And Then The Third Term Turned Magical

All it took was a bold prediction:

Officials shelled out [$10,400} to buy Keys to the City for the [New York Giants] days before Big Blue even squared off against the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC championship game.

Ashburns Engravers in lower Manhattan got the order to make 104 keys at $100 each on Jan. 18, store owner Dan DePrima, 78, said.

“Are you sure you want to order this? How do you know they’re going to win?” DePrima said he asked the city employee who requested the keys.

“They placed the order in the hopes the Giants would win.”

And Now You Have The Basis For A Delightful Little Rom-Com

OK, first of all, the EDC has a Tumblr, but the Tumblr post is pretty interesting — basically it’s the stats department crunching numbers to see if there really are more single ladies than single men in NYC. You’ve probably heard people talk about the ratio of singles, etc. but here’s the hard data:

New York City’s population is 53% female and 47% male. This is a widely cited statistic that often supports an argument that the gender imbalance makes it more difficult for some women to find a partner. Using Census data, we analyzed only the population who are never married singles between the ages of 20 and 34. In this subgroup, men outnumber women — 742,400 to 729,500.

That said, although there are more single men than women overall, certain neighborhoods have more single women than men, specifically the UES (think all those shared apartments near York Ave.) and Murray Hill (well, duh). So where do all the single men come from? Jackson Heights — its sex ratio makes it look like the Dubai of NYC. Because if my impressions of the 7 train are correct, that’s where all the immigrant guys far from home are living while they bust their humps serving all the single Manhattan ladies dining out. Now if we could only get the two together, we’d be set. (Via.)

In The End, What’s A $60 Ticket Worth To You?

Here’s what happens when a retired police officer tries to get his 91-year-old aunt’s Sanitation ticket dismissed. I think David Lynch could make a movie about it; think “Straight Story II; Fighting The Law.”

In short, the Sanitation Department gave his aunt a ticket for not having lids on her trash cans. The problem was that she didn’t use trash cans. A bizarre journey to prove the non-existence of something that never existed ensues:

“I had to get letters from the neighbors attesting to the fact that my aunt never has garbage cans in front of her house. I had to take pictures of the house to show that there weren’t any cans there,” [the man] said.

. . .

More instructions followed. La Torre was told to obtain letters of support from Community Board 10 and from local elected officials.

In Hollywood This Would Be The Third Act Of A Rom-Com Script

Sadly, the Port Authority just doesn’t see those possibilities:

A Greyhound bus driver hijacked one of the company’s brand-new $600,000 coaches from the Port Authority Bus Terminal in a desperate bid to visit a gal pal in Mount Vernon, sources said.

. . .

PA police tracked down the bus that day using the vehicle’s GPS system. Snipes was arrested the next day.

Location Scout: Port Authority Bus Terminal.

But Why Are Cleats Traef?

Maybe Barry Levinson needs a new project to work on, in which case he can explain it:

At a nearby table, Kosher League alum Ezra Friedman, 17, nodded in agreement with Mr. Williams’ view that children are often more competitive than their parents, willing to play no matter what.

“In one game, we had to play without shoes, because cleats were not allowed,” said Friedman, who claims he hit a game-winning home run while his mother ran home to get shoes.

Or maybe I’m misreading it . . . with Kosher rules you can never tell. (But what a solid image to start a script with!) (We could call it Kosher Cleats!)