Posts Tagged ‘Dunkin’ Donuts’

We were swamped at work and I didn’t get a chance to catch my breath until well into the afternoon. Even if I hadn’t forgotten my lunch at home, I wouldn’t have been able to eat until 4:00 at the earliest. But by then I had gone beyond hunger. Ever been there? When you wait so long to eat that you no longer feel like eating? It’s like your hunger fed on itself until it disappeared.

So I decided that I wouldn’t run out and get something awful in the area (the deli around the corner makes a semi-competent egg sandwich; the owner of the deli two doors down is still mad at me because I refused to comp him a doctor’s appointment; the Chinese buffet next door makes Panda Express look like Shun Lee; the Burger King next door is a Burger King). Instead, I’d wait until we closed at 9:00, hightail it to Zito’s Sandwich Shoppe on 7th Avenue (in Brooklyn, not Manhattan) and get my new most favoritest sandwich ever: The 8-Hour Slow-Cooked Pork Bracciole.

It’s a butterflied loin of pork (from Faicco’s!) stuffed with provolone, garlic, parsley and a pinch of bread crumbs, covered in their deceptively simple tomato sauce, and sprinkled with parmigianno reggiano — all served on a perfect hero (from Brooklyn’s own Il Fornaretto Bakery!). It’s absolutely amazing.

Zito’s closes at 10:00, but I called them at around 8:00 and asked when they stopped taking orders. “10:00 p.m.” Perfect. If I left work at 9:00, I’d be between the Carroll Street station and the 4th Avenue and Ninth Street station (which is an area that gets great cell reception as it isn’t in a tunnel) by 9:45. I’d call in my order and arrive at Zito’s by 10:00 at the absolute latest.

I wasn’t hungry until around 8:30, but from the moment I devised my plan I could only think of that sandwich and how good it would taste when I ate it with my face.

A patient arrived at 8:15, so I started tidying and closing down what I could. He was on his way by 8:50 and I considered calling in my order and telling them that I’d be there in an hour. “Nah,” I thought. “No need. My plan is foolproof.”

Cut to 9:30, when we actually locked up.

I calmly walked to the R train, frantically doing math problems in my head (what if I get off the train just before 10 and call in the order and then get back on the train — would that work?). I didn’t see myself getting a sandwich. So I started considering the places near Zito’s that would still be open. Mediocre pizza, horrendous Mexican, Dunkin’ Donuts, Rite Aid… nothing really tickled my fancy. Then I heard the R train coming. I raced down the stairs and then raced up the other stairs (I hate you, Cortland Street station) and made it onto the Brooklyn-bound R. I looked at my watch phone. It was 9:35.

“Hmmm… I could get to Jay Street by 9:48… if there’s an F train there by 9:53, my plan will still work!”

I maneuvered through the train so that I was standing exactly where the entrance to the escalator at Jay Street would soon be. When we arrived at the station, I hurriedly climbed the escalator (it’s like walking fast on an airport treadmill except not fun and it makes me wheeze). In all the time I’ve made this commute, there has never been an F train waiting for me at Jay Street. Tonight, there was. At the doors closed as soon as I started down the steps toward it. A crazy person was loudly trying to seduce a morbidly obese station agent as she pretended to sweep the floor. It offered me no succor. I would arrive home sandwichless.

An F came about 10 minutes later. When we were finally out of the tunnel, I called Zito’s. It was 10:02.

“Zito’s, how can I help you?”

“He wants to help me!” I thought. “A place that wasn’t taking orders wouldn’t offer me assistance!” I tried to hide my giddyness from the dead-in-the-eyes commuters surrounding me. “Are you still taking orders?” I asked.

“Sorry, no. We’re no longer taking delivery orders. We stop at 10. Have a good night.”

***

But… but… what of his offer of help? What did he expect me to ask for that he would have been able to aid me with? “Would it be possible for me to not order a sandwich?” I was gutted. But then I had another thought. They aren’t taking delivery orders, but what of pick-ups? What of pick-ups? We were back underground, but I started to feverishly imagine various scenarios wherein I exit the subway and call and ask to make a pick-up order and am told, “Sure thing!” or that I arrive just as they’re about to throw away a pile of unclaimed but perfectly OK sandwiches or that I appeal to the kindness of Zito and he smiles and nods and hands me the sandwich that he had been saving for me all along.

[Full Disclosure: I don't think anyone who works at Zito's is named Zito.]

I started walking towards the shop and saw their sign was still illuminated. “That’s a good sign,” I thought. Then I thought about what a horrible pun that was and winced. I crossed the street and approached their door. As I did, I noticed people sitting and eating. Then, as I was about to reach for the knob (and feign surprise when I found it locked), someone opened it to take out the trash. I saw my opportunity and seized it.

The first employee who saw me wasn’t any of the three guys behind the counter. They all had their backs turned to me and were dealing with various closing duties. No, the one who immediately took notice of me was one of the cooks. He had a slight note of “you’ve got to be kidding me” on his face. I smiled weakly at him and waited by the register. Finally, someone turned around and asked if he could help me.

“Can I get a sandwich to go?”

He looked at the cook, then at his register, then at me — all while wearing a mask of “please notice that I am trying to make it clear that you cannot.”

