Since I love lists so much ...

I think everyone should have a (tangible) list of their favourite bars in the city.

But first, here is a list of criteria by which you can make your own favourites list. It is the criteria I follow when making such lists. In fact, this information scans up before my eyes every time I enter a bar, like the Terminator.

1. Layout. I enjoy a bar that I feel I could play hide and seek in, a bar with knooks and crannies. P.J. O’Brien, the Irish pub on Colbourne street off Yonge has a bunch of little hideouts. You could probably do some lewd shit in this bar, now that I think of it. The Foggy Dew on King Street also has an unsuspectingly awesome layout. High wood walls on their booths, and booths where you wouldn’t expect booths.

2. A favourite bar must have an interesting menu. Pub fare is usually boring and lame. I appreciate a place that makes the most of having little to no kitchen. Starving Artist totally wins this one. They do every waffle of the rainbow – and waffles are an excellent drunk food. They are sort of a cafe too, and do brunch, with even more creative waffle dealios like smore’s and what not. The Painted lady has some crazy shit too, like “white trash nacho’s” which consist of cheese whiz and chilli over Fritos. They also have Gazpacho and mushroom carpaccio. The Crooked Star isn’t to bad either. They have mad cheap eats, and a particularly dope vegetarian curry roti.

3. Ease factor. You must ask yourself: Does it feel easy for me to be in this bar? That’s the main reason the Last Temptation scores so high on my list. I don’t really know many people who haven’t made out with a stranger in this bathroom. In order to feel comfortable, I have to know that I have made out with strangers in the bathroom. I’m joking, but in all seriousness I pretty much feel like I could do whatever the fuck I want in this bar and the servers wouldn’t give two shakes of a lambs tail.

4. The drink selection must be adequate, but not overwhelming. It takes me like, 12 years to read the beer list at the Rhino. I like beer a lot, but really, I’m simply wasting drinking time with perusing such a colossal menu. Tortilla flats has a pretty good drink menu, and you can get enormous cocktails for super cheap. I hate martinis and everything they stand for, generally, but for you, Tortilla Flats, I will gladly get drunk on them. Oh, and Black Dice Cafe has a crazy selection of sake martini’s, which is imaginative.

5. This is not a necessary requirement, but bars with board games are like a dress with pockets – just a lot better.

6. Location must be convenient. If I feel like I’m going to have to take drastic measures to get home, like wait for the streetcar for 5 hours, or resort to riding a pesky, uncomfortable camel, well, you can count me out, mister. I can't get comfortable in a place knowing my trek home will be hell in a handbasket. Disgraceland works for me because I can stumble like 50 meters and be home safe and sound with little to no bruising.

7. I like a bar with plants. The Done Right Inn on Queen West has this epic three right in the middle of the patio. It’s magical. I also do appreciate how many spider plants are in the Imperial Pub, even though it didn’t make my top ten. Honourable mention.

8. A really excellent bar will whisk you out of your own reality and make you feel like something of a star. Red Light has an awesome back room with couches that makes you feel like you have stumbled upon a porn set. Black Dice Cafe on Dundas is also a rockabilly paradise. Being in there kind of makes me feel like I might actually be able to pull off short bangs, black hair and red lips. Even if only for the time I’m drinking in there. The Emmet Ray on College has a really lovely interior, in fact it inspires me to adopt a classier lifestyle, which is not an easy feeling to have when getting drunk and struggling to keep it together, appearance wise.

9. Music selection must be interesting. By interesting I mean I like a bar that’s not too proud to play some hits. When I get drunk, there’s nothing more I like to hear than Lady Gaga. I’m not ashamed, you know? I love Ted’s Collision, but that bar plays a lot of the same shit all the time, and I abhor that Journey song they always play at last call. Gag me with a spoon.

10. Drink deals are imperative. The Lab is pretty good, but their deals involve mostly things I personally don’t get down with, such as Jagger. Souz Dal has some good martini deals, and you can’t go wrong with 3 dollar mixed drinks on a trashed Tuesday.

Here are my top ten. Not in any particular order at the moment. Please don't judge me too hard based on this list.

1. Last Temptation (kensington)
2. Green Room (Annex)
3. Souz Dahl (Little Italy)
4. The Local (Roncy)
5. Disgraceland (Bloorcourt)
6. The Painted lady (Ossington and Dundas)
7. Starving Artist (Bloor and Landsdown ... Blandsdown)
8. Cloak and Dagger (College and Major)
9. The Done Right Inn (Queen west)

A few reasons why I love Valentines day

Yeah I'll be the first to tell you I like Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and Martha Stewart Living magazines.

