Respect Authority

Discovery: Having a case of the Tuesdays is just as bad as having a case of the Mondays, when Tuesday basically is Monday and perhaps even worse when considering that Monday was actually a holiday and thus Tuesday comes after three whole days of utter relaxation, characterized by the fact that I started the weekend with at least 30 beers in my refrigerator and ended it with none. This particular case of the Tuesdays was also significantly contributed to by the fact that the first thing I did this morning was manage to slam my own finger in the bathroom door. In truth, no day of the week should start with me crouching on the ground cursing my own stupidity before 7 a.m.

That said, there’s plenty to be cheerful about this morning: the sun’s out, the temperature’s reasonable and I’m only one large coffee away from feeling human again. Oh, and this stuff: 

NEW YORK CITY BUSES are getting new sensors that will open their rear doors automatically when people are nearby. The goal is to help senior citizens and people with baggage to get on the bus more easily, though I have a far more entertaining visual of the city more or less condoning all the people who sneak in the back door without paying. 

BEN STILLER FANTASTY FOLLOW-UP Night at the Musem 2 actually beat out the much-anticipated revival of Terminator at the box office this weekend. Don’t worry, all this really says about society is that we’d rather escape to a world where historical relics come to life than one where 20-story robots bent on our destruction demolish the globe. And we like Owen Wilson. 

BROADWAY OPENED THIS WEEKEND for pedestrians, as vehicular traffic at Herald and Times squares was shut down in some bizarre new Bloomberg experiment that uses bright lights and shiny things to distract New Yorkers from the mayor’s imminent third-term run. The result — thousands of people sitting in deck chairs on concrete in the hot sun, surrounded by exhaust residue and homeless people’s pee — says it’s working!

ACCORDING TO THE WALL Street Journal, the recession is taking its toll on rappers, “many of whom are finding it difficult to afford the diamond-encrusted pendants and heavy gold chains they have long used to project an aura of outsized wealth.” Show me one Wall Street Journal writer that’s actually heard of or met an actual “hip hop artist,” and I’ll show you the paper’s crime reporter.