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Best lock on a parking spot

CashKey, Denver Department of Public Works

How to thwart those pesky, persistent meter people: Get yourself a CashKey. The handy card key, electronically programmed and available from the City and County of Denver's Department of Public Works in replenishable amounts of $10 to $100, fits on your key chain and is debited a quarter each time you insert it in the meter. You also pay an initial key deposit of $15 that's refundable if you return the key. No more fumbling for change or constant meter-feeding. The only catch? You still have to find a space. Good luck.

Best new looks for old fireplaces

Victorian Treasures

Almost anyone who's bought an old decorative has had to ponder this question: Why in the heck did they wreck that beautiful fireplace? We've all seen our share of painted-over, stripped-down, once-magnificent hearths in ruin. Too bad the owners didn't pay a visit to Victorian Treasures, a shop located in a little old house that lives up to its name. Homeowners can buy all the gear to retrofit their old inglenooks with modern gas and electric fireplaces, cast-iron coal grates, fire baskets, decorative tiles and mantels designed to look just like the old ones. They ain't cheap, but boy, are they pretty; better strike while the iron is hot.

Best furniture imports

Foreign Accents International Furnishings

We're a stay-at-home generation -- Internet shoppers and TV watchers. But we can still travel, or at least have a sense of travel in our homes, by shopping for furnishings at places like Foreign Accents International Furnishings, where exotic looks are everyday fare. Stock up here on kilim chairs and pillows, Moroccan oil jars, Oriental carpets, prayer benches, rustic painted furniture or even an Etruscan fainting couch with gilded brocade patchwork pillows; varied accents include a beaded West African wall hanging with a raised lizard design, copper basin bowls, Mali mudcloth runners, Sumatran beaded hats and Java gamelan gongs. To name a few. After a visit like that, you'll never want to leave home again.

Best lampshade salesperson

Lynda Ferris, Lampshade Gallery

The best life is one in which you never have to worry about a lampshade. Ideally, your lampshade blends unobtrusively into the atmosphere, invisible in its pure functionality. That is, until one too many moves leaves it hanging from its frame, held together by Scotch tape, or a particularly acrobatic cat makes its indelible mark on what had heretofore been some inconsequential piece of fabric. Now just try to replace that lampshade. Go ahead: Go to Kmart and pick up a suitable replacement. Lampshades aren't cheap, you'll quickly find out; even more frustrating is that they're all sorts of befuddling shapes and sizes -- how do you know which one is right? You just need a lampshade, for God's sake. The people at Lampshade Gallery in Wheat Ridge implore you to bring in your lamp, and when you get there, you'll see why that's so important: Lynda Ferris, a former hairdresser, will cure your room's beauty needs, but she needs to work with the lamp. Discern its unique lines and colors. Talk with you about its role in your life. Point out that, really, "the most fun you'll ever have" is picking out a finial -- the little knob that goes at the top, which can truly complete a room. And those brief moments with Lynda are the most fun you've ever had...finding a lampshade, at least. You may leave poorer, but you'll be a richer person for it.

Best Mickey Mouse bathrooms

Bath & Kitchen Design Center

Undoubtedly, you've seen them -- glazed-eyed zombies wandering the bath-fixtures aisles at Home Depot or walking stiffly, loaded down with catalogues on "tile row," hoping for a miracle. Forget it, home renovators -- cast your fates to the wind. Enter the high-end idea center at the Bath & Kitchen Design Center, which shows off anything from sleek, minimal modern toilets to hand-painted porcelain sinks befitting the finest lady's boudoir, but walk on by: Head straight to the Mickey Mouse line by Kohler, featuring the iconic rodent's smiling face and/or silhouette on sinks, tiles and fixtures. Walt Disney must be turning over in his bathtub.

Best video store

Video Station

Perhaps there's something that interests you in the amused, ironic Czech sensibility, and you want to track it in film, from Jiri Menzel's 1966 Closely Watched Trains through Jan Svankmajer's surreal Alice (1988) and Faust (1994) and culminating in 1996's Oscar-winning Kolya, by Jan Sverak. You could go further and rent all of expatriot Milos Forman's movies to see how Central European ways of thought refract through an American lens. Maybe you're nostalgic for those old Alec Guinness movies from England, or you missed such TV shows as Prime Suspect, Cracker and A Touch of Evil

and want to get caught up. You may be working on a term paper about the history of the American musical. You may have a new flame who dotes on Hitchcock, Peckinpah and Mazursky. Or maybe you just want the latest and best from Hollywood. Chances are you'll find what you want at Video Station, where over 50,000 titles are available for checkout, making the place one of the five or six best-stocked video stores in the nation. The staff is quirky, friendly and knowledgeable without being condescending. Since the store is locally owned, there's no corporate presence to put a damper on things or dictate what movies can and can't be on the shelves.

Best new-CD store

Wax Trax

Jon Solomon
Late last year, this Denver tradition celebrated its 21st year under current ownership -- but it came of age long ago. Wax Trax continues to offer the finest mix of best-sellers and hard-to-find independent or import obscurities of any business of its kind. As an added bonus, stores featuring used recordings, vinyl and videos are mere steps away. Why not stop by today and buy the place a drink?

Best used-cd store

Twist & Shout

Ken Hamblin III
Sure, there's a great selection of used discs and vinyl at Twist & Shout, but what lifts it to the top of the heap is its music-loving atmosphere. The joint's support of the local music scene is well-known, and lately it's been staging loads of in-store appearances by touring acts such as Patti Smith. Just walking through the door will make you a little bit hipper.

Best used-vinyl store

Don's Discs

Although it's located in Thornton, a community not exactly renowned for its trendiness, this store has a national rep among vinyl aficionados, and for good reason: Platters that may cost big bucks in New York City can often be found at Don's Discs for a fraction of that price. Add to that a sprawling library of seven-inch singles, and you've got a mecca devoted to a format whose time has come and gone -- and come again.

Best anti-theft device at a record store

Jerry's Record Exchange

For nineteen years, Jerry's Record Exchange has stocked some of the most obscure folk, classical and jazz selections in town. But a few years ago, when acid jazz peaked its way into the club scene, the store became a target for DJs who were too cheap to buy. Instead of loading up on security bells, whistles and armed guards, though, store owner John Loquidis simply placed a handwritten note above the jazz records: "To the acid-jazz dweeb, I assume, who felt it necessary to steal Lester Young, Clifford Brown, Bird, Armstrong, et al. covers to decorate his equipment or club, you are a disgrace to your profession as you defame the American art form whilst denying others these great works. This stuff ain't mindless dance crap, Jim...If you are just another anal asshole bent on destroying my store, to Hades with you. Cut up old down beats, Jerk." Store general manager Steve Bruner says the sign appeals to the conscience of potential swindlers and has slowed their thieving ways. "A real jazz lover would never steal," he adds.

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