Trick

Nelly the pig may soon give Babe a run for his money. Her owners call her the smartest pig in the world, and Wednesday she stole the show at the Livestock Area of the Orange County Fair. Nelly has been featured on Animal Planet, the “Today Show,” the “Late Show with David Letterman,” and various nightly news programs. Wednesday, she proved to be quite the athlete. With the aid of her catapult, she played catch with one of the audience members. She later used her snout to play golf, and to push a bowling ball into a cluster of pins.

NEWPORT BEACH — Kaylee Schneekluth lifted her arms in celebration right after she shot the ball. The Edison High senior girls’ soccer player knew her third goal of the game, on a breakaway counterattack, was going right into the net after she got it past a diving goalie. On the other sideline, Newport Harbor Coach Larry Draluck normally would have been proud of Schneekluth. She plays on his under-18 club team for the Southern California Blues. But Tuesday at Newport Harbor High, Schneekluth’s hat trick instead meant blues for the Sailors.

Bryce Alderton It was as simple as hide, appear, score. For Harbor View Elementary School's Sean Donovan, goals came in threes, helping seal a 5-1 victory over Davis in Pool C of the boys fifth- and sixth-grade soccer division in the fourth annual Daily Pilot Cup Wednesday at the Farm Sports Complex. "When the ball popped out toward the middle, I would hide behind a man, make my move and get on the breakaway," Donovan said of his strategy to space himself from Davis defenders, giving his teammates a chance to pass.

St. Joachim School of Costa Mesa had its 5th annual "Trick or Trunk" Halloween event on October 30th. For this event , parts of the school’s parking lot were completely converted into an eerie Halloween setting and St. Joachim’s families had their cars and trunks decorated in a ghostly or funny Halloween fashion ready for all the little princesses, knights, monsters and pirates to come by to trick or treat. One funny eye catcher certainly was the “Lice Buster Bus” that offered treatment with the slogan “Take one. Pass it around.

What are you going to be for Halloween? "Probably a ran-over skateboarder." Are you going trick-or-treating? "Yeah." What kind of candy do you hope to get? "Reese's or tropical Mike & Ike's." TYLER CAMPBELL, 11 Newport Beach What are you going to be for Halloween? "Belle." Are you going trick-or-treating? "Yes." What kind of candy do you hope to get? "Chocolate." MORGAN LYNCH, 4 Tustin What are you going to be for Halloween?

Bush tops Kerry in pumpkin contest A mock election turned scary for John Kerry supporters Sunday when George W. Bush came out on top of a Halloween-themed vote in Costa Mesa. The president garnered 249 votes to Kerry's 191 at the seventh annual Trick or Treat Festival at the Orange County Fairgrounds, event spokeswoman Jill Lloyd said. In another political twist at the Halloween event, pumpkin carver Mike Valladao fashioned a giant Jack-O-Lantern depicting the faces of this year's presidential candidates.

AN ART GALLERY GATHERING 1 Martin Lawrence Galleries at Fashion Island will host a Fine Art Auction at the Marriott Hotel in Newport Beach. A preview of the artwork will begin at 6:30 p.m. today, and the auction will start at 8 p.m. The artwork will include original paintings, sculptures, etchings, serigraphs and lithographs. The auction can be previewed at www.martinlawrence.com. The hotel is at 900 Newport Center Drive. For reservations, call (949)

Deepa Bharath Parents and children must work together to make sure that the "night of horrors," which is supposed to be fun, exciting and rewarding for children, doesn't turn into a nightmare, officials said. With Halloween just around the corner, both police departments and the school district have sent out a joint letter to parents in the two cities to exercise caution so children can trick-or-treat safely. Newport Beach has more units on patrol on Halloween Day, Sgt. Steve Shulman said.

Jennifer K Mahal Amos Levkovitch lost his marbles for magic. Literally. A friend in third or fourth grade showed the Israeli-born magician an effect using apricot seeds. "He made them appear and disappear," Levkovitch said. "I gave him my marble collection and he taught me the trick. I don't remember how many [marbles], but it was the best ones." It's doubtful that the apricot seed trick will be performed tonight when Levkovitch and others take the stage at Orange Coast College as part of Dale Salwak's "Stars of Magic."

Christine Carrillo With a chalice fashioned from a skull and a snake-head cane in hand, Michael Bloom of Westminster found a local venue to flaunt his year-round Halloween fervor. Wearing a black top hat and tails and adorned with skull jewelry and gothic accessories, 42-year-old Bloom drove his personally owned hearse, a 1975 Cadillac, to Costa Mesa Sunday to partake in the fifth annual Trick or Treat Festival at the Orange County Marketplace. After participating in the event's hearse procession, Bloom, who is a member of the Los Angeles Hearse Society, exhibited his hearse among the others, all decorated with traditional and extreme Halloween trimmings.

