Belated congratulations to Matt Boyer and his fair wife on the arrival of their son, Henry William Boyer. He was born on May 24, sharing a birthday with Bob Dylan, Queen Victoria, Tracy McGrady and Heavy D. According to Matt he's a big fella so the next generation of Portland rugby players is well under way.

Also congrats to Matt Burgess for completing his run up Mt. Washington, and for shaving 30 minutes of his previous best time (of 4 days, 6 hours, 25 minutes). Just kidding! There's a picture circulating of Matt approaching the summit, and that expression on his face is pure joy!

Thats all the news for now. Stay frosty.

Hola Amigos. This posting lark was getting the better of me and I've been seriously out of new material for a long time. Besides, the Spring season (and I use the term loosely) is over, so there isn't a whole hell of a lot going on.

Unless of course you count Euro 2004, where just yesterday England inflicted a crushing defeat on Croatia and Wayne Rooney scored two fantastic goals. I swear, that boy is the next Gary Linekar (who hell he?). So next stop Portugal in the quarter-finals. If we win, the only certainty will be that many innocent English fans will get knifed by those crazy Latin bastards. They love their football down there, but only in a gay, man-kissing, crime-of-passion kind of way. Of course, the Portugese people I've met over here are a much more level-headed bunch....

Meanwhile the England rugby team continues its free fall, getting kicked up one side of New Zealand and down the other, and getting all chippy about it too. I think we should've refused to play again after we won the world cup. Not that they're alone mind you, Scotland got their asses handed to them by Australia and South Africa used up Ireland. Wales on the other hand beat Argentina, which really isn't much to write home about.

I'll tell you what though, the cricket team looks pretty good. The boys beat New Zealand 3-0 in the test series and look to do the same to the much diminished West Indies. When will they make cricket and Olympic sport again?

Alright, that's all the sports news that's fit to print. On to a fine new links. Apparently this craigslist.org thing is a phenomenon that has passed me by, until today. As with most of the internet it is a pile of boring, self-indulgent shit interspersed with a few gems. Fortunately they've done much of the sifting for you in their "best of" section. My own favorites inclulde this little warm-up test; a note from my ex-girlfriend; a shout-out to the neighbors; some love from the girl at the front desk; my own confession; and a note to the wife.

Go on and explore the whole lot for yourself here.

For all the talk, it was just a small group of stalwarts who made their way up to Attitash this weekend to round off the Spring season. Many names had been thrown out during the week about who was going to attend, but in the end it was just the usual suspects.

Alright, enough about the wasters, once again Portland found themselves drawn against Mystic River in the opening game. On paper this pits the top two sides against each other, and it was the Boston side that had the upper hand. Portland showed up initially with only 14 players, many of whom were carrying injuries from earlier in the Spring. After borrowing a player from Old Gold we took the field against a young and motivated Mystic side.

The Portland side hung with Mystics throughout the first half, and the 3-7 scoreline at the break was a fair reflection of the run of play. The second half was not so close however, as cracks were exposed and Mystics were able to run in 3 or 4 tries. In the process Portland picked up a couple of new injuries, lost their sub back to Old Gold, and lost another player to family commitments for the afternoon.

Things did not look good for our second scheduled game against Team Frankenstein, but fortunately they were even flakier than us, and showed up with only a handful of players. That means a forfeit, and a welcome let off for us. Naturally all we wanted to do was celebrate our good fortune, and then celebrate some more.

Much of the rest of the afternoon was spent celebrating, as was the evening, and long in to the night. By this time we knew we were drawn against our old favorites, Old Gold, for the third place playoff, so nobody was going to loose any sleep over that.

The morning dawned clear and bright, and after some burned eggs for breakfast, the reinforcements that met us at the ground that morning were a welcome sight. Fred, John and Jerry McQ had made it back from the day before, and Diesel and Tim McMahon added some welcome strength to our pack.