I would accept a “no,” but he would have to say it to me. I wouldn’t say it to myself. At this point I was getting deliriously hungry.

“…OK,” he surrendered. The cook rolled his eyes. I didn’t care.

I sat down to wait. I could hear various people saying, “I told him not to take out the trash yet” and “lock the damn door” and “we’re supposed to be closed by now” and “what is wrong with him?” I went from fearing that I cost someone their job to wondering if the last remark was directed at me to not caring about anything except bracciole. In fact, I started imaging the man getting killed by his co-workers for unknowingly letting me in and, at his peasant funeral, a rockslide wiping his entire family out. I imagined everyone at Zito’s pointing and laughing at me for being so pathetic that I needed to swindle my way into a meal. None of it mattered to me. I just wanted my dinner.

After what seemed like two minutes (but might have been three), I was handed my sandwich. I profusely thanked the man who handed it to me. Then I profusely thanked the man who unlocked the door to let me out. I almost started to cry.

It took me another 25 minutes to get home, but I didn’t care. As soon as I walked in the front door, I washed my hands, ripped open the foil and paper casing and did unspeakable, inhuman things to my first real meal of the day (the semi-competent egg sandwich I ate at 8:00 a.m. doesn’t count).

You know what? This would be a terrible movie.

Today’s lone cover story is JET FUEL: Sweet taste of $50M for Santonio, which features a full-page photo of Santonio Holmes chugging “a $215 bottle of Cristal” (he was celebrating the $50,000,000/5-year contract he signed with the New York Jets). We learn from the photo’s caption that Santonio tweeted, “Big bro showed loved today.”

Maybe the typo is Santonio’s, maybe it’s the Post’s. Either way, the fact that this is today’s cover story makes me sad.

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There are three stories on page 3.

From NY IN ‘SPLIT’ STORM by Jeremy Olshan: “While New York’s gay couples are lining up to get hitched, straight ones are increasingly untying the knot. Divorce filings are up 12 percent since the state last October adopted no-fault separations, which allows couples to split without having to prove why.”

1) How does one “prove why” they want to get a divorce?

2) Do you think there’s a correlation between the increase in gay marriages and the increase in heterosexual divorces? Most of the folks at the Post do!

Andy Soltis’ Tooth Fairy puts less money where your mouth is includes a small graphic of two teeth. The one with 2010 written on it has a price tag marked $3.00; the one marked 2011 has a price tag marked $2.40. But Soltis writes, “The traditional collector of kid’s [sic] cuspids is leaving an average of only $2.60 a tooth, compared with last year’s national average of $3, a new survey found.”

1) Which is it, Andy? $2.60 or $2.40?

2) The Tooth Fairy could not be reached for comment.

Jeane MacIntosh’s Hef’s mature and premature includes some choice quotes from Hugh Hefner’s ex-fiancée, Crystal Harris, 25, from a recent interview she gave to Howard Stern.

“[The one time I had sex with Hugh Hefner] lasted like two seconds. Then I was just over it. I couldn’t even stay another couple days… I couldn’t do it. I was like, ‘Ahhh.’ I just like, walked away. I’m not turned on by Hef, sorry… [Hefner] doesn’t really take his clothes off. I’ve never seen Hef naked.”

Hefner, 85, tweeted a response to Harris’ comments: “The sex with Crystal the first night was good enough so that I kept her over two more nights.”

MacIntosh later adds, “Hefner says he’ [sic] has moved on.”

It’s a shame that Hugh Hefner lived to see this.

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“Mayor Bloomberg yesterday defended the federal decision not to cover cancer-stricken 9/11 first responders under the $2.7 billion Zadroga Act.”

As frustrating as it was to read that, it pales in comparison to the editorial Ground Zero Sanity, which begins, “Finally, some common sense on the Ground Zero medical front.”

Which means that should something like 9/11 happen again, our policemen and firemen and EMTs will think twice before rushing into help us.

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S.A. Miller’s Raging Boehner (see what he did there) reports that John Boehner “ordered House Republicans to ‘get your ass in line’ behind his debt-limit plan — and they did.” Neat trick!

“The speaker said [on Laura Ingraham's radio show] he couldn’t understand why some conservative Republicans recoiled from his plan. ‘Barack Obama hates it, Harry Reid hates it, Nancy Pelosi hates it,’ he said.”

Miller leaves out the very next thing Boehner said: “Why any representative would want to be on the side of Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi [is] beyond me.”

This is why I roll my eyes every time Obama says he thinks compromise is possible.

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Over on page 8 is the Associated Press piece Pesci suit: I ‘Gotti’ $crewed, which claims that Joe Pesci filed a $3,000,000 lawsuit against Fiore Films yesterday. He claims that they offered him the money to play Angelo Ruggiero in their movie Gotti: Three Generations and, after he gained 30 pounds for the role, told him they changed their mind and would give him $1,000,000 to play someone else. Let’s see what the Internet Movie DataBase has to say.

Barry Levinson is directing it (!) and he wrote the screenplay with Leo Rossi (star of the 1989 Judd-Nelson-is-a-serial-killer home-video staple Relentless!) and James Toback (director of the documentary Tyson!). Joe Pesci is listed as playing Angelo Ruggiero, but the name of the movie is now GOTTI: In the Shadow of My Father. Al Pacino and Kelly Preston are also in the cast and it’s slated for release in 2013.

