The holiday season is a tribute to excess. We gorge ourselves on a lot of fatty food and we fill up on fruitcake. We make sure to drink copious amounts of wine, enjoy our rum and eggnog, sip a snifter of brandy, or even down a nice cup of Manischewitz. Beer, however, often gets the short shrift during the holidays. Some find it too filling for a post-turkey nightcap; others think that beer should......

It sounds pretty simple. There's one rule, right? Don't get so wasted that you a) spill the beans to your boss about i) the fact that you hate him/her or ii) the fact that someone is quitting, b) touch someone inappropriately, or c) throw up in your boss' lap. And yet come holiday season, we're bombarded by so much inane advice on how to not screw up at your office party that it's enough to......

This weekend, resist the urge to do the same old bar hop and try a more sophisticated means of indulging your party ADD: the art show hop. Okay, so we just invented that term, but the city does have three rad art happenings going on almost simultaneously this Friday, November 30. And we say, why choose? To start your adventure, knock back a whiskey for warmth and head down to the Harbourfront, where the......

At the Wellington Street entrance of the CBC Broadcast Centre, visitors of a certain age are met with some familiar sights from their childhoods: the treehouse from Mr. Dressup, a gang of puppets from Sesame Park, and the ratty but iconic Rusty and Jerome figures from The Friendly Giant. Now, the family of the Giant aren't feeling too friendly following a comedic skit shown during this year's Gemini Awards, and they are demanding the removal......

Over on Q107 on Monday afternoon, Max Webster frontman turned DJ Kim Mitchell was sounding quite enthusiastic about Tuesday's show. It seems that in an effort to bring attention to drunk driving and the negative effects of alcohol, he's going to have two on-air personalities (Maureen Holloway and Ryan Parker from Derringer In The Morning) drinking throughout his show, presumably getting progressively drunker and stupider as the afternoon wears into the evening. An expert......

Premier Dalton McGuinty says that he is not prepared to follow Quebec's example and ban cell phone use while driving, in spite of studies showing that the practice is more dangerous than driving drunk. McGuinty said that "some people also distract themselves by drinking coffee, eating and applying makeup while driving" and he wouldn't know where to draw the line. Because if you can't stop one stupid and extremely dangerous practice, there's no point......

Ok, so we're starting to get the message that we need to act on this whole "we're killing the planet" thing, and fast. But amongst all the noise about how much trouble we've gotten ourselves into, it's sometimes hard to hear the solutions and see the positive ideas. Enter GreenTOpia, the third installment in Coach House Books' uTOpia series, which is being released at a party this weekend into our eagerly outstretched arms. As we......

Before all the fuss over Halo 3 there was the video game greatness of Pong. And before that, there was good ol' fashioned ping pong. Since 2000, The Dedicated Association of Ping Pong Players has been keeping the table tennis dream alive with bi-annual tournaments, the next of which is taking place on Saturday. Up to 500 people are expected to attend the event at the Steam Whistle Brewery ,which will feature drinking and......

Yarrrrrrrrr! Strap on that eye patch, plop a parrot on your shoulder, and get set for some swashbuckling! Follow the dilapidated, yellowed map and sail on over to The Pirate Festival at the X-marks-the-spot location of Fort York. This historic site will be transformed into the uncharted Caribbean island of Torontuga, an 18th-century village where real life pirates display authentic pirate antics. A shipload of pirates shall be a mighty impressive crew. With enumerable sea......

Toronto came in 5th in the livability survey of the Economist Intelligence Unit, behind Vancouver, Melbourne, Vienna and Perth. While we can rightfully be proud of our score, it's kind of like being one of the kids who sits in the front of the room near the teacher while all the cool kids like New York and London are having a lot more fun down in the 40s and 50s. The Supreme Court has......

Photo by kstashuk. Nothing says loving like a cold beer on a hot day. Luckily for us, the good people at The Beer Store decided to open up Fort York to us again this year, allowing us to drink, frolic and be merry in an enclosed and historic setting. In such an environment as this, how could we help but pit four GTA-centric Ontario Craft Brewery beers against each other? To make things a......

With Toronto in the midst of a nasty heat wave, this cooler beckoning walkers-by in Yorkville with "Free Water" seemed like a desert mirage. But sure enough, the lid pulled back to reveal perfectly-chilled bottled water care of The Body Clinic, a high-end spa and salon. At first, the cooler seemed a sweet gesture to us sun-beaten, sweat-soaked pedestrians, bringing back memories of the refreshing Freezies given out on hot days in elementary school. But......

Flush with the success of their campaign to publicly insult women and minorities, the Ontario government has taken the bold step of verbally abusing the entire City of Toronto. Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty yesterday indicated he wasn't inclined to share any of the billions of dollars that the province sucks out of Toronto each year, blaming the looming fiscal crisis on the City's failure to use its shiny new tax powers, and by implication......

Don't drink more than one pop a day, or you're at greater health risk! Serious pop drinkers have a 45 percent greater chance of developing metabolic syndrome; a bunch of health factors that increases your chance of heart attack, stroke and diabetes. (It doesn't even matter if it's diet!) The health experts then looked at you pointedly and said "well, maybe you should be drinking juice or green tea or something healthy. Yes, you. The......

Dad Who? is the latest in Susan Fischer's popular series of Evelyn Reese shows. If you've seen one of her other shows, you're familiar with the shtick: Evelyn is a clueless, aging harridan in sequin jumpsuits and crazy-person glasses whose one-woman shows consist of her often politically incorrect musings on her own life. Topics range from dating, to drinking to partying with her favourite "poofter" friend. Fischer's physicality is phenomenal. She entirely inhabits the......

