Archives for April 2012

Who’s Moving to the Suburbs? Pawn Shops, That’s Who!

April 28, 2012 by

If you live in the suburbs, and you’ve been wondering how you can offload that used Rolex for some walking around money, I have good news for you:

A slice of urban grit is moving to the suburbs.

Pawn shops are becoming increasingly more popular in areas outside New York City, and some residents aren’t pleased about it.

The sign of the pawnbroker, familiar in the concrete jungle of Gotham, is coming soon to a suburban street near you.

This is very exciting news, I think.  I’ve become a big fan of all those cable shows featuring pawn brokers buying up stuff, so I’m looking forward to something like “Pawn Stars: Westchester” on my basic cable lineup this fall.

And anytime that I find some antiques lying around the house, and am looking to get a good 20 cents on the dollar on my way to Atlantic City, I no longer have to lug them into the city.

Seriously, do people really need pawn shops anymore? Ebay is basically a big pawn shop where you can sell basically anything and probably get a better price rather than negotiating with a guy who probably knows more about what you’re selling than you do, and does this all day long.

While I’m on the subject, why do people bring specialty items into pawn stores?Every week on Pawn Stars, some guy comes in with a Civil War rifle or something, and big bald Rick tells them he’ll have to bring an expert in to appraise it.  Why don’t those people just bring it to the expert in the first place?  And then why do they stand there and let the appraiser value it, only to then sell it for 60 cents on the dollar to Rick?  Those people drive me crazy.  GO TO EBAY!

All that said, as the honorary and self-appointed driver of the “Moving to the Suburbs of Manhattan” Welcome Wagon, let me just say to the owners of all these wonderful pawn shops — Welcome to the Suburbs!

Filed Under: News, Who's Moving to the Suburbs? Tagged With: , ,

Where Do Most New York Cheating Spouses Live? In the Suburbs!

April 28, 2012 by

Oh man, this is not good.

Lots of coverage this week of a report from Ashley Madison, a website apparently designed for people looking to have affairs, identifying the best places in the New York to try to cheat on your spouse.  Essentially, Ashley Madison looked at the overall population of towns and cities, and then calculated the percentage of people who were members of the site.

So, for example, at least 3% of the adults who live in Great Neck, Long Island are on the site, living in cheater’s paradise. That’s pretty alarming.  I mean, if you live in Great Neck, and you’re in a room with 33 other people, statistically speaking one of you is on Ashley Madison looking for some strange.  And one of those people might be your spouse…..

Indeed, the report showed that seven of the top 10 cheating areas were in the suburbs.  Here’s the full top 10 list:

1). Great Neck, L.I.

2). Park Slope, Brooklyn

3). Upper East Side

4). Forest Hills, Queens

5). TriBeCa

6). New City – Rockland County

7). Douglaston, Queens

8). Riverdale, The Bronx

9). Howard Beach, Brooklyn

10). Garden City, L.I.

I think that’s a little surprising.  After all, who would have thought that the quiet, boring suburbs would be such hotbeds of sweaty illicit action?  I mean, seriously — New City?  I’ve been to New City.  I don’t even think that the people in New City have sex with their spouses, much less other people’s spouses.  I need to get out more, apparently.

How can this be? Well, the methodology is a little whack, since it’s based on taking the total number of people who live in a town/city and then dividing it by the number of people on the site.  So I can see how smaller towns might be more likely to make the top 10 list, simply because they have fewer people and a relatively small number of members could forge a higher percentage.

But it also might actually be a reflection of the general atmosphere of the suburbs: more married people, more boredom, more free weekends with not a lot to do. And maybe people in the suburbs need a site like Ashley Madison to hook up, since you don’t have the urban density of the city to provide fresh new opportunities to destroy your married life and ultimately cut your life savings in half.

I have to be honest that I’m very happy that Nyack didn’t make the list, because I have enough problems at home.

Filed Under: Humor, Living in the Suburbs, News Tagged With: ,

Who’s Moving to the Suburbs? Ryan Reynolds, That’s Who!

April 26, 2012 by

Hollywood Life is reporting that movie star Ryan Reynolds is moving to the suburbs! And not just the suburbs, but the Manhattan suburbs:

Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds want to escape city life and settle down in the suburbs, Us Weekly reports. We think they’re ready to take the leap!

The Gossip Girl star and her super-hot boyfriend of six months “have been looking around different areas of Connecticut” for a house, an insider tells the mag.

They were spotted strolling through New Canaan, an upscale town about an hour outside of NYC, on April 12, and checked out several home decor stores while they were there, according to Us.

Blake, 24 and Ryan, 35, “would like to live, as much as they can, like a normal couple,” the insider says. “They love getting out of the city and appreciate a slower pace.”

Hopefully the couple doesn’t plan to slow down their careers, though — we don’t know what we’d do without Serena on Gossip Girl!

This is a pretty nice get for us in the suburbs, although I have to be honest that I have absolutely no idea who Blake Lively is…….

Filed Under: News, Who's Moving to the Suburbs? Tagged With: , ,

Who’s Moving to the Suburbs? Usher, That’s Who!

April 24, 2012 by

First Beyonce and Jay Z, and now……Usher?

Could R&B singer USHER be prepared to settle down and make ANOTHER family???? Well he was out HOUSE HUNTING yesterday in Hudson, NY – a FAMILY FRIENDLY town outside of NYC.

Okay, so it’s from website I’ve never heard of, and no one else picked it up, and it looks like all he was doing was driving around Hudson County (hey! shout out to Hudson!), probably not for himself.

But I take whatever I can get. Sooooo……………

Welcome, Usher!  I don’t actually know any of your music, because I’m so completely lame, but you’re famous and all, so we’re thrilled to have you aboard!

Filed Under: News, Who's Moving to the Suburbs? Tagged With: