I Hope Those Three Tons Hit Their Target

San Men must need more overtime or something:

Times Square revelers will greet the new year amid a blizzard of 7,000 pounds of confetti — three times the usual amount, event organizers said yesterday.

A hundred confetti-tossers will hurl the more than 3 tons of shredded paper from 11 buildings during a five-hour celebration leading up to midnight.

And this year, the party paper will be inscribed with such goodwill messages as “peace,” “celebrate” and “dance,” according to event coordinator Treb Heining.

“It’s inspirational,” Heining said of the celebration, which is sponsored by retailer Target.

Beginning at 7 p.m. a countdown at the top of each hour will prompt a 1,000-pound torrent of the flame-proof notes, called word-fetti. Fireworks will accompany the first five confetti drops leading up to the finale.

“It’s millions and millions and millions of separate pieces,” said Heining, of Newport Beach, Calif., who has been managing the Times Square confetti drops for 15 years.

. . .

Volunteers, working in supervised crews, are trained in the craft of paper-pitching to avoid an occupational hazard Heining calls confetti arm.

They also must shed any rings or watches to ensure that they don’t accidentally drop anything heavier than the paper they scoop out of 45-pound boxes.

“You don’t just pick up the box and dump it out, because there’s a possibility the box will fall,” Heining said. “You have to pick the confetti out, there’s really a special technique for throwing it that I can’t describe, but it’s all coordinated with the crew chiefs using the walkie-talkies.”

You know, while Wal-Mart has remained a perennial punching bag here (“‘Our people are crazy about bling,’ he said. ‘They aren’t crazy about Wal-Mart'”), Target makes out pretty well in this town . . .