The Best Job Ever

I pick on Bill Hoffmann only because I’m totally jealous of his slacker lifestyle. Another weather story from the finest weather beat writer in the country:

Down in the dumps as our unusually harsh winter drags on and on?

You’re not alone — New York is smack in the middle of the cold-weather blahs, with the lack of sunlight, endless snowstorms and brutal temperatures making lots of folks depressed.

It’s called seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and is caused by a biochemical imbalance in the brain due to the shortening of daylight hours and the lack of sunlight in winter.

“People are affected by a prolonged winter season — ice, snow, slush, long and horrible commutes — and they suffer from multiple problems,” said Dr. Charles Goodstein, a psychiatrist at NYU Medical Center.

Things get particularly bad in the weeks before spring.

“The winter is dragging on, we no longer have pro football games to watch, we’re homebound, we can’t get our aggressions out,” Goodstein said.

Meanwhile, more snow is expected tomorrow morning. It will mix with or change to rain by afternoon, with highs expected to be around 40.

The forecast for Saturday isn’t much better, with cloudy skies and a 30 percent chance of light snow.

But, as the good doctor says, banish those wintry thoughts from your mind and remember: Spring officially starts a week from Sunday.

(I know, I know — he does other stories, too . . . but allow me this one lifestyle fantasy.)

Post Pleases, Placing Plenty of Ps in Paper

Forget liberal or conservative bias, savvy readers know that the Post’s coverage is really driven by whether lead paragraphs have sufficient alliterative potential. “Cops Hunt Cagey Parrot Pirate”:

Long Island police — armed with surveillance photos — are searching for the perpetrator who pirated a pair of parrots from a Petco in Patchogue.

That makes for an Alliterative Magnitude of 6. Impressive!

Shoot That Groundhog

I kind of love the Post articles about the weather. “Bundle Up For a Wintry Weekend,” they warn today:

The snowstorm may be over, but don’t look for any spring-like weather this weekend.

Or next week, either.

Temperatures will hover around the freezing mark today and tomorrow, with northwest winds of 5 to 10 mph making the air feel like it’s in the 20s.

There will also be a chance of snow flurries during the day tomorrow.

Sunday morning will be sunny, but clouds will roll in by afternoon. Highs for the day will be in the upper 30s.

The National Weather Service says Monday could be a mess, with a 40 percent chance of rain or snow in the afternoon and into the evening, and the thermometer stuck in the low 30s.

It’s the same forecast for Tuesday. The first break New Yorkers can expect will be Thursday, when Mother Nature will treat the city to a high of 40 degrees. But don’t get used to it.

AccuWeather’s long-range forecast calls for next weekend to be lousy as well, with a chance of snow and rain zapping the Big Apple.

There’s even a byline for this story, which basically amounts to the weather on the evening news. Who gets this job? All it is is turning a forecast into paragraph format. I love it.

Speaking of the evening news, our favorite weatherman, Channel 7’s Sam Champion, had the best line last night as the snow was coming down: “Shoot that groundhog.” Boo yah!

Did you know that Sam Champion has an indie band named after him? They even outgoogle him. That doesn’t seem right.

A Post Kind of Story

What starts out as a typical Post kind of story — two Brooklynites arrested for having sex in public, motorcyclists caught doing it with their helmets on, no less! — takes a suspiciously Curb-Your-Enthusiamistic turn later in the report when the perp’s father blames it all on 9/11 (!) and the death of his mother:

A pair of motorcyclists were caught with their pants down — but their helmets still on — along a quiet Brooklyn street.

Robert Wallendorf, 45, and his fiancée Demetra Decolvenaere, 46, were spotted by a cop having sex in the median of a Shore Parkway service road, police said.

They were charged with public lewdness and nudity for the al fresco affair on Monday, near Bay 52nd Street in Gravesend.

Wallendorf was also hit with a single count of drunken driving, to which he pleaded guilty.

According to police sources, shortly after 1 a.m. Monday, Wallendorf and Decolvenaere had parked their motorcycle on the shoulder of Shore Parkway, walked across the road, and began having sex.

Officer Judy Emiliano, on routine patrol, came upon the 1981 Honda motorcycle.

She then saw Wallendorf and Decolvenaere in the median “with their buttocks exposed and their helmets still on, having sex,” said a police source.

The source said the suspects claimed they are engaged to be married. Concluding that the sex was consensual, Emiliano called for backup. Officer Diane McNamara arrived, and arrested them for public sex.

McNamara also smelled alcohol on Wallendorf’s breath, prompting the addi tional drunken-driving charge. He claimed that he was sober when he drove to the median make-out spot, but had “a few beers” once there, the source said.

Wallendorf’s father, Ted, who lives with his son on Marine Parkway, said his son has been drinking excessively since the death of his mother last week.

He added that his son, who works for the Postal Service, helped clean up Ground Zero after 9/11.

“He saw an arm and a leg there,” the father said. “That really got him drinking, but not like now. After his mother died, he got bad.”

“He got the motorcycle to forget his problems, but I don’t like it,” he said.

The man ended up paying a fine, while the public sex charges against the two were later dropped.

And why is it that it always seems to be people in their 40s who are charged with grody public sex acts? The younger and more beautiful are never charged!

Daily News vs. The Post

Another New York Institution, inter-tabloid snarking, is on display today, this time the Daily News calling out the Post. Breaking News: The Post is Wrong!:

Rest easy, Brooklyn homeowners: Your investment is more than safe after all.

Despite a published report, prices for single-family homes across the borough are skyrocketing – as they are in other parts of the state – and not tanking, real-estate agents said.

“The demand for Brooklyn is hotter than it’s ever been,” said John Reinhardt, president and CEO of Fillmore Real Estate, which has 20 offices across Brooklyn.

. . .

A report by the New York State Association of Realtors found that prices for single-family homes in Brooklyn dropped a whopping 29% between 2002 and 2004, from $332,000 to $235,000.

The New York Post reported the decline and called Brooklyn’s supposed free fall “a notable – and unexplained exception” to the state’s thriving real estate market.

But Realtors’ agency spokesman Salvatore Prividera said the Post report was misleading. He said he explained to a Post reporter the Brooklyn data was incomplete and gave an inaccurate portrayal of the borough’s housing market.

The agency’s statistics were skewed because only 19 Brooklyn housing sales were reported to their organization in 2004, Prividera said.

By comparison, 12,642 home sales were reported for Suffolk County.

“We were disappointed that our explanation for the data – that we did report – was not adequately portrayed nor relayed to the [Post] readers,” Prividera said.

Post spokesman Howard Rubenstein declined to comment.

Bonus Point: The Post’s Gephardt Mistake