I didn’t think so:

Two events of note took place in the Bronx on Wednesday. One drew 47,521 spectators. The other fell short of that number by only, oh, 47,468. One was a baseball game. The other dealt with how New York City ought to govern itself.

It will be left to you to match the event to the turnout.

Not that any person with a reasonable grip on sanity would have expected thousands to fight their way into a hearing on ways to alter the City Charter, New York City’s constitution. But 53 people?

Surrender, give up, move away . . . leave the city to those in charge. See you all at the beach!

Let’s face it — pennies are annoying. Even if you don’t use them to clog up your sofa, it’s a pain to try to get ride of them. So this story about a thieving Home Depot automatic checkout machine on Staten Island made me think that best way to fix New York’s budget problems may be to “spare the change”:

On July 6, the reporter bought a screw priced at 56 cents. The tax was 5 cents, for a total of 61 cents. With 75 cents inserted, the receipt indicated 14 cents change due but just 12 cents popped out.

On Tuesday, the reporter bought a pack of key caps priced at $1.27. The tax was 11 cents, for a total of $1.38. The reporter put in $1.55 and got back just a nickel and two pennies.

. . .

Yesterday, a senior manager in Home Depot’s public relations division promised that a team would be dispatched to evaluate the machines’ operation.

Who knows how much money might be raised by invoking a temporary “spare the change” tax on all cash purchases. We’d see rising productivity in the retail sector — less change to count! In a time when the MTA is considering making Orwellian changes to the meaning of “unlimited”, it makes sense . . .

There are 8,000 MTA employees making more than six figures, which makes you wonder why they’re trying to make their jobs easier:

Also, single-ride tickets will be valid for only one to two weeks after purchase, replacing the current policy of six months.

The changes will cut down on the number of tickets that conductors don’t get to mark as paid on crowded trains.

That third term will make him the Rod Paige of the Northeast:

New York State education officials acknowledged on Monday that their standardized exams had become easier to pass over the last four years and said they would recalibrate the scoring for tests taken this spring, which is almost certain to mean thousands more students will fail.

. . .

Large jumps in the passing rates, which Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg trumpeted in his re-election campaign last year, led to criticism that the tests had become too easy.

That’s a pretty tame fourth paragraph there. I’m sure you got about twenty of these sent to your house:

At least in a “little town” it doesn’t take a Freedom of Information request to uncover the nepotism:

Of course, it is not unusual for young people with connections to win choice internships in all kinds of workplaces. But the records offer a glimpse inside the social and power circles of the Bloomberg administration, which has accommodated dozens of young people with connections to the mayor’s friends, business associates and government appointees for the prestigious, if unpaid, slots.

Take Jacob Doctoroff, whose father, Daniel L. Doctoroff, was deputy mayor and is now the president of Bloomberg L.P. He had an internship in 2002. He was in the eighth grade.

“It was either that or going to summer camp,” Jacob Doctoroff said in an interview. Now at Yale, he recalled enjoying his stint at the mayor’s office of management information systems. “I truthfully couldn’t tell you how I got the internship,” he said. “But you’d be working with a bunch of 35- to 45-year-olds, and you didn’t have a sense that you were in an internship program.”

And apparently the Queens Tribune’s editorial guidelines don’t prohibit writing it out either:

The Department of Education has initiated an investigation into the Family District Advocate of District 29 after a recording of him using the “N Word” and other derogatory statements at a PA organizational meeting surfaced.

Ron Barfield was recorded on May 27 at a parent association executive board meeting at PS 134 in Hollis, using the word “nigger” on a number of occasions. The meeting was held to craft bylaws per Chancellor Joel Klein’s regulations.

Audio at the link . . .

And may they never ever finally finish putting in escalators in the stations:

Now it seems that New Yorkers have yet another point of pride — as if we needed another reason to be smug. Forget being the walking city: just by cooling their heels on the subway, New Yorkers fare better in staving off obesity than those who do the same in their cars.