Why do I think Pesci’s lawsuit is going to be far more entertaining than the finished film?

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“A major water-main break turned a stretch of The Bronx into the Mississippi Delta yesterday as waist-high floodwaters submerged cars and sent panicked residents racing from their homes.”

“The 108-year-old pipe burst at around 6 a.m. beneath East 177th Street and Jerome Avenue in Mount Eden, creating a 60-foot crater in the middle of the road and unleashing a torrent that took more than three hours to contain.”

There are a lot of pipes under the city that are over 100 years old. This is going to happen again. And again. And again.

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Andrea Peyser’s B’klyn’s inferiority complex holds Tru begins “Brooklyn is for losers.”

Fun Fact: Mandrea lives in Brooklyn, as does her husband (the suspected child molester) and her child(ren).

And in She’s maid for the media, she criticizes Nafissatou Diallo for possibly ruining the DA’s chance of bringing Dominique Strauss-Kahn to justice by going to the media.

Fun Fact: Mandrea doesn’t mention how many times the Post accused Diallo of being a hooker.

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Hey, Cindy Adams! Tell us a gay marriage joke that has nothing to do with gay marriage!

“Due to new-style marriage, a survey states 41 percent of middle-aged men would wed someone out of desperation. The other 59 percent did.”

Thanks, Cindy!

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JonBenet Ramsey’s father, John, has remarried.

But he still hasn’t admitted to killing JonBenet.

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What is in the water in Marlboro, New Jersey? Resident Chris Michaels writes in to proclaim that “I cannot bring myself to sympathize with the demise of [Amy] Winehouse… I comfort myself knowing there’s one fewer bad seed around to influence our children.”

On the plus side, he almost used “sympathize” and “fewer” correctly!

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After learning that the American people consider the GOP to be more responsible for whatever happens after the debt ceiling isn’t raised, the Post decided to run RAATINGS RAT: This man controls US’s AAA grade about Standard & Poor’s executive David T. Beers, who they refer to as “the world’s most powerful credit-rating nerd” and explain that he’ll “ultimately decide if the US debt gets downgraded to AA — forcing Americans to pay more for almost any type of loan while possibly leading the stock markets lower.”

So don’t blame the GOP, folks — blame this nerd!

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Remember when I told you to buy stock in Dunkin’ Brands? In its first day of trading, the stock rose 47% to $27.85. I doubt it will hit $40 but if it does, sell.

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And that’s yesterday.

Teresa and I were planning on going to Coney Island today. And, weather permitting, we will.

But I’ll tackle today’s paper ASAP.

Happy Friday!

Before I begin, Danny Hellman posted this on Facebook today:

And now, Rupert’s New York Post.

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There’s a 16-page PULLOUT & POSTER in today’s paper (Captain Fantastic! Derek Jeter 3,000 Tribute Special) featuring EXCLUSIVE GUEST COLUMNS by Joe Torre, Rudy 9iu11ani, Cal Ripken Jr., Alex Rodriguez, Terry Francona, Don Mattingly and almost every Post employee who writes about baseball. Everyone, that is, except… Joel Sherman.

F.U., J.S.

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Weekend Box Office:

Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon remained in first place ($47,025,000), Horrible Bosses and Zookeeper premiered in second and third ($28,110,000 and $21,000,000, respectively), Cars 2 dropped to fourth ($15,209,000) and Bad Teacher dropped to fifth ($9,000,000).

Fun Fact: In the last 12 days, Transformers 3 has made $261,000,000 in the US and $384,000,000 elsewhere. That’s $645,000,000.

I hope this means they’ll make a fourth one.

(no, I don’t)

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All of page 5 is devoted to STUPID HUMAN TRICK: Drunken, jobless actor trashes Dave’s theater, the latest in the seemingly endless stream of articles that gives tons of publicity to people that they chastise for seeking publicity.

This time, it’s 22-year-old actor James Whittemore.

James got drunk on Saturday night/Sunday morning at Hurley’s Saloon (on West 48th Street), staggered out at 5:30 a.m. and went to sleep on the sidewalk near the Ed Sullivan Theater (which is on Broadway and West 53rd Street). He woke up at 7:00 a.m. and discovered his cellphone was gone, so he did what any of us would do: He went to the Ed Sullivan Theater and urinated on one of the glass doors. Then he kicked it in. And then he broke the others.

Then he trashed an old box office (“where he allegedly smashed a printer”).

“Whittemore was later charged with burglary and criminal mischief. He was walked, smirking, to court for an arraignment hearing, where he was seen laughing to his guards. ‘[The media] are waiting for me. They know what I did. I’m known,’ he said.” You certainly are, James. You certainly are.

Fun fact: Seven people are credited with writing this article.

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“A flight-crew member found a stun gun on a JetBlue plane that had just discharged its passengers at Newark Airport after a flight from Boston, a source told The Post last night.”

We’re getting fingerbanged and bombarded with cancer at our airports and the TSA still can’t find a stun gun?

Sigh.

