Typical Craigslist cronut-pusher. (Photo: Craigslist)

Cronuts are hot right now. So hot, in fact, that a couple of regular Paulie Walnuts are amassing the delicious pastries and selling them on Craigslist at up to five times the original price.

The croissant-donut hybrid is sparking Magnolia-Bakery-in-2002 levels of buzz, although most have never even lain lips on its flakey, sugary layers. Cronuts are found at Dominique Ansel Bakery in SoHo -- but only for a few minutes after the opening at 5 a.m., after which point they're sold out.

But thanks to some Craigslist schemers, the hungered masses throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and sometimes Staten Island can get their mitts on the half-breed pastries.

Mmmm, cronuts. (Photo: DominiqueAnsel.com)

One Manhattan pusher is charging $25 for one cronut and $55 for two, unless you're above 59th Street, in which case it's $30 for one and $65 for two. It's okay if you don't have cash, he takes PayPal.

Says another poster, "My girl and I will get 5 as I will eat one and the rest are yours." He's also charging $25 per pastry.

Many are charging customers different prices by borough. This one will deliver to Manhattan for $15 per cronut, Queens for $40, and Brooklyn for $25.

The most colorful post comes from a Brooklynite who includes a photo of a tough-looking cat about to make it rain, just so you know he's serious. He's looking for the type of customer who "can already foresee yourself getting waaaay too wasted tonight to get up and get cronuts tomorrow." Way to know your audience.

"I don't care where you live, unless it's the Bronx or Staten Island," he concludes.

Is Amanda Bynes ready to take this Craigslist poster's hand in gay marriage? (Twitter)

A woman in Washington State proposed to Amanda Bynes last Sunday in a heartfelt post published to the personals section of Craigslist. That is, if Amanda Bynes didn't actually write the bizarre missive herself.

“Amanda I would take your hand in gay marriage,” proclaims the 28-year-old poster, who identifies herself as "Melissa the Great." She continues, “Nothing breaks my heart worse than the shattering glass of the bong from way up high... and you, to me, are way up high! Pieces of the bong scattered like pieces of my heart, And I want you to help me pick them up!!” How romantic.

Melissa the Great—who, might we add, says she’s writing from somewhere called “The Love Vault” (blech)—says she’s a lifelong fan of Ms. Bynes. But wait—there’s more. And it’s creepier. “You are so deep and you allowed me to feel things about myself, like how I can talk to myself and answer myself," she writes, "...[You] allowed me to relax to be who I was -- a costume loving, creative goofball with a camera just like you!!” Hear that, folks? They're perfect for each other.

If Amanda Bynes were to accept Melissa the Great's proposal, here are some of the things Melissa suggests the newlyweds could do together:

"I got half an acre we can buy dogs, horses, whatever." (This sounds like a plus. Ask for a hippogriff, Amanda.)

"I want to take you every where like a young girl takes a raggedy ann."

"I got a dad, a good dad and we can share him if you do not have a father figure."

As if that's not enough to get Ms. Bynes on the next flight to the Evergreen State, Melissa the Great makes a final, heart-wrenching plea: "Come live with me Amanda Bynes you are my greatest natural wonder in this environment. Hope this message reaches you with love!" Additionally, "I have not seem [sic] TMZ here."

Now we're just trying to decide: Is this a desperate fan with a poor command of the English language? A totally whacked-out psychopath? Or maybe—just maybe—is it Amanda Bynes herself? At this point, nothing on The Amanda Show would surprise us.

The new Eastern Bloc.

The much-ballyhooed Citi Bike sharing program launched yesterday and we already have our first romantic encounter!

A post on Craigslist's men seeking men Missed Connections section described a scene ripe out of a terrible gay indie movie. The man in question said he spotted another dude looking somehow “adorable” with one of those gaudy blue bikes straddled between his legs. Sadly, the poster was late for a meeting in Hell's Kitchen (of course) and couldn't seal the deal before he sped away.

Either this is the least romantic thing that’s ever happened or the best native ad we've ever seen.

The full post reads:

You were on the new CitiBike, heading north on 8th Avenue around 8.30pm. I passed you on my bike and talked to you about the new CitiBike program. You told me you had bought a second annual membership so you can ride with a friend. I thought that was very adorable. Unfortunately I was late for meeting a friend in Hell's Kitchen and had to leave you at 51st street. I should have asked you if you want to do a citiride together sometime, got my own membership now, too ;-)

Who knew there were so many ways to cruise on Citi Bike?

(H/T Citi Bike superfan Myles Tanzer)

Chili's always scores 5 stars. (Photo: Yelp)

There are plenty of struggling writers in the city looking for a few extra dollars, so someone has smartly devised a plan to use their skills and to game the very legitimate review system on Yelp. As discovered by Eater, a posting on Craigslist (in New York's writing/editing jobs section, natch) is hiring people for $25 to write "well-written" reviews on the complaint outpost website for the restaurants suffering with poor scores. In addition to having the penmanship of Frank Bruni, interested writers are required to have 50 reviews in their profile.

The post instructs that you’ll use your words on restaurants that are "mostly positive 4's and 5's but a couple unfiltered 1's dragging them down, either from competitors or disgruntled ex-staff." For an extra $25, you can "cut and paste the same review onto a couple other social media websites." There's your chance to finally be popular on Citysearch!

Eater notes that the underground market for fake Yelp reviews is lucrative. They dug up emails from a totally real "reputation management firm" that charges restaurants $500 to increase their social media scores on review sites that your parents use, like Urbanspoon, Yelp, and TripAdvisor.

We're waiting for the Sunday Styles piece on millennials writing Yelp reviews to pay their college loans.

