So Will They Be Less Ornery About Driving Out To Brooklyn Now?

Right now the problem is not so much that people are taking cabs less often but rather there are too many cabbies:

With thousands of New Yorkers newly laid off there are more drivers than cabs. And many garage owners say they are turning would-be drivers away.

“‘Come back tomorrow, maybe tomorrow,’ is what I’m telling people who aren’t my steady drivers,” said Syed (Sunny) Zahoori, who has managed Harlem Yellow Cab for 17 years. “I’m sending people home every shift without a car. It’s a very bad situation.”

City officials say the number of New York City hack licenses are at an all-time high, with 45,805 taxicab drivers ready to hit the road.

Equally striking, the number of new hack licenses the city issued rose 19% in the past three months – when the brunt of the crisis hit – compared with the same period in 2007.

. . .

Richard Wissak, vice president of 55 Stan Operating Corp. in Long Island City, Queens, said he started to see a surge in applicants in the past few months.

Not surprising, given a new unemployment study showing New York City has lost about 10,000 jobs since employment peaked in August, with thousands more expected.

“They’re coming from more varied backgrounds than before – real estate brokers, Wall Street people, hotel people,” said Wissak, who manages 130 cabs and 600 drivers. “We have to turn people away. You can’t show up on a lucrative Friday night and say, ‘Surprise, I’m here,’ and expect to get a car.”

One driver, who said he was a successful Realtor and mortgage broker in Queens for 20 years, said he started driving a cab a few months ago, after his business went bust. The nicely dressed father of two said he had two college tuitions to pay.

He declined to give his name, “not because I am ashamed, or embarrassed, but my children are,” he said. “We are very well-known in our community and lived a good life for so many years.”

Like Phone Numbers

Or an absurdly high caloric intake:

We interrupt coverage of the collapse of just about everything in sight to bring truly shocking news about the seven-digit numbers recently posted in chain restaurants.

It turns out that they are not quite what they seem to be at first glance, said Mahmuda Mukti, manager of a Popeye’s on 125th Street in Manhattan.

“Sometimes the customers look at it, and think they’re telephone numbers,” Ms. Mukti said. “I say to them, ‘That’s not phone numbers, that’s calories.'”

By city regulation, the chains have been required since July to disclose the range of calories contained in each item or meal. So, for instance, a very telephonelike number, 880-1545, is listed next to the three-piece chicken meal combo, with the range depending on the side dishes. You might think that it would be hard to pile 1,500 calories into a single meal — close to the daily recommended amount for many women — but you would be drastically wrong.

Khaliqya Terry, 18, easily hit four digits as she worked through a late afternoon lunch on Friday. She had three pieces of chicken, Cajun-battered fries, a small container of mashed potato with gravy, a biscuit and a medium cup of Hi-C.

“I didn’t know they had the calories up there,” said Ms. Terry, a high school student. “How much is mine?”

At least 1,545, maybe more, she was told.

“Is that bad?” she asked.

Bad or good, it’s close to a day’s worth.

She laughed and slammed her hand into the arm of her boyfriend, who had headphones on. “Michael, this is supposed to be the calories for the whole day,” she said. They would probably eat dinner at McDonald’s, she said.

. . .

At the Popeye’s, Dawn Henry’s jaw actually dropped when she saw that the breast, wings and fries ran from 735 to 1,400 calories.

“This really would make you not want to buy it,” said Ms. Henry, 32. She glanced up again at the menu.

“But, oh well,” she said, stepping up to place her order anyway.

I Used To Be Carried In The Arms Of Cheerleaders

Richard Martin, the craziest super in Bay Ridge, has been fired:

“I’m losing my job as super of the building,” 72-year-old Martin told my esteemed colleague, Matthew Lysiak. “I’m being fired. It’s because of you and all that coverage – some Russian lady is buying the building and she asked me to leave. That means I’m losing my apartment — and my $150 a week — everything. I’ve done nothing wrong — I told the truth.”

By the “truth,” Martin apparently included signs he posted describing the tenants of 278 91st St. in Bay Ridge as “morons” and “retarded.”

. . .

“Fourteen years, 9-1/2 months,” he said. “The new landlord figured I was too much trouble. You know, Russian people don’t mess around.”

2009 Calls For Longer Hair, Rattier Soles . . .

. . . and a hopelessly out of date iPod:

Gov. Paterson doesn’t understand all the fuss about the $4 billion in new taxes and fees he has proposed to help close a $15.4 billion budget gap.

“We found a lot of little taxes that are optional,” Paterson said on WOR radio. “In other words, people can stay away from these items and don’t have to pay the tax.”

So Who Is Going To Give Her The Ben Affleck Treatment?

Amazing. Especially considering that voting — the simple act of filling in a bubble, poking a chad or chonk-chonking that big goofy lever — is basically the easiest thing in the world, and the one way even the laziest, most incurious of us participate in democracy.

Unless you have some bizarre philosophical aversion, not voting (and this from the daughter of one of the most revered presidents in history!) should basically rule you out of ever participating in electoral politics.

Oh wait, I forgot — there’s no election here.

I’m pretty offended.