July 23, 2010 | reviews

As faithful readers of this site are aware, the Shark Guys occupy separate time zones, as a way to, like a 24-hour car wash for organized crime, somehow provide better service. Speaking of which—in the interest of service journalism, and in hopes of one day being able to drink there gratis, we’d like to point out what we think is possibly the best bar in the city: The Dakota Tavern.

Now, certainly there are other contenders. Who among us hasn’t ordered what looks suspiciously like Mexican food from Sneaky Dee’s at 3:30AM? And many a college student has scoured a vending machine coin return for enough to be able to wolf down a $4 sandwich at Last Temptation while playing billiards on a table with duct tape patching a hole in the felt.

And at Parkdale’s venerable Cadillac Lounge, the Shark Guys participated in what was supposed to be a Guinness chug-off—the outcome of which was hotly contested as we were bested by someone drinking a lager—or as we refer to it, ’breakfast beer’. Disqualification, we say—trophy to us.

Anyway, the rec room basement Dakota bar features some of the best musical talent the city has to offer and for a price that won’t set you back what you might’ve tipped a busker if you didn’t have your iPod cranked to oblivious oblivion.

On any given night, K-OS, Ron Sexsmith, Broken Social Scene, Barenaked Ladies, Serena Ryder or Toronto’s other famous blogger will show up; as will the band showcased here: The Beauties. These guys, who really put the Dakota on the map and gave all of us something to do on a Sunday that made calling into the office Monday with a vague stomach complaint a necessity —sound a bit like the Velvet Underground’s brief foray into country.

Check it out if you’re ever in the city.

July 9, 2010 | reviews

We thought the beer hat had the market cornered when it came to a product, which, if its female or more generally-speaking, human-repellent qualities were applied elsewhere, could be used to defend the US-Mexico border. However, we were dead wrong.

Dubbed the Stupidest Invention of 2010 by Gawker, the TV Hat is either a technophile’s dunce-cap or something that would make David Cronenber wet his bed.  The chapeau—-it needn’t be said here, but not recommended for driving, love-making, light dinner conversation, the opera, walking the dog, mixed martial arts or most activities one can engage in— features “an exceptionally long brim with a magnifying glass inside it so that you can actually see the screen on your iPod, iPhone, or other video-playing devices.”

As we noted elsewhere, we thought the notion of television being responsible for killing brain cells had never been so graphically rendered as in the movie Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer wherein Hank and a redneck buddy, dispatch some poor sod with the one-two punch soldering iron / TV smashed over the top of the head. Though we have no definitive proof, just being in the presence of this device is a kind of neuro-degeneration by proxy.   

July 2, 2010 | reviews

As the observant will have already noticed, we have elected to include ads on this site. Consider it the cyber-equivalent of that guy at a spoken-word performance who comes around at the end with a hat, forcing you to feign distraction so that you can hold on to your small change and lower-denomination currency and thus be able to tip that attractive bartender consistently throughout the night.

These ads work on some sort of mysterious computer-language voodoo and seems to base what ads are displayed on the text that appears on a given page. Thus, when we posted a blog in tribute to the drinking prowess of a certain young prince among drinkers (we will withhold his name for fear of those irrelevant ads popping up again), all sorts of advertisements began to pop up that were somehow based on his name and title – gossip sites, genealogy services offering to trace your heritage back to the big cahunas of various medieval fiefdoms, and travel offers to places with royal sounding names.

However, given the drunk-compendium that spawned this site, occasionally ads more related to drinking, drunkenness, and the various accoutrements that can spruce up this lifestyle do appear.

Of these, our absolute favourite thus far is from the Frankfurt-based “Rocket Packs Getränke-Rucksack-Systeme”, a company that sells “Beer rocket-packs”. This is a huge step up from the beer drinking hat popularized by fans of American sporting events who don’t want to get up to get a drink (and who presumably wear diapers to deal with the natural corollary of that kind of beer consumption).

Getranke’s website itself is not text-heavy, and most of it is in German, however the pictures tell the story: the company sells packs that can keep a two or three liter tower of beer cool so that drinkers can be served on the move. A serving person straps on the jetpack-looking like device (at times while wearing a ball gown, which may or may not be offset by a pair of gigantic, devil-swooping-in-on-a-bad-dream pair of black wings) and offers freshly-tapped beer for thirsty patrons. In terms of venues where this sort of thing might be popular, it seems from their publicity material (see above photo) that no place is too toney to have a lady in high-heels squirt beer into your glass from a hose attached to a backpack.

We thank all of our inadvertent advertisers and commend Getranke especially for coming up with a product that makes shameless shilling fun.