I maintain that you can still be a valid human and participate in all these things.

But today I want to tell you all a little bit about why I fucking love Valentines day so fucking much. Here goes !

1 . I need another excuse to get wasted.

2 . I think those little heart candies with words on them are halarious. They say the most random things. One time I swear I got one that said lets do it. I'm not even joking (think of the children!)

3 . I need another excuse to make out with people.

4 . Everyone fucking hates it and I like being contrary.

5. Its one of the few holidays where no (reasonable / single) person truly expects anything.

6 . I used to have a fixation with the human heart in art, and I think its infinitely clever when people employ this image instead of what you would usually expect. (Like in that Crayola commercial where these boys are giving this one hot girl all these little notes in class with hearts on them and she goes for the one who draws her a sloppy human heart with blood all over it.)

7 . Red food dye has speed - like effects on me.

8 . I have a genuine obsession with seasonal baking.

9 . Without fail, my mother sends me some candy and money in the mail on this red letter of a day. I realize this will probably continue to happen into the thirties. At which point I will stop blogging about it.

10 . I'm a corporate whore and generally enjoy participating in the capitalistic ventures of this commercial sham.

That last one isn't really true I just wanted to even it out to 10.

But I really think everyone should stop being so cynical about v-day. It could do wonders for the economy if everyone bought their significant other a bunch of flowers, a box of chocolates, a litter of puppies and a few prostitutes.
Now THERES a recipe for a good Valentines day.

So this year, 2010, I am resolving to:

- wash my hands more
- floss more
- stop being so fucking cynical
- definitely drink more alcohol
- finish Jane Eyre sometime this year, that literary fucking masterpiece
- figure out what I want out of this life
- become an overnight celebrity
- buy more plants
- eat more pancakes
- vomit in more dishwashers.

I think number 4 might be the biggest challenge.

The Divine Miss M

Look at this face! It's like a distinguished Molly Ringwald!
But I maintain that Better Midler looks way better at 64 then Molly ever has at 41.

I really like Better Midler, and so does my mom. But for different reasons.
Born unto a seamstress in Honolulu, she was raised in one of the few Jewish families in a neighborhood of Asians. (Bette, not my mom.)

Top 5 best Bette Midler roles:

- The First Wives Club. "Now, I ask you, Duarto, who's supposed to wear that? Some anorexic teenager? Some fetus? It's a conspiracy! I've had enough. I'm leading a protest. I'm not buying another article of clothing until these designers come to their senses!" Her rivalry with Sarah Jessica Parker in this movie really makes me want to be a more vicious woman.

- The Women. Divorced women eating sticks of butter and deciding they are, in fact, the men they want to marry. She gives an amazing soliloquy on how selfishness is the secret to life. The best part of the entire movie is when her character busts in on a divorced womens yoga circle in the wilderness and is all outraged that the class starts so early. The instructor goes "We always canoe at dawn" and Bette's like "I always fake my orgasms. That doesnt make it right" IN A YOGA CIRCLE OF DIVORCED WOMEN IN THE WILDERNESS!!

- The Rose. A movie based on the life of Janis Joplin, starring Bette Midler. Need I say more!

- Hocus Pocus. I don't understand how both her and Sarah Jessica Parker can be made to look like tranny warlocks but still be fucking hot.

- The Stepford Wives. Her house is a fucking pig stye in this and its pretty funny. Other than her, this movie is kind of lame.

I think my generation really hasn't appreciated Bette Midler for all she has to offer. She's also a Vegas show girl and rad singer. They say she is going to play Carrie's mom in the Sex and the City sequel. (Miley Cyrus is also going to be in that shit. Which may actually have an effect on my viewing the movie.)

(Of course I will view it, but I will look on with disdain at the parts with non human Miley Cyrus.)

I died, but I am reborn.

Oh hai.

So it’s been roughly four thousand years since I’ve posted anything on this blog. I’d like to take this time to apologize to my fans. I know it’s probably been really hard without my really relevant and amazing words.

(sarcasm.)

But regardless of how we haven’t been speaking, I want you to know that I still really care about you a lot. Here is a list of things that I’ve been doing with my absurd and meaningless life since we lost touch:

- Listening to a lot of kid sister – rapper from Chicago. I have a total hard on for her. Myspace.com/kidsister. She is like, lil mama meets salt n peppa. (ie – my dream woman.)

- Jazzing my pants in anticipation for ye ole saint Nick’s arrival. I get unintelligibly excited for Christmas, it’s rather embarrassing. My mom got me, Macey and TK advent calendars (she gave my two room-mates away though, before she reached the city – but it’s the thought that counts I reckon). I never miss a fucking day on those things.