(H/T Eater)

(Photo: Futurity.org)

If you're a "successful entrepreneur" whose ego is wildly mismatched with his actual value to the human race, you probably just don't have time to comb through online dating profiles with the hopes of landing Ms. Right. And since you've made your bread and butter in Bubble 2.0, why not farm out the trivialities of modern dating life to a willing Craigslist participant?

One Flatiron-based dudebro is looking for a "discerning woman to handle online dating communications for him." This means that for one hour per day you'll comb through women's profiles on "3 or 4 dating sites" and favorite the ones that match the stringent criteria he has established. Then he'll periodically go through and delete the ones that don't live up to his standards, and the others you'll be expected to exchange messages and set up dates with.

Seems like a pretty easy gig for $100/week, but fat uggos need not apply. The ideal candidate for Mr. "Successful Entrepreneur" is a "pretty, thin, educated female in her 20s or 30s (with great taste and strong writing ability)." Not sure why those are requirements for clicking around on a computer, but okay!

Frankly, we're shocked this dude is still single.

SO THERE

Things aren't going so great over at the Silk Road. Where are nerds going to order their Molly now?! [Telegraph]

Now any old rando can shell out for promoted tweets. Please, please let's not start using this to promote resumes. [Ad Week]

Craigslist can no longer spook startups like Padmapper with threats of prosecution for copyright infringement: A judge has ruled the company has no such ownership of its users' listings. [Forbes]

"When he woke up, he found that Path had gone on a rogue mission early in the morning, texting and robocalling an unknown number of his contacts, including his grandparents." [The Verge]

Apparently authors still bother getting pissed at bloggers. [Daily Dot]

Us. (Photo: Girls Wikia)

If you’ve recently moved to New York City solely to live out your Girls-themed fantasies (hi!), your apartment hunt is now over. There's a distressing post on Craigslist looking for one lucky person to pay $1,500 a month for a room in Williamsburg. It already comes furnished with a Hannah (who probably becomes more aggravating as your lease progresses), and a gay roommate "with a penchant for backhanded compliments." Shut up.

The pair, who moved here two years ago to “follow our careers,” are promising a volatile and harrowing living experience that will slowly drain the life from you like water circling a rusty shower drain. The post explains that their ideal prospective roomie will fit into their obnoxiously quirky outlook, which apparently revolves around questions such as "Is it appropriate to sleep with [person X], and would you judge me if I did?" and "And how does one install a coat rack onto an electrical panel? (But really if you know the answer to that last one, please drop us a line.)"

It continues:

Do you watch Girls and think "they're living the life of my generation; I need to get back to the people and live more like them"? If yes, then you're probably in the right place. Basically we just want to keep living our lives and we need someone for that room, because we can't afford to keep the place otherwise and will be forced to move to Bushwick. Typologies of roommates we would accept include "Shoshanna"s or "Marnies." Bonus points if you're related to Brian Williams.

Nevermind, we're moving to Queens.

"Super clean interior." (Photo: Craigslist)

If those Bitcoins are burning a hole in your electronic wallet, it might be time to cash out. So, we found something that’s totally worth it: a used, slightly damaged, red Mercedes Benz convertible for sale on Craigslist that’s accepting Bitcoin as payment.

And with the record values Bitcoins are trading at, what a deal she is!  Despite the fact that the 2002 CLK430 is missing a large chunk on its left side (it has a “super clean interior,” though) it could be yours for just $3,500. Convert that to Bitcoin’s current value of $215 per coin, and this fixer-upper rings in at just 16 BTC.

We called up Danny, a car salesman in Coney Island, to see what possessed him to accept Bitcoins. “It’s booming!” he exclaimed to Betabeat on the phone this morning. Not an active trader or buyer of Bitcoins, Danny said he learned about the digital currency trend by reading about it and figured why not.

“It’s worth the same as money, so who cares?,” he said, adding that this is the first time he’s offered something for sale using Bitcoins. When we told him about the great Bitcoin Bubble of 2013, he bristled and said it didn’t concern him.

Since the posting only went up last night, he said he hasn’t heard from anyone yet. Give it time, Danny: it’s a sellers market.

Not for sale. (Photo by Flickr)

Not even monkeys are safe from insufferable April Fool’s Day jokes. The San Diego Zoo found itself in the crosshairs of a ridiculous Craigslist hoax Monday when somebody named “Andrea," who identified herself as the zoo’s chimpanzee trainer, offered to give away two baby monkeys for free.

Like most decent Craigslist deals, the free monkey giveaway turned out to be a fake. San Diego’s hard-hitting 10News team tried contacting the scammer (“Andrea” didn’t pick up her presumably banana-shaped phone) and the zoo confirmed that no, they don't just give monkeys away on Craigslist.

Not only was the zoo’s spokesperson annoyed at the prank, but he took issue with the incorrect zoological definitions used in the post.

"First of all, chimpanzees aren't monkeys; they're apes … and no, we aren't giving any away … apparently, there's a bit of tomfoolery on April Fool's Day," said zoo official Rick Schwartz.

Mr. Schwartz added that you should squash any of your desires to adopt the adorable animals because they could actually kill you.

So is the offer transferrable to dolphins or...?

Maybe Eric? (Photo: Flickr.com)

Typically, the words DOMA, Prop 8, and SCOTUS don't exactly get you in the mood, but they seem to be causing a swooning sensation in Washington D.C. over the past few days.

TPM spotted an influx of nervous lovers in Craiglist's Missed Connections section for Washington D.C. Several romantically inclined people are posting messages in hopes of moving their lengthy debate sessions from the Supreme Court steps to more personal chambers.

But one local gay marriage advocate caught our attention: 

Eric and your husband (sorry I don't remember your name too!), you were wearing matching red and blue "wedding harnesses." we talked forever (a lot about Prop 8 and DOMA) and you guys seemed very cool. Let's keep in touch!

We're just doing our civic duty here.