Your FiPS Guide to Finding a Last-Minute Valentine's Day Date

I hesitate to mention that it’s almost Valentine’s Day, because, I know for most FiPS readers, it’s painful to talk about it still, to this day.  But if you’re still obsessing over the precise moment that love died for you the last time, maybe it’s time for you to crawl out of that dirty bathtub you've been sleeping in, put some clothes on, and try to find someone new to date. You can do this, lame-ass!

Since you’re used to dating people with borderline personality disorders, we’ve gone ahead  and done some legwork for you by turning to the most obvious place that anyone would look for a suitable candidate for your next just-aborted-at-the-last-possible-moment-before-it's-too-late-murder-suicide pact: Craigslist!

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Where To Have A Phat Fat Tuesday

Image via ourladyofsantaclara.orgIf you're in the Slope, and you're trying to cobble together some kind of Mardi Gras celebration this week, I'm sorry to tell you that your options are limited. Your choices appear to be: (1) Two Boots; or (2) leave the neighborhood.

Two Boots might be a great option, but I wouldn't know. The only two times I've been there have been on weekends, where it appeared to be "Divorced Dad" night. I guess the restaurants lets kids play with dough to keep them occupied, and when you're going through your mid-life crisis, you're never going to meet your new wife at Chuck E. Cheese.  How was the food, though? I don't remember. I just remember that one of the two boots is Louisiana, so you've got a fighting chance of getting a Mardi Gras pizza at Two Boots.

Ugh.

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Park Slope Celebs Make NRA "Enemies" List

The NRA has published its "enemies list," and two Park Slope celebrity residents, Steve Buscemi and Patrick Stewart have made the cut!  It looks like the list was last updated back in September, 2012, and it includes the names of many other influential celebrities who don't live in Brooklyn, like Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Sandy Duncan, N Sync, and Vinnie Testaverde. Jennifer Connolly is on the list, too.  If only she hadn't moved out of the neighborhood, we'd have three celebrities on the list!

I know that there are some out there who think that the leadership of the NRA is out-of-touch, particularly in the aftermath of several dozen recent shooting massacres. But I'd submit that this is exactly the type of thing that "sportsmen" need to know. When they're not hunting deer, engaged in target practice, or defending themselves from intruders, many gun enthusiasts no doubt enjoy going to the theater.  Now, they'll know that before they buy a ticket to see Betty Buckley in a Broadway musical, they're supporting the career of a celebrity who wants to take their guns away! Many gun-toting gymnastics fans will have to idolize people other than Mary Lou Retton and Cathy Rigby. Do you think Marla Maples, Linda Dano and Richard Karn will ever work again, now that they're on the list?

My biggest beef with this list (aside from the fact that they don't seem to know Geraldo Rivera's last name), is that so many people on the list have been dead for a long time. Not because they were shot, of course. But now that Ed Koch has passed away, maybe they could take this opportunity to remove Jill Clayburgh, Norah Ephron, and Andy Williams.

I'm not really sure what Buscemi and Stewart did to get on the list, but are we to assume that other Slope celebs are big firearm aficionados? Anyone know where Maggie Gyllenhaal stands on this?

Property Shark Lists Imaginary Brooklyn Neighborhood on "Most Expensive" List.

via nabewise.comThere are two Brooklyn Neighborhoods in Property Shark's list of Top 10 Most Expensive Neighborhoods in New York City, and Park Slope is neither of those two.  According to the list, Boerum Hill is the priciest Brooklyn 'hood, and the sixth most expensive in all five boroughs.  DUMBO squeaked through in ninth place.  The median sale price in BH was $950,000.  In DUMBO, the median price was nearly $860,000 (down from over 1.2 Million in 2011).

Here's why this is bullshit.  Boerum Hill isn't even an actual neighborhood.  If you ask anyone who lives anywhere along that stretch of the F-train where no one ever gets a seat during the morning rush hour, people will easily identify that they're living in Carroll Gardens or Cobble Hill, but no one has ever been able to clearly articulate (at least to my satisfaction) where the borders of "Boerum Hill" actually are.  The best you can get from someone is that it's vaguely somewhere between Buttermilk Channel and that horrible multiplex where everyone's always talking on their cell phones during the movie.  Even Wikipedia can't tell you where the boundaries are. "The western border is variously given as either Smith or Court Streets, and Warren or Wyckoff Streets as the southern edge."  That's why Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams told everyone they were moving to Boerum Hill in Brooklyn--they knew no one would ever be able to stalk them, there.

So, Property Shark gets a big ol' "PFFFT" for putting a neighborhood on the list which may not actually exist.  And as for you Park Slope property owners?  Well, you all should try harder to be rich and fancy, if you want to be on this list next year.

HOW TO USE YOUR CHILD FOR FREE METROCARDS!

via New York Newsday

So. Apparently, Mayor Bloomberg gave a radio address where he went all postal on the union that represents school bus drivers.  And by "postal," I mean "passive-aggressive." He asserted that the union is making demands that the city can't, legally, meet. And then he warned that they may strike over these so-called illegal demands that can't be met.

This makes total sense. Unions are stronger than they've ever been, these days.  All it takes is for a union to make an illegal demand, and then Mayor Bloomberg (who has only managed to get what little money he has by virtue of kow-towing to unions right-and-left), well, Our Dear Mayor has his hands tied!  Poor thing.  This is probably why we don't have that express train on the F line that he promised us last time he was up for election. Because of unions!

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