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Rich Calder and Sally Goldenberg’s Just call him Wal-Marty Markowitz implies that, because Walmart donated $150,000 in order to “be associated with” Markowitz’s Martin Luther King Jr. concert series, Markowitz’s opinion of Walmart has made “a dramatic shift” from criticizing them to “making sweet music” with them (and that a Walmart in Brooklyn is much closer to becoming a reality).

Of course, if you make it to the eighth paragraph (of 15), you’ll read this quote from Markowitz: “I am not philosophically opposed to Walmart but I have been consistent in demanding they show a commitment to Brooklyn by paying a fair wage, offering health benefits [and] using union workers in any construction projects in New York City.”

Which Walmart will never agree to. Which means there won’t be a Walmart in Brooklyn.

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Hannah Rappleye and Jeane MacIntosh’s ‘All natural’ butcher gives buyers bum steer quotes a butcher “who asked that his name be withheld” who claims that Union Market (the gourmet supermarket chain where Teresa and I get our fanciest cheeses and duck bacon) is selling low-grade “commodity meat” as “all natural” and “antibiotic free.” [sic]

“Nearly every week, the store butchers call to order beef or pork, and it’s not natural, or antibiotic- or hormone-free… They’ll order peeled knuckle or top butt, which can be used in ground beef. It’s a little bit of this, a little bit of that. It’s filler. Some of the stuff they order is the cheapest of the cheap — what a diner would serve.”

Luckily, we can’t afford to buy our meat at Union Market, so this doesn’t really affect us.

(Union Market vehemently denies the allegations made by the anonymous source.)

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“The bassist for the New York rock band Coheed and Cambria was busted yesterday for stealing painkillers from a Massachusetts pharmacy just hours before the group was set to perform, cops said. Mike Todd allegedly told a worker at an Attleboro Walgreens that he had a bomb and demanded OxyContin at 1 p.m.”

The band was supposed to open for Soundgarden that night. Wanna know how Mike got caught?

He took a cab from the pharmacy to the venue. The cabbie later identified him.

This guy makes Spinal Tap look like Mensa.

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Rebecca Rosenberg’s THE ‘RANDY’ RABBI: Prostitution sting in angry ex-wife’s suit begins, “A prominent Long Island Jewish leader was caught with his dreidel out in a string of sordid sex tapes.” I’m fairly certain Rebecca is 12.

But the real star of the story isn’t the Jewish leader (Rabbi Avraham Rabinowich). It’s his estranged wife, Amora Rabinowich, who secretly filmed the rabbi with a prostitute during “a bitter custody battle.” Here’s what she said to the Post:

“Since when are prostitutes kosher? He was coming to court claiming he was this pious individual, but he was using the phone on the Sabbath to meet prostitutes. And what kind of rabbi is he? He didn’t even take these prostitutes to the mikvah [Jewish ritual cleansing bath] first. What is he doing, praying or laying?”

(rimshot)

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Andrea Peyser is off today.

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John Deering’s political cartoon in Page Six (today on pages 14 and 15) features Obama driving an ice cream cart (powered by a bicycle for some reason, and labeled The BAD HUMOR MAN). He’s shouting “HELLO? YOO-HOO, IT’S MR. TAX HIKE! WHERE IS EVERYBODY?!”

This would be even funnier if the majority of the country wasn’t in favor of tax hikes (on the wealthiest 2%, the corporations, the oil companies, etc.).

Also in Page Six is a report that Anthony Weiner “escaped to Miami for a romantic weekend” with his wife, Huma Abedin. “Witnesses told us that the couple… looked very much in love.”

Which is exactly what the Post has been saying (the polar opposite of) for weeks.

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Cindy Adams must not read Page Six.

She spends almost half of her column insisting that she cannot fathom why Huma Abedin married Anthony Weiner. Then she tells us why: “Weiner made himself invaluable. Huma had no time. Traveling. Busy. Always needed. Always on the go. She required what every busy professional lady could use — a wife. He became her wife… Now, did he love, worship, cherish her that much? Or did he know she’d be useful and, thus, cleverly supplied the lone element that would bind her to him? This I don’t know.”

Is Cindy Adams really going to continue to fight death and make us all miserable? Or does she have a yeast infection that fills her home with the smell of old socks and vomit? This I don’t know (but I’m afraid the answer to both questions is yes).

Bonus Points: She fondly remembers Betty Ford thusly: “Now she’s gone. But staying is one great memory of a Gucci telephone order. Aldo Gucci himself personally dispatched the purchased handbag instantly to the Ford Model Agency’s Mrs. Eileen Ford. Trouble is, the buyer was Mrs. Betty Ford.” And that’s the end of her one great memory of Betty Ford.

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Today’s Weird BUT true sidebar is credited to Post Wire Services. It features a story on how “Dutch TV host Robert Nicolai” was hit by a contestant on Who’s the Worst Driver in the Netherlands?

I looked around and not only did I find out that Robert Nicolai’s actual name is Ruben Nicolai, but I also found the video of the accident (don’t worry — it’s not very graphic at all and Ruben has fully recovered).

I think the show has a winner.

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When Dunkin’ Donuts starts selling shares to the public next week, buy some.

But sell them shortly thereafter.

