Message To The Various Assholes Who Have Refused To Drive Me To Queens Over The Years And Then Could Care Less That I Shouted Their Medallion Number Into The Cold Night As They Drove Away Because They Know No One Will Ever Show Up At A TLC Hearing . . .

. . . including the dick who wouldn’t take us to the airport just the other day (if you’re truly “off duty,” turn on your fucking off-duty light and don’t pull up when we hail you*): I don’t believe you. I will never believe you. And when people like me believe a city regulatory agency over you, you’re in trouble. So quit complaining and take our credit cards already:

The average cabby works nine and a half hours a day. A cab’s busiest hours are 6 to 8 p.m. And even as the economy has fallen deeper into recession, the number of cab rides each day in New York has remained relatively steady.

Those are among the most vivid bits of information about the yellow cab industry to emerge from a trove of new data collected by the Taxi and Limousine Commission from cabs equipped with new computerized systems that record each trip and fare.

Among the more surprising findings is that credit cards may be saving the industry from feeling the worst effects of the recession.

“The credit card that we put in cabs has helped keep them afloat,” said Matthew Daus, the chairman of the Taxi and Limousine Commission.

By last November, every yellow cab in the city was equipped with a credit card reader — as a part of the new computerized system — and as a result, Mr. Daus said, many corporations that once ordered black cars for their employees have begun telling them instead to take a cab (which costs less) and charge it.

That has hurt the black car business, which was already reeling from the impact of the Wall Street crisis on its main customers, financial services firms. The black car business is down at least 30 percent, Mr. Daus said.

But the shift has helped yellow cabs and appears to have made up for lost business as tourism and air travel have slumped and the disposable income of ordinary New Yorkers has dwindled.

*And yes, I know the drill: Get in the cab before telling the driver where you want to go, but he caught me off guard as I was fumbling with the luggage (where did he think we were off to?)

Leading Economic Indicators: Mice

If you’re going to skimp, skimp on the Rolls-Royce and not pest control:

Brace yourselves for more fun news: recessions, it turns out, while bad for humans, may be good for cockroaches and mice.

Veterans in the pest control industry said that their customers, both residential and commercial, appear to be sacrificing on regular exterminations as a cost-cutting measure. While restaurants are bound by the threats of steep fines, apartment landlords and office buildings are cutting back services, the exterminators said.

Robert Agatowski, with Control Exterminating Company on East 33rd Street in Manhattan, recalled a recent call from a general manager of a business.

“He said, ‘It’s very simple. I don’t know if we can make the rent or the payroll,'” Mr. Agatowski recalled. “‘So in other words, you’re out. We’ll step on the bugs and kick the mice.’ The exterminating almost becomes like a luxury item.”

He and other exterminators interviewed this week were careful not to name names.

Son Of Leonard

You know you need to get off the island when the subways start talking to you:

Just when the train is starting, as if the cars were screeching, “There’s a place.”

. . .

Once heard, it is unmistakable: an echo of “Somewhere” that rises from the ceaseless tide of shrieks and moans in the subways.

A revival of “West Side Story” begins previews next week, but this little piece of it has been playing nonstop beneath Broadway since 2000, when new cars began rolling with an innovative propulsion system. Most of them are on the 2, 4 and 5 lines, and fresh audiences arrive daily.

. . .

The sound is a fluke. Newer trains run on alternating current, but the third rail delivers direct current; inverters chop it into frequencies that can be used by the alternating current motors, said Jeff Hakner, a professor of electrical engineering at Cooper Union. The frequencies excite the steel, he said, which — in the case of the R142 subway cars — responds by singing “Somewhere.” Inverters on other trains run at different frequencies and thus are not gifted with such a recognizable song.

The playwright Tony Kushner told New York magazine last year that it was his favorite New York noise. Riders often ask transit officials about it, and readers still write to the City section of The Times to report their discovery.

From The Wikipedia Entry On Fenugreek Seeds: “In The United States, Where Maple Syrup Is Popular, Fenugreek Is Widely Used As A Substitute For Maple Syrup Flavoring”

I thought the mayor was going to say that it was the stench of Adam Gopnik’s treacly prose periodically wafting over the city, but apparently that’s not the case:

The mayor repeatedly mispronounced the name of the word fenugreek as “fenugeek.” According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health, fenugreek has historically been used for a variety of health conditions, including menopausal symptoms and digestive problems, and for inducing childbirth. Today, fenugreek is used to treat diabetes and loss of appetite, to stimulate milk production in breastfeeding women, and to treat inflammation of the skin.

Last month, the mayor said, inspectors from the city’s Department of Environmental Protection captured four odor samples, three in Manhattan and one west of the George Washington Bridge.

The substance was a kind of ester, the mayor said, in this case a harmless compound created by interaction of an alcohol and an acid. Its maker: Frutarom, an industrial company based in Haifa, Israel, that processes fenugreek seeds to make fragrances at the plant in North Bergen, in Hudson County.

“The mystery of the maple-syrup mist has finally been solved,” the mayor said. “Frutarom does not appear to be breaking any rules and New Jersey’s D.E.P. will confirm that as well.” On future days when the plant processes seeds, a similar odor will recur.

“It just happens to be one of the aromas we will have to live with,” the mayor said.

The history of the smell: The Sweet Smell Of Maple Doughnuts, Or Perhaps Eggos, Smell Returns? Mysterious Smell Comes, Goes And Leaves No Clues In Its Wake, Sweet Syrupy Smell, I Wish I Knew How To Quit You!.

Posted: February 5th, 2009 | Filed under: Need To Know

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Sweet!

“Even if you’re working, you can still qualify for unemployment benefits. It may sound strange but it’s pefectly legal.”:

You’re considered underemployed and can “double dip” in unemployment benefits when:

• You work no more than three days a week
• Make less than $405 per week
• Are actively seeking full-time work