The first time Torontoist encountered Dave Meslin was at the August 2004 Trampoline Hall at the AGO's Walker Court. Ostensibly speaking about "Drinking Games," Mez instead develivered a speech about his first experiences with alcohol, the hegemony of mixed drinks, and the backwardness of the cup half-empty, half-full metaphor. It was one of the most spectacular things we have ever heard. This Monday, July 9, Mez makes his return to Trampoline Hall, this time......

Every weekday, we pick an image from the Torontoist Flickr Pool and feature it here on the site. It's our way to give the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve! Sewer? Don't even know 'er! Whenever Torontoist sees an open utility hole, we have to peek down inside because there's a whole other fascinating world down there! The colours and lighting in this subterranean shot by Flickr pool contributor inventor_77 beautifully......

A great haircut will make you feel cute, sleek and sassy. An even better haircut will make you feel cute, sleek and sassy and help children in Peru learn to read. On Sunday, June 24, Evoke Salon at Yonge and Eglinton will donate 100% of profits from all services to Para el Mundo, a non-profit organization that works with the community of Máncora, Peru. Para el Mundo organizes and facilitates education, health and social......

In this piece in yesterday's Globe, Ivor Tossell waxes intellectual on the cultural wasteland that is Wikipedia. He explains "wikigroaning," the phenomenon experienced by self-righteous smartypantses like himself upon finding that one topic, "useless to everyone but a small coterie of fans," has a longer Wikipedia entry than another topic of "genuine historical relevance." His first example: that Lost character John Locke has a longer entry than the philosopher John Locke. And it’s all the......

Finally, the OPP got Facebook! Unfortunately, it's not what you think; they're not spending their time friending, poking, and tagging. No, they're up to serious business... they're "fighting parties" in Tillsonburg, Ontario (best known for hosting the 2007 Purina National Dog Show). In an "emerging investigative technique," the police are scouring the profiles of unsuspecting Tillsonburg youths, looking for parties to crash. But don't worry, they don't "object to parties" in general. They're only......

Two arrests have been made in the shooting death of 15-year-old Jordan Manners. The two boys, both 17, were allegedly very close friends with Jordan, and even attended this weekend's vigils and had offered condolences to Jordan's mom. Here's hoping that this does not prompt more ignorant white guys to claim that children of single mothers shouldn't be friends. Corporal Matthew McCully's body will be arriving at CFB Trenton today. He will be having......

This Victoria Day weekend, two things will be on the minds of many Torontonians—beer and BBQ. The weather is good, you’re hanging with your friends, and you just want to kick back and chill with a cold one and a burger. You may have heard about what BBQing can do to your health and the environment, but let’s face it, it’s hard to resist the smoky aroma wafting from your neighbour’s backyard. Don't stress yourself......

Local Jewish groups are protesting the decision to invite Black Panther leader Malik Zulu Shabazz to speak in Toronto. Black Youth Taking Action will be hosting a talk this evening by Shabazz, who is an outspoken anti-semite and holocaust denier. The children of the late cartoonist Ben Wicks are suing for the possession of 2,408 drawings that were left behind in a move. The distraught family plans to donate the drawings to the Ryerson......

There's so much going on across the Ist-a-Verse that it's almost impossible to keep track these days. Fortunately, we do it so you don't have to! Londonist took a walk through Oliver Twist's London, thanks to a gorgeous map layer for Google Earth. They also caught up with modern-day fictional London, with the Fantastic Four and 28 Weeks Later. It was a week of insanity over at DCist. They started the week off with......

As I waited in line for Last Call At The Gladstone Hotel Saturday afternoon, bartenders from the Gladstone Hotel were behind me. "It makes us look bad, I hear," they were saying. "Like, not us personally, but the hotel. Real bad." If you are a recent transplant to Toronto, or just barely over the drinking age, then you probably had no idea that the Gladstone was once a cockroach infested, drug-addled, festering slum that was......

Hey kids! Do you like to share files? Do you believe in the public domain? Do you think that mashups and Photoshop contests and having Torontoist publish your Flickr photos are an important or worthwhile part of our media-immersed culture? Would you like to talk about these sorts of things with interesting people while drinking beer and/or eating nachos? If you answered "yes" to that last question, you may be interested in the upcoming......

When the February blahs inevitably morph into the March mehs, what one needs is a solid dose of music that forces you to pull up your bootstraps, literally and figuratively. In the last several years, country music has increased in popularity: biopics of its more notable innovators are almost always hits, and judging from a cursory glance at how much cowboy boots fetch at vintage shops, the tipping point has already happened. Some might attribute......

Forget what “they” told you about the dearth of cheap tinfoil at Dollarama. The truth is much more insidious: now in its third year, Funkless.com is hosting a contest to judge the most innovative mind-control-beam deflecting apparatuses in the city. Hey, who says paranoia has to dampen creativity? Hostess Cynthia Gould is pleasantly surprised at the success of this and other Funkless.com parties. “The funkless philosophy began when I told a few people about......

Torontoist is fascinated by eviction notices. Torontoist is also fascinated by eerily-glowing things. And so it was that the mysterious yellow beacon inside the former Hot Spot Café at Bloor and Walmer drew us towards the sign posted in its window, which proclaims: Notice to Tenant You are hereby notified, that a Warrant has been duly issued to Cluckberg, Gruntstein and Lowenthal LLP in accordance with the Commercial Tendencies Act, B.S. 1877 and pursuant......

By now, following the blog and mainstream media firestorm, almost everyone has seen this week's most discussed web clip involving a bride from hell and a bad hair day. The Star covered the buzz today with comments from Norman Jewison(!), the viral video was discussed this morning on NBC's Today show and it's been viewed almost 2.5 million times on YouTube. The big debate: it it real or fake? Entitled "Bride Has Massive Hair......