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“Post staff” is credited with the five-sentence obituary on page 28 (News of the World shuts doors in UK). My favorite is the last sentence: “Having chronicled celebrities, sex scandals and murders since the Victorian era, News of the World had also been a champion of populist causes.”

I already posted this on Facebook, but it’s worth watching again (or for the first time if you’re not lucky enough to be my Facebook friend). I still can’t believe that Steve Coogan didn’t jump across that table and beat Paul McMullen’s face into a fine mist.

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Frank Scheck gives Silence! The Musical (a musical spoof of The Silence of the Lambs) three stars.

Fun Fact: Scheck really liked the songs “Put the Fucking Lotion in the Basket,” “I’d Fuck Me” and “I Want to Smell Your Cunt.” Your move, The Book of Mormon.

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“Alex Rodriguez will miss at least a month — so he will be ready for the month that matters most. Rodriguez got a second opinion yesterday and will undergo arthroscopic surgery this morning to repair the torn meniscus in his right knee.”

He’s expected to be recovering for 4-6 weeks.

Honestly? I don’t think it’s a torn meniscus. I just think he really doesn’t want to see Bad Teacher again, but he couldn’t think of a way to tell Cameron Diaz without hurting her feelings.

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“Dallas is back in the oil and cattle-ranching business. TNT has announced that it’s greenlighting a new series based on the original primetime soap.” It’s scheduled to premiere in the summer of 2012.

Oddly enough, the movie version (which, if memory serves, stars John Travolta) is still listed as “in development” on IMDB — with a 2014 release date.

I can’t wait to not see both of them!

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And that’s Monday.

G’night!

J&R Music and Computer World’s spokesman (Abe Brown) told a Community Board 1 committee that the store wants Park Row (between Beekman Street and Ann Street) to be co-named “J&R Way” because, “All over the world, people know our name, but they can’t associate where it is.”

If that’s true, maybe a better co-name would be “Google J&R Music and Computer World, Stupid Way.”

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The legalization of gay marriage gets a full page today… on page 7. But APPLE GAYS’ ALTAR EGOS (see what they did there?) is merely a fluff piece about how gay couples are planning a whole bunch of weddings now that they’re finally allowed to tie the knot (yawn), and Annie Karni’s Giddy Quinn eyeing spring nups (about how City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has started planning her wedding) begins, “She’s ready to unleash her inner bridezilla.”

Fun Fact: “Bridezilla” is not a compliment (see any episode of Bridezillas). B’also? I don’t think any of the detestable harridans featured on that show are gay.

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In addition to O’s UNWELCOME $TEAMROLLER (which complains that Obama came to NYC for fundraisers on Thursday and disrupted traffic), Michael Goodwin’s page of sloppy prose features the piece In NBC we don’t trust (reprinted in its entirety):

“After NBC issued a mushy mea culpa for omitting ‘under God’ twice from a video of children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, a friend offers the hidden subtext of non-apology apologies: ‘I’m sorry you’re such an idiot that you were offended by something I said. And I’m really, really sorry I had to say I’m sorry. Now go [fuck] yourself!’”

I find it hard to believe that Michael Goodwin has a friend.

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Jerry Seinfeld ruined my life! tells us that Howie Kohlenberg is suing The Marriage Ref for breaking up his marriage. “The people on the show were pumping us up, saying, ‘You’re going to wake up and be stars. You’re going to be famous and make money.’ The producer kept saying her lips looked great, and all of a sudden she was getting a lot of Botox,” he claims somewhat coherently.

I tried to find the episode on YouTube, but failed. I did, however, find a clip where Jerry Seinfeld and Greg Giraldo are repeatedly questioning the sexuality of the husband — and he’s someone I went to college with (and, to the best of my knowledge, has never been gay… not that there’s anything wrong with that).

It’s a small, small world.

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This terrible newspaper just won’t stop beating the dust particles that used to be a dead horse.

Texting again, Anthony? takes up the most real estate on page 12 (it’s a large black and white photo of a lunching Anthony Weiner looking at his phone while his wife sits across from him and reads a menu). First sentence: “Down boy — your wife is sitting right there!”

The fact that the Post keeps insisting we should give a shit, is proof that we shouldn’t.

By the way, uncredited wordsmith responsible for this, when you shout a one-word imperative (like… “Down!”) at someone (let’s say… a boy), there should be a comma separating the verb and the noun. Unless you were implying that Weiner is made of soft feathers.

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This photo is on page 14.

Is it just me (or the angle of the camera) or does this carriage horse have super-tiny legs?

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But wait! There’s more Weiner-bashing on page 16 — in Todd Venezia’s piece about how “Former New York Mayor John Lindsay… gave actress Florence Henderson a nasty case of crabs during a wild one-night stand in the 1960s.” Venezia calls Lindsay “a grosser politician than Anthony Weiner.”

Keep it up, Post. It only makes people like Weiner more when they see him unfairly raked against the coals. Like Sarah Palin’s supporters, but with the ability to breath through their noses.

