EDITORS' PICKS - CITY LIFE

BEST PLACE TO PULL OVER SO YOUR SISTER CAN PUKE AFTER A LONG NIGHT IN THE OLD PORT
We're not usually ones to offer our services as designated driver. But, every once in a while, something comes over us - a freak feeling of sympathy, say, for the one poor sucker of a friend who always gets coerced into spending the evening sober while everyone else is dancing on the bar. Like, say it's your sister's birthday and you want her to have a good time with her friends in the Old Port, so you offer to drive them there and pick them up later that night. Yes - pick them up later. What, like we're gong to stand around drinking soda water while the gals pull their shirts over their heads for whoever put "Get Jiggy With It" on the jukebox? Hardly, we'll drop everyone off, go catch a couple flicks at the Nickelodeon and come back hours later to drag their sorry asses home. Pulling up outside of the Oasis and watching Sis and friends stagger toward the car, you get that feeling. That stumble into the back is a total train wreck. She's sweating. Everyone else has the munchies, but Sis has her eyes closed, and you hear a little moan. Time to hit the 7/11 on outer Forest on your way out of town (people who live in Portland ought not to need designated drivers - walk your ass home, lazy bones).
Open at virtually all hours, this 7/11 is a wonderful corner lot. You drive into an easy right turn off of Forest, taking a spot that is parallel with the front door. While the hangers on run in for Red Bull and Doritos, you ease Sis out the far back door, grab her hair, and tell her to stick fingers down her throat. Soon, she's tasting those tequila shooters for a second time just as the gals are gathering quarters to pay for the goods. Leaving a greenish puddle on the pavement, you get the girls in the near back door and throw it into drive, going straight out the other exit, onto Riverside, which allows for an easy right on red back out Forest. Clean getaway, and ain't nothing all over the backseat of our car except for that nasty orange Dorito dust, which is a whole lot easier to clean up in the morning (for Sis).
7/11 is located somewhere out Rt. 302/Forest Avenue, in Portland | 207.324.4798

BEST PUBLIC RESTROOMS
We'll come out and say it: We don't much like multinational corporations. We don't like the idea that maybe one day there'll be just one company that we all work for and buy all our goods from at the company store. We think small businesses are friendlier, more personal, and just all around more pleasant to shop at. Maybe this just comes from the fact that we're small-town at heart, but we'd much prefer to shop at a family grocer before Shaw's and we try to frequent the small coffee shops before the chain ones. But as much as we hate those big businesses, we dislike bacteria crawling into our pores even more. And when it comes right down to it, Starbucks has the cleanest bathrooms for us germaphobes. There's just something pristine about those Starbucks bathrooms. Maybe it's the fact that we don't have to use our feet to flush the toilet, or that we're not scared to touch the door handle - hell, we'd eat off it. Maybe it's because when we walk out of Starbucks' bathroom we don't feel the intense need to disinfect our entire bodies. It's not that their coffee is any better or their service quicker; it's cleanliness, pure and simple. When we're stuck on a long shopping excursion and we have to pee, our ideals fly out the window and we're the first to suggest a quick trip to Starbucks. Yes, it's weak and wholly hypocritical, but when you've gotta go, you've gotta go (and sometimes, we don't even really buy anything).
The cleanest Starbucks is located at 176 Middle Street, in Portland | 207.761.2797

BEST PLACE TO SHOOT THE FINAL SCENE OF A HORROR MOVIE
We're willing to bet few people enjoy walking alone through a dimly lit parking garage -- but the ground floor hallway in the Gateway Garage next to the Eastland Park Hotel gives new meaning to the word "sketchy." The hallway connecting the Cumberland Avenue entrance to the elevators and the back door of the Eastland has everything you need for the terrifying chase scene that wraps up any good horror flick: It's eerily lit by bright, buzzing overhead lights. The concrete block walls are colored alternating shades of grey, like stripes on an old-time prison uniform from O Brother, Where Art Thou?. There are random doors bolted shut, graffiti tags on the walls, and short, metal spikes near the ceiling to keep pigeons (and werewolves?) at bay. A walk along this hallway to the elevators assaults all the senses -- along with the dodgy visuals, the air smells distinctly of dirt, grime coats even the elevator buttons, and the passage of the traffic outside makes the walls shudder to a rhythmic tapping horrifically similar to the quickened beat accompanying final chase scenes in scary classics like Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Think this last part is made up? Take a walk on the wild side, punk. Prove us wrong. Just don't forget your crucifix and your crossbow.

