#594. Happy Halloween

A day when too much candy is barely enough

#593. NYC Marathon on Sunday

Paul is running on Sunday (bib # 30036). This was a group photo Tuesday morning of the New York Flyers' "6@6" group, at the finish line in Central Park.

Current forecast is for 13 deg max and scattered showers. Race starts at 10 and he's hoping to come in under 4 hours. Here's the course.

#592. Kangaroo named Buster escapes Staten Island home, hops around before getting caught by cops

Buster the kangaroo became the latest illegal animal to escape a crass menagerie on Staten Island on Saturday. Two mechanics arrived at their auto-repair shop on Travis Avenue at 8 a.m to find the male marsupial bouncing around the parking lot. “I pulled in and thought it was a deer,” Bleron Osmani told The Post. “So I went to nudge it with my car to move it out of the way, and I saw it lift up its two arms and I said, ‘That’s not a deer!’ ” “We thought maybe it was from the zoo, so we called the police,” said his brother, Urim. “We were afraid he would go out on the street and get hurt,” Bleron added. Buster had hopped two houses down from the Victory Boulevard home of Giovanni Schirripa, 33, known as Johnny, a serial exotic-animal owner who has kept zebras, peacocks and roosters as pets. “Johnny loves animals,” a neighbor said. “I looked out the upstairs window, and I saw the kangaroo. And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s Johnny’s kangaroo.’ ” He said he called Schirripa and told him to come get his 3-foot-tall, 1¹/₂-year-old buddy. “Johnny came up and picked up the kangaroo in his arms,” the neighbor said. Apparently, the Australian import bounded to freedom when someone left the gate of a backyard enclosure unlatched. It bounced around for 10 to 15 minutes before being captured, police said. Cops did not charge or ticket Schirripa, who claimed the kangaroo lives with his brother upstate legally and was only visiting. It is illegal to keep such an animal in New York City. He had a similar tail of woe in 2012, when a zebra and a miniature pony escaped his urban jungle and trotted through traffic before being lassoed. Schirripa told authorities at the time that he had a permit for a petting zoo starring Razzi the Zebra. But the city Health Department told The Post no such license had been issued. He also claimed he shipped the pony and zebra away to Phillipsburg, NJ. “When [the Health Department] first got here, they questioned me about the whereabouts of the zebra,” Schirripa told The Post at the time. “And I told them, ‘I don’t have to tell you anything about the zebra. It’s just not here.’ ” Instead, the Health Department slapped him with violations for housing three roosters and three peacocks. Saving Souls Rescue, a nonprofit that helps abandoned pit bulls, is listed at the Victory Boulevard address. A woman at the home refused to speak to a reporter. As for the latest outlaw animal, a neighbor told The Post that he found Buster in his back yard two weeks ago. “It’s a bit normal around here. It’s happened before,” he said. Schirripa told cops Buster would be sent back upstate immediately. But no cars with a skippy in it were seen leaving the house Saturday. The Post did spot a cockatoo and two guard dogs, and heard chickens and roosters on the sprawling property. (Roosters are also illegal to keep in the city.) “Johnny’s always got something,” another neighbor said. “He walks around with a snake around his neck.”