Sorry, but I am a big fan of lists (and a big fan of bars), so I”m gonna harp on this a little bit longer. Here are ten bars I think shoulda been on the list, and for the sake of being impartial, I won’t include the ones where I work.

• Cantina. Shocking that this didn’t make the cut. Great food, great margaritas.
• Nick’s Roast Beef. An oasis of calm in a sea of d-baggery, Nick’s has good cheap food, solid bartenders who know their sports, and that great roast beef sandwich. I love the Nick’s in South Philly as well.
• Jose Pistollas. Great beer selection and one of their two bars has no TVs which I am a big proponent of.
• Plough and the Stars. On the weekend, this place turns into toolbag central, but during the week it is a beautiful bar with good food and a gorgeous fireplace.
• Dirty Frank’s. How did Dirty Frank’s not make the list? This place is legendary, and I hear they have great fights on quizzo night.
• Speaking of legends, Doobie’s has great bartenders, a great jukebox, and a solid late night menu.
• Brigid’s. This is one of the city’s great first date spots. The food is great but not expensive, the ambience is cozy, and they have a lot of interesting beers.
• Ray’s Happy Birthday Bar. Only been a couple of times, but it’s a great South Philly spot with tons of character.
• The Khyber. Like the Cantina, I was shocked that this funky dive didn’t make it. An Old City institution.
• XIX. Who says a classy bar can’t make the list? Gorgeous bar, great service, and happy hour specials that make drinks here almost cheap enough for you and me.

Who do you think got the shaft?

I was hanging out with a beer owner, a brewer, two industry folks, and a local beer whiz last night, and we were discussing PW’s best bars issue. After a while we decided to put together a list of the worst bars in the city. Here’s what we came up with:

1. Fox and the Hound. A few years ago, Art and I made the mistake of watching a game there. They had country music playing instead of the game audio. We asked the bartender if they could turn the game volume on. The waitress said, “Oh we can never do anything like that without discussing it with corporate.” I’ve never been back. Terrible, terrible place to watch the game.
2. Kildare’s. Soul sucking faux bar for Jerseyites and Manayunkers on a big trip to the city. Then again, I hear they have a great quizzo.
3. Glam. I’ve never actually been in Glam, but I am 100% sure it is one of the worst bars in the city. I mean, it’s named Glam.
4. Fat Tuesday’s. Too bad Katrina didn’t wipe this place out.
5. Tiki Bob’s. When Jerseyites and Manayunkers wanna dance after a few Irish car bombs at Kildare’s, they hop in their Hummers and head here.

What places am I missing out on?

Well, I’m still smarting from PW’s slight, but I must be a bigger man (however, if I have not received a formal apology from PW in 24 hours, I will be exacting my revenge) and get past it. Each of the contributers (myself included) were asked to list 10 of our favorite bars. Here was my list (in no particular order):

• North Third
• Bards
• Oscar’s
• Good Dog
• Fish Bar at FriSatSun
• Locust Rendezvous
• Jose Pistollas
• Black Sheep
• O’Neals
• Standard Tap

Make of that what you will. In hindsight, I might have subbed the Cantina for Fish Bar, though Fish Bar is a great place for a date, on the off chance I ever have one. Still, I am shocked that Cantina did not make the cut. That was a huge oversight. Last summer, we did a poll of best bars in Philly and it resulted in the Cantina losing by two measly votes to the Standard Tap. I’ll have a list of the other bars that shoulda made the cut, those that shouldn’t have been on the list, and the worst bars in Philly later on today.

• Eagles set on trading for either Roy Williams or Chad Johnson, according to the source that broke the Asante Samuel deal.
• Steve O. is going to be on WIP Thursday morning at around 9 a.m. talking about, get ready for this, the results of tonight’s American Idol. I’m not kidding. In other news, I have just lost all respect for Steve O.
• Obama lost Ohio and Texas, and we here at JGT headquarters are pretty dejected today. In fact, there is only one thing that has cheered us up all day: The Obama mariachi song! This is real, not a spoof.
• Happy birthday wishes to Canaan Banana, Zimbabwe’s first president. He is best known for having the name Canaan Banana.

A few months ago, the Weekly approached me and asked me to tell them my 10 favorite bars for their upcoming “Beer Issue”. I happily obliged (free of charge, mind you), then today I opened it up to see which bars made the cut. I’m reading through when I came to this little gem: Fergie’s Pub. Philly’s Best quizzo (sorry Johnny Goodtimes) on Tuesday and Thursday nights… Now, this is no Philly Style Mag/Kildare’s situation. I have nothing but respect for Pat Hines, the Godfather of Philly quizzo, and nothing but love for Fergie’s, which is truly a great bar. And I’m sure that “Who hosts a better quiz, Pat or JGT?” is a perfectly legitimate argument. But not here. Not when I was a contributer to the freaking report. Rude! They also had Art and Tommy Up help with this report, and nowhere did I see that they were Philly’s 2nd best food blogger or 2nd best party promoter. Anyways, Philly Weekly, if you wanna make it up to me, I’ll let you know how. Just contact me.

