etc.

Best Place to See and Be Seen

677 Prime; ’80s night at Red Square; ’80s night at Fuze Box; a window; Alive at Five; Antica Enoteca; Albany County Legislature; at a Ten Year Vamp show; Bombers; Caroline Street in Saratoga Springs; conga line at First Night; Crossgates; Lark Fest; Lark Street; Lark Tavern; Hudson Duster; Honest Weight Food Co-op; Jack’s Oyster House; Jillian’s; Justin’s; Lionheart; Noche; Pearl Street; Saratoga Racetrack; a Sirsy concert; SPAC; Tulip Fest

Best Place to See Without Being Seen

DiCarlo’s; any rooftop in Center Square; Bombers’ upstairs window; Café Hollywood; Hudson Duster; Myspace.com; in a corner at Susie’s; the Playdium; Saratoga Racetrack; Saratoga casino; Saratoga battlefield; Soho’s at 2 AM; Oakwood cemetery; Lincoln Park; RPI; Rotterdam Square Mall; upstatewast ed.com; Adelphi hotel garden.

Best Way to Lure People to the Capital Region

better train service to NYC; build a downtown convention center; candy; bulldoze it and start over; cheap drugs; cheap hotels; clean up Troy; college babes; EMPAC; emphasize its low cost of living; free beer and dumplings; Jerry Jennings’ year-round tan; emphasize its central location; hookers and beer; hide drugs all over the city with a treasure map; the gay community; lower taxes; more jobs; Raise the Barn; raffle Nipper off; professional sports team; promise that all new residents can be orange like the mayor; promote history; sex; the arts scene; the Egg; tell them we don’t want them here—it works like a charm for Seattle, Asheville and other hip places.

Best Thing That Could Happen to Albany

A giant chicken emerges from the Egg; a major sports franchise that people support; a makeover; a new mayor; a piano falls on the mayor; a Republican mayor; a shuttle between Pearl and Lark; Alice Green to move; Albany Police Union dissolved; an aquarium; bring down crime rates; build convention center; cancel convention center; a casino; Eliot Spitzer moves into the governor’s mansion; fine property owners for not clearing snow; get a Trader Joe’s; take over Troy and Schenectady and make one giant city; a lesbian bar; less bars trying to be like New York City; movie nights on a big screen in Washington Park; free parking for residents; make schools safer; more big companies; NY Giants building a stadium; less apathy; people slow down and be more friendly; a performing-arts center; riverfront development; people move back in; get rid of all the pretentious hipsters; tax the Long Islanders for temporary residency.

Best Time to be Had for Under $10

Fourth of July at Empire State Plaza; ’80s nights at Red Square and Fuze Box; a movie at the Spectrum; a Sirsy show; a Velmas show; Alive at Five; bingo; Bombers trivia nights; dancing at Danceland Boomers; free shows at Empire State Plaza; movie at Proctor’s; Lark Fest, ice skating at the plaza, the hiphop fest in Washington Park; happy hour on Lark street; First Night; Siena Saints game; Rkstar open mic; Park Playhouse; Super 400 shows; Thacher Park with a bag lunch; Tulip Fest; window shopping on Lark Street

Best Misuse of Public Funds

Convention center; Albany police; Albany mayoral tanning subsidy; $20,000 report on how to restructure Albany Crime Victims and Sexual Violence Center; anything NYS Thruway Authority does, application of jaywalking laws in Troy; charter schools; holiday decorations on the street; fixing the collapsed bridge to Rensselaer; expanding landfill into Pine Bush; Iraq war; Metroplex authority; Mayor Stratton’s pay raise; Joe Bruno; nanotech center at SUNY; plants on the streetlights; removing the trees on Lark Street; paying cops to drive around double-parked cars on a busy street instead of giving them a ticket; $25,000 raise for town attorney in North Greenbush; screwing up I-90 so it had to be fixed again; bailing out SPAC; soulless design of downtown Albany; Joe Bruno Baseball Stadium; Troy horse cop; wrestling hall of fame; Wellington Hotel preservation; that walking bridge.

Best Use of Public Funds

Albany riverfront revitalization; Albany CVSVC; any pothole getting fixed; cancer research; Christmas lights in Washington Park; dog park; convention center; Corning Preserve; fixing the roads; fixing the collapsed bridge; hiring Kermit Hall; Hudson Riverway; keeping the Pine Bush intact; Lark Fest; NYSTI; painting Nipper; APD; NPR; public libraries, purchase of Western Turnpike golf course by Guilderland, Rensselaer train station; saving our historic buildings; school funding; snow plowing; WAMC.

Best Thing That Could Happen to Schenectady

Crack supply dries up; a GE replacement; a non-corrupt police force; a petting zoo; alien attack; B&B sex parties; B&Bs everywhere; be annexed by Saratoga Springs; clean up the parks; close that bawdy house; crime down; dissolve the Metroplex authority; give Stratton his raise; GE making a comeback; gentrification; go back in time 50 years; gun control; Guyanese buy the rest of it; housing rehabilitation; make Union College plant students downtown; Stratton breaks Eratus Corning’s record; money to schools and housing for people in poverty; IMAX in museum; new YMCA.

