If you ever wanted to swim in a hot tub filled with self-indulgent newsprint, hurry to the local streetcorner and grab the most recent SunPost, which might as well be called "How to Annoy Me in Print Form".

Let's get it out of the way first, this "Best of 2006" issue is 360 pages and weighs in at over 248 lbs. Open to a random spread and the odds are that you'll see a full-page ad with a facing page of half ad and half content. That's right, a ball hair more than 25% of this monster is content (and this is counting the Real Estate section, more on that later). I wish I could make a joke about this but it's just too depressing. It's pretty obvious from the get-go that this whole endeavor is more of an ego stroke than an actually helpful guide for the proletariat (what a novel idea that would be). Proof? Check all those areas where they didn't sell an ad. "360 pages...our biggest issue ever!" What kind of self-congratulatory bullshit editorial room circle jerk is that? Does that mean anything when it has more ads than the back of my high school yearbook? Does that mean anything when an entire section of your staff's "Best Of" isn't a "Best Of" at all but a fucking advertorial masquerading as actual content?

Oh, and in case you don't read the New Times, just having a "Best Of" issue isn't enough, oh no no no. You've got to have a theme for the best of. The dart in the SunPost editorial room landed on "gambling" this year, so we get the self-conscious rantings of a pro gambler known for his haikus for an introduction and a slutty Lois & Clark era Teri Hatcher lookalike on the cover. They also managed to reduce photos to a useless 1.5" diameter circle inside a 2.5" diameter casino chip AND to obscure the photo caption to oblivion. It would've been nice had the photos of the "Best" been on the same page as the text describing the "Best". But again, this issue is a tribute to the existence of the issue itself.

Click for actual size.

If this were written for the reader, why would you include categories like "Best City Department"? The whole idea of a "Best Of" is to give advice about what to CHOOSE... no one in life chooses what department of government they have to deal with. How, for example, can you compare Solid Waste with Planning?

And the naming of categories. What does "Best Political Blunder" mean? "Best" is the superlative of "good"; it cannot be used like "greatest" to indicate magnitude! Jesus fucking christ is this annoying. Why are you using "best" when you mean "worst" SunPost? How does this make any sense to anyone? How can you lament the "Best Letdown"? That should be a good thing.

For some reason, similar categories are spread out all over the place. I'm sure there are other examples of this, but I want more readers so I'll point out the one involving porn.
p. 146: "Best Upscale Erotica"
p. 148: "Best Cheap Thrills"
p. 156: "Best Adult Novelty Store" (inexplicably on the same page as "Best Toy Store")

The most glorious burn on SunPost readers, though, is the Real Estate section of the "Best Of"(pages 255-306). If you had the stamina to make it this far, you will notice nothing untoward about the Real Estate section. Same fonts, same picture-in-casino-chip wastes of space, same design: a little content here and there to fill the space between the ads. But take a closer look right under the words "Real Estate" and catch that disgusting word: ADVERTORIAL. Ohhh, so really of the 360 pages of this thing, we have about 75 pages worth of real SunPost (gems like "Best Place to Walk or Jog": Treadmill). Come on guys. Do you even care what weekly readers like me think of this? really, the only people who should be congratulated on this issue are your sales staff. Like pimpin' (in more ways than one), I can't imagine getting 280 or so pages of advertisements is easy. Ugh, this thing isn't even worth the price.

As for the actual winners, I'm not even going to get into it, except to say that I was surprised "The Johnny Winton" won for "Best Suggested Name for a Drink", beating out "The Art Teele" (which is when you take a shot of whiskey and then a shot in the head). Too soon?