That's exactly what happened to thousands of New York Daily News readers who played Saturday's Scratch n' Match sweepstakes game — and thought they held the day's only grand-prize-winning ticket. Not only did they make plans to spend the booty, but some went out and partied hard — no doubt dropping coin on some booty.

The Daily News admitted the error in Sunday's paper, pretty much telling the unlucky winners, "No dice."

As stated in the Official Rules, if an error causes more prizes to be claimed than are intended to be awarded for any prize level, the actual recipients of those prizes will be determined in a random drawing of valid game pieces.

No doubt this is the best thing to hit the New York Post newsroom since Rush Limbaugh admitted addiction to pain killers er, weapons of mass distruction weren't found in Iraq er, Ann Coulter insisted (incorrectly) that Canada sent troops to Vietnam er, Bill O'Reilly answered an e-mail from Jack Mehoffer er, there was a HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR.

Again, let's do the math: $100,000 x several thousands = $0. And I thought Syracuse fans had a bad weekend.

I bet this search for "scratch+match" on Craig's List is gonna produce some pretty hilarious posts from those wackos. I'm sure someone's gonna offer a free body rub to any stressed-out almost-winning female with a stash of 420.

Did you know you can buy prank scratch-off tickets (every one's a winner) to give as gag gifts? Dude, you could do some damage with a pack of those and a hidden video camera.

Other New York Links:

• Best of New York 2005 — Winning venues, services and restaurants from New York magazine. Results are sorted by neighborhood, so you can see what's hip and happenin' in my 'hood, the fashionable and exclusive Upper West Side, home to Yogi's, my favorite bar and one of the biggest shitholes I've ever stepped foot in.

• New York City Walk — Caleb Smith walked every street of Manhattan over a period of 2 ½ years, and he's got the pictures and stories to prove it. For example, he revisits the subway grate from The Seven-Year Itch.

• New York Changing: Images — Really cool pictures of city landmarks, taken decades apart and displayed side-by-side.

• One Leg Up — A community/events site that bills itself as "working relentlessly to offer everyone the most salacious soirees in NY ... We have thrown an sensual-themed soiree every month for nearly five years. These soirees are geared towards those individuals who want to free themselves from the remaining puritan values you had forgotten that still exist inside you."

• Mayor Bloomberg Announces $254 Million Economic Impact of The Gates on New York City — I guess that ambitious, but ultimately disappointing (to me) art exhibit was worth pimping out Central Park. Found on New York City's Official Tourism Website, which includes a cool statistics page with total number of restaurants (17,312), yearly subway riders (1.3 billion) and number of Asians in the borough of Queens alone (391,500).

• Tuttle Agency Commercials — If you live in New York, you've no doubt been haunted by the old lady who assures people, "I will help you get a job. And you can get a job!" Apparently, they're intentionally bad. To which I say, you guys are doing a great job.

• Fishbowl NY — Elizabeth Spiers, who I believe wrote Gawker.com when it rose to fame, co-edits this similar blog from MediaBistro.com.