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Yesterday, Geoff Earle claimed that Eric Cantor and Jon Kyl walked out of the recent debt talks because Obama wasn’t there. Here’s the Cantor quote in today’s POSTSCRIPT:

“‘The Democrats insist that any deal must include tax increases. I don’t believe now is the time to raise taxes’ — [Eric Cantor] on why he pulled out of debt negotiations with the White House”

He continued, “Wah wah wah, Obama refuses to show up for us to give him yet still another non-negotiable ultimatum that will negatively affect most of the people who support us!”

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On pages 28 and 29, Peggy Noonan signs the praises of Jon Huntsman (“He can flick off criticisms with sad [sic] shake of the head.”) next to George F. Will’s love letter to Rick Perry (“Texas — a right-to-work state that taxes neither personal income nor capital gains — added more jobs than the other 49 states combined”). Gee… what’s there not to like about him? Besides this?

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For weeks, I had a coupon in my pocket for a free small Frozen Hot Chocolate at Dunkin’ Donuts. And on the particularly hot day that I finally decided to redeem it (before heading down into the bowels of MTA Hell), I saw that the coupon expired the day before.

The reason I bring this up is that Serendipity 3 accused DD of copying their $9 Frrrozen Hot Chocolate, so it’s being phased out “over the next two months.”

Full Disclosure: I bought one anyway. It was a’ight.

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Interesting things I learned from Reed Tucker’s two-page Transformers 3 piece:

• European marketers wouldn’t let Michael Bay call it Dark Side of the Moon because of the Pink Floyd album of the same name. So he removed “Side” from the title and now it makes no sense.

• Bay says this one is “a much bigger, much better movie [than the last two]. It’s got mysteries and it deals with some of the stuff from America’s past, Russia’s past. We found a pretty interesting story.” Actually, that sounds kind of zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

• Bay blames the lazy incoherence of the last installment’s script on the 2008-2009 writers’ strike (or, as Reed says, “writer’s strike” — because only one of them was on strike). Then he compares Transformers 3 to Black Hawk Down.

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ASK ASHLEY!

I recently broke up with a woman, and as you may expect, it didn’t exactly go well. Soon after, I found out that she’d been talking about my size, which she had always been complimentary of prior to our breakup. Now I’m worried that I may not be well-endowed enough to properly satisfy a woman, and that she was lying to me when she would talk about my endowment. Does size really matter? If so, what would be adequate in that department? — Tommy, Queens

ASHLEY: “Rather than focus on this petty, insignificant size issue, I’d get to the bottom of what you did or said to make her go around talking smack in the first place. In the end, if you ignore this silly nonsense and pay more attention to the reason she went ahead and did that, then you’ll come out the nice guy who tried to end things maturely, rather than the douchebag with a small weenie.”

ME: “Sadly, all women exaggerate in bed (except my wife). But I disagree with the man-hating prostitute — just walk away. Anyone as vindictive as your ex is not worth having in your life, and every person she talks to about your penis sees her for the bitter shrew she is. Unless, of course, you really do have a small penis, in which case you should get one o’ them pumps. To make sure, measure your penis. I believe the average penis is 11 inches long so, as long as you’re in that ballpark, you’ll be OK.”

I’m an old-fashioned guy who believes in walks on the beach, intimate conversations and candlelit atmospheres. That said, I don’t want to get married. My aunt never married, and I’d like to follow in her footsteps. Thing is, I also want to continue treating women the way I do, but I don’t want to mislead them. What’s the best way to let a woman know that I’m not interested in marriage, but do still like her company? — Anonymous

ASHLEY: “Just stay true to yourself. Let George Clooney be your personal role model!”

ME: “Anonymous (if that is your real name), you are the male equivalent of a cocktease (vagtease?) and a knucklehead. How do you tell a woman that you aren’t interested in marriage but want to keep spending time with her? By telling her that you aren’t interested in marriage but want to keep spending time with her. Let a person who knows how to express his thoughts through words be your personal role model!”

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The Yankees are back in first place (.587 to Boston’s .579).

Delicious.

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Have yourselves a heckuva week.

There are two equally prominent stories on today’s cover. CAR PARK RAGE: Gal beaten into coma over spot tells the tale of the “raving lunatic” who “pummeled a young woman into a coma because she was saving the East Village parking spot he wanted.” Lana Rosas was saving the spot (outside 520 E. 14th Street) for her boyfriend when Oscar Fuller (“whose prior busts include weapons possession and felony assault”) pulled up in his minivan. When Rosas refused to get out of his way, he “jumped out and started screaming and Rosas.” Then, according to court papers, he “punched [her] in the face with so much force that the woman flew off her feet.” The police claim that Rosas “suffered permanent brain damage. It’s uncertain whether or not she will survive her injuries.”

But Fuller said (through his attorney who, incredibly, isn’t Joseph Tacopina), “I would never intend to physically hurt a woman.” The attorney (Thomas Kenniff) then accused Rosas of instigating the fight by throwing the first punch. “She hit him in the face. My client has the injuries to prove it.”

Until I am shown a photo of Kenniff and Tacopina in the same place at the same time, I will assume that Thomas Kenniff is one of Tacopina’s pseudonyms.

The other cover story? MOVIE REVIEWS (which informs us that there are movie reviews in today’s paper).

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Charlie Sheen shows up on page 5 today in Sheen: It pays to be a Twit.