The Times’ Jim Dwyer goes for gold:

Woven into the narrative, but largely unremarked on, is a shadow world: the private fund-raising that is now part of many public school budgets. Accountability for individuals who have made terrible mistakes is, if not simple, then reasonably straightforward. But figuring out the equities of private fund-raising in public schools would require the invention of an ethical supercomputer. Relentless fund-raising, nonetheless, is surely part of the chain of events that led to Nicole’s death.

A mid-July public fountain story:

Pennies from wish-makers are far from the only offerings made to these people magnets. Also tossed in are thousands of other coins, cellphones, jewelry, cameras, shoes, sandwich wrappings and the occasional dead rat.

It’s the time of year again when we harp on street fairs:

The city collects 20% of proceeds — about $1.6 million a year — but that’s far less than the $4 million spent on policing the events.

“It just may be something we can’t afford,” Bloomberg said earlier this year.

Nonprofit groups that sponsor the events collect a very small cut of the proceeds, documents show.

. . .

But Mardi Gras makes no apologies for its cookie-cutter fairs. It even offers package deals to vendors who work multiple fairs on a “buy 20, get seven free” basis.

A big infrastructure project to put your name on:

City and MTA officials in hard hats cheered as the second of two machines — named Emma and Georgina after Mayor Bloomberg’s daughters — finished their year-long run from 34th St. and 11th Ave.

You can’t stop the Naked Cowboy, you can only hope to repay him:

“Your use of Naked Cowgirl is essentially identical to the Naked Cowboy and is clearly in violation” of Burck’s trademark, read the letter.

Burck is demanding that Kane — who began appearing in Times Square in a red, white and blue cowboy hat and matching bikini several years ago — either stop making money off of his trademark or sign a “Naked Cowboy Franchise Agreement.”

Setting aside for a moment that the MTA is probably using this issue as a political wedge, and that it apparently succeeded, why should the MTA pay for New York City students to ride subways and buses for free? Shouldn’t the school system (since they save money on transportation) or the City itself (since so much of school funding comes from the City) be paying for the students?

Even though it has a similar system, Portland, OR doesn’t pay for students:

High school students in the Portland Public School District can ride TriMet for free during the school year, by showing their student ID.

Unlike other school districts, Portland Public Schools does not provide regular yellow school bus service. The Student Pass program is a partnership between the school district and the City of Portland, and is funded through a State of Oregon Business Energy Tax Credit and Portland Public Schools. It is not subsidized by TriMet.

I don’t think SEPTA (Philadelphia) pays for students, and it doesn’t seem like LA or Chicago does, either.

Maybe this is another way to raise revenue in a tough economic climate:

The State Liquor Authority recently approved the sale of 192-proof booze — meaning the potent potables are 96% alcohol.

Some shop owners and imbibers are raising a glass to the hooch, believed to be the strongest ever available in the state, particularly folks in Polish and Russian communities who’ve had to travel to New Jersey for the stiff brew.

If there were ever such a thing as a pro-development borough historian, I think we found him:

Pledging to connect with the public instead of library shelves, Jack Eichenbaum said he will offer scavenger hunts to help students learn the under appreciated legacy of their neighborhoods.

. . .

Eichenbaum stressed he will embrace an “educator” role rather than becoming an advocate who leads landmarking rallies to save “just every old building.”

Pressed on whether he would seek landmark status to protect historic sites, Eichenbaum replied, “I don’t see myself championing those types of causes.”

Instead, he said, he will refer preservationists who seek advice on landmarking causes to other experts or museums.

I wonder if this will be the last time the new regime at DEP tries to impress a jaded press corps with new technology:

Mr. Holloway stood near an open sewer manhole off Kent Avenue in Brooklyn beneath the Williamsburg Bridge. The hose from one of the trucks was lowered inside the manhole and soon began sucking. The smell from the open manhole was vaguely, almost sweetly, foul; no one odor was detectable, but the odor was there nonetheless.

