The next evolutionary step in its annual — and wholly unnecessary, since even the driest New Yorkers we know can't walk a line between Memorial Day and Labor Day — celebration of summer boozing is urban to-do list Time Out New York's "Summer Drinking Game," set to launch Thursday.

Consisting of what the magazine deems a "challenging course" comprised of 24 outdoor watering holes, the destinations are broken into eight groupings: "beaches, beer gardens, margarita spots, public parks, rooftops, sidewalk seating, sunset views and true gardens." As TONY editor-in-chief Brian Farnham says in the release: "We're celebrating what makes summer in the city so extraordinary — or barely tolerable, depending on your point of view."

Players can join a weekly scavenger hunt for eight straight Thursdays and, in a firm bid to render completely useless the already-pickled livers of those who would sign on in the first place, TONY and partner City Hunt ("purveyors of urban adventures," as if New York needs the middleman) will award each hunt's winner a $150 tab at the week's designated bar.

Further cementing participants' looming date with Betty Ford will be the grand prize of a "Drinks on the Beach" trip for two to the Dominican Republic and tickets to the 2006 Dominican International Film Festival. Seeing as how the "Dominican Champagne" (as the locals refer to their rum) has us recalling just two parts of our own D.R. sojourn — that would be taking off from LaGuardia and landing there five days later — TONY knows from sticking with a theme.