Free Josh Fruhlinger's car!

So here's the story: Josh Fruhlinger, creator of the fantastic blogsite The Comics Curmudgeon, which has been responsible for rekindling the interest of many readers in daily comic strips of all sorts, went to New York City at the end of last week to participate in the ROFL comedy event. Being from out of town (Baltimore) he failed to appreciate the basic law of parking in New York City defined by some of the commentors on his site: If there isn't a car parked there, there's a reason for it. Turned out the place where he had parked his car was, in fact, a very poorly marked Bus Stop zone. Unsurprisingly, his car was towed.

And that's where the fun began.

Bottom line: The license plate number on Josh's registration doesn't match the license plate number on his 1994 Toyota Corolla. And they won't let him get his car back.

I immediately thought of Anne from Almost Quintessence and her New York City automotive adventures of nearly two years ago. Let's just say they involved her car, which had problems with its electrical system, getting stolen, abandoned, and tied up in impound for some time. You can read the first part of the story here, and the second part of the story here.

Josh popped back online yesterday long enough to let us know this, but we haven't heard from him since. We can only imagine the bureaucratic nightmare that Josh is going through. (Or we could all watch the movie Brazil and then locate and play the Douglas Adams-created game Bureaucracy.) But in the meantime there's not much else we can do. The outcomes can be:

• The wheels of bureaucracy turn and everything works out for Josh - except he has to pay some fines for parking in a No Parking Zone, and some impound fees, and maybe another fine from the state of Maryland for driving with a registration that did not properly list his license plate number. (Everybody should check their own registrations right away!)
• Josh doesn't get his car back.
• Josh doesn't get his car back, and it goes on auction, and he's able to buy it back there.
• Something else, or several something elses.

I'm not trying to make light of Josh's situation; I think he's really, really screwed. Can anyone think of a possible solution? Bribery has been suggested, half-seriously; I have suggested a publicity campaign, since Josh is already a celebrity of sorts among certain groups. Does anybody know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who can help Josh?

UPDATE: As you can see from his comment, Josh got his car back and returned to Baltimore to bask in the orange glow of the night sky. A full report on his website is promised soon.

UPDATE 2: Here it is!