The agency has placed machines equipped with sonar technology and video cameras into the darkened sewer system to help identify the clogged areas. About 40 percent of the interceptor lines have been tracked so far.

. . .

On two tables near the trucks was a sampling of sewer detritus, all of it pulled recently from a sewer interceptor in South Ozone Park in Queens. There were bricks, pieces of wood, chunks of concrete, metal spikes, a rusty spoon, a 20-ounce plastic bottle of Pepsi, a deflated football and a can of Zazz Seltzer.

No evidence of alligators could be found among the items on the tables.

It was at another open manhole, about nine miles away on East 123rd Street in Manhattan, that teenagers shoveling snow one February day in 1935 did, in fact, see one in a city sewer, or said they saw one. They pulled up a sickly, 125-pound, 8-foot alligator with some clothesline they borrowed from a nearby stove shop, only to kill it with their shovels after it snapped at one of the boys.

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.

. . . and yet sometimes it comes in very handy:

Councilman [Dan Halloran] was on his way to hid district office in Whitestone Monday when he says he saw Officer Daniel Chu zoom by, talking on a cell phone with his lights blazing.

“I know the traffic agents have no emergency they have to run to,” Halloran said. “It immediately set my radar off.”

He said he followed the car as it blasted through two stop signs while weaving in and out of traffic before illegally parking in front of a Dunkin’ Donuts, where the officer went to get coffee.

Halloran says he pulled over and began snapping pictures of the officer’s vehicle parked at the corner of Clintonville St. and 11th Ave.

“[Chu] comes walking out with his iced coffee in his hand,” Halloran said. “He then sees me taking pictures and starts yelling at me.”

Halloran said he told the surly officer that he was a city councilman.

“He said, ‘Oh yeah? You want to take pictures of me? I’m going to give you a ticket,’” Halloran recalled.

Another argument for term limits, by the way . . . more eyes on the street!

Just because someone asks for one particular thing doesn’t mean you can’t use your head. At least don’t pat yourself on the back about it:

Army Pfc. Henry Chelune sent The News a letter last week asking for help getting a New York City flag and subway map.

“This would be a huge morale booster for me,” wrote Chelune, 25, a Ridgewood native who has been stationed in the volatile Kandahar Province since January.

“I have another six months in country and would like nothing more than to hang the flag of my city in my [sleeping quarters].”

The News picked up a subway map for Chelune. And in honor of Flag Day on Monday, Hizzoner donated the 5-by-8-foot New York City flag that has been flying outside City Hall for the past year.

Bloomberg even scrawled a personal message on the banner: “Stay safe and thanks for serving.”

And was the subway map even current?

The Red Hook Ballfields treatment comes to Greenpoint:

The organizer of the Greenpoint Food Market has decided to fold her 10-month-old indie eats bazaar in the face of a threat from city health officials to slap summonses on her vendors because they lack commercial food handling permits.

. . .

Health inspectors have not officially visited the market and organizers were not aware of any complaints made about food-borne illness. But Kim believed that inspectors would visit the June market after the gathering received increased attention from the neighborhood media, including the New York Times, a Manhattan publication.

A great coincidence:

Subway signs recently updated to reflect the June 28 removal of the V and W lines are as bold in color as the previous signs, but some are much bolder in message, like the ones at 14th Street and Sixth Avenue, which spell “FML” with subway symbols.

Did not last long:

New York City Transit will change a set of subway signs that inadvertently resembled a vaguely profane Internet meme.

Labels for the F, M and L subway lines, which intersect at 14th Street and Sixth Avenue, will be re-arranged so that they appear on two different lines, transit officials said on Monday afternoon.

Oy:

A kosher-food company is suing the Mets, claiming that it has lost a half-million dollars in profits because the team has forbidden its stands to sell snacks at Citi Field on Friday nights and Saturday afternoons.

