I was taught this trick by a german gal about 18 years ago.
Since then I've graduated to using just about anything, whatever comes to hand. Examples: wooden spatula, shoe lace (seriously), teaspoon, yellow pages, sometimes even a bottle opener!
I went through a brief phase of using the hard edges of things (the work bench at my unit etc.) but knocked that on the head when my pa told me about a wee accident he had as a teenager using the same technique. Not realising he had actually broken the top off the pop bottle, on account of the froth, he shoved the bottle in his mouth and lacerated his lips and his tongue. Thankfully the aunt he was staying with was the district nurse and was able to carry out the twenty-odd stitches he needed.
( blaireau69 , the Cumbrian Travis Bickle., Thu 18 Nov 2010, 15:36, 3 replies)

I blinded myself in my left eye
admittedly only for a week, but my eyeball was full of blood caused by flying bottle top from opening it on the back of a chair.
( M3rx likes the Asian ladies, Thu 18 Nov 2010, 16:10, closed)

Ha
Almost identical - apart from a French bloke showed me how to do it, and no-one I know buggered their mouth up....but apart from that...

I've scanked up the sides of a few mobile phones doing it as well.
(dchurch bah, Thu 18 Nov 2010, 18:29, closed)

I missed some stuff out there...
what i meant about the technique my pa used was finding a nice sharp horizontal corner, like the external corner of a metal table and getting that right in the groove between the glass and the crown cork and giving it a good rapid downward strike to remove the top. or maybe you twigged that and i'm being a mong. quite possible that, on account of the gold seal.
oh, and this was western isles about 1947/8.
( blaireau69 , the Cumbrian Travis Bickle., Thu 18 Nov 2010, 21:39, closed)

I did this once
with the seal around a window on the train. Instead of a little rubber seal, it had some metal running around the edge. I usually use a spoon to open my bottles, though. Saw a neat video once on how to open a beer bottle with a bill, but I could never get it to work.
( Ithyphallophobia, Mon 22 Nov 2010, 16:17, closed)