“Charlie Sheen thinks he can make $1 million this year without even leaving his crowded bed. He’s signed a deal to join 5,000 celebrities — from Paris Hilton to Snoop Dogg — to deliver product endorsements on Twitter. ‘It’s a cash cow,’ Sheen gloated.”

This is (one of the innumerable reasons) why I won’t be “following” Charlie on Twitter (which, incidentally, I joined yesterday @jedresnik #latetotheparty #istillpreferfacebook). Incidentally, the firm that he signed with is ad.ly. And where are “ly” domains from? Libya!

And with that, the line between Sheen and Khadafy becomes even blurrier.

Bonus Points: “[Sheen] tweeted yesterday that he reached a new deal with ex-wife Brooke Mueller for custody of their twin toddler boys, Bob and Max. He didn’t disclose the terms. Then, an hour later, Mueller said the deal was off because he tweeted about it.”

(pushes Like button)

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Of the 650 grocery stores that the city’s Department of Consumer Affairs inspected, 370 of them were cited for violations (and fined $380,000). Of the 25 markets paying the most fines (in the 2010 fiscal year), I’ve shopped at three of them:

#10 – Key Food, 169-175 Atlantic Ave., Cobble Hill, Brooklyn (fined $4,200)

#19 – Fairway, 480 Van Brunt St., Red Hook, Brooklyn ($3,120)

#23 – Whole Foods, 10 Columbus Circle, Manhattan ($2,975)

I need to win the lottery so that I can do all my shopping at Union Market. And so I can afford all the surgeries I’ll need after converting to a diet of baguettes and fancy cheeses.

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According to National Geographic, “the world’s most typical human being is a 28-year-old Han Chinese man who speaks Mandarin and owns a cellphone.” And if that’s not enough to frighten Glenn Beck’s audience, dig this: “By 2030, the most typical person in the world will be from India.”

We need to figure out a way to get India and China to go to war with each other ASAP.

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“More than a third of Americans regularly sleep less than seven hours a day — and doctors at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fear that may be affecting their ability to concentrate.”

That’s weird because I often sleep for less than seven hours and this morning I thought about trying Dunkin Donuts’ new Big ‘n Toasty, but when I got to 5th Avenue, the B63 was there so I just got on it (I didn’t want to wait for the next one, which could take anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes to get there) and the oddly-shaped blonde woman who always shouts her conversations (and who I used to always see on the B63 but hadn’t for so long that I forgot about her) was there. She was telling the driver (the dictionary definition of a captive audience) about a self-defense course she was enrolled in and I wondered if the course was called “Talking So Loud He’ll Leave You Alone,” which made me laugh. Man, that bus smelled.

What were we talking about again? Oh yeah. This.

Maybe next time.

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“The Port Authority’s failure to maintain a quarter-mile section of fencing adjacent to Kennedy Airport is but the latest thing to go wrong with a $100 million, state-of-the-art security system, security experts say. A section of the fencing next to a runway along Jamaica Bay went down during recent bad weather — leaving the entire airport vulnerable, they charge.”

If bad weather can destroy an entire section of fencing, it isn’t state-of-the-art. Also, if you know the exact location of the breach, let me know so that Teresa and I can bypass the cancer-causing junk-fondling checkpoint when we go to Florida later this month.

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“Dozens of rounds of ammo were found yesterday outside the Wisconsin Capitol building where protesters have rallied against the governor’s budget and anti-collective bargaining bill.” They found 11 bullets near one entrance, 29 near another, and 1 more near a third entrance.

Remember when the Tea Party reminded us that the tree of liberty needs to be refreshed with the blood of patriots — and brought loaded semi-automatic weapons to their rallies? Were you outraged then? No? Then you can’t be outraged now.

If you want to be outraged about something in Wisconsin, try this.

In a related story, “A Wisconsin judge ruled that protesters who have been occupying the building should be removed.”

And no one should go to bed hungry. And everyone should have a job. And politicians should listen to all of their constituents, not just the few who donate the most.

Keep fighting the good fight, cheeseheads.

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According to Page Six (today on page 16), Mike Myers and his longtime girlfriend (Kelly Tisdale) are married. Tisdale is best-known for co-founding Teany with her then-boyfriend Moby.

Also in Page Six (this time on page 18) is news that Jason Davis (of Dr. Drew Presents Dr. Drew’s Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew as Dr. Drew infamy) “was recently charged with felony possession of a controlled substance following his heroin arrest in January.”

I would love to get Davis and Charlie Sheen together to pitch a reality show called My Last Year. I’m pretty sure VH1 would buy it.

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The Oscars were on Sunday, which is why Cindy Adams is still talking about them. Your backstage pass describes (in far too much detail) how Cindy prepped for them, but she takes her own experiences and projects them onto the reader! It’s almost as exciting as being there!

“You wait to nail the star of The King’s Speech, now so hot that even before he shows home movies to his family they’ve already earned $22 million. You want to ask: ‘Colin, now that you’re Firth with your countrymen, did you get an invite to The Wedding?’ Or you look to ask Jeff Bridges if True Grit makes him want a home where the buffalo roam and the deer and the antelope play. Finally They come.

* The septuagenarians. One asked: ‘Is my fly open?’ Told, ‘No,’ he answered, ‘Well, it should be. I’m peeing.’”