Seeking to get your spook on this Sunday? For many locals, the best (and most cost effective) way to get into the Halloween spirit each year is at the 14th annual Trick or Treat Festival at the Orange County Market Place, which offers copious quantities of candy, costume contests, chilling shows and silly spectacles. A favorite element of the day for many is the 12th annual Halloween Hearse Procession and Show, which will feature more than 50 spooky vehicles, including hearses and funeral coaches, limousines, souped-up Cadillacs and ambulances.

COSTA MESA — A woman asked the boys from Mariners Elementary's team to line up for a photo before they stepped on the soccer field. Sunday was going to mark the last time the sixth-graders played together at the Daily Pilot Cup. One player did not want to be a part of the photo. "We'll get a picture when we win," he told the woman with the camera. That is how confident Mariners went into the fifth- and sixth-grade gold division title match against Whittier. Keep in mind, Mariners had never won the gold division at the tournament, boys or girls.

COSTA MESA — Yaritza Garcia's booming kicks are always useful for the Sonora Elementary girls' fifth- and sixth-grade silver division team at the Daily Pilot Cup. Garcia plays on defense, and those kicks can get the Eagles out of danger. But on set pieces, her right foot itself turns dangerous. Garcia had a hat trick Thursday evening as Sonora blanked Wilson, 4-0, in its tournament-opening game at Davis Elementary. The Eagles have big plans after winning the fifth- and sixth-grade girls' bronze division title last year.

Question: It's amazing how you "learned theologians" always toe the party line: God is always responsible for the good things that happen, but good gosh, never responsible for the bad things because of "free will. " And God doesn't make garbage. Bunk. Hitler, Bin Laden and too many more names to fit on the page are all bad because of their environment? When a product is junk, you blame the manufacturer. I'd have more respect for you guys if you'd say God can and has been a screw-up, instead of the way you all tap dance around very valid questions with that "free will" nonsense.

Accused of impersonating a G-Man, a Seal Beach woman met real FBI agents Thursday when they arrested her at Fashion Island in Newport Beach, authorities said. Karen Hanover, 44, was arrested without incident two days after federal prosecutors charged her in a Santa Ana federal court with using special technology to mask her phone number and disguise her voice so she could scare people into thinking she was a federal agent. The criminal complaint accuses Hanover of targeting people at real estate education seminars to pay her a $30,000 "fee" to help them find commercial properties to buy. Hanover spent all of her time allegedly finding new investors to swindle out of their money instead of actually finding property, something she wasn't qualified to do anyway, prosecutors claim.

CORONA DEL MAR — The players on the Corona del Mar High girls' soccer team have numbers on the back of their jerseys, but maybe nametags on the front might also have been appropriate Tuesday. Several of the Sea Kings have had club commitments the past couple of weeks. Coach Bryan Middleton said the nonleague season opener against visiting Costa Mesa was the first time he's had his whole squad assembled. "This is the first time we've come together as a team this year," Middleton said after CdM captured a 6-1 victory.

The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence in Orange County and Community Alliance Network recently announced a list of Halloween party guidelines, devised to help parents and adults keep teens safe and to prevent underage drinking. "This time of year is busy for teens with Halloween costume parties, and house parties are a prime source by which youth obtain alcohol," Tereh Glass of NCAAD-OC said. "According to the 2008 California Healthy Kids Survey, 74% of 11th-graders and 59% of ninth-graders across Orange County report that it is easy to get alcohol.

Recently the Los Angeles Times reported that $69 million in California welfare money was cashed in by recipients in places like Las Vegas and on cruise ships. Prior to that, The Times reported that people on welfare had used their state-issued ATM cards to get money at casinos, strip clubs and massage parlors. After those revelations, there followed the usual clamors and calls for politicians to tighten up the system, and many of the politicians responded by promising that in the future the cards could no longer be used in those types of places.

A Newport Coast man with a record of securities violations has been charged again, this time with allegedly defrauding investors out of millions of dollars, according to federal regulators. Larry R. Crowder, 53, was charged Wednesday by the Securities and Exchange Commission with allegedly lying to investors about $11 million in investments supposedly headed for a green energy company. The federal complaint names Crowder and Joseph R. Porche, 51, of Aliso Viejo, as the leaders of an investment scheme that duped about 200 investors.

COSTA MESA — Jeff Wood might've looked silly if he was out on the dance floor. But he was on the pitch and he made himself look natural after scoring a goal, and then another, and another. After each time he found the net, he had some special celebration. He was just having fun, and in the process he led Waldorf to a 3-2 victory over Pomona in a boys' fifth- and sixth-grade bronze division quarterfinal game of the Daily Pilot Cup Saturday. Wood's hat trick came with some flair at Costa Mesa High.