With all of this extra talent on board Old Gold never really stood much of a chance (do they ever?), and they were rolled pretty convincingly. Not sure how many we scored, but I know they didn't score any, and third place was comfortably ours.

That about wraps it up. Mystics beat up on Charles River for the final the day before, and it looks like North Shore won something for probably yelling the most.

Check out this sight for pictures of our game against Mystics and possible the one against Old Gold soon.

Plumbing new depths of boredom today, I present to you this site. Proof that we humans can find hidden meaning in a random array of letters. From my name I got "vomit longer" - did my parents have a vision of the future when they named me? Spooky.

Practice is on for tonight and Tursday, 6:30pm at Fox Street. Let's get a look at what sort of side we're taking to Bull Moose, and figure out who get's the top bunk.

Before there was Normandy, there was Dunkirk, a sort of D-Day in reverse. It was drawing to a close 64 years ago today. The BEF (British Expeditionary Force) had been chased out of Belgium without any chocolate, and found itself squished up against the French coastline. It took every remotely sea worthy bath tub in the south of England to evacuate some 338,000 troops over nine days, leaving no time to stock up on booze at the duty free shop. Operation Dynamo turned a potentail Allied disaster in to a mere humiliating retreat, and left the French alone to make friends with their new German landlords.

Two years later, on the other side of the world, the Japanese aviation industry suffered a major setback after losing 322 aircraft at the Battle of Midway. Admirals Chester Nimitz and Raymond Spruance out-foxed and out-fought Admiral Nagumo who had earlier commanded the fleet that attacked Pearl Harbor. Instead of the intended death-blow to the U.S. Pacific Fleet he received a major kick in the nuts, and probably had to chop his own head off or something.

Did you know that rugby may be played on grass, sand, clay, aritifical grass or snow, so long as the underlying surface is safe to play on? "It shall not be played on a permanently hard surface such as concrete or asphalt". Whew, glad I knew that. Click here for all you wanted to know about the laws of rugby, but were afraid to ask. Careful though, we might ask you to ref. a B Game.

Want a cool, free game to play on your computer? Check this out. Commissioned by the army as a recruitment tool, it's supposed to make you want to join up. It just makes me want to stay indoors and play video games. Warning, this game carries a high risk of turning you in to a spastic gamer nerd. Huuah!

Sorry it's been so quiet. I've been trying to find the right words to decribe the ignominy of Newport. Let's just say that the warm breezes were absent and the lure of cold beer was a little stronger than that of the soft turf. Excuses abound, but whatever the reasons, we were left to keep Springfield company at the bottom of the table. No offence to Springfield, but hell, that just ain't right.

I won't go in to match reports, since there is little good to report. We lost a scrappy game to Providence, who went on to beat someone else, and get rolled pretty easily by Newport in the final. Then, even with huge measures of referee incompetence working in our favor for once, we still managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory aginst Charles River.

In all my years, I have still to play a game on Sunday at NERFU. What is it about Newport that manages to bring out the worst in us?

On this day in history, 1588, the Spanish Armada left Spain with 130 ships and 30,000 men intent on invading England. Their plan was to go down the night before, so they could have a good sleep and show up refreshed. Well, the Spanish being what they are, they all got pissed up on cheap vino and kept each other up all night. Meanwhile the home side got a good night's sleep, and awoke refreshed and ready sink some ships. The bad weather didn't help the queasy Spanish stomachs, and after being chased all around the British Isles, they arrived home later in August with only 67 ships and 10,000 men. The English meanwhile didn't loose a single ship.

Only 15 days to the kick off of Euro 2004. Where you can see all of Europe's best soccer teams in action. England will face their arch rivals...(fill in any other Eurpoean country here). Ireland will play...with themselves, at home, since they didn't qualify. Mwahahahaha! But that's OK, they're in good company, because neither did...er...um...The Faroe Islands, Malta, Lichtenstein, Andorra, and a whole host of other quality footballing nations.

Just let it go already.