

Here is a video from Margaritaville inside the Mohegan Sun.  Every hour or so this giant blender gets filled.  I was there just as the place opened which is why there aren’t many people around.

This is the water wall in the Casino of the Wind at the Mohegan Sun.  Pretty cool to actually see it from a distance, it creates a great environment.

I will be back soon with a renewed focus and determination to blog away.  Before that though I am squeezing every last drop of summer into a glass and drinking it on the rocks.  See you soon…

Someone did a clever job imagining if all of the various James Bonds played poker at the same table.  It doesn’t make much sense but it caught my interest anyways.

The market has snapped back nicely as I predicted in March.  My five stock picks are also rebounding after being hammered for the first part of the year.  That is why when I pick my favorite stocks for the year I always say to hold them for the entire year.  That way no matter how bad things look there is always a chance for more time to allow the equities to reach their potential.

Here is an update, the Fletcher bull is running wild (at least with my stock picks!)

2009 Total Return

BKYI +205.3%

UYG -23.9%

MBLX -27.2%

MTW -28.6%

ICXT -36.4%

Curt’s stock picks total return +17.8%

DJIA +4.5%

S&P 500 +9.3%

NASDAQ +25.4%

I know it has been a while since I have blogged about anything!  It may have something to do with the fact that when the sun is out I feel the need to run to it and embrace it because I never know when it will rain for a week non-stop.  I have been thinking about what I can write about.  I kept seeing a commercial on television that has aroused my interest.  It is the Inhalerette (I guess named after a cigarette, not for the female version of the word inhaler.)

This electronic product looks kind of like a cigarette and emits water vapor.  My question is is it safe to inhale water vapor all day long?  In the commercial it shows people sitting in a bar blowing around water vapor that looks like smoke out of something that looks like a cigarette.  Do people actually think that someone will stop and have a conversation and try to understand that what looks like smoke is not really smoke and thus is ok to inhale in their establishment?

Below are a few testimonials.  If anyone knows anything about this product or any potential side effects of inhaling menthol flavored water vapor I would love to hear about it.  I am just surprised that this is a legal product for some reason.  At the web site’s FAQ page they recommend that pregnant or nursing women not use this product. How is this product safe then?