It goes on for what seems like an eternity, ending with Cindy’s advice on how to “juice up” next year’s Oscars — “Maybe replay Joan of Arc’s climactic scene. To make it a little more au courant, at the stake Joan can cry: ‘What are you doing? The smoke alarm just went off in my knickers!’”

Stop fighting it, Cindy. Just get in the box.

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Today’s Weird BUT true sidebar lets us know about my new favorite car recall. Apparently, a spider crawled into the gas tank of a Mazda and “spun a web in the car’s gas-line vent that caused so much ‘excessive vacuum’ that the fuel tank cracked, engineers said. [Mazda] issued a recall to install anti-spider screens in thousands of cars.”

When she heard about this, Julie Taymor reported screamed, “That’s it! That’s our new Act Three!” Then she delayed the opening of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark for another three years.

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Michelle Malkin’s MY PEOPLE REJECT THE RACE CARD refers to the person who called Herman Cain a “minstrel” who performs for his “masters” a “cowardly liberal writer” (I believe this is what she called the author in her last column, as well) — but she doesn’t mention that the author (who writes under the pseudonym Chauncey DeVega) is Black.

But she applauds Katrina Pierson for saying the NAACP is made up of “Democrats who bow to a Democrat master today as they once did over 200 years ago.”

If you equate someone Malkin likes to a slave, you’re a racist. If you do it to someone Malkin hates, you’re refreshingly “post-racial.”

Malkin finishes by once again praising the Tea Party movement. “It’s government of, by and for the people — all the people, not just the ones still shackled by reflexive Democratic Party loyalty. We’re beholden not to our skin pigment or ethnic tribes but to American ideals, tradition, history and faith in the individual.”

Which is kind of funny coming from the author of

But Michelle is right about one thing: No American should care about skin color.

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And speaking of Malkin’s blatant hypocrisy, Jeff Stier’s POINTLESS PANIC ON PCBs on page 31 explains that fear of PCBs is all based on junk-science alarmism. And how does he know this? “Jeff Stier, a National Center for Public Policy Research senior fellow, heads its risk-analysis division.“

And what’s the National Center for Public Policy Research? Well, according to their Web site, “a conservative think tank.” But it isn’t funded by “radical billionaire George Soros,” so Malkin is probably OK with them.

Bonus Points: I also found this gushing testimonial on their site: “Competent self-governance requires an educated citizenry. By providing tens of millions of Americans with facts about breaking issues and supplying a policy perspective rooted in the views of our Founders, The National Center for Public Policy Research helps make our democracy work.” And who said such nice things about the NCPPR?

Alan Keyes.

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Bill O’Reilly’s Labor’s Lost Love starts off explaining how both of Mr. O’Reilly’s grandfathers belonged to unions, as did his uncle. And he admits that he is a member of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (“for more than 30 years”), who fought on his behalf when King World Productions “tried to dodge pension payments for Inside Edition employees” when Bill worked there. “Without the union, we would have been hosed.”

But then… “The cold truth is that unions are on the way out. High tech means big changes in the workplace, and labor protections aren’t needed as much as they once were. In Wisconsin, we’re seeing the beginning of a new attitude toward the US worker. There will be pain until we get things sorted out.”

So… you’re leaving AFTRA, Bill? (SPOILER: No.) But why does the middle class need to feel all of the pain? Why can’t the country’s wealthiest do their patriotic and moral duty and help out?

“Many liberal Americans want to raise taxes to bring down the debt. But that crushes economic expansion. Corporations and rich folks will only take so much taxation before they leave the building.”

And by building, O’Reilly means America. What he is saying (without a hint of irony) is that if we raise taxes (to Clintonian levels — a far cry from the Reagan era) on the rich, they’re leave the country. Does that sound like patriotism? Why are we afraid of those people leaving? If they want to take their ball and go home, they will leave a void that will be filled by actual patriots.

Real patriots ask not what their country can do for them, but what they can do for their country. You know who said that? Me neither. I think it’s from a Kevin Costner movie.

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Crude oil fell slightly to $101.91/barrel yesterday.

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MOVIE REVIEWS!

Lou Lumenick gives two stars to The Adjustment Bureau (“a thriller where the hero’s biggest challenge is finding a cab in lower Manhattan during rush hour”), three stars to Rango (“the most immersive cinema experience since Avatar“), half a star to Beastly (“Yes it is.”), and one star to Take Me Home Tonight (“a tediously unfunny comedy shot four years ago as Kids in America“).

V.A. Musetto inexplicably gives three stars to both Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (mature themes) and The Human Resources Manager (mature themes), but the three stars he gives to I Saw the Devil (nudity, gore, nonstop violence) make perfect sense.

Kyle Smith gives half a star to Happythankyoumoreplease (“the aggressively irritating cine-sitcom… isn’t quite insipid, although if it were a little better, it could be”).

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The rest of the paper is boring.

I will now attempt to post a link to today’s entry on Twitter.

Also, this week’s Let’s Have A Ball (Saturday @ 7:30 @ UCB) is scheduled to feature me, Christina Gausas, Kay Cannon, Neil Casey and Pam Murphy. Reservations are still available, but that will change in the very-near-future.