From today's News:

Transit union leader Roger Toussaint reports to the Tombs this afternoon to being serving his 10-day sentence for leading the three-day strike against the MTA in December in violation of the state's Taylor Law. The News prints an exclusive! interview with Toussaint today, conducted on the eve of his incarceration, in which he talks about what a challenge this will be, especially for his family.

Now that they've finally broken ground — or "lifted rail," or whatever they've done — on the High Line, it seems we might never again see one of those delightfully repetitive "High Line Approved! For Now!" headlines. How to fill the void? With the perhaps-apocryphal Second Avenue Subway, of course. Let the "Second Avenue Subway Approved! For Now!" headlines begin. It's all you, Newsday.

Click to enlarge.

D'oh. Talking! Why didn't somebody think of that before?

Though we may choose to ignore it, transit workers and the MTA have yet to reach an actual agreement. Though we believe (or pray, anyhow) that the situation won't plummet to the hellish depths of December's strike, we found the above chart rather helpful. It's not exactly news but, should things get ugly, this is the sort of information you need to appropriately direct your anger. If we hate together, we can win together.

This picture showed up in our inbox late last night. We have no idea when it's from. (The emailer says it was taken on an uptown 6, just above Canal, at about 11 at night. But it's clearly an IND/BMT train car, not an IRT, which makes us skeptical of the other claims.) All we know is that if we had to look at that hairy white gut, well, dammit, so do you.

Our beloved officials at the MTA announced yesterday that refuse left behind from riders has resulted in "about 15 tons more trash a day" than in 2004. Authorities noted communter newspapers like AM New York and Metro, which are hawked outside of subway entrances, are particularly responsible in the increase in garbage, and "may be in large part to blame for a surge in track fires."

Yeah, the strike was messy and inconvenient and unpleasant, but it least it finally made a deal happen on all those employment issues. What? Oh, right.

On the E train this morning. "No eyeholes or anything," the photographer astutely points out, "so I doubt it is a burka." Any better guesses?

Oct. 14: Negotiations start on new contract.
Dec. 16: Old contract expires.
Dec. 20: Systemwide strike begins.
Dec. 22: Strike ends.
Dec. 23: Full MTA service resumes.
Jan. 20: Union membership votes down negotiated deal.
Feb. 10: MTA, TWU announce that no substantive new talks have taken place.

The latest in harder-to-hide-bombs-in trash-receptacle technology, spotted this morning at Jay Street-Borough Hall:

Taken at the 28th & Park 4/5/6 station, 1:15 PM.

For what seems like the last decade or so, L train riders — and not just the Williamsburg hipsters whose inconveniences we've all mutually agreed to Schadenfreudically enjoy, but also normal people just trying to get back and forth between the West and East Villages — have been plagued by near-constant weekend and nighttime service interruptions. Must change to a different train at Third Avenue! No service between Lorimer and Eighth! The whole line is closed! It has been a colossal pain in the ass, but, deep down, we knew it was for a good cause: The TA was installing fancy new signaling equipment, systems using computers and radio transmitters and other newfangled technologies invented in the century since the subway's electromechanical signaling system was developed.

• Lindsay Lohan admits to Vanity Fair that she's used drugs and struggled with bulimia. When we blow rails and boot our brunch, we usually go to Graydon Carter for confessional, too.
• Zeta Graff sues Paris Hilton for being a big, fat liar — but, as it turns out, her paid liar/publicist Rob Shuter might be just as bad.
• Peter Braunstein pleads not guilty to charges of sexual assault; guilty on all charges of looking incredibly frightening.
• Left befuddled by the state of the odd-amounted Metrocard, we fall victim to the strange intricacies of the card machine, only to find eventual redemption.
• Jon Stewart attempts to save the Oscars from total irrelevance.
• Dow Jones CEO Peter Kann and his wife, Wall Street Journal publisher Karen Elliot House, leave the company, but not without a handsome payoff.
• Marc Kramer is hired as CEO of the Daily News. Les who?
• Observer editor Peter Kaplan looks to save the precious pink paper with the power of Bruce Wasserstein.
• West Virginian miners die in tragic explosion; media runs inaccurate, opposite story in tragic miscommunication.
• And in more bad news: the health of Israeli PM Ariel Sharon is not looking good .
• But cheer up, because Real Simple will soon suck on a tv near you!

As you'll recall, the MTA's gratuitous, financially unsound, and arguably strike-encouraging holiday-season ride-for-a-buck special left some riders with odd balances remaining on their Metrocards. A cantankerous pal was left with a single buck; we with $13. At first, we didn't know it was possible to add non-round amounts to a 'Card, but you quickly disabused us of that notion. So we hightailed it to our local IND stop, at which we further proved our stupidity and, without going into an explanation, left the station with a balance of $33.40, which was far worse than the $13 we entered with.

• Go forth, little mischief makers, and make your own subway sign — just because you can. [Subway Fun]
• If you read that Times article about a month ago about the magically irritating converted schoolhouse shared by a bunch of creatives in Bushwick and thought, "Hey, that's neat," now's your chance to move in. You're an idiot, but, hey, we're not judging. [Craigslist via Lindsayism]
• How she gets the scoops: Daily News gossip girl Jo Piazza is a kissing bandit. [NYO]
• Three of the top seven most emailed Times articles pertain to macaroni and cheese, and yet we wonder why America is the land of the obese. [NYT]
• Only the brave should listen to the new Kevin Federline track. We, as we've noted before, are total pussies. Knock yourselves out, though, and tell us how it goes. [Yahoo! Music]
• Whether or not author JT Leroy is real, at least the experience of figuring him out is decidedly surreal. [Guardian]

How had we never noticed the "Other Amounts" button before?

An always cantankerous (but also frequently correct) friend emails this morning with a cantankerous but correct dilemma:

How much did that transit strike suck? More than I would know but let's pop open any remaining sores you may have on your feet and sand them over with some Morton's saltpaper. Turns out the Transport Workers Union Local 100 fared very well in the final settlement and no amount of bitchin' or fist-shakin' or Craigslist postin' can change it now. When it pains, it roars.