BEST PLACE TO PRETEND ALL YOUR FRIENDS ARE HOLOGRAMS
In our opinion, the Top of the East is easily the most mysterious bar in town. On any given night, there's always a healthy assortment of people who you'd never see looking quite the same anywhere else in town. There's always some crowd returning from a gala event that required them to wear tulle and smart button-down shirts. At the window deuce by the door, there's usually a couple deeply entrenched in either making up or breaking up. And there's a seemingly endless supply of waiters from foreign lands who get your drink order wrong but manage to look hot enough in their black outfits to make the mistake seem part of the show. Yes, the scene at the Top of the East is often so cosmo it doesn't feel like a part of our planet at all. It feels like all the bars we've ever seen in the Holodeck. You know the Holodeck; as in the coolest thing about the show Star Trek: The Next Generation (oh, shut up, you watched it - or you're just too damn young to know what we're talking about. Now we feel old). Every few shows, when they ran out of pressing stuff to deal with on the ship, they'd make up a random world in the "Holodeck," a room that could be anything they wanted, and thus a blocked script writer's saving grace. Everything in the Holodeck was a hologram, except for Jean-Luc and his hangers-on.
Somehow, the entire Star Trek crew must have missed the Holodeck-for-Dummies training session because they always managed to get trapped inside, usually in some 1940s-era world with bars just like Top of the East. Next time you've got a philosophical dilemma in Portland on a foggy night, we recommend you head straight to the Top. With the view of the city blocked by clouds, light jazz funneled through the bar speakers, and plush leather couches packed with fabulous people who never make eye contact with anyone outside of their circle, you might begin to wonder who's real and who's not. Conversations had there, stay there. The hot gal in the veil might actually go home with you. And though you'll likely come to a conclusion when it comes to the question that challenged your morality, it's unlikely you'll ever know whether the Klingons can really be trusted.
The Top of the East is located at 151 High Street, in Portland | 207.775.5411

BEST EXCUSE FOR ROAD RAGE
Even with iPods packed to the gills with 10,000 of our favorite songs, hooked up perfectly with the car stereo, there are still plenty of times when we're driving around completely sick of our music. The real poppy stuff's only good for the highway, the stuff on there to impress our girlfriends threatens to put us to sleep, and all that '80s crap is really only there for kitsch value - we don't actually listen to Wang Chung when nobody else is around. But that's the thing in the car, isn't it? There's always somebody else around. Such is the beauty of talk radio. Yes, even in Portland. We're well aware of the fact that Portland is a complete and utter radio wasteland, but perhaps you haven't explored the AM dial. We didn't until it became clear that WJAB couldn't get their FM shit together half the time and it was much more reliable to listen to the Sox games on 1440 than 95.5. Then, it was just a matter of time before we started hitting the seek button on the AM band. Lo and behold, "Imus in the Morning" exists up here, on 970 WZAN. Not that we're Imus fans, necessarily, but it's fun to listen to him rip on Judy Miller with Times staffer Frank Rich, and he gets a good line off once in a while. But he's straight-up tame compared to the rest of the utter and total garbage that WZAN foists upon those poor souls who allow their radio dial to land on 970 AM. Have you heard this Tom Leykis guy? Apparently he's some throwback who still gets a kick out of jokes like: How did God screw up women? He gave them a brain. Har, har. Holy shit - it makes Air America seem almost tolerable (well, not really - that's some of the most amateur boring tripe we've ever come across. At least Leykis seems to know how to keep a steady distance from his mic). Leykis, whose show ostensibly teaches guys how to master the art of the one-night stand, is only a bit worse than Don and Mike, a comedy team of four or five actually, who spend hours tormenting some female employee of their radio station who just came down with lyme disease and whom they refer to exclusively as "Jugs." "Oh my God that's so funny I forgot to laugh" is an utterly appropriate response, and would probably leave these clowns speechless.
But all of it is kind of wonderfully surreal. Syndicated throughout the nation, these dinks in LA and NYC find followers in L/A and Westbrook, we theorize, who listen to it in the ways 12-year-olds look at porn: without having any actual clue what's going on, but finding themselves titillated nonetheless. If you ever find yourself in need of an imaginary target for all of the day's built up venom and frustration, simply turn to 970 AM. You'll soon find yourself feeling oh so superior to these self-aggrandizing lesser forms of life.
For a full schedule of idiocy, visit www.970WZAN.com

BEST STROLL FOR SINGLES WITH COMPANIONS
Sometimes you want to cuddle up to somebody other than your Jack Russell. Sometimes. And, you need someone who understands that Jack, of course, comes first in your life. When those times come, you need to have a plan. And the plan that will work (we've done field testing) is to find someone who is equally neurotic, obsessed, and over-the-top about, you guessed it, the dog. So, what do you do? You head over to Quarry Run dog park, let Jack off his leash to run around with the red head's retriever or the blonde's Bassett Hound while the two of you make small dog talk and watch them play. If that exchange goes well, then you can really take it from there. Make more small talk, make comments about how well Jack plays with her dog and how he never does that, make friends, make plans, and then make love (not necessarily in that order, and not necessarily at the dog park). The fenced-in park is a playground for dog lovers to find playmates, playdates, and someone new to put a leash on.
Quarry Run Dog Park is located on Ocean Avenue in Portland