BONUS THREAT! D-Mac, if you want to see Season 2 of Gladiators amongst friends without being forced to partake in a little something I like to call the “Hit and Run”, you had better make sure this gets cleared up.

• First of all, major Quizzo Bowl announcements coming tomorrow on the site, as I will be filling you in on the band, sponsors, and the halftime act. Gonna try to send out my press release manana as well. It’s about time to get this party started.
• Over at Foobooz, Trivia Art is trying to find a new word for that most unappetizing term, gastropub. Winner of best new term wins a $25 gift certificate to the cantina.
• Tomorrow night, why not have a Tuesday night on the town? Start at 8 p.m. at Helium, where Chip Chantry is one of several local comedians trying out for a major Comedy Festival in Montreal this summer. The show is FREE, just make reservations first. Should wrap up at around 10 p.m., just in time to head over to the Bards for some quizzo.

The weekend started inauspiciously, with a tough loss for my Little League basketball team on Friday night. But on Saturday I got some revenge, as my Senior League team avenged it’s only loss this year with a big win. We then kicked off our tutoring program at the Marian Anderson Center, which was pretty awesome. We had about a dozen kids volunteer for the program (and I’m confident more will follow), and I had 6 volunteer tutors from the quizzo world show up, which was great.

Saturday night went to Southwark for dinner. Bar is beautiful, service was terrific, food was good though not spectacular. Swung by O’Neals afterwards for a drink. I was there when Andre Igoudala hit that 55 footer against the Suns. Don’t you hate it when someone is telling you a story and something like that happens and you have ADD so you can’t help but throw your hands up in the air and the person you’re with just thinks you’re a bad listener and that’s probably why you’re 33 and single? Yeah, I hate it when that happens too.

Sunday, was gonna grab brunch with Trivia Art and his mom and then get some work done. Well, the brunch part went according to plan; the getting work done part not so much. Had brunch at 707. Places like that are a little too trendy and stuffy for my taste, but the french toast was really good. Decided to stop into Jose Pistollas to see the Lovely Ginger (who was behind the bar) and have a quick drink. Well, fun person after fun person filed through the door, and the next thing you know it’s 6 p.m. and four of us are heading out to the Palestra for the Temple-St. Joe’s game. Had a buddy round up two tix and leave them for us. We scalped another two for $25 total (Negotiating with scalpers is one of my hidden talents.) and headed through the door. The Palestra is a shrine, the place was packed, and the game was incredible, coming down to the final shot. Ended the weekend in Mad Mex discussing the legalities of a coup d’etat against Phillies ownership (apparently, coup d’etats are illegal.)

There is only one way to settle the ongoing feud between Palestra Jon and Bob T.: a dance marathon.

Cuba’s been in the news a lot lately, due to the fact that Fidel is stepping down. Here’s a few things you might wanna know about the place:

• It was the first island discovered by Columbus. He immediately enslaved and killed most of the indiginous population (especially the ones who resisted Christianity), and within a century almost all of the native population had been destroyed by the Spanish.
• Cuba was a Spanish possession from 1511-1898.
• In 1848, James Polk commissioned his ambassador to Spain to offer them $100 million for the island, but the Spaniards refused the offer.
• Cuba’s national hero is a poet named Jose Marti, who was a leader of the movement which resulted in Cuba’s independence in 1898.
• Remember the Maine! To Hell With Spain! The sinking of the USS Maine is one of the original conspiracy theories. Donspiracist, can you clear this up for us?
• An American, Charles Magoon, was appointed of governor of Cuba and retained his position as leader of the supposedly independent nation three years (1906-1908).
• Fulgencio Batista was running a distant third in the 1952 elections when he decided to just say the hell with it and staged a coup, becoming leader by force.
• In 1956, hundreds of Cuban officers attempted a coup against Batista. It failed, but the result was that the army was weak when Castro staged his coup a couple of years later.
• As is depicted in Godfather 2, there were a lot of casinoes in Cuba before the Revolution, almost all of them owned by the US Mob.
• Thousands of Batista backers were executed by Castro following the coup.
• Most cars in Cuba are US 1950s models, which are called yank tanks. They have usually been modified to accept replacement engines.
• The Mariel boatlift, depicted in Scarface, was a diabolically sharp maneuver by Castro in 1980 to rid his country of criminals and malcontents.
• The Cuban government still regularly imprisons journalists who question the direction of the country.
• Cuba has one of the highest literacy rates in the world, as 99.8 of it’s people are literate.
• According the WHO, Cuba and Canada have the lowest infant mortality rates in the Americas. Life expectancy in Cuba is similar to that in the US. Doctors in Cuba make $15 a month.

Starbucks is going to close for three hours today. If this upsets you, I hear that there are some great rental properties in Manayunk. You should look into them. Oh, and Applebee’s now has karaoke on Thursdays. Just thought you might be interested. Also, a quick reminder: Starbucks has been named Philly’s Best Coffee by Philly Style Mag for two years running. As for my picks: I like Beauty Shop Cafe at 20th and Fitzwater, La Colombe at 19th and Walnut, Mugshots at 21st and Fairmount, and La Va at 21st and South.