Best Thing That Could Happen to the ’Burbs

A slowdown on development; a yuppies-specific plague; affordable housing; all the people from downstate, New Jersey and Connecticut would stay home; another parking garage; ban the chain stores; better bands at SPAC; casinos; cockfighting is taken out of the back alleys and legalized; a comedy club; for people to find out what it’s like only to make five figures; get rid of the horses and tell the obnoxious rich to go someplace else; improve traffic flow; keep the ballet at SPAC; less money, less snobs; longer track season; more hiphop spots; more parking; more street festivals; no ballet; NYRA getting new ownership.

Best Thing That Could Happen to Troy

Bulldozer; A mayor who actually has good ideas; a new reputation; a new Woodstock at the Hudson Duster; bring back Revolution Hall; let RPI take over; Cinema Arts showing something other than porn; clean it up; district attorney DeAngelis gets booted; Emma Willard graduates stay in town after graduation; get rid of federal housing; honest politicians, Hudson Duster gets a real stage; Jesus returns; less hardcore music; less Nazi skinheads; massive renovation; no more horse cop; movie theater; RPI gets girls; the city accepts its fate and gets rid of Uncle Sam in favor of large statues of Joe Bruno in every neighborhood.

Best Evidence That the Region is Looking Up

Better bars; better local organized community groups for kids; high-speed Internet; new music; no more yuppies; pizza delivery.

Evidence That the Apocalypse is Upon Us

It’s 50 degrees in February; 787 is falling apart while we drive on it; a little Italy in Schenectady can’t get off the ground; Albany finally put a parking meter over the last spot of open land that had been overlooked; all the Denny’s are closing; an on-time budget?; Andrew Cuomo likely becoming state attorney general; Bruno and Silver are still here; crazy people holding signs; Bush and Cheney are still in office; even winter doesn’t want to hang out here; F-Timmi is still a fucking band; gas prices; George Pataki is still governor; Hillary Clinton’s quest for the white house; Jennings got reelected; Jim Coyne is back; people are still racist; the Albany convention center might happen; the homeless person that roots through our garbage is making a lot of sense; the hookers and needles I find in my backyard; the windstorm of ’06.

Best Local Celebrity You’d Like to Have a One-Night Stand With

Alan Chartock; Albany police detective James Miller; Andy Rooney; Ann Hughes; Anya Tucker; Lori Friday; Bob Carlton; Brian Kaplan; Brian Pastiglione; Bridget Blythe; Buzz Grindle; Candace Jarrett; Cat from WEQX; Darwin from WEQX; Chris Ryan; Debbie Gabrione from Ten Year Vamp; Dee Scott; Donna Frank from WEQX; Doug Daniels; Doug Sherman; Elisa Streeter; Ellen Z.; Figaro of the Velmas; Gabriela Bruni; Gay Tastee; Brian Taffe; Brian Stratton; Hillary Clinton; Melanie Krahmer; Jamie Kazlo from Channel 9; Jason Erwin from WEQX; Jeff Smith from WTEN; Joe Bruno; Joe Keiser; John Gray; Judy Sanders; Kelly Murphy; Kevin Richards; Kristina Kravchuk; Kumi Tucker; the Lipstick Lovelies; Liz Bishop; Lydia Kulbida; Marcy Natale; Mark Mulholland; Mary Lou Whitney; Megan Baker; Mike Grosshandler; Mike Thornton; Mike Trash; Nikki from WEQX; Noah Francis; Rebecca Hall; Rachael Ray; Paddy Kilrain; Paul Caiano; Rafferty from WEQX; Ralph Renna; Scotty Mac.

Best-Kept Secret

10 Year Vamp; Andrea of America Jewlers; Antica Enoteca; Anya Tucker; Augie’s Italian restaurant; Bagel Bite; Beamers in Glens Falls; Berkshire Bird Paradise; Black Tooth Grin; Black Cat Elliot; Blue Roses Theatre Company; Camelot Media Group; Capoeria; Cathedral of all Saints music program; Clayton’s Caribbean Cuisine; Confetti Stage; Corning Tower; El Loco; El Mariachi; Five Rivers; Full Throttle; good housing bargains in urban areas; how Joe Bruno stays out of jail; Hungerford Market in Altamont; Irish pizza; Jack’s Drive-In; Jennie Couter in Hoosick Falls; King’s Castle; LaSerre; Mahar’s; Man of Kent Pub in Hoosick; Mezzo; mineral water; Mom’s in Troy; my social life; Pump Station’s kick-ass ale; Red Square; Rensellaerville- Hyde trail; River Street in Troy; Schuyler bakery; Susie’s.

Best ___________?

Barn: Three Winds Farm

Beards: the Kamikaze Hearts

Cabaret Show: the Lipstick lovelies

Dive bar: Rupsy’s in Schenectady

Folk Singer: Rosanne Raneri

Indoor sports: Afrims indoor soccer

Lebanese Restaurant: Al Baraki in Troy

Place to bar hop: Lark Street

Podcast: Albany’s Poets Podcast

Response to creeping theocracy: Institute For Humanist Studies

Scenic view/place for a picnic: Thacher Park

Candy Store: Chocolate Gecko

Children’s camp: Mechanicville Community Center

Graffitti artist: Trotzilla

Not-for-profit arts organization: the Upstate Artists Guild

Parent: Mary Beckmann

Rapper at local karaoke: Mark Stevens

Place to be: Pearl Street

Recording Studio: the Soundcheck Republic