I was walking up the West Side Highway a week or two ago on my way to Lincoln Center to pick up some opera tickets. I was consumed with my thoughts and blasting some Tevin Campbell on the iPhone when I came across this ad near the USS Intrepid museum.**

You know it’s bad when Manhattan Mini Storage goes from making fun of George W. Bush and Paris Hilton to mocking the Mets. Consider this picture a reminder to fans out there who still harbor some delusional thought that this season will be anything but disastrous for the city’s second team. Accept your fate before the season starts and you’ll find that it’ll be much easier to deal with 162 games filled with ineptitude and failure.

I’m an Orioles fan. I’ve been used to losing for years. In the years immediately after 1997, I used to get my hopes up only to have them crushed and realize they were who I (and everyone else) thought they were. Now winning streaks don’t get me excited and losing streaks I expect like the sun rising in the morning or Jim Tressel lying his corrupt ass off. I try not to pay attention but I always get sucked back in around the start of spring training. Every season I come up with a reason that sounds rational at the time. This year? It’s the Buck Showalter plan. Let him build up the team, fire his ass and the O’s will win a World Series two years after he leaves. Never question the plan.

Who can forget the Mets choking down the home stretch a few years ago? It was actually quite impressive. Their fans were suicidal and neutrals like myself could only laugh and watch in amazement.

Chin up, Mets fans. At least you won’t have to deal with hilarious pictures like the one above this season. Consider live games an opportunity to work on your tan, get drunk and find someone new to hate since Oliver Perez has left the building. Go early and often, kids. Who knows how long it will be until foreclosure proceedings start on Citi Field thanks to the Madoffs.

** All of that is true. Fuck. I’m that guy. I’ve become what I… Jesus, I have some thinking to do. I should go.

It’s not a love of Campbell’s Soup or the ability to do the triple lindy on command.

Insult was added to injury when the Islanders visited several Long Island hospitals last Tuesday. They can barely buy a win and their fans have had all they can stands and they can’t stands no more.

“We were visiting sick kids and giving them gifts,” defenseman James Wisniewski said, “and one of the nurses there was really pretty rude to me, Doug Weight and Andy MacDonald. She’s a season-ticket holder and saying, ‘Nobody wants to go to your games; you’ve been giving tickets away for free.’

“It was kind of like, with that first comment, it’s, ‘Whoa.’ And then the second and third, it’s to the point where we kind of had to walk away.”

Rodney Dangerfield and Donovan McNabb feel their pain. Maybe the Islanders can form a “No respect” support group with McNabb and Pauly Shore.