Things got a lit­tle wacky on the site last week. We’ve iden­ti­fied and con­tained the prob­lem – an errant Word­Press plu­gin, which has been let­ting you vote reviews up or down – but it left a trail of frus­tra­tion. The biggest casu­al­ties are off-site URLs, fol­lowed by many ven­dor loca­tion maps. We’re slog­ging through restor­ing every­thing to nor­mal, but if you see some­thing out of sync, please let us know by the usual chan­nels. It gets lonely in the early hours at the Guide offices, and it takes just one cheer­ful “You guys know this really impor­tant thing is fucked up, right?” email to slap an irre­press­ible smile back on our faces.

Recently reader and friend of the Guide Car­olyn emailed us this (unsub­stan­ti­ated) post­ing from the Seat­tle Craigslist. As it’s one of the fun­nier things we’ve read in a while — we’d expect to see it at McSweeney’s before an Items For Sale page — and because we think it skirts dan­ger­ously close to one of the best reviews of any­thing we’ve ever read, we’re going to pass it on.

More info

It is with heavy hearts we let you know the big blue­berry over on the Pan Am has bolted its doors. That’s right, Allure Bar & Grill – which once promised us patio hot tubs – has shut­tered up.

More info

Many of you will recall our sec­ond and most epic Fron­tier Review Con­test last month. Among 350+ responses, Pro­fes­sor Brian Her­rera took the hon­ors with 170 votes to Don McIver’s 130.

We offer two prizes for this review. One, a small-but-important, sym­bolic ges­ture: pub­lish­ing Brian’s review in the #6/2011–2012 book. But it’s no secret the real good­ness was a $40 recharge­able gift cer­tifi­cate and one of those rare Fron­tier at 40 shirts.

Brian accepted his shirt gra­ciously. A great fan of the Fron­tier, as we think is obvi­ous, Brian said of his gift cer­tifi­cate, “This will be gone quick, I eat here eas­ily twice a week.” Appar­ently the Front is a block from his office, and their tor­tillas are a sta­ple in his house.

We con­grat­u­late a great guy and a deli­ciously good review. Look for it in our upcom­ing book, due out in December!

Well, folks, we’re los­ing another under­ground titan.

We got word late last week that Burn­ing Par­adise – if not the last inde­pen­dent video store in Albu­querque, then the most-beloved – is clos­ing at the end of the month. For good. Not mov­ing, not hiber­nat­ing, and not trans­form­ing. This here’s the end of the line, and Lord, are we sad to see it go.

More info

Y’all prob­a­bly remem­ber a few weeks ago when we posted our extremely sad post about Burn­ing Par­adise clos­ing.

Well, guess what!

Kurly says they found a much less expen­sive rental space just around the cor­ner from their Har­vard loca­tion and they are offi­cially BACK IN BUSINESS!

As Kurly put it:

Part of the move is a new busi­ness model, in which all of our DVDs are avail­able for pur­chase as well as rental. We also have Zines, posters, T-shirts and toys for sale.

We were inches from clos­ing entirely, so whether we stay around really depends on how much sup­port we get.

Their new address is 120 Yale, near the cor­ner of Yale and Silver.

And Kurly says there will be a Grand Open­ing Novem­ber 4, with loads of spe­cials all day plus food and live enter­tain­ment start­ing at 7.

So give ‘em a call at 859.3569 to con­grat­u­late them on stay­ing open, or visit them at burn​ing​par​adise​.net. Bet­ter yet, why not stop in and grab a zom­bie movie for the weekend?

Maybe you read this arti­cle in the Albu­querque Jour­nal this past Sat­ur­day about cops “step­ping it up a notch” Down­town. And maybe you had the same reac­tion we had to it: “Breath­a­lyz­ers in bars? WTF?” Of course folks are gonna fail breath­a­lyzer tests in a bar. Because they’re in a bar.

More info

Ah, another site redesign. At least this time, we’ve hauled the entire Guide online. If you’ve got sug­ges­tions, we’re takin’ em, right next to those sweet, sweet, mouth­wa­ter­ing reviews. The team has worked awful hard not only to bring the full fla­vor and util­ity of the printed Guide to the web, but to lever­age some webby advan­tages. (It’s finally fuck­ing search­able.) So have a look around, tell us what you find use­ful – and of course, what you don’t.

By far the two most pop­u­lar ques­tions I field about the Guide: Where can I get one? and When’s it com­ing out?* Invari­ably, the answers are, “You prob­a­bly can’t,” and “Soon.” There are a few rea­sons for this.

More info

The inter­webz have been all a-titter recently about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Pro­tect IP Act (PIPA), which have been pre­sented to the U.S. House and the Sen­ate respec­tively, osten­si­bly to stop online piracy. (For­tu­nately, no, no one’s try­ing to deny your sopapilla.)

More info

It is with heavy hearts we learned that Hal­len­brick Brew­ery, the lit­tle dive brew pub that could, is clos­ing after two years.

Although they have yet to update their web­site, they announced on Face­book that their last day will be Octo­ber 1^st.

Accord­ing to at least one of the bar­tenders, some of the own­ers are hop­ing for “a mir­a­cle,” but odds are that’s not going to happen.

We can’t say this was com­pletely unex­pected, given the cur­rent eco­nomic scene, and a few other things. While the brew­ery has been a favorite of folks who work in the indus­trial area around Jour­nal Cen­ter, it’s loca­tion is too far away from the down­town or Nob Hill scenes. Peo­ple in ABQ also tend to want seri­ous munchies with their beer, which was not some­thing Hal­len­brick was built to pro­vide. While the live com­edy and music they pro­vided was hip and hap­penin’, it appar­ently just wasn’t enough.

There is a spe­cial place in our hearts for unpre­ten­tious, regular-filled stop ins like Hal­len­brick, and we are extremely sad to see them go. So go get on your bike, head out north and raise your stein for one last brew at the ‘Brick some­time this week.

On this date in 1912, New Mex­ico was offi­cially added to the Union as the 47^th state. Sure, Albu­querque and Santa Fe had been around for a few cen­turies already, but state­hood meant we were rec­og­nized by the gaba­chos as deserv­ing of all the joys and respon­si­bil­i­ties we were denied as a ter­ri­tory, like, you know, a say in who’s run­ning the fed­eral government. 

More info

Front page of the Albu­querque Jour­nal busi­ness sec­tion this morn­ing brought some bad news: Dos Her­manos is closing!

More info