Imagine catching a Maineiacs game at the MetroCenter.

That’s the new name favored by Lewiston City Administrator Jim Bennett for the Central Maine Civic Center.

Or how about The Birch Street Bunker – or Lewy’s Lair?

Those were suggested by Maineiacs Vice President Matt McKnight.

Finding a new name for the center will be one of the first jobs for the new Urban Civic Center Enterprise Corp., Bennett said.

“We want something new that really breaks with the old civic center,” Bennett said. “It has new management and it’s a new center, and we want the name to reflect that.”

– Scott Taylor
Getting e-revenge

First, they offered heroin, rocket fuel, gay slaves and cocaine on the cheap. Next, a fake birthday present that had gullible callers phoning overseas for $35 a minute.

Now, it’s a month’s worth of unlimited child porn, all for a bit of e-revenge.

The culprits: a group of people who are angry at a company named DarkProfits.com. E-mails arrive professing to be from DarkProfits.com – they aren’t – with the aim of either ripping people off or getting them outrageously upset at the company.

The Internet scam has been in Maine about three years, according to Sgt. James Rioux at the Maine Computer Crimes Task Force office in Lewiston. It just keeps taking different forms. A month’s worth of child porn for $149.95 is the latest.

DarkProfits is a legitimate, gothic clothing business, he said. The e-mails professing to sell drugs or asking for credit card verification on the latest porn purchase aren’t legitimate.

“They’re looking for you to go ahead and respond,” Rioux said. And with your credit card number in hand – even if you’re typing it in to refute a purchase – “they will take you to the cleaners.”

He gets about 100 calls for a scam like this. Too few, he added. “On something like this we should get 1,000.” People also can report computer crimes online at the task forces’ Web site, www.mcctf.org.

If more people called the Computer Crimes Task Force, fewer would get ripped off, he said. “I hate to see it. People are too trusting on the Internet.”

– Kathryn Skelton

Just another day

Last week, a team of specialized surgeons who will deliver Scott and Melyca Waterman’s baby chose the date for the complicated procedure.

But, before the doctors penciled it into their appointment books, they asked the Norway couple a very important question: “Are you superstitious?”

Luckily, the Watermans said no.

The date is Feb. 13. That’s a Friday.

“The doctors asked first, and neither of them are superstitious, so that’s going to be the day,” said Karen Storman, Melyca’s mother.

The Watermans learned in October that their unborn baby had CHAOS, or Congenital High Airway Obstruction Syndrome. It is an extremely unusual disorder that has been diagnosed only 16 times.

Babies with the disorder can’t breathe on their own because the airway from their nose to their bronchi is blocked by a cyst. As a result, their lungs fill up with fluid.

Soon after the Watermans got the diagnosis, they made plans to go to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. On Feb. 13, a team of doctors from that hospital will perform a cesarean section on Melyca.

But, before removing Baby Faith entirely, they will pull out her head, neck and left arm. Then they will have 45 to 60 minutes to perform a tracheotomy, cutting an opening in her throat to release the fluid.

– Lisa Chmelecki

Shut up & smoke

Bartenders may breathe easier now, in the wake of the new state law that bans smoking in bars. However, a Lewiston woman says she’s paying for the ban in noise.

Shelley McKellick, who lives on Pierce Street, says there has been more yelling in her neighborhood since the law passed.

“Ever since they banned smoking in the bars, it’s gotten noisier around here,” said McKellick. She’s trying to get out, both for herself and her children.

Apparently, people would rather smoke in the cold than drink in the warmth. And when they’re outside, they’re hollering.

It was already a noisy place, she said. Summers draw people outside late into the evenings, she said, but it’s not purely a summer thing.

On Monday, a man was stabbed just outside her home, drawing a cacophony of police and ambulance sirens.

– Daniel Hartill