The party's over (sigh).

Starting at midnight, commuters using the Long Island Railroad will no longer be allowed to get sauced while traveling from Manhattan to Long Island on early morning weekend trains thanks to the railroad's attempt to curb "rambunctious behavior" (see several examples of the aforementioned behavior below).

LIRR officials say there were six incidents last year where railroad employees were attacked by passengers, which is the most in five years.

The ban would be applied to trains that run between midnight and 5 a.m. on Friday and Saturday mornings.

The problem with the ban, as we see it, is that there's no way to control how much commuters drink before they get on a train. In other words, unless the LIRR plans to check the sobriety of every passenger prior to letting them on the train, drunk people will still be using the railroad and the "rambunctious behavior" will continue.

See several video examples of drunken LIRR shenanigans below.

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It wasn't too long ago we brought you the latest report on how New York's airports suck. Well, today we have some more good news from the New York Times . The paper reports that the airspace that includes JFK, LaGuardia and Newark (as well as Jersey's Teterboro Airport and Philadelphia International Airport) "accounted for nearly half of all delays in the nation" in the first half of 2011. Meanwhile, those airports were only responsible for 12 percent of domestic flights. Yikes.

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As we ring in the new year, Hurricane Irene may seem like a distant memory from warmer, rainier days. But recovery from the damage is not done! And New York has officially secured millions of federal dollars to rebuild.

$90 million, to be exact. Well, to be EXACT: $89,751,296.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is awarding the congressionally approved emergency relief funds to New York State to fix the damage of Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee, U.S. Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand announced in a press release late yesterday afternoon.

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The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Texas Rangers 6-2 last night to win their 11th World Series. After letting up 2 runs in the first, the Cardinals scored 6 unanswered to take the series. They were down 2-3 in the Fall Classic after losing game 5 to the Rangers. David Freese was the World Series MVP and hit the tying RBI in Game 7 with a double in the bottom of the first. Freese had hit the game-tying and walk-off RBIs in Game 6, which the Cardinals won in 11 innings. [ESPN]

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via BBC

An ultra-light airplane flew into a Ferris wheel in Australia after it couldn't gain enough altitude during take-off. How light is an "ultra-light" plane, you ask? Light enough to crash into a dinky festival Ferris wheel and not knock it over. Four people were trapped--two men in the plane and two children at the top of the Ferris wheel--but no serious injuries were reported. The pilot and his passenger were stuck in the aircraft as it dangled in the spokes of the giant festival ride for three hours while rescue workers sprayed the plane with foam to prevent a fire. The Sydney Morning Herald reports "investigators will examine why a Ferris wheel was installed next to an airstrip." The incident happened tomorrow, you know, 'cause of the time difference.

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via DARPA's news release.

An unmanned aircraft engineered to go 20 times the speed of sound was lost on its second test flight Thursday. The BBC reports that scientists lost track of the Falcon Hypersonic Test Vehicle 2, or HTV-2, shortly after it detached from a rocket high above the California coast. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, published a press release saying that the "aircraft impacted the Pacific Ocean along the planned flight path."

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​A driver for 'Cash Cab,' the excellent mobile TV quiz show that is also kind of fake, ran over a 61-year-old man in Vancouver yesterday. The man, who was from Surrey, British Columbia, died of his injuries. The show had finished the night's filming and a producer (not the bald-pated host of the American version, although can you imagine?) was driving the van when it struck the man. No charges have been filed. This is like someone being electrocuted by their Jeopardy screen, or bludgeoned to death by the Wheel of Fortune, except real. The production company in charge, Castlewood Productions, didn't respond to my request for comment, nor did anyone at the Discovery Channel.

[Vancouver Sun]

[@_rosiegray]

The award for most insufferable person of the week goes (not without a challenge) to the woman yelling at her Metro-North conductor, who calmly asked the customer to "keep it down and stop using profanity or to take it to the vestibule," according to the YouTube description. "Do you know what schools I've been to and how well-educated I am?" the woman says in the most obnoxious tone; it's like a parody of a wealthy woman.

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​Think of the grossest thing you can come up with. No, not that. Not that either! Ew, dude. Yes, the grossest thing is reaching up into a drug mule's rectum and removing drugs they've stored there in an attempt to smuggle them hassle-free through airports. Thanks to modern technology, the good people at JFK no longer have to do this. There is a high-tech contraption known as the "Drug Loo" which, and there's really no polite way of saying it, but I guess basically drug mules take a shit in it (or does it suck everything OUT of them?) and it separates the fecal matter from the drugs. More >>

OK, there's no official record for how long anyone's been obnoxious on a quiet car. But we believe that Lakeysha Beard, who spoke loudly, and nonstop, on her cell as she traveled from Oakland, California, to Salem, Oregon -- for 16 hours -- surely wins at least the anecdotal record for obnoxiousness. Beard "said she felt 'disrespected' by the entire incident," in which she eventually (16 hours in) got into a verbal altercation with train passengers resulting in the train being stopped and her being escorted off it by cops.

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