- Studying for / writing exams. That was a biggie.

- Painting things. And callaging. And I did some iron on transfers on a pair of jeans. (characters from the rhyme hey diddle diddle, to be precise) Macey and I have plunged pretty hard into the craft world – one I never really appreciated before. There is this book sitting on my kitchen table called "The big ass book of crafts" by Mark Montano - the guy who hosted that show While You Were Out. It's full of crafts beyond my wildest dreams. Metallic baby statues, cable tie door beads ...two litre cola bottle sea creature lamps ... this book has opened my life to a world of possibilities.

- Developing an unhealthy obsession with slasher films. I really wish Alfred Hitchcock was my dad. I hope my Dad doesn’t read that. I find it especially drole how many horror films are oriented around helpless female protagonists. With huge breasts, that get unnecessarily exposed during their deaths. Not that I’m complaining, or anything. One of my all time favourite deaths, remains Drew Barrymore and her boyfriends in the opening part of Scream. Tk made fun of me to no end for my liking the Scream trilogy. Fuck him, and everything he stands for. KIDDING !

This essay I read by Noel Caroll for a class stated how horror films scare us to the degree of realistic hazards they show. Like, when someone falls off a cliff or something it scares us because it’s a believable way to die. But we wouldn’t buy it if someone suddenly flew upward into the air and repeatedly hit their head on the ceiling. When I read this, I actually thought my life was coming to a close because I started laughing so hard. In fact I’m fucking laughing now as I relive that text. Maybe you don’t find it funny. (but if you don’t, you suck.)

- Watching Lady Gaga’s bad romance video. I was utterly and unexplainably fascinated by that shit.

- Spending some quality time with the fam in Brantford, since I finished my exams. They're fun. I'm mucho looking forward to chilling with some old friends and lovers.

- rekindling my love for dancing like a maniac. This is a recent phenomena.
- wearing long johns :(

- Being really poor and sucking at it.

What I'm trying to tell you is that I’ve been drunk since Thursday at 5 when I finished my last exam. Somebody give me some structure so I don’t fall off the face of this earth.

A few things I have read this summer.

Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen. There comes a time in every womans life that she must read Jane Austen and find out what all the fucking hype is about. I have always had the suspicion that her novels were merely chick lit from the 1800’s. Alas, I figured I owed it to my gender, particularly my mother, to giver her a whirl. I checked out Northanger Abbey from the library only to have my expectations confirmed. Jane Austen is B-O-R-I-N-G. Now, I have nothing against chick lit. And I do admit that I have only read the one book by Jane Austen, so maybe I can’t jump to conclusions like this. But my first Jane Austen experience will likely be my last, sorry to say.

George Monbiot: Heat. A crazy informative / slightly depressing account of climate change. Monbiot is a fierce environmentalist, who I was first introduced to in my environmental philosophy class in PEI. I fell in love, and have stayed faithful ever since. Anyone who is even remotely interested in the environment should read this. A notable excerpt:

“If in the year 2030, carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere remain as high as they are today, the likely result is two degrees centigrade of warming. Two degrees is the point beyond which certain major ecosystems begin collapsing ... in other words, climate change (will be) out of our hands: it will accelerate without our help”

Read this book and help me save the world.

Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck. I read a bunch of short classics at the start of the summer, and this one really rocked my world. I shed a tear at the ending, to be honest.

The Godfather, Mario Puzo. This book took over my life for a little while. It also took over Macey and Laurels. Macey found it during a wild goose chase to a bike sale that never really existed in the end, but brought her to this tattered book on the street somewhere. It has been safe and sounds at 322 Shaw st. ever since.

GreenTOpia: Towards a Sustainable Toronto, various authors. This is a compilation of short essays with the goal of promoting good ideas to ensure that Toronto doesnt wither away with climate change. It has a bunch of creative ideas, including green hydrogen powered cabs, art projects like 'the painted line' between the city and the countryside, and composting toilets in parks like Dufferin Grove. So many more. The uTOpia series are devoted to the improvement of the city, written by and for, people who love Toronto.

Global Warming for Dummies. Its actually written by Elizabeth May, among others. the Dummies Series are fucking awesome.

Today, Marie Claire. I was in need of some mindless entertainment (where is Jane Austen when you need her?) and I saw Ashley Olson on the cover of the most recent issue and I am not ashamed to say that I grabbed it immediately. It did not disappoint my desire for big colourful font and fashion tips. Let it be known: strappy stilettos in charcoal menswear fabric put the POW in power dressing.