Location Scout: Citi Field.

They just want to get rid of everything that makes the city stupidly unique:

The city Health Department wants to end its age-old milk expiration date requirements, meaning cartons will have a later “sell by” stamp — and just one date.

. . .

New York City remains one of the few places in the country — and the only city in the state — that has its own dating system for milk. Neighboring counties and other states rely on the processor to set the expiration date, which is generally 14-15 days after pasteurization, according to the Health Department.

The city’s reasoning was that milk took a few days to get to city stores or sat on warm stoops after deliveries, officials said. But both factors are rare now, they said.

If the city erases its rule, only the manufacturer’s date would appear on the carton.

The PTA president quoted here nails it . . . the dirty little secret about skate parks is that these guys just never grow up:

In order to get into the skate park, one has to walk through the schoolyard; this is the biggest concern of parents. The open access has made it so that adults and older kids are often hanging out in the playground during the day, when young children are mere feet away, lining up for class or lunchtime. “While the kids go out and have lunch, older men are zooming through there on bikes and skateboards,” said Perez.

. . .

“People say ‘Oh, it’s only pot bags.’ Well, those matter. And it’s the alcohol, and it’s grown men riding in on bicycles,” said Perez.

“Grown men riding in on bicycles” . . . well of course it is — it’s a skate park!

“Even with donations to Independence Party under scrutiny, there’s no stopping Mayor Bloomberg.”

But I don’t get why Lady Gaga would want to watch a stinky old Mets-Padres day game when there’s a fantastic Yankees-Astros interleague series starting tonight:

The beer-swilling diva — who has professed her love for the Yankees — proceeded to repeatedly salute the crowd with her middle finger.

When fans rose for the seventh-inning stretch, she did, too — dancing and giving onlookers the double-bird salute.

She watched the rest of the game in just her undergarments without incident.

“She was psyched to go the game,” a source close to Gaga told The Post.

Location Scout: Citi Field.

Yes, “Mayor Bloomberg spends nearly $110M to get reelected, beating out combined donations for all NY pols” is shocking, but the Daily News’ Adam Lisberg needs to stop with the low-hanging fruit already:

Hizzoner spent $109.9 million to get re-elected, while all other New Yorkers combined donated just $90.7 million to candidates and parties.

Not that Lisberg shouldn’t highlight stuff like this whenever possible, just that with Bloomberg it’s too easy.

See also: Bloomberg For Mayor 2009.

And of course the simple way to fix it is not relying on film and television starts like Al Pacino in the first place:

A band of amateur businessmen have launched a service that lets theatergoers skip the line for Shakespeare in the Park — always one of the hottest free tickets in town.

. . .

Here’s how it works: Hand over anywhere from $75 to $125 to a professional line-sitter and you can forgo the mind- and butt-numbing side effects of queuing up for a fix of the classics. Al Pacino starring as Shylock in “The Merchant of Venice” promises to be a must-see show this season.

Maybe this is part of what they meant when they said “For every one dollar, we generate eight”?

Location Scout: Delacorte Theater.

Oh right, the FY2011 budget for one . . . so now is as good time as any to show that the mayor is not just some lame duck:

If he sees an “opening”, Mayor Michael Bloomberg may decide to run for President.

This is not why you cook books:

Responding to the ongoing Voice series “NYPD Tapes,” Hernandez reveals publicly for the first time that the downgrading of crimes to manipulate statistics allowed a man to commit six sexual assaults in a Washington Heights neighborhood in 2002 before he was finally caught after his seventh attack.

The initial six crimes, committed over a two-month period, went unnoticed by 33rd Precinct detectives, Hernandez says, because patrol supervisors had improperly labeled most of them as misdemeanors. It was only through a lucky break — an alert neighbor spotted the suspect pushing his seventh victim into her apartment — that the rapist, Daryl Thomas, was finally captured.